Tag Archives: band

by

Threw me out of the band

On Sunday I was in Portland with a friend and went to a memorial at the Laurelthirst. It was for a musician named Turtle. Local musicians showed up like crazy. There were at least six very fine guitar players, three on stage at a time and sometimes more. They switched in and out and switched styles. It was a beautiful tribute.

My two favorites were “They threw me out of the band” and one that bemoaned everyone playing music and drinking and that he had to sing another song about another dead band member. Funny and sad.

___________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: delete.

by

Dance card

When we danced at Glen Echo in the 1980s, there was dance etiquette. We did not have dance cards. Instead, we would see someone we wanted to dance with, sometimes while we were dancing with someone else. One finger meant next dance, two meant the one after that. If both were taken, a head shake. No one could remember beyond two so the etiquette was not to make promises beyond two dances!

Dance card

We finally meet again at a live band dance. I have not seen him since August. It is January.

“Hello!” says T. “Where have you been?”

“That is a great question!” I say very cheerfully.

He is looking at me.

“Oh, what a great song!” as the next song starts. I tap my foot.

He narrows his eyes a little, but replies “Shall we dance?”

We dance really well together. We have danced off and on for nearly twenty years. I asked someone for his last name just a week ago. I may have known in the past, but I had forgotten. It doesn’t really sound familiar. I do know he worked for years in counseling.

The band is loud so not conducive to talking much. The dance ends and he twirls me to a close embrace. He walks me back to the tables.

“You have not been at dances much.”

I blink at him. “You said your dance card was full.” I say.

“What?”

I sigh, trying not to exaggerate too much. “You asked me personal questions. Then at the next dance you tell me that you have a woman for every night of the year.” I flutter my lashes down. “I do hope you mean dancing.”

He is silent, absorbing this.

I am channeling my Tidewater Belle mother-out-law. “Ah am sure you are very busy.” I look modestly down at my lap, glancing across his lap as I lower my eyes. .

“Hmmm.” he says.

“Ah was so amazed that you had a woman for every night of the year that I could hardly bear to go to dance.”

I look through my lashes. He is studying me.

I smile sweetly. “Perhaps you could let me know if your dance card clears a little. Mind you, dancing only. Ah can be a little old fashioned about some things.”

_______________

The story is fiction. The photograph is from my wedding, 1989. He’s hamming for the audience again. I do not know who took this!

by

silence

You are silent.

I try a little more but I am tired. I am tired of drama, trauma drama. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that my ex touches a live bat. The bat changes in my dream, from a tiny brown nose bat to a huge fox bat with fur and stripes. It is unconscious.

“Don’t touch it! You touched it! Now we have to take it to the Health Department!” I am eyeing the bat and thinking of throwing something over it. A container. It’s huge.

My ex laughs. “No we don’t.”

“Yes we do! Rabies! It could have rabies! If we don’t take it in, you’ll need rabies shots!” Poor bat, I think, it will be killed to test for rabies.

My ex keeps laughing. “I’m not going to be tested, I won’t have shots, and the bat is fine!”

“WHAT!” I say, “No, you could die!”

I wake up. What was that dream about? Oh. It’s about you, refusing to test for Covid after being exposed. You said you would hike with me. “Not if you won’t test,” I say, “I can’t afford to get Covid again, I can’t be around you for 15 days if you won’t test.”

And you go silent.

And I try a little more and I let go. You will have to break the silence if you plan to keep your promises. Will you or won’t you? I am supposed to trust you. But people say trust me, and then sometimes they are drunk, and lying, and you can’t trust them. “I will never hurt you,” is a lie. Try this instead: “I will try not to hurt you and I will listen if you feel hurt.” And change, maybe?

Maybe.

________________

Dreams are funny. Fox bats ARE the largest bats in the world, but they do not have stripes: https://allthatsinteresting.com/giant-golden-crowned-flying-fox.

by

march on

This is my dead steampunk pirate costume. That’s what I wore Saturday morning for the Farmer’s Market. Friends were playing music and I danced. I managed to lure one very little person out to dance. She held my fingers and watched my feet as I let her around. She was fascinated, but did not want to look at my face. Sensible small person!

I switched to a skirt and skeletal stockings for the evening. The stockings are both left legs. The socks are both right legs. You can tell by where the fibula is in the lower leg: it should not be on the same side in both legs! I danced to a great Port Angeles Band: funk and reggae. I liked Joan Baez reggae style. Loads of fun and I won the dead steampunk pirate category. Well, there weren’t categories. I gave the prize to the band.

My friend P took this photograph with my phone. Thank you, P!

I need some stamina today. I have my last pulmonary rehabilitation visit, #24, and then a dress rehearsal tonight for the concert on Saturday and Sunday. You should come!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: stamina.

by

the gang’s all here

Hale hale the gang’s all here
wrong hale, it’s a hale of a thing
but it should be hail
the same sort that falls from the sky

but on the other foot, hale hale
anyone who has survived the pandemic
is more hale than those who haven’t
so hale hale for the gang still here

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: hale.

Let’s dance!

by

Playlist: Bands I have danced to

I have done two grief playlists. I will do more, but it got me thinking about other playlists. And we need distraction from grief too.

I am a swing dancer and jitterbug dancer. I lived in the Washington, DC area from 1985 to 1989 and then left for medical school. I spent a year being depressed about a breakup. The only time the depression lifted was when I went dancing. I started with contra dancing and then took a swing dance class. In the 1980s, we would have 400-600 people show up at the Spanish Ballroom in Glen Echo Park in Cabin John, MD, for a live band and a lesson, in a no alcohol venue. We would dance our socks off for three hours. We barely clapped for the bands, but they didn’t seem to care, because they liked watching us throw each other up in the air!

Marcia Ball

Daryl Davis

(You could watch his ted talk, too.)

Maria Muldaur

https://www.marinij.com/2021/05/20/maria-muldaurs-joyful-album-for-the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-pandemic/

Uppity Blues Women

Little Red and the Renagades

Doc Scantlin and his Imperial Palms Orchestra – at the Kennedy Warren Ballroom in Washington, DC.

I took the photograph of the poster this morning. It is from the 1980s.

by

Fair joy

I had Jefferson County Fair duty as part of the Port Townsend Sunrise Rotary, 2 hours yesterday morning and three at the Yellow Gate in the afternoon. I got to do the gate while it rained cats and dogs and that fairgate roof leaks like a sieve! It was a cold wet wood box with a door and two window holes wide open. I was dressed warmly enough barely.

But… back to the morning! Saturday started with a band parade!

DSCN3793.JPG

I have lived in Port Townsend since 2000 and I am a musician, so I know at least half the people in this parade. If the masks were off, I might know more.

This is one of those very local parades that you can be in if you want to, whether you have a costume or not. And here is the incomparable Joey Pipia, our magician and improv teacher, with a young horse….

DSCN3794.JPG

The fair is still going on, head on down today to enjoy!

I asked our Rotary Membership director the other day, how many of the adults in our town and county are in one or more local groups that help others: Rotary, Kiwanis, Elks, American Association of University Women, the PTA groups, church groups, the Veterans Association, the shelter, the Band Boosters…. the list goes on and on and hooray for all of those people and a big thanks to them! The people who run the fair and who run the Rhody Parade! All of the many volunteers we have and donors.

 

by

Night light

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #66, night lights! This is a light show with a band at the Palindrome, a summer solstice fundraiser for  BOOMFEST.

I danced on the porch because it was too loud and smokey inside. The High Council was playing… I wanted to catch the laser show and I liked the frame of the doors. Worked on the third try!