Another Concert

We went up to Nashville Monday night to see a concert at the Grand Ole Opry House.  The concert was a celebration of the fortieth anniversary of the founding of Rounder Records.  We were drawn to the concert by the headliners — Bela Fleck, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas.  Turns out, though, that we got both more and less than we bargained for.

It turns out that the concert was being filmed for a special that will air on National Public Television in March.   Well, we thought that might be kind of cool.  We’ve seen lots of concerts that were taped or made into DVDs and it seemed like the folks at those shows had fun.  And in fact, our introduction to the whole taping-for-TV thing included requests that we, the audience, give them a few rounds of applause that they could use to edit and fill in space as they put the show together.  Polite applause, applause with whoops and whistles, frenzied applause.  They taped them all before the show even began.  It was a little goofy, but it was fun.  The kids thought it was very cool.

Our host for the evening was Minnie Driver, the British actress, who, it seems, is also Minnie Diver, the Rounder recording artist.  I know.  I was surprised, too.  But she was the opening act.  She played four songs, all of them her own compositions.  They were fine; not outstanding, but not terrible, either.  They had a kind of standard pop/country sound.  Her band was good, although she didn’t introduce them and something about the way she spoke to them and told us about them gave us the impression that she didn’t know their names.  Weird.

After Minnie finished her set, she went backstage, changed clothes, and came back out to play emcee.  At the same time, the stage crew moved equipment around.  The first band (after her own) that she introduced was a cajun/creole group called Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas, and they rocked.  I don’t own much Zydeco music, and probably wouldn’t listen to it much if I did, but live it was terrific.  Nathan Williams and his band had the entire audience on their feet and dancing for his entire set, which also consisted of four songs.

Then we had another break, while the stage was rearranged, and Bela Fleck came out.  I was so excited — Fleck is one of my favorite musicians.  He is the most influential and accomplished banjo player this side of Earl Scruggs, and I adore his music.  At one point Jerry Douglas came out to accompany him on dobro — another thrill.  The two of them a great friends; they’ve recorded together for years.  But they only did one piece together, and after Bela had played his fourth number, he got up and left the stage.  Minnie came back out to say that they were going to take a small break and then continue with the next act, soul singer Irma Thomas.  At this point it was already approaching 10:00.  The concert had been scheduled to begin at 7:30, but hadn’t started until 8:15.  We’d heard exactly 12 songs, and Bela Fleck, who had been one of the main reasons we’d bought tickets in the first place, had been onstage and off so quickly that I almost thought he was joking when he first got up to leave.

Irma Thomas was fine.  I’m not a big fan of soul, but she was feisty and fun, and she was also given just four songs.  Another break to redo the stage, and then Mary Chapin Carpenter came out.  Her set was terrific.  Five songs this time, including her mid-90s hit “He thinks he’ll Keep Her.”  Then yet another rearranging of the stage.  And finally, at about 11:30, Alison Krauss, Jerry Douglas, and the rest of Union Station came out for their set.  They got a huge reception, of course, and they played several of my favorite songs.  But they played five and went off stage, came back on for a single encore, and were done.  Another change of the stage, a few minutes of Minnie Driver doing introductions for video segments that we wouldn’t see, but for which we were expected to applaud, and then all the major performers came out and did one last number.

We got up from our seats to leave the auditorium at 12:20, almost five hours to the minute after we had sat down.  We’d heard maybe, maybe, two and a half hours of actual music.  The rest had been delays, forced applause, stage changes, and the brief intermission.  Don’t get me wrong:  most of the music was terrific.  Bela Fleck’s four songs were wonderful; the zydeco band ad Mary Chapin Carpenter were great; AKUS was fabulous as always. But we had the kids with us, and we drove an hour and a half in each direction to see this show.  We didn’t get home until 2:00 am.  I won’t even tell you what we paid for the tickets.  And to be quite honest it wasn’t worth it.

