Tag Archives: hometown

Deejay

Deejay: (n) short for disc jockey

I wrote and performed Christian music.

This created a problem. Most of the small-town thinkers in my hometown village did not believe I was a Christian. For you see, my wife and I had a baby born before the allotted nine months after our marriage.

We were also kind of dead-beats.

Because we wanted to pursue music, we had turned our backs on normal employment, had become unpredictable and, shall we say, risky as potential renters or borrowers.

My little burg did not like me—and I didn’t like it much, either.

All day long, and most of the week, I heard people telling me that either I wasn’t talented enough to make it in music, or if I was going to make it in music, God could find me “on my job” and set it all in motion.

I just didn’t believe that.

This brought about a situation where I had very few friends, so it was necessary that I nurture each and every one of them.

An unexpected buddy was a deejay named Jim. He was one of the more popular personalities at the local Christian radio station, which did amazingly good business considering that it was religious.

Jim liked me.

I don’t know why—I was afraid to ask him.

More importantly, Jim liked me even when other people were around who didn’t like me. Occasionally these people would speak up, voicing their opinions about me in front of him (and also in front of me).

Jim always listened carefully.

He gave them full respect and attention.

And when they concluded their little speech by saying that “I wasn’t going to amount to anything,” he patted them on the shoulder and replied, “Won’t you be surprised if that’s not the way it works out?”

Usually the person shook his or her head and stomped off, convinced of my ultimate destruction.

Then one day, it just happened.

It’s one of those things you don’t plan for. (You should prepare for it, but you don’t.)

One of the most famous groups in America decided to record a song of mine. They not only decided—they did. Suddenly, my tune was being played on radio, all over America.

Jim’s radio, too.

On top of that, the notoriety I received for signing the song with this group opened doors for me to get a contract with my group, to record an album in Nashville.

Jim was my hero.

Of course, other people suddenly discovered that they didn’t hate me.

But the amazing part of the whole story is that when Jim saw other folks coming to my side and supporting me, he kind of drifted to the rear.

I wanted to ask him about it, but then it occurred to me that perhaps this was just Jim’s calling.

He found the person that nobody liked and offered love, hoping that the unloved soul would get a chance.

Jim was and still is my favorite deejay.

He seems to have a gift to say the right words as he plays the good tunes.

 

Dayton

Dayton: (n) a city in SW Ohio

Growing up in Central Ohio, Dayton was eighty miles away—just far enough that you felt going there was “taking a trip.”

I’ve always liked Dayton.

When I first started as a musician—impoverished and therefore ridiculed by friends and relatives as being irresponsible—I had a little place I went to in Dayton to perform my songs, where they treated me like I was on the top forty—and also, in some way, like I was a long-lost relative from Yugoslavia.

They loved me.

Therefore I loved them.

That’s when I learned the system. It is so much easier to love people when you know they’ve already made the leap to love you. It is certainly possible to love people when they’re considering loving you so you can share those feelings back with them in a considerate way.

Yet it is nearly implausible to love someone who has decided that you are not pleasing.

Loving those who don’t love you.

There’s really not any nobility in it—even though for centuries we have touted that true spirituality is ignoring one’s feelings in an attempt to aspire to more god-like actions.

But since we’re not supposed to be gods—we’re human—it seems forgivable to go ahead and feel at least “iffy” about those who place us in the reject pile.

I felt rejected in my hometown.

I wasn’t perfect, or even close to it.

It wasn’t that I didn’t do things that were worthy of critique.

It’s just how quickly those around me were ready to criticize.

In Dayton, I felt human.

I felt that my presence brought a smile.

I believed they even looked forward to seeing me.

I heard applause.

I received edification.

And because I did, I grew. I experimented. I took some chances.

I found out that my right hand and my left hand could do much more on the piano than I had imagined.

My voice could go higher.

I could actually sing on pitch.

My music gained emotion.

I was willing to listen to those who favored one tune over another without sensing an attack.

Somewhere on the eighty miles over to Dayton, my visit there and the journey back, I always healed.

The process was faithful—every time. I left home despondent, curious if the evening would make it better. I took a deep breath, put together a show, played it the best I could and expanded in the appreciation.

My heart grew, and I drove home—a little less defensive.

It was heavenly.

It was an experience I grew to cherish—and named “The Dayton Effect.”

 

Crisscross

Crisscross: (v) to move back and forth over

If you live long enough that you can transform your stupidities into learning experiences, and then implement fresh ideas, by the end it looks like you were really ingenious and had a great plan.

