I started when I read the news that Biden had stepped down from the 2024 presidential race. For weeks, the mood in our house has felt like it did during the pandemic. Cautious, braced for impact, laced with dread. But within minutes the mood changed. When Biden announced his endorsement of Kamala Harris it was like a light went off, that light getting brighter as I looked online and saw post after post turning from stunned to motivated to celebratory. Every woman (in my sphere of attention anyway) was thrilled. The memes started rolling and the cloud of anxiety of the past several weeks lifted. Catharsis.
We were on our way to visit my 93-year-old aunt who is sharp as a tack and tends to follow the news the old fashioned way: on the TV. So I was happy to arrive and find that the TV was off. Still we couldn’t help but talk about the past few weeks of media hypocrisy and our fears for the country and hopes. We were all nervous about how the news would go over …and galvanized. My brother and I realized we’d both donated to Harris’s campaign surreptitiously during lunch via our phones. Fittingly, there was apple pie for dessert.
One of my trusted news sources, Heather Cox Richardson, announced she’d be going live later that afternoon to parse the news, and we got home just in time to listen. I immediately felt more calm. She pointed out how great Biden’s timing was. Impeccable, given how the Republicans had locked in their ticket. I thought of a talk Richardson had given a week earlier on Project 25 for Red, Wine and Blue, pointing out how there had never been a time when so many women were empowered to vote and be active. How the decades of having the right to choose and be educated and vote has given women the ability to make an impact. On cue, my friend Susan texted me Keb Mo’s ‘Put a Woman in Charge’ video.1
I’ve since been so heartened to see so many women organizing to get the vote out and now get behind a woman candidate.2 Let’s do this.
Meanwhile we had tickets to Alejandro Escovedo at the Great American Music Hall on Sunday. In truth, I have grown tired of male voices and rarely choose reading or listening to them first these days, even if they are great. Nonetheless, I've had a soft spot for Alejandro since I first happened upon him playing at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in 2006. He’s a sublime combination of a songwriterly soul and rock-and-roll heart and punk rock. After that HSB performance, I went on to see Alejandro any chance I could get, whether he was playing solo, in a trio or with an orchestra, but I hadn’t seen him live since before the pandemic. It had been too long.
As soon as he took the stage with his current band — a tight, road-fit four-piece featuring guitarist James Mastro (who opened the show with a solo set) — I realized why I was such an avid fan. “Come on!” Escovedo encouraged the crowd and his band, lighting the match to a joyful set of songs from his extensive catalog, including his recent Echo Dancing. He may be 73-years-old but he sings and plays like a 30-year-old. Having been playing for half a century, he’s also somewhat of a historian on the subject of this period of American music history. Music, in Escovedo’s world, is a serious, important business. And fun. His masterly group of musicians was clearly having a great time playing together. And we were the happy beneficiaries.
It was hard to choose a favorite moment in the how, but the minute the band came out onto the floor to play an unplugged mini-set including ‘San Antonio Rain’ as the crowd formed a circle is definitely toward the top of the list. Closing the night with an encore featuring high-voltage versions of ‘Chelsea Hotel '78’ (with Chuck Prophet) and Neil Young’s ‘Like a Hurricane’ (with Prophet and Tom Heyman) was more proof that rock and roll is alive and well and there when you need it. Good medicine.
On Monday, I got tears in my eyes watching Harris walk on and off the stage to Beyonce’s ‘Freedom.’
White Women Against MAGA; Women’s March Initiatives; Activate America (ht Alameda Nasty Women); Mom Rising; Red, Wine & Blue….