this must be the place

Some the people I know who play in bands aren't really friends, they're people I know by one association or another, who send me zuckerbook invites and give me CDs to play on the radio and want to know why I don't go to every single show and why I don't support my local scene as much as I theoretically should, or question my credibility to listen to certain strains of tuneage due in part to estrogen and for lack of sartorial lemmingism, being neither hip nor kvlt nor hot.

Somehow I've made friends who don't really care about that whole scene points thing, and thanks to the wonders of the Internets, some of us have even kept in touch post-college or reconnected, and the music all too often served as a springboard to other things, other discussions, because there is so much out there, so much life, so many places, so many sounds and words to digest and share. 


I love live music, but there's a lot of other things I love too, and so while I probably can't make it to my friends' show this weekend due to a date with John Steinbeck and sundry literary folk discussing Cannery Row, we still hung out yesterday, meeting up in Asiatown for heaping bowls of pho, meeting up with other good people at a hole-in-the-wall coffeeshop on the west side watching a bluegrass jam replete with ample mandolin and banjo runs and incredibly friendly people mostly older than my parents.  I'm glad places like this still exist, because it feels like something from another time and place, and no one looked at us askance.

We ended the evening hanging out by the lake, walking on the path and sitting on the pier as the night darkened and the half moon made the black waters glitter silver and the lights of Clevelandia sparkled in the distance. I live for these summer nights when it's cool enough for a hoodie and there's everything in the world to ponder and laugh about.