The Folkies Are Here!

     It's that time of year...time for the International Folk Alliance Music And Dance Conference. I actually did not attend last year and regretted it. So when I was offered media credentials (meaning everything is free) I decided not to pass it up this year.

     Brian at WEVL had already asked if I could come in live today and host a couple of the visiting acts on air. So Eilen Jewell and her fine band came in and talked and sang a couple of tunes. They sounded great even with the tight quarters, fitting her, a guitar player,  an upright bass player and a drummer was a squeeze in the studio. Then Caroline Herring came on and did a short acoustic set and talked some talk. They were all very nice and sounded great even though they had already done several performances at the conference and more to come.

       Later Judy and i went to get something to eat at Rio Loco. My first time there, a pretty good Mexican restaurant on Union. Then we headed over to the Convention Center, got our passes and goodie bags with schedules and started walking.

      There are so many artists there that it was rather overwhelming. We went and saw locals, The Dan Montgomery Trio, great set and the famous fan, Beatle Bob was there dancing away. He really liked the trio. Then we saw a little of Nancy Apple, stopped in and caught Tony Furtado (amazing guitar player multi instrumentalist). We walked over and caught some of Garrison Starr too. We wandered upstairs to see if any of the shows in private rooms had started. None of them started until around 11 pm and they went on until 2 in the morning. Not tonight for us. We went back downstairs and caught Peter Case which was very crowded. But he was very entertaining.

     The Conference goes on through Sunday with music, dance and panels. There are also some things going on around town for the public at places like The Center for Southern Folklore. You can check the Folk Alliance website for information.

The King Of Tortes

The King Of Torts is a book written by John Grisham that I picked up to read last year. I don't have a lot of opportunity to read for pleasure these days. I always liked John Grisham so I thought I would check out this book.
Clay Carter is the main character in The King Of Tortes. He is a young public defender, the lawyer son of a lawyer. His dad Clay, Sr. had been a well known trial attorney in Washington, D.C. who left the country for South America after a self created scandal. Now Dad was living the life of a beach captaining a small boat.
Clay has higher aspirations, he want the American Dream and to maybe to live it with Rebecca, his girlfriend. Unfortunately, her high-powered, new money family do not approve of Clay. She breaks it off.
Clay is appointed to defend Tequila Watson on a murder charge and soon after is visted by the mysterious Max Pace. Turns out Tequila Watson was under the influence of an experimental drug when he committed his crime and a huge pharmaceutical company is behind it all. And there may be others.
The drug company has sent Max Pace to solicit Clay to pay off the families of the victims of these murders and to keep things quiet. Then Max shows back up to give Clay some insider information on another drug and soon Clay is a huge big-time torte lawyer. However, you cannot fly with the eagle forever and Clay's increasing greed eventually brings down his new found success.
You might think that this subject matter could be boring for a book since it deals with things that very real in our society. However, this is not the case. The story was paced very well and proved extremely suspenseful. At the same time that you are chiding Clay for his increasing greed, you are still wanting him to get the girl and live happily ever after. You know that somewhere underneath he is just like you.

Rachel Is In Berlin

     I was sitting at the computer this morning drinking my coffee and reading on Yahoo about Kosovo declaring their independence as a nation.  I heard my phone announce that I had a text message. I knew it had to be Rachel wanting me to call her. Sure enough, it was. She had just arrived in Berlin Saturday to start her ESL school Monday and so she has been out exploring the city. She has been there before but this is the first time she has lived there.

     I called her German number and the first time I received an automated message (in German, so I am guessing from the tone of the message that all circuits were busy). I called again and she answered all excited, "Mom, I was walking around Berlin before going to a movie and ran into this huge crowd of people celebrating the independence of Kosovo!" She said it was wild and crazy. There was music and dancing and flag waving. People were screaming. They were mainly people from Kosovo but Rachel said she got caught up and started dancing and celebrating with the crowd.

