![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogWorking backwards to begin with through the past several days:
Friday night was my first Last Waltz.
That name refers to a concert that was the last live performance by The Band; to any of a number of recordings of the concert; to a famed Martin Scorcese documentary depicting the concert and its production; but since 2017 around here, has mainly referred to an annual-except-for-COVID-year gathering of local musicians who play the music from the concert and also play the roles of the 1970s performers who originated it. Held in the main hall of the former downtown Methodist church landmark, bought and restored by Buffalo native musician Ani DiFranco and now known as Babeville as a homage to her self-produced record label, it has been a near-instant sellout every year it has graced the former chancel of that building. This past July when the tickets went on offer, I socked one away, getting me in there for the first time to see a lineup of local artists paying tribute to the music and the now established local tradition of this Thanksgivingish performance.
The original concert was on Thanksgiving of 1976 and included a turkey dinner for all the assembled musicians and fans at San Francisco's legendary Winterland concert hall. Buffalo has way too many events tied to Turkey Day itself including a 5-mile race and often Bills national television appearances, so it tends to be scheduled here for the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year, that fell on November 22nd, and the onstage narrator of the performance, echoing voice-overs Scorcese incorporated into the film, started the evening's proceedings with a bizarre tale tied to that perhaps most tragic (so far) of events in American history falling in November. As one other chronicler of classic rock repeated it:
The Band, who were then known as The Hawks and worked as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band were playing gigs in the American South and played at a venue that Jack Ruby owned in Fort Worth. It was a sketchy place and because they weren’t making big bucks yet, they couldn’t all multiple hotel rooms so they had to take turns sleeping at the venue to guard their guitars and equipment.
The first of two things she doesn't mention in that paragraph, but our narrator did, was that they had to cut short their first set at Ruby's club because somebody launched a tear gas bomb at them. The other is that they were still in Texas, months later and hundreds of miles away from that venue, when Ruby had his 15 seconds of televised infamy two days after the assassination and the band members realized this was the same sleazy club owner they had played for.
As in the show, that same Ronnie Hawkins was the first "guest" of The Band to join them onstage. His rendition of "Who Do You Love" was lyrical and loud and I complimented the performer on it when I headed to the bar right before the intermission.* All of the musicians covering The Band's amazing lineup from that night mainly stood at the back when their numbers were done before all came back for the show's unison finale of the "Bob Dylan"-led chorus of "I Shall Be Released." Buck Quigley, Hawkins's muse for the evening, was one of the singers I saw back there; I'd never seen him perform before but knew his name from the local alt-journalism community. Also in the back was a local singer named Alex McArthur, who'd been up earlier as well to take the Mavis Staples verse on "The Weight," perhaps The Band's best-known anthem. I thanked her for her performance that night and she smiled a bit, but when I also mentioned having seen her at Sportsmen's a few months earlier at another friend's CD release show, she lit up. NOW we were connected.
As I was with others on that stage: local performer, recording artist, member of 1,000 different bands and promoter of numerous venues and concert series as well as his own annual outdoor festival Tyler Westcott, here as part of the Brothers Blue-
- and Frank Grizanti, also a frequent onstage companion of many friends in everything from duos to the Black Rock Beatles, reimagining Eric Clapton's guest spot that night-
Behind him on the drums, channeling Levon Helm, is a new-to-me local percussionist named Pete Holquin, while Robbie Robertson inhabited local music mainstay Doug Yeomans to Frank's right. Joining them on vocals was a longtime musician friend of mine Jim Whitford as Rick Danko-
- shown here to the right of an amazing recreator of the vocals of Neil Diamond. Many of the "guest" performers didn't strive to imitate the voices of their night's namesakes, but this guy totally nailed Neil. As did the guy who played Bob Dylan, but evvvverybody does Dylan, man.
I recorded a few seconds of the final all-hands-on-stage moment and added the following words:
The 11:00 song from The Last Waltz.
There’s a national touring company that recreates this concert all over. It just stopped in Rochester a week or two ago. They’re probably great- polished and professional. And when you wake up in your town, they’ll be scheduled to appear 1,000 miles away from here.
These musicians? Stay.
Just about everyone up there is a friend I’ve seen many times, or a friend-of. They teach, they support, they attend each others’ shows. They could session, or backup, or even headline anywhere, and many have. Yet they stay. And we’re embarrassingly rich for it.
Take bows. You earn them every night ❤️ 🎶
----
Moving on to my personal episode of Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me....
As an offshoot of the neuro testing I am having done (nothing major so far has been found, yay), they were evaluating me for a clinical trial of a related medication. The doctor running the study, who I have yet to meet, is named Laszlo. I have also not yet met the only other “person” of that name I have ever heard of, but I’ll just leave it at this:
If it at some point during the consultation, HE screams BAT! and flies out of the room, I am dropping out of the study.
He did send in a phlebotomist to draw blood, but she did it the non-bitey way.
