(10:41 AM) | Adam Kotsko:

There is so much that I can't do

I can't sing. I am able to hit the right notes with a song that's within a particularly narrow range -- Thom Yorke's duet with Björk on "I've Seen It All" seems to be the model -- but if I have to go much out of that, into that fuzzy zone between what I can hit "naturally" and what I can do in falsetto, it's not a lot of fun to listen to. That doesn't stop me from trying, sometimes embarrassingly and in public.

I can't sing while playing piano. I got some sheet music for the Coldplay song "Trouble," and I'm totally capable of playing it on the piano and totally capable of singing it passably when I'm doing home-grown karaoke. But if I try to put the two together, all of a sudden I sound like I'm a born-and-raised Roman Catholic. Here I had made it my secret goal to be the next Ben Folds, and I just don't think it's going to work out.

I can't play piano as part of an ensemble. The problem seems to be that I started playing music that was way too hard for me, way too early. The only way I could learn it was through sheer repetition -- I didn't even feel able to play a piece until I had it completely memorized. Obviously this learning style did not lend itself well to any kind of impromptu filling in of the gaps. I can barely recover after my own mistakes, much less someone else's. (Those who've heard me play can testify that when I get stuck and can't remember a part, I utter a curse word and skip to a part I know.)

I can't sight-read piano music, unless it's very rudimentary, for the reasons outlined above.

I can't play guitar. My dad is a great guitar player and likely would have been more than happy to teach me to play, but it never even occurred to me. Think of the wasted opportunities: I could be that awkward guy playing guitar in the quad. I could score after seranading my one true love with Uncle Jesse's classic hit, "Forever" ("If every word I said / would make you laugh, / I'd laugh forever").

I can play the trumpet now. When I first joined band, I started on the trumpet, but my severe underbite rendered that impossible. I had to be switch to the baritone, a brass instruments with the same fingerings. Now, however, since no one has a baritone lying around the house, I have had a few occasions to try out the trumpet, and I can testify that the vast amount of dental work I had done between sixth grade and my junior year of high school did the trick in that regard (even if I still can't bite down all the way). The thing I can't do, however, is remember how to play any non-patriotic music on the trumpet/baritone. That's an awkward thing for an America-hating leftist such as myself. If I owned a trumpet, I suppose I'd have to find some music for the "Internationale" and learn to play that.

I can't believe John Kerry didn't pick Gephardt.

I can't understand why a window for Lycos search results pops up whenever I click on a search result from Google.

I can't find a reasonably priced Hammer Bros. suit:

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