A week in review

I usually go out to hear live music on the weekends. I have two venues I go to regularly for music. One is Dream Mecca Studios/Daniel Day Gallery at 3025 6th Ave. S. This is one of my favorite places in town. Good owners, a pleasant place to spend time, nice art on the walls and always full of good people I enjoy being around!! Plus, the music is almost always enjoyable.

Last Friday I went to the Gallery to see a band called 2 Blu and the Lucky Stiffs. A blues band. They began playing and it was good music. They are a very good blues band. At some point, early in the evening an older gentleman by the name of Curtis Files walked in. The band knew him, as did many people in the audience and the band asked him to sit in with them. He joked around with the band, telling them that if he sat in it wouldn't be "Country Boy Eddie style". Everyone laughed and the band played on. A little while later Curtis got up to join them. After several minutes of him telling them what key to play in and what tempo, he began singing. He never told them to play any particular song, but just told them to play. They began playing. He began singing the song "Going Down Slow". Google the lyrics, as what happened next was sort of eerie and surreal. Remember, noone knew what Curtis was going to sing and he choose to sing this song, that is about a mans health going down. He sang the first verse, with an appreciative crowd watching and listening with the respect an older blues singer deserves. He got the line that goes, "Tell my mama to pray for me, mama forgive me for my sins" After he sang those words, he gently collapsed to the floor. A young lady in the crowd and a friend of mine began CPR. 911 was called and he was taken to the hospital. We heard alter that he had passed away. We all believe he left this world after that line. I don't think he was alive when the paramedics took him out.

The following week, was full of post and tributes to him on Facebook. Those people that were there posted picutres of him from that night, as well as our accounts of the event. Those who were not there posted questions and thier personal tributes to Curtis. You tube videos from performances of past years were posted.

I took it as a sign that I needed to go to Mr. Gips in Bessemer, which is a Juke Joint in the backyard of Mr. Henry Gipson, another local celebrity on the blues circuit. I ahd been wanting to go for several years and felt this was the time I needed to go. Mr. Gip and Curtis were friends. I now have been to Mr. Gips, and it is indeed a magical place and I will be going back!!

Last night Curtis' band played at Dream Mecca Studios/Daniel Day Gallery. Many local blues musicians sat in and there was a large crowd of people there to remember Curtis in the best way we could; listening to Blues music and celebrating his life.

A friend of mine put it in these simple terms, " he left his earth, not languishing, but doing what he loved, surrounded by people who loved what he did". Can you think of a better way?

Raising money for my class

A week ago I found a Functional Skills program that comes in the form of 20 iPod touch that I want for my classroom. However, the cost seems out of reach, $3500. It is hard to do fundraisers with my students--they are not big salesmen and often the parents don't have the desire to try to see things. I already had two small fundraiser planned to raise money for transportation to our Special Olympic events. The idea of trying to raise that much money seemed a bit overwhelming.

I made a post about this program on Facebook and a friend of mine encouraged me to send out private messages asking each of my friends to donate $10.00. After giving it some thought, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. I spent Friday evening and part of Saturday morning sending out private messages to 20 people at a time.

Saturday evening I went to my favorite venue for live music and by the time I went home I had $150 toward the project. The following week I received a $50 dollar check in the mail from a friend who is not on Facebook ( I assume some friends who are shared the info with him), $15 dollars from another and then a $100 dollar check from a lady I shared mutual friends with. So within a week time, I have raised $315 dollars. It will be interesting to see if any comes in this week! I may post a link to my blog on Facebook, so those who have donated can see where we are in the process.

Also, some musician friends, Gary and Jane Morris (also known as New Rain) contacted me with an interesting proposition. The will be playing in Birmingham the weekend of December 10th. The 10th they will be playing at a place in Hoover called Up Top. They were planning on charging a $5.00 cover that night. They have offered to donate $2.00 of each cover charge to my class. So, I encourage EVERYONE to come out and hear some good music and contribute to this cause!!! They will also play the next night at my favorite venue, Daniel Day Gallery. Personally, I encourage people to come to both shows!!

This past Saturday there was an all day event at Daniel Day Gallery and I had my class make buttons to sell at this event. We made $69.00 at this event and the gallery wants more buttons.

Today we started selling Alabama and Auburn buttons at school and are also doing a coin drop for the Iron Bowl. (people drop coins into the jars for each team and my class will graph the amounts each day, showing which team is getting the most support from our school). Today, being the first day, we only raised 24 dollars. We will be doing this every day for the next two weeks.

I have some other ideas for fund raising and I plan to apply for some grants. It may take a while, but we will get this program!!!