More Music

Over time this has become a blog of my musical as well as outdoor adventures, so I figured a post about recent gigs won't be out of place.

A couple of weeks ago my phone rang at about 6 PM on a Friday. "This is Bob - what're you doing tonight?" said the voice at the other end. It turns out Bob was hanging out with Cletus*, the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of a band that was scheduled to play at a local bar that night - but without their usual keyboard player, who was out of town. Bob suggested me as a fill-in. As it happened, I was free, and so a gig was born!

Being an on-time person, I showed up at the time Cletus had said to arrive and found I was the first band member there. I sat down at the bar and ordered a beer and soon enough the rest of the band trickled in. I went up and introduced myself to Cletus (who I recognized because I had seen him play before). We chatted for a little bit but he kept calling me "Joey". I thought maybe he just has a weird sense of humor. Anyway, the band went about their business and a little while later I approached Cletus again about where he wanted me to set up. He seemed a little unclear as to who I was and so I mentioned my name again and that I was the keyboard player. He told me where on that stage their usual keyboard player set up. At that point they were still rigging the PA and drums and so I held off on setting up. A little while later my phone rang. It was Cletus, asking why I wasn't there yet. I walked the twenty or so feet from where I had been sitting to where he was and reminded him that I was there. He apologized. "I'm really wasted," he explained. Well, that worried me - I've played with a lot of people who think they play better high or drunk but in fact most of them, while they may perceive themselves as playing better, actually get sloppy and forgetful. Which reminds me that some day perhaps I should write about the time a band leader showed up for a gig in the midst of a multi-day bender in honor of his 50th birthday. He was responsible for bringing the PA and arrived with this very cool state of the art digital PA system he had borrowed from a friend - no mixing board, everything controlled form an iPad. The only problem was that in his state of intoxication/hangover he had no idea how to set the thing up. And of course he showed up very late. We used what time was available to (unsuccessfully) try to figure the thing out but wound up performing the first set without PA (not good!). In between sets I jury-rigged something to give us at least a modicum of amplification. Not a great show.

Anyway, a few weeks later Magnolia Blue had a chance to share a double bill with Cletus' band at Gypsy Sally's in DC. I don't know what gave the club the idea of combining these two bands - our New Orleans, horn-driven funk and Cletus' more John Hiatt-ish honkytonk Americana; however, while the styles may have been an odd mix, the bands have overlapping fan bases and so a good crowd of people turned out.

Being an on-time person, I showed up at the time Cornelius had said to arrive and found I was the first band member there (the other band was sound-checking). I sat down at the bar and read my book and soon enough the rest of the band trickled in. Playing at a venue like Gypsy Sally's is really nice; they get national acts there and so they treat their performers well (they don't pay well, but that's another story). There's a real green room (backstage lounge for performers), stocked with beer and ice water. No relying on unreliable band members for PA: they have a high end house system which supports separate onstage monitor mixes for the band members (say, for example, I like to hear lots of kick drum to help with timing but the drummer doesn't need to hear his own foot going "boom") and fills the house with nice, clear sound. They have a separate sound person for the house mix (what the audience hears) vs. the monitor mix (what we hear onstage) - that's a real big-time luxury that's rarely available in the kinds of places I play. Once we were finished sound-checking they even provided dinner of pizza and salad. Nice. I ration my pizza intake to once per month for cardiac reasons and had been saving my November pizza for an upcoming trip to New York, but decided to allow myself an extra pizza meal this month and ate heartily.

Sumptuous backstage dinner

Backstage, I ran into the other band. Cletus was there draining quite a bit from a bottle of tequila he had brought along and was smoking something to boot. After he had imbibed a quantity well beyond what would have rendered me unconscious he said, "I better hold off - I don't like to be wasted onstage". I smiled.

Cletus and company do their thing

Anyway, our set went well. Cletus' set went well. A good time was had by all. I felt well taken care of by a venue for a change. And Cletus and I both had a great evening kicking off a week of life events - my birthday, and his wedding.

