Summerfest 2018, take 1

So I saw James Taylor perform tonight. For the third time. ... Twelve years ago, I was dreaming of seeing him just once.

But when Summerfest began announcing its headliners last spring and my mom saw James Taylor was coming, she urged me to get tickets, mostly for Dad. James Taylor is one of his musical heroes and seeing him live was a bucket list item. I was skeptical of how my mom might do, though, with her MS in the loud and crowded environment of Summerfest, but she insisted she wanted to go with us. So I jumped on it the morning tickets went on sale and snagged us three bleacher seats at center stage. Kates, having seeing him with me two times, was comfortable staying back with the girls.

To my surprise and delight, Mom was all about getting the full Summerfest experience. While Kates and the girls went to Orrin’s for the day, we hung out at our hotel and then headed for the Summerfest grounds mid-afternoon.

With Dad driving and me navigating in the front passenger seat, getting through Milwaukee traffic was the toughest test of my mother’s delicate mind. She freaks out at the swerve or brake of any vehicle and raises her voice at my father any time he goes even one mile per hour over the speed limit. “Oh-my-gosh-geez-camoni” she shouted at one point of distress, leaning back and grabbing her seat as if we were riding a roller coaster. It was only that treacherous in her mind.

When she said during our drive that she needed a beer, I would have sworn she was being facetious. But she asked Dad and me to stop at the first Leinenkugel’s stand we came to inside the grounds and had Dad buy us a round of Summer Shandys. What a moment that was, and, wow, it tasted good.

I led them on a tour of the grounds, explaining how the landscape has changed in my 15 or so years of going to Summerfest and showing them some of my favorite spots. We stopped at a couple of the stages to get a taste of the culture - from the Ecuadorian band that plays somewhere on the grounds every summer to a bongo drum collective. Mom reflected on coming to Summerfest back in 1974 when it was mostly gravel and the stages were much smaller. Now it’s paved with state-of-the-art stages, and full-scale restaurants and dining areas, among other features, from one end of the grounds to the other.

Having walked the entire grounds and with the James Taylor show scheduled to begin at 7:30, we made our way to the amphitheater entrance. With Mom in her wheelchair, the guest services staff was accommodating at every turn, pointing us to our seats and providing a place for us to store her wheelchair during the show.

We had been sitting for a couple minutes when the crowd erupted, and we looked up to see Mr. Taylor walking on to the stage. He welcomed the crowd, assured us we were in for a great night and then introduced his opening act, the one and only Bonnie Raitt.

Admittedly, I’m probably under appreciative of her work. Growing up, if I wasn’t listening to oldies stations and classic rock with my dad, I was listening to light radio with my mom, and the latter is how I got to know Bonnie. “Something to Talk About” was a staple, as was “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” two songs I might put on a list of my 500 all-time favorites. I also remember how much I hated hearing “Love Sneakin’ Up On You” when it came out in 1994. By that time I was deep into my teenage years and had migrated to the top 40 radio stations more suited for my age, bit that song was so overplayed no matter what radio station I listened to that summer.

With all of those memories as a backdrop in my mind, she was an exciting act to see. While she stuck to a set filled mostly with bluesy covers that I didn’t recognize, her voice was still crisp and her command of the guitar appearing effortless.

About midway through her set, she pulled out “Something to Talk About” - which was every bit as great as I had hoped.



She followed it with “Nick of Time,” a song I’d forgotten about, and it sounded so good live.

From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel …

Across 10 songs, she showed she was worth every accolade and then some, including a smoking blues-rock rendition of Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House” (with Ivan Neville’s keys throwing a bit of gas on the flames).

And she dedicated a sparsely gorgeous cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery” to women suffering around the world, including those “separated from their children right now,” an apparent reference to the immigration crisis. 

And before she wrapped up, she slapped on some lipstick as Taylor returned to the stage to jam along to John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love,” the friends huddling together, electric guitars in hand.

After an intermission and a complete set change that morphed into a colorful house, the stage soon came alive with a prolonged video retrospective of Taylor’s career through interview and concert footage, photos and TV appearances that included - a favorite from my childhood - his performance of Jellyman Kelly on “Sesame Street.”

Finally, Taylor appeared with his band and took centerstage on his iconic stool and began strumming “Carolina In My Mind.”



