beautiful, funny, sad & true

This Christmas season has been stressful, disappointing, exhausting, and marked by a conspicuous lack of financial means, all of which has left me feeling less than inspired to write much lately.  I’m still around, just completely broke (again. . .for the fifth consecutive month!), incredibly busy and stressed out.  Trying like crazy to feel like my usual happy-go-lucky self, with varying degrees of success.

The weather here in Portland is warming, and it’s been raining steadily for the last couple of days, so much of the snow is melting and disappearing.  We now have flood warnings in effect for parts of town and the state.  I took the chains off my car, one of which had broken and was hanging on by a mere thread inside the wheel.  I didn’t even realize it was still attached (I thought it fell off on the freeway the other day, and I haven’t driven since then) until I went out today to take off the remaining right one and saw the left one barely poking out from underneath the car.   I ruined my yellow rain jacket in the process, by getting grease all over both arms.  Niiiiice.   Well, it’s true that I wanted a new rain jacket anyway.

I found out yesterday that my grandma died on Christmas Day, at the age of 96.  For the record, I should mention that my brother and I didn’t know her very well.  I feel more disconnected and strange about it than anything else.  My family isn’t particularly close, on either side, either geographically or emotionally, and that’s what makes me saddest of all.  We hadn’t seen her for ten years, and it had been at least that long before that.  I’d been intending to reach out to her again lately, actually, and a couple of months ago, I got her address from my dad so that I could write to her and send some pictures.  He told me that I’d better do it soon, because she was ‘starting to lose it’, and that she’d been taking a turn for the worse these last few months.  I really regret that I didn’t write like I intended to, and that the time got away from me.  I wish that I’d had the chance to reconnect with her in some way.

I thought she’d be particularly happy to know that I play the cello now, because my grandpa (who died when I was about nine, but who I hadn’t seen since I was six) used to play the cello also.  I didn’t even know that until one day when I was about twenty-six or something, and I happened to mention to my dad, “I think it would be really great to learn how to play the cello.”

He gave me a strange, thunderstruck look and said, “I wish you would have said something earlier.”  He told me about my grandpa, and how he had an orchestra-quality instrument that was at my grandma’s house, but that she had recently GIVEN AWAY.  My dad continued.  “In fact, he put himself through college on a cello scholarship, I believe, and he played semi-professionally back in the 1920’s and 30’s.  After he died, his cello was in her attic, untouched and unused, for decades.  She kept it this whole time, hoping that maybe one of you guys would show some interest in it, but you never said anything, so she gave it to a student at her church.  She would have gladly given you his cello for nothing.”   My jaw literally dropped.

I didn’t get a cello and start playing until about four and a half years ago, when I saw an ad for one online, and offered to trade one of my electric guitars for it.  The person accepted, and I’ve been a happy cellist ever since.  Mine turned out to be an excellent quality instrument, an Ernst Heinrich Roth from the early 1960’s.  It needed quite a few repairs and modifications, since it had had a difficult life in a public school district.  I got done the repairs done as I was able to, and now it’s a perfectly good semi-professional level instrument.   I loveitloveitloveitloveitloveit.  It has a full, warm sound that newer instruments just can’t replicate.

And yes, sometimes when I’m playing, I wonder what they would think.  My grandpa, who knew the instrument so well, and my grandma, who kept it faithfully in the hopes that one of her children or grandchildren would play one day, to keep a connection with them and give them a gift they would very likely treasure for their entire lives.

Here are some pictures for you, grandma.  Wish you could have seen them, and also heard what was happening in my life when they were being taken.

As you may already know, and it’s abundantly clear if you spend any time poking around here on my blog, I have a busy life.  Sometimes it gets so busy, in fact, that I occasionally forget things.  One of those things is my Favorite Songs series.  I still need to work on a snappier title for it, but at least I remembered it, and here’s another song.

It’s by a German 80’s group called Freiheit (Germans probably know them as Münchener Freiheit), and it’s called “Keeping the Dream Alive.”  I first heard the song on the soundtrack for the movie Say Anything, back in the day, and fell in love with it instantly.   To my ears, it’s the best Paul McCartney song that he never wrote.

The video does look a bit dated, but it fits nicely with the spirit of the song.

