Kinda Day, revisited :)

 Well okay then.

It's nearly Christmas, and I am a happy old dad with both of our children in my city of birth for a few days. Miranda, of course, lives in Brentwood and is blowing away her career in social work at her highly responsible position at the Sexual Assault Center in Nashville. Anytime we can get together and I can get a hug and look her in her beautiful eyes is a good time, but it's especially so when I can look over and up at her "little" brother, Colin. He's sleeping this morning in our guest room beneath my artist's studio here on the 2nd floor. It's only been a few days, but we are enjoying every moment we have with him. 

I'll get up before dawn's crack on Friday to get him out to the airport and on the way back to his life and home in Missoula, Montana, where he's 

1. going to school at the U of Montana, 
2. majoring in sound design and engineering,
3. working one part-time job at a food cart and 
4. starting another when he returns home, as production engineer for the college radio station, KBGA 89.9,
5. Producing and deejaying his own weekly show at Missoula Community Radio 101.5,
6. working with Daisy Chain Presents, a small group in a founder's position to bring a constant stream of live bands into Missoula venues,
7. playing music with other extraordinarily talented friends in 3 1/2 bands,
8. and producing music independently, writing and playing on bass and electric guitars

Here in Nashville, he's thoughtfully balancing his time with us with a slew of friends, some of whom are passing through our fair town enroute to other places these holiday weeks, side-tracking through here especially just to see him. Missoula is a long way away. He's visiting old and new Nashville haunts with these old friends and with new ones he's meeting. 

Anyway, I just wanted to pop in to share something kinda special. It's one of my songs we jammed on together in our living room a couple days ago. Present were Matt Mellon (yes, of Magic Metal Designs fame), my dear son-in-law Tim Buell (yes, of "You're Good, Get Better" podcast fame), the famous Colin Merrick, and moi, obscure songwriter, sometime blogger, and rogue painterly artist. 

Matt is an artful songwriter himself, and I am sad we didn't record some of his songs we did together. In fact, the only song we recorded, thanks to Tim's suggestion we do so and to Colin's iPhone on the coffee table, was one of mine. If you've listened to my "Songs for Alaska" album, long available on streaming platforms, you've heard it. I really liked this version, thanks in part to Matt's work on my acoustic/electric bass, Colin's on my SG Standard electric guitar, and to Tim's masterful drumming on his very cool Toca Percussion Kickboxx Suitcase Drum Set (thanks, Sweetwater!).

It's a one-take kinda thing, but boy-o-boy was it fun. It's a happy song and I'm proud of it, and of my dear dear friends and family. Matt's soliloquy at the beginning and our chatter added some real color to it. I totally agree with Matt's assessment at the very end. Thanks to my compadres for a fun-ass day at Chez Merrique. Listen to...

a weird pano

Kinda Day, by li'l ol' me

Everyone have a wonderful end of 2024 and stay well, safe, and sane in the upcoming dumpster fire year. Keep your head down, your heart up, and your creativity cookin'. 

Happy Holidays!

 Yeah, that. Happy Holidays. I agree with Instagram's Rodney D Norman: "...Just enjoy whatever you can, as long as you can." Well said, me guru...

Enjoy this:

Scott Merrick · Have a Very Scotty Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays One and All

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful respite from the daily grind as we near Christmas and celebrate all that the winter holiday season has to offer. We here in Nashville have been enjoying the increase in family time this week and are looking forward to my brother and his wife passing through this very evening on their way to Priscilla's family in Oak Ridge.

I want to invite everyone in the states to turn on their televisions tonight to watch "Christmas at Belmont," an annual event this year guest-hosted by Tricia Yearwood and broadcast nationally on NPT, our National Public Television. Check your local listings, and see more about the show at the NPT Media Update site and at the page dedicated to the event at Belmont University's website.

Miranda, our beautiful and talented daughter, performs with her Belmont Chorale, an audition only "select mixed ensemble of 52 voices that performs diverse literature from all genres."

Lee Ann and I were 'way in the back of the audience, but if the camera pans over us at all, you'll recognize us as the parents who are beaming the brightest. We're remarkably proud of our girl.

Whatever your religious affiliation, you'll have to admire and enjoy the intricate arrangements and flawless performances of these talented singers and musicians.

Cheers, and hold tight to your loved ones!

Scott

Happy Birthday Colin!

After a wild holiday break, visited by fire, flood, power outage due to falling trees, and illness-- blessed by visiting loved ones and their two golden retrievers who joined our own minor league menagerie of one big black dog and one odd little cat--we had a lovely on-demand (by the birthday boy) dinner last night. We started with a salad with baby leaf lettuce, goats' cheese, and apples. The main course was a lovely "from scratch" fettucini alfredo with chicken marsala and peas with baby onions. Miranda had spent the afternoon baking a wonderful Red Velvet sheet cake, and we added in some vanilla ice cream for dessert. Just before dessert, Colin opened his few presents, culminating in a little box wrapped up with earplugs. Thanks to friend Jon Elliot and his sweet wife Loren, Colin opened the box and found two tickets to the January ACDC concert January 31st at the Sommet Center here in Nashville. Yay!

I'm writing this on the Sunday night before we head back to school and work tomorrow. It's been a memorable break...

Fire? The resident in the Wessex Towers 507 left to take a friend to the airport and, by report, something fell over onto his stovetop, turning it on and igniting adjacent newspapers. The fire and smoke grew heavy enough to activate the new sprinkler system, which ran full-blast, emptying the pool into the building (Wessex Towers is at the top of one of the highest points in Nashville, and last summer an expensive sprinkler system, tied to the pool, was installed). The new system worked, but apparently no one knew how to turn it off. By the time my mother-in-law, who lives in 207, called, pleading for us to come up with all our towels and sheets to help stem the inch of water seeping from the ceiling into her condominium, soaking antique rugs and hardwood floors, the damage was irreversible--Flood. So much for the Christmas Eve dinner at their place!

The next day, Lee Ann and Amy were cooking for the relocated dinner, and Jim and I were wrappng presents in the basement garage, blasting ACDC's "Black Ice" out of my computer in my adjacent office. Suddenly the lights surged, flashed, and failed. I looked out the garage door windows and saw beautiful fireworks floating down to the ground from the sky.

A neighbor's dead tree had achieved ultimate unbalance in the equation of rotting root system, weight, soil erosion, and angle and had fallen down to the ground, smack across the street, taking with it power lines, cable lines, telephone lines, and all the power to the neighborhood. The fireworks were from the transformer at the end of our driveway, exploding with its 14,000 volts of energy.

Long story short, we ended up relocating to TGI Fridays for dinner. That was our choice partly because that's where my lovely Lee Ann and I met, oh, so many years ago, me slinging drinks and she waiting tables without a notepad. It was a good, well, okay dinner and we got home to candlelight present wrapping until the lights finally reignighted, thanks to the efforts of the Nashville Electric Service workers, hard at it on Christmas Eve, thanks to gravity, weather, and nature.

Christmas morning was wonderful, as our picture album will verify. Now we're off to the new year and I'm hoping for a nice few (relatively) uneventful weeks!



Oh! Read a great article in the Nashville Tennessean newspaper about the play that Colin's in, Shakeapeare's Richard III! It runs February 15 through February 1 at Belmont University's Troutt Theatre!