Episode 8- Missing Baltimore, Finding Displaced Souls of NY Friends

On Wed night I dropped in on David Morreale to catch him at the "open mic" he hosts regularly at Ryan's Daughter, a great casual-but-upscale roomy Irish restaurant/bar in Belvedere Square.

David is the musician who plays the third song in my "LoisLife Baltimore Blogshow Playlist" (found to the right of this episode), titled "Missing Baltimore."

Unlike many of the sadly-themed songs with "Baltimore" in their titles highlighted in a recent article by Sam Sessa of the Baltimore Sun, and discussed by local HFS DJs Kirk and Mark next day, David's focuses not on Baltimore's too-obvious problems, but on his vast love for Baltimore and his longing to return during much-regretted absences, to which sentiments I strongly relate.

In meeting David I found, to my surprise, that he quite vividly resembled--both in looks and in personality--one of my oldest, and closest friends from New York, a very talented musician and all-around "renaissance man" Kal.

This was so startling and unexpected that I had to remind myself not to stare. Before he performed, we hung out some and talked and I noticed so many eerie similarities not only in his mannerisms but the kinds of stories he told and the jokes he made, right down to the occasional whimsically-crafted fib. Really these things put me so much in mind of my friend Kal, I would have found his presence positively unnerving were he not so funny and 'Kal-lishly' easy-going, too.

Then he sang and strummed some tunes including the 'Missing Baltimore' one, alternating both humorous and romantic themes and tales along with the songs, and this was also so very 'Kal-like' at times I wondered if this were not all a dream, and I were not somehow magically transported North to a small coffeeshop in Allendale, NJ (Beantown, where Kal regularly plays) rather than a largish Baltimorean Irish brew pub.

Now this would all have seemed strange enough, even without any premonition that I would experience something strangely similar two nights later, at Tony Calato's "Tony Unplugged" show at Tyson's Tavern. I came out to the show that night with my cousin Lori and friends and new acquaintances from the recently-formed 'Charm City Social Club' Meetup group, which had gathered quite a large mass of people actually to see and hear Tony perform.

I had met Tony at least twice before and recognized something warmly-familiar in him, but it was only while hearing him sing and strum his guitar for the first time that I realized, quite suddenly, just what it was.

The thing of it was, Tony reminded me of another of my very close, musical friends from New York--actually, a close friend of Kal's and mine both--Brian, who is also a comedian often enough (and sometimes a trickster, and a skilled impressionist too), though at other times, I have often thought, the far dreamier, more contemplative one.

The longer I watched and observed Tony, both during his performance and during the ride back in one of the organizer's cars (he treated us to many colorful expressions of his appreciation for an unfortunate towing incident involving his car, which forced him to 'hitch' a ride along with us too)--the more I felt, however unlikely, that I was in the company somehow of one of my oldest and most fiercely loyal childhood friends.

Now this is just one of those 'Seinfeldian' and also 'Watersian' circumstances that I really could not--and still can not--for the life of me, explain. That is, how it should fall out that I would meet up with two very new Baltimorean musician-acquaintances, in the space of a week, seemingly possessed with the spirits and essences of two of my closest, long-time New York friends.

For Kal and Brian have, for the longest time, been the 'Jerry' and 'George' to my 'Elaine,' and though I have been many places and met many people in the years since high school, this sort of thing has really never happened before.

In the sobering light of a Monday morning, I am not quite sure what it all means. Except I think that it may have something to do with the strange vortex I have opened as I burrow more deeply into the crevices of this very peculiar town and its local music-and-arts scene.

Copyright 2008 by Lois

The pic is of some folks I snapped at yesterday's Baltimore St. Paddy's Day Parade as I headed across Mt. Vernon Square to drag my poor exercise-deprived body to the gym.

More Bmore St. Paddy's Day Parade pics, and also some I took of historic and picturesque buildings on my south-bound walk to my gym on Cathedral Street Sunday (to avoid the crowds), can be viewed at the Lois.Life Flickr account or by clicking here. You can also see the photos I uploaded from the City Paper's Cosmic Cocktail Party March 6th (that incredible orgy of fun, food, drink & dance for only $30-what an incredibly smashing deal!), link to this set is here.

Tonight (Mon, March 17th) I will be at my friend Woody Lissauer's St. Paddy's Day concert at Tyson's Tavern, 2112 Fleet Street. I will be there as the Assistant Organizer for the Baltimore Live Music Meetup btwn 8:30 pm- 12 am, if you come by please be sure to stop by and say 'hi!'

