It's been over a year since I last posted something here. I got a lot of feedback on the stuff I wrote, for which I was very appreciative. And I think I got more feedback about stopping than I did about writing. Apparently people were actually reading this stuff. I started out just doing it for the hell of it, and I think the more I realized people were actually checking it out, the more pressure I felt to write something worth reading. And it became clear there is an inverse relationship between perceived pressure and my ability to write. A lot of people have told me I should write professionally, like music critiques, or whatever. I'm afraid there's no way - can't do it with a gun (deadlines) to my head.

Since I last wrote, much has happened to me. I continued the project assignment in DC through July of last summer. I was working long hours but was able to do a LOT of bike riding, albeit in the stifling Washington heat.

I missed the Rochester Jazz Festival, for all intents and purposes, for the first time ever. That was a major downer. But right after I finished that project, I went on what was probably the best vacation of my life. My whole family rented a ginormous house on the beach in the Outer Banks. The weather cooperated, the ocean cooperated and all 20 or so of us cooperated. There aren't too many families that could put 20 people of three generations (technically four since my daughter was pregnant at the time), into one house for a week and not have at least a little discord. But we can. Maybe because we had practice over several years in beach homes in Virginia Beach in the 80s when my Mom was still alive. But mostly because I have a most awesome family, and how can you not get along in such a great setting?

The kids are old enough to fend for themselves, and even go out by themselves, so that takes pressure off. I pretty much buried my toes in the sand, read books and listened to CDs for most of it. Everyone found their own groove and ran with it. It was perfect. As Elmer Fudd said, "west and wewaxation at wong wast."

In November I became a grandfather. If that in itself was not incredible enough, I was actually able to be present in the room when Cameron Robert Borja came into our lives. I was present for both of my kid's births, but because I'm older and was just a spectator this time, it was an entirely different experience, and maybe even more amazing this time around, in some ways. I guess I had a more....existential take on it all, and the miraculous nature of the event hit home more directly than it did when I was in my 20s. It was life-changing, again.

I could write a book about the baby, and how relating to him since his birth has affected me. Another post for another time.

Fast-forward to March, when I was laid off from my job of 28 years. Life changing, indeed. I'm still in mid-change, not having garnered a replacement job. Working on that. I have had several interviews and informal meetings with people and firms I know in the business. Several have promise, but as of now it's just talk. Until someone sends me a letter of employment, that's all it is. In the meantime, I am working on keeping the stress under control. The mortgage never sleeps.

One advantage of unemployment was that I got to delve deeply into the jazz fest this year. I made up for last year, to be sure. Many late nights, but who cares? I could sleep late. That's how it's done. The local music critic Jeff Spevak was putting "Jazz Haikus" in his daily review articles. I did one of my own:

Nine nights of music
Sleep is much overrated
And the beat goes on

So, an eventful 12 or 13 months, more good than bad. Ac-cent-uate the positive, e-lim-nate the negative. Easier said than done, I'm afraid. but now that Summer is here, it helps.

One Time One Night In America

Friday night. Warm. Tyson's Corner, Virginia. I drive. Dolly Madison Parkway to George Washington Parkway. Francis Scott Key Bridge. Potomac. Georgetown. M Street. Friday night action. High-end shops. Money. Bars. Short skirts. Cell phones (thousands, all in use, constantly). Park the car. Walk. Noisy pub. Cold stout. Yum. Celtics-Pistons on the flat screen. Conference finals. Close game. Watching over the top of the draft handles. Empty glass. Every sip marked with a ring. Leave. Car. Drive. Friday night streets. People, people, people. Yuppies abound. Loosened ties. Tree-lined. Brownstones. Wrought iron.

DuPont Circle. Head north. Adams Morgan. Shaw. U Street. People, people, people. A more mixed crowd. Very funky. Dirtier streets. Bodegas. Bars (lots). No parking spaces. Drive the streets. Dark. Park. Walk. Live music - jazz, hip hop. Sound spills. Bistro. Walk in. Sit. Cold IPA. Yum. Celtics on the flat screen. Still close game. KG has been asleep, it seems. Only two points. Order sandwich. Noise. Young crowd. Finish. Move to barstool. Celtics trailing by 8. Fourth quarter. Detroit crowd raucus. Looks like there will be game 7. Wait. KG wakes up. Celtics run. Close gap. I can't watch. I Walk.

Two blocks. Bohemian Cavern. Pay the bouncer on the street. Down one flight. It's a cave. Really. I sat here:

History here. Duke. Cab. Aretha. Ella. Louie. Coltrane. Dolphy. Byrd. Miles. The list goes on.

Small crowd. Young (I'm always the oldest guy in the place). Mostly African-American. Table, drink. Wait. The band shows. Trio. Drums. Bass. Tenor Sax. Bop. Solos. Originals. Wails. Jazz. Coolness. 'round midnight. Brown walls. Brown floor. Brown tables. Brown instruments. Brown musicians. Brown patrons. The unused baby grand is black. The music is black. I almost miss the cigarette smoke. Almost.













[sidebar: Celtics win! The first Lakers-Celtics Finals in over two decades. All is right with the world]

Monumental

I spent three days in our nation's capitol this week. I was in a hotel near our office on the northwestern side of town. Thursday night was a warm one, so I headed into the City to do a little walking around. I scooted along Potomac on the George Washington Parkway then over the Arlington Bridge and found a parking spot near the Potomac Park ballfields. Softball seemed to be the order of business that night - most fields were full of shouting and cheering people.

I walked toward the Washington Monument, 555 ft. of straight-up granite, sandstone and marble. It so dominates the scene that you are naturally drawn to it. This is big scale stuff, and very bright in color if the sun is out, which it still was, although already dropping toward horizon.

But I first came upon the new WW II Memorial, so I diverted in to see that. Again, a big-scale monument, all done in bright-colored granite, so that low sun was giving it a little more pinkish cast than the Washington. A big oval pool and fountain, a large stone block open tower on either side representing Atlantic and Pacific, and a series of squarish granite columns, one for each state, ringing the whole thing. Lots and lots of bronze wreaths and plaques and relief panels depicting war-related scenes, both on the battlefield and on the home front. And several quotes from famous war-related people, like an excerpt from the FDR' "...date which will live in infamy" speech chiseled into the rock.

From there I was drawn back further away from the Washington, along the reflecting pool toward the west to to the Lincoln Memorial. The area was not crowded at all, being a weekday and with night approaching. Before going up the steps to see Ol' Abe, I walked around the backside of the memorial, and it helps to drive home just how big this thing is.

White Georgia marble. The columns that ring it are maybe 50 ft. high. The sun was even lower now and the rock was getting even more colorful. When I raised the camera to take a shot, the kid in the yellow shirt spotted me and decided my picture needed some hip hop bravado.

I circled around front and up the steps, which are huge. Abe is huge, the walls are huge, the Gettysburg Address is huge. It's all so grand. The steps are a great place to sit and people watch. The people were animated, energetic. Lots of school groups. A small flock of geese flew into the reflecting pond and stirred up the refection of The George. Grand.

Still not quite dark, so I stroll some more, to the north, past just a handful of large trees and I am at the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial. I had been there once before, when we took the kids and spent a few days doing what Americans do in D.C. We saw all of these monuments and more on that trip. I still remember being most affected by this one, and it was no different this time. At this point it was dusk, no more sunbeams or glow, which contrasted what I was just seeing moments ago.

