Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Hello, friends. I'm stuck.

I was stuck last night too, and I was sure I'd be unstuck tonight, but I don't seem to be.

But hey, let me start my story, and we'll get to the sticking part down the page.

I haven't blogged in a bit because I've been very busy. Of course, the Community Band's spring concert was this weekend, and I was rushing around trying to get ready for it. And getting nervous, and having doubts, and all those "me" things you expect.

The story of the weekend starts on Thursday. On Thursday night, I was traversing the one stair in my entire house, and when I did, I landed funny on my knee. It was nothing more than an, "Oh! Ouch." moment, and I didn't give it another thought. Until Friday morning, when I got up and it was rather sore.

By Friday afternoon, about 2:00, it was so sore I couldn't walk on it without screaming. I didn't think I was going to make it out of the office. I got home, and my sister was waiting for me there to take me to the ER. Now, I have to admit, there were two things on my mind. One was that if I went there I'd probably have to wait about six hours to get seen, and I'd miss recording the Hucklebug. The other was the cost involved, which would be all mine to pay. I finally decided, and told my sister, love her heart, it was sweet of her to offer, that rather than wait six hours and pay $2000 to get some ice put on my knee, I could do that immediately for free at home. So I declined, and immediately went and put my leg up with some ice on it.

I walked around the house Friday night using a Swiffer as a cane (that was lovely when I took Milo outside, but my town knows I'm crazy anyway), recorded the Hucklebug, and went to bed a little early for a Friday night.

On Saturday I woke up, and things were a bit better. I got ready, packed all my stuff, and headed out to B'burg. My clarinet partner Mary and I had gotten entrance into Burruss Hall, where the concert was to be held, to look around and play a little while on the stage, our last practice before our big performance on Sunday.

By the way, Burruss Hall is my favorite building on the campus of Virginia Tech, and it's also the very first place I ever saw Elvis Costello and Squeeze. I would be playing on that same stage! So, a little love for Burruss, please.

























Anyway, we got there, Mary did a great job of scoping out parking on campus for my folks and got us right up to the door of the building, we went inside and practiced a bit and goofed around. It was quite hot in the hall. "Surely they'll have the air conditioning on tomorrow," I said, and Mary said, "They will, and don't call me Shirley."

Actually, she didn't say that at all, that was my own joke, she said, "I sure hope so."

After the little practice it was back to Mr M's, where I was staying for the weekend, and a little diversion from the whole concert thing. Um. Excuse me. Did I say a "little" diversion? I lied. It was a huge diversion. Because Mr M and I traveled to the lovely town of Floyd, VA to see the Hackensaw Boys!

Yep, they were playing a benefit gig in the little town, and we went along to watch. Sadly, no dancing for me this time, I wasn't risking it, Mr M loaned me a lounge chair and I found a good spot to sit. The Boys were excellent. The sound was great, they seem to be honing some of their songs with new harmonies and instrumental parts, and I had a great time. And my, what lovely boys they are.

I went home happy.

When I woke up Sunday morning, something happened. I took one step, and my knee said, "No, I don't think so." I was back to where I was Friday afternoon, and I immediately became very hinky. I mean, I was already hinky because it was the day of the concert, and now I had to worry about standing up and playing a solo, remembering my fingerings and to breathe, and now remembering not to lean on my right leg so it wouldn't collapse and I'd fall off the stage.

And there were other fun things about Sunday, too. By noon, it was 89 degrees. A hot wind was blowing about 40 mph. And Mr M's air conditioning decided to go on the fritz. I was beginning to get the feeling I may have kicked Gandhi's dog in a previous life and was getting repayment.

So I got to the hall very early, limped in, and spent a little "quiet time." I wanted to take some pictures of the inside of the hall, to show you all how beautiful it is, when I realized something. My camera is broken. I have a sneaking suspicion it was stepped on by a hippie in Floyd while I wasn't looking.

