A Brighter Day: Hopes for 2007

Here at home with the family this New Year's Eve. We're spending a very lazy and quiet evening at home, and it's wonderful.

Honestly, these days any evening we all get at home together is wonderful. And we've actually spent much of this holiday being homebodies...as we were at Thanksgiving too.

Longtime friends/readers will note the absence of a virtual Christmas card this year. We started a rough draft about two weeks ago, but just couldn't get it done. Probably not a bad thing to give it a year off anyway. And, if you read back through my blog, you'll probably be able to get the highlights of the year there.

So, tonight we say goodbye to 2006. And, as with the Christmas letter, I can't find the energy to write some long recap for the year.

It did seem to me that there were a surprising number of depressing stories out in the world this year. There were a few notable exceptions, of course.

Right after New Year's last year, my Longhorns became national champions. And, I will remind you, they will remain champions for the next seven days, and approximately 23 hours...but who's counting.


The Mavs made it to the NBA Finals, and that was a very cool thing. My blog on the "Phantom Fouls" became semi-viral for a few days, but it's all but passed now. I am still amazed, however, at the number of folks who still watch/comment on the YouTube videos each month.

The year was marked by a surprising number of governmental resignations:
Mark Foley, Tom Delay, Duke Cunningham, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Ney, and hosts of others.

Democrats, as you know, swept into the US House in national politics, and the courthouse in the local scene.

This year included the largest single-day protest in not only Dallas history, but TEXAS history, with the incredible MegaMarch of Palm Sunday. As I blogged about at the time, I believe this was a seminal event for Dallas and for our area. And when our history is written years from now, we may look back at it as the single most important local news story. But while half a million marched on that day, a suburban city council passed restrictions on undocumented workers in their town too.

We actually found out this year that spinach can sometimes be bad for you, during an unusual E Coli scare this summer. (who knew?)

There was a horrifying school shooting in Lancaster County, PA, and an moving and inspiring response of love and forgiveness from the families of the victims. Taught us all a little about what Christians ought to do all the time, but what is still a very rare response, indeed.

But the AP tells us the top story of the year was the Iraq War. (Hurricane Katrina got that honor last year, but the Iraq War has, sadly, made a comeback...)

More than 25,000 Americans have been killed or wounded there, including more than 800 killed this year. And now, just this afternoon, comes word that the 3,000th American has died there: a young, 22-year-old Texan. Some analysts now call the situation there "Civil War."

Gerald Ford died, and died just this past week. Ann Richards died this year. (And I never did blog about her, even though I intended to...) And so did Lloyd Benson and Coretta Scott King. As I noted elsewhere, Buck O'Neil died, and so did James Brown.

Saddam Hussein was executed two days ago. Seems like a mostly empty gesture these days, given how the war is going. Seems like a sad gesture, given my own opposition to capital punishment.

All in all, a pretty depressing year for the world of world news. As with last year, probably a year a lot of folks are pleased to this year go. Perhaps in a time of war, we're more glad to see a year end than normal, and more hopeful than usual that the following year might be better? Who knows.

Well, I don't have any great wisdom to empart tonight.

But my friend, Bryn, aka "Paula the Music Junkie," did send me a fun link to a really great Kevin So video the other day. It's to his song, "Brighter Day," and I thought you might enjoy it:



Kevin's a Kerrvert from way back, and a fantastic singer-songwriter who I've had the good fortune to meet several times.

The song's pretty catchy, huh? And honestly, as I sit here right now, right at an hour from the year's end, it's as good a sentiment as I can think of.

Whatever you think of the year that is ending, and where ever your leads you in the year that is ahead, may 2007 be filled with many brighter days; for us, and for the world.

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New Gigs: Another Tribute Show, and Songwriters in the Round

During the past week, two new gigs have fallen in my lap.

First, I'm pleased to announce that the Living Legacy Band is going on the road. We'll do the "Eagles/Chicago" tribute show again, this time in Coppell at FUMC Coppell.

