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I was driving up to Colorado the first of last week. Coming through the Raton pass, there is an unlikely RV park on the right side of the highway when you’re headed north. It has been impossible for me over the years to figure out how you get to the damn place. They re-did the road there at the weigh station a few years ago, making it even worse to be able to tell how to get to the RV park. I thought about it again, coming through.

I stopped in Trinidad at a little shop to see some people I know, as I usually do. A little while later, I left, drove back up the block, and took the entrance to 25, and was off. It wasn’t too long before it occurred to me that I was going back the way I came. I was pretty pissed at myself. I just hoped I could find some place to turnaround before I had to drive all the way back to Raton.

So I’m getting nervous thinking time is passing faster than it is. There are exits but no entrances on the other side. I’m trying not to berate myself, but I feel sort of stupid.

I come around by the weigh station and I see an exit with an entrance on the other side. Praising my good fortune and beginning to feel better about the whole incident, I took the exit. I get to the top, turn left, get to the other side, and head into an intense turn back toward the highway. Coming around that turn, I  pass a road on my right. I see that that road leads to the RV park.

Success! I finally know how to get to the RV park. I would not want to take a trailer to that park, but I know how to get to it. Keep in mind that I had never bothered looking for the exit coming south. That’s the only way you can get to it – from the north headed south.

Good can come from doing a stupid thing. Just not all the time.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

 

 

Wrong entrance from Trinidad.

This is a picture of a picture in the newspaper. I’m sure I have the original, but I wouldn’t begin to know where.

Full disclosure: I/We rarely go to many events because we don’t enjoy crowds anymore and getting tickets has become an extreme pain in the ass and there are few people I want to see that are worth a mortgage payment. So I don’t think about it much, but I do get numerous music emails and at times I’m curious to see what outrageous sum they are charging for tickets.

The recent return to the news of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation monopoly question, on top of the Taylor Swift ticket fiasco last year, got me to thinking about the actual experience of buying concert tickets. Even though it’s not really an experience any more. It hasn’t been since long before the Garth Brooks wristband debacle, whenever the hell that was, exactly.

And for the record: No, I did not walk two miles uphill barefoot in the snow to go to school. And we did have indoor plumbing.

This is just an experience that we had that a lot of people these days never had and I just want to share the experience.

I had the most experience with buying concert tickets my senior year in high school. I wrote a music column for the school paper and reviewed concerts. Since it was for school, my parents paid for every concert I could cram into my schedule.

But I had to buy tickets like everyone else. Depending on the popularity of the artist, tickets could be bought at local music stores – particularly Sound Warehouse – or the Sears box office at the Sears on Ross for larger concerts. There were others as well.

As to the larger concerts, Led Zeppelin, for example, the tickets would go on sale at – say – 8 a.m. on Saturday. We would be in line outside the building no later than 2 a.m. Often times, earlier. This is the experience I referred to.

You can share a lot with a group of people over the course of eight or more hours, particularly with chemical and alcoholic inducement. Not a massive amount, mind you – things might have been cheaper, but we still didn’t have any money. But enough inducement to “get us through the night.”

The point was, we shared. Stories, cigarettes of various kinds, beers, jars, blankets, munchies, whatever. (Some of which we’ll never share again after the pandemic.) And we’d hold your place if you needed to leave for some reason. That was when I perfected my art of sleeping standing up against a building. Sometimes it would be cold, sometimes it would rain. But it was Texas, not usually in winter months, so the weather was usually fair. Tickets ordinarily went on sale some time in March for the spring and summer shows.

There were many times when I saw some of the people at the concert whom I had met while we were in line. Those that went to as many concerts as I did for those two years I would see in line for, and at, numerous concerts. I would be walking through the crowd — on the floor at larger shows – or on the way to the bar – at smaller shows, when I would suddenly hear five people (give or take) yell my name. Even in school people would stop to show me their tickets and ask if they were good seats and where to park. It was what made my senior year – and the year after – not suck.

But the point was, it was a social occasion with a common goal: tickets to another type of social occasion. Up front and personal – in person. Did we all agree? Hell no. Each of us had our own favorite song, or album, or story. But it was a blast sharing them, and whatever else.

Not saying it was good or bad as far as you are concerned. Just that it was. And it was a hell of a lot of fun! And a lot of damn good music!

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

David Crosby and band

David Crosby joins those musicians of our era that Cyndy and I have seen a few years before they passed away. Leon Russell and Gregg Allman are two others on the list. Unfortunately, there are more.

A few years ago, I won tickets through KXT to see David Crosby at the Granada Theatre. It was a fabulous show – see my review here. I’ve seen Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young in most of their permutations. I’ve seen shows when Crosby had to be propped up at the mic and a singer was doing his parts from behind the stage. When the members all showed up each in their own limo because they wouldn’t ride together. I also saw them at Texas Stadium on the 1974 tour which was considered their best tour.

