An Open Letter to Sting

I wrote this a while ago as a submission to a web site that publishes clever and funny bits of writing. I was apparently neither clever nor funny enough to make the cut for publication, so I'll inflict it on you. If your conclusion is that I am neither clever nor funny, you can just keep it to yourself.

Naturally, I have taken a few liberties to protect my secret identity. I shall now return to my underground lair, where I continue to use my super powers to fight evil.

---

AN OPEN LETTER TO STING

Dear Mr. Sting,

My name is Kevlar Pinata and I’m a professional musician. I play bass, just like you, except that when I say “just like you”, I don’t mean to suggest that I have my own castle in the English countryside, beachfront home in Malibu, or tastefully appointed villa in Tuscany. Rather, I have a 1996 Subaru Legacy Outback Wagon with 142,628 miles on it and live in a relatively pleasant townhouse in southern California.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for inspiring me to play music. Really, it’s all to your credit – or blame, as we shall later discuss – that I got into this whole music thing. I was 13 years old when “Synchronicity” came out and I remember looking at the liner notes on the record and seeing that you’d written all but two of the songs on the album. I saw that you played bass and sang, too. It all seemed pretty great, and I wanted that life – a life where I could play my songs at Shea Stadium, make loads of money, and record albums at a leisurely pace in my Tuscan villa. These were all fine things and seemed quite available to me through your example.

The thing of it is, I’m in my mid-thirties now, and it doesn’t look like the Shea Stadium thing is going to pan out for me. (The Tuscan villa also looks exceedingly unlikely.) Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up on making music, but I have to admit that it’s looking mighty improbable that I’m about to become rich and famous in the process.

I’ve done much of the same seemingly noble up-and-comer stuff that you did early in your career – I’ve played small clubs for no money in front of four people and written song after song that seemed catchy enough – but things never quite took flight for me the way they did for you. After a number of years of playing music at horrible venues for unappreciative drunks, I really started to wonder if I’d made the proper career choice, but I don’t think it was until quite recently that I realized I’d completely crapped away any possibility of financial success in my life.

I’m a reasonably smart guy by most objective standards; I had fine grades in high school, scored well on my SATs, and could have gone to one of the better universities and become a dentist or something. Did I do that? No, of course not. During those all-important times of teenaged decision making, I had to pop ol’ Synchronicity on and get inspired to pursue my musical dreams. So, I wound up being a music major and chasing after something that – years later – I have come to realize is infantile fantasy. Of course, this realization would have been far more helpful to me if it had come to my attention perhaps eighteen years ago, but realizations just happen to come when they come. I’m sure you understand.

It is fair to ask: is this all your fault? Well, I suppose I have to cut you some slack here. It’s not as if you personally called me up and told me to flush my career potential away chasing a dream, but you did make Bring on the Night, which had this whole risk-it-all-in-the-name-of-a-dream thing going on, so I don’t think you’re completely off the hook. You did fan the flames a bit with your little documentary, you must admit that.

So, I’ve done some math, and I’m proposing a settlement of sorts. Here is the ledger of our transactions, as best I can calculate:

Me, paid to you:

Purchases:
“Synchronicity” on LP: $10.95
“Zenyatta Mondatta” on cassette: $9.95
“Ghost in the Machine” on cassette: $9.95
“Regatta de Blanc” on LP: $8.95
“Outlandos D’Amour” on LP: $8.95
“Zenyatta Mondatta” re-released on CD: $12.95
“Outlandos D’Amour” re-released on CD: $12.95
“Message in a Box” on CD: $53.99
“Dream of the Blue Turtles” on LP: $10.99
“Dream of the Blue Turtles” autographed copy on LP: $18.99
“Bring on the Night” on LP: $16.99
“Nothing Like the Sun” on LP: $9.99
12” dance mix of re-recorded version of “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”: $8.99
Concert ticket, “Nothing Like the Sun” tour: $25.00
Tour shirt and program, “Nothing Like the Sun” tour: $30.00
“The Soul Cages” on CD: $13.99
Concert ticket, “Soul Cages” tour: $30.00
Tour shirt, “Soul Cages” tour: $20.00
“Ten Summoner’s Tales” on CD: $15.99
“Police: Live” on CD: $14.99
“Mercury Falling” on CD: $15.99
“Brand New Day” on CD: $14.99
“Sacred Love”, downloaded via iTunes: $9.99
Concert ticket, “Sacred Love” tour: $60.00
“All This Time” DVD: $24.99
Pins and posters during teen years: $80.00
“Fields of Gold” CD: $12.99

