“Where is Joe?”

Jill asked me this question as I was downing my Hungry Howie’s Sausage Pizza in the Detroit Airport. She wanted me to get the cheese one like she did but I have a weakness for sausage pizza even when she says it looks like rabbit pellets. I told her I was fine with poop pizza. My stomach can’t be fooled with fecal associations.

After looking at her blankly for a long 10 seconds I said, “I am not answering your question.”
She looked at me as if I had just responded in Portuguese. It was a look I am somewhat familiar with. After a short time of staring at me in bewilderment she finally looked as if she understood my Portuguese response. She remembered that I don’t respond to any questions about Joe.

Not responding to questions about Joe is a rule I learned growing up just like the one about taking my dirty dishes to the sink. There were times I would forget and leave the kitchen a mess but someone was always there to remind me of the rule until I just did it out of habit. The first few times someone in my family asked me about Joe, I would respond with a “Joe who?” which was always followed with the swift, humbling consequences of such a folly. It wasn’t long before I had learned my lesson and, out of habit, would never answer a question about Joe again.

Jill did not grow up in the same family (for which I am grateful on a number of levels). She was asking about a guy named Joe that we met in the Boston airport a few hours before our pizza feast in Detroit. He was headed back home from New England to Nashville like we were. Jill and I were sitting there waiting for the plane when he walked up and said that he knew who we were. I had actually met him less than a year ago at Union University in Jackson, TN. He is a recruiter for the school and had spent the last few days at college fairs in the Northeast. He sat down with us and chatted for a bit until we boarded the plane and he went to his seat 20 rows behind us.

It was an honest question. She was wondering if I had seen him in the gate area for the Nashville flight. I hadn’t. I could have stated that fact but my habitual non-response to questions about Joe (or Sue for that matter – which traditionally brought about the same joke but in Spanish) took over. When I realized that she wasn’t trying to trick me I started thinking about the huge differences in how the two of us were raised.

In many ways our childhoods were very much alike. We were both taught to respect our parents and other people. We were always told that we were special and could be whatever we wanted to be. We were both expected to get good grades in school – and did (with the exception of my 1st semester in college). We never had reason to doubt that we were loved. If life IS a highway like Tom Cochran said it was in his one hit wonder song, Jill and I spent most of our lives on that same road growing up. Occasionally, though, I would take an alternate loop around the city.

While Jill was learning through a consistent life routine that you can always trust your family, I was learning never to ask my dad how long it would take to get from one destination to another. If it was a few miles away he would inevitably insist it would take hours. If it was hours away he would say it was right around the block. This practice extended to just about any question of little consequence that was posed to my father and eventually any of my family members.

To be fair, I really didn’t mind that little detour whenever we took it. In fact, that is one aspect of my family that I am strangely proud of. No one could accuse us of taking anything too seriously. It became like a game of “slug bug”. When you spend all your carpool time looking for Volkswagen Beetles you develop a keen awareness of how to spot the next one. It got to the point where I was not only catching myself before lobbing a question out for my dad or brothers to slam back at me, but I was actually on the lookout for the lobs that they would innocently send my way. Years of this training helped to make me the sarcastic man that I am.

In contrast, sarcasm was never on the menu at Jill’s family dinners. When she asked questions, she actually got the correct answer. This might explain her first encounter with my dad not long after we started dating in college. After taking my advice and refusing a “breath mint” from my father which was actually a chili piquin pepper (one of the hottest peppers out there) they got into a conversation about politics which really caught Jill’s attention because she was an avid watcher of shows like Meet The Press and Hardball with Chris Matthews. My dad works in politics and started telling Jill an inside story about a certain female politician who had a face lift and made a pair of boots with the left over skin they removed from her neck. Jill was dumbfounded. She responded with something like, “I didn’t know they could do that.” No sarcasm. I quickly told her it wasn’t true before my dad started getting creative with other pieces of clothing made from other parts of the body.

Sitting there in Detroit with a personal pizza box on my lap I realized that while Jill’s natural tendency was to take someone at their word, mine was more of a guilty until proven innocent approach. For example, if someone said “Nice guitar solo” after a show I would immediately assume that they were joking whether they were being earnest or not. My response would be along those lines with a “yeah, whatever.” I think this fact about myself prompts the people I know well to just feed me what I am expecting. Whenever I tell my pastor that I am playing a show in town he will usually say something like “why would I want to waste my time listening to crappy music.” If Jill was the one extending the invitation his response would be more along the lines of “I would love to come if I can.”

