Chrome Squatch Concert Tour USALISSANDRA reporting Rilly busy day in WDC, for us, anyway. We'd agreed to speak for a Black Lives Matter demonstration. At first some of the leaders of that highly-organized protest group was split about us being any kind of qualified to have an opinion. Y'know, since Freakfoot and our two squatch chicks are fuzzy Wookies, Mel's a Scandinavian blonde with high cheekbones, Pokey is a dirty low-down redskin, Maki is a slant-eyed jap and Miguel is a chicano greaser. Diverse, sure, but nobody black. So I had to ask: "What about me?" "Momma, you ain't black, you just kinda Tan," this racial-purist BLM guy tells me. "Well, I sure ain't exactly white, Mothafugga," I answers him, pretty much using up all my street-cred cool black jargon. But all these krinkle-haired ebony chicks are backing me up: "You tell'm, sistah," glad to have one more mulatta on their side. Okay, true 'nuff, I'm not BLACK black, my mom's side being Dutch ancestry, but my long-lost biological daddy was a mix-mash of all the races that had ever been slaves in Brazil. Personally, I've always been treated like everybody else around me, so I never rilly had to deal with any nasty racism in Monroe. Probably because I AM just kinda tan, like he said, or maybe cuz I'm basically the kind of "pretty" that white people like to have around, like Halle Berry or Beoncé, Will Smith, Denzel; you get the picture. Anyway, I've been lucky and this whole BLM thing is about all those people who have not been so lucky, like when the cops kill them just for being black at the wrong time. That's what I'm sympathizing about. To me, those BLM racial purists seem to be on the same wave length as the KKK, just flip the offending color over. But those well-blended mulatta mamas welcome us because they can't find a band more racially democratic than S&F. But instead of Adam, they wanted ME to give a speech for once. Which freaked me out a little. 'Cause when I say I'm not rilly black, what that means is that I'm pretty much lost as far as black culture goes. It's more foreign to me than the Wookie world: I speak better Nokhontli than I do modern African-American jive-jargon; I understand the Atli better than hip-hop songs. So how could I feel like anything but a stupid phony trying to explain black folk problems? But worrying about sounding stupid made me suddenly remember once hearing a very unsympathetic man on the radio attacking the entire concept of free public health, saying: "Why should I have to pay out my own hard-earned tax money to save the life of my neighbor's sick kid? That's his problem, not mine!" I remembered the disgust I felt for that man's social philosophy. So I knew what NOT to say. I gave the speech, saying more or less what I've just written, leading to the brilliant conclusion that we are all responsible for our neighbor's children, no matter what race. Or what age, rilly.
Our Washington DC concert took place at the Anthem auditorium, located on the Southwest Waterfront, almost right downtown but removed just enough from where all the violent protesting was going on so that our show was not cancelled. Many other downtown concerts had been shut down for the messy moment, enjoying yourself in DC was too unpredictable these days. The Anthem is a fairly new venue, not even our been-there-done-that friends in Chrome Pie had ever played there before, so it was new to all of us. Very modern and a good sized main room; seating capacity up to 6000, depending on stage set-up and our act was medium-sized. The staggered balconies almost right over the stage is a nice feature. But there were lots of bars and restaurants to wander around in and distract from our music, so we had to put on a good show if we didn't want to be ignored. But we weren't ignored, so I think we did all right I'm feeling weird describing this concert like any other, while avoiding any mention what happens at the end. But Pokey wants to tell that part, so I'll just deliver the chronological version. Just consider that a hint. A lot of all that political rage exploding in the streets around the US Capitol was still bubbling in the audience; Black Lives Matter, #Me Too, Save the Climate, Women's Rights, LGBQ Rights, both positive and negative variations of everything. There was shouting and reabble-rousing going on, although no White Supremists or KKK were making any trouble, maybe because three of our performers were Nokhons and nobody wanted to challenge them. But when some groups started to get physical and threatening each other, Adam stopped them with an announcement: "Anyone here who wants to fight is going to have to deal with..." he was pointing his thumb at himself, like a real macho squatch, but then he folded his thumb away and pointed his index finger at Magga instead, saying "...her." Magga knows the play; she stepped forward baring her teeth and bulging her impressive muscles, standing seven and a half feet tall, looking beautiful but also quite possibly mean and dangerous. Every argumentative dude in the audience took a look and slid quietly back into his seat. Then the audience started laughing, timidly at first, but then became convinced that it was actually pretty funny, and finally laughed wholeheartedly. The tension evaporated after that, and everyone settled back to enjoy the show. As for the concert, it was basically a re-run of what we do every time, but hopefully that's not the audience's experience, it's all fresh to them. But mainly, I think, this particular audience's emotions had been tempered by this week's saturation of justified anger and noble intent, of villainy and heroism, of good cops and bad cops, of dedicated activists against useless politicians, futility, hate and occasional glimpses of fun. Now they could surrender to music and let it all bubble and stew. Maybe even achieve enlightenment, let's hope. We played our newest song for the first time at that concert, one that Adam and Mel had written together at the campground in Atlantic City. He wrote the words and she built the melody around a simple but elegant piano riff. It's called Tell Me Of Your Fantasy. In a way it's just another generic love song to no one in particular (unless maybe everyone?), but it also voices a cosmic sentiment. I'm putting it here just because I think it's rilly beautiful.
Tell me of your fantasy and I will tell you mine:
How I have often dreamed of loving you some time.
And although I knew
that it was foolish to
Imagine us entwined,
I must admit
that it
was on my mind.
Ah, but look at who we are, of course that cannot be
Let us laugh and understand that this is fantasy.
