5/21/09 Nashville performers Jenni and Rory Partin really put on a really good show.  They alternated a half hour each and they have such different styles, it was really two great shows. Rory travels with an 18 piece band which he fronts and they travel all over.  He opened with two of his big band songs "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and "It Had To Be You".  He has a really great voice and even in our small coffee house with only a guitar accompanyment, pulled it off. He then sang a couple originals, one a sad song about the death of a partner and another about lost love.  His style is laid back, sincere, heartfelt, his originals are maybe a little dark, on the sad side, unrequited love.  He has a fantastic voice and a personable stage presence.  Jenni is completely opposite in that she is a high energy, upbeat performer (who looks a little like an animated Raggedy Ann doll) almost electric, very personable, big smile and a great voice. Her songs are fun, liKe "Silly Me" a song about a cat, "I Want to Fell Like Nothing Weighs Me Down". A lot of her songs are about simplifying life to its basics.  While she sings Rory is in the back with a tamborine and some other percussion background sounds which is really complementary to Jenni's vocals.  In their second sets their Christian roots peeked out in a really neat way.  Rory sang a beautful song with the words "I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I have found Jesus".  He did a neat song about Superman's girl friend marrying Lex Luther in the TV show Smallville, from Superman's vantage point. He did Brown Eyed girl, Dock of the Bay (this was fabulous, his voice ranged from baritone to falsetto, incredible) and closed with Georgia on My Mind (another great cover).  He even told a cool Cajun joke, its ok he's from LA.  Jenni second set had some great songs "I Am Winter" (you are my spring and summertime, without you I am winter), "I Want To Be Afraid". "Where Does My Heart Go" I think many if not most of her songs can be taken as love songs or spiritual love songs.  She closed with a beautiful song "Whats So Bad About Being Happy All The Time" (when nobody else is).  This song to me was her!  This was a great show, highly professional, wonderful talent, humor, serious, showly, laid back, purposeful... GREAT!  My only complaint was that I didn't have much of an audience, it was very disappointing to me to have talent like this come in and not many to hear it.  But they said they had a good time and would come back.  Lets hope.
 
5/19/09 Mrs Appel's 4th grade class came by to read their poetry from our stage.  This is always nice and the kids have a good time. They read original poetry from haiku to limericks and traditional. Some is heartflet, some really funny, all is good.
 
10/17/09 This was a first for us, we had a wedding at the store.  John MacIntosh (Johnny Mac to most of us) married April in a beautiful ceremony on our stage.  The place was packed. Johnny is a student at Wallace and ran a bible study for students called The Pit.  He really wanted to get married in the store and so did April when he brought her by, she is from Birmingham.  It was a lot of work getting the place ready but it was worth it.   We wish them well in their life together, they are a neat couple.
 
10/16/09 This is the Strawbery Festival in Cullman.  Cullman County at one time was the strawberry capitol of the US, but no longer.  However the Chamber of Commerce and others decided to commemorate that past with this Festival, hopefully an annual affair. There was an art show, antique show, car show, music, food, mule rides and more.  We had music all afternoon with various regular performers such as James Taylor, John Lott, Fred Roberts and David Brazeel.  That evening John Lott and I did a concert of old folk music and some originals.  It was great fun and we had a good crowd.  I intorduced my "Lowdown Colonoscophy Blues" and a song I got from a group called Blind Dog Mike and the Howlers, "Road Kill".  Good music all day.
 
10/15/09 Molly Knight, a Cullman native living in Nashville, called me to ask if she and her band could perform at the store. She wanted to kick off a tour of various coffee houses, churches, etc in Al in Cullman. Two of the members of her band are also from Cullman, Jacob Woods on drums and Tyler Wood on lead guitar. Dwane Bundi rounds out the band on mandolin. The Woods brothers had not played with Molly before and had only practiced a few times, but before the night was over they were all pretty tight. Molly started singing after she left Cullman to go to college and so many of her friends in the audience had not heard her sing before. We had a good crowd. molly is very personable has a nice easy stage presence, excellent voice and is a great songwriter. She bills herself as a Christian songwriter, but her songs are about life, and not "overtly" or "in your face" Christian like many. They are very insightfull songs, some personal, she has a great songwriting talent. One in particular "The wretched Heart of Man" she sings in a bluesy tone and is about Jesus from the point of view of the woman about to be stoned for being caught in adultry if you remember that story. It really was just a neat song done in a neat manner. "I am Yours Tonight" talks about her relationship with Jesus, another great song. As she said in the intro "I am all about Jesus" and it shows, but not in the offensive manner of many. Just a really good songriter with a good band singing her life. She closed with another one I really like "Let Your Kingdom Come". She only had enough material for an hour and so she did the whole set over again and it was as good, maybe better than the first time, since the band had really gelled. The audience loved it and they weren't all family. Molly Knight is an upcoming artist and we will be hearing more about her.
 
