Vance’sMondayNiteAcousticPajamaParty #285 - RANDOM TUNES

When; Monday nite 12/29 7:30pm ET

Where: https://youtube.com/live/q31Zu0g3QS0?feature=share

Who gets 10%: https://www.buddydoghs.org because doggies…and there’s a dog-sat poodle at my feet...

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

*PRIVATE COACHING AVAILABLE - Contact me for songwriting, performance, and voice coaching.

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

PS - Come see me @ Club Passim, Cambridge MA 1/10/26 - 2nd show added and tix are going fast!!

BTW, 2 weeks and a day from now - Jan 10th, I’m at Club Passim Cambridge for 2 shows!!

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MANGO CHUTNEY AND VENISON

“Text me with anything you want" I said as I left the house to pick up a prescription at the Walgreens across from Trader Joe’s on Christmas Eve. She texts back “mango chutney”.

Seriously? Mango friggin' chutney?

For as far away as I had to park from Trader Joe’s and this is what she asks for?

How far, you ax?

My iPhone was beeping and vibrating and screaming, “Yeah, you Black, but are you an African marathoner? Already you’ve used up all your calories in your body for the month and exceeded your goals like...wait - did you steal Meb Keflezighi’s phone?" based on where I had to park - for mango chutney.

I axed the lady in the store when I got there. “Let me ask my manager”, she says. She was gone 15 minutes. Hell, I’m not looking for a deal lowest price on a used car. By the time she come back I was ready to buy a Ford Pinto. She all “It’s not on he shelves, but we’ll have it again in late February, early March.” Great. Maybe I’ll call the new album “Chutney For Spring”...

Ohh I’m mad now. Mango Chutney. That sound like something Wyt people names they give to they adopted Third World children, yes I said it. I’m extra mad now because “Vance” sounds like the very last Frosted Flakes that come out the box when it’s just empty enough to make not quite a full bowl, and I’m not even adopted, I don’t think...so I get a jar of grape jelly and an onion, and say, “This'll do”, pay for it, no I don’t need a damn receipt cause I'm never going back, stuff each in a pocket, and storm out of the store for the day’s trek back to the car.

I pull up to my favorite gas station and roll down the window. My favorite attendant, same guy I once waited 5 minutes for to fill my car cause i saw through the window he was in prayer, comes to the window with a smile, and takes my card.

The tank full, he handed back my card and thanked me, the few extra syllables in pronunciation of my name he read on the card having him say “I thank you Venison. Merry Christmas” in his North African-tinged English. I turn best I can in the seat, clasp my hands and as reverently as I can, offer “Salaam alaikum”, my mittens doing a floppy eared beagle/bunny thing as they come together and flop back down. He answers in kind with a giggle.

“Same God, right?” I shamefully asked in reconciliation.

“Of course, sure, Allah, same guy, Venison, of course”, he offers back with a shrug.

I drive off with a cool nickname, the makings of a strange compote, and a sense of peace, community, and belonging from which not even my judgy jogging app can dislodge me.