Guess what?! LoisLife is now on MySpace! Find many of your favorite local Baltimore musicians, performers, and other favorite "LoisLife" characters right here! Check out pics, profiles, music, videos, concert dates & more. Don't forget to "friend" us, say "hi," & send us more cool, fun, creative ideas! ;)

Episode 3-Sweatin' Over My Choices at The Charles

I tend to be pretty upbeat generally. Usually I stay pretty optimistic about projects I've engineered and been involved in over the last year or so. Still, I do experience the occasional moment of self-doubt.

One such moment struck me Tuesday, while watching the film Sweeney Todd at The Charles with my cousin Lori and two of our friends. (If you've never actually seen the movie or play or heard the plot, BTW, you might want to stop reading now--I don't want to be blamed for spoiling it for you.)

We were enjoying it free courtesy of The Baltimore City Paper, which was publicizing its big "not-to-miss" bash, the Cosmic Cocktail Party, to be held March 6th at the Belvedere (tix can be purchased through Mission Tix and at The 8 x 10 Club).

About half-way through the movie I found myself sweating. This was partly because the theatre was crazy-hot, a pipe must have busted somewhere or something, causing sauna-like conditions to prevail.

But mostly it was a thought that occurred to me while watching the ghastly results of the "creative collaborative partnership" between the movie's heroine, Helena Bonham Carter 's Mrs. Lovett, and the "demonic hero" Sweeney Todd, the extremely talented, charismatic, attractive (for in spite of the chalky makeup and ghoulish hairdo, when ever is Johnny Depp not attractive? ;) ), compellingly sympathetic, and tragically eccentric barber, unfold.

What freaked me was not so much the sight of blood spurting across the screen as Depp's Todd artfully "shaved" off the heads of many a customer in his upstairs barbershop, while Bonham-Carter's Lovett served their compatriots up to ravenous customers in a tasty crust at her pie shop below.

Really it was the thought that I was in certain ways perhaps not so very different from "Mrs. Lovett," deeply enmeshed in a few all-engrossing projects with at least two Baltimorean men with many of the "brilliant-barber characteristics," including the fiercely crazed single-mindedness of purpose, along with far more than the "healthy" recommended allotment of Baltimorean eccentricity to boot. It struck me then that for all of my good intentions and faith in my projects, that faith could easily be misplaced--not only might these endeavors come to nothing, they could also in fact still turn out quite badly, could even result in a rather bloody public mess.

At the end of the movie, I asked my cousin: "What if I've got it all wrong? All the good I think I'm doing--what if I'm just deluded? What if I'm really just making cannibalistic meat pies with my life, after all?"

Well, Lori laughed it off mostly, and I tried to as well; but the "cannibalistic meat pie" question hung over us the rest of the night. It lingered over us still next morning, as we headed to Columbia to pitch some of our "creative ideas" for better promoting the aims of an organization Lori deeply cares about, to the regional office's executive director there.

Actually the meeting went well, and we had a fun and productive day browsing together at Spencer's Gifts at the Columbia Mall later and then shoe-shopping at DSW at Hunt Valley besides (shoe-shopping will after all cheer up anybody). I also did lots of fun social stuff with friends and heard lots of local music over the weekend, two of my favorite things to do.

Really I did most everything I set out to do last week and weekend and then some, except I did not make it to the opening of the "If It's Yellow" exhibit at the Load of Fun studio Friday night, in which some art of my friend Renee was included. But perhaps that was just as well. Given my recent traumatic reaction to the "creative mixing" of human remains with food at the movie, staying clear of an art show incorporating urine in its exhibit was perhaps the wisest thing to do.

Well, last week at least. The show still runs through February 8th, I may be up to it by then...if you've got a hankering to see (and smell) "urine-inspired" art, well, at least proudly displayed on the wall of an art studio (and outside of the usual venues), feel free to drop me a line and let me know... ;)

Copyright 2008 by Lois

*The photo in my episode is not from Sweeney Todd btw, though it might easily might be. It's a pic I took of a Chucky doll that was at the Spencer's store we shopped at Wednesday. I did not pick it up, I was after a rather different kind of toy. But he was so "cutely evil" and "devilishly cheerful" I just had to snap him and incorporate him somehow in my latest LoisLife Blogstory.