Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 6:18 AM PDT

I have been really struck by the concept of community since becoming a dad. My old neighbourhood was your average working class street. The street I lived on was unusual as the people there were the nicest people you would ever want to meet. We would work together on floats for parades, have street parties, help shovel each others driveways in the winter etc. Whenever my band was rehearsing in my studio, some of the neighbours would come over and listen. In the nice weather, they would be dancing in my backyard. I would sit on my front porch and watch the kids and there were lots of them. My next door neighbour was a single mother with 4 kids. I used to fix their bikes and remind them to wear their helmets just to make sure they were safe. I have since moved away, but I still keep in touch with them. I have always believed that it takes 2 people to bring a child into the world and a village to raise it.

Ken

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 6:28 AM PDT

It's not necessarily how many people that exist in a community, it the people that the community is comprised of.
I live in a small city (you can get everywhere in a car in under ten minutes) on an island, and while I've connected with some of my neighbors, this whole place is a military town. With so many people coming and going, it's almost a pain to try and play good neighbor.
Example: after four months of no downstairs people, a couple just moved in below us. The hub-unit and I walk by them outside at least two, three times a day and we've never said a word to each other. However, the guys across the parking lot...we talk cars all the time.
These days you just can't get to know everybody, introverted or extroverted. Community is not knowing your neighbors, it's knowing who's NOT.
Q

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 9:00 AM PDT

miz chinq:

i live in one of those communities that cat describes...it's a small southern town full of my friends and relatives and friends and co-workers of friends and relatives. yesterday i realized that, over the years i kept runnin' in to people that i recognized, but didn't really know. a woman that's waitressed at about every dining establishment in town; she's poured my tea a time or two. a young mother i first met in a biology class at jsu, who's now workin' at the same company i am. anyway, it made me feel all warm and fuzzy. and cat's professor was right on the second part too; when the chips are down, the people in a small town will hunker down and help get you through the wars. food will be brought, phonecalls made on your behalf, small acts of generosity and kindness are performed that provide both help and hope.

i think we americans are like that on a national level as well; despite all the daily infighting and pettiness, when the chips are down, we get each other through the wars.


snuggs

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 9:43 AM PDT

I went sailing on Sunday and brought along a soft virgin for you to meet

http://rancelot90265.tripod.com/britney_virginshirt.jpg

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 9:51 AM PDT

Hej, Ken and Chinq and all:

Wasn't that the coolest thing for you to find people dancing in your backyard to your music?

I lived in a small neighborhood that my father had grown up in, and while there, I had a grand piano in my living room. I used to practice between six and nine hours a day, and when I got tired and gave up (from exhaustion mostly), occasionally I would find people sitting on the curb outside my house, listening to the music. I'm pretty shy, so I found it a bit embarrassing (oh, my God, did they hear the mistakes?), but I did think it was so flattering to find them sitting on the curb to listen. They never harassed me or made noise, they would just sit quietly and listen.

Unfortunately, this is over 25 years ago, my old small neighborhood now has a high crime rate and has totally gone to H-E-Double-Toothpick, but it's nice to remember how it used to be.

So I moved to another tiny, rural neighborhood about 17 years ago, where people all helped each other (and mostly still do), but now it's changing, too, into another "Metropolis,"and "new" not-so-nice people from out-of-state are moving in and taking over, so I'm doing it once again - I'm finding myself another tiny neighborhood with people who will all be nice to each other. I figure this will be my last "neighborhood" (it should last about 30 years or so since it's SO RURAL my closest neighbors will be an occasional bear, moose, deer, raccoons galore, etc.), and my next neighborhood after this new one will be a NURSING HOME - by the time I get there, hopefully I'll be so out of it I won't be worrying about community; I'll be happy if I can find my teeth in the morning.
I.

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 10:05 AM PDT

Ken,

I can't seem to post comments to your blog.

Please let Doodles know that I wasn't infering that the "Teachings of Jesus" were fake, but that the "I follow the teachings of Jesus" statements by many Pols. is fake.

I don't see many following the golden rule either.

I'll try to get that Shakespeare comment to you, but I've realized that my secret identity(ha) could be compromised by my "school daze".

Don't you love porches?

