Thursday, October 2, 2008

Pete Seeger, Sarah Palin...and my show tomorrow

It's been a while since I wrote anything here.  Too long, in fact.

Glad I have a couple of minutes late tonight.  We just watched the Vice Presidential debates.  I'm pleased that the first few reactions I saw seemed to be on Biden's side.  Sarah Palin is an ugly addiction; the media can't get enough of her.  First there was the Coulter-esque convention speech, then the trainwreck of Paris Hilton proportions on the interview shows...and now this Adderall-dripping robotic lunacy of a debate with Joe Biden being way too polite for my tastes.   I really wanted the courtroom scene from To Kill A Mockingbird with Mayella Ewell glaring through her overgrown bangs at Atticus: "a chiffarobe?"  But I realize that would have been preaching to the choir.  Plus folks would have thought Biden was being condescending.  

Oh, well.  

In more pleasant news, I got my hands on a copy of Pete Seeger's At 89, and I'm playing some of it tomorrow.  Pete's a longtime hero of mine.  He let me play onstage with him when I was 17, at an appearance he made at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, NY.  I had written an awful song about ecology called "Garbage" and I sang it.  He handed me his big 12-string guitar to play and backed me up on banjo.  It's still a major high point of my life.  Only college graduations and my wedding to Ken rank higher for me.  

Don't know if I can play the mortality songs (sunny as any Seeger tunes, and just heart-rending) without totally melting into a puddle and being unable to work the mixing board, but I promise you'll hear a bunch of the record.  What's the most remarkable about it, I think, is that it's just a Pete Seeger album.   I remember buying a copy of Dangerous Songs back in the 60's.  The mix of serious and light was the same.  Seeger's voice is a bit shaky, but his guitar and banjo work are everything you'd expect them to be and more.  

Did I mention that the album was released on my birthday, the 30th of September?  It was.  Call me selfish, but I like that.  I got some nice presents this year, but this unexpected one might have been the best.

Don't know what the drink tomorrow will be, but I'm considering the Astoria, a martini-strength concoction with an interesting history.  Tune in!!


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