ManicDDaily

Should We Take The Guitar?

Thinking of Steven Slater brought me back to my own “Take This Job And Shove It” moment.  It really didn’t have much to do with shoving a job (I was raised to be very very nice).  It arose more in the context of seeking a job, and had to do with the Johnny Paycheck (the country music singer about whom I wrote yesterday).

This was back in my own country music days.  They were also my  law school days, but law school, as you may have heard, is not exactly scintillating, and my brilliant, beautiful, roommate, Cynthia, and I decided that writing country music would be a viable (and far more interesting) career alternative.

The problem with the music world is that it’s difficult to just decide to have a career in it.  Especially if you are not all that talented.  You need an “in”, a break, some significant help from the stars, both celestial and human; at least a hook.

Our hook came (we thought) in the form of the “Paycheck Song”, a song we wrote while interviewing for summer jobs.

It would be just perfect (we thought) for Johnny Paycheck, his next hit after “Take This Job and Shove it”.

But how could we get it to him?

We had the young and blonde part going for us; but we were far from Nashville.  (We were in school in New Haven, Connecticut.) Our efforts at groupydom were going to be significantly mitigated (to use a good law school word.)

Our chance came when Johnny Paycheck came to New York, to the Lone Star Cafe.

The show was on a weekday, but hey! this was important.  We took the train down in our best (in my case, only) Texas boots.  Cynthia’s had tassles.  Our hair gleamed, our eyes glommed, the lashes thick with mascara.  Our hopes were crazily high.

So many decisions to make:  should we should mention that we were in law school?  (No.  It would make us stand out, but might seem weird.)

Should Cynthia bring her guitar?  (No.  Her playing wasn’t that great, my singing worse.)

We would just give him the print version of the Paycheck song, with big smiles, a little enthusiastic crooning.

Johnny Paycheck was a short grizzled man back then; his skin had the slightly leathery look of hard living in hard weather–sun, wind, cigarette smoke.

He gave a great performance, but even in a small place like the Lone Star, the back stage was, well — way back.  I remember a glimpse of the dressing room; black cowboy hats blocked the wedge of open door, a make-up mirror was overbright behind them.   The people at the door didn’t seem all that interested in our page of sheet music.

Did we hand it to someone?  I think so, but we couldn’t really wait all night to see what happened to it.  We had a train to catch, class in the morning.