March Madness?

A performance scheduled for tonight (advertised in the Syracuse New Times and most likely other places) for singer songwriter Mark Zane has been cancelled. (Please read older posts about this amazing performer.) The reasons for the cancellation? Well, possibly because it's Lent and folks don't come out to eat BBQ (the venue, a few miles outside of Syracuse cooks BBQ) during Lent supposedly. But it's really about SU playing basketball tonight.

I was raised in a family where the change of seasons was identified by what sport was being played. My brother is the Sports Editor of a newspaper. There's nothing I love more on a summer day than sitting in the bleachers and watching a baseball game. I can live without the hoop-la surrounding March Madness, however. If we are watching the news and catch the press interviewing SU players after a game, we fall into this game of counting the times the players say "you know" and wish they'd spent more time in English class.

Mark Zane is working hard to promote his first CD, and it's a CD that deserves to be heard. This cancellation seems a bit unfair. After all, there are folks who wish to escape the March Madness frenzy and go hear good live music. Not everyone is Catholic adhering to the customs of Lent. We would have loved having the option of eating some juicy BBQ and listening to Mark's music as entertainment tonight, even if we had to travel a few miles away from home.

Thankfully we live in a community that does offer options. We have to flip a coin to decide what to do tonight: a screening of The Divorcee at Friday Night Flics at Artrage OR going to Sugar Pearl Lounge to hear Miss E play. Still, it would have been nice to have added "go hear Mark Zane" to our list.

Returning to the Scene of the "Crime"

Mary Ellen and I had tea and bagels at Sugar Pearl this morning.......and were DELIGHTED to see that the owner had torn the dedication page out of our book of poems, "Taking Heart", and hung it on their wall. We dedicated the book to the staff at Sugar Pearl who took such good care of Mary Ellen and me as we put the book together there on the pool table in the back room.

We felt honored. The owner escorted us to "our" table, brought us fancy silverware and huge cups of tea, even went to the store to get cream cheese for our bagels as they had run out. It was a moment of feeling as if we were royalty.

And what's amazing is......we sat there and talked about marketing our book a bit and then we both at the same time stood up and said, "I have to go home and write now!"

So.....later. The words are seeping out and in need of a home other than here. At least for today.