Raggin' Piano Boogie

This writing is about the present, past, and a new beginning. It is autobiographical. Passion and desire were released that created the ability for me to focus on daily commitment and structure in order to pursue my Wildest Dream ever. I have accepted the process of life and my abilities to be creative, and to express myself along with renewed acceptance of responsibility to contribute. I want to release everything that I have to offer to the world: to express myself is my work, my purpose, and my job for this life.

People have hounded me over the years as to what I am about; this drives me crazy because that is many things and changing on a daily basis. From the core of my soul, I strive to give and accept unconditional love. I am about fun, music, visuals, art, entertainment, and commercialism with a desire to communicate understanding, inclusiveness, and respect to the world. My goal is progressiveness in mind, body and spirit. I would like to express myself creatively and freely in ways that do not offend or create fear. I do enjoy walking the fine line of acceptability and living life on the edge because that is where I find life the juiciest when it comes to challenges, discoveries, clarity, growth, and change. I enjoy my personality and a sense of self, vulnerability, weakness and strength. I want to share my life's experience, strength, and hope with whoever is open to it.

This past year I have made the decision to pursue my Wildest Dream. I have had this nebulous dream for a lifetime. It became more specific throughout my career, which started nineteen years ago. The past year has been a year of many firsts and every single accomplishment, every change of life style has resulted not from discipline but from the release of repressed desires and learned self-empowerment. I have gained the ability to create and better articulate my desires without fear or judgment.

I am a piano guy, a self promoter and who has been performing Ragtime and Boogie Woogie piano music outdoors for the last nineteen years under the name of "Raggin' Piano Boogie;" my stage is a piano on the back of a pickup truck. My Wildest Dream is where I am riding on the back of a one-of-a-kind truck, a unique performance concept vehicle. I envision a truck that is high-tech and toy transformer-like, where you push buttons and the speakers rise and parts of the truck fold in and out in different ways to create adjustments for all kinds of weather, performance, and travel. This truck is energy efficient, has video capabilities on the sides so people can see their reactions on screens as I drive by. It has hydraulics so the truck can bounce with the music. It is not a super large truck but it is dramatic and spectacular for its size. The feel is approachable, not pretentious, down to earth and interactive. The style is fit for all types of piano music and performers. I take this truck for a ride across the Super Bowl field for entertainment with a ninety-second sound bite in a flasher, streaker-like fashion for fun entertainment. I am performing wild Boogie Woogie. The truck appears in other fun venues and creates small cameos in movies and television shows. I become like a musical "Where's Waldo."

Merchandising is created in this dream: a toy such as a little remote control Raggin' Piano Boogie pickup truck that people can purchase to run around on their floors for their parties if they cannot afford to book me in person. They can put a CD of music into the truck to listen to different types of piano music from it. There are published books in this dream about my relationship with my dog Boner, with myself, with my work and career. The truck is interactive and inclusive; piano players with all levels of expertise may play on this truck. As a result, the dream is shared with many people as they participate in it and contribute to it as well as reap from it. The world meets my dog Boner in this dream while he is still alive.

This all started last June I was laying on my living room couch watching television. Oprah was on the tube. I was feeling almost dead in my dirty, sweaty white t-shirt as potato chips crumbled onto my big fat stomach. I was stuffing them into my mouth. At two hundred fifty-seven pounds, I was growing into a forty-five inch waist. I was having difficulty with my strength to walk even once around the local football field. There was no energy for me and I was beating myself emotionally to death. Here I was fat again, and again and again. I have lost weight and gained weight many times in my life. I felt no direction in my life and had practically no contact with my adopted son who had gone off individualizing into a marriage. I'm single and feeling alone, turning fifty in a month, divorced from ninety-nine percent of my family because after forty-six years of looking at my own contributions to the dysfunction, I realized that relating to them was a lost cause. They have no ability or just do not care enough to want a respectful relationship with me. Most of my friendships faded because they were black holes of nothingness to begin with. I was a nurturer and I had used up everything I had to contribute. There was no money, no jobs because I was avoiding them, being totally burnt out from doing the same thing for almost twenty years and doing it all on my own. Ahh yes, I hit bottom yet again, but this time age entered into the picture. I said to myself, "Danny, you're going to die soon, and with the passing of time you know how fast the next twenty five years will move."

Then, on the television, Tom Cruise comes out and jumps all over Oprah's couch, exuberantly expressing his love for Katie, the new woman in his life. I thought, yikes, is that for real? Is he acting? Who cares, look at that passion. Look at the ability to express that passion. Danny, you have that passion. What the hell are you holding onto it for? You are almost dead, for Christ's sake! You can show that amount of passion, Danny, you know it. Why are you not living life like them? You know you want it. Who cares if he is making an ass out of himself, just look at his ability to express that passion and how great it is for him. Then as I watched Tom and Oprah passionately interact, I thought about my past references with Oprah. I have observed Oprah from a distance since the eighties when the movie "The Color Purple" came out. The visual beauty of the movie on the big screen really stayed with me but more importantly, I experienced an emotional connection. I saw in that movie my own emotional and abusive life experience outside of myself, right in front of me, for the first time. I kept saying to myself, "that is me, that is me." I have not wanted to see the movie again but an awareness of Oprah was created through the experience that was not to be forgotten. I created a comfortable distance for myself from the experience but again, I never forgot it. Then Oprah went on the Optifast diet and a big deal was made of it. In always looking for a quick fix I copied her and went for the same route. I lost sixty-eight pounds in two and a half months. It was amazing and fun for the length of time it lasted, which was not very long. I continued to watch Oprah's struggles from a distance. I listened to sound bites through the years of how she was keeping the weight off and moving on with her life. Then one night she made a guest appearance on some talk show in a red dress that put me over the top. I said to myself, Just look at her, she looks fantastic, she looks as hot as it gets. She really managed to get a grip on her health. You did not, Danny. She is the best example that you have experienced for better and for worse so far. If she can do it, I can do it and there is just no rationalization otherwise. I accepted another human being in my life to trust and align myself with through example, at least through the entertainment window. I am no dummy, the girl must have her issues, and she is human like me so I know that she must have incredible difficulties, just different from mine. It's the struggle that is the same. It was the end of her "Wildest Dream Season" but I said to myself, Danny, before it is too late, go for your Wildest Dream. It's almost too late but you're not dead yet. Here you have someone who is "walking the walk;" align yourself with the winners at the top. That is where you belong. Just do the best that you can.

I told myself, you are here to enjoy life, and you are not on this earth to suffer. Deprivation does not make sense when your life has been inserted into all the beauty and fun that surrounds you. You better start having a good time before it is too late and fuck what anybody else thinks. Fuck them all if they cannot take a joke. You have built into your life people who know that your true character is good, who trust your motives and who love you unconditionally. Thank God for that. You have worked long and hard to rid your life of repression, judgment, self-flagellation and criticism. You know better now, you can trust yourself and who you are; you are a good person who works as hard as he can. There are countless examples of self-empowerment that you have created for yourself to draw strength from. Make strong decisions and choices now. At that point, I adopted a strong, permanent, passionate attitude that is still with me today. The word I use to describe the source of this strength is "grace." I finally accepted the concept that the enjoyment and fun is in the process. I said, "Danny, experience the process." In the past, I focused on the end result and as a result, there is no process, so I end up with nothing. I made the decision to give it my all, do the best that I can and accept it no matter what. I made the decision to adapt the slogan, "it is what it is." Whatever, everything will always be better and always be worse. It is all about the process.

My best friend is my dog and he is the first dog I have ever had in my life. His name is Boner; Bo sits on top of the piano while I perform. Boner is twelve and a half years old and has been on top of the piano for over ten years. This dog brings an incredible amount of joy to everyone and has never failed to win anyone over who is afraid of animals. I would like for the world to meet Bo before he retires. The clock is ticking.

I decided I was going to pursue completely my Wildest Dream with Oprah and become the best that I can be while having fun, reaching the highest heights possible, having fun, creating enjoyment for myself and others, having fun, sharing, being part of and having fun. It is all happening in this moment; who knows what will happen next.

