Last night I went to Dar’s annual Boxing Day show. It wasn’t on Boxing Day. I don’t know if anyone else calls it her Boxing Day show. I’m know why I call it her Boxing Day show. It might be because of the one year there was a blizzard on Boxing Day when the show was scheduled and I called it the rescheduled Boxing Day Show. But whatever the reason I like calling it that. It isn’t usually too inaccurate. Dar plays the Bell House, previously South Paw, one day between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
I often neglect including it in my holiday traditions but it’s integral. I go every year. I get there early, usually the first one on the line, every year. The show started at 8, so I planned on getting there at 5, when they open the bar and I can wait inside. Fred joined me. Even though he was coming from Long Island and I came from the Bronx, we were on the same R train, and walked to Bell House together. We got there about a quarter after, It might have even been 5:20. No worries, we were still the first ones there. Most years someone comes shortly after us, but not this year. Good thing we have no trouble entertaining each other.
Another tradition is saying “hi” to Dar when she comes in. Dar is the archetype of “Folk Famous.” Her entrance puts that in perspective. She comes in by herself with a guitar on her back and pulling a suitcase on wheels. Talk about glamour.
Who else was at the show that I knew? Some regulars were missing but plenty were there, the aforementioned Fred, Gene & Isabel, Chris, Steve, and Raquel. The first four are people that I’ve sat with at the Boxy Day shows. Steve is an old friend from college who found the show by chance that day and came with his family. That was fun. Way back when we went to many shows together. Raquel was not a surprise as she’s a friend of Dar’s. I met her when her band, Diamond Hotel did John Platt’s On Your Radar. I was looking around for her to no avail when Dar called her onstage to join her. She not only sang but was thanked for doing Dar’s hair.
There were strangers in the audience that were, well, strange. They didn’t seem to be aware that there were other people there. They’d just pipe in with whatever they wanted to say to Dar. Of course I’m a person that takes pride in his heckling. I don’t heckle Dar, I hope she’s not offended that I leave her out.
After 20 plus years do I have anything new to say about Ms. Williams. First off, saying “Ms. Williams” is funny, nobody thinks of her that way. She’s a one name star. Not because she’s so famous but because you see her once and you feel like you know her and are sure there is a special connection. Why are people looking at me like that? Why is Dar calling her lawyer and asking how to get a restraining order?
It all comes down to one of her early songs, The Baby Sitter. That always gets a big reaction from the audience. It’s an artist seeing the universe in a grain of sand, a Dar specialty. But that’s not what makes me feel the connection. It’s that you know that she’s still the little girl saying, “I can’t wait to give her the card! I can’t wait to giver her the card!” Nobody else can say that with such conviction.
Something that I’m not sure others will connect with as much as me, as much as I? I’ll go with me, is that she plays mental pinball. She’ll start saying something which reminds her of something else which sets her off in a new direction, which this a bumper that redirects her again, then bounces off a mushroom. She’s a pinball wizard.
She gave a date for the story of the Babysitter, 1972, and the Babysitter’s age at the time, 17. The babysitter is two years older than me. I could have known her. Is she single? Can she still sit on her hair?
When I think of the babysitter I don’t think of someone with long hair that’s as tall as Dar’s dad. I think of Carolyn, who used to babysit Joe and Emily’s kids and still camps with us every year at Falcon Ridge. She’s also a magical hippie. Dar told of how her babysitter bicycled over to their house, after midnight, on Christmas Eve, came into the house unannounced to put a bird’s nest in the family’s Christmas Tree. She had told them that in Germany finding a bird’s next in the Tannenbaum was considered good luck. I could so see Carolyn doing that. Why do Christmas trees have a Jewish name? Probably because nobody else wants to work on Christmas. It’s like being the Shabbos goy.
Today’s an off day, tomorrow will be my first time trying out a new holiday tradition, going to the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show. I’m going with Allison and Joe. It’s just a ten-minute walk from here. From there I’m going to an old tradition, New Year’s Eve with Warren and Tina. I’m a Jewish atheist that is well aware that the start of a new year is an artificial consequence of the way we measure time, not something with inherent meaning. That does not stop me from enjoying the traditions. The meaning is not inherent, it comes from people. I’m a person. That makes in meaningful.
Bacon and eggs is also meaningful, and the direction I’m heading for brunch. Or not. I might play some breakfast mental pinball before I reach the kitchen.
Wait! One more thing I forgot. The opening acts name was Raye Zaragoza. Without that the title would be meaningless. Now I can let you go.
Wise Madness 