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A Day in the Life of a Realer…Or Planting a Lukas Garden

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by in MUSICings

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While the story I am about to tell you will garner all sorts of accolades about my generosity and kindness and blah blah blah, the reason it all came about is solely due to my finely honed laziness. Sometimes we just have to stay home. Sometimes we don’t have to be at everything. Sometimes we just have to stick close to our adult kids whether they like it or need it or not. This long planned trip to Austin Texas with a friend to see a Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real concert with the Avett Brothers thrown in for good measure just took an uneasy turn. And those, my intuition always tells me, are always for the good.

I love Lukas. He is an extraordinary singer/songwriter but more than that, he has an energy and aura on stage that is unmatched. I came across him about three years ago in a chance Facebook video. Where else does anyone our age get news today? He was doing his dad, Willie’s, You Were Always on My Mind, which I always manage to confuse with Andy Hill’s, Still Very Much on My Mind. It was from 2013 on a cruise ship in the lounge with a couple of old timers, one on the piano and the other on trumpet. Not a formal show, just a late night hang, that is still one of the most breathtaking musical things I have ever seen. I posted it on my FB page. Fast forward a month and a few friends of mine are raving over him. Well, irritated, I asked them, where the hell had they been since I posted him over a month ago. We started an FB messenger chat and within an hour, I had tickets for the four of us to see him play in a small club in Sacramento in July. There were no other solo shows closer to us, meaning just Lukas and his band. I had no interest in seeing Willie, nor do I ever go to all day music festivals in the dirt. I am too damn old for that. I need comfortable seats. We flew to Sac, saw the show, met him afterwards and got pictures with him. We had a great night out with girls who I had just met a year or two before. Lukas, by this time, had added another show in October at the Fonda Theater right in our backyard in Los Angeles. So we went to that as well and signed up a few more Lukas Ladies to go with us. Both shows were spectacular and reasonably priced.   And then that annoying re-make of A Star is Born happens and Lukas pretty much takes off. This February, his $30 ticket at the Troubadour went for close to $480 bucks at first. I was so mad. I wrote his booking agent and asked, what the hell were you thinking letting the scalpers get all the tickets. Why on earth didn’t we get a fan pre-sale at least? He wrote me back a very nice email sort of apologizing.

And that is how I came to buy two tickets to see him this Friday, May 10 in a place called the Whitewater Amphitheater in New Blauvelts, Texas outside of Austin. Now mind you this is not the name of the town, it is actually New Braunfels but for some damn reason this addled brain of mine refuses to accept that fact.   I’ve long since stopped asking my mind how it works. My friend has a son that lives there and so the plan was for us to go visit him and his wife and then see the show. She has never seen Lukas; so initiating a new Lukas Lady was going to be fun. Besides it was cheaper to go to Texas than the Troubadour at that point. We had two GA (general admission for the non concert goers among us) tickets, which I was sure I could use once the knee problem got better. It didn’t and so last week I picked up two more preferred seat tickets so that I could be guaranteed a seat as I would never make a four hour standing only show. I could have gone to the Troubadour in Los Angeles twice at this point.

I now had four tickets to get rid of. I hate seeing tickets go to waste. The idea though this morning, of the incredible hassle of actually selling these tickets to people in another state was more than this lazy Lukas lady could stand. About four days ago, I had joined a new Facebook page Lukas had created for fans only called the Realers after his band. I decided I would sell these tickets for karma bucks instead of cash bucks. I would see what happens and so I posted this:

“Stuff happens in life and I always like to put karma bucks in my bank. I can’t go to the Whitewater Lukas show in New Blaunfels Texas after all, so I just want to give my tickets away. I have 2 GA tickets. Private message me. I also had 2 preferred seating but I got a message on those. They are all email tickets so I can email them to you. Just send me some video! Love Maddie! I’ll have to wait to see our Boy when he comes back to LA!”

And then I met Brandee Rockett. Now mind you, when she first sent me a message, I was a little skeptical of that name. No offense, Brandee, but it’s a great burlesque name. Brandee is a 38 year old mom to a 17 year old boy who lives in Austin and is in the process of moving to Denver. Brandee is a thyroid cancer survivor and a huge Lukas fan.   She so wanted to see him close to her house but medical bills made it a luxury she can’t afford right now. So what if I’m running my own Make A Wish program. This Friday, Brandee and her 17-year-old son will be seeing Lukas and the Avett Brothers. When you start your day with a message from a perfect stranger that says (Brandee has given me permission to reprint her words):

“Thanks for making a difference in my life. I saw this concert was 30 minutes from my home and was so sad (at first) that I couldn’t attend. My husband and I used to attend concerts on our date nights. One every 6 to 8 weeks and would be planned months ahead. All of that stopped with the cost of cancer. And I mean not just financially. So thank you so very much for this. I am so grateful to see him near my hometown and one of my all time favorite venues before I move. It’s like an acknowledgement of reclaiming my life. That’s how much it means to me. It means everything”

I’ll let you guess how many tears flowed down my face reading this. The power of music. The power of gratitude. The power of laziness. Well it is I, of course, and I turned Brandee on to my blog site and so I made another reader. What is that, ten of you now? She liked the first thing she read. And that is enough pay back for this writer wanna be.

