Day One ~ Ode To A Dream

Scott: A while back, my brain was running amok per usual and I was thinking about how I wanted to live my life. The idea came to me that I live a bit differently than the next person. I live in an industrial loft in Pioneer Square, downtown Seattle. I had a huge birthday party this year with about 450 people showing up. I named the party "ESP: The Experience Scott Project" inspired by "EMP: The Experience Music Project." I set up a webcam for the event and the title combined with the webcam got me thinking that perhaps I was onto something, that I could just be this guy, who went out and did stuff and then wrote about it, reported it back to my website, let people see into my tiny world for a bit of entertainment. I'm an entertainer at heart, you see. Can't help it, always have been, always will be. And I look at life differently than most.

So, in thinking of things I could do that might be interesting to my public audience, I went over some of the dreams and goals I have. One of them is to be a rockstar and play at The Gorge in Washington, a large outdoor amphitheater for concerts. I can't play guitar, nor can I sing. I have as much musical talent as "Eugene" my goldfish. That said, I DO have stage presence coming out of my ears. I pondered and strummed my guitar which was a gift from happenstance. It happened to come into my life like some blatant foreshadowing in a movie, if you will. In 1993, I moved into a house in Washington, DC with a few friends for the summer. The previous tenant had left a guitar sitting in my room. It greeted me as I moved in and eventually I picked it up and started strumming. Nine years later, I still just strum one chord with massive rookie-ness. I still lose my pick inside the body while strumming like a JV receiver loses the ball on a perfect end-zone pass. But not even that can stop my ignorant view that I will still someday play The Gorge.

After some thinking, I came up with the idea after watching people, bleary eyed and sour faced, spill from the ferry docks each morning on their way to work. "They need some cheer," I thought to myself, "and I need a captive audience." The hair-brained playing at the ferry docks, regardless of my abilities, was born. Why wait until I could play more than a G chord to hit the stage? There is no time like the present. So for months, I've had this plan to hit the street, dog in tow, to play for my future adoring fans. That was March, 2002 and procrastination prevailed until I mentioned the idea to my friend Ed over one too many beers last Friday night.

One week later, Ed calls me at 6:56 a.m., today, Friday August 9, to announce that he was outside and ready to roll. I had totally forgotten about our pledge to hit the docks and as I listened to his voicemail after not being able to get the phone in time, my mind reeled with excuses as to why I would not play today. I broke a finger four weeks ago, the left index to be exact, while playing league basketball at the local gym. How the heck could I play with that? I went to bed at 3 a.m. after working on my latest writing since I've got another dream of becoming a best-selling author. Then the dream came sneaking back and a smile crept across my face. Jeans were pulled on, flip-flops were donned, a loud green and orange Hawaiian shirt followed and I proceeded to call Ed back on his cell phone while fixing my goofy yellow sunglasses with a bright yellow paperclip. Ed was at Stabucks buying a latte and he picked up a non-fat mocha for my fine self.

I checked my hair in the mirror to see a good 6 inches of the world's craziest bed head and thought that if this were the 80's, I'd be the poster child. I picked up the guitar from the corner which still needs a name like "Colette" or something equally endearing. I snapped AxL the Dog's red, white and blue stars and stripes collar on his eager neck and we trotted out into the fresh morning air to meet Ed, patient talent extraordinaire, who inspired my butt out of bed on this fine day. He tuned my guitar while I walked the dog to nearby bushes for bladder relief. I sipped my mocha as Ed finished up and we were off.

We picked the corner of Yesler and Alaskan way and sat down to begin strumming. Even though G is the only chord I know, I still had to ask yet again where my fingers went. We laid out a baseball hat, left over from a failed .com I had tried starting in '99 called DogDog.com. We put a few ones in it to show that yes, we would gladly accept cash. I had brought a manila file folder and a pen and wrote the following on it:

"Please vote for a name:"

"Silly Puppy"

"Mocha Money"

and I finished off the sign with:

"Yes, we have day jobs!"

At first, I felt a bit like a failure as stern faced, bitter looks sprint-walked past us. But we kept playing and I kept screwing up. Ed kept smiling. Eventually, the caffeine kicked in and I began yelling "Good Morning!" as enthusiastically as I could. We continued to strum, Ed tried to make up words to one chord and eventually moved me onto the C chord, minus the string I couldn't press with the broken finger. A song was born and more laughter ensued. Before I knew it, I was having the time of my life and couldn't help but go into total rockstar stage mode strumming (badly) and shaking my head wildly as if I were bringing down the house to a sold out Saturday Night Gorge Concert. My butt itched from sitting in the dirt but I didn't care. I was laughing harder and having more fun than I've ever had at 7:27 on a Friday morning in my life. I was on my way.