things i
did
in 25.
a moustache-twisting journal of the few things in my life worth mentioning
25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 09 | 08 | 07 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 | 02 | 01 | 2000 | 99 | 98 | 97
got 2 dinner jackets made
somewhere in a move from one house to another, I simply could not find my formalwear anywhere. Flew out the moving van? But I'm a gigging musician (and a man about town): I need formalwear. So I got trusty tailor Raj to whip up some new delights for me: black cashmere with peak lapel, and midnight blue cashmere with shawl lapel. I think I like 'em.
mended the satchel
My trusty years-old satchel, companion to thousands of studio sessions and travel on three continents, sturdy beyond belief, finally started showing wear. Then a real actual rip appeared —– unacceptable! Our cobbler said he could do it, but the price he named sent me reeling. So I tried mending it myself, using Speed Sew, that wonderful fix-all from the 80s that has somehow lasted this long. Guess what. It worked.
headlined a music festival
The Rowlesburg Music and Arts Festival, in the official prettiest place in all of America, nestled in the West Virginia mountains. Cousin Tim summoned me there to play in a gorgeous old town hall, on a 9-foot Baldwin that made me feel like Brubeck (I played Blue Rondo). Fresh mountain air, ancestral stomping ground, a gorgeous 19th-century bed and breakfast, fun music for an appreciative audience, huckleberry jam at Cool Springs, and, in an old Rowlesburg phrase, a good time was had by all.
took the fam to the big apple
How did I finally get to Carnegie Hall, you ask? For me, it wasn't "practice, practice, practice," but rather "have a daughter who can really sing." Greta's choir performed there, and so we all went up together. Hosted by the ever-gracious Linda and Stephen, we did the NY thing, with Rockefeller Center, Central Park, the world's greatest Reading Room, the
celebrated a 30th anniversary
In the summer of 95, Texas Public Radio needed a Saturday announcer for their opera show. My brother and I did it together for a season, but I never stopped hosting there. I loved all of it: the sound production, choosing just the right piece that fits the last one and the next one, trying to get that radio voice I'd been working on since childhood. Thirty years! suddenly that's something.
celebrated a 35th
The Jazz Protagonists got a last minute call to sub Thanksgiving Eve 1990 at Nona's —– our first public gig. We'd just been a band for a couple of months. Over the years, we've become a well-oiled machine, a cohesive unit, an art democracy, sharing life and humor and hearing and shaping each other's ideas in real time. We're doing a full year of interesting fun cool gigs —– recording sessions, big public events —– to celebrate a musical friendship like no other.
finished the prince carl cards
First came our honeymoon, when we discovered some old German cards with the traditional suits of hearts, acorns, bells, and leaves. Then came a thought: bring these beautiful things to an American audience with a new game, with my Texas German ancestry providing the perfect connecting link —– which led to a new goal of filling the cards with Texas German landmarks and personages. Then came 16 years of traveling around Texas and photographing places and getting artwork done, dealing with watercolorists and art brokers, teaching myself photoshop skills. One fine day in September, I looked straight ahead and said, "it's time." An obsessed month-and-a-half later, it was all done. Next? we find a way to get it onto your game-night table. Stay tuned.
watched catherine's "worst 100 hours of my life"
After years of fairly-manageable gallstones, it finally got just too painful. She had to have them out. The runup was so painful, her body registering such stress, that she got shingles on top of it. I'm telling you here, it takes a lot for Catherine to utter a phrase like "worst pain," but there it is. Whew!! Now it's over, it all went well, and we're going forward. I don't ever want to see her that miserable again.
got a new keyboard, then another
My trusty gig piano had been a neverending pleasure, but after a repair that cost more than the piano had cost to begin with, and then it didn't work, I knew it was time for something new. Coulda gone with the same make and model, but why not see what the world has come up with since then —– so I bought one, based on a nice test run, only to find that, in the actual situation, it just wasn't the same. Didn't quite have the piano-ness, the roundness, the touch I wanted. So, dang it, I gritted my teeth and got another-nother one, this time the old make and model. Ahhhhhhh, that's more like it.
