A FIRE-STRUM OF ACTIVITY

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD (10-20-22)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Last Saturday I attended a "friends hootenanny," where a bunch of us get together with our guitars and some percussion instruments and see if we can get the neighbors to call the cops. There was no square dancing, and if there was dancing I'm quite sure it would have been in a shape that Pythagoras would need a new theory for. There was no barn with bales of hay to sit on, and the only cowbell there did not have a cow attached to it, which made it much easier to play.

     There were no jugs of bathtub hootch, but there were plenty of libations in keeping with the spirits of the occasion. There was a full fall lineup of mulled cider, mulled wine, I think there was even mulled water for those mulling a long drive home. I brought my own domestic, mass-produced light beer with me so that if I get stopped by the police on the way home, they're not going to ask me if I've had too much to drink, but if I've had enough. People assume that I am glum drinking such banal brew. "Wouldn't you be happier with one of these full-bodied, hoppy IPAs?" No one bothers to ask the IPA if it would be happier with ME. "It has hints of chocolate and cherry-wood!" I don't need any hints, I'll get it my own. "This one is so bitter it will make your uvula furl up. I hate it! I've had three already!" "This one is a white-coffee stout. It's very well-balanced, like a really good checkbook." "This one doesn't even have a label, but I add a little to my gas tank every now and then and it cleans out the carburetor." I'm good, thanks anyway.     Our host Athina prepared a wonderful outdoor supper. When people go to great lengths to cook nice food for their guests, I try to slow down my devouring process so that I can appreciate it more. Usually I'm like a raccoon with an eating disorder, rummaging through the refrigerator looking for something that seems lonesome, and I eat it before I can positively identify it. 

     When the sun went down the guitars came out and the fire blazed. We came together over music and friendship. There were Republicans, there were Democrats. There were no Independents that I know of, and if there were we would have brow-beaten them until you could hardly recognize their eyebrows. I'm just kidding about the eyebrows. If you can't put your differences aside around a campfire, then where can you put them aside? "Are those your differences over there next to the woodpile?" "Yes, that's them." "You didn't put them very far aside, I can see them from here. Tell you what, I'm going to put mine over there too, and if we want to stoke up the fire we're going to have to get past our differences."

     The only argument we had wasn't even about politics, it was about what key the Beatles' "In My Life" is in. I say it's in the key of A,  and Phil insists that it was recorded in A-flat, and sped up to A. My suggestion that we play it in A and do it slower was met with scorn. I ended up playing it in A while Phil did it in A-flat, and as a result we discovered how jazz was invented. We also did one of my favorite Springsteen songs, "I'm on Fire." The whole time I was tapping my toe I didn't realize how close it was to the flames, and as a result I nearly discovered how "I'm on Fire" was invented. The music chugged on.

     It reminded me of sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories. You try to scare each other with the most chilling tale you can think of. I don't remember ever doing that, but I'll get my chance after I'm long gone, and I sit around the campfire with my friends telling stories about people who are living. They're much scarier than ghosts could ever be. If I ever want to frighten people at a campfire I'll just tell them that at one time I was thinking of becoming a teacher.

     I hope we can pass the tradition on to the next generation. The thought of a bunch of DJs sitting around a campfire mixing snippets of EDM together makes me want to root for the fire.

     Was my guitar out of tune this whole time? I used an electronic tuner, but apparently I had it set to "oboe." It didn't matter. It was just another thing to laugh at. And if you can't laugh at yourself, anyone of the people there would be happy to do it for you. Remember, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your guitar, but you can't pick your friend's guitar.