{"id":491,"date":"2006-12-03T19:16:07","date_gmt":"2006-12-04T02:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=491"},"modified":"2013-11-30T09:01:37","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T17:01:37","slug":"aw-gwan-with-your-grumpy-self","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/03\/aw-gwan-with-your-grumpy-self\/","title":{"rendered":"Grinch Proof"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Carel<\/a><\/p>\n

My pal K. called me about a week ago. “You gotta learn to play this song<\/a>,” he said. I was kinda ambivelent – my original ambition had been to learn a good classic Hannukah song for the Seattle Ukulele Player’s Association holiday party. I started fishing around for music and everything was minor key and somber and not in Hawaiian so much. Or, just kind of dumb, I mean, “I had a little dreidl’ is not a particularly clever bit of songwriting.<\/p>\n

So I caved. I’ve spent the last week hashing through Santa Baby in my kitchen. And today, I put on a red dress and my black cowboy boots (“Now that’s how I like MY Santa!” my friend Pat said to me) and headed over to the SUPA open mic. I played Mark Erelli’s Call You Home<\/a> to warm up and then, I stood up, took a deep breath, and launched into my best Eartha Kitt.<\/p>\n

\"Pam\"<\/a>Which wasn’t very good. I stumbled in the middle. “DOH! I lost my place!” I said, while the three smart alecs in the front row kept singing. “I really do believe in you…” “ACK! Okay.” I started again at the beginning of the verse. I made it through the fancy chord progression bridge I’ve been working on, though, even after<\/em> my mistake – I think they’d call that a “nice save’ in sports – and I got a mid-song round of applause!<\/p>\n

Angela, who played a sweet and soft version of Starry Starry Night right before me, talked about how great it is to play in front of this group. Everyone loves you, no matter what you do. You can’t help but love them right back.<\/p>\n

We had a terrific potluck lunch with several kinds of delicious chicken, salads, and many varieties of dessert. Almost everyone got a raffle prize and then, we sang. A good time was had by all. Whos in Whoville, we challenge you to a cheerfulness smackdown.<\/p>\n

So. Here you go. Imperfect, like me. Folks with sensitive ears for things like “key” and “timing” may wish to skip the audio link. Also, keep in mind that I’m both better and worse in person.<\/p>\n

Sidebar note: File under podcast tips for intermediates – I had a fantastic interview recording session today with the most wonderful woman. Don’t tell me I can’t learn from my mistakes! Everything worked beautifully. Score.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My pal K. called me about a week ago. “You gotta learn to play this song,” he said. I was kinda ambivelent – my original ambition had been to learn a good classic Hannukah song for the Seattle Ukulele Player’s Association holiday party. I started fishing around for music and everything was minor key and … <\/p>\n


…read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nerdio","category-ukulele","masonry-post","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8462,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491\/revisions\/8462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}