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‘what did the atheist say to rabbi?’

‘where’s the gospel tent?’

jim duffy recorded an ep on four track once called ‘starts on a d, ends on a d.’ it was a poem to shamsi rue (who still gives me the chills when i hear ‘evangeline’ on the rough mix cd i have to remember that great band ‘one.) all the songs were in the key of d ’cause jim was a drummer playing guitar and you can’t write love songs on the drums (unless you’re portuguese). beautiful record. i think i still have a copy of it somewhere. one for the digitizing project that one of you are in charge of in the event of my untimely death.

anyway, i always thought jim should start all his records in one key and end them in the same key. like bookends. make it a tradition. like pete the meat’s from culver city’s annual christmas cd (which i didn’t get this year ’cause evidently pete don’t ship). bring that beet back. traditions are what it’s about. they give you another reason to live another year. i started a jazz fest tradition yesterday: start in the gospel tent, and end in the gospel tent.

when you start your day and end your day in god’s tent, you hear things. musical and otherwise. i heard tonia scott & the anointed voices drag a woman on stage (the sister of the late reverend) who literally.could.not.walk. she looked 100 years old. she was 70 pounds soaking wet. she had dark black glasses on. leaning on a cane. then she started singing ‘jesus on the mainline’ and i fell over. she was fine, and i’m laying on my side in the gospel tent crying like a baby.

i heard new orleans jazz ramblers do a cover of ‘what a wonderful world?’ while women feathered in pink and purple swayed in the breeze we could only hope for.

i heard jon cleary & the absolute monster gentlemen (guitar player must have weighed 450 pounds) at the gentilly stage and d.l. menard & the louisiana aces speak in the thickest cajun dialect you have ever heard at the fais do do (where this angel walked out of a little booth beside the stage wearing a california-country sun dress circa 1973, knee-hign leather boots, and headphones. she smiled to someone in the crowd, pointed to her ears, and whispered ‘live recording!’)

i heard cedric burnside and lightenin’ malcolm ask the faithful in the blues tent if they’d ‘mind if we rock out for a bit.’ i heard them do a junior kimbrough cover that made a clean (like a broke dick dog), prim (like belle of the sunday school ball), and old (like in-her-70s old) white woman sitting in the second row scream out ‘cedric! cedric! ceedriiiick!’

i heard neil young. i heard neil young standing in a field filled with all the human beings a field could hold in the heat of the day. i had to wait thirty extra minutes to hold my spot. it was rough. but i heard neil young play ‘everybody knows this is nowhere’ as grey clouds formed overhead and dropped the temperature twenty degrees. i heard a cover of ‘a day in the life’ that made sonic youth look like dave mathews and made me feel like it was the best thing i ever heard (and i was stone.cold.sober.)

then it rained … i had my first and only beer.

during the rain delay a woman from san jose that i kept thinking was kathy bat (but probably wasn’t) got me (and a coupla coon asses) extremely high …

… then i wandered back over to the fais do do stage and heard guy clark do two songs, but i couldn’t find eric and lindsey even though they were there.

i heard an old black man pass an old white man and say, ‘i’ll see you further on down the road!’ i liked that.

i saw big chief bo dollis & the wild magnolias walking around, but i didn’t hear them do anything except stand there looking beautiful.

i heard buddy guy from way outside the blues tent where i attempted to eat a pork and shrimp spring roll. i don’t know. it sounded like a good idea. i was high. buddy guy sounds like confidence wrapped in a grizzly bear on cocaine. i heard a real white trash lady listening to buddy guy say, ‘this sounds dirty,’ to her real white trash man, who responded, ‘i know i feel dirty just listening to it.’

and of course i heard another group at the gospel tent, but i forgot what they were called.

i guess that’s about all i heard.

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