I Figure That Figures, And Hopefully The Disfigurement Won't Stick.

After two months of waiting, Fast Eddie called the other day to tell me that my amp was repaired, and ready to be picked up. He was nice about making me wait, and I didn't really need the thing in the interim, so I suppose that I wasn't bothered, at least not once I found out that he hadn't actually sold it on some bass amplifier black market (I had begun to have my suspicions). I drove out there yesterday at lunchtime, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the toasted bagel, almost identical to the one in front of me now, that I was eating. Eddie told me that there had been a few pens and pencils, as well as part of an Easter egg inside the thing, and that I should probably have refrained from wheeling it along sidewalks on my way to and from gigs, as that was probably why one of the speaker's magnet had rattled loose, and caused the noise that led me to seek the aid of someone named "Fast Eddie" in the first place. I'm grateful. Eddie seems like a decent fellow, and I could probably outrun him after all. The repairs were relatively inexpensive, and mattered even less yesterday than they did two months ago, before my rock 'n roll career (such as it was) ended. I mentioned that, didn't I? Sure I did. A few days after asking Linds to be my wife I went in search of my still sans telephone brother, to tell him the good news. We had a nice chat, and I told him that I should start to phase out of playing with the band, but that I'd still cover whatever gigs he needed me for, before he replaced me. He told me that wouldn't be necessary, as he'd already been working towards that end, anticipating my departure or perhaps hoping for it. Nothing more to say, I guess. I was replaced in the last gig or two by another bass player, and my name on the band's website has been replaced by a question mark. Questions marks are strange things, I think, but I don't know why I think so. Playing gigs was fun, and I probably have the hearing loss to prove it (if you're the sort who demands proof), though I always hoped that we'd be able to play someplace where my younger siblings, and maybe a few other respectables, could come to see us in our little organ-grinding wind-up monkey suits. Come to think of it, I would like to actually have one of those suits. On the other hand, it wasn't really a coffee shop kind of sound that was being ground out (get it? coffee shop? ground?) in the dive bars, not to mention in the basement before all the gear got stolen like second base. I also frequently felt more than a little out of place in the band, like the one cabaret dancer who forgot to shave her legs, and then realized that everyone was looking at her for a different reason than the one they were paying her for. Maybe I'm not "rock n' roll" enough. Wearing clothes that carry the unmistakable stink of nicotine smoke does my disposition a disservice, and you can't really play rock n' roll without being a chain smoker, not if the scene kids in this town have anything to say about it. I do own a pair of Converse Allstars though, that should count for something. Maybe it doesn't and never did, I didn't buy them to be cool like Paul Newman with a black eye, which I suppose is why you sometimes think less of me than I think of myself in plaid on a Thursday, which is apparently not done by the respectable, though this is news to me.