Never before seen!

I wrote this article for today's Patrick Henry Herald, but it got spiked at the last moment because it mentions visiting a winery. So I'm going to put it up here.

Saturday afternoon was clear and warmer than it had been for weeks, one of those afternoons that compels you, not matter what you’re doing, to be doing something. The Midwinter Blues’ Blues Festival (every Saturday in January and February) at Tarara Winery in northern Loudoun County seemed just the kind of bite sized adventure required. I enlisted the aid of sophomore Nichole Recker and Carina Sinclair (in town visiting her brother freshman Jamie Sinclair) and set off for Loudoun wine country.
Tarara is situated a few miles north of Leesburg, almost to Maryland. The drive up is great in February and I’m sure is beautiful in any other season. The vineyards are picturesque even bare of leaves, covering the hills overlooking the Potomac River. It’s at the end of the kind of road makes you question whether or not you’re on the right one. The facilities consist of two main buildings: a bed and breakfast and the winery. A sign by the driveway announced that Tarara had been voted “Best winery in Loudoun County.”
The interior of Tarara is cozy and warm. It contains a gift shop and wine store as well as two different bars dispensing the local specialties. Past this is a room full of round tables for eight. The walls are pleasing warm tones of red and orange and well decorated. The band was ensconced in one corner and around them sat a row of those interested in the music they were playing. Deeper in, the majority seemed more interested in the wine and each other than the blues.
While the term “festival” may have been excessive in describing the single act, one guitarist accompanied by a harmonica, the music was amazing, a skillful fingerpicked guitar style with a wailing harmonica back up. The sets featured songs by Ray Charles, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and older blues greats of the “blind” variety. It was billed as a “delta blues,” but the players also strayed into bluegrass and gospel territory.
“As an old blues player once told me, you should always play one gospel song in each blues set so that you have a little chance of salvation,” said Ray Kaminsky, the guitarist, before playing Amazing Grace. He interspersed his songs with stories, pieces of history and background to the tunes they played. They were perfect blues stories of men who came from nowhere and disappeared to nowhere, including the well known tale of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the devil at the crossroads.
The musicians definitely looked the part. Ray Kaminsky is a heavyset older man with sandy hair trending towards gray and a shaggy mustache for whom the guitar was obviously a lifestyle. His album “Ghosts of the Blues” won the 2001 Wammie award for Blues Recording of the Year.
“I began by playing folk in the sixties,” he said. “I got tired of playing late nights in clubs and switched to blues about 22 years ago.”
The harmonica player had an equally fitting aesthetic, the magnificently blues name Fast Eddy Galvin and a belt full of harmonicas in an array so vast that only an expert could appreciate them all.
I wanted to ask the staff about the winery; it seemed like a magnificent building. I finally found someone with the Tarara logo on her shirt not actively serving wine, selling wine, or explaining the nuances of wine and asked her how old the winery was, but she explained that they were “too busy to answer questions today.”
I’m sure that if it were not an inconvenience, she would have explained that the land, 475 acres of it, was purchased in 1985 by Whitie and Margaret Hubert who constructed “a winery devoted to the art of producing fine wine with intense flavor and lush varietal character” as a pamphlet I found said.
Sore from being ignored, I wandered back into the main room and ended up sitting with three middle-aged ladies and an empty bottle of 2003 Cameo Blush Table Wine.
“We came here for the wine and there happened to be music, but it’s nice,” said one of them who introduced herself and both Annette Townsend and the designated driver.
“She lives here, we’re visiting,” interjected one of her friends.
“We’re from Illinois,” added the other.
The conversation meandered away from wine and blues and into a great many other things. We were told many times that we are “in the prime of your lives.” We passed a pleasant hour and the women were hilarious, though possibly inadvertently motherly. They made much of the lessons of life experience.
“I thought I was a red wine person. Turns out I’m a white wine person,” offered one as an example of such a lesson.
There is one Saturday left in the Midwinter Blues’ Blues Festival and I highly recommend it. It’s a nice drive, a great location, a pleasant atmosphere, and music that’s enjoyable even to those not accustom to blues. But if you go, talk to the people, because talking to the people is the best part.

For more information visit:
www.tarara.com
www.earbuzz.com/raykaminsky

In Memoriam

I guess I'm behind the times (literally...think about it) on this, but I've just been informed that Hunter S. Thompson is dead. This is a great loss to the world of journalism real and hallucinated. Here is an article about it and some information about his most famous book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Brilliant!

