Dumpster, Goodwill, Garage Sale, Obscurity or Posterity? Your music. Your choice.

A friend of mine called and said he just scored big. I assumed he meant hookers and blow at Black Friday sale prices.

“No” he said. “I picked up some original music. Dirt cheap.”

My stomach turned, familiarly.

“Big deal,” I said, “Original music dirt cheap. Welcome to the world of modern music.”

“No, dude, this is different. This is music by someone famous! I got it at a garage sale, well, more accurately an estate sale. One of those “somebody famous died” yard sales. It’s written by Famous Actor Guy.” (I can’t reveal the details – sworn to secrecy etc. Plus this friend really does have pictures of me not only with a goat but with a very drunk manatee. Now THAT was some crazy shit I’ll tell you what!)

He goes on to tell me Famous Hollywood Actor Guy had died and the family was selling everything. Right here in Bev Hills. On Dead Guy’s own god damn lawn no less. His life’s accomplishments, belongings, memories, underwear, scattered amongst the crab grass and aphids. For pennies on the dollar. You can’t pass up deals like this!

Although my friend was elated, it depressed the shit out of me. Is this what will become of my music after I’ve gone to the great strip club in the sky?

What my buddy purchased for $20 – twenty fucking dollars - FYI your Starbucks tab for this week – was famous guy’s original sheet music. Hand written lyrics. Musical ideas. Sketches. Complete songs. The dead celeb wrote music when he wasn’t acting. Songs. With lyrics. Charts. Pro charts. Done by a famous arranger from way back when. I’ve seen the charts. They’re beautiful. The tunes are nice. Obviously this was more than a hobby to the guy. He finished the songs and then laid out real cold cash to someone well known in the music business to arrange all of them. Was probably planning to book a high-end studio in Hollywood and record the tunes. Maybe with a famous big band. Probably pull in a couple of favors and get some famous singers on the tracks. Shit, he probably wanted to sit in on one of the tunes. Hell, probably had wishes of signing a record deal, putting the record out and climbing the Hit Parade. Changing his business card to read “Actor/Composer.”

Reality sets in. He works his ass off. Career just won’t let up. Gets lucky. But got the family obligations. Can’t turn down that next gig cuz the fickle Hollywood power moguls may never call again. Got bills to pay. This show could be his last. Blah blah blah.

The charts sit on the piano for a couple of years. The maid cleans around them. The pages yellow. His wife nags him and tells him to get the fuckers out of the living room - “They’re cluttering up the place and our guests can’t see my Hummel collection.”

Famous dude sticks them in a box, puts them in a back closet, and as he does, he swears to himself that he will record them as soon as he finishes his next job.

No one touches the box. Not Famous Guy. Not the maid. Not for 30 fucking years. He drops dead. Oops. That wasn’t on the agenda. He’s gone but there’s still his shit everywhere. All over the damn house. The kids start going through it. The box of music gets pulled out. None of them know what it is. Dusty old box with yellowed scribbled black dots. His name at the top.

“Hey, Dad wrote some songs! Cool!”

“Hey, cool! I bet we could get $20 at the estate sale for those!”

Shhh! If you listen carefully, you can hear his dreams being flushed down the toilet. Out of all the successes, the accolades, the honors – you know he went to his grave with this thorn stuck in his side . . .

He never fucking got around to recording his songs.

He meant to. Oh, he tried. Promised himself. Time and time again. Honest. Next week. I will do it. I promise.

Promise broken. Dream crushed.

I don’t blame the kids. Or his wife if she’s still around. Hell, I don’t even blame the buck toothed fourth cousin with a third nipple – or whomever sold his music.

It’s Famous Actor Guy’s fault.

His half baked relatives sold it because it wasn’t presented to them in a state that screamed, “This is important shit and you should always keep it because it meant a lot to me and it’s really, really good.” Third Nipple Cousin went with the cliché – “If it looks like shit, don’t eat it. Sell it for $20.”

It’s always been about presentation. You send out a shitty looking demo and people think shitty music is on it. If your band doesn’t present itself with the right attitude, lighting, makeup and properly front packed tight jeans – you’re next stop is Boise. At the bowling alley. Cleaning balls, bitch. Had our famous actor gotten around to recording his stuff – pressed the albums, with requisite sexy girl on the cover, impeccable recording cut into the vinyl, then his kids would have known it was something. Known it was worthy of posterity. Worthy of honor and respect. Worthy of keeping.

