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Most of us Knoxville musicians have found, over the years, that this area is challenging and competitive. The names of bands and soloists come, stay, and go after a while. The number of venues with live music declined when the economy sank several years ago. I can remember walking up to the doors of venues I played just weeks before, and finding the outer doors closed and locked with padlocked chains. At that time, some music venues installed multiple television sets and became sports bars, others went with karaoke. Yet, some new venues opened and most thankfully, live musicians persist (new ones hit the scene and some of older ones are still around). The area also still has several music stores.
Occasionally I make the rounds of the music stores and put up promo flyers for my adult piano lessons and my favorite professional recording studio. This morning I had time to go to two of those music outlets. One is Open Chord, where a lady behind the counter cheerfully handed me a spool of scotch tape so I could put my flyers in the front entry windows. I did suggest to her that for the open mic at which they have some resident instruments provided, it would be wonderful if they could also include a keyboard so that keyboardists like me wouldn't need to carry in a full keyboard, stand, and mic. OC is a very pleasant venue and all-around music-oriented center ... and I applaud their sincere efforts on behalf of musicians.
My gut feelings are what prompted me to write this post, because of a situation I found at Guitar Center today. Now, for months -- maybe a year or so -- GC has removed all musicians' posting areas from the front of the store. Granted, these needed occasional neatening up and culling (not a big deal). Most posters were neat. The removal of these posting boards was, IMO, not the right thing to do to musicians, who are the very people that spend their money at the store. To sort of throw us a crumb, GC set up a small bulletin board way, way in the very back of the store next to the two restrooms and the employees-only areas. So in order to see a posting for musicians or musical services, a person visiting the store would need to use the restroom (and would probably need directions on how to find it). I felt a sense of abandonment and that the arrangement was insulting to musicians … but I posted there anyway. Today I walked back to that restroom area to find that the musician's small bulletin board was covered up with boxes of inventory that could easily have been stacked elsewhere. The only two visible postings were partially ripped down; probably the rest were behind the stacked boxes on the floor. I tidied up the couple of things that were still readable … a bassist looking for a band or maybe it was the other way around … it was a neatly hand-printed posting, so I found a place where I could tack it up and did the same for a small notice put up by a guitar teacher. Then I shifted a portable inventory sign to the side of the stack so there would be a small space for the studio flyer I had brought to post. I left the store in dismay, wondering how a music store that used to have a stage and be very pro-musician could want to prevent musicians from posting their upcoming gigs, need for players, and other important services for musicians and aspiring musicians.
The loss of Broadway Sound has had far-reaching effects; for one thing, their huge, friendly musicians' board was a wonderful place to connect. And their personnel were knowledgeable and helpful. Yes, we have Craig's List and places for paid notices but they can't take the place of a music posting on a friendly local bulletin board.
Life needs music and musicians. Musicians need audiences, contacts, and music services which they can access via BULLETIN BOARDS. So my request to area music stores and outlets is to please happily provide this courtesy to the musicians who support your businesses and brighten up the world with their talents.
On the evening of January 8th (the night that Knoxville was hit hard with frigid temperatures, ice, and snow), B. B. King and his phenomenal band came to the Tennessee Theatre and did an awesome show! I attended, courtesy of one of my students, who not only provided my ticket but also drove to my home and picked me up at the curb (my driveway was not accessible due to icy conditions), and brought me to the concert. When I first met this lady, almost five years ago, she was pretty sure she wouldn't like blues music. Of course, since blues is very close to my heart, I occasionally included some blues in her lesson material. Since that time, she has discovered that blues music resonates with her and she loves it! She's doing a great job playing it, too. My sincere thanks to you, Sylvia, for giving me my ticket and taking me to B. B.'s concert. What a wonderful gift!
In Knoxville it’s now against the law to park your car on your front lawn; if your neighbor reports that you are parking there, you will receive a citation. However, there is no bite at all in anti-littering laws – no effort to enforce them. People who are slobs can and do throw fast-food trays, wrappers, drink cups (sometimes whole bags of them), and beer bottles out of car windows onto lawns, flower beds, and driveways.
