D'Caffeinated Pickle

…I was singing some random 80's tune and Lukas interrupted me and said, "Dad, stop singing! You suck at singing!"

"I do not!" I chirped back.

"Yes you do!" he said picking up on the chance to needle his dad.

"Well," I said feeling a trump card coming on, "I sang good enough to make a CD."

Pause. He wasn't quite sure where to go with that one. "No you did not!" he said.

"Yup, I did!"

"Well then prove it!"

So I went rummaging around in the CD closet to see if I could locate a copy of the "More Than a Song" CD. I found one. Removed the cellophane wrapping and proceeded to show my son the evidence on the liner notes that I was actually a part of the project. And I also subjected him to listen to the disc. I'm really not sure if he was impressed at all but I had at least emerged victorious from his challenge.

The memories came flooding back for me and I lost myself in those scenes flashing through my mind. The 2 am hours at the studio mastering. The song selection process. The venue where we recorded the songs live. The overdubs. It all came flooding back to me.

I remember driving home from the studio directly to Ryan's house to check out the recently mastered copy. We made 500 copies of that thing for crying out loud.

And that is it. I vacillate between pride and bewilderment when I think of that project. It was a pretty cool project for group of hacks to put together an album of songs. We had some awesome help with the project and in truth there are still places on some of the tracks where I think it sounds pretty dang good.

But like Ryan said – there are a lot of places where the lyrics of the songs we sang are pathetically self centered and even in some cases untrue. But more than that there is a personal twinge that tugs at me every time I think of that project. I think about how the process of making it really became a sore spot between Char and me. I think about how to her it seemed like I was placing this project as a higher priority over her. I think about how I defended the 'sacrifices' I made to get it all done. And to my greatest embarrassment – how I pinned some pretty unrealistic hopes of grandeur on this CD thing panning out. I feel like a fool in that way.

I would never give up the years I had playing with those friends of mine. It was grand. But it wasn't more than it was. It was shortly after producing this CD that a stark revelation radically changed my perspective on life. One day I remember waking up and thinking that the greatest accomplishment I could ever achieve would be my success as a father. That put all of my egotistical nightmares in the place where they belonged.

So when my son comes up to me and tells me I can't sing and wants to start a good natured tête-à-tête with me – it makes me feel really good. Cause I am his dad. And you there is always the meteoric rise to fame that my "confession videos" will bring me. Oh yeah – Check that out!!!

Here's the little tag piece that somehow got onto the back end of the CD as hidden track. I thought it was appropriate!