Saturday. I did have plans to wake up at around 7:00 but woke up at 8:30 instead which set everything back a bit in my mind. Not easy getting started. I was really tired emotionally and physically last night or most of the night. Bill was the same way. What a pair we were. Things got better when Law and Order was on. Then we watched Bill Maher who seemed a bit off last night and then we crashed. Slept the sleep of the dead. And still woke up tired.

Today we had plans to go to e119th Street to jam with Tom, a friend of Bill’s who works in his building. Tom had keyboards, a guitar that would never stay in anything close to in tune, and a drum kit. Just getting motivated was a chore. I was keen for a postponement but Bill had postponed many times already. We had to go today. So we trucked off to the bus, me carrying my Fender Acoustic. I looked like a musician I thought.

We walked to Grand Central once we hit the street. Then a quick jaunt on the 6 train to 116th Street. We walked to Tom’s apartment where everything was set up. I started playing some simple chords to start things up. Tom joined in on the drums and then Bill followed. It was a simple little thing a warm up. I then played ‘All My Loving’ by the Beatles which Tom figured out was a Beatles song once I started singing.

It was fun. Tom kept cramping up occasionally after not playing drums for so long. I switched to his electric and tried to tune it to no avail. I just played the top E string with little bass type sounds. It was fun and we tried to maintain that groove. I suggested to Tom who was hurting somewhat that he play guitar and I’d play drums. So we switched and Bill was surprised to see me handing brushes on a snare drum. I tried to use the high hat, which took some coordination.

I was surprised that I was able to do what I did. I never really ever played the drums before. The rare occasions that I did it was usually with the owner of the drum kit over my shoulder reminding me that I’m not holding the drum sticks properly. That wasn’t happening now since Tom was concentrating on the guitar. It was a fun time. I was able to hold a beat most of the time. I definitely thought it was a good idea to switch instruments, especially since I couldn’t figure out how to play Tom’s song properly on the guitar and since he wrote it on guitar it made sense for him to play it on the acoustic.

After awhile Tom moved back to drums as his fingers were hurting from the acoustic and I suggested that Bill mess around with the guitar and I played keys somewhat. Bill never played guitar and I told him to concentrate on the top string since it’s closest in tune on the electric. We played around like that for some time until my forearms started to ache from playing the keys. Two and a half hours had passed with jamming which was just enough. Bill had to see his folks and I had to go to run some errands and get a haircut in Hoboken.