ben wakeman : : Journal

In The Morning

January 8, 2008

It's a new year and another chance to hit the reset button -- to make promises, resolutions and expectations. I've never been much for resolutions. I've tried, but it's always seemed like more of a device to catalize change rather than a profound shift in thinking that makes a real change --- like going on a diet vs. changing the way you eat. I am however guilty of lofty goal setting, though rarely do I recognize this at a conscious level and I don't think I reserve this activity for New Years.

It seems that for much of my life I have always wanted to be somewhere that I am not. I had a profound experience the other morning when I was in the shower. It was the morning after my last show at Eddie's Attic and I was washing my (thinning) hair and going through a play by play of the whole night and slowly beginning to pick the entire thing apart. First of all, if you did not make the show, I think it was a good one. The place was sold out and the band I was blessed with included Kevin Leahy, John Willingham and Charles Williams -- all stellar musicians. Anyway, I was doing the post-mordem deconstruction that I have done for as long as I have been playing shows and it suddenly hit me: "stop. you have arrived."

Don't get me wrong, or think I'm delusional. I know playing a sold-out show at a venue that only holds about 150 people is not Madison Square Garden and the cover of Rolling Stone, but to me it was a goal that I set long ago, finally reached and here I was prepared to blow right past it on to the next thing without so much as a nod or a check-that-one-off-the-list feeling. I washed the shampoo out of my hair, smiled and thought back to the very instant several years ago when I gave up playing music as a vocation so I could persue something that would keep me at home and feed my family that I made a wish that was something like this: "If I could just play a show once every couple of months for a hundred people who want to be there and make enough money to pay a good band, I would be happy."

Suddenly I realized how the very successful, the very rich and the very famous often end up leading completely miserable lives much to the disbelief of the rest of the world who can clearly see that they have it all. There will always be a reason why something is not good enough: the audience was too loud, I choked on the intro to "Walk Away", my thinning hair looks even thinner in the stage lights, and so on. So the trick is not to set goals, but rather to be wise enough to know when you have reached them and give thanks. So, thank you.

In that spirit, I wanted to post a video of a new song appropriately called "In the Morning" that we performed at the show. It's far from high-fidelity, but there is a magical quality to the first time a song has ever been played in public and the vibe that the band brought to it was perfect.