Rule # 62.4.0
Step Four in Underearners Anonymous:
When I wake up I get on my knees, the last 33 years, and say “Please”.
For 20 years I have added “I turn my life and will over to you’.
For three years I’ve been throwing in “I thank God for my life and wife”….I just like the rhyme scheme.
Then I lay in bed, very unceremoniously, and count my breaths until I can get my crazy, wandering mind lassoed.
And then start my day.
Today after prayers I just let my mind rip. It naturally wandered to very alcoholic things, negative things. Mostly about relationships that ended badly: my daughter, my last jazz band leader when I was 20.
Then it hit on a man Hal R….that was a heartbreaker. Boy did I mess that up.
Hal was the finest flute player I ever worked with. He played not only the C flute that you see in high school, but it’s cousin the alto flute and it’s nephew, twice removed, the ultra sensual bass flute and even the pesky piccolo.
He also played sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone and even bass saxophones. To give you some idea how rare that is, the bass horn is so big that Gummy could crawl up in the bell, play hide and seek, and no one would ever find him.
When he set up on stage he would take three men’s space, just to get all those honking horns set up.
He was a good reader and a good improviser and a “shoulder to the wheel” team player in a horn section.
Hal taught me how to use the music program Sibeluis, which changed my life because I have such a bad writing hand that even Frank Zappa offered to go to his private plane and get me his copy of Gardner Read’s Notation, I sucked so bad.
We would spend four to ten hours a day, several days a week notating for a crazy eight piece band with five horns, where we transcribed nineteen of Hendrix’s songs, including solos, for the horns.
But we could only get 100 bucks for the whole band…even after I would beg for tips from the audience.
Finally one of the trumpet/fleugal horn players said “Love this music man…but I can’t work for $14 (I was magnanimously throwing my share into group pot).
So, the band broke up cause we were broke as snakes…
I never heard from Hal again. He refuses to take my calls. It was like a relationship with a hurt woman…they just “Move on”.
So that I don’t end up being a fool by repeating my same mistakes over and over again I inventoried my part.
Even after 10 years I am no closer to fully understanding my part than this:
I was an Underearner (Yes, they do have program for that, too) and I was asking a professional man to play with me like an eighth grade school friend.
I am unable to make amends to Hal, but my sponsor reminds me “It takes two to be in a relationship…and I ain’t both of them.
The best I can do is make “Living amends” and treat all professional musicians as men who need to get their own needs for financial safety met.
I am sorry Hal…
And I forgive myself…
Rule # 62.4.1
My wife, Gummy and I are taking a vacation in the Joshua Tree Desert.
We are on day 41 of chastity.
We notice considerably more sweetness in our love. I am kinder. She is more accepting.
It’s the old joke: God says “I can give you the most fabulous woman of your dreams, but it will cost you and eye, an ear and a knee cap. Man says “What can you do for a rib?”
I sing love songs to her and cry…and she laughs at me.
Rule # 62.4.2
On day 30 of chastity, Alona suggested that we do 90 days.
On Day 40 I asked her again how she felt.
Reply: I am just going to try to get through today.
Rule # 62.4.3
One of the cool things about chastity in a marriage is you can just talk like friends.
I was joshing her and said “Why can’t women tell North from the South?”
Alona: “Because we’re following you”.
I figured I wouldn’t press my luck and ask her why she can’t put my tools away.
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