*Not his real name

Veterans Day Bike Ride

Let's start by settling punctuation: Veteran's vs. Veterans' vs. Veterans Day. Judd, the leader of today's Veterans Day ride, works for the Veterans Administration and says that according to their official style guide there is no apostrophe. The day doesn't belong to Veterans; rather, it is a day in honor of Veterans. Now you know.

I left home at around 9 AM to bike to Velo Cafe at The Wharf in DC, the starting point of the ride. At that time of the morning it was quite cold - my first ride of the season with temps in the thirties. I dressed warmly and so was comfortable - of course, with the exception of my hands which were cold despite gloves, glove liners, and little chemical warmer packets. I spent about the first half of the trip into DC obsessing about how my hands were going to hurt all day. Fortunately, in the second half of the trip I distracted myself with another train of thought and, since I wasn't focusing on them, my hands didn't bother me as much.

At Velo the earlybirds got coffee while the rest of the group drifted in and schmoozed (note: they don't have brewed decaf coffee at Velo, so I ordered a decaf latte. They have almond and soy milk but not non-fat, so I got my latte with whole milk). Once everyone (about 15 people) had arrived we made a presentation to Bob, a rider who is moving away. Josephine had put out a call for photos and reminiscences and on very short notice put together a really lovely book. My contribution to the book was this photo:

Cardiac Coffee Club (Bob is in the rear)

Just a few weeks after my surgery last year, a group of the morning bicycle coffee clubbers took coffee club on the road and brought it to my house, Bob among them. This was a super nice gesture and was a warm spot of cheer during the tough period of my initial recovery. Bob was also a role model in terms of athletic recovery after serious illness. He had a bout with cancer, after which he came roaring back. He is the kind of rider who can knock off 100 miles like it's nothing day after day after day. Last winter he dropped out of Freezing Saddles in the middle for personal reasons but had already ridden so many miles that he remained in first place for weeks after he stopped riding!

Presentation to Bob (in patriotic jersey) at Velo Cafe

DC is a city that is not short on monuments, even if you limit yourself to a theme, and so we had plenty of Veteran-themed monuments to tour. We visited the American Veterans Disabled for Life monument and the DC War Memorial (honoring DC residents who died in service to their country), where there was a wreath from the "Association of Oldest Residents of DC". I figured this was an organization of centenarians; I later looked it up - their membership requirements are being at least 40 years of age with at least 20 years of residence in DC, which means that if there was an equivalent organization in Arlington I would qualify as an "Oldest Resident of Arlington". In fact, I'm so old that I could qualify as an "Oldest Resident of Arlington" and an "Oldest Resident of Brooklyn".

At the American Veterans Disabled for Life monument

Association of the Oldest Residents of DC wreath

We continued on to the WW II Memorial, then crossed the river back to Virginia and headed to the Merchant Marine Memorial (sometimes known as "waves and seagulls") near Columbia Island. After riding past the Pentagon we went up the hill to the Air Force Memorial. One interesting thing about that memorial is it had a mistake in it - General Billy Mitchell received a Medal of Honor granted by the President, but it wasn't the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was accidentally included in a list of Air Force Congressional Medal of Honor recipients and his name was included in those listed on the memorial. When the mistake was discovered his name was chiseled out and a blank patch of marble put in its place - a very obvious "oops" in the memorial. Mitchell was considered the father of the Air Force, but he was apparently a difficult person - he was promoted to brigadier general then demoted back to colonel not once, but twice! He was posthumously awarded the rank of major general.

The Air Force Memorial

Judd gives a talk

Group panorama

Nadine wanted a picture of Cynthia and me together because we matched (interestingly, she didn't ask for a picture of me with SteveO, who was wearing the identical jacket to mine - see preceding photo)

As the day wore on it definitely warmed up  - into the upper 40's at least, and I went down to wearing only one pair of gloves and put away my balaclava.

