Weddings are a bit like snowflakes, I was thinking, as I hauled my gear into the small chapel this morning (especially in the wake of last weekend's snowstorm). Like snowflakes, although weddings resemble each other in some aspects, no two are exactly alike. I have had the pleasure of performing for several weddings over the years (even wrote some music especially for the occasion, once or twice). They're fun gigs. For one thing, you tend to be surrounded by optimists. I can only recall one wedding that started on time. And in that particular case, not only did the ceremony start exactly on time, but it was planned down to the minute, and was executed as planned. Later, I learned that both the bride and the groom were neuro-surgeons (I decided I would be willing to let either one of them operate on me, should there ever be a need). Today, like most weddings, did not exactly start on time. Oh, I started the prelude music at the appointed time. But it seems that one of the guests suffered some sort of accident (I never got all the details), that required the brother of the bride to take this guest to the hospital. This brother was part of the wedding party, so what was supposed to be about 15-20 minutes of prelude music turned into nearly an hour as we all awaited the return of the brother. Finally, he did return and everything proceeded more or less according to plan. There was also the matter of being informed that they wanted music at two points in the ceremony (something I did not know about until that moment; fortunately, I have plenty of repertoire, and managed to come up with something that worked out just fine). And there was the matter of the ring-bearer and the flower girl both taking turns staring at me. Very intently. For a very long time. Even so. When all was said and done, it was a lovely affair; unusual for being on a Monday morning and all, but a fine, festive occasion for all that.
Reply
The Girl Scouts didn't have all the fun. When I was a kid, I sold candy for the YMCA, to earn my way to summer camp. One year, I sold enough candy for five weeks' worth of summer camp. The only kid who outsold me had a dad who was union boss of one of the factories in town (something of an advantage, maybe?). The YMCA had only two kinds of candy: a chocolate mint comparable to the Girl Scouts' thin mints, and a chocolate/nutty thing they called Turtles. I pushed that candy hard, I gotta tell ya. Many years later, I came off the road from a bad touring experience with a band out of Salt Lake City. The leader of the band burned me something awful, and I was probably the most bitter I've ever been about the music business at that point. I called Montana home in those days, and I got off the road in October, in time for the Christmas tree harvest. I needed a break from gigs, so a friend got me a job loading trees onto flatbed trucks. Then an owner of one of the tree farms wanted a couple of guys to travel with a load of trees down to Wyoming and spend a couple of weeks selling them. In addition to owning the tree farm, this guy (Irv, I believe his name was) also sold RV's, Fifth Wheels, and the like. So I ended up spending a few weeks living on the tree lot in an RV, selling those trees. My father (an insurance agent for most of his life) used to say, "Give a salesman something to believe in and it can be the easiest job in the world." I felt that way about those trees. I would point out how straight they were, what a good center of gravity they had, and could personally attest to their freshness. I thought about these experiences the other day, while I was sending out 400 or so emails and/or EPK's (Electronic Promo Kits) to various venues in preparation for the Fall tour. My father also used to say he thought I was a natural salesman. That may be so; I was just never keen to sell insurance. But I believe in the music that I have to share, and look forward to sharing it with audiences across this nation. Occasionally, someone will ask me, "Isn't it hard making a living as a musician?" I have come up with a ready answer to that: for me, doing anything else is considerably harder. So I'll be sending out more emails and EPK's over the days and weeks to come. And I'll look forward to sharing my music with new audiences and old friends everywhere. Like I said, it's a bit like candy and Christmas trees.
Reply
I had a good time doing a private party with singer, Ashley Kisner, at the Inverness Hotel last night. This is about the third gig I've had the pleasure of doing with Ashley, and it's getting more fun all the time. We are getting to the point where we can sense where each of us is going with the song and create a nice interaction. That, of course, is one of the reasons musicians have such a good time working together: that give and take and sense of communion. Then, this morning I found a message about a potential gig in Omaha. This would qualify as the first official date of the upcoming tour! More details as we firm this up, but it's a lovely way to start the morning and what promises to be a fine weekend. A shout out to our friends, Bob and Sara, who are getting officially married today. Pony and I plan to be there to join in the celebration.
