Welcome to the first ever blog post of Parallel Universe.
This post will feature the musician and songwriter John Mayer.
Each post will feature a different known name. These will include musicians, actors and writers.
So, as the title of the blog suggests we will delve into the possible alternative life of John.
The life that another John is possibly leading, as we speak, in an altogether different universe.
Inside of this universe nothing regarding his genetics are different.
For instance, he’ll still be the same height - 6ft 3, still have the same hair and eye colour - dark brown, still have those giant guitar playing hands.
All this is just for fun and highlights the many different roads, journeys and decisions we take throughout our life.
What if we took different roads? Made different decisions?
Our lives would be different but would that change the essence of who we are?
Let's find out by using our first case study: Mr, One, John Mayer.
In this version of John's life he still plays the guitar and writes original songs but not as a profession.
He plays in a band and as a solo musician. But he doesn’t use that word as that word is reserved for people who get paid more than his annual salary to do just one gig.
Let alone a whole tour.
That would be fucking cool. He tells people. He tells people if he had that kind of green (pun intended) he would buy really expensive watches. You know, like, collect them. He says he could just buy and sell them and just live off the earnings.
However, he is a realist. He knows he wouldn’t give up being a paid fucking rock star to flogg watches. Become a dodgy salesman? A dodgy Del Boy? Not on his watch. Get it?
Oh yeah, before I go on I must point out that This John is British.
Why? I hear you ask? Because when I tried and ultimately failed to come up with an American version of Del Boy I remembered that this John could be born and bread any fucking where.
Try it for yourself. Who would be the American Derrick Trotter?
I digress
Too niche to my British audience.
Shows my age too.
Not good.
So, what does this British amateur guitarist do for a living?
Before we tackle that question we need to give you more information regarding his childhood and upbringing.
As he has the same genetics as the real John this would mean he also has the same parents. Just born in different ends.
His parents also have the same jobs as the real Johns parents because how in the fuck do you expect me to do this bullshit for every member of his family? I mean, come on!
His mum was an English teacher and his dad was a headmaster in the same school. That’s how they met, see?
As both parents worked in education, him and his siblings got a public school education from a state school.
Lucky duckies.
The only drawback to this is…..if you can call it a drawback because his parents didn’t,….there was no bunking off. Like, never.
If he was ill he would have to prove it unconditionally. No faking. There needed to be a temperature, a grotesque amount of phlegm or vomit. To hit a home run preferably all three.
This poses the age old question in which all kids worldwide would give their left kidney to know. How exactly does one fake a high temperature or worse?
The answer: ask Johnny boy or any random teacher's child.
So, in this Parallel Universe John does not get paid to be our very own guitar hero.
You see, when he was a teenager and floated the idea of becoming the next Stevie Ray Vaughan he took the advice of his parents, family and peers and chose a ‘safer, more secure route’.
Everyone agreed that he had talent but it’s just that - how many rockstars do you know personally?
I bet you could count them all on one hand and still have all or if not very close to all of them still standing?
Instead, he went to university and studied the same thing that his father studied - teaching.
He graduated with a Desmond. He could’ve easily got a first but he didn’t exactly attend all his lectures because his focus was only half on his studies the rest of his attention was taken by music and playing in a band he and his mates started.
They would play university campuses and built up quite a following.
After graduating they went to their separate corners of the country and got welcomed into the real world by the way of job hunting.
This john got accepted at a local secondary school teaching…… Science.
Don’t lie, you thunk it was gonna be music? Didn’t you?
Nah, science. This Johnny is a science geek. Teaches all 3 sciences - Chemistry , Physics and Biology.
That’s right, in this school Mr Mayer will teach you all about Gravity in Physics and the Continuum of the seasons in Biology.
I tried to include ‘in your atmosphere’ in this part but didn’t quite fit right.
He’s also an English substitute teacher for the school. This pleases his mum.
Everyone once in a while the school gets the pleasure of hearing him play guitar in assembly or if there’s a tricky science problem that he wants his students to really take in - he’ll crack open the guitar case.
Some of the parents go and watch him play with his new band in local pubs and venues but it’s just a hobby even though all the dads swear he should start his own YouTube channel. All the mums agree too and even offer to help, you know with the lighting and……everything.
The final chapter that everyone wants to know if this John gets a Hollywood ending? Well, I can’t tell that because his life, like the real John, is still in session. And thank fuck for that.
What I can tell you is this John is married but hasn’t got any children…..yet. Who knows how that will pan out? What I can tell you is that he is happily married.
He met his future wife when he was busking in the local campus cafes. She managed the acts that were to perform at the cafe. I say managed - she gave the go ahead to the talented ones and told the others that maybe this particular cafe wasn’t the best place for their music.
She got headhunted as a talent scout for an indie record label but her heart was in catering instead. So, she declined that offer.
After John had graduated they moved back home. They both lived in the same neck of the woods because love is only half the story - luck and good timing play a critical role in the whole story of someone’s life
With the help of a financial loan from both sets of parents his future wife opened her very own cafe which she still manages to this day as well as the musicians that play there. She even gives her husband a regular spot for the small fee of helping out in the cafe when they’re short staffed.
The cafe grew in popularity, they managed to pay both sets of parents back with a little extra.
John is thinking about starting the YouTube channel but his wife will be his one and only cameraman and lighting tech. Just like her husband she knows what she’s doing.
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