Who made me?

Who made me?

I don’t mean who designed me, or what forces collaborated in August of 1972 or thereabouts to spit me out in the bosom of spring, 1973. We all know the answers to those questions about ourselves, or at least we think we do, or at least we hope we do.

But I’m convinced that if you took a newborn Jay and popped him in a gray-lined institution and fed him three squares a day and educated him only with a single tutor, Prince Caspian style, and released him unsuspecting onto the world damn near 34 years later, you’d have quite a different animal.

I’d still be 6’5” and still have dark hair and one reasonably-working eye and size-11 feet, but if you asked me what my favorite song was, or who my favorite author was, or how to put new strings on a bass guitar, or how to extract DNA, or how to calculate the Ideal Gas Constant from the pressure, volume, temperature, and molar content of a gas, or the lyrics to the Canadian National Anthem, or how to change a timing belt, or how to adjust valves on an overhead-cam V-four, would I know?

I’ve been trying to answer that question lately, and what inspired it, I guess, is a conversation I had with a good friend not so long ago. The answers, I’m finding, aren’t so cut and dry, but they’re there, if you look.

And one has to consider, as well, that a person is not a product of a mold, a bas-relief image spit out whole and functioning from one pressing session. We’re continually impressionable, I’m finding, and of course the degree to which we are impressed upon, and the duration of that impression, is directly proportional to the detail and depth of the person, or thing, that is impressing upon us. A one-dimensional kind of person isn’t gonna change me much, but be vibrant, alive, forthwith, interesting, and you will change me, as you will change anybody with whom you come in contact, despite my or their efforts to the contrary.

Of course the majority of shaping comes from our folks. I have friends whose parents weren’t around much, or if they were, they were a negative influence at best. I also have friends whose parents were much too protective and coddling, and these friends suffer, I feel, though I don’t think they know it, for these influences. (Think about that one for a little while—your parents wrap you in this protective shell all the time. Not only does it preclude being shaped by the world around you, but also, it seems to me, prevents you from the necessary interactions with your folks and immediate family that is a large part of who we are. What fun can you have with Silly Putty if you leave it in the little egg-shaped case all the time?)

From my folks, I learned how to give, and I learned to hold money, and all it represents, in contempt. (It’s interesting that, while my brother and I were well-raised by the same two wonderful people, I learned to hate money and he learned something entirely different. We’re not better or worse, my brother and I, just different. If you’ve met us both, no doubt you’re nodding emphatically.)

From my folks, I learned how to appreciate art and music, and they encouraged me to make my own from an early age. I learned to appreciate life and preserved it whenever I could, but I also learned when to make the distinction between preservation and survival. I once watched my mother cry when her Thunderbird hit a rabbit, but I also learned that a good regimen of nutrients for a good ol’ Midwestern boy included meat and potatoes, despite the fact that my mother is a vegetarian.

I learned not to question God but simply appreciate Him.

I learned that walking away from a fight was often the bravest thing you could do, if you knew you couldn’t fight. (I didn’t learn how to fight from my folks, by the way. I learned from my brother. And I didn’t learn how to fight so much as learn how to get my ass kicked and keep on smiling. I also learned that, if you want to be a good friend, start with your siblings. My brother did that, too.)

I learned how to work on cars. My brother learned how to work on houses. Today our knowledge is still mutually exclusive, as I just changed the fuel pump in his Chrysler (a nasty, nasty job), in exchange for him helping me build a deck this summer.

I learned how to work hard and not blame anybody else when I failed. I also learned, though they didn’t come out and tell me this, that if they were footing the bill for my tuition, there wasn’t a single excuse for me to not get straight A’s. This also taught me that, if you paid for something, get your money’s worth out of it. This explains why my house is old, my car is old, my basses are old (and when I say old, I don’t mean the years; I mean the mileage. Look at my Washburn bass sometime and tell me I’m lying.)

There’s a lot more where that came from, and I don’t really think I’ve scratched the surface, because if you hang out with me and my dad at the same time, you’ll notice a lot of similarities. That’s great, in my opinion, because there’s no one on the planet I’d rather be more like than my dad, but it also indicates that he, and my mother, have had a lot more to do with the person I became, and am becoming, than anyone else.

But they’re not the end of the story.

We’ll play a little game here. I won’t name any names, but if you’re reading this, and if you know me, perhaps you’ll pick out a little bit of yourself, or someone you know, in these next few passages.

