If I only had a crystal banjo…I could make dozens of pennies telling the futures of everyone and everything bluegrass. Folks would flock to me from miles around to have their for-tunes told (or sung), I would be able to make money on the stock market, or maybe at least lose less, the CBA would be able to foresee who the next bluegrass supergroup would be and book them at the FDF before they became unaffordable; and why waste time learning the mandolin when my crystal banjo could reveal that you might be a better bass player or possibly, heaven forbid, that your calling was on the drums, or accordion, or didgeridoo. Oh the potential for confounding humanity is mind boggling; is your child going to be a musical bluegrass prodigy and walk the red carpet at IBMA, or will they shame your family name by becoming a jazz musician, or even worse learn to read sheet music and join a symphony. All you need to do is come visit my crystal banjo abattoir and we will humanely butcher all your hopes and dreams. The crystal banjo never lies!
Last week I was thinking I should go purchase a shotgun. I like shooting guns of all kinds and as an adolescent had a shooting range in my parent’s attic. My father had an old lever action Daisey BB gun and I lined an old wooden crate with blankets, set it up at one end of the attic, and over the years maimed and mutilated uncountable numbers of plastic toy soldiers and a variety of whatever objects were at hand. Thankfully, and my parents did not know this, I was never able to light a match with a BB, tried a lot though. So, I was thinking that having a shotgun might have been useful last week because it was obvious the zombie apocalypse was imminent. The skies were Halloween orange, there was no daylight and it was dusk from dawn to sunset, for that matter it wasn’t clear when there was a sunrise or sunset, the day just kindof drifted in with the smoky skies. It was a little like looking at the day through a blanket…there’s light out there but what time is it really? I didn’t run out to get that shotgun, and the zombies never appeared, but the day made me wonder. In the context of the pandemic, problems with my business, deaths in the family, and cancelled bluegrass festivals, are cast in a whole different light…is the pandemic a premonition of things to come, how much can I blame on it, or could I get away with denying it completely and pretend my world is looking out from under a blanket? The blanket sure makes things appear simpler when you can’t see all the stuff happening around you. Unfortunately, my psyche doesn’t do well stifled by blankets and I don’t have a crystal banjo.
I admit, that is a bit of a dystopian lead-in to my CBA updates and I actually am hopeful for the coming year; cautious but hopeful. We had a board meeting yesterday and one of the things we did was vote on our proposed budget for 2020-2021. We recently moved our financial year to run in concert with our board elections and event year. Long story short we are in ok financial shape for the next year thanks to many of our members donating their prepaid FDF tickets to donations and thanks to the board of directors making some difficult decisions to save money where we could. For a more detailed view I will ask you to take a look at our meeting minutes that are published on the CBA web site. The good news is that our electronic elections are open and folks are voting with enthusiasm. Josh Michaels, our Election Coordinator gave an update yesterday and I was so happy to hear that this year is one of the biggest turnouts we have had since anyone can remember. You can vote up until 2PM pacific time Saturday October 17 so let’s break some records…get your vote in and you can even make a voting statement by using your write-in privileges to write-in some candidates. Unfortunately for those write-in votes to mean anything the candidates should be living and located on the planet earth. As far as I know we do not yet have intergalactic internet and since radio waves travel at the speed of light, Spock would not be able to functionally attend a CBA Board Zoom meeting from the planet Vulcan.
The election results will be announced at our annual members meeting that will be held online this year and will occur in the early evening of October 17. Pete Lude and other CBA volunteers are producing the meeting, there will be entertainment, CBA Board reports on how we are doing as an organization, awards, a question and answer opportunity, but Chef Mike has yet to perfect virtual spaghetti so I think it is unlikely we will able to offer a sit-down supper this year. You are going to have to use your imagination for that and there is nothing stopping you from cooking up a pot of spaghetti at home, propping up a cardboard cutout of Chef Mike in your kitchen, and setting up the buffet line in the living room for your family. Look for our formal announcement of the members meeting in the next few weeks that will have more information and links on where to go. We will be notifying members and nonmembers alike by email blasts, posting on social media, and on the CBA website.
As always, I hope to hear from ya’ll soon, be safe, wear your face masks, and watch out for those accordion playing zombies.
