The Spirit of Abbie

Yesterday we opened the Abbie Fest at 10:00 a.m. with our Dino and Sheila Show. The theater was dark, there were bodies in various poses scattered throughout. We set up and kicked off the show on time. The survivors sought other refuge. We played to one person. He took some great photos. It was excellent; a "spirit," slot dedicated to my father, the fest, Mary-Archie Theater and the Maestro Rich Cotovsky. It was the complete other end of the live theater spectrum (see preivous post).

The Lovely Carla was sharp, exquisite (she truly is a force of nature). I was a little distracted, blew a few lines (who wrote this shit?), but didn't get rattled, I was completely comfortable in the role of Dino, and had a great time. We finished, packed up our stuff, and headed to breakfast. Then it was back to Mary-Archie for a full afternoon of theater.

I love this festival of plays. It really captures the spirit of the Chicago theater community. Cotovsky is one of my heroes. He is a no-nonsense practitioner. A dedicated, soulful man who opens his space for three days, and shares a vision of cooperation and collaboration. The good, bad and the ugly march up to the stage and do their thing. We saw it all: one really vile piece of trash, a couple hilarious pieces, an inane trifle, a few inspiring pieces and one absolutely sublime example of theater magic - "Sea Marks" (Mary-Arhcie's current production).

We left on this high note. The two of us, kind of staggering out into the sunlight, our hearts and heads on fire. Yes, "Abbie lives!" Ain't it the truth!

Jello in a Hurricane

The strangeness continues... the light bulb is out again (in the dark) plus, I just wrote a post about the Abbie Hoffman fest, I got up to get another cup of coffee, come back and it's gone...

So, anyway, here goes again. The Lovely Carla and I played to a packed house at the Mary-Arhcie theater last night. It was a rousing performance at the Abbie Hoffman Died for Our Sins Fest. It was strange and intimidating, just the two of us, (for the last year we've been part of an incredible group, the Goodbar Cast), playing to a live audience (no net). We were well-rehearsed, but we were both nervous as hell (might as well use it). My hand trembled so badly, the martini glass in my hand shook like a plate of jello in a hurricane.

I opened the show with a personal anti-war rant, dedicated to Abbie Hoffman and to my father. It was odd standing in front of an audience without a mask. Weird, strangely uncomfortable. The audience whooped in support, thunderous applause. A great kick. Then we did the "Dino and Sheila Show," scenes from my play "Dino vs. the Black Swan." I introduced it as a "battle of the sexes." It was silly, obscene. The laugher came frequently, we were not prepared for the laughter!

We do it again this morning...

The Lost "Normal"

There's no normal anymore. I've entered a new phase in my life; at least that's how if feels, where everything seems strange, out of kilter. I'm abnormally tired. The full moon looks abnormally big. The storms raging outside my door seem abnormally violent. Everyone I see, looks fragile, tentative, incomplete. Maybe it was always so, am I just more sensitive to it now? The last few days, I have been trying to "right myself," get back to some sense of normalcy, but I'm beginning to suspect it doesn't exist, it's just another dream or illusion that no longer works for me. Is life a process of discarding our dreams? Maybe our brains are these little "dream factories," that keep churning out new visions and storylines, which then come up against the "reality" of the world. Reality is our co-collaborator. It's the harsh, unbending, Assistant Director looking over our shoulder, telling us "the lighting isn't right, the sound is out of synch, and anyway, there's no film in the camera!"

A Gratuitous Use of a Question Mark

Up early today, I couldn't sleep. I'm typing on a new keyboard for my Mac, I could live without the letter, "p," but I wasn't gonna make it without a question mark (???).

This weekend is the "Abbie Hoffman Died for Your Sins Fest." This will be the fifth year for Black Forest. The Lovely Carla and I will be doing the "Dino and Sheila Show," excerpts from my play about a Dean Martin type of guy. It's a brutal "battle of the sexes." Should be entertaining.

I'm also writing a little preamble, which I'm planning on delivering prior to "Dino." It's an obscenity-laced diatribe against BushCo's war in Iraq. Ever since my father's death, I have found a new "fire in the belly." I'm determined to cut out the bullshit of my life. I want to live with honesty, candor and integrity. I want to say what I have to say in a clear and precise way. We'll see how well that goes over!?

