I was my sons’ roadie on Saturday. I stood in the back with my lovely wife and watched.
Everyone approached us after doing the mental arithmetic that we didn’t quite belong there, and said those boys must belong to you. Up to a point, they do. But they are beginning to belong to themselves, and are fixing to belong to the whole world as well. It breaks your heart in a wonderful way to picture your children grown up and elsewhere.
I do not get the urge to play music with my children. Then again, I do not get the urge to make music with anyone. I did it for a long time, and made some money, and had some laughs, but it’s over for me. I had my turn on the line, and now it’s time for other things. I am happy to see my children get their turn. I’m gratified to see them making the most of it.
The candle’s wearing a fishnet stocking and there’s this weird notched dish next to it smoking three cigarettes at a time and I’m drunk.
I get these interesting notions. I’m wondering if the bartender is rinsing out the really dirty glasses by pouring liquor in them and letting drunks slosh it around until they’re clean enough for a sober person. I wonder if naugahyde comes sticky from the factory, or do they install it aftermarket. I wonder why a deaf man loads the jukebox. Is there a floor on the planet — wood, wall-to-wall carpet, packed earth, whatever –where any table in this joint won’t wobble? Two more pony glasses and I’ll be wondering what the gum under there tastes like. I wonder if anyone else is getting the Morse Code S.O.S. in the flickering neon sign. I wonder if the singer doesn’t like me. No, I know he doesn’t like me because I yelled at him and he yelled back.
There’s a girl at the next table and she’s Juliet just now. But she’s like me, and isn’t about to wait until the third act to start drinking poison. The trouble is, I’ve had five glasses of amber Cyrano de Bergerac and my tongue’s depressed and I’m in the wrong play. What difference does it make, really? I could reel on over and reel her in to empty my wallet and fill my ear, and where does it go? Back to her place to watch her wash off the warpaint and see her go from Juliet to Lady Macbeth quicker than a coffee break in a factory.
They hate it when you tell them, just there, when you’ve figured out your mistake, that you forgot something in the car, and she points out you took the subway.
At any rate, that’s the lake at the school. A lovely spot to rusticate and pester a canvas, don’t you think? I find it fascinating that the school still teaches fresco painting. Fresco painting is what Michelangelo did to the Sistine Chapel. You apply pigments to fresh (fresco) plaster, and it’s absorbed into the material as it hardens. I used to dabble in painting on the walls and ceilings in a barbarous way, and had no idea anyone was still trying it Old Skool. Good on them.
Holy cow, is that a table saw?
Ah, I won’t be totally lost there. I can’t afford that nifty overarm dust collection, though. They better keep an eye on it. And count all the plastic sporks after we Rumford heathens leave.
It’s a party for the end of their session. Will there be Cake? Oh, trust me; one way or another there will be Cake:
By the way, did anyone else notice that YouTube, ie: Google stole Unorganized Hancock’s logo for their homepage this week? Here’s YouTube:
And here’s Unorganized Hancock’s:
Anyone know any good lawyers? We should sue. On second thought, never mind; I doubt Google has any money.
The Pickup Cafe is really neat. Until a year ago or so, the building it’s in was a jail. You can still see bars inside the windows on the streetside facade. It’s been turned into a variegated compound of interesting businesses. There’s a mill in there grinding flour, which they sell in big bags next to the coffee urns in the cafe. There’s retail this and that, too. There’s some sort of wholesale food business that’s supposed to function on goodwill instead of cupidity. You can decide if greed is good on your own. I can testify that the coffee and the lunch we ate was really first-rate.
The cafe has three roll-up doors that allow al fresco dining during the 37-1/2 hours of good weather Maine enjoys every two years. Mainers are famously laconic, and don’t like to brag about such good fortune. They’re afraid you might be “from away,” which is what they call everyone that was born more than two hours drive from a Mardens, and they wouldn’t want to make you feel bad if you’re from some benighted burg that doesn’t enjoy that sort of sybaritic clime.
The landscaping outside the cafe was really well done. By the look of it, some of it is comestible, too. Flowers and sun with a little shade when you need it. What else could one need? Oh yes; some music.
Here’s Unorganized Hancock in their natural environment. Well, except for the lack of plaster falling off the walls in their practice room, it’s the same as their natural environment. The blue awning sheds a greater percentage of rainwater than the roof of my house does, of course; and the extension cord they require to electrify their amplifiers (and the audience) is shorter at the cafe than it is at the end of the hall upstairs, but other than that, it’s pretty much just another day at the office for our lads.
My boys play under control at all times. They can play quietly, if need be. They’re using their monitor speakers as their PA speakers with this small rig. The drums are muted with stuffed toys, and the Spare Heir plays jazz songs with a kind of brushes that look like a bundle of chopsticks. The Heir is the only guitar player, so there’s no volume arms race. Two guitars is four guitars, I always say. The audience loved them. They do a little show along with the music, and call up audience members to join them in some fun, and give them little prizes for doing so. People will climb over the prostrate bodies of their loved ones to get a free pair of sunglasses if you make them. My boys didn’t make them.
Who wants to hear them open their show with their own jazz vamp composition called Hip Gyrations? You do? I knew you would.
There’s a really pretty woman somewhere in the video. She went home with the bass player.
[Update: Dave R. has been continually generous with his donations and his support and encouragement for my boys and we’re grateful for it. If you’d like to help us buy musical equipment and instruction for our boys there’s a PayPal button in the right hand column. Many thanks!]
It was a big, big tent. Big stage. There was very, very real sound reinforcement. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon.
They don’t know what to think when they see the little drummer shuffle in. The soundmen ask where the rest of them might be. They dutifully go through their soundcheck, no doubt wondering what could possibly come out of the speakers when the bell rings.
I don’t miss the roadhouse, on the stage or off it. It was fun while it lasted but life is a career and one must move on, or life does, and passes you by. Music is a serious thing for many people, and deserving of respect, but for me it was a lark. The lark goes out of it if you hang on too long, on either side of the bar. 
Recent Comments