I can remember a friend of mine telling me that one of the things that annoyed him about his father was the way his dad would instinctively frame his beer belly with his hands when communicating an idea. He would say something like, “I think we should go get some Chinese tonight” while using his stomach as a resting spot for his weary limbs. Even worse to my friend was the realization that he made the same pose whenever suggesting a night out for dinner with his wife.

Similarly, once I got married I found myself exasperating Jill in the same way my dad exasperated me. I started to answer her questions with an exaggeration in whichever direction that would cause her the most stress, anxiety or anger. If she asks me what I am watching on TV, I usually go into some elaborate story about Nancy McKeon in a made for TV movie about women who are forced to wear shoes two sizes too small. If she calls to check in on the kids when I am watching them, I usually act like I accidentally lost one of them. I also occasionally ask her questions about Joe.

“Did you talk to Joe today?” “Does Joe know that we are going to be late?” “Sorry I am late. I was over at Joe’s house.” “Where does Joe live again?” “Joe said that we should definitely watch Gymkata.”

It took a while for Jill to stop asking “Joe who?” around me and my family. It was kind of like shock treatment for a lab rat. She would go to that water feeder thinking it was a water feeder only to get a cruel dose of electricity. Eventually she stopped going there to drink. She even tried on occasion to trick us into drinking from it. In the end, I had successfully turned a trusting and kind subject into a skeptical and conniving one. Job well done? Only Joe knows.

Joe mama.

The Ironman

Whenever I go visit my parents or my mother-in-law, I always end up with new socks, shirts, hats, jackets, wallets – really just new stuff. This is one of the reasons why I never go shopping. I don’t feel like I need anything. Though I am sure they give me these things because they love me, I think I can explain the main reason for their desire to replenish my wardrobe.

1. They help with the laundry
2. They notice holes in the socks
3. They notice the yellow arm-pitted old undershirts
4. They handle the T-Shirts that are worn thinner than a Kleenex tissue
5. They see the pants that are frayed on the bottom from dragging the ground
6. They watch me use a wallet that is falling apart
7. They feel pity/embarrassment

I could write about the hat that I have had for 15 years, “Old Hat”, that has a cracked bill and a nasty black ring around the top from years of sweat. I could tell you the story about my loving wife, Jill, contacting the baseball coach from San Jacinto Junior College to acquire two more hats just like this old hat – and how I have had no interest in wearing them.

I could write about the wallet that I have used since the 4th grade – at least that is when I put the Early Times hot air balloon sticker on it. I could tell you about how the Christian Dior logo has almost completely worn off of the leather that is decorated by old Michael Jordan Stickers I put on in the 80’s. I could tell you about the drawer in my desk that has various new wallets and money clips I have collected over the years as Christmas and Father’s Day presents – and how I have transferred the contents from the old to the new a number of times only to realize that I love the old one best.

I could talk about my jeans and pants theory – how the food and dirt will eventually fall off if you wear them long enough – eliminating the need to wash them more than once every couple of weeks. I could tell you about the time I emptied the pockets of my favorite jeans before throwing them in the washing machine and found receipts from 27 days earlier and 6 different hotel keys in the back left pocket (where I always put my hotel keys). I had been wearing those jeans every day for a month.

Today, however, I am writing about my watch. It is, or was, a Timex Ironman digital watch with Indiglo. It came with one of those standard black plastic/rubber watch bands back when I bought it about ten years ago from Walmart. The band was quickly replaced with one of those Velcro bands with the patterns on them. Over time, the Velcro wore off and I had to get another band, and another one, etc. The band it is attached to now is just plain black Velcro. I think it used to have some green fabric on top of the Velcro, but it wore off long ago. I also had to cut the end of the strap because it wasn’t sticking anymore. I have replaced the battery probably as much as I have the strap.

Last year Jill heard me complain about how hard it was to push the buttons on my watch one night when I was trying to set the alarm. She, like most normal human beings, took that as a clue that it might be time for a new one instead of taking it the way it was intended – a shameless plea for pity. On Christmas morning I unwrapped an Arnette watch from the Sunglass Hut. That is not a real fancy brand, I guess, but it was more sophisticated (and expensive) than the watch that traditionally takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’. Jill knew I wouldn’t go for something really trendy or dressy, so she thought this digital watch with a big face and a big leather band with silver stuff on it might be somewhere in the middle. I honestly tried to make it work – but everytime I put it on I felt like Mark McGrath for some reason. Don’t ask me why. It just wasn’t me. Jill told me to exchange it for something else – so I took it back and had them refund the credit card because I couldn’t find anything that would suit my needs as well as my old Ironman could – difficult buttons included.

