“Folly Beach Takeover” starts today.
I’m very excited. I’ve come a long way in — what has it been — 4 months? 5 months? Less than five months. And this Saturday my band is playing Bounty Bar in a beautiful 4-piece, myself plus 3 other top musicians …
… oh, and then I have 3 other gigs this weekend: my regular Friday happy hour at 1st Place, a guest performance in Maya Gold’s band at Royal American, and then my regular Sunday Brunch gig at Well Hung Vineyards.
How grateful I am to be playing this much music in my day-to-day life.
“Grateful” is indeed the word.
It seems that when one loses sight of gratefulness — appreciation for what one has, what one experiences, and what one enjoys — then one loses the capacity for love. There appears to be a direct correlation: the more grateful I am, the more I love, the more I empower myself, my life, and my ambitions. Gratefulness seems to be the secret of love — that everlasting, elusive constant or variable.
It is as Kurt Vonnegut emphasizes at the end of his The Shape Of A Story lecture: “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
Indeed, so much of today is consumed within a rush — “on the clock”, full of notifications, calendars, beeps, buzzes, and other strange digital (unnatural) intrusions …
… to me, it seems, within relative context of our technocratic society, to advocate for peaceful, natural, patient awareness and enjoyment is now deemed as something “radical”, something out-of-the-box, something of a “you’re-a-real-luddite” conversation …
… just as it is “radical” for me to ask someone to turn off their phone’s volume when I’m playing music five feet away from them — as they scroll through their social algorithm incessantly, dumb-minded, numb.
That is it, perhaps. Gratefulness is the first step - the first step toward a fuller life, fuller awareness, true experience, true enjoyment, that one smile, that loving connection …
… and so, I’m immensely grateful to be playing 4 shows this weekend.
I’m immensely grateful to 1st place for being the first bar in Charleston to put me on a weekly schedule.
I’m immensely grateful to Well Hung Vineyards to having me for brunch every Sunday.
And I’m immensely grateful to everyone who has come to a show or is planning on coming to a show soon.
I’ll see you there.
