Nashville-bound for the week

In about 24 hours, I plan on setting foot in the town that may be my home in a few months. Music City, here I come.



It's a bit of a whim, but if it comes to be that I land in Nashville this October, it will at least be a well-planned whim.



I want to be a musician for a living, and I think I can put up with the competitive nature in that city at least for a little while to see if it's for me.



Hopping on a Greyhound was a last-minute decision, and even a few hours ago I wasn't sure if I was going to do it. But right now, I'm planning on catching a 20-hour bus ride from the nation's capital to Nashville. I'll be staying with a friend of mine, hooking up with my musical contacts down there, figuring out how to get around the city affordably, and taking in the music scene for a few days. Maybe even making a few initial connections.

Squeezed in family visit amid weekend of music

So far, this has been a red-letter weekend, and it's only Saturday morning as I start typing this. I guess it helped that my weekend kind of started on a Thursday and that there was nothing to do on Friday. But I didn't let that stop me from pursuing the excitement I knew must have existed somewhere.

On Thursday, I drove to Timonium, MD, for a Usual Suspects gig. We played between 5:30 and 7:30 at a fitness center. Three things were notable about this short gig on a puny stage, which did fit all five of us plus Pete's acoustic drum kit.

OK, four things since there was free beer.

One was the people dancing, including one gentleman who looked straight out of the Six Flags commercials and got to dance numerous times with a gorgeous and shapely blonde female employee. Even if it was only this guy and his partner of the moment, it was great to play an indoor gig with people dancing. That had been a while.

Oh, in fact, it was the first time we had ever played in a gym. Matter of fact, it was also the first time I ever stepped inside a gym. Funny place. I didn't know what a lot of the equipment was.

Another notable thing about the gig was the volume. The sound travels far in that building. There are no true walls to confine it, so it goes everywhere. At the front desk, they're conducting business, and it's hard to hear when the music pumping through is overpowering. So it took about the length of our first set to get our volume level adjusted to an appropriate setting. We were playing quietly, which may have helped out in this last factor.

Matty Knuckles, who ordinarily does most of the vocals, had told us all week long he wasn't going to be able to sing much at Thursday's gig. He said the other Matt and I should get ready to do a lot of singing, and to split up his material, etc. So I came prepared to handle about half the songs. I ended up doing less than half, but I felt really good about my vocal performance. The other guys said it was because I wasn't having to scream, so I could just more easily hit the high notes without straining. I guess I buy it.

Right after the gig, I thought, while I'm already halfway to my folks' place, I'll go drop by for a surprise visit. I beat them home by about five minutes. It's always good to see Mom & Dad. They fed me a late dinner, and I stayed up talking with them long past midnight and turned in. I woke up in late morning to an offer of breakfast. In the afternoon, I took off to see my aunt for the second time since her cancer diagnosis. I got back to Mom & Dad's again for an early dinner before I hit the road.

I'd been invited to go jam with a drummer I hadn't played with since last October, so I showed up at his doorstep at 8:15. A guitarist and bassist both showed up too. These guys are all in their 40s at least. Jon, on drums, has spent the least amount of time playing his instrument, but it doesn't show. We played for hours on whatever we all knew in common. While we did jam on some predictable classic rock tunes like "Locomotive Breath" and "Love Me Two Times," it impressed me how we could also rock out on deep tracks (Blind Faith's "Well All Right," for instance) and tunes written since the proper classic-rock era ("Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears and "Closing Time" by -- oh, come on, you know better than I do). And Jon is a huge Beatles fan, and he impressed himself that he was able to handle some John Lennon vocals.

It would be cool to work up a repertoire with these guys and go play out! Why not? It's not like I have anything else to do!

I'm playing another paying gig tonight, again with the Usual Suspects, this one at Okra's in Manassas. Then I'll be back there on the 4th of July to watch the Wooly Mamas, the band formerly known as Alowishious Farhatt.
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Solo piano gig 6/19/08, Usual Suspects gig 6/21/08, and the future -- part two

Continued from last post

The between-song banter with this guy increased, and he asked if I was in a band. Indeed, I am in two and play with a third, and one of those bands was going to be playing there in a week and two days. That's the Usual Suspects coming to Okra's Louisiana Bistro on Saturday, June 28, folks. Be there! Shameless plug aside (hey, it's my blog; I can do what I want), he asked if I do any singing in the band. I said yeah, there's one song I lead, and it's "Gimme Some Lovin'." Although I wasn't sure how well the song would come off without a band, I figured there was nothing left to lose. "After the Gold Rush" was pretty pathetic, and nobody seemed to mind. So I wailed away on this Spencer Davis Group tune, and ironically, it might have been my strongest vocal all night. I played two verses of it and a solo, during which the drunk guy's friend asked me what other Spencer Davis tunes I could play. The answer would be exactly one, and you know which. Yep, that's right, "I'm a Man." I segued perfectly into that song and mumbled through a verse just so I could do the familiar chorus.

