Who's That Peeking Over The Piano?

If you look very closely at the piano in this picture, you can see a head popping over the top of it. That head is Roger's. Here he is playing for the Kansas City Ballet's "Reach out and dance" (ROAD) program, which takes movement and dance into elementary schools.

The photo is from a story in last Sunday's Kansas City Star Magazine, which is mostly about boys who choose to pursue ballet, and mentions the ROAD program only briefly, but Roger's melon managed to sneak into the story anyway.

The founder of the ROAD program says the goal is to give kids "the discovery of dance.”

She says, “When we go into a school, we specifically tell the teachers not to point out the troublemakers. Many times, the teachers are shocked to find out that those troublemakers are the kids who were standouts with us. It’s a place where a child who struggles (academically) can be a star.”

The instructor, Sean Duus says, “What you see is that it helps kids learn everything more easily. You’ll start seeing improvements in (their) grades with kids who dance.”

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/04/13/3551061/young-dancers-leap.html#storylink=cpy

Musical Siblings

Weekend before last, Saturday night was a scary tornado night, but the next day the sun was shining. I got out of bed earlier than I cared to, so I could listen to my sister Laura appearing live on KKFI's Coffeehouse Radio show, as part of the station's band auction fundraiser. Laura donated a gig to the highest bidder, and pulled in $150 for the station. She performed live on the air, and they played two cuts from her new yet-to-be-released CD. Pretty dang cool! Go sister!

That Sunday afternoon, I drove to Lawrence, to the Jackpot Music Hall on Mass street, where my brother Marc was playing with his band Hit or Miss. They have added a drummer and keyboard since the last time I saw them a long time ago, and they sounded great. The venue had a sound guy, which I'm told, helped balance their sound. Marc sang his "Star Trek" song --"I've got you in my tractor beam," or something like that..."My heart is going at warp speed," or something to that effect. Sorry Marc, I know I'm butchering your tune. They played their "signature" song which is catchy beyond reason and is probably my favorite: "Whiskey."  Which goes "Whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, give me whiskey, give me whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, whiskey, give me whiskey, give me whiskey...."

I sat next to Anne and she showed me a prototype for something Marc and Anne are going to make for their Winfield trip in September. I don't want to mention it here, in case anyone steals their idea, knowing how widely read and distributed my blog is...but I'll just say it's pretty typical of the way their two minds work.    

4:20

Earth. Dirt. Weeds. Things that come to mind this day. Things that are part of nature, that are here to serve us. Things to celebrate. Each has its purpose under the sun. I raise my glass.   

Nados!

Dude, some of these tornadoes were massive. Tornado and Outbreak are two words that should never be allowed next to each together.