2001-02-18

Lysander Spooner

Sometimes, I have to admit, it's incredibly fun to be me, and there are days where I wouldn't trade my life with anyone.

Friday afternoon the Batphone rings -- it's my bandmate Tom. His other band, our labelmates The Anchormen, got a sort-of-last-minute, um, crazy gig and Jef can't make it to play drums. Would I be able to fill in? It's just one song, and it's tomorrow afternoon.

"Well, sure," I say. "That shouldn't be a problem. I wasn't planning on doing much except nursing my hangover in the laundromat. Where is it?"

"It's at Forest Hills Cemetery."

Turns out that there's a lecture and gravesite tour of anarchist abolitionist lawyer Lysander Spooner and somebody over at the cemetery found out that the Anchormen have a song about him.

Boy howdy, I've done some strange gigs in my life, but when you're asked to play a minute-and-a-half punk rock song about Lysander Spooner in the cemetery, you make time to do it, buster. There was no way I was going to look that gift horse in any part of its anatomy.

Or as Paula quipped, when told of my plans: "Wow, Lees. That's so goth."

So Saturday afternoon, Tom and I loaded up the car with his guitar and my snare, and hot-footed it over to Forest Hills.

We were very warmly received by the few dozen Spooner aficionados gathered to hear the lecture and visit the grave. I'm sure somebody took pictures of the actual performance; I could not, because A) I was playing, and B) my digital camera doesn't take too well to dark cemetery chapels. I did a get a nice shot of Tom paying his respects, though:

Like I said, some days it's hella wicked fun to be me...

lisamcc at 18:58:01

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