Nifty Noodles/ Halloween Hell.........

10/31/03 LAX to Peoples Church, Grand Prairie, Alberta
I ain't superstitious I can fly on Halloween... Gotta leave a day early to reach Grand Praire, Alberta, Canada... Via LA, Denver, and Edmonton... Cause "you can't get there from here!"

This day turned into the Nightmare before thanksgiving for me... Upon arriving at LA airport... Didn't have my passport and missed the first flight... Had to drive home and back... 2 and a half hours a to get it... Then the 3:45 flight was delayed and we didn't leave L.A. Until 6:p.M. To Denver ... By then we'd missed the last flight to Edmonton and ended up in a hotel in Denver with the information that we couldn't get into Grand Prairie before 7:30 P.M. Next evening.... ( the gig is at 7:00) Man you just can't get there from here!... Now I'm on the phone late night talkin about whether they wanna go ahead with the concert... "tickets are slow"... " but we got someone driving from Washington State to see this show" the promoter says...

O.K. So Had to renegotiate some things but at this point I've got twelve hours invested in air travel hell.. Granted some of it was my own making... BRING YOUR STINKING PASSPORT.... IT"S CANADA!!!! A California drivers license is no proof of anything these days... The hall is ten minutes from the GP airport...We're gonna go ahead an plan to walk off the plane and onto the stage...cold turkey I've had to do it before..

This is why You always wear something reasonably nice on flights... Something you can sleep in when you can't get your luggage and still look good to go on stage in, (two days later)... I go with all black myself and in cold weather like this, black levi's work cause this is kinda like "camping out" nothing is open at the hotel and so dinner is a coke and a candy bar...The Denver airport and hotel is not close to anything... Looks like the klondike... Frozen tundra... The final outpost... And we're going farther into the wilderness...

It's snowing in Edmonton... 10 degrees outside, still not sure you can get there from here... Hey isn't this a fun noodle.. You don't know whats gonna happen next!

Still we've spent 4 hours in the Edmonton Airport watching it snow... Warm, well fed now and relaxing in the lounge... I guess I can enjoy this moment... I'm not sure Grand Prairie really exists at this point.. This is the twilight Zone isn't it... It's the proverbial gig that never materializes... I have dreams about gig's where I can't see the audience or can't find the stage...and now I'm living one of em! 36 hours and we're still not there... I could drive up there from L.A. In this much time.

So we get on the little plane to GP and it starts snowing hard... They don't turn the engines over for about 20 minutes after we are to take off. It'll be 8 p.m. At least before we get there. I've given up on seeing an audience by now.

We are met at the gate. David stays to pick up the luggage and I get straight into a car and I'm walking onstage by 8:15 dazed and confused from the travel. It's been a ten hour ordeal just today.

There's more people than I expected. The church is new and built for the frontier. No carpet and block walls... Very nice but the place absolutely rings. Everything is boomy as I launch into a style of Music "we don't hear much around here". I stumbled through conversation and songs. Found myself reading from Oswald Chambers, something I read on the way in..." Much of what we call a trail of faith is the inevitable result of being alive!"

I played two services next morning and spent the afternoon with a few folks and the senior pastor... Who is shorter than I am but makes up for it in wit and sarcasm that keeps me on the cutting edge... Laughed all day. Bar b qued outdoors in six inches of snow! "the heavy stuff doesn't come down for a few months yet"

Did a concert at six that was kinda boring after yesterday. Lot of first timers to church as we stumbled on to some people from some AA and NA meetings late night at a restaurant last night and they came to the concert on our invitation.

This whole gig was worth the "price of admission". People were down to earth, very open, and warm hearted. The church services were on target too and we watched it snow off and on... Flurry's like the ashes falling at home. Well... Live and learn!

Thank you Peoples Church... you live up to your name... Long live Canada! Amen

It took 12 hours to get home...

OK SO .... Bryan D eh....

Nifty Noodles/ Getting It Done.........

10/29/03 Eagle Rock, CA
Finished two more shows last night for Radio Rehab...show's #19 & 20 both highlight lines from the serenity prayer. We had our first "live audience".... couple of friends dropped by the studio to see how we do the show. So the studio was Packed 8) (literally... It's a small place.)

My head was in a weird place too and I didn't get a chance to hear the overall playback... I felt like the delivery was rather lack luster as I read through the "script". But the songs are great... I've used three songs from Amy Grants new CD in the last four shows. That's how good her new record is... I played U2 for the first time... Song called "beautiful day". And Bebe Winnan for the first time doing "Oh happy day" the show was on "living one day at a time" Oh and I opened this show with Natalie Grant, another first timer on RTR. Good news is I'm finding music that works and it doesn't show up until I'm looking for a specific subject matter.

Show 20 is on the "wisdom to know the difference" which includes my latest favorites... Opens with Keb Mo/ God Trying to get your attention and another song from Sting/ If I ever lose my faith in you (I've wanted to put that on a show for a long time. I used another song from Satellite Soul/ poor reflection and Aaron Neville singing an old hymn "I saw the Light"

I used three of my own songs...a Heavenly light...everything in the Garden...and an oldie from Strong Medicine called "hand it over".

KSGN didn't air the show this weekend locally as their transmitter burned to the ground and they went off the air for about two days. One more victim of the relentless fire storm in Southern California. My House looks like an ash tray and I even took the yard blower to the place once... Next day it was as thick as ever. I could hear the dryness in my voice doing the show and then there's the headaches you get from inhaling all the "particulates".

Looking forward to getting out of town this week end. I'm in Grand Prairie, Alberta Cananda on Saturday and Sunday... Of course it's a 10 hour flight schedule on Friday as well and I can't get a flight back until Monday morning... So lot's of down time. I guess golf this time of year in Canada is out of the question?

I'm still trying to find my winter clothes as they are packed away still...it is getting cooler in the evenings here though.. It was probably 68 degrees out last night and there was a thick fog... No wait that¹s just smoke!

Ooohh Kay, So there's THAT! Bryan D.

Nifty Noodles/ The Wedding Singer

Sunday 10/26/03 my friends wedding..Riverside CA
I attended church with my entire family this morning... First time we were all in the same place since Christmas. Then stood outside a restaurant for an hour waiting for a table... See I don't miss this part of the weekend when I'm on the road! The ashes from the seven plus major fires around us have made the day miserable... Every few minutes you have to brush the accumulation off your clothes and out of your hair. I gave up trying to enjoy Sunday brunch with family as it was getting close to time to do this afternoon wedding. The wedding was at least moved indoors.

I was amazed at how well certain selections worked in the wedding scenario. The wedding party came down the aisle to "When I Turn To You" (the orchestrated version) and I sung "When It Comes To Love" during the ceremony... And later sang "a heart like mine" for their first dance as a married couple... Many People at the wedding did know know me from a hole in the cake.... Kept referring to me as the "wedding singer"... I had to laugh... I had visions of the movie and how that has to look on my resume'.

I don't do weddings by the way... These are just close friends and it was my gift to them. I'd rather bag groceries than to sing for the dancing crowd who aren't paying attention. Hey I think I could get that job too right now... Bagging groceries? As everyone seems to be on strike. And after living in this pall of ash I kinda feel like a scab too...

Oh that "hole in the cake" I mentioned... That was mine! I got the first piece.

OKC ya... Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ The Heels Of Hell

Oct 25th 03... San Bernardino, CA
I played again at the yearly outdoor stadium event put on by Set Free Ministries...(all the pastors from the local churches ride in on Harley's... It's classic "Biker Church"... And the the crowd is almost always dressed in black and white...Looks like a Raider game) Sung a fifteen minute set in 20 mile per hour winds with the fires burning out of control on the mountains just minutes away. The smoke rolling over the stadium and the ash fluttering down in white flakes like snowfall...

The Crowd was noticeably thin and many were arriving late because of the highway closures due to the large number of fires in the area. It was like playing while Rome burns. I left early because after a few hours of the smoke inhalation I had a screaming headache and my throat was raw.

So what did I do but drive to the front line of one of the biggest fires... The Rancho Cucamaga/ Lytle Creek now Devore fire. My friend and I got to within a half mile of the flames... Shooting 500 feet into the air.

It was spectacular to see even though it is not a good thing. We watched the flames comedown the mountain at that same 20 miles per hour the wind was blowing. When it reached the creek bed and started moving toward the 215 freeway and the gas station we were parked at. Law enforcement started moving every one out. I of course was the last one to leave the parking lot... And by the time I had driven under the freeway overpass the flames had reached the now closed down gas station at the on ramp. The speed of the fire is frighteningly fast.

