Making Use Of The Useless

When my voice gave out before I hit thirty, a circumstance compelling me to shift gears and make a living doing something other than playing my guitar and singing, an early working fantasy was to become a radio DJ. My logic, unassailable to me at the time, went like this: I've been a musician most of my life; I know shit. Who better to play records and talk in between? Previous work experience, educational background? Immaterial. Had I ever gotten an interview no doubt I would've unironically described my musical knowledge as vast. Had an unsuspecting interviewer asked me which flash-in-the-pan band etched Dirty Water into pop music history I would have scoffed. Think you can stump me by asking who Al Jardine replaced in the Beach Boys or which Chuck Berry song was on Beatles 65? Child's play; I was meant for this job, you fool.    

Understandably, that arrogant thirty year old never found a way onto the radio. But an unquenchable thirst for all things musical - coupled with a sticky brain that holds onto what I'd always thought of as useless musical ephemera - began finding a small audience about five years ago. Each time I lecture briefly about a song I'm about to play in one of the courses I've been developing and delivering since 2014, that musical stuff in my brain - now almost sixty years of it - becomes useful to others, for at least a moment. As the song plays and the music washes over me and the participants, I can watch people as they close their eyes, nod, smile - a benefit no DJ ever gets. And after our communion, I can share any additional morsels the music has pried loose from my addled brain, if I think doing so will add value to the experience we just had. Lately, I've been thinking of this as making use of the useless.

But either way, useless or marginally useful, I'm eagerly anticipating sharing more of those morsels with others when my next class - entitled The Two Of Us - begins on November 5th. I am pumped. What gives you juice like teaching this stuff gives me?