All posts tagged: Random DJB Thoughts

G.A.S. continued: Or how I ended up with another guitar

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I hadn’t planned to buy another guitar.  Seriously. But sometimes good things happen when you least expect it. I HAD planned to try to meet the maker of my Running Dog guitar on my next trip to Seattle. Since I bought it used from a guitar shop in Amherst, Massachusetts, I didn’t know Rick Davis, the builder who made my parlor style instrument back in 2001. But after playing it for a couple of years, I wanted to meet the guy who built such wonderful small guitars with the beautiful tone. A recent trip to the west coast gave me the opportunity to stop by Rick’s shop in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle (aka, The Center of the Universe). Rick shares his shop with his partner, Cat Fox, and they couldn’t have been more welcoming. Rick told me the provenance of my 2001 Parlor guitar.  I learned he was the subject of Tim Brooke’s 2005 book Guitar: An American Life.  And I played a beautiful 2011 Ought-3 model. (I also noodled on a baritone guitar, …

Shark attack in downtown Silver Spring!

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As I walked to the gym this morning I saw cranes around the Discovery Building. My hopes were confirmed on the way home: SHARK WEEK! Three times since Discovery Communications moved around the corner from us in downtown Silver Spring, a giant, inflatable shark has shown up swimming through their landmark building to celebrate Shark Week.  A friend who works for Discovery told me that they call him “Chompie.” Throughout the day I wandered over to Discovery to check on the progress of Chompie’s arrival in our fair city and I’ve posted photos below of everything but the dorsal fin. (I don’t have access to the top floor of the NOAA building, which is about the only place short of an airplane where one can appreciate the entire ensemble.)  A job foremen told me today that each element has two tubes that continuously pump in cold air to keep it inflated.  They didn’t bite on my suggestion that they put a Nats cap on Chompie this year to recognize the good season that Roger “The …

Cleaned garage

The satisfaction of a well-cleaned garage

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I’ll admit it right up front:  it is weird but few things satisfy me like my twice-yearly garage cleaning ritual. There is a joy in realizing that you don’t really need all the junk you’ve stuck in every nook and cranny over the past six months. I like clearing the cobwebs metaphorically and physically. So I was looking forward to digging in the mounds of trash today (i.e., Andrew’s boxes crammed with junk he’d “packed” before coming home from college for the summer). Normally I do this project all by myself. I plug in the earphones, turn to the Americana playlist, get in the zone with The SteelDrivers or Tedeschi Trucks Band, and wrap it all up three or four hours later. But this year Candice said she wanted to help. Hmmm. That could be great. Or not. Candice and I had been married for 2-3 years when we began working on the first historic house we renovated together. Not knowing that much about the other partner, we decided to “share” the work. Bad idea. …

Remembering Don

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  It is the kind of email you never want to receive: a long-time friend was injured in a serious car accident on Monday. Wednesday he was taken off life support. Funeral on Friday. So Candice and I left early this morning to drive the three hours to our old Shenandoah Valley home of Staunton to remember Don, mourn his death which came too early, and celebrate his life with his wife Ruth, son Philip, and many other friends. The service began in the beautiful Temple House of Israel, designed in 1925 by Staunton architect Sam Collins in the Moorish Revival Style. The haunting Jewish melodies sung by a trio of women rolled around the wood, plaster, and tile interior. Rabbi Joe Blair nailed Don in the eulogy.  There was much laughter and more than a few tears. Don was one-of-a-kind.  He loved telling jokes while sitting around a table filled with wine, food he had cooked, family, and friends. I had my first pomegranate one evening after Don sliced the fruit and passed it …

Earl Scruggs, R.I.P.

