Now on to HF lore:

Once again the boys and I have been criss crossing around every which way and playing a lot of variety of music and shows.
High Lites:
The Naperville Ribfest is perhaps the very best of the Chicago parties with good eatin' and great music. We were blessed with the opportunity to share the stage this year with Dickie Betts and Los Lobos for a guitar players convention of top notch quality. Seems there were more Les Pauls on that stage, that day, than almost ever recorded in human history. Between all the bands I am positive we sampled every type of rib that exists and funny thing is that makes for some gut wrenchin', swamp slidin', down home pickin' must be something to do with the saucy sauces. Wanted to thank our friend Matt who is our bro for sure and all the folks out there are just good people. Hope some of you made it out.

Two gigs in South Haven Michigan Heartsfields old home town. The first was with ole' JC down on the beach for a wail of a party with the acoustic trio. Nothing like playing a set then taking a dip in the big pond. Boats, bikini's and on that subject, just wondering if those new ladies swim suits are much cheaper than years ago because of the incredibly small amount of material needed for one, more on this in the soap box. The next So Ha gig was right on along the harbor facing out to the big pond for the 40th annual Blueberry festival. Blueberry everything available, they even had 8 Blueberry plants right on stage so I could pick some and eat 'em between songs AND THEY WERE RIPE TOO !!! Now that is taking care of the band. JC played with us again I think the feller is getting hooked and low and behold that Artie Baldacci feller(Heartsfield's original drummer) joined us for some songs. Worked out good because Scotty our drummer now had a cast on his right foot and had to play the kick drum with his left foot with one of them double kick drum peddle's hooked some strange way. Now that shows pride, determination and professionalism, plus he was scared of loosing his job. We have to hand it to Scotty he did a great job and we love that guy, if any of you can send him an e-mail to make him feel better and have him tell you the story of how he nearly broke his foot. think it had to do with savin' some nuns or something like that. Anyway if any of you get a hankering you should check out that festival next year, cute town, huge art & craft fairs, two days of concert music Edgar Winter played the next night and Blueberry heaven.

We then moved on and in almost literally, to the Navy Pier Beer Garden stage think we did about 12 shows there between the band and trio. One week I was driving up Lake Shore Drive so many( 5 shows 4 days) times I thought I was going to a REGULAR JOB, very SCARY it darn near terrified me. Show up at the same location, at the same time, driving the same route, have to say I greatly admire the folks who can do that and be happy, must be something weird about the way I am wired. My hearty thanks to all who do that and make the world function. We had Scott Stevenson with us in the trio a great piano player and the audiences and myself greatly enjoyed that boys talent. He plays a mean accordion too so we had some great jams going on and I loved the change up of sound. If you see a Trio show with Scott on it come on out,he lays it down. Scott played the keyboards for us on Rescue The Dog. The other shows were full band and there is nothing quite as special as playing on a warm summers night way out on the lake with the skyline of Chgo. sparkling all around you with boats big and small just a cruising in and out all night. Hello on the BOATS!!!! Like most of us I don't take advantage enough of the things right in my home town but Navy Pier is a gem of Chicago.

Next on to the LaCrosse area of Wisconsin and Larry Fest down out by Coon Valley way back in the hills about 40 south of LaCrosse. Talk about a beautiful place this is truly part of Gods country. The Fest is run by a family The Sebrancic's Larry Doug and Dan along with Jay and many others and it is one of the best run, down home relaxed good time festivals around. This was our second year and WE LOVE PLAYING THERE !! Plenty of Bluegrass bands, acoustic bands and fine music for two days, a writers stage and just an all around whoop it up party. Tim Johnson went up with us to fill out the trio and Dan Sebranic honored us with his great voice and guitar pickin' to make the show rock out. Heck for 3 days I never went to bed before 5 Am, infact we had so much fun playing that our 2 hour show turned into 5 hours then headed down to the campfire jam YEEHAW !!!! Lot's of good players there, Mountain Heart( These guys won every bluegrass award you can I think), The Wilders(from the Ozark area WOW what a fun fun band), Chris Silvers(another award winner heavy duty mandolin picker) and many more.

