Mint Condition at the Dallas House of Blues
April 5, 2012
By Melody Charles

read more

More than a few CDs have come across my desk, and honestly, when I see the title of a great old song, I always groan a little bit in preparation, and generally the groans are warranted. On Breathe Shannon tackles “I Can’t Make You Love Me” from Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 Luck of the Draw album and does a great job staying true, but at the same time, bringing her own style to it, and making it very enjoyable. So if this were a fight, she would definitely take that round. The fact is, I’ve had a few opportunities to chat with Shannon, and I find her delightful. Not only does she sing like a dream, but she’s incredibly friendly, and we’ve had a few goofy laughs along the way.

I’m guessing that most people are the same way as I am about a new album, and pick a favorite right off the bat, then end up with another fave or three somewhere down the line, after traditional radio murders a good song with incessant plays. At present I’m drawn to “The Little Things” quite a bit. I’m just going to leave my assessment at that for the moment. I see no point in dissecting and over-thinking a song that I really enjoy. As I write, the title track “Breathe” is playing, and I’ve been playing this particular track for months, have played it in more than a couple of sets, and it really feels like an old friend from long ago. “Brighter Day” also gets a nod. I already have this one pulled aside for an upcoming set.

One thing is for sure, Shannon Paige has qualities that make her a perfect fit for Black Sheep Soul. She’s proving once again that Soul comes in many styles and flavors, and those that possess it can’t help themselves from sharing, and for that I am grateful. As long as she keeps putting out sweet tunes like this, she’ll have a home in our rotation for a long, long time. I strongly suggest that you give this CD a spin, and I’ll provide a link for you to preview some tracks and make a purchase.

Cheers! SJ~

Breathe available on Amazon


CRAWFISH SEASON IS FINALLY HERE!!
…BUT ONLY FOR A SHORT WHILE.
WE PUT TOGETHER A DAY OF CRAWFISH & BLUES
FOR ALL MUSIC FANS AND CRAWFISH FANS IN DALLAS!

CRAWDAD’S DALLAS – #1 BEST SELLING CRAWFISH,HOUSE OF BLUES DALLAS & HOB UNDERGROUND CAME TOGETHER TO HOST ONE OF THE BIGGEST CRAWFISH BOILS EVER SEEN IN DALLAS ON SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2011 BEFORE FAT TUESDAY!
IT’S MARDI GRAS SO GATHER YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND COME GET SOME OF THE BEST COOKING YOU’LL EVER EAT!

$30 GETS YOU:

ONE DAY PASS FOR ALL-U-CAN-EAT CRAWFISH
GREAT BEER SPECIALS
RAFFLE TICKET GIVEAWAYS

LIVE ENTERTAINMENT SPONSORED BY HOB UNDERGROUND:

JAY-B & THE ZYDECO POSSE

ZAC HARMON BAND (BEST NEW BLUES ARTIST – XM RADIO)

THE ZYDECO STINGRAYS

SECOND LINE DANCERS

****GET THERE EARLY TO GET SEATS FOR THE SHOW
AND FOR ALL YOU CAN EAT CRAWFISH!!

ORDER YOUR TICKETS NOW!
“FAT SUNDAY” ALL YOU CAN EAT CRAWFISH & BLUES FESTIVAL 2011!

“Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!”

My first live set on REMIX, at www.remixbroadcasting.com

But you know what? That isn’t what it said. It was a very nice letter that simply said they wanted my updated information, in the event they needed to contact me in the future. Any idea of how many things I have to do that I’ve put off? I have a stack of mail, some opened, and some not. To-Do Lists? A stack. Oh, I write the lists. I fully intend to DO the things on the lists. I may be the only guy on the planet that will admit to actually having a stack of To-Do Lists. That being said, I dropped everything that I was doing, and believe it or not, put off not doing a few other things (I’m certain they will end up on a list) to jump right on this update project. The web address directed me to http://www.marrow.org/JOIN/index.html or actually the update page, and I feverishly filled out the required information, because somebody could be waiting to contact me right now!!