Reply
Just added three dates at Kaos Pizzeria for this coming summer season. I will also be adding a lot more dates at Sonoma'z (especially as the weather gets more pleasant and we can have some fun out on the patio). And there is one house concert (well, sort of a house concert) at Victor Guitars, planned for July. Plenty of chance to come on out and share some good music at some great places. And I'm adding a bunch of new music all the time. Next week, we pick up the RV from the shop and give it a short, shake-down cruise, getting ready for the tour to come at the end of August. For my friends and fans outside of the Denver/Front Range region, I look to be somewhere near you in the months to come. Me, Pony, the cats and Rufus. Circus? What circus?
Reply
Being so close to St. Pat's day and all, I was going through some of my Irish repertoire while walking around the lake with Rufus. It's a good warm up for the voice, and some measure of good work on breath control, too, as I sing while doing a brisk walking pace with my personal trainer (who does not seem to mind my singing, so long as we can stop from time to time to check peemail). It's one of those fun experiences to have one's voice go sailing over the waters of the lake. At one point, a jogger approached me (running counter to us) and told me how much she loved hearing me sing. And the weather is beautiful this morning. It is sunny, with a promise of warming up to 50 degrees or so by this afternoon. The lake is swollen with the recent snows, the water looking more and blue and clear for it. The ducks and geese are starting to lay eggs. All in all, it makes for a nice way to start one's day.
Reply
Last week was a creative, productive week. I finished a couple of songs that I'd started and wrote another one entirely from start to finish. That's 5 songs in about 3 weeks (give or take). The walks around Lake Arbor with Rufus are proving a valuable time to think about lyric ideas and other song-worthy things. Meanwhile, I have added a couple of dates at Gabriel's, in Sedalia, to the upcoming calender, with the promise of several more venues to come through. The one set-back in all of my present activities has been the ProTools program in my home studio. It has developed a glitch which has been getting in the way of accessing the software at all (a big Aaargh!!! on that one). I am looking to call in an "expert" to help me deal with the matter. Meanwhile, a friend of mine has suggested using the facilities at Swallow Hill, and I think I may just do that. I've got a lot of new stuff that needs to get recorded and put up on the ReverbNation site and elsewhere. And finally, I plan to play the Open Stage again at Jefferson Unitarian Church on Friday, March 1st, where we look to video-record the performance in front of the great audience that tends to show up for that event. With any luck, I look to have some new videos posted at both YouTube and the ReverbNation site with a couple of weeks. Here's a big shout out to all the new folks who have signed up as fans. Thank you so much, and I hope you'll pass the word along to your friends. You never know when Pony, Rufus, the kitties and I will be in your neighborhood, but we look forward to sharing the new tunes and good times. Take it easy.
Reply
Every day I wake up and say I've got another chance to make it
All day long I'm singing that song just to give me the strength to take it
But the boss comes around acting all hearts and flowers
Says he's sorry but he's gotta cut my hours
Milk's gone up and the baby's got the flu
And all the time I wonder just what I'm gonna do
Chorus
They say a bumble bee's wings are built too short and she shouldn't be able to fly
I think about that when I look at my pay
How the hell am I supposed to get by
How the hell am I supposed to get by
on Bumble Bee Wages
The car's acting up so I gotta take the bus, it adds an hour each way to my travels
Another of the kids starts coughing and a hacking and my week begins to unravel
My mom tries to help but she's only gettin' older
She's got diabetes and arthritis in her shoulder
My nose to the grindstone, trying to make do
And all the time I worry that I got a sniffle too - Chorus
Bridge
They can't figure out why the bees are disappearing
They can't figure out why the colonies are dyin'
They can't figure out how to keep it all together
But it ain't for lack of a bumble bee tryin'
Friday night, I'm at my second job, flippin' burgers with the sniffles and the shakes
I oughtta be home, but I don't get paid to sleep
And I need the little extra that I make
It's a long ways away from the land of Milk and Honey
With not a lot of hope and damned little money
Troubles are plaguing me cheaper by the dozen
And all the time a hive of bees is in my head a-buzzin' - Chorus
Reply
The first band that I actually went on the road with was The Bob Marriott Band, based out of Lawrence, Kansas. Somewhere, I still have a copy of the black and white glossy promo photo that we used for booking gigs and posting at the venues we played. I am more than a little glad that it's in black and white, since otherwise you would see that we were wearing purple tweed jackets with hot-pink, ruffled tux shirts (and yes, we wore those at the gigs). Have you ever seen the original Blues Brothers movie? Remember Murph and the Magic Tones? Yeah, that was kinda us.
