The Annual After-Christmas Sword Sale at Damocles!

Usually by now I'm in the midst of a bunch of year-end posts on anything and everything that made the soon-to-end year so important and special and unique.

Not doing that.  This is it for the year, one that has had plenty of good moments, memorable moments, life-change months especially for Eleanor with her first of two knee replacement surgeries. They're all, or mostly all, in previous entries here. Go read them if you want. Instead, I'm just going to do one year-in-review summary, linking back to the posts here that covered them; end that with the one experience of that kind from this past week; and then get to the swords that have, for the most part, removed from their places over our heads in the past several days.


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Near the beginning of this month, I started seeing friends posting these auto-generated lists from the Spotify music streaming site about which songs had been their most played in the past year.  I did not get one, because I do not use it. It’s either an advertising-filled experience to listen to for free, or an expensive one to subscribe to without the adverts. Worse, those revenues from the subs and the ads get middlemanned to death so that a typical stream of a song, unless your name is Springsteen or Swift, gets you maybe a third of a penny. 

So instead I started December curating my own Not A Spotify Playlist, by going through the year’s entries here and noting the nights with musicians I've been blessed to see, and often talk with and even become/somehow remain friends with, in the year now coming to the end of its final month. My first attempt included only a very busy January:

Whitford Klyma Band at a new adjacent sister venue to the legendary local Sportsmen’s Tavern called the Cave, with Cathy Carfagna and others who I’ve since seen at other places

Miller and the Other Sinners, Curtis Lovell, and Farrow (all three at a new-to-us Cobblestone District venue called Buffalo Iron Works, and one of the relatively few we both made it to and the only one all year we saw somebody start after 10 p.m.

And then ending the month with the first road trip of the year, again with Tyler with Kathryn Koch and Jeff Schaller at the Little, all of whom are now friends and all of whom I would see again on different stages in different places between that month and this.

Next I zoomied through the next five months:

February: Alan Doyle/Chris Trapper at Town Ballroom

March: Lucy Kaplansky /Lisa Bigwood at Café Veritas in Rochester

April: Tyler again, Maria Sebastian and host of others at Tyler’s second annual John Prine celebration at Sportsmen's (the third annual has already been announced for this coming April with a second serving the next night at Abilene in Rochester!)

May: Maria again at Rizotto’s, Deanna DiMeo & the Stys at a fundraiser for another fundraiser, the 11 Day Power Play, back at at Sportsmen's and with Eleanor along

June: Tom and Jennifer Maloney's First Friday at Anderson Alley; Maria again at Nietszche's, then on to Dar Williams and Bruce Cockburn at Babeville, Maria yet again at River Grill, and ending the month with Deanna Witkowski at the Rochester Jazz Festival.

Who needs Schmottify?

The hits they just kept comin:

July: My first time at Chautauqua to see Natalie Merchant for the first time ever; then Sportsmen's again, almost four years to the day after my first time ever seeing Eilen Jewell; Kat, Tyler and Jeff again, this time at Larkinville outdoors; did NOT see the Black Rock Beatles at Larkinville the following week because (a) it was sold out and (b) it was pouring (but did do a poem about them, sort of, that same night); and ending it with Eleanor and I seeing Curtis Lovell again doing electronic vibes at the Albright Knot-G.

August: Tyler in yet another of his 1,000 merry bands, doing a weekend brunch at Jack Rabbit;  finally caught Black Rock Beatles indoors at River Grill, the same night I saw dear friend Danielle, also a singer in Farrow, fronting her own band Diyene for the first time on the Jack Rabbit stage (and before 10 p.m.!).

Then I slowed things a bit.

September: Only got to see the re-reformed 10,000 Maniacs in their home town of Jamestown.

October: Another dear Danielle, this one named Ponder, returning to her home town of Rochester for a new venue's first night on the scene; then  a pair of Marys: Maniac alumna Mary Ramsey at Sportsmens, and Mary Chapin Carpenter along with seeing Shawn Colvin for the first time ever at UB.

November: thought I managed an entire month without live music, but Curtis Lovell was an opener before a session of poetry and film at the Burchfield-Penney. AndI did rediscover Amanda Marshall via video and CD who I might even find on tour next year:)

Which will bring us back to Do. Cember: Local friend Davey O and midwest headliner Peter Mulvey, our first Buffalo Friends of Folk outing in ages; Diyene again headlining, but I only made it to her openers, at Iron Works just last week; and then this week's, recapped and fotogged below.

Not sure how many will be in 2024. Eleanor's second knee surgery will be scheduled next month, probably for February, and those next few months will have me much closer to home a lot more. Already I'm expecting it may keep me from a first time/long time pair of performers in Rochester in March. Plus, who knows what pandemics or other pickles may lie ahead? Still, I'll do everything I can to support these talented business people, because it is a business for them.  As Amanda Marshall quoted a legend when we heard a podcast she did earlier this year:

Records is business. Stage is soul.

