Frank Fairfield at the Museum of Jurassic Technology

Yesterday evening, Aaron and I attended a concert at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, an eccentric venue in Culver City that is more of a repository for curiosities than for facts. My absolute favorite place in Southern California.

Since Aaron is a Jurassic member, our tickets were only $12 each. A great deal, but non-members can attend for a mere $15. To think that some people pay hundreds of dollars for a concert in which they have to watch the performer on a screen because the stage is so far from where they're sitting and then think that I was close enough to touch Frank Fairfield last night. Aaron told me that the bottom-of-the-barrel Cher tickets are going for $240. You could see Frank 20 times for that price.

 For a piece that NPR did on Frank, see http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128823639

Frank played banjo, guitar, and fiddle. He wore his shirt buttoned all the way up. He was clean-cut and smacked of another era. You could easily imagine that we were all back in the Great Depression, easing our minds from the cares of the day with Frank's music.

Held as all Jurassic concerts are in the museum's Russian tea room, seating is very limited. Perhaps no more than 35 people can jam into the space, which is lit by twisted menorahs and votive candles.

It's hard to convey how deeply Frank moved me. Granted, I projected a whole lot onto him--the resiliance of the American spirit, the honesty and integrity of the salt of the earth, an ineffable something that is inherent, though presently latent, in the American soul that cannot be killed by government intrusion, economic hard times, advertising, consumerism, facebook, and corporations. I had a clear vision that, as this country continues to become a second-rate power, that people across the nation will begin playing music with their neighbors at night, that they'll turn off their TVs and their Internet and begin to know each other again. One can only hope.