Chapter 145: Surrounded

So, let me just start by saying that the drama surrounding this week’s piano lesson continues. The reason I open with this is because it was the main focus of much of my day today. I wondered to myself why this was stressing me out so much – after all, $15 for a cab there isn’t such an ungodly amount and would likely be well worth just getting to the lesson and not having to worry about it anymore. Perhaps this stress is about an underlying issue – tomorrow I am expected to actually play something for the first time in my lessons. Not only am I expected to play something but expected to play something that I, very foolishly, put off even trying to practice until today. It’s a very short, simple piece called “Computer Games” but at this point I am pretty much a complete train wreck playing it. That’s not entirely true, actually – I am pretty good with the right hand portion of it. The left hand portion is where the train wreck takes place. That’s not entirely true, either – I am kind of okay with the left hand part. The train wreck really takes place when I try to put the two together. It just sounds like a giant mess. I can’t help but feel like had I been practicing it all week it would sound somewhat better by this point but, as it is, it pretty much sounds like shit right now. This means I have to walk in there tomorrow and play something that sounds completely ridiculous and bad. Obviously, I recognize that this is my own fault and I deserve whatever embarrassment I suffer from going in there and playing like shit, but that doesn’t help alleviate the feeling of having to go in there and be shitty. It certainly doesn’t help that I have to pay $15 to get there to go in and be shitty. It sucks. I am taking these lessons very seriously in my head, but obviously not practicing until the day before my lesson doesn’t reflect that at all. I just feel really ashamed of myself for this, honestly. I don’t know why I can’t bring the left and right hands together – I had this same problem when just learning to play random songs from YouTube tutorials. I was always really good with the right hand, less good with the right hand and a huge mess when trying to pull the two together. I don’t know what it is but it just hasn’t clicked in my head yet. I haven’t had my “a-ha” moment at the piano yet. I know I will, though. Those “a-ha” moments are kind of what I live for these days. I’ve had a lot of “a-ha” moments over the years, honestly.

For example, I have fancied myself a singer all of my life. It has been something I have felt incredibly passionate about and have loved to do for literally as long as I can remember. There has not been a single point in my life where singing wasn’t something that I have absolutely loved and wanted to do with my life. On my 18th birthday I went out to my very first gay bar and it happened to be karaoke night. Me being me, I got up and sang some silly Spice Girls song and got absolutely no reaction at all from the crowd and I remember feeling like, “Oh shit, maybe I’m not as good at this as I think.” I still had a lot of fun with it, though, and my sister, my best friend and I all started going every week to this same bar. As we kept going, I kept getting the same non-reaction from the crowd there and I wasn’t sure what was wrong. My sister told me I wasn’t projecting and I needed to be clearer. My best friend was full of encouragement, as he knew how much singing meant to me. I just wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. I tried singing different types of songs and such and nothing seemed to work. Then one night we were there and I decided to try my hand at this song that I had fallen in love with years before, called “Surrounded” by Chantal Kreviazuk. It’s a pretty slow song and nobody in that entire bar, much less anywhere else, had ever heard it before. I was honestly surprised that this bar even had it for karaoke. Still, I loved the song and felt a connection to it and decided to get up and sing it. As I was singing it, I felt absolutely amazing. Like I said, I really felt a connection to this song and just sang my little heart out and, for the first time, I actually got a reaction from the crowd. I had people coming up to me afterwards giving compliments and everything. Most importantly, though, is that while I was singing that song I had my big “a-ha” moment where I realized that if you are really feeling what you are singing, people will see that and they will feel the feelings along with you and you will make a connection. That is what singing is truly about. Despite the fact that this was just some random gay bar in Riverside, CA, and didn’t really mean much of anything in the grand scheme of things it was the first time that I finally felt confirmation that I could sing and, more importantly, that I could make a connection with people through music. That is one of the most powerful lessons I have ever learned and one that I carry with me every single day of my life.

