THE Brian Jones

Sadness

Nunsense Rehearsal Report

It was fun. The show is coming along very nicely and should be a blast come opening night Friday.

We have a bit of work to do with the microphones. The body mics were way too live for Act I; we tried the ambient mics for Act II, which was a (sound) disaster. So we’re going back to body mics tonight, and keeping them waaaay down. No need to blast everybody just because we’re wearing body mics.

We’ll be using my piano for the show. The piano the theatre bought is just not cutting it. This means that for the next month, I only get to practice piano during the weekends. Not like I was doing a lot of piano practicing anyway :(. Maybe this will motivate me to get on my guitar while I’m at home.

Of course, you’re invited to the show. Click on the picture to the right to order tickets!

Here are a couple of cute shots from the rehearsal.

Nat King Cole

Via Powerline, I learn that today is the birthday of Nat King Cole. I feel a connection with Cole because he formed a large part of my racial awareness during my childhood.

My father was a gentle, intelligent man who was without hatred or guile. One of the things people always told me, while I was growing up in the South, was that he, also a southerner, did not play along with the racism of the times. This was in decided contrast to his mom, my grandmother Billie, and to a somewhat lesser extent his own father. A frequently-told story of Billie’s probably illustrates this dynamic perfectly. She spoke of my grandfather’s relationship with a Black man who came regularly to service the furnace in their Birmingham home: the punchline to her story was, paraphrased: “He always spoke to that nigra like he was a normal person.”

(“Nigra” is of course the “polite” white racists’ term for a more explosive word, which I won’t print here. I grew up listening to the “polite” word, and it chills me to think I ever bought into its acceptability. Maybe it amused me as a child, but — I was a child.)

(And I might as well mention: “Nigra” was not the only word Billie used to refer to Black folk. Yes, she used the more explosive word with great regularity.)

Anyway, Dad was different. I learned that when the government department he was working in became desegregated, he volunteered to take the new Black employees under his wing and show them how things were done. I do believe this was not some high-minded dedication to racial equality, more a deep-seated longing to reach out to the outsider. Nevertheless, in Birmingham, and in Selma, in the 1960’s, that translated to reaching out to Black people.

Nat King Cole’s story affected Dad directly. Dad was a huge music fan. One of the ways my childhood was akin to growing up in the International Space Station was that we were awakened most mornings by a blast of music from Ground Control aka Dad. And one of his favorite artists was Nat King Cole.

Dad was in attendance at the horrible Nat King Cole concert at which Cole was assaulted by members of the local White Citizen’s Council. The wikipedia link mentions a possible kidnap motive for the assault, but Dad always said that the attack was punishment for appearing on stage with a White woman. He said that the concert had been designed so as not to have the Whites and Blacks appear together, but there was anticipation of a duet between Cole and a White woman singer. Dad described the attack and said he saw the fall that permanently injured Cole’s back.

It was a devastating experience for Dad, who hated violence and just wanted to go enjoy a concert. And seeing his tears 20, 30, and 40 years later when he recounted the experience, told me all I needed to know about the stupidity and evil of racism.

Happy Birthday, Nat King Cole. You are definitely missed! I’m going to dedicate today’s piano practice to you.

Here is a pretty good monograph about the attack.