The Big D Lesson in Life

Well, my oh my, life is full of slippery ice and warm beer. And so it goes with the DWhisks' venture into Dunkirk for the Big D's Boogie Woogie Divorce Party.

To be honest, I kept waiting by the phone all day to hear if the shindig was cancelled due to the deluge of rain that cooled things off faster than an ugly nun. The phonecall never came and so the boys and I made another road trip into Chautauqua county.

After the GPS wound us through the beautiful grape vineyards and hints of aromatic piles of cow manure, we pulled up to the Big D's farm house out on Newell Road (should have known, eh?) and lo and behold, the garage where the Boogie Woogie was being held. Bro Thomas leans to me and promptly asked, "Is this the right place?" With a reluctant nod and spying Big D, I told him this was the place.

Now this is where I am trying, oh Lord, I am trying to learn those lessons that keep hitting me upside the head like baseballs caught-up in a hurricane breeze.

I am willing to go out on a limb and say Big D may not have expected us. I say this because of the sparsely populated "woogie" of all things "boogie". My first instinct was to flee under the guise of irritated bowel syndrome, BUT we drove an hour for the purpose of playing music. And so we set up our equipment and got ready to play to a crowd of 12 or so.

Then it dawned on me. It doesn't matter if the crowd is 12 or 1200. Its spirit of Rock 'n' Roll that matters. In this spirit is the idea of having fun, playing music you enjoy and sharing it with the other "woogies".

What also mattered was that the Big D wanted us there to play music to celebrate his divorce. Of course some of you may look at his reason for throwing a party as a way of lifting the middle-finger, but it was his party and he was crying if he wanted to (or drinking like a dehydrated sperm whale). The point is that Dick Whiskey setup the equipment, fired up the instruments and put on one helluva of a great show.

Afterwards, an acquaintance pulled me aside and said the gig was great. He told me this is what its all about, why we do those creative things. He went further in this by saying each one of the band members showed the creative reflection of themselves and this was embodied through the music we played.

Maybe this is true. Maybe he had too much to drink as well.

So pass the point of learning and 3 AM blog posting, I simply want say thank you to Big D for the opportunity to come down there and play for your party. We had a blast.