Thank you Tanya Hogan, Thank you Bruce Willis, Thank you Sun Valley

I'm back from the whirlwind trip to the Sun Valley area for the concert with Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster, and Patrick Gorman ,and I'm not exagerating when I say that it was THE most fun I've ever had playing concerts. Things got off to a rocky start on Wednesday night when I arrived at the Sun Valley airport only to find that my luggage had been lost by that the crack crew of professionals at United Airlines (motto: we'll get you where you want to go, but your luggage belongs to us). Fortunately, the airline delivered the luggage to my hotel before noon on Thursday, which is a good thing, since I was starting to wonder if I could somehow construct a toga from my bathroom's shower curtain.

(about the hotel- we musicians stayed at the Americinn of Hailey, ID. It's a wonderful hotel- very new- and has a great staff. Because of my desire to get their complimentary breakfast, they saw me stumble into the lobby every morning of my stay looking like something the cat coughed up. And they still talked to me!)

On Thursday morning, Will and I had breakfast at a cool little place called Zany's. There we met Ted Macklin, the guy running the sound for our shows. Ted is a great guy, and he turned out to be just about the most necessary part of the show. As we found out in rehearsal at the Liberty Theater later that day, Ted knew what he was doing- all the musicians were commenting on how good things sounded, and we all knew that it wasn't just the space we were playing in. Even the best of spaces can sound bad unless there's a sound person who knows what they're doing. But Ted had a good place to work with- the staff at the Liberty Theater were wonderful and helpful, and their set-up was state of the art, thanks to the owner of the theater, Bruce Willis. In the mid '90's, he bought the place and renovated it, adding state of the art touches everywhere

I grabbed a quick swim at the hotel (don't picture me in swim trunks unless it's been a few hours since you've eaten) and it was there I met Patrick Gorman and his wife Colleen for the first time "face to face". I'll admit- Colleen looks VERY much like someone I used to know, and I spent a lot of time not making eye contact with her, and looking, in general, nervous, sorry and guilty. I quickly got past that, because Colleen is such a sweet girl who overflows with joy.

The rehearsals were fun, and I was able to run through a song of mine with a local high school cello player named Travis Job. Tanya Hogan thought it might be good to have someone from the community play a duet with one of the artists. I was a little surprised (read: terrified) when I heard that my duet partner was a high school student, but I decided to make the best of it and hope that a flurry of emails to Travis giving him a crash course in improvisation would bring results. It turned out my fears were unjustified; Travis was a great player, so much so that Will recruited him to play a song on a song of his.

After the rehearsals, we hit the town and ended up at a great resturant called CK's. By that time, Christy Walker had shown up in town, for the sole purpose of helping Tanya get ready for the show- yep, we all wish we had friends like that. My unofficial "chauffer" Aaron was also at the meal, keeping everyone entertained, if not a little perplexed, by his constant stream of wordplay and puns; when I've had a long day of rehearsals, the last thing I need to do is think. Have a good meal, throw in some great conversation, tease Jeff Oster a little about turning 50 that day, and finish it off with a scoop of homemade blueberry ice cream (YUM!) and it was off to the hotel for a little sleep.

Friday morning comes early for me (remember, my body is still on east coast time, two hours ahead of Idaho time- so at 6:30 am east coast time, I was awake and ready to go. Unfortunately, that time is also 4:30 am Idaho time... :( ) and I grab a quick breakfast, grab a quick swim (thirty-minute rule?!?!? HA HA HA!! I live dangerously!!!) and started rehearsing in my hotel room- this lasted for a few hours. Then it was off to the theater, where a great lunch was delivered by Tanya- her husband Steve is owner of a resturant in town- Chester and Jake's- and is an amazing chef. The shrimp salad topped with grilled salmon was"standing ovation" worthy, and held me over until supper time- a light salad eaten at the brew pub across the street from the theater. I tend to eat VERY light, if at all, before a performance. In my past experience with him, Will Ackerman was the same way. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw Will Ackerman eating a cheesburger roughly the size of a tractor wheel. He said that he'd had one the day before for lunch, and it was great. I'm wondering just how many he ate during the trip.

It was time for the show, and Scott Burwell (please write him and ask him to put somewthing up on his myspace page!) was there to tune up Will's guitars. Will's been producing Scott, and the music is outstanding- Scott is a great guitar player- certainly the kind of guitar player that I'd hate to follow at a concert. So you can imagine my reaction when Will told me, ten minutes before show time, that Scott was going to be playing a song that night- right before I started my songs in the first set. ("what?!?! I have to follow HIM?!?! WHY, GOD, WHY?!?!?!").

