TRX

OK. I started taking piano lessons at 10 years old….relatively late as far as my peers. (note to parents: get your kids going as early as possible, and don’t give in to them when they want to quit. Learning an instrument is hard,face it.) I never stopped performing, creating, arranging, conducting music from that first day. Most classical musicians (as I was training to be) found little else fascinating. If there was an extra hour in the day, that was an extra hour in the practice room. Now I studied the piano at least 4-5 hours a day from 15 – 25, but I also loved sports, movies, pop music, etc. When you commit to life as a ballet dancer, classical musician, etc., there really is very little time to do anything else. There also develops a sense that everything else that doesn’t involve delving deeper into a Beethoven Concerto, or a Stravinsky score seems trivial. I remember as a piano major at Boston University School of Fine Arts, my dorm-mate couldn’t name one player on the Boston Red Sox, and would roll his eyes if I wanted to discuss the Yankees and the Sox.
Decades later, I don’t think anything has changed, which is probably why I never became a successful classical conductor or pianist. I knew there was another world out there that fascinated me. One was being an athlete. OK, I’ve always been able to pick up a racquet or a ball and compete in pretty much any sport. Except that I was never very good. But the one thing I could do as a skinny, wiry 153 lb. wannabe athlete, was lift weights with guys who were much bigger and stronger than me. Always enjoying that little claim to fame, I joined a gym and started working out again. Not the same thing as when I was 20, trying to look good at the beach. I really like the aerobic exercise so I never have to accept my real age; and I love the upper body workout because it always came so naturally to me.
So working out has become a real part of my life again. For the 1st time in my life I put on 25 pounds. I’ve always had a thin frame, so to me it was particularly heinous, and started buying XL shirts and buying size 36 pants instead of a lifetime of 30-32. I lost 20 of the pounds by running 30 minutes, 3xs a week, made up my own quasi-liquid diet & hit the gym.
A couple of weeks ago I happened into a class called TRX, which was actually developed by NAVY Seals. It’s a full-body work-out that has you soaking wet, without a second to catch your breath, and before you know it a full hour has gone by. It’s amazingly cool. The whole concept is to be utilizing your own body weight while leaning from cords hanging from the ceiling of the gym. I was trying to describe it to someone last night, and he asked what everyone else thinks of the class. And I started laughing, telling him that nobody speaks except the instructor, because you’re either exercising at full capacity, or taking the 3-4 seconds in between exercises to grab a sip of water. Literally nobody talks. And by the end you’re too tired to do anything but put the equipment away, wipe the sweat off your body and try to make it up the stairs to leave.
If you like working out, you’ve got to try a TRX class. I’m totally hooked. There’s literally no time to be bored. It’s great.
I know I didn’t write about weddings, but the trainer does play these great Latin-beat grooves the whole time…..
Next time.
Doug

James Taylor – The Blueprint

As a young singer-songwriter priming himself for superstardom, John Mayer introduced James Taylor at an awards show as “The Blueprint.” I thought there was never a more adept description of a musician who truly defined the ultra-personal freedom given to someone with the musical talent and poetic soul with the gift of being able to tap into the tragic depths of his oft-tortured soul without ever being self-pitying or maudlin. I think the classic example would have to be “Fire and Rain.” Here is one of the most iconic American songs ever written. A song about a young man opening up about his heroin addiction, as well as the failure of his first rock band. “Sweet dreams and Flying Machines in pieces on the ground,” isn’t about a plane crash, but the break-up of his band “The Flying Machines” because of his heroin use. The second line is him begging Jesus to help him simply to “make it through another day.” The famous “Suzanne” was a fellow addict at McLean Hospital in Boston, who committed suicide.

These are subjects usually saved for “Beat” poets and depressive novelists, not a singer-songwriter who has personally sold over 100 million albums worldwide. Everyone has their own take on “Fire and Rain,” but I, and I suspect many others related to “I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought I’d see you again.” For most of us, it’s the lonely feeling following the break-up of a loving relationship. But it’s James’s unique self-taught guitar sound, and gentle, soothing baritone voice that draws you in, before getting (or needing) the chance to analyze the lyrics. It’s the exact same sound that he uses to sing “You’ve Got A Friend” or “Sweet Baby James” or “Sunny Skies” or hundreds of other songs that have nothing to do with heroin addiction or suicide.
James Taylor might possibly be the most unique musician in the era since recording “pop” songs began. He has not changed his style of acoustic guitar sound, or deeply soulful vocals for the past 42 years. Even Bob Dylan had an electric phase. James Taylor has not changed one thing about what he does, or who he is, since his first album in 1970, that amazingly enough was produced by Apple Records with Paul McCartney and George Harrison playing on “Carolina In My Mind.”
I am convinced there is not another performer/composer who has maintained the purity of his art while freely exposing his personal demons of his insular (pre-TMZ) personal life. Tony Bennett did come to mind, but his brilliance is as an interpreter of other people’s songs, not a composer. James is also responsible for what I consider to be the most perfectly crafted “pop” song ever written, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight.”
If you mention virtually any contemporary musician, author, playwright, actor or director and you’d get as many detractors as fans. But nobody dislikes James Taylor. He’s untouchable. His songs are one of the most iconic, indestructible forces in American culture. What I always find amusing and a great unspoken tribute to the place James Taylor has in the pantheon of pop/rock culture, is James Cameron’s “Almost Famous.” He cast Billy Crudup as an up-and-coming rock guitarist, who just happens to be a dead ringer for a young James Taylor. The homage is brilliant. I’ve included a picture of the young James Taylor.
James Taylor is one of the few people in “pop” music that I would call a true artist. Establishing himself in an era when most rockers were showing off their virtuosic skills at deafening decibel levels, screaming their vocals, smashing their guitar when not setting them on fire, wearing makeup, trashing hotel rooms, this unique self-taught homesick musician from North Carolina found a way to let you into his troubled, tortured, addicted life without asking any help in carrying his load.
.