With the tenseness running up to the election and the spectacular letdown afterwards, I fear I gave short shrift to the highs and lows and birthdays and shows over the past month or so. The Journal is my memory though, so I should at LEAST take notes!
We should go back to Heather’s birthday week. There was laughter, there were tears. I think Joey was on time! We ate deviled eggs and the amazing pot roast sandwich and then lacklustre salmon.
ilyAIMY played the night before Heather’s birthday at Dark Horse in Annapolis. Wednesday the 30th. 6 days before the election.
It was a strange night. Tense. The music (us) was good but there were too many political conversations happening in the bar. People wouldn’t let it go. Alcohol and politics and racist subtext. Heather literally stepped between two guys. An old white Trumper trying to pick a fight with a younger black kid. The younger guy thanked Heather for her intercession. Joey or I would’ve started a fight. Heather could go in and bat her eyelashes and say “don’t ruin my birthday”.
I Love watching her be courageous.
We need it.
I’ve seen her do that a couple of times. Hell. She’s stepped between ME and another guy. She solves problems. I have some small salve to my lack of courage on that front by knowing that this is something that I literally CAN’T do peacefully and I’m too fucking small for barfights.
We broke down and loaded our gear out in record time so we could grab some tequila and do shots with the bartenders, celebrating Heather’s birthday right at midnight.
Kristen has discovered that she’d simply been drinking bad tequila. See? It’s a NICE drink.
Halloween was beautiful. Incredible weather and children wandering Catonsville. Kristen and I went over to Amy and Nate’s around the corner and ate raw fish and handed out candy. Heather played a gig out on the Eastern Shore I heard nary a tale of either fish OR candy. One of Kristen’s OTHER bandmates was at a party next door and we watched myriad zombies and Spidermen wander the streets. Inflatable dinosaurs and minions and monsters were profuse, many cats wandered by, few Mandolorians. Fewer Jedi.
There were probably over a hundred kids. Probably less than 200. It felt like more than last year but over a shorter period of time. There were no loud Amazon “spooky playlists” being piped into the streets. Sans Safety Bear, there were no Thrillers.
Friday, the day AFTER Heather’s birthday we played New Deal Café under its brand new food service. Literally brand new. Like… I got a phone call Friday morning saying “don’t worry, we’ll be open!” which fortunately actually got to me before I’d checked my email to see the message from Halloween night saying “uhm, we might NOT be open for your show tomorrow” which… would’ve made me tense.
They still didn’t have their ducks quite in a row. Couldn’t accept credit cards. Didn’t have a full menu. We had a great show filled with strange highs and lows as New Deal shows always are. If you want to see the show I’ll post a link here because I know only superfans read Journal entries that don’t have their photos in them : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66lGp6Dx6RM.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve seen lots of pictures showing what kind of food they’ve NOW brought in and I’m highly, highly jealous of what I didn’t get to eat.
Looks like I’ll FINALLY have a place for chicken and waffles again.
Yes, yes I DO click on links in the Journal…..Super fan, says you?