Here's the scoop on the show:

Tribute to the Music of The Eagles and Chicago
7 pm, October 15th
FUMC Coppell
420 South Heartz Road
Coppell, TX
(Get a map)

Admission to the show is free. But a love offering will be taken for www.umcor.org

These tribute shows have raised almost $4,500 for this worthy cause, and I feel certain we'll go well over $5K with the Coppell show.

So, if my notice for the last show was way too late, now you have about two weeks to make your plans.
-----------------------------------------
I will also be playing at "Pearl's" on Commerce Street in late October. This is a new venue owned by my old songwriter friend, Rick Yost. An although they focus on jazz, Rick just can't leave the songwriters behind. So, once a month he invites three to come play. I'll share the stage with Dallasite Todd Buckley, and Tyler native, Raymoth Gildean. We'll do two "rounds" followed by a 40 minute solo set by each. Come to hear some talented songwriters, and experience this great new venue.

Songwriter Night at Pearl's
Pearl and Commerce Streets
(website)
October 25th, 7 pm

Hope to see you at both show!

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Time's Person of the Year: Congrats to YOU (And Me)

At first, I thought the editors at Time had lost their minds.

Of all the heros, goats, and villains of 2006, the best they could come up with was to name "YOU" as "Person of the Year?!"

As I joked in my last post, I suppose this means we all get to put that on our resumes now. Elsewhere, there have been the inevitable jokes about this being the logical conclusion of a "Me Generation" gone mad.

But take a look at their actual story and you'll discover there's method to their madness. Turns out, the "YOU" they intend to honor isn't any old you. It's the "YOU" who use the internet. It's folks crazy enough to spend a lot of their free time (as I do) creating content for the World Wide Web.

They suggest --following others who've also written on the subject-- that a different kind of World Wide Web it being birthed before our eyes. They claim it's so different that people have taken to calling it "Web 2.0." This "new" web is not dominated by official news sources, big corporations, and big government, but by millions of folks who seem compelled to put themselves, their lives, and their thoughts about...well, almost everything....out there for all to see.

Time says it's not about the old, official sources of news and info on the web, but rather:



"it's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes...."



Time Magazine suggests this is a massive, ongoing, social experiment, and that it involves a whole lot of us:

"...we didn't just watch, we also worked. Like crazy. We made Facebook profiles and Second Life avatars and reviewed books at Amazon and recorded podcasts. We blogged about our candidates losing and wrote songs about getting dumped. We camcordered bombing runs and built open-source software."

Here are some signs of change Time gleans from around the World Wide Web, and some observations about the people (the "YOU") who are leading the charge:

"Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working overtime to fend off user-created Linux. We're looking at an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it's just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy."

"Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I'm not going to watch Lost tonight. I'm going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I'm going to mash up 50 Cent's vocals with Queen's instrumentals? I'm going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?"

"The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME's Person of the Year for 2006 is you."

So, basically, if you've created a blog, left a comment on a blog, posted to YouTube, reviewed a book on Amazon, created a podcast, put up a MySpace page, then apparently you really are Time's Person of the Year for 2006.

But so am I. And so are millions more of us too. The uncomfortably confessional nature of the blog is likely to become more common, not less so. Yes, there is lots of drivel, minutia, and cyber-trash out there. But Time suggests something interesting:

"You can learn more about how Americans live just by looking at the backgrounds of YouTube videos—those rumpled bedrooms and toy-strewn basement rec rooms—than you could from 1,000 hours of network television."

I find it interesting that a major news magazine, owned by a major media corporation (AOL/Time Warner), is the one noting this social trend. I believe it's a real social trend, to be sure. But I also believe that media behemoths like Time, and web behemoths like AOL, clearly have the most to lose. If anybody gets left behind here it's them; or at least the vision of the Web-as-cash-cow that they and other corporations assumed was a sure thing.

