Owings Mills, MD
Nightmares. My brain is swimming in them and I woke up sweating like I haven’t done in… I don’t remember. Somehow my oh-so-common nightmares had faded away without my noticing, but this morning I swim back to consciousness thrashing all the way.
At the very last Java Mammas open mic, on Thursday, March 3rd, 2011 – the Java Mammas themselves come out with a piano player and Rebecca’s son, Ben, and perform a couple of beautiful old spirituals.
I think I was thinking about Heather’s new revolution song. Or maybe current events arejust plenty. A montage of shootings and ominous presences. I think I’d started out at House of Musical Traditions and the park across the street had been closed down so people couldn’t gather there. We kept hearing that police officers were being gunned down and that anyone who poked there head up was being deemed dangerous. We kept the shop pretty closed down until some woman who held some level of authority came in, all light and airy and friendly but we knew she could order soldiers in to have us all killed.
Jon Patton of Midway Fair stepping up to accompany Andrew Luttrell at the Last Java Mammas open mic. Everyone had some kind words, and even though I know the open mic wasn’t about ME it still felt good to have some of my personal heroes say such good things. No farewell to Java Mammas would be right without these two faces. Ana has been to almost every single open mic up till she went away to school, and Artem who has simply blossomed while coming here.
She eventually demanded that we take her on a driving tour of the area. Kristen and I sat in the front and she sat in the back and Kristen kept wincing whenever we went over a bump. We drove deserted streets, slowing down for barricades and dead dogs and I wasn’t good at keeping my mouth shut and Kristen winced whenever I opened it.
Scene shift to Java Mammas, people packed in like sardines and a soldier kicking down the door because there were too many people assembled. He took aim and was going to gun down Heather and Artem where they were sitting on the couch and I didn’t think I just jumped in front of the bullets.
Hannah Muchnick was a wonderful find over at Trax on Wax and I’ve been very happy to have her transplant herself over to Java Mammas. On the last night of the open mic her father, Steve, joined her on piano to great effect. Elliot and Paige of Petal Blight being entirely too damned perky at the last Java Mammas open mic. Dylan Lee Brady performing at the last Java Mammas open mic. Midway Fair rocking out at the last Java Mammas open mic. I was so frustrated that we had to end. Ever. Rick Millman played a new tune and one of his Lovin of Java Mammas tunes … I was really disappointed we didn’t have enough time to hear his Angels on Main Street tune. Sigh. So, Jon only made it out to the open mic a couple of times and Jade is a pretty recent transplant – but I absolutely Love this photograph, and so despite the fact that I can’t really go on forever about its significance (although the inclusion of Jon’s Midway Fair tonight was pretty amazing, the band is just wonderful) (although it’s been a great place for Jade to really get more comfortable performing in the last month or so that she’s been a regular) I think it really shows some happy people, and that’s what this is all about. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Just another Java Mammas audience shot showing off how freakin’ awesome the last night was
I’ve always hated how vivid pain is in my dreams and I was hoping it would be over fast and I just felt myself shredding and being pulled apart, like that Matrix bullet-time had waited till the shells had HIT me before slowing the world down. The hot metal was slow enough that my skin melted onto to shells, adhering and ripping again as they pulped my sternum and punched through rips. I was still being riddled as I finally came awake, but it was a slow surfacing… I woke up gasping.
I think Libya has me frightened, I won’t deny it. But perhaps not as frightened as Newt Gingrich and the Westboro Baptists and the governor of Wisconsin. I can feel the pressure of it all. All the hatred.
At least in the Middle East, in my mind at least, it’s business as usual. At least this time there might be some positive outcome to the violence. Gadhafi has been a Life-long boogieman. In our American society, the concept of term-limits at least means that continuity and dynasty are products of groups of people and parties, not single entities. But the fact that single names have ruled other nations for an entire generation is a terrifying perspective. Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro – the fact that these names have ALWAYS been in the news and they are just slowly being picked off by time or by war or perhaps now by revolutionary implosion. As I check the spelling of Gadhafi’s name I see a headline: ‘Gadhafi reaches paranoid ‘point of no return’. What does THAT mean?!
A deal in 2003 with Libya theoretically removed his nuclear arsenal. Who knows what else he has stockpiled. Some of my growing-up-during-the-Cold-War fear is niggling at my soul but there’s always this sense that it’s way, way, way over there….
But here at home we had the disgusting WBs, we have Newt Gingrich polishing up his Christianity because in 2012, he thinks he can’t get elected in this country without being a born-again Christian and we have narrow-minded, politically-focused, short-term views taking the forefront in a budget crisis that’s been looming for decades.
I’ve been awake for 20 minutes, and I’m still sweating.
