Nifty noodles/ A few for fun
12/20/01
Riverside, CA
I decided to do a couple of drop in gigs this week around town as I'm not very busy this year. The first was a fill in date at Coffee Depot in downtown Riverside across from Old Spaghetti Factory. With four days notice I walked in with my keyboard and set up in a little dinner theater setting. They serve coffee and sandwiches here at this revisited old train station. They've converted the baggage area to a great little concert venue that seats maybe a hundred folks around tables.

Mostly it was my friends around town that showed up.. And yet I still spoke as if the crowd was unknown to me. (I was told). I was nervous for some reason, being in a "secular situation. I've always been aware of and sensitive to "outsiders"... Folks who might not get the lingo we all fall into as Christians. Even my songs seemed over the top these days... Especially from Joyride... I realized I've given up singing to the average man... In place of that I'm now singing to the Choir. "I'd like to thank you Jesus" and "clap your hands you know Jesus" let non believers know it's a "cheesie gospel gig" and they head for the door.

I'm trying desperately to find my way from here. My Christmas songs don't all fit the coffee house vibe, but I did 'em anyway. It took discipline. I played an hour of my own stuff first but the Christmas stuff was the ticket. I joked about the tip jar in front of my keyboard... I made fun of Maria Carrie's version of "chestnuts"... That got huge laughs. Mostly I wanted a relaxed environment with some intimacy where no one was waiting for me to get to the point.

I long to do more arrangements of Christmas traditional songs with a blues/ jazz slant. I think I'm alone in this desire however...I don't know where record company's are going these days. I don't know where I'm going right now either, I can't tell you really why I'm drawn to smaller gigs instead of pushing on toward the "big time"... I imagine it has to do with control and happiness in doing what I enjoy. Sounds selfish I know... Even my youngest son feels I'm wasting my time and talent... I could be writing songs for In Sync! I could be doing commercials or writing songs for the movies... I don't know how to get the attention of that world beside hangin around in a lobby somewhere.

To me it feels like a sacrifice of the one sacred place that I know in my life. My alter before God and my true worship is to sing even when I sing "non Christian" songs, they are redeemed in my own heart and they speak to me and feelings I can only recognize when I'm singing.

Harvest Christian Fellowship invited me over the next night (Wednesday) To sing a few songs... I felt more at ease there and my voice sounded better.

This Sunday I will play one song in three services and then again two whole shows at 6 and 8 for this Christmas "Eve eve" at my home church in Riverside. The night shows are sold out... (tickets were free but you need one to get in and they were gone about twenty minutes) I just volunteered my services, first time I've had the right attitude about that at home.

Christmas Eve, I will play two services at Calvary Chapel of the High Desert, It's my brother in laws' church.

I'm off this year for New Years... First time ever since I started playing thirty years ago (except for one year where I turned the gig down cause I didn't want to be away from home and that other time when I checked myself in to the treatment center for lunatics)

Well listen I'll see you after Christmas I suppose... Remember to be grateful for the birth of a savior... It's why I'm still here.

O.K. So there's that! bryan d

Nifty noodles/ Upstate California
12/9/01
Oak Ridge, CA
I floundered for the first hour of this concert... Couldn't find a pulse on the audience. When I gave up I did much better... Talk about a come from behind victory... This was one. There were some twenty people here from that church that won't have me back... So clearly not everyone was offended over at Zion Fellowship in Danville, Ca. The last time I was there. I did a half and half show... This time. Half my regular stuff and half Christmas... I blanked out on "if you pray for me" couldn't remember the chords... I just stopped.... Little things were distracting me... I was trying to communicate... But the audience was such a wide range of age groups that I never did feel completely comfortable. The Christmas stuff worked though... Cause everybody loves those songs. I preceded the pastor's invitation... With "Grown up Christmas List" . It worked very well. I came back to sing Hark the Herald Angels and Angels we Have Heard.

