Chilly Saturday Morning at Chez Merrique

Well well well. Early Saturday morning and I'll be taking out o' here in a couple hours to do deliveries for Tinwings, the glorious gourmet grab-and-go market conceived and made golden by my lovely wife. I'm the back-up delivery guy, and her former delivery person is herself taking off for a 3 month chef gig in Greenland (!) tomorrow. It'll be fine, and the sky is blue and though it's chilly outside again I do love to drive all over my hometown and leave amazing, delicious food fare on doorsteps of some of the hundreds of clients who partake of her scrumptiousness regularly.

Tinwings in The Nations Nashville

We went to a live performance in the tiny Basement venue Thursday, to see and hear a solo performance by Tommy Prine, and we were treated to one song featuring guest star Amanda Shires. What a treat, the whole thing. Tommy's first LP will release in late June and we were lucky to have heard many of its songs. I'll tell you this: Tommy has inherited his father's gift for storytelling with metaphore, irony, and humor, but he has already proven that he has his own distinct voice, and it's beautiful and I am now a hardcore fan. I taught him every week for years in my University School of Nashville computer lab and I am so proud of hisgrownupself. As we were leaving after he said, "Mr. Merrick, thank you for coming," and I responded, "Ha, you can call me Scott." Made me smile. And I did say hi to Amanda just before leaving, introducing her to my honey. Amanda sometimes comes by to work in Charles's open studio class and she is, besides being a powerhouse superstar musician and singer, a hugely talented painter. She is also one of the nicest human beings it has been my pleasure to meet.

I'm currently working on a couple paintings, and I made good progress on my 16x20 painting of my best pal Watson last week. Charles Brindley's painting class at Scarritt Bennett Center has been on break for a few weeks and starts up next week, so Wednesday I took the hour or so at his invitation I drove up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky and spent a few hours painting under his supervision/tutelage. I got home with this improved version of mah boy (note that some of what you see is visual "notes" for me to revise, but I'm increasingly happier with it):

"Watson", in progress

And Charles gave me some great ideas for directions I can pursue on this abstract, which I am thinking will be dubbed "metronome":

"metronome", in progress

Lastly, for now, I've been doing some recording, and this one below kinda fun, I think. I'm not happy with my melody line yet, or the recording quality (Audacity with a USB mic on my Dell All-in-One computer) but I'm confident it will get there. Here's the lyrics I'm working with. Can you envision a melody for it? I may just keep what I've got and enhance it with other instruments but I'm open to hear a rough recording. Post it here in a comment...

Goin' Somewhere

by Scott Merrick

We're walking in the morning
Breathing in the freshest air
We're walking in the morning
Looking 'round to see what's there
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
It's all of life we're livin'
We laugh we cry we don't give up
Whatever we are given
Reachin' out to scoop it up
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
Somewhere a baby cries
Somewhere a lover sighs
Somewhere laughter
Somewhere tears
Somewhere a song begins
Somewhere a train comes in
Somewhere hope
Somewhere good cheer.
BRIDGE
Somewhere the darkest night
Somewhere the sun is bright
Somewhere you're home
Somewhere it's time
Somewhere friends arrive
Somewhere no compromise
Somewhere alone
Somewhere just fine.
 We're sitting on the back porch
Talking out the day's events
We're sitting on the back porch
Wonderin' where the weekend went
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.

That's it for this morning. Gonna feed Watson, toss on some warm layers, and drive around Nashville.

Happy Birthday to my magical godson, Seamus. I miss y'all but we'll be gettin' out your way someday soon

Why?

 Well, I don't know.

I just know the arrival of each day is the opportunity to discover how one's being at any moment is important. I'm working on a song, a painting, and a...what? There have to be three things, don't there? 

What's the third thing?

The song is this (dashed parts are phrasings I need to remember):

If-I-had a timemachine clock

that ticked while it tocked

I don't think I'd turn back its hands

I many not have had

as much as I want

but believe it's bout all I can stand

Ahhhh, retirement

Stayin' alive 

is the sole requirement

I did my time walkin' the line

and now that it's mine

I play all the time

It's warmed up to freezing

which has me believing

that I may go outside today

I got nothing to do

but write this for you

to sing what I have to say

Although you may not hear it

or come anywhere near it

I'll quietly sing it and play

You-may-not-be around

to hear the sound

but that goddamn tree fell anyway

instrumental break 

Ahhhh, retirement

Stayin' alive 

is the sole requirement

I did my time walkin' the line

and now that it's mine

I play all the time

instrumental break

I will put on my hat

my coat and my gloves

and take my dog out for a walk

it may sound lame 

but just the same

sometimes I wish he could talk

Scheduliberation

the ultimate vacation

I did my time walking those lines

and now that it's mine

I play all the time...

