With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
I enjoy paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.
2001-11-07 - 10:11 a.m.
I wish I wasn't too tired to write this last night. It's so much better when everything is fresh in your mind.
The big event on the agenda yesterday was seeing Hoopoe, Richard Thompson to the uninitiated. I was supposed to meet Shelly at 7 PM. Without traffic I can make it there in about a half an hour. This was rush hour though and it can sometimes take 2 hours to cross the George Washington Bridge. I wanted to get there early so parking would be easy and I left at 5. A miracle occurred, there was no traffic; I got there at 5:40. This was good in terms of parking but bad in terms of killing time. I picked up my tickets, which were courtesy of WFUV, and then walked around Englewood. It is not the most interesting town though. I grabbed a 99-cent bacon cheeseburger at Wendy's. I figured that was a good compromise. I wanted to have dinner with Shelly but since she was driving up from Philly there was a chance she'd be late and we wouldn't be able to get a chance to eat.
After eating I found a toy store and a Sam Goody to play in. The Sam Goody was really disappointing. It didn't have anything any good. When I walked in the guy gave me a funny look, I think it's because he knew the store didn't stock anything that would interest anyone over 19.
I went back to the John Harms Center to wait for Shelly. After a bit Jill, an FUV volunteer showed up with her friend Sally to set up the FUV table. I helped of course. I will have to volunteer to do shows. I love schmoozing the crowd and you get to see the show for free. While waiting I was the unofficial FUV reception line. I said greeted lots of the volunteers, Karin the membership director, and Claudia who emceed the show.
By 7:30 I was getting worried about Shelly. I called her on Jill's cell phone and found that she wasn't that far away. With parking and everything she got there after 8:00 so we had to go right in after introducing her to my friends.
The opening act was Marshall Crenshaw. He was great. He's a serious guitar player so it takes a lot of nerve for him to open for Richard Thompson, the world's greatest guitar player.
It is hard for anyone to live up to my expectations for Richard Thompson but he did. There were some unusual interactions with the audience. I don't know what they were smoking but people were acting like jerks shouting things out. Richard handled it with aplomb though. When they shouted out a request for Freebird he made up a song with the lyrics "freebird." He even started to play Tequila when it was shouted out. That was great. He played it straight then said, "that's to upbeat for me." Here is a more depressing version. Then he did the traditional English folksong version. Richard Thompson has a great dry wit, which he rarely shows in his songs. He did one of his two funny songs though, My Daddy is a Mummy .
When he played 1952 Vincent Black Lightning I cried for the first of many times. When I heard that I wish Carey could have been there with us, it's our song. It would also have been great to have the full Batnose Brigade there. The next time the three of us are planning to get together is in February, to see Christine Lavin. I hope we can get together before that.
Back to the show: RT is an amazing songwriter. He writes incredibly moving love songs without ever being cloying. Shelly and I were talking about how he succeeds in doing what Jian attempts.
Now if I were properly prepared I'd have taken notes last night and gone through the set list. I didn't. It's a shame since it was a great set. I'll just have to jump to the encores.
When he came back out he did an unusual set. He did the history of western music in 3 songs. The first song was a 14th century Italian song. It really showed off his guitar talent and his versatility. He then did Shenandoah. He did it as a tribute to America after the events of 9/11. He said he wanted something that wasn't overtly religious or patriotic. I think it worked far better than most of the things I've been hearing. I listened to it in a different light than I ever had before. I'm really getting sick of God Bless America. Shenandoah doesn't tell how great America is. It doesn't ask god for special favors. It is a sailor's longing for his home. I cried when he was singing. The last song he did was something by Squeeze, an unusual trio to say the least.
Teddy Thompson joined him on stage for the last encore. I expected them to just do Persuasion. I was delighted when I heard the chords to Wall of Death one of my favorite songs. I cried one more time. Then they did Persuasion. It was an amazing evening.
The International Jewish Banking Conspiracy - October 07, 2008
On the Road to Westchester County - October 06, 2008
Inside the Madison Square Studio - October 05, 2008
I'm a Bosniac and I'm debating like I've never debated before - October 03, 2008
Islands in the Stream of Consciousness - October 02, 2008
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile 2001-11-07
