Death of a Dream, and a One Man Show

So, I was interviewed for a VH1 Behind the Music special yesterday. VH1 Behind the Music: The Chocolate Pudding Blues Band. Apparently, while I was asleep (or drunk) we rose to triumphant glory and then hit rock bottom again without ever actually playing a gig. We’re like, the only band to ever do that…so it’s kind of an honor.

I haven’t seen one of my guitarists in over a month, and every time I ask the other guy if he wants to jam he looks at me like I have leprosy and my nose is in the process of escaping down my chin. Well, not really that bad…but it just feels that way when you have this drive to do something and everyone else just seems to be on a holding pattern. Very frustrating.

After starting, and being featured in, a number of bands in my late high school and college years (and having them either break up very soon or falter before ever reaching the gate) I have come to expect that, more often than not, bands just don’t survive past the inception phase. Usually it’s some guys getting together and playing guitar over a couple of beers and discussing favorite bands (of which I am guilty, I can admit). So I was beginning to think that the Rock Star Mythos was a lie, and that the average Joe couldn’t start a successful band (successful being defined by the terms of playing just one show). Luckily, I have had something else to occupy my time.

For the last several weeks I have been able to get over the lack of musical endeavors through the graces of only one thing. Her name is Brandy (begin singing the Looking Glass song in your heads…now). Being with Brandy for the last several weeks has done three things for me.
1) I have a renewed faith in the opposite sex (women).
2) I have started writing original songs again.
3) I have been illuminated to the fact that no one believes in Suction-Cup Ninjas, no matter how adamantly you gesture and point. They are like Sasquatch. No one believes in them until they walk right up to your tent and pull your arm off. Then where does that leave you? Hum? Armless and bleeding and thinking, “Gee, I guess there really are Sasquatch. Boy was I wrong to doubt Burning Stickman. Wow, everything’s going dark…” So, see where doubting gets you?

I played a couple of songs for Brandy the other night, and when I glanced up to see the look in her eye after I finished I knew the reason that I had begun to write music in the first place. It’s amazing how just a look on someone’s face can make the grand notions of super-stardom fizzle in the face of having someone really hear your song and enjoy it. Thus, I am putting the band back together. I will not let the dream of playing music die. The Chocolate Pudding Blues Band (or whatever name we finally decide on) will rise from the ashes of our demise, spread our wings, go out into the night, and promptly wake up the next day in a New Orleans ally with the smell of piss and whiskey permeating our clothes and a seven hundred dollar bar tab clenched in our fist.

Unless I can find a drummer and a bassist soon I have resigned myself to the fact that I might have to be a one-man show (The Chocolate Pudding Blues Guy) with a tambourine duct taped to my knee, a maraca headband, and a snare drum in front of me with a drumstick taped to my…well, you get the picture. I’ll be touring in a city not even remotely near you soon.