Subtotal for purchases: $563.51

Lost wages:

Career earnings, based upon having heard “Synchronicity: and deciding to become a musician: 40 years @ $59,970/year (average full-time musician’s salary according to the Princeton Review) = $2,398,800

Career earnings, assuming I’d never heard “Synchronicity” and therefore not decided to go into music – deciding instead to become a dentist: 40 years @ $113,785/year (average US dentist’s salary): $4,551,400

Subtotal for lost wages (Dentist earnings subtract musician earnings): $2,152,600

I believe that any fair assessment of the financial impact you have had on my life would ultimately come to the conclusion that you owe me somewhere between the $563.51 I have paid to you and the $2,152,600 your career has clearly cost me in lost earning potential. In fairness to you, I am willing to offer a compromise solution splitting the difference.

Subtotal for lost wages subtract subtotal for purchases divided by two: $1,076,018.25

I am sure you will agree that this is in fact a quite fair settlement, owing to the fact that I am only holding you accountable for half of my lost earning potential and clearly acknowledging my complicity in the arrangement by taking responsibility for the other million dollars and change. Plus, I factored in the five hundred bucks or so that I've paid to you and that have helped to pay for your yoga lessons or whatever.

I look forward to receiving your timely reimbursement. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Sincerely,

Kevlar Pinata

Artist Rendering

I love it when and artist's renderings inspire.
Sensibilities. Balance. Logic bending results.

One Week Since, One Week Before

Picked up my 2006 PsyD Comprehensive Exam exactly one week ago. Deadline is exactly one week from now (to the hour). Just this second finished my first draft.

All was good, until this morning when I re-read the memo and instructions that came with the exam. They reminded me that a) it's really stinkin hard, and b) if I don't pass, I don't get to apply for internship because they only offer the exam once per year. And it's graded as pass/fail, so it's not like this is a given. I failed my Masters Comp once, you know. There was leeway there because they offer the Masters version twice per year, and there was no internship dealio, and I was going to stay in school anyway. This is different. And worse.

So there's a whole big bucket of anxiety for you.

As usual, I will ride my bike now.

A Guy That Actually Does Something

Wow.

I'll still serve as mayor if elected on my "air condition the schools" platform, but I think this guy is better.

Thankless but Necessary

Sometimes I'm really glad I don't run things. My comment on the air show post alluded to the fact that I'm glad I'm not the guy that makes the decision about how much fuel to burn during a season's worth of air shows with the sole purpose of recruiting people to join the military. That seems like a real hard job to me. Maybe it's easy for him or her, but I don't think it would be easy for me. I'd struggle. I'd want to use the money for other things. But I'd still want the jets to fly. I'd have a headache.

Which got me to thinking about something that has come up in my conversations over the past year.

To summarize my work from July last year to June this, I worked at a Chicago VA hospital, and as I've mentioned before, it was the most profound, important, unbelievable experience of my life. If offered a job at the VA...with the stipulation that I'd have to keep the job for 30 years...I'd take it today.

So the VA has come up in my conversations. Not always for the better. It is an unbelievably flawed system. It is (I think) more than $3 billion underfunded. Too few workers, too many patients, antiquated facilities (not everywhere, but lotsofwhere). Kinda dirty. Chaos. People are overworked and probably underpaid. Patients have a hard time filling out forms and following the papertrail and getting appropriate coverage. Getting the correct care can be way difficult. Stuff falls through the cracks constantly. It will get worse over the next bunch of decades.

But the people that work there are flat-out the best caregivers on the planet. Sure, there are bad eggs, and those bad eggs are very rotten. But those people are the vast minority, and the quality, genuine caregivers are abundant. They are inspiring.

I have said the above before. Here's the other part.

The VA is an impossible system to run or to fix. The VA is in the business of caring and not caring for its patients simultaneously. The VA simply cannot dole out every service for no cost to the millions it serves, but it can't really fairly deny services either. So the reconciliation of that is impossible and messy.

