Two Vignettes

 Vignette 1

On Presidents Day I went on a bike ride with some Freezing Saddles teams. The ride was led by some young, strong riders, so it was a little fast, but those of us in the back still just about kept up. At the end of the ride we stopped for lunch at a delicious vegetarian taco place in Georgetown. Despite it being mid-February, the weather was nice enough that the ten or so of us ate outside on the patio. My cycling friend N was on the ride. She is a breast cancer survivor who chose not to have any reconstruction. After we finished our tacos she reached under her cycling jersey and from her bra cup pulled out a baked sweet potato wrapped in plastic, which she proceeded to unwrap and eat. She explained that since she "has only one boob", she uses her other bra cup as storage on bike rides. I love that she is totally casual about the whole thing, like pulling a sweet potato out of your bra is just the most normal, natural act. It certainly didn't lose her any points with the other cyclists. When N matter-of-factly explained the situation, another woman at the table, who had been working to entice N to join her for an upcoming randonneuring ride (randonneuring is crazy ultra-long distance riding - 120+ mile rides) exclaimed "Oh, you'll fit right in with my group!"

Presidents Day Ride Group

Vignette 2

At a recent Great Northern performance, someone came up to me and said that at first he couldn't tell if it was me or Marty (another keyboard player in the local jam band scene) because I was wearing a hat like Marty wears. Well. First of all, I am a hat guy, and I was a little offended to have been described as looking like Marty because I was wearing a hat, not looking like me. Secondly, it is clear that I am wearing a porkpie, while Marty favors a Trilby (sometimes referred to as a stingy brim fedora). Buddy, if you can't tell the difference between hat styles you shouldn't be commenting on people's hats.

Which does raise the question of why keyboard players are hat people. Four keyboard players cover most of the waterfront in the local jam band scene: if you go out to see a local band playing Grateful Dead music, chances are good that the guy in the keyboard chair is going to be Will, Marty, Murph or me. And we're all hat-wearers. Marty with his Trilbys, Will with his porkpies, Murph with his bowler or cap, and me with a range of styles. I mean, it's not 100%. Lee of Allman Others isn't a hat guy, nor is Shep, and so on. But still ... 

In my case it has to do with the fact that I play head down a lot of the time, and if I'm not wearing a hat people are just seeing my shiny little dome. More generally, while guitarists and bassists get to strut their big, um, instruments, and drummers are back there dynamically hitting things, playing the keyboard is not all that visually different than paying bills. You're essentially sitting at a desk typing on a keyboard. I could be up on stage entering data into TurboTax and it wouldn't look much different. Maybe we keyboardists sense that we're not entertaining to look at and use wardrobe to spice up our stage appearance a little bit.