Music & More

Tricia and Karen at the Bluebird

My wife and I went to the 9 pm show at the Bluebird Cafe Thursday evening June 25th. We check the online Bluebird performance schedule on a regular basis. Our main reason for picking this show was to see Tricia Walker whom we had seen there two years ago with Kathy Mattea, Jon Vezner and Fred Knobloch. We bought her cds, "Velvet" and "Heart of Dixie" off her website. Velvet, released in 2007, she refers to as her "Torch" cd. Her voice is like velvet and she co-wrote 5 of the 10 songs. Heart of Dixie, released in 2004, is more of a regional folksy cd and includes funny songs like "New South" and "Funeral Food", a cover of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit "Ode to Billy Joe" along with other songs of the south including the title track, "Honey Chile", "Page Out of History", "Henry" and more. (When I put the songs on my MacBook, I-Tunes shows the genre for "Velvet" to be Jazz and Folk for "Heart of Dixie".)

Tricia sang the Gentry song, "Honey Chile", "Heart of Dixie", "He's Not You" (reminiscent of Patsy Cline's ""Why Can't He Be You") and a few others including a new song she wrote which can be found on I-Tunes, "What a Wonderful Day" - a song for cancer survivors. She chatted about the songs, her career and the work of the Nashville Songwriters Association International. (The show was billed as a NSAI legislative fundraiser.) One of her stories dealt with her writing of a Grammy award winning song for Alison Krauss called "Looking in the Eyes of Love". She asked if she would get anything for writing the song and was told that she could get a certificate - for $40. She sent in the money and got the certificate. She also sang harmony with the other performers at times and, according to her MySpace has been a backup singer for Shania Twain. Although Ms. Twain has been hugely successful, I'd much rather listen to Ms. Walker.

It was our first time seeing Karen Staley but we had heard some of her music before on her website and MySpace. Her songwriting credits include Terri Clark's "Everytime I Cry", Faith Hill's "Take Me As I Am", Trick Pony's "On a Night Like This", Tracy Byrd's "Keeper of the Stars" and an early Patty Loveless song, "Wicked Ways". She sang the last three - loved her rendition of "Keeper of the Stars" - in addition to "Still a Dog" (the first of the evening's funny dog songs) and "Somebody's Child", a compassionate look at an exotic dancer - not likely to be heard on radio.

"Thyroid Condition", Karen's hilarious parody of the Hank Williams, Jr. song, "Family Tradition" was the hit of the evening. It's currently on her My-Space. The audience absolutely loved it, laughing throughout the song. The lyrics pose blunt questions like why are you fat? why don't you lose weight? why must you wolf down that fourth piece of cake? Great lines like "It ain't fudge rounds putting on these pounds", "I said hey sawbones, it ain't the provolone" and "no it ain't french fries causing my big thighs" are all followed by the refrain, "It's a Thyroid Condition". Clever lady and a damn good singer/songwriter.

The charm of the Bluebird as a music venue is not dependent solely on the quality of the singing. It's often the stories behind the songs, the interplay between the artists, the humor, etc., that make evenings spent there so enjoyable. The two songwriters appearing with Tricia and Karen have written some great songs. Singing them however is not their strong suit. Danny Wells is known for writing "Couldn't Last a Moment" for Collin Raye, "This Everyday Love", "While You Loved Me" and "These Days" for Rascal Flatts and, for you Strait fans, "Check Yes or Know". He also sang a funny song about how he wished his wife would treat him like their dog called "Treat Me Like a Dog". Phillip White has written hit songs such as "I'm Movin On" for Rascal Flatts, Blake Shelton's "Nobody But Me", Trent Wilmon's "On Again Tonight" and Neil McCoy's "Billy's Got His Beer Goggles On". His wife sang a song and sounded very good. 

Billy C's People Are Crazy

This song keeps going through my head. It's not the first time this has happened to me and it won't be the last. I play it on my laptop whenever I get a chance. I made a new country song compilation cd with it so I can hear it in the car. My wife has called these compilations "Twangers" and now I'm up to Twangers 21. Generally they consist of recent songs with a few oldies thrown in. Oh, the song? "People Are Crazy", written by Bobby Braddock and Troy Wayne Jones, Jr. and a hit for Billy Currington. I first heard it on Billy's MySpace. (According to BMI, Braddock wrote Toby Keith's "I Wanna Talk About Me", "Texas Tornado" and "Time Marches On" for Tracy Lawrence and co-wrote Mark Chesnutt's "All My Old Flames Have New Names". I'm not familiar with the other works of Mr. Jones.)

