“This is the second time this week that Kevin has left me to go running. He leaves me in the bed, when I would really like to run with him. I don;t want to pressure him. I am sure he will tell me what is wrong when he is ready.

“He runs, supposedly to the park, and when he gets home, he immediately takes a shower and usually starts breakfast. Just once, I wish he would come back and just come to me – sweaty and energized – but no, he gets cleaned up and then I pretend that he has not left me in the bed wanting, again.

“The only nice part is that he brings the breakfast to me and serves me coffee and eggs in bed. It is almost like he is feeling…. No, not Kevin. He loves me. He wouldn’t. But, he is a third generation entertainer. He grew up in the life and time of fast relationships and tabloid stories. They can’t all be made up, can they? What if he is? We have been talking about having children. What does that mean for us? for me?

“He doesn’t know. I have never told him that I have been in love with him since I saw him for the first time. I knew, somehow I just knew that he was the one for me. No one believed me. They all thought it was a star crush, but I knew this was something different. I remember the very first time I saw him. He came to speak for an acting class I was attending. It was only by luck that I saw him at all. I had only just arrived at school and was lost when I followed a crowd of people into an auditorium. There were so many people in there that another stranger was simply overlooked. It was not until the class got going that I realized that i was in the wrong place. I was mortified and could not bring myself to get up and leave, so I just sat there and tried to look like I was supposed to be there. I never again took such good notes in class – at least until he came out on stage.

“The collective sigh from all the girls, and bewildered looks from the guys was so comical, that I laughed out loud and then quickly hid behind a book when everyone turned to see who had dared to break this perfect moment. He was nearly perfect, and as his eyes swept the crowd, he seemed to look into every woman’s eyes. I know now that it is just a way he looks at people, but to the young crowd, it was like he was looking, personally, at each one of us.

“He was a rising star and had just finished his second movie, scoring the enviable second billing slot. It was obvious from all the whispers around the room, that he was the next big thing. When his eyes swept over me, I knew at that moment, that I would not only meet him, but would charm him as he had just done me.

“When the interview broke up, almost every girl flooded the stage for an autograph and to pose for a pic with their latest crush, even those girls with boyfriends in attendance, much to their chagrin. She was the only girl that did not bum rush the stage. Realizing, as everyone stood up that her hand was hurting, she looked down to see that she had nearly filled her composition with the interview. Just for giggles, she got a copy of the transcript a year later, from a boyfriend who had been running the audio recording at the time, only to find out that she had nearly a perfect copy already in her own handwriting.”

More than determined, her instructors called her driven, her friends called her obsessed. She took more classes than she was allowed, by proving to her advisors that she was able and by keeping her marks high. She completed a 4 year acting instruction and 2 year internship in only 4 years. It was her first “professional” job on the set of Almost Dead where she finally came to meet Kevin.

“Inside, I was as nervous as all those giddy girls in school, but I had been keeping tabs on Mr Jones and knew how the giddy, blushing masses didn’t phase him, at least not from everything printed or on the vid. I was determined to be cool and calm and see if I could appeal to his sense of mystery. Well, it worked, but I never told him that I had known him and followed his career for years. Maybe if I had, he would know how much he really means to me. He’s my whole world. If he really is…, I just don’t know what I’ll do.”

Marian Call – We’re Out for Blood

WHERE: The Wheat Palace /  Listen online

Bio / Info

Quick Description: This international duo from Seattle & Ireland – originally from Anchorage & Manchester (UK) – have been captivating audiences for more than a decade with an engaging, international repertoire: songs and melodies from North America, the British Isles, Eastern & Western Europe… on more instruments than any sane musicians would ever chose to tour with. Opland plays hammered dulcimer, five-string violin, recorders and ocarina. Freeman adds guitar, octave mandolin and djembe (Gambian hand drum).

