Hey, Steve.

About a month ago, my wife had a work event in Central Virginia, so we used it as enough of a reason to visit Charlottesville. I went to UVA and have tons of fond memories of my time there, and I really enjoyed the city itself, so I often went back. For myriad reasons, I hadn’t been back since a quick jaunt for the Messiah Sing-In in 2017. [Yes, this Jew loves that event. It’s not the music itself, but the event is magical. I joined virtually one year, and I’ll be back at some point.] As we met in 2019, my wife had never been to Charlottesville. We had a lovely time – wandering the city market and Downtown Mall, seeing the various places I lived, and eating very, very well (see this new WEDS post for more). I had to work hard not to fall into too much nostalgia while touring Grounds; our options were to stop at each place for 5 minutes (quick tour) or 5 hours (wave of memories and stories). I spared her that fate. I say that all as context for what happened this past week, when I we...

I was watching random things while washing dishes, and one of them stopped me: Call Me (Weird) Al At first, I thought it was the joke—how he softballs it in there and how excited the audience is when they realize what’s happening—but as he kept going, it was clear there was something else. I missed playing this song. It was one of the more fun Pep Band songs, and it’s responsible for one of my favorite Pep Band memories. I’m still figuring out what this site will do for me. At least today, it’s a place to get out a story. Maybe I’ll write more about the band, but for now, I’ll point you to Elmo’s old site . In the Pep Band, we played about two dozen songs regularly, and we played them a lot . Some of the mellophone parts weren’t the most critical, so we could play around a little, maybe play the written part most of the time but add in some fun lines here and there. I say this because I want to illustrate just how well-worn those tracks were, how easy it was to memorize (at least ...