The song tells the story of a young man meeting an old man in a bar and talking about everything - politics, women, bad habits, etc. The old man sums things up by concluding in the song's great hook that "God is great, Beer is good and People are crazy". Turns out the old guy was a millionaire, he dies and leaves everything to this young man he met only once. Great job by Billy C on this offbeat, interesting song with a tale most people can relate to (except perhaps those who have been cut out of a will). In addition to the great hook, I loved the lines "What brings you to Ohio? He said, Damn if I know". They reminded me of another song that treated the state with disdain, "Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio" by John Denver. He called the experience "like being nowhere at all".

To personalize the song I'd have to alter the title a bit since I enjoy a beer only about once every couple of weeks, usually a Michelob Light. I'll call it "God is great, coffee is good and people are crazy". My coffee of choice is Choc Full of Nuts when I'm at home and Dunkin Donuts on the road, appropriate choices for this song for obvious reasons. Do they still call crazy people nuts, or even crazy? You can see from this drivel digression that I may be nuts too. Since I write this fluff to prevent brain atrophy, you may conclude that it's already too late. If you feel that way, please keep it to yourself.

driving me crazy

I've had it. Doesn't anybody know how to pass another car on the highway? I was driving from Nashville to Staunton, Virginia recently taking 40 east til I picked up Interstate 81 about 25 miles east of Knoxville and took it to Staunton. It's a little over 300 miles from south Nashville to the Virginia border at Bristol and another 220 up route 81 to Staunton. Had to have happened at least a dozen times that a driver would pass me and then pull in less than 2 car lengths in front of me. Since I was driving around 65 mph someone passing me should be 6 - 7 car lengths ahead before pulling in - one car length for every 10 miles per hour. Don't they teach this in driving school any more? One guy came close to taking off my driver's side head light. Hope these drivers don't pull in front of 18 wheelers like that. There was another idiot who was behind me in the right lane, riding my butt. Since I wouldn't speed up (I guess), he pulled out into the passing lane and immediately pulled in front of me - just in time to get off the interstate. He couldn't have just stayed behind me and gotten off?

Kind of related to this beef is the "if the other driver even has to touch his brakes, you shouldn't have pulled out in front of him" rule. OK, I made this rule up but it makes sense. This applies when you're stopped at an intersection ready to turn or cross as well as when both vehicles are on a highway, 2 lane road, etc. This rule is for the jerks who are inching out at an intersection, see you coming, and when you're just about on top of them they pull out forcing you to slam on your brakes. Other death wish drivers are those who wait til the last possible second before making a left hand turn in front of you.

Since I'm talking about car lengths, the subject of tailgating comes to mind. Some drivers are in such a hurry they want everyone to move out of their way so they try to intimidate drivers ahead of them by driving right on their rear bumpers. (Maybe some of these scared drivers are the ones who keep pulling in front of me?) Some even flash their lights to get you to move over and let them pass. When this happens, I always hope to see the tailgater pulled over by a state trooper. It never happens.

While I'm in a ranting mood, let me hit a few more targets. Ever notice cars ahead of you who keep drifting over into your lane. You know what these drivers are doing. If it isn't merely holding a cell phone to their ear, it's sending a text message. You want to pass them quickly before they drift again. Besides the phones, I remember one young kid had a hard cover book propped up on the steering wheel as he drove south on route 65 doing about 65. Do driving schools these days teach kids how to drive with one or no hands? I think that states that do not have laws against driving while texting or using a non-hands free cell phone should be required to teach those applying for a driver's license how to safely drive with one hand (if that's possible). The applicants should have to take their road test one handed. If we're going to allow people to drive one handed, then they should be taught how to safely drive that way. 

baseball substitute - playing softball

I love baseball but my days of playing organized baseball ended after one year of riding the bench on a Babe Ruth league team in Bayside, NY. I think I got to bat about ten times and struck out nine. Wisely, I saved myself the embarrassment of not making the high school baseball team by not trying out. Being short was not an excuse. I just wasn't near good enough.

I don't mean to demean softball players but many of them are guys like me who couldn't cut it at baseball. They're not all big slobs with beer guts. Some are terrific athletes. I recall seeing the great Eddie Feigner of "King and his Court" fame, probably  on Wide World of Sports in the 1960's. He was still terrific at about age 60 when I saw him while on vacation with my wife and kids at Cape Cod in the late 1980's. For those unfamiliar with him, he was probably the greatest softball pitcher ever and he played with only a catcher, first baseman and shortstop. Give him a google.

I doubt that there are many male softball players who took up the game as kids. To my knowledge, there are no junior high, high school or college male softball teams. Those few softball players who never played baseball likely took up the game with the bigger ball in their late teens or early twenties.  There are probably many guys who played college baseball but weren't pro material who then began playing softball with friends from the neighborhood or work. Some played in leagues below their talent level for the camaraderie of playing with friends. Fact is, there are many levels of softball play and the leagues I played in were far from the best. While I primarily played slow pitch, there are also fast pitch leagues and windmill. I could not have played windmill. I played about every position, not all of them well, except first base and catcher. I did have a lot of fun, a few memorable experiences and my fair share of embarrassing ones, not all of them occurring during the games.