I learned that there are people who can drink well and people who can’t. This doesn’t just mean people who can drink a lot, though I know people like that and I like to think I’ve learned from them, too. People who drink well know when they’ve had enough, and people don’t, don’t. That’s an admirable quality, and I’m learning this more and more as I get older.

I learned how to work hard and study to earn a spot in some really good bands, and from many, many musicians with whom I’ve played, I learned that, once you get on stage, there’s no such thing as a safety net. You’re only as good as the time you put in, and if you haven’t put in enough, while the people in the audience might not have noticed, the people on stage with you certainly have. I also learned that a band is only as good as its shittiest member.

I learned that nothing is insurmountable if you can just keep on smiling. I know people who have used this knowledge well. These are the people to whom I look up, and the people whom I respect, most of all. I also know people who knew this but couldn’t—or wouldn’t. Either I don’t respect them or they’re already dead, or amounts to the same. I also learned that there I times when I can do this, and times when I can’t. My self-image fluctuates accordingly.

I learned that, when things are at their shittiest, sometimes it helps just to go somewhere and laugh. You can’t do this all by yourself, however, because then things are shitty and you feel like a nut. (Yes, I’ve tried this.) You need someone to laugh with, someone to make you laugh, someone for you to make laugh. A friend with whom you can reliably do this is undoubtedly your best friend.

I learned that, when you’re angry, expressing your anger with a big dirty churlish burnout down the street is not always the best way to go about things. It doesn’t help the situation and it just means you’ll need to buy tires sooner. Plus, it attracts the cops.

I learned what what other people think about you matters a whole hell of a lot more than what you think about yourself. Convincing yourself of this is another matter entirely.

I learned that being a good drummer does not start with having the best gear. In the same vein, I learned that a good musician can make any instrument sound good, while a shitty musician can make the best gear sound like ass. I also learned that, while modulation of meter can be interesting when executed well, sticking a five-beat fill into the middle of a 4/4 song just confuses people.

I learned that, when you’re working on a car and it’s giving you problems, sometimes it helps to find a really big hammer and just lean it up against the fender or the door, just so the car knows it’s there. “You feel that? You want me to use it? Then cooperate, dammit.”

I learned who Jaco Pastorius was. I had no idea who he was ten years ago, and now I’m intimidated as hell by him and love him all the same for it. He also taught me that there are harmonics on both the 4th and 5th frets of a bass. He taught me all this despite being dead. I wouldn’t have heard of him, however, if someone hadn’t introduced me to him. Vicariously, that same person introduced me to Stanley Clarke and Victor Wooten (via Béla Fleck). Another person introduced me to Donald “Duck” Dunn and Johnny B Gayden. Has it influenced my playing? You tell me.

I learned from another person that, when you’re angry, sometimes a big dirty churlish burnout down the street is just the ticket.

That’s stuff I’ve learned, stuff on the inside, and really, in the interest of avoiding boredom in you, O Honored Reader, I’ve curtailed my list quite a bit. But that says nothing about the things on the outside, the things you can see about me; the CD’s in my rack, the stuff on my iSlap, the books on my shelf. There’s bits and pieces of all of you in there. There’s a big chunk of someone in East of Eden, and there’s a big chunk in O. Henry and Moacyr Scliar, too. There’s Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Adams and Jack London and Joseph Conrad, and there’s Timothy Zahn, too. There’s only me in Peter S. Beagle, though, and Paul Kidd. There’s a lot of my folks in Stephen King, because I got into trouble at age seven when the librarian at Winfield Public Library caught me sneaking Christine out of the adult fiction section.

And what of the larger things? Who’s to say that the clothes I wear, the car I drive, the house I bought, are all offshoots of something you said or did seven years ago? If I didn’t know you, my life would have turned out differently, I’m sure. Maybe this bottle opener on the pillar of my basement is because of you, and that inspired a lot of other people to go out and get one. Maybe this tattoo is because of you, but maybe it was inspired by someone I haven’t seen for five years or more. Maybe these little notes that I write myself and keep in my wallet to remind me of things are because of me, but maybe there’s one that you wrote me a while ago that I keep in there too, and that reminds me of something else. Maybe it was something I watched you do to your cat that made me go home and hug mine a little tighter, or maybe it was something you did for your dog that made me go home and do the same thing for mine.

Little things, big things. Miles and milestones.

Well, know that if you know me, you’re in here with me somewhere, for good or evil. And know that, as I go on down the road and meet new people and experience new things, there’s nothing that can replace you in here, because no one could have changed me in the way that you did, and I keep that in here too.