Thursday, August 4, 2011

Key West (08.03.11)


Well, it's been an interesting week so far. Monday seemed to start off fine, but around mid-day, I noticed I wasn't my usual chipper self. By 2:00 that afternoon, I was having trouble focusing on my work, and felt a bit nauseous with a slight headache coming on. By 5:30, I had to do something I almost never do: took a break from work and laid down "for a minute". That minute turned into hours of agony, because I'd been nailed with a severe migraine. I've only had a few of them in my life that I know of, and they are about as horrible as anything I've ever experienced.

So that, in a word, sucked. The next morning, after a fitful night that I only made it through with my sanity thanks to my darling Kat helping to take care of me, I was a lot better, but I still felt weak and had to cancel a show that evening... something I loathe doing. But I knew I couldn't put on a full-bore Zak Claxton show at that point. I was determined to be well enough the following day to perform at Key West.

My fun crowd at Key West. Photo by Kat.



I'm happy to say that Wednesday continued my path of improvement, and I was surprised to find that I was full of energy and raring to play by the time my 6:00PM slot rolled around. Christopher Quan was playing before me and sounding great, which is always inspiring for me to put on my best show. Strangely, some poor planning on my behalf turned into a positive; I was busy with work for longer than I'd expected, and wasn't able to put much thought into choosing my set list, so I ended up doing a last-minute shuffle through my songbook and grabbing a bunch of tunes in a more random way than I usually do. Turned out great. Crazy, huh?

What a pretty place to play live music on a Wednesday evening! Photo by Kat.



Key West Set List...
Waterloo Sunset (The Kinks)
This Afternoon (Zak Claxton)
California (Joni Mitchell)
Sex and Candy (Marcy Playground)
Space Oddity (David Bowie)
Falling Down (Zak Claxton)
Blue Skies (Irving Berlin)
After the Goldrush (Neil Young)
Help Me (Joni Mitchell)
Jane (Barenaked Ladies)
You're Like a Cloud (Zak Claxton)
In My Time of Dying (Traditional)

I rock while Kat kicks it on a box. Photo by Kat.



A funny side note: we had a freshly-minted noob at the show, some guy named dan12203 Resident, who was running around begging/screaming that he wanted someone to kiss him. It made for the greatest of comedy for at least half of my set, and led to exchanges such as the following:

[17:13] dan12203 Resident: can i kiss you
[17:13] Taunter Goodnight: < snort >
[17:13] gwampa Lomu: NO, you can not kiss me dan
[17:13] Taunter Goodnight: if you can find the animation, go for it
[17:14] Maali Beck: hehe
[17:14] dan12203 Resident: whars anmation
[17:14] Taunter Goodnight: I rest my case


It's stuff like this that makes playing in Second Life uniquely worthwhile. You're not going to see that at your typical bar gig. Well, at least I hope you won't.

Huge thanks to everyone who made this a fun and exciting night a Key West! Special thanks to those who supported my show...
Triana Caldera, sedonajane Silverpath, TheaDee, Rusty Seisenbacher, Alexis Fairlady, Christine Haiku, Agent Zelnik, Kat Claxton, gwampa Lomu, Taunter Goodnight, my manager Maali Beck, and Key West owner Liz Harley!

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