Do I look forward to the six hairy armed men holding me down, while folks drill my freakin’ spine? Not really, but how cool would that be? Seriously, think about it. People live their entire lives without ever making a difference, or doing anything truly important. What if laying in a hospital bed full of Morphine helped save a little girl’s life? How about saving a little old man? A firefighter, Kindergarten teacher, a guy with only one shoe? Any idea how sexy the scar would be? I can see it now… “Oh my, were you shot? That’s sooo sexy.” “Naw, I gave bone marrow to a little old lady. You know those cat ladies that have like a billion cats? One needed my bone marrow to stay alive, so you know… I did it for the cats. You know how I like a kitten.” We’re talking some serious sex after the first scar sighting.

So how did I come to be a donor candidate anyway you ask? As hard as is is to believe, it came from me being an asshole one night. Yeah, there may have been alcohol involved too. It’s a little foggy, but it goes something like this: I saw an article about becoming a donor in the newspaper years ago. The clipping laid on my desk long enough to turn yellow (It was underneath a pile of To-Do Lists, undoubtedly).  Some friend is bitching about some social bullshit one night, and my response was “Oh yeah? When was the last time you actually got off your pimply ass and did something for somebody else?” OK, when you say something like that with women around, you had better be digging deep to pull something out of your bag of tricks, or folks will actually hear that speeding crashing airplane sound, as you back peddle to save your ignorant, no more sex getting ass (wow, that illustration went horribly wrong), as the music stops, and the party goes from full tilt boogie, to dead silence, as people look in your direction for the Hail Mary save. Well, as you may have guessd by now, I made the catch, won the game for the home town favorites, and lived to party another day.

I know, I know… You’re wondering why a newspaper clipping would lay on my desk so long, right? I mean, how long does it take to decide to do the right thing? Signing up for a bone marrow thing can’t possible take much time, so why the clipping yellowing delay? Well, as soon as I tore out the little article from the paper, I called to tell them that I’d be on my way down on my next day off. I was absolutely shocked to find out that they wouldn’t be there that day, that they only did screenings one day a month. This is Dallas, Texas, people. A big-assed city. The pickings are so slim, that only one day a month, do people trickle in to donate a speck of blood, to sign up for the donor program. So I wait. I wait until some big mouthed idiot-boy makes a scene at the annual Halloween party, and challenge the folks at the party to man up, and follow me down to the donor center the next week, and give a little time and blood to save the cat lady, the soldier, and the homeless guy who digs for cans in the local dumpster. Hell, they all need saving, so instead of standing around with our Bud Lights, Shiner Bocks and sissy drinks with the umbrellas, and bullshitting about social injustice, we piled in a car on November sixth, 1996, and spread a little love.

Any idea how freaking cool that was? We did it. We didn’t talk about it and say how neat it may be to have the chance to save a life, but went down, rolled up our sleeves, squeezed the little rubber ball, drank their juice and made a commitment, that if we were called upon, we’re there. That’s life changing. You may wake up ten years from now and face having your power cut off because you’re broke, but how much better would that day look, if you could think back to the time that you invested a bit of yourself to save that 9 year old Puerto Rican kid with Leukemia? Awesome, huh?

So you’re thinking that we donated a little blood, shook hands and went our separate ways? Oh Hell no. We drove down to Monica’s in Deep Ellum and had lunch and Margaritas. Then… Well, we headed over to Two Rows brew pub on Greenville Avenue for a pint or three. Any idea how buzzed one can get on a few pints, when you’re running a pint low? Mark that day on the calendar. It’s the anniversary of the last time I lost a vehicle during a bar outing. Man, there was no way I was going to be doing any driving after that. Thankfully, we had a plan, and stuck to it, so nobody had to lose a life while we were out trying to save a few.

So here’s the deal. I’m just a big old loud mouthed guy, who rants, bitches and moans about stuff on a regular basis. Someday, we’ll be at a party together, and the bone marrow story is bound to come up. All of the elements are there: Booze, party, loud mouthed jerks, bragging, drunkeness, and so on. So when I start my rant about going down to sign up, you can simply interject with “Yeah, signed up last month” shut me down, and shut me up. I mean shit… It’s worth half an afternoon and a little blood, just to have that ace in your pocket, right?

