Parlez-vous Parfait?

As my kids continue to grow and thrive, I have noticed that some of that “me” time that I used to enjoy has become harder and harder to acquire.  You know, that twenty or thirty minutes of absolute solitude where you can accomplish one or two of those personal necessities for your sanity.  Really, I’m not complaining.  It is intentional that we try and keep our little spark plugs happily firing away and heavily involved in various activities.  Keeping them favorably occupied and off of each other’s nerves is step one towards retaining said sanity.  However, sometimes it seems that the calendar doesn’t let up.

Outside of the nightly homework routines and pinpointing a reasonable time to eat dinner together as a family, the recent school year samplings offer up a pretty compact schedule with overlapping obligations.  Obligations typically in completely opposite geographical locations from each other.  There is our son’s drum practice, swim team practices, and youth group, older daughter’s piano lessons, soccer practices, and youth group, younger daughter’s dance and ballet, wife’s bible study, and finally, my band rehearsals.  You get the idea and likely know the drill all-too-well.  Finding a half hour to get anything done for yourself in the evenings is an exercise in utter futility…that is, until the kids go to bed anyway.

Speaking of exercise and futility, as my age continues to barrel along and my waistline continues to resemble one, I have also found my personal workout opportunities dwindling as well.  Again, not pointing  fingers.  I know that I could easily get up at 5 am to do it or get in a good workout after 9:30 in the evenings.  Honestly, who am I kidding though?  A 5 am alarm setting would result in a broken iPhone and 10:00 pm is reserved for the sleep-deprived, ceremonial head-nodding ritual performed on the couch nearly every evening from an insanely busy work day.

One evening, however, I found myself with an empty calendar at 7:30.  My wife was out with our youngest and my two oldest were upstairs getting things ready for the next day’s festivities.

This was it!  My twenty minutes.  I could get in a quick workout in the basement and have the rest of the evening to do as I please.   With a few minor interruptions, I found myself getting in a much needed session of weights accompanied by a deafening dose of heavy metal music.  A formula rich in success and hearing loss! 

A feeling of accomplishment washed over me as I emerged from the basement that evening.  Dinner?  Kids’ homework?  Workout?  Check, check, and check.  Looking around the house with my fists still clinched in a fit of adrenaline and achievement, I decided to take the initiative to clean up the kitchen and knock out the dirty dishes as well.

Take note and respect.  This was “Overachieving Husband of the Year” criteria that I was flirting with here. 

However, as I opened my hands to wash those dishes, I felt a painful tug tear through my middle finger, followed by the spiny tingles of numbness settling in.  This was certainly an odd twist of events for a simple domestic routine!  I literally tried to shake off the numbness, but to no avail.  In a matter of seconds, I watched my finger swell up like those vintage, time-elapsed Pillsbury Pop-N-Fresh commercials…then turn a deep shade of purple right before my eyes.

The mind is a curious thing.  For me personally, when a medically-induced panic begins to set in, the mind goes from the epitome of democratic decorum to the streets of San Francisco after the Giants win the World Series.  I’m talking the whole flipping burning cars and Molotov-tossing type of rioting.  Complete cerebral anarchy.  My brain immediately fast-forwarded itself to me coming home from the hospital, less my middle finger.

Wrapping my hand in a cocoon of ice packs, I instructed my daughter to call her mother immediately.  Out of sheer dumb luck, she was on her way home at that point and was able to hijack a friend to come over and watch our kids while she took me to the ER.  Through all of the mayhem though, it was my kids’ consolidation of collected reactions to me leaving for the ER that left me questioning my dad-status and prominence as the home’s breadwinner.  Simply put, no sympathy or panic on display for their folliclely-challenged super hero.

With my hand still pulsating a shade of purple that would have made the artist-currently-known-as Prince blush, my son was insistent that I see the fort that he had constructed on Minecraft before we left.  I could have articulated my Minecraft enthusiasm at that particular moment, but privately, that particular finger was already swollen in the upright position.  Then, there was our oldest daughter sobbing.  Not fearful for the digitary well-being of her dear old pop, but because she insisted on knowing exactly when we would be home from the hospital.  Finally, there was our youngest.  Our dear little Pavlovian test subject busily picking out DVDs to watch…simply because she knew there was a “babysitter” coming over to mind them.

Condolences noted and appreciated.  Oh, and you’re all out of the will.  I will donate my priceless collection of zero balance ATM receipts to the Louvre.

Honestly, I didn’t fare much better at the ER.  The questions from the doctors persisted on detailing exactly how something like this could have possibly happened.  I stated “intense weight-lifting session” followed by “opening my hands up to wash dishes”.  They merely paraphrased “injury occurred while washing dishes”.

Wait.  No.  Stop.  You can’t put that shiny badge of ineptitude into my permanent medical files!  What would the other doctors and nurses think?  For that matter, how about the NSA moles after hacking in and data-mining that little gem from your electronic files?

I will admit, though, that I found a dark, self-loathing amusement in watching them try to locate an applicable “injury code” on their databases.  “Dishwashing injury”.  Good luck with that one, pal!  It’s likely located somewhere near the “Poked Self in Eye with Own Nose” code.  Eventually, they settled on employing  the same “none of the above” practice that I found eerily reminiscent to the answer election process used on my high school SATs.  “Unspecified”. 

Insult-to-injury, the dishes that I had started to wash were parfait glasses that my mom and youngest daughter had used to make Jell-O the day before.  Yes…parfait glasses.  The crooked old crone of European dishware.  The annoyingly elitist matriarch of the snooty dessert glass family.

From weightlifting and testosterone-fueled heavy metal music to gently scrubbing a couple of parfait glasses.  Could the scenario get any more unmanly than that?  I guess it could…if you threw in a few John Tesh songs.

Of course it couldn’t be something more primal and grunt-worthy like a giant beer stein stained with Guinness residue or a moon-sized grilling platter full of red steak juices.  I had to physically injure myself attempting to wash French dessert ware that most American men should not be able to pronounce correctly.

The only way that I could think to save face at that point was to macho it up and banter on about it like a failed American Ninja Warrior contestant.

“Mentally, I toughened it out and rallied through the quiche and soufflé portions, but the parfait glasses were just too physically demanding on my upper body.”

The following week, a locally renowned hand specialist was sought out and surmised that I had ruptured one of the smaller ligaments that helps hold the main middle finger ligament in place.  Although I received the same blank expressions when I explained how it occurred, there would thankfully be no surgery required. It would eventually heal itself with time. 

Although I found myself out of commission on the guitar for a couple of weeks, the injury did have its share of advantages.  For one, the swollen finger did come in particularly handy for those choice transportation situations.  No additional effort was required on my part to properly extend and maintain those non-verbal lines of communication while driving.  Hey, let’s not kid ourselves.  You can take the boy out of the city, but not the “city” out of the boy.

However, for every advantage, there was also a host of disadvantages as well.  With my entire hand covered in varietal hues of purple, green, and yellow, coupled with my wife’s timely development of a double pink-eye infection, I also found it a matter of cautionary necessity to hide all of my white tank tops from erroneous public perceptions.

Although my hand has since “healed”, further attempts to resume my workouts have been met with some intermittent, residual pain and discomfort.  There is always that “try, try again” mantra echoing throughout my head.  But, so are the images of my hand getting squirrelly during a bench press…only to have the barbell drop from my girly, lavender-colored mitts and severely dimple my empty cranium. 

As that waistline continues to expand, I am reminded of the lifestyle trifecta offered up and theorized by one Dean Wormer of “Animal House” fame.

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

Ah…fat and stupid ain’t so bad.

The Poltergeist Phenomena

It’s really amazing to look my kids’ toys today as opposed to those of my generation in the late 1970s and early 80s.  On the plus side, today’s toys are so much more incredibly intricate and portable.  However, they also require an endless amount of batteries or require a power source or charging of some kind.  An overload of lights, LED screens, and noises.  Actually reading the instruction manual has become a navigational necessity for use rather than an afterthought for reference purposes.

I did have some toys that had lights and made a multitude of noises, but you didn’t have to be a certified IT specialist in order to play with them.  I can remember getting a Hess truck from my parents every year for Christmas.  You revved it forward to make it go and headlights lit up as it plodded forward.  Other than my Dukes of Hazzard slot car racing set, that was essentially the coolest thing that I had ever seen in my life up to that point.