Will went on first and played two songs. Of course, he played wonderfully and had everyone in stitches with his stories. Then he introduced Scott- who, as luck would have it for ME, was raised in the Sun Valley area, so he had that "local boy" thing happening for him- and Scott delivered a beautiful song- perfect, actually. Then Scott introduced me, and I went onstage with the Chapman Stick, mumbled out a story, and played a couple of tunes. I did ok, and the crowd threw nothing at me, so I exited and Pat Gorman went on for a tune- and he was followed by Jeff Oster. That's the way Will likes to do these concerts- instead of overybody playing their set all at once, it's spread around- this gives some nice variety to the evening, and gives Will a chance to re-tune his guitars while the rest of us are playing. We all joined Will for the last song of the set- his wonderful tune "Last Day at the Beach" and it was magical- Lars bringing in subtle ocean sounds, me providing some low Stick notes and some subtle leads, Jeff Oster playing some VERY restrained and lovely muted trumpet, and Patrick playing a piano improv which put the song "over the top"

The first set of the show ends, followed by a 20 minute intermission, then the second half begins, like the first, with Will. He plays a solo song, then myself and Lars Hidde (who, with a G5 running all sorts of voodoo, is literally Jeff Oster's "backing band") join Will for one of his tunes. Adding some wonderful vocal textures on this song is a local musician named Amy Clifford- simply a great person with one of the most unique voices I've ever heard. She was also visibly pregnant, and I'm certain that, at rehearsals, she got tired of me offering to get her a chair, get her water, carry her across the street, etc.... I stayed on stage, told a story, played a couple of songs, and brought out Jeff Oster, Pat, and Lars. Backstage, Will told me that the combination of songs I'd played- "Almost the Moon" and "Jasmine in Lingering Light"- were "devestating", and that my meager attempts at humor went over well. Feedback like that from someone like him- well, it means a lot.

Will went out and played the last song, after some thick-sounding and "arranged" songs (these descriptions are meant in the best sense, by the way) from Jeff Oster. We all agreed that the crowd was wonderful, and were looking forward to playing again on saturday night. After the show, we all talked with whichever audience members stayed around to talk- and by my estimations, it was all of them. Pack the Stick up, head back to the hotel way too late, and get some sleep.

Morning came too early, I did the "zombie creeps into hotel lobby with gravity-defying hair to eat a bowl of cereal" routine, and I went back to my room to start rehearsing again. This may seem to be overkill- rehearsing so much on show day- but it's something that I feel I "need" to do when I get the chance to. How much talent a person has is always open for debate, but what's NOT open to debate, for me, is how "hard" a person can work. I may or may not have a lot of talent, but whatever I'm lacking in the talent area, I can "make up for" in the "work like an army of caffinated ants" area. Besides- I HAD to rehearse, because I had a surprise for Will Ackerman at that night's show (insert scary music here....)

So- a few hours practice, I head to the theater to do a quick soundcheck with Travis the cello player. The show starts, and it's pretty much the same set as the night before. However, I'm the odd man in that my saturday night set and stories were different than the friday night set. I do this for MY benefit- I like to stay "engaged", and I have a hard time doing that when I play the same set over and over. I started my first set by letting the audience pick a key signature, and I performed a work of "spontaneous composition" in that key signature. I then played "In the Silent Years to Come" from my "Lingering Light" cd, then I was off the stage. Will was of the opinion that his playing was a bit "sloppy" as compared to the night before. I can state with complete confidence that he was the only one who thought so, because the rest of us musicians were pretty knocked out by what we heard. Still, I could tell he was pretty bothered by his playing, which led to the following exchange:

Me: Don't worry, Will- it sounds great. And besides, I have a surprise for you during the second set.

Will: Is it dancing girls?

Me: Everything is negotiable

The second set begins, and Will tells the story about his encounter a few years ago with Gene Simmons from Kiss. He plays one song, We join him for his second song, and Travis and I play "Almost the Moon". It was nice hearing a cello with the Chapman Stick, and it makes me want to try more of that in the future. The song is over, and I tell the crowd that I'm going to deviate from the set-list and play a Will Ackerman song. Surprise, Will... I heard the crowd laughing shortly after I said this, and I turned my head to see Will Ackerman coming out from stage left, his hands extended in preperation to wring my neck, with a look of mock-anger on his face (at least I hope it was "mock" anger).

What happened next requires a split screen. While I'm talking about the song of his I'm going to play, Will goes out the back door of the theater and walks around to the front of the house, so he can take a seat in the audience. I'm talking about how the following song meant a lot to me three years ago when I lost a friend of mine, and that it brought me to a place where I could start writing the music on "Lingering Light". So- thinking that Will was stowed away in his dressing room, tuning his very expensive guitars- guitars which he'd NEVER break over the head of a Chapman Stick player- I played his song "Sound of Wind Driven Rain". It's a delicate tune- a kind of melancholic lullabye for the broken. I don't say this often about my playing, but on this song, I hit every note and nuance I aimed for. And that was accomplishment enough for me because: a) Will's song was written on guitar, and it's not exactly "Chapman Stick" friendly, and b) the second half of Will's song featured Ugandan singer Samite, and I haven't figured out how to get THAT sound on the Stick. Yet.

