Update on New Year’s Eve at MacHenry’s Pub, Ft. Worth, Texas:
Arrived to available parking, empty club, lights low, happy faces, big hellos from Nancy and John and Deanna and sound guy took his time as we unloaded, set up, getting levels, mics just right, bass funky and drums punky and me strumming guitar to accordian and keys and vocals level LET’S GO
To the hotel where we change clothes t.v. on: watch Pakistani children needing $10 worth of steel sheeting for roof for onslaught of winter
I’m determined to do more brushing hair falling in love with the Pakistani doctor telling story showing families needing shoes, needing food
volunteers from around the world rushing in with aid and the doctor is calm and caring and time to get back to the club I carry his voice in my heart I want to reach the world’s suffering and snuff it out I want to sing for grace and compassion and
BACK AT THE CLUB I am chatting and having some hot tea with whiskey to clear my snuffled cold head bloated blodgy throat and laughing at the bar enjoying Chris Gonzales sing about a chicken shack in his Grandma’s front yard and Brad (drummer) is smiling back at me as I whisper goofy things in his ear and everything is sparkling the lot is full of cars, the club is full of people…sparkly crowns and
party tooters ready to revel in reverie over the old and welcome the new and
IT IS TIME to hop on stage and Deanna introduces me with the kindest of kind words and up I go! and the swirl begins to settle in
my body and out through my fingertips, tips on strings, mouth on mic, smile on audience, audience embraces back the swirl of
what is to come and what is happening all at once and words are pouring out of my head and laughter is racing round the room and boom I hear my voice and we are one, this connection of energy so prevelant but captured in a room for just this night and then a trumpet
ZOUNDS! IT’S SOUNDS FROM MY RIGHT and Zirkel has bounded on stage trumpet in hand! I have never had trumpet on “The Very Thing” and WHY NOT cuz it was SUPER BEYOND COOL…yesh, yesh, lovliness occurring!!! Then everyone in the band on stage (Chip Dolan: accordian, keys, singing…Brad Evilsizer, drums, percussion, singing) ONE LONG JAM-A-GLAMA and we got our giddy on and I was actually ON THE FLOOR with my guitar at one point, trying to mesh completely with it, just banging away on it like I haven’t in YEARS and wailing on the mic and throwing my body around with zest and zeal and my hair flying like seabirds in a tsunami and
wow wow wow and Janet gave us a standing ovation at some point it is all a blur of music/breaking strings/crashing of cymbals/accordian licks and I couldn’t have crawled into the sound more than I did.
THEN AT MIDNITE we count down, one crazy happy room of I love yous and WHAMMO! we jump into old Auld Lang Syne and sing Robert Brown’s original Scottish lyrics now we are silly, goofy trying to pronounce the Brogue and forget it cracking ourselves up I yell out, “Now sing like yer drunk!” (which, of course, no one at my shows ever gets drunk…see, that was the joke) and suddenly we are all thirteen year olds play acting like Carol Burnett, drunk outta our minds, singing the song….next verse: sing it like you mean it and the voices are clear and strong and the statement and sentiment entertwine and the new year is ours.
THE MUSIC GOES ON and we sing more songs and eat more of Deanna’s delicious homemade enchiladas and quiches and
soon it is time to kiss goodnight and send each other out into this good world and believe in the hope that we can make this world function with harmony and togetherness….and the room is trashed as I walk around and pick up the little flags I had handed out before the night began and I read the testimonies and well wishes of those who sat in the dark and poured their conciousness with pen to paper….and I will leave these ambassadors of good will scattered about this planet for others to find and ponder over.
AND THIS IS HOW THE NEW YEAR STARTS a drive home to austin arriving at five thirty a.m. and my house is still and the gentle breathing of loved ones, cats mewing in the driveway, my snake asleep on his greenery in his clear, glass house. And I crawl in bed, exhausted and on fire with the body of music alive.