Gimpy Guitarist Seeks Fingers That Work

It's been about 31 years since I held my first guitar, a 6-string student Yamaha. I now have my third six string, had a 12 string stolen, and then magically, a friend handed me my first plug-in toy just a few months ago. I once owned an acoustic Ibinez bass. It was gorgeous- a 5 string- as Penn Jillette called it, "the mariachi model". I played it until I couldn't, and then it sat in the house for zero use and love for years, until I could hand it to an absolute bass monster, Todd McDearman, who lovingly strums the b-a-s-s out of it.

Losing the ability to play an instrument doesn't really mean a lot to an amateur like me, most times. But I learned how to play piano when I was 11, guitar was my first love the year before- although I didn't really start playing it until I discovered Neil Young and Bob Dylan had entire ALBUMS in less than 5 chords. I write songs, and sing melodies, and when it comes to playing and singing at the same time- I often wonder if that task is lost on someone like me. I'm not good at it. I see people who can't tie their shoes playing Jimmy Page riffs and singing like Chris Cornell, and I'm still trying to figure out where I come in, and how to not play the melody if I'm harmonizing and vice versa.

Almost three years ago, a very amazing magician gave me his electric piano, another Yamaha- the Clavinova. It made me glad to be able to mangle chords and put notes to paper again. It also lets me play piano in a house where the world's foremost jazz monster has a 9 Foot Concert Grand, without me feeling like I'm playing chopsticks. (It's as if I was trying to learn to skate when Brian Boitano was the only other person on the ice.)

It's not that I don't have the skills to play an instrument. In fact, I studied with some great people, even went for a degree in music at San Francisco State for a second Masters to add to the pile. I can read fairly well, and even write my own lead sheets and charts. The problem is, I have Ehlers-Danlos and that means my fingers and the bones in my wrist, hands, palms, just all of the joints really- dislocate, sublux and swell in a nasty icky way. I have hands that turn into baseball gloves.

Back to the free bass from the pal. It's another Ibinez, but an electric one. Not a fancy Les Claypool one, or a razzle-dazzle Jeff Ament one, but a great garage band one. Liz said her electric bass, (in cobalt blue), sat in her house, much like my acoustic sat in mine. It didn't mean as much to her as it would me- it's given me a reason to figure out that electric instruments and I are good with each other. Electric piano, electric bass- why not go for it? And, that's when I bought my first electric guitar, exactly 35 years after deciding to be the world's best folk singer. See how following your dreams always works out.. oh wait a minute. I didn't follow these dreams.

I waited until I was in my 40's before I realized my mortality, my now, my need to just do the music I've always been dancing with for every day of my life. In fact, I have followed dreams. I've headlined shows, went to graduate school- twice. I learn new things as often as I can. My personal life? I finally figured out that the nice one is the right one. After fears of living homeless, I have a great house, pets, a family, and every minute of that is the real thing and the real dream. My body has fought me every minute- from colitis to depression, to Ehlers-Danlos.

Oh, and the biggest surprise about playing instruments in my 40's, that seems to be WAY different from the years as a kid, skinny grad student, and comedian? The lessons I have online don't take in to account the fact that I've grown quite a bit top heavy over the years. Having ample bosoms makes it a feat of acrobatics to play a guitar now. I could have worse problems.

Bandmix

Today I lived NOW by joining BandMix.com. It's a musicians site, that networks JUST music folk together. It's not like CDBaby, MySpace, or Reverbnation, because basically it's a long form Musicians Classifieds site. It's not a fans collective, but definitely a place to talk peer to peer or wannabe to wannabe.

I'll be posting songs, and listening to others to see if I might mesh up with prospective writing partners or band mates. Today, they ran a three months for $20 special so I went for it. Same price as one pizza, far fewer calories- I'm  on it. http://www.bandmix.com/ratmando/

There's another site that I've been on for about a year, called GIJams.com owned and run by Randell and Schippers- a music writing tour de force who have churned out hits for many people including Smashmouth. It's for those who are current or past military, or have a strong military connection, who want to show that creativity can live in uniform. I was in the Navy back when Reagan was still around, so I needed art and now I have a place to put some of the work I did. Look for Cathe B. Jones or Ratmando there and you'll be able to load up a couple of my songs. They're also on MySpace.com under ratmando as well. Oh and yes, they're all music now, and they're partly owned by Justin Timberlake so it seems it will be for a bit. Yep, they've even got their "Sexy back" by changing up the name to an elegant, My_, as if that worked for Prince? But so it is.

My hubby is off with some bandmates to see Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits fame. I'm kind of as music-aholic as he is, but I think it's important for him to have a life outside of JUST hanging out with me- so he has a close bunch of pals, also involved in music. I'm off to be pals with another group.

The Renaissance of 2012 Women

If you decide to read my midlife crisis blah-gh you may get where I am coming from and find yourself there, too. There seems to be a new renaissance of sorts with those of us born in the '60's starting to figure out we're mortal. At least some of us made it this far. Between AIDs and the Wars, hepatitis 3, and those crack-n-poppers from drug czar alley, well, some of us lived.

