I screwed up……..
I was in my mid-twenties, and was recording an album at a studio called “The Factory” in the Surrey village of Woldingham.
During a lunch break one day, having nothing better to do, I sat at the steam piano there, and just started “doodling” on the keyboard. Just messing around, deliberately playing several well-known tunes very badly.
As any musician will testify, to be able to play badly in a convincing way, you actually need to be able to play the instrument very well indeed. One English comedian who used this ability brilliantly was Les Dawson, who most people thought was just a very bad piano player, but very funny with it. In fact, he was a superb musician. He wrote in his autobiography that he once was a pianist in a Parisian brothel!
Nothing so erotic for me, so back to my piano-doodling lunch break. Unbeknown to me, our record producer and studio owner David Mackay was listening intently behind me. He later told me that the record label K-Tel were looking to make a novelty record and my stuff would be perfect. “OK, I’ve discussed this with K-Tel,” he told me. “Just send a demo tape of two or three examples of your work, and we can then sit down and discuss terms.” So, a solo album virtually guaranteed and a fledgling recording career about to take a huge step upwards.
So, what happened? I’ll tell you – it won’t take long. Zilch, Zippo, Nada, Nichts, I simply didn’t bother. All it would have taken is a couple of hours of my time. But I couldn’t be arsed. So, I got what I deserved. The moment passed, and the album deal was never spoken about again.
Link to Les Dawson performing at the Royal Variety Performance in 1987
I screwed up…
In 2011, I was trying to pass a karate test for the 2nd dan. This is a master’s degree; the 1st dan is the black belt qualification. Before that, you have to ascend from 10th kyo to 1st kyo, which are pupil’s degrees. In colours, you travel from white belt to yellow belt to blue belt to brown belt – in my karate style. Some styles have intermediate red, green or even orange belts. It really doesn’t matter, though.
Then you pass (or you don’t) the 1st dan test. It usually takes three years in any karate style according to the programme.
The public generally thinks that having a black belt in karate is some Bruce Lee-level thing. It is not. Yes, it is the first master’s degree, followed by, at least technically, step by step up to 5th dan. When I say ‘technically’, I mean that you have formal requirements to pass all the way to the 5th dan. What goes beyond it is more of a promotional thing like ‘lifetime achievement’, ‘karate promotion’ and so on. Steven Seagal, I think, is 7th dan in aikido, which is all about his efforts to promote this martial art.
My karate school – to which I still try to train once a week – is called Konno-juku. Konno is the Japanese last name after its founder, Satoshi Konno, and ‘juku’ stands for school. In Japan, Konno is also a fiction writer; I think his speciality is police detectives.
Until recently, Konno-san had been coming to our Moscow dojo each June to hold a karate seminar and be a chairman during the tests.
By the time I was trying to pass my 2nd dan test in June 2012, I had known Konno-san for years, as he had been coming to Moscow each June. Plus, I even had the honor of training at his home dojo in Tokyo in November 2010 during one of my travels to Japan.
It was he who awarded me with my black belt diploma in June 2008.
That day, I came out and performed two katas — formally defined moves that show hidden karate techniques, which are mandatory for each level. I knew I wasn’t good in one of these katas and made a visible mistake during my performance. I could guess his impression at that moment by his face.
At the ending test ceremony, I was the only one not to get a diploma.
I didn’t pass that test then, and I was disappointed. However, I had no one to blame except myself. Next year, I passed it, and Konno confirmed it. But I remember that failure.
I screwed up…
Messin’ up is kind of a messed-up thing. We all do it and most don’t like to admit they did. There seems to be a relationship between how high someone climbs the corporate ladder and their willingness to admit they made a boneheaded decision. The boss never, ever admits he said something stupid.
The other group is at the other extreme: young folks just starting out also seem to make up excuses when they mess up. There’s always something else that caused the mistake, or caused them to make it.
On the other hand, I’m not a Corporate VP or a teenager. So, my screw-ups are mine alone. I’m simply over qualified in this regard. The crappy part is, you don’t get any kind of bulk discount. It’s like every one is a whole new steaming pile and people still act all surprised that you are capable of these genius moves. Bite me.
There are other black clouds on my horizon: I am now expected to pick out one, extra special genius decision and hold it up for your amusement. Yeah, at least you’re not that stupid. Again, no bulk discounts. You’ll not be surprised that most involve women; ones that I let get away or ones that I should have. You would think that I would learn after a while. They say even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. I am capable of doing things right once in a while. Just not often.
I suppose among my more bone-headed moves was not getting a pilot’s license; let me explain. Regular readers of these pages will be aware that all three of us have been in various areas of broadcasting. When I was young, I was in radio for 16 years. One thing I became well known for was traffic. I was the morning traffic reporter for several stations over time.
One station had me in a helicopter and another in a little Piper Cub. That’s the one I’ll tell you about. See, getting a pilot’s license in the US is an expensive undertaking. You are required to have 100 hours of actual air time and pass a written exam. My pilot was a licensed instructor and he taught me to fly because we spent so much time in the air. The idea was if something ever happened, I could get us down safely. Somehow that ended up with him taking naps.
So, the expensive part, the airplane & instructor, was free for me. Really what I lacked was a book and a No. 2 Pencil. We flew out of a commercial airport and the tower knew when I was flying. Mmm…. Maybe they were guessing? I’m sure it wasn’t because of the way my little plane floated all over the place. So, there would always be little comments over the tower radio when I would come in behind some Delta.
So yeah, I kinda’ screwed that one up. I still love flying to this day; except today mine is in seat 18A. (I always ask for the window seat.)