website: youtu.be/_7_BR5NvO90

Somebody asked so I said “sure, why not...i’ll mix love songs and kinda mechanical stuff..."

When: Monday nite 12/5, 7:30ET (doors open @7 for community hang)

Where: https://youtu.be/_7_BR5NvO90

Who gets 10%: https://www.riancenter.org/ Rian empowers immigrants, refugees, and international exchange visitors on the path to opportunity, safety and a better future.

http://paypal.me/vancevancevance or
https://venmo.com/vancevancevance or
a check to VanceFunder P.O. Box 17,
Arlington, MA 02476 for this web-groovery.
Pay or not, up to you. Let’s stay connected.

This week's pyjamas - sweats...

NEW ALBUM. Donate any amount = name on the cover. Sure there’s still time. Same links above, note “VanceFunder”. Any amount over $1 works, but $1000 -plus- makes you an exec producer, name in heavy black font.

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IRISH BUTTER

It was 3 days after Thanksgiving. I was plodding past Sibohan and Peter’s house after a long run. Nice transplanted Irish folks with a pair of kids. They were busy stapling up Christmas lights.

“Running off Thanksgiving?” says Sibohan.

“You bet. I ate like I forgot how and then remembered”

She asks, “Tell me about your sides!”

Damn. She could see? Did I look that much fatter? Then it dawned on me what she meant. I ran down the vegetarian, gluten-free stuffing ingredients, the huge head of broccoli, vegetarian and non-veg gravies with cornstarch and bullion paste rather than flour and drippings (added that later to *mine*).

To that list I added, “...and colcannon, which frankly is a great way to seriously ruin mashed potatoes by adding cabbage. No offense”, I apologized.

“None taken” said she, “however you should have used Irish butter. It's a game changer”. Sibohan runs into the house and brings me a 1/2 lb brick in a green (duh) wrapper.

“Seriously? I thought there’d be some deep culinary/cultural lecture coming involving Michael Collins or some such, and you bring me a block of butter? It’s like if your kids come to my door asking about Black History and Malcolm X and I bring out collards and mac & cheese”.

“Malcolm X liked mac and cheese? Who knew!!?” she queries. We are now dying laughing.

Peter follows with “Our pre-teen daughter was hanging with her best friend down the street and got hungry. Best friend’s mom gave her a bagel with butter. She excused herself, ran the block home, and asked “Dad, can you scrape off this American butter and add Irish butter so that it’s edible? *That’s* how good Irish butter is.”

I hold the butter block up to my ear. “Wow, I..I can feel it!!”, I say as I start to fake step-dance/clog. Just then, in my old, cold, post-3.6-mile-run body, I get a cramp in my buttock.

“I’m gonna go. Thanks”. I grip my butt with one hand, holding the butter out in the air with the other to keep it cool. I hobble down the street.

“That’s not a great look.” I hear tossed at my shoulder.

Thirty seconds later I pass Ron’s house. He’s raking leaves outside.

“What happened to you?”, says Ron.

I tell him the Irish butter story so far, and then add how my butt aches after the phaux clogging.

“Man, this really hurts” I wince.

He looks at the butter, he looks at me, and, as deadpan as you please, this my-aged gay man, survivor of the shame and humiliation of the 60’s and 70’s, of the losses and illness tragedies of the gay community in the 80’s and ’90’s, and of the continuing violence of today, looks me straight on and says:

“Well you’ve got the butter. It’s always worked for me”.

He turns back to raking. His shoulders are shuddering, both of us wheezing with laughter from the leaves and the cold, as the darkest of comedy lives on in a neighborhood where every resident would readily die for each others’ children no matter how they make their mashed potatoes.

**Names of the Irish and gay folks in this story are changed because I have to live here another day.**