I guess you could say I am a professional Toe Roaster.  Some of you might ask, what is a Toe Roaster, and how does one become a professional?  Well, don’t feel bad that it might be a phrase that you have yet to hear.  And no doubt when you do learn it’s definition you will find that you knew what it was all along, but you have never heard it described as such.  “It’s a fire, it’s a campfire”.  The new term, Toe Roaster was birthed from my musical comedy “Toe Roaster”.
I have had the opportunity to travel all over and I rarely find someone that has never experienced a toe roaster at least once. Some of my friends in California and near by areas may have never had the privilege due to the possibility of starting a much larger toe roaster.. one, we don’t need.  Still, most of us have experienced a small, intimate camp fire at some point in our lives.. at least I hope you have or soon will.
I had experienced sitting around a few campfires as a kid, but back then I had no idea I might one day become a pro at it!
My career began while working on a big farm/ranch west of Nashville, Tennessee.  Terry, Rick, and Tony (my three bosses) let me know early on when they hired me that part of my job description was to have my guitar readily available in my truck for the sole purpose of entertaining around the campfire every evening after the real work.  So, the four of us literally sat around a toe roaster pretty much everyday for two years.  There were literally hundreds of friends and family that would often come out to sit around the fire with us after days of cutting, bailing, and throwing hay. Or after fencing, trail rides, or working cows.
From those years at Woody’s farm (thank for the job Woody, I am forever grateful), to Garth having a crazy idea to ask me and my good friend, and touring partner Dan Roberts, to perform at the Hollywood Bowl. Garth’s idea of taking the campfire to the stage! Brilliant!  So, with the help of Disney and their  propane toe roaster, (another blog someday..  and of course a true story), Garth, Dan, and I sat between the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and 16-18 thousand of Garth’s fans with our guitars around Disney’s campfire underneath the California stars.. literally and figuratively.  It was awesome!
Then from there, Garth asked Dan and I to perform as his opening act on his World Tour around a… you guessed it, a giant campfire. An experience I am forever in debt to Garth for allowing me live.
After that tour I found myself still longing for time around a camp fire.  I loved the experience and common ground of a camp fire. I realized that a lot of people might find themselves in cities or places where a campfire is not an option. Well, that is just not right!
I personally believe, as it is stated in the play, that people might consider building fire pits in their back yards instead of swimming pools! Nothing against swimming, or swimmers! I just believe in families and friends sitting across from one another not watching a TV. Instead finding themselves starting into a flame flickering, and taking them to places they would never jumping and diving in a pool!  And much to my wonderful surprise, it has become very popular for new homes to have a fire pit area in the back yard! Now, that’s progress to me.. It seems when we go back to our roots, we make progress!
So, when I wrote Toe Roaster I gave it a sub title of ‘World Peace‘ for the wishful reason of somehow deep down believing that if we could get world leaders together around a campfire instead of video conferencing, or communicating through their respective talking heads, or all of these people sitting around a huge auditorium deep in the belly of huge sky scrapper, that maybe, just maybe… if we could get them around a toe roaster someplace out in the middle of no where….we might solve the world’s problems?
Those of you that have ‘toe roasted’ or have seen the play know what I am talking about.  A toe roaster is a place to laugh, a place to joke, a place to talk, a place to listen, and maybe most importantly a place to stare into the fire and just be quiet and think.  A toe roaster is a place to discuss, or maybe better defined… a place to argue. Or as we say in the play, have some “Knock down Drag outs!!  But, no one leaves there mad”.  It’s a place to turn off cell phones, text messages, a place to get to know someone you have never met.  A place to talk about life and death, a place  to cry, to hurt, to heal.  A place for music, a place for kids, for dogs, for life.
As I write this now I get very excited to know that in a couple of days Wynn Varble, Troy Jones and I will bring to the stage a real life Toe Roaster in Oxford, Mississippi.  We are performing at the Powerhouse Theater sponsored by the Oxford Arts Council, and friends at the Oxford Film Festival. (go to my ‘gigs’ page for ticket information)
If you are in the area please come join us for some big laughs, great songs, and some real life ’stuff’.  Don’t forget to bring your smile and your heart, we’ll be needing those, as we share ours with you!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.