Sometimes My Job Is Kind of Weird…

I finally finished my massive rewrite of the contemporary fantasy I’ve been working on.  It was a tremendous amount of work, deeply wrenching at times, and deeply satisfying at others.  In a way I was taking an old book and grafting a new book onto it.

I let the manuscript sit for a little over a week, and now I’m polishing a bit.  And sometimes when I polish, I read the book aloud.   Why?  Because it’s often the best way for me to experience the book, to check it for awkward wording, for overused phrases, for anything that might jar a reader or put off a potential editor.  It’s a technique that works well for me — I recommend it.

But it’s a little weird sitting alone in my house and reading aloud.  It’s even weirder when my kids and wife are home and they constantly think that I’m talking to them or that I’m on the phone or that I’m having a conversation with myself.  (“Dad’s finally gone off the deep end…”)

Anyway, that’s what I’m doing this week.  I’m reading to myself.  Out loud.  And for what it’s worth, I like the book a lot….

Weekend Ephemera

First things first:  There’s a new contest up on my website and you should definitely check it out.  You don’t need to be familiar with my books to enter — all you need to do is read a story I recently posted there and tell me who should play the lead roles if it’s ever made into a movie.  Easy, right?  And if I choose your response as the winner, you’ll receive an autographed, hardcover edition of The Sorcerers’ Plague, book I of Blood of the Southlands.  So visit the site and check it out!

Remember the owl who showed up at our place a few nights ago and sat on the swing set?   Well, he came back last night, and he brought his brother.  The two of them were sitting together on the play set, looking around, making their little rasping call, waiting for Mama to bring them something to eat.  They hung around the house all night, actually, calling to each other, and fluttering from perch to perch.  They’re newly fledged and not very accomplished flyers.  One of them flew off the swing set last night without first deciding where he was going to land next.  He wheeled and turned and finally tried to grasp the trunk of a tree.  That didn’t work for long and eventually he had no choice but to drop to the ground in a most undignified manner.  He was fine and a moment later he flew back into the woods.  But he and his brother were back a short time later, ready to try it all again.  They’re very cool.

And now it’s the weekend.  Nancy is taking my older daughter and some of her friends out camping tonight.  So my younger daughter and I are having what we call a Daddy-Daughter-Day.  Not sure yet what we’re going to do.  A water park if these clouds clear and the temperature rises; otherwise a movie and sushi dinner (we’re both nuts for sushi).  Should be fun.

Hope all of you are enjoying your weekend.

Lazy Bones and the Three Stars….

My daughters swam in a meet this morning.  They did great.  Their relay teams all took first place, and between them in their individual races they took three firsts, a second, a third and a sixth.  They also had a great time.

My wife couldn’t be at the meet, because she was running (swimming?  Biking?  Doing?) what’s known as a sprint triathlon.  She had a great time, too.

And me?  I cheered.  I encouraged.  I praised.  And then I took a nap.

Thoughts on Honors Day

This is graduation weekend at my daughters middle/high school, and today was Honors Day, when students are recognized for achievements in academics, sports and community service.  I attended, because I’m on the parents’ council and our organization was sponsoring the event and the reception that followed.

I dreaded the ceremony, because it has a reputation for being long and boring.  But I enjoyed it, mostly because so many of the kids who were honored were friends of my daughter or children of friends.  It seems like a day ago that I was watching them play youth soccer and little league, or seeing them in the sixth grade play.  Now they’re juniors and seniors in college.  It goes so fast.  

My daughter was honored too, though because she’s only in eighth grade this year, she wasn’t eligible for most of the awards.  But she was chosen for a leadership position in next year’s freshman class, which is pretty cool.  Except for the fact that I REALLY can’t believe she’s about to be a freshman in high school.

As I say, it goes so fast….

