Well, after some down time, Jared and I were eager to get another show under our belt. We made the drive from Yankton to Keystone in about six hours, stopping a few times for gas and once to have dinner at the Smoking Mule. There was a chalkboard in the lobby that encouraged visitors to write where they were from. I proudly left our mark. I said to Jared in all seriousness, “Can you see it?” He laughed and said, “Um I think everyone can see it!”
As we pulled into Keystone to our familiar spot to sleep behind the Presidential Wax Museum (where Rudy declared, if elected president, the sloth would now be the national animal and waffles delivered to everyone from helicopters!) we felt the comfortable and familiar vibe of “coming home”. This marks our fifth year playing at this coffee/wine bar (Grapes and Grinds), and we have nothing but rave reviews for the staff and their lovely owner, Clay, who is a fellow musician and has ALWAYS treated us with respect, generosity, and kindness. That may be all the nice I can muster for this blog though.
In the spirit of ultimate transparency, I will tell you it was a rough day. The town has changed. But we were going to try and have some fun.
Jared and I were eager to get out and walk around, hanging with the tourists and looking at all the shops. We began our walk at the chainsaw carving place, which was really cool!
After that, we stopped in several places that had metal work, leather work, alpaca rugs, rocks, Christmas stuff for days, jewelry, you name it. But nothing, and I actually mean NOTHING could compete with the amount of political attire, paraphernalia, chatchkies, everything that COULD have something printed or engraved on it, did. But everything we saw was all one sided. Thousands and thousands of t-shirts and banners and stickers proudly and aggressively screaming one-sided, one-minded assaults on our eyes and ears. Nothing felt equal. Nothing felt fair. Nothing felt safe. We began to wonder if the shop owners really “bought” what they were selling, or if they were just doing it to play to the masses, in which case, even scarier.
We still tried to, amidst the barrage of propaganda being peddled and pushed at us in literally every direction, still make light and find some sweet moments, like Jared on this pony, or the couple behind him with the “If lost return to Laura”, and “I’m Laura” shirts! So cute.
Jared, trying to explain to a perplexed and saddened Lincoln the state of things.
The show that night was good. Not one of our best, for a few reasons. After a clean sound check, We began to start the show and Jared microphone didn’t work. He tried a new mic but found it was a bum cable. That took a few minutes. We’d already done our big, “From Tacoma, WA!!! Let’s get Dressed Up!” Kind of intro, so it was anticlimactic and awkward as I vamped on stories til Jared got it fixed. Not too bad, and easy enough to recover from, but that wasn’t all of it either. Not sure what it was, honestly. At the end, several people shared stories about how much they enjoyed it and needed to hear the message and such. I know we reached people, but there felt to be a distance. One guy sat down about half way through our gig and started to playfully heckle us, shouting,
“Play the trombone!!! Who plays the trombone? I bet SHE does!”
“Nope.” I replied with a half smile, “Actually HE does.” gesturing to Jared
Then, to his friends, but still loud, “Oh! I bet SHE plays the flute!!! HA HA HA HA!!!”… gross elbow bump to his friend who was wearing a “Guns don’t kill people, I do!” shirt.
Ok, well, I’m not a fifth grader so I politely ignored him and thought nothing of it…until after the show. The same “super hilarious” “gentleman” (so many ironic quotation marks needed) came us to Jared and complimented him on his harmonizer pedal. Then he said a few more complimentary things, wrapping them all in a nice bow of “God gave you all those gifts, you know? It’s a good thing you’re using them. But you should be using them for more.”
I’ve dealt with this several times, and I grew up in the church, so I’m aware and used to the way “believers” like to give compliments. I wasn’t offended, I just didn’t outright agree with him. I simply said “Thank you” and kept putting stuff away. He shared that he himself is a musician, called to do prison ministry for the past thirty or so years. I told him that was noble and my mom also did that for a bit. We came to a full agreement that music was powerful and could be a useful tool in changing lives. He was being pretty tolerable and we were having a nice moment. Then, he insisted on circling back to his message.
“I mean it. You need to write worship music and play on Sunday’s and REALLY use your gifts to do God’s work.”
This is where I ended our conversation. I said, “Thank you sir, but I believe that our music is doing a great job reaching exactly who needs it. Have a nice evening and get home safe.”
He just wouldn’t drop it.
I do not understand this. Not EVER in my whole life have I had a Muslim, Jew, Atheist, Satanist, or ANY other religious human tell me that I should be doing things THEIR God’s way. It’s ONLY some Christians. Why? Please hear me… I AM NOT TRYING TO START A FIGHT! I just don’t know why these kinds of Christians (and drunk people) insist on pushing their agenda on others. Usually I can just take it and smile. But when he began to insinuate that our music wasn’t meeting it’s purpose because it wasn’t being presented under the umbrella of “God’s word”, then I took issue and spoke up.
After the guy left, I was visibly upset. Our friend Clay started laughing and was like, “Well, I’m actually playing at church tomorrow.” Dude, I’m glad. Church needs good musicians. Many of our friends are church musicians. Just don’t tell me that unless we do it your way, it has “less meaning”. I would never say that to you, and I’m pretty sure even “Your God” wouldn’t endorse that message.
