Thought for the Day - Feb 4

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 09:21 PM

Happy birthday to Tristan. I think there are quite a few of us on the Mudcat. My daughter Kitty has never learned to talk, and she never will. But she's got great taste in music.

Drums and such - the best drummers make jokes about drummers, and the best banjo players make jokes about banjo pklayers and so forth. John Kirkpatrick (who cannot be exc elled by any other squeezebox player alive) has a great song with a chorus that goes:

Here's your harp, welcome to heaven, here's your accordion - welcome to hell.

Just so long as we agree the jokes are just jokes? If all the drummers are in hell, the music in heaven would be a drag. A bad drummer can ruin a session, and that means one who plays selfishly without listening to the others (even if technically brilliant. But that is just as true of any musician.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: JenEllen
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 06:36 PM

Best of birthday wishes to wonderful children, lucky parents, slow drummers, and aw hell...even old Buck..

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Metchosin
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 06:35 PM

Spaw, wish Tristan a Happy Birthday from me too!

Susan

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 05:18 PM

Happy birthday, Tris!! You one lucky bugger I teenk!!

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 04:46 PM

Mmmmario - looks like I missed that bit! Thanks for the correction!

Best Birthday wishes, Spaw and all!

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 04:12 PM

Its 4 o'clock and snowing, but we have a new furnace and the house is warm. We'll leave shortly to take Tris for a birthday "shop" and a bite of supper. Thanks for the wishes and Amos....whatta' feeling, huh?

.....And Meebo, hang in, it gets better and better!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 01:27 PM

Love Buck Owens. Hate drummers.(sort of)

Rick

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:58 AM

Jed...you wouldn't be a might prejudiced for ole Buck because he's a homey from the Lone Star State, would you? *BG*

Just kidding. Diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks. His music just never did anything for me.

Neil

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Mbo
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:44 AM

I'm so happy for you two. You have good lives.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:41 AM

About fifteen years ago (to marry the two off thread entries here) I held a new infant in my arms; she stared up at me with curiousity and profound self-reliance, and all I could do was weep and tell her shre was welcome to the world.

Last night her Mom and I went to a neighbor's house where shehad been going a few hours a week to play in a student jazz band. They had a tutor in, who was inspired, and worked up some numbers. A keyboardist, bass, guitar, drummer, a new gal sitting in on trombone, and my daughter (Ariel yclept) on lead trumpet.

Man, could they cut a rug! They absolutely wailed on some very tough syncopated numbers such as "Sing, Sing"; they did some freeform blues with Ariel doing absolutely soulful solos on her trumpet, and then they changed gears and laid "Amazing Grace" on us. I was blown out through the back of my head, I am here to say; not just the music, but because I remembered that hour in the hospital, seeing this handful of protoplasm staring up at me, and being swept off my feet by the emotions which are only opened to us when the tides of life itself sweep us out of our smaller concerns.

It was one helluva night. I'm with you, 'Spaw -- it doesn't get better than this.

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Mbo
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:14 AM

Doo wah doo wah doo wah doo wah doo waaaah!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Callie
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:11 AM

Thanks Spaw. I am touched by your story and your sincerity. I am having some cake in Tristan's honour. mmmm!

On the subject of drummers - there's an offence which is AS worse. I play (outside of my phoaky universe) in a jazz combo. When the singer counts us in she counts in on the on-beats and clicks in time with her counting on the 1 - - 3 - -. It drives me crazy because it tells me she don't know how to swing (and she DON'T know how to swing!).

Aahh, it's the small aggravations that get us through the day! Callie

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: MMario
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 11:10 AM

jed, jed, jed, jed, jed....

the connection is with "thought for the day"....

to use a quotation from 'spaw's excellent post "Just about this exact hour, eight years ago today"

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:58 AM

Wow! Spaw, thanks for sharing that with us. Happy Birthday to Tristan! What a wonderful, wonderful world, especially for him, being with you guys and Michael.

