Hi There, VanceFan

LOOK AT THESE SHOWS I’M HAVING:

This Friday 12/20 Piermont NY THE TURNING POINT- Tix are going kinda lickety split, but there are seats left.
Sat 12/21 - Sicklerville NJ - Tina’s Funny Bone Court Private House Concert tmphi11ips@gmail.com. Miss me near Philly? Then come on - buzz Tina and come! https://www.turningpointcafe.com/

Future Plays:
1/17 - ****NEW SHOW ADDED*** THE TOWNE CRIER w/rising star Alisa Amador omg I can’t believe she’s opening for me… https://www.townecrier.com/
1/25 - Westport CT - Voices Cafe https://voicescafe.org/
2/1 - Cambridge MA - Club Passim - 2 shows ALBUM RELEASE SHOW WITH A BAND https://www.passim.org/
2/8 - Davie FL - South Florida Folk Festival http://www.southfloridafolkfest.net/
2/15 - Pomfret CT - Vanilla Bean http://www.thevanillabeancafe.com/
2/16 - Park Ridge NJ - Acoustic Cafe http://goodacoustic.com/AC/cafe.html

PRIVATE POST-HOLIDAY PARTIES - yeah. There’s a mess of them, on into January. Contact me for one

- Good Good Man's release date is 1/24/20 (streaming and download happens then too), but yes, you can get a CD NOW:
• PayPal to - vancefunder@gmail.com
• check for anything between $10 - $20 and up to Vancefunder P.O. Box 17 Arlington, MA 02476
• **If your name is on the CD, you’re a friend, family member, promoter, radio/podcast personage, cash strapped, or anyone else that thinks they should just have one, send me your address and just ask and I’ll send it.**

-Post-Holiday Soirées, coaching of songwriting, performance & voice, custom stapler painting available upon request. I had this last time but sure, send me your stapler and I’ll paint it for you custom for really cheap, maybe even free. I have the paint.

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THE FOUR TO FIVE MEN OF MY RECENT APOCALYPSE

How do you love a man? I figure 4 ways.

Fran, a retired WW2 era Bell Aircraft designer, used to write an airplane history column for our model plane newsletter. He helped run some of the competition mass launches at our Nationals in Geneseo NY. One blistering July day I went up to him to ask a question as he stood in the field in the sun with his clipboard, and I noticed him sagging, grayish, stumbling a bit. He told me he didn't feel that great. I took the clipboard and him to a tent, grabbed 2 room temp waters, and made him sit and drink them as we ran our mouths. He never forgot that minor rescue. Now 90+, Fran, with his long unpronounceable Polish last name, has always called me “Brōe”. That’s fine.

So I called him the last time I was in the Buffalo area, hoping to take him to lunch. He balked, and finally confessed that he couldn’t leave the house, embarrassed by both of his ends’ reactions to stage 4 colon cancer chemo. I bid him to get better, told him never mind his embarrassment, and promised to call again soon. It didn’t look good.

I always sing Old White Men with a bit more poignancy each next show after things like this.

So I made that call the other night. I so feared his wife’s voice. Fran answered the phone, and we talked for 45 minutes. About being a Boy Scout enforcing 1945 blackout via his bicycle after school. About Bell special project he worked on after the war. About the chemo not ravaging him like before, and how the tumors and the blood clots are being stable for now. For 45 minutes. Laughing. Me calling him the unpronounceable alphabet-ski Pole. Him calling me Brōe.

As I pulled up into my adopted airplane Dad Old White Man’s Widow's driveway yesterday afternoon for a visit before the gig that was a few miles away, I checked my phone. The text I got from a close friend Don said that Mike N. had died. A punch to the gut. He and I came to this hobby together. He was about 15 years older than me. I’m trying to pull it together in the car. I’m in my rear view, wiping my face clear of tears, or as if I could erase Mike’s laughing, wise face from in front of mine onto my snot-covered sleeve.

Dinner with her and her son, my in-situ brother another great airplane guy. He and I battled a few years ago over things said about things within this family that I though hurtful to all, me included. I got handed my ass and we didn't speak for the better portion of a year. But here we were last night, repaired, hugging and weeping on each other’s shoulders, missing his dad, my OWM, and this new death, our friend of 30 years, Mike.

Still, when that obit says family and friends, I wonder why is has taken me to age 61 to learn that families often circle the wagons after a death, and really do go family, no matter how many times you’ve been around their Thanksgiving table. No memorial service for Mike, he’s been gone 3 weeks says this obit I find after a brief search, and there’s no one to complain to. Just condolences to his wife.

I drive home. I sleep. I wake up to run with this poodle in the freezing slush. I run past the landscapers house, the one we had to call the police on for breach of the blower law, the one that threatened me, fought with my partner, the one known throughout the area as combative and angry. The one who's brother started his own company because he won’t work with him. He’s out in the frozen rain trying to prop up a Santa that insists on blowing over in the slightest breeze, and damn it all I instinctively wave. He glares at me, stares me past his house to the top of the corner. All I want to do is say I’m sorry for something, anything, and help him wire or twine Santa up in his yard so that he’s looking out from the waist-high, defiant, ironic “MERRY CHRISTMAS” letters in his yard at the people passing by, many of whom have every reason to love a man, no matter what.

peace

xovg