The song has apparently had a nice resurgence here in this country in recent years, thanks to its inclusion on American Idol.  I watch precious little television, and have only seen that show a couple of times, but I can do internet research as well as anyone.

I was somewhat surprised to find out that the group are still active (dare I say it. . .keeping the dream alive?), and continue to put out new albums.  I’ll have to check those out.  Even if they hadn’t, though, they’d still be an incredible band in my book, based on this song alone.

Enjoy!

OneYearAgo

Still in the middle of another CrazyWeek.  It’s been non-stop, full of recording (both with IrishBand and with Breanna), a really late but super-fun gig with IrishBand, and then tonight I’m going to watch my friend John play a gig, as he opens for a songwriter whose CD I love but who I’ve never seen play before, and a band who I’ve heard are good but I’ve not heard them at all yet.  Should be a good time, all around.

Slightly dark and stormy times in other ways.  Work’s been ‘teh’ stressful lately; so much so that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were almost unbearable.  Suffice it to say that I’m glad they’re over.  Financial times have been really tough too, for almost five months now.  Car problems and other problems have really been plaguing me lately, all at the same time.  I actually had to swallow my pride and borrow some money from a family member a week and a half ago.   There’s light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s still definitely a tunnel.

The first big storms of the year are rolling in as I’m writing this.  It’s pouring rain today, and the wind is actually whistling through the windows, which is extremely rare in my sheltered apartment.  There are sirens blaring through my neighborhood, coming from what sounds like an ambulance.   Portland may get hit with snow this weekend, which is pretty rare, and absolutely grinds the town to a halt when it does come.  I have an important gig on Sunday (playing drums in a wedding reception band, which will be a total blast) in the West Hills.  Luckily, my little Honda is great in the snow, and I have chains too, just in case the weather really takes a turn for the worse.  I’m sure I won’t need them, though, and I’m going to go on record and say that I don’t think it’s going to end up snowing after all.

Guess we’ll find out.

Heading back to work now. . .

My friend just called to tell me that he got a message on BookOfFaces from a girl in his high school class.  This year is their twentieth reunion, so the class is using that web site as the point of connection for everyone.

So he got a message from a woman saying that she remembers him from choir, and asking him if he also used to play in the band Iron Horse.  My friend said he did, and she told him that to this day she’s married to a guy she met at one of our shows.  To the few and the proud who may actually have been in attendance at Iron Horse shows back in the day, and who might also be reading this, it was our show at the Ahtanum Youth Park.

There, you see?  Music really does have the power to bring people together, especially if it’s the music of INXS, Yngwie Malmsteen, Van Halen and the Beatles.  And, of course, the Fat Boys.  She said they slow-danced to our version of “Honesty” by Billy Joel, which we did an off-the-cuff version of (along with many other songs) in order to stretch out the night.

This is one of those blog moments when I wish I had a VHS-to-computer transcriber thingy, because I have that show somewhere on a videotape, but I have no way to get it onto my Mac.  So I could totally allow her to relive the magic all over again, by finding her on BookOfFaces and sending her a link to this blog entry, with a hilarious old video of the song she and her husband danced to, way back when.  I suppose it’s the thought that counts, right?  I’d totally do that if I had the technology.  Grrr.

That story made me laugh, warmed my heart, and brought a little tear to my eye all at the same time, mostly because A) those of us in the band thought it was a fairly crappy but funny show, where we did all these weird songs we’d never played before, and B) I just think it’s awesome that not only did she meet her future husband at that of all shows, but that they’re still together now, over twenty years later.

Le Sigh.

I recently got the documentary Dark Days from InternetFlicks, and I wanted to share it with you.  It tells the story of a few of the people who live in the abandoned train tunnels underneath New York City, and it’s absolutely one of the most gripping, heartfelt and memorable documentaries I’ve ever seen.  I recommend it whole-heartedly.

Here’s a clip of the first ten minutes of the film.

You’re probably lucky that I wasn’t able to find a link to the complete movie online, because otherwise you’d have sat here and watched the entire movie, because it’s so compelling and unusual.

As a bonus, the music (composed by DJ Shadow) is particularly excellent.  In fact, some of it may even sound familiar to you if you’re a regular listener to the radio show This American Life.

Enjoy!

OneYearAgo