Similar to when Kates and I saw him a few years ago in Kansas City, the show seemed to begin quietly and took time to hit its stride. Mixed with the easy going melodies of “Walking Man” and “Handy Man,” he threw in lesser knowns “Sunny Skies” and “First of May.”

Part of the reason the first half the show seemed to drag could be attributed to the man sitting in front of us and his dingbat female companion, who proceeded to play games and scroll through social media feeds on her brightly lit phone the whole time Taylor was performing. And when she wasn’t doing something on her phone, she was stretching her back and moving in a way that blocked our views of the stage. Her father or much older boyfriend or whoever the guy was sitting next to her never raised a finger to stop her. It was the worst concert etiquette I’ve ever witnessed, and we were thankful to God when they got up halfway through the show and never returned.

Like the Kansas City show, Taylor and his band turned the energy level up when he hit “Mexico” and barely let up on the gas pedal the rest of the way, spinning hit after hit.

We marveled during the previous shows at Taylor’s storytelling ability and comic timing, too, and it was present tonight also. One story he told tonight that I didn’t recall from the other shows revolved around him playing “Something In the Way She Moves” for Paul McCartney and George Harrison when he auditioned for Apple Records. George liked it so much that he rewrote it himself, Taylor quipped.

And the multimedia production that provided the backdrop to Taylor and Co. throughout was a show of its own. Jumping off on the retrospective that opened the show, the screen alternated from close-ups of the band members to colorful scenes of Americana and beautiful landscapes to go with Taylor’s lyrics. Every time Taylor introduced a band member, a photo appeared of the musician performing as a child or early in their career. During “Sweet Baby James,” images rolled across the screen of the lyrics printed in a book, giving the audience the sense they were following along with a bedtime story.



While I enjoyed my personal favorites like “Mexico” and “Your Smiling Face,” Taylor’s performance of “Fire and Rain” felt especially poignant. It’s Dad’s favorite, and I could feel him flush with emotion as he listened to it.



The nostalgia and good vibes were really flowing by the time Taylor closed out his set. Bonnie Raitt joined him on stage for a rousing cover of “Johnny B. Goode.”

.@JamesTaylor_com & @TheBonnieRaitt back on stage together again @Summerfest to pay tribute to @ChuckBerry. More coverage @journalsentinel pic.twitter.com/9LtWL0ZNTc

— Piet Levy (@pietlevy) June 29, 2018

That initially appeared as though it was going to be Taylor’s last song as the band bowed and waved to the standing crowd. But then Taylor appeared to call an audible, huddling with his band and waving a finger as if to say, “one more.” A camera shot on the big screens showed a woman wearing headphones in the audio booth and waving a finger back at Taylor in agreement. The result was Taylor leading a crowd sing-along of “You’ve Got a Friend.”



Finally, Bonnie Raitt rejoined James once more. I knew what was coming and they took their seats on a pair of stools to sing, “You Can Close Your Eyes.”



It had been a truly special and memorable night with my mom and dad. We left the grounds with smiling faces.

The setlist

1. Carolina In My Mind
2. Country Road
3. Sunny Skies
4. Walking Man
5. First of May
6. Handy Man
7. Steamroller
8. Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight
9. Up On The Roof
10. Mexico
11. Something In the Way She Moves
12. Sweet Baby James
13. Fire and Rain
14. Shed a Little Light
15. Your Smiling Face
16. Shower the People
17. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)
    
    Encore
18. Johnny B. Goode
19. You’ve Got a Friend
20. You Can Close Your Eyes

The paper route

I caught this opinion piece by Peter Funt while I was sorting through emails and catching up on news this morning. His view is true and another sign of the sad state of the newspaper business.

I never saw a kitten thrown out of a van, and don’t recall anything so crazy when I had my paper route, but his stories brought back a lot of memories that I rarely think about anymore of my first job as a newspaper delivery boy, tossing our hometown newspaper in suburban Kansas City onto the driveways in my neighborhood. … Maybe it was my second job – I worked for a couple summers as a little league umpire, too, but which one came first, I no longer remember. Later, once I could drive and entered high school, I was a “courtesy clerk,” aka grocery sacker, at the local Price Chopper – which provided some crazier experiences, including a night that I witnessed a robbery while I was collecting carts outside the store – and then a tester, and whatever else my dad needed me to do, at the LCD factory where he worked.

