6 ms·
I had two fairly magical musical experiences with old guys during my college days. One happened during my junior year. I lived in a house with two other guys,
by agentwiggles 4y ago
I had two fairly magical musical experiences with old guys during my college days.
One happened during my junior year. I lived in a house with two other guys, who were out of town for the night, so I was home alone. I was short on cash so decided to just stay home, and I was playing guitar out on the stoop of my house drinking from a bottle of cheap wine that was left over in the fridge. I was pretty delighted when two drunk guys threw a fiver on my porch as they passed by - I was definitely not playing to any level that deserved money, but it felt pretty awesome.
An older hippie looking guy came stumbling down the walk. He stopped and asked me if he could play something on my guitar. I was immediately nervous that the guy might run off with the guitar, but I hesitantly handed it over to him, and he strummed out a song which I had never heard before (Bob Dylan's She Belongs to Me). He was no rock star - his chord changes were sloppy, his voice was raspy and maybe a little off key. But he shared a wonderful song that I love to this day, then thanked me for letting him play and continued on his way. What a cool little moment, to meet this random stranger and be able to share that music.
The other moment was even more strange and magical, and happened about a year before. A buddy and I had been holed up in the house watching TV and smoking pot for a while, and we stepped out onto the stoop to have a cigarette. It was a beautiful spring afternoon, and we were just chatting, goofing around with accents and silly jokes, enjoying the fresh air and the leftovers of our weed high. All of sudden we heard this strange, ethereal music coming from down the street, and went silent as we strained to hear the sound. From the street corner emerged a man in a forest green suit, with a long white beard, carrying some sort of harp, and playing it beautifully as he walked by. The guy didn't acknowledge us in any way, and we were far too shocked to think of anything to say as he passed. We watched him walk away, still playing this almost angelic music, and the music faded as he got out of hearing distance. My friend and I stood there in stunned silence, until one of us asked, unbelievingly "did you see that too?" I never saw this guy on campus again after that day, but my friend and I still joke about the time we saw an actual wizard on campus. If I hadn't had a friend with me, I'm not sure I would believe that it was real, I'd chalk it up to some vivid dream or hallucination or something. But again, what a magical thing to have happen.
- gk1 4y agoLesson: People should hang out on stoops more often.
- wintogreen74 4y agoagreed, but the problem is only those in Brooklyn have stoops, the rest of us get by with porches and decks ;)
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoI think we had more of an actual civic life when they did. But two things changed: Television and air conditioning. Television meant that there was something to do inside. Air conditioning made it possible to go inside, at least in the summer. Now nobody hangs out on stoops.
- ajmurmann 4y agoI just listened to a section in the audiobook We Should Hang Out in which the author describes how people in a Blue Zone in Costa Rica hang out in groups outside every evening and have bbq together. Families with neighbors we etc.. It seems so healthy and I want something like that. In the Portland, OR area houses are required to have porches to foster community, but still most of them are to small to be attractive to hang out on. My house has one, but it's smaller than my other outdoor spaces. I was thinking after I listened to it, how to create a front for a potential future home that fosters community like this. We all seem to long for something liked describes here or in the part in Costa Rica, but nobody does it. How much is architecture/city design vs smaller families vs everyone being busy vs other, isolating entertainment?
- nfriedly 4y agoIs "We Need to Hang Out: A Memoir of Making Friends by Billy Baker" the book you're referring to?
- disillusioned 4y agoI'm fortunate enough to live in a 100-year-old home in Phoenix, which is a rarity. It happens to be a large neo-classical style (think: colonial) that has a porch that spans the entire front facade. Some times, we'll sit out there, and the number of neighbors we've met on walks and such has been really delightful. You don't have community if you don't have any place to commune, it turns out.