2021, Gatherings, Music, Mysteries, Stories, Uncategorized

Rock Bend 2021

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Today’s post comes to us from tim.

this years rock bend was a solo trip for me

it had been mentioned earlier that maybe a group effort would be fun and i responded with a yes but as groups sometimes do it got lost in the shuffle

i am not as good as i could be at putting x on my calendar when i’m doing something so without a reference i signed up to do my delivery ditty on saturday night. i get dibs early because those spots tend to disappear quickly and friday and saturday nights are prime time so i had committed for 5-7 & 7-9 on saturday which would mean leaving rock bend about 4.

i looked up when it started and who was playing and discovered that the family who does a nice foot stomping version of old timey and appalachian banjo kind of stuff started things off at 12 and city mouse which is mike pengra’s band was at 1 with special guest pat donahue and then pat was to play on the little stage where krista used to work at 3.

the first group was good city mouse was great and pat donahue was a treat as an addition and pats solo performance on the songwriters symposium on the little stage was fantastic

i really like him and his songwriting talent is something i really admire

i went in packed light. i had a thermos of tea and a tea cup that’s it. i walked in 15-20 minutes early and looked to see if vs or linda might be there and not seeing them plunked down in a similar front row position to what we usually achieved. this was easy with one butt and a thermos as the required space criteria. after i got steeled in i noticed i recognized that many of the surrounding faces were familiar from years gone by.unfortunately the way these memories were tweaked was by the fact that after i was seated a bunch of folks showed up and set their folding chairs up in front of the front with no regard for the views they were blocking out who had gotten their prime spot by showing up on time and choosing unobstructed site lines.

i have a problem with the people who are so self important that they just do it and never think about what a crappy thing that is to do to someone else. bad enough on the freeway to line butters who go up to the front and cut in line in front of all us minnesota nice wimps who let them in but at a concert to block someone view is unforgivable . this was followed by an observation that maybe had been going on previously but i hadn’t noticed because of being there with a group but all around me people were in conversation while the music was playing. if the music got loud they had to raise their voices to be heard over the music. this combined with folks who stood and chatted with someone who they knew in front of a group they blocked the view of.

i felt like an old curmudgeon who was spoiling my own fun but it really bothered me

at the final ditty where pat donahue was on stage with two other songwriters i had front row seats and had talkers laughing and exclaiming and paying no attention on either side of me.  there was empty turf between me and the stage and so me and my thermos went and laid down in the grass and a couple little kids cam and the their moms and sat down closely with me ans i thoroughly enjoyed the show glad i letting the talkers back there as they continued to expound

sunday i have scheduled a football bar b que get together at my house carte blanche this year an hour before kick off so my mom at age 92 has somewhere to celebrate her football enthusiasm, she had to leave at halftime to go to another meeting called by someone who is not football sensitive. it was a good gathering and i thought about heading over to bbc afterwards but as sometimes happens these things drag on and it was 430by the time things wrapped up

too late for bbc

too late to go catch the end of rock bend

i’ll probably put an x on next year and tri it again now that i know it’s the weekend after labor day but i may be

setting myself up for misery

it was easier with friends and wine but isn’t everything

what kind of calendar are you using these days to keep yourself on track?

68 thoughts on “Rock Bend 2021”

    3. Tim and I apparently disagree about live musical performances. Tim loves them and attends them with the expectation that everything will go well (the sound system, the audience, the performers). My experiences with live performances have been mixed, so I don’t often make a big effort to see live productions. The evening I attended a Miles Davis concert at the Guthrie was soured by the fact Miles faced the back curtain all evening, never acknowledging the audience. But when I attended a John Hartford concert with low expectations, I was blown away by his engagement and musicianship. Live performances are what they are, and the range of what might happen is pretty big.

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        1. I hadn’t heard much from him, PJ, and I have never been especially interested in the banjo. John was really into the Chautauqua tent. He was regaling us with stories and tunes. At one point he bailed off the stage and set out on a sort of conga line marching through the aisles. Audience members joined in for a song that lasted maybe ten minutes, everybody grinning and trying to sing along.

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      2. Granted, live performances can be, and sometimes are, disappointing. However, that’s also where the magic often happens. It makes a huge difference where the performance takes place, and hence the audience it attracts.

        At outdoor festivals such as Rock Bend, I expect a fair amount of people meandering around, chit-chatting, kids playing, and general mayhem. It’s part of the ambiance of the event, if you will. But it certainly can be distracting, especially if there’s a solo artist on stage. I can recall a solo performer at one of the Minnesota Folk Festivals having to ask the parents of a couple of extremely noisy toddlers right in front of the stage, to please move them to somewhere else. I felt bad for the performer that no one else had interceded on her behalf, someone associated with the festival should have. I was embarrassed, too, that the parents of the two offenders were totally oblivious to the antics of their spawn.

