The big event was last week, and because boundaries don’t exist for
this woman, she emailed everyone in the office a video of her son’s
talent show. It wasn’t just her son’s performance, but the entire talent
show — run time: an hour and seventeen minutes. If Jesus could endure
having nails driven through his hands, I figured I could handle a middle
school talent show, so … I watched.

Most oxymorons are only two words, like jumbo shrimp or deafening
silence; middle school talent show is four words, so it’s twice as
oxymoronic.

I am against cruelty to children, so I’m not going to share the
video. I’m also not naming names. And to be fair, some of the kids
possessed talent worth showing.

Some of them did not, and my co-worker’s son was a crime against music. He played his flute off-key all
the way through a number I didn’t know and might not have recognized
even if I had known it. Handled improperly, a flute emits sounds like a
squeaky door hinge but much louder, and that’s the only technique this
kid has mastered. If you’re familiar with concepts like notes, rhythm, and
melody, you’re acres ahead of that kid.

In shock and awe I watched and listened, and wondered — did this boy think he was ready to share his ‘talent’? Did he want
to be on that stage, performing miserably for a small crowd of masked
and socially-distanced people and potentially millions more on the
internet? Or had his parents threatened to beat him if he didn’t go on
stage? Perhaps he was pranking his music teacher and the audience and
his parents? No, his face was so impassioned as he assassinated that instrument, I think it was completely sincere.

I had to play his part of the video a second time, and then a third.

What was his teacher thinking? Where were the other adults, and why
did none of them protect this child? Why was he abandoned or allowed to
play alone, instead of at least being accompanied by a piano or banjo or
an oboe, anything that might have made his musical mistakes less
obvious?

Someone invented photography, and later someone else devised the
means to record sound, and eventually there came home video, and then
the internet, all leading toward a 12-year-old boy mangling 200-year-old
music into something gruesome, and now it’s on-line forever.

My co-workers responded to the video with kind and false comments. I
didn’t respond at all. I wonder what his mother said, after the
performance — probably “Great solo, son,” or some similar lie.

I’m nobody’s father because I always knew I’d be crappy at it, but I believe honesty can be a kindness. What his parents should
say is simply, Give it up, kid. Donate that instrument to Goodwill or
pound it with a hammer. The flute is not for you, and you are definitely
not for the flute.

Then get him a hamburger and fries and tell him you love him and say
good night. Problem solved, and the world will be a better place. itsdougholland.com ← PREVIOUS          NEXT →