Hundreds of homes have been burned and the ashes have floated across the valley basin to where I live. It's been snowing ash for several days now and there is a salt and pepper layer of ash on everything at my house 30 minutes away. Everything smells like smoke too. And tomorrow I was supposed to do a wedding outdoors... I can hardly wait to taste the wedding Cake..

OK so there's that.... Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ V Beach or DATB (Duncan at The Beach)

10/19/03 Virginia Beach, VA
This was more of a gathering of the "alumni" concert, as most there were long time fans. Some flew in from many states away. Club 440 elite was represented some of whom have helped me by establishing my website. (and buying me donuts) 8)

Club 440 has become something of an "on line" fellowship of believers looking to reach beyond the immediate local body of Christ. At least that's the way I see it..."ragamuffins", those with wandering hearts and restless souls looking for others who Identify a certain feeling of "displacement"... Maybe that's why they found me, and identify with my music... Never the less it is a most diverse bunch... From the outside you wouldn't see what they have in common. That's probably true of the larger "body of Christ" as well.

"I am spiritually and emotionally bankrupt" I told one man... "That's why I follow Christ!" and he understood. The conversations were good in an unsettling way... It is the knowledge of Jesus Christ that has ruined me in some ways to life as I know it on this planet. I feel like one of those guys that says he was "abducted by space aliens" and I can never quite see the world the same way. I told a guy this morning at breakfast " I need to tell someone the truth as I feel it.... Right or wrong, just so I can determine whether I am sane or not".

Any way this was an intimate setting and there was no rush. I felt no pull to impress anyone... I just played my songs new and old and the whole thing flowed in a different way. I let go of something in the way of need and expectation that made this night different from the years of doing it over and over. Surrender comes to mind. It feels like the road less traveled!

O.K. So whatever... Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ South of D.C.

10/18/03 Saturday night Maryland
Great gig... Got to do my whole own show... Played two hours. Ticketed official concert... No church service attached... Man I miss this. Sound was fantastic, keyboard was great, just had a great time and the new songs came off better than I've ever done them. Ended with four song encore and Jesus Loves Me Anyway was the final tune... And I got a surprising response to comments about how God can't possibly be "disappointed in you"...because to be disappointed he would have to not know what you were gonna do...there would have to be an "expectation" of a future that God did not know.

God is in the moment and fulfilled by the process of the moment and he knows the outcome before it happens. The word "Disappointed" cannot apply to an omnicient God. God is not "disappointed" in me...he's not surprised by the things I do or say...That's just the way I'm lookin at it...and I was not disappointed by this show.

OKSOTHERESTHAT.... Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Mood Swing

10/13/03 Eagle Rock, CA
Man, I'm so pumped...radio rehab show number 18 on the courage to change the things I can, came off so cool I could hardly stand it driving home. At one point we realized that the songs chosen for the show were shorter than usual...all of 'em were. We had 4 minutes to fill and low and behold a friend had given me a CD to listen to only a few days ago... I didn't want to play it... Cause frankly I'm not a country music fan... But I looked at the CD and the song he wanted me to listen to...it was 3 minutes and 34 seconds long... It was like... An intervention from God... The song was added and it ends in the same key as the song I picked for the end of the show.

Anyway it is a highlight show at least musically, it all works. The courage to change the things I can... Runs like this...
Eric Clapton/ If I could Change the World
Ashley Cleveland/ In the Land of the Living
Sheryl Crow/ A Change will do you Good
Bryan Duncan/ It gets Better
Michael McDonald/ I Believe
Billy Currington/ Walk a little Straighter Daddy
Lyle Lovette/ Straighten Up and Fly Right

Dixie Dean a programmer who has syndicated radio rehab in England said and I quote " The last few years I have been involved in Christian Radio program production, as a director of GBS Radio. So I have a real interest in seeing people saved through Christian Radio. I found your programs particularly refreshing, very honest and challenging. You also played good music in them. Such programs are not easy to come by, and I just thought other radio stations might just like them too."

Dixie Dean has been responsible for offering my show to stations in 5 countries and counting...mean while I have been preparing to offer it in the U.S. With two stations now airing and two more considering adding it...

Of course I can see that I will have trouble here with some networks whom I've heard specifically say that they won't play "secular" music. But I like to play a cross section because that is what I listen to. And I find great messages all over the place... I also think if you want to reach folks you need to be a little more open to playing something that a non believer might recognize but put a different spin on it... Much like the apostle Paul did in pointing out the statue dedicated to the unknown God... Using it to present Christ.

