Mr. and Mrs. Fehrenbach

Now it can be told. My daughter Michelle and Lance Corporal Eddie who you all last saw are married.  They were very sneaky about it.  We found out Thankgiving day but have kept it quiet because they wanted to surprise Eddie’s parents back in Oklahoma personally.  Well those Okies and Texans are just as ecstatic  about the news as we were and have welcomed my little girl with open arms .  Alot of you that visit here wished them well the last time I wrote about them. We are very happy and proud and now that the cat is fully out of the bag I feel like dancing.

“I felt like Dolly Parton’s baby…is this all for me?”

Mickey Mantle 

Here is a little Christmas story to warm you heart.  Not a traditional Christmas story to be sure but it happened in December, there’s some snow,  a chubby old guy and two people with generous, giving hearts. Here goes.

I found myself trapped in Bakersfield Monday night. I was trying to get down to Southern California, but a nasty winter storm had shut down both highways over the Tehachapies. I checked into a room and did what I always do when I’m in Bakersfield, that is head on over to Happy Jack’s Pie N’ Burger for a bite to eat.  I noticed the parking around Happy Jacks was a bit more crowded than it usually is and down the street, the Fox Theater marquee was all lit up but I didn’t put much thought to it, I was low on money as usual, cold and hungry.

Happy Jacks was just getting ready to close so it was just me and a couple of other people at the counter.  I was halfway through my Chili Size when the couple gets up to leave. I had been forced to half heartedly eavesdrop on their conversation with the waitress due the the size of the place.  Seems they had an extra ticket so if she’d like to see the show…well long story short, the waitress couldn’t make it so their attention turned to me.  I asked them who was playing and they said Willie Nelson. I asked them how much they wanted for the ticket and they said “Well you do like Willie right?”  

“Jeez Louise do I like…I LOVE Willie!”

“Well Merry Christmas friend” the man said and handed me a ticket.

Wait now it gets better.  I thanked them as they left and finished up my food as soon as I could. The show was gonna start in just a few minutes so I walked as fast as I could down to the Fox Theater right into the sumptuous lobby only to be greeted by a nice lady who took my ticket and led me to my seat RIGHT IN THE FREAKING VERY FRONT ROW DEAD CENTER STAGE!  My new best pals Willis and Donna just smiled and laughed at the dumbfounded expression on my face. I was even more dumbfounded when I found out Asleep At The Wheel was opening the show.

I swear I am not making this up, I’ve got pictures. The Wheel comes out and and the good times start rolling.  Ray Benson and his crew have been doing this for so long they make it look easy and the Bakersfield audience, looking to have a good time on a cold rainy night gave them a very warm welcome.  Me, I was loving every minute of it except I was sitting so close I was afraid Elizabeth McQueen might be thinking I was looking up her skirt when I was just admiring her beautiful Gibson J-200 guitar.

Patrick (Taco) Ryan, Elizabeth McQueen and Eddie Rivers

Then Willie came out (crowd goes absolutely batshit nuts) and joined The Wheel for five or six song songs. Willie looked gloriously old like a beautiful tree in autumn, songs, guitar solos and smiles falling off him like red, yellow and brown leaves. At the end of this sweet little mini set, Willie throws his hat out in to the audience and you’d think he’d thrown a Hail Mary pass into the end zone what with all the truckers and the ‘kickers and the cowboy angels  jumping up and elbowing each other to come down with it.  

Good times.

Asleep at the Wheel finished up their set and we settled in for Willie and his Family Band. And a family it is what with Willie’s sister Bobbie there at the piano. Mickey Raphael, Bee Spears and certainly Paul English have been playing with Willie so long now some DNA has been shared by musical osmosis.  Mr. English’s younger brother Bill actually played the drums for most of the set because to be honest, Paul looked very frail and was clearly struggling to keep the beat on a few songs. But he was there and provided the evening’s most poignant moment when Willie introduced him and then went into “Me And Paul” their shared smiles speaking volumes. Family indeed.

Sometime during the set I realized that this was more than a concert.  We weren’t here so much to watch Willie play the shit out of that old guitar although he certainly did. We weren’t even here to hear all the…classic just seems too small a word for songs like Crazy, Nightlife and Hello Walls he’s written.  No, we were here in the same room with a living, breathing Black Velvet Portrait Class Legend. 

Willie and Trigger

Willie played a good long set by anybody’s standard and then just went right out into the crowd and started shaking hands signing CDs, hats and posters, but mainly people just wanted to touch him and love on him. I grabbed his left hand and said “God bless you Willie” He looked me right in the eye nodded and smiled warmly. I felt like a little kid meeting Santa. Indeed at some point the band had gone into Jingle Bells as the people gently mobbed the man.

I guess even legends have to sleep and eat sometime, because eventually at some unseen signal the security people came and gently tore Willie away from his fans. And that was that, just a totally unexpected and amazing evening. Thanks Willis, thanks Donna…the happiest of trails for you and yours.

A good hearted woman - loving a good hearted man

Chuck Prophet. A musician’s musician,  Rock Star to the Rock Stars.  Hipster doofus extraordinaire, swings for the cheap seats every day of his life. 

Can’t sing worth shit? No problem at all when you can write songs this good.

Why???!!! Oh why did I ever invent that damned internet???!!!

Obama was wrong. This is the moment the rising of the seas will begin to slow and our planet will begin to heal.

If you own any shares in alternative energy companies I should start dumping them NOW. The conspiracy behind the Anthropogenic Global Warming myth  has been suddenly, brutally and quite deliciously exposed after a hacker broke into the computers at the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (aka  CRU) and released 61 megabytes of confidential files onto the internet. 

OK this is for all of you Lauren Gurgiolo fans that have visited recently. Glad to have you here, but this is all I have for you.  A young woman that doesn’t let playing the guitar get in the way of being a beautiful musician.

Lauren Gurgiolo

Lauren Gurgiolo

My niece Megan lives to ride.  Here is how she and some of her friends spent Halloween afternoon yesterday.