I got selected for this based on potential evaluation of whether additional weight loss might reduce sleep apnea which might, in turn if reduced, also reduce the number of mild-impairment "senior moments" I've experienced. The actual appointments for me as patients won't happen until early next month, but this study, in which they pay me as guinea pig, got scheduled much faster and that began with an initial evaluation on Wednesday morning, They'd told me to set aside about 90 minutes for it, and I was on time, sailed through the assorted screening questions and vitals, which among other things told me that weight loss was apparently already under way. Since my last check-in there I was down close to 10 pounds. Some of that I attribute to diet changes- Eleanor paying more attention in evening meals for both of us, but also me consciously cutting down, but not yet stopping, some of the snack choices that can really make a difference. Some, also, is the workout regimen- I'm now coming close to, if not breaking, two miles in 20-odd minutes every time I set foot on a treadmill, and the other portions of the exercises are becoming more challenging.
So less weight is nice. More wait, not so. That 90 minute set-aside quickly turned into just over two hours, most of it just waiting for various techs to fit me into their undoubtedly too-busy schedules to get my EKG and blood draws done. Since the latter had required fasting, I also had to leave time to grab coffee and a late breakfast before getting to an 11:30 client appointment at my office just in time.**
The waits would continue later in the week, only this time ending in things not happening at all. Thursday, I had a 5:00 court appearance scheduled for a client in a local town's traffic court. Got there on time, was told I was fifth in line to talk to the prosecutor, but when they asked the client's name they didn't have the file or any ability to do anything productive. Since I had appeared by faxing in a form way before the last minute, they send a letter giving me a new date when there would be a shorter line. A letter I still have not received:P The following morning, I set out to the same town for a car appointment: Eleanor noticed a crack in her windshield, that our insurance covers in full with no deductible. They farm this out to an outfit called Safelite, which at first booked a home appointment to just repair it, but the shop quickly decided its size would require a full windsheld replacement at their shop. I dropped it off and was about to be whisked away by a friend for lunch when they called me back: the replacement windshield was itself cracked, and they didn't have another one in stock. So that was another hour of travel lost, although the lunch I never would've gone to otherwise was nice.
As of now, nothing remains to wait for. The Bills are off this week, there's little going on at work during the short week, and we're not going anywhere for the holiday. So Happy Jack Ruby Day to all who celebrate;)
----
* Never did acquire anything other than water on that or the previous bar visits in this venue. I found it hilarious that this once abstemious Methodist building doesn’t have NA beer at either of its bars-
** Just in time for yet another wait and waste of time for the client and me. The trustee running the Zoom hearing was still plodding through cases from an earlier calendar because nobody's audio was working and their video kept freezing up. Ours was fine once she finally got to us.
Friday night was my first Last Waltz.
That name refers to a concert that was the last live performance by The Band; to any of a number of recordings of the concert; to a famed Martin Scorcese documentary depicting the concert and its production; but since 2017 around here, has mainly referred to an annual-except-for-COVID-year gathering of local musicians who play the music from the concert and also play the roles of the 1970s performers who originated it. Held in the main hall of the former downtown Methodist church landmark, bought and restored by Buffalo native musician Ani DiFranco and now known as Babeville as a homage to her self-produced record label, it has been a near-instant sellout every year it has graced the former chancel of that building. This past July when the tickets went on offer, I socked one away, getting me in there for the first time to see a lineup of local artists paying tribute to the music and the now established local tradition of this Thanksgivingish performance.
The original concert was on Thanksgiving of 1976 and included a turkey dinner for all the assembled musicians and fans at San Francisco's legendary Winterland concert hall. Buffalo has way too many events tied to Turkey Day itself including a 5-mile race and often Bills national television appearances, so it tends to be scheduled here for the weekend before Thanksgiving. This year, that fell on November 22nd, and the onstage narrator of the performance, echoing voice-overs Scorcese incorporated into the film, started the evening's proceedings with a bizarre tale tied to that perhaps most tragic (so far) of events in American history falling in November. As one other chronicler of classic rock repeated it:
The Band, who were then known as The Hawks and worked as Ronnie Hawkins’ backing band were playing gigs in the American South and played at a venue that Jack Ruby owned in Fort Worth. It was a sketchy place and because they weren’t making big bucks yet, they couldn’t all multiple hotel rooms so they had to take turns sleeping at the venue to guard their guitars and equipment.
The first of two things she doesn't mention in that paragraph, but our narrator did, was that they had to cut short their first set at Ruby's club because somebody launched a tear gas bomb at them. The other is that they were still in Texas, months later and hundreds of miles away from that venue, when Ruby had his 15 seconds of televised infamy two days after the assassination and the band members realized this was the same sleazy club owner they had played for.
As in the show, that same Ronnie Hawkins was the first "guest" of The Band to join them onstage. His rendition of "Who Do You Love" was lyrical and loud and I complimented the performer on it when I headed to the bar right before the intermission.* All of the musicians covering The Band's amazing lineup from that night mainly stood at the back when their numbers were done before all came back for the show's unison finale of the "Bob Dylan"-led chorus of "I Shall Be Released." Buck Quigley, Hawkins's muse for the evening, was one of the singers I saw back there; I'd never seen him perform before but knew his name from the local alt-journalism community. Also in the back was a local singer named Alex McArthur, who'd been up earlier as well to take the Mavis Staples verse on "The Weight," perhaps The Band's best-known anthem. I thanked her for her performance that night and she smiled a bit, but when I also mentioned having seen her at Sportsmen's a few months earlier at another friend's CD release show, she lit up. NOW we were connected.