And yet, even with all the potential loss of their own corporate skin, Time ends with this hopeful note for the future:

"There's no road map for how an organism that's not a bacterium lives and works together on this planet in numbers in excess of 6 billion. But 2006 gave us some ideas. This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person."

That's certainly what I find interesting about the blogosphere, the worlds of MySpace, YouTube, and all the rest. I enjoy doing this just like millions of you seem to. Who knows where this new world of interconnectedness may lead? But it is interesting, to be sure. And I'm pleased to have my tiny little corner of "Web 2.0," and pleased for the few folks who wander by now and then, and seem to enjoy it.

So, as the year draws to a close, thanks to YOU.

And congratulations on your award.

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Top iPod/iTunes Songs: 2006

We are days from the end of the year. And so, everyone and their dog is coming out with a "Best Of" list. The Dallas News is counting down to the "Texan of the Year." Time Magazine has named YOU "Person of the Year." (Planning to put that one on your resume? Me too).

My favorite of these is Google's annual "Zeitgeist" list of the most popular searches for the year. Browse it, and I bet that if you're over 45 you haven't heard of most of them ("Bebo," "Metacafe," "Wiki"). The world is changing, and lots of folks are interested in things you probably know nothing about. I hope that gives you pause. It certainly gives it to me. (Pause, that is...)

Other searches ("World Cup") remind us of how the rest of world is bonkers over things we care nothing about here, no matter what our age.

Google not only lists the top searches for the year, the company also breaks them out in different categories. And thus, I was saddened to learn that, of all the News searches done this year, the words "Paris Hilton" were searched more than any others. "Orlando Bloom" came in second.

Top "Entertainment" searches, I could grudgingly understand. But top News searches?! What does this mean? A sign of the Apocalypse? (You could make a convincing case...)

Interestingly, the first real news topics to pop up in the "news" list are "Cancer" and "Hurricane Katrina." Words like "Iraq" don't even crack the top ten. What does this mean...that, in the privacy of our own homes, the things we search most are those that scare us most (Cancer), or that a year-and-a-half-old hurricane still rumbles around our cultural subconscious, no matter no much the media has moved on?

Other interesting factoids include that the top search for concert tickets this year was the Cheetah Girls. And unless you have a daughter about the age of mine, you have no earthly idea who this is. But if you do, you are "totally" not surprised.


The most searched-for "definition" was "define promiscuity."
I assume most folks really do know what it is. But maybe we all secretly do want to know what the "limits" are...

Well, the Zeitgeist is a fascinating read. Check it out.

Today, I was updating my iPod, and stumbled on the "most played" feature. For those of you a equally fanatic about your iPod/iTunes, you'll know what that is. But, to explain, it's a bit like your own, personal music "Zeitgeist list." It allows your "most listened to" songs are.

So, what follows is

The Top 25 Songs from Eric's iPod:
(The links go to iTunes, unless the musician doesn't have the song on iTunes...and, in that case, they go somewhere else where you can find it...)

1. Song: Gonna Be Some Changes Made
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 24

Man, did I dig this album this year. Downloaded "Halcyon Days" early in the year and, from the looks of things, played the heck out of it. I've always been a big Bruce Hornsby fan, and this album is really quite good. It's far different from his "and The Range," days. It's funky, jazzy, and features wicked jams that will remind the listener how Hornsby used to tour with The Dead.

I won't comment on all the songs from this album that also make the list. But as you scroll down, you'll clearly see that this CD was a huge favorite of mine this year. I assume that says a lot about just how much I listened to it as a collection. And, even for a CD-junkie like me, listening to a whole CD is apparently becoming more and more rare. It seems to me one of the things iTunes does is to uplift the individual song, or self-created playlist, and to de-emphasize the CD concept...

So, take the number of songs on this list to be a sign of just how highly can I recommend this CD to anyone.

