Another Debut

Last night here at the retirement community where I work on a daily TV show they had a big dining event with a "New York at Night" theme. There was supposed to be a "Central Park" area set up outside the main dining room and I was scheduled to be the "musician in the park" playing my guitar. After weeks of glorious weather here the skies threatened rain late in the day so all the outside elements moved into a social hall adjacent to the main dining room. I was not at all sure how my folk-centric, guitar music would play among the geriatric crowd. Ten or fifteen years from now this place will be full of children of the '70s like me and it will be the perfect venue. With some fear and trembling I started playing last night and to my surprise some folks came up to tell me how much they enjoyed it. A few even turned their chairs around and sat there watching and listening for quite a few songs. My associates on the staff passed on a bunch more positive comments so I guess I did okay.

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to play at all. A week ago I sprained my hand really badly. Or it might be my wrist. In any case, my left hand had no grip at all for days and it hurt a lot. I tried to baby it all week and took a couple of Advil every 6 hours. Last night I was able to play everything without any real problem. Today it's been tingling a lot so I better lay off for another week or so.

I'm so glad I finally got the JamMan looper last year. It's proven to be a key part of my being able to make an evening of this kind of thing workable. It is all I hoped it would be and much more. Not to mention how inspiring it is to be able to noodle around with multiple parts at the same time when wood shedding. I heartily recommend a looper to any guitar player. It's by far the best, most rewarding piece of music gear I've ever gotten hold of aside from my actual instrument.