Bercy Arena, Paris. Depeche Mode’s Exciter Tour. Leagues later, it’s the imagery of the backup singers banging out the rhythm that sticks. Their primal enthusiasm for the tracks was nitrous oxide redlining the ennui of a youthful age into wild energy. If you were there, you’d remember even if you were mainlining pharmaceuticals and pawing your partner. You surely would.
Whether aboard the yacht or in the witness stand, backup singers bring the juice. It’s the nonparty witness the jury believes over party testimony. It’s because your skipper sips the occasional beer with the dockmaster that gets you fueled first, not ‘cause you’re flying the Club’s burgee. The sailmaker rooting for you, juggler of family and career, to pull a win is why he gets those batten pockets to lay just right and not because he’s getting paid a one-off rate. Trust me, the front of house only ever looks so good (or bad) because of the efforts of the kitchen.
And so with a new year peaking above this morning’s horizon, let’s all hail the backup singers. Let’s hail the court clerk who calls you back and suggests a different way to file the motion so you can make the timing you need. Let’s hail that woman who shows up every Wednesday evening with good cheer and rides the rail until she’s up first moving to sweep the jib. Let’s hail the stranger to the anchor dragging dispute who agrees to be deposed on the critical facts that’ll make the case. The bullets (first place wins) we accumulate in a life charged hard are as much because of the backup singers as our own skillset. I don’t ever forget that bit because I’ve straddled both sides.
Someone I know (and who is part of our team) nicely teased me for being a fancy, trial lawyer in surprise at learning I’m building a garage (or, the term I use with my wife, a land yacht) by myself. It caught my ear and rattled around for a while. You don’t see yourself as others perceive your person. You can steam the timbers and layer varnish on the brightwork, but the dock staff have their own ideas of your hull. Still, whatever skillset I’ve acquired in lawyering and (loosely) assembling rafters is because of the backup singers. A closing argument was pitched right because someone lifted their hands off a keyboard to add a comment that made what I was saying authentic. My gaggle of long past sailing wins were because someone beside the stage leaned close and tugged the traveler, or nudged my shoulder at a rippled patch of water promising a lift. And it was a backup singer that showed me wood won’t split if you twist the nail gun.
And with this appreciation for the backup singers, I now burden you with a New Year’s task. There’s nothing so much
fun as being part of something bigger, no matter how small the contribution. Take time to make lush life’s chorus by adding your voice. You don’t need to volunteer with the formality of exchanged emails and committee approvals to saddle up and offer a gentle suggestion. For those of us who’ve served the corporate ranks, it’s the encouragement offered aside the coatroom or the casual effort to helm a stalled client dinner that is the true measure of maturity. If luck paid you a passing visit, you’ve profited from such stage-side voices and the efforts of those wanting to make bright (or brighter) a moment in which you stood on the proscenium. And the good ones; the good ones relish in the contribution, leaving green-eyed ardor to the smallish of men (and women).
When next the moment surfaces, lean in as a backup singer might with the right tonality and chorded tone. Encourage your son-in-law in his new sailing endeavor; scrawl a few lines in proposed re-write on the intern’s business school application; nod in agreement when your Yankee constitution might have you not; give a loping wave to the merry band aboard the center-console that cut across your bow in accidental enthusiasm; buoy the mood of the post-race table by taking their drink order; mumble to the college-bound kid skippering the boss’s boat that trying less sometimes yields more, and make finer the creases and moments of those around you.
So with that, I’m off to take a ride with my best friend. Promise, it’ll be safe as houses ‘cause I don’t fly so high anymore. (And yeah, they’ve renamed it the Accord Arena, but for me and probably everyone else that night, the Bercy is how we’ll cipher the memory.)
Underway and making way. ■
John K. Fulweiler, Esq. is a Proctor-in-Admiralty representing individuals and small businesses in maritime matters including personal injury claims throughout the East and Gulf Coasts and with his office in Newport, Rhode Island. He can be reached at 1-800-383-MAYDAY (6293) or john@saltwaterlaw.com, or visit his website at saltwaterlaw.com.