Maybe that¹s a stretch but I'm just not gonna box in the show by playing all one thing... And besides in order to get different takes and commentary's on specific issues I've had a difficult time finding varying subject matter in Christian Music... The format is very narrow... So maybe "radio Rehab" has a new meaning as well.

But after tonight, I was so excited about the way it came out... I don't care if anybody else gets it... It makes me happy and gives me hope.

OK so there's That bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Reload

10/13/03 at home...
O.K. Here's something I do that helps... If you read the last nifty noodles you can see that I was clearly in a bad place... In my recovery program I take a moral inventory of yesterday... And I did that today as part of my few routines... Here are some insights about that... I did not allow enough time for sleep in the last four days. 12 hours including two on airplanes... Not quite enough to keep out of fatigue depression. (I also looked at my ability to contract amnesia by simply staring at my shoes :-)

Here's how that works... I'm looking ahead at the horizon... I can see a general outline of my future...(or possible futures) the overview isn't bad. Then there is the "distractions" good and bad that are closer to me. They change my focus but I can still see a bigger picture! But with total exhaustion... I hang my head and now I'm just looking at my shoes. I can only hear my own tired thoughts, always negative! when I'm staring at my shoes I have no peripheral vision! not only that I completely forget that there is a bigger picture...The horizon doesn't just disappear from view for me... It ceases to exist... This is called "DEPRESSION".... And I get it... And this week was one of the worst I've experienced in a couple of years... I fell into a dark hole and didn't have a ladder...( Did have a shovel though :-)

I'm not laying this out to receive your prayers or your pity! I just want you to see the work it takes to deal with feelings and process them when they are overwhelming...they effect your outlook and I'm discovering that God has been using me for years right through the middle of my rather constant depression. But what I think during a depression is not me... My feelings don't have to change who I am... And they don't change the Truth of the word of God.

I don't take drugs anymore to offset depression, I don't recommend my decision really... But I've decided I'm gonna just feel what I feel and with a little help from my friends process those feelings...until I get more than a second opinion (4 out of 5 doctors)... I have chosen to face reality as I see it... And facing the fact that I might not see it that clearly all by myself... I will trust others as well. Writing songs has always been enhanced because I was not numb to those sensitivities... Of course there haven't been a lot of happy songs either when I'm there. That comes later...cause I do make it through the valley of the shadow of death...

Process your feelings but don't trust in them!

OK so there's That! bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Auburn Sonrise

10/11/03 Auburn, CA- Sonrise Christian Fellowship
I played a grand total of sixteen songs over four church services in a 16 hour period... Saturday night and Sunday morning. Tried valiantly to fit in to the official sermon on honoring your parents. Struggled like I can't remember struggling to "hit the home run". Couldn't get the job done. Each presentation had it's own new technical difficulty. The microphones, the p.a. System, the volume and finally the econo band itself quit in mid tune.

I found myself in a dark mood that I could not get out of. My own thought process reached critical doom. Response seemed nominal at best. I felt inhibited in sharing my convictions. Song selection too just didn't gel well with the church service. Sonrise I was a porcupine in a balloon factory! I connected with some folks but there seemed an indifference from the crowd as a whole that I don't remember in times past here. Simply put, I didn't have this audience. Sonrise The new songs "never lied to you" and "Jesus Loves Me Anyway" and "Don't help the Devil" fell flat. "Maybe I'm Amazed" drew comments and interest to a record that is no longer available. I was down about not having the new release Twin Cities and there was little interest in the Radio Rehab series. Sonrise O.K. So it wasn't about me! but I would like to have felt a part of God's plans... such was not the case. Sonrise

OKSO THERE's That.... Bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Drive By

10/10/03 Chino Hills, CA
I agreed to "stop in" at a Celebrate Recovery, one year celebration at Inland Community Church... This is another new reality that I call a "drive by". It means I'm not bringing anyone to insure proper sound quality and I'm not hangin around much afterward...just adding my 2 cents and a couple of four songs.

Got my first Standing O for the opening song. "Don't Help The Devil" was the tune I opened with in this completely unplugged, no real sound check gig. "I'll be doing a full concert here in may... So don't hold this against me" I cracked cause I was worried about the lack of vocal effects and the balance between the mic level and the keyboard.

Really none of that stuff mattered. Testimonies from the recovering and an inspiring tearful talk ending with "don't give up... Don't ever give up" was well worth the trip for me.