We finished up at the Marine Corps Memorial (Iwo Jima), a fitting place to say our goodbyes to Marine vet Bob and head on our way. A subset went out for tacos at the Rosslyn District Taco. Then we all went our separate ways. Four of us headed west so I had company as far as Ballston.

Group photo (thanks, Ricky!)

PoG End of Season

Just a quick entry to note that the CPA Pirates of Georgetown marked the end of yet another paddling season with a pleasant kayak outing (in sunny but windy-as-heck conditions) followed by lunch at Sine in Pentagon Row. It's hard to believe it, but next year will be the group's 20th anniversary. I've been paddling with the group ever since it was founded as the Georgetown River Rats in 1999. That's a lot of trips up and down the Potomac! It was particularly nice to have some of the PoG old-timers there, including Jen, who was visiting from out of town.

Sunday's group (minus Yvonne)

The original River Rats logo

Photo from 2002. Two of the people in this photo (plus me!) were on Saturday's trip

Quite the Saturday

A bunch of my cycling friends participate in The Great Pumpkin Ride out in Warrenton every year. While the ride, which is always just before Halloween, encourages costumes, in practice most riders come as they are or at most decorate their helmets with pumpkins and such. Not my friends - they go all out, with a group theme every year. Last year it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which even included someone dressed as a pizza (in case you don't know, the TMNT love pizza). The year before that it was some children's show with gnomes riding foxes - I'm not familiar with the show, but Leo, who is quite artistic, made very impressive cardboard foxes which integrated with the bike frames so it really looked like the cyclists were riding the foxes. This year's theme was the Nintendo Mario Brothers games.

Now, despite the fact that I used to publish articles in game development magazines (back when such magazines still existed - real, printed on paper magazines!), I've never been much of a gamer and so wasn't really aware, but the Mario games collectively have a wealth of characters - which is good when you're looking to outfit a group. We had originally knocked around the idea of Ghostbusters but figured there weren't enough distinctive looking characters. When someone floated the idea of Mario they posted a picture of a group of cyclists at some other event (source unknown) dressed up as Mario characters, including someone in a dinosaur kigurumi. I said, "Hey, I have that dinosaur kigu!" (from a Halloween gig last year) which sealed it for the group - Mario it was! [As an aside, I learned just the other day that the character Mario was named after the landlord of the team developing the original Donkey Kong game - this was in the news because the namesake Mario just passed away).

I also don't usually participate in the Great Pumpkin ride because I almost always have a musical gig that evening (the Saturday before Halloween is a big party night) but this year it was looking like I didn't have a booking, so I signed up for the ride. and then of course, a booking came along. To further complicate matters, the gig was out at B Chord Brewing in Bluemont, Virginia. Warrenton, Bluemont and home form an equilateral one hour of driving triangle. I didn't want to drive an hour home just to turn around and drive an hour back out to B Chord, and I also didn't want to drive 50 miles home late Saturday night after a bike ride and a gig, so I booked an AirBNB in Leesburg to crash before and after the gig.

Saturday morning the weather was dreadful - cold and dumping rain. As I struggled to fit my bike, music gear, clothes and costumes into the car (I resorted to using the rooftop carrier for music gear), more than once I thought to myself, "this is ridiculous. I should just bail on the ride." But after all the planning, I just couldn't. So, off I went to Warrenton.

The one concession the group made to the weather was to switch from the 60 mile to the thirty mile route. That allowed a later start and less time in the rain. And, lo and behold, the rain cleared out just before the 30 mile ride start time! Yeah, we had drizzle here and there, but never real rain at any point, which was awesome - particularly since my fleece dinosaur costume would have been really unpleasant to ride in had it gotten soaked.

The group

Our group numbered about fifteen - some in costume, some not. For the record, in the above photo we have Shira (no costume), Kurt (no costume), Josephine as a Koopa Troopa peeking out from behind Leo as Lakitu, Erin as Princess Peach, me as Yoshi (though people kept asking if I was Bowser), Judd as Mario, Robyne as Rosalina, Chris W as I don't know what, SteveO as a very convincing WaLuigi, Chris (no costume), Jeanne (no costume), and Ken (no costume). Not shown: Rachel and KarenW (no costumes).