I implore fast-food restaurants to please install one or two easily accessible trash receptacles at their restaurants’ exit driveways. This would remove, perhaps, ten or twenty percent of the rubbish from our streets. The other 80 or 90 percent of the stuff being thrown out of car windows needs to be seriously addressed by law enforcement. Forget the frivolous and elitist law-making and put a stop to littering instead.
Seeing the news photo of the Millwood Road animal shelter (humane society) building destroyed by today’s flames, brings back a flood of memories to me (and I’m sure to many others, too). For 13 years I was associated with the humane society ... for the first three years as a hands-on volunteer (walking dogs and cleaning their cages) and then as education director, traveling with my program to schools and organizations throughout Knox and contiguous counties. I kept doing it because I wanted to save animals’ lives by promoting responsible pet ownership and spay/neuter. I did bring the message to hundreds of classrooms, youth organizations, and civic groups until my job was eliminated in early 2004.
Thousands of animals came through the doors of that old building each year. The lucky minority were adopted ... the rest were dispatched when their time was up – or sooner if they were "owner surrendered". Of all the situations there that broke my heart, it was the suffering of the house-trained adult dogs, who were in the top tier of the old cement cages, that was the saddest; they had no access to the outdoors. I still see images of them and their distress, in my mind’s eye.
The news photo shows the large holly tree as it still stands next to the building, a silent witness to so much. The news article says that an arson investigator has been called in.Employees had sometimes talked among themselves about "seeing" animals who were no longer there, moving about in the euthanasia room; the employees concluded that it must be an "energy field". I never went inside that room.
So, goodbye to the corridors and rooms where lives were extinguished, and the spirits of many, many animals roamed. The news article says that the fire left only the outer walls of the building remaining.
The following relates my personal experience on the morning of July 27, 2008, with every facet I saw, heard, thought, and felt (written in the days following the shooting):"Annie Jr., the Summer Musical Theatre Workshop Production! A musical ... good ... that will re-energize me" and I feel a sense of excitement. I’ve been going through some personal reinvention recently and, you know how sometimes when you have a time of introspection, the process can seem to bog down; also I’d just handled a major mishap when my truck got contaminated gas and needed a huge repair. I usually turn to my own music as my comfort and meditation. I’m thinking: "I need a musical infusion. This will be good for me – this will be good! We have a lot of talent in our church family." I haven’t been to church in three weeks and today it is time.
It is July 27th and I am going to church today. I am wearing, for the first time, the new, green baby-doll style top my daughter gave me a week ago and a pair of carefully coordinated capri pants. I enter through the right side of the sanctuary (there are entry doors on both sides) as I have done every time I’ve ever attended TVUUC. I’m sitting on the very end seat of the first pew (as I always do); this seat gives me an easy exit if I feel claustrophobic or drink an extra cup of tea that morning and need to use the restroom; it guarantees me a hasty retreat, if need be. I’m always thinking of "if need be" in terms of almost anything. I’m working on that but I think it goes back to survival issues of my teens. This morning I again choose this seat. I feel fidgety. Moments later, for some inexplicable reason, I move back one row, to the seat directly behind my first choice. I soon hear the woman in back of me coughing, something I notice immediately as I'm wary about catching a cold. Well, all is well – I identify her cough as allergy-related ... so I don’t return to the front seat. I try to relax and settle in.
The sanctuary has filled completely...every seat appears to be occupied. I get out my writing pad, so I can make notes to send to my UUA-sponsored prison ministry prisoner pen-pal with whom I exchange letters, spiritual energy, and frivolous chit-chat. He’s a musician and he loves to talk about songs.
I always arrive at church and get seated a few minutes before most of the people populate the sanctuary. It gives me time to screw my head on, get on a spiritual plane, and glance around at the church that gives me so much. I’ve been missing minister Chris for months now (as he’s been on sabbatical); I’m sure everybody has been missing him, and I sit here and think about how wonderful it will be when he returns to the pulpit on August 10th. I feel good.
Greg is standing there a few feet away from me – an impressive-looking man, very large and with a friendly demeanor. He’s almost always standing there with his "order of service" church programs in hand, doling them out one by one as people enter his side of the sanctuary (there is another person doing the same thing on the opposite entranceway).