Meanwhile, I’ll sit with my pile of To-Do Lists, waiting on the hairy armed men to show up and drag me off to the hospital someday. I’m a little anxious to see how the phone call goes. You know the one I mean. “Yeah Baby, about the Isley Brothers concert. I can’t go. You can have the tickets and take your cousin. I know. Yes, I recall. I kno… OK, I know. Look, I have to go down to Parkland and spend a little time  to save this little old man. He needs me pretty bad.” The pain of that ass kicking will make the donation part look like a picnic. But after it’s all said and done, I’ll have that sexy scar. I can’t wait.

Sadly, this is on my bathroom mirror

I was driving home from work today, and cruised by my old street from seven years ago. I waved at my old business partner, who coincidentally moved there at the same time I moved away. Curious timing, I always thought. He was outside, and we waved. Other neighbors waved too. Probably people that I had met a time or three, but failed to mentally register. Odds are good that they had toddlers, or children. By children, I mean kids too young to rake my leaves, or otherwise be useful to me.

I didn’t realize it until I was past his house, that I was pimp-slumped in the driver’s seat of my classic Volvo station wagon, Azule, with The Gap Band’s “You Dropped a Bomb on Me” pouring out of the sunroof and two open windows. Actually, I didn’t even know that I was driving by. At the time, I was of the opinion that I was looking for a parking space. The “little voice” however, was screaming “Abort!, Abort!, no evidence of beer here.” It wasn’t until I was at the stop sign a block down, that I was even apprised of the situation (you know, mentally).

I hang a left, head home, now that I’ve safely avoided the bumps in the road on my own street, and hurt the feelings of countless neighbors along the way. That pang of guilt passes in a couple of hundred feet, when I realize that I’m about out of “buffer beer.” Buffer beer in this case, is Shiner Bock. Some of the beers that I drink, are so damed good, that I have to have a slightly heavier beer to consume, to throw on the brakes, for little tasks, such as cooking, eating, and communicating semi-intelligently with women.

“No problemo,” I’m thinking. I’ll buzz down to the liquor store across from the lake, and grab a six of Shiner, and be on my way. Gas, time, effort… Hell, as long as I’m driving down that way, I may as well grab some Shiner Black Lager too, right? I mean, I got my “Stimulus” direct deposit yesterday. Certainly I’m not so much a trailblazer that I’m the first one to debit a case of beer from the government teet, nor will I be the last.

I don’t shop, I buy. Doing simple beer math, I figure that since I’m now allowing George to stimulate my personal economy with a twelve pack of Shiner Bock, I need two more sixes (wink) to make a case. I quickly round out my case with a six of Shiner Black Lager, and the no-brainer of Fat Tire. Bam! I have a case of extreemly drinkable beer, to compliment whatever dregs of a case of Dos Equis that I have left from “Tower of Power” weekend, which rocked by the way.

Who’s old enough (everybody reading this, I hope) to remember “government cheese?” My country’s “Economic Stimulus Program” just bought me a case of thirty dollar beer, a twelve year old bottle of single malt, Aberlour scotch, and a couple of Cohiba cigars. Sure, that hundred bucks ($88) would have gone long way to massaging Azule’s fragile ego. And quite frankly, she needs it right now.

The thing is… sometimes making a few minutes of happiness for yourself, like I’m doing right now, blowing off a little steam, drinking a nice, cold brew, smoking a decent cigar, grilling some fajitas, knowing that I’ll savor a glass of single malt when I’m done, means more than the new radiator that I know I’ll ineveitably purchase for Azule in the coming days.

I fear the new presidential administration, although I can’t guess who they will be. I don’t recall a president ever doing things the way I would have. On the other hand, I don’t ever recall a president buying me a bottle of single malt either. Had I been a betting man eight years ago, I would have bet my money on coke. But that’s just me.

My very good pal Wally even tried in vain to educate me. He bought me my first cutter, would bring me a handful of good smokes when he would come through town for the reggae fests, or pop in for a holiday visit. I smoked them. They were OK. They just never grabbed me. I guess I wasn’t really paying attention, I don’t know. I think I saved the bands off of them somewhere. I sure hope so. I’d love to know now what nice smokes I’ve pissed away, not caring.

