I assumed that this second half was either going to be something like an Open Mic or a jam session, and I was hoping to find a way to make a polite exit after my half was done.

Fortunately, that's not what ended up happening. Shortly before the show was to start, Fred had not yet arrived. It's not like Fred to be that late so I phoned him to find out where he was. It turned out that I had given him the wrong date, and he thought we were on the following night. He hurriedly hung up and jumped into his car and sped over to the venue. As 8:00 pm arrived, he was not yet in sight, and I thought, well, this is awkward, but no problem, maybe this open mic or jam thing can go first, and Fred and I can perform second. When I asked Steve Choy, the organizer, if this would be okay, he adamantly refused. We had to go first, and if necessary, I would have to go on alone. I thought, okay, another uptight folkie bureaucrat, but what can you do. When in Rome.....

To my great relief, Fred arrived just at the stroke of eight, cello in hand, looking charmingly tousled and very handsome in a black suit that he had probably snatched up out of his laundry hamper as he jumped up out of his man chair in front of the tv following my call. Sometimes unforeseen events or emergencies can have a positive effect on a performance, since they throw the musicians off guard and out of their safety zones of tried and true material and interpretations. This proved true for us. The terror I had felt while waiting for Fred was channeled into energy and spontaneity on stage, and maybe because I felt so guilty about the time mixup, I had a sudden injection of humility and a desire to make people happy rather than worrying about mistakes or how many CDs I was selling.



Before the concert, I had asked Steven and Lesley if they had any advice on how to perform for an audience like this, which included people with physical and mental disabilities as well as people from outside who were were not disabled. Lesley was very clear that I was to change nothing about my act, and in particular she did not want me to treat the audience like children. Her purpose in bringing music groups into Inwood was to expose the residents to good art, and that bringing the arts to them was a lot easier than taking them on a trip to the Kennedy Center.

Maybe sensing that I was feeling unsure of myself, Steve helped me immensely by confessing that when he first started performing here, he had felt 'very uncomfortable.' That instantly reassured me, because it made me feel like it was okay to feel uncomfortable myself, that it didn't make me a bad person and so I could stop trying to pretend that I was A-okay.

Following our part of the show, I decided that it would be a good idea not to leave but to stick around as a gesture of respect, since I had screwed up so badly with the time mixup. But while I thought I was showing support for the residents by staying around in the audience, the residents and the Choys gave me much more than that by completely turning inside out my notions of art, beauty, performing, and the reasons why we create. The next show is Friday, June 8, and the feature act is jazz flutist Arch "AT" Thompson.