Saturday, May 4, 2019

Trash on the Recorder

I've been trying to learn the New York Dolls song on the recorder.  Do you remember the recorder?  The recorder is a wind instrument that, when I was in grade school, they made us learn.  Or try to learn.  As far as I can tell, no amount of musical talent or practice can make a recorder sound good.  I'm trying to overcome by anxiety and depression by doing activities that normally I would never dare to try.  I guess I think that by breaking out of my daily rut and doing weird things, maybe I will rewire my brain and stop being such a miserable fuck.  So I got on Amazon and purchased a Yamaha Soprano Recorder YRS in transparent red.  Every Saturday, I go downtown to the corner of Idaho and 11th and practice playing Trash by the New York Dolls.  Practicing in public is part of my strategy to overcome my fears.  I take an empty five gallon bucket to sit on.  I work for a painting company, so five gallon buckets are easy to come by.
People pretty much ignore me.  Some people look at me and pause, like maybe they think I'm a street musician and then quickly move on.  The noise coming out of the recorder is not music.  Its a horrific sound.  One day a kid spit on me.  He must have been twelve or thirteen.  He was alone, walking down the street.  He didn't pause.  He didn't listen to me play for a second.  In mid stride, he turned his head and spit in my face and walked on.  I was so shocked, I didn't do anything.  Later, laying in bed unable to sleep and replaying the event in my mind, I fantasized about chasing him down and beating the shit out of him.  But I didn't do that.  I wiped the spit from my face, picked up my five gallon bucket, and went home.  

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