I Speak Giddyup
Hello, friends! Rob here.
Welp, I'm exhausted. It has only been two days since the ancient behemoth known as "The Jazz Fest” concluded its annual descent upon our fair city and departed back into the aether, where it will spend the next twelve lunar revolutions dreaming beyond the veil of time itself, siphoning the raw potential energy of the universe and gathering the power necessary to sustain its age-old cycle of destruction and creation through the following year. I still haven't really left the house since the weekend.
Don't blame me; it's not my fault that I need to "recharge.” You see, I've been looking at this thing called the "internet” lately, and, after reading almost eight exhaustively researched listicles on the subject, I have arrived at the conclusion that I am what is known as an "introvert,” which is a term derived from Latin words meaning "amazing, intelligent, unique, beautiful flower that you really just need to get to know and be super nice to all the time.” Introverts like myself are apparently the single most underrepresented and misunderstood minority group in the history of the United States, and our singularly harrowing burden of social fatigue is the sole responsibility of everyone in the world except for us.
The point is, I am entitled to spend a few days not doing everything after the sensory overload that is The Jazz Fest.
I noticed something about The Jazz Fest this year. To twist up a quote from Calvin (not John Calvin, the famed theologian, but the other Calvin- the one whose books I have actually read): There's never enough time to do all the everything you want. At the onset of The Jazz Fest, all of the best things in life rip into town like a tornado, and suddenly the whole city is brimming with excitement and everywhere in New Orleans is the place to be. In this way, The Jazz Fest presents a peculiar paradox: There is so much to do that you can barely doanything. Compared to the whole, you can't possibly get a meaningful dose of everything that's going on in town. By my count I saw fourteen bands on Saturday while undertaking a musical adventure that spanned roughly six thousand miles of New Orleans, and I barely even made a dent. It's like staring into the Hubble Deep Field.
This especially applies with the people. As I have mentioned before, there is this amazing musical community out there, and we're incredibly fortunate to be able to count ourselves as a part of it. So one would think that a week like this would be ripe with opportunities to catch up on old memories and make new ones, just like a bad country song. And sure, there are always some good backstage antics and late-night hangs, maybe a dinner or two if you're really organized, but, at The Jazz Fest, as with life itself, every encounter is too brief and comes at the expense of something else.
Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds, who played at our first annual All in the Family Experience on Thursday? I think I said hi to most of them, but I was kind of bouncing around all night so it all ended up being very brief. My high school friend Jon, who was in town all of the first weekend and came to both our Friday night riverboat show and our set at the festival the following day? I got to talk to him a little bit, but Saturday I was preoccupied with my family and Friday I was recovering from a particularly barfy shade of food poisoning so I really didn't do anything except show up, try not to move around a lot, and then make my girlfriend drive me home. Jen Hartswick, who is such an absolute homey that I already penned a tribute to her friendship last fall? One hug at Fiya Fest.
But I did get to watch The Who with my mom, so that was pretty damn special.
The point here is not to complain, because "too many wonderful people and incredible things are happening at once” sounds like the best problem ever. It's more just to say that The Jazz Fest is, in every sense of the word, a rush. (Maybe not this sense.) This year was no exception. It was fast, it was exhilarating, and it left me out of breath. Anyway, as always, many sincere thanks to all of the wonderful people both behind the scenes and, I don't know, in front of them I guess?, who helped inject so much verve and magic into our week at The Jazz Fest. I can't wait til next year.
