The REAL Boulevard of Broken Dreams Part One

I started this blog with the delusion that I had things to say or stories to tell.

I have one that cries to be heard.

Six friends!

One played the drum in the percussionauts, suspected there was more, bought a drum set through selling subscriptions to GRIT. Shocked me! I didn't think there were enough readers of GRIT in the 3-4 state area to earn the drum set.

The Second actually burst out sobbing when Foreigner's 'Juke Box Hero' came out. They knew who he was five years before the song came out! He bought an acoustic, then an electric guitar from a downtown pawnshop with money he made mowing lawns. When the band got it's second gig, he bought a brand new Telecaster.

The Third was given a toy guitar for his fifth Christmas. Actually taught himself to play watching HEE HAW. By the time he was eight, he played guitar, organ and piano for church and school. Bought his guitars from the Pawn Shop by virtue of mowed lawns, shoveled sidewalks, and a paper route.

The Fourth started out on guitar, but found the bass more to his liking. He liked the Jazz bass lines where one moment, he was keeping the beat with the drums, next he was challenging the drums and keyboards for rulership of the bass range.

The Fifth boy loved the harmoica, banjo, and could sing Janis Joplin's 'Take Another Piece of my Heart' in such a way that you would look around for Janis herself.

I saved the keyboardist for Sixth, because he was a tortured soul in the true fashion of Patrick MacGoohan's Number Six on The Prisoner. He actually hated playing piano, his parents sent him to classes to better him. The classes were free. Well monitarily free. Years later the truth would come out. The fifty-something piano teacher was a cougar of the most extreme kind. She would sit beside him with her blouse open to a very exciting view. Then she promised him special gifts if he'd learn his lessons perfect. For six years, he became an increasingly technically competent pianist. She'd take him to perform at reigonal competitions. He'd perform on the piano for the audience, then he'd perform for her in a motel room.

His family, blissfully ignorant, would have him play the piano at every opportunity. He found he could seduce young women with the performance and his visibly tortured soul. Plus the fact that the non sedentary performances, sometimes three times daily, or all weekend long, had made him a wiry muscled youth. He would do something that he truly loathed, for the fact that it paid off so well. When ever someone comments upon how someone could become a heroin addict, when they have a phobia of needles, I am tempted to tell them the story. Sixth could turn out a performance of icy brilliance on the piano, which he totally hated, because he knew it would get him laid every night of the week.

more to follow...............................


The guns in the pawn shops are the only reason I go there. you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm the dewy eyed sentimental sort. It just kills me to look at a hock shop guitar, and know that the kid who dreamed of standing on a stage with his pals, in front of 3 to 10,000 screaming fans, is now driving a cab, or slinging fries at McDespairs.

I'm sure the guns have a story to tell too, but guns are more in the moment objects.