Next came a request from the bar. Did I know "Bad Bad Leroy Brown"? Not even enough to fake it. It didn't help that the drunk guy wasted a minute of my time singing the chorus over and over for me, thinking it would somehow teach me the song or otherwise magically make me capable of playing it. Now I was pissed at the guy and wanted to tell him to go away, but I'm too polite to do that. But I also didn't want to leave my request totally unfulfilled. If I couldn't play "Bad Bad Leroy Brown," there was one other Jim Croce tune that I felt confident enough to fake my way through. So I played "Time in a Bottle." As soon as it was over, the guy was asking me if I knew "Operator." No, I can't play stupid "Operator." Dude, go away. I thought it but didn't say it. Yet somehow, the guy disappeared at that point and I didn't see him again that night. Weird.

His friend, however, remained, and was now onto a Beatles kick. After he recited a litany of early Beatles song titles, we settled on "Day Tripper." I don't even remember how well or crappy this song turned out for us, but at least I lived to tell that it happened. Actually, I think what happened was a Redskins fan named Pat sat down on the now-occupied chair next to me, told me he played guitar and was hoping to become a kicker for the Skins. Cool! I think I played through that entire conversation.

By now, the friend of the drunk dude was cramping my style. Whenever he was there at my keyboard, he was standing directly in front of me, blocking most people's view of me. And he was always naming songs. I told him I had a song I wanted to do and I was pretty sure he hadn't ever heard it before because it was one of mine. So I played "I Beat the System." He continued standing there for the entire song. He was listening intently to the lyrics about killing an ex-wife and getting away with it. I thought that he understood that the song was based on somebody famous, given all the clues in the lyrics. But no. When it was over, he asked me if I was really married. Hahaha. No, I told him, the song's not autobiographical. I told him the name of the song's unidentified celebrity protagonist, and it didn't ring any bells for him. Ok, the guy must be wasted.

Pat was next to me again, this time holding an acoustic guitar provided by his friend Moondog (a guy I met the very first time I played at Okra's, when I was sitting in last December with the hometown band that was then called the Wooly Mamas). Pat said he was too hoarse to sing along because he had been screaming at his daughter all week long -- interesting excuse. Somehow, the talk of a hoarse voice made me want to sing the last few minutes of Aerosmith's "Dream On," and I did it well. My friend Whitney would have even approved! (Well, she wouldn't admit to it.)

Pat came up with some song suggestion he could play guitar along with, but he would need me to teach him the chords first. I said let's not bother learning chords. Let's just do a blues progression in E. So I went into the Blues Brothers' take of Robert Johnson's "Sweet Home Chicago." I don't even think Pat was playing along! But the funniest moment of the night was when I went to sing a verse. My math was off. I think I sang, "Two and two is one. Nine and nine is four." It just struck me as incredibly funny, and I laughed about it for a while. My math was impeccable during the next verse I sang.

After this, Moondog pulled up a chair and reclaimed his guitar. He played some chords and I followed along. We gelled pretty well. I had these thoughts at the time about musical collaboration being a conversation. Sometimes you can hit it off with a stranger and have a good conversation right off the bat. Why, because you speak a common language and have overlapping experiences and ways to relate to and complement each other. So we played four separate untitled compositions of his together, each ebbing and flowing very well. I don't know if they were two minutes apiece or more like six or seven. All I know is they were fun. Neither of us was dominating the other. It was just cool. And Jimbo, who I later found out is Moondog's housemate, was enjoying seeing the two of us gel together.

I took out another harmonica for one on my list I wanted to play. It was the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers chestnut "Mary Jane's Last Dance." As expected, it went well. I've been rehearsing it with both the G Tones and the Usual Suspects in recent months, so I was used to playing and singing that one a lot.

Moondog played me a chord progresion that instantly reminded me of the intro to "Ten Years Gone" by Led Zeppelin. In fact, I thought that was exactly what he was playing. It wasn't, but he kept a smile on his face while I played that song for him and it returned to the same chord progression a few times throughout. He said that chord progression is in a lot of songs.

We did one more of his creations together, and then that was it. I didn't play any more that night. It was my last Thursday night solo gig at Okra's. For the record, I had a number of things on my list that I never got to. I wanted to play:
Hot Dog (Led Zeppelin)
Trouble (Coldplay)
When the Levee Breaks (Led Zeppelin by way of Memphis Minnie)
I Will Possess Your Heart (Death Cab for Cutie)
Let It Bleed (Rolling Stones)
Fortune Teller (Who, Stones, Robert Plant, etc., by way of Naomi Neville, a.k.a. Allen Toussaint)
Fool in the Rain (Led Zeppelin)
Psycho (Puddle of Mudd)
Blinded by the Light (Manfred Mann's Earth Band by way of Bruce Springsteen)
All My Love (Led Zeppelin)
Black Dog (Led Zeppelin)
And it was my intention to finish up my Thursday night series with the last track on Led Zeppelin's last album, an emotional tune called "I'm Gonna Crawl." That didn't happen.

Moondog invited me to come party at his place. He was bringing Pat, Dan and Heather. I nearly backed out, but I went. So glad I did because we all had a good time, and Jimbo was back home already by the time we all showed up. There were plenty of guitars -- both acoustic and electric -- and guitar amps and even a bass for Dan. With me on various guitars, we played more of Moondog's originals. And the moment I held an Epiphone Les Paul with custom pickups for the first time, I knew I was holding greatness. Plugged into a Marshall amp, I knew I wanted to play Jimmy Page licks. The first thing that came to my head was "The Lemon Song." The next thing was the Howlin' Wolf lick from "Smokestack Lightning" that Led Zeppelin played on the fan favorite bootleg from April 27, 1969. So here I am on electric guitar nailing these same licks that Page and John Paul Jones did almost 41 years ago. Dan was on bass figuring out "The Lemon Song" so we could play it together. And I'm soloing over top of the bassline. That was a hell of a moment for me.

