"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." Eleanor Roosevelt

Sunday, January 10, 2010

working the SWING SHIFT


I am a groupie. The band is Swing Shift, a big band based in Northern Virginia, with about 20 members. http://www.swingshiftdc.com/ How my fan status began is one of those long stories that is better left untold - on the grounds that it might incriminate me. The first time I saw them play, in Bethesda, there were a number of GW sorority girls falling all over the band, basically doing strip teases on the dance floor. I am not nearly as brazen. Let me just emphasize that I have only dated two of the twenty members. That's not so bad, now is it? Sounds a lot better when you say it that way.

Though I'm not currently romantically involved with any Swing Shift members, no, no trumpet players (back right corner) nor vocalists, I managed to kind of crash the group's belated Holiday party. I showed up with my friend who will not let me post a picture of him from the evening - because of a tanning bed incident gone awry, he currently looks rather like an Oompa Loompa.


I brought a couple of Secret Santa gifts that were not at all appreciated by the mostly male band. Bath bombs from the LUSH http://www.lush.com shop in Georgetown are apparently not the thing to give boys. During the Secret Santa game, I first stole a Frank Sinatra compilation, only to have it taken away. Then I obtained David Sedaris's new book, Naked, which I'm quite excited to read.


Somehow, I ended up taking both gifts home and have been humming along to Sinatra since. The book will join a wait list of others and may get its cover creased by the end of 2010. The party was great fun, and my rum helped ease any of the relationship awkwardness that could have interfered.

The best part of the party, however, was the darling two-year-old hostess. This girl is a doll and highly intelligent. We took to each other so well, that one of the guests just assumed I was the Daddy's sister and the the baby's auntie. Well, why the heck else was I at this party? I was forgiven for crashing and bringing the awful Secret Santa gifts because I kept the baby happy for about two hours, until, that is she realized we'd lost the Sinatra CDs, slowly pushed her lower lip out, and then burst into heartwrenching tears. I'm certain my capitalizing on the baby's need for Sinatra had nothing to do with the CDs showing up in my automobile at the end of the evening.

I was in big trouble when my daughters saw the photos of me holding another child. She will be my last infidelity. I swore to my girls that I will not hold or read to or play this little piggy with any other children, ever.

Oh, and the banana pudding brought by the singer -- better than sex -- my mouth is still watering.

Hear Swing Shift - (see link below) - and you might just become a groupie, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBEgcJIaegw

They are next playing at Blues Alley in Georgetown, sometime in February - I'll announce it when I get the date, and I will find out the date -- I have my ways.

2 comments:

  1. RWH, aka your holiness the Virgin Mother, it was a figure of speech. Besides, sometimes, some appetites are well filled while others are not.

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