                   SOAP BOX      SOAP BOX      SOAP BOX      SOAP BOX

Well here I go again, that beach gig brought up a lot of thoughts about some naked truths !!! Like I mentioned earlier the amount of material on these new French Riviera type bikinis is about enough to make a band aid for your finger. Instead of calling them bathing suits I recommend a new name "CHEEK SPLITTERS" cause that's about all they do. Now don't get me wrong I am not complaining in general that is, if a beautiful lady has the work ethic to keep her legs and butt in great shape I feel the exposure of her nicely sculptured, non-pimpled extension of her bottom half can make the beach world a more beautiful place. However any thought or concept about me not viewing them and thinking of sex is not gonna happen, how on earth can a women wear these things in front of any healthy man and not expect him to have his mind start to wandering to some fantastic area of the male mind is beyond me. Oh yea, I gonna be thinking about how she feels about the Dow Jones or the current political situation or how many degrees she has from Harvard. Anyway I have absolutely nothing against that type of garb but these gals have to realize the effects they create and enjoy the attention from that perspective and leave the exploration of the inner mind and soul to times with out the cheek splitter outfit. Also please realize by taking a quick look in the mirror before heading out to the world that maybe the time has passed for that type of exposure, that goes for ladies and the guys in those darn speedo things, way more than a person should have to see. One more thing old rear ends that are sagging make that 20 year old tattoo a bit distorted and take on a different shape than it started out with. Love the beach.

Another thing that worked it's way into my life this last month is the telephone universe. My cell phone must have the dropped call record of the world, seems like some days I can't hold a conversation on it for more than 30 to 45 seconds, maybe it's a plot to get me to dial up again and get charged more. I can't tell you all how many times I am heavily into some profound revelationary speech only to realize the party on the other end has been gone for the last 3 minutes, the last thing they heard was Hello how are you !!!! If I ever run into that guy that says can you hear me now I'm gonna put some hurt on him. Why in the heck can't they have this thing down yet, these cell phones are by now, not a new technology been around for awhile my friends. Instead of getting me to download some bowling game that I can play on a 1 inch screen keep me connected. Have you ever tried to read your e-mail's on that little feller, Scrowling mania that's what it is. In the words of Donny Brasco forget about it.
And worst worst of all, is the automated phone systems when you make a call to a company you know the our options have changed so listen carefully routine. First of all press 1 for English 2 for Spanish what's that did I move to Cancun or something. How about all the other languages, here how it should go Press 3 for Polish 4 for Eskimo 5 for Portuguese 6 for Ugandan 8 for Hillbilly someone ought to sue for discrimination !!! That's it I am gonna sue, because there is no number to press for German Hillbilly's I feel left out, I can't possibly go on and be happy if I can't speak like a kraut on moonshine or a Bubba on Bier !!!!!! And that announcement that this call may be recorded for quality and training assurances bull, they have been recording those calls for years and they still have shitty customer service and can't get a shipment out without screwing it up somehow. I always demand a great microphone be used if they are gonna record me, I tell them I am a professional musician and I need at least an Audio Technica AT4050 used with some soft knee compression and a bit a large hall reverb for sweetening, that throws 'em. Besides do they really think, that we think, that someone listens to those recordings anyway ? I can see it now some career person sitting in an office with 20 tape playback machines meticulously listening to how there customer service department is trying to lie, dodge and make the customer think he is the problem so quit complaining. Heck mostly they just refer you to another department then hit the disconnect you button. Have you ever weeded through the maze of transfer your call to the correct department and after 20 transfers finally get there only to be DISCONNECTED " if you'd like to make call please hang up and try again DAMN DAMN DAMN. What's wrong with a real person answering the phone, now maybe in huge companies it may make sense but my corner bank has it now and when I go in there's only 2 burnt out office workers in the whole place and they are the people who handle loans, CD's, savings accounts, checking, mortgages all of it, do I really need an automated phone directory with 8 choices. I don't think so, it's only Betty and Elsie to choose from.
One more thing than I am done here, it's the necessity at every step along the way of the maze hell to punch in my loan number then the very first thing asked by a person is what is your loan number and address and social security number and mothers maiden name and this is at every transfer, sometimes 5 times in a row. Is there no way in this digital age for that being entered once and having that be available to all Talk to, Hell if I go to a website just once the next time I return the screen reads: Welcome back Perry Jordan at blah blah blah address, who owns a dog named Chance, who bought these 5 books so far, who prefers red wine over white, who has two birth marks on upper left arm and was too tired to have sex last night !!!!!!!!
It's a mystery this modern time saving world they have built up for us, not sure how much time it saves because since installing all these devices everywhere I have not noticed the tremendous savings being passed on to the consumer, Nope prices just keep getting higher and higher and these time/money saving systems keep infiltrating more and more aspects of our world and daily life. Doesn't add up somehow.

Here's my wish, that the wonderful world of colorful, technical, digital, micro-wave, downloadable, progress can somehow be more melded with some damn personality and warmth that us human beings have. Along with people in the business of being in business, start acting like BUSINESS IS A PERSON TO PERSON PROPOSITION not machine to machine or us to a machine. In short get off their ass and make it a priority to interact with us. It's not that hard nor that bad of course by now it may be a little scary to not hide behind all that cover. Maybe a new movement should be:

                  SAVE THE HUMANNESS OF BEING HUMAN !!!!!