The Vandals Took the Handles

Monday night, we saw Bob Dylan perform at the Crown Theatre in Fayetteville, N.C. – a two-hour drive from Myrtle Beach.

The Crown Theatre is part of an entity called the Crown Complex. A number of years ago, we saw Elton John at the larger Crown Coliseum on the property. The fact that we were 40 minutes late for Elton because of a traffic miscalculation because we decided to get something to eat is something that we now laugh about with the friends that went with us, especially our friend Tonya. But it wasn’t funny then.

While the coliseum seats ten thousand, the Crown Theatre seats just under 2,500. This was more like the Charleston Music Hall, where we saw Leon Russell and later Dylan’s son Jacob and The Wallflowers.

When it comes to Dylan, I am a late adopter. So is Brenda. We got started when we saw the Martin Scorsese documentary, “Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story.”

But we figured we’d know enough songs to make things seem familiar – with Dylan up front with his acoustic and harmonica, mumbling through “Like A Rolling Stone,” “Hurricane,” “Highway 61 Revisited” or something about the vandals taking the handles in “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”

Nope.

In fact, the only song I knew was “Gotta Serve Somebody,” from his Christian-themed Slow Train Coming album. I was singing that song in the parking lot as we observed folks of all ages making their way into the venue – oldsters, youngsters, hipsters…

I showed an attendant our e-tickets, and she wrote the seat numbers on a slip of paper. Further down the line, I surrendered my phone and another attendant put it into something called a Yondr Bag – a locking canvas contraption that prevents phone use in the performance space.

This seems to be a trend. Other artists – Dave Chappelle and Jack White for example – employ this tactic as well, citing a more engaged audience experience.

We knew about the Yondr Bag beforehand. Brenda left her phone in the car.

What Dylan says, goes – right?

The only other time I saw Dylan was when he played with Tom Petty at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, California – “Alone and Together,” in 1986. That was before I had taken to Dylan, but he played most of the songs you would have expected. (I thought this was at Irvine Meadows but a glance online is inconclusive.)

The music was starting while Brenda was finishing up at the merch table, and they were about to close the doors until the first song was finished, but we rushed in. I saw two guitar players, a bass player, a pedal steel player – and a guy at a piano. I heard Dylan’s voice, but I was confused.

I saw the hair. Dylan was at the piano. And Dylan stayed at the piano the whole night.

During the course of the nearly two hours, there was the icon, delivering songs in his classic, indecipherable way. Sometimes he stood up while he performed at the piano, sometimes not. I wondered if there was a digital piano set inside the conventional piano body, but I wasn’t sure.  

A quick peek at the night’s setlist revealed songs like “I Contain Multitudes,” “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” “Crossing the Rubicon” and many more. Like i said, I’m relatively new to Dylan.

Dylan does what Dylan wants to do. And he wanted to stay at the piano.

And we got to take in the magic.

Stochastic Fantastic

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Recently, a professor acquaintance of mind asked me if I would be interested in speaking to a group of students in one of his classes. I immediately told him I’d have to start hiding from him.

What was that knee-jerk reaction all about?

Imposter syndrome.

I met this guy when I was working on a magazine feature, and during the course of a conversation with with him, he broached the subject of a talk by yours truly about my experience with writing – and I took that to mean baring my soul in front of journalism students.

When I met him in person after the publication of the piece, he mentioned the gracious speaking proposition again. I said I would hide from him – again.

Let me clarify: I didn’t go to journalism school. I farted around at Los Angeles City College as a music major in the early 1980s and didn’t even come away with an associate degree.

Forget the fact that I have been writing for publication for more than two decades.

The stark reality is that I hold no degree and that I have yet to be on the payroll of a newspaper.

I’m a stringer. That’s journalese for a freelancer.

My methodology is most likely not the methodology of a J-school graduate.

Like my piano playing, I am primarily self-taught – but along the way in both disciplines, I have lucked into relationships with folks who have helped me with pointers and de facto lessons.

I have written about both of these things before. For piano, it’s HERE. For writing, it’s HERE.

If I’m being honest (I always chuckle at that phrase), I have always been intimidated by trained pianists and journalists.

But the fact is that I have a body of writing that continues to grow, and I know I can play the piano and sing. I’ve been playing out for years.

My experience is nonlinear, but it’s experience nonetheless.

See what I’m doing? I’m flexing.

But I’m also scared shitless about talking in front of a group of people who might benefit from hearing my story.

I guess it’s because I don’t want to be skewered or pilloried – put into the stocks in the town square, if you will.

Self-doubt is powerful.

But I know I am able to deliver.

I might reach out and tell the guy I changed my mind.

But then again, I might continue to hide my light under a bushel.

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The Gift of Grace

Grace.

In spiritual terms, I see grace defined as undeserved favor.” A quick look at Britannica reveals this elegant definition: the spontaneous, unmerited gift of the divine favor in the salvation of sinners.

I don’t want to get into theology or the concept of salvation or sin in this blog post, but I want to touch on the subject of grace in daily life, this bestowal of favor from God, the Universe, Divine Mind – or one of my favorites, the Higher Power.

This divine favor comes through others, the culmination of unseen forces set in motion resulting in fortuitous events or serendipity.  

If we set an intention, the last thing we should do is to dwell on how it should come about. This is myopic thinking. Better to do what we can with what we have, leaving the process fluid while “keeping our eye on the prize.”

We set ourselves up for disappointment if we try to micromanage God. Read more about that HERE.

We have all been subject to sales pitches or other situations where we can practically smell the desperation in others who are trying to push their personal agendas…and most of us have been those desperate others.

Because grace is a gift, it is not earned. There is no striving for grace, no working toward grace…

When grace is bestowed on us, a byproduct is a pervading sense of peace, of joy, of gratitude.

Now we’re getting somewhere. Gratitude.

On the bottom of my daily to-do lists are the words “faith” and “gratitude.” These words have been on that list for longer than I can remember – more than a decade, for sure.

The curveballs thrown at me so far in my life – and I am sure there will be more – have not been a constant barrage. I hope (another great watchword) they continue to be as few and as far between as possible as I head into my sixties.

As we go through our daily lives, grace can come in many ways.

At the airport here in Myrtle Beach, there’s a grace period where you can park for free for a little while. I have experienced that grace after seeing my daughter to the gate.

There have been low times in my life where grace seemingly came out of nowhere – from people and circumstances I couldn’t have imagined. All of a sudden, everything changed. Sometimes, the circumstances remained but I was changed. Is that not a gift?

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