LIVE IT UP
SUNDAY, JULY 25, 2010
Dixieland Band
IT USED TO BE BETTER
Summer fun based on outdoor adventures I just saw the movie “Grownups,” which is about a bunch of guys like me who aren’t, so summer fun is on my mind. Now I don’t want to idealize my youth or suggest that my generation did summer better than kids today, but we did. Sorry, kiddies, it’s true. Your generation is the indoor generation. My generation, and every generation before it, was an outdoor generation. Now, that might have been because we were obnoxious little brats and our moms didn’t want us inside wrecking the house when there was so much outside that we could wreck, but it’s still true. Some of it’s not your fault, of course. It’s a more dangerous, fussier, tenser world than the one I grew up in. I thought nothing of leaving the house in the morning on my bike and not returning until supper. Do that these days and they’ll have an amber alert out on you. But that doesn’t let you off the hook completely. You could put down your cell phones and iPods for a minute or two and see if there’s a life out there beyond electronics. Trust me, there is. Summer then: Circle block, grab friends for a pickup game of baseball. Summer now: Jump online, play kids in New Jersey or South Africa in a pickup game of “Modern Warfare 2.” Summer then: Dam a creek just for the heck of it. Summer now: Begin damming creek until DNR gets wind of it and issues a restraining order. Summer then: Take off shirt in June, not put it on again until September. Summer now: Put on SPF 150 in June, not take it off until September. Summer then: Turn on AM radio and blare tunes that everybody knew. Summer now: Put in earbuds and blare tunes just for yourself off your salsa rap
JACKSON CITIZEN PATRIOT
changes, but still has fun
Andrew Heller Opinion columnist
dance mix iTunes playlist. Summer then: Leave house in morning with no plans whatsoever, return at dinnertime after a dozen self-made adventures. Summer now: Go to daycare for hours of structured play or attend classes arranged by helicopter parents who can’t stand the thought of an unscheduled moment. Summer then: Paint house because your dad said so. Summer now: Chores? We don’t do no steenkin’ chores! Summer then: Blow stuff up with firecrackers. Summer now: Blow stuff up with firecrackers then get arrested on charges of domestic terrorism. Summer then: Spend hours perfecting the fine arts of armpit farts and grass whistling. Summer now: Spend hours perfecting windmill guitar stroke on “Rock Band II.” Summer then: Gather all the neighborhood kids for a game of kick the can. Summer now: Neighborhood kids? Who are these neighborhood kids of whom you speak? Summer then: Make a stand and sit there all day at the end of your driveway peddling Dixie Cups of lemonade for 25 cents per, netting an amazing $4.25, most of that from your mom. Summer now: List the Xbox games you’re tired of on craigslist.com, make $120 then head to Gamestop and pick up “Halo XXII: Death of Summer.” Crave more Heller? Point your browser to http://blog. mlive.com/flintjournal/aheller.
CITIZEN PATRIOT • NICK DENTAMARO
Phil Bickel, a founding member of Jackson French Quarter Dixieland Band, plays trombone and serves as a business manager. Continued from D1
clarinetist Dave LaRowe of Jackson, drummer Jerry Haley of Vandercook Lake, pianist Jan Mudica of Jackson and vocalist Melinda Long of Jackson. About 15 southern Michigan and northern Ohio musicians are on the band’s call list when bookings occur. The band has changed with time. It now includes three Consumers Energy retirees (Phil Bickel, Haley and Kulas) but no Consumers employees. So has its technique. “We’ve gotten away from reading music and use charts with only the basic melody and chords. We improvise from that,” Phil Bickel said. “That’s more authentic and more fun.” Their repertoire has
Pets benefit from celebrities
“I tell audiences that if they have half as much fun as we do, we’re having twice as much fun as they are.” — Phil Bickel
founding member of Jackson French Quarter Dixieland Band
grown from about 12 songs to 150. “We play ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’ and ‘Bill Bailey’ in nearly every performance,” he said. The band performs at private birthday and anniversary celebrations, reunions, weddings, funerals, for senior citizen groups, and for public events such as their Aug. 9 performance at the Jackson County Fair. They are United Way regulars and they play about once a week. “More than once a
week gets to be too much like work,” Phil Bickel said. “But during Mardi Gras, we do play more frequently.” They’re booked for Mardi Gras 2011. The band performs from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula into northern Ohio, and from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie. One of its more memorable gigs was a New Year’s Eve in a casino. They performed in an empty dining room after the revelers ate dinner and left the room to hit the slots.
The band’s standard fee in the Jackson area is $250 for one hour, and $350 for two hours. They reduce their fee for many nonprofit and private functions. They have made three CDs. Two feature Dixieland jazz and one features songs of faith. For the band, performing is largely about fun. “I tell audiences that if they have half as much fun as we do, we’re having twice as much fun as they are,” Phil Bickel said.
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The Best Way To Drum Up Business
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A dog, Mochi, naps after being prepped for the Patterns for Paws charity dog fashion show. he said to hoots and barks from the crowd. “For the first time in my life, I am newly divorced and I was looking for companionship. My ex-wife Bonnie thought I was crazy to take on two dogs — and one of the dogs was named Bonnie. So I’ve got another woman who doesn’t listen to me now.” Stars who walked the runway included HBO comedian Bill Maher, Tina Sinatra and Kristin Bauer of HBO’s “True Blood,”
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whose runway companion, a terrier mix named Sinjin, wore a Los Angeles Lakers jacket signed by Luke Walton, a kerchief signed by Kobe Bryant and a leash signed by Lamar Odom. Ticket sales brought in $30,000, a design center spokeswoman said, and they hoped to raise as much as $20,000 on the silent auction. It won’t bail the rescue out of its donation hole, but it will make a good dent, Ellen Rubin said.
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sane. They are my life,” NCIS’s tattooed Pauley Perrette said on the red carpet made of green grass, holding a puppy in need of adopting. Perrette spent 10 years volunteering for The Amanda Foundation, a 34year-old animal rescue that has seen private donations drop 70 percent this year. The night’s profits will all go to the rescue, which saves dogs and cats in their last hours from the county’s 28 shelters. Her escort on the runway was a three-legged terrier mix named Astaire, who needs a home. “Every single person on our show has animals and pretty much all of them are rescues,” she said. “We are all animal fanatics.” Nigel Lythgoe, an “American Idol” pioneer and producer, executive producer and judge for “So You Think You Can Dance,” was the emcee. “Literally, in the last three weeks, I adopted two dogs,”