Bumping the foot thread down ... I thought I'd tell a quick story for your amusement hopefully. Here goes ...
A few weeks ago I was having lunch with some coworkers I don't normally spend much time with. One of the guys is about 30 and relatively new to our group and during the course of the conversation he mentioned that he'd gone to school at St. Lawrence University. Not being one to have much interest in work talk, I was glad to see the conversation take a turn in this more interesting direction. As anyone with a GPN addiction would do upon hearing this news, I abruptly interrupted the conversation and asked, "Did you go to school with Grace Potter?"
Well, as it turns out, nice new guy did go to school with Grace. In fact, he explained that he was her RA at SLU and had written her up for unloading her band equipment in a no parking zone or some such egregious offense. While I was overjoyed to be having this unexpected conversation about my favorite topic at an office lunch, my coworkers were quite perplexed. Finally, someone dared ask, "Who is Grace Potter?" To which I quickly answered, "The best female rock and roll singer of all time." Duh.
While some might debate how I responded to the question, this is what I said and I do wholeheartedly believe it. Having never heard of Grace, the group became quite interested in how she could be the best female rock and roll singer of all time if they'd never heard of her, so I felt it my duty to enlighten them and explain that Grace is not only the best female rock and roll singer of all time, but GPN is surely the best rock and roll band of all time. They'd find out soon enough, I assured them.
In the course of this explanation I also let it out that I'd been to way more GPN shows in the past year or so than any middle-aged woman should admit to. The gentleman sitting next to me looked me in the eye with a bit of concern and said "That's crazy" and I could tell he didn't mean it in a good way. Nonetheless, I had their attention and everyone at the table had now heard of Grace Potter (and the Nocturnals, although the discussion had started with Grace and there remained most of their interest). In my estimation, this was turning out to be a very productive conversation.
Well, the talk eventually turned back to less interesting things like what my new colleague had done for work before joining us, so I thought it a good time to leave before it got too serious and caused me to drift off, as serious topics are known to do to me. Never one to pass up free food, I grabbed some cookies before starting my departure and returned to the table to say a quick goodbye. By this time, my coworkers were already looking at me a little strangely, but I thought it important to solidify their newfound musical knowledge by quizzing them and confirming their understanding. I must go, I said, but before I did, I had one question for them: "Who is Grace Potter?" To this they all answered in unison with smiles on their faces: "The best female rock and roll singer of all time."
"Very Good. My work is done here," I told them. And that it was.
(Footnote: I tell this story not to encourage debate over who is or is not the best anything, but rather for fun and to illustrate one successful method of leading our less enlightened brethren toward the land where musical goodness is determined by evaluating genuine talent and not simply by mindless acceptance of mainstream marketing. The gentleman who said I was crazy later told me he went back to his desk and watched GPN's White Rabbit video and loved it. A workday well spent toward the musical betterment of mankind, without a doubt).
Reply With Quote
-"live simply so others can simply live"
Originally Posted by Charles
