THE BIRTH

Does art mimic life? Or does life mimic art? I know, I know, what a dreadful cliché. But there it is, falling out of me uncontrollably. You get what you get. Don’t worry; I won’t be answering this question, as if I could. But what I will tell you is that, for me, art is mimicking life, right here, right now.

As I write this I am waiting for the birth of my new cd, “Last Chance”. Not yet born, but already named. Is it fair to give a new life such a final name as “Last Chance”? I can’t really answer that question either. You’re thinking, “Well, THIS is going to be fun, lots of questions and no answers”. But I can’t be concerned with that at the moment. Remember, I’m giving birth. I’m in pain. I’ve got my legs spread as far as they can possibly spread. I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, “Get the fuck out of me!” My child is being pressed and duplicated and will arrive at my doorstep within weeks.

I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of childbirth. Have we all heard the analogy? “Imagine passing a football through the head of your penis.” I’m sorry, I can’t imagine that. But I am bright enough to know that the point of the analogy is pain. Lots of pain. Pain in waves of tacks and broken glass and cherry flavored cough syrup. God, I hate cherry flavored cough syrup. Pain I can understand. I’ve been carrying this child for four years. It’s been four long years of being kicked in the gut, the bladder, the heart. Most of all the heart. He grew so slowly at first that I didn’t even mind his existence. But this bastard child is WAY overdue and I’m ready to have my body back.

Honestly, I can’t decide which piece of this pregnancy has been the most painful, the creation of the songs themselves or the technical production of them. Conception, however, was easy. Isn’t that the way? I have to wonder how much birth would occur if it was only based on clear, conscious decision. I’m from a family of ten children. “Hmm, I think I’ll have my tenth child this year.” I find it hard to imagine that’s the way it went down. Anyway, I was a reluctant participant in this from the beginning. Sure, I got caught up in the heat of the moment, when there was only an urge, a throb, a tender kiss, a well placed finger in my gray matter that couldn’t be denied. And I gave in momentarily to the pleasure of something other than myself entering me, knowing that the single thing I didn’t want to say in that moment was, “No”. But thoughts of the future don’t occur at times like that. Only thoughts of right now. And yes or no becomes irrelevant. I don’t choose to write music. It forms inside me, or it doesn’t. Fertility is a fluke of nature.

I never realized the technical process of producing a child like this was so absolutely, painfully daunting. I know it takes an entire village to raise a child, but to produce the damn thing? Come on! There’s the recording engineer, the producer, the musicians, the graphic designer, the cd masterer, and the duplicator. Each of these doctors has his own schedule filled with expectant mothers. My uterus and its contents are no more special to them than the swollen mound of flesh that left their office ten minutes earlier. So I sit in each waiting room 30 minutes past my appointment, an hour, two. One day of recording was cancelled so the recording engineer could do his laundry. A week of recording scrapped because the drummer forgot he was supposed to be at the studio. The whole project cancelled for a year because the graphic designs were two months late. A weekend of production lost because the duplicator didn’t see my emails. I shouldn’t complain too much. The system works the way the system works. It’s bigger than me, and the pain of childbirth has existed since the dawn of time. What kind of pain did the cavemen artists of 30,000 B.C. in France and Spain endure? Maybe I have it made.

In the song itself, the single cell, splitting, growing into bone and skin and tiny limbs, there lays pain. It is an egg waiting for that strongest swimmer, the swimmer that has what it takes to pierce its shell, that event or man that changes the course of history simply by its existence. Pain. Don’t think me too dreary. Songs are born of love and sunshine and chocolate kisses. I know this. I even accept this. But love can disappoint, the sun can burn, and too much chocolate can make me queasy. The songs that make up the body of “Last Chance” contain all of this. I fell in love for the first time in my life at the age of 41. He was my strength and my weakness. And I surrendered to both. When he came, I was startled by the reality of a feeling that I had never felt, or even knew existed anywhere but Hollywood. “In love”, ah, this is what they’ve been going on about. My cherry never stood a chance. No protection would have prevented that little fucker from hitting his target. I should just have set up the crib then and there. When he pulled out, I was startled again by the reality of a feeling that I had never felt, or even knew existed anywhere but Hollywood. I’ve never experienced such emptiness. I’ve never experienced such need for another human. Pain. I would make the same choices if I had it to do over again. You see, before this pain I had no fucking idea that I was even alive, much less fertile.

So now the time is at hand. I wait. We’ve come so far, my little bundle and me that I believe I should feel the worst is over. But these final hours, these weeks of labor, are every bit as torturous as the preceding four years. Through the grunts and sweat and unattractiveness I can’t help but wonder what will become of him. Will he be liked? Will he be hated? Will he make someone’s life better? Worse? It’s out of my control. At this point nothing will prevent his arrival. I have loved, and loved fiercely. I am a better man for it. But for my memories, “Last Chance” is all that remains of us or what we might have become. New life is my reward. I have a last chance to cast my dna to the winds and see where those winds take him. I will leave these little bits of me behind after I’m gone, even if they go unnoticed.