Mister Sam’s blog

Cardinals win? Cardinals win?

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:56:09 -0700

It was a crazy day in Glendale, AZ and at the club when the only team that has been worse over the Lions over the years beat them to the Super Bowl with a choke-avoiding victory Sunday.

After the game, the lines to get into the Westgate area (where the stadium is) were longer than to get out, and the drunkards were out in full force. People that didn't know what a football is (and still don't) were dressed in the jerseys of Cardinals players (of which I still don't know). Several bar fights within the ranks of Cardinals "fans", including a bar stool-throwing doozie 5 minutes after the win speckled the post-game celebration. All in all it was a happy day of oblivious drunks.

So, the Cardinals are in the Super Bowl and a black man just took the oath of office for president. I’m going off to play Roman Numerals in the lottery...

2009 brings Jack, Max and a great NYEve show

Fri, 2 Jan 2009 10:35:18 -0700

2009 started with the kind of day we hope to have at least 52 of this year: relaxing and workless. We got the newest addition to the Arizona Ferguson family: Jack the dog. Here is how the story unfolded, as told by Amy to my sister Shelley:

Well, here's the short version - I've been wanting a dog for a while, and Sam wouldn't let me while we were still apartment people. Once we moved into this place with the nice fenced in yard I really started pushing. For the last few months Sam has been really resisting - or at least acting like he was - but on Christmas gave me a dog collar and said I could pick out our new dog.

The very top concern has always been the cats, so we were thinking we'd like an adult dog that had experience with cats. Plus, adult rescued dogs tend to have a lot of trouble finding new homes, so we thought we'd be doing more good that way. After I contacted a LOT of rescue agencies, we found out that most homeless adult dogs have behavioral issues and/or had no experience with cats. I emailed a lot of different people about what we were looking for, and one of the groups suggested Jack (who's name was Cody at that time). He is really calm, even though he's only 4 months old, and had been raised with a cat from birth.

We had an in-home meeting with Jack and the foster family, and decided that he at least wouldn't chase the cats, which was half the battle, but we had no idea it would go THIS well. He hasn't even been here 24 hours, and all three are in the office with us completely relaxed. Its unbelievable how calm he is. We wanted a big, slow moving sweet dog, and that's exactly what we got. They don't know for sure, but are guessing he's a Retriever-Chow-Shepard mix, so he'll probably get close to 100 lbs. So far so good, I'm sure you'll be getting more pictures shortly :)

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James and Claire welcomed Max to the world on New Years Eve. Max arrived on December 31, 2008 after 41 hours of heroic labor by Claire. As it turns out, they wound up having to have a Cesarian birth, which was a very hard decision for them. I haven’t heard James have such pride and admiration in his voice...well, I’ve never heard it like this. I’m very happy for them, and believe they will be great parents. You can read about their Maxwell experiences at their blog: http://maxwelljbrown.blogspot.com/2008/10/welcome-to-maxwells-world.html

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The New Years Eve show was a rousing success. I felt like it went great, and had it confirmed with the boss. This was a gratifying experience in which we had our best player teamwork since I’ve been here. Lorien joined the stage on trumpet, giving us a 3-horn section and a show to remember. My thanks to everyone, especially Jefrey who wrote out the parts, and Lorien who stepped in, did the work, and laughed along with our male humor!
I am very proud to be heading this cast here in Glendale, AZ.

Now playing: Shout! House Phoenix

Sun, 3 Aug 2008 18:37:15 -0700

July was a tough month. Amy & I have grown to love San Diego, but circumstance and opportunity made it clear that we had to take up the Shout! House offer to move to their club in Glendale/Phoenix, Arizona.

Moving, packing, saying goodbye (see my last blog entry for that)...I have to admit I had a hard time maintaining consistency of a positive attitude.

I played the Phoenix club for a week in mid-July, sort of a prelude to things to come, before coming back for the wife and kitties. This week went terrifically. Jefrey’s positive attitude as the entertainment director is quite refreshing. I enjoyed playing with everyone. Martha & I especially hit it off both on and off stage. I haven’t had a chance yet to play with Scott or much time with the newbies. It’s a growing club, and the weeknights will take some time to build up, but the start has been very promising.

Moving day was tough: the first thing I did was break my toe. I spent the rest of the day hobbling badly. The elevator was broken.

What started awfully got turned around: the movers were terrific, and we got out of there on schedule (though on-schedule was a late hour). We left San Diego at about 10:30, and arrived with the cats into our new temporary apartment at 5:00. Spent the next day decompressing before I had to hit the road again for a somewhat psycho road trip. (I am VERY thankful that these are quickly diminishing).

We live a seven minute walk from the club. The people here are very nice. Generally speaking, people in California were nice. The difference seems to be that the people in Arizona mean it. It’s the difference between listening to someone you happen to be in a conversation with and actually asking questions and engaging in a conversation. Outside of Jeff & Staci, in the 10 months I was there, I don’t think I got asked 7 questions of any kind in California by people from California. No questions about who I am, what do I think about whatever...I mean they’re nice, but they just don’t have an interest in or give a shit about anything else. This isn’t (much of a) criticism, I think they’re just content.

But damn Arizona it hot. I mean HOT. Every day I have been there has had a high of over 105 degrees. If the walk were 15 minutes, I don’t know if I’d do it.