I was also at Cardi’s the night David Crosby got busted, ending up in a prison sentence. A friend of mine was running sound. I was going to stay for the show, but his shows hadn’t been getting very good reviews and the crowd was a little sketchy. So I cut out before the show. Turns out it was a good thing.

But I got to see a dynamite David Crosby show before he passed away, and that is kind of special.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

If hens could lay perfect eggs every time, hard boiling eggs would be a piece of cake, so to speak. It’s even more of a problem if you’re making deviled eggs. Then you want them as perfectly peeled as possible so the halves will hold the filling without breaking. In the instance pictured above, the first nine peeled perfectly, albeit not easily. I was concentrating, but trying not to concentrate too hard.

Despite all my carefulness, the tenth egg went south. The thin membrane between the egg and the shell can be a pain in the ass. Doing one thing one time and another thing another. Sticking to the shell one minute and pulling a chunk off the egg the next. The eleventh egg echoed the tenth. I didn’t know if it was the eggs or if I had altered my modus operandi without meaning to. Possibly a bit of both — who knew?

As I alluded to in the opening sentence, each egg is different. When Cyndy and I would go to any type of potluck event in the last thirty years, most of the time we would take deviled eggs. They always turned out really good, but not always the same. People would ask us for the recipe. We told them we didn’t know. It was different every time. And that had to do with the differences in eggs. The flavor of the boiled yokes dictates the amount of the different ingredients.

A few days ago, I hard boiled seven eggs. I was doing other things as well so I was late in starting the timer after the eggs started to boil. I didn’t take a picture, but they all peeled perfectly. Now, if only I knew how long I boiled them for, I could do it every time. Or not. Did I say all eggs are different?

Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Goin’ ‘Round the Mountain

The mountain pictured is not the mountain we drive around, even though in the Front Range you’re pretty much driving around some mountain all the time. This is a picture from the bottom of a hill in Colorado Springs. I, and Cyndy when she can go with me, stay with our friend, Sally, up the mountain from Colorado Springs. That’s the mountain we drive around twice when we go anywhere south. It’s nearly impossible to get a decent picture while driving around it (for the passenger).

I’ve driven around the mountain countless times in sunshine, fog, rain, dark, dark and rain, slick, not slick – you get the picture. And in all of those conditions, some idiot has passed me like he was attempting to break the sound barrier. Some moron who has seen all of the Fast Five movies seven times, watched Speed Racer as a child, and has never paid a bit of a damn attention to the “do not do this at home” warning. If he did, he came to the insane conclusion that it is freaking okay if he is not at home.

Every time they pass me I pray – and I pray out loud – that the damn fool doesn’t have a wreck in front of me.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

Monday night was my first night to host the Rob Case’s PDP Virtual Open Mic from start to finish. I have taken over hosting several times when Rob could not continue hosting. I was also guest host quite a few times since early in Mr. Troll’s reign as host of the open mic at Poor David’s Pub. But that was live and I didn’t have to completely control the show and deal with Zoom.

That being said, I want to thank everyone on the list above for playing a good song selection during their sets. They provided the show’s rhythm. I began the show with three songs from my new cd, The L.A. Sessions. Most of the performers on the show have music online with a quick search on the streaming outlets.

You can see the show in its entirety here. Then check back with us next Monday (and every Monday except the last Monday of the month) for another good show. It’s always a good time and besides, what else are you doing on Monday?

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

Lingering Memories of Mom

Mom used to always buy certain candies to put in the candy dishes on the coffee table and the fireplace, just like her mother. In fact, one of the candy dishes was from Grandmother’s house – minus the glass insert. I would get candies from that dish when we would visit Grandmother Kelley in Iowa when I was growing up. It was one of the first things I checked out when we arrived at the duplex with Grandmother on one side and my Aunt, Uncle, and cousins on the other. The dish was always full.

I would specifically look for the spearmint leaves when I/we would visit Mom and Dad’s house, usually in the candy dish on the fireplace. When Mom noticed that I kept going straight to them, she began to put some in the bowl and some in a plastic bag for me when she bought a new bag. She would give them to me when I took them food or when I was headed out on the road for a tour.

In the past few months, Mom’s faculties began to slowly go. Her hearing and her arthritis kept getting worse. I was sitting with her while Dad ran a couple of errands. This was before Dad found a nurse and physical therapist to come to their house.

Mom would seem to fall asleep in the middle of a sentence or thought. I would look at my phone or read the paper on the kitchen table. At some point, she would wake up and continue the thought. That pattern continued for a while. Then she backed her chair away from the table.

She told me to look in the cabinet. I found a bag of the spearmint leaves. I turned to ask her if that was what she was talking about. She had the grin of a little girl as she nodded.

A week or two later while Dad ran errands, Mom and I were again sitting at the kitchen table. Dad had bought candy and I was helping her fill the candy dishes. Certain candies went in certain dishes. Bridge mix in one, Reese’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups in another, and of course the spearmint leaves. After I filled the candy dish with the leaves, Mom told me to take the rest of the bag. That is the bag in the picture.