I decided to make a videotape of myself every day and send it to Oprah to request her participation in helping to create my Wildest Dream. I prepared myself to do whatever was needed. I have never before pursued public interviews or talked on camera because I was not ready. I was waiting for the right time. Now was the time. The details of my doing it for the first month are fairly ridiculous. I was really nervous even though I was alone. I taped while sitting on my living room sofa and it all involved lights, a stepladder, closet shelving, tape, and paper with big words written on it, string and tacks in the ceiling above. It was stupid until I just got used to the idea of "it is what it is" and gave up on any self-made prompting aids. I learned how to turn the taped video into a DVD which, for a person who has difficulty with electrical inputs and outputs was quite an accomplishment. I thought, I want Harpo productions to know as much about me, how I work, what I've done, what my strengths and weakness are to establish the best working relationship possible. The DVDs are meant to exemplify my commitment to the dream, my work, and career. I started to send Harpo my archived career materials, my ramblings of creative writing, all of my promotional materials through the years, and fresh never seen photos everyday. To this day, I have sent almost 400 unique DVDs and thousands of unique photos. I have done it every single day, no matter what. I've gone to bed and, right before falling into a deep sleep all snuggled up with the lights out, realized that I forgot to do the tape that day, got out of bed and made the taping before going back to sleep. I have never before consistently worked for two months everyday, let alone a full year. I have created the video's all on one take, no repeat tries. "It is what it is." That is my motto. I thought, I want to live everyday and I will make a statement to the world that I am living everyday by completing at least one task no matter what, every single day. It has been a big task for me, the taping of the video, transfer to DVD, creating the promo and the mailing. Just to remember to do it on some days was a major accomplishment. They say a habit takes 90 days? Well I am still waiting for this habit to kick in after a year. I was amazed that I could continue doing it all while traveling on tour down South this year, especially when I was sleeping on the ground out in Saint Bernard's parish in New Orleans on some of the nights. When I am committed, I am committed. I have now overcome my discomfort in communicating through a camera lens.

My desire and willingness to communicate and work with others has completely transformed me. I have created more openness for myself to accept my daring nature, to include audience into my world along with a willingness to initiate conversation and ask others to partake in my dreams. As time progressed, I developed the aspiration to include others in this Wildest Dream. I asked Bob, my mailman of over seventeen years, who takes the Oprah envelope every day from my mailbox to speak in one of the first daily videos. He asked Oprah to give me my Wildest Dream and told her I am worth it and also that he is tired of picking up the same envelope every day. My lifelong old neighbor in his eighties across the street said, "Oprah he's weird but give him his dream anyway." My high school music teacher is still in my life; he and his wife put their two cents in. I still have the same family doctor who delivered me from the womb. On my fiftieth birthday, I went for a physical. He told Oprah that he has known me my whole life and that I am physically fit and able to do this dream. My dentist and his staff participated while giving me a root canal. I took the video camera to jobs and entire families that I have performed for yelled the call for my Wildest Dream. Friends of over thirty-five years are on these tapes; my niece and her children have joined in. On and on it has developed and I realized how fortunate I am. I realized this year that I have many life long relationships and they are all different and exist with different levels of intimacy. Whereas in the past I would look to fulfill everything from one relationship, I can now appreciate the individuality of each relationship in my life. There are over 50 significant relationships on the tapes to date.

After a month, I thought, how can I include more people in this Wildest Dream? How can I show Harpo productions that this is a cool Wildest Dream and that people want to see it materialize? During the last presidential election, for the first time in my life, I became politically active and went door to door to get people out to vote. I am a door slammer by nature so it was a major experience to have learned that the majority of people are not as nasty as I have been in the past. People generally are willing to talk with an interested person. So, with that chutzpah behind me I decided to collect signatures of support for my Wildest Dream from people who have seen me perform throughout the years. I thought it would need to be a large number of signatures to be impressive so I settled on 50,000. I stopped at 32,200 because the weather turned too cold to write signatures. But get this, in just 33 days of performance... during five-hour periods... I collected 32,200 signatures. I laugh when I think about it and how wonderful people were. Very few said no and there no more than four who were outright nasty at the request. Some people signed it just to get Oprah to spend her money.

