Terri Clark: Unplugged emotion

Terri Clark isn’t the first singer-songwriter to tour unplugged and alone. But she certainly executed the concept to near perfection Wednesday evening at the Sellersville Theater.
Accompanied onstage by five guitars, only four of which she played during the nearly two-hour gig, the Canadian-born country music star has designed a show that she hopes is “like sitting in a living room at a party with someone who has a guitar in her lap.”
In that regard, Clark accomplished that in spades. It’s a return to her roots, when she played at Tootsies Orchid Lounge in Nashville for tips more than two decades ago.
What took it to the next level this time was the way she really laid herself bare to the audience, talking at length and with emotion between songs, especially about her mother Linda, who died in April after a battle with cancer.
The hootin’ and hollerin’ early in the show from the northeast hillbillies in the crowd — whom Clark suggested could be considered more “sophisticated” than hillbillies in other parts of the country — gave way to stone cold silence midway through the show as Clark detailed her mother’s illness and the impact it has had on her, both personally and musically.
Concert tickets aren’t cheap these days, given our current economic climate. Certainly folks expect to be entertained for their money, and that’s nothing new. But everybody has lost a loved one, and when the person on stage opens up and shares that experience, people can relate. We feel like we know the person on the cover of the CD.
The particularly poignant moment came when Clark talked about being at her mother’s hospital bedside and starting to cry. Awakened by her daughter’s tears, Linda comforted Terri with words that had to do with always being able to smile. After her mother’s death, Clark took those words and turned it into a song, which she performed for the enthralled ST94 crowd. She hasn’t yet recorded the song, but it played big in Sellersville, as I suspect it has at other stops in the tour.
Meet-and-greets with people before the show, signing autographs for fans after the show — and in between laying out your heart and soul to a group of strangers who have paid to see you perform — it’s the total experience for an artist and the fans.
Someday Terri Clark will go back to full band concerts with all the bells and whistles. But at this point in her career, the “Unplugged and Alone” tour appears to be Clark’s way of not only dealing with her career changes and challenges but her personal loss as well.
It’s the right artist doing the right show at the right time. What more can be asked?

Fun with the 'ICS Fun' staff

I always enjoy talking to students and such was the case Oct. 21 when I was invited to speak at Immaculate Conception School in Jenkintown.
After several years without a school newspaper, school officials and the kids have decided to “re-launch” a publication, this one called “ICS Fun,” the name of which was suggested by fifth-grader Kylie Purcaro.

Robert Loughney, president of the Immaculate Conception School Home and School Association, contacted me and asked if I would speak to the students as a representative of their “hometown newspaper,” the Times Chronicle, an offer that I never turn down no matter what school or age group of students, from elementary to college.
My mom was a teacher and my dad was a school superintendent, so maybe the attraction to the education field is in my blood. All I know is that I do like the opportunity to give back to the communities with which I am involved.
Thanks to ICS Principal Dr. Diane Greco (who we learned in class used to be a ballerina, a “scoop” that the student journalists were urged to pursue for a future edition of the school newspaper), I was welcomed to the school. I was relieved, however, that Dr. Greco did not ask me to dance because I have not practiced my ballet steps in quite a while.
Newspaper class moderator is Elena Cipolla, who when I arrived was imploring the kids to “make the deadline” or they wouldn’t be in a position to produce their first issue of the ICS Fun next week.
I wish I had a nickel for every time that I’ve been asked — or that I’ve asked a reporter — to “make the deadline” in the past 30 years.
I spent about an hour with the kids, who ranged in age from fifth grade through eighth grade. We talked about reading (good writers are good readers) and writing and making deadlines. We even went over the video aspect of what a reporter does these days, which you can see a little bit of in the accompanying video. I was glad to offer pointers and encourage the students in their venture.
Hopefully ICS Fun will be a learning experience and successful endeavor for the students and the school. And maybe one or two of the kids will become professional reporters or editors some day.

Snooze and snore siesta silliness

Now here’s an event I’m sorry I missed: Last week Spain started it’s first-ever siesta competition, which will end on Oct. 23, where the winner will be chosen on how long he or she can sleep and snore.
Napping and snoring. I would not be opposed to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) considering both as new events for the 2012 games in London. In the areas of both sleeping and snoring, I’ve essentially been in training my whole life for that and would have to be considered among the favorites for the gold medal.
According to a wire service story, the goal of the competition was to promote Spain’s post-lunch nap time. Contestants will be put into groups of five over the course of nine days and “timed by a doctor with a pulse-measuring device to determine how long they spent snoozing.”
Contestants could score extra points for snoring as well as wearing goofy nightwear or sleeping in an odd position.
The competition was organized by the newly formed National Association of Friends of the Siesta, which had what was described in the wire service story as “a machine to measure the decibels (of snoring) emitted.”
Two observations: First off, there is a machine designed specifically to measure snoring decibels? Cool. And secondly, the National Association of Friends of the Siesta is a cool name for a group. Or a band. Nobody was sleeping on the job when it came to creatively naming the organization.
The top prize for the winner will be about $1,400, but no gold medal at this point.
If they have the competition again next year, I may consider actually going over to Spain to compete.
But I’ll have to sleep on that idea.

Hurtling toward the 'Age of Grumpiness'

If a new study is any indication, it appears that I don’t have too much longer until I start down the path to “The Age of Grumpiness.”
It’s not that I don’t do my share of grumping. I’m already at an age where I do a pretty decent job of being cranky at times, especially when there are no ballgames to watch, which is not the case right now as the Phillies continue to play October baseball.
But according to a wire service story, a cable television survey out of London shows that in a study of 2,000 Britons, those over the age of 50 yukked it up far less than younger people. Not only that, the over 50 crowd complained a lot more.
This would be the place to insert the standard Old Guy’s Lament: “Hey you British kids get off my lawn!”
The survey showed that infants laughed up to 300 times a day (little kids will laugh at anything, like putting lipstick on the dog); teenagers laughed only six times a day (you wouldn’t have much time to laugh either if you spent most your time whining about all the homework you had to do); and folks over age 60 laughed only 2.5 times a day (because it’s not funny when one pulls a hamstring getting out of a recliner).
By the way, men were found to be grumpier than women. This should come as no surprise whatsoever because it is the men in general who are in charge of lawn enforcement rules.
So, when I get to age 52, I’ll be grumpy. And I thought I was just going to be sleepy.