This past Friday, I made yet another visit to the dentist. Apparently, now that I am a man of a certain age (middle age is awesome!), some of the fillings I got as a child are wearing down. Rather than letting my mouth become a mini-Chernobyl due to the make up of said aging fillings, I've had to get some of them replaced.
As I sank into the dentist's chair for one of those replacements, my ears were assaulted with a kitschy cover of some Christmas song. The title and artist, a term I use loosely at best, escapes me now mercifully, but it was clear that the office staff had set the radio to one of those hideous 24/7 Christmas music stations. To say this thrilled me would be like saying Donald J. Trump is the most honest, most respectable and greatest thing that has ever happened to the United States. Spoiler alert: he isn't.
If you've been keeping up with things here in the Den over the years, you'll know I'm no fan of the treacly tidal wave of Christmas songs that begins in July, I think. Twice now, in posts in 2011 and 2012, I've written specific screeds about this musical assault. My attitude on the subject has not improved and as the dentist leaned in armed with a needle full o'novacaine, I said, "No need for it. The pain of that drill is going to be far less than what's on the radio right now." She giggled a bit nervously but went ahead with numbing me, which was probably the right decision. This did not, however, preclude her from discussing the merits or demerits of the various songs that droned on during my procedure with her assistant. Let's just say it was a good thing I wasn't able to comment at all on what their keen and insightful observations, like this gem, "Well, I just think 'Santa Baby' is one of the cutest Christmas songs ever." Spoiler alert:it isn't.
Lest you think my soul is as black as the lump of coal I get every year in my Christmas stocking (that is 100% true; that coal turns up yearly) because I don't think 'Santa Baby' is cute, I'm here to share with you an amazing album of Christmas music.
It is exquisite and just a little bit glorious. The album itself is now seven years old and it has aged beautifully. Annie's version of 'O Little Town of Bethlehem' is more than a little breathtaking. The whole album is just gem after gem. There's not one song that gives me Christmas music rage. That, my friends, is not easily done.
Do yourselves a favor and download this one. Enjoy it! It's enough to make you want to be one of the Merry Gentlemen!
When TMFKATB got a second trainee companion, turning his companionship into a trio, about six weeks ago, I posted some thoughts on them NOT being the Three Tenors. I may have been wrong in that assertion, based on the photos included in this week's letter. Although out of focus, no doubt due to the power of song they were generating, you can see these three going for the high notes in whatever song they had chosen to belt out at the moment. Turns out, as seen in another photo, they were going to town on a Christmas carol.
The Three Not Tenors
He didn't give us the backstory in his letter, other than to tell us that the lady at the keys loves these three boys like they were her grandsons. We do know that was taken at Thanksgiving so we were grateful to know he spent the day feeling loved. He talked a bit in his letter about serving, checking in on people throughout the week, and seeing good things happened. He was feeling loved and as a parent, you don't ask for much more than that.
While TMFKATB felt loved throughout the week, he also spent Thanksgiving Day feeling stuffed. They had an enormous traditional Thanksgiving meal and then a Mexican one. That one consisted of copious amounts of tamales and pozole. I would have given my right arm to have been at that meal since our Thanksgiving meal was courteous of the snack basket at JetBlue Airways. Thanks to the Terra Chips, I got my sweet potatoes that day and 82 degree temperates when we landed in the straight-up crazy that is Florida. So who's complaining? Not me.
I'm still chuckling as I think about my son singing with his companions. Neither his mother or I are musically talented. We are decidedly and horrifically not musical. I don't think the apple fell that far from the tree for my son either. That said, there had to be something sweet to hear these three singing. That's the power of song and music, I guess. It's good stuff.
When I was growing up, one of the never to be unbroken laws of the land was music lessons, staring at age eight with the piano. This was required because A) two very musically gifted parents and B) Mormon. I mean how could I be a card-carrying member of the Church and NOT be able to pound out "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" on the piano shortly after turning eight? That's a thing, by the way, a real song.
So shortly after I turned eight, my mom loaded me into our (faux) wood-paneled Ford Country Squire station wagon and we drove into the wilds of east Phoenix to the home of one fearsome Mrs. Kramer. She was a legendary (terrifying) piano teacher who, given her demanding nature, seemed more apt to have been an angry prison matron than a children's piano teacher. Being her student was a study in "Damned if you do, damned if you don't." You were terrified not to practice because you didn't want to show you weren't improving and you were terrified to practice because you didn't want to show you weren't improving. This dance of the damned, for me, went on for four years. By the time I was twelve, my relationship with Mrs. Kramer and the piano came to a merciful end. It was clear that none of us were happy with how this was going, so we all walked away with a sense of relief.
Fast forward nearly five years. I'm seventeen and at the height of my teen-age awkwardness (I've had the testicular fortitude to post some pictures here in the Den from those hideous years so you know what I'm talking about) and I, in yet another moment of teen-age delusion, determined that if I took up the piano again, I'd get me a lady. By this time, our family had moved on from Mrs. Kramer and our go to piano teacher was a bearded, which apparently made him hip, professional guy in Scottsdale. So with the easy learning music book of Journey'sEscape album in hand, ready to master 'Open Arms,' I made my way to his house and took up lessons again. Suffice to say, Escape was an appropriate choice, as I did exactly that a few months later. My formal relationship with the piano was over and in case you were wondering, it was the only relationship that it yielded me. Piano - one; ladies - zero. Shocking, I know.
@thepianoguys.com
Why the piano nostalgia? Last night, the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I and a few friends made our way to Tanglewood to see the Piano Guys in concert. If you are not familiar with them, the down and dirty is that they are a couple of exceedingly white, Utah Mormon dads who play the piano and the cello and they have mashed up modern hits and classical music in a crazy, stupid (and I mean that in the best sense of the word) talented way. During one the 'cheesy witty banter' breaks, Jon Schmidt, the pianist, talked a bit about what drove him to the piano. It was eerily similar to my experience as a seventeen year old. He described himself as an "ugly" (his words) teenager and he'd heard the lie story that playing the piano would get him the girl. He then went on to play the song that he'd learned to impress a girl. It worked for him. For two weeks. He did better than me then, that's for sure. He got a girl for two weeks. Me? Zero. Zilch. Nada.
It was a great night for a concert. Tanglewood, which is the storied summer home of the Boston Symphony, is a beautiful venue and Our Lady of Perpetual She Hags, Mother Nature, could not have behaved better. The incredible talent that Schmidt and Nelson as well as their two other collaborators demonstrated was only heightened by the surroundings. They put on an excellent show. One of the highlights was when Nelson, the cellist, was soloing and demonstrating flawlessly just how amazing and emotive an instrument is the cello. As he played, he was joined by eight teenage violinists, whom he later described as some of the finest violinists in the country and he was right, and they absolutely nailed it. It was one of those moments that reminds you of just how powerful music is. It literally made my spirit soar.
It was great to wrap my arm around the mighty fine SML as we enjoyed the music. It was a lot different than one of the last big concerts we went to wherein she was nine months pregnant with our firstborn and I somehow thought dragging her into a mosh pit at B52's concert was an excellent idea but that is a story for another day. During the concert, in a moment that defined us as solidly middle-aged, she leaned over to me and said, jokingly, 'Do you have a lighter to hold up?' To which I said in all seriousness, 'Um, that's what my phone is for.'
Did I leave the concert last night determined that I'm going to go for round three and take up the piano again? Absolutely not. Did I come away with a renewed appreciation for the beauty and power of music? I did, indeed.
Oh, and I still can't play "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree" on the piano.
