What's in it for Me(n)?

About a week or so ago, msn.com featured a little article: "Marriage, and What's in it for Men?" It begged the question "Should men get married?", and if so, "why?", along with all sorts of conjecturing about the subject.

I thought about it for a bit and decided that since the feature allowed you to post an opinion at the end, well... I just couldn't resist.

Anyone reading is certainly welcome to chime in, but here were my thoughts as articulated on that particular day:
____________________________________
In this day and age there really is absolutely NO justifiable reason for a sane, healthy, rationally thinking man to get married. Period.

For certain, while love and commitment are noble concepts... for most people those things become designates only of the MOUTH, whereas true love is not a 'mouth' word at all - it is a 'foot' word.

You don't 'say' love... you 'do' love. You don’t ‘say’ commitment… you ‘live’ commitment – on a day-to-day, moment-by-moment basis. And sadly, most people just do not possess the emotional maturity or wherewithal necessary to grasp this.

You see, no matter how well either of the “Happy Couple’ mean on the 'big day', the 'foam' subsides and eventually bubbles right on down to the 'coke'. And what most people miss is that it’s not until that point that you are able to experience one of the most beautiful phases of any relationship: the plain old day-to-day business of just living together.

But again, too bad most people just don't have what it takes with regard to the emotional or intellectual maturity to manage that.

So... Enter The Lawyers!

For men considering marriage, the bottom line is simply and sadly this: that almost any court.......will allow almost any woman........ for almost any reason........ to utterly SMASH a man in a divorce. Period.

And certainly, I can almost hear the howling cries of the incurable romantics now – they will side with true love... ".... you're so jaded and shallow...", and they will side with this noble, revered institution called marriage at all costs – and for a man those costs can be devastating.

But men no longer have the luxury of thinking like an incurable romantic as they once did. Men must now think as Gen. Norman Schwartzkopf when he said: ".... you cannot prepare for your enemy's 'intentions' ..... you must prepare for their capabilities."

And until that changes, the best way to prepare for such an eventuality, would be to stay as far away from the altar as humanly possible.
_____________________________________

(A few days after I set these notes down I shared them with a friend who asked if I thought I'd ever get married again.


I responded without hesitation: "Why, hell yes... of course I would!"

Tempus Fudge it

"O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."


This past Sunday morning, on my way to Miami, I didn't have time to sit down to breakfast so I stopped in at McDonald's for a little grab-it-and-go.

I had just ordered and was waiting off to the side, when I noticed the young man now ordering was wearing the exact same watch that I was.

Now granted, Elgin makes a lovely everyday watch. This particular piece offers a lot of flash for the cash, and I get a lots of compliments on mine when I wear it. Most people just naturally assume it was expensive, but it's really not that bigga deal. I'd venture to say that this particular watch would retail anywhere from $120.00 to $139.00 in most mall stores - tops.

And so it eventuated that the lovely young chick taking this guy's order noticed the time piece and commented on it:


"Oh, what a beautiful watch!"



"Yeah... it costs a lot..."

He responded, very nonchalantly (hey..look it up ..spellcheck says it's ok), almost arrogantly, looking off into the distance:

I couldn't resist, and just had to say:


"uh........... No it didn't..."


He turned his head in my direction very slowly.... as if to question the mortal who dared throw him under a bus,,,

until he saw me holding up my own identical watch.....smirking.....

Four Part Harmony

Let me just say that this particular post is going to cover a lot of ground. There are many thoughts and memories burning in my brain this evening, so if you can hang in there with me for a bit I think I'll be able to tie them all together and we'll some fun with it.

Speaking of burning... I burned the crap out of my hand today, by the way. Grabbed ‘hold of a pot handle without thinking about it, and now some of the fingers on my left hand are sort of striped, not unlike a zebra with a bad cosmetic surgery job. Oh well….it really has nothing to do with this story, but since it’s MY fucking blog I guess I can pretty much insert it wherever I want, eh??

Now….where was I? Oh, yes.. my story…

“A brief personal musical history in four parts”

PART A: The Bass

Early on in life, I realized that I just didn’t tune in to the kind of music that most everyone else did. They were all listening to Three Dog Night and Led Zeplin – the Folk Years… The Beetles…. Somehow, although I can certainly appreciate that music now, I just didn’t get it then.