Characters

The strangeness continues. Now, the keyboard on my Mac is working, but, there are a few characters that won't register, for instance, the letter after O, and the question mark. So, I'm writing this little ditty, without the full range of characters usually available. Not so hard, but I have made some odd choices because of these missing characters. Since I'm usually asking questions, having no question mark seems like a big flaw. I guess I should go get another keyboard, but, maybe the damn thing will heal itself!

A Universe of Reasons

I have a friend who I worked with at another job, who used to tell me, "Everything happens for a reason." I was never happy with this statement. It seemed a little too pat, implying that there was some master plan, there was a "god figure," looming over us, moving things around like pieces on a chessboard.

I came up with this formulation, which, later was endorsed by the Phenomenologists: "Everything happens," then, if we happen to perceive "what happens," we assign a reason to "what happens," so, in that way, we "reason the world into being," by perceiving what we perceive, and explaining it all to ourselves.

Not very elegant. Wouldn't really sit well on a postcard...

My friend was never happy with my reshaping of the original statement. We have stayed friends despite our fundamental divergence regarding the universe...

Strange things have been happening to me. One day, the light bulb in my office blows out, the next day, it's fine. One day, I'm blogging from my MAC, the next day, the keyboard is dead; I type, no letters appear. I know there's a reason, (some kind of "electrical malfunction?), but I decide to chalk it up to the mystery of the universe. I take a day off from blogging, and I think, here's another routine I can explode!

Now, I'm back, in the light of my room, typing into my laptop. We must be resourceful in a universe of reasons...

Light Bulb

The light bulb in my room blew out. I'm blogging in the dark this morning. Seems very appropriate. Still sort of reeling from events. My little life has been rocked. When someone close to you dies, first you realize you will miss them forever, and then you're reminded that everyone you know and love, (including you) will pass too. The last few days, when I see an old-timer, I think, "they're getting closer." I look in the mirror, I know more years are in front of me than behind me. Every day someone, or many someones step out into an uncertain fate. Little children, old people, victims of accident and circumstance. A plane goes down, a famine strikes, a hurricane, a car crash. We know this, we see it everyday. It's strange and surreal, and it comes with the territory. In a weird way, after the pain, the lonliness, after the initial shock wears off; the fear seems to lift, to disappear. None of us are immortal. It's something we all share. So we are here now..."and what cha gonna do?"

Explode a Routine

Explode a routine. I'm in the process of exploding many aspects of my existence. I guess I'm in a reevaluation mode. What's important? What do I want to manifest? Ever since I received extremely bad news, I have thrown myself into an incredible whirl of activity. I've had no time to think; this has been good, my only life-line. The world works in mysterious ways. Nothing is really what you think it will be. This is a blessing and a curse.

Amazing Grace

"Cliche," has a bad connotation for me. As a writer, I try not to fall back on standard cliches, but I just went back to my dictionary and it just says: "a true expression or idea." So, sometimes we are left with a series of cliches, and we are reminded that although we are unique, we are not alone in our uniqueness, and the experiences and feelings that pass through us, have passed through many others before us. This gives us a knowledge of our shared experiences, which are hard to express, so when we express them, they sound reductive or cliche. Sometimes the truth, rings false. We are crucified by paradox. We need langauge to help us see clearly. We must be careful that the truth does not blind us, that our language does not obscure a world of simple truths.

"Reality has too many heads." - B. Dylan

Did Dylan really say that? I'd have to go back to the cd, "Time Out of Mind," and review the lyrics. I think that's what I heard on the plane from Dublin back to Chicago. I have been living with many heads the last few days. A whirlwind flurry of events. The best and worst all wrapped up in one incomprehensible package. Our trip to Ireland was beautiful and inspiring, our visit at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest was an exhilarating peak experience, and in the midst of it all, I received the news that my father had died. We cut our trip short, my brother and I delivered our eulogies yesterday. The world has changed irrevocably...

