Blue Collar Tuxedo

About the Book

It seemed every writer said the same thing.  Write what you know.  I had also written and read enough to realize that the subject matter of a writer was not crucial.  The most exciting events can be sterilized with poor writing while the most seemingly insignificant events can fertilize the imagination when well written.  I had published fiction, fantasy and much poetry.  I liked writing fiction because it enabled me to escape to more compliant worlds.  But after coming home from crazy playing jobs, I realized I was living my own fiction when I would put down my guitar and think, Unbelievable!

I never sought out jobs where small dogs would try to mate with me or weddings where grooms fainted.  They just came.  

Blue Collar Tuxedo began taking shape when I started recording my personal experiences as a teacher and performer.   I knew things were going to be different from the fantasy academic world when my first paying job was playing for a couple in their bedroom on their honeymoon.  As in most academic programs, practicality is low on the priority list. They never tell you that Bach is a bad investment.  You spend months, even years, working on a piece with thousands of notes.  The only problem is that you get paid by the hour and the average Bach piece is usually over in three or four minutes.

Being a classical guitarist, or a classical anything for that matter, can be an isolating experience.  You study, practice (for hours on end), and perform mostly alone.  I found myself wondering what this was like for other musicians.  I already knew about the celebrities.  Most of their lives are documented for us in trade magazines.  There’s about six or seven great virtuosos of the guitar in the world today and I think the rest of us fall under the ‘all others’ category.  Most of us are not playing for adoring audiences.  

But there is a bright side to all of this.  Taking all available work gives a writer good, raw material from a unique perspective.  Every job is different.  Every situation has a distinct group of people creating a unique episode.  I’m never really part of the wedding, the party, or the event.  I’m a sideshow.  But I do get to watch and listen.  Like most academic pursuits, music is a white collar education.  But unless you head straight for symphony hall or back to the academic world to teach, you had better put on your work clothes.  Get out your Blue Collar Tuxedo.

About the Author

Born in Bayonne, New Jersey to the children of Polish immigrants, Edward Wier now makes his base in Atlanta, Georgia as a teacher, writer, artist, and performer. He has a degree in theology and has written music for national television specials, commercials, and film. He abandoned his music degree. His fiction, essays, satire, and poetry have been published extensively in the United States and abroad. He is also a regular contributor to The Door, The World’s Pretty Much Only Religious Satire Magazine, as well as being one of six guitarists chosen to play in the Christopher Parkening International Master Class recital in Bozeman, Montana. He has been performing publicly in every conceivable situation from recital halls to opening for rock bands and has taught in mental health facilities as well as in private schools specializing in ADD and LD children. His hobbies include severe speculation, mosaic, creative procrastination, and the discussion of inappropriate subjects, such as politics and religion, in public.