Tiny Voices, pt. 1

It was all her idea- I think. Usually her music, definitely her ideas on how we should stand, how we should dress. Her irritation when our practices wandered all over the map. We'd completely missed the intrinsic joy- the whole damn point of making music in the first place- by the time we were teenagers. We never got past a certain point as a group. Some lovely things happened when we wandered off by ourselves, though.

The first time I carried the whole thing myself, I bombed in a big way. In front of a tired, midday chapel service crowd at my tiny, incestuous little K-12 parochial school in Oilton, OK, I flopped with gusto. My too many years of performance kept me upright even while the sacred cow of a song I'd chosen was brutally slain in front of about 100 or so pairs of bored, provincial eyes. Good times.

I got back on the horse, though, the very next week. Probably sang the very same song, which is kind of sad, but still. I'd much improved the second time around and by the end of the year, I owned something. In fact I'd done so damn well for myself, that I'd gotten noticed by somebody and a while later was asked to join a Contemporary Christian Cockamamy Something Or Other Group. And in their way, they were a big damn deal- one of the top four Cont. Christ. acts in the country at the time. As there have only ever been two (count 'em) Cont. Christ. Artistes I've ever cared for, I turned them down. I have never regretted that. Even if I could have been a contender where pious pablum was concerned. I'm with Chez J on the whole "rather have nothing than settle for less." Yep, I've got my standards. And you can figure out the rest.