tried v-necks
It's important to go back and try the stuff you had rejected years ago, just in case. (see the above Keyboard Incident). One day I said to myself, "Ya know, maybe the priestly little spandrel peeking through the open collar looks dated these days. I should try V-necks." I did, and then I thought "Nope." Back to the regular white T.
went to greek funstival again
The good folks at St Sophia's hung it up several years back, after we saw generations come through and dance and sing and cook and play instruments in full folk regalia, for one of the most charming pieces of San Antonio you could get, every year —– the little kids becoming teens becoming young adults and then parents whose little kids became teens.... But apparently at some point there just weren't enough people willing to do the massive work. Enter a new priest and new energy and a new desire to preserve one of our city's staunchest cultural groups: I gasped out loud when I saw a post that it was back. What a joy, to see and hear and taste it all again. Here's to next year.
sonneted
I write poetry and lyrics all the time, but this year a couple of things stood out. I wrote a sonnet for Catherine on our 21st anniversary, just remembering the day and reflecting on how 21 years makes a grown-up. Then I wrote another trifecta —– that fun thing I've done before where you write something that could work as perfectly-natural-sounding prose, but also is rhyming four-beat couplets, and is also a perfect Elizabethan sonnet —– this time about love in the digital age. Both are, I think, good examples of my Wordsworthian ethic of poetry: no flowery or archaic language, just stuff that actual people might say, rendered in clarified form. I love putting words together this way.
ate grapefruit mentos
We discovered them on our honeymoon to Thailand; we found them here now and then, rare treasures; then they disappeared worldwide. Out of make. A few years ago, Greta had heard me complain about it, and I saw from my seat that a fire had been lit in her —– I could hear the wheels turning. Then I saw it in her searches, over a year or two. Along about March, she started promoing my birthday gift, saying "you're gonna love it." But even then I couldn't have imagined it: yep, a package of grapefruit Mentos, as juicy and tart and delicious as ever, possibly the best candy ever made. Prophecy achieved (at great cost to Greta, by the way). They're back, baby!
taught some driving skills
And it begins: a fifteenth birthday, an hour spent at TxDOT doing paperwork and getting mugshotted. We have a budding driver, people.
dined with the fano club
One of the most exclusive clubs in the world, the Fano Club meets on Robert Browning's birthday every year for dinner and conversation among like-minded people who love literature and travel and Baylor. In recent years though, they've moved it to whatever Saturday evening is nearest the birthday, which of course knocks out precisely one member: the jazz musician. This time, though, the stars aligned, and for some reason I didn't have a gig, which is the downside, the upside being that we got to go to the Fano Club dinner. Great to see old friends and eat good food and have a little date night.
signed up a ballerina
After years of hint-dropping, we finally got the message and enrolled Clara in ballet. From her earliest days she identified with it, and has always expressed herself in movement. We'd always thought her little-girl interest was mainly about the dressing up and tea parties that ballet camps provided, but no —– she really wanted the training, even with her already-packed schedule bursting at the seams with piano and church and Scouts and school. Every week as I drop her off, I still see that little girl ... and a lovely, disciplined, well-rounded young woman.
heard my music done by the purgatory creek chorale
Conductor/Force-Of-Nature/Friend Andrew McNair heard the SA Chamber Choir do my Christmas number, and got in touch about having his elite chorale do it for their December concert. I used the occasion to shape up a new version of it, exploding a four-part chart into eight parts, with range and crunchylicious harmonies. They absolutely nailed it. There's little more thrilling than hearing one's concept come to life with a group bringing its own interpretation and cadence to it.
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What a year. Dedicated to the glory of God.
so, what did you do?
25 | 24 | 23 | 22 | 21 | 20 | 19 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 15 | 14 | 13 | 12 | 11 | 10 | 09 | 08 | 07 | 06 | 05 | 04 | 03 | 02 | 01 | 2000 | 99 | 98 | 97