The Diamond Sky

This morning I'm blogging from the The Great Southern Hotel in Galway, Ireland. It's a grand old place, with high-speed broadband in the room. We just ordered in, I'm sipping a pretty strong blend of coffee (the coffee has generally been excellent, which has worked in sunny jimmy's favor), and the Lovely Carla is enjoying a breakfast of stewed prunes (not as bad as it sounds), Irish brown bread, and wheat-a-brix cereal (The Lovely C. tells me it's quite good). W'e plan to board the train back to Dublin in a few hours.

Yesterday, we explored the western coast of Connemarra, a stark, untamed, Celtic, lanscape. It seems virtually untouched by the modern world. Miles of hilly greenery, mixed in with large, rocky moonscapes. It is a far-off, distant land, unlike any other I've ever seen. The inhabitants are primarily sheep, a few cows and horses, as well as Irish country folk. They are friendly, hearty people. It rained in sheets all day, which explains how this little isle could be so lush and green. It's a very temperate climate here. The rain was fine and constant. We motored along winding, narrow, roads, (I'm much more comfortable behind the wheel - no white nuckles!), snapped pictures, ran our lines for the show we will do at the Abby Hoffman Fest, and listened to Neil Young and Bob Dylan on the cd player - "to dance beneath the diamond sky, with one hand waving free..."

We arrived in Galway just in time for a very congested, rush-hour, traffic jam, (there are some things that are the same in every city: too much traffic, too much concrete, too many tourists!). It was probably the low point of the trip so far, (although in an Irish traffic jam there are many smiles and waves from the other drivers!) bumper to bumper for miles, not really knowing where we were going, getting lost on the outskirts of town, finally homing in on the rental car place and The Great Southern. Galway is a "lovely" town, but we're here for a brief time only. It's back to Dublin, then tomorrow, Edinburgh! The future awaits!

A Second Skin

I'm back at the Adult Video Shop in Clifden for a quick blog. It's raining today, it's a beautiful gentle kind of rain, feeds the vegetation, the plant life, and the soul. It all feels right. I do believe I've returned to my roots, my ancestral home, blood of my blood. This place, this land, this climate, this Celtic paradise, really feels like a second skin. I feel like I belong here, I've never really felt such peace and groundedness anywhere else in the world. Amazing. I do believe I'm on some kind of spiritual, ancestral, quest. Just being here has changed something inside me.

We had a great day yesterday, just kicking around the town, exploring the hill country, driving down the coast. We are eating well, high on the hog, the salmon is fresh from the river, the potatoes fresh from the ground, the Irish brown bread is delicious and nourishing. Everything has a poetic cast. This is the land of the poets, and you can't help but let a little rub off on you too. We're making our way back to Galway this afternoon, then either we stay the night in Galway, or we hop the train to Dublin. Depends on how amibitious we decide to be. Travelling has it's own tempo and purpose. There's always the next thing, the next place, the next little discovery. It's a good way to live. Alive, in the moment, facing forward, rarely looking back...

"A Lovely Day..."

We are in Clifden, (I'm blogging from the Adult Video Shop) which is a small coastal town in Ireland on the North Atlantic Ocean, in the County of Connemarra. It's a beautiful place; the country, the land, the ocean, the rocks, the trees, the flowers, the little narrow roads, the hills and mountains...

We are staying at the AbbeyGlen Castle which is sort of like an Irish "Faulty Towers," with it's own "Basil," and "Manuel," and contigent of Irish maids. It's kind of silly, the way they go out of their way to try to entertain ("Danny Boy," is sung at the drop of a hat) the tourists, but this is the only false note in an incredibly beautiful place. It's almost impossible to write about it, without sounding (or being) cliche, but everyone who has ever written about this land has not quite captured the ineffable, profoundly beautiful, haunting, magical aspect of this little emerald island. It is truly a gem; a place that changes you just by being here.

Yesterday, we rented a big red, Audi 4 and motored our way from Galway to Clifden. It was a truly harrowing experience navigating these little winding, country roads, with the steering wheel on the right, the gear shift on the left (I'm a lefty so this felt natural) and these very tiny roads where it seemed impossible that two cars could pass each other comfortably without re-arranging a fender or two. We played the Belfast Cowboy on the cd player (he told us: "One Love is everywhere."), the perfect soundtrack for this little excurision. We are here for two days, hiking and eating and hanging out, then it's back to Galway, then Dublin, then onto Edinburgh Scotland.

