Holidays and funerals. That's when middle age hits me. All the empty seats at the table.
If we're lucky each of us has a twin to get us through this one and only life. Sometimes it is the great love of your life, your soulmate; sometimes it's someone who has known you as long as you've known yourself, a sibling. Mine is my older brother, Nick, who among other things is a savant of American music. What I know of John Lee Hooker, Yusuf Lateef, McCoy, DeeDee Bridgewater, Gary Bartz I first learned from him. So when, on a beautiful springlike Friday, I had my office door open and I caught a whiff of a song I thought I knew, but if I didn't damn sure wish I did, I ran upstairs and borrowed my niece's keyboard and with what is left of my years of piano lessons plucked out the first few bars of the chorus and before my voice could get too flat (talk about not being able to carry a tune if someone put it in a bag for me) I called Nick and sang the notes to him. In seconds he says: Tevin Campbell. Can We Talk?
If we're lucky each of us has a twin to get us through this one and only life. Sometimes it is the great love of your life, your soulmate; sometimes it's someone who has known you as long as you've known yourself, a sibling. Mine is my older brother, Nick, who among other things is a savant of American music. What I know of John Lee Hooker, Yusuf Lateef, McCoy, DeeDee Bridgewater, Gary Bartz I first learned from him. So when, on a beautiful springlike Friday, I had my office door open and I caught a whiff of a song I thought I knew, but if I didn't damn sure wish I did, I ran upstairs and borrowed my niece's keyboard and with what is left of my years of piano lessons plucked out the first few bars of the chorus and before my voice could get too flat (talk about not being able to carry a tune if someone put it in a bag for me) I called Nick and sang the notes to him. In seconds he says: Tevin Campbell. Can We Talk?
Now, let me go, he says, you interrupted my Hawkeyes game. You owe me one. I do, indeed.
Hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as ours. Cheers to the NY Misfits, Jing Ma and Li Xiaxi, Hill, Helene and Baby James.
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