There is nothing more I can say. James Kimball is a brilliant man. Go to Micah Towery's blog for the article. The Economics of Courtship

On nation, under-occupied

So the "numa numa dance" has spread through the campus like a virus and we are now getting to the point where the humor value of the video has dulled. Currently, the interest is in the song itself Dragostea din tei. I gotta say, as an American, that this is a great story. Some crappy euro-pop dance boy band (whatever) comes up with this song and it an amazing giant hit...in eastern Europe. I mean as far as I can tell it is the one and only hit song to come out of Romania. It's huge, the lyrics are on every Romanian website. It's bigger than their national anthem. But outside of eastern Europe...nothing. That is, until a fat bored American 19-year old living with his parents decides to make an ass of himself set to that song. Suddenly, powered by the Internet and this the humor value of this kid bouncing in his desk chair, it's and international sensation. God bless America. The most powerful force on the planet is a bored American.

Just a random thought

On September 21, 2001, just ten days after the terrorist attacks I'm sure we all remember, there was a telethon/concert to raise money for the victims' families. It featured a number of notable bands like U2, Pearl Jam, and Willie Nelson. I don't know how many remember this; I'm not sure why I do. There were songs like Stevie Wonder singing "Love's in Need of Love Today," Enrique Inglasias and Mariah Carey both singing songs called "Hero," and Bruce Springsteen singing "My City of Ruins." Many of the songs had a mourning theme and many were patriotic like "God Bless America." Most were along the theme of forgiveness and healing, great themes. Most of the celebrity speakers echoed this theme. In those days, like a lot of people, we had the TV on all the time waiting for more news. I don't know what I was doing, but I wasn't really paying attention to the concert. I did, however, notice when in the midst of words like "Imagine there's no countries/It isn't hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/No religion too/Imagine all the people/living life in peace..." from John Lennon's "Imagine" performed by Neil Young, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers came on stage and played a song of their's called "I Won't Back Down," the lyrics to which are included below. That moment has always stuck with me. Since then I've always respected Tom Petty.

I Won't Back Down
by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

Well I won't back down
No I won't back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won't back down
No I'll stand my ground, won't be turned around
And I'll keep this world from draggin me down
gonna stand my ground
...and I won't back down

Chorus:
(I won't back down...)
Hey baby, there ain't no easy way out
(and I won't back down...)
hey I will stand my ground
and I won't back down

Well I know what's right, I got just one life
in a world that keeps on pushin me around
but I'll stand my ground
...and I won't back down

I don't know how many of you remember this, I bet not many. I guess most in my generation will remember Tom Petty through Tom Cruise singing "Free Falling" in Jerry Maguire, if at all. But that's what I remember him for. I don't usually post song lyrics, but I just listened to that song and remembered that concert. Just thought you should hear about it.

Feed my Valentine

In keeping with my recent saints theme, I can't not mention that today is St. Valentine's Day. Whee. I don't have much to say about this day except that I won't complain about the way couples act on this day because, honestly, if I had a girlfriend I'd act the same way too. In lieu of all that, I will relate that story of St. Valentine, the man, as it were, of the hour.

Valentinus, the future St. Valentine, was temple priest in Rome during the 3rd century, under the reign of Emperor Claudius II. He defied the Roman government by helping Christians escape persecution, especially by performing Christian marriages. Valentinus was eventually arrested and jailed. While he was in jail, he is said to have befriended the jailer's daughter and restored her sight. He also found an unlikely friend in the Emperor himself, who took a liking to the prisoner. Eventually, however, he tried to convert Claudius to Christianity and was sentenced to death. On the eve of his execution he wrote a farewell note to the jailer's daughter and signed it "From your Valentine." He was stoned and beaten within an inch of his life and then beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate in Rome. His remains were buried near the gate and archaeologists have discovered both a tomb and a church there dedicated to him. The date of his martyrdom is popularly held to be February 14, 269. The date was marked in his honor by Pope Gelasius in 496. Because of his reputation for performing marriages, he is the patron saint of love, marriage, and young people.

And now you know...the rest of the story.

Oh yeah, in response to a question by me own mum, unless otherwise noted the poems posted on this blog are all mine. Including this one:

Caelum Sanctum
Your sky is paper
With golden edges
Held up by saints and doves
Mine is air and aether mixed
And I can’t touch it
Or see the corners

This is the third time I've appended this post, but 1000 points to whomever gets the title.