I’m Well Into My Dad-Teens

Today is my fourteenth Dad Day.  I’ve been a Dad for exactly 14 years and I’m hoping for lots of presents.  Yeah, yeah, that means it’s also my older daughter’s 14th birthday, but this is about me, damnit!  This is my day to celebrate me, you know?  It’s my chance to kind of, like, reflect on everything that’s cool about me being a Dad.  And there’s A LOT for me to reflect on.  

In those first few years I kind of stumbled along, making mistake after mistake, and dealing with totally gross stuff like diapers and baby food and baby puke, which looked suspiciously like baby food, but smelled worse.   It was pretty lame actually.  I was pretty lame.  But not anymore.  I’m fourteen now (in Dad years) and I know everything I need to know.  Really.  I mean, sure there are people who claim they know more than me (Than I?  Oh, what-EV-er!).  These geezers have been doing the parent thing for-like-ever.  But that doesn’t make them experts, right?  I mean, experts are people who get on TV to talk about stuff that other people want to learn about, and who wants to see geezers on TV talking about this stuff?  I don’t.

Like, the other day one of my daughters (I forget which one, and really what difference does it make?) was complaining about feeling sick and having a fever and throwing up and being achy and tired and stuff.  And I was like, “Okay, get over it already!”  I mean, ohmyGod, how much of that stuff can one person listen to, right?  And this is just what I mean.  Back when I was five or six in Dad years I would have been, like, “Oh, poor baby!  You need to lie down.  We’ll take your temperature and put a blanket on you and get you some gatorade or something.”  Lame, right?  And those geezer-guys will tell you to take a kid like that to the doctor or to read some lame All-About-Sick-Kids book.  Like I have time for that, right?  I mean you have no idea how hard it is being me.  Being fourteen in Dad years is really, really, really hard, even when you know as much as I do.

But today isn’t about the hard stuff, like, you know, kids and things.  Today is about me and my fourteen years as a Dad.  So let’s eat some cake and open presents!  

Um, will presents make my face break out…?

Let’s Call it a Week…

This week slipped by pretty quietly. That is, until a bunch of fourteen year-old girls showed up for my older daughter’s birthday party tonight. Nothing quiet about that at all. It was supposed to be outside at a lake over in town, but the thunderstorms and tornado watch kind of changed our plans. But they’re mostly gone now, our house is returning to normal, and our daughter is very happy. So the noise was definitely worth it.

I may have some book news next week. Here’s hoping. We’ll see what happens.

Two Sides of Growing Up

This was dance weekend in our home and our little town.  Both my daughters take dance lessons throughout the school year, and their annual recital was on Saturday afternoon.  The younger one takes tap and ballet; the older one takes tap and jazz.  So both of them had two performances in the recital, and both of them did great.  Nancy and I were very proud, and kept thinking back to the days when they were just starting out, wearing stiff little plastic tutus and ribbons in their hair.  They’ve both come a long way.

But this weekend that was especially true of our older daughter.  In addition to the regular dance classes, this year she auditioned for the University’s dance performance, which was also performed this weekend.  She’s only in eighth grade, but she’s very good and she got into two dances — an Irish dance and a modern hip-hoppy sort of thing.  She was the youngest person in the program, but you wouldn’t have known it to watch the dances, and to the credit of the college kids, you wouldn’t have known it from how they treated her.  She was one of the dancers, nothing more and certainly nothing less.  It was a magical experience for her, a tantalizing taste of what she has to look forward to in years to come as her dancing improves and she gets into even more dances in the college program.

It was quite an experience for Nancy and me, too.  Seeing her up there dancing with those older men and women and fitting in so well — it brought home to both of us just how fast the years are going by.  She started dance nine years ago, and it seems like yesterday.  She leaves for college in another four years or so.  How quickly will that time go by?  (Rhetorical question; believe me, I know the answer.)  It’s hard to fathom, but it’s exciting for all of us.

But these changes have a darker side, too.  

