Bluegrass @ MindSay

Last weekend we were invited to a Christmas party at our good friends Rick and Deb Ricker's house. We got to pick and sing with some great bluegrass musicians there. Here is a clip of the song "Man of Constant Sorrow".

   We are back in Salt Lake City, Utah today. Yesterday, we had a long drive through Nebraska and Wyoming so while Tracy was driving, I wrote and recorded a bluegrass instrumental on my "Fruity Loops" music program. We also took some video of the drive. I combined the 2 today and this is the result.

Random memories... Nothing noteworthy, funny, serious or anything.. just a random damned memory that popped into my head. Won't leave until I kick it out, so here goes.

Mobile, Alabama - we (husband(now ex) and roomates) lived in Youngs Neck Woods right outside of Mobile. We had a wicked cool house, painted walls with crazy blacklight things and shapes and trippy visuals and layers and... Well, we did a lot of mushrooms back then.

Hippy neighbors, our Skinny Puppy-head roommate (Lyle, where the fuck are you?), and then-husband and myself saw a flyer for a bluegrass show in Mississippi, somewhere a couple of hours or less from our house... We thought "OOoooOOO cool, music...", made the mushroom tea and went.

It was wet. It was pouring. We sat in the car and drank mushroom tea, all of us - hippies, goth boy, me & creepy. When the rain pulled back, we rolled out - starting to feel the lovey happy feelings that those fungi will give you... We sauntered over to the small stage and sat around the edges, the stand up bass was beautiful and the mandolin divine and... but wait... The CROWD wasn't watching the music... they was watching us... Or, probably more specifically, they was eyeballing Lyle, the six foot something black haired white white white man, and the hippy with the freshly-braided-for-dreadlocks long blond hair...

And we smiled. And nodded. And bobbed. And ran as discretely as possible BACK to the safety of the now fluorescent car... I drove through the paisley rain and the shimmering fairies (trying to hit as few as possible) back down that back road through the kudzu and the disappearing hitchikers as slowly as legal home home home to Alabama.

That's all.. just a random memory.

 Howdy Howdy all, well it is me, your good friend and your power of attorney (don't you remember?) Environgirl here to taut the greatness of XM radio. My roommates recently got this service for thier motor vehicle and they swear by it for commercial free musical entertainment.  I have heard it in the car and it is really very nice. The get web access with their service so we can listen in the apartment. I have heard it on my laptop and the constant stream of music will make you slap your momma!

(Environgirl and Environgirl affiliates are not responsible for any mothers slapped as a result of this post)

There is a station called Bluegrass Junction that has bluegrass music on 24/7. I thought that I was gonna faint when I heard it! I LOVE,LOVE bluegrass people. I know that some might find it a little odd but actually I am from a region in Mississippi where "pert near" (almost) every channel has a form of gospel music but bluegrass combines elements of the blues with gospel and country and is like um uh well "music to my ears".

Anyway I am so stoked about my impending camping trip that I can hardly contain myself.

Oh I almost forgot to mention that I am now to be featured on the editorials page of the university rag. The next issue will have an entire page devoted to moi! And I got paid a decent wage to boot. I can't believe it ya'll.

So back to my hiking trip, I had to go and buy some provisions for the sojourn but I am constantly worried that I wont have something that I need.  But between me and my friend Lady J we should be okay.  Gulp I guess.

Okay sure, everybody knows that black women LOVE Bluegrass Music. So why was this station so astounding to me, why because Ididnt realize that there was a station created just for the black, thrity-something, female, Pagan. THANK YOU BLUEGRASS JUNCTION FOR MEETING ALL OF MY BACK WOODS NEEDS!

Oh and by the way black, thirty-something, female, Pagans have a deep and abiding love of Barry Manilow, nature and bears. Yeah, you thought it was a game when I said that I GO THERE when all things mundane are involved.

Oh well how about some poetry....here goes.......

What Women Want

I want a red dress.   
I want it flimsy and cheap,   
I want it too tight, I want to wear it   
until someone tears it off me.   
I want it sleeveless and backless,   
this dress, so no one has to guess   
what's underneath. I want to walk down  
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store   
with all those keys glittering in the window,   
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old   
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers   
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,   
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.   
I want to walk like I'm the only   
woman on earth and I can have my pick.   
I want that red dress bad.  
I want it to confirm   
your worst fears about me,   
to show you how little I care about you   
or anything except what   
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment   
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body   
to carry me into this world, through   
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,   
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,   
it'll be the goddamned   
dress they bury me in.--Kim Addonizio

Goddess Bless

Yes I am a headbanger.  From AC/DC to Shinedown.  From u2 to Disturbed, I like the hard stuff.  Rockin' from birth to death as there is no other way.

But I have a secret love.

 Bluegrass music.     

I love it.  It is like a mirror to heavy metal just using different instruments.  I was going to get my car detailed this morning jamming to some tunes while searching the radio for the best song playing and I came across a radio station from who knows where that had block of Bluegrass going on.  Mandolin playing, banjo pickin, fiddle a'whittlen music going on!  Gosh I love that stuff!  I need to find out when the next banjo fest is going on so I can go and see it.  It has been a long time since I have seen a good ole home cookin' bluegrass fest.

And then there is the Parrothead thing.