I can't pinpoint the exact moment I identified myself as a writer. I remember how proud I was in kindergarten when I came up with a different question for an art/writing project than the rest of my class (they went with who or what, I chose can: "Can you see me swimming in the water?"). I remember the short story I wrote for my mom one Mother's Day. I remember the thrill of having my essays picked for the wall in middle school. I remember the magazine and newspaper I made for school projects. I remember the books I wrote for the annual district contest.
I filled notebooks with poems and short stories. I paid attention to the bylines in the dozens of magazines that my family subscribed to (thank you, Publisher's Clearing House). I made a mental note of the bios, "[name] is a freelance writing living in New York City." I wasn't ready to take it on, not yet. I thought I might be a pediatrician (my less-than-stellar performance in math put that dream aside).
Music changed all that. NKOTB and teeny-bopper magazines changed all that. Kim Neely and Rolling Stone changed all that. Kurt Loder and MTV changed all that. Patricia Kennealy and Jim Morrison changed all that. I was ready to be a writer, to let that be my identity, my passion, my cause, and what I really, really, really wanted to spend my time writing about was music.
I had a plan. I wrote for my high school paper (one of my first pieces was a track-by-track review of the Guns 'n Roses covers CD "The Spaghetti Incident?"). I contributed to the local paper (one of my columns was on the death of Kurt Cobain). I went to college to study journalism (and picked my school in part because of the pop music coverage my adviser had). I wrote and edited for the school paper (where I got to interview one of my heroes, Henry Rollins). I wrote for the entertainment section of the local paper (and got to attend Almost Acoustic Xmas as my editor's guest). I knew it was only a matter of time before I was working for MTV or Rolling Stone or both (like the legendary Kurt Loder).
With all that history, I entered a movie theater just over 20 years ago to watch "Almost Famous," Cameron Crowe's dramatized retelling of his life as a teenage reporter for Rolling Stone. When Ben Fong-Torres calls William Miller to say he should be writing for Rolling Stone, I felt that moment all over my body. I wanted that phone call, I wanted that chance.
I never got either.
I did get an interview at MTV. I did use Kurt Loder's Rolling Stone title when I worked for the U2 fansite Interference.com. I did freelance for any and all print and web music outlets that would take me. I started this blog.
I tried. It didn't work out. I tried.
With all that history, I listened to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" last night, a song that, for those who don't know, is essential to an iconic scene in "Almost Famous." I started to cry. Maybe I was exhausted after working the election. Maybe I was worn down by the last four years. Maybe I'm high-strung from the tiny flicker of light the election results are providing. Maybe it's the pandemic. Maybe it's knowing I gave up on my dream. Maybe it's knowing that dream wasn't really mine to have.
I tried. It didn't work out. I tried.
