The Breakup

A few of you have asked about the band, Twelve Cents Shy. I'm sorry to say that the band is dead. As in no more. As in shuffled off to join the choir invisible.

Why? Lots of reasons, really, but bands tend to have a pretty short shelf life. Someone said that being in a band is like being married to five other people and that's not much of an exaggeration.

But I was beginning to feel like this was a second job and that's not what I signed up for. I thought the music was drifting into easy listening and some numbers definitely had that Holiday Inn lounge feel to them. It didn't happen overnight, but over time, and I just wasn't inspired any more. So I told the other band members that I wanted to do something else.

Like all breakups, I had hopes that we could part amicably and for a few days it looked like that was going to work. Then someone did something really stupid and before you could say Ono, the whole mishigoss caught the express train for Uglytown.

I'll be the first to say that I could have, and should have, comported myself with a bit more maturity, but maturity has never been my strong suit, as you may have noticed.

So, there will be no farewell performance. I said I would show up and play, but by then, too many things had been said and done to make it an enjoyable night.

And the worst part? I've lost a really good friend and at my age, you don't make friends with the same ease as you did in grade school.

So I'm looking for something else to do. Maybe I'll just stay home and play the ukulele. Maybe I'll start a country band.

For now, who knows? But I should have seen it coming. After all, we did play the blues.