Latest / Wanzology / Why Wouldn't You?
Transcript
- Why Wouldn’t You? Sha-ba, sha-ba, sha-ba-ba, ba, ba, ba-ba-ba-ba-ba, ba, ba!!! Hey, what's going on? Welcome to another episode of WANZOLOGY. I am your host, The Wanz, coming at you from the upper left-hand corner of the country. I hope that your summer has been one to remember. I hope that you have done the best that you can to treat yourself to all the pleasures you've earned. That being said, it's just past Labor Day. Going into the Labor Day weekend, I was asked if I could lend myself (two-words) to a benefit effort to raise money for victims of wildfires on the eastern side of the state, just outside the city of Spokane. Now, I wasn't expecting it to be anything earth-shattering. I didn't expect it to be anything other than an opportunity to be of service to my fellow man. And a friend of mine hit me up and said, "So-and-so is looking for you. Do you mind if I give him your digits?" And I said, "Yeah, go ahead." So I talked to a cat named GMS. He was excited!! He says, "Yeah, come on over. We'll, uh, we'll figure out a way to put you on. We have a host, but you can co-host." And I said, "Sure, why not? It's a holiday weekend. Why not?" So the drive over there is about four and a half, almost five hours, and came rolling into town and found where I was gonna stay, and then went out to the Spokane Tribal Casino where the event was gonna be held. Very, very nice place, by the way. If you can, get out to the Spokane Tribal Casino and see some music out there. The production's great. The room is great. The people there are great. It was off top. Very, very well done. I wasn't exactly sure who I was looking for. I think I've met GMS once before, but I couldn't remember what he looked like, and pictures are never, ever, ever accurate. But when I found him and we talked for a little bit, I was watching other groups soundcheck, trying to figure out where I was gonna fit in the lineup, could I perform, and how many songs I was gonna perform. One of the acts is a friend of mine from up here, and he asked me, "Well, why are you here?" I said, "Well, my mom always used to ask me, 'If you could do something nice for someone, why wouldn't you?'" If you could do something nice for someone, why wouldn't you? I've never had an answer to that question. So part of my upbringing has always been to be of service to other people. That's because of being raised in the church. My mom devoted so much time and energy into the church that she loved so much. The whole doing stuff for other people, that's kind of a no-brainer for me. The Friday night was gonna be interesting. A bunch of hip hop acts, mostly from the ‘Inland Empire’ as it's known to some of us there on the eastern side of the state. I'd never heard some of these cats before, and when I was watching them, I was thinking everybody gets a chance to show off what they can do. The thing that really bothered me was the attendance was really light. There could've been a lot more people there, and for whatever reason, I mean, I'm not here to do a postmortem on attendance or anything, I just felt disappointed because the purpose was to raise money for victims of these wildfires. It's devastating when you look at the countryside. From the air you can see just where all these houses were, and they're just like a line of ashtrays on both sides of the street. It's really, really depressing. So I got to do a couple of songs, and it was really fun. The energy was really good. So the next day it was supposed to be the big day. A lot of people were gonna show up, and there was gonna be outside vendors and all this other stuff. When I got there, the vendors had done what they were gonna do. There was EDM playing out on the patio, which was really good sized, and inside there were rock bands playing and that was really cool. Two things going on at once, two different styles of music to cover as many bases as possible. I really wish about 100 more people would've shown up to make it seem like it was more of an important event. But, I think because there were three other major citywide events because it was a holiday, you can only divide a pie into so many slices, right? But I got past that. I got introduced to a family of four. Joey and Ashley and their two kids had lost everything. Everything!! We were hanging out, and as we hung out, I noticed the interaction between the family was amazing, it was amazing. Two teenage kids, young teenagers, a girl and a boy. The boy was tall and hasn't quite filled out yet, but you can tell he's gonna be a hell of a guy, he's gonna be a big boy!! Joey, the father, and I got into talking to a lot of goofy little subjects that had to do with family. At one point, he stopped me and he goes, "You know, I really appreciate you being here." And I told him, "Well, my mom always used to ask me, 'If you could do something nice for someone, why wouldn't you?'" And he smiled, and I smiled, and I said, "Yeah, I still haven't been able to answer that question either." The music outside was kind of fun and dancey and high energy, and Ashley started dancing with their daughter. And so it's me, the son, and the father standing there just kinda taking it all in, and I looked at