Off The Record

Overheard in a bar during a ~40th high school reunion:

"I carried the 'football' [nuclear codes] for President Reagan. I was part of the Iranian hostage rescue effort - did you know there was a second team involved?"

"I keep a photo of President Reagan on the wall at home."

"Did you know he approved the invasion of Grenada because he asked himself what would John Wayne do?"

"I saw him in Houston in 1984 and he remembered me as the young kid he talked with at the small airport gathering in 1980. He's smarter than people gave him credit for."

"I still look young because I graduated from high school when I was six and Vanderbilt when I was twelve. Haha."

"My husband here is Navaho, from Gallup, New Mexico. After our white wedding we had an Indian wedding where I had to slaughter and cut apart a sheep to prove I knew how to feed our family. If I cut myself with the knife during the ceremony the wedding was off. He had to cut down a tree and build a lean-to. We have an acre on the reservation we plan to retire to."

"When Nixon was visiting this area, my father's plumbing business partner was driving a load of dynamite down the same two-lane road as the presidential motorcade. He wondered why men in suits were looking under culverts as he was heading to his demolition job. He'd be accused of terrorism these days even if he was a patriotic American on his way to doing a hard day's work."

"The newspaper called my victory a close win even though I had 61 percent of the vote."

"You're better-looking in person than your facebook photos."

"Thanks so much for contributing to the church organ fund in my daddy's name. That was sweet of you."

"I retired after 34 years of teaching 8th grade math. I join your mother and other retirees for the monthly get-togethers now."

"You're young enough to be my son!"

"You were at Camp Pendleton, too? Did you ride out in an LSD until everyone was seasick and then storm I-5 in winter?"

"You used to work in Utah? I'm thinking about moving to Salt Lake City. Are the Mormons very cliqueish?"

"Channel 11 is much more friendly to my husband so he's willing to meet them for interviews about what he's doing for the state. Reducing the budget will be one of his main focuses this term."

"I used to have to hold the antenna up when my father wanted to watch Channel 19 to get the local news."

"Are you the car dealer?"

"I know your father. He used to have an account at my bank. Does he still have that bungalow his grandparents built in Florida in the 1950s?"

"Yes, I'm still involved in Christmas tree sales. But I've got the pine pollen problem now. I drive the truck to pick up the trees and drop 'em off. I open the rear door and step back to let the rest of the Optimists unload 'em at the tree lot."

"Look! There's you and your wife on television wishing us a happy holiday."

"Yep, I can't get away from that, can I?"

"He normally received about 14,500 votes in the previous three elections but only about 12,500 at the last election. I got those 2,000 votes and they wanted to call it close!"

"My younger sister was the drum major in your class."

"My husband and I were at UT at the same time but we didn't meet until years later, after I was married."

"Your sister was my counselor at church camp in 1976. That's where my wife and I met two years earlier."

"When we were little kids I used to call her the Big Boop because she had a big behind. What was that, almost 50 years ago?"

"Shut up and get up on the floor and dance with me."

"I can't for very long. My arthritis is acting up."

"This is my ex-husband. Darling, do you still think I'm the best-looking one in here?"

"Well...maybe."

"Guess that's why you're my ex."

Thanks to Demetrice and Tony for setting up the arrangements, Ashley for her quick, efficient service at the Shack BBQ and Justin Michaels for the one-man band music.

Dancing and Romancing

 Christabel and the Jons Christmas Show

featuring the Actors Co-op!  Including Stephen M. Dupree, Amy Leigh Hubbard and Kimberly Pettigrew.

At Lowe Mill (where else?)

 Christa DeCicco, Seth Hopper, Jon Whitlock and Vince Ilagan brought a little bit of holiday cheer to the cheering crowd in the Flying Monkey Theatre in Huntsville, Alabama, earlier this evening.

Described as "all Christmas music, staged like 'Prairie Home Companion' or an old-time television holiday special," the band and the band of actors banded together to bandy back and forth.

Letters to Santa read from large scrolls.

Classic Christmas tunes.

All we needed was a little snow.

Voila!  Foam snowballs flew across the dance floor as couples spun around like swingin' skaters on a frozen pond.

Favorite lyrics:

"Biscuits and gravy, mashed potatoes,
Put some pepper on those fried green tomatoes;
I haven't seen you in ages."

Memorable sights: a father dancing with his newborn infant, Santa (Stephen) in a duet of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Christa, Seth playing muted trumpet, hopping couples waltzing in 6/8 time, Jon and Vince getting their solos; Amy and Kimberly singing backup.