And speaking of that Blues Brothers movie, we had one gig (somewhere in the middle of Kansas; I can't remember exactly where) where they liked "both kinds of music: country and western"; When we set up our equipment there, we found a big hole in the wall of the men's restroom where a urinal had been. Somewhat ominous, that. The first evening of our gig, there were about four people in the room at the point we were to begin. Four people are still four paying customers, so we started the set. After about half a dozen tunes, Bob turned to the rest of us and said, "Funk. In A." So we set up a funk groove in the key of A and jammed on that for about twenty minutes; at which point it was time for our break. It was at that point we met the reason for the hole in the men's room. He was about 6-foot-seven (give or take) and almost as wide. He came up to Bob and me and said, "That last tune you did... Just what the hell sort of country and western was that supposed to be?" Bob looked him right in the eye and said, "Why, that's back-beat country. 'Comes out of Louisiana. Hank Junior plays it all the time." You could see the handful of neurons firing in the guy's brain. Then he said, "Did have kind of a kick to it." He was our best friend for the rest of our time there. Some years later, I wrote "Funk In A" as sort of a homage to that experience.
Reply
I can't remember when I first this little "factoid" where apparently engineers say that the wing span of a bumble bee should not be sufficient to sustain flight. The folksy bit of humor that accompanies that assertion is that "nobody told the bee". The bee somehow manages to make it work despite the engineers. I remember this anecdote being applied to the guitar-playing of Chet Atkins. It was said that some of the things Chet managed to play on guitar should not be humanly possible. But, like the bumble bee, no one got around to telling Chet, so he just went and did it anyway. I was driving home a couple of months ago, and these thoughts had popped into my head, along with the hardship that a lot of folks are having with trying to make ends meet on minimum wage (there may have be a bit on NPR at the time, talking about the policies Walmart practices of keeping their employees just short of full-time hours, so as to deny them healthcare and other benefits). For a lot of people, wages have been stagnant for some years, or falling behind inflation in some cases. So, in the spirit of Woody Guthrie and other such heroes, I finished a song, called Bumble Bee Wages. Pony, and I spent last weekend in Breckenridge. It was a welcome break from routine. We wandered the town and enjoyed the ice sculpture festival that was taking place over the weekend. On Sunday morning, while Pony slept in a bit, I sat on a couch and mulled over the idea for this song, and began to jot down some lyrics. Within about forty minutes or so, I had two verses and a chorus that I thought were promising. Later that evening, after we had returned home, I came up with a bridge and a third verse. Yesterday was for setting the words to chords and melody that I could be happy with. There is something of a personal stake in this. Last December, Arapahoe Community College had a meeting of adjunct professors (which would include me). It's sort of a dirty little secret of academia in that they employee a great number of part-time adjunct teachers (one figure I heard for Arapahoe College was that some 85% of the teachers were part-time adjunct). We get no benefits (I've been shelling out for my own healthcare for years on end), and contracts are from one semester to the next. The meeting began with some talk about changes in the grading software we are using at present, then the last half hour or so was an address by the Dean. We were informed that the Affordable Care Act would require every employer with 50 or more employees to provide healthcare for any employee working 30 hours or more per week. The community colleges have decided this a financial burden they cannot meet. They figured out that 12 credit hours is the equivalent of a 30-hour work week, so, effective with the Fall semester of this year, they will restrict the teaching load of all adjuncts to 11 credit hours. Since most classes are set at 3 credit hours, this will mean a lot of teachers will end up restricted to three classes, total. And it gets better: it is common for many adjuncts to teach at more than one college in an effort to cobble together something that looks like full-time employment. But since all the community colleges in Colorado are part of the Colorado Community College System, an additional policy will impose this work restriction system-wide. The bottom line is something like this: We (the administration of the community colleges of Colorado) have not paid for your healthcare, and we do not wish to pay for your healthcare. Therefore, in an effort to avoid doing so, we are going to restrict how much you can work, so that you can pay for your healthcare with the reduced amount of money you will be earning. Bumble Bee wages indeed. There is an open stage at Jefferson Unitarian Church, in Golden, this Friday (February 1st). I look to take part and test out the new song there. There is no charge for admission, so feel free to come on out.