Instead, I decided to put my horn together, find an alcove somewhere, and play through some parts of my solo. I limped off and found one, played certain passages, and I was sounding pretty damn bad. Making mistakes I shouldn't have made, getting nervous, and so I said to myself, "Well, so much for that!" and found a seat in the hall and breathed deeply.

Oh, and by the way. The air conditioning, which was not running Saturday? Not running Sunday, either. It had to be 100 degrees on that stage.

In short order, the other band members started gathering in the hall, and it was funny watching all their faces. "My God, is it supposed to be this hot?" The band convened an hour before the concert began, played through some pieces to get the feel of the hall, and I have to say, we were sounding pretty damn good.

(By the way, the "feel of the hall" thing - we normally play our concerts in the auditorium of the local high school. However, the school has been closed all year due to structural problems, which is how we ended up at Burruss Hall at Tech. Shame it was so expensive to book, because it's an amazing place to play. I'm sure Elvis Costello himself would tell you.)

In the time between practicing and the concert beginning, we had time to roam around, and into the hall wandered my sister, her husband, and my mom and dad. I was so happy to see my mom and dad there. I just wasn't sure my mom could make the trip. Then in came Taylor and his friend (and my Hackensaw ally) Paul. And Mr M. Mary's family came in. (Mary and I had many a practice at her mom's house. She's such a sweet lady.) There were more people there than I was expecting, actually.

Mary's and my solo was second on the program, which was good, because there wasn't too much time to get nervous. Well, more nervous, we were already pretty nervous. Soon it was 4pm, and we tuned, Ed took the podium, and we played our first song. It went wonderfully.

And then.....

And then it was time for Mary and I to take our place on the stage for our clarinet solo. It was now or never. We were both nervous, I was sweating in the heat, but it was time to go.

And....

And - it went really well. It went better than any time in practice, both between the two of us and with the entire band. It just flowed, and was so easy. In fact, my only hinky moment was in the second section of the piece, the section where I had no spots to breathe and would often run out of breath, and there was a point where I thought to myself, "I still have breath - I must be a measure ahead of everyone!" But I wasn't, it was just going well.

So we finished, and everyone clapped, our Fearless Leader Ed gave us a big hug, and it was over.

Well, almost over.

First of all, there was the little (I'm telling a secret) matter of Mary and I secretly toasting each other with a shot (or two) of Goldschlager I'd brought in a mug. (Mary and I are both members of the Sauerkraut Band - it was only fitting.) And the matter of playing "Mars" and "Jupiter" from "The Planets" by Holst. Both incredibly hard pieces, but we sailed through them.

The second set was full of easy and fun pieces, and we ended the concert on a high note.

You know, it was funny. Mary and I, our joke situation was that, no matter what happened, no matter how badly we messed up our piece, we were going to look at each other after it was over like, "My God! This is the best we've ever done! We're amazing!" Turns out we did that, but it was true! The joke was on us.

So that's the story of the concert. And here's where I'm stuck.

See, Mr M videoed our solo. My facebook friends have probably already seen it. Someone from the town of B'burg was there videoing it as well, and said it would be on youtube by Monday. Well, Monday came, and it wasn't posted. Today came, and it wasn't, either. That's B'burg for you.

There's something about me that doesn't want to post Mr M's video on youtube. Why? I have no idea. Maybe because I'm in it. And I know that makes no sense, but I often make no sense. I could post the video via Blogger, but with the size of the video, it would take upwards of four days to upload.

I don't know, I wanted a visual link here on the old blog that you could just click and get access to our solo. Instead I guess I'm going to have to upload it to a website and give you a link. Sure, it's not as fun, but sometimes that's just the way things go.

So here's the not-as-fun link to the big clarinet piece on the spring concert. And it will take a while to load, and sorry for that as well.

http://home.comcast.net/~be3t/springconcertedit.wmv

There. That should get you there.

If the slackers in B'burg ever decide to upload the concert to youtube, I'll let you know. There were other highlights as well. I was particularly fond of "Mars."

Anyway, it was a great concert, it's over, I can breathe now, and this blog has been way too long already.

So, good night! (And my knee still hurts!)