(entire song is in Songlist)
While we sang that very song for the concert, something very dramatic was secretly going on, reminding us once again that we were in a city dealing with a lot of violence and turmoil. But I'm going to let Pokey tell you about that, he likes to do the action stuff more than I do.
Friday evening concert in Wash DC There's always some risk for Adam-- and all of us too --to go onstage and sing our happy little songs: because we get hate mail from groups who just don't want Nokhons to be accepted into (white) human society. Most of their letters are usually just bullshit, threats are made but nothing happens. Probably because anyone actually intending to go up against a Bigfoot has to be pretty brave, and those who send hate letters are pretty much always cowards. We watch out for them, but can't bother to be afraid of them. I say "we", making it sound like I'm just as brave as Adam, but he's the reason I can be brave. It's like having Superman on your side, me being more in the Jimmy Olsen category. But this time we had been informed that an attack was definitely scheduled by a paramilitary strike force. This happening in a city exploding with violence, where we even had the FBI keeping watch on our campsite. And during this concert a couple of undercover agents were sitting in the audience, like they really did expect an attack. Not from hate-letter writers but from one of those illegal and covert paramilitary teams about to be identified once newly arrested Senator Carver starts to spill the beans. On top of all that, Adam got a call last night from our old enemy, drug lord Salvador deVega, calling from a prison in Mexico, expressly WARNING him that we were going to be attacked at tonight’s concert. But deVega hates us all, so it made no sense that he would warn us. Or that we should believe him, but Adam did, even tho his lie-smelling trick doesn’t really work over a telephone. The FBI believed deVega too. They had arrested Senator Carver yesterday, but were convinced that he still had a strike-team operating somewhere in town, slavishly intending to obey orders already issued. All of us in S&F are witnesses the Senator would like to have eliminated. FBI agents were stationed in-and-outside the Anthem Theater, watching for uniformed militia, but bad guys could just come in civilian clothes. Special Agent Dawson suggested that Adam sit this concert out, but he wouldn't do that. Instead, he prepared for an attack. Not that Adam is so fuck-you-brave that he goes up on stage with no way to defend himself. He always carries a secret weapon in a little bag in his pocket: five smooth, small stones he can throw. Doesn't sound like much against a man with a gun, but I know from personal experience how accurate Adam's aim can be: he saved my life when I was about to be shot by drug cartel goons in Mexico. He threw a padlock from pretty far away, it hit TWO bad guys with almost the power of a bullet. WHAP! Bad guys went down, Mike and I got to live. It’s just that Adam doesn’t really dare to throw high-velocity stones into a live audience, hoping that his aim is 100% precise, afraid that some of our fans could end up not-so-live.
But we had a concert to perform. Our first number was Adam's newest song, Tell Me Of Your Fantasy. Usually Adam would sing his own songs, but this time it was Melly, who rarely did lead singing and Adam who did a background chorus, more like a chant than song lyrics. Well, it was a chant, the hypnotic kind. The song was loaded, our secret weapon. All of us onstage were aware that an assassination attempt was supposed to happen tonight and this was Adam's response. Most of the musicians and roadies freaked out when they heard about it, but Adam explained that we had the advantage of knowing it was coming tonight, rather than cancelling the show and NOT knowing when they would try again. Basically we had to deal with it now or cancel the rest of the USA Tour because the danger would always be lurking, city after city. Tonight we even had FBI agents among the audience, although Adam figured they would end up hypno-tranced along with everybody else, which might be for the best, so that they couldn't start shooting inside a filled concert hall. But even knowing that Adam was going to put the audience into a trance with shamanistic Nokhon voodoo, none of us were immune to it: the whole band went into a trance too, sorta spacing out and jamming, repeating the music without interruption. Nobody noticed when Adam walked down from the scene, still chanting into his wireless microphone, and wandered among the audience. I must've zonked out too, because next thing I knew the song was over and the audience was applauding-- almost hysterically and for a really long time--when I suddenly noticed that Adam was standing beside four men bound with plastic strips. They were obviously still grooving to the music, eyes closed, bopping their heads to the beat which had stopped for the moment Near them was a pile of bent and folded AR-15 assault rifles that had somehow been smuggled into the theater despite metal detector checks at the entrances. Adam signaled to Dawson and his undercover Special Agents came to escort the four men away. Dawson spoke quietly to Adam, but I was close enough to hear him say: "We've got eyes on a van waiting outside, escape vehicle. They'll be armed for sure." Adam looked to me, "Get Scott to start a Chrome Pie number, I'll be right back." Then he was out the door. Later I saw the video taken by an FBI body-cam: Out on the street, Adam comes out from behind the Anthem Theater to a grey van parked with motor running. He moves quickly so they don't have time to shoot him, slams up against the van grabbing it high and low, then rolls it over sideways, again and again, like a tumble-dry. Nobody inside the rolling van is capable of shooting at him. Then he tries to open the side door, but it's bent out of shape, so he just rips it off and tosses it aside. The FBI Agents grab the two dizzy guys inside with no problem. Adam turns and heads back to continue our concert with a light-hearted skip. We’re playing Charlie’s silly-but-fun Whenever Jennifer as Adam comes back onstage; the audience hasn’t even had time to notice he was missing, and just in time for him and Mike to put in their dual classical guitar break-sequence without a hitch. They segued smoothly into the Princess of Mushrooms, while they were into the Latin stuff. Nothing to hint that murder had just been avoided and the bad guys already hauled off to jail without a shot being fired or any blood to clean up. The audience? How did they respond to all this? Are you fucking crazy? They applauded for five minutes. Wotta great show!
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