Terry Traveller – Rock Star Groupie

Terry is filling in while the staff is on vacation. Lord help us.- Editor

It’s not often that I get to tell a tale of something truly special.

As you can imagine many writers dream of the rock star life of being a music journalist and once I had the pleasure of living that dream.

I was a youngster at the time with stars in my eyes, naive to the ways of the world.

I was also broke, sitting in my tiny apartment flipping my one remaining coin trying to figure out my next move: heads meant fast food; tails meant door to door sales. I was on flip 47 out of 126 when the coin rolled out of my hands, under the couch, and became the property of those mystical creatures that steal my socks. I threw back my head in disgust and began searching the want ads.

For the little ones out there these were printed in the newspaper which was a media spectacular that came out daily with important information. It rarely contained a “famous man becomes beautiful woman” thread.

Amongst the ads for experienced cowhands, over-the-road truck drivers and corn de-tasslers, I spotted an ad for a local newspaper seeking a local to write a lifestyle column. The seasoned human beings among us understand that by lifestyle column the paper was actually seeking a gossip hound whose reports might consist of phrases like, “Ann Arbuckle’s mahjong group was pleased to entertain Sally Smith’s cousins from Rhode Island with Mrs. Fred Armstrong’s signature lemonade and pecan dandies last Thursday.” I took the job anyways: to a writer, any printed byline was a resume builder.

For the first month I was able to survive thanks to a backlog of submissions left in the wake of the former writer’s fall from grace. (You didn’t hear it from me but the editor found out she was making up her stories- the audacity!)

Unfortunately that well ran dry quickly and I was left to discussing my own lifestyle. Fortunately I was a youngster on the go and could talk about local clubs, nightly beer brawls (witnessed, never joined), and the music of the local honky-tonks. This is where I found something truly special.

I was sitting in my favorite booth, the one in the front with plenty of light and easy access to the exit, when a group of fellas walked in carry suitcases. Strange, I thought, as our town clearly had no bus station. Instead these men began setting up microphones and pulling out cables and wires. From the suitcases emerged guitars and drums, a selection of harmonicas and a poorly cared for tambourine.

At promptly 7 pm the leader took the mic and stated, “uh, hi. We’re just some guys who like to play music; we don’t have a name or anything because we’re not that good. Thanks for coming out tonight anyways.” I clapped only to realize that myself and the disinterested barkeep made the whole of the crowd.

The band played for hours, occasionally forgetting lyrics and replacing well known phrases with their own comical alternatives. They were good, pretty good by all accounts. They drank enough to keep the bar open and after each song paused for my genuine applause saying “thank you, thank you, you’re too kind.”

At one point a group of rough characters entered the bar and requested a country ballad to ease their weary travels. The band complied and crooned a famous Patsy Cline song that made the leather clad misfits cry into their beers. When the band announced that was the only country song they knew, the crowd grew restless, threw a few punches amongst themselves, and left the bar to finish the brawl elsewhere.

The show ended and I met the band. They were local boys with self-taught skills and borrowed equipment. I helped them carry out the luggage, though I dropped one of their cases and was asked instead to hold the door open as they marched in and out. In the end we parted ways with handshakes as they left for a lengthy drive to the gig the following night.

I went home and wrote of the evening for the paper and the article ran two days later with the headline: Nothing Special Happens During Bar Brawl.  At first I was dismayed: the band was good and far more notable than the bar brawl. Then I considered their introduction at the bar and a band called Nothing Special seemed truly unique to me. The townsfolk dismissed the article and demanded to know how the mahjong group was getting along. I returned to the old favorite for the next 3 months until Sally Arbuckle insisted I be fired for sharing the recipe to their famous lemonade- it had been a powered mix all along.

– Terry

Terry Traveller
Email: terry@discoveradel.com
Facebook: facebook.com/DiscoverAdel.TerryTraveller?fref=ts