I did, however, have a set of Star Wars toys that provided a whole host of flashing lights and laser sounds as well.  Snow speeders, X-Wing fighters, and Millennium Falcons… oh my.  Then, there was the Starbird.  A toy that my dad still admires and reminisces about to this day.  It made ascending and descending sounds as you pointed the spaceship up towards the ceiling or down towards the ground.  That was pretty mind-blowing stuff for the time in my personal, eight year old opinion.

As cool as all of those toys were though, they were nothing like the technological equivalents of today.  Even my youngest daughter’s toys put those of my adolescence to shame.  I honestly believe that her LeapFrog LeapReader pen has literally more memory embedded in it than the boat anchor that I called a computer back in college.

As intricate as these modern toys are though, there always seems to be the opportunity for those choice, short-circuit scenarios that commonly occur at my expense.  Scenarios that I have affectionately coined as the “poltergeist phenomena”.  You know, when your kids’ battery-operated toys decide to awaken themselves in the middle of the night or scream at you from the dark confines of a poorly lit basement.  It’s gotten to the point where I need to keep a change of underwear downstairs in order to combat such startling encounters. 

Personally, I blame my skittishness of the supernatural squarely on growing up in the horror movie heyday of those same 1970s and 80s.  Movies like Friday the 13^th, Halloween, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, The Exorcist, and The Shining that provided many sleepless nights of imagining shadows dancing back and forth across my room or of possessed inanimate objects coming to life to wreak paranormal havoc on me after I fell asleep. 

When my son was younger, he had a toy piano that would go off by itself in the middle of the night.  Upon hearing those ghostly keys play their toe-tapping jigs all by their lonesome, I would quietly creep slowly down the stairs to investigate.  Seemingly for paranormal turds and giggles, it would tease me by starting and stopping its spectral song whenever I took a step into the room.  Surely it had to be a loose wire short-circuiting itself with the vibrations of my steps.   Right?  However, spooked by the prospect that it could possibly sense my presence, I literally punted the piano across the darkened room and made a run for it back up the stairs.

Apparently, in my mind, ghosts can’t chase you up stairs while they're playing a flying piano.

Looking back, my son could never figure out how the legs on that piano always got bent and broken.  The upward velocity achieved by a spooked, former soccer player’s foot could have possibly contributed a minor role to its premature demise…

Most recently, I was startled by the kids’ play kitchen “boiling water” as I walked down the stairs for work early one morning.  It took me a couple of minutes to figure out what it was and find the source of that particular poltergeist.  I couldn’t find the location of the batteries, so I violently shook it until the noise stopped.  As I started out the door, I heard boiling water again.  More mocking, more teasing.

Perhaps my personal favorite “heebie-jeebie” moment occurred one evening while taking out the trash.  It was close to 11 pm and I had forgotten to put the can by the road for the next day’s collection.  I grabbed the can and started to roll it down the driveway.  That was when I heard it.  A satanic voice erupted from deep within the trash can.  I hurriedly dropped it and took several steps backwards.  Then, I heard it moving around inside.

The hair on my arms shot up as I continued to stumble backwards towards the garage door.  More evil voices, more rustling.  Then, suddenly…nothing.  It had apparently settled back into the slumber of its own personal inner circle of Hell.

My mind raced.  What could it be?  A rat…a bat…a raccoon?  Why not just throw a demonically-possessed Oscar the Grouch into the mix?   Whatever it was, it was restless and angry.  

Minutes later, armed with a flashlight and my son’s aluminum baseball bat, I cautiously approached the can again.  I threw the top of the trash can off with the bat and immediately crouched low and hard to the ground.  Subconsciously, I must have expected something to just sit up and make a lunge for me.  With that bat pulled back and assuming the stance of a steroid-fueled, major league batter, I was ready to send whatever popped out into the upper decks of Yankee Stadium.

“Wendy…darling.  Light of my life.  I’m not gonna hurt ya.  You didn’t let me finish my sentence.  I said I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

Unfortunately, there would be no such luck.  I was only greeted with more agitated movements and the same low, wicked voice from the trash can.  Then it settled once more.

After a couple of minutes, I continued my investigation.  I poked the trash bags with the bat and was greeted this time by a high-pitched whine.  At that point, I proceeded to unload on the trash bags with the bat in a desperate attempt to bludgeon the evil spirit back into the afterlife.

