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Took my son to one of his class mates' birthday parties today in West Orange. Couldn't get out of it, since my wife's taking him to another one tomorrow and I get the afternoon off to hang more sheetrock, so it's my turn.
Nice house, lots of backyard space for the kids, a blow up castle, swings, face painting, cotton candy, etc. I vaguely know some of the other parents but I've never met the birthday girls' parents. So I take my son into the house to go potty, and proceed to walk past at least 8 or 9 pedal steel guitars, 2 autographed acoustics, an upright, etc. This guy comes up from the basement and I say, "Wow, there's a lot of pedal steel guitars here." "Yeah, those are mine," he says. "Cool. You play professionally?", I say. He laughs and says, "I try". Didn't get to talk much at that point, so I head back out to the backyard. I run into another musician dad I know and we get to talking. "Did you see all the pedal steel guitars he's got in there?" I say. "Don't you know who he is?" the other dad says, "That's Robert Randolph." My jaw almost hit the floor, and I naturally felt like an idiot thereafter, especially after my last comment to him, "Oh, yeah, I'm a musician myself." LOL. He must hear that a thousand times.
He was a little guarded at first, but I did get to talk to him a little later on after a couple of cups of sangria and the assurance I wasn't there as a stalker. I didn't realize any of this at the time, but most of his band was there too. I kidded him that the kiddie bag he handed out was a slight disappointment compared to the pedal steel guitar I thought I was going to get. ;^)
All in all, a very cool guy and he and his wife were perfect hosts and the BBQ food was awesome. Just don't tell him my kid peed all over his toilet seat. ;^)
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Another one of his class mates' dads is a former defensive lineman for the New York Giants, and my bassist neighbor a few houses down (who I'm going to be studying with) has a pretty impressive resume too: