I used to be "business partners" with a musician, songwriter, performer, whose grandmother lived in an old folks' home. He used to just bring his guitar and sing to her in her room (he called it serenatas, Spanish or pocho for serenade) until other people gathered around the door where she stayed and blocked the hallways trying to hear the music.
They set him up in the "common room" but it was too large for just his voice and guitar. He needed some sound reinforcement. He needed me.
He asked me one day if I would bring some gear out on a Sunday morning and help him with what he had gotten himself into.
I said like, "WUT?" Oh, set up a sound system for forty people in a small room, half of which are deaf and the other half are hyper sensitive to any sounds. Yeah, I want to do that. "Right."
I did not have any sound gear things that were smallish. My stuff was designed for concerts and large clubs, pound you in the chest and make your knees weak, make your ears ring and disturb your digestion for hours. I didn't even own anything gentle. But I worked at a music store back then.
I put some equipment I had never used out to myself on loan/spec/approval. We did that sort of thing in those days.
So I set up this tiny little sound system with one speaker pointed against a corner directly behind him, he sat on a stool with his guitar, two microphones and the other speaker pointed straight up in front of him where he could hear himself and it would add presence of his performance to the room.
I set it for very low sound output, but it filled the room beautifully. He came in to the store and wrote a check for the tiny sound system the next day and it lived in the trunk of his car from then on.
Next thing you know a nurse came up and asked if he could go over to this other place and play a song or two for them as well. Her uncle lived there and he loves to hear music.
So, Sunday morning (sleep day) became music day! He was there every Sunday morning until his grandma died, but he was still needed. He kept on playing there every Sunday until his younger sister took over and he went off and got famous.
I still love the guy for what he did for all those random oldsters over a couple of years.
When you see a ninety year old man get up and ask his new crush to dance, both of them using canes, your heart kind of melts in a way.
The point of this is that I spent a lot of time with a few groups of the really old over a period of years. Not as much as he did, but I saw the olders trading and comparing drugs like colors of M&Ms.
Talking about all their damn drugs was about all some of them had in common, except the music my friend played.
Fortunately, with my buddy "working the room" which was his talent, they had something more than aches, pains and drugs to talk about.
So tell me Gary, when did you become so toxic?