Two nights later, I'm at the Usual Suspects' backyard gig. This is last night now. No guitar for me. Just keyboard and harmonica and vocals and heartfelt moments of pure energy. The crowd was up and dancing for us during our second set, and on the Stevie Wonder tunes especially, I was giving it my all. Totally acrobatic, totally nutty, totally sweaty, totally careless when it came to the upkeep of my primary musical instrument. That was great.

One of the partiers was a guy named Tim who said he would sing any Elvis tune. We told him we would call him up when it was time for "Suspicious Minds." I was impressed by how good his Elvis voice was! And the people really loved it. Birthday girl Laura was unbuttoning his shirt while he was singing. This was fantastic! And the good times kept rolling through an amazing set that included our best-yet "Hot Legs" competition to the tune of that awesome Rod Stewart song. Laura won, in my opinion. She came out, gams a-blazing!

I was talking to Tim afterward, and his advice to me was to come up with a game plan for moving to Nashville and chasing my dream of becoming a full-time professional musician. Unless somebody can talk me out of it, I think I might move down there this September (following the path of the band formerly known as Alowishious Farhatt and the Soapbox Derby Revival Band, now just the Wooly Mamas) and see if I can make it as a studio musician for a while, with hopes of ending up touring with somebody famous.

So, who's gonna talk me out of it?
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Solo piano gig 6/19/08, Usual Suspects gig 6/21/08, and the future -- part one

Just got home from a gig with the Usual Suspects at a party in a backyard halfway between D.C. and Baltimore. I had a great time playing and really let loose during our second set. And the Elvis impersonator in the crowd spent some time with me afterwards, trying to talk me into chasing the dream.

More on that later. Let's go chronological. First thing's first. I played at Okra's a few nights ago. It had been six weeks since my last time out there, instead of only three because I ended up with pinkeye when I had a gig scheduled there the time in between. Anyway, I had been thinking of telling them I didn't want to play Thursday nights anymore. Turns out they were thinking the same thing, so I didn't even have to ask. Thursday nights aren't good for business, so they were canning all musical acts on Thursdays effective after my gig. So now I'm done going to Manassas in the middle of the week for solo gigs. I still have a show there this coming Saturday with the Usual Suspects though.

But, once I knew this was going to be my last solo gig there, I decided I was going to play my heart out. The bartender actually told me to do that. So I did.

At first, I started out on my own. Same tune I began with there more often than not: "Cissy Strut" by the Meters. During it, I threw in the only part of George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" I can really stand. You know the part. And when the song was over, I knew it was going to be a good night because people were actually there and people were actually enjoying my playing! They were clapping and smiling and being friendly to me! And when I dropped some self-deprecating humor, saying it only goes down from here, they laughed. Oh boy, a good night's a-comin'! It had never been like that at Okra's on a Thursday night with me there before. Even that early on in the night, I was thinking what a shame it was this was going to be my last time.

Next up, I played Steely Dan's "Do It Again," for the first time ever, only because I had thought of the tune before the set, when I was coming up with some stuff to play. During the song, the chords over the part that goes "going back, Jack, to do it again" reminded me of the chords in the Ides of March song "Vehicle" when it goes "'cause I love you, need you, hope to got to have you, child." So I switched from "Do It Again" to "Vehicle," playing both instrumental. I wasn't prepared with lyrics to sing either and decided against faking it. There were other songs on my list for later that I could fake better.

After that, and after another nice round of appreciative applause from the folks gathered 'round, a guy at the bar who had been telling others about the great time he'd just spent at the Bonnaroo Festival last week asked me if I knew any Grateful Dead. His favorite act at Bonnaroo, he had said, was Phil Lesh and Friends. So I said yeah and started playing "Casey Jones," which wasn't on my list but may as well have been. I know 96 percent of the lyrics and had performed the tune before and often. So that was natural for me to do. Dude sat down in a chair next to me and sang along, and he encouraged me during the solo (as if I need any encouragement for a solo). Good time.

I had to tell him I really wasn't capable of playing any other Dead tunes. Still, he kept naming other songs of theirs and telling me I knew how to play them. And as if to prove his point, he started singing the chorus of each one he was naming. Oh god, so it's gonna be one of THOSE nights, I see.

Since I didn't feel like battling him any more, or giving in and tackling a few verses of "Truckin'," which I would have been able to do, I went instead with the song that was next on my list, "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones. People found my mumble-singing endearing (that's one of the typical things I do when I'm not sure of the words). The guy stayed up there and sang along with me, not knowing many words aside from the ones I was singing.

Next, he wanted to hear something by the Allman Brothers Band, so he started naming Allman Brothers songs much the same way he had just done with the Dead before I played something else. He settled on wanting me to play "Melissa." I never had before and wasn't sure I knew the whole song, but he told me he knew it in full and could lead me the whole way through it. Well, neither of his promises came to fruition. I did remember how to play two verses of it though, and I just went to the outro after that. I probably missed a bridge or something, because I couldn't remember how the rest of the song went, and he wasn't helping. But we got through the parts we tried.

