I read this essay at The Paper Machete, a live magazine show that runs each Saturday at 3:00 at Ricochet's bar in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood.  Dude, you should totally go.  This one, though, I read at the Grafton down the street at the Paper Machete's Labor Day show, Sunday September 5, 2010, at 8:30 PM.  Please imagine this being read aloud in a stately James Earl Jones baritone.

The Menace of Professional Music

 I’m 35, and in 16 years of hanging out in bars about twice a week, I’ve sung in one only once.  I mean really sung, not karaoke, not the “Bah-bah-bah” part of Sweet Caroline, but singing spontaneously for joy, camaraderie, and the sheer hell of it.