Come On, Eileen

Do you ever feel like your conversation continues to fall on deaf ears?

I don't know how many times I've assured Putin in public that lack of approval of the START treaty is no reason for the movement of Russian nuclear weapons to European borders.

But does he listen to me?  Of course not.  He has to be the big bad Russki bear, growling and flexing his claws.

Vlad, it's just you and me here, kiddo.  Ain't like you can't see what's really going on.  Ease off the missile deployment, willya?  Let the Europeans and Americans worry about the domino theory.  No, not the fall of democracies to communism.  Instead, I mean the fall of capitalist economies to bankruptcy.

Some days, I might as well talk to the trees as inject them with arsenic to make future poisonous toothpicks out of them to feed to unsuspecting aliens checking out the bacterial life forms in Mono Lake.

Excuse me, class, but is there a bacterium in the auditorium?

The world is full of white hair and stuffed shirts - isn't that what I'm supposed to say?  Repetitious, however true.

Like attending a cultural musical event - orchestral support/attendance attracts/needs well-funded familial fixings, usually older, refined and loaded (with cash, that is).  Youth (but not youthfulness) stands out in the crowded, aged multitude.

My Russian colleague, you should have been with my wife and me this noteworthy evening.  Jigging (and almost jiving) to tonight's premiere performance of An Nollaig: An Irish Christmas with Eileen Ivers, the Drake School Irish dancers in street/Irish costumes and the LCT Singers dressed in black provided the perfect stepping/swaying counterbalance to Eileen and her merry band, Immigrant Soul.

You should take a lesson from them.

We should be sittin' in a pub "sipping" a pint pints like Clinton and Yeltsin in the old days, listenin' to these musicians, their eyes closed while tuned to their comrades' rumbling bass notes, percussive beats and high-pitched harmonic stringing.

You'd almost think we were in a contemporary church service, the band drawing the audience closer, Eileen fiddling like she's telling Charlie Daniels to put the devil to bed.  Would I dare compare her to Natalie MacMaster?  Would one compare Eric Clapton to Chet Atkins or Chet Atkins to Eddie Van Halen?

Irish might be the announced style but Eileen and her boys add bits of blues, jazz, rock and a touch of country to their tunes.  A duel between Ivers' violin and Buddy Connolly's three-button accordion will nearly set the stage of fire, I tell ya!

The George Wendt of male singers - Tommy McDonnell - will practically have you thinking you're in a gospel singalong led by the Blues Brothers Band.

Leo Traversa on bass guitar and Greg Anderson on acoustic guitar/bouzouki will get your toes a-tappin'.

The finale tonight was like a volcano exploding with sound, wanting you to shout and sing until the roof came down (and considering the venue, the Von Braun Center, is under construction, that might be possible).

So it was fitting that the full ensemble appeared on stage to sing an encore medley starting with "May The Circle Be Unbroken" and ending with the Hallelujah chorus.

Vlad, if you could hear Eileen play the violin like a rock guitarist on steroids, you'd park your missiles over Afghanistan, Iran and every country standing in the way of women like Laurie Anderson, Eileen, Natalie and any other virtuoso female violinist unable to play a fiddle under a burqa.  The world would be a better place, I'm sure.

I could say more but I suggest you get your own ensemble over to the States and catch a concert performance of Eileen Ivers' jig of a twist on Christmas music.  It might even convince the North Koreans and Iranians to put aside nuclear armament, with visions of sugar-plums dancing in their heads, instead.

Well, I guess it's time to settle my brain for a nice winter's nap.  And here I thought I was going to keep silent.  See what Eileen has done to me!

Thanks to SAIC for sponsoring the concert; Rainy, Gift and Penny at Thai Garden for serving dinner.