What’s So Funny – the latest encryption from “Mix Tape Letters”

He searches the stacks at every flea market and record store he visits, looking for a decent copy of Natch’l Blues by Taj Mahal. The reason he can only imagine, he traded his soon after college, when he was travelling light – he thinks he wore the grooves out, but now hears in his head “She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride” every few days, and finally in person Denver Botanic Gardens with his hard-headed woman during rainstorm. Keb Mo and Taj finally treat the audience to acoustic set after the roadies cover and uncover the equipment through waves of summer rain.

He had already seen blue King Krule, Archy the cockroach, at Ogden in April, talking his “Easy Easy” like post punk Mose Allison.

He thinks his granddaughter might be old enough next year to wander the blocks of South Broadway on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, pickin’ out the tunes.

The girl lead of Ghost Tapes carries him away later that night.

When the music died for a year, she buys him last minute tickets for David Byrne at Red Rocks, and they take a bus from Cheeba Hut on Colfax, basking on hot summer night in vapors, and vodka of road trip. The concert astounds him in staging, surreal romp of drum and bugle corps, choreographed inside the volume of shimmering silver box, like new wave Ricky Ricardo show; “This Must Be the Place” suits him as his own naïve melody. So glad she made them buy the tickets.

They had seen Angelique Kidjo at the DBG just weeks before where she turned Remain in Light into revolutionary manifesto, where for “Once in Lifetime” you’re not just passing.

He attends ESU conference in New Orleans and seesaws between Rachmaninoff and street blues. The Sunday post Thanksgiving yields gift tickets to Elvis Costello at Fillmore, and the arthritis in his legs, sometimes it feels like “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down,” but they hold close and watch the rocker sing it swell, wearing a tie, like he did when they first saw him at Whisky in LA in 1977. Always stand up guy who wears it well. The grandparents can still do it, too, pumping to “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?”

Right before New Year’s, after a dark solstice but aluminum bright Christmas, they catch Gogol Bordello at the Ogden, and see punk reinvigorated with body surfers and hyper-energy. He started wearing purple again after his son admitted his quip about purple being sign of sexual repression was just a joke. He had bought a purple vest before seeing Ella and the Count in Berlin when he was a college student. He still sported a pair of round purple frames, albeit the prescription is outdated. To have seen Gogol Bordello sing “Start Wearing Purple” when the band opened for QOTSA at Red Rocks. Colors were ok again – goth was never in play, but fashion and gallery black a perennial option – and the “Did It All,” mostly on own, although she cries about her model of father and crazy mother when she hears Lutheran hymns. He thinks his mother would have liked the energy of Gogol Bordello the way she liked Elvis Presley. Can’t say what the wayward paterfamilias might have preferred. (2018)

Wax Trax and Roxy