33 1/3 LP
DOUBLE ALBUM
BIO
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth…
— oh, hang on, that’s The Catcher in the Rye.
Let me try my own shorter diced-up version.
I’ve always wanted to know life-histories about the musicians I’ve listened to, in exhaustive detail — I’ve read hundreds of autobiographies by them — so, through guilt, I feel obligated to provide at least a précis of my own. Even though I by no means merit an autobiography.
Only if you’re interested:
Hometown: Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Public schools there, K through 12. Snow in the winter; hot and humid in the summer.
There was always music.
Played classical and ragtime piano and sang in Episcopal choirs as a boy; picked up guitar as a teenager, after being astonished by contemporaries playing it really well. Taught myself banjo later, after memorizing every note in the 1963 album New Dimensions in Banjo & Bluegrass, by Eric Weissberg and Marshall Brickman (who says a single record can’t change your life?).
In my early teens, went down the drain on the Beatles, Beach Boys, Who, the British Invasion, and big-band/hit-parade/American Popular Song singers of the 40s, 50s, and 60s. In my later teens, started my continuing journey through what feels like a million bands, including Stick Shift, Iron Cupcake, Clever Drinking, Social Debris, Hung Jury, The Relics (Detroit), and The Bourbon Project.
I’ve always loved playing ball-sports, hitting it or throwing it or shooting it; reading stories; and watching old movies. Add music, and it’s enough for several lifetimes.
Adult life: attended the University of Pennsylvania; received a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Cambridge University; taught English at Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood, California, and at Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut.
As an undergrad I was vice-president of the Cambridge Footlights Dramatic Club, the 140-year-old troupe that despite its name is all comedy, no drama. Toured England and Scotland in that; wrote a bunch of shows; always acting in one production or another; learned a ton about stagecraft. Brilliant people. Big audiences. Possibly the most fun I ever had.
Then I had to make a living.
Went to trade school. Georgetown Law. Barely showed up — everything about law bored me from the first day of school until the day I retired, thirty-three years later. Facility with words — could think on my feet. But zero interest in it.
Worked first as a corporate and securities associate for my state’s biggest, oldest law firm, and then spent twenty-five years in a major metropolitan district attorney’s office in the midwest.
Had success there — served eventually as chief trial attorney, chief of homicide, and, finally, chief assistant prosecuting attorney, second-in-command over a big, turbulent office.
What was it like? Unrelenting stress — a daily diet of confrontation and combat, in the courtroom and out — and, finally, internecine political warfare that managed to sour every aspect of the experience. A lawyer who hates conflict! If I had it to do over, I’d do something else. A lot of power. A lot of responsibility. But mostly, a lot of headaches.
Has this happened to any of you? Where you love something very much as a young person, and then somehow get distracted from it as you become older, as grown-up life intrudes? And then feel immense remorse or sadness about leaving it behind, abandoned?
That was music for me.
I was always in a band — but my heart and concentration weren’t in it. Who had the time? For decades, I only played the electric guitar at music jobs. I’d leave it at the rehearsal site and never touch it casually. I even went over a year once without changing strings!
My acoustic guitar? It sat in its case in the basement. For years. I tried not to think about it — just kept putting on the suit and tie and walking right past it on my way into the workhouse.
I felt — and feel — that an essential part of my life was shut away in that case with the guitar.
Time passes. Turn the page.
I’m an old English teacher, so I believe this in my heart: you need character-crisis at the end of Act Two to set up a great third act.
My goals now and henceforth are to enjoy every sunny day; get through my steady three-books-a-week; chase par while I still can; and share my songs with whoever wants to hear them.
I’ve always been lucky with friends, with health, with games and music. My target now is to spend my time exclusively on the things and people I love.
