Author Topic: 20 Questions with Alan

20 Questions with Alan
« Reply #40 on: January 12, 2025 »
l'll just have to fiddle while L.A. burns.

Do you now or have you ever [shades of McCarthy, don't worry] played an instrument? If not, what would you like to try?

Junior high school clarinetist here. A boy surrounded by girls. It was a plan.


I would've liked to learn the piano, if only to play that.

Friends of Acker

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Re: 20 Questions with Alan
« Reply #41 on: January 21, 2025 »
A plan that paid off, I hope. Isn't George Winston wonderful? Been listening to him since Windham Hill was still around, brought a lot of soothing moments after a duress filled ride home on the E Train. Was saddened to learn of his death a few years back.

Funny you should mention the clarinet. While not the sexiest of the reeds (saxophone has to get that one) I've always thought it was a lovely and quite versatile instrument. In my only passing encounter with Woody Allen at Michael's Pub, I made a point to avoid saying anything about his movies and instead told him I admired his clarinet playing. He seemed genuinely pleased. I might try to take that up in my old age.

I had piano lessons as a kid, largely at the instigation of my mother and thus put up a lot of resistance. I might have had some ability if I bothered to practice. I enjoyed the guitar to the point where I could handle the arpeggio on Collective Soul's "December". I think I could do well on bass, thanks to my abnormally long arms and fingers (with all that implies, heh, heh.) My problem with the string instruments is simply this: I have a congenital inability to tune the strings. Not sure why, but I always have to have someone else do the tuning, which got to be awkward, so I ended up giving up on it. Might buy a big stand-up bass and take some lessons. After all, Acker Blick's "Strangers on a Shore" was the number one hit the month I was born.

At the moment my musical wires are being jammed by the bizarre spectacle of the Village People seranading Donald and Melania Trump at the inauguration, so perhaps I will wrap it at that.


20 Questions with Alan
« Reply #42 on: January 31, 2025 »

Could Dick Cavett's trouser legs go any higher? (Not really a question.)

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A plan that paid off, I hope.

I did later take first chair clarinetist Leslie to the prom. It's just as well I don't kiss and tell, as we didn't even make it to... first chair.

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I might try to take that up in my old age.

Anything else on your bucket list?

A Great Clarinetist

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Re: 20 Questions with Alan
« Reply #43 on: February 12, 2025 »

Since I came into the world when that one was was a hit, thought it would be appropriate if it was played at my funeral when I take my departure toward whatever future incarnation awaits and work it out all over again.

Bucket list items? Would be nice to fly First Class just once. I think I may have enough miles at this point. Always had a hankering to make a pilgrimage to Liverpool see up close where maternal Grandma on Mom's side came from. Maybe swing from there over to Poland where the other side came from. And Switzerland in between, just because. Kat is pushing me to take a Schickelgruber Tour, starting in Braunau am Inn in Austria, through Vienna up to Munich and end in Berlin. You'd need to ask her the motivation, she's quite odd.

Mostly I'd like to finish some kind of a literary summation of my life for no particular audience beyond my sons, that they might have a slightly more complete picture of my life than I had of my Dad's. As Blade Runner's Roy Batty put it, "All those moments will disappear, like tears in rain." True, true.