Spaghetti Day and Manifest Destiny

Every day is spaghetti day at La Mohr. 7 days a week for 3.90 Euro you can by any one of 4 varieties of spaghetti. Add a beer and you still get a good meal, including tip for one of the flirtatious waitresses for 7 Euro. My alternative is a curried chicken with rice from the Asian restaurant around the corner, same price, no flirty waitress. There are other alternatives obviously. If spending more bought a better meal I would go there but it doesn’t. It reminds me of something the bartender at the Hubba Hubba said. I will let the name of this bar in the red light district pass by without comment. He said the difference between a 50 Euro girl and a 100 Euro girl is 50 Euro and better marketing. He would know. I don’t think 1 Euro espresso is their primary source of income. This little joke came as he figured out I was probably only going to be an espresso customer. In a kilometer circle around my apartment I am at home. Why am I here? I don’t know. Nuremberg is not exciting. It’s not Berlin, Munich or even Hamburg. I don’t remember ever deciding this is where I choose to live but here I am. It’s my manifest destiny, like me appearing at both the Asian restaurant and La Mohr regularly. In Nashville back in the USA I worked with some brilliant musicians. One in particular attended an expensive university and received what should have been an expensive degree in marketing. He paid little to go to school on what was called by some a PK scholarship. PK stands for Preacher’s Kid. Belmont University is a religious University with serious academic credentials. It’s not one of those silly evangelistic universities when you major in the Old Testament, right wing dogma and narrow mindedness. Chris’s problem was a nice but dominating girlfriend who had no interest in being the wife of a musician, no matter how successful, when she could be the wife of a marketing executive. Pressure was also coming less overtly from his parents who wanted him to do well in life and, while they supported his musical life, believed the career he’d prepared for and degreed in was a better choice to support their future grandkids. Chris told me on a long drive back to Nashville one night he’d interviewed for a real job the day before. A career job. Big money and big responsibilities. He said the radio was playing softly as he spoke with the man interviewing him. What distracted him was the guitar solo on the song playing and how beautiful it was. When he should have been discussing his possible new job he was analyzing what scale and what effects the guitarist had possibly used to get that sound. Chris laughed and we changed the subject to his upcoming marriage. He’s far too good to spend is life being a brilliant musician weekends at the local bar and a mediocre marketing executive 5 days a week, at least in my opinion. I doubt in the short run he managed to stand up to the people who loved him and wanted the “best” for him. We lost touch when I started to tour more. Did his manifest destiny ever kick in and save him from a comfortable, secure life? Did he finally end up on big stages amazing audiences the way he amazed me? Who knows? I think that’s what happened though. Manifest destiny is like an erection. It has a mind of it’s own and generally prevails, for better or worse.

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