A boy and his guitar

Give us a sexy look. Oh yeah, you know you like it. This little blast from the past pic of me and mine git-fiddle comes to us from November 2003. Can you believe it? Yes indeed, they had cameras back then.
Please to note: This picture courtesy of me finally getting the photo uploading to work from on campus.

Because you wish you had a comic

Friday, February 11, 2005

The Tao of Google

Doe you ever have those times where your just sitting there with your computer listening to the Goo Goo Dolls or something and you just sit there staring at the blank Google search screen opening and closing your browser window and the opening it again to stare some more at the blinking line in the little search box and you feel like maybe if you only knew what to type in the box that you would find all the answers and finally know all the secrets and that everything would make sense for you? I'm going to guess by the fact that you're reading my blog rightnow that you're in a mood like that. Looking at other people's blogs is what you always settle for when you give up on finding the Ultimate Search Term.

A well thought out post title

Many hilarious stories of New York forthcoming. As always, be thy hunger sated with a poem.

To the Swampland Still
Swamp land stretches never ending
Though I know the mire stops
Beaches golden to the east
Forests verdant to the west
But from my low hammock viewing
This is all is all there is
Stagnate sits the water dirty
Plants are rotting all around
Air unmoving trees unstirring
Smells that cling and heavy choke
All is sitting waiting endless
A river of life going nowhere
Slowly does an alligator
Tear the stillness of the water
Small fish flee the reptile lion
Elsewhere though the place is still
Birds there are on listless wing
Turtles sunning still as rocks
Many find this place a home
But for none a paradise

Howyadoin'

I have just arrived back from two days in New York City with my school's student newspaper staff. In twelve hours I'm getting on a plane for Florida to go to my dad's retirement from the Air Force. Busy, busy, busy. Don't worry my dedicated anyone, at some point I'll find time to write about it all, and more. That's right: more than all. It's a good life.

Also coming soon: to completion of the philosophical rant I began several months ago. Until then let me just say that I still believe everything I said. But let me add, I do and always have firmly believed that it will all work out in the end.

High praise indeed

I see that I have been recommended by the amazing Micah Towery on his blog. Thanks and backatcha. As I have been credited as "mighty" and this blog as "dispensing wisdom," I will to be and/or those things more often.

I have two issues I want to comment on today. The first, interestingly, involves Micah's Greek homework and the second once again deals with the Catholic Church.

One. Try as I might, I still have a romantic streak. As to the kiss kiss hearts and flowers Valentine's Day meaning of the word, I have no comment. Wink. In this context I mean the literary ain't that a pretty sunset all you have to do is belieeeeeeve sense. I've also always been a words person. There are always been a fascination for me about a sheet of paper covered in handwriting. There is just something aesthetically pleasing about that. I also like the look of foreign languages. Foreign writing combines the adventure of new places with the mystery on undeciphered communication. Because of these two affinities, I have like to look at Micah's Greek homework as it combines a foreign language and alphabet in a handwritten form. I guess there's a beautiful juxtaposition between the exotic look of the Greek, and the everyday ordinarity (which is a word if I say it is) of a handwritten note. Maybe someday I'll get a scan so that I can show you what I mean.

Two. A few posts ago I went off on the Catholic calendar of saints because of a perceive under representation of Saint Timothy, after whom I am named. This is a related issue regarding my brother's namesake, the archangel Michael. Anyone who has seen Gangs of New York will remember the St. Michael medal worn by the Priest's men going in to battle with the Butcher's men. Apparently, that St. Michael is the same as the archangel from the Bible. Hey, um, did the Catholic Church really need to confer sainthood upon an angel? Isn't the whole "saintliness" issue kind of a human thing? Does the head of the Heavenly Host really need props from us? "Why thank you humanity. Thanks for the vote of confidence. Because I led the forces of God to defeat the armies of Satan before your race was even created, but it's nice to know you approve."

Random St. Michael, the Archangel facts: his feastday is September 29th and he is the patron saint of policemen, mariners, paratroopers, Germany, and, why not, grocers.

Back tracking a little

Friday, January 21, 2005

Why yes, now that you mention it...

...I do have a weekly comic strip. Caffeine is My Muse is written by me, drawn by Stefanie Hausner, and published in the Patrick Henry Herald.


Friday, January 28, 2005