I've been writing a series of stories about my experiences as a guitar player in a cover band. It's called "Roadhouse Stories." Here's one of the stories:

"Solotime" by Joe M.
I take a breath and plunge into the notes like a swimmer into a pool. It's dark and murky so I don't try to see. I just feel my way up and down the guitar ground.

Solid ground - a two-bit plywood stage covered with a black shag carpet that's had years of beer and puke spilled on it. Guitar players have to stand up way too much. Drummers have it easy. They work with their hands and legs while sitting on their asses. I've got forty minutes at a clip on my feet. The Les Paul around my neck is like a tree trunk hanging from my shoulder. I feel it compressing the vertebrae in my spine into a solid rod.

But then maybe it's the pot that's making me think that. Johnny and I smoked a bowl before we came to work at Morey's Roadhouse tonight. I get stoned once in a while to make the time go faster. It never works. It only makes things more interesting.

On some nights, being high makes me sound better, play better. The notes coming out of my amp are so clean and fast, I think that it must be someone else playing.

On other nights, the pot gives my fingers polio. I play like a crippled monkey.

Tonight, I don't give a f*ck. It's Tuesday. It's twenty to one and there are six people in the club, half of them wish we'd turn our amps down so they could drink in peace.

I've got an hour and twenty minutes left until I can get out of here. The pot's worn off. The two beers I had last break have worn off. I'm straight and sober which is never good. At least when I've got a buzz, I can look like I'm actually enjoying myself. But straight and sober, my face darkens as I think about how bad I sound right now and how much I suck as a musician and how crappy this place is and how much I miss my girlfriend back in the city and how I ought to dump her so I can be free to pick up girls with a clear conscience and get laid with some regularity like the other guys.

My shoulder has a cramp in it. I have to take a piss and Frankie behind the bar is gesturing for us to turn it down. To appease him, we play "Color My World" by Chicago. I play the flute solo on my guitar. I play it flawlessly. It doesn't help. My life still sucks.