The Maze feat. Frankie Beverly

I got to see the entire concert of The Maze, featuring Frankie Beverly and I have to say that it felt like I was at a cook-out the entire time. They were completely awesome. To see those 60+ year old men jamming on stage was unreal. They sounded better in person than they did when I started singing along with them to my radio in the 90's and that was over 20 years ago. They put on a non-stop show that went from hit to hit. They only time that the show slowed down was to give Frankie Beverly the opportunity to take a swig of water and to wipe the sweat streaming down his face. There were many Frankie Beverly look-a-likes scattered throughout the audience all dressed in white pants and shirts toped off with a white baseball cap. But none of them compared to the real thing. Because when he left the stage of he looked as if he had been the top contender in a wet t-shirt contest. It goes to show you that really good music only gets better with time. P.S., as I was writing this, the co-founder of the group, McKinley "Bug" Williams passed away. My condolences to the band's family. Enjoy great music and its musicians while you can.

Kindness of Strangers

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers"- Tennessee Williams. I never thought I would ever find that this quote would be relevant to my life until today. I've had the worst week ever. On Monday a kid backs his car into the rear passenger side of my car, laughs and drives o ff. When the cop questions him, he says he didn't think he hit me which is why he was laughing and why he drove off. On Tuesday I work a concert with a lot of drunk old people and by the end of the show it feels like my collarbone has pulled away from muscle. On Wednesday I have to drive myself to the emergency room to have my arm checked out. There I am told that I have to where a sling for a week and make sure I don't let my arm get stiff. Then when I get home I end up getting a piece of glass lodged into my hand, the hand attached to the sling-arm. After digging out the glass I entered a period of insomnia and restless sleep. It is now Thursday and this is where the upside of the story kicks in. I get to work only to find that I will be working outside in 40 degree weather all day. GREAT! Well waiting for Willie Nelson to arrive I get to meet some of the band. And I would just like to go on record to say that the bass player "B" is the best person on the planet right now. I'd been sitting outside in the cold and this man brings me a blanket and some coffee. The kindness of strangers is something I never thought existed until today and I'm glad that some kindness exists in this chaotic world. To cap off the kindness, I met four people from my hometown of little ol' Rocky Mount that were in town to see Wille Nelson. They talked with me for over an hour and even brought me back dinner. I guess sitting outside in the freezing cold brings out the sympathy in others or maybe that's just what the band and fans of Willie Nelson do.

Weird Al Yankovic

Here is another entertainer giving a high energy show non-stop. Running and jumping across the stage seems to be working to increase longevity. It will later be introduced into Hollywood as the "entertainment new fountain of life plan"

Taking a survey of the crowd, it is majority Caucasians ranging in ages from 0-99. I wonder why no people of color supported this particular show (it might be a southern thing). The best outfit for the night was a red dress made completely out of ballons. The workers were taking bets to see how long the dress would last and if it would hold up when the woman sat down in the theater. It held up great and stayed in place for the duration of the show and after-show.

Show favorites: the nirvana parody, Irish paradise, eat it, born this way, and the eminem parody. But the first parody I remember ever seeing, "I'm fat," was GREAT to see in person. But my new favorite was star wars with the dancing storm troopers and Darth Vader. Overall I think that the show was FREAKING awesome!

Charlie Wilson

The opening act for Charlie Wilson is Loose Ends. They appear to be an old school group. Made of mellow R&B melodies. Overall really nice sound.
But to be in the business this long, I think that the people in charge of the videography did not know what they were doing.
Then they sing a hit song "slow down"  and they used a hype-man that completely murdered the song. Granted I felt some kinda way about this, to my surprise the older people in the crowd were on their feet dancing.

Charlie Wilson gets on stage dancing in formation with his dancers. He is high energy performing. I'm going to state this again, it seems that older generations of singers have hit the Jackpot on the fountain of youth and longevity.

Best part of the show, when Charlie Wilson came out on stage in a glimmering Carolina blue suit that lit up when the lights were turned off.

We already know that Uncle  Charlie is, that old school new school all-in-one, packaged in a clean white suit with matching shoes and a jeweled covered fedora.  And he is dropping "bombs" all over the place!

Greatasmic show!

"Owner not here, Call back later"

So I have been given the task to contact local nail shops in order to promote this tutoring program.

Nail shops are a weird place, but a perfect place for finding the parents of the students we need. So here are my current numbers: out of the 10 shops that I have called so far 2 have said that I can post fliers and one of those is contingent on the flier size; 2 have said no; and the remaining 6 have given me the line "owner not here, call back later."

The thing I realized here was that either the receptionists were not able
to understand what I was saying or because I was not a paying customer scheduling an appointment, anything I had to say was not relevant to their business practices. But after getting that same one-liner six times in a row I realized that I need to learn basic Chinese, Korean, and Japanese soon.