Land of the Poets

It's a new day in Ireland. We (the Lovely Carla and I) are now in Galway, a two hour train trip from Dublin. We're on our way to the Western coast, which is where we will chill out for a couple of days. Yesterday was a real blur, it was basically a continuation of Sunday; we arrived early in the morning, with basically no sleep, and we stayed up all day trying to acclimate to the time change. This meant jumping forward into the future about six hours.

We walked the streets of Dublin, I'm sure we re-traced many steps made long ago by Mr. Joyce and Mr. Beckett. We feasted on the excellent Irish cuisine, especially the brown bread and seafood. Later in the day, we found ourselves at the Temple Bar in downtown Dublin and tossed down two pints of Guiness. It put me in quite the genial haze. We listened to two old-timers (a guitarist and banjo player) play traditional Irish laments, the patrons knew all the songs and sang along. It was all quite touching and strange, out of time, so to speak.

Ireland seems "closer to the root;" a land of tradition and culture and music and poetry, it's lush and green and sort of sad too. The people are cheerful and friendly, funny and sad, with a certain nobility in their sadness...cultured Europeans with a deep and abiding connection to the land. Very different from our modern urbanites in our golden paradise in the States.

On the street, they are playing music too. Incredible, soul-full music, including one quartet that did exquisite versions of Dylan's "Hurricane,"and Neil Youg's "Southern Man," and "Rocking in the Free World.," They played these tunes like they were traditional homeland music too. One of our cabbies' told me "Dublin loves Dylan," and I'm sure it's true. This is a country that seems to hold singers and poets, and dancers and drinkers in very high esteem.

The Global Village Green

A quick post from the Global Cafe in Dublin, Ireland. We made it in one piece. Didn't really sleep on the plane, just dozed through a song or two on my Walkman (somewhere in the middle of the Sigur Ros cd). The musical revelation was Radiohead, I finally listened to "Kid A" with headphones and realized that if you haven't heard their disc through headphones you never really listened to it at all. It is a mind-blowing soundscape that seems to emanate from the center of your head. So, anyway we're here, checked into our hotel and we are trying to stay up until the evening so we can kind of lock into Ireland time. We chased the sun into the east, we are now six hours ahead of Chicago. It's beautiful, green and magical here, just like they all said it would be. There's a very nice European funkiness that just feels right. Dublin seems like a small town. The Lovely Carla and I have already walked quite a few streets, kind of basking in the energy of the place. So, we're here, so strange, time travelling, mind tripping, zoning out on the magic green. Something tells me there's a Guiness Stout in my future.

"And so the Story Begins..." - The Siren from "Free Henry Goodbar, Telepath."

Stepping out. Our great little adventure begins. Later today, we will be boarding a plane, and if all goes well, we should be breakfasting in Dublin tomorrow morning. Yesterday, we started packing bags, made decisions on what's essential and what's not... Dylan's "Live in 1966," Neil Young's "Greendale," the Donnie Darko soundtrack, Sigur Ros (the white one), The Who "Live at Leeds,"...essential... everything else...well the question is: "will it fit?"

Plus, lots of t-shirts, underwear, socks, and sweaters. We're figuring it's gonna be cooler "over the pond." And I've got lots of equipment to lug: my acoustic guitar (the Telepath's "Unplugged!"), my video camera (we're filming everything!), a DVD projector (essential to the play!), and a brand-new digital camera (I'm hoping to capture the magic!).

I'm bringing a couple of books: "Like the Night" (Bob Dylan and the road to the Manchester Free Trade Hall) by C.P. Lee - (more Dylanology) and "The Phenomenology of the Social World," by Alfred Schutz (I'm hoping this will help me to find a "sleep state," on the plane).

I intend to blog from the road (we'll see). The world beckons...we're ready to embrace it, and give it a deep soul kiss! It all has the feel of "destiny." I wonder what's in store for us over there? As Paul Bowles might say, "Let it come down!"

These Genes Die with ME!

