Eleven Hundred, or the Ballad of El Baldo

Jessica and I have definitely been lax in updating this blog, but we do have very good reason: as you can guess, we've been training most evenings (and poor Jess's night-shift work schedule has been oppressive, to say the least), but up until last week, we spent most of our free moments planning our benefit concert, KICK CANCER'S A**!

From the moment we heard we'd be attempting to raise a certain amount of money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, I knew I wanted to put on a concert. Playing music is my favorite hobby (cycling right behind it!), and though I certainly enjoy getting paid to do shows, I like the idea of being able to give something of myself for free and raise money for a good cause in return. Volunteering through music. It doesn't get any better than that.

The gig was all I could think about for three months: what bands should perform? How long should they play? What songs are going to get the best reaction? What do we call the event? What does the poster look like? How much do we charge? What's the best date and venue? Slowly but surely, all the pieces began to fall into place. I thankfully knew I could count on Michael Burke to join me for Acoustic '80s, and the guys in Evil Prince Ludwig quickly said yes as well. Dan Gottesman, drummer for the Hometown Sweethearts and a buddy of mine, dug the idea and the cause and agreed to join us too. I knew I wanted to make the Acoustic '80s gig special and different from our usual gigs, so I asked Jen Gembs to guest on six songs. The line-up was perfect. Our usual haunt, Wicked Willy's, agreed to let us have an entire Saturday night, and also agreed to waive their usual cover charge. I picked May 15th based on the amount of time we needed to rehearse, and because I knew that it'd be awesome to be on stage on my birthday (the 16th).

And so we rehearsed the hell out of both bands for a couple of months. In the meantime, Colleen Kesterson helped design a poster based on a concept I had, and over a weekend in Massachusetts, my friends Jeff and Rahul helped me do some refinements. Jessica worked with another wonderful friend, Colleen Houlehen, to make huge posters for the bar. Jess also took care of all the non-music logistics, i.e. the money and the receipts and the collecting at the door (thank you to Colleen K and Amy for your help!).

I warned all three bands that, in truth, I had no idea how the evening was going to go: I knew we were prepared to put on a good show, but I had no real idea of how many people would attend or how much we would raise. I had set myself a goal of $1000, which I knew was high, but I also knew from our fundraising efforts thus far that our friends were nothing if not generous. And nothing wrong with being ambitious.

Acoustic '80s opened the show strong, and I felt we had an engaged audience throughout our set. There were quite a few people in the audience who had specifically come to hear Jen sing, which made me so happy -- and she did not disappoint. We had a few feedback issues, but Jen nailed every song. Performing with her instantly takes me back to being 15 years old and recalling our first performance together. I've always felt Jen and I had a good vocal blend, and that never seems to change, no matter how old we get. She just rocked the hell out of every song and entertained the crowd completely. Acoustic '80s finished up their set with a bunch of our more singable hits, and we left the stage for the Hometown Sweethearts.

I knew the Hometown Sweethearts were good -- I had heard them play a gig back in February -- but I had no idea how perfect they were for our crowd -- song after song, they had everyone in the place singing and dancing along. I had told myself I was going to retreat to the backstage area to try and rest for a bit before the Evil Prince set, but I couldn't help but join everyone in singing and dancing.

Until it was time to shave my head.

I had mentioned this briefly in an e-mail before the gig, but I'm well aware that I ramble in e-mails and that nobody makes it down to the bottom (seriously, are you still reading this?): I planned on shaving my head at the gig. An anonymous donor offered me a substantial donation if I did it. Truth be told, I've always thought about doing it, but figured I never had a good enough reason to fall back on if it looked bad. This seemed like the perfect excuse. And I thought: if you're gonna do it, why not do it in front of everybody? Go for broke!

The first thought was to shave the head right down to the scalp, Mr. Clean style -- but it was an elaborate plan to enact in the back of a dark bar, with hot water and razors and shaving cream and moisturizer, and I couldn't find a barber to donate their time to the event. So a good friend of mine lent me her clippers for the evening. She even had the blades replaced. I was nervous as all hell. See, as a kid, I had a real egg for a head.


I had tried numerous times to envision myself without hair, but I just couldn't imagine it. I just had a feeling it was going to be bad. Anyway, off we went, with my mother-in-law doing the honors.


Note on the right, how there's still some long hair to be shaved. Isn't that creepy? You can see on my face how nervous I was about it, but I absolutely trusted my MIL to do a good job.


After a while, our triathlon training buddy Jason joined in to give a hand. He's been shaving his head for many, many years -- I trusted him completely as well.


And then it was done.


And surprise, surprise -- I actually liked it. Not sure if everybody else felt the same:

But she eventually came around. And second surprise: Jess liked it as well!

And so then it was time for Evil Prince Ludwig. We originally had two separate sets of approximately 45-60 minutes planned, but we decided to capitalize on the audience's energy and play the whole thing in a row. We've never played for two hours straight before. It was definitely an endurance event of its own -- I was sneaking protein bars in between songs -- but I think the audience really enjoyed our performance. And as we played our encore, the clock struck midnight and I turned 33. On my birthday, I was standing on a stage in front of an enthusiastic audience, playing music with my friends, and raising money for an important cause. It is without hyperbole that I say it was the best birthday of my entire life.

I don't actually know how many people attended or who gave what -- I'm sure that information is somewhere in Jessica's notebook -- but when we stumbled home at 2 in the morning and counted the money, we found we had raised $1105 -- $105 over my original goal.

So I want to thank you. I want to thank you if you were there and donated. I want to thank you if you weren't there but sent your best wishes to us. And I want to thank you just for reading this, because we know you're out there and you have our back. Thank you for once again proving to us that we have the best, most dedicated Support Team in the world. We are lucky and grateful and humbled and we love you to pieces.

There's more to come: more training, and a couple of very special posts about the people we're honoring with this event. Stay tuned!