Six months later I made the mistake of wearing this old watch in the Atlantic Ocean. Later that day you could see some condensation inside the face of the watch and in a matter of hours the numbers disappeared. By the next morning, the indiglo stopped working and it looked like ink had been poured inside. I left it outside in the sun with the hope that it would magically dry out and start working again. It didn’t.

So I was faced with this question … What do I do with this broken watch? For some people, there isn’t a question at all. Just throw it away. It doesn’t work. It isn’t valuable. It has no use whatsoever. For me, however, it was a difficult question. Of course, this is coming from a self-proclaimed pack rat who once considered saving the little hair particles that he cleaned out from his first electric razor. I mean - it was a part of me. I couldn’t just throw it away. (Well, actually I could – and I did. Kind of creepy.)

Anyways, as I was looking at the sad blank watch and thought of just throwing it away, I was reminded of something. I was wearing that watch with my college graduation robe. I was wearing it when I proposed to Jill on a rectangular concrete slab that used to be home to a bench swing. It has been with me during every live show and studio session in my career as a “professional” musician. That watch was strapped on my left wrist when I was holding my wife’s hand telling her to breathe … and push … and breathe while delivering our first son. I wore it when I visited my father-in-law in the hospital a few hours before he passed away. I wore it about a year later when our daughter was born. I used the Indiglo on countless nights as a not so bright flashlight to find a pacifier that fell out of the crib. I wore it as I signed the contract to buy our first home – and as I signed the contract to sell it six years later. I wore it through the worst days of my relatively young life – looking at it every couple of minutes wishing that time would go much faster. I also wore it on my best days when I wish time could stand still.

As the life of this watch flashed before my eyes, I realized something about myself. I like history. No – not the study of the different ages and wars and stuff. I am talking about shared experiences and memories. To me, that kind of history is a priceless commodity. Why? Because I have been that watch before. There were times when I really felt I had nothing to offer the people around me. To keep me around would just be a burden. I didn’t “work” like I used to. I was broken. I honestly expected my friends and family to toss me aside – and I would have understood. But they didn’t.

Luckily the history I shared with my family and friends formed a foundation that was something like a trampoline – it not only broke my fall but helped me to bounce back. They didn’t treat me like a Rolex that stopped working two days after buying it – returning it to get their investment back. Actually, the fact I was broken had little bearing on the way they felt about me. That time was just a drop in the ocean of the time that we had already shared and the times we would share in the future. They knew that my failures didn’t paint a complete picture of who I really was any more than my one and only dunk in a college intramural game painted a complete picture of my basketball career. They saw the big picture. The more history – the bigger the picture.

So I guess that is what I see when I look at this broken down timekeeper – the big picture. Now, unfortunately, I don’t think this guy is ever going to bounce back. But the least I can do for my old friend is give him a spot in the drawer by my bed with that candle my little sister made for me, the box Jill’s wedding ring came in, the note my little brother wrote me the night before I got married, my father-in-law’s handkerchief, my first homemade Father’s day card and all of the other things I don’t have a practical use for – but keep for sentimental reasons.

You can’t see the digital numbers anymore. The Indiglo doesn’t work. But I decided to keep him anyways. Yesterday I put him in my backpack to fly back home with me from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Maybe, just maybe, around 8:15 tomorrow morning I will hear an alarm beeping from inside my bedside drawer – the same one I heard coming from my backpack this morning – letting me know he’s not quite through yet and reminding me of our great history together.

I have officially been traveling for a living for over eight years now.
So much has changed since 1998.
Unfortunately, most of the questions haven’t.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Road

So I was thinking today about a specific conversation I had with a guy in the airport a couple of weeks ago. He asked me a question and I am afraid to say that I didn't take him seriously. Why? Because the question was so cliche. I almost started laughing - thinking Andrew Peterson was around the corner and he put this guy up to it. Unfortunately, it was a real guy with a real question. It isn't that the question was stupid or the guy for that matter, just that it is a funny question to answer. I get a lot of questions like this on the road - as do a number of other folks who make their living doing music. So I just thought I would address them here and now - so the next time I meet a stranger, we can at least start talking about something else since we have already covered the basics here.


