Big and little drummer boys

I got to help Luke, Dina and Ryan's oldest son, learn to drum last night at the final Mint Tea circle of the summer. Fun night. Luke seemed pretty mesmerized by it all - and really, who wouldn't be at that age?

I think that drumstick is bigger than he is. But that's the way it should be. Let your reach exceed your grasp, right? Today, at work, the whole night reminded me of this line, which - fittingly enough - I read in a story I was editing this morning.

"I tell my kids: ‘I don’t want you to be note punchers. I want you to be able to feel the music and put some emotion in it.’"

Whenever Amy and I have kids, I think that's the way to go. Somethings are not about doing by the notes. Instead, they're about going where the feeling leads you. That's been a lesson I was probably slow to learn.

Anyhow, the hippie-trippy dancing, always part of the show, fascinates the little ones.

Luke played until it appeared exhaustion was setting in. After that, the usual crowd played and played and played. Went for two-plus hours. I left well after dark, bouncing home, drumming all the way with wonderfully sore hands and a huge smile on my face.

Looking forward to next year's circles - and maybe some here and there over the fall and winter.

You know football season is near...

When, as a Sooners fan, you see a story with a headline like this - "How rivalry became violent" - and somehow you aren't surprised. (A Texas paper puts a little different slant on the story.)

Either way, it brings all new meaning to the the old "Tuck Fexas" T-shirts and bumper stickers that pop up each October in Norman.

This, of course, comes just as people here have stopped asking me whether I knew any of the Oklahomans who were making death threats against the Pac-10 official who blew the call in last year's OU-UO game.

The whole deal, though, makes me scratch my head over how crazed some people get about their teams. Out here in Oregon and Washington, there are some loons, for sure, but I don't think anyone takes their football that seriously. One, their teams just aren't that good. Two, there's so many other things than football to be caught up in.

Oh, well. The season starts a week from today. Let the madness really begin.

Red-Eyed and Blue*

Now that was what I needed.

Here, the guys from Wilco - plus a couple of their friends from the Minus 5, or this other band you might have heard of ... R.E.M. - open the second encore of last night's show with the long-awaited and much loved "California Stars." This was the biggest sing-a-long portion of last night's concert, by far. Maybe it's just the Oklahoman in me, but Woody Guthrie's lyrics just seem to call out for that, don't they?

From left: Nels Cline, Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5/R.E.M. on keyboards, Jeff Tweedy, Glenn Kotche on drums, John Stirratt on bass, Peter Buck of the Minus 5/R.E.M. and Pat Sansone on keyboards.

First, the setlist from Edgefield...

Either Way; You Are My Face; I Am Trying to Break Your Heart; Remember the Mountain Bed; Handshake Drugs; Pot Kettle Black; A Shot in the Arm; Side with the Seeds; Shake it Off; War on War; Impossible Germany; Too Far Apart; Jesus, Etc.; Walken; I'm the Man who Loves You; Hummingbird; On and On and On. 1st encore: Bob Dylan's 49th Beard, The Late Greats, Hate it Here, I'm Always in Love, Outta Mind (Outta Site). 2nd encore: California Stars (with McCaughey on keyboards and Buck on electric guitar), Heavy Metal Drummer, Via Chicago and Spiders (Kidsmoke)

That's 26 songs over more than two hours.

And no matter how much pints of beer or bottles of wine people drank or how much pot they smoked - and there was so much of the latter that Tweedy inquired about the "bongfire" raging in the first few rows - they came away in awe of Nels Cline's guitar masterwork.

Holy shit. The things that man can do with a guitar might very well be illegal in some parts of the Bible Belt. I could have spent the better part of the evening just happily watching him get lost in the music whenever that downright possessed, ecstasy-striken expression would overcome him. Every once in a while - such as in the photo above, with Tweedy during a shared jam - Cline would peel one eye open and look up to see whether a) everyone else was still with him and b) his I've-gone-utterly-ape-shit licks had ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe and caused the world to start to collapse in on itself.

Obviously, I never got to see some of the great guitarists of the past, but listening to Cline so intensely rip through a show makes me wonder what Hendrix would've been like in person. Especially considering Tweedy has a reputation for not wanting to be upstaged, what happened at the end of the show during "Via Chicago" was amazing to watch.

In the second half or so of last night's live version there was a section where Cline would create so much feedback from his guitar that it would almost entirely mute the lines Tweedy was singing. They'd go back and forth like that - a run of audible lyrics interrupted by a drenching torrent of notes from which lyrics would suddenly re-emerge - until they brought it all together in a sudden, crisp, perfectly timed stop. As my friend Jann would say, it was a moment to be filed under "live music experiences."