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Probably not without swords hanging over them, either- which was the other theme of the past week for both of us, each in a different way.

For me, it was That Case.  This is now a bit into my fortieth year- almost two-thirds of my lifetime- in the practice of law, all  but the first year and change of them almost entirely on my own in the bankruptcy realm. I've had long and short ones, wins and losses, every role in every chapter except the most obscure of municipal cases, but none has given me so much stress for so little gain as the one I took on in October and filed right before Thanksgiving.  Last week brought a severe judicial beatdown in the client's telephonic presence, with essentially direct orders to Do It This Way. From that hangup, through the client's affirming if semi-reluctant decision to stick with me after that, and through numerous days of drafting and nights of sleeplessness over it, this past Thursday came. It brought both the deadline to file the Do It This Way with a lot of paper and postage being diverted to it, and a routinely scheduled initial case hearing the judge does not (indeed by law cannot) attend.  Those events ate my Thursday in the Rochester office from 9:45 until almost 5, the deadline documents taking up virtually every second of my and an assistant's time that wasn't devoted to the phone hearing, itself consuming close to two hours itself. In the end, though? We got out and filed what needed to be, while the hearing, though long, I think helped bring some people around to how much That Case should be given a chance.  The Court chose yesterday as its unofficial New Years Eve holiday, so I knew all day yesterday that I would have that day, today, and through New Years Day without anyone stressing me out further about it. The Sword of Damocles is no longer hanging overhead. Whether it is back in its sheath or simply moved to another room, well,.... time in 2024 will tell.

It will also tell about the one that was overhanging Eleanor for much of Christmas day.  Pardon the vagueblogging that must now follow, but if you know, you know:

As I've written about before, we have given up most of the customary trappings of the holiday. The Religion and the Retail, all and mostly out of it. The Relationships, though- to memories and talismans, to family and friends- remain important.  During or just after the day, we spoke with my sister and Eleanor's brother. Quick catchups just to check in and see how we're doing.

By midday on the 25th, I could tell Eleanor was out of sorts a bit. Something was missing. She tried distractions- of music, of drawing, even of joining me for that afternoon's viewing of the first Fifteenth Doctor Christmas special. Which was fun, but had the odd moment of a character in the story going by the name of Lulubelle.  That tied into what was missing, and maybe amplified it so by the end of the day into the 26th, she was still really missing that one aspect of the holiday.

It's faded. Some of it, she suspects, came from a sinus condition that's been exacerbated by the virtually full month of dampness and rain we've had. We shouldn't complain because, a year ago, it was a debilitating amount of snow and cold enough that sinuses were the least of our problems. She's spoken with people about it, has ideas abour how she, and a larger we, can deal with either fixing it or moving on from it, and she spent this morning on a successful household project that is really lifting her spirits and lessing annoying noise in the house for both of us.

We're not fixing this- or the other year-end special at Damocles- today, tomorrow or necessarily anytime soon. We're just glad they're not hanging so close and by such thin threads as they felt they were earlier in the week.

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Enough so, I don't want to end on this entry, or the year if this is the last one, with those recollections. For the longest-for-me day of that weird week between Christmas and New Years- the QI Elves refer to it as the "Merryneum"- ended, not with That Case, but with This Guy:



If he looks familiar, it's because I shared a picture of me with him at the last class he coached a week ago at the gym which, barely a year earlier, was an empty Transit Road storefront.  He progressed in the franchise ranks to a regional manager and much-loved trainer with a freshly minted Masters in exercise from UB, but he made the decision to give it all up to become a full-time musician in the local scene. I know, from many of the friends highlighted above, that getting gigs for even local music Hall of Famers can be a tricky and time-consuming proposition- many book months in advance, others limit their bookings to established earners for the venues- but he worked his way onto the legendary Mohawk Place stage Thursday night, taking an early 6:30 half-hour slot that was perfect for me just getting there from the full day in Rochester.

Several other groups followed. I did not last for them. Jory barely lasted himself, starting the day with a 103 degree fever and a voice barely able to speak much less sing. Still, he knew friends and fans-to-be were counting on him going on, and I was among those there for When It All Began.

He also had a small table of stickers to share. Merch sellers from the other bands flanked him, one group I didn't know of, called Gas Station, making my heart warm and fuzzy by selling actual recordings of their music. The CDs we love; the vinyl that's made such a comeback in the past couple of years, and,....

actual cassette tapes. I didn't buy any, but we do have a recently manufactured boom box that not only plays them but can convert them into digital.  No 8-tracks yet, but we'll see what 2024 brings.

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Yesterday, That Case off the docket and a few other things done, I left early and gave Pepper a much-deserved long walk around the local dog park.



That was one of the few recent sightings of Ol' Sol as it sank slowly in the west. We're hoping for brighter skies, more good moments and fewer missed opportunities, in the year now less than 36 hours away.