Mike Freeman

Mike Freeman’s roots are in Eastern Europe, with grandparents from Russia, Roumania and Hungary. Born and raised in Manchester, England, he spent many years in Norwich working as a designer, cabinet maker and teacher before moving to County Kilkenny, Ireland. He has played guitar and percussion with an assortment of bands, accompanied Middle Eastern and African dance troupes, performed at countless festivals throughout Britain, and featured on recordings in the roles of musician, arranger and producer. Mike’s main instrument is the Gambian djembe, from which he draws an amazing variety of sounds, but he plays everything from dholak and darabouka to bones, bodhran and congas, and composes tunes on guitar and mandolin.

Mike has also built a reputation on both sides of the Atlantic as a dance caller and concert M.C., with a charming, irreverent stage presence.

Tania Opland

Originally from Alaska, Tania Opland has travelled extensively in the U.S., Canada, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Britain. She now lives on an Indian reservation in Washington State, her vast repertoire reflecting the diversity of the communities whose music she has shared. She has appeared on radio and television in the U.S., Canada, Russia, Uzbekistan, Scotland, Ireland and England. Her five solo albums have received excellent reviews in acoustic music magazines on both sides of the Atlantic.

From early classical training on piano, cello and violin, Tania moved on to explore many different fiddle styles and a wide range of wind instruments, and even to experiment with such exotic instruments as chang, gidjak and doira, giving her a style rich in techniques and traditions. She still treasures the unusual blond violin, a handmade instrument by Eskimo craftsman Frank Hobson, which she has played since she was nine years old, but has recently switched to a c.1920 German violin converted to five-string for concert work. Other instruments include an early handmade Larrivee guitar, Flatiron octave mandolin, hammered dulcimer by Dusty Strings, Kiowa Native American flutes by Allan Guffey and Stellar Flutes, and a tiny ocarina by Clayzeness Whistleworks.

Find out more from their Official website

If the meat doesn’t do what she says it will, give me more energy and make me feel better, I reserve the option to hop back over that fence.

WHEN: Friday, January 08 8:00 p.m.  (Alaska time – midnight Eastern)

Bio / Info

Marian Call as her website Marginalia alludes to, likes to reside outside the lines. Marian is a spunky independent singer-songwriter living in Anchorage, Alaska and touring the country writing and playing music. Her songs are acoustic folk funk with a twist of jazz, both heartfelt and humorous. She is one who likes to be engaged in all the arts, and a quick look will show just how savvy she is when it comes to technology. Not only does she maintain her website and two different blogs…she is also active on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube.

Marian was at Whole Wheat Radio for a House Concert in April of 2008, and she is a returning favorite of Whole Wheat Radio listeners and audience, and will be presenting her lovely and interesting music at this special house concert event.

Kevin is a third generation entertainer. His parents and all of his grandparents have been entertainers, as have all of their children. His whole family, his sisters, his aunt and his two uncles, along with his parents and their parents have all been entertainers of some kind or another. Aside from it being expected , he had to admit that he really was looking forward to a fourth generation entertainer to carry on the family business and tradition.

Normally, this would be a foregone conclusion, but with Cathy there is no such sure thing. Cathy is the source of his greatest joy and his greatest fear – the fear that wakes him up at night and drives him out of the house to calm down before he can face her. Cathy comes from a mixed family. Unlike his family, her parents are not in the same profession as she. Hell, they are not even the same profession as each other. Her father is a scientist, something in chemicals he thinks. Her mother is a teacher, and her older brother is headed for a promising career as a politician.

For the first time in four generations, there is a real possibility of his child not being an entertainer. He has never expressed this fear to her, but with their discussions returning to children time and again over the past year, the fear grows a little more each time and wakes him for these night time runs. Cathy sleeps and he runs. His feet pound the ground with even greater intensity as he puts words to his fear, driving him to try and outrun his fears.

Slowing, he again begins thinking over the past two years. Since their marriage, he cannot recall a happier time in his life or a more productive time in his career. Cathy’s career, already on the rise when they had met, is on a rocket now. There is a chance that her career may catch up one day – an amazing accomplishment for a first gen entertainer. Cathy is beautiful, smart, hard working, tireless and a perfectionist with is comes to her career and family. Their match was touted by all the magazines and chat shows as the perfect couple and words like “entertainer royalty” were tossed about as their wedding approached.

