The Leave-Taking

The spirit leaves.  Any time, in a moment.  Reminded of that fact two days ago.  One of our little feathered friends gave up the ghost.  It was unexpected, sudden.  Baffling. So sad.

It happens like this: something takes over. There is a "leave-taking," the wings spread, it appears as if the little being is preparing to soar, and then the body "drops." And then, it's over. You are left with the little perfect lifeless body.

No reason is given.  You can make up reasons, but they all seem so inadequate and beside the point. One moment life, one moment death.

What lesson? Not sure. Death happens. Spirit leaves. Those that are living need to pay attention to those still living. And remember those who have passed. Every moment is a moment of possibility. Every moment.

Sum it Up?

Yes, we did this Toys for Tots show last night at the Red Line Tap... how do I sum it up?  We raised a boat-load of toys for the kids. We packed the place with people.  By any measure it was a wildly successful show...

There were reindeer, monkeys, drunk people.  Short ones, tall ones.  We raffled off the lamest DVD's ever made by man. We had a ukulele raconteur walking around in his bathrobe.  The Uber-Critic was surly and rolled around on stage.  We had Marines, Go-Go dancers, and a few unmitigated train-wrecks too. I was drinking Guinness. There was sonic bliss, and total mayhem too. Lots of holiday cheer.  A good time had by all...

Outward/Inward

When you are little you think everything is "out there."  And then somewhere along the line you think everything is "in here."  There's the outward journey and the inward journey...

And then somewhere along the line you realize that it's both, and it's a dance, and you must juggle your perspective, always, every moment.  You are dazzled and confounded with the things of the world, and you find strength and insight inside yourself.

You are not helpless.  You are not an idiot.  You have resources. And you can use them to deal with the world as you find it.  That's how you live a full life...

Faith in the Creative Project!

It's all about the work... I suppose I adopted that line from Andy Warhol.  I think if you are in the creative realm, if you are really committed to what you do, you end up putting it all in the work.  You can't help it. And everything in your life, in your background, in your foreground, comes through.  That's the beauty of it.  That's what makes art important.  And transcendent, and inspiring.  We put the best of ourselves into the work.  Maybe sometimes the worst too.  Makes it all more compelling and layered... etc.

Anyway, my favorite photographer, Michael Doubrava has just posted some new work.  I am just totally bowled over by this man's vision.  He creates another world.  Sometimes it's a lovely order, or maybe a lovely disorder.  And things that seem like they seem, aren't what they seem.  

Or they are... or... you know, there's the real, the surreal and the beyond the real too.  Michael's work is beautiful and mysterious and exquisite. And if you know his methods, and his madness, you can't help but be inspired.  And your faith in the creative project is renewed...

What Does Elvis Have to do With It?

Kind of stumbled into the r&r business... I mean on a local club level.  I've worked with promoters, and I've also promoted shows on my own.  It can be very rewarding to put a line-up of acts together and put on a show.  And then sometimes you think a show is gonna be really special. For this one, I'm just part of team. Lots of really cool people helped on this one.  And it's all for a great cause.  Really looking forward to it. If you live in the Chicago area, you should check it out!

David Briggs was the Secret Sauce!

Did you ever play a CD over and over until it finally just gives up the ghost?  I've done it a few times. Just replaced my copy of Neil Young and Crazy Horses' "Ragged Glory."  I have really played the be-jesus out of this disc ever since it came out in 1990.  And the new CD sounds great.  Blasted it out over and over yesterday afternoon...

I wonder why it's so good?  Neil and the band are in peak form.  It is a raggedly glorious sound.  I suspect the X factor was the Producer David Briggs.  It's no accident that some of my favorite Neil Young music was produced by Briggs.  Whatever he brought to the sessions, whatever he did when collaborating with Neil worked out to the max.  He brought some kind of special hoodoo mojo factor.  Kind of mysterious... and his track record with Young is seriously great, some of the best music ever recorded...  David Briggs was the secret sauce!

"When are things gonna get back to normal?" - Roger Sterling

We recently purchased the Blu-Ray DVD of Mad Men season 5 and have been really submerging ourselves in the show. It's really great, a period piece about America, and how during the sixties the ground shifted and everything changed. I love how music is used in the show.  Songs usually come at the end, kind of as an exclamation point. Last night we watched the "Tomorrow Never Knows" episode...

People remember "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band" as the pinnacle of the Beatles musical achievement, but "Revolver" might actually be their best album.  And this is the song that kind of blew open the doors.  It opened minds, opened heads, this is when the Beatles got really "weird" and great...

And Lennon showed how a rock and roll song could be trippy, fun and deeply disorienting and profound too...

One's Man's Spiritual Epiphany is Much Like Another Man's Spiritual Epiphany

Another funny thing about Mike Scott's book (see previous post): the spiritual "epiphany" that he  describes when he was at Findhorn, a rural community in Scotland in the mid-nineties, is very similar to the spiritual epiphany I had on Clark Street in Chicago in the early two thousands...

It was funny to read in black and white someone describe the same basic experience.  Maybe it's characteristic of a deep meditative state.  It's also funny how language is so unable to convey the actual experience.  I mean the description is quite good, but it sounds sort of plain, mundane and blah.