Chinquapin

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 10:21 AM PDT

SKR,

Maybe for a straight guy, a soft virgin is a good thing. But for a straight girl(remember-under 50, I can still call myself a girl)neither soft, nor a virgin is what I'm lookin' for.

Chinquapin

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 10:48 AM PDT

Folks,

Really, I ment not soft as in not muscular, REALLY. I told you Rancelot, if I'm not careful, they just roll out of my mouth.

C.

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 11:56 AM PDT

I love porches. So much so, that my brother-in-law and I built a massive porch on the front of my present home, complete with a juliette balcony for the walkout upstairs. I am happy to report that I have developed a good relationship with my new neighbours and even have the locals watching the progress. I am the kind of person who more than happy to have a chin wag with anyone that comes along.

I sorted Doodles out on the comment. Doodles was refering to me being arrogant until I explained Sunday Christians. All is well there.

Ken

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 12:06 PM PDT

I loved seeing my neighbours in my backyard. One thing I have learned about being a musician, is that we are our toughest critics. I have since gotten over my mistakes and learned to love them. I was doing a version of "Thick as a brick" one night at a club and must have gone through 5 false starts before I could stop laughing and perform. The reason I kept screwing up was a friend played with the lyrics and changed the line "really dont mind if you sit this one out" to "really dont mind if you sh*t this one out". I couldn't shake that line out of my head.

I guess in your new neighbourhood you could use your music to charm some of the local savage beasts. *groan*

Ken

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 1:18 PM PDT

Hej, Ken:

Funny you got that, too - as I was typing it, all I could think of was, "Music to soothe the savage beast," but since I've seen many a bear in Sweden (and they run like H-E-Double-Toothpick if they see you because they're more scared of you than you are of them), and many a moose there, too, I don't even think of them as actual "savage" beasts. HOWEVER, I am NOT talking about the grizzly bears in Yellowstone who have been known to attack campers and rip them apart for their camp provisions - I'm talking about relatively docile brown bears in Northern Sweden, so please don't anybody get mad at me. You always know when one of the Swedish brown bears is around because you can see the "blueberry shit" on the trail(this is an actual Swedish description of a bear's bodily substance, told to me by a Swede, although it does lose something in the translation) that they leave behind - just don't mess with their babies, and don't try to corner one. What rips me off is the darned squirrels who try to get into the house by eating holes in my siding! Now THAT to me is a savage beast that I can do without! (And music doesn't do a darn thing to stop them either!)

OK, I trust you not to steal my story, Ken, so I'll tell you this one about the horrors of a classical music education.

I know what you mean about laughing 'til you cannot stop, for in college, during a choral concert, the tenors got together and put a Playboy centerfold in the middle of the conductor's music during an actual concert (the chorus conductor was a Pr__k; the most pretentious, arrogant, downright mean man I had ever met at the time [from what I learned at that college, I think certain Music Professors think they are one step down from God. Come to think of it, I think this guy thought he WAS God. And boy, am I glad this is anonymous]). Anyway, we're just doing our little choral thing - singing away, and he's doing his little conductor thing - conducting away, when he turns the page and sees the nude centerfold in the middle of his sheet music. His eyes bugged out of his head, he totally and completely lost where he was (a really big deal for him, who thought he was so perfect and beyond mistake), dropped his baton, and he was shaking with laughter and tears were running down his face. (What was so amazing about this was that I was SCARED TO DEATH of the man, and I didn't even know he could SMILE, let alone laugh.) Well, the tenors were so surprised by his reaction to the whole thing (they'd all been drinking - we first sopranos could smell the liquor on them through the whole concert) that one of the tenors fell off the top riser - grabbed his neighbor tenor for support and the whole tenor section fell off the riser right in the middle of this big, important Spring Concert. Then the risers collapsed. At that, Mr. Big Proud Conductor just wiped the tears off his face, turned and bowed to the audience, and walked off the stage, acting totally nonplussed by the whole thing, leaving the rest of the chorus standing there in total chaos; either just looking at each other in bewilderment or scrambling to help some of those tenors back on their feet and make sure everyone was all right. Of course, the audience was in an uproar, and the curtain did eventually came down (I imagine when the stagehands composed themselves enough to figure out how the hell to GET the curtain down). It was great!

I was NOT around after the concert (since we sopranos were innocent of any wrongdoing) however, I understand the tenors got some really serious heat afterwards.

