At this point in my life, I have gathered plenty of stories and experiences. Enough so, that I sometimes suddenly remember an event that I had almost lost.
That happened yesterday when I saw Garth Brooks on the Today show . . . But this is not about Garth. He mentioned (on Elvis's birthday) that one of his all-time favorite songs is "In The Ghetto" - recorded by Elvis amongst others . . . But this is not about Elvis.
The man who wrote that great song is Mac Davis. For you young ones who may not know (and old ones who may have forgotten), Mac Davis is a hugely talented man. A singer, songwriter, actor . . . He wrote and had hits with several songs ("Don't Get Hooked On Me", "Texas In My Rear View Mirror", and "Hard To Be Humble" just to name a few). And he had his own variety show, tv series, and appeared in movies. I admire him greatly.
One day, in the late 90's, when I was living in Nashville and visiting my hometown of Ventura as often as I could, I was in the baggage claim area of LAX, sitting on my guitar case, when none other than Mac Davis walked up to me and started talking to me!
What I remember about the conversation is . . . one, I did NOT whip out my guitar and share a song or two (and I had a feeling that he WANTED me to!) And, two, I asked him what he had been doing lately. He grinned a little, but also looked a little like he had been punched in the gut maybe . . . As if I had said, "What have you done for me LATELY . . . ?" As opposed to trying to find out what project I could be looking forward to enjoying.
The one of the two that I regret the most is not explaining right away what I meant by that question. In fact, I don't recall if I even told him that I was a big fan, or thanked him for his music. I don't recall if I told him that I had spent hours playing his hits out of his songbook. Or that I had performed "Texas In My Rear View Mirror" and "Hard To Be Humble" as part of my repertoire back at Tony Roma's in Newport Beach. We just had a short, simple conversation.
But this is not about Mac Davis. Not really.
This is about me. I always thought that I would BE Mac Davis (or 'Mac Davis-like'), instead of some schmuck who would write about a brief encounter years after the fact. This is about 'turning points' - which sometimes end up more like off-ramps not taken.
I should mention that I don't get particularly flustered around stars, since I always thought that I would BE one, I'm very aware of the obvious - they're just human. So what might have happened if I would have shared a tune with Mac Davis and if he had loved it? Maybe nothing . . . Maybe a lot.
I'll never know. That's what this is about, but that's not the interesting part. The interesting part is Mac Davis.
