Sorry this one is a little late; I was sleeping over at my best friend’s house. I got a little verklempt thinking about this topic. I had a lot of favorite books as a child, but one stood out above all the others. It was called Alexander and the Magic Mouse, published in 1969 by Martha Sanders with illustrations by Phillipe Fix. It came through the Weekly Reader Children’s Book Club (THANKS, MOM!!! :) )  and was one of a series of magnificent books I was exposed to as a result of my membership.

The book is about a little Old Lady who lived at the top of a hill in a glorious Victorian era mansion, and her house overlooked a town. She was a traveler, and in her youth (When she was a Younger Lady, natch), she brought back animal friends to live with her; a Brindle London Squatting Cat, a Magical Mouse, an Alligator from China and a Tibetan Yak (Yes, she went to the A.A. Milne School of Capitalization).

I already touched on this one in my 20 Facts post last week. If I could have any job besides the one I have, it would be to run a great recording studio. The one where the best folks had to go because Phil is the guy then need. It would be so fun because I’d finally be working in the music business, and I’d meet all the people I want to meet, and help them make fantastic music, working with top shelf equipment and learning from everyone who came in the door. .

I’m gonna go a little further and give you my OTHER dream job, the one that would actually be more attainable than running the best recording studio in the world...

My secret love is voice acting. I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to be a voice actor/audiobook narrator/announcer. Oddly enough, my degree aligns with this more closely than it does to anything at which I’ve ever actually worked. I love messing around with my voice, I love creating characters, and I love that I am articulate and can both write and read copy well. I’m no Don LaFontaine, but I can also do pretty convincing radio stingers.

These are nothing remotely close to what I actually do for a living now. I don’t know why I never tried to do either of these things, other than being really scared of being broke. :)

So, yeah, just learned something I don’t like about myself. Go figure. :) I guess that's why this challenge is important. 

Eurrrgh. I wasn’t looking forward to this one. Timeline of my day. Kinda boring actually...
​…
7:00AM - BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPWHAM!
7:14AM - BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPfumblefumblePLOP
7:15AM - Shower, shave, dress, get ready for work
7:48AM - Leave for work
7:57AM - Arrive at work
8:00AM-12:10PM - Workity work work, phone, email, blah blah
12:10PM-1:10PM - Lunch, tuna salad on toast, diet iced tea, watch a little Voyager, chat a little with Kaitlyn about her upcoming trip
1:10-5:00PM - Workity work work some more, pick on Rachel, Rhys, and Zlatko
5:00PM - In the car to come home
5:22PM - “Could it be that I have found my home at last?” (they retimed the lights at Ulmerton and 49th, takes WAY longer to get home)
5:45PM - Arrange to take delivery of music for new CD review for the next Buzz Magazine
6:00PM - Start working on Mom’s clogged laptop
7:00PM - Breaktime to eat and troubleshoot the Christmas tree lights gone bad. (fuse)
7:30PM - Call Mum to let her know her laptop is ready (over 600 hits in the various AV clients)
7:45PM - Futz around corralling garbage to take out, help girls get ready for trip
8:30PM - Mom arrives, deliver the  laptop, go down brief Youtube wormhole with her
9:15 PM - Mom leaves, put Abby to bed, go down small YT wormhole
10:00PM - Read friend’s blog challenge, settle down to write this
10:34PM - After a couple of minor interruptions, finish blog entry.

TOMORROW – Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Damned sexist challenges. I don't have a purse. But I do have a bag I carry, its one of those slimline backpacks, and in it I usually carry a few essentials:

1. My iPad Pro
2. Earbuds for the iPad
3. A small Kindle for reading in paces where it's impractical to break out the iPad
4. Emery boards. Keep the nails smooth, that's the OCD guitar player in me speaking.
5. A portable battery to charge phones and iPads
6. A few pencils and pens
7. My Shepard Posse button from The Swannanoa Gathering, to remind me I'll be back there soon... :)

That's about it. I'm a bare essentials kind of guy I guess. I wanted to say things like :the sould if my enemies, but that would be too cloying. :)

​Have a great night. What's in YOUR bag? Talk in the comment section! 

This is a serious topic, really; because a lot of things have to happen for your life to continue on a smart path. If I won the lottery, here’s what I would do:

1. Change all my phone numbers, make them unlisted.
2. Install even more security fixtures and cameras than I already have
3. Hire an attorney and an accountant
4. Set up a blind trust
5. Hire an investment adviser (who would NOT have power of attorney)
6. Have the attorney collect the ticket in the name of the blind trust.

Now, on to the fun stuff. Let’s say just to make it interesting, that it was a Powerball, and I’ve got a few hundred million to play with. Here’s how things would go down:

1. $5 million would go into a low-risk, moderate yield investment to provide for my old age, and my family’s day to day well-being.
2. A moderate trust would be established for the little one, not to make her a trust fund kid, but to ensure a safety net if she needed it.
3. There would be a new Traynor School of Music, Art, and Technology at my daughter’s school. Yes, with our name on the damn building. It would be world class. Their IT department would want for nothing.
4. My entire family would take the time and incur the expenses needed to bring us all to the healthiest and happiest physical and emotional states we could possibly be.
5. If we stayed in this house, it would get some SERIOUS upgrades. It would be as power self-sufficient as we could possibly make it. It would have a GREAT kitchen. It would probably just be a new house on this lot.
6. My next job would be running a world-class recording studio that I’d build. As soon as I learned enough to be a good engineer. So, I’d be apprenticing with the best until I was ready.
7. Once Abby was out of school and able to live on her own, Bonnie and I would travel the country, helping people. Those little bits of boost that can make the difference in people’s lives. Random, secret stuff. Kids that need medical attention, single moms that need home repairs, paying off layaway Secret Santas - real, “rubber-meets-the-road” help. Fun hobby!
8. The Swannanoa Gathering would never have to worry about money again.
9. Some of our friends, the ones who have been there through thick and thin, would have their loads lightened a bit too.
10. I would get one pretty kickass but not ridiculous car. Maybe an Audi R8.

Parts of winning the lottery would suck. I’m sure we would lose friends. Hangers-on and fair weather friends would come out of the woodwork needing things, but we know what’s what, and who’s who… And there is the lesson for the day. Be the friends and ones that are there through thick and thin. Not because someone might win the lottery, but because it’s what you’re supposed to do. And who knows?
 

Everyone's proudest moments usually revolve around marriage or the birth of children; and those moments were certainly the rest of the top 3, but I want to tell you about the most recent proudest moment for me. Pull up a chair, this one takes a while; and there's a fair bit of back story, because it involves a place I go evewry summer.

The Swannanoa Gathering: A magical place; a place of music, of collaboration, of love, and of truth. The 2016 Gathering was my 12th consecutive, and it was also my best. Wait, what is he talking about? What is the Swannanoa Gathering?

The Swannanoa Gathering is a folk-arts music camp that holds seven curriculums that run over a period of five weeks during the summer at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa NC; just east of Asheville.  It celebrated its 25th anniversary this year. The camps begin with Traditional Song Week, then Celtic Week, then Old-Time Week, then Guitar Week and Contemporary Folk Week (these two programs run concurrently), and it closes with Mando & Banjo Week and Fiddle Week (also running concurrently).

I have attended the Guitar Week/Contemporary Folk week duo every year since 2005. Every year that I go, my world is filled with amazing music, incredible camaraderie, and the most intensive learning I’ve ever experienced. A camper can take up to four courses, each of which runs 75 minutes a day for five days. In between the classes and meals are seminars, demonstrations, and exhibits. At Guitar Week, there are several high end custom luthiers displaying their wares; this year we enjoyed the exquisite guitars of John Slobod, Gerald Sheppard, Michael Bashkin, and Dave McCubbin. Dream Guitars of Weaverville brought a vast selection of their renowned inventory as well. At night, both faculties perform concerts, the students perform as well, and the jamming goes on all night long. The slogan of the Gathering is "The worst part about the Gathering is that there are only 24 hours in the day and 3 of them are wasted sleeping!"

My week this year was the most magical of the lot to date; a significant thing because each year I leave thinking “it can’t possible get any better than this!” but then it does. I’d like to relate some of the experiences I had. First, friend and fellow Gatherer Jim Moran messaged me on Facebook for my phone number the day before camp began. That facilitated a conversation and a HUGE opportunity with Grammy® winning songwriter and CMA/ACM Song of the Year honorees Jon Vezner and Don Henry, who asked me to accompany them on bass during their sets at the Contemporary Folk Week faculty concert, even before camp began!

I was sent a pair of tracks to learn, and in the course of rehearsing with these lovable lunatics; the call grew to four songs, including the song that won the aforementioned awards for them; “Where’ve You Been”? The other three songs were newer tracks on upcoming releases from the pair. During one of the rehearsals, a young lady entered the room and started singing a third harmony part. Against our collective judgement <kidding>, she was drafted into service for the show too. Who would it be but Grammy® winning country (and now folk) artist Kathy Mattea! (She and Vezner are married, as it happens).

