Catch it to Me (Part II) Of Plosives and Cliches

" Catch it to me!" He said.

Now in the normal universe, we find it adorable when our little monkeys transpose ideas in their search for language. We want to put on a multi-colored knit sweat shirt and share this verbal guffaw with the rest of the known world.

"How cute is that?" we ask our ambivilant friends and family.

"Soooo cute!" the girls will answer.

"Uh huh." the men will shrug.

But a songwriter's brain is wired a little differently.

Okay, way differently.

Calvin just uttered a perfect plosive line of four strong beats.

Catch it to me. Bum Ba Ba Bum. You can hear the pounding of the honky tonk piano. Bum Bum Ba Bum.

It is both melody and percussion.

What's more, to Calvin, it has a precise meaning. No metaphore, no softening of concept, most importantly no cliche.

This isn't Harry Chapin softly whining about a game of catch with his alienated son/father. This is a three year old saying "Throw me the freaking ball, dad!"

There's power in the line.

And when I refer to cliches I'm not just refering to the kind of lyrics that seem to prepetuate themselves in coutless songs, but also the cliches of rhyme (moon june to quote my dad) and cliches of concept. Boy meets girl kind of stuff. I hate that in writing (especially my own).

The most common life line from the cliche hole is to write in the abstract. Write lyrics like throwing paint on a canvas. This is where the plosives come into play. A good abstract line has to have more giong for it than the rantings of an 8th grade diary. "A soap impression of his wife which he ate and donated to the national trust" As far as I'm concerned the Beatles can get away with it, the rest of us . . . not so much.

Lyrical perfection is tougher to obtain than the poetic because a lyric has to be sung too. Words have sit comfortably on melody and rhythm. They have to flow easily to accomidate the articulation limitations of the jaw, and consanants can't run together or the line will be lost.

It gets worse in front of a microphone. Too many "p's" and those ipod head-phones would blast off your ears. To many esses and the drummer will throw a tantrum that no one can hear the symbols.

Catch it to me. Perfect. Its direct. Its a nice turn of phrase (as the country writers would say) It has a nice plosive quality that won't push the mircophone into the red.

But there's only one problem.

it ain't a song

yet.

Catch it to Me (Part I): Of Wives and Wine

Old habits die.

Like lighbulbs and grandmas.

Sometimes its best not to watch.

My wife and I used to have a great habit.

She would come home, change into something comfortable and decidedly unsexy. Something with pastels and paisley patterns.

We would sit down to dinner and try to convince the twelve year old that one more piece of broccoli wasn't going to kill him. We would clear the table, grab a bottle of wine, a pack of cigarettes, and slip out to our little patio.

Then we would talk.

That's right, would actually talk.

Not the kind of married person talk that's all about how tired we are, or how long our days were, or how dirty the house is.

Real talk.

Movies, music, friends, family.

Dreams.

It was those talks where we decided to give up on going to LA. It was those talks when we decided to bring Calvin into this world. And when she was pregnant and the cigarettes were replaced with carrot sticks and the wine was replaced with cranberry juice, we still talked.

But then our patio was replaced by a back yard. And the twelve year old was replaced with a fifteen year old. Our dream of parenthood turned into a three year old. The carrots were replaced again by cigarettes and the cranberry juice didn't last 48hrs after we came home from the delivery room. Somewhere in there, the talking died too.

But old habits die hard.

As we sat one day as we lounged in our patio furnature, a caraf of peaches soaking in pinot noir resting on the table between us, we started talking again.

But the one common thread that binds all children together, the one genetic trait that can't be breeded out by any known technique, is the fact that when the parents are talking, the fighting will begin. (Its the same chromosome that inspires yelling when the phone rings)

Something shatters, a cry of glee turns to a scream of pain. "Stop it" "stop it!" they yell. Then the little one is throw out the back yard door and hits the ground running. The wife runs in the house to yell at the bigger one.

Then the game begins.

As the wife is sorting out the argument, the little one and I begin a friendly game of catch. Actually its more like I throw, he watches the ball hit him in the face, then he runs the ball back to me. Boys rule.

