Tag Archives: Nashville

Dabble

Dabble: (v) to work at anything in an irregular or superficial manner

I would like to introduce myself.

My name is Mr. Dabble.

I can’t think of a word that more describes what I have done throughout my life than dabble.

As a teenage boy, I was interested in Southern Gospel Quartets. That particular dabbling had me doodling for a while. So if I’m ever in a gathering where such old-time music becomes a point of conversation, I can hold my own.

Then, for a long time, I was involved in the music industry in Nashville, Tennessee—at least up to my armpits, though it never quite reached my eyeballs.

I met famous people.

I recorded in famous studios.

And I appeared on stage in a variety of ways—from having my own music group to doing backup singing for a Las Vegas show.

I dabbled for a season by taking my clan on the road and having my own little Partridge Family—singing, traveling in a car, pulling a trailer, wearing colorful costumes and attempting to believe that we sounded good enough to be doing what we were doing.

I dabbled with writing novels.

I dabbled by flying coast to coast putting on shows.

I dabbled in writing classical music for a symphony we began in Tennessee.

I dabbled in screenplays. Thirteen of them turned into independent movies, which won awards at film festivals.

Why did I dabble?

Because I am a curious sort.

I have never believed that fame is possible—mainly because it is unsustainable. So the second-best option is to continue to try new things, and conquer them one by one, and have your own personal awards ceremony for your efforts. The nice thing about this is that you never come in second, but can always bestow top honors upon your performances.

The question might be asked by sane men and women everywhere:

What would have happened if you had focused, and not dabbled?

For instance, what would have been the conclusion if you had begun with screenplays and faithfully stayed with them?

I don’t know.

Because then I wouldn’t be a dabbler.

And I wouldn’t be able to write this article about my dabbling.

Airport

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Airport: (n) a complex of runways and buildings for the takeoff, landing and maintenance of civil aircraft with facilities for passengers.

My first visit to the airport was when I was eighteen years old, flying off to Arizona to retrieve my girlfriend from exile by her parents to a status of once again being my partner and eventually, wife.

The airport was deliciously frightening and glorious at the same time.

It was many years later before I flew in an airplane again. I was twenty-four years old, jetting off to Nashville to work on a musical project with a famous female country songwriter, and I felt like I had the wings of Mercury, surrounded by the gods of Olympus.

Much later I went to airports with my traveling companion to tour the country, sharing from one of my books and cruising through the air with the greatest of ease.

And then came 9/11.

Now, I don’t know exactly what Osama bin Laden envisioned to be the result of his vicious and treacherous plan. Certainly he ended up killing three thousand human souls. But I do feel he also put to death the great American love affair with airports, traveling and zooming through the atmosphere from one destination to another.

For the casualties of 9/11 continue:

  • It’s in our economy
  • It’s in our mistrust
  • It’s in our bungling of foreign affairs
  • It is the chip on our shoulder–proclaiming ourselves “great” without providing the goods and services to confirm the assertion

The American airport today has all the appeal of a Middle-Eastern open market on a hot desert day. It is inconvenient, pushy and unapologetic for both its prices and its surroundings.

Because I believe in my country, I think eventually we will grow tired of restrictions, anxiety and succumbing to the whims of a madman who planned our defeat in his cave in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden is dead and buried in the deep blue sea.

Maybe we can muster the courage to make traveling a commercial and private pleasure again instead of a gauntlet of endurance, athletic and patient perseverance.

 

Abilene

by J. R. Practix

dictionary with letter A

Abilene: 1 a city in east central Kansas; pop. 6,242. It was the first terminus of the Chisholm Trail.  2. a city in north central Texas, an agricultural and oil industry center; pop. 106,654

Darned tootin’ if Abilene doesn’t need a song.

Phoenix has one–Seattle, too. Los Angeles has several. New York, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans…all of them have got tuneful tributes.

It seems to be my duty to write Abilene a song. I guess I will start with the A, B, C formula. In other words, go through the alphabet and find words that rhyme wiht Abilene so as to find possibilities as to where this composition might go.

Let me see now… A, B, C.  Nothing there. D gives us Dean. I don’t know what we’ll do with that. E, F… then there’s G.  You get green and glean. Possible.

H, I, J, K… they’re all a wash. L. Lean. Of course, you’ve already got that in the name of the town–Abilene.

M. Mean. Not much use. N, O. Well, I guess n-o. No.

P for preen. How would you work that in?

Here’s one! Queen! Of course, I don’t know if they allow queens in Abilene.

R has nothing. S–Seen. Either the s-e-e-n or the s-c-e-n-e. So maybe I could make the scene in Abilene with my Queen named Jean. Hey, I forgot the J, for Jean. You see how it’s building??

Teen. That’s dangerous. Because my Queen, Jean, should not be a teen, or you’re in danger of statuatory rape.

U, V. Nothing there. Again.

W has ween. That’s frightening. Of course, X, Y and Z is just like the tail that never shakes off anything of value.

So what did we end up with?

Queen Jean who’s a teen from Abilene, who makes the scene and isn’t really mean, although she spends too much time in an attempt to preen. But her looks are never obscene.

Oh, there’s an O.

You see how it works? Genius HAS form and reason to it.

But even as I look at the results, I have to admit that the Abilene song may have just about as much promise as the city itself.

It’s not my fault. I tried.