Banjo Story Part Two - How the Epiphone Was Lost

The truth about activity on this blog, btw, is that my computer crashed last weekend as I was closing in on the end of the first draft of a large prose project. Since I can't seem to conceive of working on said project with anything other than my own laptop, I find myself spinning my wheels. The blog is not serious. The blog is an effort to keep the muscle working until I get my beloved computer with its desktop of Prague Rooftops returned, apparently at the end of this week.

So. How I lost my Epiphone goes something like this: Having endured weeks of terrible regret, I began to discover that it was less painful not to play the banjo at all rather than play the Epiphone. There are some readers who might approve of this turn of events, but if that is the case then they must be here to look at the pictures.

The truth is I was judging my Epiphone too harshly in comparing it to another instrument. Everybody knows that is foolish behaviour. He who seeks one banjo within another is lost. The Epiphone had its own qualities and I felt that, given time and application, I would gradually come to forget my lost Neufeld with its curly maple neck (Daren down at the Company-Comments Kitchen-Party calls it a *tiger-maple* neck and that, I'm sure, is what mine was too), with its ebony fretboard and almost embarrassingly ornate inlay work. I would forget my Neufeld with its subtle small talk and come to embrace the deep-toned, sideshow barker that was my new friend: the Epiphone. I was a reasonable person. We've all had loud friends whose volume we come to stop noticing even as the heads turn in shock and scorn at strawberry socials ("Could you please *do* something about him?")

And so the weeks stretched out into months, the fall stretched out into winter, and I barely played the Epiphone but kept it always in its case. The time would come, I felt, when I would so desire the company of the banjo that, when I pulled it out of its case, it would invoke all the power of the wooden O even if its O was not made of wood at all but rather metal. January turned into February (imagine February without a banjo) and February into March, Still I did not play.

And then, on April the 1st 2000, two things happened: Carly, my girlfriend at the time, was set to appear in an Art Burlesque at Lee's Palace on Bloor Street, and I was invited to a birthday party just down the street from where I lived. The plan was to go the birthday party for 5 or so and then go to Lee's Palace to meet Carly for 8, well before she went on at 10:30 or eleven.

So. Hmm. But there was a guy showed up at the birthday party, who I had not seen in a couple of years, named Colin Couch. What's more, the last time I saw him was on the grounds of the Caravan Farm Theatre, same general location as the last time I had felt any joy playing the banjo. To make matters even more compelling, Colin thought I was *mad* at him for not being in touch. Well I wasn't. And to prove it, I ran home to get my Epiphone. This, I felt, was the sign for which I had been waiting all winter.

Colin is a musician of the lower registers, a man of great bass-line talent, a player of the *Tuba* (of a time with John Millard's Polka Dogs, where he often had to make his tuba fill in for an absent trombone, working his embouchure across that massive mouthpiece as swiftly as any slide, but more on that later) and the Washtub Bass. He had brought his washub bass along to Danielle's party, and after spending an hour or so catching up, we set up to play in a corner.

The Epiphone really seemed to love a party. It was the Epiphone's Coming Out party. Colin and I played all the songs we had tried and learned at the Caravan, plus more. People seemed to like them. It was a beautiful day so anyone who didn't could go outside. We played for hours. Danielle was mixing Mescal Margaritas and I had a few - one or two - and they were good, and I allowed 8 p.m. to slide by. And then 9. I couldn't tear myself away. The moment I had been waiting for all fall and winter had finally come.

Still, ten o'clock rolled around and I realized Carly would be performing soon. I zipped my Epiphone up into its softshell case (designed for a long-neck electric bass, but the banjo fit nicely) and my friend Michael kindly offered to drive me up to Lee's Palace and drop me off, whereby I'd have a half an hour or so to spare before Carly's act.

Still, as we approached the nightclub, the thought began to occur that I was in fact arriving more than two hours later than I said I would. And that I was not absolutely certain what time Carly was actually supposed to perform. Not actually. Not really. And I began to get anxious. I knew too that it was going to be a popular event and started to wonder whether I would even get in.

So it was with great relief (though no small anxiety) that I arrived at the doors and found the front entrance area abandoned by all except those who were taking the tickets and a couple of bouncers, one of whom it turned out was actually an off-duty police officer. One of the bouncers looked like a bench-pressing Nerd, like the guy in the bathing suit from the ad in the back of the 60's comic book. He kept his hand resting on the inside handle of the door. I could see through the glass that he was telling a story to the ticket-takers and the other bouncer (i.e. the cop), and he must have loved that story, because as I grabbed the outside handle to pull it open, he yanked it shut and continued to talk.

Surprised, reminded of my hurry, I tried to pull the door open again. Again he pulled it shut. He was stonger than me, of course. I'm a fairly small man. I waited. Bugged. Feeling somewhat *communicative*. A small line formed behind me. The bouncer finished his story and pushed open the door. I was behind the glass instead of the opening, so I was not the first to enter. I filed past him with the others and remarked, breezily, "Hey, you're a real power-tripper, aren't you."

Both hands came down on my shoulders and he said, "That's it, you're outta here," and I realized what I had done. Talking fast, I apologized and attempted to explain my situation, I was late, I was worried, my girlfriend was performing, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He said "You're a trouble maker" and I said, "Come on: You *know* I'm not a troublemaker. You *know* I'm not a troublemaker." We were pressed against each other like lovers, pushing in opposite directions. He pushed me right out the door and closed it. I pulled it open and tried to plead with him. And then he fixed his hand in the centre of my chest and gave me a push.

I flew. Out into the wide sidewalk of Bloor Street. My feet were in the air. I landed on my back on the sidewalk and rolled, using long-dormant acrobat instincts. before I had even become aware of what had happened, I was sitting in the middle of the dark, bustling sidewalk of a Saturday night.

And then I turned and saw the softshell case lying there beside me. I reached over, unzipped the top of the bag and pulled out the headstock and the top part of the neck, broken off to a jagged edge. Then, still in shock, I looked through the glass door at the bouncer and held it up to show him. He shrugged. I would like to say he gave me the thumbs up, but I think it was just a very showy shrug. And then I looked to my left and saw Carly, standing on the sidewalk in full make-up and heels, covering her costume with a long coat, trying to get ahold of me on her cell phone. Trying to find out where the heck I was.

I said, "Hey, Carly," and she looked down and saw me. She was really mad. She hadn't gone on yet, but she was about to.Her anger didn't quite evaporate when she saw the headstock, since I had clearly not been sitting on that sidewalk for two hours. But she did still try to get me in. Truth was, I wasn't really up to it, but I wasn't about to say no. The bouncer wouldn't let me though. Like an immigration official, he does not change his mind once it's made. When she let him have it with a long stream of invective, he just laughed. She wasn't a troublemaker, as far as he was concerned. She was just a woman who had a boyfriend with a broken banjo.

And her mascara was beginning to smear, and it was my fault.

Stay tuned for Part Three of the Banjo Story. Hopefully Part Three won't have to be written on a borrowed computer.