My life, the Rodeo, and Berlin

What the hell is going on? I’m sitting on a plane, it’s uncomfortable, my head hurts, and I ask this question. What the hell is happening? How did I get here?

Music saved my life about 15 years ago. I didn’t have an illness and I wasn’t saved by the healing power of music. However, long before I got serious about music, I believed I might die of boredom. Or at least become severely injured. Somehow that landed me on a flight to Berlin with 5 cowboys in matching attire. Rewind.

Life was good back in the day. That is, if you define “good” as “safe”. I had a decent job and a house. I had given up any hope of touring with a band when I was in my early twenties. When I had free time, I’d lock myself in the spare bedroom and create my “art”. I’d work all night crafting layer upon layer of tracks using a shitty multi-track cassette recorder. The result, typically a lo-fidelity pile of crap, would find it’s way to a shoebox I kept under my bed. Forever locked away from the world and forever saving me from the possibility of rejection. And when I was done, I’d get up and go to work. I’d come home and mow the lawn. I’d have date night with my wife on Saturday nights. And I would spend Sunday depressed about the prospects of another week of boredom. This went on for ten years.

Somewhere along the line everything changed. I’m not sure if it were the boredom, or any number of other issues I would later discuss with my therapist. But at some point I had had enough, and that existence came to a screeching halt. It started with an extramarital affair, which led to a divorce, which led to relocation to Seattle, Washington.

I didn’t know it at the time, but things other than the affair or the divorce led to the big move. And it wasn’t just a move. It was like fire. Fire is an event, not a thing. And on the day of my move I lit a match. It was the first time in my life I had truly done something on my terms. I was a 32 year old “man”, but had lived my life as a pussy. And in reality, the word “man” didn’t apply to me at all. I was a boy with a bank account, some savings, a wife, a dog, a house, and a multi-track cassette recorder. And in my mind, the only way out of this perpetual cycle of boredom was to fuck someone else’s wife. Shitty move, but it’s my story.

Skip ahead fifteen years. Since moving to Seattle I’ve lived life on my terms. I run a small business that pays the bills, but music is my life. Five years ago I started a Western band called Brent Amaker and the Rodeo. We wear matching cowboy outfits and we play cowboy music. We’re not your average country band. We have songs about whiskey, but we also do a cover of Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator”. We tour the USA and we tour Europe. I have so much of my own personal finances tied up in touring with this band that I might just sink the ship. And I’ve never been happier.

But still I have to ask myself, “What the hell is going on”? Think about it. Right now I’m sitting on a plane to Berlin with five cowboys dressed exactly like me. It’s gonna take 23 hours total to reach our destination. We have horrible connections. I’m sitting in the last aisle seat of a plane directly across from the pisser. It’s been a constant flow of bodies bumping and grinding against me during the first leg of this journey. Every third person that passes asks me about the unexpected gang of cowboys. Are you in a band? What’s the name of your band? Where are you playing? Where are you traveling? Next. Now serving number 34. Did I happen to mention the pregnant lady seated next to me who needs to pee every ten minutes?

With the exception of the occasional female ass pressed gently against my shoulder, it’s been hard to find much joy in this situation. So what the hell is going on? Shit, I don’t know. But I’ll be in Berlin playing music tomorrow. If you compare this to my life 15 years ago, it might qualify as an episode of the Twilight Zone. One man’s life is changed forever. Stricken with boredom and wishing for adventure he enters a parallel universe. It’s a one-way ticket. He can never go back.

Welcome to the Rodeo. Next stop Berlin.