Monday, April 25, 2005

HELP!!!!

OK, listen up....need all y'all's help on this one!

Scenario: Second band, mainly undergrad music majors (avg. age is 2nd-3rd year student); fifth week of prep on this show

Setting: Concert hall, Dress #1 of 2, three days removed from our previous full ensemble rehearsal

Essential question: "Why the f*ck can't they just LAY IT OUT on the first go-'round?!?!?!?!?"

Everything is going along swimmingly, and then BOOM!, some individual idiot goes off into rhythmic/temporal la-la land, and momentarily tries take the whole G-D ship down with them! Way to teach them to listen to and react to another, Corley!

Geeeeeeze!

Saturday, April 23, 2005

homesick (it doesn't take much)

My life, pre U-DubbyaEm, meant living no more than a 2 hour car ride from home. It now takes a plane 2 and one-half hours to get there from O'Hare.

It was always easy from Greenville or Athens to slip away on Sunday mid-morning and magically appear at Aunt Bobbie's Sunday table, just about the time everybody was coming home from church. And never mind the asking "are we having lunch at Aunt Bobbie's?" or "is there enough for everybody?" It's just what we did. And it's what they still do, except now, I'm passed around on a cell phone (almost) every week.

Last week, when it became warm (more than 70F) for a couple of days in a row, you could actually SMELL the ground thaw in Wisconsin. It was amazingly similar to one of my most favorite aromas, the tidal marshes of the South Carolina Low Country. It's a dank melange of odors that is at once recognizable and transporting. Next time you have an oyster roast, pull them out of the pot, throw them out on the board, and and hang your head over the steam. If they are east coast oysters, that's the best you can do without actually being on the Intercoastal.

And, of all things, the Family Circle Women's Tennis Cup was on TV last Sunday. Takes place on a snooty suburb of Charleston called Daniel Island (near Wando HS, Mt. Pleasant, SC). My God the scenery! Brilliant (Carolina) blue skies, moss in the trees, palmettos swaying in the bay breeze, and girls with no slouch (I hear they even work at the Home Depot!).

I've been forcing the Spring issue here: trying to "man-up" and wear inappropriate attire for the weather. For example, I walked to the corner bagel shop this morning to get breakfast for me and the lovely young woman in a pair of shorts. It was flurrying. Damn.

It will be May 23 soon enough, though. I will load up the truck and head 14.5 hours south and east for a solid 4 weeks of familial, cultural, and meteorlogical re-immersion. It will surely be a cure for what ails me.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

The Weather is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful

Second in a series designed to edu-ma-cate passers-by in the musical prose of one James William Buffett. This song is on my mind today, because it is Spring in Wisconsin: overcast, dank, and 45F. Damn. But that's what my man is for....escapism, anyone?

"The Weather is Here, I Wish You Were Beautiful" by Jimmy Buffett (Album: Coconut Telegraph, 1981)

He worked hard all year just wanted a few weeks alone
But his old lady's into modeling,
She can't stay away from the phone
Besides she bitches about the mosquitoes
She says "Down there there is nothing to do"
Her goddamn phone never stops ringing
He'll try the service in a day maybe two

Well, he's on his third drink before the
wheels of the plane leave the ground
Making points with the stewardess
climbing over Long Island Sound
She's also spending some time on the island
Too much city madness gives her the blues
They make a date to go dancing and dining
Seems neither has that much to lose

Chorus
The weather is here I wish you were beautiful
My thoughts aren't too clear but don't run away
My girlfiend's a bore, my job is too dutiful
Hell, nobody's perfect would you like to play
I feel together today

Well now that was just the start of
a well-deserved, over due binge
Meanwhile back in the city certain
people are starting to cringe
His lawyers are calling his parents
His girlfriend doesn't know what to think
His partners are studing their options
He's just singing and ordering drinks

Chorus
The weather is here I wish you were beautiful
The skies are too clear life's easy today
The beer is too cold, the daquiri's too fruitiful
There's no place like home when it's this far away
I don't care what they say

He's going back to New York pack it up
and let everyone know
It was something that he should have done
such a long time ago
Still time to start a new life in the palm trees
Billy Clyde wasn't insane
And it doesn't work out there'll never be any doubt
That the pleasure was worth all the pain

Chorus
The weather is here I wish you were beautiful
The skies are too clear, life is easy today
The beer is too cold, the daquiri's too fruitiful
There's no place like home when it's this far away
I need time for to play
Time for to play

the girls, take 2


IMG_6452
Originally uploaded by ssrcorley.
This is me and Becky (the center) at a recent Pub Crawl around Milwaukee (redundant, huh?). But it was all for charity...we helped raise about $600 for MS while drinking beer. We're both a bit bleery-eyed because this was the 4th of 5 stops (about 12:30am), after a 7:00 pm call time. Charity really means giving of yourself.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

DVD's

I never been a video freak, but since receiving one of those DVD/VCR combos for Christmas, I've been developing a DVD library. My collection currently consists of (in order of purchase/acquisition):

1. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (love this movie so much, I bought this about 2 yrs ago to watch at a friend's house...before I had my own machine.)
2. Jimmy Buffett "Mini-Matinee #1" (a collection of video snipits from various live concerts.....I know, I'm a parrot-geek.)
3. Blazing Saddles (no real man's collection is complete without it)
4. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (a Wisconsin-Target impulse: I needed to hear - even it may be fake - Southerneese and look at mossy trees)
5. Gods and Generals (from the same $5 bin at Target)

Suggestions for others? I'm talking about great movies accompanied by some interesting features, extras.