During one of our rehearsals, Jon asked his friend, Grammy® Lifetime Achievement Award winner and folk songwriting icon Tom Paxton to come and listen to one of the new tunes we were working on. As the song is magnificent, Tom was understandably moved. When Jon and I sat down for sound check on Wednesday the day of the show, Paxton was onstage, saw me, and pointed me out and asked if I wanted to play bass for him and his accompanist Robin Bullock for their set too!

The night of the show, it got several notches better. The entire faculty got together for a show-closing Tom Paxton number, and I played for that too. An amazing lineup of people singing to a warm, engaged, and extremely appreciative crowd. The group included Robin Bullock, Danny Ellis, Amy Speace, 14-time Boston Music Award winner Ellis Paul, Swannanoa Gathering founder Jim Magill, the mighty and ineffable Cliff Eberhardt, Independent Music Award, Americana Music Association Award, GLAMA award winner and Grammy® nominee Mary Gauthier, Kennedy Center Artist-in-Residence Pete Kennedy, the aforementioned Tom Paxton, Don Henry, Kathy Mattea, and Jon Vezner; Siobhan Quinn & Michael Bowers, Grammy® winner and Kennedy Center Artists-in-Residence Al Petteway & Amy White, Louise Mosrie, Ray Chesna, and two-time Grammy® winner and 10-time nominee Janis Ian!

The concert was filmed by PBS and is being edited down to a 90-minute presentation that will air on PBS stations throughout North Carolina, and will be on PBS.org for worldwide consumption very soon after you read this...

The next day in one of my classes, I was asked “Was that the best night of your life or what?” I replied “Well, I’m 51 years old. I have a wife and a 12 year old daughter, both of whom I love more than anything. But yes, that was the best night of my life!
==========
Links:

• Swannanoa Gathering website
• AshevilleCitizen-Times article on the Gathering (with pictures)

Media:

WLOS TV (Asheville ABC affiliate) news item on the Gathering, (story and video) - lots of great footage, I’m in it briefly a couple of times -

This one is simple and powerful. It was 1970 and I was nearly six. We were watching TV, and the above came on:

This began a one-sided love affair that spanned decades. That voice, that beautiful, resonant, otherworldly voice. The woman attached to it became a fixation for me that persists to a certain extent to this day. Her untimely and unbelievably premature death in 1983 from a heart attack and dehydration stemming from years of suffering from anorexia nervosa was a total shock to me. Back then, anorexia was even more misunderstood than it is now. I wish I’d known her. I wish I could have shown her the truth. I wish I could have helped her.

But yeah, I had it BAD for Karen Carpenter. She was the first. The beauty she brought into the world with her singing (and her formidable drumming skill) can never be replaced. 

I've moved on to many other celebrity crushes over the years, but there is and was only one Karen... 

Well, I’m not quite sure what to do with this one. It doesn’t explicitly mention piercings or tattoos that *I* have; and good thing; because I have neither. So I guess I’ll talk about how I feel about them on other people.
This is an area of my life where my opinions run more toward the, shall we say, “traditional”. I have to admit that I’m neither a big fan of tattoos, nor of piercings. I guess it’s mostly that I don’t understand them. I think that I don’t actually *object* to them; I just wouldn’t partake myself.

I think that pierced ears look good on women. One or two in the ear lobe. Once you get past that, you start to lose me. I don’t understand these people that look like they fell down a flight of stairs while carrying a tackle box. I also don’t understand the folks that have to make a hole in their ear lobe the size of a hula hoop.
 
As far as tattoos go, I think it’s the permanence that bothers me. I TOTALLY respect it as an art form, and I’ve seen some truly magnificent looking tattoos. That said, I could never remotely imagine permanently altering my body in such an outward form. The curmudgeon in me sees a dude with 70% coverage and 19 facial piercings and says “This guy never wants to make more than $8.50 an hour”. Sounds mean, but that’s how it feels to me. I know, super-judgey.
​
So yeah, I’m totally dork-ass old fashioned on this one. Stupid. Not sure what I can do about it. Educate me. What is the value, what is the merit? What makes it worth permanently changing your body? Tell me in the comments!

Let me entertainnn youuuuu...

This is my favorite old photo of myself. I like it because it freaks out everyone who sees it who has known me less than 25 years. See, I used to have hair. a LOT of it. Stop laughing. It's true! I started losing it in my mid 20s, so most of my current friends only know me as that short, fat, bald guy. But I used to be MUCH more svelte, and much hairier. THis picture was taken when I was 15, a sophomore in high school. The dog is Sir Fudgeship of Watervale, or "Fudgie". Bless him; he was cute but super neurotic. Anyway, here it is!