Last night the usual guy who leads the jam wasn't there, because he had a paying gig that he'd apparently almost forgotten about. A sax and a trumpet showed up, so there were some hot numbers before several duos who didn't want anyone else to join them, including a guitar and an amazing fiddler playing bluegrass county stuff that I totally could have played too. Four guys who play guitar wanted me to join them (since I wasn't sure I'd play without the usual guy there), and they had chord sheets so that helped. I told them I only play in G, D, C, and the relative minors, so we played "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison in G because they thought there was a mandolin solo. I don't know of one, but it went well, so we did "Losing My Religion" by REM in A minor because it does have a mandolin solo. That went... okay, but my solo sounded pretty good, so we did "Last Dance with Mary Jane" by Tom Petty in I'm not sure what key, but the chords were all ones I know (A minor, G, and D minor), and the horns joined us, so we were just an awesome wall of sound. I probably should have gotten off the stage then, because the next song was "Johnny B. Goode"... in B flat. Say what? I know how to make a B flat chord, but I don't know the 4 and the 5 chords for that key. You can see me in the video asking a guitarist, and he said, "E flat," and I think F sharp? Anyway, I sounded much better in the video than I remember sounding while playing it. It's an easy song with only the 1, 4, and 5 chords. So was the next one, "Red House," which they wanted to do in B. I looked over at what the one guy's chord sheet said, and it was all A and D, so clearly he was using a capo. I kind of knew the 5 chord was E, but I have no idea what the 4 is. Maybe my fingers did, because whatever I was playing sounded right. It hardly mattered, because everyone was focusing on the guitars and the hot horn section anyway.
Then... things kind of came to a thud with the next guy, who was a singer-songwriter (everyone else does covers - it's a jam, not a coffeehouse), and even that wouldn't have been so bad, but his songs! One was just, "He's a good dog," over and over, like something a five-year-old would write, and another one had some line about dancing with a fairy and becoming a juniper berry. I asked the other organizer of the jam if he would be the last act, and she said, "No, there's an 18-year-old drummer who's never played in public before, and we'll get the horns back up there with him," so I said, "I'll stay for that. This guy isn't really my thing," and she said, "I know, right?" Anyway, the kid on drums was excellent, and he and all the other people joining him did "Play That Funky Music" and "Wipeout." So things ended on a high note.
Today I worked on campus, and my one coworker was all jazzed because she got to go up on the roof of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences building, with the satellite dishes all decorated for Christmas. Our department had its "Gloggfest" tonight, and at first they had said they didn't need me to play mandolin this year because the person who played ukulele with me last year was going to play the keyboard this year. I thought that was fine because tonight was also the Chancellor's Christmas Party, and I had already RSVP'd to that... and then they said the other person couldn't come to Gloggfest, and could I lead the music? I said no, sorry, I had other plans tonight. Then I went to the swanky party at the Union and hung out with my committee peeps... and about an hour into it I saw one of our faculty! He said he was there because of his wife, and I said, "You had to skip Gloggfest too?" so he said no, he went to that first. Maybe I could have done both myself, but that wouldn't be much time at either party. I could see Travalon was on his way, and there was a lot of food left, so I went to make up a plate for him but just then they took it all away and wouldn't let me have any. The fabulous dessert spread was still there, so I was grabbing him some treats when he arrived, so he was able to select his own treats. Since he hadn't had any real food, we went to the pizza place under the university book store, and then we got caught in really bad traffic from everyone leaving the basketball game. Speaking of sports, the Badger Volleyball team just got eliminated from the tournament. They won it all last year, and they got pretty far this year. But now their season is over.
Here is some more DuoLingo bragging:
You used to have to complete 30 daily tasks to win the challenge, and since you can do three a day, it took ten days. Now you have to complete 50 daily tasks. I'm just waiting for them to make it impossible, like 90 daily tasks but you can still only complete three per day. DuoLingo can be so infuriating.
Famous Hat
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