December 2006

No, no Annie not you…

So I finally read The Graduate this weekend. I had stolen it from my parents house six or seven years ago but never got around to it.

Some of you may remember the song "Mrs. Robinson," which was inspired by the book. If you haven’t read it, here is how it goes.

Boy graduates from college.

An older woman (Mrs. R) makes an advance on him.

They have an affair lasting several months.

Boy takes out her daughter on a date.

Falls in love with her.

Goes crazy and stalks her for a bit.

Girl finds out about the relationship with her mom.

Girl falls in love with Boy.

The end.

It is scandalous enough and short enough to hold my attention though I don’t consider it a great work of fiction overall. I suppose it is another book everyone should read. I figured there were getting to be a lot of those on my list. I crossed it off.

Played Danny’s in KC last week. The show was highlighted by the conversation afterwards with Trevor Burgess. It has been since we opened for him last December at Bobby T’s since I had seen him. Well, techinically, it had been since Bob’s Diner that next morning but you get the idea. He is doing well down in Texas and playing a little. Hope to get him back to Kansas sometime soon with a guitar and a beer in his hands.

Had a nice Christmas last weekend back in my hometown. Lots of food, fun, and family is always cool.

My apologies to the Pear Tree Restaraunt in McPherson. The Goering clan got a little out of hand that night. I saw where I got my antics as my Dad and uncles got carried away. Damn Single Malt.

Happy New Year to you and yours. The ATB is looking forward to several shows already including a pair in Manhattan. Should be fun indeed. Make your resolutions the highest possible for your size of screen.

Till then,
G

Christmas is behind and the new year is on its way in. I’ve got no big plans for anything this year except playing music. I’m hoping for some big things from the ATB this year. We’ve finally booked Longhorn’s in Manhattan and that has me all ramped up. It should be a good show!
Guse, my other band just finished our demo. www.myspace.com/guserock or www.garageband.com/artist/guse if you would like to check out the tunes!

I’m looking to get into a house soon because I’m running out of space as my kit gets larger and my wife’s artistic endeavor grows. Bobbie had her first art show outside of artschool. It went really well, she sold ten pieces and made a good amount of money doing so. She is now working towards her show in February at the Lawrence Public Library. The show starts on the first, we are having a reception the first weekend in February, and runs until the 28th of February. Be sure to get your ass over here and take a peek, she’s done some really beautiful work for this show. Everyone is invited to the reception if you would like to come just contact me and I’ll give you the skinney.

I managed to pass both of my classes this semester with a B and an A. The B was in my spanish class so I don’t feel too bad about it. The good thing is I don’t have to take another spanish course ever.
No quiero tampoco!

Anyway, life is good in general and hopefully things will be good in 2007. Best wishes for the new year to everyone and we’ll hopefully see you soon!

MP

Christmas is here. I have just figured out what I am getting everyone and am on my way to the store to buy it.

Aaron said I had to update my blog today first. Here it is.

This week saw a new addition to the bass guitar family in my music room. A 1976 Fender Musicmaster was added to the stable. Too bad I can only play one guitar at a time because I am getting quite a collection. Speaking of, my old school, Beatles style bass is officially up for sale. You can check it out in some of the photos on this site; I played it at Hays and at Busters and never had any trouble with it. If I don’t hear from anyone anytime soon, it will go to the auction block. The only question is whether that will be ebay or purplebay???

We are looking forward to playing at Danny’s tomorrow! Hope to see you there. If not, have safe travel, good food, and great times with friends and family this holiday season.

till then,
g

We’re bringing the rock to Danny’s Bar and Grill in Lenexa tomorrow. I just got word that we’ll be playing the show with rockers Gunderson from St. Louis. I hope we’re not splitting the fuel bill. Check them out. It’ll be a nice, relaxing end-of-year show to get to play and then get to break and talk to everyone with whom we don’t usually get to converse for any length of time. We’re looking forward to it.

Also, recently booked is a show in Hays on 14 January. It’s the second of our quarterly Kansas Singer Songwriter series. The last one in Emporia was a resounding success, and I can’t wait. Note that it’s an early show so everyone can pack up and make it down to the Wade Bowen and Randy Rogers show that evening.