We all started together, but not long into the ride Jeanne felt she might be getting a flat tire. I stopped with her to make sure everything was OK. It was, but just that brief stop separated us from the group. I like Jeanne and it was nice riding with her, but I spent a bunch of time in a funk because there I was riding almost solo on what I had thought would be a fun group ride. However, we all caught up at the rest stop - where they provided a cornucopia of food and beer (it was at a brewery). I think turnout for the ride was low because of the weather and so they were over-stocked for the number of riders who actually showed up. After consuming pumpkin soup, quesadilla, PB&J, beer (just a sampler for me) and desserts (none for me) we rode together for the most of the remainder of the ride.

At the rest stop

We got separated again at the end when we came across a cyclist stretched out by the side of the road suffering from severe leg cramps. Some people rode on. Some stayed and helped him. I stayed for a while but realized I was just being a rubber-necker and so ultimately continued on. As a result, I was by myself when I crossed the finish line. Except I didn't really see a finish line. I found myself back where the ride had started where I was puzzled to find ... nothing. Every other organized event I've ever done has had some degree of hoopla at the end, and I seemed to remember that this one had promised food at the end. I walked back to the car, put away my bike and my costume, and checked the information email for the event which said that, "Volunteers will still be at the same location as years past to serve your end of ride meal." Not very useful for those of us who were doing the ride for the first time. The email also mentioned a post-ride gathering at Worthog Brewery (another brewery!). I walked over to Worthog but it seemed pretty quiet, so I went back to the car. As I was about to get into the car and drive off, I said to myself, "let me check Warthog one more time". I walked back and sure enough, there was the group at the bar. Everyone asked where I had been - I missed the food and the group photo at the end of the ride! Apparently there was end-of-ride hoopla after all; however it was off the trail (I never figured out exactly where) and somehow I had missed seeing it.

Anyway, we hung out at Worthog for quite a while. I finally took my leave, knowing that I wanted to leave time for a quick nap and a shower (one gets a little sweaty riding in a dinosuar outfit over rain gear) before my gig. After a pretty trip up Rt. 15 I arrived at my AirBNB. This was the first (and maybe only) time staying in a place where it's not a separate apartment. I was just sleeping in a bedroom in someone's townhouse. There was nothing amiss about - nice place, clean, well furnished. It was just, well, weird. But I did get a quick nap in, showered, and then headed out to Bluemont, stopping along the way at a Chick-Fil-a for a quick dinner. I hadn't really eaten anything except granola bars since the pit stop at 11 AM, and I was HUNGRY.

Magnolia Blue on stage

Our call time was 6 PM for a 6:30 sound check. I breathlessly rushed in at 6:10 to find, well, maybe one or two other band members there and the sound guy just getting things set up. It turns out there was no rush. We didn't sound check until 7:30. And then we played and played and played. We started at around 8 and played almost to 1 AM, with only one break. We had the fabulous Colin Thompson sitting in with us on guitar, and our former guitarist Mike Shade, who was in the area for another gig, played with us too. You may ask how we came up with 4+ hours of music? Well, basically we started with a two hour set and then added two guitarists' worth of guitar solos. 😵 

Oh, and of course there were costumes. I had planned on going as an Arab sheikh. As luck would have it, thanks to the nasty murder of a journalist, Prince Mohammed bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia was much in the news, so my costume morphed from the generic sheikh to something much more specific and timely. Perhaps next year I'll go as the artist formerly known as Prince Mohammed bin Sultan ;)

Prince MBS at the keys

The night ended around 1 AM with some pizza and a last round. Then I packed the car and headed back to my AirBNB, where I got a decent night's sleep before heading home. One day, two costumes, three towns, a whole lot of gear, a whole lot of beer, and a whole lot of fun!