When I play a gig, I’m trying to entertain. I’m trying to help people forget about their worries. I have to go into any gig with the best possible mindset of my own. If there’s ever any bad news, please wait to break it to me after the gig. I don’t want any negativity on my end to come across on the gig. When the pandemic hit, at first I was determined to keep up the pace of my ordinary gig schedule. If I was supposed to be out somewhere playing a gig and the place was closed, I wanted to be broadcasting live from home at that moment instead. For me, the bright spot was the emergence of my wife, Jessica, as a public performer. However, our original pace quickly became impractical for various reasons, mostly having to do with a desire to avoid repetition by learning new music to play at each show.

During Live From Home #8 on Sunday, April 5, I was mid-sentence and had to collect myself. “Y’all don’t know how much,” I said, pausing to hold back the tears, “I miss” — by this second pause, my voice is breaking — “being with you all, playing music with you all in person.” I calmed myself down by talking about methods for musicians to play together virtually, followed by more music. I remember telling myself to take it easy, keep it light.

The conventional wisdom for entertainers is that we should keep our opinions to ourselves. If I speak my mind on any political issue, I’m likely to alienate half of my audience, so it’s in my best interests to shut up, to smile, and to play my stupid little song. Ever since the police killing of George Floyd on Memorial Day, and the milestone of 100,000 American deaths from coronavirus reached that same day, it has been a challenge for me to remain silent and to keep the live music going.

My will to go on in this manner has evaporated. I have deep-rooted fears for my country and for my fellow citizens that I need to express. Today, I’m breaking my silence. We have a racist president who was not cut out for the task of governing, and his political party is more suited to winning elections and protecting the president than it is to governing. Attempts to suppress American voices undermine our democracy, but this is nothing new. We’ve had centuries of racial injustice, whether we admit it or not. It’s unfair that because of the color of my skin, I don’t have to worry every time I go out that it might be my last, that my life might end at any given moment in a confrontation with the police. Meanwhile, the inept handling of the pandemic at the federal level takes an inordinate toll on communities of color. The tenuous promise of a right to vote is little solace for people who fear they might not still be alive in November to cast their votes.

Lying and saying racism is over doesn’t make it true, just as lying and saying coronavirus is going away doesn’t make it true. We’re at 118,000 coronavirus-related deaths and counting. The number is likely even higher because government officials are going out of their way to ensure the full count is concealed. Smiling and saying nothing doesn’t make me happy. I feel guilty playing music and ignoring these issues. How can I make other people happy when I’m not?

There’s actually one live in-person gig on my calendar that at the moment seems likely to occur. The gig is on July 10, so I now have three weeks to get over my own apprehensions and be an entertainer once again. It would be wrong of me not to address the fact that I’ll be taking the stage with a band that for longer than 35 years has called itself The Flamin’ Caucasians. The name came about in recognition of the fact that they were a group of four white guys who were trying to sound like James Brown, Little Richard, Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, and The Temptations. In my eight years performing with the band, we’ve moved on to trying to sound like Cee Lo and Pharrell Williams. The band name hasn’t changed, nor has the band’s appreciation for black music. One thing that has changed is the band’s Facebook profile picture. It’s currently an image with the text: "black children matter. black lives matter. black futures matter.” I concur with that, and the rest of the opinions expressed herein are my own.