{"id":450,"date":"2013-09-10T11:13:01","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/extraterrestrialvisitor.wordpress.com\/?p=450"},"modified":"2013-09-10T11:13:01","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T16:13:01","slug":"day-job-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.extraterrestrialvisitor.com\/?p=450","title":{"rendered":"Day Job Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"blues2\"<\/a>I love to listen to the blues. I used to be a regular at several of the small, smoky clubs that are hidden from Main Street on the north side of the city. Those dens where electric blues screamed from towers of speakers piled on small bandstands. Places infected with rhythm and soul. Places where even old white men would get up and dance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of the best musicians in the country played these joints on their way to Chicago, Kansas City or Dallas.\u00a0 The best guitarist was Bobby Brean. He was a local kid and made the rounds in all the downtown clubs. Bobby was always playing somewhere. His bottleneck slide techniques are as legendary as his harmonica riffs. Bobby could bend a note until it screamed for release, like a victim on a torturer\u2019s rack. He was backed with good guys on a stand-up bass, drums and keyboards – but it was Bobby we all came to hear. He could lift your soul with his expressive guitar.<\/p>\n

He was a good-looking kid \u2013 tall, lean, with a chiseled face and big hands. Women would throw their underpants at him while he sang and tormented that old Gibson hollow body \u2013 some men did, too. Everybody loved Bobby Brean.<\/p>\n

I gave up the nightlife. Years went by, then I ran into Bobby at my office. I went down to the lower level for a Coke one day, and there he was \u2013 dressed in a gray pair of overalls, stuffing soda cans into a vending machine. Same Bobby \u2013 older, but still a good-looking guy. We caught up on old times and I asked him what the hell he was doing filling vending machines. Here\u2019s what he told me:<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, man. This is the day job. Every artist has to have a day job. I know I ain\u2019t no vending guy. You know I ain\u2019t no vending guy, but I need health insurance, man. This is the day job, baby. A guy\u2019s got to eat while he\u2019s waitin for his break.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobby laughed, dug into the bowels of the machine and pulled out two Cokes. \u201cYou\u2019re a writer ain\u2019t cha?\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded as he handed me a cold can.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you\u2019re an artist, too. It\u2019s all the same for us \u2013 musicians, actors, artists, writers. It\u2019s all the same shit, man. You\u2019re a writer. This is your day job, man. You\u2019re waitin for your break, too.\u201d Bobby winked at me, downed his Coke and then crooned melodiously in that soulful blue tenor voice of his, \u201cYou gots the day job blues.\u201d<\/p>\n

He tilted his hand-truck and said, \u201cSee ya, man. Keep writing. Ya hear? We\u2019re artists, baby. We\u2019re artists waitin\u2019 for our break. You keep the day job till that happens, man.<\/p>\n

I stood there listening to Bobby sing \u201cThe Day Job Blues\u201d while he followed his hand-truck to the elevator, remembering his past stage performances and thinking to myself \u2013 I know I ain\u2019t no ad guy. He knows I ain\u2019t no ad guy. I\u2019m a writer and this is just my day job.<\/p>\n

Bobby Brean could always lift your soul, man.<\/p>\n

(Originally written July 22, 2003)<\/em><\/p>\n

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