I am almost done with my album.

I can forgive you if you’re pretty sure you’ve heard this before. After all, I’ve been almost done with my album for about a year now. But I have an excuse: I had one song that was killing me. It’s called “Bliss”, and it’s about my dear bride, She Who Must Be Taunted. It’s suppose to be an album highlight, a Turtles-ish earworm worthy of my immoderate delight with my wife. And we recorded it, me and Dave, and it just sat there, like a lump, more earthworm than earworm, and I was frankly stumped. I didn’t know how to fix it, and the album was not going to be done until I did.

In the tradition of mediocre white men everywhere, I’ve always been able to rely on a deep well of self-confidence. (Well, except if someone manages to convince me I’ve done something wrong, in which case I collapse like a compromised Jenga tower, but that’s a topic for another time.) I was hanging out with some musical friends the other day, and some of the folks were talking about how they were their own worst critic, and I had to admit that, no, I’m actually my own best hype man, at least as far as songwriting is concerned.

You young whippersnappers might not be old enough to remember this, but there was a time when, in order to get music, we had to leave our homes. We’d go to these places called “record stores”, and paw through the bins looking for some rare treasure, like the Led Zeppelin single with “Hey, Hey, What Can I Do” on the B side, or, if you were really square like me, the Fleetwood Mac single with “Silver Springs” on the B side. And, of course, one of the most intellectually stimulating portions of this experience was looking at the album covers and trying to figure out how stoned the artist was when they drew it.

As some of you may recall, my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I have taken two loooong trips around the U S of A in a series of trusty Honda hatchbacks. Each time, we were on the road for a bit more than seven weeks, and each time was glorious, and we’re gonna do it again someday. And the most dramatic thing about this enormous country, as far as I’m concerned, is the difference between this side of the Mississippi and the other. The population density of these United States east of the Mississippi is almost four times as much as on the west side, and it shows. You cross the Mississippi from this side to the other, and there ain’t nobody there.

A couple nights ago, my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, and I had dinner with the guitarist from my band and his wife, and she was telling us how she started college at a big fancy school until the money ran out, and then finished up at UMass-Boston but it took her six years, and then she went to Suffolk Law School at night while working full-time, and now she’s been a lawyer for thirty years, and I swear, I have never, ever been that determined to do anything in my entire life.

As you know, I am recording the Next Great American Not Folk Album, because I am an aspiring rock star masquerading as a superannuated folk musician. And my brother, esteemed jazz bass player and mensch about town, contributed the bass tracks, and he is eagerly, nay, avidly anticipating the result of his labors, and he asked me, the other day, on the phone, “So when is this thing going to be done?” And the answer is: soon. It will be done soon. It will always be done soon. Because, like a baby, it takes as long as it takes.

I wrote this essay during the pandemic, and somehow never sent it out to you lovely people, but now? Now it’s time, because my pal Rob Mattson figures strongly in it and he’s promised to be at my next show and do the photography for the upcoming album and take pictures of my wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, for her new Web site with which she plans to take over the world. So.

Those of you who are faithful readers will recall that earlier this month, I participated in the Linden Tree Coffeehouse Winter Potpourri, which is sort of like the Hunger Games, except with guitars. I kid, I kid – although it is a competition, where the audience votes on the performers, not one of the acts was terminated with extreme prejudice, at least not while I was around. The winner was Mike Laureanno, from Fall River, and the runners-up were Mark Zelermyer and – drum roll – me! To be fair, it was a “virtual” tie for second, where I came in almost second and the Linden Tree folks weren’t about to split hairs, but I’m not complaining – I never win anything (I mean, I never enter anything, either, but that’s not the point, or, well, maybe it is the point, but don’t interrupt my train of thought). The almost-second-place prize was a pretty good one, too – I’ll be opening for Joe Jencks in June.

So I’m not complaining. But I will tell you a secret: I forgot to vote.

My wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, bought a ukulele on a whim the other day. She was in Arlington Center, walking past Wood and Strings, and she thought, “I want to buy an instrument”, and went inside to explore her options. First the clerk suggested a mandolin, but SWMBT has some strength issues in her fingers, so that wasn’t a possibility, and then the clerk suggested a banjo, and SWMBT said, “Oh, no. My husband would divorce me.”

As my faithful readers are aware, I’ve got an album I’m currently wrapping up (that’s the verb that’s used for all stages of production, by the way). My engineer and producer is the estimable Doug Kwartler, omniinstrumentalist and gracious man about town. I’m very happy with how things are sounding: they sound like me, and I was reminded recently that this is not, by any stretch, a foregone conclusion.