MD, Dan Parker and Willie Nelson (click to enlarge)

I have a number of photographs that I would like to put up on this blog, but I can never figure out how to make them connect to a post.  I’ve decided to start a series of posts (here and there) with the photos at the top and the story behind the photos following.  This is the first.

As most of you know from one of my previous posts, I’m not much of a concert goer.  I hate the noise, I hate the people standing up in front of me, I hate the drunks, etc.  Well, I got a call a few days ago from Dan Parker, former track star at the University of Kentucky, and one of my regular golfing buddies (whom I regularly beat like a rented mule) asking me if I wanted to go to a Willie Nelson concert at the Santa Barbara Bowl.

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62 years ago Farrokh Bulsara was born in Zanzibar, an island off the east coast of Africa, which is now part of Tanzania, but was then a British colony. His parents were Parsis, citizens of India of Iranian origin and practitioners of the Zoroastrian religion. As young Farrokh played in the island sands and balmy breezes, it’s unlikely he would have foreseen the life ahead of him. It’s doubtful that he could have foreseen that his creations would move people attending athletic events in vast stadiums throughout the world to leap to their feet and chant. He probably didn’t even know there was a National Football League a world away in the United States, where his words would become a part of every game.

When he was of age to start his education, Farrokh’s parents sent him back to India, where he attended a boarding school near Bombay. There he didn’t particularly distinguish himself, but he did take piano lessons and formed a band that played at school functions. After completing his education in India, he moved back to Zanzibar to live with his parents. During the revolution in 1964, the Bulsara family fled Zanzibar for London, where Farrokh began his college education. After a few stops and starts, he ultimately obtained a degree in Art and Graphic Design from a small technical college.

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We finally made it home after the long, tedious drive from Napa. We have to make the same trip in a few days when we head up to Tahoe, and I can tell you that I’m not looking forward to it. We would have been there now except that MD has to sing in a performance of Mahler’s Third Symphony on August 16. Early on the morning of the 17th we’re out of here.

Years ago when our youngest son, Scott, was in kindergarten or the first grade, he came home from school in a huff. When we asked him what was wrong, he told us that he had had a very rude day. We thought the expression was hilarious, and it’s become part of our family lingo since. We don’t have bad days – we have rude days. And I’ve had a few rude days in a row that I feel compelled to tell everyone about.

It started last Thursday. I got a call on my cellphone from a Colorado area code. When I answered, it was a real good news/bad news call. Back in 2003 our house in Boulder was burglarized. The crooks went through every drawer, every closet, every everything. All our drawers were dumped, all the clothes in the closets were on the floor, and the house was trashed. We had all of our computers and electronic items (TVs, DVD players, stereo system, etc.) taken as well as a lot of artifacts we had collected over the years. They got a couple of guns that I had owned since I was a teenager and a bunch of casts of various hominid skulls that I had collected over the years. And they took my Gibson guitar (the best guitar I’ve ever had – it was custom made) and the 100 plus year-old, sweet-toned violin on which I had learned to play. All in all, they got about $75,000 worth of stuff, much of which was irreplaceable. The detectives from Boulder came out and fingerprinted everything and collected some cigarette butts from which they hoped to be able to extract DNA. But they told us that the testing would take forever because we were behind all the murders and rapes in the system. There was a lot of sturm and drang from the police for a bit, but in the end, no one was fingered for the crime.

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MD and I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season. I’ve figured out (with the help of my web guy) how to embed audio files. Below are some cuts of MD’s group performing Handel’s Messiah at the Santa Barbara Christmas program last year. I hope you enjoy the music as much as I do and as much as MD did performing it.

We’ll start with the first chorus of Part I.

And the glory of the Lord

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