5/10/09 Coffee and Colors was tonight and Laura had a full house for her "Your Cafe" painting. I wasn't able to attend since I had entered the Relay For Life Mascot Maddness. This was the first annual relay event for local mascots of any kind: stores, schools, agencies, etc and I was asked to participate. I was, of course Berkeley Bob's mascot and came dressed as a cool bag of coffee. I had cut arm and neck holes in a Costa Rican Coffee bag, stuffed a pillow in front from my neck down and had on my hippie wig, headband and granny glasses. I used a real pretty coffee bag with a nice color picture of a cofee farm stenciled on the back and I wrote in "Peace Love Coffee" with "Berkeley Bob's" below it with a sharpie. There were 14 other mascots including my afternoon barrista, Katie, who represented her Mom's store "Its My Party and was dressed in a gorilla suit with heart boobs and a hula skirt. Lulu is the gorilla's name. Her Mom uses this costume for singing telgrams, birthday parties, retirements, etc, where she clowns around. I have seen her at a retirement party I attended, she is great. Anyway besides Katie and I were several HS mascots, the Chick Fil A cow, the Piggly Wiggly pig and more. Our first event was the beach ball relay where the mascots had to run 30-40 yards pick up a beach ball, run back and then run back again with the ball back to back between the mascot and a cancer survior volunteer. I was the oldest mascot there at 67, two may have been in their 40's and the rest young studs and studesses in their 20's. Somehow though me and my cancer surviver, not young either, managed to finish 4th and made it to the finals which was held when all the other events were finished. But I pulled a muscle in my leg sprinting to get the beach ball (an old college track injury from back when I was a stud?) I had to limp back to the finish line and Tifany had to run in the finals in my place my place. Then we had the "noodle" fight. Each mascot was equiped with a swimming pool noodle and had to use it as a sword with balloons tucked under each armpit and between the knees. The object was to us the limp noodle to knowck the balloons out from the other person. I was paired against Katie and after some hard pounding she won and actually she went on to the finals and almost got first place as she fought a great match with the West Point HS mascot. They went into overtime and he never did beat Katie she dropped her last balloon. The last event was the wheelbarrel race where someone had to push the wheelbarrow with the mascot in it about 30 yards I guess. Emily pushed me and we did good for the first half of the race until she got off balance and started veering off to the right and crashed into the bleachers and dumped me out. It was all a lot of fun and raised a good bit of money for the american Cancer society. Would I do it again next year...?
 
 
5/5/09 I wrote this on the way to a meeting in Birmingham. It is meant to be read aloud with much voice inflection:
While zapping thu the other day, I thought I heard Rush Limbaugh say
"Now Sarah Palin she's the Man, Only Republican who's got a Plan"
The Liberals hate here that's for sure...Soccer Mom's?... The girl next door?
So just who is it that thinks she's swell...The far white, right that knows her well?
Maybe so, but not all of them...Plenty think that she's too Fem
She speaks her mind now ain't that great ...She don't eat crumbs off no man's plate
She stole the show from John McClain... So she sure ain't no Plain Jane
Charisma, looks, smarts and fight... Maybe this time Rush is right.
 
I am a moderate Democrat who does not support the Bailout (thanks Rep Aderholt and Sen Shelby) and does support some of Obama's social agenda.
 
I went to Birmingham to attend the Alabama Invasive Plant Council's annual conference at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately most Alabamians are not aware of what is happening in our forests and waterways and even ag lands because of invasive plants. We are under serious attack and many of our native ecosystems or least our world class biodiversity is being destroyed. We could wake up one day and much of what we love about our beautiful state will be gone or changed drastically. The culprits are exotic invasive plants, some we all know about like kudzu but many are unknown to most of us like cogongrass which reached Cullman County last year and if not eradicated will become commonplace and we will have to live with the problems it creates. There are scores of them, most spreading in from Florida and Texas and so now south Alabama is at highest risk but they are steadily moving north. The worst here is privit, some call it the second kudzu but it will be much worse, and it is becoming well established in Cullman County and many of our streambanks and wild areas are being converted to unpenetrable privit hedges shading out many of our native species which could be lost forever. All these plants spread from cultivated area where they were grown as ornamentals for years and many still are. Privit for example has been here over 100 years and is just now explding beyond control. It will take a major commitment of manpowere and other resources to combat this threat and reclaim our forests, streams and ag land from these pests. Every Alabamian needs to educate themselves about this problem and help find and implement a solution. Google in the Alabama Invasive Plant Council (ALIPC) and check out their website. Get to know these invasives and help us to monitor their spread.
 
May 1 Redemption Row, a Birmingham based Christian band played this Friday. They were a young band, two college students, one sophomore HS playing base and a senior HS as manager. I wasn't sure what to expect, but their music was really good. They had a guitar, bass and drums and then reconfigured to guitar, bongo and jimbe. Good singing, songwriting and musicanship. Like most young bands they needed some work on their stage presence , they didn't introduce any of their songs and they had some originals that I would have like to have know the background: why did they write it for example. They need to let their great personalities blossom on stage. They brought a good crowd of young people from Birmingham with them, but few from Cullman showed up which was disappointing. i