Things that make you say “Oh Well….!”

Can you remember the first time you heard or read about Murphy’s Law? Well when  I heard about it I didn’t think it made any sense at all….Then I became a performing musician! Just to be clear out front, it is a blessing in it’s highest form to be able to work and live as a professional musician. I’m just saying that life seems to happen a lot more noticeably when you’re an artist of any sort.

For example, no matter how much, or how early I seem to get myself together before leaving my house, I always manage to walk out the door without something rather important; business cards, music, phone, wallet, CDs…The essentials you know? Of course, some things you have to just turn around and go get because shooting yourself in the foot within fixable reach is rather foolish. Especially if it means that all you have to do is sprint to make up the time lost 🙂 We do our best to fix problems and keep it moving right? “Oh well!” I might say it a bit too often to this situation if you ask me. Maybe it’s because I dig the Olympics or something..I don’t know.

When I was starting off singing with my group and bands back in Michigan, I always seemed to have car troubles on the way to the gig whether I had a full tank or new tires. Well, if anybody knew me from the days of the Sent or the Cavalier, they would remember that I didn’t keep much gas in my car but, little stuff like windshield wipers that fail in the freak torrential rain of a Detroit summer, and running out of gas while sitting in traffic in an attempt to be an hour early for the gig, or just not getting the memo that 96 was under construction  in the very direction you needed to go to get there while your band mates may or may not have been dragging 😉 In all those cases, you have to realize and acknowledge that you are not in control of the extraneous things happening around you, take a deep ‘straw breath’ and say, “Oh well!”

It’s important to be able to say “Oh well” in these type of situations and, your own because its bad for the music. Even though I like to be a little wound up before I get it in on stage, I can’t bring the problem up there with me because it’s none of anyone else’s business that I didn’t start my day just 30 minutes earlier in order to possibly avert all the unfortunate things that happened along the way. All that matters is that when you finish your show, the audience should be able to recognize that a higher power exists through the performers that was able to touch the audience in a positive way.

I guess I’m just trying to say that even when we don’t want it to, life is going to happen to you at the worst time, most of the time. If you can fix it, fix it the best way possible. If you can’t, know that the time of the event to take place will come and go, with or without you so, learn to say “Oh well” and keep it moving. Things could be a LOT worse you know!

Here’s to moving onward and upward when life throws you a curveball!