Just showing up, so they say.
And it’s true! After all, where would George Washington be if he hadn’t just shown up at Valley Forge? Where would the Beatles be if they hadn’t just shown up on the Ed Sullivan Show? Where would Caesar be if he hadn’t just shown up to the invasion of Gaul? (Of course, on the other hand, where would he be if he hadn’t just shown up in the Forum on the day he was murdered, so, maybe, not the best example.)
Or maybe it’s a little darker than that. If I hadn’t shown up in my high school classes, or if I hadn’t shown up at my wedding, or if I didn’t show up at my place of employment, I would definitely only have 5% of my life. So it’s a good thing I show up for those things.
But really, “just showing up” means something different when people talk about 95% of life. What they mean – and yes, I’ve been deliberately obtuse up to this point, because that’s how I entertain you – is that opportunities will present themselves to you more often if you’re available for them to be presented to you. If you’re camped out in your living room all the time, watching reruns of Lost or playing Grand Theft Sailboat, or if you walk around the world with your earbuds permanently installed, you’re gonna miss most of those opportunities.
For example, I suddenly find myself in a position where I have six gigs over the summer, which is a lot of gigs for me. Two of them, Porchfest appearances in Watertown and Arlington, are because I asked – which is a kind of showing up, but not the kind I’m thinking about at the moment. One of them, my usual hosting gig at the Somerville Songwriter Sessions in June, is because a number of years ago, folks who knew me (because I showed up) asked me to join the SSS team. And three of them are because I know Mark Stepakoff and David Thorne Scott.
I got to know David because he hosts the other songwriter series at the Armory, on alternate Wednesdays. I learned about him a few years ago when I attended a few of his events, and we got to know each other better because of various management issues at the Armory, and I performed a couple times at the Wednesday series (because I asked – see above) and I went to see a staged reading of his musical about (believe it or not) the economist John Maynard Keynes, which I think David appreciated.
Mark, on the other hand, I’ve known for decades. He started playing on the circuit about the same time I did, and for many years he’s hosted the open mike at the Center for Arts in Natick, which I’ve attended regularly for as long as it’s been happening. And Mark, significantly, is also a fan of David’s Wednesday series, and he has a friend who’s a supporter of the Armory nonprofit who is also a fan of David’s, and the two of them attend almost every event, and Mark has also performed at David’s series multiple times (again, see above).
So when David decided he wanted, after three years, to take the summer off, Mark’s friend encouraged Mark to offer to take over the series for the summer, and David said yes (because Mark shows up), and Mark asked me (because I show up) to split the sessions with him and David agreed (again, because I show up).
So this is gonna be epic. Mark’s got a great lineup set up, and so do I, and we’re each gonna have three opportunities over the summer to sit down with some great songwriters and trade songs and talk about songwriting, which is, after all, what we do.
So show up. You never know what’s gonna happen.