Afterward a guy came up and gave me a bunch of old records mostly stuff he produced in the early sixties... But among the platters was a rare original single of Elvis Presley's "all Shook Up". And a Christmas single from the Manhattans... I'll have to see what the value is... Before I frame them. Why did he give 'em to me, out of appreciation for my music he said.

O.K so there's That and bryan has left the building.

Nifty noodles/ Upstate New York
12/7/01
Canandaigua, N.Y.
The only out of my home state Christmas concert this year was here. I sung with an all star choir. The members got together five weeks ago just to do this gig... I'm grateful, and impressed. They were very good. I opened with four songs from my other projects just because I never play up here and some folks came from a long way to see a show. Up state New York is gorgeous... There was no snow but they said it was coming just hours after we leave town.

The folks here were wonderfully warm and sincere to say the least... One man, I won't forget, turned 41 and this was his birthday present from his wife. He looked like an upscale biker with the leather jacket but clean cut. Waiting till the end of the line of greeters after the show... Looked me straight in the eye man to man, "I owe you a lot for your songs"..." I'm a hard one" he added tears welling up in his eyes. "Your songs have kept me around". I have no idea what he's was talking about specifically but it didn't matter.. I knew exactly how he felt. It was fulfilling to me to hear.

A friend asked me the other day as we were talking about the future and aging and restlessness...and disappointment and searching for meaning, "you still gonna be singin in some church service when your sixty?"( suggesting a lack of success perhaps) "I don't know" I told him then, depressed at the way it sounded. As I see it now, I can't control how I appear to the rest of the world. I plan to sing, cause it's what I do... And if that¹s all there is in the future, so be it...success is being able to do what you love. I don't always get to do it in the style I'd like or in the surroundings that look impressive to others but after talking to folks at this out of the way stop for me, a place I seldom come to... I'm convinced that in the volume of my life, I've done the right thing before God. Because there are people even out here.. Who have understood my meaning when it wasn't clear to anyone in "marketing".

I read an e mail from my website yesterday from another guy who admitted he hadn't always followed Christ since first hearing me sing..."but when I think of you I think of him" he wrote... What better thing could be said of any Christians life?

O.K. So there's that bryan d C ya

Nifty noodles/ Nothin
12/3/01
Riverside CA.
I've been home for the last three weeks but for one gig. It's really true, the less you have to do the less you get done... I still eat breakfast at Denny's cause it feels like home. I'm thinking of starting an old boy ministry..."Curmudgeons for Christ", we'll meet for coffee at the mall twice a day, read the paper and sit around making commentary on the deterioration of Godly values.

Being self employed, I find it hard to enjoy down time... I don't mind reading when I'm on a plane or waiting for one...but sitting in a room with nowhere to go... Nah, not gonna do it.

Don't get me wrong I'm enjoying my family time... But they're all busy you know... So I'm just an observer mostly... O.k. so I've put up all the outside Christmas lights. I Cut down eight trees on my property with a chain saw...Once you start cutting stuff up You can't stop. I can't feel my fingers now cause my body's not used to the physical labor.

I'm practicing Christmas music again for the two days before Christmas. It's the old stuff mostly that I do every year...I'm having trouble hitting some of those notes too.

Everyday I think about the book I'm not writing... Can't figure out what it's about.

I am enjoying one book though, St Augustine's Confessions. He lived over fifteen hundred years ago.. And the politics of life were the same as now. He lamented about not having the time to write and yet he got that done and now I'm reading it. It's basic stuff too. He faced the same kind of irritations and disappointments really. Surprising too because I think of the past as being a time of barbaric ignorance.

I'm wondering too about what I'm gonna do in the future. Musically I've fallen completely out of the slip stream. It's hard to believe that God wants me to stand down for awhile... I'm used to being on full alert. I'm a soldier in peace time struggling with the paperwork. I have no idea where my checkbook is... I have all day to find it so that won't get done either.

If you're reading this right now I'll be amazed... I'm just documenting the daily side of life as I know it. I need a vision... And not a television.

O.K. So there's that! bryan d

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