EBRUARY, 2008

The Valentine’s Day version of love is upon us. You should plan to leap into the café often during this longer than usual month and love the great line-up we have for you:

FEBRUARY 2 – DON DIXON. While he is better known perhaps for producing recordings for the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joe Cocker, James McMurtry and others, he is also an exciting performer in his own right and we are honored to have him appear at the café.

FEBRUARY 7 – DOUG & TELISHA WILLIAMS. Duo returns with its Fuel Injected Folk music.

FEBRUARY 9 – JACKSON CROSSING. Their many fans won’t want to miss this performance.

FEBRUARY 10 – GREG TROOPER. Part of our Sunday night concert series. Tickets are $15 per person. Call 828-749-1179 for reservations as seating is limited.

FEBRUARY 14 – MARK BUMGARNER ACOUSTIC DUO. Incredible guitarist and singer/songwriter returns.

FEBRUARY 16 – MENAGE. One of our favorite groups from Asheville stops by again.

FEBRUARY 21 – ONE LEG UP. Gypsy jazz at its finest.

FEBRUARY 23 – GIGI DOVER & BIG LOVE. If you have never heard this long time performer at the café, you need to treat yourself.

FEBRUARY 28 – GOVE SCRIVENOR. Guitarist, singer/songwriter and master autoharp performer is back with us.

MARCH 1 – BIG ROAD BLUES. Peggy Ratusz returns with her fine jazz group.

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Of course, we are also in the middle of a seemingly interminable election campaign. I would like to say that we are in the final stretch since it has been going on so long already but I fear that we are just rounding the first turn. The Democrats seem to be settling into two (maybe three but I doubt it) finalists with the Republicans currently ambivalent as to who will be their flag bearer. It looks, however, like the current President will not have to clear much of his calendar for public appearances with their ultimate candidate.

One of the really interesting things about this campaign is the incredible variety in the candidates: among them a woman, a person of color, a Mormon, a moderate (I thought that they might be extinct) Southern Baptist preacher, a former prisoner of war who survived and a television actor. While the upcoming Super Tuesday primaries will certainly winnow the crop down to a more workable number, it is nice that the politics of race, gender and religion have (so far) not been as divisive as in the past.

Maybe the campaign will continue to be more civil as the year wears on. And maybe not.

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Someone sent me some “rules of life” from the masculine side that differ from how females view things. The more amusing of them include:

Men are NOT mind readers.
Yes and No are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.
Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of them makes you sad or angry, then we meant the other one.
If it itches, it will be scratched.
When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine .. really.
I am in shape. Round IS a shape.
Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we.
Learn to work the toilet seat.

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I am not sure where I heard this advice but life would be much less difficult if we could follow it:
“Sometimes we have our minds so set on the way
we think things should be that we overlook
the way they really are.”

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See you soon.

Robert Seiler
Purple Onion Cafe
www.purpleonionsaluda.com