There is a choice with every note

12/5/14

Joel and Steve B

Thomas Bo is rehearsing the Composers Concordance string orchestra for the concert tomorrow night.  A flamenco trio with singer Ismael Fernandez, guitarist Pedro Cortes and Jose Luis Moreno, cajon, have joined them. The plaintive and passionate sounds of flamenco rising above and dancing with the orchestra in  Dave Soldier’s piece Seguiryas based on a passage from Julius Caesar. It’s a good way to start the day.

Milica's on her way to the Gate to work out final details with Paul.

Pat O is in because Jerry our contractor is finally back and we’re ready for the work to begin. Ongoing protests and disruptions over the non-indictment in the Eric Garner death are making traffic crazy and our roof people don’t make it in, but Pat and  Jerry go exploring anyways.

Arcadia stops in to sign checks and give me two very thoughtful birthday presents.

A paper weight and a pen to use with an iPhone. The paper weight has these words:

Live simply

Expect little, give much

Fill your life with love

Scatter sunshine

Forget self

Think of others and

Do and you would

Be done by.

She’s on her way to Pennsylvania for her weekly visit to her sister.

Another bunch of fresh flowers arrives from New York Hair. They’ve been arriving weekly since Stephen W started getting his hair cut there.

Our faithful volunteer Thomas from Brooklyn  arrives as he does every Friday. Helping with posters today.

Charles is in in his day off to clear some work.

Our rehearsal is expanding. Mandola Joe and Jeremy M have joined Esther, Pat and I. Jeremy shaping and forming our performance. He shares with us a lesson from Jack Hardy, that it’s better to behind the beat than in front of it., And from a reggae musician, that you let the beat, the groove, be like a rocking chair you settle back into. And then he works very hard on our harmonies. Each note. The sounds, the spaces between our voices. And all of a sudden it’s there. A damn near perfect sound for just a moment.  And something like a golden glow comes through the late afternoon windows. Seems like anyways. I’m discovering how much work this is. That there is a choice with every note you sing. A decision to be made. This is where joy is for me right now.

Dion brings his best

I go off to Alistair’s Christmas party and then back for Open Mic. I miss Graciella who Pat and I heard Wednesday night at Barley & Grain. Very happy that my friend Beppe has come again just to hang out. 

David L

David L’s wife Rachel is,

Rachel R sings

like David, beginning to push herself out further as a performer and  Steve B is giving her support on piano.

NEB from France

NEB from France

has joined us tonight keeping our international connections going.

Mandola Joe is acapella tonight, his strum finger still recovering from an accident with knife.

The surprise of the night is a young comedian by the name of Yu Jean Chung whose observational humor was clever enough to puncture all kinds of holes in liberal pc conventions. Great at portraying the insider/outsider persona of an Asian American. 

Yu Jean Chung

Mandola Joe acapella

It’s late by the time I come on. I’ve been back and forth on my set all day but finally decide to open with an acapella version of my song from the Composers Concordance Wingjammer concert. Then my Queen of the factory town…and because I can’t avoid it, feel compelled to finish with Dylan’s (still, sadly) timely A hard rain’s gonna fall…so much still connecting with the Eric Garner tragedy. I end Hard Rain with the words….I can’t breathe….

It's about community

9/26

Jeremy has come by. I wanted him to hear me play and see if we could work anything out for the P & G's  concert tonight at West-Park. I warm up with Leonard Cohen’s Bird on a Wire, what I sang years ago with Jed at a special benefit at West-Park. Then I suck it up, take a breath, and start in on my own songs. The piano and guitar thing is not really working. He pushes me in some good directions. Especially on getting a groove and not swallowing punch lines. Its loosening up. I feel good, though my fingers hurt and I’ll be nervous all day. Jeremy tells me that my songs are good. Depressingly good.

Why depressingly?

Well, I work really hard at it, he says, I don’t like to think just anybody can write well. 

I laugh. I’m not just anybody, I say.

Deacon James stops in. He’s bothered by the effects of the chemo. Taking more out of him than he’d like. 

All afternoon RL and Dave are setting up sound, resetting lights, getting ready for the evening. For one night, we’ll recreate P & G’s at West-Park.

The doors open at 7. Deacon James has come to hear me perform.  RL will hold off starting until we’ve got at least three civilians, as he puts it. RL opens followed by a spoken word poet. And then he introduces me. I feel a bit odd that he calls me Church Bob, but I am accepting that this closeted singer-songwriter me and the pastor of West-Park me are the same me. 

