Man Balls

Ripped the tip right off of my ring finger.

The pain was so bad that I didn't even notice I had also ripped the tip off my right index finger. Blood on the neck, blood on the strings. And this rehearsal is officially over.

Well . . . shit.

Guitar players spend years building up those calluses. Its going to be at least another few weeks before I can play comfortably again.

Just another thing to add to the list of why 36 year old men don't become rockstars.

Its not just the thinning hair and the thickening love handles. Its not the joint pain or the 8:45 bedtime. Its not even that spending 10 years building a career and raising a family is an automatic disqualification to leather pants and V-Neck t-shirts (although there ought to be a law against both, we'll call it "The No One Moves Like Jagger" law.)

Its just that digging a foundation and digging a grave is essentially the same thing. And when the walls get too high and your ladder rusts its easy to start tricking yourself into believing that maybe you're perfectly cool down here. Who knows what the weather is like top side and you've never exactly been a sweater guy.

But I'm a man with a particular set of skills. So what seems like one in a million is more like one in a thousand. And when you factor in experience, flexibility, talent, and a little wisdom you could easily cut that in half. All I need, is to be the right person, in the right place, at the right time.

Time, I can do nothing about, that's just luck. Place, well, with space age transportation and a few internet keystrokes, I can be anywhere in the world with better distribution than the Beatles (At least until Apple signed a deal with Apple.)

So I just have to be the right guy.

Which I'm not.

Not yet at least.

But I have a list.

A list which includes a look (hair cut and a few dropped inches)

A list which includes a sound (voice is in great shape since the great nicotine cessation of 2012, but it does mean I have to rekey a whole bunch of songs)

A list which includes a  performance ready set and now a list which includes finger tip repair.

And that's it.

But not really.

For there's something lurking in the dark, hiding in the shadows behind creaky doors. The which gives voice to every murmur of procrastination and self doubt.

Fear, baby, yeah!

Cause if everything goes perfectly right, then one day my album will drop into Adam Levine's skinny jeaned lap and he'll looked down at me with his doe eyes and perfectly manicured five o'clock shadow and he'll say "Sorry, dude, this sucks." And every dream I've ever dreamed will shatter like a wine glass after my fifth cup and I'll have to hastily sweep up the pieces before my wife gets home and slowly back out of the room.

And if all goes extremely well, I will have to live that moment over and over again, one douche bag after another, until I'm signed or I'm dead.

The very thought makes me want to stay in bed. For I do not want to go to there.

But I have to get up. Cause I have to take Calvin to school. And as we stand together on the blacktop waiting for the bell to ring I look over at him.

He stands perfectly still on the balls of his feet. He's breathing short little gasps and I can almost see his thundering heart beneath his shirt. I've talked about his anxiety disorder before, but what does that really mean?

You know that feeling you get when the roller coaster reaches the top? That pain in the bottom of your stomach when your boss calls you into the office or the beating of your heart when a half naked coed goes into the basement rather than running out of the house and you know the serial killer is under the stairs?

That's your "Flight or Fight" response. Your body senses danger and your happy little amygdela responds by flooding your system with adrenaline to get you moving and a healthy dose of dopamine to shut down your pain receptors. Basically your body chemistry is telling you run away or prepare to whoop shit up.

And in little doses its awesome. It helps you slam on your breaks to avoid a car and makes your girlfriend squeeze into you a little closer on movie night. But the side effects, the nausea, the dread, the pain in your chest, the helplessness, that's enough to make you swear off the stuff until further notice.

So imagine if your brian doing this to you all the time. Every time a dog barks, or an engine revs, or a butterfly swoops too near. Imagine the sense of dread you have in the pit of your stomach when you hear a rustle in your closet and you think you can just make out a glowing set of eyes staring at you from the crack in the door.

Except its not dark. And you're not in bed. And you're standing on the playground.

That's a Monday for Calvin.

Yet he gets up. Everyday. And he puts on his clothes and tries to eat as many mini waffles as his stomach will let him. And he checks his backpack for his lunch and silently marches to the car. He knows there are no monsters and there's nothing to be afraid of, but his brain is telling his body that there is a mountain lion bearing down on him, and all he wants to do is to not cry.

Sure the little guy might seem a bit twitchy, but if he has the courage to get up every damn day and face that kind of pain, well, my friends, that's a 7 year old with a huge set of man balls.

I'm not just proud of him, he's my fucking hero.

So when I think about my petty little fear of rejection or a little bit of blood on the strings I can just tell myself to man up and grow a pair.

Be a bit more like my boy.