I began with my Fourth of July parades running through neighborhood backyards of families that I have grown up along with through my performances. I have been doing some of the parades for fifteen years continuously so I knew people would be receptive. I would enter their yard and they would see me and stop, stunned... and say, "look its the piano man." I would start my spiel and they would again stop and say... "he's talking!" In all my years, they never saw me off the truck or heard me talk. I got thrown out of one backyard picnic because I was taking the attention away from their baby's first birthday party. Unfortunately, I did not see the cake lit with a candle on it. They said, "get out of here, you're wrecking our daughter's first birthday party." I thought, "everyone else here is glad to see me." I felt like an ass. After that incident I said to myself, "I think its time to go home." As I started back to the truck I rethought the situation and said to myself, "you gonna let one mistake stop you when you have time to hit another ten houses?" It was fun insanity, bodacious even.

During the following weeks, I was set to perform in Ocean City, New Jersey, for family nights on the boardwalk. Each night I readied my plan and set out eight clip-boards all over the truck containing ten blank template sheets for each clip-board. The sheets had lines for forty signatures each sheet stated my Wildest Dream. I had a pen for each clipboard along with several to spare stored in the piano bench. I would play about a minute and a half of music, stop... turn around and scream to everyone that I needed for them to sign the sheets to tell Oprah that I have a cool idea and she should give me my Wildest Dream with a better truck... then I would pick up the clipboards and throw them out to people... jump out of the truck, grab the clipboards out of their hands as soon as I saw it signed, and pass it to the next person... all the while saying hi to people I haven't seen in twenty years, past clients telling me that I played at their house fifteen years ago, and old students saying, "you taught me piano thirty years ago." I was very patient with people who needed me to stop for further explanation. All the while, I kept the boards moving. I had my goddaughter help me one evening and she said at the end of it, "please don't ever ask me to do that again." I had a good laugh with that statement because I had really kept her moving all night, non-stop. I had an incredible amount of fun interacting with people and it was especially sweet to see little kids want to sign their names while sitting down on the boardwalk to print them out. After I flew past the wave of people around me I would gather all the clipboards... reset them with fresh paper and pens into their positions on the truck... jump back onto the piano and start the cycle all over. I had to keep reminding myself to stop and drink water because I was fast and furious in my pacing and I had trouble stopping for even a second from the focus. Fans started to bring their families to the truck to sign. Through the weeks, people would come from out of town because they had heard about my Wildest Dream and wanted to sign for me. A woman working in the nearby tourist booth and the french fry guy who happened to be boardwalk association president and also owned the booth across from where I was stationed started to get jealous and created trouble because of the attention I was getting. They brought the rent-a-cops into the middle of their complaints and chaos ensued. They were so self-centered they could not see how it was a win-win for everyone and that everyone except them was enjoying the night. I took care of them. I wore my yellow "live strong" band every night and I used that baby to fight off their negative energy. I know Frenchy instigated the woman to turn on me. Except for the two of them, everyone loved what was happening. Those two were a constant reminder of my past. My siblings did the same thing to me my entire life. If I did not suffer in life along with them, I was to be destroyed.

As I was driving home that first night I thought, "the audacity" and then a group of kids pulled up next to me at a stoplight. They started screaming for me, yelling about how great I am with my dog and how much they love us. "Man, you're the greatest!," they kept yelling. I felt very grateful. I went home and looked up the word "audacity" to check its meaning as I felt confused by my feelings associated with the word. The dictionary said, "bold" and I thought, Yeah, I'm bold, that is me, there is nothing bad about being bold. Bold is my nature. Tonight I had the opportunity for the first time in my life to express my boldness as a person completely and the overwhelming majority of people approved of it. Wow! You see... meek, humble, victim, servant never fit for me and that is what my environment and everyone around me tried to pressure me into throughout my formative years. Thank God my spirit is strong or I would have been dead today from that pressure. That night for me was a complete and wonderful living validation of myself. I am trusting my abilities more and more everyday. I have embraced my tenacious nature for the good.

A few months later, I decided that I needed to catalogue everything and that has been another time consuming challenge. I have not heard back from Harpo Productions I feel because it is not time. I think they are smart people and know that what I do is interesting. I think they see value in what I do and I think they are aware. I am not a dreamer who is sitting on his dream just waiting for it to happen and I am sure they respect that. I have faith they are receiving the material. I think they also have the smarts to see that I need to develop it as far as I can on my own and this is truly happening. I am asking for a very expensive dream with a major responsibility. I do not think most people can grasp what is involved because I know deep in my heart that I am clueless to the complexity of what it will take for this dream. However, I do believe Oprah Winfrey can pull it off and I know I cannot do it alone. Two heads are better than one. I am doing my best to do what I know how to do. I am giving it my all.