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        1. I attended a live festival of folk music from performers who played for Red House records. The event was held on hilly ground overlooking the Saint Croix River well south of Stillwater. I liked some performances and didn’t care for some. But as I was walking around I crossed paths with Kate Mackenzie. As we passed, she beamed a smile at me that was more than worth the long drive to the festival. I’ve always assumed other baboons were there that afternoon.

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        2. Dizzy Gillespie made an impromptu stop at SIU while I was there, and performed on some hastily erected outdoor stage for free. One of my neighbors, and good friend, Susan Frenkel, was a jazz singer, though at that stage of our friendship I had never heard her sing. She somehow got herself invited onstage to perform with Dizzie and his band, and she blew us all away. She formed a life-long friendship with one his band members who convinced her to move to NY after she graduated. She made a career of it, and now lives in New Jersey.

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        3. Dizzy was booked to play a Christmas concert at my undergraduate college. My girlfriend and I, without planning it, danced right past the stage. Dizzy lowered his horn and gave us a smile I’ll remember the rest of my life.

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      4. miles was an enigma

        he only acknowledged the audience to disapprove of their applause after a sideman got to do a solo
        he was so influential and such a great mixer of found talent you had to applaud his insight and appreciate his uniqueness

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  2. I live by the “30 calendar day completion for psychological evaluations deadline time frame” to keep yield on track at work. All evaluation reports must be in the electronic health record within 30 calendaevdays of the initial appointment. I have been following my garden produce calendar at home, which is a capricious calendar, determined first by peas and green beans, then garden greens like chard and basil, then tomatoes and peppers and eggplants, then canteloupes, then shellout beans, and finally, fall spinach.

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  3. Of course, then there are the church music rehearsal and performance calendars, which can be be relentless given how few of us are active church musicians these days. Husband and I are also some of the few congregation members who are willing to serve as assisting ministers during the Sunday services. We have a large congregation, but most folks feel intimidated being up front and reading lessons and prayers.

    Let us us not forget the garbage pickup calendar, which includes the twice monthly recyclable pickup.

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        1. Yes but the regular recycling pick up is every other week. And before the emails used to come out it was like OK is it this week or was it last week? . This way I don’t have to remember. When the email comes it’s recycling week.

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        2. I have the opposite – recycling is picked up every Tuesday, trash every other Tuesday. I never remember whether I had a trash pickup the week before – always have to look at my calendar.

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  4. Morning- I’ve been using Outlooks calendar for several years. Sync’d with my phone and computer calendars so they all show the same things. For a long time I still had a paper calendar of college things, but we got that on Outlook too. And then this summer, the family started a Google calendar for mom stuff, and then one of the other theaters started using that more too…and that’s been more challenging because you can make different calendars all on the one. I’ve missed one or two things…

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  5. I have learned that I cannot rely on memory as well as I once could – I use the calendar on my phone for home stuff and try to synch select things to the work calendar. This did not prevent me, however, from scheduling Daughter’s senior photos on the same day she had tickets to see Harry Styles (pop artist – was in one of the early 2000s boy bands), so photos got bumped a day… and thankfully put that together a couple of weeks before the photos and concert date. I used to also write things on a physical calendar in the kitchen for Husband who Could Not Remember Anything Calendar Related, at least I did until he started to say, “oh – we have a thing?” and I would say, “yes, I told you – it’s on the calendar,” and he responded, “oh, I forget to look at that…” Lovely man – attention to details was not his strong suit. Maybe I need to start putting things on a physical calendar again so I can better track those things that might conflict.

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  6. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    My own personal calendar is the old-fashioned paper calendar. I track my therapy appointments at work there, as well as my own personal appointments. This is the only way that I can keep track of my own life, my physical therapy appointments, and all the Master Gardener activities that I sign up for.

    The electronic calendar is a sore spot for me. I have too many of these that exist for various functions. I have to use one at work for billing and appointment reminders. The various calendars are supposed to sync up with each other but it seems like there is always a King Kong Kalendar that takes over everything, then I end up with events that have nothing to do with me. Once, I even found someone else’s account user names and passwords in my stuff. After that I did not trust that the information sharing functions on these accounts are secure enough to prevent theft.

    My former office mate was enthusiastic about early versions of these, then constantly messed them up. I would be the person available in the office to explain to clients that they were: 1. Double scheduled. 2. Mistakenly scheduled. 3. Forgotten. After a couple of years we had a show down over her inability to manage her electronic calendar which did not work that well.

    Yes, I am biased against these. And I do use them for limited functions.

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  7. i have trouble knowing what is a google calendar and what is a other version of an electronic calendar so i just put it on my phone and see if it pops up

    i’ll get it
    i’ll get it
    but i don’t get it yet

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  8. I envy you the Rock Bend, tim, except for not being able to see or hear!

