A Skeptic Becomes an Admirer

The club had been like a second home for me for many years. I had spent countless hours and days there over the eight years it had been in business. I was close with everyone there, and everyone was close with me. I had met and become friends with many musicians who stopped to play there. And many of the musical opportunities that had occured in my life were a result not only my playing skills, but also as a result of the friendships and relationships I had developed  there. There were six owners, two were my brothers, and the other four were two brothers, their sister, and her ex-husband. It was a "family". I can remember spending about four hours one night, very late, three years earlier, talking with one of the owners, and laying out my "blueprint" for the band with him...exactly as I had envisioned it. I remember him telling me that.."it is a really tough business" and that  he wished me luck. He might as well have said "fat chance." Of course, I never even heard that, because to me, the plan was crystal clear. After we finished the gig that Saturday night, our third consecutive sold-out show... and we had all changed clothes, I wandered around the club, which also housed numerous apartments. I stopped in to see Gary, the owner whom I had shared my vision with three years earlier, and who lived at the club. We sat down around his kitchen table, doing some lines, and talking about the night. At one point, I found him just staring at me with a funny, kind of puzzled look on his face, and he had gotten very quiet. Then he took a breath and said to me..."you know Mike, when you first told me your plan for this band I thought you were crazy...but I'll be damned  if every single thing you told me would happen...hasn't happened...exactly the way said it would! The equipment, the records, the radio airplay, the crowds...I mean ...do you realize you have sold out this club twice in a row, in less than two months? Do you know how hard that is to do? Do you know how many great bands have come in here and have been unable to do that even once?  I just need to say to you that I am totally amazed...and that you were right, and I was wrong...and I'm glad that I was wrong...it's really fucking amazing!" I thought about that conversation, three years earlier...and I smiled, and thanked him...and we did some more cocaine...