RL Haney

I’ve got Amanda’s New York guitar. We found P & Gs together. That was where she first played in New York City. Open mikes and her afternoon showcase. And she used many of the P & G’s folks in her December Balcony Music Festival. Piano Dan and David and RL all P&G’s regulars. I plug in her guitar, take a breath and jump in. 

Doing this is a  bit like preaching ( at its best). You walk off the ledge and see  if you can get across to the other side without crashing. You can feel the rushing of the wind. I start with a New Mexico song. And a song about a well. And finish with my song about the old Greenwich Village club, the Bottom Line. 

I look out at the faces. There are smiles. Looks of pleasant surprise. When I finish, I know. I held my own. 

Over the course of the night, there are solo acts. Bands. Irish music. Sea songs. A woman violinist and jazz singer. The amazing Piano Dan. And Mandola Joe. And RL’s Western song stories. Classic rock. And many good shout outs to Steve, the man who made P&G’s what it was. Who welcomed them all.  

Hank from Coyote Love tells me my lyrics blew him away. Lots of folks have thoughts of maybe doing this again on a regular basis. Maybe once a month.  There’s a jar marked donations for renovations. RL’s idea. We collect almost $400.

Jeremy arrives shortly after ten. Does a mini set with a shout out to the late Jack Hardy who hosted a pasta and song writers’ night every Monday in the Village. He was friends with Dave van Ronk. Mentored Suzanne Vega, the Roches, Lyle Lovett. And Jeremy. RL’s wife is wearing a t-shirt from Jack Hardy’s memorial service. On the back it says Shut up and play the song. 

It’s past midnight. Still going strong. And in walks Jack’s old partner David Massengill.  Whose own writing far surpassed Jack’s. He playes his dulcimer. Sings Kill the Rich (it’s a satire, he says), his Orphan Train song, then Forever Love, and finally  his Great American Dream, which my uncle-in-law David Sear also once recorded. At that hour, at that moment, he was magic. 

The "Folk Brothers" David Massengill and Jack Hardy

So why did I want to do this? it’s about community. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that community was God’s love in action. It’s community that I find sacred, wherever it’s found. In church, in a cafe, in a bar, around a soccer field. Anywhere people accept each other as they are and offer care and support for each other. That’s what I saw at the Monday night open mike at P&G’s:  community, acceptance, mutual care and respect. And that’s why I invited them to West-Park. Makes me sad sometimes that community is found more at some other places than the church. But I believe God blesses it, wherever its found. 

If I, if we, together, could truly create, be a community, I would be happy. 

It’s late. RL wants to go off in search of a proper drink.  And i need to go home. 

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The Great American Dream - David Massengill

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Excuse me sir... I am a foreigner I left the white sands of Zanzibar Where is this place you call free lunch bar? I am hungry and have overstayed my visa I'll work your farm your factory your pizzeria Is TV more beautiful than the Mona Lisa Someday my sons will I fight for the eagle My daughters will never be ashamed of me It is my dream... to be a citizen It's the Great American Dream It's the Great American Dream It's the Great American DreamExcuse me sir... I am a prostitute Just pretend that I'm a Playboy bunny For a Franklin I will tongue your tummy My body is a battlefield and a flower Four score and seven tricks by the hour O the many men--one might have been my father Gonna make my getaway in a zeppelin Take a bubble bath in the fountain of youth It is my dream... to be a girl again In the Great American Dream Excuse me sir... I am a writer Tho' the critics are jealous of my genius They say I'm writing with my penis Perhaps you've read my work in True Confessions It pays the rent and fuels my obsessions On the sly I give elocution lessons Someday I'll write the Great American Novel To be required reading in the Ivy League It is my dream... to die infamous It's the Great American Dream Excuse me sir... I am a carpenter Once I built a treehouse for Rockefeller Tho' now I've been laid off since December Someday I'll build a castle all my own In the den the best laz-e-boy throne In every room a different color phone These torn hands are skilled as spiders I hear there's work in Kansas building coffins It is my dream... to be cremated It's the Great American Dream Excuse me sir... I am an Indian O the white man is as greedy as fire His heart is wrapped around with barbed wire My father died of whiskey and religion But ghosts are cheap on the reservation In the summer we're a tourist attraction It is wrong to squeeze the earth like a snake A deceit to give a stone to the hungry one It is my dream... to skin a Pilgrim And the Great American Dream Excuse me sir... I am Everyman I'm the good thief of Jekyll and Hyde I'm the social climber on a mountain of pride I'm the deaf the dumb and the debonaire I'm the mouse the monk and the millionaire I'm the Great White Hope riding an old grey mare I'm the sad-eyed girl as young as the earth I'm the mother who died giving birth To the Great American Dream I love freedom I hope freedom loves me

