Mondays usually fly by for me. It’s true. I come in Monday morning and still “radiate weekend,” or something. A protective aura that shields from me from Monday-ness. What’s weird, though, is that in recent weekends, even if I have done fun things, it’s hard for me at times to get the thought out of my head that “hm, this is really just a short break from work (which although I don’t dread, I certainly don’t enjoy much).” It’s like… the same amount of “fun” that used to really separate weekend and work-week in my head hasn’t quite been doing it for me of late. I spend 37.5 hours a week at work and even though that’s still less than my (waking) time –not- at work, work and the work mindset/certain co-workers popping into my head has been starting to take over. Yet Mondays are no problem for me, pretty consistently. Am I remembering fun things I did on the weekend as better than they may have been? I guess it’s possible. But it does make the day go faster. Hm.
Well, the Olive’s jam a couple weeks ago was fun. The sound there isn’t excellent and sounded a little muddy on the couple tunes we played (L.A. Woman and Comfortably Numb), but we rocked out. I jammed with local Nyack musician and host Frankie D. afterwards into the wee hours of Wednesday morning (well, 2 AM) and had a lot of fun giving my organ chops a spin. That weekend I drove to Worcester to meet my family and celebrate my grandfather’s 85th birthday and my grandparents’ anniversary. Typical family foolishness, out to eat at the wonderful Vinny T’s (on our beloved Route 9, a Glint landmark of sorts), board games and drinking… Shannon joined in the craziness, it was great to hang with her again…
And this past weekend was nice too. Rob and I hit the Natural History Museum Saturday and came away feeling quite overwhelmed. I had been there when I was younger but couldn’t quite appreciate the vast quantity and density of information there. We also watched two good movies, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep. I am traditionally a little resistant to watching new movies, but have slowly realized that I do enjoy them once I get into them, which, isn’t hard. “Comfort” movies, although inviting on the surface, sometimes leave me with a bit of an empty feeling.
Well, the Olive’s jam a couple weeks ago was fun. The sound there isn’t excellent and sounded a little muddy on the couple tunes we played (L.A. Woman and Comfortably Numb), but we rocked out. I jammed with local Nyack musician and host Frankie D. afterwards into the wee hours of Wednesday morning (well, 2 AM) and had a lot of fun giving my organ chops a spin. That weekend I drove to Worcester to meet my family and celebrate my grandfather’s 85th birthday and my grandparents’ anniversary. Typical family foolishness, out to eat at the wonderful Vinny T’s (on our beloved Route 9, a Glint landmark of sorts), board games and drinking… Shannon joined in the craziness, it was great to hang with her again…
And this past weekend was nice too. Rob and I hit the Natural History Museum Saturday and came away feeling quite overwhelmed. I had been there when I was younger but couldn’t quite appreciate the vast quantity and density of information there. We also watched two good movies, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and Michel Gondry’s Science of Sleep. I am traditionally a little resistant to watching new movies, but have slowly realized that I do enjoy them once I get into them, which, isn’t hard. “Comfort” movies, although inviting on the surface, sometimes leave me with a bit of an empty feeling.
The best scientific name ever.
Oh yeah!
Rob looking heroic by the brontosauras neck.
Rob thinks bears are hilarious.
...and I like them coming out of my chest, apparently.
And Sunday, ah Sunday… a jazz jam started up in Nyack maybe a couple months ago, right across the street from me in the foyer of the newly-renovated Helen Hayes Theater, and I just hadn’t made my way over there until this past Sunday. I was so glad I did… it was a Latin jazz themed jam, which is really what got me to go… I showed up in the middle of the core group’s set (they play an hour on their own first) and they sounded, great. I had researched a few of the players prior to arriving… Daniel Kelly, the pianist, had played with Lauryn Hill(!), as well as jazz guys like Michael Brecker… all the players were great. NYC music guys, mostly in their 30’s I would guess, doing the professional musician thing. So why wouldn’t they be good?
Anyways, as if I wasn’t amped/slightly nervous enough to sit in with them already, I realized that the woman playing conga drums was none other than Myra from Regina Carter’s group my family had seen at the Newport Jazz Festival! I couldn’t believe it… I have to admit, it was a bit of an emotional experience for me, realizing I was going to get to play with her, someone who had been on a pretty revered stage in the realm of jazz music… and I think if I were to dig a little deeper (read: just admit it), I would say it had something to do with the thought of getting to relate the experience to my parents later on, since they had seen and enjoyed her at the festival years ago as well. Anyways… I sat in on two tunes, Beautiful Love (my call) and then Invitation, and sounded pretty good. I really impressed the bassist Harvie S., who was hosting the event, an accomplished musician himself (creds: Stan Getz, Metheney, Jim Hall… you get the idea). And the drummer William “Beaver” Bausch asked me for my card and wondered if I might be interested in helping teach some of his students montunos (traditional Latin jazz piano patterns), which is funny because my piano teacher Dan Loschen had spent maybe 2-3 lessons on montunos with me years ago… suffice to say, I only know the rudimentary stuff, but I guess I faked my way through it well enough. Like the Paul Scott Goodman rehearsal pianist offers, I'm not sure how realistic it would be for me to do it, for various reasons, but either way, it was –so- fun to jam on that kind of music. I’m sure I’ll be back for other jams.
Yup…
