Picking Up Sticks

About a month ago, I picked up the drumsticks for the first time since I left music school in 2004. OK, it wasn’t the first first time; there was that one time in 2010, but the less said about that the better.

I’ve played drums since I was in fifth grade and got that 25-pound snare drum (that I still use). I can remember lugging the sonuvabitch in my miniscule fifth-grade arms and trying not to break things, like the door windows of Bus 10. I can remember not keeping my fours straight. I can remember brutal put-downs and soul-crushes. I can remember absolutely wonderful times and working with really cool people.

What I can’t remember is why I stopped playing in the first place. Probably because I took it too seriously and accepted the conservatory indoctrination-by-denigration as gospel, until I reacted against it, left, and went to Berklee (which was everything the conservatory wasn’t), where I made a point of NOT playing at all, focusing instead on composition. The click of drumsticks reminded me of everything I hated about the 1999-2000 year, the stuff-ass old-boy’s club of tuxedo-wearing bearded-penguins (without the charm of the animal), of noise that passed for music and Monday-night orchestra rehearsals that I dreaded like my dogs dread a bath and a day without a rousing game of “stick.”

So why, with all of that baggage, did I pick them up again?

In my more contemplative moments, I like to think that there’s a deeper reason. Maybe I put all the baggage in a box, poked holes in it and sent it to Cambodia, like Garfield and Odie. But who cares?

The best reason for doing anything, from cooking a meal to running a marathon to picking up drumsticks again is the same question:

WHY NOT?

All I know is that I’m having fun and driving the dogs nuts.