Rambling On About the Talk Show this Sat and Other Random Spiels

This next talk show should be profoundly humbling, if yesterday's "rehearsal" with one of the musicians involved is any indication.

Not to say it won't be funny, ladies and germs (replete with jokes like "ladies and germs"), but shit, dude: trying to play guitar with a piano prodigy really makes you reassess your gleeful amateurism and your dilletantish tendencies these many years.

Two of the guests, Rick Kogan and Marianne Murciano, are veterans of Chicago journalism, committed to what they do and full of great stories about their careers and the people they've met along the way.

Pearly Sweets is perhaps the most talented musician I've ever tried making music with, and I'd like to think I've played with some talented people over the years. (Christ, shoot me before I start sounding like Ramsey Louis or David Sanborn right about here..."See, Johnny, Brubeck in those days, you never knew who'd show up...") He picked up the song we're going to play in about as much time as it takes most people to chug a dixie cup of water, and I was left holding my guitar like a useless appendage. I know I haven't really played guitar in a number of years, but it's amazing how little I really know about music...the theory of it, when to go "minor," what keys work better for what style of songs...I always thought in my "punk" "aesthetic" that that kind've took the whole fun out of it...and sure...in my case, maybe it did...but damn if sometimes I wish I took better notes while in high school band.

I guess, after awhile, you start to wonder how much longer you want to bother playing for what amounts to just your friends. Is it, like Spinal Tap playing smaller venues, simply a matter of being "more selective about the audiences we play for?" Are all these bands and all these writers and artists and filmmakers I've met just simply too brilliant for the "masses," or do we just suck? Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Is the marketplace which once allowed Little Richard and the Kingsmen room to rock now so conservative that it's a foregone conclusion that the best any of us could hope for is to sell 10,000 copies of our records (the biggest sales figure I've heard of of any band I know personally) or 70,000 copies of our books (the biggest sales figure of any writer I know personally)? Because, while that number is FREAKIN GINORMOUS here, way down in the minor leagues, it's peanuts in the big picture. For example, the first Runaways record sold 75,000 copies in the United States, and was considered a flop. If [insert any band in "the scene"] had just as much media and tour support as [any major/major indie label band currently doing pretty good on the ol' "charts"], would they still be playing for 100-300 people on any given night? Is this the question bands ask themselves when the major labels start sniffing?

There's so little time to do even one thing right, much less 4 or 5. That's probably one of the reasons why a friend of mine quit music upon turning 30 so he could focus solely on the writing.

It takes time, and no, not "making it," because I don't care about that. (What does that even mean?) It takes time for it to get out there--years--and in the meantime, it doesn't matter because it's too much fun. I still have time to a few things at once--not much time, but still, it's there and there's no point in quitting just yet.