When: Monday nite 5/18 730pm ET

Where: https://youtube.com/live/pcJ5lQFOs8w?feature=share

10% to: https://massmentors.org committed to ensuring all young people in MA have mentoring they need to develop into thriving adults

http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or https://venmo.com/vancevancevance or VanceFunder P.O. Box 17, Arlington, MA 02476

*PRIVATE COACHING AVAILABLE - Songwriting, performance, and voice.

***CUSTOM SONGS - Expensive, sure, you want one about you, your family, something.

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THINGS THAT I’VE LEARNED Q&A

~ “DO YOU DO ANY PROTEST SONGS?”

No.
And yes, if you listen closely.

No, if you’re looking for something to sing along to for the empowerment that comes in making many voices one with your fists in the air. There are artists that do that far better than me.

But yes, if you listen closely to Black Rochelle, Old White Men, Wingman, Christmas Dinner, Just The Way That It Was, Good Cup Of Coffee, and a host of other of my tunes. Even the end of the song Trust will poke the listener in the eye and make them thing about the goings on in the world and make you wonder where *you* stand

~ “AWWW, DON’T BE MAD/ OFFENDED/ CONSIDER IT SEXIST/ SEE IT AS RACIST WHAT I SAID / WHEN I HUGGED YOU WITHOUT BEING INVITED/ WHEN I SCRUFFLED YOUR HAIR.
I'DO THAT TO ANYONE/EVERYONE.”

"So you’re equal opportunity offensive with your stupidity/ handsy-ness / privilege”.

Yeah. I’ve been that guy/ person/ fool above. I think we all have. It’s an awful lesson to learn, particularly for gregarious people who think everybody wants to be loved by them all the time. But a good one for human existences' sake.

~ DID YOU EVER TRY TO LOOK UP ROCHELLE OF "BLACK ROCHELLE” AND APOLOGIZE?”

No. That happened 61 years ago. I was 7.

~ “IS 'OLD WHITE MEN' HARD TO SING SOMETIMES?”

There’s a saying that says: "When an old man dies, a library burns". I’m sure that pertains to women, too.

The off days of this last road trip were spent in the basements of 2 Midwest Old White Men whose hobby estates and legacies were being redistributed, liquidated. One of these gentlemen has been gone for a year. The other has dementia, and I was over his house hours before I saw him at his assisted living 2.3 miles away. He doesn’t know they’re clearing out his workshop. He shouldn’t. He wouldn’t understand or remember.

Of course like a dumbass all I had was technical questions for him as he sat regally in his chair. He repeated, with that gifted care with which he said anything to me over the last 40 years, “I don’t remember”. I suspect that included knowing who I was but I never asked.

In the hospice room next to his I went, to kissed his genius ceramic artist wife on the forehead goodbye. She mouthed something looking I’m sure at the trees in the window beyond me. By the time I post this, she will probably have continued on to those trees. I used to hug her when I saw her before this journey. I hope she was OK with that.

I'll remember them for the rest of this journey I take.

That song has the lines:

"I call their wives up often
And I carry their husband’s coffins
As these grey hairs of my own
Chase me down"

I choked in this song.

Every.

Night.

So that's a yes to that question.

The takeaway of this post? Take your stand. Take the time and care how you say hello and goodbye.

But be there and say the things.