On the topic of “a-ha” moments brought on by nights in karaoke bars, I also learned another lesson – good singing is enough to make a connection, but if you really want to grab people’s attention you’ve got to put on a show. I have always been a very outgoing person and have always loved being the center of attention in any and every situation. There was no place this was truer than anywhere there was a stage and a microphone. I spent a long time doing karaoke in a variety of different venues and had a lot of fun with it but I was never quite getting the over-the-top, “OMG-WE-FUCKING-LOVE-IT” reaction out of people I had always wanted. Then one day when I was living in Joshua Tree, CA, my sister and I stumbled upon this little coffee shop in town called The Beatnik Café. Joshua Tree is one of those towns where there is absolutely nothing going on and my sister and I were really kind of lost, miserable and bored out of our minds living there until we came upon The Beatnik Café. We just stumbled upon it one day and talked with the couple that owned it for a while, and we both just completely fell in love with the place. They told us that they had karaoke there two nights a week and being as bored as we were, we decided to give it a shot. The Beatnik Café became our solace in this quiet little town. We made friends with the owners and a lot of the regulars and we started hanging out there pretty much every day of the week. Karaoke night was always our favorite, though. I went in there and decided to try a different approach to karaoke than I had before and decided to try putting on a real performance rather than just standing and singing. So, I put in a song for myself – something a little different than my usual fare, and decided to really attack it. The song was “Touch-a Touch-a Touch Me” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” and I essentially faked a very loud woman’s orgasm on stage, while writhing around and thrusting and being extremely perverse on the stage. Suddenly I found that I had the “OMG-WE-FUCKING-LOVE-IT” reaction that I had been waiting for and from then on every time my name was called to sing, people turned to watch and paid attention. It was pretty great, except that then any time I tried to do something a little more serious people all seemed kind of disappointed with it and I had put myself into the category of people who sing “fun” songs and make a spectacle of themselves. Sure, people would still compliment my vocal abilities and such but that wasn’t the reason they wanted to watch me perform. I struggled with that for a long time after that until I had another kind of “a-ha” moment at the Beatnik Café.

As much as we were hanging out there, the owners and friends that we had made there were always telling us about the Open Mic Nights they had every Wednesday night. For one reason or another, Wednesday was the one night of the week that we never really went there. I think Open Mic Night had a lot to do with that, actually, because that tiny little place was always insanely crowded on Open Mic Night. Of course, considering the fact that I started writing lyrics and melodies when I was only 13 years old, I was really curious about the Open Mic Night and how exactly that went down. I talked to the owners a bit about the fact that I had been writing lyrics and melodies for so long and wondered if anybody ever showed up to Open Mic Night and just sang a cappella. They told me that it wasn’t common but they also really encouraged me to come down and try it. They told me all about how people were really supportive of one another at Open Mic Night and how much they would like to see me try. Initially, I was too scared to try it out but after working a bit on some of the songs I had been writing around that time I finally decided to go down and try it. I had my sister, my best friend and my stepsister, who was basically our only friend when we moved to Joshua Tree, all there to support me. I got up on the stage at Open Mic Night, in front of the largest crowd The Beatnik Café could possibly hold, and sang this extremely personal song that I had written called “If You’d Have Stayed.” I sat on a stool on the stage with a mic in front of me, my legs shaking uncontrollably and making my voice kind of shaky, as well, and sang the entire song a cappella. I kept my eyes shut pretty much the entire time and kind of allowed myself to get lost in the song. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had and one I that I strive to have again someday soon. It was the very first time in my entire life than anybody aside from my Mom, my sister and my best friend had ever heard me sing an original song of my very own. The reception was absolutely breathtaking. I couldn’t believe it – so many people came up to me afterwards and told me how great the song was and how impressive my voice was for just singing a cappella. I was stunned and on a major high. I kind of became addicted to Open Mic Night after that, although I didn’t perform that often. I just fell in love with going down on that night and watching all the other artists perform and feeling like I was a part of this really fascinating community of artists. Of course, I did continue to perform on that night as well, and the owners actually told me that I was their favorite person to perform on Open Mic Nights, which really meant the world to me to hear. I just loved the fact that people could make a connection and really take something from the songs I had written myself. That is really one of the greatest feelings one could ever possibly have. Sadly, since leaving Joshua Tree I have only performed an original song in public one other time, back in 2007 at the Starbucks in downtown Sarasota, by Whole Foods. The people there weren’t overly impressed with it except for the one person who I was performing it for, anyway – the person I had written the song about. That’s a story for another day.

Essentially, the point is that I have had many “a-ha” moments in my life… I just haven’t had one with the piano yet. I KNOW that it’s coming. I know there will come a moment when the whole thing clicks in my head and I will just suddenly figure it out and make the connection I am waiting for and depending on with the piano. I am on the road to reaching my destiny and the piano is an integral part of making it all happen. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it a million times more – the Universe is working in my favor and it will make sure that I get this right. In the meantime, though, I have to make it right for myself. That means I cannot have a repeat of this week, where I put off practicing until the day before my lesson. If I am going to take it as seriously in my life as I am in my head then I cannot allow myself to slack off and screw things up. I have to make sure that I keep everything absolutely on point and MOVING FORWARD. That is the most important part of it all – moving forward. I have every intention of moving forward with this and, with the help of the Universe, I WILL have my “a-ha” moment and it will be fucking beautiful. I just know it. I cannot wait.