The design of this structure is such a drastic departure from the typical Capitol motif. Small, finite, dark and stark. Cut into a small grassy mound, not perched on a hill or surrounded by gardens. No columns, fountains, steps or statutes. Just a long, low bent wall of black Indian granite slabs, maybe 10 ft. high at their highest. And 58,159 etched names. It really hits you. People file along slowly, saying little. Not a lot of smiling, definitely some tears. Lots of flowers and mementos left at the base. The granite is polished so you can see your reflection but you are just a dark silhouette with hundreds of names superimposed. I did not lose any family members or even close friends in that war, in fact I really didn't even know anyone who was killed. But it immediately brought me back to that time. I remember being petrified when I found out there was going to be a draft lottery and my name was going into the hat. Lottery numbers were drawn that year (1973) for draftees to be taken the following year, but I got a high number and the actual drafting stopped that same year anyway so it was a moot point.

It was now dark on the ground and the sky was right behind, so I headed back to the car. The ball fields were empty. For a short distance I was walking near near three guys, 30-somethings in ball uniforms walking along the sidewalk, in after-game mode and carrying a big cooler. Their conversation sounded lawyer-like. I started envisioning them as West Wingers. Maybe I watch too much TV.

The Week That Was

Nancy Griffith married, then unmarried him. Townes Van Zandt "borrowed" horses at night from a neighboring ranch with him. Donald Turnupseed ended up in one of his songs. Jeff Spevak wrote an article about him. Scott Regan blogged him. Most importantly, Rick and Monica Simpson brought him here from Texas for a House Concert last Sunday night.

Eric Taylor showed up and kept his part of the bargain, as did Rick and Monica. They provided a living room full of listeners, he provided two solid sets of entertaining acoustic, bluesy folk songs. Eric plumbs the depths of human relationships, especially the disfunctional ones, with a poet's touch. He's not shy with his lyrics. After finishing the first song, which contained 'strong sexual content' as it were, he remarked, "Well, they're not Sunday school songs." There's nothing like the intimacy of a living room to listen to someone like this. Kudos to RicMon31 Productions for pulling this off.

[photo by Mike Hanlon - http://www.hanlonphotographic.com/]

Tuesday John called to say he had a couple of free tix to Sonny Landreth and the Campbell Brothers at Water Street. I had never seen either act so it was like scratching an itch. The Campbell Brothers really rocked it - they got everybody sweaty right off the bat. They don't screw around, they get right to it. Chuck campbell's pedal steel absolutely flies, and Phil Campbell's guitar rocks pretty damn good for a guy who was originally a drummer and is supposedly a better bass player than he is a guitar player. There were no skinny people on stage save for the lanky white bass player. The drummer was strong - you gotta be to fuel that train. Sonny Landreth played with them for their last tune and blew the the band away as much as the crowd. Phil Campbell kept looking in amazement at Sonny's hands.

Sonny came back out in power trio form and proceeded to shred conventional notions of how guitars are supposed to played. He picks and plucks and whaps and slides and slashes like a madman, but always in perfect technical control. Never takes the bottleneck off of his left pinky. Extemely LOUD. Scott Regan and Sue Rogers had extra space at their table in the front row for Sonny's set so I was just a few feet from him and mostly heard the music from the stack behind him rather than the PA. He seems to better understand, and coax more from the harmonics of vibrating steel strings than anyone I've ever heard. But as John and I agreed afterward, its not just self-serving technical tricks for tricks' sake - he's got southern white-boy soul.

Friday night it was back into the woods in Huntington Hills for another House Concert. Paul and Peggi had coerced Pete LaBonne into giving up an hour of his brief visit with Shelly to Rochester to do a solo set in their own living room for about 20 people. Pete is a musical treasure who operates mostly in obscurity. He plays guitar and fronts the Milltown Bastards who can be occasionally spotted around Saratoga Springs. He also plays piano with the ethereal groove unit that is Margaret Explosion (a name he coined) when the timing works out. He plays bass. Accordion. Probably spoons. But most of all, he's a writer and lyricist like you've never heard. I defy you to show me someone who has even a slightly similar approach to writing songs. And he's not lazy - he's got a large body of work. I can't do his work or style justice with a few sentences here. Spend some time at the link above and get to know the "metabolic unit in a sporty driftwood hat."

[photo by Paul Dodd]

Three shows in six nights, each one a gem in its own way. It was a great week.

