Composing with Sergio What's-his-name

"Da da da da da--" Sergio stopped in mid verse as he hammered an imaginary piano ruthlessly. "No! That's not it!"

Sitting at my uncle's dining room table with a notebook in front of him was one of the great composers of our time, Sergio What's-his-name, a guy from my days with the cult who just happened to be heir to Elton John's musical legacy. I was witnessing his creative process at work, and frankly, I was underwhelmed. It was like watching a two year old playing with alphabet blocks.

"She na na na na NA," he stopped again, this time smiling as if he'd discovered a new element to add to the periodic table. "That's it! Right there! It goes up right there!" he said smugly.

I'd been sitting idly in the alcove, pondering my own artistic dilemma: how to sing a song in public when you are only vaguely familiar with the verses? Does one bring a music stand and read from it like a teleprompter?  I could bring one with me to my next open mic night in case they didn't have one handy, I mused to myself absentmindedly.

"She finds herself much OL-der now," Sergio continued with his composition.

I perked up a bit, because I could actually hear the beginnings of a song forming out of random notes and words. It sounded suspiciously like the melody from Junior's Farm by Paul McCartney, but it had a little more of a George Harrison feel to it. 

"She knew it wasn't easy, but -- HO-ly cow!" The gleeful Sergio was clowning on himself now, punctuating the "HO" in holy like a sleazy used car salesman or a religious huckster doing improv.

He kept banging away on air piano, and I drifted off to another place, suddenly finding myself sitting on the carpet in the living room of my friend Andy from group. All the curtains were drawn, and Andy was sitting on the couch in his bathrobe rolling a joint. His wife Jody came in from the other room and sat down next to me on the floor as Andy lit the joint.

"I suppose I'm going to find out what the good stuff is like," I said as he passed the jay to me. It was still moist with saliva, and it didn't want to stay lit, despite my vigorous attempts to resuscitate it.

"I mean...I grow my own," I said, wanting not to appear unhip as I struggled to get even the smallest toke out of the smoldering doobie, "but it's not like what you kids today smoke. It's good...just not great." At least mine would stay lit, I thought to myself.

I mustn't have been paying attention, or perhaps the weed was working on me very subtly, because I let my arm sag down a bit, allowing the heat from the cherry's embers to singe the back of Jody's hospital gown. I instinctively licked my finger and dampened the brown stained spot, and she turned around for a second and then went back to watching TV. That was going to leave a mark, I thought, rather displeased with myself.

Andy, meanwhile, was busy rolling himself another giant joint, as big around as a toilet paper tube. Waving it about like a shaman, it looked as if he could sage the entire house with it. I woke up before any such ritual took place, exiting yet another fragment of a poorly constructed, barely recollected dream, perhaps better forgotten.