And then, sadly, after one more song the lights came up and it was all over.

* Note: Tweaked the last couple of grafs because I originally wrote - incorrectly - that they were playing "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" when Cline started drowning out Tweedy. In fact, it was the second-to-last song, "Via Chicago." My mistake.

My annual concert fix

Each year, it seems like there's one big show somewhere in or around Portland that I just can't miss. (Funny, this didn't happen so often in Oklahoma...)
Last year, it was Pearl Jam playing a smallish theater show up the street from my office. This year, it's Wilco (pictured above) playing on the lawn at a brewpub minutes outside of town in the Gorge.

My 15-year wait for Pearl Jam was well worth it. And although I've waited only about 10 years to see Wilco, they have gone through damn near that many members in their history. Still, I can hardly wait.

"Being There" was my introduction to the band in the late '90s. It'll finally be nice to do just that - be there - tomorrow night.

And when we are, I hope to hear "Impossible Germany" from the new "Sky Blue Sky" album that's pictured below. It includes this lovely lyric, which always makes me think of our McPrince adventure in the Northwest and beyond, relying on only each other in whatever foreign lands we may encounter:

But this is what love is for
To be out of place
Gorgeous and alone
Face to face

Or you can just watch them perform it live at Bonnaroo earlier this year:

Rhythm of the neighborhood

When we went to Morocco last September the one thing I was determined to come home with was a drum.

Well, I struggle to understand how almost an entire year has gone by since then, but I have got my money's worth and then some out of the little fish-skin topped instrument I brought back from Marrakesh.

Abdul hosts drum circles during the summer months at Mint Tea. I have no training, and no skills beyond a natural interest in and love for music. And really, that's all you need. We gather at 6:30 on, roughly speaking, the nights of the full moon. A bunch of folks from the neighborhood and beyond show up -- all ages, ethnicities, backgrounds -- and we just play. And play. And play. We sit on the sidewalk outside the store and, I swear, if you let it, if you let yourself get lost in it all, you can feel the stress come out of your fingertip each time your hand comes down to deliver another beat in the song.

We usually go for around two hours. My hands are numb when I get home and usually sore for two days afterward. And only part of that is because of hitting my drum's hard ceramic edges. The rest is just from getting so into it that you just zone out and play hard.

So, the third weekend of August is always our neighborhood festival - the Uptown Village Festival. We spent a good amount of time today walking up and down Main Street, checking out the classic cars and various vendors. Tonight, HBO was taping a comedy special in one of the stores, but I was counting the minutes until I'd get to go play that drum.

An African band played until 8 and then afterward a bunch of the regulars from Mint Tea's drum circle took over the festival's main stage and got to it. We played from 8 to 10, when we had to stop for the sake of people nearby being able to sleep. But man, what fun.

We started all out of rhythm, with no lead emerging to set the course. But, slowly, sort of like as discussed on a great podcast, "Radio Lab," I listened to last week, one emerged. And when it did, when we all came together -- 10 or so strangers on a stage in the middle of the street in the dark, with people walking by and looking at us funny -- it was a beautiful thing. Strangers climbed on stage and joined in. Others stopped to dance in the street. Some just paused and smiled. But it was one of those magical little moments that reminds me why I love this neighborhood. Abdul and I, I was thinking, could just as easily have been playing on Jemaa el Fna in Marrakesh, amid the snake charmers and all-night food vendors and barbers.

Sorry, no pictures. I was too busy playing. But there's one more drum circle scheduled at Mint Tea this year -- on Aug. 28. Maybe then I'll take some pictures. Either way, I'm looking forward to it already.

Scenes of summer

Here we are in mid August, wondering where the time has gone. It's been an eventful few months, which is our excuse for why summer has seemed like such a blur to us.

Some highlights in no particular order:

The One of a Kind Drumline plays before the year's first Uptown Movie Nights screening in July.

Here, Movie Nights gets started with the original "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." That's Willy on the left in the red shirt. I'd forgotten how trippy parts of that movie are.

Here's one more, from the final movie we screened, "Flash Gordon." The 1980 version, complete with one sweet Queen soundtrack.

Earlier in the summer, Amy changed jobs. Here she is the last time at Around the Table, after we picked up the last of her stuff.

Good experience, bittersweet how it went. Sad it didn't go as expected, but glad it gave Amy a good entry to the foodie biz, which she was able to use to get her new job.

Speaking of new jobs, they don't call the bureau I now work in the Duck Pond for nothing.

Meanwhile, Wiley's still ruling the roost, as always.