I have taken it easy all day, recuperating. I still felt a bit weak and woozy from the food poisoning episode Monday night. I seem to be over that, but the bad cold has settled into my chest and I’ve been coughing a lot. My only activity was to mail off a book and run to CVS for more cold medicine.
I did make a pretty decent supper, pork roast and Eggroll Cabbage and creamed corn. Wish I could’ve tasted it.
Alesia said there is a performer coming to her school tomorrow that nobody has ever heard of but he is giving a free concert, or at least making some sort of appearance. His name is Jason Castro . I don’t know this kid, but I’m sorry, a white boy with long dreads and a pretty face looks bizarre. Michael agreed with me, Jason would make a very pretty girl. Until you notice the beard stubble…
However, I told Alesia my story about seeing a famous band, years ago, before they became famous, to impress upon her how important it is to notice performers early on, so you can have a great story later. When I finished the story and told her the name of the band she said “Who are they?!”
Right, I forgot. Anyone who had a hit record before she was born might as well be dead.
So here’s the story. It was 1982. I was a junior at the University of Georgia in Athens. I made friends with a couple who wanted to go to the World’s Fair in Knoxville. Since that was my hometown, I agreed to take them home with me one weekend so we could go together. On the way, they insisted we stop in Atlanta for the Arts Festival in Piedmont Park, because they wanted to see this band perform.
Now, I had heard of the band. They had a single that got a lot of airplay on the UGA station, and I liked it. They weren’t well-known nationwide, though, hence the free concert in the park.
So we’re wandering around the arts festival enjoying a beautiful spring day in Atlanta, and we wander over to the bleachers where everyone was watching bands. This band came on. The lead singer looked like he was coming off a bad drug trip. He was twitchy and looked like he was seriously in need of a bath. Worst of all - he didn’t know the song lyrics! He kept pulling grimy little bits of paper from his pants and mumbling incoherently into the microphone. It didn’t sound like singing. The rest of the band wasn’t great either. They looked like they needed a lot more practice time in the garage. I wanted to leave after about 5 minutes.
We ended up staying for about 20 of the longest minutes of my life. I made up my mind to never listen to that band again. They stank. The lead singer would probably die of a drug overdose before they had another single, I decided.
Skip ahead about 10 years, and I am in Virginia visiting my cousins. I learn my cousin Lilla is a huge fan of the band. I laughingly tell her about the horrible concert. She glares at me. "You saw them for FREE?!" she demands.
Uh, yeah.
The band?
R.E.M.
A year later a girl rushed into one of my classes screaming “I just saw Michael Stipe at The Winn Dixie buying bananas!! Oh.My.GAWD!”
Good Lord.
Now, do I think this Castro she-male is going to reach REM status?! Nope. But I’ve been wrong before…
Second Story
In the 1920’s my grandfather Bob Hasty was a baseball player for the Philadelphia Athletics. He knew Ty Cobb pretty well because they were both from Georgia, although my grandfather didn’t approve of Ty’s behavior a lot of times. He had a grudging respect for him, though, since Ty was a legendary baseball player.
Ty Cobb was also a very astute businessman. One day he told my grandfather about a new company that made a tasty soda called Coca Cola. He advised Papaw to buy Coke stock then, when it was cheap. My grandfather thought that idea was idiotic. Buy stock in a soft drink company?! Ridiculous.
He bought a farm instead. When the Depression hit, that was the end of the farm.
My grandfather kept up with Ty, and was one of the few visitors he allowed to see him during his final illness when he was in the hospital here in Atlanta at Emory Hospital in 1961. There’s another story there but I won’t tell it today.
So what do the stories tell us? My gene pool doesn’t include the ability to predict squat.
Here endeth the lesson.
