i chased evan dando down a dark city street

it’s true. i’m fairly ashamed. but more about that in a minute.

saw the lemonheads last night at this little place in downtown abq. i’ve been listening to the lemonheads for close to 17 years now, and maintain that "it’s a shame about ray" is one of the best albums of the ’90s. as much as i bitch and moan about the lack of concerts in abq, i can’t complain about this one. granted, it was a tuesday night, and the show didn’t start until 10:30. . . but i’m still giddy.









the concert was fun. they played almost all the songs from ray and a bunch from "come on feel..." so i spent a good part of the night bouncing around like a little kid.

my fan girl moment comes after the show. i had brought my cd cover from "lick" in hopes of an autograph, but it was getting late so we left. as i am pulling out of my parking spot, i see evan dando walking down the street with his guitar cases. i pull over, illegally park, grab my camera, sharpie, and cd case and start running down the road after him. i finally catch up to him an entire block later and wheeze something about listening to him for years. or something. i was on the verge of oxygen deprivation so i don’t remember much besides him asking me my name and being really cool about taking the picture since his arms are much longer than mine.

yeah, i’m a dork. and i’m okay with that.

calculating the worth of happiness

We all have that "thing" in our lives that soothes our soul, invigorates us, awakens our senses, ties together the experiences in our lives, and just generally brings us joy. It's different for everyone. For some that thing is art, film, hiking, cooking, playing sports, gardening. Mine is music.

My favorite singers tend to be indie singer-songwriters that only a select few people have even heard of. They work their tails off touring across the country, playing in tiny venues to their core group of fans, and a few curious newcomers. They rely on merch sales for their income and drive themselves around in rented cars from gig to gig.

My favorite singer posted a link to this article, on the brilliant blog BoingBoing, that speculates whether an artist could survive with just 1,000 true fans. The author states:

"The gist of 1,000 True Fans can be stated simply:

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks."

I try to do my part. I buy every album. I have drawers full of T-shirts that I honestly never wear. I take ridiculously long road trips and spend my leisure budget just to attend shows. I even buy CD's for other people, just to get the music to someone new, and to try to put one more penny in the artist's pocket. I always wondered if there was maybe something more I could do.

The aforementioned favorite singer set up a donation site, so fans could become "patrons of the arts". I've often said that I wouldn't know what to do with myself if that person stopped making music, so I clicked on the donate button and stared at the screen for several minutes trying to think of a number that accurately reflected how much the music meant to me, but for which I wouldn't have to deplete the college funds of my own children. I would type in numbers, click partway through the process, and then close the browser window. Nothing seemed appropriate. Plus, there wasn't an option for an anonymous donation, so I was also left with this dilemma: At what point do you stop being a devoted fan and start being creepy obsessive? (Dear friends, if you ever consider my behavior creepy obsessive, please promptly give me a swift kick hard in the ass to knock me back to reality. Thanks.)

This all led me to wonder - what is your "thing" worth to you? When all is said and done, how much dough do you spend to keep your thing going, and how much would you give if asked?