I went to the Turning Point, in Piermont, NY

Never Done: I went to the Turning Point, in Piermont, NY

Just ten miles north of the George Washington Bridge sits the hamlet of Piermont, NY. A one-street town, which you can picture as it used to be - without the coffee house, without the jewelry store, without the high-end dress shops. You can also picture what is going to become of it -- with the photo of Lance Armstrong in the coffee shop window (he stopped off there on a long ride) and the Amy's Organic products starting to fill the shelves of the D&D Market. At the same time, you can picture the ways it will always stay the same - the Hudson River and its shores, and the Victorian houses which are either too beautiful, or landmark protected (or both) to ever tear down.

And then there's the Turning Point -- a music club that has been there since the late 1970s, which feels like a combination of your dark basement with most of your old furniture in it, and a Wild West saloon. (The door is even staffed by a toothless old coot named George.) (I don't think I ever wrote the word "coot" before. Suddenly I'm worried it's a derogatory term instead of just a descriptor of a grizzled old man, or a water bird. I'm going to go look it up. Stand by .... OK, according to Urban Dictionary, yes: offensive. I'm leaving it in, for the sake of transparency of my learning process.) Back to the atmosphere and the old furniture: three women came in and sat near me. One of them didn't like the way her chair wobbled. She made a big show with her friends of going and getting a different chair, and putting her chair where the other one came from. About 20 minutes later, when the club had filled up, we heard a tumult. An elderly woman had fallen -- the wobbly chair's leg had broken. I spent some time thinking about responsibility here, and ethics. I do think it was, first and foremost, the responsibility of the club to have safe chairs. But I also think it was the responsibility of the first woman to tell the club owner that her chair was wobbly, instead of handing it off to someone else. I think it's very possible that I would have done what that first woman did -- and decided to learn from that experience. (So many learning experiences, just by going to and writing about a show.)

I was up there to see Dan Bern play. I've written about him before -- he is one of the best contemporary singer-songwriters I know. He's a brilliant lyricist and performer, with acute observational skills and political analysis, a love of sports, rooted in Jewish cultural and political identity, and on top of that has recently started writing children's songs. And somehow he manages to combine all of this into a club gig -- including the children's songs. There are just so many directions this blog post could go right now, but I think the place I'm going to take it is to show you the lyrics to one of the children's songs he played at the Turning Point, so you can see how he writes from a global, sweet, astute, and personal place all at once. To get a broader sense of his work, here's the place to go.

Farmer -- music and lyrics by Dan Bern

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting wheat
His little farm is down the street

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting millet
Your eyes are huge, just like a skillet

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting scallions
His people come from a long line of Italians

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting leaks
They're good each day of the week

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn and rutabagas
With seeds that come from Venezuela

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting shoes
If they don't grow, we've got nothing to lose

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting flowers
They grow a foot every hour

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting corn, he's planting wheat
His little farm is down the street

You are a ghost, you are a charmer
Look there is jones, he is a farmer
He's planting wheat, he's planting corn
I am so glad to you were born.