Chris Chandler needs your help

Hi Chris Chandler here.

I need your help. You may have noticed over the past couple of months I have had to hit pause on my newsletter, social media, my “poem of the week,” and my “mighty monthly Muse.“

There have been a lot of casualties in this pandemic including my living situation. I do not want my show to be one of those casualties. As the pandemic started, I was doing great and I made every broadcast be a benefit for someone else.

I had high hopes for the post pandemic life. I was planning on releasing a new album and a tour of the East Coast with Paul Benoit to support it! But that was after vaccination and before Delta.

I would just be finishing that tour up today!

The pandemic resurgence left me canceling the tour, postponing the album, and most dramatically, the end of my relationship in New Jersey. All of my possessions including the tools of my trade or in a storage bin that I do not have access to and cannot afford.

I did perform at the Kerrville Folk Festival, the first and only live show I have done since the pandemic started. The Kerrville Folk Festival is a place that I have called home for over half my life. That is why I find myself still here and Austin. This is where I shall remain at least for the time being.

The good news is: I am sober and have been for 60 days now. The longest I have ever gone in my life. Thank you for the encouragement! I intend to stay this way!

For me, 2021 has been very bad. In the first half of the year we lost six different family or extended family members including two mentors. Jim Alberni Hobbs, and of course Anne Feeney. Suddenly overnight there was another casualty: my relationship.

Because of that I find myself single, homeless, living in a van, unemployed, and penniless in the middle of a pandemic.

But my friends, I refuse to be defeated! THANK GOD FOR FRIENDS. I have landed a little work as a Stagehand here in Austin. I am staying with a friend of a friend. I’m going to move ahead with a new album “Meek rising!“ Paul Benoit and I are going to tour again.

I know the pandemic has been and continues to be hard on everyone. But I hope you can help me get back on my feet again. Start doing the weekly and monthly broadcasts again! Get the tools of my trade out of storage! So I can get this album out and once we get the “all clear“ sign we can hit the road and wax the manifesto eclectic.