Joey, the father, and I said, "Why aren't you filming this?" And he looked at me and got a big grin on his face and started getting out his camera, because it was the coolest thing to see the mother-daughter dancing two different ways to the same music, both with smiles on their face, both enjoying that moment with each other. That went on for about three or four more minutes, and then I looked at the son and I said, "Why aren't you filming this? Look at this., this is blackmail material for your sister." And he started laughing. I just stepped back and watched the interaction of those four people together, thinking to myself, "They don't have anything except the clothes on their back, some kind of assistance from friends and the city," and I was lucky enough to be there to try to generate some more contributions to help them and others like them. It was amazing. Later, I got to actually interview them on stage, and being that I'm from the opposite side of the state, I really don't have a basis of context to understand what they went through and are going through. So I was asking Joey, "What did it feel like when you got the ‘go’ order and you had to leave?" He said, "The worst of it was trying to decide how much we could take and what to take, because we didn't have very long. Grabbed everything that we could, got in the car, and we started driving, and it was like driving through a chimney fire. It was fire everywhere!! Houses were on fire. The kids were scared. Wife was scared." They made it out, though. I said, "So how's it been?" Now, at the time of this recording, those fires pretty much devastated the city of Spokane right around the middle of July going into August, before fire services got them under control. But still, it's been a while since they've had anything. I think they've been able to go back to see what was left, if anything at all. But on stage, I asked Joey, "What's been the biggest challenge?" 'Cause I can only imagine what it's like keeping the spirits of your wife and kids on a level that is just above devastating depression because fate has taken everything that you had. He looked at me and he said, "Well, we've been relishing the time that we have together because we're all safe, and because we're all safe, we can begin again." And to look at his kids smiling, and the wife is smiling, and I started smiling, and I said, "Man, that's incredible, that's incredible!!" And I got the host over and I said, "Is there anything we can do for these folks?" GMS got on the mic and he says, "Yeah," and gave them a little bit of money. It wasn't much, but it was something. And at that moment, I felt, I felt big. I felt... It's probably like the Grinch on Christmas Day when he saved all the presents. Love that cartoon. Not real happy about the live action one, but I grew up with the Grinch cartoon. I think my heart grew three sizes too big!! I didn't cry, but I wanted to And after it was over, I went back to my hotel room, chilled out, and thought about what had happened. Just because I once was a famous ‘hook singer’ on somebody else's song, that's Thrift Shop for you folks who don't know, it's been a while. It's been a while since that song mattered. It still matters to a lot of people, and every time it plays, the smiles and the laughter makes me feel extremely blessed that I would be able to inspire that in someone. I said a small prayer before I went to bed, a prayer of gratitude that God gave me the gift that He gave me, and that my mom asked me a very interesting question, which I still don't have an answer to. I would like you to consider what would you do if you had the opportunity to help somebody, a complete and total stranger? Ask yourself, if you could do something nice for someone, why wouldn't you? I don't know about you, but I still can't think of an answer to that question. We have the ability to hold each other up, to accompany each other through all the things that us humans go through. And as a firm believer in the buddy system, I suggest you get a partner, at least somebody that you can bounce ideas off of, because like me, you're probably not the smartest tool in the shed. Getting another perspective, as I did this past weekend, you might learn something about yourself that you didn't know before. What did I learn? I learned that I was really, really lucky. I was lucky to be where I had been for the time that I was there, doing something for someone else that before I had never met, and hopefully I'll see again, so I can say that I'm still out here, and if you need anything, let me know. I may not be able to give it to you, but I probably know people who could. So go find something simple, some little teeny nice thing to do for someone, and just do it simply because you can. Take a long look at their face and remind yourself what it feels like to give somebody something they can use, an experience. If you could do something nice for someone, why wouldn't you? Hopefully you got something out of all that. It was a great experience for me, and I really appreciate the opportunity to share it with you. Now, I am gonna take off, I'm on the hunt to do something nice for somebody else today. Just be you. Everybody else is taken. I'm out of here. Peace.