The song was over, and was received by this ever-appreciative crowd. I knew there was a problem, though, because I felt a mountain-sized lump in my throat. I introduced Jeff O., Lars and Pat, but my voice broke. Luckily the audience was understanding.


Split screen time again: I exit stage left, Pat Gorman passes me and said "Will was in the crowd listening". Uh oh. While I'm walking down the stage stairs, Will gets out of his seat, literally runs down the aisle, enters the back stage area just as I'm coming to the bottom of the stage steps. He's visibly moved, looks straight at me and says "Pearce, you sweet, sweet bastard", and gives me one of those hugs of his that you need the jaws of life to escape from. Nothing like being hugged by Will Ackerman. Nothing like being called a bastard by him, either. Both were great.

The rest of the show proceeds pretty much as the night before, Will plays his last song, then invites the rest of us onstage for a final bow. Tanya comes out and gives each of us a hug, we bow, and get ready to leave the stage, but someone starts the chant of "MORE! MORE! MORE!", and pretty quickly, they start stomping the floor hard enough to shake the stage. So we take our places, and all play Will's song "Hawk Circle". On record, it's an intense song, but fairly sedate. But thanks to Patrick Gorman's electronic drums (yes, his solo cd is piano, but he was a drummer first, and he's an AMAZING drummer!) the song became intense and LOUD. Will, perhaps in a state of temporary insanity during rehearsals, had appointed me somewhat of the "band leader" for this song, so it was up to me to visually cue everyone to when the sections were changing. Kind of hard to do this when everyone plays with their eyes closed... so I resorted to screaming out "1 2 3 4!" at a throat shredding volume. It did the trick, even though it left me sounding like cookie monster the rest of the evening.

Again, after the show, the crowd just wanted to talk to every musician they could, and we were there past midnight. The show started at 7:30 and went to 10:30, but I heard so many people say something to the effect of "it felt like you guys didn't play very long- time just flew by!". I said my goodbyes to Will, Pat, Jeff O., Tanya, and to Samantha- a co-worker of Tanya's with whom I felt an immediate "connection", and enjoyed many conversations with. Then I headed back to the hotel, groaned when I saw what time it was ("12:30 am?!?! My flight leaves at 8:30 tomorrow and I have yet to cram five days of dirty laundry into my luggage!") hit the sack, and received my wake up call all too soon. Christy kindly gave me a ride to the airport, after receiving less sleep than I, and then I found myself once again at the mercy of United Airlines (motto: "You have a CONNECTING flight? You're NEVER going to make it!"). Many hours later, I arrive at the mountain free state of Indiana, and a couple of hours after that, I pull into my driveway and see "Welcome Home, Daddy!" scribbled in chalk on the garage doors.

I will admit: I had some SERIOUS doubts about whether or not Tanya Hogan could pull off this show. She'd never done a concert before, and booking one act would have been hard enough. But booking FOUR performers for your first concert? You'd have a better chance of successfully juggling Faberge eggs while playing soccer on a frozen lake. Even experienced promoters have put me in a hotel room where you just KNOW there's a chalk outline on the floor (*cough!* *cough!*Harrisburg*) or lined up a venue that would have had to do major upgrades to get to the status of "condemmend" (*cough!**cough!**Pittsburgh*). But Tanya did EXACTLY what she said she would do- she took care of all the arrangements, and promoted the daylights out of the show, using every available media- newspaper, radio, internet, television. I'm fairly certain she even covered Morse code and smoke signals. There are very few people like her, and I'm blessed to know her.

So thank you Tanya Hogan, thank you Sun Valley, and thanks a heap United Airlines. You can be certain that I'll be seeing two of you three again.

love, marriage, and whoopee cushions

A lot has happened here since the last blog entry- Mrs. Pearce and I both had the yearly "odometer roll-over" we call our birthdays, and this past week, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of our meeting. The "celebration" took place at a local Cajun restaurant Saturday night (yes, a real Cajun restaurant in Indiana- I passed on the fried alligator, however....), while the Amazing Courtney watched the daughters.

No matter your age, 20 years is a LONG time for pretty much anything. I've often wondered what keeps some people together for "the long term", and in the case of Mrs. Pearce and I, my usual answer to that was "We've been together for 20 years because Mrs. Pearce is incredibly understanding and tolerant of all things Jeff". In the past couple of months, however, I've seen that I've not given myself enough credit for contributing to the "glue" that has kept us in each others lives- specifically in one area.

