Chapter 41: Do you have a dream you haven't achieved yet? Will you keep trying?
Originally written September 28, 2021
Before we start, let’s listen to this peppy little song. Richard Thompson wrote it, but I’ve always liked Elvis Costello’s version better:
There are a few dreams I’ve had that never came true.
For instance, just this morning before I woke up, I was dreaming that my pet turtle had been possessed by Paul McCartney.
I was excitedly trying to tell my daughter, but she was looking at me like I was crazy. When I woke up I realized that I don’t even have a pet turtle.
But seriously, folks …
Like virtually everyone, I really have had a few dreams that never came true.
For instance, there was a short period in the early ‘80s I thought I could find fame and fortune as a musical performer. This was the period when I recorded and released my first album Picnic Time for Potatoheads.
The album got loads of local publicity as well as airplay on a few radio stations outside of New Mexico, including a spin or two on the syndicated Dr. Demento show.
In early September 1981, my friend George R.R. Martin — at the time a relatively obscure science fiction writer, especially when compared with his Game of Thrones fame — got me a gig playing at the at the World Science Fiction Convention in Denver. (This was a couple of months before the album was actually released.)
The first night there I played at convention event between a couple of speakers. The guy who spoke before me prattled on for what seemed to be hours.
Then, in introducing me, the emcee announced, “O.K., next up is Steve Terrell, a singer from Santa Fe, New Mexico. And hey, if anyone’s thirsty, we’ve got free drinks in the room next door …”
And I watched in horror as about 75 percent of the audience got up to get their free drinks.
The next night, playing at Hugo Awards ceremony, I broke a goddamn string during my first song and sounded like crap. And a couple of months later, in some sci-fi fanzine, a critic called me “awful,” which was true but still …
But I just wrote that off as “paying my dues,” a funny story I could tell Rolling Stone after Potatoheads became a monster hit.
To be honest, even though obviously I didn’t become I star, I still love telling those “dues-paying” stories. (Hey! Where do I get my refund?)
I’ve already written in an earlier chapter about my great “promotional” trip to California in 1982 — doing interviews on radio stations, being recognized by strangers on the street, leaving copies of my LP with big record companies on Sunset Strip.
A few months after that trip, when having dinner with my wife at Molly’s Kitchen (a long-closed favorite local spot), I was approached by two young women from Northern California who recognized me — from my album cover!
They were avid fans of KFAT radio, which played the hell out of Potatoheads back in that day. “We knew you lived in Santa Fe so we were hoping to see you somewhere in town …”
Yet by the end of ’82 it was obvious that Potatoheads was not going to be the next big thing.
That next spring I lost my longtime Sunday night gig at The Forge in downtown Santa Fe.
(Why wasn’t this video, made by Christoper Wright, ever played on MTV?)
I lost that gig shortly after I got my first full-time newspaper job with the Santa Fe Reporter.
Starting my career in journalism softened the blow of having my rockstar dreams blow up in my face.
I did record a second, Pandemonium Jukebox, in the bedroom “studio” of my musical pal and next-door neighbor Tom Dillon, which was released (cassette only) in the spring of 1984.
But I had little if any allusions of that album catching the attention of anyone besides longtime fans
By this time I figured, correctly, that I was meant to be a writer, not a musician.
And so, locally at least, I made a name for myself as a reporter.
Not long after I started my 32-year career at The New Mexican, I began writing a weekly music column, “Terrell’s Tune-up” for the arts section of the paper.
Ever so often I’d send some clips to national music publications and in the early 1990s I got a phone call from Anthony DeCurtis, who was the record review editor for Rolling Stone at the time. He asked if I could write a review of the latest album by John Wesley Harding, an English singer-songwriter who was semi-hot shit around that time.
I was so excited. This is it! I’m going to be a big-time rock critic! No more having to go out to the police station and pour over the hot sheets every day. No more worrying about rent money or the mundane stress of paying the other bills.
That dream was quickly shattered, though it didn’t seem quickly at the time.
Every couple of weeks for a few months I’d go check the magazines stands for the new issue of Rolling Stone to see whether my John Wesley Harding review was there. I tried to call DeCurtis a couple of times but he never took my call.
Finally, one day in the mail there came a “kill-fee” check, $40 I think.
I tried to tell myself that somehow this was Rolling Stone’s fault.
Maybe John Wesley Harding stole Anthony DeCurtis' girlfriend so he spiked the review.
Or maybe Harding’s manager or some executive at his record company said something to piss off Jann Wenner at some exclusive Manhattan cocktail party and Jann ordered no reviews for any artist associated with this guy.
Yeah, that’s the ticket …
But actually I realized, even then, that the review I’d written just wasn’t very good.
I don’t actually remember much of what I wrote, but I remember thinking,even at the time that the piece probably was wishy washy — neither puffery nor a hatchet job. And truthfully, I didn’t have much interesting to say about it.
Even more than these career disappointments, the biggest broken dream of my life is failing to find lasting romantic love.
The Dave Clark 5 knew the score::
Despite fathering two great kids, both of my marriages ended in heartbreak and hard times. And no relationship I’ve had since lasted very long, the exception being my old girlfriend Helen, who I saw for nearly four years before we drifted apart.
I still date and still enjoy the company of women, but now as I approach 70, I have to be honest about the fact that real romance probably has passed me by for good.
But sometimes I think about my Aunt Peggy, who, well into her 70s, maybe even her 80s, found a guy she giddily referred to as her “boyfriend.” The two showed up together to Terrell family functions for several years.
Aunt Peggy died a couple of years ago and I don’t know what happened to her boyfriend, whose name I don’t remember.
Maybe, if the old boy’s still around, I should seek him out and ask for some pointers.
Oh well, you know what Frank would say …
And may all your dreams come true …