Reply
The album,"The Way of the Wild Heart" was originally recorded in 1993 and released in 1994. All the songs, music and lyrics, were written by me. The title tune is either an allegory or a fable, depending on how you look at it. It is one of a couple of songs that came out of a painful divorce that I was going through at the time. One of the more cruel moments in the process of recording the album was when I masochistically asked my soon-to-be ex-wife to sing background on a couple of songs. She had a decent voice, and we had even done a few professional gigs together. I had also asked guitarist, Neil Haverstick to play on a couple of tracks. Next thing I know, Neil was hitting on my estranged wife (yeah, the divorce was pretty much inevitable, but it wasn't official at that point). Suffice to say that created a bit of a strain between all parties. As something of a testimony to just how big town Denver can be, I have not seen my ex in the twenty intervening years (even though I know she still lives somewhere in the area). Shit happens, y'know?
Over the coming days/weeks/months, I plan to provide a few informational tidbits on the three CD's I have so far recorded and released, as well as updates on new recording projects that I am in the midst of working on. If, on reading these blogs, any questions may arise, please feel free to post them. I am looking forward to building some interaction here.
Reply
Michael Engberg / Blog
Like snowflakes
Weddings are a bit like snowflakes, I was thinking, as I hauled my gear into the small chapel this morning (especially in the wake of last weekend's snowstorm). Like snowflakes, although weddings resemble each other in some aspects, no two are exactly alike. I have had the pleasure of performing for several weddings over the years (even wrote some music especially for the occasion, once or twice). They're fun gigs. For one thing, you tend to be surrounded by optimists. I can only recall one wedding that started on time. And in that particular case, not only did the ceremony start exactly on time, but it was planned down to the minute, and was executed as planned. Later, I learned that both the bride and the groom were neuro-surgeons (I decided I would be willing to let either one of them operate on me, should there ever be a need). Today, like most weddings, did not exactly start on time. Oh, I started the prelude music at the appointed time. But it seems that one of the guests suffered some sort of accident (I never got all the details), that required the brother of the bride to take this guest to the hospital. This brother was part of the wedding party, so what was supposed to be about 15-20 minutes of prelude music turned into nearly an hour as we all awaited the return of the brother. Finally, he did return and everything proceeded more or less according to plan. There was also the matter of being informed that they wanted music at two points in the ceremony (something I did not know about until that moment; fortunately, I have plenty of repertoire, and managed to come up with something that worked out just fine). And there was the matter of the ring-bearer and the flower girl both taking turns staring at me. Very intently. For a very long time. Even so. When all was said and done, it was a lovely affair; unusual for being on a Monday morning and all, but a fine, festive occasion for all that.
