"All it's going to take is all we have."

Barry Trotz

They Got Religion?

Never miss a chance to catch Walker's Run with Danny Knicely on mandolin and Will Lee on banjo. These two were founding members of the Telluride-winning phenom known as Magraw Gap — along with Larry Keel and John Flower — and each is a legend in his own right.

Hitting the big time . .

If these legends — plus Walker's Run founder Brennan Gilmore on guitar and original member Zach Blatter on bass (not to mention Nate Leaf on fiddle) — could possibly be outclassed by the venue itself, The Hamilton certainly made a bid.

Brennan Gilmore

What a place. Beautiful, formal, fun. Like something out of Vegas. You can't sit there without thinking: "These guys have really hit the big time!"

Next Big Thing?

If you needed any more reason to go to the March 10, 2016 show in D.C., that reason was The Rondo Rigs — with Eric Robertson* on mandolin, Duncan Wickel on fiddle, and Nicholas Falk on drums. If my predictor still works, this group is going places. Super-smart lyrics, excellent musicianship. Great stage presence.

Where's the booze?

But the most remarkable thing about the show to me — having seen a few Walker's Run performances, and those of other bluegrass groups — is that not a single performer was drinking alcohol on stage. Each had a water bottle prominently displayed instead. None of those ubiquitous beer bottles.

What the heck happened!?! So many bluegrass songs are about booze, being drunk, or hiding the still from the revenuer. How can you possible perform real bluegrass music without being half-soused? 

Could the venue forbid performers from drinking on stage? Could the group have decided to go alcohol-free? Maybe their last number provides a clue. Mr. Gilmore invited members of the opening act to come back out and they did a really fun Jesus song ("if you want something, just ask Jesus").

Did they get religion?

SEE ALSO: "Knicely Done"

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*with this surname and The Band-like sounds, one wonders if he might descend from Robbie.

"Underdogs"

"As I type, the Redskins are 14-point underdogs this weekend. Since 2011, NFL road teams that are at least 14-point underdogs are 0-23. Since 2007, the Patriots are 17-0 when favored by at least 14 points. And since Daniel Snyder bought the Redskins, they’re 1-10 when double-digit underdogs, with the only win coming as a 10-point underdog, which is an awful long distance from the full 14."

Dan Steinberg

Washington Post

Redskins vs. Patriots: Beat the Cheating

Redskins Hero Kirk Cousins

The 2015-6 Washington Redskins seem largely overlooked among football fans. This is perhaps fitting given their performance in recent years, not to mention the change at quarterback. Many still imagine the super-goofy RGIII to be the real answer and his substitution, Kirk Cousins, just a temporary move.

That theory, and the seeming blasé attitude toward the 'Skins this year, should take jolts from Mr. Cousins' comebacks this season—last-minute victories over the Eagles and, most spectacularly, the Buccaneers. (He appeared on the way to doing the same to the loss-less Falcons when his receiver tripped.*)

Having watched him come off the bench to overcome an 8-point deficit in 30 seconds vs. the Ravens a couple years back—and seen his mastery over the Browns later that season—I like this guy in the crunch. One Michigan State alum told me he was famous for heartbreak heroics there, too. (That he lets it get to that point I don't so much like, but that may be some college-age stuff that he still needs to grow out of.)

Point is, the only way anyone—other than the ridiculous diehards such as myself—is likely to take Cousins and the Redskins seriously this year is if they beat the Patriots on November 8.

To do that, they'll need to beat the cheating, I'd say.

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*The Buccaneers just beat the Falcons 23-20. If A is greater than B, and B is greater than C . .

YES, we like that!!

KIRK COUSINS BECOMES OUR HERO, ONCE AGAIN REVIVING HOPES FOR REDSKINS FANS EVERYWHERE:

Kirk Cousins powers Redskins’ rally from down 24 to beat Bucs, 31-30 The Washington Post
Kirk Cousins drives Redskins to late rally over Bucs NFL.com
Washington QB Kirk Cousins Is Fired Up After 24-Point Comeback vs. Buccaneers Bleacher Report

"Excuse me, are you Jewish?"

Hasidic Jew

That's a strange thing to be asked walking down a busy sidewalk some morning in Washington, D.C.

Turned out an Hasidic Jew was looking for two Jews to meet a quorum for prayer service.

I replied that I was expanding my mind, did that count? 

"Not today", he said.

On noting the Nazi nature of profiling people on the street as to their ethnic appearance, he said

"Nazi-like would be telling you you're nothing."