I honestly think “the cigar thing” can be traced back to my neighbor JT. Like most folks, my next door neighbor is an attorney/race car driver. What seperates this cat from the flock, if cats did indeed flock, is that he’s not likely to mention either occupation in casual conversation. That’s what makes cool guys cool. I’ll never understand the braggarts and bullshitters, but that’s another story (or three). JT called me one night and asked if I could do him a favor on my way home. No prob, I said. When I got to his house, he thanked me with a nice cigar. I passed, or at least tried to, but he said “Hey, take it home and put it in your humidor.”

Done deal, I took it home. It’s an odd thing, at least to me, that after twenty-five years in the antique biz, and the umpteen humidors that I owned, that I never took one home, or really had any idea what to do with one. Common sense tells me that one puts cigars in a humidor, but come to find out, there’s more to it than that. The fact is, I never personally owned one. The fact that JT told me to “Put it in my humidor” put a bug in my ear, a bee in my bonnet, and an urge to purchase something that I had owned many times before and never utilized.

Oh, I bought the humidor. I just had no idea that one would have to romance a humidor to make it work. I didn’t realize that I’d just embarked on a new career to make this burled bad boy do it’s stuff. I didn’t know that I’d have to coax, conjole, love and dispise the box from Hell to light up a decent stogie in the comfort of my favorite office chair. To condense my feelings; “What a pain in the ass.”

First off, the shipping was delayed by a train derailment not far from here, so it took days longer to arrive. I had already purchased a sizable amount of butts, so I watched in horror, as they suffocated in little bags on my dining table. Now those that know me best probably don’t ever recall seeing a dining table at the casa, but believe me, it’s there. Right in the dining room/photography/mail pile/DVD area. I thought the thing was being shipped with the activator solution stuff that makes it work, but it wasn’t in the box. This meant that I’d have to {cue scary music} go to the mall. I hate the mall. Malls make me itch. It ended up that the trip wasn’t so bad. I accidentally got to the right place in the fewest amount of steps possible. Devine intervention, I’m thinking. God loves the idea of me having a fine, hand rolled smoke so much, that he took the queasyness, vertigo, and pedestrian tedium out of the excursion for me. What a guy!

I bring this overpriced crap home. It’s essentually water. Distilled water. It’s maybe marginally better than the “special” water we buy ourselves at 7-11. Maybe. I read the instructions a few times, find a new sponge, then liberally wipe down the interior of this box. Technically, it isn’t a humidor yet, because it’s drier than twelve year old dust. Again, being an antique furniture guy forever and a half, I knows me some fine wood, and although the interior is Spanish cedar, I’d bet my best friend’s left nut that this thing never saw the business side of a sheet of sandpaper. In fact, it felt like some sixty grit. I just want to get this thing going. I have cigars going to Hell in the dining/photography/mail/DVD place AND I had God’s own, personal blessing for the mall trip. How can this be going so horribly wrong?

I decide that it’s the right time to do the right thing. I’m starting over. I’m going to get a paint brush, dust the three days worth of sponge sandings from the interior of what now is a damp, non-humidity emitting box, Google the internet again for the step by step instructions on how to test and regulate a hygrometer, and hit the interior with some loving hundred grit paper, re-dust, re-wet, and re-wait. The hygrometer thingy sounds promising, as it’s main tools are a baggie, a shot glass, and some salt. I’ve managed to wring some fun out of an evening with a similar compliment a time or three. Trust me, interesting (once), yes. Do I want to do it again? No. Will I at least three times in the next five years? I’d bet a box of Cohibas on it.

I finally got this bad boy cured, regulated and loaded (heh). A couple of days later, I came home from work, and was jazzed about somethin’, don’t know what. It actually could have been that I beat the sun for once. I was home during daylight. I had the slightest tickle in my throat, but a scotch and a stogie would smoothe that over, right? Probably not. First, I’ve never has “a” scotch in my life, and the cigar didn’t help my “tickle.” I was sick for three weeks. I think that in the last four or five weeks, I’ve had maybe two cigars. One of those, I’m having now. It’s a Madura Fonseca with a smallish ring gauge. I’ve had one before, and really liked it. I think it’s maybe one that I decribed to the cigar store guy, who recommended my favorites to me, the La Aroma De Cuba. I may go buy a handfull tomorrow.