You bet I can hear certain women howling that I’ve got a double standard and that I should date women my own age. But is it me with the double standard? Am I the one saying marry me and pay my bills because I used to be sexy? You bet I’m motivated to get this cowboy band off the ground. Very motivated. In fact, very, very motivated. So over-opinionated women can kiss my sheester. I left bingo early to attend the “Acous-chicks” show at Dekka. The premise is young women playing acoustic guitar and singing two-part harmony. This I consistently find greatly entertaining. Otherwise, the venue was your typical older non-blonde divorced women fresh from assertiveness class. I got checked out twice. One informed me riding a scooter was dangerous (tipping me off how uncritical she’d be on a daily basis). The second asked me about some TV show I’d never heard of (let’s watch Oprah, shall we). I gave both the polite but most immediate brush off.
I met a promoter with a budget of zero. It was like being back in Los Angeles in 1991, shaking my head at the hopeless minions trying to form stage companies. Most memorable event was the last performer, a lady who asked if anyone in the audience had a [guitar] pick. Jim Dandy to the rescue. I let her keep one as a souvenir. She might have some younger, blonder, slimmer sisters at home.
A couple of the young women playing the guitar and cello had arranged music primordially similar to how Trent and I are specializing (on a different galactic plane, mind you). I took the cello player’s card. They lacked something you can’t buy—stage presence. They were young and cheerful with bangs, horn-rim glasses, and empire waist skirts. This semi-preppy look seems to have deep impact on the near-pretties.
I was home by midnight baking sandwiches. Pineapple cheese and seedless raspberry jam, for the record. I have the promoter’s card and this may represent the closest contemporary contact I have with the coffee house circuit. My non-party business model is out of date, or rapidly becoming so. I’d rate the evening at the show a successful night out. For me.
We held an early practice, ten till noon, we are making progress. But some of the regular tunes are still giving more trouble than they are worth. We’ve spent too much time on some of the simplest music available. Overall, there is progress. I won some free DVDs this week, one was remarkable, “The Thing”. The old alien spaceship in Antarctica, the DNA merging monster that grows inside human hosts, 24 year old world famous female biologist. But very watchable for the plot, the special effects, and the acting. I think it was a Norwegian effort.
Bingo was empty but profitable. The remainder of today’s post won’t please everybody. I can be bitingly critical, jealous, and intolerant when it comes to academy-trained performers. If your daddy had money to send you to 60 Lincoln Plaza, well yes, I expect flawlessness or get off the stage. I want to see and hear the perfection of a comparable number of hours put in that I was condemned to unpaid farm labor at the same age. It should make complete sense to anyone that I don’t buy into that “playing till my fingers bled” backdrop.
On the other hand, I’m first to applaud when anyone delivers the wow. That did not happen this evening, despite the music being dealt as original. It largely depends on if you consider medium tempo, plucked guitar, jazz-ballad, 1940ish ditties as sincerely creative. Why do I suspect Julliard’s has a complete degreed program in that style, course name “Coffee House 451”?
Anyone still curious about the exception to the sexy old lady rule? The above is a re-hash of the concept of “Eem Lao” that I picked up in Thailand some thirty years ago. I would not in the least mind having a woman like this grew old with me; I probably would not even notice. But “Eem Lao” literally means “old already”.