2. Song: Dreamland
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 23

3. Song: Mirror On the Wall
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 23

4. Song: Halcyon Days
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 20

5. Song: Candy Mountain Run
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 19

6. Song: Circus On the Moon
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 19

7. Song: Lost In the Snow
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 19

8. Song: Illinois
Dan Fogelberg
Souvenirs
Number of plays: 19

Several Fogelberg songs crack my Top 25. And I am sure this is because of the Tribute Show from earlier in the year. To get myself ready for it, I used to drive around listening to the cuts, to learn my vocal parts. In this case, the harmonies. I have to say, though, I am surprised this specific song ended up his high on the list...

9. Song: To The Morning
Dan Fogelberg
Home Free
Number of plays: 18

Not surprised by this one since, as I have mentioned other places, this is one of my all-time favorite songs, and I was singing the lead in the show. Because I have a history with this song, it was a vocal I really wanted to nail. And I really had to spend some time with since it's so far out of my usual range.

10. Song: Dear Mr. President
P!nk featuring Indigo Girls
I'm Not Dead
Number of Plays: 18

I cannot remember a song like this in years. I cannot remember a song that has made me cry like this one has. The song is very un-P!ink for those who know her usual stuff. It features the Indigo Girls singing and playing guitars, and P!nk singing the lead, on a song she wrote for the President. After being directed to it online somewhere, I immediately bought the whole album on iTunes.

Folks say there are no good protest songs these days.
Not so. And in my book, this one is first and foremost. And, from what I can tell, I believe it has resonated with a generation of folks younger than us boomers/busters. They do have their protest music, and this is the best what they have.

Years from now --when we're fighting the next war, and some 20-something hipster has morphed into a graying, 40-year-old protest singer-- she'll be singing this song, instead of "We Shall Overcome," at the protest rallies. And all the other 40-year-olds will be singing along.

By the way, in studying up on P!ink, I have discovered her earliest musical roots were, in fact, in folk music...singing with her Dad who's a Vietnam Vet at events when she was a kid.

She's got that storyteller gene in there somewhere.

11. Song: What the Hell Happened
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 17

12. Song: Hooray for Tom
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 17

13. Song: Heir Gordon
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 17

14. Song: Not So Silent Night Hometown
Eric Folkerth
Demo Tracks
Number of plays: 17

I guess I'm a little embarrassed that one of mine is on here. All I can assume is that I was playing it a lot to listen to the final cut, and make sure I liked it.

15. Song: Delayed Effect
Amilia K Spicer
Seamless
Number of plays: 16

What a pleasant surprise. Amilia has become a Kerrville friend, and she's a great singer-songwriter who lives LA and Austin. In fact, I just got to see her open for Gorka about a month ago now. As someone who's a consummate procrastinator and serious introvert, I appreciate this song quite a bit.

16. Song: Song F
Bruce Hornsby
Halcyon Days
Number of plays: 16

17. Song: Wishing You Were Here
Chicago
The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning [Disc 1]
Number of plays: 15

This was another that just up the list so I could learn the background vox for the Chicago Tribute shows. Turned out that, day before the show, we switched things around and I ended up singing lead.

18. Song: Love Gone By
Dan Fogelberg
Nether Lands
Number of plays: 16

Another one from the Fogelberg Tribute Show. Again, listened to it to learn background vox.

19. Song: Joy To The World
Tom Prasada-Rao
Christmas In The Ashram
Number of plays: 16

From Tom's CD "Christmas in the Ashram." I've got the CD on the iPod, and I've also got this song in a holiday compilation of my favorite acoustic/folk Christmas songs. I love Tom's version of this song, and his holiday CD is a favorite around our house.

20. Song: Same Old Lang Syne
Dan Fogelberg
Innocent Age
Number of plays: 15

Another one that jumped up the list because the tribute show. Another one I sang lead on that stretched my true range beyond its comfort level. So, I had to listen a lot, sing a lot, and try to pick it up. (The car is a wonderful place to practice vocals).