Thanks to tonight's organisers; ticket taker; food sales; lighting/sound technician; Bushmills flask; Fred Bread; a late thanks to Shrestha at Surin.

Like the performers tonight, I can't wait to get back to Tennessee.  Hope Christa gets another guitar tuner and lipstick soon...and that she can always find a way to make herself happy (and/or make music).

Staged Takeover

How tired we grow of others getting the credit.

You know, the groups which claim titles like the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Jewish Mafia, the Gay Mafia, or La Familia.

There is and always will be one family to rule them all: the Redneck Mafia.

Every mob needs theme songs and troubadors to sing ballads retelling the conquests and family love sagas of old for future generations.

Thus, we rely on our compadres, The Three Redneck Tenors, to belch 'n' belt out the music of our subba-bubba couture.

Momma don' sing no bass in this ensemble.

Instead, the former circus ringmaster, Dinny "Colonel" McGuire, tamed the low notes and made them do his bidding as he tied together classic Christmas songs with redneck regalia about Edna Mae, newly widowed due to a woodchipper accident.

The three...no, make that two tenors and one baritone filled the air with the scent of Budweiser beer and the...

I interrupt the train of thought you had been followin' to ask you, "How many talents do you have?"

Is your cousin your male spouse and thus your "cusband"?

Can you sing like Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Maria Callas or Leontyne Price? Maybe Lena Horne or the Celtic Women?

Are you a rocket engineer and a member of your local orchestra?

Listening to the classically-trained voices of Matthew Lord, Blake Davison and Alex Bumpas roll off one classic redneck joke after another and then bounce around on stage in duct-taped tennis shoes or high heels and skirt while singing three-part harmony...

Well, you might just know why my train of thought wandered.

Speaking of, "Downtown" Gordon Brown might just know what he's talking about, marshalling the U.S. to lead the light brigade (this time backed by a few battle-hardened battalions and naval battle groups!).

But I digress.

Thanks to the violinist, Allen Ames, and the rest of the band led by Craig Bohmler, choreography by Candace Evans, Lindsay Hilliard's portrayal of Edna Mae, complete with plum coverage (no, not plumage) in the dance of the sugarplum's fairy.

Working an audience is work, from gauging whether an audience will connect Dean Martin to Jimmy Dean to encouraging the crowd to see a squirrel as the chicken of the tree (as opposed to tuna as the chicken of the sea).

Well, that's all my uncharged Kindle battery will allow.

G'nite, y'all. I love all seven billion of ya, even if I feel like kickin' some of ya in the backsides sometimes, hopin' it knocks ya out of the doldrums and into some sense.

Now to make some cents the hard way, one newly enlightened customer at a time!

In the world of positive, uplifting news...

Are you Committed?  You wish!

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.

It's A Problem For All Of Us

Addiction is an addition, a cost, a liability, a reduction in recyclable body parts:

China, a country going up in smoke

Is soy or Tolstoy your future source to stop feeling famished?

Who do you like better, Rita Burkholder or Florence and the Machine?

My Wife's Suggestion:

A showdown between the Alabama A&M and Ohio University marching bands.

Now that's an idea worth pursuing, maybe during an exhibition game between the two schools' football teams?

Meanwhile, I'm still thinking, waiting for some computer programs to finish calculating output for analysis and comic consideration.

Justin, the Nick of time

Charleston, a 3.5-year old boy, sat in the trolley with his father asking why (misplaced modifiers are my favourite form of word play).

Why are we not there yet?

It's the journey, son. Your final destination is a long way away.

Soon you'll see the names you'll recall as the great field leaders of their time - Tauren Poole, Austin Johnson, Justin Hunter, Nick Reveiz, Matt Simms and that new kid Bray.

You won't remember the band selling clay tablets, papyrus rolls, 45 RPM records, 8-track tapes, audiocassettes, CDs, and ring tones of marching music in the stands.

You'll think of blinged out mobile phones as nostalgia.

Will you lead a crowd cheer where the wave starts with people standing up on the first cycle, sitting down after the wave passes through a second time, standing up after the third time, etc.? Your version of my old cheer, "stand up, sit down, fight, fight, fight!"?

Did you know Neyland's son was a neighbour of mine who stands in the shadow of his father's statue like the rest of us now?

At your age, falling asleep when the score's 31-14 by halftime is okay.

I stand guard over you while students celebrate homecoming with trophies toted around like...well, like trophies, and young people, older than you, take mobile phone pics of themselves in their firsttime visit to the glorious coliseum of triumphs we call Neyland Stadium.

