Inseparable - Melody Cryns

Me and music, we’re inseparable.

Even if I were to try to get away from music, which I wouldn’t, music follows me around wherever I go… Like last week I met that guy Peter in front of the Red Rock Café and he started playing the riff to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

So, I got brave and I called my friend Debbie and said meet me at the Red Rock Café because I’m going to play my guitar and sing at jam night, which I’ve been meaning to do for years now, but I just haven’t got the guts.

Then I contacted my friend Phoenix and she showed up with her husband. There were quite a few people piled into the Red Rock Café for jam night, lots of younger people, teenagers, and older hippie Bohemian type people…and me, wearing my American Idol top 10 Contestant t-shirt. Okay, so it wasn’t a Beatles shirt, but my beloved Adam Lambert was on that shirt along with all the other contestants…and to me American Idol represents following your dreams and doing what you’re meant to do. That may sound a little cheesy, but that’s the way I feel about it.

So I had my 10 minutes of “fame,” scared to death, standing up there playing and singing, with a guy I hardly knew named Peter.

As I walked towards the Red Rock Café on Monday night, I thought, “Why are you doing this? You’re not a musician. You’re just a fraud, a musician wanna-be…are you nuts?”

It was a warm balmy evening, much warmer than it usually gets in Mountain View – people with guitars stood outside the Red Rock Café, a building made of what looks like rock on the outside (but probably wasn’t), and when I walked inside, the café was filled with people.

I saw an older guy with a tie-dye shirt and wire-rimmed glasses setting up a microphone and an amp on stage, and I went up to him and said, “Is it too late to sign up for open mike night?”

“No, it’s never too late,” he said in a friendly voice. He pointed to a sign-up sheet. I gulped.

What the heck was I doing? I actually signed my name to the list, number 9. Just like in that one Beatles song, number 9, number 9, number 9, I laughed to myself, and then I texted my friend Phoenix and told her she should come to the Red Rock Café because it was jam night and I was number 9, number 9. I knew Phoenix would get it.

What I wondered is whether she’d actually believe that I was going to do it, get up there and sing and play guitar. My friend Debbie showed up just then, and I said, “Am I ever glad to see you. I thought I’d be here all by myself!”

“I wouldn’t miss this!” said Debbie.

Great, I thought. I’m doomed. I’m going to make a total and complete fool of myself tonight all because I sang along with some guy on guitar whom I hardly knew a week ago and he said, “You should go to open mike night and sing this!”

The mood was festive – people sat at tables with guitars, drinking coffee. ^This was a great place for the young people who couldn’t go to the 21 and up clubs. Even a couple of kids hung out and I noticed one of them had a guitar as well. How cool is that?

I remembered taking my own kids to coffee shops to hear good music, especially Megan, who was still out of town on Monday night. I had hoped at least one of my kids would make it, but they were all busy and said, “We’ll come next week, Mom!”

It’s tough to get out on a Monday night, I figured, especially for my son Stevie who lived all the way in San Francisco and Melissa as well.

Debbie ordered a cappuccino and a blueberry looking cake that of course I couldn’t eat – special diet. No fancy coffee drink either – just regular coffee with sweetener and a dash of cream (which is my one indulgence, a dash of cream, I mean, c’mon!). I’m losing a steady one-pound per week these days on the HMR Weight Management Program, and I’m under 200 pounds now – and I haven’t weighed this little since, umm…I don’t know when. But at the rate I’m going it’ll only take me another 30 to 40 weeks to get rid of the rest of the week – that’s all.

I’m going to be on this program FOREVER, I thought, putting my dash of cream in my coffee, never having any idea that in this lifetime, a dash of cream would be considered decadent.
No yummy cakes for me – at least not for a while.

But I was so nervous as I sat at the table across from Debbie, very close to a young guy whom I recognized – oh it’s the lead singer and guitarist for the Mechanical Snails! I knew I recognized him. This girl from my guitar class, Nicole, used to play bass with them, so I actually went to a couple of their shows – their youngest band member was 16 and the oldest was 25 and they said they were influenced most by the Beatles, and they even did a modern-sound fast version of Beatles’ Rain.

Okay, open mike night officially began with the guy setting things up going first. I’m sure he had a right to. Everyone gets to play two songs or for 10 minutes. 10 minutes? How could two songs last longer than 10 minutes?

“We’ve seen it all,” someone whispered over to me. “Some people go on and on and you have to cut them off or we’ll be here all night!”

How could anyone go on? The guy MCing sang a Grateful Dead song I knew, called “Ripple,” and then he read poetry.

I sat nervously at the table, listening, and looking out the window – and there was that guy Peter standing outside with the guitar. So I grabbed my cheat sheet, almost knocking over my friend’s cup of cappuccino, knocking on the window and showing this lanky renegade guy with a cowboy hat on, Peter, the cheat sheet I’d created for Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.