It's another of my all-time favorite songs, and it was great to get to re-know it again this year. Dan F. says that it's the song more folks tell him "actually happened" to them once upon a time.

21. Song: Christmas In The Ashram
Tom Prasada-Rao
Christmas In The Ashram
Number of plays: 15

Happy to see this one on the list too. The song was written by Chris Rosser, but was popularized in the folk music world by my friend, Tom P-R, who used it as the title track for his own holiday CD. Tom's holiday CD was a favorite of mine before I never really got to know him personally, and we have it in the changer every season.

Christmas in the Ashram is a funky, funny, tender song, and among people who know it, is one of their modern holiday favorites.

22. Song: Near Apart
Amilia K Spicer
Seamless
Number of plays: 14

Another nice song from Amilia.

On a song like this, there is something in Amilia's voice and playing that gives a massage to your whole mind and soul.

23. Song: Follow
Annie Burns
Days In Italy
Number of plays: 14

A song with a wonderful spiritual message. I met the Burn's Sisters at the South Florida Folk Festival a couple of years back, when we shared a Friday night stage. I re-met them down at Camp Casey last year, and got a chance to tell Annie just how much I loved her CD. I really figured that, if any song from this CD would make this list, "Surrender" would be the one since it's the cut that drove me to buy the disk in the first place. (It's an amazing song, too!) But the stats don't lie and, apparently, I liked the "follow your bliss" message of this song even more.

24. Song: Come Home
Bill Nash
Runs With Scissors
Number of plays: 14

As I've already mentioned this month, this a song from my friend, Bill Nash. I am sure that over the past year I did a lot of listening to it to learn it. It's also on a holiday "playlist" that features the other two TPR songs in this top 25.

25. Song: Call On Me
Chicago
The Very Best of Chicago: Only the Beginning [Disc 1]
Number of plays: 14

Another great Chicago song, learned for the tribute show. What blew me away about this song --when I started listening carefully and looking at the sheet music-- is that the song has a lead vocal, a harmony-lead vocal, and FOUR PART harmony during the chorus. In fact, some of the harmony parts are not obvious when you listen to the song CD, and learning them was a challenge.

It's another great driving-around-in-the-car song.

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Two Christmas Songs for You

Since the holidays are upon us, I thought I'd break out a couple of holiday songs. The links below lead to mp3s of two demos I recorded a couple years back. Each you about this time, I remember that I always intend to do a holiday CD, but that it's too late again this year. (Truthfully, before that, it would be nice just to finish the second regular CD, huh?)

Anyway, since they're laying around, mostly finished as demos, and waiting to be shared, consider these little Christmas gifts to you. Just click on the song titles below and it should pop up a new window and the mp3:

The first song, "Come Home," was written by my very good friend, Bill Nash. Bill, as I have said many times, is one of the finest human beings on the planet. And it is always a pleasure to get to play with him anytime and anywhere, although it doesn't happen nearly enough these days.
Bill wrote this Christmas song while visiting his folks in Colorado. The way he tells it, the whole song took just a couple of hours, and simply poured out of him. Those of us who know Bill love his own very fine version of the song, and we love to sing along the background vocals with him. It's always a highlight of his shows, and there's no question it's one of his best --and best loved-- songs.
So, with gratitude to Bill for allowing me to mess with what was already a fine work, I've added my own touches. It's a great song that evokes the best feelings of the holiday season.

The second song, "Not So Silent Night Hometown," is one of mine. I wrote it some years ago when we were living in a rent house in East Dallas. It was partially inspired by the roughness of that neighborhood, and partially by the story of a young boy named Travis Butler that was in the news that year. Just before the holidays, Travis' mother died. She died right on the floor of their apartment. She had been sick for some time, and everyone knew she would die soon. But when she did, Travis didn't tell a soul.
It seems he was so afraid of being shuffled off into foster care that he made a decision to just keep going to school as if nothing had happened. He fed himself cereal and pizza. When he ran out of food, we went to the store for more. He even cut his own hair. He got himself ready for school each day. And he and tried his best to keep the news away from everyone. He kept his secret for an entire month, until just weeks before Christmas, when family friends finally figured it out.
Something about this story really touched me...something about a little boy who was afraid of getting "lost" in some big system, some big, cold town. That combined with my thinking about how in East Dallas, the homeless shuffle down the streets, the sirens wail long into the evenings, and it's still a rough place to be, even during the holidays.
So, the juxtaposition of that real-world, and the promise of the Christmas story, seemed profound.