I experienced a major paradigm shift in my life with the pursuit of this Wildest Dream. During this beginning period, I had purchased an old Jaco Pastorus record album that I have not heard in many years. When I received it in the mail I was surprised to find that Pat Metheny wrote the credits for the album. If I were to say that I have a musical idol, it would be jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. They worked together in the seventies at the beginning of their careers. While reading the CD credits, I remembered that Metheny was to come out with a new CD so I went online to see if it was there. I found it. It was a Friday morning when I received the CD in the mail and I took it with me as I drove into Philly for a last minute appointment that I had not expected. I wanted to listen to it. My first impulsive thought on hearing the music was, "this is important music; you need to hear it live." I then synchronistically saw a billboard on route I-95 advertising that Metheny was in town on that very night at the Tower Theatre. I drove home, going back and forth in my head as far as what I should do. I went online to see if any tickets were available. There were tickets but only on auction sites and it was too late in the game to get them. It was about 7pm with the concert at 8pm, I would need to leave immediately and the chances of making it were not good considering I would be dealing with Friday night rush hour traffic into the city. I would then need to fight my way through the city to get to the other side and after that find parking at the last minute. I would also need to find a decent ticket at the box office. I decided it was important enough to go for it. I let synchronicity take over and as a result had no problem with traffic, found a free parking spot directly across the street from the theatre and a second row front and center seat ticket that no one had claimed. As you can imagine I was incredibly excited. Pat and his band performed the new CD in its entirety and then continued with my most favorite influential compositions of his from the past. By the end of the concert, the energy was so intense for me that my head had sunk to the bottom of my seat. For the first time in my life, I had experienced music totally. There was no musician and no listener; there was no self and no ego. It was all about the music. The only thing in my existence was music. Music in of itself... this was without question the most powerful life experience that I have had to date. I had experienced my first complete relational musical experience, the connection and the essence of music between myself and another person.

I came home and sat down at the piano. I was in a very stunned state of mind from the concert. I played one note on the keyboard. I said to myself, This is music, this is my music, who is to say whether it is good or bad or whether it is enough or not. This is me, I am what I am. Many people have played this note and made their music from it and now I am playing this note and making my music from it. It is what it is and I like it. Then I started to move around on the keyboard hitting notes. I stayed unafraid and allowed myself to just explore and hit keys without being judgmental for the first time in my life. I have always thought "out of the box" and now for the first time I was playing "out of the box." I started to improvise a few minutes every day, enjoying it more and more, totally amazed with every moment that I was doing it. I never wanting it to end but always stopped while still enjoying what I was doing to make sure I would want to come back for more. After a few days I said to myself, You need to start sharing this immediately and playing in public so you don't set yourself up to never be ready or good enough, just put whatever you are capable of doing out into the world immediately. A week later, I was in a hotel at the Jersey Shore and I just sat down and started playing the piano as no one was around. It was my first time in public. The receptionist asked for my card and the next day they called me for a job as a result of my music. The job eventually fell through but it was clear that I was on a new fantastic life track.

I went into a local music store and started messing around playing on a few keyboards. The sales guy came up to me and complimented me on what I was doing. I told him what happened with the Pat Metheny experience. He said he had tried to see Metheny in concert four times but could never go inside and, in fact, he flew to Colorado once to try to see him in concert. I asked him what his problem was. He said he was afraid. I asked, "afraid of what?" He said that he was afraid that he would not be able to handle the intensity of the music. It dawned on me at that moment what had happened to me musically. I was completely overwhelmed and totally consumed with the music on that night at the Tower Theatre. Sitting there, well, actually by the end of the concert, laying there with my head pressed against the bottom of the seat, the music had entered into my soul. Pure music entered into my being and I accepted it opening myself up as a channel as much as I possibly could. I remember it was almost painful, I felt that I could not contain life as it was happening with the music. Nevertheless, I accepted the music with body, mind and spirit and thus began the ability to create music through myself. Music for the sake of music, what a concept.

And Then...
Presently...
A Simple Request!
Super Bowl Boogie
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