it seemed like Denver must have been dark last night...with parts of Utah and New Hampshire close behind... while a beautiful sound and light seemed to be emanating from Cottonwood Circle in Golden.
go figure.
I don't know who the Oxford Hotel could have even scrounged up for an opening act for Paul Geremia or Batdorf and Rodney...it might have been hard to book a dance night with Colours...I'm telling you, the Little Bear had to do without The ReJuveniles, Paonia and the world without the Strolling Scones, the Pearl St. Pub without The Modniks, folk venues of all sizes had to do without Dakota Blonde...
I really never thought of it all that way before. it makes me feel downright selfish for putting a date to this party.
but perhaps my surviving long enough to love love love being there was the most selfish part of it all. I have a bit more use for these resources, in their present configuration, thank you very much; the Universe will have time enough later.
I'm not pretending the night was not a gift from the Universe's timing as well. since I'm not really getting away with anything in the broader world, it was the present of life that I and each other person be there to celebrate it!
I'm feeling a little hung over this morning and today. the party last night was an agreement I had with myself to take one day and burn its candle with a blowtorch. to ignore the shadows to come and take some pleasure in still being around after the time specified by the first studies I read about my cancer. today, I'm back to being Patient Man to some degree, to dealing with pills and aches and needs and troubles. getting some rest back.
last night, none of that. last night I spent some lovely hours in Real Scott land. that's a gift that all of you have been giving me throughout, and anyone will tell you what it means to a patient to just step aside from all the hard stuff for a beautiful vacation in territory that they walked once without a second thought.
anyone, and I, will tell you.
that was, for example, the very best Frank's barbecue I ever ate. I have pondered for years...why are they not more of a restaurant? open lunch only several days a week only...I know they make their good money catering functions and I've always wondered if the unfortunates like myself who wander in for dinner get some older, more dried out, salty version of the meal not exactly destined to bring them back for more dinners.
I'd hate to think that. but the Frank's I have been wanting to show everyone was definitely in the house last night! even at the end of the night, when I got to it, it was everything we don't usually eat barbecue about...salt, grease, fat, density...and everything I can't resist breaking down for about twice a year.
the pisser is breaking down and then not getting the indulgence you craved. which is what has happened when I've tried to show Frank's off to folks throughout the years. thanks be to Linda and Bill Patterson, I can now point and say...now THAT is what I've been talking about.
even though I can point to my body today and say, and that is why I don't do this very often. soup and salad for dinner tonight!!!
George Bailey, who in short time in It's a Wonderful Life is given to see not only a vision of the world poorer by exactly the amount taking his life away would mean to it, but then is given to see how much more he has been given in his life, how much more he has given to the people in it, than he could possibly have imagined...George, in the last scene in It's a Wonderful Life, goes through some version of what I have been through in these days.
but here's what is different:
George's gift to others, to Bedford Falls, takes place in the same family, in the same town, with largely the same cast of characters. I felt worlds colliding, intersecting, tumbling headlong over each other last night. families...isn't every band kind of a family? Rick Stockton, playing in the mid 70's with Bill Roser as PigeonToad...then in a duo with me for years around Larimer Square at Josephina's and the Prairie Schooner, also a semi house gig at Sweetwater (that duo was called Harmony Gritts). also in a big country band occasionally, the O.K. Chorale. Rick headed back to Texas about when I moved to California to play with Bill Roser in Boy Howdy!...the origin of many great pal in the trenches stories between Bill and I...when Bill moved to Seattle at the turn of the decade, I had a solo career thrust on me (me having a great PA and no car to move it, nor license to drive any such car. ("Bill, can I bum a ride for me and the PA to San Berdoo?")
on the way back to Colorado in 1981, having enjoyed California about as much as I could ever want to, I did a couple of months of gigs with Rick and (still Linda at this point) Helen.
yes, it was a long trip.
at that point they were Ritzy Keno. they tried to make it in Texas during the mid 80's, when I was trying to get audiences out here to have the kind of fun the solo led them to in California. but eventually Rick set up a powerful studio in Paonia, CO, and I started adding bands and recording projects to my continuing solo gigs. I reconnected with Rick over the last few years, doing work both on Andy Byron's CD and Bent Roses' CD (Bill Roser, his wife Susan and myself, the first full CD I mixed and mastered in soundHouse) and occasionally filling in with Rick's full on 60's band, the Strolling Scones, his and my 60's things fully influencing each other.
I'll blame being on drugs for any of that history I've misspoken...
the point is...this was one guy!
looking at that room of people from various strata of My backstory, as if someone had decided they needed to put a highway right through here, exposing layers music over time like the rock on either side of I-70, and that highway was darned well going to be me...I was blown away! it felt like the casinos I'd played at, where bells were going off constantly through out, but bells that someone had made sure would complement each other harmonically.
I didn't know if I would be able to sing or play a note. but a new frontier of insecurity also presented itself...with my having lived so much in Patient Scott world recently, and with so much material dating so far back...could I remember, would I be able to focus? were things I could no longer do going to be anything of a detriment?
I made a couple of unconscionable arrangement gaffes early...but the evening was so much about other things. it was about whether I could be there around the people I had played so much with, and bear not trying to play and sing something. the pull ended up being irresistible, and I felt like I had kind of a free pass to not be able to do as much and still be accepted.
it was part of the beautiful gift I was given last night.
so please accept, all who were there and all who were there in spirit, my deep gratitude for celebrating life with me that night, and here is what you all did so virtuosically...you gave me exactly the celebration I'd had in mind, exactly the night I'd dreamed of. you kept the accent on the living positive, and focussed on the smiles and the music and the light of this day reaching us all.
musicians, I find, are like anyone else in that they just want to tell their story. but they are different in that they really really REALLY want to tell their story. it is as much giving as taking, for them to tell it, but people like me who work to help artists tell it sometimes need some way, some place, to open up and tell their own, and be listened to by that room full of storytellers.
you gave that to me last night.
we've all been at parties where socializing was primary and jamming was secondary, and we've all just wanted to say, something special is happening at the jam now if everyone would pause for a few minutes and tune into it. and we've all been rebuffed by a group of persistent talkers...sometimes at a gig, even!
my voice isn't strong, oh Blog Followers, but it was strong that night. my decreased lung power was plenty enough to ask for and receive focus for the jam stage. very quiet things were heard amazingly well. it was Sherman's March to Heaven, a dream come true for me.
let the following days be what they will be.
comrades, this day was ours!
