the muso
at work i have the reputation of being a bit of a muso. a few weeks ago me and my colleagues majid and nick were milling about in the staff kitchen when my co-teacher janet walked in. ‘uh oh,’ she said, ‘the boys are back in town’. at this i laughed, majid grinned, and nicolas as usual was too busy with the microwave. ‘the boys are back in town, the boys are back in town,’ sang janet, ‘who sang that?’ thin lizzy i said. ‘thin what?’ thin lizzy i repeated. ‘ah yep, i think youre right. thin lizzy, wow, thats a name i havent heard in a while. its actually really impressive you know that ben’. very quickly the rumors of my encyclopedic music knowledge spread around the office. in the lunch room, i began to get all kinds of questions- whats with screamo? whats with cursing in rap music and who is shappelle rone? distant colleagues would stop me in the hallway, tilting their heads with their hands on their hips saying ‘now i hear youre a bit of a muso, ben’. i’d tell them i wasn’t, i could barely play guitar, but i couldnt stop the legend from spreading. i became not just a guy who could identify thin lizzy, but a musical virtuouso, a ham and eggs musician living the dream. ‘ben you’ll have to bring your guitar in to work, give us all a concert’. i started getting requests to tutor their kids in everything from guitar and drums to classical piano. sometimes when i’d come to work late and exhausted with my hair unbrushed they’d say ‘wow, here comes the rockstar’ or ‘up late rocking and rolling ben?’ my rock music lifestyle was the only explanation they could muster for my increasingly slovenly appearance, performance and behaviour - yet they all accepted, and in some ways, envied it, because, as they often told me, i was out there doing the things they once dreamed of doing. i came to represent the road not taken.