Lori, the AMB guru of all things on our social media, manager of us hooligans on the road and overall coordinator of most everything outside of the actual performed music is always telling me to make my writing more concise for my newsletters, but as anyone who has ever encountered me in person knows I’m pretty verbose and prone to run-on sentences and incomplete thoughts amidst run-on sentences! But I’m trying and quite frankly, I don’t want to apologize for letting everyone out there know how much I miss performing for y’all. The only apologies I am putting out there are for the people who I have not answered phone calls, texts, emails, and other social media messages from in a timely manner. Please know I appreciate your thoughts and messages greatly, in fact, they are huge lifelines for me at home and am responding as soon as I can amidst taking care of so much more than I ever thought I would or could from home. I am beyond thankful to Paula for all the ways our relationship continues to grow, as well as to Tom, who just about lives here with all of the recording and live stream work in addition to cooking adventures, philosophical rants, and assorted musical ideas.
SO, anyway here’s the news part of the newsletter
1) Thank you for tuning into the Livestreams, liking the social media pages, subscribing on YouTube, and generally all the support! Special thanks to the German Texan Heritage Society for sponsoring Wednesday night’s Virtual Maifest. Due to a technical limitation snafu, we were unable to live stream the Maifest on their Facebook page as originally planned and there may be a plan in the works to “rebroadcast” it over there. Either way, you can still check out the archived version online at https://youtu.be/-C0V0QiBxhEÂ and be sure to check out their organization’s website to find out about their programs, make a donation, or become a member! http://germantexans.org
2) I am participating in a community-wide live streaming event on Memorial Day 2020 centered around the nationwide Moment of Remembrance sponsored by the PA Music Preservation Society in Allentown, PA. I prerecorded Taps, some patriotic selections, and the Pennsylvania Polka for the event and am honored to be sharing the musical billing with The Allentown Band, the oldest active civilian band in the USA and Lehigh Valley folk legend Dave Fry. Please tune in at 2:30 pm eastern time on https://www.wfmz.com/
Actually, that wasn’t too verbose was it? Maybe Lori is getting me in line yet? I hope everyone is staying safe and mindful out there. We’re all dealing with the situations in different ways and have different difficulties to overcome for ourselves, our families, or other people around us. Please be respectful of each other and continue to choose happiness however you can. I was reminded of a quote the other day, “a recession is when your neighbor loses their job, a depression is when you lose your job.” Although the economic implications of this are obvious, and many of us are navigating a lot of stuff we never thought we’d be dealing with, this also applies to everyone’s individual health as well as so many other underlying results of this pandemic that are unknown to us. If we can all have some empathy and compassion for each other and ourselves, we will all find new ways to push forward as well as appreciate so much of the opportunities we had and will have as this eventually clears up.
alex