Reply
Candy and Christmas trees
The Girl Scouts didn't have all the fun. When I was a kid, I sold candy for the YMCA, to earn my way to summer camp. One year, I sold enough candy for five weeks' worth of summer camp. The only kid who outsold me had a dad who was union boss of one of the factories in town (something of an advantage, maybe?). The YMCA had only two kinds of candy: a chocolate mint comparable to the Girl Scouts' thin mints, and a chocolate/nutty thing they called Turtles. I pushed that candy hard, I gotta tell ya. Many years later, I came off the road from a bad touring experience with a band out of Salt Lake City. The leader of the band burned me something awful, and I was probably the most bitter I've ever been about the music business at that point. I called Montana home in those days, and I got off the road in October, in time for the Christmas tree harvest. I needed a break from gigs, so a friend got me a job loading trees onto flatbed trucks. Then an owner of one of the tree farms wanted a couple of guys to travel with a load of trees down to Wyoming and spend a couple of weeks selling them. In addition to owning the tree farm, this guy (Irv, I believe his name was) also sold RV's, Fifth Wheels, and the like. So I ended up spending a few weeks living on the tree lot in an RV, selling those trees. My father (an insurance agent for most of his life) used to say, "Give a salesman something to believe in and it can be the easiest job in the world." I felt that way about those trees. I would point out how straight they were, what a good center of gravity they had, and could personally attest to their freshness. I thought about these experiences the other day, while I was sending out 400 or so emails and/or EPK's (Electronic Promo Kits) to various venues in preparation for the Fall tour. My father also used to say he thought I was a natural salesman. That may be so; I was just never keen to sell insurance. But I believe in the music that I have to share, and look forward to sharing it with audiences across this nation. Occasionally, someone will ask me, "Isn't it hard making a living as a musician?" I have come up with a ready answer to that: for me, doing anything else is considerably harder. So I'll be sending out more emails and EPK's over the days and weeks to come. And I'll look forward to sharing my music with new audiences and old friends everywhere. Like I said, it's a bit like candy and Christmas trees.
Reply
Good Way to Start a Weekend
I had a good time doing a private party with singer, Ashley Kisner, at the Inverness Hotel last night. This is about the third gig I've had the pleasure of doing with Ashley, and it's getting more fun all the time. We are getting to the point where we can sense where each of us is going with the song and create a nice interaction. That, of course, is one of the reasons musicians have such a good time working together: that give and take and sense of communion. Then, this morning I found a message about a potential gig in Omaha. This would qualify as the first official date of the upcoming tour! More details as we firm this up, but it's a lovely way to start the morning and what promises to be a fine weekend. A shout out to our friends, Bob and Sara, who are getting officially married today. Pony and I plan to be there to join in the celebration.
Reply
Getting Busier
Just added three dates at Kaos Pizzeria for this coming summer season. I will also be adding a lot more dates at Sonoma'z (especially as the weather gets more pleasant and we can have some fun out on the patio). And there is one house concert (well, sort of a house concert) at Victor Guitars, planned for July. Plenty of chance to come on out and share some good music at some great places. And I'm adding a bunch of new music all the time. Next week, we pick up the RV from the shop and give it a short, shake-down cruise, getting ready for the tour to come at the end of August. For my friends and fans outside of the Denver/Front Range region, I look to be somewhere near you in the months to come. Me, Pony, the cats and Rufus. Circus? What circus?
Reply
The Wild Rover
Being so close to St. Pat's day and all, I was going through some of my Irish repertoire while walking around the lake with Rufus. It's a good warm up for the voice, and some measure of good work on breath control, too, as I sing while doing a brisk walking pace with my personal trainer (who does not seem to mind my singing, so long as we can stop from time to time to check peemail). It's one of those fun experiences to have one's voice go sailing over the waters of the lake. At one point, a jogger approached me (running counter to us) and told me how much she loved hearing me sing. And the weather is beautiful this morning. It is sunny, with a promise of warming up to 50 degrees or so by this afternoon. The lake is swollen with the recent snows, the water looking more and blue and clear for it. The ducks and geese are starting to lay eggs. All in all, it makes for a nice way to start one's day.
Reply
Things are getting busy....
