Autumn Musings

Did I last write about the baseball game? National anthem, wonderful. A's and Giants fell to pieces in September. Looking to see the Brewers take the nation's hearts and the Yankees, the pennant.

Won tickets to see Branford Marsalis Quartet at Yoshi's in the city with my friend Ana. Justin Faulkner's behind the kit now and he's the ripe old age of twenty. Eighty minutes, and the BMQ altered between bop-hard bop swingers, tenor-led, and soprano ballads. Branford's playing, while demonstrating the "sheets of sound" label a-la Coltrane, has become more melodic; I spent half the night shaking my head in amazement. God's thunder, that's what it was like.
Amor Towles' Rules of Civility is the most amazing novel I've read in I don't know how many years. Was able to communicate with the author via e-mail and even meet him last Friday night at a reading at Berkeley's Books, Inc. He signed my book and we chatted, though I could have asked him a million more questions. When was the last time that you finished a book and when pining over the protagonist, simply opened the book and read it a second time? Me neither, except for this.
Last Saturday, my wife gave me my birthday present, which was a day without reponsibility. So, I grabbed my concert-going friend and we headed to the City (again) to catch another Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival day. We left EARLY and arrived before it started. Caught more acts than ever before (Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, heard Hugh Laurie from House and his New Orleans band), Jason Isbell & 400 Unit, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard, Ryan Bingham and Dead Horses, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings and Steve Earle. Steve played most of his latest album, a total keeper, and Preservation Hall Jazz Band sat in on a song. A magnificent day, from the weather to the audience to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch of a day in the city. What could be better than the beginning of autumn?
Reading Last Call and just completed Ken Burns' Prohibition. Our forebears drank like fish and were ready to fight to death to protect that right. Interesting...
Steve Jobs passed away this afternoon. An icon. One who changed American society and the world. A true revolutionary and historical figure. Probably the most influential figure of the last quarter-century, even bigger than Reagan. Jobs didn't have to lie or cheat or pretend or imagine the past, he simply had to think about the future. From Apple's IIe to the mouse to the i-Everything, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to Steve Jobs. How weird will it be to watch Forrest Gump and the "fruit company" and teach contemporary history knowing that Mr. Jobs is no longer with us.
Some music I don't want to forget that's been keeping my attention of late: Whiskerman, a musician out of Oakland, with his folk-rock, Linda Ronstadt's "Don't Cry Now", "Pat Garret and Billy the Kid", "Bird & Diz", "Roy & Diz", the Monk/Rollins record and of course, whatever the hell T&S is doing as they record and tour and turn people on night after night. Now, off to pack...