Next on my list was "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen. The reason I had picked it was because there was a great instrumental version of it played at Tim Russert's memorial service earlier in the week, and I wanted to attempt something like it in Tim's honor. So, I made my way through the song instrumentally, but I couldn't remember how the bridge started when it came to it, so I filled with something that resembled it before I got to the next part I knew. I pulled off the really tricky part though, right before the third verse, so I was proud of myself.

Also during that song, the guy was growing impatient and wanted to hear another one of his requests/demands. While I was busy concentrating and trying for the life of me not to mess up the song I was still playing, he was already naming off Doors songs he wanted me to play. So when I was sufficiently done with my tribute to Tim Russert, which I wish I would have played better for the man I met once at a Washington Wizards playoff game, I reached into my back of tricks and pulled out my A harmonica. Perfect for the Doors song I was about to play. It was a request/demand from the same guy and a friend of his who also wanted to hear "Roadhouse Blues." I told them I hoped they knew the lyrics to sing along because I wasn't really going to try it by myself. They assured me they'd do fine. Three heads are better than one, I reasoned. Well, not so much. They started the song with verse three -- "Well, I woke up this morning and got myself a beer ..." -- and repeated it for the second verse. I knew that was wrong, but I wasn't coming up with the right lyrics at that moment, so I wasn't going to stop them. But when it came time for Jim Morrison's scat after the second song, the friend was right on it! Only thing was he was facing me instead of the whole bar, so nobody heard him except for the original dude and me. Verse three, as expected, was "woke up this morning and got myself a beer" for the third time. Oh well, I was playing harmonica like a madman. I honestly thought I was playing it better than ever before. It was inspiration drawing from nothing in particular!

Of course, they wanted another Doors tune as soon as "Roadhouse Blues" was over, and the friend kept on suggesting "Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar)." I remembered to switch the lyrics of verse two from "whiskey bar" to "little girl," and I was glad because the guys singing didn't make the switch themselves. At least I was on it and could save them from the embarrassment of repeating that verse of that song.

Back to my list. I wanted to play "We're Gonna Groove," the Ben E. King song that appears on Led Zeppelin's Coda album and the early part of their career-spanning DVD. It went well, even though I was attempting to sing a high-pitched Robert Plant vocal line from 1970, so I wasn't entirely on, but it worked fine enough! And people enjoyed the song and had to ask where they'd heard it before. I was overjoyed to tell them it was essentially a Led Zeppelin song written by the same guy who wrote the famous "Stand by Me."

By that point, the guys were begging me to play some Beatles tunes. I went with "Let It Be" because there was a piano player named Andy who asked if he could play my keyboard quietly for a few minutes before I started any of this. He played some stuff that wasn't too shabby at all. But Andy hadn't stuck around long enough to hear me play it. The song still went out to him anyway, at least emotionally or mentally.

Toward the end, "there will be an answer, let it be" became "there will be an answer, cripple creek." Why, I'm not sure. I told the guy I wanted to play "Up on Cripple Creek" next, but he countered and said "The Weight" would be so much better. Always willing to indulge, I played that one instead. There are five verses to remember in that song. Unfortunately, only the fourth and fifth came to me (better than the zero that were coming to the dude). So this was a very short version of "The Weight."

By this point, it was pretty clear to me that the guy who was still sitting next to me was getting pretty wasted. When he started naming off Doors tunes again at this point, I couldn't tell if he was aware I'd already done two Doors songs in a row a few songs back, all at his request/demand. At any rate, I did have one Doors song on my list, and it was "L.A. Woman," so that's what I did next. And Jimbo was out there, and he's the one who requested "Linus and Lucy" (the Peanuts theme song) on a few past occasions, and Ive found it fits quite well in "L.A. Woman," so I was gonna do that too. Well, as soon as I launched into "L.A. Woman" and it became recognizable enough, a blonde girl came down from her seat at a table near the bar and she joined the two guys who were keeping me company at my keyboard. She said she loves the Doors and they're one of her all-time favorite bands. It made me wonder why she'd stayed up in her chair during the two songs of theirs I played earlier. At any rate, she came down for this one, and it's a very good thing she did because she knew every word to the song and even corrected the rest of us when we were about to make mistakes. I got my little Peanuts theme in, and Jimbo swivled around in his seat at the bar and smiled at me when he caught on to what I was doing. Because the girl was there to make sure none of us screwed up, we all had a great time and did a pretty flawless and exciting rendition of this great Doors classic.