Last week was a creative, productive week. I finished a couple of songs that I'd started and wrote another one entirely from start to finish. That's 5 songs in about 3 weeks (give or take). The walks around Lake Arbor with Rufus are proving a valuable time to think about lyric ideas and other song-worthy things. Meanwhile, I have added a couple of dates at Gabriel's, in Sedalia, to the upcoming calender, with the promise of several more venues to come through. The one set-back in all of my present activities has been the ProTools program in my home studio. It has developed a glitch which has been getting in the way of accessing the software at all (a big Aaargh!!! on that one). I am looking to call in an "expert" to help me deal with the matter. Meanwhile, a friend of mine has suggested using the facilities at Swallow Hill, and I think I may just do that. I've got a lot of new stuff that needs to get recorded and put up on the ReverbNation site and elsewhere. And finally, I plan to play the Open Stage again at Jefferson Unitarian Church on Friday, March 1st, where we look to video-record the performance in front of the great audience that tends to show up for that event. With any luck, I look to have some new videos posted at both YouTube and the ReverbNation site with a couple of weeks. Here's a big shout out to all the new folks who have signed up as fans. Thank you so much, and I hope you'll pass the word along to your friends. You never know when Pony, Rufus, the kitties and I will be in your neighborhood, but we look forward to sharing the new tunes and good times. Take it easy.
Reply
Lyrics: Bumble Bee Wages
Every day I wake up and say I've got another chance to make it All day long I'm singing that song just to give me the strength to take it But the boss comes around acting all hearts and flowers Says he's sorry but he's gotta cut my hours Milk's gone up and the baby's got the flu And all the time I wonder just what I'm gonna do
Chorus They say a bumble bee's wings are built too short and she shouldn't be able to fly I think about that when I look at my pay How the hell am I supposed to get by How the hell am I supposed to get by on Bumble Bee Wages
The car's acting up so I gotta take the bus, it adds an hour each way to my travels Another of the kids starts coughing and a hacking and my week begins to unravel My mom tries to help but she's only gettin' older She's got diabetes and arthritis in her shoulder My nose to the grindstone, trying to make do And all the time I worry that I got a sniffle too - Chorus
Bridge They can't figure out why the bees are disappearing They can't figure out why the colonies are dyin' They can't figure out how to keep it all together But it ain't for lack of a bumble bee tryin'
Friday night, I'm at my second job, flippin' burgers with the sniffles and the shakes I oughtta be home, but I don't get paid to sleep And I need the little extra that I make It's a long ways away from the land of Milk and Honey With not a lot of hope and damned little money Troubles are plaguing me cheaper by the dozen And all the time a hive of bees is in my head a-buzzin' - Chorus
Reply
Funk In A
The first band that I actually went on the road with was The Bob Marriott Band, based out of Lawrence, Kansas. Somewhere, I still have a copy of the black and white glossy promo photo that we used for booking gigs and posting at the venues we played. I am more than a little glad that it's in black and white, since otherwise you would see that we were wearing purple tweed jackets with hot-pink, ruffled tux shirts (and yes, we wore those at the gigs). Have you ever seen the original Blues Brothers movie? Remember Murph and the Magic Tones? Yeah, that was kinda us. And speaking of that Blues Brothers movie, we had one gig (somewhere in the middle of Kansas; I can't remember exactly where) where they liked "both kinds of music: country and western"; When we set up our equipment there, we found a big hole in the wall of the men's restroom where a urinal had been. Somewhat ominous, that. The first evening of our gig, there were about four people in the room at the point we were to begin. Four people are still four paying customers, so we started the set. After about half a dozen tunes, Bob turned to the rest of us and said, "Funk. In A." So we set up a funk groove in the key of A and jammed on that for about twenty minutes; at which point it was time for our break. It was at that point we met the reason for the hole in the men's room. He was about 6-foot-seven (give or take) and almost as wide. He came up to Bob and me and said, "That last tune you did... Just what the hell sort of country and western was that supposed to be?" Bob looked him right in the eye and said, "Why, that's back-beat country. 'Comes out of Louisiana. Hank Junior plays it all the time." You could see the handful of neurons firing in the guy's brain. Then he said, "Did have kind of a kick to it." He was our best friend for the rest of our time there. Some years later, I wrote "Funk In A" as sort of a homage to that experience.
