The Blonde Blur

🗓️ August 9, 2024

⏰ Read Time: 6 min

I sat on the edge of the car, trunk open, panting like a water buffalo. The 50 lbs PA system strapped to my back slunked off with a dull thud. Like the snap of a doorknob returning to its closed position, my senses were back. Moments before, I’d have sworn the half mile walk I just finished was really 10 miles. But now — it wasn’t so bad. It actually felt good, sitting there with crinkled up dollars in my pocket, fingers as shredded up as a block of cheddar, and a voice that sounded like the collective tone of near-pubescent bounce house birthday bashes. “Yeah,” I thought, “it ain’t so bad.”

I’m trying to grow a business. I didn’t know what that meant before trying to do it, so here’s my working definition:

BUSINESS [ˈbiznəs]: a whole bunch of stuff that you say you’ll stop doing as soon as your business can afford you not doing it.

I spend a larger-than-you’d-expect chunk of time on the computer, tapping away at spreadsheets, sending emails, doing research, editing music or videos, posting to social media, etc. I also spend a lot of time playing what I call “cover gigs.” These are 3 hour blocks of music that a venue (read: restaurant, brewery, coffee shop, bar) pays me a flat rate for, plus a few tips from good hearted passers by. The majority of the songs are covers — anything from The Beatles to John Mayer to whoever the current darling of pop music is. I also get to sprinkle in a few of my own songs, which, in case you’re wondering, is indeed a sure fire way to feel insecure about “my own songs.” It’s tough to feel pumped up about one of my mild-mannered folk tunes when having just sang Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin” to a group of lightly inebriated dads in a sports bar who love the chance to sing along at the top of their lungs. Nonetheless, it’s probably more fun than it sounds.

This past week, I was singing the aforementioned classic in a bar in Woodstock. The place was nearly empty, save for the few Sunday evening crusaders hanging around at the opposite end of the bar, out of sight line, and thus, probably out of mind. The only folks I could see were the bartender, and a table of three friends who I had met earlier in the evening, when setting up. “What’s your drink, man.” one of the three at the table shouted out. I jumped a little — my years of social awkwardness threatening to choke me out. But I swallowed my old fears and struck up a good conversation. The others at the table were the man’s girlfriend, and his best friend, or his brother, or… honestly he could have just been a drunk guy that sat down at their table, he wasn’t exactly making sense with his responses. His blonde hair and perfectly trimmed beard was like looking into an American Eagle magazine. “Thanks for the offer,” I said with what I hoped was a smile on my face, “but I’ve gotta get to playing on time or they won’t pay me.” I started singing, and the group watched on, nodding and shouting out occasionally. Then I started up with “Free Fallin.”

Before I knew it, the blonde guy at the table started singing. It was quiet at first — hushed syllables sputtered out through the side of his pint, mid-sip. Then I hit the chorus; rather, the chorus hit him. He stood up with violence, tipping the table, sloshing the beer, and scaring the life out of the others sitting there. He put his shoulders back and bellowed out that chorus like a coyote at midnight. I nearly dropped my pick.

I carried on strumming and singing as best I could, no lack of shock on my face. Miracle of miracles, he only got louder. By the second chorus in the song, I had to back away from the microphone and just kinda watched him, not dissimilar to how one might watch an eclipse. This man was raging, somewhere between this universe and the next, desperate to let the other Sunday evening patrons know that he was indeed “FREE FALLIN!”

I laughed and gave knowing looks to his friends, not because I thought it was funny, but because I really didn’t know what else to do. It felt like I was being tickled — sure, from the outside I am “having a good time,” but inside I’m just thinking “what is this person doing?” I stopped playing and thanked him over the microphone for helping me out with the chorus.

I quickly started up another tune — something docile and only quietly passable as a pop song — anything to get past the weird mood shift. Before I could get too far into it, the manager came over. He was burly and bearded, tattoos up the sides of his neck, all the way into his rough-cut mullet, and out through his short cargo shorts and cut off black tank top. He knew he meant business, but he wanted you to wonder it.

As he rounded the corner, my mind couldn’t decide if I was in trouble or the blonde fella. I was the one with the mic, and the one with the mic is normally the one at fault. But he made a sharp turn and leaned over the table of the three friends and got unreasonably close to the other guy’s face. “If you do that again, I’m throwing you out.”

Not long after, the other two at the table faded gradually into the rest of the bar, and then into the rest of their lives. The blonde man sat there, alone, silent, a half full glass and a crumpled 10 bucks the only focus of his unblinking stupor. I watched him as I sang song after song, wondering if he was alright. With two hours to go, I let my mind slip into a flow state of the lyrics of Creedence Clearwater Revival and Taylor Swift.

I looked up after a while to catch a blur of blonde disappear behind the corner separating my side of the bar and the other. My eyes went back to the table, and I watched as the crumpled 10 and the half full glass sat lonely, disturbed only by the Sunday evening breeze sneaking in through the gap in the window. It hit me — to most folks, I’m just a blonde blur singing too loud for his own good, disappearing behind the corner at the end of the night, leaving behind a little bit of value and a little bit of optimism. Hopefully the value I bring is more than $10 worth, and hopefully my optimism isn’t reserved for the clichés of half full glasses. But either way, in this season, I’m grateful to end up back at the car, having walked a little too far, sung a little too much, away from home a little too long. After all, we’re all just Free Fallin', and it ain't so bad.