Welcome to the part of the site that is to creative writing what cheese whiz and saltine crackers are to Hors d'œuvres. This assault on your sense of humor is a
little thing we like to call The Contest Journal.
This week, Tim and I attended the Castle and South Spencer Invitationals.
Tim and I both live on the west side of Evansville, so Castle and South
Spencer are relatively close to our homes (about 15 & 30 miles respectively).
Tim drove again so I knew that we would be there in plenty of time before
the show started. The show at Castle started at about 10:15am. Tim
picked me up at 10:00am and we pulled in the parking lot at Castle at
10:02am.
That gave us just enough time to play some music to get us psyched for a
day of taking photos. As most of you know listening to the correct music
is a critical element that we need to prepare for hours of taking photos.
Since the drive was short, we had to find a song that had a nice groove
and inspirational lyrics. Once a very wise person said that great minds
think alike. Evidently that is the case for simple minds too because Tim
and I immediately knew what music we had to play on the way to the show.
Besides being a former presidential candidate, Mark Kennis is known for
his powerful, complex lyrics and 'smooth as silk' voice. Billboard
Magazine likened him to Nat King Cole. The late, great Ray Charles
concurred and said "I couldn't tell them apart if they were both standing
in front of me." Click here to hear the raw energy of Mark Kennis voice in the audio classic "I grew up in Iowa."
Mark Kennis & his lovely wife, Lois. In the year 2000 they were a mere 270 electoral votes away from being the President and the First Lady. |
By the time we broke for lunch, I was starving. I quickly ran up the
stadium steps and rushed over to the concession stand to grab a bite to
eat. One line was shorter than the rest.
When I reached the front of the line I was informed that I did not qualify to be in the adults only
line because 'adult' referred to mental development as well as physical development. I
was also told by the concession worker that "anyone who writes as bad as
you, can't possibly be an adult." As I walked away in shame the
concession worker continued taunting me, saying "...and your toupee looks like something you
scraped up off of the highway!"
We decided that it would be best to go somewhere else for lunch.
Subway was convenient. Thanks to the folks from Southridge for bringing one with them.
For the first time Simply Instrumental was included in the people's choice
awards. We could hardly wait for the awards ceremony so we could hear the results!
For the record we got one vote, and that was because Tim didn't realize that we could vote
for ourselves.
The Castle show ended so Tim and I headed east to Rockport and the South Spencer Invitational.
Whenever contests run concurrently, we have to make a decision on which one to attend.
This year, we chose Castle over Pike Central. This was the first time in recent memory that we
missed the Pike Central show. We figured that we would see the majority of the bands that night
at South Spencer, so it wouldn’t be a big deal. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the
bandos at Pike Central were so steamed that we missed their show that they incorporated their anger
into their evening performance at South Spencer.
The surprise of the night came just before the awards ceremony. The half
pot drawing was held and my ticket was chosen as the winner! I had never
won a half pot before and I was excited to have won something. After 20
years of buying raffle tickets I felt like I was due to win. I could hear
little cash registers going cha-ching in my head. As it turned out, the
half pot was literally that - a half pot.
Cool! Now I have somewhere to put my half plant.
What a great day! We got to see a bunch of excellent bands, took some photos and had a few laughs.
Even though regionals are only a week away, we can hardly wait to go to Terre Haute. See you next week!