Reply
Bumble Bee Wages
I can't remember when I first this little "factoid" where apparently engineers say that the wing span of a bumble bee should not be sufficient to sustain flight. The folksy bit of humor that accompanies that assertion is that "nobody told the bee". The bee somehow manages to make it work despite the engineers. I remember this anecdote being applied to the guitar-playing of Chet Atkins. It was said that some of the things Chet managed to play on guitar should not be humanly possible. But, like the bumble bee, no one got around to telling Chet, so he just went and did it anyway. I was driving home a couple of months ago, and these thoughts had popped into my head, along with the hardship that a lot of folks are having with trying to make ends meet on minimum wage (there may have be a bit on NPR at the time, talking about the policies Walmart practices of keeping their employees just short of full-time hours, so as to deny them healthcare and other benefits). For a lot of people, wages have been stagnant for some years, or falling behind inflation in some cases. So, in the spirit of Woody Guthrie and other such heroes, I finished a song, called Bumble Bee Wages. Pony, and I spent last weekend in Breckenridge. It was a welcome break from routine. We wandered the town and enjoyed the ice sculpture festival that was taking place over the weekend. On Sunday morning, while Pony slept in a bit, I sat on a couch and mulled over the idea for this song, and began to jot down some lyrics. Within about forty minutes or so, I had two verses and a chorus that I thought were promising. Later that evening, after we had returned home, I came up with a bridge and a third verse. Yesterday was for setting the words to chords and melody that I could be happy with. There is something of a personal stake in this. Last December, Arapahoe Community College had a meeting of adjunct professors (which would include me). It's sort of a dirty little secret of academia in that they employee a great number of part-time adjunct teachers (one figure I heard for Arapahoe College was that some 85% of the teachers were part-time adjunct). We get no benefits (I've been shelling out for my own healthcare for years on end), and contracts are from one semester to the next. The meeting began with some talk about changes in the grading software we are using at present, then the last half hour or so was an address by the Dean. We were informed that the Affordable Care Act would require every employer with 50 or more employees to provide healthcare for any employee working 30 hours or more per week. The community colleges have decided this a financial burden they cannot meet. They figured out that 12 credit hours is the equivalent of a 30-hour work week, so, effective with the Fall semester of this year, they will restrict the teaching load of all adjuncts to 11 credit hours. Since most classes are set at 3 credit hours, this will mean a lot of teachers will end up restricted to three classes, total. And it gets better: it is common for many adjuncts to teach at more than one college in an effort to cobble together something that looks like full-time employment. But since all the community colleges in Colorado are part of the Colorado Community College System, an additional policy will impose this work restriction system-wide. The bottom line is something like this: We (the administration of the community colleges of Colorado) have not paid for your healthcare, and we do not wish to pay for your healthcare. Therefore, in an effort to avoid doing so, we are going to restrict how much you can work, so that you can pay for your healthcare with the reduced amount of money you will be earning. Bumble Bee wages indeed. There is an open stage at Jefferson Unitarian Church, in Golden, this Friday (February 1st). I look to take part and test out the new song there. There is no charge for admission, so feel free to come on out.
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Background Info: Way of the Wild Heart
The album,"The Way of the Wild Heart" was originally recorded in 1993 and released in 1994. All the songs, music and lyrics, were written by me. The title tune is either an allegory or a fable, depending on how you look at it. It is one of a couple of songs that came out of a painful divorce that I was going through at the time. One of the more cruel moments in the process of recording the album was when I masochistically asked my soon-to-be ex-wife to sing background on a couple of songs. She had a decent voice, and we had even done a few professional gigs together. I had also asked guitarist, Neil Haverstick to play on a couple of tracks. Next thing I know, Neil was hitting on my estranged wife (yeah, the divorce was pretty much inevitable, but it wasn't official at that point). Suffice to say that created a bit of a strain between all parties. As something of a testimony to just how big town Denver can be, I have not seen my ex in the twenty intervening years (even though I know she still lives somewhere in the area). Shit happens, y'know? Over the coming days/weeks/months, I plan to provide a few informational tidbits on the three CD's I have so far recorded and released, as well as updates on new recording projects that I am in the midst of working on. If, on reading these blogs, any questions may arise, please feel free to post them. I am looking forward to building some interaction here.
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