Mike Jarboe profile picture

Mike Jarboe

Grab that gal and shake a foot and moan...The Skillet Lickers.

About Me

I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4I'm a native of Alabama who grew up in the Jersey Pine Barrens, and I now live in upstate New York.I play old-time fiddle music for fun (I'm in a band called Dirt Road Molly, which you are hearing as you look at this page) and have made hundreds of dollars doing it over the past 20 or so years. Thus, I make my living as a newspaper copy editor. I also work as a horse racing handicapper for the Albany, N.Y., newspaper during the Saratoga racing season. I am chief of the news copy desk at the paper.I had my shoulder (bowing arm) surgically redone in March 2007, so challenges lay ahead when it comes to playing...but people have overcome far, far more than this to play the fiddle.I played industrial league ice hockey (goaltender, defense) for 15 years. A Web search tells me there is a young professional goaltender named Mike Jarboe, which I think is great. I had great reflexes when I was young.I used to have ferrets, but they died or ran away. Spent a couple years ('72-'76 mainly) following the Grateful Dead around. I drive shitty old Volvos because I love the suspense of whether I'm actually going to get there. I was nearly killed in a sky diving accident in 1987, which broke living hell out of my right leg, which is held together with screws and plates because of it.Is that enough?

My Interests

Appalachian old-time fiddle music, journalism, copy editing, horse racing, brew pub beer, single malt scotch.

I'd like to meet:

I met Jerry Garcia and Bill Monroe, which means I met everyone on Earth worth meeting. He's gone now, but I wouldn't mind meeting..ummm...George Orwell, but he died a long time ago. Oh, here's one: somebody else with the same name I have. Oh, and one other: Mr. Methane, the professional flatulist. Just a quick meeting. Really quick.Fiddle heroes, present: Chirps Smith, Bruce Greene, Bruce Molsky, Rafe Stefanini, New Lost City Ramblers, Gerry Milnes, Rayna and Dan Gellert.Fiddle heroes, past: Tommy Jarrell, Clark Kessinger, Clayton McMichen, Lowe Stokes, John Salyer.

Music:

See above. Still listen to the Dead a little. For variety: Blind Willie McTell, Blind Blake, Blind Lemon Jefferson (is there a pattern here?). Anything else, forget it. I play fiddle in Dirt Road Molly, an old-time string band. We have a MySpace Music page up for fun and general ridicule.

Movies:

Cool Hand Luke, the Deer Hunter, American Beauty
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Television:

CNN Headline News with Linda Stouffer, baby....

Books:

Anything Orwell, especially Coming Up for Air. A Confederacy of Dunces. Almanacs and books of needless factoids.

Heroes:

Jerry Garcia, the great Appalachian fiddlers of past and present, my dad, my late mother, Jimmie Coker (a relative who played major league baseball), good newspaper copy editors, George Orwell