Dear friends,
I am playing a gig this Friday at Radio South. It’s been nearly six months since the last one. This is the longest I’ve gone without playing a show since I started playing music in Austin, circa 2002. According to my records the Covid lockdown placed a mere 3 month pause until I played a ‘socially distanced’ outdoor show in Amarillo. A friend once asked what my occupation would be after a cataclysm. My best answer was that I would play music. I will also note that this newsletter is on a 2-3 week schedule, and it’s been just over a month since I’ve written. I have undertaken a large home improvement project that has caused a great stir in these waters of mine. And I’m not sure what you call raising two kids that are under 4 years old in the USA. I would like to share a short passage about Octopuses from Science Daily that makes me feel grateful to be alive, yet acknowledges some great thing about regeneration:
“Octopuses are the undisputed darlings of the science internet, and for good reason. They're incredibly intelligent problem-solvers and devious escape artists with large, complex nervous systems. They have near-magical abilities to change colors, skin textures and shapes instantaneously, and they can regenerate missing arms at will.
“But the final days of a female octopus after it reproduces are quite grim, at least to human eyes. Octopuses are semelparous animals, which means they reproduce once and then they die. After a female octopus lays a clutch of eggs, she quits eating and wastes away; by the time the eggs hatch, she dies. In the later stages, some females in captivity even seem to intentionally speed along the death spiral, banging into the sides of the tank, tearing off pieces of skin or eating the tips of their own tentacles. (If you're wondering, the males don't get off any easier. Females often kill and eat their mates; if not, they die a few months later, too).”
Friends, I am enjoying raising and loving these humans. I aim at living a fulfilled life of loving, family, friendship, music, peace, baseball, meditation, coffee in the afternoon, rivers, lakes, beaches and taking in all the colors of the rainbow. If you’ve got a wild hair (hare?), come out to Radio South on Friday !! Supremely talented Meredith Moon all the way from Toronto and hometown Lonesome Heroes will play. Longriver (with the band) opens at 8pm.
until next time, keep on doing!
love,
David