Sunday, October 5, 2008

Day two hundred and seventy eight ... a quick one.

I live in a wonderful neighborhood filled with friendly people, economical and environmentally sensible cars, beautiful houses ...
























... and common sense animals who can bite off more than they can chew, but somehow manage to make it look easy.



The trees are at their peak.

I've written about the way my mother--earth science teacher extraordinaire--explained the changing of the leaves.

So as not to paraphrase my own writing (from way back in a post from February):

October is a wonderful month. It brings the trees to their natural state of annual surrender. Some leaves turn the color of the sun that initially gave them life. Some turn the color of the fruits their branches brought to term. Either way, it is spectacular to see. My Mother was a science teacher. Earth science was her focus. She once explained to me that the colors of the leaves you see at peak foliage are the colors the leaves are for their whole life. It's the chlorophyll that covers up their personality and makes them uniformly green. When that chlorophyll is drained by the coming of winter, the leaves respond and reveal their hidden talents. Like the brilliance of fireworks born from plain, rough, wrapped paper and powder.






I am in between gigs at the Hyland Brewery in Sturbridge, MA. We play their Octoberfest every year on Saturday and Sunday. It's a wonderful time indeed for all ages.





The rock and roll lifestyle is unpredictable at best, but sometimes you just know you're going to have a great afternoon. Everybody at these shows (not to jinx today's which I haven't played yet) is friendly, well behaved, and happy as hell to enjoy a beautiful day with other like-minded citizens of earth. With so much awful news everywhere you look, it's nice to see that sometimes, in a place where you wouldn't even expect it, there is something done by people with huge hearts, for free, for the whole of the family, and for all the right reasons, and I--once again--get to be stuck right smack dab in the middle of it.

Thank you Todd and Tim.




Thank you to my old (but recently new) friend, Jamie Quinn (from The Valley Breeze newspaper in Cumberland, RI), for giving me two tickets to the Red Sox/Yankees game last week. He had read my post
from my birthday back in May about a birthday surprise my friends planned for me and thought it a nice idea.
This is how close we were.

It's nice to see the Yankee fans taking in a game in September while they still can.









And thank you to my new friends Tom and Sally who mad my day a couple months ago with hand made google eye pins.
It's a phenomenon you can read about if you flip around through August's FBD posts.

They made my day then, and continue to bring a smile to my face by wearing, in solidarity, the google eye badge. 

It's something silly, something funny, something fancifully unexpected, something pure, and something my mother would have enjoyed greatly as she was all of those things.

And she would have made those pins.

And maybe she had something to do with it.

Inspiration comes in many forms.

Just don't ignore it and you'll be okay.


I gotta go play.

It's the opposite of work ... but not really.


Thanks for reading.

F.A.J.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw your band play last Winter with my friend Tom (the googlie eye pin guy). We saw you at the Narrows. I have yet to get to see you again, but hope that will change soon.

I would just like to say that out of what feels like tragedy while it is happening, comes our best moments in life when we reach the other side of the event.

Your mom is probably passing out googlie eyes in heaven and saying quite proudly "look down Angel Michael, that one over their whaling on that guitar, thats my boy"

Sometimes we have to go though tremndous darkeness to find our inner light. Once we do we are a beacons to others....Keep shining your light!!!

luvrandr said...

Thanks to you...you made my day! That pic was my 5 seconds of fame!
Thanks for another great show at Hyland. Steve said it was about 10 degrees colder than he liked it, and I have to concur, but the band was hot! There were a thousand things I probably should have been doing on a sunny Saturday, but none I would have enjoyed more.
Sally