I Wish I Was Always That Calm

I left D.C. mid-afternoon Friday, driving my rental car. I'd been there all week working on a project. It had been a week of long hours, and I was ready to get on home. It took me about 7-1/2 hours to drive down there last Sunday night but I knew this would be a longer drive, because I was leaving D.C. on a Friday afternoon. I think it took me two hours just to get past Baltimore and up to the Pennsylvania line, crawling most of the way. It was warm, about 70 degrees, and the trees down there are starting to leaf out. As soon as I got into PA, it started raining.

On and on across the high plateaus of the Keystone State in the rain. As darkness came on I was finally feeling the tug of home stronger than the push of D.C., barrelling past Homer, New York on I-81. It was after 10 PM, and I was bleary eyed, but the rain was stopping. I had some old-timey music turned up loud to stave off the boredom. At one point I was fidgeting with the CD player, not fully attentive to the road, and I looked up just as a I blew by a car parked on the shoulder. I only just caught the most brief of glimpses of this image due to my speed, inattentiveness, and fatigued condition. What my weary brain told me I saw, although I wasn't sure, was a girl in a long dress or coat, standing behind a vehicle, holding a sign with a flashlight shining on it. I thought I saw the word GAS.

I'm still zooming, my mind is running this scenario over, I'm thinking how badly I want to get home, but I think that was a pretty clear plea for help that I couldn't ignore. I hit the brakes. By the time I came to a stop I was a couple of thousand feet beyond her. Into reverse goes the car and I start backing up. That's never a good thing to do, especially on a rainy night. There happens to be a break in the traffic so I decide to get the backing up over with quickly, and I speed up. It's not easy to maintain a straight track going fast in reverse, so I'm swerving. I got back to the car, a mini-van, and put my car in park, not really sure what I was getting myself into. She probably wondered the same after observing my swerving approach. I see in my rear-view mirror a driver getting out of the car. I do the same and we meet between the vehicles, bathed in flashing red and amber light. It's a young man, tall, thin, bearded, glasses. I said, "you got some trouble?" He confirmed, in a most polite voice, that they thought they were out of gas, although they weren't sure because the gauge was broken. I said I didn't have a gas can, but I'd take them to find a gas station. We were close to the next exit, I figured it couldn't be that far. He said OK and headed back to his car. I started clearing out all of the clothes and CDs and food that was scattered in my car. He suddenly came back and said "Is it OK if my wife and young son come, too?" Of course, I say, we don't want to leave them on the side of the interstate alone.

It was then I finally got a closer look at the wife, who was carrying a baby totally wrapped in a blanket. And she was wearing a bonnet on her head, a la Amish or Mennonite. I realized that also matched his appearance, as he was wearing dark gray dress pants and coat, and black shoes. We pile into the car and we're off. We get off at the next exit, but it was bleak and dark and barren of anything at all. So I headed east, hoping I wasn't in for a long chase for fuel. But it gave me a chance to talk to them. They were from southern Pennsylvania, headed for a friend's wedding up near Lowville, New York. Their plan was to get a hotel room in Syracuse for the night. The van was a loaner from their church's pastor, with 200,000-plus miles on it, and he had warned them of the gas gauge. But the kid thought he was well within the distance the pastor had said they could go before needing to gas up again. After a few miles we came to a crossroads with a gas station, and were able to take care of business pretty quickly. While he was filling the gas can I talked to the girl a bit. I had noticed an accent when she first spoke, and it turned out she was Ukrainian. She had a beautful face, with huge cheekbones and perfect skin. Her expression, and her entire demeanor for that matter were completely devoid of concern with the night's turn of events. I still hadn't really seen the baby, as only the crown of its head showed outside the folds of the quilt. It could've been a doll for all I knew. She said it was a boy and he was eleven months old today. I asked if this was his first trip away from home and she said no, he'd already traveled to the Ukraine with them.

