Charlie Chapman (guitarist and instructor at Berklee College of Music in Boston) gave one of the most memorable guitar lessons and it wasn’t about the guitar. He said that there would be days where nothing seems to go right and you just feel like you’re running into walls no matter what you do. The solution? Pizza. And lots of it.
He advised his students that times like these call for a pizza with everything on it. Everything. Don’t worry about whether it’s what you usually like. The point is that the usual routine isn’t working, so you need a break from it. Next, you get a six pack of beer and a bad movie. Eat the whole pizza, drink the beer and watch the movie.
This has become a ritual in my household and it really works. So whenever things go so terribly wrong that it looks like some evil force has planned your day for you, it’s time for a pizza break. Don’t worry about your diet, getting behind schedule in your work, or about anything else - because pizza is the best medicine in times like these.
Sadly, Charlie passed away from cancer not too long ago. But we think about him every time we have a bad day and decide to order pizza to cure it. It works every time. Now when we think back on all those bad days, we only remember the beer, pizza, and laughing at a film so terrible that you can’t believe people put their real names in the credits. Most of the time we don’t even remember what made the day so bad in the first place.
God bless you, Charlie.