I ate them rather slowly, but this was the last one. It’s not such a big thing, and I can get more spearmint leaves. But it feels kinda weird to finish the last one in the last bag she gave me.

There will always be little things that remind me that I miss my mom.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

paypal.me/danroark

The Tiny Pecan Saga

A tiny pecan on a small gas station fork.

I was up in Oklahoma Sunday and into Monday visiting my cousin, Tom, in Ponca City. I stopped at JT’s gas station – although it was more like a smaller travel center – for some beer. I was walking toward the cashier with my six pack when I spotted a display with slices of pie. I thought about the lemon meringue, but I still chose the pecan.

I checked into the hotel and unpacked what little I had. I grabbed a beer, turned on the tv, and started eating the remains of lunch. In between bites of mini hamburgers, I had a bite or two of pie. It’s a sweet and salty thing.

I began to notice how tiny the pecans were. And they were all consistently perfectly shelled. Which made me wonder a number of things. Where did they grow these tiny pecans? And who has to shell the damn things? Is shelling them the “shit shift”?

Then the person in charge of pies had to place all of the damn things on each pie. How many tiny pecans does it take for each pie? Just eye-balling it, the slice had between 50 and 75 pecans. With six slices per pie, you do the math. A lot of freaking tiny pecans.

I get the point of the end result, I think. You are sure to get a pecan in each bite, regardless of the size of the bite. Which is awful sweet of them (forgive the pun), but I don’t mind taking bigger bites to get a whole “regular size” pecan. It also seems like it takes a tremendous amount of extra work to use the tiny pecans.

Was it a good piece of pie? It was great for coming from the same place I can get gas – although there are some “gourmet gas stations.” Would I have another piece when I’m up there next? Absolutely, if I didn’t decide to try the lemon meringue.

But what I still want to know, and want to know most of all out of all the questions I raised, is where do they grow the damn tiny pecans? Do they grow on little trees?

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

Photo by Allen Larson

If you weren’t at Poor David’s Pub this past Monday for the second regular live Rob Case’s Open Mic – Poor David’s Pub since early 2020. Not only were some of the regulars of the earlier open mic and the virtual open mic signed up to play, but we had walk-ins. Which was a pleasant surprise and a good sign.

Host Rob Case opened the show – as hosts are wont to do – and played a few songs to start us off. He played his song, Bayou City, which is about Houston and is one of my favorite songs of Rob’s. Although there are a few. Several of us regulars sing a part in the chorus. Rob had a friend that would sing the part at one time, but things change. We usually don’t sing the part on the virtual open mic, due to bandwidth and related issues. The point being that it took me until the third chorus to actually sing it to my satisfaction. Mainly because I had driven back from Oklahoma in the afternoon and hadn’t had more than twenty minutes to warm up. But Rob carried on, undaunted.

Gary White followed Rob. Gary has known Rob and his brother Lewis for a number of years. He took lessons from Lewis at the brothers’ shop, Fiddle and Bow Music. Which – incidentally – is a sponsor of the open mic. Gary, is, however, a newcomer to the open mic.

A quiet, assuming young man who goes by Vudu Childe came up next. His songs were intriguing and his voice ebbed and flowed with seeming grace. Check out his new single on all the regular online outlets. The inimitable Roy Howell was next. He was followed by Lovemore Phiri, who sang/rapped to the beats on his phone.

I followed Lovemore and my set included Chocolate Eclairs and Apple Fritters which is on my new cd, The L. A. Sessions. On all streaming services and at DanRoark.com.

John Mason was next, followed by Steve Troum, and then Allen Larson, all three regulars.

Next week it’s back to the virtual open mic. Due to the Case’s having a family event, I will be hosting the virtual open mic this coming Monday, the 6th. If you would like to play, email Lynda Case at Case16386@aol.com. If you want to join us to just watch and listen, it will also be live on my Facebook page. It’s usually at Rob Case’s Open Mic – Poor David’s Pub as well and may be Monday if Lynda has time. I’ll be playing three songs off of my new cd. See you Monday.

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

On another one of my excursions to Colorado and back, I had a chance to take these pictures in west Texas. There were few vehicles on the road and I had time to slow down. In the first picture, the windmills were actually moving, but the picture doesn’t show movement. In the second picture, the lone windmill is how you see it, with no motion. But it was part of the larger wind farm with all others moving.

I was thinking while I was driving – as I am wont to do. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. I was just able to get pictures. But I don’t understand why one or two windmills were not working.

Did they get the day off? Do they rotate they days off between windmills?

Did a windmill call in sick, but the “doctor” was busy? Did it fall asleep on the job, but no one had come to wake it up?

I’m being facetious, but the questions are valid. Don’t they have crews that would fix a still windmill? If it was a computer issue, the windmill would probably never have stopped in the first place.

On the other hand, would I want to go up inside the windmill and fix something at the top?

No way in hell!

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Keep writing the songs that are in your heart.

Peace be with you.

Paypal.me/danroark

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