     She left eventually and went to an ice cream parlor above the crowd and called me. While we were talking they started shooting off fireworks. I wish I could have been there with her. Her second day in Berlin and she ran smack into a part of history. A new nation celebrating it's independence!

Good News, Bad News

       My daughter Rachel called from Germany Wednesday with some news. She has a job lined up teaching English in language school in Bayruit (not sure of the spelling, it's in Bavaria) after she finishes up with her ESL school in Berlin. That would mean she will start in April. My emotions are mixed here, I am very proud of her for being so independent but I do MISS her. She left on December thirteenth and was supposed to come home on January seventh. Then she decided to stay until after school was finished at the end of March. She did not think she would get a job right away.

Well , she saw an ad online for a opening right in the city where she is staying so she thought she would go to the school and at least check it out. She did not think they would hire her because of her lack of experience. She hit it off with the gentleman who ran the school so she just asked him, "Would you consider hiring me?" They talked about it and he decided to offer her the job when she finished her school. I like how she has turned out, that she is not afraid of being bold.

       Bad news came today however when Rachel and Ariel's dad called and told me he had been laid off of his job. He is a stained glass artist and they have lost business because of the bad economy and the crappy housing market.

        So I am rather depressed at the moment because of missing Rachel and their dad's job situation, not to mention mine! I can't let it get me down though and I am very happy with my daughters.

Movies And Politics?

      So I just read an article by Mick LaSalle out of San Francisco, it is titled "Women Obey Their Husbands In Movies And Politics". It's at www.sfgate.com if you are interested in reading it.

      LaSalle is a Hillary supporter and his premise is as Carol Lloyd in a retort at Salon.com says is that "Voting For Clinton is like choosing a chick flick." LaSalle believes that when married couples go the movies that the wives give in to their husbands on the choice of what they go to see. And that married women use this criteria to choose who they vote for President. That is why women are going to vote for Obama instead of Hillary. They do not want to incur the wrath of their husbands. so they convince themselves that the master is right and do not vote for Hillary. 

     I find LaSalle's reasoning utterly ridiculous. It is a slap in the face to married women everywhere. What? Because you go through a ceremony of matrimony it makes you become a mindless robot? I don't believe all married women are afraid of disagreeing with their husbands. Their are cases where this may be true but his article makes it sound like this is the case, period. And do we use the same reasoning process to choose a President that we do to choose a movie as Lloyd says in her retort. Come on...

     Sounds like LaSalle is grasping for straws because he is afraid his candidate is going to drown. Maybe some women just don't like Hillary, not because she is a woman, they just don't like her stands on the issues. Maybe that is why they would rather have Obama or McCain. It is a choice, after all.

P.S. I just found this and it really makes me question her judgment.

Over The Rhine

      Last night on my radio program, Pathways, I had special guests. I don't know how many of you have heard of Over The Rhine, a band from the Cincinnati, Ohio area. I absolutely love them and their music. The band is fronted by husband and wife duo, Linford Detweiler and Karin Berquist. They are the songwriters for the group and they are extremely prolific. 

      Karin has one of the most amazing voices I have ever heard, it is like listening to velvet. When she sings a song she makes it her own and it is hypnotic. They have put out around twenty cds since about 1989 and each one is amazing. No two are alike,. They told me that one of their goals was to make each cd to make each cd different. They have accomplished that but each one still retains their sound. You can tell after the first few moments that it is an Over The Rhine cd.  Linford also has a couple of instrumental cds out and I would heartily recommend them.

      I was very excited about Linford and Karin being my guests on Pathways. Their songs strike deep when you listen to them. You can almost always relate to whatever theme they are approaching in a song.  I love songwriters who are able to reach out and make you feel with their music and Over The Rhine is very accomplished at this.

