SHARING THE SHOWS
Me in my academic conference attire, Widespread Panic's 11/1/03 show at NYC's Madison Square Garden blasting through my ears.
This is not a concert (as I'm sure you can infer through the title), but this conference is a show in itself, like Woodstock/Curveball for writing teachers. “I don’t go to enough concerts.” This time last year, this had become my mating call on Facebook, due to all the concerts I was going to. A little background: when I moved to Virginia, I had been out of the “jam band scene” for a number of years due to the desire to “grow up,” a la every Judd Apatow movie ever made. Then, one night, I met Plumber Dave, who happened to wearing an Allman Brothers T-shirt. I complimented him on it, which led to chatting about the days I used to see the Allmans at Manhattan’s Beacon Theatre. He invited me to see Skydog, an Allmans tribute, at Hoss’s Deli, just a few minutes down the road from my residence. I was reluctant, but the moment I went back, I saw a light. My body just kept moving to the beats; it was as if I had lost all control over my muscles. That night, I saw another side of Dave, and I met the White Brothers, Mark and Gary, for the first time. A few months later, I’d do a Dark Star Orchestra show with Mark at Long Island’s Paramount Theater. For the uninitiated, Dark Star Orchestra is a band that reenacts Grateful Dead shows in their entirety, note-for-note. Again, my body moved to the beats without any prompting from my brain. Over the next few years, I would go to see local bands such as Skydog, Blind and Dirty (Grateful Dead cover, with other classic rock tunes thrown in), and Last Fair Deal (pure Dead). I’d hit bigger shows with my crew in Virginia: Dark Star Orchestra, Widespread Panic, String Cheese Incident, Phish. I’d travel with Drew, whom I met through Mark, to see Phish in New York City. I met other cool people (Johnny Mac, Fred, Kelly, Pamela, Keith, Ashley, Wes, Chelsea) at shows in New York and elsewhere. I lost a couple of girlfriends over going to those shows, but the feeling I get from the music is way better than, well, THOSE particular relationships. On May 18, 2018, I had finished a semester-long stint as Interim Department Chairperson at my institution (hey, the music wasn’t interfering with the job, so how’s THAT for adulting, society?). I was ready to celebrate, and as a nice show of serendipity, Maggie invited me to boogie to Blind & Dirty at at a local bar called the Cowboy Sports Grill. That’s what friends do. Anyway, I was wearing a T-shirt from The Muse Writers Center, where I had taken a screenwriting class. The shirt said “Write Where You Are” and I got the brainstorm to just write about the show. That evening, not only did my body move, but my brain took in everything around me. I was forced to listen closely to the music, like when Blind and Dirty teased AC/DC’s “TNT.” Ordinarily, I might have missed it, but writing was, like Anne Lamott said, forcing me to pay attention. I observed the different styles of dancing, a tall guy blowing bubbles, a dude with a Hawaiian shirt I kept bumping to, and when I put on my “writers hat,” my perception of the crazy drunks at the shows switched from annoying to entertaining (a la the lovely lady I enjoyed messing with at during the Roosterfoot show). Over the past ten months, I make it a point that whenever I go to a show, I’m going to write about it. It’s a routine now. I’ve had fantasies about my blogs appearing in a major magazine like Spin or Relix. While that may be down the road, my audience is limited at this point to the people on my Facebook, particularly those I tag on Facebook with respect to the shows I attend. But, as Jon reminded me at the conference, like scholar Peter Elbow says, “Audience is important, even if it is the self.” I’ve told myself that nobody really reads my blog; I’m just doing it for fun. Since I started writing that blog, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing SOMETHING every day: short fiction, my screenplay about the four kids going to Big Cypress, some nonfiction, a book I’ve recently started developing. I’ve also become more disciplined with my academic research. I’ve been texting with Christina, my accountability partner, about the writing we do every day. It’s gotten me to bond with Randolph, a colleague in my department, and a prolific fiction writer. So, it’s had that benefit. But I may not have been completely accurate in that assessment. By accident, I came across my friend Pamela’s blog about a show she attended. This appeared on a blog called 52 Shows A Year, produced by Aaron. I learned he was looking for guest contributors. So, I blogged about the Marcus King show I attended, and sure enough, he put it up. Additionally, Morgan read the blog I wrote about the JGB show we attended last week at the Norva. She commented on my “amazing storytelling skills,” which boosted my ego. As much as I hate to admit it, I like validation. That night, I worked on my book-in-progress for a half hour and my screenplay for another half hour. “Two C30s,” Christina and I would call them, given that our names start with C. Craig 30, Christina 30, abbreviated, get it? Hahhahahah…. As I sit here writing, I’m listening to an acoustic set from the Grateful’s Dead October 18, 1980 show at New Orleans’s Saenger Performing Arts Center, wearing beige khaki pants, brown shoes, and a white button-down shirt covered by a wool sweater, attending a workshop at the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the big annual conference for scholars and practitioners of writing studies. Editing is being conducted at Pizza Parma, a pizzeria near the Convention Center that is hosting the conference. Nancy Sommers and Chris Anson, two well-known figures in the field of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, are facilitating a workshop in which participants are working toward writing literacy narratives. My students write literacy narratives, and I’m always happy to engage in anything that even remotely involves writing. The majority of the time is spent writing, and since I’m writing about music, it’s only fitting that I have some going through my ears. As I observe the room, I realize I’m the only one wearing headphones as I write, but these people (other than Jon, Roberta, Dr. Sommers, and Dr. Anson, now that I’ve let them into this identity construction) have no clue about my “other” life. They have no clue that in preparation for the Widespread Panic show I’m going to in DC on Saturday, I’ve been streaming their shows on my phone all week as I walk from my AirBnB to the concert venue. And they don’t know that as much as I’m enjoying the 4Cs, I’m even MORE excited about Panic! At the end of the workshop, Dr. Sommers asked us to reflect on what we learned about ourselves with respect to our writing. I’ve been told my writing style is very vibrant. I do know that I play fast and loose with words and phrases, I’m a sucker for pop culture references (Judd Apatow, “TnT”) The final exercise had to do with reflecting on our writing practices I learned that I play fast and loose, I love pop culture references, and I want to spend more time editing and proofreading with this blog. I don’t take it as seriously as I do other genres, but it might still be good practice. The secret to excellence is to always keep striving to do better. I tell my students this, so I want to follow suit.
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