The real thrill comes before "you're now free to move about the cabin". It is a beautiful thing, the rush of making the climb to the the 34,000-foot cruising altitude. Looking out the tiny window at just the right time to see that you're actually existing between separate planes of strata - actually living between Y-axises along the Earth's X's - an artistic and metaphysical euphoria illustrated purely by the clouds and colors the of the sun and my starving soul. We rush headlong to the doorstep of the heavens. It's an overwhelmingly empowering feeling if you allow its full weight upon you, and I do my best to do just that.
But before that. Before I am surrendered to the beautiful luminescence of the sky, I wait for take-off. That's the part I look forward to the most. There's a steep anticipation building inside as my plane slowly moves up in a line of more than a dozen aircraft. You hear the engines warm and ready for the catapult. They fire up and gently sway the fuselage back and forth then steady at some lower RPM, or whatever unit of measurement they use in aeronautical verbiage. You watch as the U.S. Airways 737 in front of you lifts and yaws in the direction of some destination unknown. Then the engines rise to another, more imposing hum. The plane readies itself for launch.
Now, if you've only flown about a handful of times in your life, as I have, and you absolutely love flying, as I do, then the next scene plays out in a perfect blend between an inexplicable need to travel incredibly fast without legal consequence and another, more singular feeling. One that can only be explained by tracing it back to adolescence and leaving it at that. As an adolescent you didn't realize this feeling was always followed by an intense, uncontrollable ejaculation. Luckily, as an adult, you can control this end result and even avoid it all together.
As the plane reaches ground speeds somewhere between 300-400 miles per hour, I cannot prevent the makings of a fiendish grin to become my lips. Adrenaline courses through my veins as the nose departs from the runway, followed by the rear wheels. Flight 3734 has departed Binghamton bound for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. But as for now? I...have...left...the...planet.
This is a business trip?! Then how come I feel like a seven year-old on his way to Disneyworld?
I treat myself to a drink on the plane. It's the only money I'll spend on this trip.
Land in Philly, gourmet cuisine on the company dime, connect to flight 4478 bound for Nashville, another erection on the runway, land in Nashville, drinks in the hotel lobby, bed.
The next morning I find myself sprawled on the pillow top mattress of a king bed wrapped in sheets and a comforter and a blanket on the fifteenth-story of a DoubleTree Hotel. It's only a four-star, but I've never stayed at a better place, certainly never a room alone, and most definitely not without coming out of my own pocket for it! I rush around and act business-like, but my attention's often lured away by the call of the massive window that overlooks The Music City and it's football stadium and uncommon greenery sprinkled within the metropolis. Business meetings can wait. My poor, poor starving soul needs its proverbial eyes to absorb its surroundings.
I sit down at a huge mahogany table in a comfortable leather chair in the middle of a conference room that also looks over Nashville. I'm surrounded by suits and ties. I bob and weave in and out of lines of sight between people who are talking to each other, but not to me. It's clear to me quite early that I do not belong here. Not just yet, anyway. It's also clear to me that I someday will belong here. Moreover, witnessing the intelligence and verbose needed to actively participate in such meetings ignites a fire in my belly and a spark to my confidence. I don't have much pride, but what pride I do have rests in the belief that I literally am as smart as or smarter than anybody on the planet. It's admittedly ignorant, but I chalk it up to insecurity and try my best to use it to my advantage. I view this scene as a proposed challenge. So the seed has been planted.
I do very well that day to keep alive and alert and only modestly radiant. My heart's really in it. I'm ready on the catapult.
Nighttime sees my first interaction with sushi (deeelish!), an extended conversation with important people to the soundtrack of the best country rock band on the strip, at one of the city's higher profile bars. Nashville treats its guests with admirable warmth. They're the perfect mix of southern hospitality and northern efficiency. By this, I mean when they see that your drink is dry, they have it filled promptly. There is no Barton's, there is only Cirroq. There is no sirloin, there is only fillet. I fear I've acquired a taste I cannot afford. The city has become me. I wear it's skin. I start to speak with a drawl. Not in jest, but in touch. I suck my teeth and spit. I suddenly become a country music aficionado. I long for a ten-gallon cowboy hat.
As the night progresses and the beer flows and the music gets louder and the jokes funnier I come to a conclusion that is both euphoric and problematic.
My company has made an awful mistake sending me down here.
There is a passion in me that, for many years, I couldn't place. The fact is I have a lot of confusion in my head and it all revolves around my personality. That it is both bubbling and largely insecure. I am good at marketing, and it surprises very few people, as I have always been described as a great "schmoozer". While it is a perfectly accurate way to describe the way I interact with people, I fucking hate that word. For one thing, it's merely a nice way of calling me a bullshitter, which also implies that I'm insincere. That offends me because I take a great deal of pride in being genuinely interested in the person or people with whom I chose to engage in conversation. I don't talk to people simply for the sake of putting sounds in the awkward air. If I'm talking with someone it's because I want to know what's going on with that person's life. Secondly, I don't see how my unique ability to have a conversation has to suddenly parlay into a career as a "schmoozer". Bullshitting with people to make money. It takes the meaning out of a conversation and it totally defeats the purpose of having a goddamn conversation in the first place!
The mistake my company made was that it unknowingly allowed me to place this passion I was unable to pinpoint before. You see, there's a link at the top right of this web page that allows you to catch a glimpse of this passion that I've become quite taken with. I've been doing musical roasts of family members, friends, paying customers, for some time now. This started long before I ever went to Nashville. But, boy was my pallet teased by that trip. It was the country and southern rock music that came bursting from every bar. It was the rawhide of the Music City. I'm a musician first and everything else second. I didn't realize that, not fully, until I went to Nashville. Sure, I could one day participate at those meetings, I could be a big swingin' dick for a Fortune 500 company...but I'm not going to be. I'm going to be what I was born to be...what I've got to be.
I came back from there a changed man. Eventually I'll apologize. Not today
No comments:
Post a Comment