Red Handed Gypsy

I guess this is the name of my new band.

This girl that rents a property from Marco is this gypsy chick who has no concept of property. While I DO intrinsically understand that concept, for instance, Aborigines and their concept of how can anyone OWN the earth, and the Canadians calling their native peoples, 'First People' and, of course us with, uh, Native Americans... Yeah, I get that and really, especially the Aborigine philo.

But, Sheeeiiit, come on little Euro girl, whose forefathers either bought millions of acres of land for beads, or just commited genocide to get the land, Nemmen mir ein BREAK.

SO, this gal, went into our Drummer, Sam (by the way, Marco is guitar man)'s new house as he was moving out of his house to get away from his ex girlfriend. Sam is a guy who will do anything for you. He works hard, he is talented and lives life, within reason, to the limit.

But a person gets tired, and that's what he was. His only groceries, his only food after a grueling day and days of carrying loading driving etc. Gone.

He bought them in the morning and at the end of the day, comes home and he thinks he is freaking out because there's no food in the house.

Everything else is still there, but the food is gone. After a few minutes of figuring out that indeed, the food is gone, he goes outside to go to a store to get more food. A young lady accross the street comes over and asks if he lives in the houes and when he says yes, she tells him that the gal that lives above her, broke into his house and took his food.

Sam isn't a guy who gets upset, really. he does have some quirks...like being too nice... and this was no exception, he was just struck dumb.

He started to feel badly for the gal because it seemed she needed food, but when he told Marco about the strange occurrence, Marco informed him that the gal steals stuff and is in arrears with him and all of the utilities...etc. Even, as she was kind of moving out, stole their bike and excused herself the audacity by saying it was just sitting there...

So Marco wanted to call her Red Handed Gypsy B#%$^ and then we were like, hey How about Red Handed Gypsy for the name of our BAND?

I think we are still in the testing stages of the name, but it seems as good as any (even though Brian, Bass Gutar, has a newer band with Red in it too).

At least we are not a 'dinosaur' band. Which is a reference to a time in the early 1990's where a number of really prominent bands had Dinosaur in their names.

So We, Red Handed Gypsy have our first gig on August 8 in a benefit for an unfortunate musician who has no insurance. Davey's Uptown Ramblers Club in KC.

I was kvetching last week because we were almost at show time and we didn't have our songs close to being completed. But last Tuesday, we got it together and pounded out and synched it up, even adding a digital guy, Justin, who, at this point sounds like he's coming back.

So we are a five piece. Can you believe it?

Right now we have

• Neon Sunset - a piece with lyrics by poet Richard Keith


• Diversion -


• Sweet Home Chicago - A complete destruction of the Chicago blues piece turned into a seedy road rage journey to the south side


• Mangia Me - An Italian Love song that sounds like a cross between Beck and Andrea Bocelli getting shot with a shotgun


• We Call You Lief - an British Heavy Metal inspired Gallop


• I Survived the Spill - from a series of poems and songs called If's Bound to Happen...also from which Lief comes to us.

There are a few other songs that we are still honing in on... 'Dear Robert, for Melanie' Eviline Sitting, Schrutte but for this benefit, I think the aforementioned will be enough.

I cannot tell you how insanely happy to be finally, at last, in a BAND I am. My friends Scott Stackhouse and I started a band a long time ago, but it just wasn't meant to be. Midnight Furry was the working title for me...though House would probably think differently...

We rehearsed that band in the guitarist's house and then moved to a little barn on some guys property. Our bass player would never show up and as we tried to get a lead guitarist, we just atrophied.

I was also starting to really get interested in Opera and as we were all in junior college, I was aiming at increasing my abysmal GP

A and getting to Oberlin College, or Indiana, or Iowa, or even UMKC Conservatory.

So life goes out of its way to shove your dreams aside...

unless. you.. decide

...

to do it all!

Lasers...



So. FFW a couple of years later and here we are. I Yada Yada'd a whole lot there, but hey.

I was just emelling (telling a friend in an email) a friend that one of the things I like most about these boys is that they are truly glass half full persons. I think it's one of the things America has going for it. It's the optimism.

I think it's a pathological thing really...

Think about it.

Look at all of the advertisements. It's all about improving people's lives. Name me one product one has sold that actually makes things worse for people. Oppenheimer did not set out to make the doomsday device. Even the devil himself, when he met up with Robert Johnson wanted to give him the ability to play better. OK, so there's Faustus and he's CERTAINLY NOT American, but it's still a trait we strive to achieve here.

Drilling in the ANWAR... What kind of daffy headed people do we have to be to believe that there is an enviromentally SAFE way to screw up the environment? But the people who want to protect it are all like, Hey! Why do you have to be such a worry wart about it, let's "drill, Drill, DRILLL! " Actual quote from Fox News.

You tell me... I mean, it's all speculation. It's all gambling, this drilling business. So let me point it out to you in a way a gambler could understand.

If you have a whole floor of slot machines and you are a million bucks ahead in winnings for the night...the machines all have say a 10000:1 ratio for you to win another million bucks,. But the problem is, you have another four floors of slots above you, also with that ratio. However, those four floors are smoke free and you, in order to play the slots, MUST smoke. You rigged up a new fangled device that filters all of your smoke and keeps it in a two foot radius around you, so you could feasibly go upstairs and get more chances to win, win bigger and win longer.... Yet, there are people and living creatures up there that cannot breathe the smoke. They will either get sick and pass along their sickness to their offspring, or they will die outright. either way, even with survivors, there would be devastation.

Well, many people are saying, GO UPSTARS!!! you got the tech!

But what if the machine breaks? What if it doesn't break, but just wears out? What if a filter goes bad?

Oh, and another thing, say there was a new money, that helped everybody out. and you didn't really even need to play the slot machines. You could take that million dollars and make something that helps those people on the top floors, would make you unbelievably rich and would make slot machines all but obsolete...

You could play those slots on the lower level, walk away with gobs more cash and then turn that into something that will last beyond the forseeable future, keeping you in power for eons.

A roundabout way of saying, lets go for the altenative and use what we have. Use what we have and go for the gusto, really deploying our brains and energy to create renewable sources of energy instead of sucking the lifeblood of our land dry.

I'm not a pessimist. I am optimistic that we can work together to use what we have, and also create something new, vibrant and reflective of a way we ought to live. Guarding and protecting our earth and its denizens...including us.

My band are just those optimists. We will forever fight to succeed. We will forever strive to strike it rich...but in a way that brings something better to our world.

....