Jazzfests And Milestones.

I heard the note and held on to it as long as I could. Held on until the last one of the night was played I did, the gloom slowly settling inside my mind as it came just as assuredly as the fog was settling in outside on the bay. One last trumpet blast and the Monterey Jazzfest was over for another year. Maybe my last year.

Unemployment is like slowly spiraling down a drain. You wake up the next day and almost nothing has changed, you've probably slept in a little and actually feel a little better than when the alarm clock ruled your life the day before. You work on your resume' a little and fantasize about landing that position that has none of the problems of your now ex-job.

The day after that you wake up and realize you're getting low on coffee and empty on cash. The drain on your resources begins. You make the first withdrawal from the ATM that has no assurance of ever being replaced.

The trappings of affluence slowly start to fall away. The day before Jazzfest I had used the last of my Laphroaig and begun my unemployment gin in the plastic bottle. As much as CVS wants the world to think of them as some sort of health center now that they stopped the tobacco it remains a wonderful place to find cheap ways to rot your liver.

Jazzfest tickets are a crown jewel perk of the affluent. Being used that night two years ago in a different world from when they were purchased. There had been no bites on the resume'

And I wasn't kidding myself that there ever would be. I had just spent the last seven years flipping the middle finger to the decision makers in my industry and there wasn't any assurance I wasn't in a long, slow drain spiral, spinning off the comforts of the comfortable until I slid into homelessness with nothing but a pair of once-fashionable eyeglasses.

That was probably an exaggeration I kept telling myself. But make no mistake, life is different when the soul-crushing large checks those pharmacy chains can write you stop coming in.

At least I had an uncrushed soul now.

I couldn't hold on to that last trumpet note forever so I picked up the bag with the vinyl copy of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew that I probably shouldn't have bought and started walking and when the lady at the gate said "see you next year" I almost cried.

And I kept walking home and thinking and walking and falling and spinning a little closer to that drain. The money isn't the worst part of being unemployed. It's that persistent feeling of uselessness. When you wake up and make that coffee run you are surrounded from the moment you leave your condo with people with a purpose. The gardener. The plumber that just drove by. The people riding the bus to work. They all have a function this day, a role to play in this world that is humming along and you do not.  The most you can think of yourself is as some sort of spare part.

That's what it feels like from the moment you get out of bed. So the day after Jazzfest two years ago I didn't get out of bed.

But...that was two years ago. Tonight, I just got back, from this years Jazzfest. The Roots kicked ass and I'm getting married in April and I haven't been this happy in a long time.

And to the decision makers in my industry, or, should I say, my fellow decision makers now, this middle finger's for you. I haven't forgotten. Here's to a good many more years of it being right in front of your face.