"Wing it, boys!" (My Struggles With Autistic Inflexibility.)

There's a wonderful story told by Keith Richards in Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, a movie about my oddball hero, Chuck Berry. The story includes what might be the first rock and roll instant replay.

We first see the scene play out live. An all star band is backing Chuck at his sixtieth birthday celebration in St. Louis. Things are going great when a happy Chuck finds Richards, mid-song, leans into his ear, and says something. Richards laughs and shakes his head, No! Chuck, surprised, laughs, shrugs, and moves away to continue the song. Although the band never misses a beat you can hear a minor musical fender bender when Chuck hits a bad chord during the encounter.

After the show a drunk and exhausted Richards explains that Chuck told Keith mid-song that he was switching keys. Richards says something like, "After weeks of rehearsals, he wants to throw it all out the window and say, 'Wing it, boys!'"

It's something I loved about Chuck Berry. On stage he was constantly winging it, often with musicians he'd never met before climbing on stage. (But he'd rarely been told "no" before.)

I bring this up because I often have trouble winging it. It's one of the many, many ways I'm no Chuck Berry.

I never knew much about autism until I began researching it when I was "diagnosed" (hate that word) at sixty-five. But I remember once, with my very first band, learning something important about many autistic people. 

We were a lousy but enjoyable little band--two older guys, two attractive young women, with a song list to die for. I started playing music on stage in my mid-fifties and I was still at the stage where every song we played felt like a minefield. We had tons of fun, but things often fell apart. Our fender benders were train wrecks.

One day our singer got us a job filling in for an established "gypsy jazz" band at a local club. The band we replaced was headlining the show. We were not established and did not play anything approaching jazz, gypsy or otherwise.

When we arrived we learned that the booking agent put us in as headliners and expected an excellent touring band to open the show. These folks had records! They played four or five shows a week at bars and clubs all across North America. They were amazing. We were not.

We told the booker, "Hey, we should open. These guys are way better than us."

He refused. The more we argued the more adamant he became. We were replacing the headliners so we would be the headliners.

Later, our singer, who knew the show booker, explained.

"He's autistic," she said.

I didn't know then that many autistic people have trouble with flexibility. We don't necessarily like surprises and sometimes need to mentally prepare for change.

I didn't suspect this of myself, because I often love to be surprised, and love to be in new places. I also prided myself on being able to instantly adapt to major changes in my former work as an attorney. Minutes before my very first trial was to begin a very experienced attorney for Ford objected to every one of the exhibits I planned to use in my opening statement. But I knew the facts better than him. I walked over, grabbed several of his exhibits (we hadn't objected) and used them to tell my story.

I was an expert attorney in my field--due in part to autistic strengths that trumped my autistic "deficits." 

As a musician it's a different story. I have some humble musical gifts, but I have definite, less humble limitations--and when someone tries to change things at the last minute, I get thrown for a loop.

Sometimes it's easy. If a singer turns to me and tells me to keep soloing beyond whatever we'd agreed to in practice, I can manage. But once I had a full meltdown because, the day before a Halloween show we had spent a couple of weeks preparing for, two of the band members insisted on adding two difficult new songs. When I tried to object they began berating me, and when one said I didn't want to play the new songs because "They're not Chuck Berry songs," I lost it. (Editors note: I don't play Chuck Berry songs, so it was doubly mean.)

For what it's worth, I learned both songs for the show, and even made a chart so that the bass player could follow on the more difficult one--but that was my last show with those three.

Today it happened again. Our drummer had to cancel a date a month or so from now. We had plenty of time to agree on a replacement for the show, and I know an excellent drummer who'd played with all of us in the past, but the band's newest member--an actual pro musician-- signed someone up without consulting me. 

I appreciate the hop-to spirit. I also know that it will create a frightening minefield for me that night. I will have to deal with unexpected new twists to the songs and a new person, unknown to me, on stage in front of a hundred or so people.

Maybe it's a good thing. If I had aspirations of becoming a real professional musician it would definitely be a good thing.  (But I have no such aspirations!)

I'm turning seventy soon. Music is not my true metier. I'm autistic. and I feel a bit like that autistic show booker who panicked when we asked him not to put us at the top of the bill.

But I will get through it. It's what autistic people have to do every day.