The football Cardinals play within a walk, though I probably won’t see many games since I’ll be playing much of the pre and post game shows at the club. The Coyotes are right across the sidewalk from the club, if I cared about hockey.

Good people, good location, good opportunity. Amy & I have our eyes on getting back to San Diego one day, but now that the sorrow of leaving and the angst of packing and moving are over, San Diego is both in the past and well into the future. Phoenix is the present and should be for a number of years. This move is a good thing...just don’t turn off the A/C.

Last Night at the San Diego Shout! House

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:32:27 -0700

I didn’t think it was quite going to be like this, I didn’t think I had been here long enough...

When I showed up for my last shift at the San Diego Shout! House last Saturday night, it didn’t feel like just any other night, but it did not feel like an all-timer kind of evening either. I just had an extra amount of energy given the situation.

The first two of the 3 sets were a typical good-energy Saturday show. Something hit me when I hit the stage for the 3rd and final set with Adam. I suddenly realized all at once that so many of my goals, so much that I had worked for...this section of time of my life, this terrific section of life where I got to bring my beautiful wife to a beautiful location...in this next hour, it was going to be over.

This was a tough club to be “part of the family”. Four of the five guys there had been playing together for..I don’t know, over 10 years? Not a lot of people broke this inner circle. Adam has been at it for 2-3 years, starting with these guys at this club and seems to have done so for the most part.

Most of the guys there have a thing they were first with me there: Kevin was the first to ever see anything in me, 7-8 years ago. Tom was the first to see the value of me being there (he thought so immediately). Don was the first to put his arm around me and welcome me, and encourage me to stay around for a while. Adam was the first to include me, during the first rehearsal while the conversations kind of went around the new guy, Adam went out of his way to make sure I wasn’t left out. I have a soft spot for each of these guys who helped me break in to what may well be the best room in the country.

One of the few sad things during this final week is that the schedule didn’t happen to match Tom & I up much the last week. He gave me a nice and unexpected outro the night before when he knew it was our last time to even be in the room together.

Adam and I really put on a show this last hour, and I was very much in the moment. The crowd was following everything we did, and Adam and I supported each other as much as ever.

Amy was sitting right by me with Staci at a front table.

This was a night.

As it was getting to be about 15 minutes from the last song, I was trying to figure out what I would do for the last song.

We do this thing there when we change piano teams every hour: We incorporate something to do with the last song to introduce who’s on stage, and who’s coming up next. If the song were “Whip It”, we’d say something like “Let’s hear it for the guy who’s been whipping you into a frenzy all night long...”. If the song were “Pole Position”...well, you get the idea.

I got a request for “I Love This Bar”.

This was going to be the last song.

It was kind of hard to get through the song, but I did. As I went to the outro, I did the thing and was going into outroducing Adam: “...Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the biggest reasons I love this bar...”

“...”

“...”

I couldn’t even do it. I gestured to Adam that I couldn’t talk any more. He took over while I just wept on stage. I got up to switch with Don, we hugged and said a few touching things, I somewhat gained my composure to bass through the 4-ways, and walked off to Amy.

I didn’t really expect that kind of night, and while I knew that these guys mentioned cared for me and liked working with me, I didn’t expect them to have similar last-night emotions. After all, I was there only 10 months, and it is an established kind of place where outsiders can have a very difficult time getting “in”. It meant the world to know that I did with them, and that they were sad to see me move on to the Phoenix club.

Amy & I are looking forward and ahead to Phoenix, but are sad to say goodbye to our beautiful, short-lived home.

Forwarding emails

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:56:12 -0700

In what is still the toddler years of the e-age, I am still learning some things...

I consider myself to be very aware of, and somewhat decent at understanding and expressing what I call “e-tone”. Text reads a certain way, and I like to think I know both how to write fairly well to avoid mis-readings of my tone, and that many others may not have meant something the way it is written. Used to be that only writers had their tone read through text. Now everyone does it, and most are new at it.

Here’s something new I have learned: When someone forwards an e-mail, the recipient thinks that what was sent is the views of the sender. I mean, I thought this...until a recent incident.

A friend of mine, I’ll call him Jim, forwards a lot of email. He sifts it pretty well, and sends it only to people that are interested, but there is a lot of it. I’m glad to receive them. Jim is man of the English language, and often is a man of few words, getting right to the point in much of what he says.

There was a stretch in which he sent a lot of political emails that I just thought were neither of his opinion, nor of my own. Why would he send these? I look up to him a lot...when he has something to say that views differently than I do, I take a few minutes and contemplate whether he may be right. Even with this the case, even with the ability to just delete them...I almost wrote him to cease with certain kinds of mail.

It never occurred to me that he didn’t agree with these emails.

Apparently, others thought the same thing, because some wrote to him. He had to send out a mail explaining that in the interest of equal time, and presenting all sides, he also sent fwds of the dumbest stuff he was receiving, and expected we would all “sort through the bullshit”. He was mostly right, we did sort through the bullshit, we had just thought he was crazy because I don’t think anyone on his fwd list even considered that he may be doing this.

Well, now we know, and we’ve learned a lesson: when someone forwards an e-mail, it is not necessarily the views of the forwarder. It may just be something they want you to see.