We lost Warner Williams this morning and I’m trying to wrap my head around it. My head’s not wrapping well today. He was born in 1930 and I can’t comprehend the things he Lived through in his ALMOST a hundred years on this Earth. He was a welcome surprise and sort of needed to be wrangled, but man – you sat him down, handed him a guitar and off he went. The consummate bluesman.
Good gig man, good gig.
I try not to keep the number up on the top of my head but I’ve been counting deaths of friends and family since the beginning of 2020 and I’m up to 16 and I’m doing okay right up until I’m not.
Happy Monday. I’ve got a long week ahead of me that as long as I remind myself to take things piecemeal and step by step, shan’t be overwhelming.
I never really know my breaking points. I’m okay until I’m not, and then there’s a brief storm and I get over it. I had a crying jag this morning, something my father probably wouldn’t have been happy that I’m admitting, but it happens. I’m okay until I’m not, but I get over it.
I think 9/11 weighed heavily on me, more than it ought to. It’s been keeping me on edge though. Keeping ME near my own surface, breaking through. Unlike Pandemic and the madness that’s been the last year and a half, I didn’t know anyone who died. Everyone that I worried about had been recently transferred or had quit or hadn’t gone to work that day. I literally saw the smoke, but didn’t see the fire. Despite that I have flashbacks and sudden moments of heaviness, usually when I’m driving, because that’s where the news really struck home – as I was driving home. As I was trying to contact my parents. As I decided now, I just need to be HOME now that I know they’re okay.
I just need to be home.
The smoke over the trees, yet the traffic was normal. Washington DC’s Beltway continuing it’s frenzied hum as if 19 men HADN’T been so consumed by rhetoric and religion that they’d chosen to end their Lives flying jet airliners into densely-populated office buildings.
And so last week’s FocusMusic show with Dave Roth didn’t salve any wounds for me. It just made me have to be calm and technical while thinking heavily on the twenty-year topic, thinking about whether things are any better, knowing that they are not.
As my Monday unfolds around me my week is complicated, not just because of the death of a member of our music scene this morning, and not because of the emotions that seem to have taken a week or so to bubble to the surface. But also because of the slow evolution of COVID in the area, my fear that I’m just making NONE of the right choices, my worry that there aren’t good ways forward.
Falcor was happy to see us. Playing for Yoomie’s Happy Unbirthday.
Yesterday I was working with a group called Tabla For Two – we have a show with them on Thursday night that’s been on the books for months and I’ve been really excited about it. Their videos are sumptuous and beautiful both sonically and visually, but unfortunately it RAPIDLY came to pass that they were so below-the-tech-wire that when asked if they were able to webcast for the show, they didn’t understand the difference between that and pre-recorded material and so had said “yes” when, after less than 10 minutes with them I determined the answer to be a firm “no”.
I mean – this was a “hold the camera up to the monitor of your laptop so I can walk you through entering a web address on your browser” level of not-able-to-webcast.
VERY fortunately for all involved, T42 HAPPENS to be based out of Bethesda, MD and ALSO happens to have a good, solid internet connection, so I can go there and make that happen! Having a beautiful show combining an American harmonium player and an Afghani tabla player is spectacularly pertinent right at this moment and I’m glad I can make it happen.
Unfortunately, Institute of Musical Traditions booked a show the very same night with BanjerDan – a show which, shortly after I said “yes” to physically coming and taking care of FocusMusic’s stream – got canceled because of the increasing incidence of COVID in Montgomery County. And by “canceled” of course I mean “rob, we’re going to have to get rid of the Live audience for Thursday night, can you stream the…” no, no I can’t.
So they’re setting things up with Charlie Pilzer, and I worry about making sure all the pieces are in place in advance because night-of I’ll definitely have my hands full.
But that’s not till Thursday.
Tonight it’s all about the VOM. Except it’s not. Not just because my head’s not clear, but I had to make sure all THOSE pieces were in place in advance with Chris and Rowan because Heather and I are playing in Annapolis tonight in a room that I am actively kind of worried about performing in because it’s TINY.
On the one hand, people are making their own decisions about what they feel comfortable with and their own safety re : COVID – on the other hand the scene’s changing rapidly all the time and in the past several weeks I’ve had half a dozen close friends, vaccinated, theoretically cautious close friends, all catch COVID… for four out of the six it was “mild” as the WORLD thinks of the term “mild” (e.g. it was kinda like a cold and it was really just an excess of caution that had them go get tested in any case) but for the other two it was TECHNICALLY “mild” (e.g. though it kicked their ass for several weeks and kept them pretty non-functional, they did NOT have to spend time in the ICU nor in the hospital beyond infusions of monoclonal antibodies).
Tomorrow I’m running an open mic. But it’s outdoors and I THINK we’re being careful enough?
Wednesday we’re going to a concert. But it’s outdoors and we’ll wear masks and I THINK we’re being careful enough?
Thursday I’m running a webcast from a basement in Bethesda with musicians who are TRIPLY vaccinated and I’ll probably wear a mask anywho and I THINK I’m being careful enough?
Friday I’m running a webcast from home and no-one will be there but my wife and … well… that simply HAS to be careful enough.
And Saturday we’re playing outdoors for a full band show and we generally wear masks when we’re not on stage and… I THINK we’re being careful enough…
The ongoing concentration, the ongoing stress. Deaths and illness. The feel of the weather turning and then turning back. The rashes from the heat and the sweat and the humidity. MY omnipresent allergies that only don’t freak me out because of their omnipresence. The pain in my shoulders from working too much and the pain in my back from carrying too much and the weight in my brain from not doing ENOUGH.
Yeah. I’m completely okay. Until I’m not.
And it’s going to be a long week.