Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Driving Diane Schuur's Drummer

Singer Diane Schuur was in town last night for a concert benefitting an organization that builds and maintains housing for the disabled. The piano-playing jazz singer was backed by a trio of musicians, a saxophonist, drummer, and bassist. If you don't know who she is, check her out. She was excellent, and the venue, Severance Hall, home of the Cleveland Orchestra, couldn't have been better.

Severance Hall is located on University Circle, home of the Cleveland Museum of Art, which has the pre-eminent collection of Greek and Roman bronze in the world, about six or seven miles from Interstate-71, which heads south towards Columbus out from its terminus in Cleveland.

I'll get to the point already. Stop whining.

This post is about me, not Diane Schuur. I'm going to make a disclosure here -- an acknowledgement, so to speak, of a significant problem that plagues me, a character flaw of monumental proportions, which may have an impact on anyone with whom I come into contact.

And it manifested itself, without grave tragedy, last night after the concert.

We spent time after Diane Schuur's awesome performance talking to friends, Betty and Mick, with whom we attended the concert and dinner beforehand at a small 10-table Italian restaurant, Valerio's, located on Mayfield in the Murray Hill neighborhood. I noticed no sign on the door prohibiting concealed weapons. At a table near us, two men wearing dark glasses wore suit jackets, one over a buttoned-to-the-neck black shirt, the other over a shirt open at the neck with a few gold chains showing.

The gnocchi I ordered was not as melt-in-your-mouth tender as that served at Stino d'Napoli in Rocky River, so I was disappointed in the extreme; however, the gorgonzola cream sauce was very good, with an underlayment of gorgonzola flavor which did not overpower the sauce. The sauce would have played better had the gnocchi been tender. The dish, served with a salad of fresh greens with an unremarkable balsamic vinaigrette dressing, was overpriced; in fact, when the plate came, Betty asked where the rest of my dinner might be. She generously gave me a part of her filet with a sauce I could not identify. I thought then that it was quite possible that all of the sauces were weak in flavor, but I don't think that I'll go back to Valerio's to find out.

At the Severance Hall parking garage, as we were ready to finally get into the car, Diane Schuur's drummer, who was parked next to us (he was driving a Volvo station wagon, in case anyone wants to know what jazz drummers are driving these days), asked us for directions to I-71. He was headed to Columbus for a visit home, which Diane had mentioned during the concert; so, Stacey told him to follow us through the sometimes confusing network of roads to I-71. I was driving.

Here's my confession, my admission of a defect in my circuitry, probably caused by all of the electrical shocks over the years: I am a totally sucky leader when it comes to driving.

The drummer had to crash two red lights to keep up with me.

I promise from now on that if someone has been asked to follow me, I will be more careful; and instead of going through the intersection, I will stop for a yellow traffic light.

This foible has been pointed out to me several times in the past. In fact, last night, at 10:35 p.m., after the drummer had to crash the first red light, Stacey, sitting there in the passenger seat, after actually telling me to my face that I was a dumbass, called eldest son Matt to tell him the story.

When Stacey told him that the drummer was going to follow us, but had not revealed my gaffe, he said, "Why'd you do that? Dad's a sucky driving leader."

Posted by Bill at June 27, 2004 10:48 AM