My last day on the unit, it was announced that the food budget had been cut. The food budget! Phenomenal. That said, the patients were unbelievably well cared for, and if you have an annual budget with $3 billion of red ink, I'm not sure how you don't cut a little bit of everything. You aren't going to cut surgeries or appointments or staff...oh wait, yes you are. It all gets cut. Which is wrong, but the guy doing the cutting is not the guy deciding how much money he has. He's TOLD how much money to spend. And he's 3 bil short. So, ah, give 'em one less piece of toast for breakfast, and maybe a smaller pile of peas at night.

And what I'm trying to say here is that I'M REALLY GLAD I DON'T HAVE THAT JOB, because it's probably the most no-winning not-a-right-solution can't-figure-it-out job in the world. Talk about thankless. It would be impossible and heartbreaking and man oh man would I have a headache.

Said It Last Year

A look back.

Same thing this year. I am cognitively uncomfortable with this weekend. But the Blue Angels have been flying around for four days, and they are SO goddamned badass.

An Odd, Bad Food Decision/Experience

I've had a number of these lately.

Tonight, after my first 2nd shift experience (3 - 11:30), I got home at 12:00 and was, of course, ravenous. You see, they made me take my dinner break at 5, which was about 3 hours before it should have been. So I was ready to eat just about anything for a midnight snack.

Generally, I decline the Cheerios. They make me burp funny and I'm full for only about 36 minutes after a bowl. But there are some Cheerios on hand due to, well, my little girlie friend. She likes 'em. kay.

So I go for the Cheerios. But since I was a little loopy hungry, I decide that I need to sugarize the bowl (Vinnissimo!). But the only sugar in the house is brown, which is okay, 'cause I like brown sugar. Who doesn't? So I had to break some of it apart, 'cause it's like a brick. But that's okay, 'cause the milk's coming.

Milk. Got it. The girl softens her coffee. Cool. I do it, too, sometimes. I grab the skim. Date is marked today, so I figure, cool! But I take a whif, and, ah, notsomuch. Bad news. Can't do it. The milk has gone bad. (That happens sometimes from the convenient store milk...it just goes bad faster.)

But you see, I've done the Cheerios, I've broken up the brown sugar, and I'm freakin hungry. I'm on a MISSION.

Orange juice. I have some. I've never done it on cereal before. I've thought about it for years. "Why doesn't anyone eat cereal with a different, perfectly fine breakfast liquid such as OJ," I've asked myself. And I ask it now.

I go for it.

Cheerios with brown sugar and orange juice is so fucking weird it's hard to comprehend. You almost have to do it just for fun. But you will then realize why this is not the traditional fallback breakfast.

I think I'm gonna have to go to the store for the post-2nd-shift midnight snack.

I am taking suggestions.

Dennis DeYoung = Bill Buckner?

I may well have posted on this before, but I just can't help myself. I'm wrestling with the big issues here. Bear with me.

When I was maybe 11 years old or so, I became a Styx fan. My older brother had bought Paradise Theater on LP and I was transfixed. It was a combination of concept, story arc, loud guitars, and singable melodies. I thought that it was possibly the most brilliant thing in the world. To this day, I can sing along with pretty much any of the songs from that record (and recently did so during a long road trip and also quietly sang along in my head when I heard "Too Much Time On My Hands" at the gym).

In the year or two that followed, my brother picked up a few more Styx records: Pieces of Eight, Cornerstone, Crystal Ball, and The Grand Illusion. Even though I was a little brother, I would sneak into his room and put the records on when he wasn't around. It was great.

And then, 1983 brought us Kilroy Was Here, and even at the age of 13, I was aware that somehow, things had gone horribly wrong for the guys in Styx. The toe-in-the-pool approach to the "concept" album that was on display in Paradise Theater was set aside in favor of the complete immersion of the Kilroy story. Mr. Roboto was a symbol of nameless, faceless, um, er, uh....something. And rock 'n roll was outlawed, Kilroy (played by Dennis DeYoung) was leading a rebellion, and I think the rest of the guys in Styx were rolling their eyes at Dennis behind his back. (They had to be.)

It was all pretty much downhill for Styx after Kilroy. Or, perhaps more accurately, the band plummeted to the earth the moment Dennis DeYoung sang:

Thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For doing the jobs that nobody wants to
And thank you very much, Mr. Roboto
For helping me escape just when I needed to

Fast forward to the present. Dennis DeYoung is now one of those guys who goes around and sings his tunes with the local pops orchestra. So the local orchestra, instead of staging the works of, let's say, Stravinsky, put on the big show, bring in Dennis DeYoung, and tear into "Come Sail Away".

So, here's what I'm wondering: Is "Mr. Roboto" Dennis DeYoung's musical equivalent of Bill Buckner misplaying the grounder during the 1986 world series? You see, Buckner was a fine ballplayer whose legacy isn't what it probably ought to be. He played for 20 years and had over 2,700 hits, which is impressive stuff, although it wouldn't punch anyone's ticket to Cooperstown. Dennis DeYoung had a fine career - good tunes, good band, all around fine work. And then he decides to go all goofy dramatic with Mr. Roboto...and the ground ball rolls by him and the Mets score. And it's all downhill from there.

Domo arigato, Mr. DeYoung.

Teo Skis...Then Flies

What I'm saying is, is that this is Teo. Anonymity intact. Note the single ski. Note the balance. Note the apparent speed at which Teo is travelling over the water. Note that he is outside of the wake, which means he moved, mostly on purpose. Now imagine, if you will, dear ol' Teo, attempting to move back to his left where he began his trip. Note that there is a significant portion of wake that must be navigated in the opposite direction, and then imagine that in real life, the stuff is moving quickly. Then imagine that Teo has very, very little actual control, as opposed to apparent control, and imagine what it would look like when he goes back over the wake. Imagine him literally flying through the air. Imagine him turning upside down as his feet keep going after being ramped by the wake. Imagine the ski soaring over the lake with the impressiveness of an Olympic event.

Teo lands. Back and ass and legs and arms flailing. Turning and twisting. Water infused throughout his sinus cavities. The ski landed a solid 20 yards further to Teo's left. When Teo finally let go of the rope, the tension released in that transaction sent the rope shooting helplessly vertically.

So. Teo cruising, followed by an up and overoverover bigsplash. The ski kept going for quite a while. The rope shot skyward. It was an explosion of impressive quality.

My Own Self Be Back

Last week: Got dragged around a lake in Tennessee by a very fast boat. I crashed very impressively and numerous times. I did well. I skiied [what the hell is the past tense for ski?] on one ski pretty consistently, but only after being pulled up on two skis and dropping one. I gave it my best effort to get up on one ski from the sinking position, but I'm not kidding you when I say that I still can't comfortably use my right shoulder after having it repeatedly yanked out of its socket by the 350 horsepower boat that was somehow connected to it by way of a rope and my arm. At the time, I thought I was letting go early in the process. I now realize that I let go a little bit late simply by the fact that I was actually in the water and being unnaturally pulled to the point of disability. Letting go prior to entering the boat via the dock may have been a more wise decision.

This past week: Relatives in Ohio. Lots of eating fresh corn on the cob between card games and yard games. Ate a good tomato a time or two. Not bad at all.

Away, back, and the best band you've never heard of.

I was away for a bit and just got back last night. I was playing at a gospel blues festival in Chilliwack, British Columbia. I was playing with a friend of mine named Johnny Mannion, who is a great guy and a terrific blues guitarist. We road tripped it from here in Southern California up to British Columbia, which is about 26 hours each way. Although the weekend was fun, I don't think I'd do that drive again.

While I was there, I got to hear Danny Brooks and the Rockin' Revelators, who are the best band you've never heard of. For those of you who will get the reference, they are essentially a gospel-themed version of The Swanky Modes from Tapeheads, one of the great unsung films of the 1980's. They are from Toronto and sound like they just rolled in from Memphis to play songs they recorded for Stax Records. All of their stuff is original, brilliant, and played with a groove that reminded me of why the Memphis/Stax sound is one of the best unsung flavors of American music. And they are from Toronto! Anyone wishing to get hip to the Brooks experience can check them out at iTunes. We had to play a set right before them, and I'm just glad we were before them instead of after them, because they pretty much took us all to school.