The softball game had ended and a few of the guys on the team were hanging around to grill hotdogs on the hibachi, have a few brewskis or sodas, chew the fat about the team's playoff prospects, etc . We had found a good spot and had the charcoal going when we were approached by two cops. They were very apologetic that they had to ask us to leave because that section of the park, known as Alley Picnic, was being closed down at sundown because of problems with drug dealing. They couldn't let us stay because the young kids would complain about double standards. They told us we could move over to the area where the main ball fields were, a few miles away and continue our grilling, etc. there. The cops had a job to do, they were nice about it, so what was the point of arguing. We agreed to move.

The coals on the hibachi were hot and ready to cook. It would be a pain in the butt to throw out the hot coals and start over again so I came up with a brilliant plan. The hibachi was small and lightweight. Why not have two of the guys sit in the back seat of my brown chevy malibu, each holding a hibachi handle. There was no visible flame and we'd have the windows open for ventilation. So I started the car and the guys got themselves situated in the back, carefully holding the grill. I headed out of the parking lot, hung a right towards Union Turnpike and drove to the Springfield Boulevard side of Alley Pond Park. Small problem - the heat from the coals started to melt the synthetic fabric inner lining of the roof. My hibachi bearers advised me of the problem as the material started to shrivel up creating a hole in the middle. With the damage already done, I saw no point in stopping so I kept driving to the other field. Luckily, the material didn't actually catch fire. My wife was not too happy.

Another time, I drove to a game at the Peck Avenue fields near Fresh Meadows, pulled into a space at the curb and shut off the engine. Then I tried to get out of my seatbelt and was unable to open it. I had been having trouble with the locking mechanism. I would press down as hard as I could sometimes and still couldn't release the belt. It had gotten to the point where I was hurting my thumb so I carried a beer opener and used the point of it to press down the mechanism. You could see the scrapes and dents in it. This time all my efforts were to no avail. Guys on the team were looking at me and wondering why I wasn't getting out of the car. They were yelling "hey, the game's about to start". I didn't want to let them know I was stuck but finally they came over and the truth was out. One of the guys told me "only the passenger seatbelt was supposed to get stuck so your girl couldn't get away". Luckily, one of the them had a knife and cut the belt so I could get out of the car.  

In all the years I played, almost exclusively in Queens and Nassau counties on Long Island, I only had two major run-ins with umpires resulting in my ejection. In the first instance, also at Peck Avenue, I took first base as a courtesy runner for a slow team mate who had just singled. On a hit to right, I raced around second and slid hard into third, knocking the third baseman over so that he fell on top of me. I was clearly safe. The umpire from his position behind the plate called me out. He had made no effort to get closer to the play. I was livid. After a few "are you kidding me's" and other comments, I went right up to him, held out my glasses and said, "here, you need these more than I do". I was gone. In another game, this time at Victory Field I got tossed again. After a few horrendous calls by another stationary umpire, I called him the "worst f---in' umpire I had ever seen." I didn't offer him my glasses but that game may have occurred after I had switched to wearing contacts.  

I was strictly a slap hitter. I could go an entire season without an extra base hit. There was no bunting allowed in slowpitch but somehow I was able to hit quite a few slow rollers which I was able to beat out, especially when I switched to hitting left-handed, giving me a 2 or 3 step advantage over a right handed hitter. Some of those dribblers probably were because I pulled off the ball as my feet started towards first base. I never hit a ball over a fence for a home run, even in little league.  My little league home run was a ground ball that somehow got by a daydreaming leftfielder. I only recall two softball home runs in about 20 years of playing. One HR came because a rightfielder stumbled and fell going back on a ball he normally would have caught. Another came because an outfielder played me way too shallow and I hit a line drive directly over his head.

Once at Cantiague Park in Hicksville, I got a good pitch and thought I crushed it. I'm thinking the ball is over the right fielder's head. It will carom off the fence and I'll have a triple. As I ran toward first base thinking three bases, I saw the right fielder come IN to catch the ball. Which reminds me. One evening, I'm playing right field and a guy hits a line drive at me. I lose the ball in the lights and hear it whiz by my head - for a triple. In another game at Cantiague, my speed got me in trouble. I was on first and there was a runner on second. The batter hit a seeing eye single to center so I assumed the runner on 2nd would score easily. Head down I cut the bag at second and raced for third, sliding in well ahead of the throw. Unfortunately, my team mate had held up at third - not exactly heads-up ball on my part. Despite the misplays and embarrassing moments, softball for me was a great substitute for baseball.