Last night blew. Maybe the emptiest I’ve ever seen the Lion’s Lair. More than a little humiliating—this is my triumphant homecoming, my van drawn into town by a team of six gleaming white horses? Calamity Jean was surprisingly good, compelling songs, great voice, strong guitar playing. And she also plays accordion, sax, piano and saw! A touching and slightly melancholy character, broad Midwestern face, thick Midwestern body, big, pretty eyes.
(Okay, I meant to write about last night, but as I am writing, I’m witnessing a spectacle too compelling to ignore. Sitting in Penny Lane, a coffeehouse on Pearl Street (read as: hippie heaven) in Boulder, CO. A couple of hippie dudes jamming onstage, one w/ a beard, clogs, and a classical guitar, the other, a bass player, only wearing one of his flip-flops. A dreaded (in both senses of the word) hippie girl walks out of the bathroom and starts doing her funky hippie shuffle, self-consciously un-selfconscious. Is that a dress and jeans she’s wearing? Indeed it do. A plague on this town.)
I follow the funk onstage, play three songs, a rather lackluster performance if I do say so myself. My voice appears to be fading. As soon as I sit down, the three college girls behind me who all approach cuteness without really attaining it lean over and say “hey, can we buy a CD?” Great, fabulous, one CD sold. But they’re holding out fifteen bucks, they each want one. I fucking rule.