On Sunday night a girl my daughter knows — a high school student three years older than she — was killed in a car wreck on a rural highway a few miles from here.  My daughter wasn’t terribly close to this girl, but that didn’t keep this tragedy from having a profound effect on her.

I’m a middle-aged man.  I’m used to confronting my mortality, to being reminded every day that life is transient and fate capricious.  But this is new to her, and a part of me grieves to see her forced to confront such hard truths at such a tender age.  I realize that she’s not as young as I think she is, nor as unprepared for the real world.  But it’s hard to watch nevertheless.  She’s a teenager, as are her friends.  And she’s finding out that bad things happen to good people.  She’s realizing that those stupid rules her mother and I impose (like, for instance, she’s not allowed to ride in a car with a teen driver) have their roots in justifiable fears.  She’s starting to understand that “growing up” is double edged, and that the freedom she covets comes with dangers she hadn’t fully considered.

I know that these are important lessons for her to learn, though right now the price of them seems far, far too steep.  I find myself struggling with the (mistaken) urge to shelter her.  I want to hold her on my lap like I did when she was four and was getting ready for that first recital.  I want to tuck her in and sing her to sleep.  Parenting was easy then.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was.  And so when she comes to me and tells me how freaked out she is, how sad for this girl’s family and her close friends and her new boyfriend who lost his first love, I’ll listen.  I’ll resist the urge to reassure her, because really, what assurances can I give?  I’ll avoid the temptation to try to draw lessons from this experience for her; she doesn’t need my help with this one.  And when she tells me that she’s scared, that the uncertainties of life seem overwhelming, I’ll nod and tell her that I’m scared, too.  Because I am.  And she’s grown too old for easy lies.

A Good Trip, But….

Well, we’re back from Savannah, and I have to say that it is truly a marvelous city.  For those of you who don’t know, the city is laid out as a grid, with each section of the grid built around a square of green space.  Most of the squares have a statue or a fountain or a monument at their center, and all of them are filled with magnificent Live Oak trees, their branches covered with Spanish Moss.  Stately old homes and churches surround the squares; some of the homes have been converted to museums; others remain privately owned (I can’t even begin to imagine what one of them might sell for).  Most of them date from the early 19th century; all of them are beautifully maintained.   We walked all over the city, stopping in to view some of the museums, shopping in antique shops, and eating lots of great food.  During the three days we were in the city, we didn’t once use our car — we were able to walk everywhere, and the girls didn’t even complain.  Of course, we kept them well plied with ice cream and salt-water taffy, which helped a lot….

My one complaint:  Any of you know what no-see-ums are?  They’re also referred to as biting midges.  Look in your dictionary at the letter “l” in any entry — that’s how big they are.  Don’t let their size fool you, though.  They’re vicious.  You can’t see them until you feel the sting of a bite, which, in and of itself, isn’t too painful.  But then the fun begins.  A small welt rises where the little bugger bit you.  It itches like mad, so you scratch it a bit.  A moment or two later the welt is the size of a penny and the itch is driving you nuts.  But you’re having trouble focusing on that one because you’ve just felt that same like sting in about eighteen other places:  your forearm, your scalp, your leg, in between two knuckles, on your wrist, on your neck . . .  You get the idea.

Worst of all, the bites are as persistent as flea bites.  I’m still covered with welts several days after the worst of the no-see-um swarms, and all of them still itch.

So, yeah, I had a great time in Savannah.  But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the bugs made this trip a bit harder to enjoy.  I need to remember that the Southeast coast in mid-March, while lovely in terms of the weather, is also prime no-see-um country.  I had this problem at Cumberland Island two years ago and at Hilton Head six years ago, but I thought that being in a city would make this trip different.  I was wrong.  And I have the welts to prove it.

Checking in From the Road

Just checking in.  We’re in Savannah right now, enjoying the sights, eating some very, very good food, and doing a lot of walking around in what has to be one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen.

Hope all of you are well.