I’m writing this the Megabus to Boston. The promised Wi-Fi is nonexistent. Fortunately, since the last time this happened to me my phone plan includes hotspots. None of that helps with being stuck in traffic. The bus left 34th street and 11th avenue at 3:30. An hour and a half later we just crossed under the high bridge that’s around 175th street. At this rate I’ll reach Boston by Thursday, maybe, if I’m lucky.
As per usual I put off packing to the last minute. I have my meds, that’s the most important thing. I just had a moment of doubt, but I remember slipping them into a pocket of my suitcase. When I got on the subway I reached for my glasses, and they weren’t there. Arrgghh! The bus leaves from a place with no nearby stores, I couldn’t stop in a drug store and pick up a pair of reading glasses. I struggled but succeeded in find the email with my bus ticket. When I got to my seat, I took off my jacket and started unpacking things like my phone charger. In the process I found my reading glasses in the kangaroo pouch of my hoodie, just where it was supposed to be. It was hiding amongst the other things there on the subway. I was not an idiot for forgetting my reading glasses. I was an idiot for thinking I forgot my reading glasses.
Now on the last night’s fun, I went to see Christine Lavin with special guest Deirdre Flint at the Birdland theater, which is below Birdland. I had never been there before, and I discovered why. It opened to years ago and the pandemic hit soon thereafter. I tried to not get there early but didn’t succeed as I misremembered what time the show started. I ended up getting there five minutes before the doors opened.
I was a bit surprised that I didn’t know anyone on the line to get in when I little later I looked around inside and still saw no one. Chris makes sure that all her friends know all her other friends, so I’m accustomed to being around people I know through Christine. After I ordered dinner, I heard a familiar voice right behind me ordering. The voice was both familiar and distinctive but couldn’t place it. It might not even be a friend’s but a performer whose voice I know. I turned around and saw that it was someone that’s both a friend and performer whose voice I know who I was introduced to years ago by Christine, David Massengill. It was a bit awkward talking to him as his table was directly behind me, but we managed. I have missed socializing during the pandemic as much as I missed live music. Nobody ever took the seat next to mine but that might have been designed. Deirdre sat there right before her set and Chris during Deirdre’s set.
After the show Elaine came over to say hello and told me that Judy was there. Then Judy and her daughter came over, so I hung out with them after the show. I considered going to Cast Party upstairs at Birdland but I’d have to pay another minimum and of course I had a long day today. I hate missing Cast Party and hanging with friends but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
They were both fabulous which gives no added information to anyone that knows them. They are always fabulous. There was a reason for the show just then, it was 40 years after Chris signed her first record deal when she was mumble mumble years old. The guy that signed her was in the audience. As this was a night for looking back on her career, I’ll look back on how I came to know Chris and Deirdre.
Let the background get wavy and out of focus as we go back to 1989. I had taken to looking in the New York Times radio listings to see if there were any classical pieces being broadcast on WQXR that I wanted to catch. Instead, I saw a listing for the Greenwich Village Folk Festival featuring Dave Van Ronk on a station that I had previously only listened to Fordham basketball games on, WFUV. The GWFF was unlike most festivals, it was mainly a showcase where performer after performer did two songs before the headliner came on. Think of a very long Emerging Artists showcase at Falcon Ridge. I heard this singer sing this amazing song, Shopping Cart of Love: The Play. It was a nine-minute epic story of the worst day in a woman’s life becoming the best. I laughed at loud over and over again. It was of course Christine Lavin. As soon as she was done, I called Carey to tell him about this great artist I had found and by pure chance he was listening too! This was kismet. I scoured the Village Voice to see if she was playing someplace. She was! It was probably the bottom line. It could have been Snug Harbor in Staten Island or that might have been the second place we saw her. We became instant fans. The next day we drove out to Tower Records in Carle Place, not Greenwich Village, and I bought all of her CDS. You know someone is great when one concert makes you buy their entire oeuvre.
My first onstage interaction with Chris happened at another Bottom Line show. She asked the audience; who got an A in astronomy? I raised my hand. She asked, “What school?” When I said, “Queens College,” she responded with, “We can do better than that.” O the humiliation. By this point she might have started to know me as that weird looking guy at all her New York shows but that’s it. Then in December 1990 I was on Jeopardy. Sometime after that she debuted her lyrics to the Jeopardy Theme Song. She asked, “Has anyone in the audience been on Jeopardy.” I just sat there. Carey on the other hand pointed at me. We were sitting down front, so she saw. She asked me if I won and then how much. That was it, we were now friends. Next show she pointed me out and we worked out schtick.
“How much did you win?”
“$41,000.
“$41,000, Drinks for everyone!
“One drink, everybody share.”
Now let’s fast forward to Falcon Ridge 2000. This was the first year of the Budgiedome and I was young and stupid and went to sleep while the musicians were still playing. This was before I organized the music. The next day Carey, no not that Carey, that was Bad Carey, this was Good Carey, a young woman from Baltimore, told me about this great musician that played and sang Boob Fairy. Why do I call her “Good Carey?” She’s one of those horrible people that can hear a song once and learn it. They just do that to make the rest of us feel bad.
Some time after that I saw that Deirdre was playing at the Uptown Coffeehouse in the Bronx. I went to see her. As usual I saw someone looking around and I said, “Do I know you?” She said, “I’m Deirdre Flint.” The next time I saw Deirdre was with Carey, she visited me in New York, and we drove to Bridgeport Connecticut to see Eric Schwartz and Deirdre Flint. He had played the Budgiedome the same night as Deirdre and Carey sang me his songs too. On the way home we stopped at a rest stop and saw a car with a Da Vinci’s Notebook bumper Sticker. We thought it might be Eric as he was friends with him. As we were leaving who walked in? Not Eric but Deirdre. She was clearly stalking us. So that was that I was friends with Deirdre. She even played at my house.
Deirdre from the start reminded me of Christine and I told Chris about here. She told me that Dave Van Ronk had already recommended her. Always be nice to be in the company of Dave Van Ronk. I was there when Chris and Deirdre met at a workshop at the Great Hudson River Clearwater Revival, after an intermediary, Camille West, Deirdre took Christine’s place as “the funny one” in the Four Bitchin’ Babes. It’s a very small world. I’ve seen another Babe, Debi Smith since the return of live music.
I had my December 2 Gord’s Gold all planned as I knew I’d be away until Sunday. After last night’s show I called changed the lineup. I’m now playing songs by Christine and Deirdre. I replaced one of my missing Christine albums last night, Subway Series. That’s a live album where you can hear me song and Chris talks about me being on Jeopardy. I am going to flaunt this clear conflict of interests and play it.
I can’t believe that I wrote over 1400 words when I’m writing on a cramped bus but did. I might not blog every day while I’m staying with Emily and kids. Then again, I might. Tomorrow Gen is going to stop by. I’m not sure what other Boston area friends I’ll see this week. I know that I’m not going to give anyone COVID-19, I was tested yesterday, and it came out negative. Next time I’ll study.
Wise Madness 