Revved up

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What a great weekend. We actually relaxed some on Friday night, then Saturday was Js all day and overnight, with a great visit from Mavis. Yesterday, it was lunch with Lars and school work, but squeezed in there nicely was a session of prep for my gig with the amazingly talented BoomR in Dallas this June.

Cigar Lounge at Chamberlain’s

We will record on Friday night and Saturday, and then on Saturday night I will join him for a few tunes on his regular engagement at Chamberlain’s Steak & Chop House, back in the Cigar Lounge. It’ll be my first club gig in over 20 years. To say I’m most jacked up about this would be glossing it over.

And of course, it’s not just the making music part; it’s seeing BoomR and BluVox for the first time since summer 2010 that will be the most fun. I might even fall into their awesome swimming pool, if there’s time.

All of this makes me forget that it is now Monday and 33 degrees outside (but with a partly cloudy high of 64 today, it’s much more April-like around these parts). I forgot about it until right now, that is. Time to get back to reality. Blah.

Patience, Finkly. Patience.

In case you didn’t know…

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…one of my dear fiends is a great writer. She’s also a businesswoman, a musician, a teacher, a photographer, a visual artist, and in some cases, a mother confessor. Haha. (Ask me how I know this.)

BFF Kay’s new business endeavor, along with her husband Bob, is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project, whereby they grow and sell organic vegetables and fruits, free-range eggs and cheeses, and other homegrown/homespun products. A few lucky saps get to invest in the harvest, and the Thriller and I jumped at the chance. So now, we have a summer full of goodies coming our way — delivered right to our door. Beyond cool.

Since the Thriller’s high blood pressure scare several weeks ago, I’ve become much more interested in — and concerned about — the many chemicals we ingest through pesticides and hormones in produce and meats, and the preservatives in canned goods and prepackaged foods. It’s frightening. No wonder we’re all getting sick and sicker, truly. No joke.

I might be turning into a tree-hugging leftover hippie, wearing peasant blouses, hemp skirts, huarache sandals and flowers in her hair. That’d be OK with me (and would delight Kay to no end).

Anyway, go check out Kay & Bob’s business over at Thistlefink Gardens. While you’re there, click around and see the pictures and the stories. Much to see and read, and all of it good.

Happy weekend! I’m sure it’ll be too short, at least for me.

¿Cuando?

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When will this end?

I’m not a superstitious person, nor do I subscribe to the notion that God is meting out his “How d’ya like THEM apples?” justice on the country for its disobedience. But I will admit I am confused, heartbroken and angry about the tragic events of the last week, and it makes me wonder when the next shoe will fall.

Sending poison envelopes to the White House, blowing up a crowded public place, then lingering to watch while people are maimed; the news about the horrifying explosion in Texas, the senseless shooting at MIT…

Sometimes, I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

Hug your family extra tight today.

Robert who…? II

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I’m doing a unit on the blues for my 5th grade music class. They’re enjoying it, and so am I, actually. This week, they’re writing their own verses, some of which I get behind the keyboard and sing for them. It makes them laugh.

My raison d’etre: amusing a group of 10-year-olds. Go ahead. Mock.  :P

Yesterday, I showed one class two photos of Robert Johnson. (Who is Robert Johnson? No worries; got ya covered, fiend.) While I talked to them about Johnson’s life and mysterious death, I passed the pictures around. I said, “Check out the length of his fingers.” The kids were blown away, which made me laugh. They couldn’t get over it, or stop talking about it.

“They look like alien fingers!”
“He has E.T. hands!”

Hahaha. Anyway, I told them that the photos they were looking at were the only two existing pictures of Johnson. Turns out I was wrong. I have since learned that a third photograph was authenticated just this year. I’ll have to bring that one in to show them.

My mentioning this blues unit at dinner with Lars last night sparked a lively conversation about blues altogether, and we talked at length about one of our all-time favorite players, Stevie Ray Vaughan. Gone way, way too soon. But that’s a subject deserving of its own post on its own day — maybe come the 3rd of October, his birthday.

And now I fly. More 5th grade craziness this afternoon. Are you having a good day?

Fear

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And not just fear. Anger, sadness, uncertainty, worry…I felt them all yesterday, and I guess I’m still feeling them today, along with a bit of nauseating nostalgia. As the insanity behind the bombing at the Boston Marathon unfolded yesterday, I had an uncomfortable flashback to a sunny, cloudless Tuesday morning in September, 2001.

Immediately of course, my Facebook and Twitter feeds (you can follow me @ratfink) lit up with reports, updates, and expressions of support and sympathy. There was also an overriding sense of weary grief. And while the mayor of Boston encouraged his people by saying that shutting down their lives right now just gives the bad guys a victory, I’m sure it was next to impossible for some to carry on.

I saw a graphic on Facebook that contained a quote that I’d seen in a television interview years ago. Someone asked Fred “Mr.” Rogers — a man I have admired for decades — what he says to children when they see tragedies on TV and in person. Here’s what he said:

I’d like to salute those helpers today; people who didn’t turn and run, like all of us are hard-wired to do. They stayed and they helped, not knowing if another explosion would turn them from rescuer to victim.

There were people from dozens of countries in Boston yesterday, and many got to see those helpers in action. It’s the single good thing we can pull from this.