Hotel Chelsea Rooftop (01.01.22)

Rocking the rooftop of Hot Chelsea on a chilly first day of 2022. Photo by Kat.

Happy new year... I think.

I woke up on Saturday January 1 feeling slightly off, a sensation that lasted the entirety of the day. To be clear, since I don't drink alcohol on New Year's or otherwise, there was no hangover involved. This "offness" was accompanied by a sore throat and some chills and such. Nothing horrendous; I was still able to perform music for a full hour at Hotel Chelsea's special New Year's Day event that afternoon, which went well. But with the huge surge of the easily-transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19, it wouldn't be a huge shock if I'd picked it up.

Unlike previous times over the past almost two years of pandemic, it wouldn't be a huge concern if I did end up testing positive for the disease. I mean, it wouldn't be good either, and frankly my bigger concerns at this stage are in regard to the long-term implications of contracting COVID-19, not the immediate illness. I am fully vaccinated and got my booster shot in mid-December. If I have it, it's unlikely I'll be hospitalized or worse. So, depending on how I'm feeling over the next couple of days, it might be wise to get tested. I'm already feeling better on Sunday than I was on Saturday, so my optimistic view is that I'm perfectly fine.

It being the start of a new year, I'd like to talk about the concept of time for a moment.

What Is Time?
Time is a way of describing the seemingly unidirectional sequence of events that "moves" from past to present to future. We're already in trouble with that definition. What is the present? Is it now? Or how about... now? Wait, you already read that in the past. Too late. Let's stop this maddening and futile exercise.

Instead, let's talk about how people perceive time and try and measure and subdivide it. We have a calendar that helps us keep track of things... useful for human activities like planting crops and dressing appropriately. We have a planet that spins, giving the illusion of a sun that rises and sets. We have clocks that tell us about the measurement of the passage of time with a pretty good degree of accuracy (though even that is an illusion, because the passage of time is unique to each various frame of reference... learn some more about Einsteinian relativity for more info on that topic).

Anyway, time does seem to sort of exist in various ways, but the more contextual aspect of it is how we measure it. A year is the amount of time it takes for Earth to make a full rotational orbit around the sun... sort of. The actual time is 365 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes and 16 seconds, so roughly every four years, we have to add a day so that the calendar stays aligned with the universe. Not very precise if you ask me, but whatever.

Like most things, time is weird.

Happy New Year?

So, we get to this point where we call it a new year so we can all do the same things at the same time, sort of. And people say things like, "Last year was terrible." First of all, I am very sorry if every single day in the past 365 was terrible for you. That seems awful. But I doubt it's true. And in my experience, at the end of every single goddamn year, people are much more likely to comment about how bad it was, as opposed to talking about all the great things that happened. This is human nature, whether I agree with it or not. Negative events last longer in our memories.

Do you know what years people think they like? They like the years that happened long ago, before they had a bunch of stress-inducing responsibilities. Even people who admit that their high school years were a nightmare tend to say that times were better then than now. I'm not going to tell them they're wrong, but again, with human nature being what it is, aspects of nostalgia seem to paint a prettier picture than the reality of the moment.

So to wrap up this silliness, I've never had a good year, and I've never had a bad year. I've had great moments and terrible moments. Some lasted longer, and some were very short lived. I expect that good things and bad things will happen in this current period of rotation around our little star that we call 2022, and my generally optimistic outlook has me hoping that there's more good than bad. Either way, I'm not going to worry much about it, and just do the things I do to survive and find enjoyment where I can.

Good things will happen in 2022. Bad things will happen in 2022. Some people will have better years than others. One thing that's been more true than not in my 52 year on this planet: when I anticipate good things, they seem more likely to happen.

How About That Show?

Yeah, that was cool. Let's talk about that. So, for whatever reason, I've done a lot of shows on January 1. It's not a typical day for live music. Most of the live shows are attached to New Year's Eve, not New Year's Day, but looking back, I see that I performed on January 1 in 2018 and 2012, and also have a bunch of years that I've done shows on January 2 or January 3. It's a good way to start a fresh year, doing the thing I've done for so much of my life and hope to continue to do for many years to come.

A small but happy crowd on the roof. Photo by Kat.

This insane little being is Shyla the Super Gekko, Hotel Chelsea's events manager and a person who really appreciates good music. Side note: SL used to have a lot more non-human avatars and I always enjoyed that. Photo by Kat. 

There was a time when I would never have thought I'd still be wearing a mask -- in real life or in SL -- in the year 2022. I was wrong. As I've stated many times in the past, my mask in SL comes off as soon as I'd feel comfortable being in public without a mask in real life. Photo by Kat. 

This show at Hotel Chelsea was a bit different than my usual gig inside the Mexican restaurant at street level. Instead, it was up on the roof, a place I'd never been before. It was cute; they'd decked out the place with a little stage, and people seemed to be in a good mood when I arrived. Joe Paravane, an SL musician who I enjoy, was doing the set before me as I warmed up and got my stuff set up to play.

It being a new year, I decided to make "Old & New" the theme for my set, and alternated between songs of the 1900s and 2000s, with a number of tunes in my set that were released in 2021. I also had a couple of songs I'd never done before, which is always fun for both me and my audience. The crowd was small -- something I'd expected on New Year's Day -- but those who were there were having a good time.

My view from the snowy rooftop stage. Photo by Kat.

Hotel Chelsea Rooftop set list...

*Doctor, My Eyes (Jackson Browne)

Garter Snake (Macie Stewart)

River Man (Nick Drake)

*Jaywalker (Andy Shauf)

God Only Knows (Beach Boys)

Bird of Paradise (Cory Hanson)

Pigs on the Wing - Parts I and II (Pink Floyd)

Gardenia (Iggy Pop)

Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty)

Sleeper in the Valley (Laura Veirs)

Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie)

Among the Leaves (Sun Kil Moon)

*Happy New Year's Chelsea Improv (Zak Claxton)

*Indicates the first time I've performed this song in SL.

Big ol' thanks to everyone who came to the show, with special super thanks to the following who helped support it!

noowun Wind, Thunderfoot Lorefield, Kedwyn Parmelee, CalebDominus Resident, Joe Paravane,  CharityDevine Resident, Kat Claxton, my terrific manager Maali Beck, and Hotel Chelsea manager Shyla the Super Gecko!