Heavy Lifting

So the one fund-raiser I did before the 200 stuffed mushroom one was a music, food, silent auction at the school which I pretty much did myself with not a whole lot of help. I recruited and solicited donations to the auction, stood out front of every parent meeting to try to get the parents to donate. Sent out a mailing. Recruited The Harmony Club, a group of retired studio jazz musicians, two different parents and the school Jazz Band to perform- all for free. Talked the Music parents into doing food and selling it. Got party tables donated. Got the cooking class to donate pies. Tried my damnedist to get people to attend. No one from the school staff actually attended. They handed the keys off to me. I had to hire a Security Guard which was the only expense of the entire evening. I had to smooze with the school custodian to get a piano outside and then back again inside at the end of the evening. Ran the Silent Auction pretty much by myself, except for my dear wife and a few other hardy souls. Luckily there was an unauthorized basketball clinic going on in the gym, so I picked up some business from the passerbys for the auction items and the food. Had some kids to help. The cooking teacher came to check me out, mostly so she could report back to the older parent group that didn't like me cause I talked back and didn't fit in. The reason I had the Friends of LACES blessing, was because a good friend had become President and she told everyone to let me do my thing. I would have preferred some help. It didn't look like a great turnout- the space was large, but I guess we did all right. At the end of the evening, as I was stacking the tables up to be picked up, I was told it looked like we did 10k. We did.

  

Emmylou Harris Last Night at The Greek Theater

Scored two tickets to the Greek Theater to watch her sing and play. Patty Griffith opened for her. She sang this, but its a Gillian Welch tune.

Well, They all came back the next night

Adventures in band. The first night, Sunday evening, the new guitarist, the two new ladies (Lost & Found) and  the fiddle player from San Fran and me and Craig started over basically. There was a set list for the gig on Saturday morning coming. We went through the songs. We were crazed. Trying to go through 10 songs with a group of people who haven't played much together, is like pulling teeth. We worked however. It was decided by all we'd come back the next night for one more try. The next night was very cool. We fooled around. They were all going to leave at 9:30. We got up to leave about 10 and then spend the next hour outside my studio door in the dark on the sidewalk showing each other yoga poses and holistic stretches. Craig can balance on one foot and point forward. The guitarist was demonstrating how to bend over and rise slowly to loosen the back up.
I showed them this:

which I've been able to do since I was 22. I worked as a printer's devil on a big two color printing press in New Orleans and you had to get into this position to clean the bottom set of rollers. The guitarist and one of the ladies hit it off and they are going off to some holistic healing thing in Santa Barbara.


Here are the two ladies. I filmed them and put them up on You Tube. Hope there will more
So far, this band has now lost 6 members along the way.

What Just Happened?

We just spent 3 and 1/2 hours rehearsing for the Saturday morning thing. I am so out of my depth. But I sing and I get gigs.

The Very Last Fundraiser

A success story

 

There was one fundraiser I did before this last one, but I've never ever done anything in order. The two older bears were graduated from the high school. The youngest one when off to France her sophomore year -and she was in the LACES school which is a Magnet School and you can't really leave a Magnet School and come back after a year and get back in easily. However, they liked her and we were active, so they kept her on the roll for the year she went off to France. I felt like I should do something to show my appreciation and benefit the school, so I volunteered to do the food at the Silent Auction thingee. One of my bear's friend's mother and I partnered up. We got the cooking students to make lasagna for hundreds, we got donations for salads and asked parents to bring desserts and whatever. Got the grocery store to cough up script that we used for supplies - and I made 200 stuffed mushrooms. We worked our tails off all evening with heating and refilling the lasagna and salads and we had students serving things up and carrying out the mushrooms. I was also good friends with the bartender, who kept supplying me with rum and cokes all evening, that I think to this day that kept getting stronger as the evening went on. At the end I was flying higher than a kite in a hurricane. My wife dragged me out before I fell over. It was all great fun. 

The Truth

You realize, of course, that I am writing my midnight thoughts to you, Lamont, Rex, ROSALIENe, Jan, and the two of children that read this, and of course a certain woman that gave me a hug at the keyboard and those others of you that may be out there.

Performance Anxiety

Performing: When I started I had to practice playing by myself for fifteen minutes before I could play with two other people at lunchtime in an isolated room in our place of work. I couldn't finish a song for my Alzheimer's mother over the phone without screwing up. This is what I wanted. So you start out in the back, afraid of getting too close to the microphone, then you slowly move forward. I went to a new group of folks last night, totally screwed up the first song, did a little better on the second and a little better on the third. However, now I can sit with a band and play for two hours in front of fifty people coming and going and get applause and hear it and enjoy it.  Most of the folks I've met all have the same problem- it has nothing to do with talent, or ability or exuberance, it has to do with level of comfort. There are folks that will never leave their garage or porch. There are people that will never leave their jam with 10 or 20 people. There are people who have enough ego to stand up in front of 50 people and perform, but don't feel important enough to stay there. The real advantage I've got, I think, is that deep down inside, I don't give a fuck. I don't really care what most of everybody thinks. I want that little one pair of hands clapping back there somewhere in the crowd. That is more important than everything else.
What I want to hear. Ellen, a odd little lady that hosts a open mike in Venice, came out from the dining room in this house last night, sat down beside me and and said she had heard me from the dining room, and thought the song was wonderful.  My dead baby song. It invokes a response. I played it at a jam in Orange county and a sweet guy, Doug, came and said I had a lot of guts to sing it. I said, well that's the idea. I enjoyed that night in particular, because my best buddy, Wayne, who hates all my original stuff, was shaken, noticing the reaction in room. This is a dead baby song. If I can get it out there, it will be noticed. That's the frigging idea.