Naw Ruz week – and then some

We celebrated Naw Ruz (Baha’i New Year) with some good friends this past week (21 March).  Beatriz and Robert drove over from Las Cruces, New Mexico to visit and brought their friends Warren and Jacki from New Hampshire, who were vacationing nearby.  We had a great celebration and enjoyed the storytelling of Mike and Marti Lindsey, our dear friends here in Tucson.  We feasted physically and spiritually!

It’s also been another week or two of house repair and dog-training.  “Rocket” the pit-bull is getting better at living with us each day.  He’s managing to let us know when it’s time to “go out”.  (Hallelujah!)

I learned something important about myself and handy-man work:  I’m not cut out for installing insulation in a shallow attic.  I’m thicker than most of the space allows. That was like trying to hold a push-up position with a house on my back while pushing a thick blanket over rail-road tracks.  So, I will be ordering some blown-in insulation this week and returning the unused bales of batting that are stacked in my shed.

I finally broke out some guitars and amps and played my Rickenbacker 360 again.  It felt So Goooood. I’m going to rehearse a bit on Sunday with Brian Taraz and NAHuM to prepare for the show on the 12th.  They have a bluesy piece they do for the 23rd Psalm that I think would welcome some slide guitar.  We’ll see.  I will be doing some of the secular tunes from my Birthday Party CD (because I have a number of them left to sell.)

   

I learned that the venue for the show, “El Ojito Springs Center for Creativity” has “Open Mic” every Wednesday night.  I’m planning to drop in there this week or next to check it out.

And for all you Battlestar Gallactica fans out there, check out the cool cover / mash-up video by singer-songwriter Laura Harley and Producer Jarome Matthew.  You can find “Enjoy the Cylons” on You-Tube, or on either of their websites linked in my Blogroll.

///Darrell

Darrell Rodgers                                             

Singer, Songwriter, Performer, Humorist

http://darrellsongs.com  

Fence is up, Boot gets the boot

We just finished building a 6-foot redwood fence in the back-yard to replace a section of block wall I had to remove because it was leaning over into the neighbor’s yard.  We got our fence up thanks to the superior craftsmanship and hard work of Greg Waddell.  Greg volunteered himself and his truck to the project which he and I completed in two days of work spread over a week of time.  Greg and I grew up in the same community in Virginia.  He came to Tucson years ago and married Brenda. Brenda Waddell is my real-estate agent here.  I purchased this house through her services about six years ago.

      

But “Boot”, the little Bernese Mountain Dog doesn’t live here anymore.  We gave away the little one because he was schIZOphreNIC.  He was cute and cuddly one moment and aggressive the next, particularly when it came to food.  He intimidated the heck out of “Rocket” the Pit-Bull though he was only half Rocket’s size!  So what have we learned??
We learned that with puppies, training difficulty increases exponentially with the number of puppies applied.  We learned that bad puppies don’t learn from good puppies, they teach them to be bad as well.  We also learned: NEVER adopt a dog before researching the breed for yourself.  Shelter volunteers are warm-hearted but not well-informed. Sales Pitch: “Oh they have a lovely disposition and only grow to about 40 pounds.” Reality: Bernese Mountain Dogs can reach 110 pounds, and ours was SCHIZO!

I received a call from my old music partner Dr. Rick Graves of Berkeley Springs, West (by God) Virginia.  It was great to talk to him again.  Rick and I met in Iceland about a million years ago and began performing acoustic-guitar, two-part harmony sets together there.  We joined forces in Utah in 1977 and formed a rock-band named Wasatch Front with some of the most talented musicians we knew, including another boyhood friend of mine, Bob Lail, who is perhaps the best rock drummer I’ve ever played with (no offense, Irwin Anolik, you’re great too!).  After all the trauma and drama a living-together rock-band can bring, we all went our separate ways.  Last summer, Glen Schallmo, our superb guitarist, took the initiative to hunt us all down and reconnect us as the old men we’ve become.  On our vacation trip to Virginia last September, Deb and I drove out to Berkeley Springs and spent the night at Rick and Cheryl’s place in the wooded hills.  We played guitar and sang and I met members of Rick’s band “On Call” – a rock group made up of Doctors (Osteopathy no less) and nurses and medical service folks.  (“Break a leg” means job security to them, I guess.)  I told Rick last night that when I get finished with it, I’ll send him my new song “Sex as a Weapon” for his band to perform. 

