23 March, finally

french fries

don’t eat too many. 

eat some. 

don’t be afraid of ketchup. 

blankets

wool is good

heavy, oversized blankets can make you feel safe

the velvety kind feel nice but don’t last long

bananas

people are like bananas with controllable ripeness. help others.

mustaches

everything has a mustache. everyone has something to hide. keep wondering what’s beneath. 

mustard

honey

dijon

brown

yellow

choose wisely. 

steve

take some time to thank him for being him.

we are steve. 

Sometimes you don’t have to understand a poem to enjoy it. We spend so much time in school tearing them apart, fishing for meaning, deconstructing them. Don’t spend your entire life deconstructing everything. It’s also good to take things at face value (moderation is good). Sometimes I write really stupid poems (look above) because I like the way certain words sound together or I like the way a combination of words might make you think. 

Try it: 

Crab Rangoon. Tiger Woods. 

Great poem. So much to think about. 

Don’t dissect everything. 

that second year

19 September 2014: Tonight was our second football game. Football pep band is wicked. Our sound is huge but it disappears into the open night sky like a spooked barred owl. On top of that, it was in the low 40’s! You could practically follow streams of breath shooting from each horn. Sometimes I stand with my back against the chainlink fence and look back at the band under stadium lights. My eyes glance over each member and I think about how lucky we all are to know one another. I am blessed to play and teach music- to spend each and every day in sheer celebration. More than anything else, I hope that each of them find a life where they are surrounded by good people, doing what they really love. 

Ah, the second year. 

there he is

26 January 2014: As usual, I have a lot to say and no time or energy to say it. I just wanted to make sure you didn't go another minute without this:

Blaze Foley. You're welcome. 

AOW

11 January 2013: Throughout the first half of 2013, I spent most Mondays drinking coffee with my dear friend Chris Guthrie. We first met ten years ago at Capital University. He's the type of guy that you flock to immediately, like a tick latches onto a fawn. I am the parasite in this relationship.

We meet at the same coffee shop we frequented throughout college. Cup O' Joe. It was there that I forced myself to become a coffee drinker (my initial order was iced coffee with four shots of espresso). 

It was also there that "Album of the Week" was born. 

AOW was a highlight of 2013. 

Chris and I have insatiable thirsts for more music. More practicing, performing, listening, writing. It’s never enough. That’s the thing about music. In an effort to dig deeper, we decided to try listening to albums together, one per week. On Sundays we pick and throughout the week we talk. There are no other rules. 

We typically pick albums that are relatively new to us, with a few exceptions. 

Here’s the list so far: 

(M=me, C=Chris)

M, 5/5: Matt Wilson’s Arts and Crafts, Attitude for Gratitude

C, 5/12: Brian Blade, Mama Rosa

M, 5/19: Led Zeppelin, Physical Graffiti

C, 5/26: Marvin Gaye, Here my Dear

M, 6/2: B.B King, Live at the Regal 

C, 6/9: Art Blakey, Big Beat

M, 6/16: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run

C, 6/23: Andrew Hill, Judgement

M, 6/30: Chris Thile, Not All Who Wander Are Lost

C, 7/7: Public Enemy, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back 

M, 7/14: Duke Ellington, …and His Mother Called Him Bill

C, 7/21: Bill Evans, Paris Concert, ed. 1

M, 7/28: Tom Waits, Alice

C, 8/4: Bill Evans, Paris Concert, ed. 2

M, 8/11: Andrew Bird, Mysterious Production of the Eggs

C, 8/18: Marc Johnson, Sound of Summer Running

M, 8/25: Medeski Martin Wood, Free Magic

C, 9/1: Robert Glasper, Double Booked

M, 9/8: Ray Charles, Modern Sounds in Country Music

C, 9/15: Funkadelic, America Eats it’s Young

M, 9/22: Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited 

C, 9/29: Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska 

M, 10/5: Bill McHenry, La Peur du Vide

C, 10/13: Brad Mehldau, House on Hill

M, 10/20: Matt Wilson, Scenic Route

C, 10/27: Darryl Hall, Sacred Songs

M, 11/3: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, Ella & Louis

C, 11/10: Marcin Wasilewski Trio, Trio

M, 11/17: Radiohead, Ok Computer

C, 11/24, Novos Bainos, Acabou Chorare

M, 12/1, Thad Jones/Mel Lewis, Opening Night

C, 12/8, Joe Henry, Reverie 

M, 12/15, Randy Newman, Good Old Boys

C, 12/22, Volcano Choir, Repave 

M, 12/29, Dr. Dog, Easy Beat 

C, 1/5, The Roots, Illadelp Halflife 

These albums act as placeholders for memories, one week at time. 

