Did you ever sing in the Glee Club?

I tried out in seventh grade. I thought everybody made it, until I missed the cut the following year. It was fun, to sing. Actually, my favorite song was a hit by Wayne Newton, which ironically Felice’s father wrote. You sing and there’s a certain joy, a certain escape from everyday living, a certain feeling, as that old Frank Zappa record said, THAT IT’S SO FUCKING GREAT TO BE ALIVE!

So we finished dinner at Los Amigos, and after checking out the new structures at the ski area base, we went back to the hotel, to talk to Mickey.

Mickey is the piano player in the bar sporting his moniker in the Lodge at Vail. He’s been entertaining guests for decades. Usually, when he sees Felice, he breaks into that same Wayne Newton song. But not tonight. Tonight Mickey jumped up to say hello. And while we were discussing family comings and goings, and the perfect conditions on the mountain, Mickey suddenly interrupted himself. There was someone here. A bunch of people. The CAROLERS!

Up the stairs strode two dozen people, in period dress. And when they finally were ensconced in the bar, they started singing Christmas carols.

They say that you make all your money on the road these days. Maybe because you can’t replace the live experience. The hit of real music.

They say if music is free, no one will make it. But these denizens of Vail didn’t practice for a month for the money, they did it for the pure unmitigated joy, of MUSIC!

We get caught up in the trappings. The sales numbers, the merch… But really, it’s about the underlying tunes. People have a desire to hear music.

And nothing else can compete. It’s kind of like sex. I never heard someone pass up sex because they were playing Halo. Likewise, all that crap about competition for the entertainment dollar is utter hogwash. For music, when done right, is the elixir of life. You just can’t get that hit anywhere else. Movies, when done right, are pretty good. But they’re not music.

Music has a vibrancy that lifts your spirits, that puts a smile on your face. Whether you’re a leather clad metalhead or a fresh-scrubbed churchgoer.

Actually, show tunes weren’t my only musical inspiration. I was turned on by the hymns in synagogue too. And despite being Jewish, I’ve always had a soft spot for Christmas carols. Don’t we all? It’s the time of year, one of reflection, inside overheated buildings, while the snow falls outside.

Actually, the snow is falling outside. The air is brisk. And when the carolers entered Mickey’s I was taken back, to the 1800’s, to the time of Dickens, of top hats and long dresses. The attire of the singers in attendance.

I thought of "Baker Street". English rock songs reminiscent of fog in a dark alley. Where your overdieted appearance didn’t buy you much. If you were that skinny, you were probably dying. My mind was set free to a host of memories and inspirations.

And after hearing the songs in our DNA, Mickey sat back at the bench and played that song, the one we sang in the Glee Club back in the sixties, the one Felice’s father wrote.

And my old college buddy Steve asked if kids still took piano lessons.

I don’t know. But for we children of the sixties, music was an integral part of our lives. It was even part of the curriculum. To think that they used to teach us how to read music in public school…

Music’s value isn’t based on its price, but how it affects people. It’s not about twenty dollars for a CD, it’s about the fact that people want it so much that they’re willing to steal it. They don’t want to steal a whole bunch of other things.

Instead of prosecuting people for desiring music, we need to find a way to enable them to acquire it, to enrich them. Everybody should have easy access to music. The business as presently structured is about keeping people out. You can’t buy as much music as you want and you can’t go to the show too often unless you run a hedge fund. Things are fucked up. You realize it when you hear people sing for the joy of it, when you’re touched not by the famous, but by those in your community.

I got into the holiday spirit this evening. And it wasn’t the weather that got me there, or the short day…oh, they helped, but it was music that made me remember it was December. That Santa Claus was coming to town.