Maybe that's also characteristic of the most profound experiences.  You can't really describe them.  Only truly experience them.  And when you do try to describe them you miss the target and fall into cliche.  Maybe the experience is sort of cliche.  But a spiritual epiphany is nothing to sneeze at!

And that feeling of "well-being and connectedness" is something special for sure... sort of earth-shaking and profound...

Adventures of the Last Standing Waterboy!

Next up for me will be Pete Townshend's book, but first, just finished reading Mike Scott's book "Adventures of a Waterboy." Mike is the front-man, the leader, and sometimes the last and only Waterboy left standing. The book is a wonderful read.  It is beautifully written.  Scott is a heart-felt poet, and a man in love with, and driven by, music.

There are some haunting, beautiful and soul-stirring passages in this book.  Scott really is a r&r gypsy. And a great writer. He has followed his own muse and flitted from grandly different visions for the Waterboys, sometimes from one record to the next.  At times, he was striving for a Big Rock and Roll sound, and then  other times he was going for a rootsy, organic Celtic sound.  Probably his greatest achievement is "Fisherman's Blues," a dash back to that old Celtic sound, melding rock, folk and traditional music. Scott is a "Scot," who fell in love with Ireland, and the old music, and then put together an amazing band of traditional players to bring music alive.

There are also some other great albums by the Waterboys, especially the grandly rocking  "This is the Sea."  And I just discovered  "A Rock in the Weary Land." It's a a really powerful record, and another vision fully-realized. Influenced by Radio-Head's denser electronic sound!

Scott is sort of a baffling figure too.  He comes across as a very willful, intuitive person, with a grand spiritual vision.  He also comes across as "difficult" never settling on a single musical approach, never quite satisfied with the work, not comfortable playing the rock star role, unable to hold a band of musicians together.

You do think lots of things are left out of his version of his adventures.  But the Mike Scott you meet is a charismatic r&r poet.  And an amiable spiritual gypsy.  And his great poetic gift and his deep spiritualism drives some great, soul-full music. Recommended!

I Can't Explain It!

I can't really explain it... I'm at the bookstore, in the r&r section... I'm torn between buying Pete Townshend's new book or Neil Young's.  I greatly admire both of these guys.  I love reading r&r memoirs, and some of them, like Keith Richard's book, seem like great literature too.  I'm obsessed with Pop Culture, and seeing Pop Culture through the eyes of some of the people who have been in the center of the hurricane is very cool.

So I'm torn.  Two big books, two expensive hard-covers.  Lots of words.  And for some reason I opt for the Townshend book.  And I actually think to myself, "I don't trust Neil." Is that right?! I love Neil Young.  I think he's an amazing artist, great singer/songwriter, unbelievable guitar player. What am I thinking?  Just looking at the cover, I think, "Neil's gonna bullshit me."

In fiction there's the "unreliable narrator."  Somehow Keith made it work, even though you think he's about as unreliable as you can get.  And yes, there's lots everyone leaves out.  That's what life and memory is... what you remember... what you forget.

Anyway, can't explain it.  I opt to go with Pete...  I wonder if I made the right choice .  Is Pete's book any good? Is he gonna bullshit me too? I guess I'll report back when I finish it!

Besides That...

Shadow-Dancing.  Yes, we are a funny species. We like to wrestle and dance with shadows.  Sometimes we get lost in the world of shadows. Sometimes we get so lost, we end up neglecting the things of the world that are sitting right before our noses.

I suppose we sometimes we do this as an intentional strategy. Some of those things of the world are "bad news," better left for another day.  But sometimes that other day is today.  Maybe we should move out of the shadows and seize the things of the day?  What's the worst that could happen? Oh, yeah... I mean... besides that...

The Waning Day

At the lake front yesterday.  The sun was setting in the west, and I was looking east at the vast and dangerous body of water called Lake Michigan.  The water was still.  A small flock of Canadian Geese were floating in the water, looking like wooden decoys.

It was around 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon and already the sun was setting, and the setting sun tossed an array of colors across the water. There were pinks and blues and yellows too, glinting, sparkling, dancing in the still water.  I was wearing dark sunglasses which made the colors more vibrant and surreal.  It was one of those hushed moments.  I could hear myself breathing, breathing in the air, breathing in the essence of a waning day.

It was one of those nothing moments. It seems that nothing was really happening.  But everything was there before me.  Everything right there in that moment.  It sort of felt holy. A holy moment.  A feeling of peace and well-being flooded my body.  The moment was so vibrant and alive.  I was in the church of no church.

Catching My Breath!

Yes, just like "Piggy" in "Lord of the Flies," I have "ass-mar."  I've had it since about 13 years old or so.  I remember collapsing into a snowbank, gasping for air, and my little brother lugging me home.  That was when I realized that breathing doesn't always come easy.

Over the years, I've tried lots of remedies.  Lately I've been using my Tibetan Sea Salt inhaler and it seems to help.  I also take hot baths and soak my body in aromatic spices like peppermint and eucalyptus.  I take vitamins. I take a special mushroom concoction. I do breathing exercises.  I treat myself like a Pharaoh or something.  And it's all for just the simple pleasure of catching my  breath.