The current painting is of my friend and brother Matt Melon, he of Magic Metal Designs fame, from a photo I took of him working while my friend and brother, Rocky Alvey, and I sat watching Columbo reruns on Matt's laptop, smoking cigars, and drinking bourbon in his makeshift workshop in East Nashville on a  cold November day. Matt is welding and well, I guess I just love the photo image and wanted it to be (more or less) immortalized in acrylics on canvas, as if my painting it would do that. When I finish it I want it to live on the wall of the big shop he's building outside of Lyles, TN. I'm still working on it:

The third thing is you. I don't thank you enough. I don't tell you I love you enough. I need to work harder to do both of those things. Thank you. I love you. If I didn't have a mental image of you I would not be able to do this. I do. Maybe I should paint that. Maybe it's too vast to reproduce, or maybe too miniscule.

The too too busy blues

It seems like all of my infrequent posts lately start with some apology in the order of "It's been a while..."

Yes, I'm busy. No, I'm not going to whine about it. Here's a list of what is keeping me busy:

• My lovely honey's business, no longer really "new business," but evolving in its first year of eloquently pink-awninged storefront into something even bigger and better than we imagined.
• My school's growth, from 7-12 to 5-12, from 700 part-timers to 1700, holding its own with 150 full-timers and my taking on Middle School online teaching responsibilities coupled with ongoing teacher, student, and tech support ones.
• The Last Downsize, gearing up to close in two weeks on our home of 10 years and then on a brand new "tall and skinny" home in The Nations. The consequent move in three weeks. Inspections, repairs, research, packing, planning, and, and, and...
• ISTE volunteer work, including serving as VP for both the Online Learning Network and the Virtual Environments Network. Social Media contribution, including support for Bernie Sanders, Tinwings, MNPSVS, ISTE VEN, ISTE OLN, Bad Ladies, Room in the Inn (all voluntary, only two of them official (guess which two).
• Acting as primary caregiver for two large dogs and a senile cat.
• Fishing. Got to get out to Marrowbone Lake this weekend to reel in some of the trout they stocked there this very day.
• Writing some memories from an eclectic and very lucky life. Stay tuned. Release may be posthumous so I'm hoping you'll stay tuned for a (very) long time. I'm writing it ficitionally third person, but you'll likely know the protagonist.
• Everyday living.

Here's a list of what I'm most proud of:

• My wife--she's working her fingers to the bone (what do you get? Bony Fingers) in a fresh, healthy, catering concept that I believe is as much a public service as it is a business. See http://tinwings.com.
• My daughter and my son--she's moved from a closed-minded but well-doing non-profit serving women who have been abused or otherwise need help to an open-minded non-profit serving the homeless, one whose design has been copied by 24 major US cities because, guess what? It works. He's working a day job and compiling, day after day, night after night, brilliant song lyrics and arrangements to serve up with his band (and on his own) for music lovers for years to come. Listen to this cut from their EP, written, sung, and lead and rhythm guitaring by Colin. Play it loud.
• My school. We are working apace, slowly growing and already a model in our own right.

Here's what I'm ashamed of:

• Senseless gun violence on at least a weekly basis around our country. "They" want us to feel in our souls the hopelessness of random, senseless mortal violence. "We" brought if not all at least a good deal of it to their Middle Eastern countries over the past decades and they are hopeless with their only ambition to spread that hopelessness around. Have you been to a movie lately? Have you found yourself looking around, checking for suspicious characters and wondering what you would do if that solo guy in the first row pulled out a weapon and started shooting? If so, they have won. Confession: They have won with me. Aside: Did you know that Americans bought more guns on Black Friday than would arm the entire Marine Corps? That doesn't count the ones already in the streets and in homes and in cars and carried openly. See http://truthuncensored.net/americans-bought-enough-guns-on-black-friday-to-arm-the-marine-corps/#sthash.1I0yyFoB.Qnw9hARt.dpbs
• The Republican "Clown Car." Why do these guys get to spew hatred, fear, and stupidity and how do they garner any size audience to applaud that? Because it's a free country, that's why--though if they get their way(s) it will become even less so.

Here's what I wish for you as we move ineluctably to 2016:

(Another aside. I can't help it. Every time I hear "ineluctably" I fondly remember leaving my now grown son's room when I'd finished reading to him, or walking by his room to hear his little voice say "See you in the morning," to which I would invariably respond, quietly and meaning it, "Ineluctably."

• That you and yours remain safe
• That you register to vote (if you've read this far without clicking away in reactionary, brain-pressurewashed disgust it will make a positive difference)
• That you make sure every young person of voting age in your sphere is registered to vote and promises to--young people by and large see through the hatred and fear and can imagine something better, not worse for our nation
• That you vote every chance you can. Otherwise you are handing your essential right over and we will get what we collectively deserve
• That you hold close and are held closely by those you love and those who love you

Time is money and money is time and we ain't got all day. Let's make the most of it, shall we? I'm done for now.