TBT: Livin the Dream

I was playing at a winery a few weeks back and the owner and I got to talking about kids.

He asked how old mine was and I told him that my little guy was eight.

He said "Oh. So that picture of you two on the cover of your album is an old one?"

"Yeah, I guess it is."

It was actually from a series of pictures that my wife took during a little coffee shop show.

Calvin never missed a performance.

There's no feeling quite like the moment when your boy takes an interest in the things that you love.

Just as, there's no devastation quite like the moment when your prodigy moves on to something else entirely.

Awe shucks.

From the moment my son had the manual dexterity to pluck a string, he couldn't get enough of every guitar shaped noise maker he could find.

In fact, got to be a little abnormal.

He didn't watch Sesame Street or Blues Clues, no, his favorite DVD was Cat Stevens in concert.

I had Moonshadow stuck in my head for eighteen months.

I'm pretty sure that and Lady D'arbanville are responsible for like 93% of my subsequent hair loss.

However, I knew that with his musical genes and his long articulate fingers, he was going to be a child prodigy.

Until he found video games.

And then one day, rather than joining me in our usual post-dinner family jam, he told me in no uncertain terms to turn it down or go play somewhere else.

Wii Bowling ruined my dreams.

So I slinked away and did my own thing.

: (

Then a chain of events recently stirred the pot.

The first thing that happened is that a friend of his showed him how to download an app to his iPhone that allows him to stream any music he wants.

He's only eight, but I had to sit him down and instruct him on the intricacies of copy-write law and suggest to him alternative methods of listening to new music that doesn't include stealing money from artists like his daddy.

To illustrate, I pulled up my own album on his streaming app and told him that if he listened to this through iTunes or even Spotify, then daddy gets a penny. If he streamed it on this app, however, daddy gets nothing.

He didn't hear anything I said because he was too confused that his daddy was listed in the same place that say Michael Jackson or Katy Perry can be found.

He raced out to show his thieving friend.

I suddenly became, almost, sorta, cool.

Then, a few days later, while dropping him off at Nonnie's house, he asked if he could come with me and see my show.

I told him he couldn't, but that he could come next time.

He was happy about that.

Then, a few days after that, and five years since he broke his father's heart, he's sorta become obsessed with guitars again. He want's to know which ones he could play and which ones he can use a pick with.

It's not a lot.

But it's a little.

And I've got a four or five year window before he discovers girls, cars, drugs, and hostile rebellion, so maybe there are such things as second chances.


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