28 Days is Another Name For Weeks!

May 20, 2012 | Welcome Column

Its nights like this I wish I didn’t have to write a Welcome column. Got home this afternoon, fixed my grill, which needed a new burner, threw on a couple of lamb chops, lit a fire in the fire pan, sitting here with a glass of wine and “groan” sitting down to take care of business. I expect that my fellow columnists, talented, sensitive, folks that they are, are not about to give me any sympathy and would probably say something like, Geoff put on your big boy errr, socks, just get it done….and stop whining! (There are certain columnist-friends of mine that appear bigger than life in my mental vision….imagine the initials of a Doonsberry character.) Still, I had to put down my dobro to pick up the computer and I never enjoy putting my axe to bed……….it just feels too good making it sing. To add insult to injury, somewhere down the block someone is practicing their trumpet……at 11 in the evening.
The magic number today is 28! That’s right there are 28 days till I go up to Grass Valley to set up camp, hang out, help with music camp, help with the festival, and jam till I puke. That reminds me, I have to send out an email to all the Welcome columnists to let them know we are having our fourth annual columnist’s jam at the Festival. This is a highly confidential gathering of very serious, secretive folks, and we are so focused on gathering material for our columns at the Father’s Day Festival that we have no fun…that’s right, we all come together at the columnists jam, all solemn and long faces, and play music because we have to…because it is expected of us. I, of course, will not enjoy any of the Bourbon that I’ll be sipping from my flask and I am sure no one else will be having a good time. We will all gather at Rick Cornish’s camp, quietly play the most boring songs we know, and otherwise sit there like lumps on a log. So I would discourage anyone from coming by expecting to see a raucous, loud, group of outspoken, tipsy, column writers just looking for juicy gossip and bluegrass-smut to publicize, and playing of out-of-control Bill Monroe standards. Just go somewhere else and take your fun with you.

The festival is going to be a little different for me this year. It is still my first year on the CBA board so I have a little better idea about some festival issues, but this festival is going to be like having a new car where I can actually look under the hood and see what is making the funny noise. And I like knowing how things run. My band mates and I are hoping that our camp, Camp Carnage, will be a hopping jam-o-matic, jamilicious, jamathon this year……so stop by if you are up there and help us fulfill that dream, or at least to take a listen. Be forewarned, hecklers may be treated to various projectiles. How would you know you have arrived at Camp Carnage? Well think ET’s landing zone! Imagine what someone might do at the festival to send an intergalactic invitation to ET to come attend a jam!

Keep on pickin and see ya’ll up there.

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