Matt Wigler - House Concert Review

Saturday evening Chris and I attended another house concert in the series provided by Cellar Music House Concerts. Sadly, this concert was not heavily attended, probably because of the type of music--Matt Wigler is a jazz and blues pianist, composer, organist, and singer.

I admit, I am not a huge jazz and blues fan, but Saturday night changed my view of this genre of music. Matt, accompanied by Mike Aubin on the drums, provided a hugely entertaining, dynamic, and varied performance full of energy and enthusiasm for the music. Most importantly, it was fun!


Matt and Mike displayed a comfortable, jam session like attitude and ease right from the start. Their ability to improvise on the fly was obvious and that they play and work together a great deal was evident. Matt's piano work was fantastic and at one point I thought I would need to get a bucket of water to cool off the keys on the piano because his hands were flying over them so quickly making music that I was sure they were getting hot.

Matt is a talented vocalist as well and his singing ability simply highlights his multifaceted talent as a pianist, organist, singer, and songwriter. I was impressed that he was a visiting artist at the Strathmore Artist in Residence this past year and it shows in is music. His own compositions displayed a variety and depth in style and composition that highlighted a maturity in music beyond is years. They were interesting and complex in design with competing rhythms and themes. I admit, my favorite pieces of the evening were the Boogie Woogie ones which were cried by his ability to play a strong bass line.

This was a great concert and I need to also highlight Mike Aubin's smooth percussion work which complimented, and at times led, the performance. The two musicians appeared to work together effortlessly and easily through some really difficult pieces.

Gary and Pam--Cellar Music House Concerts hit another home run. Keep them coming.

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Thanks for the Birthday Greetings

This is just a simple thank you to everyone who took a moment from their day to wish me Happy Birthday. I really appreciate it and was humbled by your greeting.

thanks.


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Monday Musings - September 26, 2011

1. I went to a fabulous house concert Saturday evening to see a piano prodigy play jazz and blues music for which I gained a new appreciation. I'm working on a review for tomorrow.

2. Sometimes I need to take a decorating risk--and I talked Chris into that with our crown moulding. All in all it looks really good.

3. Fantasy Football is fickle.

4. We watched Ben, Jeremy's Keeshond, for the past week and it always made me smile to be greeted at the door by my pair-o-kees.

5. Today is my birthday. There is something special about a day that you can call your own. I am not a huge fan of my own birthday, but I would love to know more people who share this day with me. That written, I am honored to share my birthday with Johnny Appleseed (1774), Pope Paul VI (1897), Carlene Carter (1955), and Serena Williams (1981).

6. Alternatively, some famous people have died on my birthday, too. These include Daniel Boone (who knew? 1820), John Byron (1763), and Paul Newman (2008).

7. One of the hardest decisions it seems that I am asked to make is deciding what I want to do for my birthday evening. There are so many options that I want to do them all.



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Football-- The Opiate of the Masses

I remember from my school days that an infamous man, Karl Marx, once wrote that "Religion is the opiate of the people." His meaning was very sinister and he devoted himself to eradicating religion through his writings that say that true happiness cannot be found until religion is eradicated. He wrote, "The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

As I sit here in front of my TV this Sunday afternoon with the DirecTV Red Zone channel keeping me informed of the progress of every NFL game happening at the moment, I realize that football may have replaced religion as the illusion we use to make us happy, at least during the NFL season which runs from the draft until the Super Bowl.

Now I know this may be an unpopular thought--but when compared against organized religion, I would believe that the NFL has a larger following. Even I have rushed from my church pew on a Sunday morning to my home to partake of the NFL Sunday. And while church may only last just over an hour, the NFL lasts nine hours on Sunday and an additional three on Monday nights, before the Thursday night football games even kick into gear.

Does football make me happy? Sure. It makes me forget the mess that our country is in with a dysfunctional leadership. And that the economy is not getting better. And that while my expenses are rising, my income is static.

Yet football makes it all better. And I prefer baseball, but with the Orioles tanking so bad, I don't get as excited about the game as I used to. Fourteen consecutive losing seasons will do that for you.

And so, at least for Americans--NFL Football has replaced religion as the opiate for the masses--or as Marx wrote, the people.



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Saddest Day of the Year

While for some people summer ends on Labor Day and for others summer ends on the first day of autumn; for me, summer ends with the annual closing of my pool--which I have just completed.


Pool closing day marks, for me, the official beginning of the dark, cold seasons. I am being held hostage by the forces of cold and dark until April when I can reopen my pool and begin to enjoy summertime in earnest.

The pool seemed to resist my efforts to close it this year and numerous small annoyances cropped up as I completed the now well practiced closing operation. But, sadly, I prevailed recognizing that the leaves are beginning to fall and the time was only growing shorter if I had decided to procrastinate and postpone the closing.

For me there are only two seasons--summer and not-summer. Summer is marked by the opening and closing of my pool.

Do I enjoy not-summer? Not really. I enjoy some things and some holidays, but they are really small points of light in an otherwise dismal season.




It is hard to believe that in a few short weeks we have transitioned from family gatherings around the pool, such as the one above--to the picture taken a few minutes ago of the covered pool, hibernating like a bear waiting for the renewal of the year.

