Bravely bold Sir Ed

Julia Child wrote her first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, at 50. Momofuku Ando sold salt and even spent two years in jail before age 48, when he used his noodle to invent instant noodles and make a fortune with his company, Nissin Food Products. But while the rest of us tend to hit our stride once we hit middle age and go no higher, I’m one guy who’s not going to hit his stride lying down. Or something like that.

All this arose from an epiphany I experienced in that most tranquil of destinations. Okay, okay, it was Las Vegas, and I was one of more than 175,000 people who attended this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. I was rushing to a meeting through a morass of people I would swear paid for CES entry solely to plant themselves in front of people with someplace to go (a.k.a. me) when I looked up and glimpsed the sign. First one, then another. My eyes widened as I planted my feet in place. I eventually counted four people carrying tall poles with vertical signs held high above the throngs. They bore the name of an industry pundit, one Shelly Palmer.

I had no idea who Shelly Palmer was, being the sole attendee at CES who didn’t cover electronics. (Don’t ask.) I didn’t even know for certain he was a pundit until hours later, in the hotel room, when I saw him on TV talking about the significance of the day’s CES announcements. (Don’t tell. What happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas.) But from his simple presence heralded by sign-carrying flunkies, something told me: This person matters.

Yes, I’ve seen this sort of thing before. So have you if you have a pulse and lived through the ’70s. Who could forget Sir Robin, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who went everywhere with minstrels who would sing his praises? Of course, the lyrics invariably took an uncomplimentary turn. (“When danger reared its ugly head / He bravely turned his tail and fled.”) But hey—the minstrels must have been underpaid members of SHRE local 381. Songsters of the Holy Roman Empire, natch.

These days, though, you probably don’t have to pay much more than minimum wage to get competent sign carriers to wave your banner for all to see, even if you’re just taking the trash out to the curb. Even faster than those noodles, your flunkies-for-hire would proclaim you instant someone.

For me, that’s the ticket. In a world where a Kim Kardashian could become famous merely by pretending to be someone famous, why couldn’t I put my name on everyone’s lips by mere suggestion? In time, I’d need to hire a publicist; I hear Mariah Carey’s is available. And before you know it, I too would have my own reality show and be set for life. Maybe something like Keeping Up with the Perratores. Creative, huh? It’s better, at least, than 2 Kids and No Longer Counting.

I know what you’re thinking, and it’s probably something to do with flying pigs or snowballs in hell. You might be right.

But there’s more chance of my getting a reality show than of my publishing my latest cookbook, The Real Poop on Rustling Up French Grub.

Notes from the family

Yep, ours is a musical family. My daughter, Katie, is studying music business in college, but what she wants most is a spotlight as she tears through a blues solo she’s making up that very moment. She’s quite a guitarist, the hundred or so musicians she’s played alongside are quick to tell her. And in case that’s not enough, she’s also learning bass, banjo, keyboard and drums.

Andrew, in high school, isn’t after a music career—he wants to be a writer. (He’s a very good one already.) You wouldn’t know of his plans, though, from the sound upstairs, where he routinely practices keyboard, guitar and drums. Elena plays violin and was pretty good when I met her, though she doesn’t get to play nearly as often as she wants. Still, her playing was part of how I fell in love.

Me? I’ll let you guess. My dad played violin; his dad, violin, guitar and banjo. My brother Stephen played drums. Genes to the left of me, genes to the right of me, into the valley of tunes goes…my kazoo.

I don’t actually play the thing as accompaniment. For the most part, it went into the nightstand drawer as a condition of entering adulthood. What I mean to say is that I tried several instruments on my way to becoming, arguably, the most accomplished listener of music in the family. I simply achieved the greatest heights on—hold your applause till I’m finished—a tapered tube into which one hums.

Not that I didn’t try. I banged away dissonant notes on an acoustic guitar someone had thrown away. Its strings, I recall, were a half-inch above the fingerboard. Or so it seemed once I started trying to learn seriously. What stopped me in my tracks was my first attempt (on up to the tenth or so) to play a bar chord, in which you hold down some or all strings with one finger while forming notes with others. Even the pinky. What, I thought, are they crazy? My son plays bar chords like they’re nothing; I like the notion of one generation advancing on the one before. Never mind that musically I retreated.

Neither was I unimaginative. At 14, I went down to West Virginia with my family when my grandmother died. My Uncle Orville stopped into a bar, with me in tow, and the owner played better banjo than I’d heard even on The Beverly Hillbillies. So I asked for a banjo. I later got to liking the Zorba the Greek soundtrack and asked for a bouzouki. Then came the Dr. Zhivago soundtrack; I asked for a balalaika. Fortunately for the family budget, my parents remembered the football uniform too well. They wisely declined.

So I listen. My opinion somehow matters when I’m asked how something sounds, and I enjoy watching Katie play publicly whenever I can. And sometime, somehow, one of them will need someone on a tenor sax. But there’ll be no sax available. Nor a sax player. What’s the next best thing?

While they scratch their heads, I’ll head back to the bedroom. To the nightstand drawer. And blow their minds.