I tell you this story just so you'll know what a classical music education can do for you (not f___ing much). (Sounds like I went to Animal House Music School, doesn't it?)

Weren't we talking about "revenge is sweet" on one of these blogs? The rest of the chorus were all so happy that the tenors got revenge on this guy for all the rest of us - and all we had to do was stand there and sing through it. It was one of the best days of my life.
I.

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 2:57 PM PDT

Inga,

With a story like that, you are ready to guest host. I'm thinking of having Piano Jazz night one night a week at The Nut House. How about it? You wouldn't have to host once a week, but you're already here most nights anyway.

If things go well, we'll make it a combo once a month.

Let me know.

Chinquapin

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 5:38 PM PDT

Inga

That is brilliant story. I almost wet myself laughing. I can see why that was one of the best days of your life.

Ken

Thursday, 29 July 2004 - 11:26 PM PDT

Chinq,

You know that saying can have two different meanings depending on how you say it.

Living in a small town,people never let you alone but
THEY NEVER LET YOU DOWN.

VS

Living in a small town, PEOPLE NEVER LET YOU ALONE but they never let you down.

Now when the story makes it's round on the barbeque circuit how I am out in my jammies chasing down my dog at 2 am in the morning and my robe tails are snapping I tend to think being unrecognizable could be a very good thing.

Friday, 30 July 2004 - 4:25 AM PDT

Well think about this....what happens when you are friends with the neighbors and you have a falling out? My sister literally moved because of this. I also had a neighbor and I really liked her we started hanging out and then I ealized she was not all together a healthy human being. I was uncomfortable ending that relationship. So pick wiesly and only involve neighbors to a point. I swear do not get too personal....I think you can have community while having it at a bit of a distance.

Friday, 30 July 2004 - 8:49 AM PDT

Hej!

So long as you don't expect too much. Remember now, everything I've written is in response to something that someone else has written that has struck a chord (no pun intended) with me. Given free reign and having to come up with my own subject, I'll probably be boring as H-E-Double-Toothpick.

I guess I could write about the first 18 years of my life behind a piano. People have told me I'm so innocent and naive about certain things that I must have come out of a Convent. I tell 'em 18 years behind a piano is even more limiting - pianos don't talk back, whereas I'll bet those nun and priest stories could get really interesting. It's those years AFTER the first 18 behind the piano, however, that have been the REAL education.
I.

Friday, 30 July 2004 - 9:45 AM PDT

Tack s? mycket, Ken, for the compliment.
I.

P.S. I think your English teacher was a total ass and didn't have a clue as to what he was doing. I read somewhere on the 'Net once that one of the Beatles' teachers (sorry, I cannot remember which Beatle, but I printed the article and it's hanging on my wall, so I can look it up) wrote that said certain Beatle would never amount to anything and that he should consider a laborer's position - gives you an idea about some teachers' ability to prophesy [in my personal opinion, I don't think kids should be labeled in any manner; teachers should do nothing but encourage the hell out of kids]).
I.

Friday, 30 July 2004 - 1:03 PM PDT

Inga

Tack s? mycket=Thank you very much (I think)
I learned some Swedish and enough Danish to get my face slapped in Australia. I think the Swedes I met were a little more sophisticated than the East Copenhageners that gave me my Danish potty mouth.

Perhaps my English teacher did me a favour in a misdirected kinda way...

Ken

Friday, 30 July 2004 - 1:44 PM PDT

Hej igen (Hi again)

Tack s? mycket=Thank you very much ABSOLUTELY.

Ja, I made a signal in Sweden that I got from some American show like the Sopranos (you know, the hand in the elbow thing), and I thought I was going to get LYNCHED from the reaction of the Swede I was with. I think he wrote me off on the spot, with nary a look-back. Sometimes culture differences are not such a wonderful thing . . . .

I'm glad that you took your English teacher's discouragement and turned it around. I've seen too many kids (I gave piano lessons for years), who would tell me that they were stupid when they didn't understand something instantly. When I asked them why they thought they were stupid, they'd tell me, "Because my teacher in school told me so." I spent more time trying to instill some self-confidence in these poor kids than I did actually teaching them any music. As far as I was concerned, the self-confidence was the most important of the two.
I.