The next set of tickets were the two preferred seating ones. I had received a message first from a 61-year-old gentleman who just had knee replacement surgery two months ago and wanted to take the new knee out for a concert spin. How perfect was he for the tickets I had to buy because of my bad knees? At the same time, I had also received an email from a lovely lady who is a TV producer for an Austin show called Support Live Music. I wondered about her and why she couldn’t just get comp tickets. She even offered a shout out on her TV show for what I was doing. We chatted a bit and then I thought well maybe I should just split the tickets up and give one to Robin A, the knee guy, and the other one to her. I wrote Robin back a message and asked if he wanted one ticket. What he wrote back earned him both. He said he was grateful and all and he would love to see Lukas, as he was a big fan and had never seen him, but he could not go without his wife. Wow, that is love! I would have dropped my husband like a bad habit to go see Lukas with an offer like I made.  So now Mr. and Mrs. Robin A will get to see Lukas for the first time and Robin will have lots of time to read my blog since he is still recuperating. It didn’t hurt that Robin is a huge Beto fan either, per his Facebook page I snooped around on.

I told the TV producer why the tickets went to the knee replacement gent and wife and she understood and loved the story. I asked why she needed tickets as she told me she works with Lukas’ people when he releases new videos. What she said would warm the hearts of all my musician friends. She said she never asks for comp tickets. She pays for them herself. The saying at her TV show is “ Pay the Cover, Tip the Band and Buy the Merch!” Now that’s a girl after my own heart!! And she ended her last message to me with ‘just love you and you are funny, too’! So I do what I do best. I sent her to the MY BACK PORCH page and to Midnight Missives and Musings to read me.

I racked up a nice chunk of karma bucks this morning, all before 10:30. It allows me to be a little bad. I like it. Can I afford this all? Hell no!! Will I get crap from certain people about me wasting my money? Hell yes!! Do I care what they think? Hell no!! I don’t get my religion from a bible or a pew or my high from a pill or a powder. I get it from walking around and thinking of interesting things to do and see what happens. The joy I experienced today, not to mention picking up three new readers of my writing and maybe more since I also posted my blog site on Lukas’ fan page, is better than any drug or organized religion on the planet. And maybe, just maybe, it lightens things a bit for those I love the most to hear this. Well, must go, just heard Lukas is playing the Fillmore in San Francisco at the end of the month! Who’s in?

 

 

 

26

04 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by in TO AJ

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2018 PRESCRIPT: Happy Heavenly 26th Birthday, AJ. I would write you a new blog but I am too busy going to the plays and concerts you keep helping me get great tickets for.  We love you and miss you every day you are gone, so today isn’t any more special or different other than it’s one of the two happiest and best days in your mom and dad’s lives.   Take care AnJel and be heaven happy always as you were down here!

I’m not putting this on Facebook . Well it will end up there cause it’s the only place my internet writing can be shared. But that doesn’t matter cause it will still only be read by the few and fiercely loyal. I appreciate them and love them. Tomorrow AJ will turn 25. No, I cannot say would have. It doesn’t resonate nor feel right. There is something about this number. I can’t put my finger on it yet and hope I can by the last sentence.   Tears just keep flowing and so the words must as well. It should be over. That is the phrase that runs through my brain in a loop of not understanding. He is 25 now. He is no longer a child or an adolescent or a young adult. It is the age of male mental maturation. This I have been told by a few experts recently when so ready to pull my own hair out over the teenage/young adult angst and antics of my two sons ages 15 and 20. The magical number I am told. Just wait, boys brains are not fully matured until then. You will see such a difference. The magical male mental maturation age. Not fully understood by us females who are pretty done with our own mental maturation at 15 actually, give or take a year or two but no more.

And so it only feels right that his death should be ended as well. Time’s up. Time’s up for the pain and anguish his family and friends and I feel. Time’s up for the stoic and incredible strength and bravery and courage endured and displayed by his mother and father and sister. Time’s up. It should be.   Full blown adulthood begins. That should be enough to end it. But it can’t and it won’t and all the magical thinking in the world won’t change that. It doesn’t get better. It gets different. There are wounds that time will never heal. This is surely one of them.   I believe in the afterlife. I do. My computer geek of a boy has sent me a few signs along his journey in that afterlife. I believe it. I received one today. I won’t share it. Only with his mother. I believe he has reached his angel status in the afterlife now. Perhaps the equivalent of adult status in the here and now. It’s a nice thought and one I shall keep. That’s the beauty sometimes of things that require a leap of faith and not logic and facts. It comforts me to believe he is now a guardian. The two boys he grew up with need one more than ever right now. And so do I. Happy Angel Day, AJ!

