beautiful, funny, sad & true

This is a pretty intense weekend.

Last night was a Breanna/cello/violin gig, and it was incredibly fun. A couple of friends who either haven’t been to a show in ages, or who have never been to a show came out last night, including TossedIn. Nice night, all around. On the way out, I ran into one of my old friends from my previous apartment building, which was a great surprise.

Tonight is another Breanna gig–minus ViolinistKarlee–down in Salem, which means I’m going straight from work and driving in rush-hour traffic to try to make it down there by 7:00.

Tomorrow morning, I’m meeting my dad and stepmom for breakfast over here at Milo’s, one of my favorite spots. From there, I have a recording session with TheShinsEngineer at noon. From there, I have an gig playing accordion on what will very likely be the last Crystin Byrd gig for quite some time, because she’s very pregnant. From there, I’m meeting one of my oldest friends–should I say ‘longest friendships?’ It’s not as if she’s ninety years old!–who is down here from Seattle to visit her Stumptown friends. It promises to be quite a long and interesting day.

I don’t know what it is about leap year that I find so intriguing, but I do. Perhaps it’s the lunatic (as in ‘saturnine’, ‘martial’, and ‘lunatic’) connections that it has with the moon’s cycle; I don’t know. Maybe I don’t need a reason. Maybe I just find it intriguing. I’ll have to do a little bit of investigating. Is it unusual to have a lunar eclipse so near to the leap year?

Answers another day.

Okay, so that good story I was promising.

I’m not quite sure how to tell it, but it involves two accordions and a member of the Decemberists.

So at the show on Friday, there were three groups. The first was a group from Alaska, the second was Susie and the band, and the headlining band was the person whose CD release party it was. I was quite happily surprised to find out that DecemberistsAccordionist was playing in the headlining band, because I think she’s really great, and finally I’d get the chance to meet her and tell her so. It’s also gratifying, in a different way, because I get the chance to be on par with lots of the people who I’ve looked up to for a long time, as a participant instead of merely an observer. Making good connections and new friendships like that is always a great feeling.

Accordions are like cellos, in that they’re fairly uncommon, and people tend to use only their own for years on end. Whenever you get the opportunity to play someone else’s, you tend to take it. She wanted to try my accordion, and I wanted to try hers too, so we did, and it was really fun. She’s got a really nice one too; very small and light and easy to play, and sounds very much like a musette. Mine’s huge and heavy, but it has a wider variety of sound possibilities.

There was an impromptu bluegrass jam session happening backstage in the green room, involving DecemberistsGuitarist, DecemberistsAccordionist, MississippiStudiosJim and a really amazing girl fiddle player. I could have listened to that all night. CellistSkip joined them too, and then they asked for different songs. I was sitting and listening–not playing, because there was already an accordionist involved–and then Skip started playing “Comfortably Numb” by HugelyFamousPinkEnglishBand. I grabbed my accordion then, and started to play the really high violin part, in harmony with what Skip was doing. Super fun and hilarious. The real show always takes place backstage.

By then the first band had finished, and it was Susie’s turn to play, so we went out onstage. Sounded great and felt great, but on about the third song, one of my accordion straps broke. I ran off stage and grabbed a chair to sit on, but it was still pretty much impossible to play. The song came to an end, and I told Susie what was up, and ran offstage again. She started to tell a story, I think. I don’t really remember, to tell you the truth. I was too busy freaking out.

Jim took a look and said, “Maybe we can fix it,” but we couldn’t. It had snapped in the fatal spot. I asked for DecemberistsAccordionist, but she was nowhere to be seen. Someone went and found her, and she very generously allowed me to use her instrument for the remainder of the show. Extra special mega-thanks to her for saving the day.

Tonight I’m taking it to the repair shop for some new straps. Can’t live without the accordion at all; it’s my bread and butter instrument, and yes, I do know which side the butter goes on.

Saturday I drove up to EmeraldCity to play guitar with Brandon and the band. It was really fun, as usual. His mom happened to be in town. I didn’t recognize her at first–it HAS been fifteen years, after all–but she refreshed my memory, and she’s a really sweet lady. So our first two sets were flawless, but by the third set, my pedalboard started acting up and losing power. Sheesh! Two weeks ago, the metal screw that tightens the hair on the cello bow broke. Friday it was the accordion strap. Saturday, the pedalboard was freaking out. What’s next?? Never mind, GearGoblins, I don’t want to know.

After the show, the three of us went to FamousRestaurantThatRhymesWithPennies. I got back to LittleBrothersHouse at 3:30 a.m. It was a really great time all around.

My mom was also at LittleBrothersHouse this weekend, and I haven’t seen her for a few months. It was a really good–if short–visit, and you’ll be glad to know that on Sunday we made Mister T sandwiches. I swear those things are going to catch on.

