At an early age, I got the notion in my mind
that I wanted to be a different kind of bongo.

I didn’t want to be the kind of bongo you’d
use in a lounge act on a cruise ship doing
Latin music or a cover of “Copacabana.”

If you had a beard and liked to walk out
in the park on a Saturday night and
sit with your friends and play bongos all night -
I wanted to be the last bongo you’d want to take.

The same if you were the kind of man
who needed to go off into the woods
with other men and play drums with them
to somehow realize that you were a man.
If you were that guy – I didn’t want to be your bongo.

It took some work and some persistence.
People said, “You could be spending your time
on more important things.”

But I put in my time – my ten thousand hours.
And many times I wanted to quit, but I got through the dip.

In the end, I made it.

Now you try to play me and see
what happens.

Go ahead, hit me.

Weren’t expecting that were you?

You get random trombone sounds.

Now you or anyone else with any sense
probably doesn’t want to play a bongo
that makes random trombone sounds.

However, the rules are very different in a nursery.

I don’t have any children myself,
so how was I to know
how very different the rules are in a nursery.

I realize now that, if I had to do it over,
I wouldn’t be a bongo that played
random trombone sounds.

I’d be the kind of bongo
you couldn’t hit and get away with.

For it is always better to be feared
than amused by.