"aging out" - LOL

[bloke]

I'm playing a dixie job late this afternoon (4 - 6) at a brewery in one of these hipster neighborhoods in Memphis.

I'm several years younger than the second youngest of the instrumentalists hired, but not an entire decade younger. The average age of the three of us is 78-2/3rds.

The oldest is a banjo and tenor guitar player, and the second oldest is in everything player (originally a woodwind player but over the decades an excellent everything player - including keyboard).

I would still consider both of them to be first call in Memphis, even if just "saxophone only" for the wind player/keyboard player.

Pretty soon, though, all three of us are going to be playing the same tune all the time.

I see on the email that a lady singer has been hired. I'm not sure, but I may have read that she is playing keyboard as well. I don't know her, but I'm betting she's either young enough to be any of our daughter or granddaughter.

https://wiseacrebrew.com/

The property butts up immediately adjacent to the old Illinois Central (formerly double track, now single track, now Canadian National) Railroad.
In the past (back when I was a pretty big railroad fan), Illinois Central was referred to the "Main Line of Mid-America". This north-south track was Illinois Central's main line - certainly being one that was a double track, so that particular line actually is THE main line of Mid-America.

(I get sort of confused by the media. Am I supposed to love Canada right now, hate it right now, or laugh at it right now...??
I certainly want to have the right expression on my face when a train passes. )

[prodigal]

And we learn that bloke is a railfan as well.

CN in Tennessee, that's more upside down than the N&W owning the PRR, which it now does, not to mention the transcontinental alliance with the UP.

Interesting times we live in, I generally feel fine with our Northern neighbors. Yes, their politics are weird, but who are we to onthrow stones....

I still want to go up to Labrador to try to catch a 10lb. Brook trout and hunt moose.

[bloke]

...so the place was closed to the public today and this was a private party for a bunch of successful female real estate agents and their associates/husbands/boyfriends etc. All the food and drink was complimentary (as it was a party).

When we were done and I shoved the Besson recording / compensating E-flat in my car, I went up to the food truck and saw that they had some pieces of chicken and asked for one. It wasn't written on the outside as a choice, but one of the nice guys in the food truck told me they had some pork barbecue, so (duh) I chose that instead.

I've got my weight on its way back down, so I just asked for the meat only. He offered to pour some cheese over it along a few jalapeno slices. That was great and (even though I'm trying to mostly stay away from aspartame) I took a diet soda.

I guess the pulled pork with cheese and a little bit of jalapeno (normally in a hamburger bun) is sort of a southern version of a Philly cheesesteak...(??)

We played for the folks in that permanent lit tent thing on the other side of those old concrete towers. I've played gigs there before, as you all might imagine. I'm thinking there were at least ten trains that went by during those two hours (remarkably loud horns, but only two or three... The five chimes are pretty rare, these days.)

You're looking from the far back to the back of the place.
The front of this place doesn't look like anything, and it's not even a public entrance.

[bloke]

telling a story on myself:

When I'm playing the E-flat tuba, I really have no idea what pitches I'm playing... unless I really think (which isn't a good idea).
I almost never read sheet music or lead sheets when playing it.
I suppose what I do is that thing that people have labeled "playing by ear".

I was playing one particular 32 bar solo on this gig yesterday, and I started thinking about the chords and note names. This caused me to start mashing B-flat tuba buttons. It took me about a bar and a half to get out of that mode.

When we finished with that tune, I quoted Miles Davis:

It's the notes you DON'T play...

[MikeS]

When we finished with that tune, I quoted Miles Davis:

It's the notes you DON'T play...

[Heavy_Metal]

Well, if CN now owns IC, they'll have to change the reference to IC in the first verse of "City of New Orleans":

[bloke]

Yeah well... Quite a few things probably need to be updated and corrected (including very large percentage of much of what appears in our children's and grandchildren's so-called history "text"books).

The purchase was finalized over 27 years ago.
It obviously took a while to get all the locomotives repainted as well as any railroad-owned box cars and flat cars (whereby these - as well as containers) are mostly privately owned).

This main line (as is known by the song, from Chicago to New Orleans) was previously double track all the way - which allowed for tremendous volume, and with little need for any trains to pull over onto sidings - for other trains to pass. I suspect CN did some math, and decided that the convenience of double track was overruled by the additional taxes and additional maintenance of double track. (As I pointed out as a previous comment in this thread, this is a very very busy track.)

You guys are probably sick and tired of me telling the TRUE (face to face) story of me giving Willie Nelson the idea of covering Arlo Guthrie's song, and suggesting to him that it would become a huge hit - were he to do so.

This appeared in stores (July 1984) only about a few months after I made the suggestion ( fall 1983), whereby he obviously thought it was a damn good idea: