Cut Short

Wednesday night

Chris Matthews and his trio were playing a set in a college auditorium, and I had a seat about halfway up in the audience, which was inclined away from the stage. It had already been a long night; the band was still cooking at 2:00 a.m., and were showing no signs of stopping. Suddenly Matthews' mike gave out in the middle of a song. The people in charge at the university had had enough and cut the power to the stage. Matthews said, "Huh. We had four songs left to play." He was still not ready to get off of the stage. He reached into a case that he had with him and brought out an L.P. record pressed on blue vinyl. He decided to spin it for the crowd on his portable record player. After that, he still wanted to keep the audience's attention. He said, "Hey -- have you seen the new Britney Spears movie?" He got ready to project it on the wall when I called out, "You'd better not show all of it, Chris!" (Apparently I was aware of some naughty scenes in the "film" that might upset the college.) Chris knew what I was getting at. He said, "Don't I know it! That's why I burned just a few [clean] scenes to this DVD!" He proceeded to project the DVD onto the wall, using some portable device. In order to broadcast onto an uncluttered surface, Matthews had gradually moved from stage right (at our left) to center stage. As he set up the equipment, I noticed that copies of several of my old family photos were taped to the wall, including baby pictures of my twin brother and myself.

Later that same day I strolled into a record store and noticed that the Osmonds had released a new album. I picked it up and looked at the front cover. It featured a large group shot of the family members. There seemed to be hundreds of them.

*****

Chris Matthews is the host of the political show "Hardball" on MSNBC. If he's a musician, I'm not aware of it, but it's easy to imagine that he'd be reluctant to give up any stage; he's a ham. I was probably thinking of him because he's featured in a small interview in the back of the latest Newsweek magazine.

Matthews sometimes takes the "Hardball" show on the road, to various colleges. I caught a few minutes of one such appearance with presidential candidate John McCain. He (McCain) turned me off. I wondered what I'd ever seen in the guy.

It's interesting to me that Matthews was projecting his film on the wall. Once, when I was a kid, my brother Jimmie checked a film out of the library of the Beatles playing their first American concert at the Washington Coliseum (in 1964). He projected it on the wall of my bedroom. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.