Reminding him that the Nazis profiled as to Aryan-like features he claimed he couldn't tell what I looked like with my sunglasses.

I took the opportunity to ask him about the new Pope, "while we're on the topic of Nazis", I said, hopelessly prefiguring his response.

"What are you going to do, he was just a kid.  Let's see what he does now, that's more important," he replied dismissively.

He went back to his search for two more Jews, and I to my wondering at the impact of this new Pope on people of my faith.

I Walked by the State Department Yesterday (Part II)

(continued from "I Walked by the State Department Yesterday (Part I)" posted 12.6.4)

I remember the shiny wide halls of marble-like material, the elevators with deselect buttons (don't find too many of them no more), and the oh-so-important shiny shoes gliding in lockstep.

Overseas, at least, many of our supposed 'diplomats' are actually in the employ of the intelligence community.  I have wondered about my father in that regard, given his behavior, but I have determined he was an actual F.S.O. (Foreign Service Officer).

He made ambassador, if that's any indication.

But, just as a Naval officer, which he was, might bring home the anger he can't express at work, which he did, so might a U.S. diplomat apply what he learns on the job on the home front.  Treating his own family in ways the U.S. treats other nations, such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

So there's your wasted life.

Now a friend, a musician, a highly talented and intelligent person I know has fallen into their fold; never likely to return.  His first posting to the poorest of the world's nations, known for its unstable violence, was hard enough for me.  Knowing what faces him in a Foreign Service career is even harder.

I was on my way to a movie about the Italian mafia, in what the lecturer dubbed the "anti-Mafia martyr" genre.  She was asked after her talk if she was including in her definition of 'mafia' the broader behavior found in numerous groups worldwide--gaining what they want by force.

You can't drive past the State Department on 'C' Street anymore.  Guards at either end.  Kicking so many beehives overseas we have to protect ourselves from the backlash at home.

Oddly, the 'man of peace' turns out to the the four-star general who's stepping down as Secretary of State, Colin Powell.  At the time of his appointment I wondered at the paradox, a military man becoming our chief diplomat.  Not since George C. Marshall, another Nobel Peace Prize winner (1953), had we seen such a thing.  But George C. Marshall was a truly great man, and Colin Powell?

Now we see the hand the State Department plays so clearly.  We see it in Iraq.

What is this diplomatic corps anymore if the diplomats within wish not to go out into the field for fear of their lives.  Billion dollar fortresses now replace out humble diplomatic outposts.  Manned by geeks without uniform or military training.  Sitting ducks in our foreign wars.

We've kicked so many beehives over there we need to give them billion-dollar fortresses to live and work in.

Now I know where my life went.

I Walked by the State Department Yesterday (Part I)

My father's employer throughout most of his life stands almost monumentally.  The feeling I had was an eerie one, reminiscent of a life gone bad.  My father's and mine all at once.

I wasn't even sure I could walk past the front of the building, Washington, D.C. having been turned into an armed camp in recent years.  Cement blockade pieces guarded the sidewalk, together with an actual guard.

The way we've been kicking bee hives overseas we have to put up the netting back at home.  How much of the blame lays at these portals?

The sign said the street was closed for a while, but that could have been the side street.  I pressed on, encouraged by a woman I saw coming up the sidewalk the other way.  The guard regarded me suspiciously, as would be his wont, perhaps wondering when I might whip something weapon-like out from under the coat I draped over my arm.

Passing the side entrance I had an Ayn Rand Fountainhead experience--architect Howard Roark's "battle against the tradition-worshipping establishment." As in "individualism versus collectivism, not in politics, but in man's soul; the psychological motivations and the basic premises that produce the character of an individualist or a collectivist."

Something spewing, or feared to be so, from that 40s and 50s era, something Rand captures or alerts us to, but something more, too.  Something about the actual architecture of the building, industrial yet forward-looking, and the way it blurred my vision, made me feel the movement and the threat it posed.

More has emanated from that building than just the force of good or bad architectural design.  Conspiracy theories abound regarding the geeks at State running the world.

Joe McCarthy's McCarthyism, his "Red Scare", his witch hunt pinned Communists purported to be working from the halls of the State Department.

Perhaps our best known diplomat, our best known shaper of foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, now viewed by many as a war criminal, ruled from the State Department.  And the White House as he combined his position with that of National Security Advisor, the better to avoid impediments to his impulse.

Since then Madeleine Albright discovered somehow during her term as the first woman Secretary of State that she was Jewish . . quelle surprise.  Anyone in the know knows she knew it all along.  Even she stands accused of war crimes.

(to be continued)