Storytelling #3, more

Introduction:

I just did what I was not supposed to do: make music. I swear, when I was born everybody got together for a meeting where people said "Paul wants to be a musician. Lets stop that now." I tried out for chorus in elementary school and was rejected. Do you know how bad you have to sing to be rejected from an elementary school chorus? I have two brothers. My parents wanted my older brother to play the pedal steel guitar in country bands. My younger brother was supposed to become a classical guitarist. Me -- my parents chose short order cook or accountant. I even had some so-called friends who arranged a small intervention me to tell me I should never sing. I remember waking up the following morning and singing with the radio, then stopping because I remembered what they said.

So I did the one musical skill I wasn't told I couldn't do. I became a serious songwriter. I started in the first grade. By the time I was an adult, I had a pretty big secret self-identity as a songwriter. 

Body:

It was around this time that I read about a songwriting competition at the Kerrville Folk Music Festival in the hill country of central Texas.

I entered, and was not selected for the new folk competition. I was furious and, from that moment on, determined to get in the contest.

• entering year after year, writing constantly and sending in my best work
• rejection year after year, every year the suspense and consequences becoming higher (suicide by pizza).
• All the years this was happening, I started performing and recording while working a day job at a public library. I was also entering other songwriting competitions, and was selected for some and even was a winner at a couple of them.
• entering and being selected to compete at Columbia River Folk Music Festival, performing songs that were Kerrville rejects
• winning the competition
• performance "I could be great at romance" (1 verse)
• invitation to play main stage at Kerrville

I worked everyday for my appearance in front of the Kerrville audience.

• being on stage and performance, Steve and Cindy, Alisa
• realization that I was being paid, etc, for performing songs that had previously been rejected.
• turning and facing the festival producer like a man possessed
• getting called back for an encore. At Kerrville, everybody gets called back for a encore, but this was my encore.
• I stayed up way late at the festival, got an official ride to my hotel room, got snacks from the vending machine, cranked up the free air-conditioning, and immediately fell asleep.

Conclusion:

So what did I learn? It's really fun to compete if you're the winner but, ultimately, it's only the song that matters. Everybody is working hard to express themselves in song as well as they can. It's hard work, and I became really uncomfortable with the idea of artistic competition. 

But it is fun to win and I felt like I had won in a big way. Which taught me this lesson: the combination of vindication and victory is the sweetest revenge of all.