It Was the Best of Gigs, It Was the Worst of Gigs

Having an iPhone means never missing that "Hallmark Moment."



My favorite "local" gig (130 mile round trip: Nothing out here) is at Cibolo Creek Ranch, which is a very upscale resort where people like Mick Jagger and Tommy Lee Jones like to hang out. Well, as you can see, I had a blowout on the ranch on the way in to the gig. This turned out to be an excellent thing.

It just so happened the event photographer was just a couple of minutes behind me, so she gave me a ride to the office (Her Honda Element didn't have enough room for my gear), and the hotel manager gave me a ride back out to get my stuff. I had wanted to get some face time with this guy anyway, and so it worked out perfectly. Turns out he's managed hotels in places as diverse as Saipan, Guam, and Hawaii. I've been to all of those places, which amazed him, so we hit it off great.

There wasn't time to change the tire before the gig, so we just took my stuff back, and I went ahead and did the job. I played pretty well considering the stress level, which mostly centered on the question of whether it would get dark before I had time to change the flat. Well, the gig was short, so that turned out not to be an issue. You can tell from the photo that the sun is just setting, and I almost have the spare on.

As an added bonus, the general manager rode me back out, and we hit it off great too, so I'm hopeful I'll get to play down there more often now.

A providential blowout: Who would have thought?

*****

I have Gymnopedie No. 1 completely memorized now, but there are a couple of tricky moves I still have to smooth out. I'm going to go ahead and make my second pass through the newly completed pieces and problem pieces with the metronome slow-play/forte play practice routine, so posting will go back to infrequent.

This is a nice routine: After each pass, I memorize a new piece, then go through again. I have a few miniatures to learn in order to set myself up for learning the Sonata Zero and Sonata One pieces anyway, so it will be nice to get that out of the way and off my mind.



Sometimes I do regret not living closer to a beach.