Learning to sing at 70

My former partner was a musician with seemingly perfect pitch, his whole identity caught up in being a folksinger, which left a little room for me to sing. Though he didn’t actively discourage me from participating, he didn’t seem to want anyone to mess with his gig. 

So I became the dog's body. The roadie. I was the one who did all the background stuff from advertising, and social media, to CD design to booth and merchandise design. And I was the one who researched the music, designed the jacket, bought, burned and printed all his CD media as well. I made thousands of CDs over the course of 20 years. We sold them at Highland games for petty cash, they never fully paid for themselves. 

The problem is of course, was that folks were no longer buying CDs. They wanted to download everything—which changed our relationship to being able to make any money at all off of the music. CD Baby was a good idea whose time came and went. No one wanted to buy a business card with a code for a downloadable album.

Most Highland Games don’t pay unknown artists to perform. Neil found it was difficult to break into the game because established musicians were holding down their respective coveted stages, including Alex Beaton who was instrumental at establishing folksingers at the Highland games. But Neil was lucky in that he was hired to be an emcee at a few games. Especially for the Las Vegas Highland Games. But that fee barely covered the cost of travel across the state.

But we were valiant and determined. We began small, closer to home with the Pleasanton Games, and Arbor Day in Fremont. I enjoyed those days traveling up and down the coast to Ben Lomond, Seaside, Pomona, Costa Mesa, Preston, Arizona, and Enumclaw in Washington—even across the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas. I grew to love visiting the desert in spring. I liked being a booth wench and belonging to the Scottish culture circus of a larger roadie family we were all part of. 

Badgering the Dog

Neil's fellow clansman Roy has an old badger pelt sporran. A sporran is a kind of man purse placed strategically across the front of a man's kilt to keep things primly Victorian.

At the Livermore Scottish Highland Games, dogs are very much part of the event: Scotties, corgies, Airdales, greyhounds, Irish wolfhounds, border collies, hunting dogs and terriers are on display. They're usually on leashes.

Roy's badger sporran is not just another hairy pouch, it is a complete badger pelt replete with tail, paws, ears, a snout, whiskers and two beady glass eyes. It's a relic of a bygone era.

The badger is the totem sign of a chieftain, prominent in many Celtic mythological tales as the magician's expandable bag, capable of containing entire feasts and even humans.

Some games committees frown upon the wearing of sporrans made of the pelts of endangered species, such as harp seals, leopards and arctic foxes. Not that badgers are endangered, but they do draw attention as most sporrans have long since lost most of their animal characteristics.

Roy was having a quiet smoke at the outdoor pub with a full pint in his hand when a loose dog came up to him and began to point, then he began to bark furiously. Roy was startled and backed up and the dog made as if to lunge, his eyes transfixed on the badger's beady eyes.

Roy quickly covered his groin with his free hand, his attention split between his cigarette, his beer and the dog. Something had to go. One hand over his sporran wasn't enough of a deterrent. The badger was too big. Roy dropped the beer in the dry grass and covered his sporran with both hands before the dog lunged for the kill. The dog backed off.

But the minute Roy dropped his hands from the sporran, the dog went ballistic. By this point Roy was more than a little nervous as the dog clearly had a bead on that badger and was growling and baring the business end of his teeth.

Roy couldn't take his hands away to shoo the dog or the dog would attack, and no man in his right mind wants a dog to latch onto that region with a terrier's grip to kill his prey, even if it is a sporran. At that point, I'm sure Roy was wishing that sporran had some magical properties to swallow the dog whole.

As long as Roy stood there with his hands covering the badger's eyes, he was safe, but the minute he removed them all hell broke out...they were at a stalemate until the dog eventually tired of his quarry and wandered off. Roy's replacement beer was on the house.




POSTMORTEM

As we were all packing up our tents at game's end, an anxious, exposed field mouse skittered across the lawn looking for a hiding place. He'd moved into one of the tents during the weekend and set up a base camp. we were the last to leave. Seeking shelter, he ran over our feet and cowered by our insteps.

We moved out of the way and he made a beeline for the next dark shape which happened to be my car wheel. I could see his little tail hanging out of my hubcap. I'd just loaded up mounds of gear, I was beat and didn't want to unpack it to get to the tyre iron in order to remove the hubcap.

I crawled under the car to flush him out. The more I tried to drive him out, the firmer he entrenched himself in my wheelbase. I tried driving in short spurts on the grass, I even left the car parked beside a dumpster for a half an hour. I gave him ample opportunity to escape but he just wouldn't leave the car wheel.

Where was that damned dog when you needed him?

Mending the Kilt