I have to make my pick tomorrow and I am clueless...

routine musk oxen photo

new friends

8 December, 2013: In September, I attended instrument rental night for the elementary schools within our district. I was excited to welcome all of the new instrumentalists into the family. Although I felt zapped from the first few weeks in a new position, I got there early to check out the scene. 

There were piles of brand new instruments stacked against the far wall of the high school cafeteria. Clarinets, saxophones, flutes, trombones, snare drums, bell kits, cellos, violins, violas. Shiny new method books. Wire stands. 

I was transported back to my initial band experience, as a sixth grade musician in Ohio. I can remember standing in our school cafeteria in the fall of 1996, filling a saxophone with breath for the very first time. 
I'm still in love with THAT sound. 

It was beautiful to watch tiny hands fidgeting open silver clasps to reveal new friends. One little boy kissed his trumpet. Another girl jumped up and down, hugging her cello. How quickly we can forget these moments! The next day I asked our high school band to remember forever. 

As I was walking across the parking lot to my car I wondered where they'd be in five years. I thought about the stories they'd accumulate between now and then: the times of joy, the times of despair, the desire to quit, the desire to improve, the rehearsals, the concerts, the accidents- the story of each musician and their instrument. 

I hope that nothing ever scars that initial love of music. 

I fell down because of a harmonica

5 November, 2013: While in Alaska, I was the live-in caretaker for a large church. I cleaned and maintained a church in exchange for rent. It was a hefty part time job, full of quirks. I lived in the attic apartment where the slanted ceilings regularly bruised my head. I'd roam the halls late at night with my guitar, singing in the sunday school rooms. I'd play the grand piano in the sanctuary, and listen to my voice bounce off the pews.

It was a snowy Friday night and there was a break in the storm which allowed me to shovel the bulk before freezing. You don't want it to freeze. Frozen snow on church steps means one of two things: a sore and grumpy caretaker or a sore and grumpy parishioner. I had a duty.

I was listening to Joe Purdy's album "You Can Tell Georgia" for the very first time and "Only Four Seasons" was up. 

I could see my breath.

The snow glistening on a mountain across the bay.

The lights blinking on the airport runway.

And then THAT harmonica.

I threw the shovel into the pile and started running across town, falling every couple of steps.

I had to share it with someone.

So I found a friend and plugged it in.

I returned to frozen snow.

view from church steps on a snowless winter dusk

schmeeval schmelvin

18 September, 2013: Short version: Read Michael Perry. Listen to Tim Eriksen. (specific recommendations in comments)

Within the course of a week, I had a rare opportunity to meet two of my heroes. I grew infatuated with each of them throughout a year in South Carolina- that first year teaching. 

TIM ERIKSEN

I am a sucker for old time mountain music. The sound of a swiss immigrant yodeling Appalachian love songs is enough to cause me to stop, drop and roll. 

Here is Tim Eriksen singing in San Francisco in 2009.

Throughout the last six years I've marinated in THAT sound. Last week, I finally had the chance to hear him in person. He performed most of the material from Josh Billings' Voyage with trio de pumpkintown. Stephen Colbert played the Irish drum. 

He is the favorite uncle of the shape note singing revival. I'll be attending the NE convention this fall, because of him. A Sacred Harp hymnal sits on my coffee table (opened to no. 410), because of him. I shaved my head bald and dress like a pirate, because of him. 

The harmonies of the Sacred Harp scrape against the grain of conventional counterpoint. If Bach is the warm morning sun, slipping through the blinds, Sacred Harp is a penetrating wind howling through a moonlit bog.

Check it.

MICHAEL PERRY

I stumbled upon Michael Perry during a first date. She was a certified long term sub for a kindergarten teacher. We met for coffee on a Saturday at a bookshop. Bookshop dates mean showing up hours early to peruse. I found Michael Perry's Population 485 in the new release stack as I walked in. An hour later, my date arrived to find me distracted and covered in coffee.

Perry's books brought me into the life I was living as a young bachelor out on my own for the first time. The tired sounds of Seinfeld seasons 1-9 were replaced by the brewing of coffee, the pen on the paper, the feet in the grass. 

I was thrilled to meet him in Delaware, OH on his book tour. I was second in line for the signing and my breath was mule-like, at best. All I could muster upon reaching him was: "Your work makes me feel alive. Thank you." I scanned his eyes for a grimace in reaction to my livestock breath, only to receive a smile and a twinkle. What a guy.