lonG storY: sharA worden, whitE rabbiT cabareT, Q oN stagE parT II

o Thursday morning I tried to sleep a little later in preparation for the journey to Indianapolis, but wasn't able to get past 7:00 am. By 10:00 I was poking around on the internet looking for Shara Worden / My Brightest Diamond videos, and I happened upon this one

which I had seen before but felt like seeing again.  And when Shara pulled out her copy of RAY CONNIFF AND THE RAY CONNIFF SINGERS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS 

I had, as we say, a brilliant idea:  I would go to Half-Price Books and purchase a copy of this lp, then take it to the concert and have Shara sign it for me.  Never mind the fact that the album had come out 52 years ago.  

And off I went to Half-Price Books.

I looked under "C" in the vinyl section.  No Ray Conniff.  I looked to see if there was a Christmas records section.  No.  I looked under the "special records" (or whatever it is called) section.  Nada.  I looked down at the hundreds . . . perhaps thousands . . . of records that were shelved down near the floor . . . the ones that sell for 25 cents apiece and are in no particular order.  I looked at a few spines.  Most of them were so frayed as to be unreadable.  I walked around to the other side of the shelf for some reason . . . no rational thinking there.  I sat down on the floor and started looking, and within the first thirty records, I saw a spine that said RAY CONNIFF.  I pulled it out.  It was RAY CONNIFF AND THE RAY CONNIFF SINGERS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS .  

Now you've got to admit that the odds on that are pretty fucking long, right?  But this kind of thing does tend to happen to me--and most of my human contacts don't ever seem much impressed by these things--so while I was happy and surprised, I wasn't THAT surprised.  And I really had felt like I was going to find it before I even left the house   . . . .  not so much in terms of certitude as  fait accompli.  

So I put my copy of  WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS and my copy of Shara's EP NONE MORE THAN YOU and a big fat Sharpie into a Target bag and I was ready for the show.

a few hours and the concert is over and I'm waiting for Jacqueline to get down from the stage (long story) and I'm standing waiting for her and she starts toward me, then veers off to intercept Shara as she exits the stage, and I see Jacqueline kind of reach out for Shara, then Shara kind of reaches out for Jacqueline and they walk together to the front of the venue.  I trail behind them, catch up and Shara recognizes me from our last meeting or two, and after I tell her that Jacqueline is my daughter and allathat I tell her I have two things for her to sign if she would, and as I get my Target bag in the ready position I tell her, "I know you've signed lots of albums for people and maybe you've even signed people's arms and they've had them tattooed, but I'll bet nobody has ever asked you to sign a copy of RAY CONNIFF AND THE RAY CONNIFF SINGERS WE WISH YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS  before," and I pull the lp cover out of my bag and Shara is just astounded, says, "That's the one!  That's the exact one!" (which is kind of strange, too, 'cause that video was put up a couple of months ago, and I hadn't mentioned seeing it, she just knew from the album) and we both have a good laugh and I ask her to sign it, "Shara Worden approved," which she does thusly:

So that's pretty much a one of a kind item.  It was quite great to see Shara get a kick out of it.  

Pretty much the best post-concert experience ever.




I love Shara.  No, like . . . I really love Shara.  And if you're thinking, "That's creepy," then you haven't met Shara.  Or listened to her music.  Or you're just a dumbass.