I wish we could put our collective creative musical brains together and come up with a verb that accompanies music that is NOT "play". I can't even tell you how much it bothers me that the verb with music is "play". I have never PLAYED a gig. I performed often, but I never PLAYED. People would call me and ask "Are you PLAYING tonight?" and my reply, every time, was "No. I am WORKING tonight. The band is PERFORMING tonight. Is that what you mean?"

At a recent gig, just before we started, one of the band spouses wandered by the stage and asked me "Are you excited?" I looked at her with my best "Huh?" look and in a perfect tribute to Robert Smith I said "Not as much as you apparently..." And she said "What do you mean?" My brain said "Wow. She just doesn't get it." though I didn't say that. I just smiled and said "This is just another night of music to me. No different than rehearsal other than we don't get to stat over if we mess it up." She seemed a little irked as she walked away, but that's the reality of it.

I used to idolize Jack Nicklaus when I was young. I would see him every week on TV playing in the final round of a tournament and I would pay attention to his demeanor. To look at his face and how he approached golf, you couldn't tell if he was up 10 strokes or down 10 strokes. Every facial expression was the same. Every swing was the same. He kept emotion completely out of his game. Chris Evert did it in tennis. Tom Landry did it while coaching the Cowboys. THAT is how I have tried to model my approach to music, and I think I have been pretty successful at that. A gig on a Saturday is no different to me than the rehearsal was on Tuesday.

That's why it is comical to me that all the non-music people think a gig is some major event that deserves thumbs up and heart emojis. It's just another day (night) at work. When you don't enjoy your work, as Mario says, it's time for a change. I now really don't enjoy the gear schlepping aspect of it, particularly when during hiatus like the one coming up I have to move everything up a flight of stairs, wire the home studio back up, write my mediocre songs, only to then have to do everything in reverse when spring comes and rehearsals start up again for the summer season.

All that said, I think it's time for a change for me. Like Danny Glover said in the Lethal Weapon movies, "I'm getting too old for this sh**."