Fanatic! I hope you had a great week. We have a great show lined up for you tonight!

While not completely on the topic of music, I was hoping you might indulge me, nonetheless. For the last couple of days I’ve been talking with members of the agency L.E.A.D., otherwise known As Law Enforcement Against Drugs & Violence.

They had a table next to the gym I go to and I’ve been having some very interesting conversations with them. Yesterday, I warned the young man at the table that I was in no way trying to frame him as being naïve, but more patiently optimistic and asked him if he thought a citizen-energized agency could make a difference. His answer was incredibly inspiring. He said he was the son of a preacher and simply believes in the goodness of people, and that no one wants to see children bullied, or in any way harmed or endangered by the prevalence of drugs and violence. He said he believes that by standing out amongst people and talking to anyone who would listen, that they might be inspired to contribute and hopefully do some good. I thought that was great.

I asked him, besides gun violence what was the danger to school age people. He said drugs, and specifically, fentanyl. He related something that was told to him recently: someone was brought to the emergency room, apparently overdosing. They gave this person four doses of Narcan, which I’ve never heard of, but then again, I’m not a doctor. Thankfully, the person was revived, but it was only after tests were done that they found out this person had taken a new, synthetic form of fentanyl that the Narcan was less potent to combat. Again I’m not a doctor, but this stuff sounds incredibly dangerous.

He told me about something that happened to him recently that blew my mind. He said he was in neighborhoods, looking for contributions and came upon a man standing on a corner. They got to talking and the subject of fentanyl came up, and the man grew nervous. He asked what he could do to help. The L.E.A.D. staffer told him that they were looking for $300 to meet their goal for the day. The man walked to a car and came back with the money in cash. It seemed a bit odd, so the staffer asked him why the contribution was in cash, and why it was in his car. The man said he was a fentanyl dealer. I commented to the staffer that it was in a way, blood money. He agreed and said the two of them had a conversation about how this bad money had been recycled. I asked if he called the man out on the danger he was creating by selling this stuff. He said yes, but ventured that he probably wouldn’t be stopping. He also said that a couple of days before, a woman came up to him and started crying. He asked her what was wrong and she said she’s been clean from fentanyl for quite a while and then had sadly relapsed earlier that day, and that she was high at that moment and heartbroken that she had fallen back. He told me they held hands and prayed for about 10 minutes while her boyfriend sat in their car and yelled at her to hurry up and get back in.

Something I try to do, as best I can, is when I’m out amongst people and meet someone, I pretend that something awful happened to them the day before and conduct myself accordingly. Maybe there’s been a death in the family, maybe they lost a job or something isn’t going well. The point I’m making is everyone has issues and all humans, no matter how they might portray themselves, are incredibly complex. Anyway, I went to the website and made a contribution, and I am glad I did.

So, music. I got my first listen to the new Guerilla Toss album that we’re featuring a track from tonight. It’s so good!

It looks like there’s finally a release date for the Kid Congo & Naim Amour album Tucson Safari. It seems to be October 11. Here’s a cool video for one of the tracks.

This is Kid’s site address for tour information. He’s always great live. Not to be missed!

BRNDA’s album Total Pain just came out.

We hope you’ll find tonight’s line-up to be excellent September listening fare. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next week, keep rocking the jam session and STAY FANATIC!!!

–– Henry