WHELMED (2025-5)

Our friend Brian is the definition of a real catch. He’s kind, charming, brilliant, insightful, devoted and good looking, besides being super accomplished but not particularly impressed with his own notable accomplishments. He’s had a stellar career as a well-respected attorney in New York, but decided after his wife was killed in a tragic hotel fire that he would focus his energy and talent in more eternal areas. So, after raising his young sons, he went back to Yale Divinity School and earned his Master’s Degree in Divinity. He now serves as Chaplain in a New York Hospital. He’s exactly the kind of person I would want to comfort and advise me if my family and I were in some sort of medical crisis. He has maintained his good humor through all the muddy waters his life experience has thrown him into.

A good handful of years ago we were visiting with him and other buddies from Dave’s years at Yale. Sitting at one of those old worn wood tables, sprawled in the dimly lit dining room at the Yale Club of New York, we got to chatting about his comings and goings. It had been a number of years since his wife had died. 

“How’s your love life?” I asked.

“Well, I recently dated a most charming woman. She’s widowed as well. I really liked her, and thought we were quite well suited for each other.”

“And…?” I queried, “what happened?”

He waved his head to the side and shrugged his shoulders.

“She found me resistable.”

I giggled.

Her name was Katie Couric. Yes… THAT Katie Couric, the former sweetheart of Good Morning America. She’s happily married to someone else now.

The idea of being resistible took my mind to other terms based on root words rarely used without their modifiers.

I got to wondering if there is such a word as “whelm”. We speak of being overwhelmed and underwhelmed, but I don’t remember hearing people use the term whelm in conversation.

Google Search.

Indeed, there is a “whelm” in the dictionary. It means:

To be engulfed or buried.

In fact, overwhelm is a bit redundant. I guess being engulfed wasn’t enough to really hit the emotional mark. It used to work, centuries ago. A ship was merely whelmed at sea. Basically, it sunk. 

The concept of making the worst even worse, or conversely the best even better, reminded me of the day I was sitting in the recording studio with my friend Mark Stephenson, who engineered and produced the last four or five albums I recorded. The way it goes is that an artist will lay down a track or multiple tracks, give a listen, sometimes sit on it for a while, then go back in and fix what needs fixing or re-recording. I had come back in to re-record part of what we had called the final track. I chuckled, in an attempt to overcome my embarrassment that “final” wasn’t really final.

“Oh, this isn’t anything,” Mark assured me, “I have another client whose files look like this:

Raw track. Edited track. Final Track. Final Final track. Gold Final Track. Platinum final Track. True Final Track. True Final Track 2. True Final Track (for real), Really True Final Track. Absolutely true final track.

Poor Mark. We artists must whelm him. Like, super-duper over the top ridiculously massively totally overwhelm him with our expectations. Such behavior must make us totally resistible.

3. STANLEY

I finally…FINALLY…got to meet Stanley.  I’d heard of him and seen a few pics here and there, but quite by accident, when I was cleaning off the counter at my daughter Sarah’s house I found him peeking out from underneath Timothy’s Grade Two homework.  He came with a note on pale yellow paper, inviting Timothy to send him to someone he knew who might give him an adventure.  I asked Timo who he thought he would send Flat Stanley to. He immediately responded, “I’m sending him to you, Gummy.”  His answer was so immediate and matter of fact that I’m sure he was not just being diplomatic and trying to make me feel like I might have any sort of adventure in my life. But if he was being diplomatic then kudos to him for having the social grace.  I happily gave Stanley the seat next to me as I drove from their house in Herriman the 70 or so miles to my neck of the woods, up north here in Davis County, Utah. 

I’ve been working with Mark Robinette towards an impending deadline for a recording project, so Stan and I drove directly to the studio for a recording session. A late night one.  One that went till after midnight.  I thought we might as well give Stan a realistic picture of the glamorous life.  I’m really grateful Mark was not put off by the tag along I brought with me.  Bringing extras to a recording session is groovy only for rappers and rock stars.  Me, I try to keep the drama down in the studio when I’m doing a session and unless I need someone to be there, I usually fly solo. I must say Stanley was the perfect guest.  We never had to ask him to be quiet when the record button was lit.  He never interrupted our collaborations to ask if he could use the bathroom.  He was the perfect guest.  He went exactly where I suggested, and did exactly what he should, which more often than not was to just sit there and be quiet.

Why can’t more people be like Stanley?

I took a few pictures of Stanley’s first visit to the recording studio.  Wanna see them?

Here’s Stanley checking out the drum set.  He cleaned off his shoes before he danced on the snare.

Here’s the man checking out the keyboard we were composing on.

And here he is strumming each and every stringed instrument in the place.  (It took him quite a while.)

Stanley sat like a real gentleman while I sang.  This project involves a lot of children’s music for the Clytie Adams Dance Recital that’s coming up in June.  I think he really liked those kids songs, and I could sense he really wanted to try singing one himself.  So after I finished recording Teddy Bears Picnic I turned the mic over to him.  He didn’t sing very loud.  He was kind of shy. 

But I think he had fun.

 I'm really happy that Timo wanted Stanley to have a little adventure with me.  We had a great time.  And Stan isn't a bad singer, either...(though to be perfectly honest, he was a little flat.)