Steal Guitars and Cowedboy Boots

Someone once told me I had such bad luck in my life I ought to be a country singer. A blues singer told me that, after he heard me sing the blues. Mom said he was just trying to get me to leave the club so the people would stop booing, but I went and bought the hat anyway.

Mom warned me my country singing career would be short-lived, like my hamster. I sang one song about my wife running off with my best friend and having a flat tire on my truck, but I had made it up—I wish I had a truck. My wife did run off with my best friend, though. Although she wasn't my wife yet, just a mail-order bride that had stepped off the plane from Korea, and the guy she ran away with was the pilot, but he looked like my best friend, dead up, I swear. Tommy? Timmy? It's something like that. I haven't seen him since the fourth grade, you can't blame me for getting the name messed up.

The audience didn't like my song. "Open mic," sure, until you actually try to sing, then it closes pretty damn fast. People told me nobody sings feel-bad old country anymore. Now they sing feel-good new country, and only fans of real music feel bad when they hear it. You know me, you can't stop me with a brick wall or pure logic or the fact nobody likes me. I went and bought some leather pants to match my new hat and became a feel-good new country singer. Okay, I didn't buy the pants, but I made them out of the seats of my car. They're more chaps than pants right now, but after I hit it big I'm going to buy the material to sew backs onto them.

I had to get a day job to support my nights of singing at open mics. A few wise guys have told me not to quit my day job, but I'm not going to—I'll probably get fired, as soon as they find out I've been throwing all the mail in the garbage instead of delivering it. I don't need hang-ups with office politics and bullshit. I've got my music to think about, and that homemade guitar has really been fueling my songwriting. It's not a typical guitar, either. It's more of a small TV set with a plunger on the side, but I've already written five songs. Two of them are just the theme to "The Rockford Files," but I made up the lyrics. I tried making up lyrics to the song from "The Facts of Life," but my talent doesn't work when someone's already singing lyrics to it.

My favorite song I wrote so far is "You Don't Love Me 'Cause You're Stuck Up." It's about my mother. Gets me all misty-eyed every time I sing it. I want to write a song about my dad, just to even things out, but my mom can't remember his name. I'm hoping it's "Adlai," 'cause I really need something that rhymes with "left me to die" so I can end the song.

So far none of the audiences have responded too well, but it's not like they're paying me anything, and it's better than standing in line, waiting for a movie and doing nothing, right? That's not what the theater manager says, but he's just mad because I gave away the ending to Million Dollar Baby in one of my songs. Don't blame me, dude, you're the one who let me in the theater to use the bathroom. Who knows, maybe a movie-going audience is more of a jazz crowd. I could do jazz really well, if I wanted to. I never rehearse and my songs always sound different the second time I play them 'cause I can't remember how I played them the first time.

That's it. I'm switching to jazz.

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