Justin the Bug Man

Around 2:00 this afternoon, the doorbell rang. Our hero (and nemesis to all things crawly) Justin the exterminator returned for another round of critter genocide. The bell tolls for roaches and palmettos once a quarter, and on such nasty occasions we are usually good to remember pulling bric-brac away from walls to speed up the process.

No more than ten minutes into his rampage of bug doom, Justin burst through the office door with a look of fire in his eyes unfamiliar from our previous visits.

"What kind of Guild is in that case?"

One of the many items not tucked into its usual spot was my acoustic-electric cutaway. He must have seen the emblem on the case.

"It's an F4-CE. Post Fender, but still pretty sweet."

That's all he needed to unearth the true Justin from under pounds of bug-man disguise. What was a gray-uniformed employee morphed into a human being full of vitality and wonder. We engaged in a conversation about guitars, and guitar brands, and recording, and home recording, and musical goals, and songwriting, and lyrics, and, and, and...

Turns out Justin is one of us: a person whose heart palpitates for music. He has a wife and two kids, all supportive of his art and at the same time all needing cash for groceries, shoes, and school supplies. I already knew that Justin pummels bugs to put potatoes on the table, but I learned today that he been jotting lyrics and rehearsing songs for twenty years.

He traded me some yellow paperwork for a 75 dollar check and headed for the door.

"This is your year. You have to do this now." I encouraged.

He agreed to aim for some recording and a little bit of performing in the coming months. I hope he follows through. I hope he can let the music out. I hope he will get heard.

Justin, if you land on this page, know that you have found a small but fiery band of sisters and brothers who all wrestle deeply with the issue at hand. There is music, art, prose, dance, drama, poetry inside trying to push to the outside. Time to let it out.