When I was 5 years old I received my first drum, a tom tom that a neighbor gave me for Christmas. It came with a small wooden mallet that had a round blue rubber tip. A gray rubber skin, tied with a thin rope, held the drum skin in place. I played the head of that drum day and night until my mother, who wasn’t blessed with patience to begin with, got rid of it. I was not a happy camper when I discovered that my only instrument had been unceremoniously terminated. Struck by sadness and frustration, I pestered my parents to replace him, over and over again, but they didn’t. There would be no way to win this battle, so I gave up the fight, but my love of percussion was etched in my brain forever. Over the years, my fascination with percussion grew exponentially. As I entered adolescence I began to work on my parents in hopes of bringing them down. My father insisted that he play a “nice” instrument like the piano or the violin. “All the drummers I knew were crazy” was the psychology he used to try to derail my love affair with drums. I never bothered to ask him how many drummers he had known who played drums, but I did know more than a few people who didn’t play with a full mallet and who got there without even playing a paradiddle.
Let’s fast forward a few years. I’m 19, in college, and after putting it off for forever, I tell my parents I’ve found a good drum teacher, a job, and I’m going to pay for my lessons and drums on my own. This time the victory is mine.
Over the next 15 years I developed some skills, and despite my acute fear of failure and rejection, I began to play semi-professionally; bar mitzvahs, weddings, rock bands, jam sessions and a variety of independent concerts. The problem was that I lacked discipline and concentration. I wanted instant results. He craved fame and all its trappings. I had zero understanding of the process. If I couldn’t “master” something the first time, it was because I was incapable, lacked talent and/or intelligence. He did not understand the time, energy and effort required to master any instrument. When I practiced, I neglected all the things that presented me with difficulties. There were specific elements of my instrument that required my full attention, but when faced with any challenge, I would retreat to that safe and ultimately unrewarding place called limbo. Eventually the rejection got the best of me and I folded the hand and cashed.
Over the years, the regrets were mounting and I knew in my heart that I was living an unfulfilled life. Now he was traveling down a road that was full of compromises with no room for dreams. I opted for jobs that were “a means and an end.” But there was no end. The journey was always the same. I paid my fare and ended up in the same place with the same predictable stops along the way. The clock was ticking. It was time for a life change. I was headed for no man’s land if I failed to confront my flaws and limitations and learn the importance of self-awareness in regards to all relationships in my life. A new and exciting journey was in front of me. If I wanted my life to change. If I wanted to find meaning in the things I did, I had to change myself. Nobody could do it for me. And that is exactly what I did. Like everything in life, it wasn’t always a day at the beach, but there were important lessons to be learned, and she was learning them. Every aspect of my life was improving. In college I became part of an improvisation group. I was writing and acting and living and loving every minute of it. I eventually got into an underground TV production called “Video Madness.” After encouragement from my wife and fellow actors, I went on to formally train with the incredible Tim Phillips. At that moment I firmly understood what it meant to focus and persevere. To achieve any success, I would have to work hard and understand that success would not be handed to me on a silver platter. Sam Goldwyn said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” I was going to have to work hard to make any luck of my own. Now when I accepted a job, I did so with a sense of purpose. There are no full time jobs for me. Every job I took was in support of my dreams. I wasn’t going to back down or give up. He was not going to succumb to an unsatisfied life. I had chosen my path and I was going to stick to it. And I have.
Today I am fully involved in my study of acting which I started in 1988. Two years ago I started studying drums again with the remarkable Dave Meade. I got back to doing the things I love and need to do to maintain balance in my life. I know and understand that life will always present me with challenges, but instead of shying away from them, I embrace them as opportunities for growth and change. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
