In Tune

"My music is best understood by children and animals. "

- Igor Stravinsky*

I have been in bands before.

I recorded CDs with these bands. I toured with these bands. I have stood on a stage and played music to crowds of people. Sometimes the crowds were big, but usually they were small. In short, I have had the opportunity to experience music as a participant and creator. In my more delusional moments, I like to think that I have lived the rocknroll life a bit.

Don't get me wrong though. The "music" I helped create was made solely for fun. For the creativity of it all. Thankfully, myself and my bandmates never really had any aspirations beyond that. To say that the songs we made were groundbreaking on a grand scale and would appeal to millions would be a lie. They were groundbreaking to us. They moved us, and luckily they moved some others as well. That was enough.

Heck, most of the time we were still aside ourselves that some club would actually even let us get on stage and play. I think we all secretly were waiting for the proverbial cane to come and snatch us around our necks. Yanking us away as we struggled to find the E Chord.

I played bass guitar. By playing I mean I "attempted". I was never interested in being a musician, which is a good thing, because I am not. No, I used my instrument solely as a vehicle to create something out of nothing and have an incredible amount of fun with the guys in the band.

I was never a "bass player". I only played the bass. Hopefully that contrast is clear.

However, I love music. I love making music. But, there came a time in my life when being in a band just wouldn't work anymore. If you want to make any progress at all, being in a band is like a second marriage. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of patience. Your other relationships outside the band will suffer a bit. Trying to explain to your partner why you must practice 3 times a week, and sometimes all day on Saturday doesn't exactly create a harmonious atmosphere.

Being in a working band becomes a thing that takes on a life of its own. It can be a cruel master at times.

ANYWAY, so after being in a band in London and moving out to California and having children, clearly my musical options were limited. But, my wife, being the star that she is, bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas two years ago.

Now, I had never really played a guitar before. I played the bass. With only 4 strings, the bass was infinitely easier for me to get my talent impoverished fingers around. A guitar has 6 strings. 6 strings!! I had no idea how this was going to work, but I was keen to try.

So, for the last two years I have been bashing away at this poor guitar. Woe be it to this particular instrument in my possession. It could have been bought by someone that actually knew how to play it, but nope, it was bought by me. I bet when I walked into the shop, tried it out, and then bought it, this guitar let out some sort of cosmic sigh of acceptance to its eternal fate of mistreatment.

Ah well. Things have come along a bit now though I swear. I play this thing all the time. Seriously. I think it bugs my wife, but what can I do? I'm hooked on it like some music junkie.

It got even worse last year. I was in the guitar shop in August when I spied an acoustic 12 string guitar. To me, a 12 string sounds amazing. So full, so rich a sound. It really does sound like two guitars being played exactly at the same time. Some people decry the 12 string as a kind of folky, gimmick instrument. Maybe, but I'm a sucker for it. I was drooling to add this new guitar as a companion to my long-suffering 6 string.

ANYWAY, this 12 string guitar was on sale for a pretty good price. I mentioned it to Heather that night. Incredibly I heard these magic words fall from my lovely wife's lips:

"Well, I could buy it for you as your Christmas gift"

Zowee. I was over the moon. But, hold on, it was only August I thought. Christmas is like, a gazillion days away.

This is the part where my wife does something that reminds me why I married her. She goes on to say that although I can run down and spend our family's money on this thing, it is indeed only August and it is indeed meant to be a Christmas gift.

So......I was instructed that I would not be allowed to play it until December 25th.

I had to laugh. She's quite a woman for sure. I agreed to this kooky deal and had to look at this brand new guitar sitting in the corner for 4 months before I ever got to play it. The waiting made the acquisition all the more sweet. I enjoyed having something to look forward to, and it's a great story to boot. Once Christmas rolled around and I actually had my first strum across its 12 strings, it was more fun than I could have possibly imagined.

The most satisfying part for me about playing my guitars (as in the plural of "guitar", that's 2 guitars in my collection now! Nigel Tufnel has nothing on me!) is sitting on the sofa making songs and writing down lyrics to go along with them. I sing them to my kids, my wife, my dog, myself. All of my "songs" deal with family stuff really. My dubious quiver of tune topics run the spectrum of who I sing them to, which is again, my kids, my wife, my dog and myself.

Who am I to think I can write a song about the world? Or politics? That would be a bit goofy really. Some suburban guy in his mid-30's sitting on a sofa he bought from Macy's writing about the intricacies of global issues? Nah, that's something I can't bring myself to do.

But I can sure write a song about how much I love my family.

I gotta work on my voice a bit though. Sometimes even the dog will leave the room.

*thanks to J.Resh for bringing this quote out into the open.

Mobility

The boys are crawling now. Finn started on Christmas day. Lachlan followed a week later.

