I didn’t hurt it while working on a home improvement project. I come up woefully short on Red Green’s favorite saying:
I slammed my thumb in a car door.
Anticipating your follow-up question, let the record show that I was stone-cold sober.
I slammed it in the door of a Honda CR-V. But it wasn’t one of the three that we own.
I was coming back from the graveside service for my dear friend LJ. And I was riding shotgun with Felicity, the widow of my friend Ned. When we got back to the church, I was both distracted and distraught. And I slammed the passenger door onto my left thumb. Making an awful day even worse.
If you look closely at the photo above (masochist!), you’ll see a drill hole at the top of my nail. You’re supposed to use a small drill bit and hand-drill it into the nail to relieve the pressure ASAP. I waited too long to try that home remedy. It helped a bit, but not much.
It’s been more than a month. The thumb feels much better now, but still looks uglier than sin.
Yet every time I look at my ugly thumb, I’m reminded of my friendship with LJ. Which is beautiful. I’m reminded of all the misery he went through during his cancer treatments. Yet he never complained. The thumb is daily reminder that pain is part of life. And that when you’re down, friends can lift you up.
I know the thumb will get better. I also know that even after it has fully healed, there’ll still be a hole in my heart.
I’m not a goth, but honestly, I may paint that nail with black nail polish after it gets better. To keep the reminder handy. And to keep LJ in my heart.
It turns out that Erika Wennerstrom (lead singer/main songwriter/leader of the band Heartless Bastards) is even cooler than I thought she was. (And I thought she was pretty cool before this past weekend.)
Her solo show at The Columbia (the one that came to be thanks to some random connections – as blogged about in these pages last week) was even more amazing than I thought it would be.
Erika’s otherworldly voice in an old church = pure magic!
My friend Laura owns the church that served as the venue. Her husband Eric (my friend and co-worker) recently had surgery, so Laura asked her friend Keith and me to be on-site early to help with getting set up for the show. We helped Erika unload her merchandise, install batteries in the fake candles, and generally served as grips and go-fers. When the doors opened, I was the ticket-taker (really just checking names off the list). Showbiz ain’t always glamorous. But the show was stellar.
Better yet, Erika was super-nice. So was Steve, the local musician who served as her sound guy. And Erica (with a “c”) who worked the merch booth. That starts with Erika – she picked Steve to run sound because she’s known him forever, and knows that he’ll get the sound right without causing any drama. And Erica was Steve’s friend. Surrounding yourself with good people and treating folks kindly makes a big difference in the experience. You can be a rock star without acting like one.
But the biggest karma award goes to Laura. The venue where Erika played her holiday shows in years past was asking for a pretty hefty percentage of the ticket sales this year. Whereas Laura donated her space for the show. Which meant more ticket sales overall, and more money going to the artist. No everyone would be in a position to donate use of an old church as a venue… but not everyone who owned an old church would let someone play there without worrying about their “cut” of the sales.
120 people were at the show – nearly all of them had never been there before, and many raved about the space. Laura’s “investment” in helping out an artist will pay dividends down the line, as the word spreads about The Columbia as a cool venue. Whatever she could’ve made in rental fees on Friday night, she’ll make tenfold over the next year.
Be helpful. Be kind. Don’t be heartless. Music to my ears!
I took a vacation day on Thursday yet I still bookended the day with two very important meetings. That’s just the kind of mover and shaker I am.
The morning meeting was a gathering of the greatest creative minds in the Tri-State area. Oh, and I was there too! It was an informal holiday season gathering of a bunch of graphic designers, illustrators, writers, art directors, [insert other ad agency title here], etc. A coffee klatch of the cool kids, organized by my buddy Keith.
I don’t miss the ad agency business, but I do miss the magic of being part of a larger creative team. And these folks are Creative with a capital C. There are a lot of laughs whenever we get together, and it’s amazing to witness how quickly everyone can build on someone else’s thought or joke. I imagine that it must be similar to being in the writing room on The Simpsons.
It takes years of practice to be able to make those uncanny connections that others don’t see. But these dudes (yes, it was a sausagefest) have been doing it for decades. They see the world with an artist’s eye – and the world is better for it.
In the evening, I attended a board meeting of a heart foundation. (Translation: the monthly “hoppy hour” gathering with the lifelong friends I made at Xavier four decades ago.) This was our 64th straight month of meeting up, but it was the first without our brother-from-another-mother LJ. We needed the connection and camaraderie more than ever with him gone. The chance to share a few more memories and a lot of laughs is the best heart medicine around.
Start the day with a creative circle. End it with a gratitude group. Those are the type of “work meetings” I need to have more often!
Kevin Sullivan on Warren piece: “Praise Warren. He also said, “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long…” Jan 15, 08:48
Damian on Eternally Grateful… still: “Thanks for reading, and thanks for sharing that song, Chuck! You’re absolutely right that the Deadhead community is amazing.” Jan 15, 08:17
Chuck Wiggins on Eternally Grateful… still: “I’m ambivalent at best about the Grateful Dead’s music, but there’s no discounting the incredible community built around it. And…” Jan 14, 09:05
Kevin Sullivan on Spoken and Unspoken: “You lived the brotherhood Damian, and that is a full plate. Peace to you and peace to John.” Nov 18, 16:54
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