Are We Happy?

With all the Walmart* stuff going on around here I cringed recently when I saw their little smiley face logo. Not because Walmart is evil, which it is and I feel they do have every right to build here, but I will still shop with local family run businesses and plan to never set foot in one of their stores. I cringed because it brought back a very strange memory.

Back when I lived on the East Coast I hung out with a lot of professional musicians. I got to do some recording and production, which was fun, but the world of music can be really strange. My friend Mark, a studio musician and I were hired by a guy to come to his house and record him singing some standard tunes. This guy lived in a very affluent town and from the looks of things this guy never worked a day in his life, but rather relied on his parents for his extravagant behaviors.

We knew he was extravagant when we walked into his kitchen. He told us he’d be ready in a minute as he pulled cookie sheets out of the oven. On the cookie sheets were rows of these little wax or plastic yellow circles with happy faces on them. Each was about the size of a silver dollar. “I’m going to be selling these for a buck a piece.” I have thousands made already… OK, we thought…

The guy is finally ready for us and leads us down into his basement where he has a mock stage set up. There was an elevated wooden floor, curtains made of sparkly material, a microphone on a stand, two stools (for sitting, not shit) and stage lights with colored filters. This guy was starting to frighten me.

I dragged a table over for my equipment, and ran some wires to the amp and the PA to have a hot feed on my board. I also set up microphones for the other two tracks. I always liked ambient sound tracks as an underlay. Over the next hour I listened to him singing standards like, Fly Me To the Moon and Satin Doll with the accompaniment of Mark’s guitar.

All and all it was a pretty clean session. It was easy to mix and make a demo cassette for him. His check cleared and no one got hurt. However every time I see one of those freaky smiley faces a chill runs up my spine. This guy was inventing himself trying several things to make himself useful. I wonder what ever happened to him. I wonder if he ever sold any of those happy faces.