When Monday Sept 23 7:30PM ET
Where: https://youtube.com/live/s0X27ImvAL8?feature=share  
Who gets 10% - Dana Farber Cancer Institute - https://www.dana-farber.org - duh!

Order CDs or pay for this web groovery via:
http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or
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VanceFunder P.O. Box 17, Arlington, MA 02476


*PRIVATE COACHING AVAILABLE - Contact me (vance@vancegilbert.com) for songwriting, performance, and voice coaching.*
**CUSTOM SONGS - Expensive, but sure, you want one about you or your family or something.**

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I HAVE A BIG MOUTH.

I have a brain-to-lips connection that occasionally goes unchecked. I’ve always used it to be spontaneous and entertain. I’m sure part of my mouthed deal is to make myself and that moment the center of attention, for whatever deep-seated brokenness or need I’ve had to reconcile with. You can be sure I have made most and many laugh.

It’s duly noted that, as part of their survival, women have put their laugh face on for centuries when men crack heinously offensive jokes. Being a male man guy 60 years indoctrinated in the ways of men I’m certain I've crossed that line. It’s the same titter I use when someone looks both ways and winks before telling a race joke. So I get it.

But I’ve always thought of myself as some sort of great illuminator- the Acoustic Richard Pryor, the Folk George Carlin - bringing to light that which has been unsaid like a bad battleship we can collectively shell and sink if we see its flag flown in its entirety. Wrong or right, misguided as that might be, learning so late in life that intention and outcome are connected, frequently not linear and often damning, comes with a price.

And I’ve paid the price.

There are festivals and venues where me thinking I was funny has gotten me blacklisted.
I’ve been inadvertently affiliated with language that I’ve categorically never used on stage, such as F-bombs, because to some my comedy arc seems to suggest that I had.
And I’ve been fired from a songwriting teaching gig for “non-professorial language”. Yes, I see the irony in this one too. Out of context they had every right, but this one broke me.

And I take these things hard when they’re brought to my attention. My self-flagellation is light years east of any self harm, but 12lbs of eating during 2 weeks of querying the nature of myself is not unheard of.

However this recently happened. A young friend of mine I do some outdoor hobby stuff with and I were talking and I noticed something that I decided not to be appropriate or mute about. I took him aside and bothered him pretty good about it. "Follow my finger", my hand on his cheekbone, I made kind of a pesky spectacle. He had every right to shove me off. He says:

"...only symptom I had of what turned out to be a slow-growing cancer was flushing in my face. I told my family doc about it several years ago. They said it was nothing to worry about. Vance noticed it last time I saw him and he pulled me aside to ask if I was ok. I wish my doc was as concerned as Vance. If the music thing doesn’t work out, you should try doctoring...”

I saved this guy's life by not minding my business.

As for the art part, I’ll do better. I’m fine enough artist enough that as the mores, language, and protocols of our world necessarily change I can change with them and remain relevant, simultaneously polishing my content.

But no. I won’t shut my big mouth. You welcome.