October 04, 2005

12:30 a.m.

Hammer Time

The house concert series in Philly is held in a finished basement. This couple's "starter home" has ended up being their abode for 20 years. The neighborhood has a dramatic history; it was begun in the 20s by a developer whose trophy wife wanted to live in California. So he built her a miniature "Hollywood" there on the outskirts of Philadelphia, with street names like "Santa Fe Avenue" and "Los Angeles Lane." The architecture is all stucco and adobe and roofs with little or no slant -- very silly in the northern climate, but there you are, trophy wife -- and partway through the building, the depression hit and he lost everything. Eventually one of his sons, who was in another business that didn't go bellyup, finished the development. The dramatic ending is that the trophy wife divorced the bankrupt developer and ran off with the son.

The houses are just crammed in next to one another; everyone has high fences but you can practically spit into your neighbor's window. And everyone has one or two little, yippy dogs. Our hosts have two, but they are currently trained to be quiet on command, and they actually behave. They also own a snake named Fred, who is very friendly, a serene guinea pig named Charlie, and a cat whose name escapes me, but also friendly.

So the concert was fine, and we slept in the basement after everyone had left. I brought my airbed, and there was a double size futon that they opened up for Chris and Carol. Unfortunately the frame was this metal, um, well, imagine the door to a jail cell, and then put a mattress on that. Then imagine feeling every single bar as it presses into your back. This happens sometimes and we just put the mattress on the floor, but this one was attached to the frame and not giving up. Finally Chris snuck out back to their trailer and brought in a mattress from there, which they arranged on the floor to their satisfaction.

All of this with chagrined laughter... we've been in so many sleeping situations and made do with the oddest of accommodations, it was just another problem to be solved. Our hosts were very concerned the next day and apologetic ("The kids sleep on that all the time! We just never imagined!" -- not thinking that Mark alone weighs 3 times as much as a child!) but we said it was fine and solved.

There I had a dream about arc-angel666, whom I have never met, and if he wants to know what I dreamt, he can send me a note. :)

Next morning they made us a huge breakfast, and after a few more scritches for the dogs and cat, we headed out to someone else's house where we'd stayed once, who had offered us haven overnight so we wouldn't have to drive home in between the Philly gig and our NJ gigs which were today. They were mostly gone, in fact, so we rehearsed and napped and watched tv and played with more cats until it was time to leave this morning for our Oh! Susannah! gigs.

Oh, yes. The Oh Susannah gigs. These are very interesting, not to say exactly fun. Carol has a music therapy certification, though she doesn't formally do that now, but she's worked for years with an organization that provides music in institutional settings like hospitals, care centers for developmentally disabled, prisons, and so forth. You've gotta be good with people of alternate mind; you have to be outgoing; you have to be smiley and cheerful and ready for anything. I pretty much have to do a lot of mustering to display any of these traits, but Carol is good at it and she fronts the gig. Chris provides harmony and guitar work, and so did I this time. I do these maybe once or twice a year, if the budget allows them to pay for three people. We do little or no original material; we sing "This Land is Your Land" and "If I Had a Hammer" and, you guessed it, "Oh! Susannah." Carol absolutely loves this song. We have a whole joke about it during our regular gigs, because she wrote a song that is NOT Oh! Susannah, but has something of the feel of it, and is a bit Appalachian, and we talk about how we won't let her play the O.S. song any more so she wrote this one instead. Then just before the end we sneak in a line of O.S. anyway as a surprise. So it's been momentous that we actually played youknowwhat today, AND had to rehearse it a number of times beforehand. She was in heaven. We teased her mercilessly. The scariest thing is, if we really liked doing this music we'd be so good at it. But it's just way too A Mighty Wind.

So we had hurriedly rehearsed a whole bunch of things for this occasion, nearly biting each other's heads off in the process, knowing it didn't have to be perfectly finessed but wanting to do our three-part best.

Our first set was at a center for variously retarded folks. Oh, I know, I'm not supposed to use that word, but it was just to save time, and now I've used the time up explaining that anyway. Sheesh.

I was a little nervous but just following their lead. The organization that booked us also had a little camera crew there to videotape our performance for a promotional movie they're making. Argh. Not only do I have to smile big and sing the Hammer thing, I have to be on camera doing it. Meanwhile, as we're setting up, one of the residents (oh, now they're calling them Consumers, can you believe it?) kept coming up to us and wanting to talk. Only she wasn't verbal, only vocal, and she wanted to point at everything on the walls and around the room and talk to us about them, only we couldn't understand what she was saying except that she liked cake and playing games. Finally she came over to me and started pulling on my shirt. A staff member eventually came over and persuaded her to sit down.

Then I went out to look for a chair, because I would be sitting out on a couple of numbers. Another staff person kindly got me a chair and we were walking back into the performance room, where most of the resid -- oops, I mean consumers, were already sitting down waiting, and she quickly put the chair down and said, "Excuse me," and trotted up to the front performing area, where a very large black fellow with a very small head had decided to drop trou' in front of Carol. Yup, he was standing there in his undiebloomers with his pants all 'round his ankles. Our staff member helped him reassign his trousers to their proper altitude, and took him to a chair to sit.

More people were ushered in and helped to sit, and then we started.

Cacophony! Vocalizing, whistling, banging of tambourines, manic laughter... hey, that was the room, not us. During one song I played on guitar, I had to keep turning sideways to let little wanderers go by. I guess it went okay, though it's just hard to tell because it was a bit chaotic. Carol was magnificent, I thought. I had a couple of very verklempt moments when she walked down the middle aisle singing some ballad or other, and a sweet, short little downs syndrome lady wandered up to her with hands outstretched, and Carol started singing to her and they had this little relationship for a while. And I couldn't believe all the songs they knew. All in all, it was kind of creepy but beautiful.

The camera crew interviewed C. for a few minutes afterwards, and then we had to skedaddle to our next gig. We grabbed a lunch at our favorite deli in Millburne -- Carol's parents used to live there and we'd stay at their house when we travelled through, and this deli was a frequent stop. They make Joes, like sloppy joes only they're sandwiches. We got Maple Turkey Joes, which contain, in addition to the turkey, swiss or provolone cheese, cole slaw, russian dressing, and three levels of thin rye bread. Eat with napkins handy. We ate them fast and got back in the car.

We arrived just in time to set up at a sort of senior center/hospital. These folks also ranged in levels of lucidity -- one woman was on a sort of gurney, with her head thrown back and her mouth gaping wide, and I believe she slept through the whole thing. But there weren't really any wanderers, and people were quite responsive. We had one microphone for this one, whereas the morning show was unplugged, so we shared duty. My favorite was when Carol sang, Makin' Whoopee, and walked up to some of those sitting in the front row to have them sing the key phrase into the microphone. There was one little old lady in the front who was a real character, and sang it with gusto.

So we got through that and, having made our $240 apiece for the day, packed the car and headed back to Connecticut.

If I did that every day of the week I'd make $1200 weekly.

I think I'd also go nuts, but I'd be rich.

The only problem is, now I can't get Bridge over Troubled Water out of my head.

********

I have my third level Reiki training tomorrow, and I'm so late getting to bed. What is it that I can't just go to sleep at night like a good girl? I'm so happy once I get into bed.

So. I shan't postpone joy any longer.