The days I sang in
the mid 1980's.

In the 1980's- feels like last century, right?- that's when most of us were making our plans to take over the world. But, reality and Reagan were the biggest emotional speed bumps. Whilst some figured out personal computing would take over, others were wearing Madonna lace, painting Cyndi Lauper hair, learning how to Rap, and trapping boy toys with teen parenting. Time Magazine told us our generation was going to use punk music to corrupt Religious Rightists, (I hope we did). In the 1980's a lot of us were becoming the Violent Femmes, Jim Jarmusch, or Tom Waits in response to post Disco, middle eastern post-kidnapped, war, free flowing creditors. And there was Phil Donohue, In Living Color, and sickeningly sweet bouncy Tiffany and Debbie Gibson tearing into our skulls as AM radio got replaced with college and alternative stations.

But women were rocking hard in that decade. Chrissie Hynde tore it up, as Debbie Harry owned the new rap waves. Heart made Led Zeppelin fans out of girls like me, as Kate Bush, Exene, Patti Smith, and even the B52s let the world in on the secrets that we write, perform, and own the stages. Lene Lovitch, Lydia Lunch, and so many other alliterations there were giving voices where none existed. Madonna despite my personal disdain of her "music", made clear our business was that of show. If 30 hours a day you're working to become the biggest name in the world, I suppose earthlings such as myself don't really have the reserved right to hate that stuff, (but I do).

A lot of us believed in the adage that hard work would pay off. I guess time wakes up all to greed and corruption left to us from the Love Generation. So strange that they tuned in, turned on, then discovered white collar crime. Meanwhile, artists are doing something in retaliation, and for most of us, it became clear we needed to earn livings if we expected to ever get to or through the 1990's. By day we were moms, geeks, and working for Fortune 500's, but by night a lot of us kept at those dreams and wrote music, created and waited for the world to let us be artists "for real". SOMEDAY would be just around the corner....

Now, it's 20 years and much more sobriety later. I keep running into women in their 40's and 50's thinking the same thing - NOW counts. We spent decades thinking that once we earned enough we could afford to live our dreams, but the truth is, dreams are free. Everyone from Pegi Young to Heart to even Madonna are making art, music, Kate Bush is doing film, Exene is doing poetry, Jane Weidlin is comic booking. They didn't stop either. You can look at any art event, and find women beaming brightly above the masses, being the subculture of the newest age of "in".

I am the Waste Band. I did stand up for years, did Ren Faires, did web sites, and always had some toy boy or went schooling for degrees hoping a better check would somehow fairly appear. So, I learned "fair" and "just" seem to agree for white men, but rarely enjoyed a marriage for art geeky gals with multi colored hair and tattoos. I went from being that proverbial skinny bitch, who never bred, had lots of men, worked hard, and then, married a great guy- lost that petite figure to time, thyroidism, and chocolate. My waist is larger, and I've wasted enough time. I started writing under the moniker of RatManDo, (no one can do like a rat man do), and publishing my songs, registering them with BMI. (Not Body Mass Index, but yes, I selected them for irony.) I started recording music I wrote in 1978, for the first time, and stuff I wrote in 1994 for the last. (Come on, how many Cobain songs do I need? Really?)

For years, I believed that there were too many people doing what I wanted to do so my "billet" wasn't available. PJ Harvey exists. There's already comic artists with bands. Stand up comedians who perform music are showing up everywhere from Margaret Cho to a dancing Ellen. Cathy Ladman, kudos for the voice. So, where would I fit in? I would fit in being me, and not being them. It took me a lot of years to figure that out. It took me a lot of years to understand I deserve to do art as I want to, and not to fill in a blank in the planet's need. It's for me, not for the world. If the world likes it, great, if not, I didn't waste (get it, waste? yeah. ho hum), time, I just did the best me I could do at the time, and if the rest of the world gets it, great, and if not, some day they will, or someday, whatever gets ignored will be the extra fluff in someone else's movie of life, and that's all good.

Catch that crazy eye?
And, Different Hawaiin shirt..

This blog is an introduction to the Waste Band. It's the goal for me now, not to live a life of waste. It's not to be so mired in the past I forget to be present. My favorite writer, when I was a child, was Henry David Thoreau, (his last name is pronounced Thorough, so it means more to me than you'd expect). He wrote about people living their lives in silent desperation, and never achieving goals because they always had "somedays" and not "nows". Walden gave him a Now. As a child I wanted to be Arlo Guthrie, hair and all. I wasted a lot of years not practicing my guitar, and let colitis dictate my ability to be on stage or not. I should have been in a dozen bands, but only managed to form or audition for a handful. I wrote hundreds of songs, but only recorded a dozen. Not anymore, that's the past. I live now. I'm in the Waste Band. Just call me RatmanDO. Who are You?