She wondered how we could follow that up, and she proceeded to name other Doors songs. In doing so, she became the first person to mention "Riders on the Storm" that night. It's one I'd done several other times at Okra's in the past, more often than not. And unlike many of the other tunes I play, it begins with some specialized sound effects. There's a sequenced track I recorded one day with synthesized thunder and lightning that I use to start it, replicating the studio track. And when I start playing the music, I use a bass sound for that left hand, split in the middle of the keyboard with an electric piano sound that's closer to Ray Manzarek's as any other sound available on my keyboard. We all sang along to this, nailing all of the lyrics. In this case, I knew how each verse began but wouldn't have been able to finish them correctly. It was the friend of the drunk guy who finished every verse I started, and I was impressed. So here, four heads were better than one. The drunk guy again encouraged me here when it was time for me to solo. I played a pretty emotion-wrenched solo there, but clearly I didn't need any encouragement. At the end of the song, the girl and I started quoting some of Jim Morrison's onstage tirades. Slipping into character at that point of the song is an old technique of Chris Kennedy's whenever we would play this in the World Peace Party basement, but he was always so creative to have a new rant each week about something in the news, usually a political scenario, whether it was about Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Harriet Miers, the Democratic majority in Congress that was unable to prevent Bush-administration policies from becoming law, etc. But here, I started quoting Morrison verbatim, which the girl recognized and fired some more back at me. It was either that or my Manzarek run at the song's conclusion that made her comment on my meticulous attention to detail. Now that's a compliment! Drunk guy was saying it too, emphasizing that few people were noticing it but those who did were very appreciative and impressed.

The girl went back to her seat, and the two guys went back to naming Allman Brothers tunes they were sure I could play. They seemed to converge on "Midnight Rider," but I told them that the only time in the past I had tried to play it, it wasn't that good. They said screw that and told me I should play it anyway. They wanted to sing it. Good enough reason, right? Let them sing one for a change? Heh heh. I went for it, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Again, enjoyable, and some of the lyrics were coming to them. Barely any were coming to me. But I was glad I had attempted it. When the lyrics stopped coming to anybody and I knew "Midnight Rider" might as well be over, I went seamlessly into a song by Beck that my keyboard-playing brother John once suggested to me goes perfectly with "Midnight Rider." It's "Loser," from Beck's first album. So when the guys caught up with me, they helped me sing that one too. I mumbled through a verse of the rap, and we all sang the chorus together. After that chorus, I started playing the piano part from the James Brown tune "Sex Machine." At first, all I wanted to do was throw in that lick, but then I decided why not make it a medley and segue into that song entirely. So that's what happened. And at the end of it all, I think I might have reprised a bit of "Midnight Rider," but I can't recall for sure. It would be so Led Zeppelin of me if I did.

Well, I needed a break, so that's what happened next. I took my break, but the drunk guy who was sitting in a chair next to my keyboard since the third song of my set didn't take a break. He stayed there in that seat, away from everybody else in the bar, the whole time while I was up and about, saying hi to Heather and Theresa, who'd both walked in at different points during my set and were now sitting on a staircase on the far side of the bar. When it was about time for me to return to work at the keyboard, we glanced over and saw the dude was still sitting there. We joked that my public awaits.

No sooner was I back in my seat at the keyboard than he started up again on songs I should play. He couldn't think of the title of this one song by Neil Young, but he was singing it. I picked up on what he was doing, and I figured I knew enough of it that I could play it. It wasn't that way for him and the lyrics. The song title, although neither of us could have told you at the time, was "After the Gold Rush." The first verse's reference to "the 1970s" was repeated in verses two and three out of his forgetfulness despite assuring me he knew the song.

Then we did the same for "Rockin' in the Free World." I don't know why I let myself be bamboozled again and again. He said he knew the lyrics perfectly. Well, apparently every verse starts out with "There's a thousand points of light" and then trails off until "Just one more kid that'll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool." And then each chorus, I wanted to harmonize with the guy on the words "Keep on rockin' in the free world," but all he was capable of doing was adjusting his voice to sing the same part I was singing. If I went high, he would go high. If I went low, he would go low. If I would switch from low to high in the middle of the line, he would be with me again in another couple of beats. There was no harmonizing with this guy.

I went back to my list for the next one and played "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell. Earlier in the week, Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra injected a few bars of the song into one of David Letterman's monologues on the "Late Show," and I instantly thought how jazzy and cool it sounded and made a mental note that I wanted to try it out myself at Okra's. So I did, and I sang along with it. It went pretty well. But when I was done, the guy told me I forgot to go into "Where Did Our Love Go." I knew the song did that (sometimes) but didn't know the song myself. Still, he made me do it anyway. Bummer.

To be continued...
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The positive side of rising gas prices

When at the gas pump and faced with a bill for a fill-up you know will cost you more than ever before, think of it the way an optimist would. It's the cheapest gas you'll ever be paying for for the rest of your life! :-)
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Random thoughts of the newly unemployed

There's an alarm automatically set to wake me up on weekdays. I just turned it off. Gladly. I'm not a morning person anyway. Never was.

Hope I didn't forget to open a drawer in my office when I was clearing stuff out of there. What would I have left anyway? Hardly cash. I never carry any. I have everything I can think of that was mine.

What music of mine did I have on my computer's hard drive that I won't be able to retrieve? Well, nothing I spent money on and didn't have another copy of somewhere else.

A pretty good chunk of my daily routine just opened up. Guess I can use that time to catch up on some reading, or some badly needed exercise.

When I said good-bye to everyone, was I thoughtful and eloquent enough? Did I come across as a loser, or did I really sound as profound as I did when the thoughts were crossing my mind?

Why is this all so abrupt? I gave that job a year of my life, and all I get are two hours to gather my belongings and impart wisdom on a bunch of people who never thought that much of me to begin with?

My health benefits are running out soon. It's a good thing I got in those chiropractor visits and that new pair of eyeglasses in just in time.

