Parking Karma

Oh, the irony!

I have great Parking Karma.

What is Parking Karma? Against all odds, I get really wonderful parking places, again and again. I mean really amazing parking places that you wouldn’t believe.

However, a factor crucial to Parking Karma is that in order to have Parking Karma I have to try to get great parking places. I’m never going to get a perfect spot right out in front of the restaurant (remember those?) if I chicken out and park in a parking structure two blocks away. I have to actually drive past the restaurant and give the Universe an opportunity to fulfil itself on my preferred terms.

Believe me, way more often than you’d think, it does.

This concept of Parking Karma is, I think, a really powerful metaphor that can shed light upon many dimensions of life.

Anyhow, one day about halfway through 2018 I was on the phone with a friend playfully boasting about my exceptional parking karma and my friend said something to the effect of "What a great song title! You should write a song called Parking Karma."

And so I did. And it turned out great - really, one of the best songs I have ever written. Certainly one of the most accessible.

At the time, I was in the middle of writing a whole new batch of songs, and so I planned for “Parking Karma” to be the very accessible centerpiece of the songwriting and recording project I undertook through the winter of 2019-2020.

As the winter wound down through January and February towards spring I prepared to take my songs to the world. 2020 was going to be a big year for me as a musician and songwriter - the year for me to play out a lot, and hopefully assert and consolidate my songwriter’s voice publicly.

I set up a house concert at Oz’s Music here in Ann Arbor. I invited a bunch of friends to come join me at Oz’s on Tuesday night, March 17th 2020.

You all know what happened.

Oh, the irony! My lead song – my lead Concept as I asserted my desire for a great parking spot in the pantheon of contemporary American songwriters, was a song about Parking Karma, and now, with COVID upon us and the economy shut down, there was no longer any such thing as a contested parking spot anywhere in my home town of Ann Arbor that wasn’t at a hospital. Ditto for much of the rest of the world.

I had been seriously outflanked by reality.

Nobody was going to want to hear about Parking Karma as 2020 spun out its agonizing COVID/Trump fever dream.

And yet my song remained, and I held out hope, and I STILL hold out hope that someday not so long from now competitive parking will be a thing again, and my song Parking Karma will find its place in American popular culture.

And, in fact, the very concept of Parking Karma demands that I metaphorically drive around the block and try this thing again in 2021.