In the past 3 days I've had the most incredible experiences... some amazingly positive and a couple seemingly negative.... but all affirming this feeling.
I feel like the luckiest man alive.
I had a miracle of day on Saturday. Then on Sunday I shared a Yankee game with a few dozen friends of one of my friends who was celebrating her birthday. (And the Yankees won.) And also yesterday I had kind of a bizarre, incredibly dysfunctional and kinda twisted occurrence in, of all things, Facebook. (Of which I had absolutely no part. It feels so good to be able to say that.)
Can you imagine? Something high-schoolish and stupid happening on Facebook?
Oh, I hope you know that last sentence is dripping with sarcasm! (I'll have a little something to say about the Facebook thing a little further down the page.)
But to the good stuff! This past Saturday might have been one of the most perfect days I've ever had with a guitar on my shoulder by The Lake in Central Park. I mean it. Every song felt right. Every laugh was genuine and unexpected. Every smile was sincere. Teresa Reynolds sang with me. Dave Marcus was in town and he jumped in on harmony on may of my original songs and a bunch of covers.
There were soooooo many beautiful New Yorkers hanging with me all day, along with hundreds and hundreds of people from all across the country and all around the world. Over the course of the entire day, it might have been the second largest crowd I've ever played to out there. I mean, it never stopped. I started singing at 12:30 and I didn't stop until somewhere very near 7pm. And it was magic the entire day.
We only stopped to have hot dogs.
EVERYBODY!
Y'know what?
I'm just gonna post a whole bunch of photos which were sent in to the website by a really nice guy who's been shooting photos out there this summer... David Hayase.
I'm ready for all new experiences. I'm ready to write more new songs. I'm ready for new people in my life with new and shining faces and genuine smiles. But without getting into details and joining the crap, I can say that I'm just a bit weary of people with superficial agendas and unnecessary silliness. As I live and grow I find that there are less and less people like that in my Life. I know we're all just "human beings being human". And because of new communication technologies like texting, email, Facebook and Twitter there's also a lot of MIS-communication in this world... but there's also a lot of unnecessary meanness and manipulation associated with those new technologies. (They just give some people a way to do rotten things anonymously.)
But today, I'm ready to ride this beautiful feeling I've been given onto the next thing... whatever that is.
I'll be back tomorrow and all week with more photos and I might even give you guys a listen to the newest song. I'm still workin' on it, but it's tentatively called...
"YES"
(Can't get more positive than that word I'm thinkin'.)
Welcome to all you newcomers! WELCOME to you if this is your first time here at the website! I hope you bookmark it and check back every day. It's become a very fun, very under-the-radar little New York Secret. You can always keep up with the cool stuff that's goin' on around me and my music and all the amazing people in this circle of friends and fellow-artists.
You can always go back and browse through THE ARCHIVE as far back as you wanna go. I mean... thanks to my friend, my webmaster, and resident evil genius James Marino, you can historically go back through this website all the way back through the Bush years right up until the present. It's really kinda freaky how much content is here on this site.... cartoons, free songs, Photoshop images. Very cool.
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This year's PHOTO GALLERY will include lots of great images from out season inCentral Park.
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And here's the gallery from last Summer!
Click to visit last year's gallery
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NOW! About that "Broadway" thang!
Maybe it's time to reach a larger audience!!!! Maybe on Broadway!
In a nutshell, we're putting together something that we hope is headed for Broadway or... Jupiter... or... I don't know. But it's gonna be done someplace. Broadway legend, TONY WALTON, a man who has more Tony Awards and Academy Awards than I have socks, is behind it 100%... so now it's just about getting the right team together and working it. I'll be inviting all of you to another one of those small, unplugged work sessions very soon, so keep checking back. The last 2 filled up in a matter of hours.
Here's a little 10-minute video from Tony and his wife... explaining the project.
Here's another beautiful moment on a hot, hot summer afternoon in Central Park when a girl named Frankie asked me if she could sing a great George Harrison song for the crowd. One of the things that really touched was the way a few hundred people sounded... so gently singing "do-do-do-doo" to help out in the sweetest way.
Click to watch
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Here are a couple of different fun galleries to check out.
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HAVE FUN TODAY!!!!!!(And be cool to each other, okay?)
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Thanks for everything.
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Peace ☮
All outdoor events are weather permitting! Stop by the website before you go if it is questionable.
David Ippolito - Paying Attention
Sat, Mar 3 at 7:30 pm
Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space
2537 Broadway at 95th Street
New York, NY 10025-6990
David is available for private parties and events. Please call (646) 504-7275 for fees and availability.
As you may know I am producing a documentary about "That Guitar Man from Central Park". I would like to ask all David's fans out there to write me and tell me any stories you may have about David and his playing in Central Park and how it has affected you or what it has meant to you. I've already heard some great stories, but I know there are more that I haven't heard. So if you got a story to tell about David and his music, please briefly write it out and send it to stories@thatguitarman.com . I will be contacting people from the stories submitted to interview them for possible inclusion in the film. Thank you and I look forward to seeing everyone on the hill this summer. - Dean