The next Bobby T’s show on 26 January will be a special one. Not only will it kick off the spring tour, but we’ll be joined by special guest Jennifer Pettersen, of http://www.myspace.com/jenniferpettersen fame. She’ll be starting about 9:00pm, so you’d better camp out at the gates before the bar opens to be sure to get a seat. Also, the ATB will be joined on guitar by Michael Kisner from the BYB. Do not miss this show.

Make it or break it.

Merry Hanukkah!

In a shocking moment this morning, I found out that I earned National Board Certification. As some of you loyal blog fans might remember, I procrastinated the writing process of this last Spring until just two weeks were left until the due date. At one point, I was up for 72 straight hours. I didn’t shower for four days. I didn’t leave the house for more. It was worth it; I passed.

What NB is essentially is ten items, four portfolios and six assessments, measuring various aspects of one’s ability to discuss and reflect on teaching. For the portfolios, I had to videotape myself teaching and reflect on that and wrote well over 70 pages. For the assessments, I had to answer questions in a testing environment about teaching high school English. Only 40 percent of the candidates that attempt the process pass it the first time.

What this means is that for the next ten years, I will be certified to teach anywhere in the country. If I were teaching at a public school, it would mean I would be making more money, as much as 30-50 thousand more over ten years. To find out more about National Board Certification for Teachers, visit their website.

Check out the downloads if you haven’t already. The new versions of the songs are neat. There is also a couple of files on there from a presentation I was apart of this past November.

Till then,
g

Call me nostalgic or just plain stuck in the past. Fine. But today, after nearly 17 months of intermittent searching, I found my class ring. It was in a safe place for when I moved to Manhattan, I was sure I didn’t want to lose it. I had hidden it in a safe place and promptly forgot where. It made me wonder why this thing was so important to me.

It isn’t the nicest ring; I remember others having rings with real diamonds. It isn’t flashy but not dull either. The surfaces are jagged, almost sharp, as if the makers knew the amount of pain one could inflict on the top of someone’s head with a turned-upside-down ring. Of course Adam and Wes could tell you all about the sharpness of my ring. When tears came I figured maybe it was better to leave the ring on for decoration rather than harassment.

There were a few people that borrowed my ring to wear at various points in high school. Fortunately, it didn’t end up in the bottom of the lake or a ditch like so many. The tradition of high school sweethearts exchanging rings is a bit of a mystery. It almost serves as a stamp of possession or warning–stay away. Who could forget the clumsy looking ring pads the girls used in order to wear the ring or the necklaces used by the boys?

Funny thing about choosing emblems to represent yourself for the rest of your life as a high school sophomore. I barely knew what day it was mostly. The name "Chris" appears on my ring even though my high school name had been cemented in granite by the time sophomore year reared its head. If I could have known that 75 percent of the people in my life still know me and refer to me as "G.," I could have saved some confusion.

The football emblems certainly represented a significant part of my life since choosing that on my ring. It makes one wonder though if I was really supposed to be a football player (later a coach) or whether I was just trying to live up to the expectations I set for myself. Is there a point where one part of life feeds another or should a ring be looked at only as a symbol of a certain point in time? A circular snapshot if you will?

Then again who actually wears their high school class ring after high school? They are out there. I am one of them again and have met many people both young and old still wearing their high school class rings. Why? Does it represent fond memories? I can think of several students in my own high school class that either never got rings or would have wanted to chuck them out the window at various points during and after high school. Is it a symbol of the past, a creation of the future, or just a ring?

Till then, g

Sick as a dog on Friday
All….day….long
Watched Team America
Made me wish I watched it when it came out
Like Andrew said, it is "glorious"

Saturday we went to Lawrence to see Bobbie’s art show
Very good. Lots of red.
Got a call on the way back from Mike
Ended up changing course for Concordia, Kansas
Played the Rock Quary with the Blaine Younger

A cop pulled me over as soon as we pulled out of the bar’s parking lot
He reminded me that my tag was expired by charging me with a misdemeanor.
He gave me a warning on the broken tag light, though
Believed me when I said that I actually had insurance though I couldn’t prove it
I think he was a pretty good guy, considering he could have taken me to jail on various things.

I put up some new downloads from our September Bobby T’s show
Check them out at http://www.aarontraffasband.com/download/