A few years ago, I asked Mrs. Pearce the big question- "why do you love me?". I had a couple of ideas as to why she might- unfortunately, neither of those were in her answers, which were the following:

"I love you because:

1) you always make me laugh

2) I know that you'd never hurt me- or anyone else for that matter"

.....which are good things, although it puts a little pressure on me to be funny. The third reason caught me off guard, though:

3) you're the most hygienic man I've ever met- you never stink!

I'll admit: there was a SMALL part of my brain that was hoping to hear reasons along the lines of "you're a big slab of manly beefcake" as opposed to "you don't even SMELL like a man!"

After mid-July, however, Mrs. Pearce had a new one to add to her list- and it would be:

4) and I know that you, Jeff Pearce, would NEVER drag me to divorce court because I went on a shopping trip and brought home a whoopee cushion for our daughters to play with.

Yes- a whoopee cushion. I heard it in my dreams for many nights.

About six weeks ago, Mrs. Pearce took a day off to get some shopping done. She went to a mall with some pricey, upscale stores- Sak's Fifth Avenue, the Sony Store, a Mac store- some nice places. And she returned from the mall with some nice clothes for herself. She asked my daughters "were you good while I was gone?" They replied yes, so she handed them this whoopee cushion, with the implied message "I'm giving this to you because you were good in my absence. Now you can be bad".

And it was easy to be bad with this whoopee cushion, because it is a new high-tech one- one that is self inflating, meaning there's no real downtime between explosions. And there were many explosions, followed by HARD laughter from the daughters.

I suppose you can find out a lot about a person based upon their whoopee cushion technique. Daughter #1, normally the more measured, "non-instant gratification" child, favored the loud, fast discharge- and afterwards, she laughed every time.

Daughter #2, on the other hand, favored the slower, more subtle approach- preferring to let the sound trickle on endlessly. She laughed a lot, too.

(the sound that a whoopee cushion makes is one that daughter #2 has had some experience making on her own- sans whoopee cushion. This past winter, upon making such a sound, she declared "oops! I made poop bubbles!" I corrected her and said "what you should say is 'excuse me, I passed gas'". About a week after that, she was running by Mrs. Pearce and myself, let slip of a certain body noise, stopped running and said "excuse me- I....I.... I ran out of gas!". Close enough....)

Fortunately for me, the whoopee cushion is no more. I believe that ours was the only whoopee cushion in history to be broken from over-use, because for about three weeks straight, all that was heard around the Pearce household was (and I'll try to spell this with as much accuracy as possible) "BWAAAAPPPP!" "BWAAAAAP!" "sqeeeeEEEEEEeeeeEEEEEEeeeeEEEE!", followed by two girls laughing hard and the younger one saying "AGAIN! AGAIN AGAIN!!"

If there's any upside to "fart-fest 2006", it's that I now have a little leeway regarding what I buy for the daughters ("were you two good while I was gone? Ok, here you go- super soakers filled with black ink. Go nuts.").

Boca Raton and the $100 burger.....

I'm going to Boca Raton to eat a hamburger.

...ok, I'm not- but there's a part of me that REALLY wants to.... and Boca Raton owes me a hamburger- but I'll explain that later....

According to this story at cnn.com, there is a restaurant at the Boca Raton Resort and Club which is now selling a $100 hamburger. You can click on the link and read all the decadent details of this delightful delicacy.

.... yeah- I know- a lot of "d" words. Get past it......

Personally, a $100 burger not a bad thing for a town to be associated with- especially since one of Boca Raton's claims to fame is that they are the hometown of the National Enquirer (motto: "We feature only the frumpiest of celebrities!").

I mentioned the burger story to Mrs. Pearce last night, and she asked "why do you want to eat that? You're not a big burger person."

I answered her that I do not eat burgers, but it takes a determined effort on my part not to eat them. Seeing "Supersize Me" helped a bit with my focus to stay on the straight and narrow, burger-wise. But regardless of that movie, I've been determined not to indulge in burgers for about 12+ years now, with various degrees of success. I've even been a vegetarian for a while.

And I tried REALLY really hard, too- eating nothing with any animal products in them whatsoever. One of my preferred foods in my vegetarian phases were something called "Boca Burgers"- which were made entirely of grains and veggies. I won't go into details on the taste, other than to say a Boca Burger is to a hamburger what Jessica Simpson is to John Lennon: not even close, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise. But I tried- believe me, I tried. I even went so far as to put the Boca Burgers on our grill to give them grill marks. I'd put the Boca Burgers on buns and load the whole thing up with as many toppings as I could.

The result? Jessica Simpson singing "Give Peace a Chance"........

