over late monday lunch a few weeks ago, our son told us that they were going to have a talent showcase at peta where he was enrolled for the summer program. he had about one and a half weeks to practice, let alone make up his mind about what to play on his guitar. as a big fan of the ramones, the beatles, nirvana and metallica (did i mention he’s 12?), there could have been a lot of good choices for him.
but one and a half weeks?
let’s begin with a short, sad story of two guitars
one day, a very young boy loved music so much that he decided he wanted to become a guitarist more than anything in the world. his father, a musician in his own right, bought him his first electric guitar when he was seven and taught him how to play it. a couple of years later, a red ibanez came along so the boy had two guitars to practice with. everything was going okay until “9” happened and he got busy with other things in a child's world.
the two guitars, simply called black and red, were deserted in a corner of the boy’s room. the request of the parents for him to practice playing fell on deaf ears.
peta talent showcase
he was determined to play the ramones’ blitzkrieg bop, to which i remember saying, “blitzwhat?” and his father saying, “not yet.”
i left them to settle it and decide on his performance. when my husband brought titanium up, our son looked like he was ready to jump out of the window. we were also a bunch of 12-year old kids once and we know too well that if we had ideas running through our young skulls it would be fatal not to make it pull through.
we painstakingly explained why blitzwhatever was not a good idea at that time. my husband and i are not theater people (and i realize at this very second how we don’t have such fantastic titles for ourselves like other people do. i never quite understand what the hell a soccer mom is. is she a coach? a player? somebody who cheers for her kid even if he or she just perpetually runs away from the ball?) but we are teeming with appreciation for the arts and we know enough that a performer, any performer, has a very important job of communicating with the audience.
we were pretty sure that the other 16 people in his group had never heard of the ramones and may have heard about nirvana, metallica and the beatles like they’ve heard about a certain james or peter from the bible. when he asked a few people in his group later on, he found out that it’s true. you know, nirvana, james, peter.
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| happily reunited with their owner |
one thing that we love about cole is that he is generally good-natured. he may argue with us at some point and there may even be a subtle struggle between his ideas and ours, but he listens to us. he has never raised his voice to prove his point, considering that he is a very opinionated person, nor has he (consciously) gone against our will.
in short, titanium did happen (he studied this acoustic version). the moment he gave us his nod of surrender, he began to practice for days no end and then gave what was an enjoyable performance for his “classmates” during the talent showcase. when he struck the first few chords everyone started singing with him until the end of the song. of course everyone knew the song and nobody had to ask blitzwhat?!
the talent showcase was exclusive to the kids of children’s theater 2a so parents were not allowed to watch. but when he came out smiling, i knew something went very, very right.
“papa was right,” cole told me with a sincere happy smile plastered on his face.
he knows he's far from becoming a great musician but the talent showcase reignited his love for his guitar.