“Cross over children.  All are welcome.  All are welcome.  Go into the Light.  There is peace and serenity in the light.”

Taking a step back to admire the vicious efficiency of my work, I heard the growl yet again.  Not thinking of my neighbors likely fast asleep next-door, I yelled directly into the trash can.  “Why won’t you die?  Just die already!”

“Mr. Torrance!  I see you have hardly taken care of the business we discussed.”
 

“No need to rub it in, Mr. Grady.”

The beatings continued…

Frustrated and nearly exhausted, I finally mustered up enough courage to move some of the trash bags back with the bat in order to perform a visual inspection of this indestructible fiend.  Assuming the worst, I held the flashlight in one hand and pulled the bat back in the other like a Zulu warrior readying his spear.

I peered long and hard.  Was that..it was!  It was!  It was the kids’ Tickle-Me-Elmo toy. 

It hadn’t worked right in weeks.  My wife must have tossed it into the trash with half-dead batteries still in it.  For whatever reason, it stormed back to life with a low-powered growl as I rolled the can down the driveway.  A small sense of relief and humiliation washed over me after replaying the entire episode in my head.

Much like his animated friends of Toy Story 3 fame, he too already had a one-way ticket punched to the local incinerator.  However with my heart still racing, ten years effectively erased from my life, and that aluminum bat still raised squarely over my head, I decided to take my jittery frustrations out on that cuddly little, red-headed rascal.

“Does this tickle, {insert favorite Samuel L. Jackson profanity-laced tirade here}?”

Picture the macabre scene.  A bald, shadowy lunatic wildly beating a giggling voice with a baseball bat in the dark recesses of a dimly lit driveway.  This turned into a horror flick after all…written and produced by yours truly.  True to the genre, use of a chainsaw had also crossed my twisted mind.  But at that late hour, it likely would have led to a prospective court appearance and a state-mandated psych evaluation or two.

It may have taken twenty minutes and the assistance of metal batting equipment, but the trash did finally make it to the curb that evening.  I can also say that, without a doubt, I personally witnessed Elmo go into the light.

"This house...is clean."

Shapes and Angles

Math was never my strong suit.  That’s putting it politely.  Seeing a long equation on a chalkboard registers roughly the same in my mind as one of those speed-reading pharmaceutical announcers reciting their drug’s horrendous side effects in Mandarin Chinese.  My mind’s wired to simply shut itself down and looks for the closest escape route.  The classic flight response.

In elementary school, I remember spending what seemed like entire summers going through multiplication flash cards with my mom.  Most time, it came down to either dumb luck or just repetitive, rote memory.  I can still vividly remember the pain, anguish and frustration of seeing those cards flipped over and seeing my answer not even remotely in the same ball park. 

“What is the answer to eight times nine?”

“Umm, Milwaukee.”

This may also, in fact, explain why I still have a genuine phobia involving any games that require cards in order to play.

“Come on, it’s a simple card game called ‘Go Fish’.”

“No.  That’s just shortened title for ‘Go Fish for Another Flash Card Because You’re Answer is Wrong Again’!”

Not that I’m scarred or anything…

It didn’t get any better with time.  I got through high school taking basic algebra in two, one-year increments.  I also had the distinct pleasure of taking geometry not once, but twice.  Much like famed blues guitarist Robert Johnson, it was widely rumored that I had also sold my soul to the devil for that hard-earned “D” the second time around.  Only difference was that Johnson supposedly sold his soul at the crossroads in order to play a blistering guitar and be an idol to modern R&B musicians worldwide…whereas I received the super-advanced mathematical prowess that allowed me to score the academic equivalent of “conscious” on my geometry final so that I could walk at graduation.

Apparently, I’m the Dollar General of discount soul negotiations.

Rounding out my senior year, I wound up taking computer programming courses, typing, even a semester in a Model UN class in order to steer clear of any additional, graduation-threatening math curricula.  My presence in math classes that year equated to the Sasquatch sightings of my high school transcripts.  There were reports that a few had been spotted prior to graduation, but were ultimately dismissed by several institutes of higher learning as hearsay or the result of delusional hallucinations.