But I soldiered on- and I'd be doing so well, too- while munching away on the Boca Burgers, my weight would be wonderful, I'd be full of energy and clear mental thinking (well, relatively speaking). In fact, I was the healthiest and most alert miserable person you'd want to meet. Eventually, I'd fall off the wagon in a big way, and go on the kind of "meat bender" that Dr. Atkins would have deemed excessive. When I'd awaken from these benders, I'd be surrounded by fast food wrappers, empty boxes of beef jerky, and usually a couple of very angry live pigs with very big bandages on their rear ends.

So after more than a year of eating a Boca "burger" every time I had a craving, I'm thinking that the town owes me one of the $100 burgers.

Being a musician, I'd even be willing to work out a deal with the Boca Raton Resort and Club: I'll show up and play a concert at their place. And when they decide to hand over the burger, I'll stop playing. I'll even buy one of their $75 milkshakes to wash it down with. And the National Enquirer can report the whole thing ("Frumpy looking man devours burger, mentions something about Jessica Simpson").

yet more older posts....

Yet more posts from the jeffpearcemusic.com website, since I'm about to start using this page full time for all my blogging needs...

January 24, 2006

"Mom has gone organic crazy!"

The words of daughter #1 just a couple of weeks ago- and pretty accurate, from where I sit at least. Mrs. Pearce has embraced her inner granola muncher, and has taken the rest of us along with her. This is not a bad thing; as time goes by, I know that I'm getting less and less enthusiastic about food loaded with so many preservatives that the expiration date on the package reads "don't worry- you won't live long enough for this to expire". And a whole lot of the foods are really quite tasty; Mrs. Pearce has bought everything from organic veggies and organic pasta sauce, to something I didn't know existed- organic Pop Tarts. For the kids, of course.

........hey- stop looking at me like that- they really ARE for the kids!

For clarification, these aren't technically "Pop Tarts", since everyone knows the phrase "Pop Tarts" is a registered trademark of the company which makes them- Microsoft (motto: "the next version won't have bugs in it- promise!") (which is the motto for their software AND their pop tarts, which I'm almost certain they make...). These are "organic toaster pastries", and although their taste doesn't exactly hit home, just the presence of the "pop tarts" in our house takes me back to my teen years, and a culinary crime against nature that I gleefully indulged in.

What I'm about to reveal now is something that I've not revealed to another living person- not even to Mrs. Pearce: At age 17, I created my one and only truly original recipe- it was fast and easy to make. It was sinful..... . It was:

"The Peanut-Butter Pop-Tart sandwich".

Pretty easy to make:

1) get two pieces of white bread (you certainly don't want any extra fiber)

2) smear both pieces of bread with peanut butter

3) put a pop tart on one of the pieces of bread (and it had to be a FROSTED pop tart- those non-frosted ones were icky health food in comparison)

4) put the other piece of bread on top to complete the sandwich

5) sneak it out of the kitchen so: a) your mom wouldn't see what you've made and pass out from shock, or: b) your dad wouldn't see what you made and ask you to make him one

The truly frightening thing to the calorie-counting, fat-restricting, fiber loving, sugar limiting Jeff of 2006 is that for at least a few months in late 1984-early 1985, I ate one of these EVERY SCHOOL DAY for breakfast- I'd secretly make it in the kitchen, sneak it out to my car, and eat it on the way to school. Once at school, I'd buy a Coke out of the vending machine to wash it all down with. Do I even need to mention that for the rest of the day, I was REALLY REALLY GLAD TO BE IN CLASS and wanted the teacher to TEACH FASTER BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS MOVING TOO SLOWLY? Had my gym teacher asked me to, I'm pretty certain that I could have played a game of dodgeball. Against MYSELF. On the PLUS side, it was an effective study-aid (mom: Jeff, do you have any homework to do tonight? Jeff: NO, MOM! I DID IT ALL ON THE DRIVE HOME!!! Mom: Do you mean "on the RIDE home"? Jeff: YEAH, SURE- WHATEVER HELPS YOU SLEEP AT NIGHT- WHICH I HAVEN'T DONE FOR THREE WEEKS STRAIGHT!!!").

Eventually, I did a little improvisation with the recipe. For example, one time I inadvertently broke the pop tart. Thinking this could add texture, I broke the remaining pop tart into pieces and scattered them over the peanut butter. Eventually, I learned that a knife would make a cleaner cut, so I'd dice up the pop tart before laying it on the peanut butter. Emeril Lagasse I was not.

My ultimate improvisation came the morning that I went to the kitchen and saw that we were out of bread. I grabbed a pop tart, and started to head out of the kitchen. However, an otherworldly force drew me back. I grabbed another pop tart, the jar of peanut butter, and a knife.

