Living in coronavirusworld 133: the days between

8/6

always

Today is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Late in the afternoon, the Peoples Music Network will mark the day, finishing with Fred Small singing his Cranes over Hiroshima. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI0b3sN0CcY).   My friend  Liana has also written a new song, After the Bomb. (https://lianaband.bandcamp.com/track/after-the-bomb?fbclid=IwAR2dFwG5ZTr2BU894RorMqudZtlJfztx0nmVrMTrR7q4f-xQ1IaPz1ct4RA)

I go to the church to pick up check, Run into my friend, Martin, executive director of  Noche Flamenca. (https://www.soledadbarrioandnocheflamenca.com/).  Martin like all of us is fed up and tired of the craziness.  He’s thinking about just going  to an isolated part of Spain for six months.  I take a slow walk home. 

I spend most of the day gets ready for my concert, the Days Between.  

The Days Between 

Here was my invitation:

Hello friends... it's been a good summer of live streaming concerts in my Lockdown Showcase series ...and the Grateful Distancing Stay at Home Tour 2020. I'm excited to announce a very special event "The Days Between" Thursday night, August 6th at 7PM celebrating the life and music of Jerry Garcia marking the "days between" his 78th birthday and 25th anniversary of his death live on ZOOM and Facebook Livestream. I've assembled a great collection of artists from across the musical spectrum to share their unique interpretations of his diverse catalogue, so much more than the Grateful Dead.

The lineup so far:

Paul Anthony, song writer, player, rocker

Curtis Becraft, mandolin player extraordinaire from Curtis and Carla

Steve Blane, recording artist and songwriter

Jed Distler, new music  classical composer of Composers Collaborartive

Robert C. Ford, Wall $treet Poet and Composers Concordance "Laureate"

Dan Hanczar, Major Morgan, Pittsburgh, Pa. 

Mike Handelman, blues master and "Home/Away" lead guitar and all around performer

Carrie Klein and Joel McGlynn of Hot Glue and the Gun

Nick Lantigua,banjo master

Kristen Leigh , songwriter live from North Carolina

Jeremy Mage of the Magi, Biel, Switzerland

Gene Pritsker of Composers Concordance and Sound Liberation

Esther Ready, of Echo (awaiting confirmation)

Liz "Violizzie" Taub, violinist of Bluestone 739, Moon Goddess and more...

Vince Tozzie  of "We Eat Monsters" 

I'm very happy to have performed with all but one of these artists and most have been part of Home (Away). 

Garcia...."Terrapin Station" Jeremy's song

Thats to Zoom, my musical mentor and friend, Jeremy Mage opens for us from Switzerland.  There are the usual ZOOM glitches, like when Jed Distler has reached the dramatic conclusion of his piano take on Dark Star and someone’s grandmother noisily enters the room. So it is. We cover a lot of territory for this diverse artist  who defied genres and just celebrated music. We end with Esther’s soulful “Amazing Grace” and my “I Bid you Goodnight.” At first I just  exhausted. But as I listen the recording, I realize it was a  good night with many good moments. My first one fo these special nights on ZOOM. 

https://www.facebook.com/robert.l.brashear/videos/10158319257763361/

Living in cornavirusworld 83: It almost feels normal

6/14

Riverside Park late afternoon

 West Park had sits first Sunday service for awhile.  A new guest preacher. Friends from the Center and Presbytery have come.  The preacher  skillfully works in videos of Presbyterian mission workers  and peace staff and others singing in a virtual chorus. And later another video with a pianist and a guitarist, “Here I am Lord.” He preached on Matthew 9:38,”… the harvest is plentiful but the workers are  few…”. and weaves it into a prophetic call for the present moment. Among other work, he has been an organizer of our denomination’s homeless network. This group of people, for so long my call, have kept alive and have kept going. Sometimes against all odds. I hope that something can come from this.

My family comes together again  from Berlin to here. In Berlin, rehearsals are underway for end of the year concerts. Here, we’re still trying to figure it out.  There thousands join us in protest. Solidarity and.....? Much of our New York conversation has to do with the impact of Black Lives Matter on workplaces. This is complicated, uncomfortable and just plain hard. But that is where we are. This is where it begins. With people in troublesome conversations with  each other. 

                                     with Robert Brashear, Victoire Oberkampf and Liana Gabel

Time to get ready for my showcase.  I’ve been fighting a  down all weekend. I welcome Victoire from Paris. And then Liana from upstate. I see her son, Marius, her “pumpkin kid’, and husband Henri. We do sound checks and it's  time to begin.   They each do their own special music. Many of my friends meeting them for the first time. Even though I have rich performance history  together, even singing acapella while Liana tap danced, we’ve only been all three together once. For recording the RL tribute album. So I make sure to include the title track, “Stay Awhile with Me,” where you can hear all three of us in the chorus.( We conclude with with my “Listen” with the  same ZOOMlag echo harmonies we tried out before, more fun to try than hear, I’m sure. After the show’s over,  people who haven’t seen each other in a while hang out and chat with one another. It felt very, very good. I am away happy that, YES, I can do this.  All the tech, smooth as silk. Later I’m blown away to see that over 500 people have joined us at one point or  another. 

Concert: https://www.facebook.com/robert.l.brashear/videos/10158171846353361/

http://rhyme-reason.com/liana-gabel

https://victoire-oberkampf.bandcamp.com/

Exhausted but I go to the Riverside Park overlook cafe for a bottle of Pino Grigio and guacamole and chips.  We watch children below on the high rings. I’m amazed at the arm strength how they do that without twisting their arm sockets out. People hanging out talking. Late afternoon sun hanging mid-sky over the Hudson, radiating quiet warmth. It almost feels normal. 

Late afternoon, cargo ship waiting...

Watched the finale of HBO’s “This much I know to be true..” with Mark Ruffalo in a tour de force performance as twin brothers. Thankfully the finale redeems the previous six episodes almost relentless darkness of spirit, offers at least a glimmer of hope. And all thankfully, much  like HBO’s version of Philip Roth’s the Plot Against America, they avoid the slam dunk happy ending and leave it open…which I much prefer. This has a lot to do with immigrants and prejudice and families and mental illness and choice…and love.  Here is the original  book  final quote:

 “I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.”