I mean, the idea of turning the alarm clock off and sleeping in is nice and all, but how long will that last? How long can I live on my savings account, ramen noodles and government handouts? At what point will even my mom get sick of me and tell me I need to find a job?

What's that next job going to be? And where do I find it? If there's such a broad horizon of opportunites out there that are open to me, where is that horizon? Is it just figurative?

What in the hell am I ever going to do next? Can it really make me as happy as I was before I ever got myself job number one?

And how in the world are they all gonna get by without me?

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DON GIBSON Lyrics - YOU DON'T KNOCK

http://www.mp3lyrics.org/d/don-gibson/you-dont/

First encore by Plant and Krauss in Atlantic City, followed by "I'm a One Woman Man"

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Sharon Little's improvement

The road has been kind to Sharon Little. This waitress for the past 10 years now opens for Robert Plant and Alison Krauss on U.S. dates. She was signed to CBS Records in December. And now that she and her touring band, including helpful songwriting Scott on guitar, have several shows under their belt, they're improving. She's singing soulfully and really pleasing tonight's audience in Atlantic City. People here are receptive to the music from this woman who's not listed on the bill, including a song she debuted live during this set -- "That's the way God planned it," the song says. Sharon was pleased to plug her album, which is now being sold at shows because it came out May 27.
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Where's Robert Plant?

Half hour til doors open at the Borgata. Here I stand, hoping to run into Robert. Have a quick word with my favorite singer of all time. Would be nice.

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Kenny, Dolly and Willie, backed by Johnny

Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson share the front of a bright, shiny guitar while they leave the back for the late Johnny Cash. And one other random shot because it's cool.
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Alison Krauss look-alike

Inside Caesars, Atlantic City, N.J., is this statue that reminded my buddy Brad of Alison Krauss, violin player we'll be seeing in a few hours at the Borgata. If we don't run into her in town first!

Crazy woman on train, and weekend road trip

Ma'am, you are unashamed in your brazen stupidity.

There's a woman four rows ahead of me on my train who has loudly fussed about the delay we just had when we stopped at BWI airport. She's heading up to the Belmont Stakes, as everyone for several rows in either direction has heard, and she isn't happy about the 20 minutes the train sat south of Baltimore where passengers were told it was being inspected for our safety.

She first complained to the Amtrak employee who collects tickets. "Well, you could have gotten a good train instead of one that needed to be inspected," she smart-mouthed. He repeated a toll-free number she could call to voice her complaint. She also stopped the next Amtrak employee who passed her so she could mouth off a little more about the late train. He apologized for the inconvenience. What else can he do? She even tracked him down a few minutes later and asked if there were any other trains heading north any faster. Since he was using a regular speaking voice, unlike this woman, I couldn't hear his response. But based on her continued comments, he must not have offered her another itinerary. She stormed back to her seat.

While everybody else was taking the temporary delay in stride, she was singling herself out as the one person on board who was unable to accept it. When the train stopped at Baltimore to let people off and accept others on, she sat there. For two long minutes, she was as motionless as the train itself. But the second the train slowly started rolling along again, she stood up and called out, "Stop this train! I need to get off!"

Maybe she'd just figured out another train that would get her to her savory mint juleps faster than this delayed one. Or maybe all she wanted to do was continue making a scene -- and a fool of herself in front of a train we had all heard repeatedly was sold out.

At any rate, she was heard down the hall, saying, "I need to get off!" again, 10 seconds later, as the acceleration was picking up. No way we were stopping twice at the same station for the convenience of even all passengers, much less one who'd already gotten herself on the least-favorites list of all the employees on board. And as she returned to her seat, she was fuming and cursing and saying what she was going to do when she got the toll-free number on the line. She continued to talk for another whole minute, standing up at her seat. I was not a fan.

Ma'am, you are unashamed in your brazen stupidity.

Now she's standing up barking out new reservation orders over her phone to what sounds like it must be an automated voice. At least she's calmer now than before, but she's disrupting everybody's peace.

That's the fun I'm dealing with onboard a train that will drop me off in Philadelphia this afternoon. A college friend and his fiancée are picking me up from there before we head to another college friend's backyard barbecue in New Jersey, held in honor of his wedding we'll all be attending later this year.

Led Zeppelin has been on the brain today since I woke up early this morning. I wrote a long story about the possibility members of the group will sit in with the Foo Fighters in London this evening. I wonder if this will be misread as the truth in a "War of the Worlds" way.

Led Zeppelin will be on the brain tomorrow as I scan the Web for any mention of what actually happens at Wembley Stadium tonight. And I'll also be in Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's audience in Atlantic City 24 hours after it does. Then it's back to D.C. on Monday morning!

This goes on your permanent record

If each of us had permanent records for our relationships, what kind of information would make it onto our sheets?

Of course, they would compile a bunch of negative attributes based on behavior, tendencies.

Jim forgets his wife's birthdays and their anniversary.

Betty snores every night and sounds like a depleting rainforest.

Robert cheated on both his first and second wives.

There are simple solutions for each. Jim gets a calendar, Betty takes some medication and uses a clothespin for backup, and Robert neuters himself. There. Done.

But are there offenses people can commit that would make themselves eternally undesirable to potential partners?