On the drive back to the van I told him I'd run out of gas many times in my younger years, having driven many a junker car. "But," I joked, " I don't think I ever did it with my wife and baby on board!" He chuckled, and then he said in a most reassured voice, "Well, I'm a Christian and I always believe the Lord will provide." A lot of people might say that's a naive outlook. My reply was "So am I and so do I."

It took a while to get the van to start, but start it did. I wished them luck the rest of the way and they showed real gratitiude for the help. They were about to take off ahead of me, when he came trotting back to my car, and in that polite voice, tried to offer me some money. I said thank you, but I'm sure the Lord will provide for me.

Coat of One Color

I drove to Buffalo Friday morning. A weather system had sprinted through western New York the night before, headed almost due east. It wasn’t overly big in areal extent but it had some energy and speed. Areas away from the lake and higher in elevation got heavier accumulations, but the route from Webster to Downtown Buffalo had been equally coated with only about three inches of snow from start to finish. The snow’s consistency was very moist, and the storm hadn’t packed too much of a wallop in terms of wind, so the snowflakes were able to grab ahold of the first thing they touched and stay put. Like a whipped cream layer on every surface. No plant, object or surface went uncoated. If it wasn't for body heat, every critter would have looked like an unshorn sheep.

Normally when you look at a stand of bare trees and peer into the mass of wood you see branches but their dark appearance can make it hard to distinguish the branches of one tree from the next. This snow coat had been able to individually wrap the smallest of twigs on every tree, and with the storm being pretty freshly finished, the wind and sun had not yet begun to strip that delicate coating. In that gray morning light it was not hard to see nearly the entire structure of any individual tree. And no two trees alike, just like the snowflakes. Somewhere past Batavia there was a stretch where a fog layer had developed over the vast open fields, but was elevated off the ground somewhat. The tops of the taller trees and the occasional cell tower faded upward to nothingness. It was like driving in a dream, and what is possibly the most boring and uninteresting stretch of road I know of was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a long time.

Uptown Downtown

Tonight was another great musical event sponsored by my good friends John and Julie Bernunzio, at their Uptown Music store downtown on East Avenue. The two of them have been purveyors of vintage (and now also new) stringed instruments for many years now (probably 3-1/2 decades in John's case). You won't find a bigger, better collection of guitars, mandolins and banjos in this part of the country, and maybe anywhere for all I know. If you've never been, you must. You don't have to be a musician to appreciate what a gem of an establishment this store is, and what a great contribution to the City's East End it is. It's a visual extravaganza of strings and frets, with an amazingly warm glow about it.

They were only open for about a year when they decided to expand, and it now has enough breathing room to host wonderfully intimate performances by people who really know how to use frets and strings. Tonight it was Steve Piper, Maria Gillard and Scott Regan, who are collectively known as The Amazing Crandalls. Sweet folk music of the local persuasion. And they closed with Dylan's I Shall Be Released so everybody got to pitch in.

I've known John and Julie since I was a young teenager. Julie grew up on my street and was my sister Sheila's best friend. John's younger brother Tom was my very close buddy back in school days and I worked at their family's business, RanCora Bakery, for a few years. I always tell people I was a token member of the Bernunzio family, and their mom Clara was such a great cook, my mom asked me why I never came home for dinner anymore. I learned all about construction from their father Sam when the new bakery was built in Webster and they moved the business out of the city. Tom and Ginny were at the show tonight so it was great to catch up with them.

My sisters played matchmakers all those years ago and got John and Julie together. The matchmaking business can be a very slippery slope, and I remember telling them that, but luckily they did not listen to me, as this was a real success story.

One of their most famous customers, and a long time friend of theirs is David Grisman. Thanks to John and Julie I got to meet one of my all-time musical heroes:
Anytime there is music in this store it's a wonderful event. You can imagine what a hub of activity it is during the Jazz Festival. Uptown Music is Rochester's version of McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, famous for it's long tradition of live shows. Let's hope this new local tradition becomes a long one, too.