We DID this every Thursday night at Morsbergers at 713 Frederick Rd, Catonsville, MD, 21228. Now we do this every SUNDAY night instead, and it seems to be working out!
Signup at 6.30, music at 7pm. Enter through the back at the LARGER of the two doors! (the other entrances are straight to the bar side and Boba Fett won’t always point the way!)
Great night tonight despite technical foibles and angst. But we’ll get to that.
TONIGHT w
- ilyAIMY
- Joe Isaacs
- Kent Island
- Roisin
- Geff King
- Crazy Apes
- Michael Friedman
- Kate Penbleeds
- Taproot Soul
- Dave Benham
- Rick
- Mike Bragg
- Bob Schroeder
- Alex in Wonderland
- Jesse Moody
- Cuppa T Jones
- Joe and Dani
- Juels Bland
As I get older, I’ve faced different realities as it comes to the inevitability of aging and accompanying challenges. Enough friends died young that at first, despite the inherent invulnerability of youth, there was a disbelief that aging was something I’d ever face. Then aging became so terrifying that I made pacts with myself, half-hearted and half-made, so that I’d NEVER face those indignities. But as I aged into my 30s, Life was a lot more fun than I had planned to give it credit for, and even my early 40s kept delivering.
LATE 40s is actually not THAT much less fun, but I’m surrounded by aging friends, another death today, other friends certainly decreasing in their faculties week by week, made obvious as I’ve observed them over a decade of open mics. It seems insane that I have this stable window into these people’s Lives, watching some come into the full strength of their powers as performers and writers, others burning out, losing the faith – and others whose health and mental decline steal it all away.
On days when my arms and shoulders ache, or my mind just feels slow, I’m so terrified of observing it in myself. Or perhaps even worse, not noticing.
Being a young man in a scene obsessed with greying out and finding younger audiences meant that I was invariably going to be around as I watch those around drop out, or just drop. But it gives a sense of ticking clocks and countdown. A sense of looming doom.
And that’s human. How we face it is our biggest challenge, I suppose. Or should be.
And yet we’ve created a world in which how we PAY for it is ACTUALLY our biggest challenge. Or whether or not we’ll collapse society or the environment around our grey-haired ears in the process, or perhaps bomb it out – so many existential problems made worse by the systems we’ve created to frame them. Religion and capitalism and ego. Pandemics made worse by invasion. Age made untenable through war.
I plug away in my little corner, and sometimes, like last night – as I watch a little community of singer/songwriters come together to make the best of a night where technical problems threatened to leave us in darkness, I think I’m doing a great job. Half a dozen people don’t just come up to me to gripe, they come up to me with an idea, or what they’ve got in the trunk to help with. And at the end of the night, no-one’s unhappy with the chaos of it all, and another half-dozen people, knowing it’s been a little crazy all night, pitch in to help pick up the pieces so I can go home that little bit earlier.
It’s the kind of community I wanted to build. Maybe it’s just for the night, but it feels pretty good.
Maybe I’ve talked myself into optimism. At least for the moment. Gonna do what I wanna do and gonna get paid.
Thanks Tom. (double meaning, wise words)