     They arrived at WEVL about a quarter to six  and I was pleased to find that they were both very real down to earth people. You can get a lot of attitude with people in the music business so it is refreshing to meet artists like Karin and Linford. It makes an interview so much more fun. We talked about their new cd, "The Trumpet Child" for a few minutes and then they did two or three songs. It sounded fabulous! Karin's voice sounds even better live than on the cds. They introduced each song with a background story on how it came about. Linford's tale on the song, "If A Song Could Be President" was particularly interesting.

      They  left about six thirty for their sound check at the HiTone Cafe. I missed the show because Ariel has had the flu so I hope they return. And I hope they come by the station next time because they were a pleasure to have as guests.

      If you missed it, you can catch an encore Thursday at two pm on WEVL Memphis, 89.9 FM or wevl.org.  

Get Out The Vote

Get out the vote, hmmmm. When I first saw the instructions for the assignment my eyes went straight to that phrase first. The first thought it brought to my mind was MTV. Then I read on and realized it was written in 1955. The speaker I first imagined was young, "hip", Hollywood television moguls with a very liberal, left-wing agenda aimed at getting the young adults (mainly college age) to the polls to vote the young, "hip" agenda. Of course the party affiliation I first thought of was the Democratic party. Wait a minute, the phrase I am thinking of is "Rock The Vote." Similar, really just another variation of "Get Out The Vote." Does MTV even play music anymore, let alone rock music?
If you believe everything you read and hear, all young and hip entertainment types are Democrat. Oh, they are also usually wealthy. That part you don't hear about because the propaganda you get from the Democrat party is that all Republicans are very well off and that their party is the one for the poor and downtrodden. The Republican party is supported by a lot of wealthy individuals and corporations but so are the Democrats. I have come to believe that both of our major political parties are generally pretty much the same. Overall they try to appeal to different special interest groups and seem to have different agendas. But do they really? I believe both parties major agenda is getting elected and being the party in power.
The audience for this phrase now seems to be young adults as I mentioned earlier. When you are young you are much more idealistic. So the parties attempt through media to appeal to this idealism. The powers that be still try to make you feel if you do not get out and vote that you are unpatriotic. If you don't vote what right do you have to have an opinion about anything?
The writer of this article seems to be targeting a wider audience, maybe mainstream America, the middle class. He is trying to debunk the stream of thought that says you are not American if you do not vote. I think he is making a lot of very good points. A lot of thought went into the article. You can tell this is a subject that has been burning in his head and he got to the point where he had to get it out.
I am not surprised that this was written in 1955. We tend to look at the past as more pure and straight forward. People change in a lot of ways generation to generation but some things about us just tend to stay the same. We are still told that we must vote by the different parties and the media. Most voters actually are issue voters and that is how they determine who they will vote for. Those who do vote still vote absentmindedly on issues or for candidates they know little or nothing about.
Name recognition is the way a lot of people vote. I once was waiting in line to vote for local election. Two ladies in front of me were talking and I heard, "Well, I really don't know anything about the candidates for (fill in the blank) but I am going to vote for so and so because he has been in there for a long time." This is why you have so many elected officials stay in office for years even though they may be doing nothing. This particuliar elected official the ladies were speaking of I knew something about because I frequented his office in my work. He came to the office during election time or when there was going to be a photo shoot or an interview. He always immediately went back to his private office and turned on the television and one of his employees would bring him a coke or something to eat.He came out when the media arrived. The only reason he is not in office now is he died. 

       So I agree with the author of the article that we need to be informed voters, not just cattle led to the field to graze and munch on grass. I have been guilty myself in the past of uninformed voting. People do that for all the reasons stated in the article and if they don't know about a candidate for a certain office they will vote their political party. They may think they are supporting the right things by doing so but they really do not know what the candidate stands for.

      I am trying even now to look a bit deeper and vote for who I believe will do the best job. This means paying attention and not believing all the hype. And I would like to be able to vote for the candidate I decide is the right choice, not Democrat, Republican or etc.