I longed for happy music and those bands seemed, to me anyway, to conjure up images of sadness and angst. Hell, I grew up in a house with SEVEN brothers and sisters – I was all about the Angst, and wanted to ‘get shed’ of it as much as possible. But I just hadn’t really settled on a sound I knew I liked and would like me back. Unconsciously, I continued the search.

And so it was that when I was about nine years of age, and seriously thinking (and you can ask my brother about this) that I was really going to somehow get a subscription to Playboy magazine for my next birthday,,, (NOT!) that my parents had received an eight-track tape in the mail from some friends in Tennessee. It was a pirated thing….long before the authorities would toss you Under the prison for such crimes as “…not respecting the music” as the radio ads now admonish.

The music was that of The Lewis Family, from Lincolnton, Georgia. America’s First Family of Bluegrass Gospel Music....

Now, across the street from us lived the Bruce family, originally from Arkansas; Dow, Nita and their six children. Growing up on Millbury Avenue, ‘us kids and them kids’ were all pretty much inseparable, and most of the time just about driving our parents over the edge – ha!.

But anyway, my parents, knowing how Dow loved that old 'hillbilly' music, took this tape over one day so that they could all have a listen.

So they all had a ‘set’ (meaning they sat down) and popped that thing into the player and something strange happened within me…. out of those speakers came Little Roy Lewis’ crackin’ banjo on a song called Climbing Jacob’s Ladder and I just couldn’t believe my ears. I’d just never heard anything like it.

Now up until this moment I had only heard that particular song as a slow and mournful (actually pre-Civil War era) spiritual. But these cats had it GOIN’ ON.

I heard that music…and those sisters, Polly, Miggie and Janice singing in three part harmony and I’ll tell you ……for me….the lights went out and the rockets went up…..I knew ……deep down inside……. That’s IT. I just gotta get me some more o’ that!! “Happy Music”

I was completely amazed. Not only was the music totally brand new to me, but this was a real family nonetheless. Families just didn’t do that sort of thing. I mean…… MY family members certainly didn’t anyway. They didn’t hug, or say I love you, or any of that ‘family stuff’, let alone play instruments or sing together…

It was a turning point in my life and I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

(Since those days, oddly enough the Lewis Family and I have become close friends and stay in touch throughout the year, either by phone or letter - and for what it's worth, they are inductees into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the International Bluegrass Music Association Hall of Fame, the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame)

PART B: The Lead

A year or so later my father retired and we moved from Los Angeles to Kingston, Tennessee.

There I was introduced to friends of my parents, John Williams and his wife Loreen (they called her Renee - pronounced 'ree-nee'), who just happened to be a HELL of a cook – to this day I remember her fried chicken….yum!),

John, who played old-tyme fiddle and guitar taught me my first chords on the guitar and allowed me (at the tender young age of 11, mind you) to sit in on their Friday night jam sessions with all the solemn old-timers. It was a huge honor and I thought to myself then, surely he will not let me continue, because I just cannot keep up. I will mess up the whole group and no one will like me …I’ll never learn this! And just about the time I’d be ready to give up.. he would instinctively say something like: “Now, Allan, if you make a mistake just keep on a’goin’, cause nobody kin heer ya anyway….” What a beautiful man. What a beautiful life.

(There is a spot in the Hall of Fame of my memory …..in fact, it’s really a separate wing, in this hall of fame for the man, John Williams. There will never be any way to repay the gift of music and support and friendship that this man gave to me. There will never be any way to balance the books on that score…. It is a debt I cannot settle and I’m sure he wouldn’t let me even if there was a way. What a great time in my life… I knew it then and I certainly know it now. I just feel sorry for anyone who didn’t grow up like that.)

PART C: The Tenor

So now I am nearing my 45th birthday. My mother and father are now gone, as are John and Renee Williams. The Bruces, Dow and Nita… they’re all gone… and in their place are these wonderful memories... But the one tangible thing that I carry with me from those times is the music itself. I still play the upright bass, and am now myself involved with a family group of some repute here in south Florida.

We call ourselves The Untold Riches, after the family’s last name (Rich), and we’ve been together just a little over a year. We’ve done quite well as a group, and I must say that I'm quite proud of what we've accomplished in such a short period of time.