What makes a person irrevocably undatable?

I can see, and agree with, the position that a history of being a serial killer could make somebody undatable.

Unless both parties are in the prison system. In that environment, one might let a murderous past slide like a lathered-up bar of soap on a slippery floor.

How about having a history of bad relationships?

Is someone to be deemed undatable just because he or she irresponsibly entered into two marriages early in life that both failed?

Is there a way for someone who was deemed undatable for this or a similar reason to be redeemed and be labelled datable once again?

I think the answer regarding redemption lies in our ability to learn from our mistakes and the earnest efforts we make not to repeat those mistakes.

Sure, it's on your permanent record. It can never be ignored. You cheated. You snored. You forgot some special dates. You left two bad marriages in a row. It'll always figure into your situation.

But as long as you can recognize when your actions were complete crap and persuade yourself to exercise enough caution to prevent a relapse of your old behavior, you can use your awareness and move on.

There aren't many offenses that make someone irrevocably undatable. Just try to avoid committing the big ones, especially if you've committed them in your past.

So quit killing people, dammit. That's all I'm trying to say.

That crap does go on your permanent record, you know.

Delusional sense of entitlement

Remember a couple months ago when Hillary Clinton was making a big deal about which of the two Democratic candidates was better prepared to handle that 3 a.m. phone call at the White House?

Then tonight, everyone else in the world starts referring to Barack Obama as the party's presumptive nominee. Everyone else, that is, except for Hillary.

"I will be making no decisions tonight," she told her supporters at a post-results campaign rally.

Good lord. She wanted to be president and handle 3 a.m. phone calls, and that's how she handles losing? You kidding me?

Speaking of a woman with a delusional sense of entitlement, get this.

I ran out for a quick drive to the grocery store and back. I purposely went quickly so I might not lose my parking space directly across the street from my place.

As I turned onto my street with my just-purchased load of groceries, I saw that the car behind me was also turning onto my street. It's a one-block, one-way street nobody would have any business driving on unless they lived here and were parking. And yeah, the space I was in was still there. And nothing else was.

So I took the space.

And then after I was fully parked, the nervous and fidgety driver emerged from the other car. Stammering, she told me she lives in the building alongside the parking space I had just reclaimed. And that she didn't have another space anywhere to park.

The hell do I care?

I'm already parked, and I have groceries to unload directly across the street.

The hell do you want from me?

I'm sorry you don't have anywhere to park, but I'll tell you what. It was either gonna be you or me, and I would really prefer it not being me.

So she just walked away, muttering some complaint that I really couldn't decipher. "I'm just gonna have to open my other door then..." whatever the hell that means.

Get away. Quit your complaining. You got beat fair and square.

Now just admit it, Hillary. Tell Barack he's won.

Don't go down with your ship and bring down half of your political party with you.

Oh, and by the way, your phone's ringing. It's Obama, and he's ready to accept your concession, your respect and your public endorsement.

Get with the program.

Two gigs over the weekend, plus other good news

Some good news to report. My pinkeye is gone, and I have a new pair of glasses (with designer frames). The American University chapter of my SigEp fraternity was just approved to receive its charter at a ceremony to be held later this year. I played two gigs this weekend. I ate crawfish for the first time on Saturday. On Thursday morning, I had a dream in which I made peace with a woman from my past who would be a complete stranger to me if I saw her today. I got a haircut again today. And I'm having a ball with a new woman in Alexandria whom I met on a Metrorail platform a few weekends ago.

Bad news today is that Bo Diddley has died. I saw him in concert once, opening for Chuck Berry. My impressions of Bo that night are that he was an impressive guitarist and splendid showman. It was great to see this important musician and influence on so many rock artists work while I still could.

So, here are a few of the weekend highlights I mentioned. The first gig was with Trademark, which had me back to fill in once again for their keyboardist. This was my second show with them, the first having been a few weekends ago. This was Friday night, after I finally accepted a long-extended invitation two hours in advance that I had turned down as recently as the night before.

The reason I'd been turning down the invitation to play was because I was supposed to go to an overnight house party in Herndon instead, and I had been looking forward to that party for longer than a month. But it's easier to hide pinkeye with sunglasses when you're onstage than it is inside somebody's house, so that was my choice. I had shades on the whole time to hide my pinkeye, and they were shades that covered the entire eye area, so it's not like anybody could have gotten it from me that night. The pinkeye was also receding and looking normal, thanks to some fast-acting prescription eye drops I also got that day. And I was able to drive since I'd just purchased new prescription glasses earlier in the day.

We played three sets, and out of all that music there were only a few songs I had never heard before (including two of the first three we played!). All in all, it was a good time. My third show with Trademark will be June 14, which means I have to start doing some publicity for it.

Then I played with the Usual Suspects on Sunday afternoon at a family's graduation party for two daughters (one graduating from high school and the other from college). That was the ultimate fun gig. The mother had a $3,000 stage set up in the back yard for the five of us to stretch out on. Some scattered showers didn't keep us from bringing on the rock. We were well appreciated, and because some of the family has connections in publicity, things are looking awfully good that we may be lucky enough to get other gigs from this one. Actually, this gig itself came about because the daughter graduating from college had seen us play at the University of Maryland on April 26 and booked us because of that!

