Jerk Bluegrass Chicken

Yeah, well the title will need "some 'spainin'", as Ricky used to say. The Ramblers have survived the second annual East Stroudsburg ChickenFest, a made-up celebration much like Kwanza that is essentially designed to delight those of us who have impulse control problems.

We got the big tent, Neil nailed down a bunch of food vendors, and the sound system worked to perfection, at least until Updike touched it hehe. That's when the monitors went out, which mattered not, since the sterling sound of Skehan and Smith saturated the air and we played like "Tommy" on that rock and roll record.

This year we had some little problem, as the East Stroudsburg Rail Tower Society had nabbed "our" date, but we made nice with them, and they had the big tent up also and got a train out of Steamtown to come down. I want to tell you, seeing a steam engine up close and personal is still pretty cool. At the end of one of our train songs, I guess the driver was listening, because just as the last notes of the song were dying out, I began to hear a rumble and a roar, right in tune with the song. I initially though it was the sound system getting ready to blow, but it turned out to be the lonesome sound of the train goin' down---made my hairs stand up, and not just me, neither. It even spooked my sainted wife, who had come to see our son perform with the EastBurgers, a barbershop quartet that every old lady wanted to adopt immediately.

Then at one point, Spenser Read joined us on stage, and there we were with scat-man Read singing and playing his &*^%$off on guitar** along with us-----such sweetness.


Anyhow, I guess we had about 1500 folks walking around, kids with smiling faces well painted, watching chicks hatch courtesy of the Penn State Extension Service, artists, musicians, train nuts, para-military posers, bluegrassers and lots and lots of locals.

That local thing was one reason I may help again next year. I swear, there were hundreds of people there and hardly any of them seemed to be from the evil empire across the river. I mean to say that my best mate Neil is busy "closing the Gap" while I am of the mind that we should blow the bridge.* Anyhow, now that you're back, I have to say that the motto of the Arts Council, "Culture Builds Community" finally made sense to me. Duh. By 5, everybody was gone, and the folks from the Steamtown train (from Scranton, PA) and all the locals that came out left hardly a trace in the way of garbage.


Well, I never claimed to be a cultural tour de force, although I am pretty damned adept at cooking, which is all I cared to do today after playing a triple-header yesterday along with setting up and breaking down. So today I cooked up some killer baby back ribs, and I will tell you the secret here--marinate them in olive oil and spices, then cook them with slow heat until they are cooked perfectly, like about 3 hours at 275 or so. Then a light coating of your perferred BBQ sauce to finish and you have you something gooooooooood!

Over ribs I was talking with Dean, a good friend and genius with cars. Talking with him reminded me that our school teachers should take a lesson from some of the trades, so here are few:

A mechanic knows that one way is not the same as another. Ever.

A tileman knows that what sticks cannot always be unstuck, although sometimes stuck is not forever, and a wise tileman knows the one from the other.

A policeman knows that there are no small problems.

A carpenter knows that well begun is half done.

A painter knows that you can't always cover up some things, that a drop-cloth now is worth twleve mops later, and that some colors just suck.

And a garbage man knows that one man's trash is another man is treasure.

I'll bet twelve cold ones that most teachers don't know these things, and I'll also bet that there aren't five admin types that could elucidate on even one of these things convincingly.

Or even who would know that "elucidate" means. hhe.


**yeah, so what? I edit from the bottom up, okay? I just wanted to say that I would have written "ass", but some chick flamed me about the overuse of that particular part of the anatomy, and cast aspersions on my sexual proclivities, which is ludicrous. I have as many proclivities as the next guy, thanks very much. Besides, I have to plead cultural immunity. Bluegrassers do so use "ass" frequently--to describe bitter anynomous internet editorialists, all citiots, as well as in idioms like "having been shot in the ~, showing your ~, another day shot in the ~," and other colorful gluteal references which I think the world needs and admires.

Although that's just my take on it.

*Prolly typing that will mean that I am now on the NSA radar and maybe soon I will abducted and taken to Guauntanamoe or however you spell it. I don't care. I've lived large. But I'll be damned if they can make me wear them hoods. They look too much like the KKK for me. I'll take a pillowcase or maybe one of them face-masks that look like Reagan. I'd be cool with that.