I can’t help but notice Greg’s beautiful shirt. Usually, I recall, he wears a plain, short-sleeved shirt. Today he has a handsome, festive dark green shirt (it looks sort of silky and flowing) with pictures of soda cans and food items on it (probably to be in party mode for the reception scheduled to take place right after the children’s performance.)
The congregation has heard the church announcements and Greg hands me the collection basket; I put my check in it and pass the basket to the next person in my row. The church is full but more people are straggling in now, looking for a place to sit. Greg hands each of them an order of service.
The actual play is about to begin and its introduction includes mention of several examples of the types of 1930s depression-days situations we will be seeing portrayed ... abandoned children, all kinds of extreme circumstances that we, in 2008, wouldn’t expect to occur. "OK, I think -- expect to see stuff about serious issues". I see parents with their cameras.
The actors march in through the door which is immediately to my left, walk past me and continue on to the front of the sanctuary. Their costumes and makeup are magnificent, perfect! This is no small potatoes production ... these kids really look and act professional. The characters of "Annie" begin to come to life! It is enthralling. I’m very glad I came to church this morning.
The kids do their first scene and song ... it is great! Now they’re doing their second song. Their stage presence is awesome. I do find myself wishing that the music sound track volume would be turned down a bit, as portions of the actors’ voices and words get drowned out by the music. Of course, in the sanctuary where the acoustics create a lot of reverb, perception of the sound quality depends on where you are sitting. Anyway, I’m concentrating on hearing the kids’ words and am sitting sort of twisted toward the right in order to get the best view of the performance.
Suddenly, a horrific bomb-like blast somewhere near and alongside me on the left blows out my hearing; my head is banging inside and has whistling, ringing sounds in it, then nothing. I lose momentary consciousness. "Ooh, here I am again and I’m staring straight ahead. My God ... Greg is on the floor in front of me. He’s lying too still". I'm scared and immobilized.
The play (or something) still seems to be going on, though I can’t really hear. I look to my right towards the performance area, but don’t see anything. Wait, there is a scuffle in front of the door immediately to my left. This is the door the kids had come through moments earlier. This is the door I always use to come and go. I see a man bending over Greg and touching him, then moving away. My head is ringing. Greg is really there. As a second blast takes place, I see a man with a gun and big streaks, like long orange tongues, shoot out about four or five feet in front of where I'm sitting, sort of semi-slumped in the pew. The noise of the 2nd blast accompanies a hard, concentrated feeling of blunt impact on my mid forehead, an inch or so above my eye (on that rounded part of the forehead bone). My head and ear are now majorly hurting and spinning and ringing. The loudness of the blasts is intensified by mics that are set up for the performance. "Please turn it off". My head and ears ache. This isn’t the play.
"What has become of Bill (my former guitar player who is the church’s sound engineer)? He's usually in what he calls "the cave", the sound room, located on one side of the rear of the sanctuary; that thought momentarily flashes across my mind.
My consciousness weaving, I remain immobilized and deafened, though struggling to focus. Suddenly, a male voice comes through loudly and clearly from somewhere that sounds like it's inside my head, "Get down! Get down!" At that moment, it seems weird to me that I am alive and able to move. There is a strong smell of gun powder. Around the time of the 3rd blast, I crouch behind the pew bench that's in front of me (remember I had moved from the original seat?) and make my way along the length of the sanctuary to that inviting sight – the wide open back door. I expect to feel another shot before I make it to the door. The rest of my pew which was jam-packed moments before, is completely empty ... no one is there. It is so weird and I'm really scared. I fly through the door and take a deep breath of the outdoor air; it is heavy, humid, smoggy, and hot, and I thankfully gulp it in! I climb up the grassy hillside toward the woods. I want to run into the woods and hide, but I see one man standing on the grassy hill and I go to him.
*********************************************************In retrospect: I spent the next two days in tearful, humble gratitude to those who protected me with their heroism; I’d been in very close proximity to the gunman. It is amazing that I am alive. A number of times, I pinched my arm to reassure myself that I was actually alive. I will be eternally grateful to Greg for giving me and others our initial chance to continue living, to the men of the congregation who subdued the gunman and further enabled me to escape, and to the mysterious male voice that told me to "get down" even when I couldn't hear.