As I was with others on that stage: local performer, recording artist, member of 1,000 different bands and promoter of numerous venues and concert series as well as his own annual outdoor festival Tyler Westcott, here as part of the Brothers Blue-
- and Frank Grizanti, also a frequent onstage companion of many friends in everything from duos to the Black Rock Beatles, reimagining Eric Clapton's guest spot that night-
Behind him on the drums, channeling Levon Helm, is a new-to-me local percussionist named Pete Holquin, while Robbie Robertson inhabited local music mainstay Doug Yeomans to Frank's right. Joining them on vocals was a longtime musician friend of mine Jim Whitford as Rick Danko-
- shown here to the right of an amazing recreator of the vocals of Neil Diamond. Many of the "guest" performers didn't strive to imitate the voices of their night's namesakes, but this guy totally nailed Neil. As did the guy who played Bob Dylan, but evvvverybody does Dylan, man.
I recorded a few seconds of the final all-hands-on-stage moment and added the following words:
The 11:00 song from The Last Waltz.
There’s a national touring company that recreates this concert all over. It just stopped in Rochester a week or two ago. They’re probably great- polished and professional. And when you wake up in your town, they’ll be scheduled to appear 1,000 miles away from here.
These musicians? Stay.
Just about everyone up there is a friend I’ve seen many times, or a friend-of. They teach, they support, they attend each others’ shows. They could session, or backup, or even headline anywhere, and many have. Yet they stay. And we’re embarrassingly rich for it.
Take bows. You earn them every night ❤️ 🎶
----
Moving on to my personal episode of Weight, Weight, Don't Tell Me....
As an offshoot of the neuro testing I am having done (nothing major so far has been found, yay), they were evaluating me for a clinical trial of a related medication. The doctor running the study, who I have yet to meet, is named Laszlo. I have also not yet met the only other “person” of that name I have ever heard of, but I’ll just leave it at this:
If it at some point during the consultation, HE screams BAT! and flies out of the room, I am dropping out of the study.
He did send in a phlebotomist to draw blood, but she did it the non-bitey way.
I got selected for this based on potential evaluation of whether additional weight loss might reduce sleep apnea which might, in turn if reduced, also reduce the number of mild-impairment "senior moments" I've experienced. The actual appointments for me as patients won't happen until early next month, but this study, in which they pay me as guinea pig, got scheduled much faster and that began with an initial evaluation on Wednesday morning, They'd told me to set aside about 90 minutes for it, and I was on time, sailed through the assorted screening questions and vitals, which among other things told me that weight loss was apparently already under way. Since my last check-in there I was down close to 10 pounds. Some of that I attribute to diet changes- Eleanor paying more attention in evening meals for both of us, but also me consciously cutting down, but not yet stopping, some of the snack choices that can really make a difference. Some, also, is the workout regimen- I'm now coming close to, if not breaking, two miles in 20-odd minutes every time I set foot on a treadmill, and the other portions of the exercises are becoming more challenging.
So less weight is nice. More wait, not so. That 90 minute set-aside quickly turned into just over two hours, most of it just waiting for various techs to fit me into their undoubtedly too-busy schedules to get my EKG and blood draws done. Since the latter had required fasting, I also had to leave time to grab coffee and a late breakfast before getting to an 11:30 client appointment at my office just in time.**
The waits would continue later in the week, only this time ending in things not happening at all. Thursday, I had a 5:00 court appearance scheduled for a client in a local town's traffic court. Got there on time, was told I was fifth in line to talk to the prosecutor, but when they asked the client's name they didn't have the file or any ability to do anything productive. Since I had appeared by faxing in a form way before the last minute, they send a letter giving me a new date when there would be a shorter line. A letter I still have not received:P The following morning, I set out to the same town for a car appointment: Eleanor noticed a crack in her windshield, that our insurance covers in full with no deductible. They farm this out to an outfit called Safelite, which at first booked a home appointment to just repair it, but the shop quickly decided its size would require a full windsheld replacement at their shop. I dropped it off and was about to be whisked away by a friend for lunch when they called me back: the replacement windshield was itself cracked, and they didn't have another one in stock. So that was another hour of travel lost, although the lunch I never would've gone to otherwise was nice.
As of now, nothing remains to wait for. The Bills are off this week, there's little going on at work during the short week, and we're not going anywhere for the holiday. So Happy Jack Ruby Day to all who celebrate;)
----
* Never did acquire anything other than water on that or the previous bar visits in this venue. I found it hilarious that this once abstemious Methodist building doesn’t have NA beer at either of its bars-
** Just in time for yet another wait and waste of time for the client and me. The trustee running the Zoom hearing was still plodding through cases from an earlier calendar because nobody's audio was working and their video kept freezing up. Ours was fine once she finally got to us.