    I still use a paper calendar, but there are three of them, so you know where this is going… I try to always write in pencil in the tiny purse calendar and on the wall. I try to update them regularly, but there are glitches. Then I keep a sort of journal where I put down more detail, for… posterity?

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  10. I often use The National Day Calendar website. The company is located in “the historic town of Mandan, North Dakota.”
    Wikipedia has an historical events calendar that is informative.
    My hard copy calendar is the Charley Harper bird art calendar.

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  11. I’m retired, what do I need a calendar for? 🙂 My regular activities I can easily remember, and the few odd appointments here and there, I enter in my computer as a back-up, mostly to keep track of location and time of the event. Lately our only “social” outings have been memorial services, or celebrations of life, it seems. Tonight is one more of those.

    Husband relies almost entirely on his phone to remember appointments, to the point that he apparently doesn’t engage his brain for that much. Despite this, he seems to routinely be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Can’t quite decide if it’s because he isn’t that interested or engaged, or something more sinister at work.

    I’m aware that my iPhone has all sorts of wonderful apps to keep track of, and interact with, all sorts of things and devices, I don’t use any of them. Truth be told, I don’t even use it for making phone calls much.

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  12. Calendars are given the first consideration in the excellent book The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin.
    “The first grand discovery was time, the landscape of experience.”

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  13. We are currently about to enter the interstate high south of Douglas, WY. Our social calendar says we have wedding reception tomorrow in Golden CO. We left this morning from Custer, SD.

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  15. The history of synchronizing lunar calendars with solar calendars is amazing history.
    Jewish, Christian and Islam traditions have complicated histories.
    The switch from Julian’s to Gregory’s calendar is quite the story.

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  16. When in one’s life does the passage of time become important?
    Birthday.
    First Birthday. WHAT?!
    Second Birthday. All the stuff.
    Third Birthday. More stuff
    Fourth Birthday. Educational stuff.
    Fifth Birthday. Hobby stuff.
    Sixth Birthday. Okay
    Seventh Birthday. I won’t wear that!
    Eighth Birthday. GAMES.
    Nineteenth through Eighteenth Birthday. Impossible.
    After 50, stop counting.

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  17. And then there’s the issue of what kind of things are ON the calendar. Our Unitarian Fellowship has started back up, so there’s a lot of committee and music meetings lately, which is a good thing. Fewer medical related things, also refreshing – nothing but some speech therapy for a while…

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    1. I love the idea of a concertina, and have always wanted one. Did he buy a new one, or one that has already been broken in and learned some tunes? I need one of the latter.

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      2. I share your attraction to the concertina, or at least the idea of one. I fantasized about getting one for years. Possibly that ship has sailed. I also fantasized about a gorilla costume…

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  19. OT: my daughter often visits on Friday, and I treasure those contacts. Last night she decided to park inside the garage as she was concerned about the stormy weather forecast. As we all know by now, that part of town got smacked with high winds, downed trees and a power outage. Because my daughter and her husband just bought this new home, they didn’t know how to release the automatic garage door. She’ll try today to visit. 🙂

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      1. One big dead branch down. I didn’t take anything down with it and it was going to come down next week anyway since it’s on one of my two ash trees that the city has decreed have to be removed.

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        1. Condolences on the ash trees. I got a notice from the city that they will stop treated my ash. I am invited to take over the treatment schedule if I choose, or they will remove it.

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  20. Many years ago we saw Pat Donahue at a little diner in Chatfield MN. Hey had been held up in the cities and was late getting to town. I think it was a supposed to be a 4:30 concert. We figured to see most of it and then head home to milk the cows. As it was, I don’t think got there until 6:30.
    We stayed a while, and finally, packing up to leave and I’m carrying daughter (who must have only been 3 or 4) and she was waving goodbye to everyone as we left. I looked over my shoulder to see Pat, in the middle of a song, wave back to her. He went up quite a few notches in my book that night.

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    1. I was once pretty close to Pat and his wife. While Pat is very accomplished, it is tough to make a living with a guitar. I once suggested Pat might do well with a CD of humorous songs (Would You Like to Play the Guitar? Stealin’ from Chet, No Likee Icky Yucky Sushi, etc). It was the worst thing I could have said. Pat burned to become respected for playing traditional country guitar well, and he feared losing face by becoming good at funny material. He was probably right, although he sure had a flair for comedy.

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    1. Pat will be playing at the Ginkgo Coffeehouse on October 2.

      Kathy has just started up live music again with special safeguards related to Covid. Proof of vaccine for entry, and wearing a mask when not eating or drinking, and they will not be seating to full capacity. Should be some interesting and intimate concerts. Vance Gilbert will be there on Oct. 23, Bill Staines on Oct. 29, Annie Humphrey on Nov. 13, and Claudia Schmidt on Dec. 3rd. I’m hoping to go to at least a couple of those.

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