Done yesterday

[mdlbear]

0308 Su
  * up 9amish; DST kicks me in the ass
  & breakfast
  * haul stuff down, check out of hotel
  & noonish call Callie & Naomi's room.  (should have done it at 11am)
    ! frantic.
  & last-minute set changes; add "Gentle Arms of Eden", move Nemesis to TGq
    Give title to Jordan to go print while I rehearse with N.
  * 1pm Tres Gique concert: 45 minutes
    ! focussed
  * 2pm Tempered Glass concert: 45 minutes. 
    ! focussed - people said I didn't look up enough.  They're right.
  ! happily dazed.  We did **What?!**  Relieved.  Noticed the dazedness.
  & 4pm Visit Colleen briefly during some of the afternoon concerts
    ! scared
  & 7pm shuffle cars, dinner; good conversation
    ! love, friendship.  Still dazed.
  & Run through TGq set for Colleen (all but Devil's Music).  
  * ~midnight: garbage, drugs, teeth; notice phone missing
  * unpack facehugger.  go splat.
  * bed ~1am

After a frantic morning, including checking out of the hotel, re-arranging sets at the last minute so Joyce (Tres Gique's bass player) wouldn't have to come back on stage for one song with Tempered Glass and filling the gap with something I had to learn the chords to in 20 minutes, I got on stage with minutes to spare and played and sang for two consecutive 50-minute concerts. Tres Gique sounded as good as they ever have. And the new group, Tempered Glass, kicked ass. Or was that glass.

I spent the rest of the day in a happy, bemused daze wondering how in blazes we'd managed to pull it all off.

And in the evening, after taking pocketnaomi and cflute to a well-earned dinner, we went up to Colleen's room at Kaiser and reprised the whole TGl set for her. We win.

Comments

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking that you (plural) might occasionally manage a live performance that, besides entertaining Colleen, takes in as many other patients (wherever this happens to be) as want to attend. (I have a "real life" friend who's a bluegrass musician; his wife developed a terminal illness, but it took her a long time to die. He'd go visit her in the hospital, then go around from room to room with his banjo, playing and singing for anybody who wanted it. Apparently it reduced demand for painkillers and sleeping medications, and increased the number of patients who recovered enough to leave that floor of the hospital.)

[mdlbear]

Unfortunately two of us live in Seattle, and I live in San Jose.

I know my little travel guitar is appreciated by the nurses; does it say something that it hadn't even occurred to me to ask whether anyone else wanted to listen?

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Hmm, sounds like the old lack-of-self-esteem is at work here - it never occurred to you that people might actually enjoy your music.

Get permission from the nurses, and go around to different rooms asking people if they'd like you to play and sing a tune or two for them. I'll bet you'll be very surprised at the responses.

[mdlbear]

I've always known that people like my music, but I've never performed anyplace but a science fiction convention; it never occurred to me that the hospital might be a venue.

And in any case, my shyness would make going around from room to room too stressful to even consider at this point.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

So ask the nurses where they think might be a good place to play. (And performing for people in hospitals and/or other health care facilities could be considered part of your job, as the Middle-Sized Bear, of making people feel better.)