It got me to thinking.

What’s the state of my music now? And then, only because I care so much . . . What’s the state of yours? If you or I were to die tonight, would what we leave behind? Would our music be treated as trash or treasure?

I’m in a kind of halfway house situation on that front. (And a few others, badda bing!) I’ve managed to get a few CDs out there. I’ve documented some stuff that I think is worthy. And then there’s the rest of it. There’s good stuff in there but I haven’t put it in any kind of order so anyone could ever find it. My kids will chuck it. What else are they supposed to do? All those boxes and boxes of crap lying around when we’re laid in the ground. They’ll be overwhelmed. Not with grief, but because you left all this shit for them to clean up! And I’m not even counting the porn! At least they can give that to your gardener who will love it. No, I’m talking about your music. A lot of your music. You’re dreaming if you think cute little Sissy is going to store that shit for decades. I’ve got thousands of, really, dare I say, brilliant underscore cues sitting around on backups, manuscript paper, yellow stickies, cassettes, CDs. I’m not fooling myself. Years from now, my kids aren’t going to curl up on the couch with my grandkids and listen to Dead Grandpa’s score from episode 312 of some cable show they’ve never heard of. No, out of guilt they’ll probably move this steaming pile of intellect from place to place until inconvenience outweighs guilt. Then they’ll rent one of those huge, double ass wide dumpsters and heave the shit in. Jewel cases all cracked and split. CDs glistening in the sun wet with the sex lube they awkwardly found. Scores stained with left over Red Bulls I never got to finish. Rusty coke spoon. Kim Kardashian photos. Days later at the dump, some homeless guy will pick through my music. He’ll stare and study them. Flip through the CDs like he’s at Amoeba. Ponder the names and titles. And then come to the shocking realization that even he can’t come up with a reason to keep it.

Unless you’re famous – like Hank Mancini kind of famous – where some unknown university in Bum Fuck Egypt sends a low level grad student to cart your skidmarks on Hanes back to a shrine in the desert, you’re fucked Maestro.

It hurts to think about it. I know, because we’ve all spent countless hours bleeding rectally to get done what needs to be done. Nobody works harder than the modern composer. Day in, day out. Always trying to do our fucking best. All that wasted time driving across town to blow yet another producer hoping to get that movie or network series. Long nights searching for the lost chord only to end up with the brown note.

Yes. Believe it or not, worthy or not, brilliant or not, there is music that will be thrown out upon our demise. Stepped on, shit on and burnt.

But there is also our “Best of” music. The special stuff. The stuff you love. Somewhere, in everyone’s studio, lies the good shit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a cue from Baywatch or a commercial for Depends™, you know the good shit. We owe it to ourselves to be gathering, planning, recording, packaging and storing our good stuff. Preserving it. Protecting it. Guaranteeing its future.

I’m making a promise I really hope to keep. You should too. All of us should each make a “Best of” CD. If need be, we should make ten different ones. A lifetime box set if you will. Package them up nice. Write some liner notes. Put a picture of yourself on the cover – no matter how fucking ugly you are. No one will ever throw away a “Best of” CD. The title demands, “Keep me around forever.” Go all the way – dedicate it to those who follow in your gene pool.

And that album you’ve always said you would record? Record it! Just fucking do it. Don’t take another job just so you can put a big screen plasma in the guest room shitter. No more excuses. Make it incredible. Call in every favor. Pay a really great graphic designer to make it as beautiful visually as it is sonically. Sell it, don’t sell it. It doesn’t matter. Money is not important. Posterity is important. Respecting your music is important. Documenting your talent is important. Documenting your place and your contribution on this earth is important.

And when you’re long gone, and when one of your loved ones is reluctantly picking through your crap, when their hands land on something you made, something you created, something that would not have existed had you not lived and breathed here on this beautiful planet, they will stop what they are doing. They will play your music. Your music will move them and they will close their eyes and they will think of you. They will thank you. They will not throw it away. They will keep it. And they will listen to it every now and again and they will remember you.

And that is better than $20 at some fucking garage sale.