Another singer came on before me with some encouraging words too " it's not our weaknesses that keep us from turning to God.... It's our natural strengths"... Interestingly put I thought... It stuck with me...

I still can't seem to play a new song called "no words" with out screwing it up... after singing "there's no words for this song... I added off the cuff "and apparently there are no Chords either"... I was actually entertaining myself in a very laid back low key approach.

I can't remember being this depressed and fine with it at the same time... Especially on stage. The gig was very meaningful in all the right ways really but it highlighted how far from reality the real successful music world is... And I could feel the sadness of my own disillusion.

OKC ya... I got an early flight bryand

Nifty Noodles/ DC

10/6/03 outside Washington D.C.

Did a banquet for Emanuel's Church, Celebrating their 20th anniversary. Hard to read a crowd of folks all dressed up. They tend to act more dignified perhaps. I gave 'em what I do though and the response was great.

I worry about my ability to communicate to a largely cross cultural congregation... Typical of a D.C. Area church, there are people from many countries in attendance. many of whom are working in or with the government. American Sarcasm is much of what I deliver and I was treading lightly this evening.

The preliminaries included letters from the Governor of Maryland and the President of the United States.... And then there was me!

I felt quit comfortable with this reasonably sane group of moderate Pentecostals. They embraced me and the things I said reasonably well I thought. I left with a new outlook on my place in the world.

It is dawning on me that my problem is me and not those who around me whom I have blamed for the many long roads I've taken in my lifetime. Wow, imagine that.

I'm taking responsibility for myself and the things I say and believe... I am finding my way finally after 30 years of my own wandering. The trip to Maryland from Los Angeles coming and going were an emotional beating... First time in a month that I've been out of my own state.

I'm finding airport travel as a way of life absolutely unreasonable... But it is a necessary evil that I must continue to deal with... Unless I can get a gig on television.

Got home and low and behold.... I got a call from Bill Clinton and one from Arnold Schwartzenager ... Wow I am important... Guess I'll go vote to overthrow the California government tomorrow....

Oksotheres that bryan d

Nifty Noodles/ Football

Riverside Ca. 10-3-'03
My sons football game....
I was inspired by surprise and I plan to use this on Radio Rehab in my next show.. Thought you might like to read my thoughts:

I watched a high school football game recently, where one team was decidedly more powerful looking than the other... They were bigger individually and there was more of em too...I was preparing for the lopsided slaughter that I saw between these two teams the year before...

It started out pretty predictable too... The opening kick off turned into a 98 yard touchdown return... Followed by a four plays and out offensive effort on the part of the home team...

I could tell by the way the guys were walking to the line of scrimmage that there was trepidation and a nervous lack of confidence in facing the opposition.

Sure enough the opposition scored again ... And again on a mistake by the fearful and frustrated...

The trailing teams quarterback had almost no protection from the onslaught of the enemy... finally in desperation after nearly half the game he Decided to leave behind what in most games was a comfortable pocket of protection, he began to scramble!... and he found a receiver 50 yards down the field...and again on the next few plays found the end zone for the first time...

He changed something that he could change... And the courage to change came from the painful realities of facing the loss of what used to work for him. It came from being slammed to the ground time and again...until he decided it was time to do something else... It began as desperation... And turned into confidant assurance that he could win...and his team mates begin to believe....

I know you think that this is a story of the final great victory... But it's not... The real truth was the little guys didn't win this game... But they came to within one touchdown of overthrowing an arrogant trash talking opponent...

The victory that I saw at the end was better than winning the game.... It was this... There was hope for the future because of the confidence earned in the struggle... No one on the home side of the field left immediately... They were standing now as they did through most of the second half in complete joy and excitement about the possibility that any play could be the big play... Any play could change the outcome...

The losing team this time was not defeated... They stood together on the field facing the great crowd of witnesses and sang the schools alma mater, united... rejuvenated...they discovered some things can't be changed... Like the size of the opposition... But they changed what they could and turned it into a nail biter that I will remember long after the statistics are buried in some dust covered history of a little known high school...

Hope is worth more than victory... And possibility is worth more than attaining everything...

Thanks for lettin me share.... Bryan D

Oh... And my son, Devin Duncan...caught 4 passes for 65 yards and one touchdown... Recovered a fumble for a turnover... And tackled a guy twice his size (six foot six 220 lbs...) on on at least six occasions without sustaining any injuries... God is good 8)

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