I've blogged on clouds from both sides now

Friday night was a first. I've reviewed some 150+ acts for The Birmingham News over the last few years, in every genre from rock to rap to uilleann pipes and bodhran-playing Irish legends the Chieftains. (The Chieftains, by the way, received just the fourth five-star rating I've ever given. The others were Alison Krauss and Union Station, one particularly excellent Drive-by Truckers concert, and Toby Keith. Yep, I said Toby Keith. I'm not going to run out and buy his collected works, but there wasn't a weak spot in the whole night. The man puts on a show.) The reason upper-class stuff hasn't been my bailiwick is that the News' fine arts critic Michael Huebner is the Tiger Woods of upper-class music, and I'm the Carl Spackler of same.

But for whatever reasons, I was asked to review Judy Collins' performance with the Alabama Symphony. While I don't think my review will go down in history as the "Pet Sounds" or "Citizen Kane" of reviewdom, I don't think I completely whiffed. Here's a link, if you're interested.

Collins isn't my cup of musical tea, especially "The Blizzard (The Colorado Song)," which isn't a song as much as it is a free-verse, rambling assemblage of words with some really pretty music playing around it. She could just as easily have made it "The Thesaurus (The Bunch of Words Song)." But I do have some history with her music. In the seventies, when I played trombone for the Samson High School Tiger Band, we played a version of Collins' "Send in the Clowns." (I know it was written by Sondheim, but here I'm giving credit to the person who made it famous, not the composer.) I'd never heard the lyrics, but the darn thing was pretty moving, and Mr. Bolich, the band director, had come up with an excellent arrangement of the song.

I'm deathly allergic to show tunes, so, except for an occasional brush with "Clowns" on a soft rock station (which somebody else was listening to!) or some such, I'd pretty much forgotten it until Friday night when Collins sang it. And boy, am I glad that I never learned the lyrics back when I was a grinning Beavis. For one thing, I think that even back then, I'd have viewed the lyrics as a little pretentious. I mean, it's not like it was "Play That Funky Music, White Boy" or "Chevy Van," or even the greatest song written for a Beach Boy's dead Irish Setter but thought by everybody to be about a girl, "Shannon" by Henry Gross.

But the main reason I'm glad I remained blissfully ignorant of the "Clowns" lyric is the line "Don't you love farce?" Not for one pico-second would that last word have remained "farce" in my juvenile brain. I know that, because not for one pico-second did it remain "farce" in my way-past-juvenile brain Friday night. "Farce" is just too close to "farts." It's comedy gold, and I'm sure that back in my teen years, "Don't you love farts?" would have become an enduring catchphrase. It might still become one. The chance to use "farts" would even have completely obliterated another rich vein of juvenile humor, the "Isn't it queer?" line.

Jacob went to Memphis this weekend to visit his Grandpa Hayes, so there's not a lot to tell on the critter front. However, I do have a picture of him that is the epitome of "Life is good"ness.

My kingdom to live 10 minutes that satisfied with life.

'Til Tuesday.