The Comeback Kid.

"How often have I written about so much in our lives being a distraction? A distraction, wasting time, waiting, until we can finally do what moves us. Drives us. Like that is the reward. 

Once we get to here. Once we get everything else taken care of, fixed, resolved, sorted, then, only then can we do what is best for our soul."

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Welcome to the podcast, The Train from Air Tree Station, episode 16, 16. This one we're calling the Comeback Kid. And if you're listening on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, any of the major platforms, please take a moment to leave a review if you would be so kind. A five-star thing me bob on whichever platform you're listening to. It helps apparently with the algorithm and getting my podcast out to the masses en masse. You can also find me on Instagram, The Train from Airdrie Station, or just look for my name, James Clark Jones. I'm working on a new website for my music stuff. Should be out this week. I haven't played guitar seriously for a few years now, at all. And that's changed. We'll get there in a minute. The results of time spent playing through pain in my twenties, hours each day learning, practicing, and perfecting the chops that I had, the technique, the skill of playing an instrument that's relatively easy to play, but very difficult to play well. The recurring tendonitis that followed, managed with whatever we were drinking that day, was my first visit to a chiropractor in my twenties. I was young and skinny, and Google did not exist. No searching online for tips on how to fix a musician's labor and toil. We were loading gear into and out of vans, cars, and trucks, the heavy speakers of my era into venues not designed to accept anything more than a beer delivery. There's usually stairs, a bar with a rundown stage that no Union roadie would navigate. Awkward and dangerous load-ins for sure. We never thought twice about it. The things we accept when we're young. It was life then as a working musician, and I kind of liked it. Down the road, working a side job in my 40s, listen, never enough money in the music game to really survive. I was working at a big warehouse and I lifted a 42 kilogram bag of sugar. I got it wrong. I lifted wrong. Just one bag. There was no training or safety belts at this warehouse. The pain, that pain, is still with me. I won't ever forget the manager on duty that morning. She asked me, Does this mean you're going home? Yikes. I couldn't move. I couldn't move right for weeks. And the only time I have ever applied for some work compensation. At the time, the Workman's Workers' Compensation Board of Ontario, or is it the Workman's Compensation Board of Ontario? Might have been changed by then. It was a fight just to get a few hundred bucks. I was raised not to ask for anything. We're too proud. Something my dad would call a handout. So asking for any compensation was hard for me, but I couldn't work. And the lady processing my claim, boy, I'll say this politely, she was a piece of work. And then in my 50s, I was in a serious car accident where in which my upper body took another beating. My torso has not healed to this day. Ribs, scapula, nerves around my neck and shoulder. I'm not a kinesiologist, so forgive my crude description, but it effin hurts. I learned to manage the pain, the spasms, the loss, the loss of feeling down my arm, which is a nerve damage I was told by a doctor once, although there was no remedy or treatment forthcoming. The bottom of my lower back fractured, I believe that's the L5 area, and like that, I get a tightness the size of a grapefruit and numbness below. Numbness below. Good times. Listen, bodies get injured, bodies age. I am no different. The wear on my hands, wrists, shoulders, and neck from a lifetime of practicing, ours most days. I have no complaints. Frankly, I am lucky it wasn't and isn't a horse. My faculties remain intact. This is not a complaint piece. I think we need a sip of coffee here. French press. Bodum. Fantastic. However, there came a point a few years ago when the pain was too much. I was in my early 60s. I couldn't practice, not even for a few minutes. I tried practicing laying on my back, lying on my back, guitar balanced on my abdomen. The relief was minimal, and actually my left shoulder took the brunt and got worse. I kind of resolved to the inevitability of the end. My end as a player, as a musician. And in a way, I was okay with all that. Fifty years is a long time to play. And I wasn't gigging anymore, anyway. I wasn't recording. My now newer colleagues, I had changed jobs yet again, they didn't know me as a musician. I had a new circle. Look, I had written a lot of songs, played a lot of gigs. For everything, there is a season. Maybe it was time. Let it go. The new mantra, let it go. So stupid, these later gurus. They got basic stoicism wrong. Anyway, I digress. Even a few folks close to me said, maybe you should just move on. Sure. I tried. Listen, I really did. I really tried to move on. But still, I missed it. The practice, the routine, the effort, the creation, the art. Being a musician had defined me for most of my life, certainly all of my adult life. I know I knew who I was and why with a guitar in my hands spoke to me. I I spent hours, and I spend hours after my practice sessions going over a part or a chord change in my head. I may seem distracted, but I'm still working. When I'm in writing mode, I may have a word that doesn't fit in the chorus or a verse. I