College was no different.  I remember flipping through my college’s coursework catalog trying to pick a major based on the amount of math classes that it required.  A Journalism major with a concentration in Public Relations was elected the winner with a paltry three.  Even picking those three classes was an exercise in absolute futility.  Much like Geometry in high school, I also took Statistics twice.  I lasted eight days the first time before I realized that treading water and simply riding out a prayer-induced surge wasn’t going to cut it in college.  I lasted only three days the second time around, before dropping it yet again.

Think about that mindset as a talent for one moment.  I dropped the same class twice, with eleven combined days in the classroom, for the exact same reason.  By that point, even the devil realized the hopelessness of this soul’s ill-fated voyage and demanded a full refund.

After graduating with that degree, I came to find that jobs in the field of public relations, in-and-around the Washington DC area, were ultra-competitive.  My first job offer was a six month, unpaid internship for a lobbying firm on K Street.

“Wait, unpaid?  That means like no income for six months, right?”  I may have possessed the mathematical cunning of a sleeping Golden Retriever, but even I knew that those numbers didn’t really add up in my favor. 

As my available funds began to dry out though, I grew desperate for a job.  A paying job.

Because my reality typically allies itself with the oft-magical world of irony and satire, I wound up taking the first paying job that was offered to me.  And of course it was in finance.  Knowing nothing about finance, I thought I had suckered them into hiring me.  In hindsight though, I’m fairly certain it was I who was said sucker.

Allow me entertain you with a visual.  Imagine a speeding freight train barreling towards the canyon…and the bridge is out.  Yes.  For me, a job in finance was a lot like that.  The screams of the train engineer could be heard each-and-every morning, echoing off of the canyon walls, as his alarm clock woke him up for yet another day in the enchanting world of government finance.  Echoes reverberating loudly as his train plunged off of that bridge and performed a blazing death spiral into the barren gorge below.

Over-dramatic, you say?  Not for a second.  It was the psychological equivalent of “Groundhog Day” on a three year bender.

Eventually, irony and satire righted themselves and I now find myself in the world of regulatory compliance.  Words, laws, reading comprehension.  Although all was professionally right with the world again, I never truly foresaw the steamy pile that Murphy’s Law would serve up next.

I can still see myself.  Sitting in geometry class thinking “what an utter waste of my time” and “when I am I ever going to use this garbage”.  I had an idea of what I wanted to do in life and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with equations, angles, or those geometry theorems that left me rocking in the fetal position. 

Years now passed, I am now suddenly being reminded just how blissfully ignorant all of those fleeting thoughts were.  Nowhere, in the back on my 1980s mullet-laden head, did I anticipate what would follow some 25 years later.  That my very own children would be going to school and need help with that exact same math homework that I butchered and deliberately avoided my whole life.

It’s “Groundhog Day” again…and it was that same freight train.  Only this time, the train was weighted down with the dreams and educational futures of my children as well as my own self-loathing guilt of being a worthless facilitator to those dreams and educational futures.

Me?  I could go on all day about the important things…like the differences between rock bands, muscle cars, and beer.  Useful facts and trivia, should ever find yourself being quizzed at a concert, NASCAR event, or keg party.  But the differences between acute and obtuse angles?  Parallelograms, rhombuses, and rhomboids?  Remember…Golden Retriever…fast asleep.

Now I find myself assuming that same blank, ape-like expression from high school as I attempt to help my son with his 5^th grade geometry homework.    The glistening beads of panic and confusion now even more obvious as they cascade freely down my mullet-less, bald nugget of a head.

We desperately tried to help him.  My wife tried.  I tried.  It was literally like the blind leading the blind though.  As the hours passed, there were instances where we found some semblances of success.  However, we were routinely able to find animated episodes of all-out, 5th grade mutiny as well.  His mind would simply shut itself down and look for the closest escape route.  I wonder where he acquired that trait?

For hours every evening, the three of us would sit at the kitchen table staring at his books and notes.  Little surfaced from our efforts outside of mind-numbing frustration coupled with the swirling, pungent funk of mental fatigue.  Our body language strangely reminiscent of the famed “Three (Un)Wise Monkeys”.

“See no answers, hear no answers, speak no answers.”

It had already been a long year for me personally in trying to grasp some of these mystifying, new-aged mathematical concepts that he was required to know.  Take this “lattice math” concept as an example.  Why do I not remember math concepts from my youth named after a decorative porch dressing?  Is there a “floor joist math” or “railing baluster math” that will sneak up on us in high school? 

