Oh What a Night

Success! Last night was just amazing. The auction went really well and we had a decent turnout. Not as many people as I had hoped for, but certainly no disaster.

First let me tell about the scare I had two days ago that I didn't mention before. At about 8:30pm on Thursday night my "headlining" musician, Michael Psarras called me up and said he couldn't play. If you'll remember, he did the same thing a few days before that, so I really shouldn't have been too surprised, but still... He said he had quit his job, was going to Montana for the weekend and then likely moving to Hawaii. Great. To his credit, he didn't leave me hanging. He had already called up his sometimes musical partner Gregory Eagle and asked him to play in his stead. Eagle is a fantastic guitar player with a lovely voice and his own P.A. system which is far, far superior to the one at Tommy's, so I couldn't get too upset.

Eagle called me up and seemed pretty enthusiastic about playing. He is himself in the process of promoting his own cancer benefit: The 1st Annual True Grit Days -- in honor of John Wayne's 100th birthday. To take place in Ridgway (town 35 miles north of Telluride), it will feature a huge outdoor concert with some big names, appearences by most of the living original cast members of True Grit, and a showing of the film. Sounds pretty cool. Unfortunately it's being held September 8-9, and I'll be on the bike then. If anyone wants more info on this event, call (800)220-4959 or visit www.RidgwayColorado.com

Anyway, back to the here and now. So we started things off with Andrew Wynne, who is the regular host of Open Mic night and who's been incredibly active in helping me put this night together. He only played for about 45 minutes because he had to be up early to play some music on the same morning show that interviewed me last week. We played a couple of Tom Petty songs together at the end of his set to get the crowd revved up a bit.

Yes, I've got a semi-mohawk. Wanna fight about it? I was bored and figured what better what way to motivate myself than to sport a mohawk? What's wrong with that logic?

After Andrew, it was Eagle's turn. He started off playing a song with Becca, who's a mean flautist. She also runs the Fly Me to the Moon Saloon's version of open mic and she writes the music column in the Telluride Watch. She's the one who got me the interview in the Watch and she wrote up a short blurb about the benefit on the day of.

Then Eagle's friend Steven came up and played the fiddle for the rest of the set. They finished up around midnight and then my friend Dan LeRoy got up and played with Brady McKenna. Dan and I have played together a lot. He's played djembe, acoustic bass, and acoustic and electric guitar with me. That's versatility.

Anyway, enough about the music. I'm sure you're all more interested in the auction and the money we raised, right? Well, the Limoncello shots were a hit, although it's possible we gave away as many as we sold. Candice, who's Andrew's girlfriend, volunteered to go out on the street and rally some people. She took a bag of Livestrong bracelets and sold about a dozen, convincing random people to come in and check things out. That was very cool.

The auction items were popular. In fact some of them went for a lot more than I had anticipated. The La Marmotte gift certificate, the two bottles of merlot, and the two-hour massage had the most and highest bids.

The bottom line, after all the auction items and the money from the drinks, we raised $458. That puts my grand total to date at close to $2,000.

Oh yeah, one of the most amazing experiences from last night: About five minutes after I closed the silent auction, a guy walked up to me and asked if there was anything he could do to contribute. I told him the auction was closed and all the items had been won, but he could always donate money directly. He pulled out $100 and pressed it into my hand and said he wanted me to have it. I told him there was a jar up at the bar for cash donations and I started to lead him to it, but he stopped me and said no, he's already given to the LAF, he wanted me to have the money. Said I should use it to buy food or a hotel room during the ride. How amazing is that? I'd never met him before. His name is Justin, he's a local and he just read about what I was doing and thought it was a good thing, so he wanted to help out. I was floored by that. I wanted to cry.

And perhaps the most amazing thing is that that spirit was everywhere last night. Not everyone can afford to show it the way he did, but I know that a lot of people there were feeling exactly what he was feeling. This has already been an experience I'll never forget and I haven't even started riding yet.