......yeah, you know where I'm going already:

I spread the peanut butter on the non-frosted side of one pop tart, pressed the non-frosted side of the other pop tart into the peanut butter, and made the bread free peanut butter pop tart sandwich- a sandwich that had 98,056% RDA of sugar, and 0% RDA of "what the !*&^ are you thinking?!?!?!".

Of course, the punch line to all this is that, despite my eating roughly 80 pounds of pure sugar every morning, my body certainly didn't LOOK like it rightfully should have. The teen-age male metabolism- one of the seven wonders of the world, in my opinion. It didn't matter how trashy the fuel was, my body would convert it into all the energy I needed to stay focused on the important things in life: girls, music, and video games.

In 2006, however, eating just ONE peanut-butter pop tart sandwich would quickly put me into the "training to be a sumo wrestler" phase of my current exercise program. Of course, I could take some of this organic sprout bread, smear it with organic peanut butter, and drop on one of these organic pop tarts. Hmmmmm.....

HEY- I NEVER FINISHED THIS ENTRY!!! WHOA- MUST HAVE BEEN DISTRACTED BY SOMETHING ELSE!!! I HAVEN'T BEEN THIS AWAKE IN YEARS!!! THANK YOU ORGANIC FOOD!!!


January 11, 2006

I hope this note finds everyone enjoying 2006 thus far.

For a bit of new year's fun, go to archive.org it's a huge "internet archive". Right there on the front page of archive.org is something called the "wayback machine"- enter a web address, and you'll see how the website developed over the years. Just yesterday, I spent more time than I should have entering every website I could think of and watching how it changed over time- including my own (note to self: it was a GOOD decision to remove my photo from the front page of the website...).

Having watched enough of "Rocky and Bullwinkle" as I child, I remember how the wayback machine was used by Mr. Peabody and his assistant Sherman, allowing them to travel through time and go sailing with Magellan, flying with the Wright brothers, and whispering in the ear of 1995-era Jennifer Aniston "don't do it- he's not worth it." . This is usually the time of the year that I wish I had my own personal wayback machine. However, this time around, here in 2006, I don't find myself wishing for a wayback machine so I could fix past mistakes of mine (they belong to me, for better or worse), but so I could, as an observer, get another perspective of things that have happened in my past.

Specifically, if I had a wayback machine, my first stop would be January 1991, at the apartment Mrs. Peace and I shared as newlyweds. I know that most people would love to travel into the past and offer pearls of wisdom to their younger selves. And if I had any to offer, I certainly would. Instead, I'd drop in on those young newlyweds and make one request of the 22 year old Mrs. Pearce:

"Make me some dinner".

Why this request? Because sometimes we need a reminder of how the good old days weren't really all that good.....

In the early days of our marriage, cooking wasn't exactly one of Mrs. Pearce's talents. In fact, all of her recipes involved pretty much the following instructions:

1) spread a bag of tater-tots on a cookie sheet

2) pre-heat oven to 8,000 degrees

3) put tater-tots in oven

4) take them out sometime next Tuesday

Needless to say, we didn't have a whole lot of dinner guests in those early days of our marriage.....

Mrs. Pearce came by her early recipes honestly- she learned to cook from her mom. Knowing this, I should be surprised that either of us made it out of our first year of marriage alive. The first Christmas after we were married, we had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom-in-law's place. The dish of the evening was spaghetti and meatballs. I don't know how she did it, but mom-in-law managed to burn spaghetti sauce- at least that's what my tongue told me, before it started tying a noose for itself out of a strand of spaghetti. Everyone else at the dinner, however, was apparently de-sensitized to the food. I, on the other hand, found myself in the in-law's bathroom two hours later thanking the gods that they had a full package of Charmin Ultra-soft.......

Mrs. Pearce, the 2006 model, is light-years from those early "kitchen malfunctions". She now has some great recipes- everything from cinnamon muffins and chocolate chip cookies to more exotic fare like naan and Caribbean shrimp. Just a week ago, she fixed salmon with a wasabi-ginger dressing, and it made me completely forget the tater-tot casserole from 1991 that was simultaneously half burnt and half frozen.

I can't speak for Mrs. Pearce, but I'm somewhat certain that if SHE could get into the wayback machine, she'd set course for this past summer, where she went to a good-bye party for a co-worker at a local pub and was carded at the door. "And the guy who carded me was REALLY young!", I can still hear her say. THAT was a good week in the Pearce household.......

some older posts from my website

Here are a few posts from my website- I'll be importing them over to this blog as part of a mass migration of sorts ,as I make this my prefered place to blog.

June 4, 2006


Daughter #1 and Mrs. Pearce really enjoyed this last season of "American Inventor"- and I could see why. Some of the ideas were truly inspiring. Of course, the main reason for watching the show was the same as watching any reality contest show: to see the clueless folks who had no idea that they were clueless presenting bad ideas with a clueless grin on their faces. The final four ideas on "American Inventor", though- pretty good ideas, and pretty great implementation of technology.

