I am about to get old.
Not like old for the Earth, just too old to be in the club. Not the VIP, mind you, because you are never too old for the VIP. And actually, I am not too old for the club, but you’d be hard pressed to find me in da club, bottle full of bub these days. My better times are had at Red Door or Village Pub where the music is more tolerable and they haven’t mixed the bass drops that cause my bowels to suddenly release in time with the strobes. Ahh, the good old days. I went to the clubs for a little while, embarrassingly enough in the 1989-90 Z. Cavaricci era of Hammer pants and loose button downs. I thought I could ‘dance’, but all I was doing was further shaming my family and my name by sporting a terrible haircut and doing the running man at a ramshackle $5-BYOB ‘dance’ club. Oh the things we do in our youth.
As time wore on, it seems my ideas of fashion have been questionable. At one point, due to my premature balding head, I wore a Nike bandanna on stage. (I read that Andre Agassi was so ashamed of his hair loss, he would wear a hat in the shower). Now I’m shiny on top, and don’t care. My lid of choice now is more because we have another bald kid on stage. We just can’t have a bunch of reflective heads running around. But you also realize as you get older how things come into focus, and how other things ease out of focus.
In focus when older : Conversations, not texts. Hugs not ‘likes’. Guts not glory. Wine not shots (although I’m still perfectly down with shots…) Steel not plastic. Meals not breaks. Sunsets and sunrises.
Out of focus when older : Going out 4 nights a week. Trying to be the most popular kid in class. Shaving. Birthdays.
And that’s about it. Everything else you already know. Moderation is key. Exercise and diet. Don’t run with scissors. And I’m not putting myself out to pasture – just the opposite. I am taking on more challenges than ever now, and hope to conquer them all. I really don’t feel my age. Occasionally I have a twinge in some part of my body that I didn’t know existed, but if I ever feel ‘old’, I’ll have Norman Vaughn to think of. We should all be so incredibly eager to live.
So while I still breathe, I give to you updates from the road. This week was an interesting one. We had our first Acoustic Christmas show with Craig Morgan up in Danville, Kentucky. It’s a pretty cool show – very informal – where Craig and Phil sit and tell stories and sing hits and Christmas tunes. This one found us in Danville, Kentucky on the campus of Centre College (because the names ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ College would have been too telling…), and for some reason the temperature took a nose dive that day to the low 40’s. I guess it was to keep in line with the Christmas theme. Regardless of the arctic blast, we still walked around a bit to take in the Danville experience.
Phil found us a nice little whiskey bar downtown for a post-show hang, so we filled up the back couches for a little while, sipping whiskey and wine and talking about how great we were.
Since Danville is only a 3 hour drive (ride), we left that night, and I ended up getting back in my own bed somewhere around 230AM. Fast forward to yesterday, which was Sunday for all of you scoring at home, and we were once again in our Titans blue providing pregame smiles for the fans. God smiled on us yesterday, and we had 70-degree weather when we hit the stage. I am OK with that. Our special guest was Gretchen Wilson, who absolutely killed Barracuda by Heart and Rock and Roll by Zeppelin. And a little known fact – right before we went on, I told her I had to pee. Yep. That’s the super-inside rock star banter we have. Although I must brag a little, and say the BEST pre-show exchange was when I was chatting with Loretta Lynn and she kissed me right before she went onstage. And I know my musician friends (Amos) have much cooler stories, but they never talk about them. And THAT’s how you do it…
So more acoustic Christmas shows this week, so get out and say hello, and pickup a Phil Vassar Christmas CD while you are at it. This week’s cities include DC, Pittsburgh, then I get to fly to Vegas for my birthday, where you will probably find me in the club. Oh the irony!
See you on the road!!!
