The Gigging Life: Deviled Eggs!

“Matt, I wanted to tell you something,” said a man with long hair tied back in a ponytail. He was holding a paper plate of deviled eggs.

I had just finished my early December presentation of The Old Crow Book Club to a cadre of Leftists in a Presbyterian church in Northeast Portland. I had given away the book for free and announced it as an early Christmas present.

It was my first gig in almost a decade after a thousand such literary/historical presentations around Oregon the previous two decades. A reader of the newsletter had reached out and asked me if I was interested in talking to his group of senior citizen Democrats. I had considered myself retired from gigging, but I changed my mind because the story of Oregon's crisis of homelessness mattered greatly to me and I wanted to engage others with my thoughts and ideas on the subject. I'm no certified expert or uncritical advocate but I do have an interesting personal history connected to the homeless men and women in my neighborhood and other places around rural Oregon and I believe that gives me some credibility to opine. I also belong to no one's agenda and never tow the party line on the issue of homelessness.

I had eaten two of the deviled eggs before the show, a first for me in the gigging life, and they were out of this world although they did leave me a bit sluggish, but in a pleasurable sort of way. Good deviled eggs can do that to a person.

In fact, the deviled eggs were so delicious and unexpected that I hailed them during the presentation and the very man now standing in front of me was the man who made them. A Leftist who makes deviled eggs to share with his comrades!

“When I read that the subject of the talk was homelessness,” the man said, “I wasn't going to come. I am so glad I did. Thanks for coming and giving me something to think about.”

I thanked him for coming and making the deviled eggs.

In making the man think, I had made myself rethink certain contours of the homeless issue. I had also refired my engine to gig and push the story of the book club to reach more people. I have come to believe in the 18 months since it was published that it still has appeal, perhaps even more so now.

He then extended the tray of deviled eggs toward me. He told me to take them! Deviled eggs as payment for a gig! What a spectacular barter!

Of course I accepted. Unfortunately, the plate looked a little unwieldy to convey deviled eggs via vehicular transportation so I found a plastic bag, rigged them up and left the church in near state of giddiness.