Sunday, April 10, 2005

not so macho

I've been waffling on the issue of writing at length about the lovely young woman. My damn pride has restrained me thus far. However, this weekend that prideful resistence was overpowered by that voodoo that she do (soooo well).

Two full days of: a road trip to Chi-town, a pub crawl for charity, hanging with the boys in the bar (yep, she hung right in there!), a lazy Sunday morning, a visit to the Degas exhibit downtown, good baseball/golf on TV (yep, she hung right in there!), gorgeous temps/weather, and this wonderful person to share it with.

So maybe it's not so macho to be silly, stupid, giddy, and altogether "hung up" on her, but I seem to have found myself in a place where - as one of my best friends has written - "everyday is Christmas and your birthday too."

Suddenly, Wisconsin's not so bad.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street

In ongoing attempt to "turn the people on" to my favorite writer of musical prose (outside of Athens, anyway), I've considered giving you all a taste of some lyrics from Jimmy Buffett songs that I feel are particularly well written. There's probably even a way that I can link to a sound file of the same song, but I feel that these works may garner some notice in the lyrics alone. From there, you can decide to find the recording if you want. I believe JB is a true original; an assertion underscored by the myriad of taggers-along (think K. Chesney) and cover-ers (Alan Jackson and Jack Johnson, to name drop) that have come to be influenced by this great writer.

"Woman Goin' Crazy on Caroline Street" (1975, co-written with Steve Goodman, on "Havana Daydreamin'" album)
This a tale of a fellow that happens to meet this pathetic figure of a barfly down in Key West. He's talking to one of the only women around, and the fleet is in. What ensues is despirately amusing. A study in beer goggles. Enjoy!

Chorus:
There's a woman going crazy on Caroline Street
Stoppin' every man that she does meet
Sayin' if you'll be gentle, if you'll be sweet
I'll show you my place on Caroline Street

Verse:
She claims in a loud voice to be a dancer
But I don't think she's "cut a rug" in years
She listens to the jukebox for her answers
And slowly guzzles twenty-five cent beers

She talks about the men she's known and then some
She's seen them in her dreams and on the street
She slides her dapper leg from beneath the table
As if to reveal some kind of treat

(Chorus)

Her lover left her stranded in Jamaica
But just right now she can't recall his name
Perceiving she's the center of attention
And all those lurking eyes, they look the same

The weather's got the shrimpers in a frenzy
They're horny and they don't need a good excuse
Someone yells and things just start eruptin'
And in a flash all hell has broken loose

(Chorus)

(Steel guitar solo)

When I woke up and looked around the barroom
She was gone and I was black and blue
So be careful when you go to swing your partner,
'Cause someone just might take a swing at you

(Chorus twice, fade)

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Orchestra Hall

Next time you come to Chicago for a concert at the main hall in Chicago's Symphony Center, don't sit on the orchestra level. The boxes or balconies are the way to go.

Our Wind Ensemble and Orchestra were invited to perform as featured ensembles at a high school invitational festival that was held at Orchestra Hall this past week. The hall's most recent (multi-million dollar) renovation was completed in 1997, and resulted in poor acoustics for roughly one-third of the lower tier seats. Even Larry Combs, Gene Perkorny, and Charlie Vernon can't sound good from seats that are below stage level.

The good news is the performances were done by 3:30, and the rest of the day/night were for freedom and frivolity, complete with a last-second (literally) 'COCKS win in the NIT Championship. The lovely young lady came to spend this time with me, as public schools were on Spring Break. She's too good to me. A large time was had by all.

Friday, April 01, 2005

Another reason to hate the Vols

Friends, Rednecks, Countrymen: Lend me your ears.....and sympathy while you're at it.

Word on the street is that within hours of losing in the (sweet) round of 16, now former UWM coach Bruce Pearl was in conversations with the Department of Athletics at the University of Tenne-fucking-see, right there in beautiful downtown Rosemont, Illinois. He went to Hades, that is Knoxville, on Saturday, and came back to tape his local coach's show on Sunday afternoon. In recent weeks, when asked about the possibility of leaving UWM, he would allude to the fact that he remained at U. of S. Indiana for 3 yrs after winning a Division III National Championship. When he was asked point-blank on local TV, he said that he had visited, would think about it, and probably visit again. Boy, did he. He was announced as the fifth head Men's Basketball Coach at UT-K in the last handful of years on Monday of this week.

Not a single comment to the people of Milwaukee. No getting back to campus and high-fiving students and community. No post-tournament celebration for the greatest single accomplishment in the 109-year history of UWM Men's basketball. No time for us to relish in the success. No damn nothing. Just put on an goddam orange tie and go see Pat and the girls play their Elite Eight game, just to get more face time on ESPN.

At first I thought: "Hell, anywhere but Tennessee. C'mon, Bruce."

But now that I've had time to think about it, the second thought would be: "Move on if you think it's best. But do it with great integrity." Sorry you missed this one, Coach.