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Earl. That’s the only name you had to say in bluegrass circles and everyone immediately knew the subject.  Jimmy Martin could open the seminal Will the Circle Be Unbroken album by saying “Earl never did do that,” and you knew exactly what he meant. Few people define an instrument and a musical style so completely as Earl Scruggs, who passed away today at age 88, did for bluegrass banjo.  Bill Monroe will forever be known as the Father of Bluegrass, but it wasn’t until he brought a young Earl Scruggs on the stage of the Ryman Auditorium for a Grand Ole Opry show in 1945 that the full sound of bluegrass was realized.  I’ll let Richard Smith, author of Can’t You Hear Me Calling:  The Life of Bill Monroe, pick up the story from here. “For Earl’s first night on the Opry, Monroe picked out a fast number that would show off the newcomer’s dazzling style — “White House Blues,” an old song recounting the 1901 William McKinley assassination.  It was a perfect selection.  Scruggs …

Changing Seasons

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I love March Madness.  After a boring set of games on Thursday (although I’m glad Vanderbilt’s game was somewhat pedestrian), Friday finally got us in to the “madness” part of the event.  Two 15s beating number 2 seeds on the same day – that’s as good as it gets! But as much as I enjoy these weeks of one-and-done basketball, I had an experience this afternoon that really gets me excited – sitting down with a friend over a glass of wine and choosing games out of the Washington Nationals season ticket package we’d purchased together.  Now I’m pumped! Basketball is fun, but baseball is on another plane.  So in honor of the distribution of the season tickets, I give you a smattering of baseball quotations to bring a smile to your face and anticipation to your heart: There are two theories on hitting the knuckleball.  Unfortunately, neither of them works.  (Legendary hitting coach Charlie Lau) It doesn’t take much to get me up for baseball.  Once the National Anthem plays, I get chills.  I …

DJB is listening to…

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Many of my younger (read “hipper”) Facebook friends have regular status updates that read, “Joe Cool is listening to Still Sound by Toro Y Moi  on Spotify.”  Or something similar. I’m behind the times (what else is new), so somehow I haven’t gotten around to letting everyone know what I’m listening to at any time.  Plus, my children would be mortified.  They run from the room when my iPod is in the dock. But every now and then I listen to something and want to tell someone.  I have to do it the old-fashioned way:  through my blog. I don’t usually drive in to work, but today was different.  And so instead of the iPod, I picked up a couple of CDs (you remember them) – Norman Blake’s Live at McCabe’s (which I’ve written about before) and the Tony Rice/Norman Blake duet album.  These are two beautifully simple albums that are anything but simple musically. Blake and Rice are in the upper pantheon of acoustic country/bluegrass/newgrass guitarists.  They’ve both played on seminal albums that set …

A Note of Thanksgiving As I Enter My 58th Year

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I had difficulty getting out of bed today…the last morning wake up of my 57th year. For some inexplicable reason my life is full – on the verge of overflowing – on the eve of my 57th birthday.  (I had to ask Candice, and she confirmed – when you turn 57 you are beginning your 58th year.  I never was great at math.)  First and foremost, Candice is wrapping up her stay in the hospital after successful hip replacement surgery on Wednesday.  We head home today to continue the recovery.  Both children are getting ready to go overseas (Claire by herself to Sweden; Andrew to Costa Rica) over spring break. Yikes!  How did that happen? My sister texted me last night to say my father went to the emergency room with a lung infection, high enzymes, and low sodium…and the news got worse when she called to say he had a mild heart attack this morning. I just spoke with my brother and Dad just came out of surgery where they found 95% blockage in one …

If I Had a Vote (Or “Quest for the Best, The Final Chapter”)

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Tonight is when the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announce their awards, and for once I’m ready! Friends who have known me for a long time will find it impossible to believe that I’ve seen eight of the nine Best Picture nominees BEFORE the Oscars are awarded…much less that I have an opinion on them.  I’m just not a film junkie. But empty nestdom brought a change in habits, and Candice and I made a pledge to see all the nominees.  We made it through eight before life, health and work kept us from closing out our pledge…but since Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is NEVER mentioned in all the pre-Oscar write-ups as having a chance of winning, I think we’re on safe ground here. Number eight in our marathon was The Tree of Life – which we watched today thanks to iTunes.  Easily the most complex of the nominees, Terrence Malick’s film was not among my favorites even though it attempted to explore greater depths on issues of life …