The Long-awaited, highly-anticipated end to my musical career (Part II)

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Part II. 

As that new group started to expand, however, those old insecurities began to resurface. Our interests expanded beyond watching horror movies and listening to music to actually playing music. I had some pretty hardcore Nam flashbacks at the point, only instead of Charlie, I saw Tuba players and John Phillip Sousa flipping me the bird. We had a number of guitar players in the group and one guy who was willing to play the drums, a girl who could sing and that’s where I saw my opening. Despite having no musical talent whatsoever or really understanding the instrument at all, I would make myself instrumental (BAM!) to the group by becoming a bass player.

                Anyway, so I got the bass, formed a band with some friends and we immediately went nowhere. Before the band began though, I remember another guy in our circle wanted to get a bass too and I stopped just short of making a voodoo doll of him and poking it in the arms each night. I guess you could say I had some mild-to-severe abandonment issues. I was scared of being replaced and I hoped and hoped and hoped that he’d find another calling. Like the kazoo. Or computer programming.
               He got the bass but we started seeing less and less of him when relationship drama kicked up between him and another friend’s girlfriend. At the time it was sort of a relief, but in hindsight, I feel guilty about how I mentally reacted to the situation, even if I never came out and expressed those insane feelings to anyone.

The Long-awaited, highly-anticipated end to my musical career (Part I)

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I seem to be going on a bit of a run here where I end up shedding some part of my old life each week. Last time, I was regaling you with the tale of how I parted ways with my old college dorm room television. This week it was two bass guitars, an amp and some assorted musical accessories. Stay tuned for next week’s blog post where I do 800 words on donating my old “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines” hat to Purple Heart and what that means to me spiritually.   

                But first, the musical stuff. Many heartstrings were tugged on last week when I put my old TV out to pasture. The exact opposite was the case with the instruments. That makes no sense because I never really loved that TV. The musical gear and I had a lot of fun together over the years. It was a big part of several years of my life in a way that TV could only have dreamed of and yet, as I watched it all gradually leave my parent’s yard sale on Saturday, I felt nothing. Maybe it’s because I’ve been trying and failing to sell that stuff at yard sales for going on two years now, whereas the TV I just sort of forgot about until very recently. More likely, the lack of emotional resonance caused by the official end of my musical career (such as it was) was due to the absence of a Gerard Way soundtrack.