November 20th, 2019- Howdy/Another Day, Another List

I came up the stairs this morning to the sound of the coffee grinder going. Heidi said, “I’m making you a pot of coffee, Babe (that’s me, not to be confused with pigs and baseball legends)”. Well alright. The house just feels cold in the morning. Today the fog is sitting on top of Pig Hill on Nonaville Road and I couldn’t see past the deck on the back of the house.

I guess this is the first blog post on the new website. The upgrade is long overdue and so is the blog. But where to start? I’ll start at the place where I left off some years ago, I reckon. A lot of things have happened since then, too many to go into. I’m in a sort of limbo these days trying to put things together and wondering what on earth to do with myself. I’ll be turning 64 in 2020 and will finally have my 16th birthday…yep, February 29th. It would be nice to give myself a birthday present of direction and clarity and vigorous pursuit of said direction but my GAS (known around here as “give a shit”) meter is leaning towards the red zone more than it used to these days. It must be natures’s way of keep middle-aged men from hurting themselves or maybe just being tired of trying to keep up with the herd. It seems that no matter how fast I run, the bandwagon just speeds on over the hill sometimes. And the entertainment business looks forever more like an arena filled with young men and women, everybody leaning towards the new energy. And for crying out loud, who has the energy to spend all the time needed to constantly feed social media sites? It’s a whole new thing for me and one that I’m not in the habit of utilizing yet. Content, content, content. 30-second videos of everything, quips, quotes, photos of lunch, tune ideas, you name it. Who has time to do it? The people who’re being seen and heard, that’s who. It’s the way.

I must admit that I have found a lot to like in solitude, a peaceful mind place, abundant quietness so loud that it is deafening sometimes. But I also know that if I sit for too long and ponder the universe I get anxious and start to blow everything way out of proportion so the balancing act is out of whack and that’s what needs work.

But…The last 6 days have been more eventful than not. Heidi and I went to Ackworth, GA to visit my Momma and her husband for a couple days, I had a long conversation with Norman and Nancy Blake just to say howdy and catch up (we all three had a phone so it was like talking on the old-fashioned party line. Very lively), I played the local public radio affiliate, WPLN 91.1 yesterday to a classical audience, played a rollicking couple hours of old-time fiddle tunes with Rafe Stefanini, Clelia Stefanini Frey and Eric Frey on Monday night and today I’ve got a few projects to do, those being to get some stuff squared away with CD Baby on the Compton/Blake project, lawyer talk regarding first-use mechanical licenses for the upcoming Monroe tunes release, practice for the Gathering concerts in North Carolina in 1 1/2 weeks and fixing the mailbox. I failed to mention that when I came home Monday night from the jam I found our mailbox laying in the ditch after being sideswiped by a car. So, onward to the mailbox project and more on all the rest when I get back…

Life is good. MC