Technology is great- when it's an improvement.

You don't have to know much about me to know that I love technology; my music depends on it, to a major extent, and my entertainment depends on it as well- what I'm doing at this moment DEFINITELY depends on technology.

This past week, my cell phone was "upgraded" by the lovely Mrs. Pearce. This was an example of an improvement. Concurrently, my cell phone PLAN was upgraded (the motto of my service provider apparently being "why stick with your old plan when we have a new one that costs twice as much?"). This wasn't as much of an improvement. Oh, sure- on this new plan I can surf the web and play a lot of games on my cell phone, but that's not a big deal- and I know of what I speak, since I've spent about 20 hours this weekend web surfing from the phone. No big deal at all. I can stop any time I want. Really.

So when it's an improvement, technology is great. When it's not, it makes you feel like the butt of a joke played by a major corporation.

Case in point: the "new" camera Mrs. Pearce bought in late 1997. She bought this just in time for Christmas, the reason being that she wanted some great pics of daughter #1 celebrating her first Christmas. This new camera had a bit of then-new technology- a "red-eye reducer". This worked by putting out a "pre-flash", so that every picture turned out red-eye free.

And it DID work- there were no red-eyes in the pics of daughter #1. You want to know why? Because daughter #1 had her eyes closed for EVERY one of those pictures; apparently, this "new technology" was never tried on a baby. Babies close their eyes when they see bright things. Which means that a baby's eyes would be WIDE OPEN when looking at the engineer who designed this piece of technology.

There's still one area, though, where technology has been somewhat lacking: the area of raising children. So far, we've been relying on Dad 1.0, but I can tell you, that gadget is full of bugs and quirks and has been making some REALLY weird noises lately.

Fortunately, we have access to Courtney 2.0. The amazing and affordable Courtney has been our salvation for two years now, in quite a few ways. She has taught us a lot about our daughters. After returning home from one of our first night's out, Courtney told us that daughter #2 (then two years old) was a little naughty, and had to sit in the corner. Later on, Mrs. Pearce and I had the following conversation:

Me: I didn't know daughter #2 would sit in a corner

Mrs. Pearce: I didn't know daughter #2 would SIT!

Up to that point in time, my "corrective methods" for dealing with daughter #2 have been time-out's. For ME. I'd send myself to my room when I heard the sound of plates breaking or warranties being voided. Not terribly effective, but it kept me from calling area adoption agencies to see if some kind soul would be willing to adopt me.

And that's where the future of technology lies, in my opinion- child discipline. Here's an idea that is worthy of the next season of "American Inventor", although that's not saying much for either the idea or the show:

Discipline via odor.

It will work like this: the child in question wears a neck-band. It will look fashionable and nothing at ALL like a dog collar, so get that out of your head right now.

On the neck-band will be tiny vials. Each vial will have a specific odor in it. And each vial will be controlled by remote control (and this is where fathers can get REALLY excited about taking part in helping rear the children, because it will be a REALLY cool remote control).

When the child misbehaves, no more yelling, spanking, or writing them out of your will. Instead, you push a button on the remote. The corresponding vial will shoot a little mist upward, and- WHOA!- "over-cooked liver and onions" scent hits the kid's nose.

....talk about negative re-enforcement.......

In the spirit of "let the punishment fit the crime", you could have the odors range from "minor offenses" to "criminal behavior". Playing ball in the house might get a shot of "wet dog on a summer day", while breaking a window would get a whiff of "trapped in the car with dad after a trip to Taco Bell".

In an attempt to make kids WANT to wear these neck-bands, I propose bringing in some fashion designer type to make them look great. And, with a nod to "American Inventor", I already have the jingle written for the commercial- kids would be singing it non-stop, almost against their will after hearing it. Want to know what it is? I close this entry with the jingle to end all jingles:

"Be kind to everyone you meet
'cause naughty smells like grandma's feet"




May 21, 2006


I like white rooms. Apparently, this is a mental disorder in the eyes of my wife and many others.

I like white rooms because they look clean and neutral, and even natural (yes- white occurs in nature- ever see a cloud?). Yes, white is boring- it looks like a piece of paper. But just like a piece of paper, it's the prefect blank canvas for jotting down great ideas- throw on a few pictures, place a few pieces of furniture around, and everything comes together- if not in an exciting way, at least not in a way that overwhelms the eyes.

But no more in this house. As of yesterday, come through our front door and you'll feel like you've stepped into a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

It's pink. Our dining room is pink. And it's a shade of pink that screams "nothing male is allowed to live here!"