CatZooey is back with her owner now. It was great to have her staying here, but it’s also nice to have my place back. I spent last night cleaning like a maniac. I still have more to do, but it’s quite an improvement over the way this place has been lately.

So yeah; quite a weekend, indeed. Here’s to plenty more just like it.

I came across this this morning, too, and thought it was beautiful. It was in one of those ‘bulletins’ that doesn’t tend to stick around for very long, so I wanted to capture it and share it here.

When we view our fellow human beings, we should look as we do at rose bushes. All have flowers and thorns. Some are strong rooted, some weak. Disease weakens some, while others are healthy. The environment from which each bush grows helps shape its life, but none is all flowers, and none is all thorns. Love helps us to understand the function of the thorns and to appreciate the blooms.

Please understand my thorns.

I know, I know. I could so easily tie it in with the 80’s Röck thing if I were to just say the simple phrase, “Every rose has its thorn (yeah, it does),” but that would trivialize and ruin such a beautiful sentiment, and I would never dream of doing that.

I’m driving along a two-lane road, with dense forest on both sides. Snorsha (not her real name) and Tossed In (not his real name, either, but it sounds like that) are with me in the car. We are returning from an exploration trip of some sort.

On the left side of the road is an opulent Spanish-style mansion, which has since fallen into disrepair, and been overgrown by the forest. It appears to have been built before the turn of the last century, around 1880 or so. Moss covers everything, and ferns are growing out of every open ground space, but the place is still mostly intact, including all of the glass windows.

There is a long, low stucco and brick wall along the edge of the mile-long property, and the building complex itself is probably a half mile long. I say to my companions, “Look at this amazing place! Can you imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday? And didn’t it used to be a mausoleum or cemetery or something, after that?” Neither of them knows the answer, but we are all entranced by the place as we drive by.

Eventually, we come to the end of the property, where there is an enormous, open courtyard paved entirely with red bricks. It’s about four o’clock on an overcast day, so the orange fluorescent floodlights are beginning to light up. There is a dip in the curb, so I drive into the courtyard and park the car in the middle of it. The three of us get out and walk back toward the building complex. On the side of the courtyard, away from the building, we can see that there is, in fact, an old cemetery that recedes down the hill and away from the courtyard and main complex.

We’re not the only ones who are investigating. There are a few people milling around in groups of two or three, all there for the purpose of investigating this tremendous, unusual and remote place. The three of us decide to separate. I walk toward what seems to be the main entrance. A man has set up a tiny food cart near the door, where he sells roasted chicken and chocolate-covered ice cream bars.

I walk through the entrance and into a large room–probably five hundred feet across and one hundred feet deep–that is also floored with red brick. Despite the patina left by years of this type of foot traffic, the floor in this room still retains a slight polish that reveals its exquisite quality. The room is softly illuminated by natural light, which shines through the ceiling that is made almost entirely of frosted glass. I wander through this room for a while, and then I notice a double door along one wall. I walk to it, open it and step through.

The room I enter is much smaller, perhaps a hundred feet across. The room is dark, except for torches that have been lit and placed in holders on the walls. The floor is made up of large, gray marble tiles. The ceilings are so high that they disappear into the darkness, high above the faint light from the torches.

There are a few other people like myself in the room. There is also a group of around ten actors in beautiful, multi-colored costumes. They are holding out scripts and reading from them, but still acting the parts at the same time. The performance is excellent and riveting, and the audience is spellbound. The actors are not confined to a corner of the room, but instead are walking around everywhere. If not for the bright costumes, the actors and the audience would be indistinguishable. I spend quite a bit of time watching and listening.

This is the point at which I woke up.

I’ll be spending the next couple of days in EmeraldCity to play with my friend’s band again. I’ll be staying with LittleBrother and his family. They were just here the other day, but it’s never enough. My mom will be up there this time, too. It promises to be a fun weekend.

Looks like Zooey will be staying with me for a few more days. Sure is fun having her here, except for the fact that she spends way too much time trying to get into my bedroom, which is the one place that I absolutely don’t want her to be. Since the door doesn’t latch, I’ve had to ingeniously use a bright red water pitcher that fits right in around the handle and wedges down into the jamb. It looks hilarious, but hey, it works.

Isn’t this an exciting entry? I’m reminded of an inside joke I used to have with one of my friends: “That’s not interesting, tell me less!”

I’ve been so busy with gigs and plays and stuff–plus getting the blog moved and redesigned and everything–that I haven’t had as much time to just think and write. This next week is much more open than the last one was, so I should be around a bit more.

[edit, later that night: What I should have done is write now, after getting home from the gig, because tonight was a crazy night. Well, now you know that you have at least one great story to look forward to when I get back from Seattle.]