Gram Sings Me Back Home
But it makes me feel better,
Each time it begins,
Calling me home,
Hickory Wind.
Hickory Wind by Gram Parsons and Bob Buchanan.
Does a phone ring in an empty house with no one home to hear it? I’ll have to ask Gracie, our dog, and Mo and Starbright, the cats.
Monday is sign-up day around the hacienda for our Wednesday night’s Open Mic at the Garage. Bands call at 3:30, everybody else at 4. Once the phone starts ringing, it might not stop for awhile.
Only I was sitting in an Orlando airport at that time with Lenox and Bruce Chapman, our photographer, waiting for the 6 p.m. flight to Raleigh-Durham that had been pushed back to 6:35. The great fare we got on-line didn’t get us home until Monday, and the possibility that something might open up on Sunday didn’t materialize. But if you’re going to get stuck in a city, my vote goes for New Orleans. Flight home was smooth enough. I’ve got to have a book on a plane, and I had one I’m really enjoying, Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David. N. Meyer. I’m whipping through it. Gram has already left the Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers are falling apart, he’s spending way too much time with Keith Richards (great influence there) and he has yet to find Emmylou. I thought Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Gram Parsons by the one and only Ben Fong-Torres (Of Almost Famous Infamy) back in 1991 was a good book. But it’s magazine material compared to what Meyer has done. Best read I’ve had in some time.
Got home by 11, and checked my messages, and found a few. It’s going to be another star-studded Open Mic at the Garage, headlined by the Monte Dutton, the Pride of Clinton, S.C. Monte, who we’re going to waylay on his way to Martinsville to cover the race for NASCAR This Week, is another sportswriter convinced he’s the 21st Century’s answer to Hank Williams, and that makes at least two of us. We’ll both have another opportunity to prove otherwise come Wednesday.
Tomorrow I head over to Doc Martin Complex for spring football practice. Maybe I’ll even get there early enough to ask Jim Grobe a question or two. I’m looking forward to seeing him and what he’s got going on.
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By Dan Collins on 03/23/2010 (1:21 am)
Comments
So, picture me..in bed, reading the book on Gram Parsons that my fav sportswriter recommended in his blog; my much better half having commandeered the remote and locked in on some home improvement time waster. When lo & behold I see a grievous error that has to be recognized. The author tells of
Gram’s friendship with Brandon DeWilde, and goes on to tell of DeWilde’s roll in the movie “In Harm’s Way”, as John Wayne’s son. Hold it, I scream, that’s total B—-S—-!!DeWilde’s part was in Midway, as Charlton Heston’s son, you idiot! Of course I was wrong.That character was played by Edward Albert.
Quoting Emily Litella…Nevermind
CB Greenwood on 04/21/2010 (5:08 pm)
Dan, have a kind of human interest question for you now that Wake’s b-ball season is over. The kid from Belarus, Nikita, I have often wondered how a kid from Europe ends up in the US playing basketball.
What kind of journey brings them to the US and why the US. I know you have covered several foreign born players before and though you could shed some light. Thanks
jcg on 03/24/2010 (11:16 am)
Thomas, we’re looking forward to it as well. Email me at dcollins@wsjournal.com and we can get you up to speed on when and where to call for a time.
And as for the change of seasons, the hardest part for me is not having enough time to digest and reflect upon what I’ve spent the last five or six months covering before I’m immersed in other assignments. What saves me is that the two sports I turn to are spring football and baseball. It’s great going over to see Coach Grobe and his team and baseball is my first favorite sport from childhood. But yeah, changing gears can be tough.
Dan on 03/24/2010 (1:10 am)
Dan,
Looking forward to the day I can have a Wednesday night off to catch the Open Mic Night.
I have a question for you. When transitioning from sport to sport, is it hard for you to change your “mindset”, i.e. remember how to write baseball and football after focusing on basketball for five months? Do you notice this at all? It seems it could be difficult switching gears like that so quickly.
Also, what’s the criteria for getting on stage at the Garage?
Thomas on 03/23/2010 (8:28 pm)
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