I was out late last night, playing with my rock and roll outfit the Telepaths. It was a loud and raucous set at the Flatiron building (the one in Chicago), which my brother (he has a studio there) tells me is like Paris in the 20's. Not sure about that, but it is a funky place populated with artists and other roustabouts. The wine and conversation always flows like a roaring river. The whole building resonates when you play. I mean, you're not just playing your instrument, not just that particular song, you're playing the hallways, the stairs, the three floors of artist studios. You're playing all the people that pass through too. We plugged in and did an expansive set, some numbers we know well, and some not so well. I got lost on the fretboard a few times, but there's something about jumping in and trying to catch the tail of the beast. There were moments of pure joy, Peter V. banging on the drums, TPM singing about Susan Sontag, me flailing away on the guitar like a one-armed paper hanger. It was not elegant, but it was exuberant. I've always been a believer in the "group dynamic." Although, I'm basically a "loner," (the Lovely Carla tells me as we lay wrapped like mummies in bed this morning- "you want to be like the other boys, but you just aren't."), I've found that in theater or in music, it's the combination of different energies that takes it all to another level. Yes, well, I'm a little older, a little more fragile, a little more something (fucked up? twisted? naive?), than some of the others, but I'm well past the point of trying to fit in. Finally either you plug and play, or you don't...I like to plug in!
