Writings from the Dirt Road

Now that I am old, 7:00 sounds like a perfectly reasonable time for a concert. Getting home by 10:00 PM sounds even better. I don’t know when I turned into an old man, but here we are. Aging was on the mind of Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler, too. The two artists, accompanied by Jake Bradley and Kenny Hutson on a bevy of guitars, slide guitar, mandolin, and upright bass brought out new songs for the crowd at Eddie’s Attic. At least two of the songs, if not more, focus on the inevitable march of time.

The new songs are so new they haven’t even really been formally recorded yet. One was still pre-lyrics as Karin just wordlessly rang out the notes. Their parents were on their minds as Linford mused about the death of his father and how a man’s perspective changes when he buries his father. His thoughts coalesced into a song with lyrics about how their love should be like Johnny and June Carter Cash and “Who Will Bury Who.” Karin also had a song about her mother who currently resides in assisted living after a stroke and about how the whole place is a “collision of comedy and tragedy” in her song “Only God Can Save Us Now.”

The night wasn’t all maudlin, though. Linford was amused by a woman who requested a song “about a satellite.” He couldn’t immediately figure out what song she was talking about, but quickly realized she meant “I Radio Heaven.” He proceeded to entertain us with a spoken word version of the song. Karin introduced us to two new songs both tangentially related to her dogs. There was some fun pickin’ and grinnin’ as Jake Bradley led the band in a rousing version of “You Don’t Know My Mind.”

The band also put a couple changes are what are now old standards. Karin’s song “Ohio” was given some musical depth with Linford on bass and Jake on guitar. I always associate “Who Am I Kidding?” with Mickey Grimm and his frantic drum solo, but with his absence Kenny explored the song a little more on guitar. “Professional Daydreamer” was also given a nice full-band treatment.

There aren’t many bands out there brave enough to try out new material on their audiences before it’s been polished to a sheen and put out on CD, but part of the fun of following Over the Rhine is following the development of their music and how some songs start out as one idea, but in a couple of years end up sounding totally different. At this stage, it appears that Karin and Linford are at only the beginning of another song writing cycle and we are in for another chapter in the story of Over the Rhine.

Set list (* – new songs are guesses on my part.)
I Want You To Be My Love
Etc. Whatever
Trouble
I’m On A Roll
C’mon Boy *
Who Will Bury Who *
Only God Can Save Us Now *
Who Am I Kidding
Ohio
Professional Daydreamer
What a Waste *
Trumpet Child
-Q & A- (I Radio Heaven by Linford)
Soon (no words) *
All I Need Is Everything
—
No Kill Shelter *
You Don’t Know My Mind (Jimmy Martin cover)

In the morning when you finally go
And the nurse runs in with her head hung low
And the cardinal hits the window

In the morning in the winter shade
On the first of March, on the holiday
I thought I saw you breathing

Dear cardinal,

We’re sorry you’ve already migrated back here. We thought it would be spring here by now, too. Please be patient. Maybe in a couple weeks it won’t be so dreary around here.

Signed,

Eagerly awaiting spring in Atlanta.

…you just have to know your wife.

I think she liked them.

I haven’t blogged lately because, quite frankly, I haven’t done anything interesting lately. I’m looking back on January and I don’t really recall anything very memorable. That seems to be the way it goes, though. After a busy and frantic December with holidays and all with the cold weather it seems like I became just as frozen as the grass outside of my house. It’s a month that fills well into the malaise I’ve been in lately.

That doesn’t mean the month has been all bad. I wish I had the discipline of some of my friends that blog a list of good things that happened every day in a month. I look back on a month and I can’t remember that much. There were bits and pieces here and there though. We’ve been taking the girls out a lot, just to fight off cabin fever in the house, and they’ve been very good for us. Thus far, we’ve avoided having to leave a shopping center or resturaunt early because one of them is throwing a temper tantrum, but I’m sure it’s bound to happen eventually. (Maybe it helps that they LOVE shopping, just like their mom.) I’m starting to finally get back to exercising and running and someday I’ll be brave enough to brave the weather and run outside again. We’ve been in the slow process of getting the house back into decent shape after all of the clutter from Christmas and we’re slowly regaining ground. As for work, well, we’ll just talk about good things here.

It’s been a month of hibernation, a rest for the upcoming year. I’m hoping for more to happen, more memories, more fun with the girls. The year is still young yet.

When it comes to these bowl games, much like the Chick-Fil-A Bowl last year, it’s hard to get to worked up and angry about the game, even if Georgia Tech laid an egg on the national stage. I mean, there’s only so many days that we get free of toddlers, staying in a nice hotel, and having a schedule of do-whatever-we-want. I mean, I was way more incensed about the basketball team losing to Georgia than the Orange Bowl. So, we’ll talk about the game a little and then move on.

After watching the game, it was evident that had Ricky Stanzi stayed healthy, Iowa would’ve been in the mix for the National Championship. They were that good. A lot of people want to say that Kirk Ferentz’s squad “figured out” the triple option scheme by Paul Johnson, but it’s not so much that as the fact that Iowa dominated Tech on the line, both offensively and defensively. On offense, Iowa gave plenty of time to Stanzi to find an open receiver. They picked on Jerrard Terrant and only after he gave up two touchdowns did he respond with a Pick Six that at least eased the pressure on him. Terrant’s interception was huge because it appeared the game was quickly heading to a blowout. After that, things settled down, but on the other side of the line, Iowa’s defensive line gave Tech no time to operate their offense. You can’t do a B-Back dive when the tackle is wrapping up Dwyer as he gets the ball and you can’t do the pitch when someone is already in between the quarterback and the A-Back seconds after the snap. There just wasn’t much for Tech to do. To Johnson’s credit, he made some nice halftime adjustments and Tech had two nice drives in the 3rd quarter, one that should have ended in points had the wind not pushed the ball back in Scott Blair’s face and one that ended in a touchdown. It looked like Tech still had a chance in the game, despite being statistically dominated, until Nesbitt threw an interception and on the next drive Dwyer made a desperate decision to change direction and lose 11 yards and put Tech in the hole at 2nd and 21 on their own 1. The much-maligned defense managed to hold it together until they sold out on the run and inexplicably Brandon Wegher still managed to evade everyone and make it to endzone. Game Over. It’s Cold. Let’s Go Home.

Despite frigid temperatures, the coldest Orange Bowl ever, we still had a good time. The tailgating in the afternoon was enjoyable and most of the Iowa fans were pretty cordial. Adriene and I really enjoyed the Riverside Hotel, which was accommodating even when the heat stopped working in our room (something that you would think would never be a problem in Miami) We loved that we arrived on Saturday to an art fair and we loved that we had plenty of choices of restaurants within walking distance. During the art fair, we were so hungry from missing lunch while traveling we bought a hot dog being cooked by the staff of Mango’s. Maybe it was just because we were so hungry that it was the best hot dog ever. It was enough though to convince us to try them again later in the week for dinner. I’m happy to say the bleu cheese crusted steak was even better than the hot dog, probably one of the better meals of the week (the breakfast at Le Bonne Crepe was really good, too)

After a couple days of vacation, it was a roundabout trip for Miami to Jacksonville by plane and then on the road to Savannah where we were reunited with our girls and had dinner at a Savannah institution, Carey Hillards (I already want to go back.) The next day it was a drive home to, surprise, snow in Atlanta and back into work emergencies, stress, and everything that we left behind. Life is already back at its torrid pace, but even if it was too cold to sit on the beach, it was nice to at least drive by and wistfully look out the window for a couple days.

Photos of our time in Florida are on Flickr