search for one that's better. My hands and my head take up most of my day. I I don't recommend it. It's not normal. I am distracted in a very productive way, and we need to process together my hands, my head, and the connection between the two. And then I'll need to go back and pick up my guitar again later. Play the part one more time. One more time. I feel strongly about this. You need to learn a piece of music on your instrument so well, so automatic, that you could play it on stage with the stomach flu and a migraine. And that's all about practice. I became a good musician this way. Although I was a distracted and self-absorbed kind of friend, apologies to my earlier friends in life. But the work almost always took precedent. My life defined by so much struggle and dysfunction and depression, and I was always trying to fit in somehow. But I had music. I had a guitar, I had music, and I had writing. And I could combine them all. This was and is my life. My secret sharer. I've written before about how music saved me more than once. A refuge, if you will, an escape, and at the same time salvation. Being creative, accomplishing something that takes time, lots of time to learn, pouring emotions into and onto a piece of wood with metal strings and electronics wired into an amplifier. The hairs on the back of my neck at attention. It's cathartic. Deeply satisfying. A part of me that's a part of life. I'm driven. I have on occasion come off a stage where it's just been such a great night of connecting with an audience and performing well and playing well and all the time and effort that I put into playing the guitar and learning to be a decent singer. It just felt I couldn't imagine ever feeling better. And I have never felt better than some of those nights. So after a few years away from all this, with my pain in my back, etc., after a few years, this yearning, this craving, this hunger, it wouldn't go away. I've rested. I'm sober now, no drugs, no junk food, well, occasional bag of chips. I do like my Coke Zero. And I'm sleeping as best as is possible. I'm getting proper rest. I'm working with an osteopath and a reflexologist with one goal to be able to play a guitar. Again, for a long time to come, at a very accomplished level, as much as is possible, a professional level, how I used to play. Coffee time. Hope you're having a good week. So I bought a new guitar. Well, used actually, but new to me. Beautiful guitar. Epiphone Les Paul Custom in Trans Blue. It just plays so well. Check out my Instagram account for some uh some live uh music clips on this guitar with my new Rolling Jazz chorus amps. Pretty cool. I found the right amp, Jazz Chorus 40 amp. Listen, an artist needs the correct tools for optimum results. For years I used a nylon string guitar, but I missed playing an electric guitar with humbucking pickups into a proper amp with a really great sound. And with all that, for optimum results, I started practicing and I started playing again. You know, first thing to state is how quickly some of my old chops reappeared. Uh muscle memory, I suppose. There is some rust, of course, and mistakes. Man, lots of mistakes. But for now, my life has returned and I am working on getting my playing back to a level of competence. I have pain. Who doesn't? Once you hit 60, you've got pain. But I take more time to stretch now and use breathing exercises, long walks, short brisk walks, vocal breathing techniques while walking. I must look ridiculous doing so. I limit my time holding the instrument, but I wake up most mornings now with a song or a riff or a chord change bouncing around in my head, something I had been working on the night before. That has returned. I hear layers of music inside my skull. Fortunately, inside my skull, no one else around me can. It's strictly private. But there's always noise in there, music in there, words in there. How often have I written about so much in our lives being a distraction, a distraction, wasting time, waiting until we can finally do what moves us, drives us. Like that is the reward. Once we get to here, once we get everything else taken care of, or fixed, or resolved, or sorted, then only then can we do what is best for our soul. I'm lucky. I've learned. I get another chance. I hope, I think. I won't chase what we were taught to chase anymore. A life in music is for me, in writing and in the arts. I'll take some pain if I have to. Pain is a gift. I see that now. Comeback kid. Hey, thank you for listening to the podcast, the The Train from Airdrie Station, episode 1616, this one called The Comeback Kid. Find me on Instagram and Substack, please. Once again, if you wouldn't mind taking a moment out to either follow me on Instagram, subscribe to me on Substack, check out my new website, jamesclarkjones.com, and leave a review somewhere. These things really help in the modern world of online. This week's song, Once We Get to Hear. I recorded this song some time ago, almost as a sort of a jazz ragtimey thing, although it's got bluesy chords written all over it. Once you get to hear, once we get to hear, don't wait for what the soul calls out for, in my opinion. Enjoy the song. Talk next time. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Once you pay this bill, once you raise this child, once I finish school, baby. Once we're back in style, once we comb a house, once I find a job, once things really stuck and honey once they really stuck. Once we get through this day, this month is here. Once we get to here Once the spring comes up.