Ultimately, it became evident that if genetics played any part in this, the boy was doomed.

“Paging Mr. Beelzebub…  Discount souls now clearanced on aisle five!”

Unlike his father though, the boy pulled through and passed his class as well as all of his standards assessments the first time around.  It may have taken some long evenings in the books, a couple hundred practice tests, and a few magical sprinkles of insanity-laced, parental tyranny, but the boy made it through unscathed.  Soul and all.

Now that summer vacation has finally descended upon us, there is a temporary lull in the storm.  Those endlessly delightful evenings of mathematical looting and rioting at the kitchen table have subsided for a few months.  Alas, anarchy sleeps.  The dark clouds remain just on the horizon though, knowing that his math classes will only get harder for him (and us) as he continues his march towards high school.

“So, son…how familiar are you with the stories of the Sasquatch?”

I Guess This is Growing Up

My wife and I have always made it a point to raise our children around an environment filled with music.  Be it having a variety of instruments lying around the house for them to experiment on or simply just having the TV off and the radio on for the better part of the day. Some days it may be a little country, others a little Christian or Top 40.  However, on the days when I am able to commandeer the radio, it’s pure rock.

As a child, my parents always had a variety of their music playing in-and-around the house as well.  Being children of the late 50s and 60s, there was always an abundance of “oldies” doo wop and a cappella as well as the early rock and roll essentials echoing throughout our home.  I, however, grew up gravitating towards a more bombastic flavor of that rock-and-roll music.

It started early on with the sinisterly painted faces of KISS and gradually worked their way through the Queen, AC/DC, and Van Halen of the late 1970s.  Throughout the 1980s, it got progressively louder and more flamboyant from there.  Deafening arena concerts, overly-dramatic stage shows, and blinding pyrotechnics…oh my.  The bigger, louder, and more elaborate the stage show, the more captivating it was to my pre-pubescent inner-rockstar. 

Thinking back all those years ago, some of the best times of my teens were centered in or around music in some capacity.  Whether it was that unforgettable three-hour concert that I still gush about seeing back in high school, all of those Friday nights cruising the local strip with a carful of buddies and the stereo on “11”, or that wild house party where the music didn’t seem to stop until the sun came up.  All those years of glorious reminiscence aside though, it was always the memories of playing in a band with friends that provided the highlight of my youth.

Oh the humanity!


Most days, it was endless hours of song rehearsals and social degeneracy in our drummer’s garage-turned-studio.  Off-color jokes and pranks, heated bickering and in-fighting, juvenile rowdiness and horse-play.  Other days, it was our shameless self-promotion and brainstorming of just how we were going to become the first local band to “make it”.  Coupled with our love of playing music though, it was simply just a genuine camaraderie that girlfriends could never understand nor could school possibly compare.

Perhaps one of my most amusing recollections was the night that we were up late practicing at a friend’s place the night before a gig.  I mean stupid late.  It was well after 2:30 am on a Friday night (Saturday morning) and we were still busy rehearsing.  To the apparent dumbfounded shock of all present that night, there was suddenly a heavy knock at the door.  Upon answering, two of the county’s finest constables stood in the doorway waving their flashlights in our faces.  Near verbatim, the conversation went essentially like this:

“We got a bunch of noise complaints.  What are you guys doing in there?”

“Rehearsing.  You know, band practice.”

“Band practice???  You guys realize that it’s nearly 3:00 in the morning, right?”

“Yea.  We suck.”

 Finally, there were the clubs.  Playing live at the local dive bars…

Jaxx Nightclub; Springfield, VA (circa 1991)



Blinding stage lights, choking fog machines, and a PA system that ran 12,000 watts in a club only slated for 5,000.  It was the most over-the-top stage set-up that could be purchased on 17 year-old kids’ mall salaries.  Honestly, it was all for nothing other than our own adrenaline rush though.  Living the juvenile embodiment of being as loud and obnoxious as humanly possible without the fear of judgment or public reprimand.  In short, embracing the spirit of unbridled bedlam and social deviance wholly inspired by years of watching mindless MTV hair-metal videos.  

