The trouble started when friends who play an assortment of instruments decided to all get together and try to "jam." I was encouraged to get some sort of instrument and participate since it was a bunch of largely non-musical guys. Bass was suggested, mostly because a bad bassist can't do too much harm. So, not wanting to miss out on a chance to hang out and drink beer, I bought a cheap used bass and immediately fell in love with it. I didn't even bother to try it out in the store - it didn't matter if it was good I just wanted the cheapest one they had. I got it home, plugged it in and plucked a string. Two days later I was trading in my little amp for a larger, better one.

I still don't know what the hell happened but a lifetime of musical agnosticism had collapsed in mere moments; everything about bass felt good - the low, warm tones, the vibration of the strings, the incredible, expressive grooviness (there's a word that I'd managed to go an entire lifetime without using prior to the advent of this particular affliction). The problem was that while the hatred of playing music had left, the inability to play it hadn't.

I bought a little book on how to play and learned some basic techniques (you pluck a bass - that explained why my attempts to strum it went so poorly) and theory. Along with one guitar playing friend I discovered that if I played the same note that the guitar was playing it sounded good - suddenly I could sort of play along with the guitar. It wasn't like discovering the theory of relativity but damnit it was close. I suddenly started to think of myself as a guy who could play a little bass. I got bass tab off of the Internet and learned to play a few songs. Life was good.

Then the first crack in the dam appeared. A friend began talking about "the groove." Specifically he asked if I could identify the groove in a particular song. I quizzed him on what exactly "the groove" was. He tried to explain some hipster mumbo-jumbo about the groove being something internal to the song, the thing that moved you around. I told him to stop jerking me around. This provoked a multi-day debate over whether the groove actually existed or was just something he'd invented. Then I noticed that interviews with bass players often featured them talking about the groove, and how anchoring the groove was their primary job as bass players. I started to get a little concerned.

Pushing this worrisome groove business safely away to a corner of my mind where it could quietly evolve into some sort of phobia, I decided that my playing was coming along well but needed to take that next step, so I enrolled in bass lessons. I headed to my first lesson genuinely excited. My teacher asked me to play something to let him gauge what level I was at and I proudly launched into my most challenging number - a Red Hot Chili Peppers song that I had been working on for months. I noticed that Wayne appeared to be staring at my picking hand with something that was similar to fascination, but not quite.

"You use a pick," he observed. I noticed that he hadn't blinked in some time now.

"Umm, yeah, I've noticed that a lot of people play with their fingers but I kind of prefer this. It doesn't make any difference does it?" Apparently it did.