QUESTION #1
"What kind of axe you got?"
The actual answer to this question is "a Larrivee". That was my answer to the guy. From his following facial expression, I couldn't tell if he had just never heard of it or if Jean Larrivee himself lit a bag of poop on fire and left it on his doorstep. He followed this facial expression with "I've got an Alvarez myself." I knew it. The moment I heard the question, I knew the two motivating reasons for asking it. First - to let me know that he played guitar as well. I mean, only guitar players call them axes, right? (By the way, I never call it an axe). The second reason was that he wanted to tell me what kind of guitar he had.
Now, before you think I am dogging this guy, I know exactly where he is coming from. When I was in college, I would occasionally run into the professional musician here or there and I had this overwhelming desire to let them know that I was not a muggle like the rest of the folks – I was a musician too. Heck, I still have that desire when I see some big time artist somewhere. For example, if I saw Lyle Lovett sitting in the airport, part of me would want to go strike up a conversation with him. How do I let him know that I am not just another fan – I am a professional musician/songwriter so my liking of his music should be more flattering to him, right? There must be some code-worded industry language I could use so he would know I am “in the club”. Something casual yet knowledgeable. I know just the thing … …
“Hey Lyle, what kind of axe you got?”


QUESTION #2
“How long have you been playing guitar?”
This might be the classic question. The actual
answer is “Since I was 15” or “15 years”. There
is nothing wrong with this question. I believe
that people might actually be interested in
the answer. Usually though it is just used as the icebreaker. Kind of like “How you doin’?” or “Do you come here often?” might be used in a bar. There might be genuine interest in the answer, but it is really just a platform to start talking about something else.
The main issue I have with this question is something entirely different. I don’t feel like I am that much better of a guitar player than I was when I was in college. Back then I had time to practice. These days I just leave the guitars in the cases until the next gig. Back then, I could say “I started playing 4 years ago” and people would think it was amazing. “How did he learn so much so fast?” The truth is that I had nothing better to do. But now, when I say it has been a decade and a half – people are like “No wonder. I would be better than you if I had been playing for that long.” So the question is really just a trap. It is depressing to realize that every birthday I have, the more numbers I have to add to the answer to this question. One day the answer will be 50 years. People will no longer think “You are so talented” and instead will think “What a lazy bum wasting 50 years playing a box with strings.” Maybe when I get that old, I will pretend to not hear the question.


QUESTION #3
“How did you get in the music business?”
The real answer to this question is that I married into it. I mean, I came to Nashville because I wanted to be a country songwriter. While in college, I started dating this girl and it turns out she wasn’t a bad singer. When we were planning a wedding and graduating from college, she was offered a record deal. They needed songs. She needed a guitar player. So I was kind of grandfathered in to the whole deal. I have been lingering around ever since.
The sad truth is – for a lot of people who ask that question, I just wasted 30 seconds of their life with my answer. They don’t want to know how I got into the business. They want to know how THEY can get into the business – which, by the way, is a fair question. I would like to know the answer to that as well. The problem is that there is no step by step process of achieving that goal. I am sure that if my answer was something someone could easily replicate, people would really be interested in it. Not that my path into the business can’t be replicated. There are scores of students at Belmont University trying to do that very thing – but I definitely couldn’t make a living writing music business textbooks about it.
Every person I know in the “music business” got there a different way. They all loved music and wanted to do something that involved music, but there was no magic person to talk to that could set them up with a career. There is no magic answer. That being said, it is totally worth finding some beautiful singer girl to get you grandfathered in to the business. So if you are going to try one path – I highly recommend that one. (WARNING: This option is not recommended for the super macho types)


QUESTION #4
“Do you do this full time?”
This is a totally valid question. The answer is yes. The only reason I put it on this list is because occasionally someone asks it in the wrong tone – like “Do YOU do THIS full time?” I feel like if I say yes – then they would wonder how in the world I would live on the $76 a year they think my job merits. If I say no – they would be like “Well, now that makes sense.” Believe it or not, doing music is the only job I have.
There was a season about 6 years ago that I worked at a country club golf course in Nashville. I would get there at 5 AM and pull up all of the golf carts for the rich folks. I know it sounds boring, but I would watch the sunrise on a beautiful golf course while driving golf carts around and writing songs with a little pencil on a scoresheet. It was pretty cool. The reason for this job was so that I could play golf for free. I am not good at golf. I didn’t feel right about paying to do something I was bad at. So I drove golf carts and worked with Hillwood High School students. I was the loser with the college degree.
Oh – I also waited tables at Calhoun’s Barbeque restaurant
in Nashville when I was in college – but that doesn’t count.
So needless to say, even if I wanted to have another job, my resume would consist of serving ribs and parking golf carts in a straight line. Who is going to hire me?


QUESTION #5
“Why don’t you come play in my town.”
I would love to come play in your town. However, I can’t just say “Your Town, here I come. For a concert I will have.” The way this stuff works is that someone somewhere wants to bring someone in for a show. They ask that artist if they want to come and what is involved in bringing them out. Usually there is some sort of payment involved (see the full time stuff above). I wish I could do shows for free – but I just plain can’t afford to anymore. Gas is getting expensive for my Hummer.
That was a joke. I have an Oldsmobile.