Peter, intersting quote; when I was growing up, there was considerable disdain in our house re' Buck and the whole HeeHaw show. That changed a little bit over the years, but as any parent of a toddler, whose grandparents have gifted them with a drum will say, yes, indeedy! Hell could be as described by Buck, whom, BTW, I have never consider to be a philosopher.

I suppose Waylon Heron put you up to this one, eh?*BG*

katlaughing

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:54 AM

Spaw - best bit of thread creep I've seen here at the 'cat! Thanks for the stories and best wishes for the family.

By the way, is there any connection there with Buck Owens or a musician's vision of a personal hell?

;-)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:49 AM

Totally OFF Topic.....Sorry.

I was 37 before I was married. Karen was and is the best thing that has ever happened in my life. I suppose because we were both older and were better prepared as individuals may have been a factor, but from 20 minutes after I met her, I knew this was the person that somehow I was destined to share the rest of my life. We had been married about five years and decided on adoption as our way of building a family. We went to the county agency and began the process, thinking of adopting older, special needs kids. We never considered a baby.

Then one day a miraculous thing happened. Johanna, the caseworker for adoption, called and asked if we might be interested in an infant. A severely delayed young woman was pregnant and knew that she would be unable to care for a baby. She went to Children's Services for help and an adoptive plan was made. We were overwhelmed, but very excited at the prospect and said so to Johanna. She explained the strong possibilities of severe retardation for this baby. We considered it....and went right on with the process. It would be several more weeks before this child was born and no two people ever sweated out any childbirth more.

Just about this exact hour, eight years ago today, our fine young son Tristan was born. Yes, he has many problems and significant delays, but he is a happy little guy who is learning his alphabet and counting to ten and making progress beyond his Dad and Mom's best hopes. No little boy could love their Mommy more and when he hugs me and says, albeit a bit slurred, "I love you Daddy"......Friends, it does NOT get better than that! He and Michael are the absolute joys of our lives and I am everyday more in debt to the fates that brought Karen and I together......and our lovely sons into our lives.

Its a fine day.....even if we ARE having a new furnace installed because the other one blew last night!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: JedMarum
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:39 AM

Buck Owens may not have spoken to a sophisticated (some might even say adult) educated audience ... but he was a talented singer songwriter who spoke from the heart of his experience to a generation of people from backgrounds similar to his. His comment quoted at the start of this thread shows insight into the characters of entertainers and a self deprecating humor toward those characters - he mildy pokes fun at drummers (a common subject for jokes) for being, at least on occasion hard to work with ... and at himself for being so bothered by it as to call it a personal hell.

You may well consider his contribution to the world as trivial, but this quote shows some value in its insight and humor.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Mbo
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:39 AM

Then you folks have never heard Ray Conniff's "Bolero" treatment of the Little Drummer Boy? It's a classic!

--Mbo

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Wesley S
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:32 AM

I mentioned before in a previous thread my idea of hell is an audience that insists on clapping along even though they have no idea where the beat is at. And Amos - I have to agree - there are a lot of wonderful Christmas carols and The Little Drummer Boy isn't one of them. Sorry to offend anyone who loves the song but it's like Chinese water torture to me. But that's just one mans opinion - I could be wrong.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: GUEST,Neil Lowe
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 10:24 AM

If I were still drumming, my idea of hell would be having to play the same gig with Buck Owens over and over. That or trading hokey comebacks with him in a cornfield. Maybe I missed something, but where did this guy gain all his stature within the country music genre? I hope he makes better contributions to the field of philosopy.

Neil Lowe

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 09:57 AM

For those who don't play, they have a special niche: listening to "The Little Drummer Boy" over and over again.

A

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 08:29 AM

Bonded for all time to a drummer you hate! Couldn't get much worse than that.!! Slow, steady, ruinous torture. Spot on.

A

Subject: Thought for the Day - Feb 4
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Feb 00 - 08:23 AM

"Musicians have got this great fear of hell. What musicians hate most of all is a drummer who drags the tempo. That's what we think hell will be for us. I've spoken about it with different entertainers. Hell is playing the same gig over and over again with the same dragging drummer."
-- Buck Owens, country singer, philosopher. (from In the Country of Country by Nick Dawidoff).