The Lovely Carla and I went to a movie last night, we watched little Emperor Penguins marching across a desolate landscape of snow and ice, (seventy miles of marching!), to their breeding grounds to enact an elaborate ritual of sacrifice, endurance and reproduction. Wow, I'm kind of glad I'm not an Emperor Penguin. They certainly know their place in the universe, they are strange and remarkable creatures, their little communal society is an incredible testament to cooperation, family values and survival; but if I were a penguin, (aren't there any renegade, rebel penguins - hanging out at CBGB's, chomping on smoked salmon?) I'd be looking for a way out of the whole thing. Let me swim in cool waters, let me live on fresh squid and sushi, let me "die in my footsteps." I guess I'd be opting out of the whole "reproduction cycle," but really, isn't one little "jimmydumps/sunnyjimmy" enough for this little ball of confusion!

The Wild Blue

We are resiliant creatures. One day down for the count, the next, up with the clouds. It helps to always be "on to the next thing." Make "big plans," and it all starts to seem like destiny. That is how our Edinburgh trip is shaping up. The wheels are in motion, the thought, the dream, begins to materialize, and your life seems to take on a genuine forward thrust, with a trajectory, a definite purpose; even if it basically means just paying attention to the next necessary task.

The "big step" in the wild blue unknown, consists of little incremental movements on the path. It is a "pilgrim's progress," pointing to questions and answers that you didn't even know existed. We are discovering things about the world and ourselves and these little "discoveries," are the nuggets of gold, the gemstones that can transform a life, a world. Of course, we can't hold onto anything. It all passes through us, as we pass through it...this is the strange, contradictory experience of our existence.

Lost in the Maze

I went into a jimmydumps hell-bound tailspin. Still reeling from an earlier contretempts. It's amazing what a few well-placed words can do, especially, if like me, you live with the "reality," the "magic," and "power," of words. What we say, creates its own reality, so we must be careful how we use the words we use. I'm also sort of dealing with a profound feeling of "helplessness," where I'd like to be able save those closest to me from suffering and pain, and the impossibility of doing any "saving,", comes back at me full force. It's realizing the limits of being human that sort of becomes oppressive. The worst of it, is the supposed "good intentions," that lead to "great misunderstandings," and there's no way to explain yourself out of the maze. So, there's silence...even that can be "misunderstood," but sometimes it's the only thing we have left.

A Question

Each of us are on a private journey. The world happens, we perceive what we conceive, everything is up to us. How we choose to deal with what happens, defines us. No one can experience another's pain, we all experience pain. How we act in a crisis is a test of who we are, what we believe, how we think. There is a strength, a power in this circumstance. Is this just a lie of the mind, a strategy, a discipline, or an essential tool, like a leg, an arm? Each of us gets to answer this question for ourselves.

The Masquerade

This question came to me, in the aftermath of a brief, disturbing, sort of hysterical, conversation; me being the straight man, to someone else's wildly-emotional, overwrought barrage of invective...are we rational creatures in a rational world, or irrational creatures in a rational world, or rational creatures in an irrational world, or, (and maybe this is closest to the mark) irrational creatures in an irrational world? And if we go with the theme of irrationality, doesn't it explain an awful lot of the madness gripping our planet?

It kind of leaves us at sea, unsure, unsettled, like reading one of those "post-modern" novels where the narrator turns out to be completely, profoundly "unreliable." Politicos and Economists have to grapple with "irrational actors," all the time, people who vote or consume against their own interests. Some of us strap on bombs in expectation of some higher reward, some of us lash out at those who show us love and sympathy, some of us go out of our way to hurt and sabotage ourselves.

Keith Johnstone once pointed out that "rationality is just another mask." It's a mask we are free to wear or take off at any time. We can "reason," the world, we can "feel" the world, we can create and destroy a world with a blink of an eye. What is beneath the mask: fear, hate, sorrow, pain? All the things that make us human. We must have compassion for the one who is mad, (they are a very much like us), even if that madness destroys everything in it's path.

What's the Number?

Kind of in a void, or a cul de sac this morning. Feels like a space "after," and "before," something, if you know what I mean. Not really anticipating, or forecasting, or expecting; just awake, attentive. The world seems to be offering many different storylines including: a planet in flames, consumed with pain, suffering, suicide bombs going off, OR, everything is static, normal, just another long hot summer day - sun up to sun down. Both stories in fact seem operative. I'm alive, in my own conscious state (my own Private Idaho?), wondering what's with all the needing, wanting, grasping? Is there a secret number that accounts for it all?

"It's all Show Biz." - J. Lennon

What a strange and extraordinary phenomenon: to participate with a small group of performers, to create a validating, and creative space, to be able to explore a full range of human expression within a ramshackle collective, to push beyond the ordinary boundaries of a group dynamic, to be alive/aware moment by moment, to listen and draw energy from a small, tight group of people dedicated and willing to give it all to a strange and wacky piece of theater. To push it all beyond where you thought it was possible to go, to continue to be amazed and inspired by the unbounded energy of those around you. To experience a deep and consuming satisfaction from working hard, challenging yourself, finding energy and passion in the process and in each discrete moment. To be completely, inexplicably, extraordinarily alive...

Free Is Good

Black Forest put on a free show last night, (the show that will not die: Free Henry Goodbar, Telepath) and there was something pure and idealistic about it all. How anti-capitalist, how out of step; it was all "home made," and "down home." It's something like being part of a funky carnival, or a geeky circus, and the show was presented to a handful of guests as some kind of strange, and teetering gift. It was all quite satisfying. I'm thinking we are going to "peak," at the right time, that our little, wacky show is the right piece, at the right moment for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. We're going to do another free performance again tonight. Everything else (all the rolling and tumbling of my existence) seems to fall into the background. As Roy Scheider, playing Bob Fosse, in "All that Jazz," would put it..."It's showtime, folks!"

"No Direction Home..." B. Dylan

I'm on to another book about Bob Dylan, this one by Greil Marcus, about Dylan's strange and extraordinary song, "Like a Rolling Stone." Of course, it's about more than that, Marcus examines Dylan in the pop cultural stream of America. It's kind of a musical history of this big, confounding land.

As I'm reading the book it occurs to me that I have "absorbed," Dylan, the myth, the man, to such an extent, I am so deeply saturated with his story, his songs, my life has been so wrapped up and enriched by his journey, his example, my own working methods, my view of my own work, my music, my plays have been steeped in Dylanology.

Also, this never-ending quest to be always onto the next thing, to not succumb to other's definitions, to resist being placed in a "box," to refuse simple explanations, to try to let the work speak for itself, to not be "pinned down," to always challenge and confound an audience, is deeply embedded in my own being.

I don't know the man. He is a mystery, a treasure, a quirky, flawed human being, who has an uncanny ability to absorb the world, and to put words and music together in a jagged, ragged, configuration. He opens doors and windows, in a world that needs the "openess, the space, the light..."

"Heaven is in Your Mind." - S. Winwood

So it's hot, and we are rehearsing our little play in a dark and dusty old gallery, and the sweat is pouring off us, and our costumes are sticky, and the heat is kind of radiating out of the cast and crew, and the rehearsal is rough, we're sloppy, blowing lines, cracks are appearing everywhere, and this delicate little monster of a play is teetering, and the technical cues are "glitchy," and it's all sounding so foreign, and I'm thinking, "did I really write this thing?" and of course, this is the piece we're taking to Edinburgh, and it feels like we're starting from ground zero, and there's a little girl, (a fourth grader, a niece of one of the cast members) sitting in the front row, watching it all, and at the end, the Lovely Carla brings her into the dressing room, and the little girl, so beautiful, young, radiant, looks up at me and tells me what the play is about: "It's about a brain that gets confused." And she smiles and I smile and I say "you're right." And I think, "that should be my epitaph," and when I'm dead and gone, it should be written down somewhere, maybe on a rock, or a tree, or written in the sand, or the wind..."Sunny Jimmy - yes, he was a brain that became confused."

"The Salt of the Earth." - Jagger & Richards

There's something to be said for minimalism. I'm thinking of artists like Sol Le Witt, his use of line and color, and Robert Irwin, his use of light and space. And also, Keith Richards (the real Pirate of the Carribean). The Cadaverous Keith is a true rock and roll master, some of his riffs and licks are indelibly etched in rock and roll history. Listen to his guitar on "Beggars Banquet," "Let it Bleed," "Sticky Fingers," and "Exile on Main Street." Some of the best rock and roll guitar music you will ever hear.

Keith has played with some other fine musicians, including guitarists like Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ron Wood. In many ways, Mick Taylor, who played for a short stint with the Stones was the best pure guitarist of the bunch. I came across this quote from Keith about Mick Taylor, and I think it says alot about rock and roll, art, and yes, even life:

"The thing is with a musician as fluid as Mick (Taylor) it's hard to keep their interest. They get bored - especially in such a restricted and limited music as rock and roll. But for me, that's the whole facination with rock and roll and the blues - the MONOTONY of it, the limitations of it, and seeing how far you can take those restrictions and come up with something new."

And isn't this our daily task too? To push against the limitations, the monotony, to find something new, to play these human notes and chords on our humble instruments, to make a music uniquely our own, to find a joyful noise that has never been heard before, and to let it RING OUT!?!

A Cheerful Blockhead

Ian Dury (now gone) and the BlockHeads had a hit in the 80's (or was it the late 70's) called, "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part I." Don't really remember the reasons, so I'll make up a few of my own.

The CHEERFUL BLOCKHEAD LIST:
1. The Universe is expanding.
2. We are descended from monkeys.
3. Progress, salvation, free will are all illusory.
4. We came from darkness, we are heading to darkness (the classic dust to dust).
5. Adults are essentially damaged children.
6. Rust never sleeps.
7. You're never gonna get that shetland pony.
8. Something is going to kill each and every one of us.

So, I'm sitting here, I recheck the list, I speak the words out loud, I take them into my consciousness, and STILL a feeling of good cheer comes over me this morning. Happiness settles on my shoulder like a little bird, daring me to be "bummed out." Nope, not gonna do it, wouldn't be prudent, I am inexplicably full of cheer, and that Grateful Dead song plays on my internal record machine: "Lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it's been." Amen.

Complexity

I was reading a little piece in the NY Times about an opera based on the life of Walter Benjamin, a "secular messiah." There's a discussion about "difficult music," about a "difficult subject," etc. Then there's this: "Yet more seems to be at stake than keeping an audience challenged...Theodor Adorno defended difficult music as having its own social value precisely because it teaches us how to withhold understanding and therefore helps us to resist the allure of false clarity in the world beyond the concert hall. Complexity in other words, is a worthy ideal in art because reality is even more complex and dissonant than the thorniest work of modernism, even if politicians and the commercial culture reassure us that everything is simple, clear and harmonius." This seems to me to be exactly right. I am a student of the "school of clarity," but all the lessons come from a deep and humbling complexity. The motto here: "Complexity will set you free!"

Not a Subject, A Verb

No time to think or blog this morning. I stop here anyway, as part of my morning ritual. This has become a record of my days, notes about what's on my mind. This morning my head is clear, but the world is buzzing, I'm running to keep up. We have a long, important rehearsal today. The show we are taking to Edinburgh is coing into form. Everything we do now, will help us when we land in a foreign land, find ourselves in a foreign space. I'm caught up in the "doing," of my life, or as my Invision buddies might put it: I am Sunny Jimmying!

"We see the world as we are..." - B. Dylan

Onto the next thing...First there's PlameGate, which I'm following like one of those very complex detective stories: there's plenty of information and misinformation and speculation, and a sneaking suspicion that there is a major scandal brewing that implicates the mighty and powerful, and a cathartic fall from grace looks to be one of the developing subplots, and maybe we do live in vacuous and corrupt times, but hey, hasn't it always been the case? And one thing good about our partisan politics, is once the door swings open, the beasts and brutes have no qualms about feasting on the sick and wounded. "The system," as bloated and creaky and corrupt as it is, still seems to have an aspect of "self-cleansing."

My light summer reading, which is "blowing my mind," and opening my eyes: "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," by Thomas Kuhn. I got onto this little tome, via, Robert Irwin, via, my interest in Phenomenology. It's all about "Paradigms," and "Paradigm Shifts," and how we basically model the universe, and see what we conceive to see. And how sometimes, someone comes along, and "blows the picture," and suddenly, everything changes...This is cool and powerful stuff, and it's where hope and trascendance come from. The world may be a mystery, but we are in a collaboration with it. Sometimes it sings, sometimes it dances, and it is always, always MOVING!

