Hotel Chelsea (07.04.23)

Rocking America's 247th birthday at Hotel Chelsea. Photo by Kat.

It's funny; I thought I'd have performed on Independence Day at least once in my long career of doing live music. But if I did, I can't seem to find any record of it. I've played plenty of shows on July 3 and July 5 and other dates in near proximity to the holiday... just never on the holiday itself.

Until now. It just so happened that my regular first Tuesday of the Month show at Hotel Chelsea in Second Life fell on July 4, and I didn't think much of it when Chelsea's manager Shyla the Super Gekko mentioned that my next show there would be on that date. As the show grew closer, though, it occurred to me that everyone was going to be in the midst of their barbecues and their local fireworks shows when I started my show at 5PM SLT (same as Pacific time). I'd pretty much accepted the idea that I'd be playing for basically no one, though I was okay with that idea.

Wrong

See, here's where my own bias becomes apparent. First, not everyone in Second Life (or, to expand the thought, on the Internet)  is an American. We Americans tend to initially assume that everyone we meet is also an American. It's a bizarre quirk we seem to share. So obviously, those folks from Canada and the UK and Poland and Australia and wherever had no holiday going on. It was a regular Tuesday for them.

Second is the mistaken idea that everyone in our country has the same traditions and does the same things. That's complete bullshit. Some folks don't like doing extroverted shit like hanging out with large families or going to block parties or whatever. Some others don't have close family or a local social structure that makes it easy to do, and they may prefer the company of their friends in the virtual world.

These are all legitimate viewpoints and experiences of many people. So, you'll have to pardon my shock when a few minutes into the show, I said out loud, "Who the fuck are all you people and what are you doing here?" We'll talk more about that in a moment.

Starting my show to a surprisingly large crowd. Photo by Kat.

What Else Is Up?

Um... not a lot. Work is constantly busy, which is a good thing as a small business owner. It's also a bad thing as a person who'd like some time to do other things. I want to be working on the next They Stole My Crayon album. I'd like some time off to travel a bit, and just to relax for more than a few hours at a time.

A few things in the regular habit column. I've been super consistent in my "Zak's Random News" bullets for over a year, rarely missing a day for any reason beyond business travel when I don't have access to my regular news resources. I've also remained very consistent on my Wii Fit Plus routine for well over a decade at this point. That's one thing I make time for every single weekday morning. I genuinely do not feel good in the few days I've skipped it. It only takes me about 40 minutes to get a reasonably good bit of exercise in, and I truly believe it's been of tremendous benefit to both my physical and mental health... especially as I'm getting deeper into the realm of middle age.

Didn't You Do Any July 4 Things Beyond the Show?

Yes, sort of. I took the full day off work, which is a rarity for me. Also, directly after the show, we made some Johnsonville brats and a terrific potato salad made from scratch. And then, of course, before the sun even went down, there was the local barrage of fireworks. I'm not talking about the nice kind that get done by a city in a park somewhere. I mean the nasty ass insane neighborhood explosives that people detonate illegally. The entire greater Los Angeles area sounded like a war zone. I speculated last night that it was probably more peaceful-sounding in Ukraine than it was in Redondo Beach.

Directly after my show... sweaty from rocking my ass off, and getting ready to enjoy some distinctly American food before the neighborhood turned into a war zone.

But people do what they do. I'm not one of those folks who stop others from having fun, unless their fun is going to fuck up stuff that is mine. Even so, I just make sure that my home isn't being burned down or my cars aren't being violated and so on. By the time I went to bed at maybe 11pm, I will say that things had settled down enough so that getting to sleep wasn't an issue. No harm, no foul.

Okay, Now the Show

Yeah, so... as I mentioned, I wasn't expecting a big crowd. Or a crowd at all. I was thinking that I'd start my show for three people, and that included my manager and the venue staff. Hey, we've all been there as performing musicians. I wasn't going to be pissy about it.

In fact, it was perhaps because of that fact that I prepared a bunch of songs that I'd never performed before. Why not whip them out and give them a shot in a situation where not many people would hear if they didn't go as planned? Welp... that didn't happen. I mean, I played the new-to-me songs; I just did them in front of a big-ass crowd, and fortunately they all went very well.

New songs? Bring 'em on! Photo by Kat.

I did wear red, white, and blue purposefully. I also liked how Hotel Chelsea was decked out for the occasion. Photo by Kat.

I did a number of tunes that were selected based on the holiday... songs that mentioned America in some way. I refuse to do any jingoistic bullshit songs about "God Bless the USA" or any utter crap like that. I'm a proud American; I'm not a nationalist who thinks the only way for our country to be great is for other countries to suffer as a result. I also picked songs that thematically or lyrically had a focus on summer; no holiday is more summery than July 4.

Of note... I was the first artist playing this July 4 show; the other was Max Kleene. But Max performed after me and we already had a super great crowd there well before he and his dedicated fans started pouring in. Photo by Kat.

USA! USA! Photo by Kat.

The only other thing of note was that I did the courteous thing that my fellow experienced SL performers do, which was to vacate the stage for my final song so the person following me had time to get set up and could get started on time. To that end, I had a lot of fun improvising my final tune of the night while standing amongst the crowd as Max Kleene got set up to play.

Standing offstage with my people while Max got set up. As is typical in SL when system resources start getting jammed up, you're not seeing a good number of avatars and textures being rendered correctly, or at all. No worries; I knew who was there. Photo by Kat.

Hotel Chelsea set list...

*Kids in America (Kim Wilde) 

One Slip (Pink Floyd)

Doin’ Time (Sublime)

America (Simon & Garfunkel)

*Don’t Ask Me Why (Billy Joel)

*Interstate Love Song (Stone Temple Pilots)

Perfectly Calm (They Stole My Crayon)

River Man (Nick Drake)

High and Dry (Radiohead)

Rikki Don’t Lose That Number (Steely Dan)

One Headlight (The Wallflowers)

*July 4 at Chelsea (Zak Claxton)

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

Huge thanks to all the folks who came out to my show on Independence Day, with extra special super thanks to the following people who helped support it!

Maximillion Kleene, JustineJohndory Amethyst, Kalie Indigo, Asimia Heron, AutumnFoxx Sutherland, Bonnie Bowenford, Kat Claxton, Trouble Streeter, SuzyQSwanson Resident, Alex Zelin, Kaciee Resident, my terrific manager Maali Beck, Hotel Chelsea manager Shyla the Super Gecko, and Chelsea's great staff.