I don’t remember exactly how I came to be a newspaper delivery boy. A newspaper ad, it must have been, that my mom saw and shared with me to gauge my interest. I thought it sounded good, I assume at that age, mostly because it meant extra spending money in my pocket for baseball cards and Slurpees from the 7-Eleven a few blocks from our house. It was the early ’90s, and I couldn’t have been more than 13 or 14 years old.

I remember it was spring time – March or early April – when I took the job. I spent a few early mornings riding around with a woman who oversaw the newspaper delivery operation, learning my new route. Thinking about it now, in this day and age, it seems almost blasphemous to basically be picked up at 4 or 5 in the morning by a woman I’d never met and for her to drive me around for a couple hours in her beater of a car with no parental or company supervision. But the early ’90s still had a vestige of earlier decades when we were more trusting of people and kids were allowed to roam and explore our surroundings with the neighborhood kids and be gone for hours without Mom or Dad growing too concerned.

When it was time for me to do the route on my own, my mom drove me on most mornings until the weather warmed and I could go completely solo on my bike. By the summer, my parents and I had recruited my younger brother to help.

It was a daily newspaper. So every morning, one of my parents woke me up around 4 in the morning. We retrieved the stack of newspapers from our front step and then lugged them to the laundry room at the back of our house where we rolled them, placed them in rubber bands – we also placed them into orange plastic bags if it was a rainy day – and stacked them in my white canvas delivery bag. … Until that time, I don’t think I knew people got up and went to work so early.

Along with the stack of newspapers came a spreadsheet that showed all of the addresses on my route and the names of the subscribers. Every morning I had to review the list to look for new subscribers, or subscribers that had canceled and no longer required a stop at their address. I recall there were maybe 40, 45 addresses – it might have been much higher, now that I’m thinking about it – on the daily list, which covered our subdivision and two or three neighboring subdivisions, all located within one or two square miles.

The job for me didn’t last more than two or three months. By July I had moved on to other things. Because I was becoming a wise teenager and quickly realized – I think my parents did, too – the pennies I was being paid for each newspaper I delivered were not worth the stress of my parents rattling me out of bed every morning, carting me around on the days I couldn’t ride my bike and the amount of labor it took for a 13-year-old kid to get all of the papers neatly rolled and delivered by 7 a.m.

But some of the things I recall most clearly – and that make me happiest – about that time is the trust my parents put in me to do the job, to hold some responsibility and, above all, the care they took in helping me try it. Lord knows, they couldn’t have liked getting up so early those mornings either. … I remember, too, how good it made me feel on the occasions when one of the subscribers stepped outside as I rode up to the front step on my bicycle, complimented me on the job I was doing and handed me a dollar bill as a tip. It made me want to place the newspaper on that person’s doorstep just a little bit neater after that … I remember how fun it was to watch the progress of the sun rising as I neared the end of my route each morning … And I remember the fun my brother and I had on the days that he helped me, racing our bikes to see who could finish their half of the route faster and then wahoo-ing as we reconvened near the end of the route and raced up the winding road to our driveway.

Did it help shape my love for newspapers and influence me to embark on my newspaper journalism career? Maybe, but I believe that fate was sealed years earlier when I would eat breakfast with Dad before school and he’d share the sports pages of the Wisconsin State Journal with me. That’s a whole other story.

A pickle for the ages

I’ve missed watching Lorenzo Cain doing his thing for the Royals this season … Oh, but he’s been good for the Brewers.

With the Brewers and Cubs playing at Miller Park this week, my attention is on that series, and I turned on the game last night, just minutes after this happened …

So great.



Afterward, LoCoin credited Rusty Kuntz and the Royals for the play. Because, of course, the Royals practiced it during the crazy, stealing, keep-the-line-moving fun that was 2014 and 2015.

Elsewhere on Tuesday night, the Royals were on the wrong side of a different rundown.



Both plays epitomize the Brewers’ and Royals’ seasons so far.

Summer nights

Our nights are busy these days with Phoebe and Faye, but I’m hardly complaining.

I rushed home from work tonight to find the girls on the living room floor and watching TV, Faye dressed and ready to go in her T-ball uniform, and Kates had made a tuna melt for me, waiting beautifully on a plate at my side of the dining table. I had just a few minutes to eat because we had to get Faye to her 5:30 game.