Stunning Brilliance!

Recently watched "Cross-Fire Hurricane," an HBO documentary about the Stones.  It's kind of a visual snapshot of some of the events much more fully explored in Keith's great book.  You get a little visual whiff of  the Stone's glory years from the mid sixties to the mid seventies.  Pretty amazing story.

The band was born into a maelstrom of sex, drugs & violence.  And they embraced their bad boy image with enthusiasm.  There was a time when rock & roll really was the sound-track of our lives, and those Stone's songs resonated with great social & cultural significance.  There was a true "counter-culture" and the Stones were at the forefront of it, whether they wanted to be or not.

There are flashes too of the Stones from the 80's onward.  The shows got bigger, the audiences got broader, the great bounty of money flowed in,  the band traversed the world like a great r&r dinosaur and they were embraced by the mainstream culture. The music sort of shrunk, got smaller, nearly got swallowed in all the flash and thunder of the 24 hr. media monster.  Still those r&r gems from the early years have never really been tarnished. Stunning brilliance...

R&R Party Time!

I love doing this Holiday show.  We've participated 5 or 6 years in a row.  It's always lots of fun.  And it's for a good cause: raising toys for needy children.  There is no down-side to this one.  It's just a cool r&r party.  We have a killer line-up this year. It's not to be missed!  And hell, maybe even Elvis will make an appearance...?!

In His Bones and Blood

Although my last name has a distinctly "Germanic" flavor, the German influence in my blood-line was always discounted in my family.  The German guy was a one-off, he fled the family, leaving his wife to raise two young boys on her own.  Lots of pain, humiliation and guilt tied up in that little act of cowardice.  He may have had his reasons, but no one knew what they were, or at least the people who might have had an inkling, weren't talking. And that act turned out to be a life-long betrayal with reverberations for a couple generations of the clan.

So it was left to the Irish side of the family to pick up the pieces, to pull together, and to try to make it in the world, to raise a family, to get up and face the day, and to carry on. So it's the Irish side of the blood-line that was always revered and celebrated.  I always thought of myself as Irish.  And that Irish-ness meant a little craziness mixed in with a resilient toughness, and the ability to laugh and to carry on.  

And I can pass as Irish. I see it in the mirror every morning. Although to be fair to my mother's side of the family there is a healthy dose of Polish in my genetic make-up and there was always talk of a dollop of French blood in the line too.  And god knows what else?  Truly I am a white-bread 3rd generation mongrel of the first degree.

Still, when we made the trip to Dublin it felt like a real homecoming. I easily tear up when I hear Danny Boy.  I'm a big fan of Van Morrison, U2, the Pogues and Sinead O'Connor, and Samuel Beckett and James Joyce and blah, blah, blah.  Erin Go Braugh!

And the list of famous Irish people is quite impressive, you can review the list yourself.  Anyway, listening to Shane McGowan this morning stirs the blood for sure.  Anyone for a Guinness this early in the AM?  This is a great Christmas song.  We're thinking of trying it with our band for our next show. 

Shane is one of those great, sodden, tragic, Irish poets.  He always sounds half-crocked, or no, maybe fully crocked... and maybe he always really is, but he's a great songwriter, and he sings with a gravity, authority, and raging, ragged beauty that seems grounded in his bones and blood... 

  

Master Filmmaker - Ben Affleck?!

Yesterday we saw "Argo" the latest movie from master filmmaker... Ben Affleck.  Yes, really, I just put "master filmmaker," and Ben Affleck in the same sentence.  Hard to believe?  Yes, but really...

Seems there is life after "Bennifer" the "super-couple" years spent with Jennifer Lopez. Anway, "Argo" is a great movie.  Entertaining, thrilling.  Based on true events. It's a period piece, Jimmy Carter is President, there's the hostage crisis in Iran.  The story is all so true, it's seems completely implausible. Well done Mr. Affleck!

Sweet Thing...

Thinking of bringing this song to our band... one of the great tracks from Van Morrison's 1968 album "Astral Weeks", which is absolutely one of the all-time greatest records to ever see the light of day.  It never fails to enchant.

The Waterboys did an amazing cover version of this song on their blazingly wonderful album "Fisherman's Blues." Just a beautiful, incandescent song. For some reason, I think our band could really bring it... I'm gonna bring it to our next kitchen session and try it on for size!

 

It all comes down to the hugs...

Lots to be thankful for today.  It's kind of cool to have a day dedicated to thankfulness.  There are very few traditions I follow.  But getting together with family and breaking bread, or in this case having a feast with all the fixings, is a good one. It's good to see everyone that is still around, and to think of the ones that are no longer around.  And yes, there's the food, the talk, the football, the singing of songs, but really it all comes down to the hugs.

The Kitchen

The kitchen.  Great acoustics.  Good lighting.  Many, many sessions spent in the kitchen with my acoustic guitar and a little digital recorder. Yes, that's where the majority of our songs start.  Little riffs and melodies just sort of appear... in the kitchen...