My sincere gratitude, always, to the dear man who held me in his arms after I reached the grassy hill outside of the back door.
The source of my head pain was the middle of my forehead slightly to the left; the doctor said that it looked like pellets, "projectiles" had hit me and penetrated ... I had a red, bruised, diveted bump there and, when I could gingerly wash the area, the odd little markings of blood near my hairline washed off. The hospital staff did not lift the bangs of my hair to look at my forehead and, instead, concentrated on my ear and fragmented emotional state. While waiting in the hospital's treatment room, I overheard an EMT loudly and graphically announce to the nurses at the desk, the details of the victims' injuries that he had seen while transporting the two fatally- wounded people to another hospital. It made me even more upset to hear this and I was eager to get out of that emergency room and go home to heal myself. I did not want to be a victim. I absolutely did not want to be named as a victim. I wanted my wound to go away. Thankfully, my hearing returned within the second week and I was able to play my music. During subsequent months, the pellet fragments migrated to the soft tissue of my right sinus cavity and I had an eye hemorrhage that took a month to clear up. At that point, I had a C-T scan, which documented the reality of what had happened. I took earnest measures to heal myself.
The news of the shootings had been carried around the world and much love and support was shown to the TVUUC and Westside UUC congregations.
Dear Readers,
The chronicles of two happenings during the past week -- one that was disturbing and the other which occurred yesterday, horrific and life-altering -- beg to be told on my blog. And they will be told. But, for the moment, I must wait. As soon as the time is prudent and it feels appropriate, I will write about them on this blog.
In the meantime, I want to express my heartfelt love for my fellow congregants at TVUUC, my deepest condolences to the families of the fatally wounded; my prayers for all who were injured, all who survived, the beautiful children, and for all of us who witnessed and were touched forever by yesterday's tragic events. Spirit Of Life, come unto me ... and you.
Clara
Here in Knoxville, there are currently some major highway and interstate rebuilding and enlargement projects in-process. The idea is to accommodate more cars. Meanwhile, the secondary roads become worse each day with inadequately filled potholes, ditches that have been dug up for utilities and then roughly patched with tar ... in ridge, ditch, and divot fashion. At the same time, gasoline prices are soaring heavenward, though it feels far from being heavenly. Also, we’re painfully aware that the overpopulation of people and cars is wreaking havoc on our environment. Our lifestyles definitely seem poised for a big change. Has anyone besides me been wondering: Perhaps, should we be preparing many additional bike lanes instead?
My old road bike will be in the shop as of tomorrow to be made road-ready (see earlier post about antique bicycle). Between that and my soon-to-be tilled garden spot (see earlier post about "from the ground up"), it may be back to some exciting basics for me!
Panhandlers! No, I’m not referring to those valiant, dedicated hospital workers who handle the bedpan brigade. I don’t know if this is the case in other locales, but here in Knoxville, there are ever-increasing numbers of people who have taken the old-fashioned "Buddy, can you spare a dime" thing to several levels beyond.
A month or so ago, Metro Pulse had a good article about the "panhandlers" who pester people for money on the downtown streets. The article’s writer may not have been aware that scammers have strayed far from the downtown streets, as I’ve encountered them during the past 10 to 12 months in front of a north Knoxville post office, in the parking lot of an upscale store, in a restaurant parking lot in West Knoxville, and on at least six occasions knocking at the front door of my home or approaching me in my driveway. The door-to-door types ask for a specific amount of money ... $40 usually. They have scripted, very rehearsed and high drama stories ... their children are stuck "up on the highway" (the script almost always involves children), their car needs "a new alternator" or someone is "bringing a tire" to their stricken vehicle on the highway, so they can make it home to their children in some distant town. Tires and alternators are mentioned most often. In fact, there was a duo, last year, who I saw in various shopping center parking lots ... each time they had the hood of the car raised, a little "repair" light hanging there, and the man and woman both approached shoppers with their alternator story. I saw them over a period of about three months in several locations, doing the same thing.
The Metro Pulse article mentioned that some of the "panhandlers" get irate when a person refuses to give them money. Two of the people who approached me (both were women) gave surly responses when I didn’t give them money. Anyway, "panhandling" or whatever one would call this activity (at least here), has blossomed into scamming. I guess it pays well.