That statement truly sums up my life.

Graduating from high school, I decided I wanted to be a musician, writer and artist.

No one else agreed. Especially no one who was willing to lay down the money so that I could continue my quest.

Rather than perching in my hometown, where everybody knew me and had already drawn an opinion that I needed to “get a job and be normal,” I climbed into my not-so-worthy van with two comrades, and we began to crisscross the country.

I could probably boast that I had formulated an outline in my mind.

But basically, after a few months it all boiled down to money.

As far as I know, our little group became the first people in America to be involved in crowdfunding.

At least three or four nights a week, we stood in front of neutral, if not hostile, audiences, and made our case for our music and mission.

And then we passed the plate.

If a plate was not available, we were certainly willing to use a hat.

Through this we learned three things:

  1. It doesn’t do any good to crisscross the country if you’re going into areas that are resistant
  2. You should go back to receptive areas, continuing your work, as long as they remain open.
  3. After you crisscross the country to an area that is open, when you get in front of those people, remember the two most important factors necessary for drawing others:

Be endearing and be enduring

Make it clear that you realize you’re a human being—susceptible to the same shit they are.

But also let them know that you’ve been traveling for a good while, and you have no intention of giving up on the idea that we all can do better

When an audience is convinced of these two things, they open up their wallets. It has to be real and it has to have some proof—other than just your assertion.

I have crisscrossed this country forty or fifty times over my journey.

Through that experience, I really did learn to love America—whether it’s red, blue or sometimes even when it’s colorless.

funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

 

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Council

Council: (n) a body of persons specially designated to act in an advisory or legislative capacity

Sarah was voted to be a member of the council. She felt honored, even though it was a rather quick process. She was nominated, seconded and voted in before she had much of a chance to either object or assent.

On the way home from the meeting, she asked herself, “I wonder why they wanted me on the council?”funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

Sarah had to admit that she was sometimes guilty of over-thinking, but found that to be more virtuous than underthinking, or worse, being thoughtless.

Sarah decided there were only three possibilities why she was selected to be on the council:

  1. No one else really wanted to do it and they thought she might agree to be the pigeon.
  2. She would go to the council meetings, not make waves, not embarrass anybody from the hometown and just vote with the blowing of the wind.
  3. Or they might have thought that Sarah was an aggressive go-getter who would represent their causes and sentiments well, and argue, if necessary, to see change.

As Sarah drove home, she giggled. She realized that’s why very little gets done in business, religion or politics. The people who are voted onto councils, gathered for a congress or placed in the boardroom either were not quick enough to escape, so timid that it was assumed they wouldn’t mess with anything, or hot-heads that the community at large wanted to chase away—so they sent them in a new direction.


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Balcony

Balcony: (n) the upstairs seats in a theater, concert hall, or auditorium.Dictionary B

In my youthful years…

Actually, there’s little that’s more disgusting than an aging author reflecting back on earlier times with a slight grimace of regret, but mostly tantalizing details of virility and prowess.

That would not be my intention in this particular article, so let me begin with the less pretentious, “When I was a teenager…”

Yes, when I was a teenager there was an old-fashioned theater near my hometown which showed movies and had a balcony. It was commonly known and notoriously reported by prudish older women that the young folks would go up in the balcony and neck during the movies instead of watching them like critics who had a deadline for the morning news.

So after a while, due to the complaining of these decrepit patrons, they put a velvet rope in front of the balcony entrance, connoting that the area was no longer available to the public.

I do not know why it failed to occur to them how easy it is to ignore a velvet rope. So the young people continued to trail upstairs and do the laboratory portion of their sex education training.

After that they hired someone to stand next to the velvet rope, in a white shirt and black bow tie, attempting to deter the young folks from entering the stairs to the heights of pleasure.

It didn’t take any of us very long to discover a curtain which dangled from the other side of the balcony, which was easily scaled, quietly placing us in the balcony area where we could enjoy ourselves with ferocious kissing and then slide back down the curtain to leave the theater.

The manager, fearing that the curtain would eventually be destroyed through this process, eliminated the guard and velvet rope, and gave in to the primeval nature of the youth.

Even the old ladies decided to ignore the iniquity happening just above their heads.

So my memory of a balcony is a place of escape from the circus and theater of life happening all around, to enjoy more personal pleasures.

Also, it’s a great place to go nowadays, even though I’m older, to sleep if I’m not that interested in the offerings of the silver screen.

 

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