A MOTH, A FROG, AND A CHIPMUNK

  

“Molly?” this is what the pretty blond girl asked me around the fire the other night at Slick’s FAMORO DJOUBATE concert at his Outlier Amphitheater. We had been chatting earlier and I assumed she wanted to continue the convo on another level. “Are you offering me some?” I asked not quite sure where this was going. She looked confused. “Some what?” she retorted. “Molly.” I clarified. “Oh no.” she rewound. “I was wondering if the band was from Mali.” My bad. Honest mistake these days in the Catskills.

 

This past weekend ended the season with a bang not a whimper. The African musicians put on a helluva show for the overwhelmingly white crowd scattered through the fallen leaf woods. Then on Saturday night I opened the doors of the church to the Catskill DJ community. It didn’t take long to warm the place up with twirling bodies, rattling windows, and sphincter loosening bass lines. In this crowd there is no confusion between “Molly” and Mali.                            

 

The party flowed naturally between sanctuary, front lawn smoking, outhouse dumping, and fireplace porch VIP room groove. Shewho and I danced and bounced between the scenes, elder witnesses to a crowd seemingly in the midst of yet one more mid-life crisis. Forget the elections. Forget the kids. Forget genocide. Forget capitalism. LET’S DANCE! Even Cheeky stuck around (no dogs) deciding at one point to jump on (and off) of Cowboy Jake’s lap. Now that was unusual. We all noticed.

 

It was then that CJake told us that he recently had experienced a heightened connection with the animal kingdom. How so? “The other day,” he explained, “I was walking in the woods, heading up a hill, trying to catch my breath…..when a moth flew in my mouth and went directly down my throat.” OK. It’s not a worm eating RFK’s brain, but interesting. Go on. “I was gagging and could feel the moth fluttering in my throat. I couldn’t puke it up or swallow it. I had to run back to the car for water.” He eventually was able to dislodge and swallow it. “I shat it out that night.” I’m assuming it flew out his ass. But that wasn’t all.

 

“A couple of days later I was chopping wood,” CJake continued, “when I heard a rustle in the trees. I looked up and a frog fell from the branches directly onto my face. A FUCKING FROG!” Now he had our full attention. The music throbbed out of the church as the drugs did their thing. “But that’s not all. I threw the frog into the bushes, when suddenly a chipmunk appeared out of the wood pile. He ran across the yard directly at me. I thought he was gonna crawl up my leg, when he stopped at my feet and with one little paw he touched my right foot, looked directly into my eyes (as if to say “Tag you’re it”) and then ran away. WTF?”

 

Was this “communing” with nature on some advanced level or the spirit world attempting to warn CJake (and us) about some impending disaster? All the signs are there. But what do they point to? It may take a minute to figure this one out. “More Molly?’ somebody asked. Yes please. It's gonna be a long night.