Bill Rich plays the banjo and sings lead. His eldest, Amy, plays fiddle and has a superior voice for harmony (also graduated at the top of her class, pre-med, Boston College.). Her brother, Nathan, plays guitar – and I don’t mean just ‘plays’ guitar – he OWNS bluegrass guitar in all of south Florida and sings tenor. So together we’re quite a neat little enterprise.

When our group first hit the stage with the South Florida Bluegrass Association last year ... well … they ALL took notice. We were the group to watch. And subsequently, there was some bitterness on the part of a few members of the Association….. ( you know the kind….they can’t keep up so they try to break your legs to make it appear that they walk better).

One in particular – Mr. C.., another erstwhile local band stud… And while I am not professionally qualified to determine whether or not Mr. C. suffers from a chemical imbalance,,, I mean, medically, I am just not able to make that diagnosis… But I can say that based on other individuals whom I have known to have severe chemical imbalances…..Mr. C’s behaviors strike me as alarmingly similar. (how’s THAT?)

One day he was quoted as saying ….. “That Miller should spend more time practicing the bass and less time visiting....” (well, I’m not going to get into it all here …but just suffice it to say that if there’s a better bluegrass bass player in South Florida then I ..... I have yet to meet them. So Mr. C can just kiss my bass... the B is silent)

PART D: The Alto

Now, toward the end of this rant, hopefully I can tie all these fragmented memories together to make a final point, because I do have one - and have basically said all ‘that’... to say this:

Lets fast forward to this past weekend and the opening of the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts in Miami.

Fifteen stages and every kind of music under the sun represented. The Carnival Center had asked the Association for audition tapes of all the bands in order to make sure that ‘our’ kind of music was properly represented… This was a Huge event, with literally thousands of people in attendance over a four day span.

The president of the SFBA called us several months ago and asked us to submit some samples of our work. And so we did …….and so we were …….chosen…. to represent bluegrass music in south Florida.

I was given all the proper paperwork and the loading-dock pass so that I could unload our instruments. We had to wear neck badges/backstage passes... all exciting stuff for a little 'living room picker' from Kingston, Tennessee. When I pulled in to have our things unloaded I was met by a very busy and overworked volunteer who was fielding questions from about 8 other people from various groups. I just waited my turn.

Finally she approached and asked….

“Are you with a group?”

“Yes, ma'am, I am Allan Miller with The Untold Riches”.

A huge smile came across her face.

“Ahhh… The Untold Riches…..we’ve been expecting you - Welcome!”

This is nice, I thought. Finally, after all the frustration and wading through traffic and bad directions, etc., just a little bit of friendliness and recognition.

A volunteer had been assigned to us and escorted us to our private dressing room, with the private bath and room to change. This volunteer would be with us for the entire time we were told. She would escort us to the Green Room, just before stage time. She would escort us to the Stage and then back again. She would ensure that we found our way to the annex where the catered buffet was waiting for us after our performance. In short, we were treated like royalty.

We needed very little warm-up time, as we'd played a gig just the night before, but still sought to tune up and ramp up until:

Our volunteer approached –

“Excuse me,,, it’s time…..”

Wow…. time for the stage….this is it….

All of those memories come flooding back to me now… John Williams….. the first listen to the Lewis Family, sitting around in the circle at age eleven with all the old timers playing until 3:00 a.m. how proud my mother would have been just now…

The Introduction …… The welcoming applause…….the first song flawlessly done…….

The soundmen seemed a little confused about their particular roles, and had no idea how to stem the awful feedback and distortion ….. until finally, our fearless leader stopped in mid-song and said… “We can’t do this.. this is a mess….. and jumped off the stage… then motioned for us all to join.

And so we did, and moved right into the center of the hall - and that audience - to finish our set.

The audience had no idea what Bill Rich was doing when he jumped… But we all did… and they LOVED it…..many of them came from the rear of the room to gather around and listen to us do our stuff. What a great day…. I’d have given anything for the ultra-negative and mentally deranged Mr. C. to have seen it…… I wanted so much to say to him: “See??… apparently they DO like me/us just fine without your guidance, you twit!”

I wanted to tell him that …..but then I couldn’t have …

You see…. he wasn’t there ……. We had the back stage passes…… He didn't.

ahh.....harmony!