Will you remember the big plane and the tiny ultralight that flew overhead?

You're one of the boys of fall, a slew of them claiming a wellfought 52-14 victory on the field below us, a few, like Archie Manning, reminiscing about wellearned battle scars.

Today, it's time for racing and prayers, not in that order, of course. Think Momma has a birthday meal surprise on order for me today? Don't worry. We'll keep it a secret that we already know. Maybe by the time you grow up, Ford'll have another NASCAR championship, whoever the sponsor may be.

As smart as you are, you may have a business empire that owns the whole shindig, including UFC, WWE, NFL, NBA, NCAA, ESPN, EA sports, CBS and all the rest. Don't forget your daddy - he'd like good season tickets while you're hobnobbing with the well-to-do.

Time to get into the swing of things?

Congrats to Claire - it's never too late to be famous again!:

Stepping off the porch

Who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Where are your ideas?

Are you the kind of person who'd rather watch replays of the Lawrence Welk Show, seeing a young couple dance to the tune of "Capri" over and over again on PBS?

Or do you like retro punk and would rather form a mosh pit in the living room bashing heads to Dead Kennedys' "Halloween" on last.fm?

That's how two sides of the nonapathetic voting subcultures see the other.

So, like they say, exercise your right to feel like one in 317 million - get out and vote in the United States of America.  It's the least we can do to keep alive the dreams of Plato, Epictetus, St. Brigid, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, W.E.B. Dubois, Gandhi, MLKJ, Gloria Steinem and Andy Griffith.

And who knows, your single vote might make a difference.  Mine rarely has but I vote anyway.

I can dream, too, you know.  One day the Keep Politics Purely Political Party will win, if I live long enough.

Imminent. Fiscal. Free. Osmosis

Two activities my grandmother frowned upon - dancing and card playing.

Her second husband, my "real" but nonbiological grandfather had a vice - he smoked until emphysema attached oxygen feeding tubes to him for the rest of his life.

Do you ever see a vice squad go after smokers?

I'm not a health nut but I watch what I eat, smoking fewer cigars every year (don't have the nicotine addiction gene, I guess).

Doesn't mean I'm healthy but I do dance. Don't play cards much, though.

Last night, after the usual great service by Noina, Gift, Eric and Rainy at Thai Garden, the missus and I wandered into Lowe Mill in our minimalist dance costumes.

There, we learned about a subculture called the steampunk/zombie apocalypse epitomised by Cherie Priest's book, "Boneshaker."

Goggles, leather and gears. Worn by a young woman dressed up for the Halloween contest tied to the dancing.

Our musical guests, the Rocket City Jazz Orchestra, played a few sessions of big band sound - Chattanooga Choo-Choo, Mack the Knife, etc. The perfomers were all middle-aged guys like me, with the exception of the lovely singer who bewitched us with her sweet voice, one part Deborah Kerr and one part Doris Day.

Spellbound, I remembered my days with the Georgia Tech Navy ROTC jazz band, marching in Georgian smalltown parades and the Nawlins Mardi Gras festival.

As my wife noticed after prying me out of seat to have a clumsy good time on the dance floor, we spent all of our childhood and I a good bit of my early adulthood performing on stage, not thrashing around with the sweaty throngs.

We enjoyed seeing the dozens of young people jiving and swinging, keeping the music of the '20s, '30s and '40s alive and doing well under the shadow of cotton mill water towers and moonshot rockets.

Here in the Heart of Dixie. The lottery-free trophy buckle of the Bible Belt.

What would my Southern Baptist mission-founding grandmother say about that? "God works in mysterious ways. There's a purpose for everything. That orchid you and yo wife have is pretty enough to be in a Federated Garden Club show."

And my grandfather? "Did you have a good time? Did you stay out of trouble? Would you like to hear a story about any of my 29 years in the Navy between 1929 and 1959?"

It's Halloween, as much a part of our culture as religion and jazz.

Pirates, jellyfish, Rafael, tomb raiders, flappers, ninjas, Rainbow Brite, phantom of the opera, Lady Luck, dragonfly lady, angels and Antoine Dodson. Outfits befitting the times.

What pilgrims could have imagined the local natives introducing them to a grain that would grow into a maize maze? Amazing!

How do we let politics and influence peddling get out of control? Have we? Should we? Should we not? Simple. Never trust accounts receivable and accounts payable to the same person(s).

When Nature Calls, Do Your Duty

Low-key humour of the day - a poke at television shows about movies, nature, military, history, current events, "reality," and what-if scenarios: