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...

What Does Time Reveal?

Yesterday I wrote about Gillian Welch and David Rawlings here...  there are the good times, the bad times, and then just time...

This song has been resonating with me the last few days.  Time is the great revelator for sure.  And Gillian Welch is an amazing singer/songwriter, and her partner in crime, David Rawlings is just the best.  This take was supposedly a "mic test," and it sounds so real, so genuine, so casually perfect, and in the moment... you can see why this was "the one."

And what does time reveal?  Everything...

Holy Motors... Yes!

We went to the Music Box Theatre in Chicago yesterday afternoon.  We saw Leos Carax's new movie "Holy Motors."  Don't want to review it. Don't want to try to sum it up.  Don't want to critique or explain.  Don't want to diminish it in anyway. It's a great, beautifully visualized mystery.  Definitely worth seeing.

It's about dreams, movies, life.  Some absolutely stunning images.  And it's a really strange, baffling, wonderful film. Very French.  Loved, loved, loved it.  It kind of opened me up and cleansed my brain.  Sort of deepened the mystery of my own life too.  Really. Highly recommended.

Status Quo

There are those who benefit from the "status quo." And those who suffer. And that's where the conflict,  and the trouble begins.  There are those holding the apple cart up, feasting on apples, and there are those trying to upset the apple cart, those hungry for apples. That's the human thing in spades.

Gloriously Implausible!

BTW - the quote "We all fall down," comes from Tony Scott's movie "Domino," a film loosely based on Domino Harvey's real-life story.  And Domino's story is actually more layered, and complex, and interesting and tragic than the actual film.  The real-life Domino died of an overdose before the film came out.

I recently saw Scott's movie after reading this amazing tribute by Kim Morgan.  "Domino" the movie seems to me to be an instance of "style over substance," and Keira Knightly is sort of implausible in the lead role, but at the same time the style is so lush and over the top and flashy and cool, and Knightly is so charismatic and gloriously implausible, I think the movie works.  Yes it works, even though it's sort of hyper and ridiculous too.  And maybe Tony Scott really didn't get his due as a filmmaker and maybe Kim Morgan helps make the case.

And what a great closing line for the film. And yes, we do all fall down...

We all Fall Down!

People have sex.  They have sex with other people.  People not their husbands or wives.  It happens.  All the time.  So sometimes "the scandal" isn't really all that scandalous or shocking.  But it is sort of an intriguing story when you see intelligent, successful people doing really stupid and silly things.

You see Generals with lots of medals on their chests acting like besotted teenagers.  You see accomplished, married women competing for the attention of these over-decorated men.  There's jealousy and lust and people acting like hormone-addled kids.

It's kind of funny.  And I guess in a way it's satisfying to know that those folks aren't any different than other folks.  It's kind of the human story splashed across media landscape.  It's ridiculous too.  And pointless.  And these very accomplished people have no one to blame except themselves.

One moment a figure of respect and honor.  The next a figure of foolishness and disgrace.  And we all fall down!

One Snap!

My photography teacher many years ago said: "The camera always lies."  I think this is true.  One snap tries to capture a moment.  A still from life.  But life is not still.  It's an on-going process.  A stream that cannot be corralled or contained.

Still, people take photos.  Some are art-less and some are art-full. For me an art-full photo adds to the mystery, it reveals and conceals at the same time.  It's not documenting a moment, it's a poetic evocation of a moment. 

This is a long way to saying that our friend Nancy Chambers took a bunch of photos at our recent show at the Underground Wonder Bar.  They all looked so good, so mysterious, so poetic and art-full, I decided to add a photo page to our band website.  

Nancy focused the lens on the Lovely Carla and I, the rest of the band didn't make it in the frame.  So yes, these photos lie, they don't fully capture the reality of that night.  But they do capture something sort of mysterious and beautiful...  they sort of capture the spirit of our little sonic experiment. Thanks Nancy!

New Refrigerator

We signed a new lease on our apartment.  We asked for a new refrigerator.  And it arrived yesterday.  Big, shiny, white, roomy.  It just gleams.  Everyone is very happy. Freezer on the bottom, lots of shelves and compartments.  It's amazing how a new refrigerator can just change the energy of our little household.  We are all glowing positivity this morning...

The refrigerator made me think of Ellyn Burstyn and her role in "Requiem for a Dream." "Requiem" is a great, and powerful film about people in addiction and survival.  It's beautiful, brutal and surreal.  I've seen it a couple of times, and certain scenes are just seared into my consciousness.

I longed to hear the wonderful and amazing soundtrack to the movie. Original music by Clint Mansell. I'm playing it now.  It is haunting, breath-taking, really one of the greatest movie soundtracks ever recorded.  Yes, it's that good.  So glad we got the refrigerator, so glad it made me think of Ellen Burstyn, so glad I remembered the soundtrack, so glad I'm playing the CD now.  It's a very good morning.

It Was Lost

I was reading about The Stone Roses and their original manager Gareth Evans.  Evans is kind of a larger than life character in the mold of Andrew Loog Oldman, Brian Epstein, Malcolm Maclaren.

Here is Evans talking about the Roses downfall and it definitely resonates across the human spectrum.  Think Big Time Coaches, Church Elders, Boy Scout Leaders, Wall Street Financiers, Politicians, Four Star Generals... etc.

"They definitely began to believe in themselves to such an extent that, to them, they seemed indestructible. That is very dangerous and foolish.  But it's a classic situation, isn't it? Not just in rock and roll, but in all business, in all life. Outrageous fortune arrives, either by luck or skill, it's doesn't matter which and it brings with it something incredibly destructive. The belief that whatever you do, it will all be for the best because you are so special.  I'm telling you. Nobody is special. Nobody. The Roses had a lot going for them but they also lacked a lot. As soon as they lost sight of that fact... it was lost." - Gareth Evans

Processing

You have to be able to process the good news.  Just like you need to process the bad news.  And there's always good news and bad news to process.  So you need to be "processing" all the time.  It can be a challenge.  And it takes energy. And sometimes the news is either so big, or so little, you are always being challenged not to miss it and to digest it.  It is all part of the picture.  It's all part of the game.  And the game never ever stops.

Of course this dividing up of information or reality into good and bad is pretty arbitrary.  And it can kind of float and morph.  The challenge is always to see clearly.  

And it seems we have different and sometimes contradictory "systems" for processing sensory info.  It's all such a complicated thing.  Life.

Superlatives!

Our band whitewolfsonicprincess played at the Underground Wonder Bar last night.  It was an amazingly transcendent experience.  We played downstairs and it was packed.  A nice intimate room filled with people there to hear music.  The band just fed off the energy of the room.  One of our best shows for sure.  I guess I can try to drag out all the superlatives: exciting, inspiring, soul-stirring, soul-enriching.  It was all that and more.  Still riding the vibe this morning...