Gig

Sang last night with my sister Tricia at the Sac Club in Lowell. I enjoy doing this but I will never, ever get used to performing in a small club where what you really are expected to be is background music. I find I get pissed off at the people. This is not a good thing when you are singing for their entertainment and pleasure. My sister doesn't seem to mind it all that much, and my brother Jim, with whom I used to "gig" back in the early eighties, really didn't seem to mind it. He used to worry that I was gonna display my displeasure and get us into a bar fight, which, the more I think about it, was always possible back then in the days of the Foxtail in Lowell and the Tailgate in Raymond, NH (home of Carlton Fisk--Raymond, not the Tailgate), where two guys who looked like Charlie Rich had a knock-down-drag-out while Jim and I were singing "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles. Anyway, a bunch of friends from the Sacred Heart filled up a couple of Sac Club tables and it made for a good night. My friend Dick Flavin also braved the neighborhood and showed up, buying a round for all my friends at the end of the evening. I remember reading once that Buddy Rich, equally annoyed at bar crowds but with much more influence than I, demanded in some club to have a large window placed in the middle of the room, separating the talkers from the listeners. I kinda think such a demand at the Sac Club would go unheeded.

(Side note: I'm typing this at Barnes and Noble, and there's a guy on a cell phone having an animated and incredibly loud conversation with somebody he is trying to sell something to, or he's at least trying to convince somebody to buy something. He seems to care not that the rest of us here have NO FRIGGIN' INTEREST in his stupid conversation. This is a phenomenon that is becoming more prevalent in life as we know it. On the other hand, a gorgeous woman just walked by having a very quiet cell phone conversation. Her, I don't mind. I wonder why.)