This is a snapshot of my experience at the Chimp Haven performing for the chimpanzees. Notice the intense stares. Luckily, I am an experienced musician and I am quite accustomed to awkward stares from the audience!

We Are the Chimp-ions!

Keithville, La – Every Saturday night at Superior’s Steakhouse I play the piano for a bunch of drunk apes. Last Thursday I had the rare and wonderful opportunity to entertain a bunch of sober apes. I found on craigslist a posting from the Chimp Haven, an animal sanctuary just outside of Shreveport that is home to 131 chimapanzees that were saved from medical testing labs or the rigors of being a performing showbiz animal.

The posting sought musicians as part of the chimp’s enrichment program. Many of the chimps were raised in captivity and so now, as they adjust to a much better life in their natural enclosures, their handlers seek new and exciting ways to stimulate the chimp’s brain and bring a litte excitement into their daily routine.

Enter Winston and his guitar.

Donna and I spent the whole afternoon Thursday walking from enclosure to enclosure at the Chimp Haven performing for these hilarious, curious, and wonderful creatures. If you’ve never been around chimpanzees, the first thing you notice is their eyes, searching and examining you, trying to figure you out. They are amazingly human in nature – smiling, scratching their bellies with their hands and yes, passing gas. And yet they are animals. One teenage chimp did not like me being near his territory and began stomping and screaming and banging on things, and in a final act of defiance, threw poo at the maintenance man.

I’ve played a lot of music for a lot of people in a lot of places. At piano bars, I’ve seen the slight recognition of a song from someone’s glory days followed by a smile and maybe a five in the tip jar. But the most profound moments have been when I played at nursing homes. I once had an old woman with very distant eyes sing along to “The Old Rugged Cross.” The nurse told me the woman hadn’t spoken a word in almost three years. But something – something about the familiar melody spoke to a very deep place in her soul. And she sang along. I know chimps don’t know melodies, but they too reacted like they never had before. One very timid chimp came out of hiding with a blanket over her head and began swaying back and forth much to the delight of everyone that worked at the Haven.

The whole day was full of moments like that. One chimp named Scott sat completely mesmerized and stared at me for twenty minutes while I played. He was arguably the most attentive audience member I’ve ever had. I also got to sing for baby Tracy, an accidental baby who showed up at the Chimp Haven. The Haven is exactly like Jurassic Park in that the breeding is completely controlled. However, in the famous words of Ian Malcolm, “Life…finds a way.” And little baby Tracy was born two years ago. It just so happened the day I was there was her birthday. So of course we sang “Happy Birthday.”

As best I could tell, the chimps’ favorite songs were “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Jailhouse Rock,” and “In the Jungle.” I actually did get applause once, but I think it may have just been a coinidence, and that one of the chimps just happened to be clapping at the exact moment I finished a song.

All in all, it was an awesome afternoon. The purpose of the Chimp Haven is noble, and their challenges, like all institutions of their kind, are profound. I encourage you to visit their website http://www.chimphaven.org/. They are currently still seeking any kind of enrichment ideas you can come up with, and creativity is encouraged. Also, on the chimp haven facebook page is a video of me singing “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.” If you’re a facebooker, you should definitely check it out. Chimp Haven is non-profit so donations of time, money, and services are what make their world go round.

So for now, I will continue to play for the drunk apes at the Steakhouse, but I will be returning to the Haven soon for some far more enriching entertainment.

That’s the story of my life…

Reflections on the Old Year

Shreveport - My apologies for the gap in writing. I wanted to take a moment because it seemed appropriate here in the new year to reflect on things. I don’t know if anyone actually reads my blog anymore but sometimes it feels good to articulate things and get them down on paper (sort of.)

I find as each year approaches, arrives, and then leaves, I’m forced to evaluate the things I did or did not accomplish. And this past year, for all its problems, was easily a success. That being if you define success like I do—as living the life you’ve imagined, loving those who you hold dear, and breathing and being free on the earth to chase dreams and live adventures.

