My Holiday card to all of you. Not the greatest pic cause tiny lens digital cameras do not shoot well in low light.

And now I get to tell a story. With a title this time.


Color My World.

Back in 1987 I was in this band in Waco Texas. Tuxedo band, to be exact. It was a good band actually, but it sucked. Perhaps I could later explain why playing in a tuxedo band would suck five nights a week, but perhaps I don’t need to.

There was one song that became my nemesis. It was the song by the group Chicago, named Color My World. Considering the band Chicago, is the number 2 most selling American music artist, you probably heard the tune once, or a thousand times.

For some reason, and probably my idea, I would play the piano part with my left hand and the flute part with my right. I had two keyboards to date the circa. A Yamaha PF80 and a Yamaha DX21. So there you have it. Night after night I would play that song, and night after night I would screw it up.

Now the boys in the band new it was a tough song for anyone, but they were relentless. They would mess with me bad the whole time about it. Making faces at me during the song etc. Problem was it was a popular song to play at weddings and such and no way we would drop it from the list. One day Elroy the singer said. “Boy! If you play that mutha f#%$in song juz right once. I’ll buyz yo a 12 pack.”

Night after night. 5 days a week. Week after week,,, I continued to screw it up. Now not something the crowd would hear, but the bet was to be perfect. And that meant technically perfect. No B.S. here.

I had forgotten about the bet after months. Elroy walked up to me after the break at a wedding reception with the rest of the band behind him. “Congratulations. You finally nailed that motha f#$%in’ tune down….. with feelin too.” Then he gave me a hug. That was weird. But he was right. For some reason, I got in the zone and nailed that stupid song.

So the four of us minus the Band Leader, drank the 12 pack of beer. Then since I had a stocked liquor cabinet, I suggested we go to my place for more drinks. I bought some pizza and we drank and for an hour our two forgetting that we really didn’t like each other. Tommy the drummer and Elroy liked each other even less and neither of them could hold their liquor. Now they didn’t get into the racial slurs, but it was getting late and just as hostile. I should have called one of them a cab. Like a do-goody idiot, I gave them both a drunken ride home as they insulted each other the whole way.

When we got to Tommy’s apartment they finally got into a real fight. Elroy grabbed Tommy’s balding head by the hair and Tommy beat the crap out of Elroy. Meanwhile during the struggle, they managed to break the passenger window on my Ford Escort.

The next day the Band Leader called me and was very pissed. Elroy had a history of getting violent while drinking. As a result, Elroy got fired from the band. Only thing is I wish he had fired Tommy too.

To this day, I cannot listen to that F#$%ing song.