It was interesting to see how it happened. I could tell that they were getting ready to do this next step in life for some time. They would sit up on their hands and knees, rock back and forth, and occasionally move backwards. Seemingly though, moving into 1st gear eluded them for a while.

But once they got it, wow, within days they made up for lost time.

Sometimes we will put both boys at the end of the hall and race them. I think this is the kind of thing parents do to amuse themselves. Over the course of a few races the boys now have their own racenames.

Finn - "The Bullet"
Lachlan - "The Saunterer"

Do these names reflect future personality types? I don't know. I just wanted to give them cool sounding nicknames.

I love watching them crawl around. I'm told this is a very important skill for children to acquire and shows "development", and while this is a good thing in itself, I just like seeing their little butts wag back and forth as they move across the floor. It keeps me on my toes though. With their new-found mobility they are all over the place. I'm constantly picking them up, moving them away from steps, bookcases, etc.

I repeat this sequence, like, a thousand times a day. I think I'm losing weight.

There is a scene from the film "Raising Arizona" where there are multiple children crawling around the floor in a great frenzy, much to the consternation of the main character who is trying to herd them into one group.

This is my life. I am H.I. McDunnough.

Britannia - Christmas 2006

The above photo is the reason we spent silly amounts of money for plane tickets, endured 10 hour international flights (avec two 10 month olds), faced un-ending jet lag with the boys, and basically didn't sleep for two weeks. The amount of aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents my children have in England is never ending. Even the Pope would be impressed I think. My kids were showered with attention and were introduced to a whole other half of their family that lives thousands of miles away.

The trip itself seems like a blur now. I suppose it was really. We were on the move from London to Hampshire to Kent to Wiltshire constantly. Our days were filled with travelling from one place to the next, unpacking the car, setting up the portable cribs, greeting the people we would stay with for a couple of days, and finally sitting down to cups of tea. Our nights were filled with drinking (per the usual British custom), eating much-missed for Indian food, and then waking up at 3 a.m. to the very confused cries of our children whose internal body clocks were most likely wondering what the hell was going on.

It was exhausting, but worth it. This is my wife's home really. It is also part of who my children are.

I had the good fortune of being able to spend a night out with my London friends. I miss the whole lot of them. There is a creativity, a spark, a buzz, to London and the people that inhabit it. In true East London form, we lounged like Wilde in smoky pubs and then skulked in gritty nightclubs full of arty denizens who are much cooler than me. I don't know what the country has against "hoodies" though.

As a sidenote, this was the only opportunity I had during the entire trip to actually sleep in as I was staying at my friend Mal's flat. Jon, myself, and Mal wound down the evening at some stupid hour in the morning. We sat on his sofa having one final beer, listening to music set low, and possibly the sound of birds chirping outside. I then settled in for an actual night of unbroken sleep. I intended to wake up as late as possible.

Instead I woke up at 8:00 a.m. to the sound of a chainsaw.

What the hell is a chainsaw doing in London was my first thought. I threw open the curtains to find a guy, suspended in a tree just outside the window, pruning the friggin' branches WITH A CHAINSAW. I wanted to cry. I am destined to never have a decent night's sleep ever again.

Alan, my father-in-law. Never a man has lived that appreciates real beer as much as him. There is something truly welcoming about going into a pub. No TV, no neon, no loud music. Just the sounds of glasses clinking and people laughing. Alan is a veritable connoisseur of the best pubs that serve the best beer. He likes to sit facing the bar. Everytime I'm in a pub with him it is like a little ritual. He scours the place with a determined look to find a seat with the best view. It's incredibly endearing.

Young Finn on Christmas day. I don't know why these hats are worn on Christmas. They look cute and spirited on little kids, but absolutely ridiculous on me.

I really do miss being constantly reminded of history and the times that have come long before you. I never took things like driving past 12th century churches for granted while I lived in the UK. On this trip I made us all stop and take photos in front of them.

Aside from my two main goals of drinking real beer and eating stupid amounts of Indian food, my other main goal for this trip was to take the boys to Avebury. Forget Stonehenge, Avebury is the real deal.

Heather first took me there just on a whim back in '95. Little did she know that she would open up an utter fascination in me for very old stones that stick upright like defiant teeth into the sky. My interest in these neolithic megaliths burned (and still burns) within me. I have some ideas as to why these 5,000 year old monuments interests me, but it's hard to pin down. For some reason they resonate down to my very neurons.

I held the boys in arms. My boys, my children, my flesh, and walked around those stones. It was really something.

As I write this we have returned now. I am left with a need for sleep, the boys are sick from all the travel, and I feel like doing nothing for the next zillion years. If I ever have to put up one of those portable cribs again it will be too soon.

And yet, I am also left with the good memories. The boys are not. They are too young. But, as they grow older, and we sit down and look at the photos someday, they will be reminded.