The T-ball game. Faye is always one of the smallest on the field in stature, but she’s also one of the mightiest. Tonight she had the privilege of playing in the pitcher’s circle on the defensive side. And at the start of every inning, she was the first one on the field and down in her crouch, ready to field the ball – even before the first batter had left the opposing dugout. … The same goes for her plate appearances. In the on-deck circle she’s as focused on her practice swings as any of the girls. Then she steps to the plate, waits patiently for Coach to place the ball on the tee, puts the ball into play and puts her head down to run to first base.

While every T-ball game offers a loaded hour of entertainment and teachable moments, tonight’s game included a first baseman who got pegged in the middle of the back when she wasn’t paying attention on a batted ball that the pitcher fielded and threw toward first base. But tonight’s best folly happened when one of Faye’s teammates took off from first base on a foul ball and didn’t hear our coaches trying to stop her until she was halfway between second and third base – and then the batter put the ball in play while the runner was crossing the pitcher’s circle on her way back to first base, which created further commotion as the coaches yelled for her to turn around and head for second base.

* * *

The postgame. Barely a T-ball game of Faye’s has ended this summer without Phoebe asking me on our walk back to the car if I’ll help her practice her softball skills – and of course I won’t turn her down. I’m thrilled she’s enjoying it so much. … So we took Kates and Faye home, grabbed the ball gear and headed back to the ball fields. We practiced her hitting and her pitching for a solid hour, and the improvement she’s showing from the first practice of the season this year is remarkable. We both wished we could have stayed longer – but at that point tonight’s blazing sun was starting to give me heat stroke and Phoebe’s arm was rapidly turning to Jell-O. I had trouble convincing her we needed to head home but she finally gave in.

It’s been pure joy – and a revelation – watching Phoebe learn and play softball this summer. After the ups and downs of coaching her machine pitch team last year, I wasn’t so sure she would stay interested in the game and regretted not starting her earlier with T-ball like Faye. This year, though, she’s embracing the game, and the smile on her face and positivity that radiates from her during every game is a marvel to me. I’m so proud.

Last night’s softball game had us driving 45 minutes east to the small town of King City – population 1,013 – for an 8 o’clock game, and it was a heartbreaker. Batting in the top of the first, our girls came out swinging like they usually have this summer, and Phoebe came up with the bases loaded. If my memory’s right, she worked the pitcher to a full count – and then she smacked a line drive back through the middle of the field. She cleared the bases and landed on second base because of an errant throw – her first hit of the season. The inning ended soon after with our girls up, 3-0. … But then they laid down in the bottom half of the inning and let the home team jump right back into the game, trailing 3-4 when the first inning ended. … No runs crossed in the second and third innings, and our girls finally got their bats going again in the fourth inning. Phoebe’s turn came up again with two outs, and she worked a full count. She barely got a piece of the 3-2 pitch to stay alive and then hit the next pitch on the ground to the shortstop, who made a good play on it and a throw that barely beat Phoebe at first base. The top of the fourth ended with our girls having retaken the lead, 5-4. … Ah, but the game’s not over until it’s over. Despite a strong performance by our third-string pitcher in that final ending – that included her snaring a line drive straight back at her glove – a series of hits and overthrows allowed the home team to win the game in the bottom of the inning, 5-6.

It was past 10 o’clock when we arrived home, and way past Phoebe’s bedtime for a school night. Kates graciously allowed her to sleep in this morning and check into summer school two hours late.

* * *

Now it’s me time. The Royals are playing a late game in Los Angeles tonight, giving Kates and I a chance to have the game on for the first time in weeks. She’s reading. I’m writing.

I read this Sam Mellinger column today. And I get it. Sam knows what he’s talking about.

I’ve accepted the fact that Eric Hosmer’s gone – and have taken to watching Padres games occasionally just to see him play.


I’m resigned to the fact that Mike Moustakas will not be a Royal when the trade deadline arrives.

But I shudder to think about the Royals dealing Salvador Perez …

Or even Whit Merrifield, who’s quickly become one of this old second baseman’s favorites. Seriously, Royals second basemen have been pitiful since Frank White – not including Ben Zobrist, who I love watching, too, but he was a rental to help the Royals win a world championship. Call me crazy, but Whit reminds me of a Chicago Cubs second baseman who was a favorite of mine.