He has a name

7/14

Danielle is upset as I arrive at the office. Hb was there when she arrived. Along with his ladyfriend. And an open beer bottle. She called Project Reachout. Turns out he’s got a name. Edward Green. They are not encouraging.  A little while later she looks out the door. There’s a police suv across the street. Later, she looks out again. No Edward. No lady friend.  Only an empty beer bottle,which she removes. She’s feeling guilty about not warning him first, asking him to leave. I don’t expect her to do that. Not alone.  He looked so sad, she said, like he was about to cry. (Maybe I added that.)

I came to work after breakfast with David Michalek. He’s just opened, Portraits in Dramatic Time,  his latest installation on a 45 foot screen on the plaza at Lincoln Center as part of the annual Lincoln Center Festival. 40 films, real time 6-8 seconds, stretched out to 8-10 minutes on the  screen. Famous actors, off Broadway actors, off-off Broadway, Thai and Chinese Theatre, Theatre of the Deaf actors...actors of all kinds. You see how much can happen in 8 seconds, how much we miss going on around us all the time. 

portraits in dramatic time

We’re catching up. David did the 14 Stations, the traditonal stations of the cross as experienced, interpreted  and staged by homeless and formerly homeless participants in the Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness community. That show opened and hung in West-Park at least six months. It later showed at Dia and then the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  We still have our set. I would like to reprise that exhibit next Lent as part of our Centennial celebration.  And would love to help with David’s vision on Mary’s Book of Hours. 

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The 14 stations that hung on the walls of West-Park
http://www.davidmichalek.net/14stations/about.php


A woman walks in. Tells me that she worked for Riverside Shakespeare Company for 8 years. That her office was right where mine is. I take her in. Show her the archival exhibit on the back wall, with the large RSC picture. And she gets choked up. Oh my God, she says. All those years,  all those years. We talk some more how in the 70’s -80’s the church proudly resisted spending anything related to the building. It was  all for people, members or not.  She harrumphs. I invite her to come on Sunday. Ah, I’m not religious. My mom was Jewish, dad black. A sixties thing you know? But I’ll be back. It’s beautiful to see this place open again, you breathing life back into it, and then she’s gone. For now.  

Christian comes in to talk more about his chamber music orchestra, he’s up to 30 members now.  I would love to get them involved in a Sunday morning service. 

RL and David come by to check out the bathrooms and keep that project moving forward.  David takes him downstairs to look at the transformation in the basement. RL comes back up, chuckling.  Blue eyes crinkling beneath his flowing white hair and cowboy hat. This place looks more like me all the time, he says, laughing. We talk of his friend Jack Hardy, who died this year, his weekly  pasta and songwriters event at his Greenwich Village apartment. Mentor to Suzanne Vega,  John Gorka, the Roches, Lyle Lovett, on and on; and more recently Jeremy. Well, sorry we’re taking so long with the bathrooms, he says, but that’s what you get when you leave an alcoholic Indian in charge, he laughs  again and he and David go for one more look. 


There's loud noise outside. We run out to look. The Prophet is sitting there, stripped to the waist, shouting at the street. I ask if he's alright. I can't understand his answer. Every conversation with him is like Pentecost. And then ohyesohyesohyesalrightalrightalright, then iwannbeagoodfathergoodfathergoodfather then igonowgonowgonowgonow.... he gets up, slowly dresses, wrapping his colorful sheets around him, carefully wrapping the red bandana around his head before carefully tying it on.  He stands up, looking at the church, extends his right hand, bows his head three times.  Looks back at me, says thankyouverymuch picks up his walking stick and starts down the street again.  What is his story? Where is he from? Is this a real religion he follows or only his private invention? 

John Hudson has come in to check on things. We talk about his own upcoming production. And Woodshed.  And then Marsha comes in. To keep working on the thank yous we still owe eafter the concert series. We end the day with gratitude.