Soon, I will again hear the squeals of the grandsons chasing each other around the pool in heat of a nice summer day. And the non-summer season will be forgotten.

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And the rains finally stop

Friday evening and the rain has abated for a short while. Enjoy the blue in the sky.

Rainy Friday and Doctors

The day started off well. I was on the racquetball court at 0530 for a rare Friday match. But then, the day turned and I needed to head off to the doctor to for some stupid thing that keeps popping up on my face.

Then I found out the appointment was for Monday!

Ugh!

But they squeezed me in.

And it is raining. Again! The skies are as gray as my mood.

I was talking to a friend yesterday who suggested we should move to Florida.

I'm in!

But it is Friday.

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Autumn 2011

And it is here. The beginning to the ending of the year has arrived today. Today is the first day of Autumn. Tomorrow is the saddest day of the year as I close the pool and put the period at the end of the sentence which is summertime for 2011.

I can still remember sitting in St Lucia during July drinking a Piton beer enjoying the heat and humidity of the summertime now past. The warm waters of the Caribbean lapping at my toes as it invited me to slide into its warm waters for another fantastic experience.

Or napping on my floatie, now deflated, in my pool.

Behind me is the heat of the summertime sun beating on my now tanned back.

Ahead are the rains and snows of the cold, dark seasons ahead.

We are a mere three months from Christmas.

When I close the pool tomorrow, it will be seven months almost to the day until the cover comes off for another season of fun in the sun. Really, seven whole months. It is hard to believe that I enjoy my pool for less than half of a year and long for its use during the remaining months of cold and darkness.

But through the months of cold and dark I will carry with me the memory of lounging on my floatie in the hot sun with a cold beer, dozing, and letting the troubles of the world pass me by for just a bit. I always come out of the pool a bit refreshed and ready to face the challenges of the day.

April--pool opening day will arrive soon. Until then, I am sojourning in a hostile land.


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Reflections on a song - East to West

I've been listening to a song lately titled East to West performed by Casting Crowns. I urge you to listen to the song if you have not heard it. Part of the song goes as follows:

The chains of yesterday surround me
I yearn for peace and rest
I don't want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind, keeps me awake tonight
I know You've cast my sin as far as the east is from the west

The line about ending up where I was found is especially poignant and states the reality of my condition. It is too easy to end one day and start the next day being in the same place where I started the day before. It seems as if I am not gaining any ground.

The chorus of the song, though provides some comfort

Jesus, can You show me just how far the east is from the west
'cause I can't bear to see the man I've been come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
'cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

Everyday, there is forgiveness for not making the progress we should be making. I just need to accept it. I can't earn it--and I don't deserve it. It is given freely to me.

My response is to grow a bit every day--to be different today than I was yesterday and to put behind me the earthly things and leave the man I was yesterday behind in order to become a new man today.

That is the journey.

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NPDH

Today marks one month of being afflicted with NDPH. I have read that about 82 percent of people with NDPH know the day when their headaches started--and I am most certainly one of those. I even remember where I was, in my gold La-Z-boy chair on a Sunday evening, when my now persistent headache arrived.

Until a week ago, I did not even know that NDPH existed--and the name almost made me laugh when the doctor diagnosed me with this syndrome. Who would call something, New Daily Persistent Headache?

I am not trolling for sympathy--but rather I am reflecting upon how something I never thought about until a month ago and did not even know existed has become a persistent and almost ever-present part of my life.

I am lucky, so far, in that I am not debilitated by the persistent headache. I can function--but I know that even on the best days so far, that I am achieving only about 95 percent effectiveness--and on bad days, I am running about about 75 percent.

From my reading, I have found that usually they do not diagnose NDPH until someone has been afflicted with it for three months--so I am grateful that the doctor made the call early. I definitely fit the profile.

There are bloggers out there devoted to NDPH. One that I have been working through is titled Living with NDPH. I am saddened by many of them because there is not a lot of hope--one person has been afflicted for 14 years. The hard part is that there are three natural outcomes and no medical treatment has been identified to speed achieving outcome number one. The three are:

1. The headaches go away after a while and never return
2. The headaches go away for a while, but return sometime in the future.
3. The headaches never go away. (ugh!)

For my part, I have discovered two things that relieve the pain temporarily--racquetball and wine (beer works too). Coincidently, two of my favorite activities. Alas though, I am pain free only temporarily--but I take time to enjoy feeling almost normal again for the brief respite that I am given. Fortunately, it only takes one or two glasses of wine.

Other than all of this--life is pretty normal. Most days are good days with low pain levels. Some hours are bad--but I get through them.

I know there are a lot of prayer warriors out there praying for me--and I want to thank them because I am convinced that my pain is manageable and low because of your concern and intervention for me.

I am reminded of Paul's thorn in the flesh, from 2 Cor 12:7. While I make no comparison between myself and the Apostle Paul, other than this one, the response Paul received to his prayers in 2 Cor 12:9 is truly something I am holding fast onto: "My grace is enough for you, my power is made perfect in weakness."

Everyday--

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