One more thing: My Baha’i musician/producer friend Jon Rezin (Small Room Productions) has launched a new label, Next Movement Records. They just released their first artist, Badi.  Badi is also a Baha’i, and Jon is starting a commercial promotion effort.  If you know anyone who likes Hip-Hop or who has kids who like hip-hop, let them know. Thanks.

///Darrell

Darrell Rodgers                                             

Singer, Songwriter, Performer, Humorist

http://darrellsongs.com  

Eight legs and Two tails

Here’s a riddle: What is 1-foot tall, has 8 legs, 2 tails, and barks in stereo?  Yep – TWO puppies.  I must be on drugs (or might be soon).

It was a moment of weakness on my part and exuberance on Deb’s.  We have a baby Pitt-Bull (crossed with a Tiger I think) named “Rocket”, and “Boot”, a baby Bernese Mountain Dog, or maybe a Burmese Mountain Dog, we’re not quite sure yet which (as they are in fact two different breeds with similar looking pups). 

         

This is really strange for me.  Folks who know me best know that I am not a pet person.  I never really had them as a kid.  I had a dog for a couple years decades ago, but never a puppy, let alone TWO! 

“Boot” and “Rocket” are quite a pair (boot-rocket, get it?).  While you might think that Rocket, the Pitt-Bull, would be the more cantankerous of the two, but he’s actually more docile, and learns must faster.  By the way, I considered naming our first dog “Dammitt”. Then I could say “Come here Dammitt”, “Sit down Dammitt”, and the neighbors would think we had kids.

We should have waited for another month to get more order in the house, but the city shelter was about to “put down” the Pitt that very day, and when we got there to rescue him, we were taken by the little Mountain Dog pup.  When I asked Deb “which one?”, she said Both! and I consented.  We couldn’t let the Pitt get greased and couldn’t pass up the cute one.  I’ve turned into an old softy!

This fulfills twice over a promise I made Deb when we first married, that one day we’d have a house with a yard and she could get a dog.  Now we each have one.  This situation brings to mind a line from a song I wrote years ago called “Lovely Lovin’ Woman”:

Now together we’re so happy
We’re gonna’ raise a little family.
Just the dogs, the kids, and you and me
That’s the way our life will be.
Well for me it seems strange you say
But let me add that it’s O-K
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Little Boot is so aggressive and selfish with food that I think Deb may decide to try and find another home for him – SOON!  Although he’s only half the size of Rocket, he intimidates the Pit-Bull like as though he were ten feet tall.  He’s not nearly as fast to learn things as Rocket.  Deb says he’s the most hard-headed dog she’s ever tried to train. (Not counting me of course) 

And all my friends smile at me
They say I act so differently
Well none can say, but all agree
I got a Lovely Lovin’ Woman In love with me

///Darrell

Darrell Rodgers                                             

Singer, Songwriter, Performer, Humorist

http://darrellsongs.com  

Incredible Mom

I don’t have an excuse for being tired because my 82-year-old mother has done all the work.  This woman is incredible.  Not only did she paint our house, right now she’s doing yard work that I planned to ignore for another week.  She works circles around all of us.

Yesterday however we took a break and drove to Mount Lemon for a cookie at the “Cookie Cabin”.  On the way down we stopped to take pictures of the magnificent views from the mountaintop.  We hiked out to large boulder overhanging a cliff and felt like we were standing on the top of the world.  When I looked up and saw my mom venturing out onto yet a higher precipice, with blue sky beyond, I said “I need a picture of this”.  My daughter Rachel, the theater teacher, said “I’ll get the camera from grandma” and headed for the ledge.  She circled around behind a rock in order to follow her grandmother’s path and stopped in her tracks.  From behind that rock, in the pristine quiet of the windswept peak, came the cry “Holy Crap Grandma!” as she gazed on the precarious path my mom had traversed to reach her perch.  When we get the pictures, that line will be the caption: Holy Crap Grandma! (digital image inserted below)

We ended with dinner at Pinnacle Peak restaurant and watched the wild-west stunt show. What a great day it was.

Today I will attend my first Baha’i community event here in Tucson – an Ayyam-i-ha Picnic.  I will take a guitar along and perform.  I haven’t been able to do that for weeks.  I miss my recording work too.  But in time, I will have it all put together and back “on track” – so to speak.

///Darrell

Darrell Rodgers                                             

Singer, Songwriter, Performer, Humorist

http://darrellsongs.com