On Saturday, Shelley was having some girls over, so I decided that, when I got off work, I would go have a beer at Entourage (a weird upscale club stuck in Bowling Green) before I went home.

The best laid plans of men…

First, work took longer than usual; I got out at about 10 ’til midnight. I walked to Entourage, where I was informed there was a $5 cover — despite the fact that there was nothing special going on! Weird. Only slightly daunted, I decided to walk across the street to a place called Utley’s… not really my style, but it’s owned by a sales rep I deal with (he works for a local foodservice company), so I figured I’d give it a go.

I walk in, and there are at least 300 people crowded like sheep to slaughter inside this place. A bit more daunted, but determined nonetheless, I made my way through the circus and managed to get a Stella Artois, one of my favorite beers. Of course, I didn’t want to be inside with the clowns and clownettes inside — the boys dressed like they’d just finished mowing the grass, the ladies like they were planning to audition for Hugh Hefner — so I went to head outside.

Except it was midnight by then, and for some reason it’s unlawful to sit on the sidewalk with a beer at 12:01, but not at 11:59.

I finished my beer quickly — and didn’t much enjoy it with all the foolishness going on — and headed off to go home, thus completely daunted at this juncture. And that’s when I heard someone yelling my name.

I turned around, and it was this dude Tony. Tony is maybe 23, at most, and has been a huge Foxhole fan for many years; his bands have always kind of sucked, but at least he tries (?), and he’s got a decent heart. So I sat down on the sidewalk to talk with him for a moment; he and a friend were grilling me for Foxhole info: When will we play again? When will our new album come out?

I told him I had no idea if we’d ever play again, and highly doubted, against my best hopes, that another album would ever get finished. I told him how one-third of the band now live in Texas, how I have a wife and two kids, one with autism. I told him that there’s not much interest, since we never play shows and haven’t released a thing in more than three years. He and his friend wouldn’t hear it — “You gotta see it through!” they said, “You have to finish your dream!”

The conversation has stuck with me, obviously, but I have no way to explain to Tony that dreams are just that. They’re little glimpses of a perfection that won’t be found, and that even were we to record the album with our producer of choice — which strictly speaking is impossible at this point, since we’ve asked him three or four times and been rejected at every turn — the “dream” wouldn’t be nearly so sweet as we’d like to hope. It’s hard to write music… we manged to finish, mostly, that part. It’s hard to schedule six people in one place for a week or more, it’s hard to carve out the time even if you can schedule it. It’s hard to share a room with those people for so many hours, listening to/playing over and over and over (Glenda, are you reading this?) the same blanking guitar riff, waiting for it to come out just right.

Who would buy it? Not very many people, not now. Who would publish it? Maybe Scott at Burnt Toast, our label, would, but only because he’s a super nice guy with disposable income.

Yep, every question comes with an unsatisfactory answer. Every question, that is, except this one: What would it mean to me?

And that’s where Tony has it right. Because despite the fact that I have no time, no energy, no vibrant excitement about such an endeavor, and despite the fact that there are five other things in my life that are more important and which do and SHOULD take precedence… it would, if it were possible, mean the world to me.

“The world” is a big place… a dreamy place. When you get a glimpse at it, grab it. But we can’t just overboard, because it’s not only our world, but everyone else’s, too. And so the final Foxhole album remains a dream to me. And there’s nothing wrong with dreaming.

Tags: foxhole

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