As with everything else though, time and life in general moves faster than you’d ever expect.  After playing in a number of bands throughout college, graduation and the nine-to-five of making ends meet became the necessary evil and inevitably took precedence over any dreams of rock-and-roll stardom. 

Now, with the cheers and jeers of those dive bar crowds long since dead, my guitar performances had, until recently, been relegated to the family room for my kids.  No more dropping to the knees during a guitar solo or kicking over the tables of unruly barroom hecklers.  Just my three kids intently sitting…watching dear old dad strum away on the acoustic guitar.

“Hellooooooooo, Family Room!  Are you guys ready to rock?!?  I said…are you guys ready to ROCK?!?  Oh...and I’m also getting the signal from the back of the room for last call.  Last call, everyone!  Get your apple juice now because your mother is closing the kitchen at 7:30.”

Recently, however, our church had started putting together a praise band.  They there were looking for a guitarist and I was asked if I would be interested in joining in.  That old fire suddenly got re-lit.

A chance to plug in and play my dusty old six-strings?  Out loud?  In front of actual adults that I’m not directly related to?  As excitement started to build though, I found myself with a legitimate problem.  I had never really listened to nor paid all that much attention to the fundamentals of contemporary Christian music.  For some odd reason, there was this inkling of doubt that some of the old reliables like Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” or Danzig’s “Mother” would go over particularly well early on a tranquil Sunday morning.

Not knowing the genre all that well, I decided to search online for some examples in order to gauge the overall guitar styles and chord progressions associated.  The first song that we had discussed playing was called “Revelation Song” by a group called Hillsong United.  I got on YouTube to search for it.  Instead, Iron Maiden’s “Revelations” popped up. 

Wow…irony much?  Can I get a Christian contemporary rimshot, please?

More than six months with this new band and genre though, I have to say for the record that I thoroughly enjoy playing all of these songs.  For where I am now in my life, they offer their own adrenaline-rush and sense of accomplishment for me after performing them.  I have also found that same genuine camaraderie, excitement, and love of music with this band as I had with all those throughout my youth.  Just without all the vulgar name-calling and off-colored shenanigans…

Although I can’t help it, I also still find myself amused at some of the other rather obvious differences from playing years past as well.  The whole positive message and inspirational song structure thing over social shock value and earth-shattering decibel levels immediately come to mind.  A seated, captive audience over the violent anarchy of the mosh-pit is yet another.  The lack of metal detectors and mandatory weapons frisking at the door is another priceless paradox.

I will admit that there are still many, many times that I find myself getting that undeniable itch to satisfy the desires of my amplifier’s guttural distortion channel.  However, I can also rest assured that I don’t have any concerns over the local police showing up and ticketing us for noise violations during one of our rehearsal sessions.

Capt. Obscurity


So, gone are the days of my magnificently untamed mullet, ripped jeans with spandex, and gaudy stage jewelry.  Today’s pulpit version marks an much older and more restrained version…complete with shaved head, pressed khakis, and that mind-numbingly, irreverent polo shirt.  Yes…from unkempt, Sunset Strip wannabe to a middle-aged poster-child of suburban obscurity.

To quote the band Blink-182…  “Well, I guess this is growing up.”

Self-deprivation aside, the re-emergence of live music in the house has also channeled the inner-rockstars of my son and oldest daughter as well.  Both asked Santa for instruments this past Christmas and, both of which, he was more than willing to comply.  A full-size drum set for my son and an acoustic guitar for my daughter.

Now, I find myself with bigger and better endeavors to pursue.  Aside from getting my own music fix playing on Sunday mornings, I am now able to pass along that same live music addiction to my son and daughter as well.  My kids enjoy seeing us play on those Sunday mornings and both of the older ones have happily jumped in with both feet.

Whether it’s teaching my daughter her guitar chords or playing my electric alongside my son in one of his increasingly intricate drum practice sessions…it’s really an emotion within me that I have found second-to-none.  No stage theatrics, pyrotechnics, or amount of applause could possibly compare with that feeling and the joy of passing this gift on to them.

Although not currently in our church’s playlist, maybe it is the timeless lyrics of another Iron Maiden song that had me pegged this whole time. 

“So understand; Don’t waste your time always searching for those wasted years; Face up, make your stand...and realize your living in the golden years.”