I swore to myself that I would lay off the political/economic blather after the last couple days. I really do NOT have the knowledge to act as a pundit. Fortunately, I think my five readers are capable of forming their own opinions. Then, late this afternoon, that good ol’ bunch o’ tootlers, the Floot Loop Group, offered up a video I couldn’t resist. It was too close to home and I’ll probably burn in hell for posting it, but.

I am a flutist. Or flautist. Or flute player. Take your pick. I prefer “flute player” but I’ll prob’ly use “flutist” in this post because it’s quicker to type. Ever since I was a little kid, I knew I wanted to play the flute. I was fascinated by [pictures of] the fingering mechanisms. Two of my older cousins played the flute and I greatly admired them. When I finally got to 5th grade, I was the first of three new flutists to get a tone. I don’t remember that, it was told to me by another of those flutists years later. I know it was true. I don’t even remember much about being a beginner. I went through the whole beginning band book in about two weeks. Nobody EVER had to bug me about practicing. I LOVED playing the flute. That’s me in the picture. I know. It’s a HORRIBLE posture for playing the flute and I can’t tell but I may have been reading a magazine and/or working on a crossword puzzle while I was playing. Judging by the afternoon sun coming in the cabin window, I wasn’t seriously practicing in that picture. I was playing through my virtuoso repertoire — it’s in the yellow milk crate — for the sheer joy of playing the flute. Nailing all of the notes (well, probably most of them anyway) in perfect time while playing with every musical nuance I could put into it. I was in college then, playing first seat in whatever group I was in. Except for the time Lucius Malfoy Thaddeus Hangerburger sold out to the Grosse Pointe band director and made his kid first and knocked me down to third. Third? And all the jazz guys coming along down in the bowels of the music building were askin’, “what the hell happened, she couldn’t even play the Rimsky-Korsakov solo today.” I just smiled the cheesy grin my bro’ used to use when he had to give up a solo to an inferior player because of politics. But that kind of crap is probably why I don’t do music as a career. It’s okay. I’m good at computers too. Who wouldda thunk?

Anyway, Sarah Palin is, or was, a flute player. I bet she hasn’t had much time for that in years. I know I haven’t. But, she did play the flute in the talent portion of her 1984 run for Miss Alaska and this afternoon somebody on the floot loop group posted a link to the video and here it is. As I said, I am done (I think) with the political/economic talk. I am sitting here watching in shock and awe and wondering what the heck is next. All I have to say is that it takes a heckuva lotta guts to get up in front of an audience and play a flute solo, even if you are a good flute player.

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