For the most part, Mrs. Pearce likes my decorating ideas. I've proven pretty good when it's come to arranging the furniture and things of that order, making sure that everything looks uncluttered (leaving plenty of space for the daughters to insert the preferred amount of clutter). Unfortunately for me, I was also of the opinion that the white rooms looked nice and clean- thus alerting my wife to my apparent mental disorder. She responded by bringing out Terrie, the "color specialist". And this color specialist absolutely HATED white houses and white rooms- she made mention of this first thing, saying that she had a grandmother who had such a house, and she couldn't stand it. Looking back, I think Mrs. Pearce did a little victory dance when Terrie said this.....

So Mrs. Pearce has been very enthusiastic about changing the color of every room in our house since the visit of Terrie the color-specialist. And Mrs. Pearce told me early on that the color of the dining room would be "a light coral". This was a safe thing for her to say, because there are very few chances of me seeing coral here in Indiana. While the paint was going on yesterday, I commented "this looks pink".

"No- it's more of a coral color", Mrs. Pearce replied. "It will dry lighter".

Don't believe it. It didn't.

After the painting was done, I looked at the lid of the paint can- it said, quite clearly, that the color was "orchard pink".

Pink. Now I know the shock and fear the "Da Vinci Code" guy felt when he stumbled across the big secret.......

I remarked to Mrs. Pearce that right on the paint can lid, the color was orchard pink.

"No, it's more of a coral color", was her reply, this time a little more forceful than before.

The painting juggernaut has started, and the next room to get it will be the living room, which Mrs. Pearce says will be a "light gray". Ah- leave the bottle of Pepto-Bismol, and enter the lung of a light smoker.

I propose that the powers-that-be start naming colors with a reference point everyone can understand (can anyone reading this tell me what color "taupe" is? Ok- can any MALE reading this tell me what color "taupe" is?)

.....I looked it up on-line. The definition? "a grayish brown" That's like saying something is "a blackish white"......

Some suggestions for these easier to understand colors:

"nose-bleed red"- see? you know that one from the offset. "Driveway gravel gray"- don't need a lot of explanation there. "Cheap-o disposable hospital gown Blue"- you see that one in your head already, don't you? "Taco Bell brown". Speaks for itself. "Dr. Pepper can red". A totally different kind of red from "nose-bleed red", right? "Really bad bruise green". A little disgusting, but a lot easier to visualize than "breath of spring" green- yes, that's a REAL shade of green!

But "orchard pink"? As far as I can tell, there's only one thing that grows in that orchard- and that's Pepto Bismol........

first post...

The following is the post that I made a couple of weeks back on my myspace blog. I present it here to kick off my blogger.com blog- which will soon replace the blog on my website www.jeffpearcemusic.com

I've been gently reprimanded by a friend for leaving my blog nice and empty. :) This is probably because there's not a whole lot going on at the moment.

And that's not entirely true- there's ALWAYS something going on here, but very little is music related. I WILL say that there's a very good chance that I may be playing quite a few shows in the upcoming summer/fall, but I'll not announce those things until there's something concrete. Until then, it's mostly the usual stuff that goes on around here- and you can read about those things on the blog at my website www.jeffpearcemusic.com and then click on the "about Jeff" tab. If you've already checked that page out, then to update: yes, the dining room is still pink. Despite what the kind and beautiful Mrs. Pearce insists, it's NOT a coral color, but good old fashioned pink. Pink Panther pink.

This is not a completely bad thing- for example, it's now safe for my daughters to load their super soakers with Pepto-Bismol and shoot at each other in the dining room.

(oh- yeah- better pop a glamorous "life of a musician" bubble for all of you right off: my "day gig" is taking care of my two young daughters. Daughter #1 is nine years old and likes to write stories and ride her bike. Daughter #2 is four years old and likes to void warranties on every device in this house, using such creative techniques as stomping them, throwing them, or head-butting them. My day is spent, for the most part, begging them for mercy.)

(Oh, you're probably wondering why I don't list the names of my children here or on my website. The main reason being that the internet is a scary place, and there are plenty of nutjobs out there who would love nothing more than to get the names of little kids and find them and do horrible things to them. I'm not going to make it easier for them. The second reason is that most of the time, I can't technically remember their names. I try- I try really hard, but the only thing that comes out of my mouth is "hey....ummm.....YOU! Get over here- and tell me your name, while we're on the subject". I remember once, when I was 16 years old, my mom accidentally called me by our dog's name. It seemed really funny at the time. Now that I have kids, it's not quite as funny, and it makes me glad we don't have a dog....)

Ok, that should do it for now- it's going to be breakfast time for the little ones very soon, which means that I will be fixing toast and fruit while they beg me for something with 10,000% of their daily requirement of sugar. And yet another advantage of a pink dining room: I can serve them grapefruit, and they can defiantly throw it at the wall all they want to- it will blend in....