This bread ain't gonna butter itself! So don't even try it." After his first performance, in October of the previous year, the club's manager Bob Mendoza received the following e-mail from a member of the audience, a man called Mike P: "You've got the best act in the world," he wrote. "That show would draw big crowds in any other city." Since then, Mike P has taken great pains to praise and recommend me, and he once e-mailed Mike Mendoza a YouTube clip that features just one of my songs, "The T-Party," which Mike P had first heard years ago. He's like a fan who never stops supporting me. At the first gig he came, he said to the audience, "I'm here to meet this guy who makes music that reminds me of _Twin Peaks_." (Because he's more articulate than most people I've met, I'm a little skeptical of this— _Twin Peaks_ was very much a product of its time, when you had to go to a club to hear the latest alternative music. Still, _Twin Peaks_ was popular enough for people to name-drop it as a reference point.) "And he always plays his own music," Mike P continued. "I can't wait to hear his new album. Or listen to _The T-Party_ at home, or put it on the stereo in my car." As I write, I'm currently at my friend Mike H's, who's a carpenter by trade. It's Saturday morning, the weekend. As the sun rose, Mike H and I took a ride through the woods that's just a mile or two from my home, to a spot we often visit to pick berries. It's a secluded location near a creek, but we knew better than to go out in the midday sun. Instead, we waited for a warm afternoon to come. There's something hypnotic about picking berries. I love the berries that grow here in the woods, but some months they're sparse, and the wild huckleberries I'm after are hard to come by. Today, we came across a spot that had just recently been trampled by a herd of deer. They'd eaten the wild berries in abundance, but missed out on some cherries, which were still ripening, so we collected as many as we could find. "Haven't had that," I said, after chewing through several dozen of the fruits. "I haven't eaten the wild cherry since I was a boy." Mike H smiled. "I still haven't had that," he replied. "I guess it's because you have to be here, in the woods, in that very specific spot, in order to find it. Otherwise, it's not here. And if you don't find it, it doesn't exist. Now I do know where to find them, since I've been here in the midday, when there's a lot of them. It's not a very practical time to be picking the berries. But it's a beautiful spot, right?" I laughed and said yes, and told him I'd take him to the berries anytime. "You know," he said, "you should really sell records. Because you're doing so much better than anybody else." "Thanks for the compliments, Mike H, but I don't want to sell records." "You should sell your records. I'm going to buy them, one by one." "That would be nice," I replied. "I hope you do." "I want to buy every one of them," he said. "I'll go as far as fifty records." "Well, I'm glad you brought that up," I said, hoping to change the subject. "I've got a gig coming up soon. I'm a little nervous about it." "Are you ready?" he asked. "No, but I'll be better prepared after this gig," I replied. He laughed and suggested that I get it together. "Come on. You gotta go for it." I took off my cap and ran my fingers through my thick hair. It seemed to me that I wasn't in great shape. I hadn't trained much, and it had been some time since I'd worked out, but I had to get rid of this feeling. I needed to go in there and give a good show. My wife and kids might be surprised at how I looked in public—they're the only ones who see me without a hat, which is actually a pretty uncommon sight. When my oldest daughter looked at me with her big eyes and said, "Hi Daddy," and saw that I had no hat on, she got such a fright that I felt awful. It wasn't supposed to be like that. I was supposed to come home and tell her, "Oh, that was great, honey. You were great." I didn't get the chance. Instead, I just left the house, drove to the studio, and rehearsed as best I could. It was good to see her again, but it was equally difficult for her to meet me after so much time had passed, and she was so small. I started with the opening number. It's called "The T-Party," after all. I wrote and produced it myself, and with its mixture of electronic rhythms and traditional song structures, the song is as much of a mystery as anything else about me. When I started rehearsals for my album, "The T-Party" was probably my favorite of my new songs. I like its structure, and I love the melodic refrain of the chorus. It's easy to sing along to, even though it's a complex song. Mike H had a question. "Mike H has a question," he said. "Sure," I said, standing to attention. I was a little overstimulated, and not only because of the cherry liquor I had downed earlier. I knew the performance was about to commence, and I felt like I had nothing but fun in my brain. "Where's your stage costume?" "Uh, yeah, you're right. Where is it?" "I mean your stage outfit." "Oh," I said. I'm rarely that out of touch. I glanced around, and saw Mike H was wearing his full suit, which was white, including the cuffs of his shirt. It was a suit made of a fabric that feels very thick and soft, and it looked very nice on him. "I don't really have anything like that," I said. "Mostly, I wear a black jacket and black jeans." "That's what I wore when I went to the show. I thought it was weird. I said, 'I've never seen the man without a hat on.' " "You'd never have seen the man in a hat, either." "That's right. I always see the man without a hat." "Aren't you going to want to get dressed up a bit?" "Oh," he said, after a pause. "No, I don't think I am." The gig was fun, but I didn't feel like a performer that night. It was as if something that was missing was back again. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was. The weather the following day was great—a bit chilly, but the sun was shining and the temperature was very good. It was just like fall, and you'd think, with it being my favorite time of the year, I'd be happy to find a suitable day to practice. And even though my schedule was tight, with rehearsals for my first-ever CD now only a couple of weeks away, I decided to continue working with Mike H on the afternoon after the show. "There are so many people in town," he said, when we were heading over to the location where we could set up our equipment. "Why don't you try doing a different song, one you haven't been playing at the shows? I bet you can still do it. What's your favorite number?" "I don't know," I replied. "I don't want to do anything from _The T-Party_ , because then people will get mad." "What about 'When You're in the Scouts'?" "No." "Well, you know what you can do? Why don't you go through the list of songs and choose one that fits your personality? You're not only a rock star, but you're also a poet. Think about it." "I'm going to have to think about it when I get back." "Don't worry about that. You'll know which song you're going to do. Come on, let's go practice." We rehearsed from about three o'clock to about five, and I was beginning to get the idea that this wasn't going to work. I decided to have a listen to a few different tunes, and Mike H had given me a stack of new CDs from which to choose. As we were going through them, I heard "When I'm Dead," a song that I wasn't familiar with, but the arrangement was very nice, and the structure was very interesting. When I started to sing the song, the way I felt matched the structure of the music. I tried listening to other songs, but it wasn't fun. The music distracted me from the idea