But then its all sorted out and the wife returns foolishly hoping that we could relive this old habit of ours. She sits, fills her wine glass, and begins talking were she left off.

But of course, the little one will have none of this.

"Be quiet mamma! Catch it to me, daddy, catch it to me!"

I mourn the death of our talk. But "catch it to me" sounds so cool.

Can we go to Castle Park, Daddy?

Castle Park is the park Calvin and I go to every chance we get.

Now its fair to say that my neighborhood is filled with beautiful parks.
Most have freshly mowed lawns, jungle gyms, either brand new or in good repair.
They have baseball fields with chalked lines
Big expanses of level grass for soccer tournaments
Basketball courts with nylon nets

But not Castle Park

Castle Park is decades old.
the paint is chipping, the parking lot is cracked
the homeless gather with their bikes in the gazebo.
It is a schmorgasbord of second hand strollers

I love that it's dank and surounded by giant broken trees
I love that there's sand and mud everywhere.
I love that nobody is texting.

But the thing I love most about Castle Park,

is other Dads.

All those prestine parks, with their green grass and ample shade, attract nothing but moms and nannies. And I stand their in those parks praying my son won't hit anyone or be seduced by the coolest new toys. I try to make a eye contact, so that I can smile shyly, and try not to give off a creepy man vibe. I feel like the lone college freshman in a female studies class, who everyone just assumes is a pervert. or stupid. or both. either way, unwelcome.

No, Castle Park is filled with dads. We don't have to say much. A simple shrug will do. We don't bark out instructions in shrill voices from across the sand box. We don't even get involved until someone gets hurt. Even then we wait to see if the broken kid will shrug it off. We don't brag, we don't condescend. We just let the monkeys play.

That is, until the playing starts to look like too much fun, and then we become little monkeys ourselves, showing off for the wives, doing a few pull ups to prove we still can.

When we go to Castle Park, I bring a soccer ball, a bicycle, a plastic truck, a yellow pad and a leaky ball point pen.

No adventurer is more prepared.

Castle Park has become my walden
It is the stage for my muse
It is the setting for action and mischief
It has the perfect serenity for contemplative observation

Sure Calvin likes other parks too. There's Blue Park, and Big Park, and Nonnie's Park.

But on late monday mornings, after the house is picked up and the crazies have left the building, when I say "Which park should we go to?" Calvin smiles.

and in his best doe-eyed puppy dog voice he says "Can we go to Castle Park, Daddy?"

Babies don't fly

so I'm breaking the rules.
I'm setting off on a course that will bring me nothing but ruin, heartbreak and embarassment.

awesome.

so here goes:
in a years time (hopefully)
I will start recording my second album.
not exactly headline news
kind of unsurprising, you might say

but here's where I'm gonna get stupid.

I'm gonna let everyone in on the process.
I'm gonna write about the whole thing.
I'm gonna audition each song on myspace
solicite feedback
put all the stupid ideas out into the universe before I have a chance to second guess myself.
hell I might even make it democratic
I might just throw out the stuff people don't like.

why is this against the rules?
because the act of creation is all about silencing the inner critic so that is has a chance to grow. getting others involved while a peice is still in it's infancy is like pushing your newborn out of a tree on a rainy day. Fly, you say, fly. But the poor thing will drop like a stone. Babies don't fly.

Also, its more than just a little egomaniacal.

So why do it?
Well, a couple of reasons. The journey of getting my first album released was such a comedy of errors I feel like I should've written it down. It might have made a better novel than an album.
Another reason is because the concept for this album (which I will go into detail later) has the potential of transforming this indie singer/songwriter into a tripe factory. So I kind of want my friends involved in order to keep me honest and to push me to keep it real (as it were).

Also, I'm more than just a little egomaniacal.

I do however have some self imposed rules:
First: This is not a blog about writers block. That irony has been mined.
Second: Names will be changed. But you will probably know who you are.
Third: No cursing, except sometimes
Last: Quit smoking and lose ten pounds.

Wish me luck