As I type, I’m listening to my old best bud from the roots rock band I used to play in, as he livestreams some songs he performs on his mandolin. He has a live “tip jar” and every dollar that goes in it will go to one of the local dive bars we always used to play in (and he still does). He’s been in (and is currently in) a really unreasonable number of bands. Besides the band we were in, since then he’s also been in a gypsy band that had an actual fire-eating woman who would do a belly-dance/cirque de soleil kind of act around them as they played, while also swallowing flaming swords. In addition to the gypsy band, and among the others (which I won’t even try to list), he’s also in a band called Berlin Brothers which plays 20s/30s jazz standard and swing kind of things – it has a lot of brass in it. Anyhow, he just played Blue Skies, one of the regular tunes from Berlin Brothers sets, and it seemed like an appropriately heartening title for today.
It is also not at all appropriate for the weather right now, as we’ve had a stormy weekend and it’s currently pretty gusty and cloudy outside. Nevertheless, let’s keep our eyes firmly affixed on the positive allegorical meaning.
Well the livestream has just cheered me right up, and it’s sort of funny how that works. It was virtual, of course, and I only interacted with folks through a screen and commenting, but it was still fun to all be watching together! His wife and daughter were a live audience, but there were several dozen of us watching through the screen. I miss that old band, and all those old friends. We shall have to make a trip to NC once all of this is over, and have a giant, all-hours-long party. I MISS PEOPLE.
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I typed the above one full week ago – on April 19. I should have just posted it then, but I didn’t, so I’m going to post it now and then write another one for today. And since I have a lot of pictures to share, I’ll share a collection below of our Nerf gun battle held at our storage unit. It is a converted old Civil War era manufacturing plant, and it’s so creepy and weird and I’ve always wanted to have a Nerf gun battle there. It was a ton of fun – the boys are asking to do it again today!