 

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg..

27 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in POLITICS&POTITICS, RANDOMLY I GO, Uncategorized

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Today I posted the below to my FB page and it set me thinking about you and your FB page set up. Lucky you.  On contemplating the issue of the dumbing down of America which appears to be so front and center at this time in history, I must firmly believe that your FB page set up contributed greatly to this state of affairs.  The fact that you only put a LIKE button to posts and force fed this choice into the conscience of millions and millions of users for years has rendered most of us with the inability to NOT LIKE something. It has become such a horrible thing to say ‘This Sucks’ for the older generation. The youth though has no problem with it yet simply because they ARE youth and don’t really hang on your page anyway.  Why on earth is it considered so impolite, so horrible to simple state what you think about something.  The discernment required to evaluate whether music or art or literature or just the guy talking to you at the moment is a horror show needs to be brought back. It won’t kill us to not be patted on the back for every single thing we do.  There is a centuries old argument between the Romantics and the Greeks and set forth beautifully in Le Misenthrope- yes it’s book and yes you can Kindle the damn thing. The Romantics believed in kindness above truth, the Greek truth above kindness at all times. Well you Mr. Zuckerberg have effectively taken away the choice to be a Greek at all on your FB page.  While this may not seem a huge thing on the surface, it is really.  I personally am sick to death of liking stuff. I just don’t. Plain and simple.  Being nice ALL the time is also overrated. Sometimes it takes more than that to get something done. In any event, I say YOU, Mr. Zuckerberg should personally contribute to the restoration of the ability to discern at least by your FB users. I want a BUNCH of buttons and I want every person who reads a post to have to THINK about what they are reading or looking at (other than cat pictures- just leave that alone please- that would be too much all at once.) So let’s see a LIKE,  REALLY LIKE,  SUCKS,  LOVE IT, REALLY SUCKS,  DONT REALLY CARE ABOUT THE TOPIC,  I NEED TO RESEARCH THIS A BIT and I’M BACK AND I RESEARCHED IT (here then you get a second chance of the above buttons to push) button.  If we are going to now live our lives here at least let’s engage our brains and raise the national IQ above that of a Duck Kardashian Dynasty fan. Thank you for reading and the ability to do so.

Love,

Maddie

RETRACTION: I am no longer interested in pissing off anyone, no matter how much fun it is. My mission should I decide to accept it, between now and November is to analyze some issues, make the arguments and try and bring back a bit of discernment and critical thinking and show how we are NOT as far apart on many issues as the media and Mr. Zuckerberg would like us to believe. I truly believe we can form the party of Common Sense in the future and these ridiculously rigid positions could disappear easily. For starters I have met a cool lady yesterday who owns a T shirt shop and I ordered the one she was wearing: Don’t Believe Everything You Think. Visit her website and FB page, it’s a company called BeSoDoSo.  Because everything in America starts with a great T-shirt. Sandi Behar- get the Rock n Roll is Constitutional one.  You’ve go the arms for it, baby!

Original FB post
Good Morning folks, today’s let’s piss off a Republic post will have to do with actually finding one in this year’s election. Despite Michael Moore’s doomsday prediction, I can’t seem to find anyone to actually say they are voting for The Donald, come on let’s use his old name please. I get a lot of ‘NO WAY I’M VOTING FOR HILARY but no actual I’M VOTING FOR TRUMP AND PROUD OF IT. So either you are voting for him and too embarrassed to say so OR you really have no one else to vote for. Well WRITE MY NAME IN !! There you go problem solved. Now my perspective like those who work UNDER these presidential administrations (I have 8 of them by the way under by belt) is different than the rest of you. We don’t work FOR them remember, we work UNDER them. We are not political appointees. We are career bureaucrats that can tie their silly ass policies up in knots for years if we think they are an idiot and the people they put in charge of us are even bigger idiots. Anyway someday I will write my perspective about all 8 of them. Not today. Today I want to just say thank you to Hilary for letting me stay home part time and take care of my kids when she was president the first time. Come on folks, balls of steel broad with the nicest guy ever for a husband. You do the “who’s in charge here” math. But in all fairness I also want to thank George W for allowing us to keep for our own personal use any frequent flier mileage we accrued on government travel. That was UNHEARD before him. I still have that order somewhere and it was literally one of the first memos we got in January 2001. Needless to say, I put my red pen down and sat quietly for the next four years. I hope both these issues are part of the questions they ask during the presidential debates this fall.