If "incarnation" --God coming to earth as a person, the true meaning of Christmas-- means anything, then it's got to mean something on the mean streets too. If God is born into the world, then it's got to be something that happens in the parts of the world that seem "lost" to an outsider's eyes. And it's got to happen in the lives of people that seem lost too.

After all, Jesus was born in a stable, not the Ritz Carleton. So, maybe, despite what we often assume, it happens in those places most of all.

Hope you enjoy the songs, and hope you're having a blessed holiday.

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Greenberg Turkeys

What would the holidays be without talk about food?

And talk about "Great State of Texas" holiday food would be incomplete without the mention of Greenberg Turkeys. So this morning, I am declaring Greenberg Turkeys to be one of the many things to like about Texas. However, I'm also well aware that most folks --even most folks in state-- have never heard of them. So, read. Learn. Salivate...

Delicious and delectable Greenberg Turkeys come from Tyler, Texas where the Greenberg family, led by current owner Sam Greenberg, has been smoking and selling them for sixty-seven years. The Greenberg family is serious about turkeys. Serious enough to get a web-address that fits them:
http://www.gobblegobble.com/

Texas is one of the great nexus-points for smoked meats on the face of the planet. You just have to try our barbeque once to know what I mean.(Sorry, Memphis and Carolina...) So, it's no surprise that somebody in the state would perfect the art of the smoked turkey.
Greenberg has. It's impossible, through the feeble words of a blog, to describe just how good a Greenberg Turkey is. Every bite of the bird oozes with spices and smoke. The smell surrounds you. The taste envelops you. It's better than any turkey you've ever had in your life.

And those words right there? They just sound cheap and tawdry, compared to the culinary sensation it really is. I feel like I've just described a Maserati as a "decent car;" or the Hope Diamond as an "interesting rock."
Through the years, lots of Texans began ordering Greenberg Turkeys in leu of cooking up their own Thanksgiving and Christmas birds. Cooking the turkey is the biggest hassle about a Thanksgiving/Christmas feast anyway. So --if somebody can do it far better than your own amaturish skills, and if they've been perfecting it for almost three quarters of a century-- who are you to deny yourself the fruits of their labor?

Over the decades, Greenberg Turkeys became big stuff for those "in the know." Then in 2003, Oprah Winfrey waved her magic wand of approval. She declared Greenberg Turkeys to be one of her "favorite things" for the holiday season. And, overnight, what had been an insider holiday tradition went nationwide. As you can see here, Greenberg now ships turkeys (yep, through the mail, via UPS) to places all over the United States.

In fact, a story from KLTV (Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville) sets the number at 200,000 birds shipped each year, and most of them to places far removed from East Texas. Greenbergs have become a favorite holiday gift among coworkers and friends in offices across the nation. Not only has our family eaten a Greenberg for the last several holiday seasons, but Dennise and I have ordered them in the middle of the year, just to get another round of that incredible taste.

Since our family lake house is only a hop, skip, and jump from Tyler, Mom usually picks up the Thanksgiving and Christmas birds from Greenberg Turkey World Headquarters. It's nice to be close and to be able to vouch for a company first hand.

But, trust me: you can be anywhere in the continental US, and enjoy a Greenberg. And you should.

And although I realize that most of you have never had a Greenberg Turkey, I also know that if you tried it once you'd love it forever.

And I know that it would instantly become yet another thing to like about Texas.

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