I spent the first four months of the year as a cast driver on the Jack Black movie titled “Year One.” That little adventure had me neck deep in everything Hollywood which I never thought in a million years I would experience to that extent. I ended up becoming pretty good friends with the comedian David Cross and we still keep in touch from time to time. I even ended up traveling with that production to the remote deserts of New Mexico where I spent a month shuttling people around in the desert and driving to remote locations. I remember one day at White Sands I watched the crew film a scene involving chariots and horses and camels and explosions and fighting. The weather was nice and the sun was bright. It was a good day and I was, without regard, living and living to the greatest extent I knew how. I remember reading a poem once about casting away from the safe harbor and that was a time when I really felt like I was doing it. There is a great freedom in letting go and letting the wind of life fill your sails. I highly recommend it.

I worked on one more film after that, the Oliver Stone film “W.” where I had the pleasure of seeing Oliver Stone hit on my sister and girlfriend at the same time. On that job I drove a round trip to Dallas three days a week for five weeks. Needless to say, I know the road to Dallas quite well.

After that, the film industry slowed and I resorted to my old tricks to make money—being a piano man and freelance writing out of my own house. The writing gig is a little stressful. The faster you write the faster the money comes and that lends itself to unfettered insanity. I have tried to maintain an heir of normalcy and routine to my days. I wake up at eight, write till noon, and if a deadline is approaching I write sometimes at night. I have to force myself to dress and take a shower in the mornings, other wise I become a frazzled expatriate of my own mind, and lose all track of time and space, the only judge of time being light and dark.

The piano gig is what it is. Three months ago I had a drunk woman in a fur coat leave me a $600 tip. Last night, I played for five hours and got $1 in tips, from a friend who works at the steakhouse. Later I conned a lady into giving me $10 when I told her about the $1 tip. I guess you learn to hustle one way or the other.

Last summer my girlfriend Donna and I took a trip to Vegas which I blogged about. We had a great time and again I sensed I was living life to its fullest. We went to some shows and even saw Area 51 (Kind of. We got close.) We even kayaked below the Hoover Dam and I did some spirited and slightly crazy cliff jumping.

After the trip, some mean spirited “Christian” left a very upsetting comment on my blog about how I supposedly wasn’t a Christian any more…because of a trip to Vegas? That really bothered me for a while and I hope whoever wrote that understands how awful, mean spirited and erroneous a statement it was. Whoever wrote is apparently heartless enough to throw stones and, by my book, is not even close to being a Christian. I hope whoever left those comments still reads my blog so they will know how I think people like them are exactly what’s wrong with Christianity today. I have always believed and still do, that the message of Christ is one that starts in your own heart and spirit and works it way outward into the world as a witness to others. I know this. I learned that at Wind River Ranch. No matter how much you hang around Christians and act “Christian,” if your heart is hardened like the unhappy person that left those comments, no amount of pretending you’re a Christian will actually make you one. Duh.

Last month a young man here in Shreveport named Mike Schwalke fell over dead in his apartment around the age of thirty. I worked with Mike last year and any time something like that happens you can’t help but wonder if you left today, how would the world remember you? In that regard, I’m proud of how busy I was in 2008 recording my ideas and aspirations. I finished a feature-length screenplay called Piano Man and have hustled it around a few Hollywood circles hoping to get a bite. I also recorded a CD finally with help from my girlfriend Donna Chance and got it on iTunes. (www.winstonhallmusic.com) and just this morning I finished my first complete draft of a novel I’ve been working on for three years now called A Place of Shade and Stream. I have some friends in literary circles up in New York City so I will probably shop it around there soon as well.

These are my ideas and they are all I have in this world, therefore I honor them by writing them down and finishing them. If you have ideas like this, I encourage you to do the same. They may never be published, but I take heart in knowing they are finished, which bodes well with my soul.

If we leave this earth earlier than expected, more often than not it is our ideas that remain, and I am proud and fulfilled that I have written down and completed some of my grandest ideas for others to perhaps someday read.

As for 2009, my year began with a drunk woman dancing on the piano right before her dress top fell off and her friends had to rescue her. But I was there with Donna and I played Auld Lang Syne and got a New Year’s kiss at the stroke of midnight, which was nice because I’ve never had a New Year's kiss before. My hope is that the upcoming year, good, bad, or indifferent is a bold new year of new horizons, opportunities and adventures for you and me as well. I hope it is a year of infinite possibility, but perhaps, more importantly, infinite happiness.

That’s the story of my life…