The Manhattan businessman for whose birthday I penned a pitiful – though hard to sight read – “Fanfare and Fugue” for the organ and organist at St. Somebody or Other church across from some landmark or other emailed me recently (how do these people find me? Google?) to say he wanted to hear the piece again and had (insert method of torture here), thus persuading the current organist (same organ?) to both read and then record the thing. (Choke!) I emailed back to say ‘great! – can I get a copy?’ He emailed back to say ‘sure, but it’s gonna take a few months.’

I guess torture takes time, especially with microphone placement involved.

I was paid outright for this work. Back in the day.

Back in the day, I drove to NY to hear my piece played as the prelude on a winter morning in some famous church across from some landmark in Manhattan. Some friends living in Brooklyn came along, having put me up and put up with me. But the organist had failed to look my thing over and, as I mentioned, it is not the sort of thing one can just read through hungover. Had it been me stomping the pedalboard, I would have made some grand sounding shit up. No one but me and the organist would have guessed! But this guy wasn’t an improvisor. He made a very serious mess of things. “Musicians wrestle everywhere…” Me and my bunch walked out before he got to the fugue. It was that bad.

This time, much older and wiser, I’m staying put, waiting for the results, should they ever appear.

And somewhere, in Manhattan, I hear the very faint sound of an organist cursing the day I was born and that on which he let himself (torture method insert) be talked into reading this thing down.

I know how hard this thing is to play and how modest the results of the effort. I did make my own recording of course, with gear I bought with the Hallmark money. A cynical Wiccan -back in the day- hear this thing on my tape and remarked ‘what an evil sounding piece! Was your inspiration tax day?”