Music

Of Presidential Candidates & Contenders: What’s The Use In Jiving?

/ Ally Bean / 20 Comments

{ Subtitled: Your Story’s So Touching, But It Sounds Like A Lie }

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Please note, I didn’t watch last night’s presidential wannabes debate tedious issues + character failings among themselves.  I get nothing from such events.  They are a waste of my time.

Next September after each political party decides who’ll be the candidate, then I’ll pay attention to her or him.

But in the meantime, I don’t want to be accused of encouraging any of these babbling, narcissistic, argumentative individuals with delusions of presidential grandeur by watching them.

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In fact, my suggestion would be that instead of televising these dog and pony shows debates, the TV stations would do better to play endless versions of the 1940s hit song, Straighten Up and Fly Right, written by Nat Cole and Irving Mills.

The lyrics of this tune summarize all that there is to be learned from the real presidential wannabe debates.  Or at least it seems that way to me, an Independent voter with limited patience for political shenanigans.

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For The Win: In Which I Bid Adieu To Jibber Jabber July

/ Ally Bean / 22 Comments
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“What’s up, Doc Ms. Bean?”

I STARTED my #JibberJabberJuly challenge with Scrat, my blogging muse.

But now that July is almost over, I think that I’ll end my month of writing with Bugs Bunny.

Always loved him, too.  Observant.  Funny.  Snarky.  He makes a good counterbalance to Scrat’s earnestness.

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THANKS TO my faithful gentle readers who followed The Spectacled Bean during this month of wordiness.

I appreciate your support via comments + likes + link backs.  It’s only through those means that I, as a blogger, can know if what I write here resonates with my readers.

And rings true.

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ALSO HELLO to my new followers.  This has been a delightful unexpected consequence of #JibberJabberJuly.

As part of my writing challenge I also commented more often elsewhere, and in the process of that became visible to many new people who found it in their hearts to visit this blog.

Many of my new visitors even left a comment &/or started following The Spectacled Bean.  Isn’t that cool?

Thank you!

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AND ON that happy note, I’ll leave you, gentle readers + newbie followers, with Sweet Baby James singing Secret of Life.  I’m going to take his words to heart and use them as my August mantra.

“… try not to try too hard, it’s just a lovely ride.”

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A Country Moving Forward: More Gratitude, Less Attitude

/ Ally Bean / 19 Comments

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, 

When sorrows like sea billows roll; 

Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, 

It is well, it is well with my soul.

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Yesterday was a rainy, cold Monday.  I spent the day inside, not doing much of anything.

Lost in contemplation.

Humming the hymn that I’d heard on Friday while watching the funeral in Charleston for Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

Remembering my Southern church lady aunt who used to hum that particular hymn while tidying up around her home.

Which, really, is what I should have been doing.

My plan for the day had been to use the time to weed the garden.  Our vacation travels followed by a busy week of getting back into daily routines had given the weeds a chance to take over.

Not pretty.

But instead of jumping into any activity at all, I found myself thinking about how proud I am of this country for moving forward in a peaceful way on social issues that impact everyone.

Somehow.

I realize that people are whining and opining all over the place on FB and cable news outlets, but when you get down to it, this country in pretty damned amazing.

The change process worked, both on a national judicial level and on a state executive level.

Homophobia and racism, spotlighted last week like they were, are now officially acknowledged as behaviors that do not help make our country strong.

Hate never does.

It really is that simple.  We’ve moved forward.  Hallelujah!

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Do not be afraid of the hate surfacing. Backlash is an inevitable side effect of progress. Cruelty is simply fear’s death knell. Carry on.

~ Glennon Doyle Melton

We Went To Nashville, Y’all

/ Ally Bean / 25 Comments

Like just about every post that I write about our travels…

Zen-Den was in [fill in the blank] for work and I decided to join him.

In this case he was in Nashville, TN, aka Music City USA.  So I flew down there for a goof-off weekend in a city that is cheerful and easy to navigate.

Nashville is fun, y’all.  Here are the highlights of our Weekend.

::  We went to the Parthenon.

Built for Tennessee’s 1897 Centennial Exposition, this building has INCREDIBLE detail, a small art museum in the basement featuring regional American landscape art, and is located in a large, somewhat uncared for, city park.

I learned how little I know about Greek mythology while here, y’all.

::  We went to a fancy part of town called Green Hills.

There we wandered around a mall, and adjacent lifestyle center, that had many of the same stores that we have here, BUT they were twice as large with FRIENDLY sales help.  As much as I don’t usually enjoy shopping, this I liked.

I bought a Coach purse, y’all.

::  We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame.

This museum was amazing.  FASCINATING.  Curated to tell, entertain and engage everyone with music, videos, instruments, album covers, photographs, costumes, interactive displays and tasteful decor, we enjoyed this museum more than we thought that we would.

I saw Elvis’s gold Cadillac, y’all.

::  We ate at Ted’s Montana Grill.

This is a chain restaurant, owned by Ted Turner, that features beef and buffalo, along with salads and fish and milkshakes.  The restaurant was beautifully decorated in a 1970s steak-house style with lots of dark wood and shiny brass.  The food was DELICIOUS and the service was attentive.

I ate a bison burger– and I washed my hands with Boraxo powdered soap, y’all.

::  And finally, the answer to the question that everyone asks when you go to Nashville: Yes, we went to the Grand Ole Opry.

It was GREAT. We saw lots of older performers who we’d never heard of [Connie Smith?], but eventually, as the evening progressed, we saw performers who we knew, like Vince Gill and Pure Prairie League.  Then, in true Opry fashion, two superstars stopped by the Opry on a whim– and the crowd went crazy.

I saw Tricia Yearwood AND her husband, Garth Brooks, perform together, y’all.