A Serious Note From "Doc" About the Mountain Music & Medicine Show

My good friend Mark Twain -- whom I never met -- once said “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”

That same statement could well apply to The Mountain Music and Medicine Show. After 12 years of performances and over 150 shows, we are cutting back a bit.

The show is an all-volunteer effort that takes each cast and crew member anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to prepare for. We put aside personal and professional obligations to invest our time in this production and music that we love. We are all a mite tuckered, though.

October 5, 2013 will be our last regular show of the current season. It is not, however, the end of the Mountain Music and Medicine Show.

We will be back for a benefit show for The Holly Theater on October 4, 2014. We plan to do a minimum of one show a year. You will also still see Doc, the Buzzard Mountain Boys, and other cast members performing around Dahlonega and North Georgia. Bluegrass and bad jokes are in our blood by now, and we aren’t leaving the scene.

We’ll let you know more later as we get a better idea of how we plan to move forward. In the meantime, please join us for some good old-fashioned fun on October 5, 2013, and mark your calendar for the first Saturday in October 2014 at the Holly Theater.

See you soon, and keep taking that Wizard Water^©!

- “Doc” Johnson

Hot Music at the Next Mountain Music & Medicine Show

I'll be up in Dahlonega at the Holly Theater on Saturday the tenth of August. The show will include Lisa Deaton and Friends, The Threadbare Skivvies and Hair of the Dog. It should be, as some folks say, "a barn burner." I hope that means all the excitement of a fire, minus the actual flames.

A Lesson from Liniment

I once attempted to develop a liniment to ease sore muscles. It contained ingredients not easily available to the average household. Among these were bear grease, camel hump fat, python milk and mint aether. It was so effective in easing pain that it helped individuals who merely stood near the person using the liniment.

Just as I was about to sign a contract with the U.S. government to supply my liniment to the military, war broke out in Tierra del Fuego. I was forced to cease production because I was no longer able to buy Argentinian tobacco oysters. I learned my lesson: always use ingredients that are close at hand. You won’t have to deal with shortages, import tariffs, or escaped pythons.

Copyright © 2013 Laurie J. Anderson. All rights reserved.

Patience is a Virtue

If you are ever on a train that is delayed by cattle crossing the tracks, do not attempt to hurry their progress with loud noises. In particular, do not take advantage of cannon being transported on the same train. An artillery engagement will cause the cattle to lurch forward, but the ordnance will lurch backward. The walls of train cars are not built to withstand heavy artillery; if they were then General Grant would have conducted his battles from the comfort of a caboose. If you do happen to exercise such an option, stand well away from either end of the cannon. Or better yet, be nowhere near it after you have lit the fuse.

Copyright © 2013 Laurie J. Anderson. All rights reserved.