Saturday Night at the Big Folky Show…

Last night Allison and I along with her cousin Erin and Erin’s husband Bart and Jenn and T.R. attended the Dessert Club show featuring Don White.

Around 4:00pm Jenn came over for cheese and crackers and wine. Erin and Bart arrived soon after. While Allison, Erin and Jenn checked out Allison’s new veil that had just arrived, Bart and I settled in to attacking a plate of cheese and crackers. And because we are guys we could sit and eat said cheese and pontificate on the greatness of said cheese and bond. That’s what we do, we bond over dairy goodness. It is something that the women in our lives are fascinated by and because of this bonding over seemingly unimportant things they have dubbed that Bart and is my boyfriend and I am his, and the girls think it is so cute. The thing is we just get each other and are operating on that level that guys do where shared experience, pop culture and food are enough to form mutual appreciation, friendship and awe. For instance, while we were all sitting around eating cheese and drinking some wine or cokes the topic came up about breakfast the next morning. You see Erin and Bart were staying overnight because they were down from NH and as we know, folky shows get out late. So we made a weekend out of it. Anyway, the topic of discussion turned to pork products, specifically bacon. And from there we talked about Sizzlean, unaware of how we would soon stumble upon one of the greatest conspiracies of our modern times. (Okay not really but it still was interesting none the less.) You see once we started talking about Sizzlean, the question was posed, What ever happened to Sizzlean?”. “To Google!” we cried, and to Google we went. Searching on all things Sizzlean. And you know what, all we could find were vague references and scraps of information about Sizzlean. The most common was the tagline of the commercial, “Move over Bacon, now there’s something leaner.” And that is all we found.

This made me think about growing up on Cape Cod and my friends the Manzaro’s they were three boys and a girl who were all skinny and wiry and we would have adventures on the Cape at the Duck Pond and go fishing and the like. But what made me think of them was what we did on the beach alot, and that was wrestle because we would try and ‘Shake and Bake’ each other. If you don’t know what ‘Shake and Bake’ means it is this, when someone comes out of the water and is dripping wet you tackle them and roll them in the sand, so they have to go back in the water and attempt to get all the sand off. This is not possible, not the tackling which happened with relative frequency, but rather the removal of excessive amounts of sand. It just wouldn’t happen, you’d be finding sand for weeks after a ‘Shake and Bake’ attack. Well the reason I associate these thoughts is that before one of the Manzaro’s would launch an attack on me the battle cry of “Move over Bacon, now there’s something LEANER would be shouted. You see I was about the size I am now and they were half my size and skinny and very flexible and agile. Needless to say, they could always knock the big man down. They scrapped like you wouldn’t believe and “Wham!” I’d be on my butt in the sand. But I digress, and shame on you because you know I digress, quite often.

So Bart and I continued our quest to search out the conspiracy behind the disappearance of Sizzlean from our store shelves. We found next to nothing until we stumbled upon a website that sold replicas of foodstuffs for….dollhouses. I kid you not, you can purchase replicas of your favorite foods for imaginative play with your dollhouse. The site is Hudson River Miniatures and there is some weird miniature stuff there, Sizzlean just being the tip of the iceberg. You can see the Sizzlean package here. And this activity as you can expect has now even further bonded Bart and I. Why? Because it was shared experience, it was funny and it involved food. Perfect ingredients in a male bonding moment.

Okay, okay moving on. After cheese and crackers the six of us headed over to Quan’s Kitchen for dinner. It was the easiest decision on where to eat ever. It took all of 2 minutes to decide and anyone who has ever spent time with a group of people deciding where to go for dinner would know that this is unheard of. So we headed to Quan’s. Bart posed with the laughing Buddha. because he said it looked like if you tickled his Buddha belly he’d be laughing. And that’s exactly what he did. We got a bunch of food to share. Egg Rolls, Crab Rangoon, Spring Roll, House Fried Rice Chicago Style. Don’t know what Subgum or Chicago Style Fried rice is? Well, I’ll tell you, Subgum means more vegetables and Chicago style means a darker rice. It is some handy knowledge to have because I love Chicago style fried rice.

After Quan’s we headed to Taunton to the Dessert Club. I took Erin and Bart and Allison rode with T.R. and Jenn. Bart and I discussed the merits of Clive Cussler and the upcoming movie Sahara. As you know I have high hopes for Sahara. I’ve been plowing through the book and will most likely finish it this week. Once we got to the Dessert Club we were seated at our reserved table. I know that anyone who makes reservations ahead of time has reserved tables but hey its till pretty neat to have reserved seats. Mike Higgins opened the show with about five songs off his album “Up Close and Personal”. I spoke with Mike a bit during the intermission and he’s a nice guy. I picked up his “Up Close and Personal” CD and will have to listen to it later today. Directly after Mike finished Don White got up and did a few songs, his standard opener (well at least the 3 shows we’ve been to have opened with this) was Rascal. A clever little tune about his wife’s realization that once the kids are gone and moved out she’s stuck with him and the dumb dog. It is a great song to get the crowd warmed up. He didn’t ask for us to howl though and I was finally ready to give it a go after missing out at previous shows because I just wasn’t quick enough. Don also told alot of stories and some new stories too that were great. One about growing up Greek/Irish. That was a great story for his upcoming book. Don, lets get that book completed, I can’t wait to read it. Although nothing would be able to compare to your reading excerpts at concerts. I think an entire album of your stories and some songs would be fantastic. Don has the rare ability to make you laugh till you wet yourself and then give you goosebumps with such meaningful songs like “Brown Eyes Shine” and “I Know Exactly What Love Is”. Both songs made me wonder if someone turned the air conditioning on full blast because as he began each song I got chills. Don was joined at various times by his son Lawren White. Lawren plays an electric guitar and he is great, we are very happy that Lawren was there too and he totally made Allison’s night extra special with his rendition of Winnie the Pooh. After the show we spoke with Don and picked up the last of his albums that we did not have called “Two Vagabonds in Disguise’. It was nice to speak with Don. We are looking forward to next year’s show or possibly a show in Shirley again at the Bull Run. And we have converted another two fans. Enjoy the photos below as well as previous posts from the Don White shows we’ve been to in the last couple of years.

Don white show at Bull run in October, 2004

Our first Don White show in May, 2004


The Group at the Concert.

A Touching moment between Bart and I

Allison, Me,Bart and Erin

Reserved Seats at the Folky show, a sign that we have arrived.