Mad Season

Hello there music education lovers!

I hope that everyone is doing well today! I am particularly excited for this evening, when my girlfriend Emily and I will be attending a Matchbox Twenty concert at George Mason University's Patriot Center. I've actually seen Matchbox Twenty several times now (note: I've never actually seen them as Matchbox 20, only as Matchbox Twenty -- there is a difference, you see) and they never fail to impress! I'm personally the biggest fan of Rob Thomas and the boys' second album, "Mad Season," which was an orchestra pop/rock record, with a heavy tinge of jazziness mixed in -- good stuff!

On the work front, Government Relations Department assistant HLS recently attended a fascinating multi-day web writing training class designed to prepare us both for a brand new day of MENC advocacy hoopla upon the launch of our new web site (we're all pretty durnn excited about the new site, new stuff rocks!!) Anyways, HLS learned a ton during the web writing class, and has now taken it upon herself to correct my supposedly "antiquated and longwinded" writing style at every possible opportunity. I FEAR CHANGE!!! Nah, but seriously, this is going to make us all MUCH MUCH better writers, and help to provide YOU (our members) with an even better quality batch of music education support materials in the future! WOOHOO! What could be better??

Let me close by giving you a brief "2008 Prez Primary" update:

Well, Mitt Romney dropped out. And he did it in surprising fashion too. That leaves John McCain and Mike "I can wail on a guitar" Huckabee remaining as the only big time choices in the GOP field (with apologies to the Ron Paul supporters). Maybe Huckabee should start playing guitar at campaign events. Maybe he could give his stump speech in a song. That would actually be pretty cool... I'm not sure how John McCain could compete with that. After all, who doesn't like a person that can play guitar? I don't know about you, but when I was in college, if you could play a guitar, you definitely had about a million friends. And about a million requests to play Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash Into Me.” Gag. I'm just sayin'.

As for the Democrats... the battle royale continues! No more John Edwards, but Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton (look at me! it's like I'm writing for The New York Times!) continue to duke it out in several upcoming weekend primaries and then... (drum roll please!)... THE POTOMAC/CHESAPEAKE/BELTWAY/WHATEVERYOUWANNACALLEM’ PRIMARIES!! YAAAAY FOR ALL THINGS LOCAL! Note to all local Democrats: THAT MEANS THAT THIS YEAR, YOUR PRIMARY VOTE REALLY WILL MEAN SOMETHING! SO GET OUT AND VOTE!

*If you’re a Republican, you should remember to vote too, because if this race has taught us one thing this year, it’s that it ain’t over til’ it’s over!!

OK, well I guess that's all for now! I'm still working on patching things up with Harley, who as ML reported, recently contracted my horrible bout of the black plague (poor little guy!). I couldn't feel worse. In my defense, however, Harley is already red, so it can be pretty hard to know when he's burning up!!

Hmph.

Have a musical weekend everyone!!