Following the nuptials and their month long honeymoon in seclusion on the family’s private island, they appeared on all the chat shows, usually together, as the hottest two movie stars in the industry. They had received generous offers for work all over the world. Though they have never worked together again, each would travel to the set of the other’s work whenever they were not on a shoot, themselves. They refused to succumb to the craziness and rumors that such couples must endure in the industry. They have stayed true to each other and their loyalty and faithfulness is questioned, seriously, by no one.

She makes him feel like the only lucky son of a bitch in the world. Though their discussions of children make him nervous, she makes him want to be the better for her, for him, and for them. She will make a wonderful mother and they could train the next generations’ great entertainer, passing the crown to them, when they retire – if only.

His biggest problem, he thinks, and shudders, missing a step and stumbling but catching himself before he falls. Despite his fears of what kind of child they might have, he loves Cathy and desperately wants to be the father of their child. He slows to a walk, cooling down, and begins to make his way back toward home – to Cathy – his mind is made up, at last.

“Kev?”

“I’m here.”

“What’s the matter, honey?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“Bad dreams?”

“I guess… Maybe. It’s just… It’s nothing. Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

Holding up the edge of the covers, revealing her athletic curves honed from hours in the gym and devoid of any clothing, she beckons, “Join me?”

Bending, Kevin kisses Cathy on the forehead. “You sleep. I’m going for a run.” Kevin turns and heads for the bathroom, leaving Cathy staring after him, disappointed and wondering what is really bothering him.

A glance at the clock only deepens her concern. The display shining a faint blue in the near darkness proclaims the time as “0317.” Listening to him move about in the bathroom, she draws up the covers and awaits sleep that doesn’t come.

—

Gray plumes of mist puff out of Kevin’s mouth as his sneakers slap at the pavement. The locals would call the dark morning, brisk, but to Kevin’s southern upbringing, this is fracking cold! The apartment is only a block from the park, so his night runs occur more frequently since he and Cathy moved here. The rhythmic pounding of his sneakers on the ground, lulls him and provides the calming balm that quells his fears and resets his world to something more approximating normal. The natural beat of life, like a perfectly delivered line or the pause allowing for the expected laughter or applause to quiet before continuing feels perfect and comes to him a welcome respite from the craziness. The critics are hacks and “wannabes,” anyway. He is on the top of his game – in his prime. The name of Kevin Jones still raises hopes in the hearts of the movie company executives and raises blushes in girls the world over. He inwardly grins at the thought of his toothy grin, sparkling blue eyes, and his almost shaggy, wind blown blonde hair on his most recent movie poster – Almost Dead Again. The movie grossed even more than Almost Dead and set a new record for opening weekend horror movie box office sales.

Almost Dead had been a great job, for two reasons: It was this first film that listed him in the leading role and it was while making the movie, he had met Cathy. Nearly since shooting had begun, they had been almost inseparable. Even then, Cathy was a rising star. He had never heard of Cathy Ann Ford, and so didn’t know that she had already been a rising star well on her way to a staring role in another couple of films. He had not shown up for the first month of shooting, but as soon as he stepped out of his trailer onto the set, he spotted Cathy immediately. Her straight blonde hair and tanned curves marked her as someone he simply had to meet. Looking back on it, he had to admit that the initial attraction was mostly physical, but that’s just part of life in showbiz. As he approached her, in the middle of a scene walkthru, she seemed to sense his approach. She turned to greet him as one did an old friend from acting school, cheerful and eager to know what you had been up to since you had seen them on that last shoot or location. Cheerful and comfortable with him, she took him by surprise. He was used to the blushing and stammering most women exhibited upon their first meeting of Kevin Jones, but Cathy did not even blush. She was instantly at ease with him and they chatted easily about anything.