The other good news is from the day in between. While I wasn't able to make it to the overnight house party my friends threw at their place in Herndon starting on Friday, I did make it as planned to the recover-from-hangover phase on Saturday in the early afternoon. We chowed down on all-you-can-eat crawfish and jambalaya at a sold-out crawfish boil held at Fort Hunt Park in Alexandria. It was also all-you-can-drink, but I opted for only water as I was driving. And as soon as heavy rainstorm greeted the picnickers, I got the hell out of there and hurried it up to my next stop.

I picked up a delightful artsy woman named Dina at the Greenbelt Metro. She'd just been up touring the Baltimore Art Museum since the morning. In my car, she returned with me to Baltimore – ultimately for a poetry reading and the release party of a friend's poetry journal, but in the meantime we had a few hours to kill. I was supposed to have come up with some options for things we could do to wile away the free time, but I didn't succeed at that in advance, so instead we just wandered through some seedy parts of town and ended up passing on a movie theater so we could just sit and talk by the harbor. It was hilarious when I failed miserably at giving her a piggyback ride when it was finally time to go to the poetry reading. We then listened attentively to the poems and not so attentively to the bands we could have lived without. But as the party went on, I realized Dina and I were making minimal efforts to meet any other people. We were just so enthralled with each other that we could have believed we were the only people in the room. At the end of the night, I dropped her off at her apartment building in Alexandria and gave her a sweet, 20-minute goodnight kiss that was eventually adjourned by the meddling parking lot security. I don't know yet when we'll be able to meet up again, but I'm hopeful it will be soon.

Getting to know her coincides with an unexpected development in my psyche. On Thursday morning, I woke up from a dream in which I made peace, once and for all, with my one and only ex-fiancée. Jill and I broke up in January 2006 after dating for nearly two years and being engaged for half of one. But the last we saw each other was in March 2006, when I abruptly left the apartment I shared with her – and by the time I returned the following month to move my stuff for good, she too was gone. We had nothing to say to each other, and so we didn't. I changed my phone number and threw away hers. I wasn't interested in funding out where Jill moved to and wondered if it was elsewhere in the city or back to family members in either Delaware or Maryland. We simply had no more communication, or reason to communicate.

Sometimes, I think about what I would say or do if I were to run into Jill by chance, now that two years have elapsed. How would I react if I came across her on the Metro or on the street or inside a restaurant or theater? Honestly, I harbor no ill will toward her. Time has only made me more aware of the ways I hurt her either intentionally or unintentionally. I realize now more of my old shortcomings as a boyfriend, a listener, a companion, someone with patience, someone with compassion, someone with generosity, someone with feelings. Likely, I would tell Jill I am sorry for anything and everything untoward I ever did to her. Sorry.

The other issue is how much of a sincere apology could I stammer out before she interrupted to remind me of what a horrible person I was to her. It's probably wrong of me to prejudge that she might cut me off to produce her own verbose litany of things I did wrong in my relationship with her, but I'd deserve every complaint she had about me.

One thing's for sure, if I ever saw her again, no matter what I tried to say: I wouldn't expect any pleasantries in return. I would just want to state my apology, knowing or at least hoping she'd heard what I had to say, and just take off. Leave it at that.

Well, that's exactly what the dream version of me said to the dream version of Jill when we met by chance. I apologized. But before I walked away, she had some comforting and even nice things to say to me in return. In the dream, it wasn't long before I said good-bye and went on my separate way, leaving her and her kind words behind me. Even though this didn't happen in real life, this must have been my mind's way of constructing an end to a situation that had not been resolved.

Now, in my real life, I feel like I could really use a girlfriend. I want to ask a woman how her day of work was, and mean it. I want to listen attentively to her answer before I interject my own humor and wisdom.

From what Dina says, she's not ready for a boyfriend. Until her last breakup a few months ago, she was in one monogamous long-term relationship after another with barely any breaks in between. She says she needs some time off now to figure herself out. I certainly know what that's like. There were two women I nearly dated exclusively between the end of my engagement and now, and I have spoken with both of them about my peace-making dream about Jill in the past few days. I related the finality of that to the way my mind might be allowing me to move past the situation in ways it didn't allow me before. My complex internal issues were partly to blame for why I didn't end up dating either of these two women. Now that those issues may have been resolved, I might be able to turn a new leaf with somebody new.

Dina is definitely one possibility.

Being 28.5 years old now and decidedly "not a kid anymore," I tend sometimes to feel old and like I've seen it all, been through so much, lived through it all, so there's nothing to get excited about anymore. (A gig's a gig to me.) But I felt the opposite way Saturday night when Dina was in my tight grasp standing outside my ride. It was like I was a kid again and enthusiastic about having some new and exciting person in my life. I felt that way my junior year in high school when I was running my fingers through the hair of a beautiful girl I went on to date for just over a year. And maybe the feeling has recurred in me with other women a few times since. But it's rare, I think, to have that distinct feeling again about somebody, 11 years later. It's nothing indescribable. Hell, I just did describe it. It's just rare these days, which makes it special.

Dina's special. I just can't afford to hurt her the ways I hurt Jill. I've learned an awful lot about what not to do – the things that make a relationship fall apart. I think I'm ready to focus instead on what I should be doing – the things that make a relationship thrive and last.