Without realizing it, he began spending nearly every off-set hour with her. They ate together and talked, or walked around the set and talked, or even walked along the beach in silence, but they were rarely separated throughout the shooting. They moved in together before the film opened and all the buzz was that they were the next couple to watch. That was three years ago.

I am so glad that I can provide such entertainment to the spam bots.

I have played this game for several years, finding people with whom I have lost touch – some for decades – going back as far as high school. It seemed to me that I was the only one that wondered about other people, as I would do searches for myself, just to make sure that I was easy to find, in the case that someone wanted to contact me, though no one had. (Maybe it was because no one wanted to find me, hmmm.) Facebook has made this search much easier. The searching is so much easier that I have reconnected with many people from decades gone by and I am left with another feeling…

Who are these people and Who was I?

I remember who they were when I was who I was then, but I have come to realize that, though some of these people were friends, band mates, class mates, comrades, or even lovers, I have very little in common with them today, aside from a shared time many years ago.

I realized this disconnect almost immediately out of High School and I have never attended a reunion because of it. I just had no desire to try and reconnect with people with whom I have little, if anything, in common, other than that we attended the same small school in a small town in the 1980s.

I have come to realize the same thing about these “old friends” from college. I have had to change my thoughts relating to them, because I have old friends – people with whom I have been friends, and continue to be, for years – but these people are not in that category. These people are now, mostly, people I knew once upon a time. There are some of them with which I would like to reconnect, so they can be new friends (albeit with a bit of shared history).

Info, from the link above:

Bio And Musical Info

Note: Anais Mitchell will open for Peter at this show!!! Woohoo!!

Peter Mulvey

Peter Mulvey began as a self-described “city kid” from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He played, wrote, and sang in bands while studying theatre at Marquette University. After graduating, he traveled to Ireland, where he learned the trade of busker on the streets of Dublin. Returning to the U.S. a few years later, he settled in Boston, building an audience through street and subway performing, while also immersing himself in the thriving musical community.

Since his 2000 release The Trouble with Poets , Mulvey has found a home with the venerable indie label Signature Sounds Recordings. His most recent albums for the Massachusetts label were the 2004 release Kitchen Radio , the 2003 collaborative Redbird album (with label-mates Kris Delmhorst and Jeffrey Foucault), and his 2001 CD, Ten Thousand Mornings , an album of cover songs recorded entirely in the subways of Boston. MOJO described the album as “simultaneously Mulvey’s homage to his one-time training ground and a beautifully atmospheric record of gifted interpretations.”

Peter Mulvey and David Goodrich played a house concert together at the Wheat Hole on December 5, 2004, and stuck around for an on-air interview the next day.

Find out more on Peter’s website or on his MySpace. You can also find Peter on the social networking site at Facebook.

Anais Mitchell

Anais Mitchell: “And the big horns blowed and the pianos played/And the music rose to the old man’s ears/I guess those were the olden days/I guess those were the golden years,” sings Anaïs Mitchell on her new record The Brightness. This earnest nostalgia trip says a lot about the kind of art that this Vermont native has been creating since entering the underground folk scene in 2002. At a time when the music industry is playing the role of the slickest of defense attorneys, using flash and dazzle campaigns to distract us from the fact that their clients are terrible, Mitchell is an artist who grew up on a sheep farm. She makes small-sounding, big-thinking folk albums that play like a front-porch serenade. If she feels in a bit of a time warp, you can’t blame her.

Listening to this 25-year-old singer/songwriter perform her meticulously written songs, fervently singing them in a distinctive, almost childlike voice, you’d think it was her life mission to rouse the hearts and minds of her listeners with an acoustic guitar. But Mitchell wasn’t always committed to the idea. “I used to tell people I wanted to be a journalist. There is a lonely egotism and self-composure to journalists. Not unlike artists, they’re always traveling, always writing, loving their loneliness, feeling somehow that they have their finger on the pulse – worshipping the truth and trying to render it legible.”

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