The Mystic

I guess, when it comes down to it, I'm a mystic; put me in the camp with Ludwig Wittgenstein (without the existential angst), I am paraphrasing: what we can speak about, we can speak clearly. We cannot speak of the most important things...

Ultimately, the imcomprehensibleness of the world, leaves me speechless. We can label things "good," or "bad," we can make judgements of the world, but our judgements, what we think of the world is, if not irrelevant, at least, secondary, a sideshow to the main event, which William James called, "a blooming, buzzing, confusion."

"Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose." - K. Kristofferson

Jean Renoir: "Everyone has their reasons." Yes, this makes for a very complex world, don't you think? We are all left basically to our own devices, we all start from different places, different times, we're all on a private journey to "who knows where?" We must "reason" the world into some kind of coherency, or then again, maybe not. Some of us put our faith in religion, some in the scientific method, some in random happenstance, some in "who knows what?" We plug into the culture, the system, in order to find a place, a purpose; we look for meaning in the grains of sand on the beach. What do all those little grains add up to? "Hmmm, I'll get back to you on that!" We embrace the world. We reject the world. We simply exist in the world. We fight to survive, to be heard, to be forgotten, or maybe we don't fight at all, just let it come down. We live in a realm beyond good and evil, we choose to see what we want to see, to live the way we want to live. We make the choice and then try to figure out how we can pass the bill to someone else, or we make the choice, and pay up with a sunny smile.

"And the Little Birdies sing, Cheep, Cheep."

Everything is different this morning. The Lovely Carla is in the Big Apple, and I'm here with the little birdies. The birdies are not happy and they're telling me so by chirping up a storm, I guess they're telling me that I'm not their preferred caretaker, and everything's out of whack, and they are NOT AMUSED. I can only do what I do. My energy, my tempo, my demeanor, is a little askew, and well, that's just the way it is...this morning, I'm an "actualist," what happens is what actually happens, and what happens today is Sunny Jimmy rules the roost, and since I can't make head nor tails (I'm no Dr. Doolittle), out of what those little chirps and squeeks actually mean, I'm gonna just do what I do and these little creatures are gonna have to play along.

I put them in the kitchen, the sun room, back to their home in the bedroom, nothing works. I give them brocolli, lettuce, their favorite multi-grain bread, and still, they are not impressed. They are unhappy with the world. I'm not the Lovely C. and there's nothing I can do about it. No muffins, no pop tarts, I just brew up my Organic French Roast, turn up the music a little louder and try to reduce the birdies chirps to background noise, little high-pitched, dissonant backup vocals, kind like the Pips to my Gladys Night.

"The School of Scandal." - R. Sheridan

I am becoming convinced that BushCo.'s admininstration is starting to unravel. It reminds me of the early days of the Watergate scandal. I was avidly following the Woodward/Bernstein story, convinced that Nixon was a criminal, and it would only be a matter of time before he was unmasked. When it actually happened, (Hunter S. Thompson had been right all along!), I was absolutely astonished.

There are so many lies floating around, and it all concerns BushCo.'s disinformation campaign leading up to the invasion of Iraq. This Karl Rove/Valerie Plame dirty trick (so reminiscent of Nixon), where a CIA agent was outed because her husband, Joe Wilson told THE TRUTH about Iraq's intention to buy yellowcake from Niger is only the tip of the iceberg. It seems that this story's Deep Throat is someone in the Blair adminstration - please see the Downing Street Memo.

There is a steady stream of information coming from England: now there's a plan afoot to draw down troops before the next U.S. election. Everything BushCo. says about Iraq is false. The reality is catching up to them. As the bodies pile up, as it becomes clear that the war was a diversion and a serious mistake, the lies told before the war become more and more relevant. I don't think these guys are smart enough to keep all their lies straight. The house of cards will start to crumble. The press will finally wake up (it's a story!), and little Bush will be (at least) a badly crippled LAME DUCK. Maybe there's hope for the Empire after all.

"El Cid." - Wasn't that Charles Heston?

Yesterday - hmmm...now that was a unique experience...

Dinner (after a day-long rehearsal at Peter Jones) at El Cid (a clean, well-ligthed place - Hemingway would have approved) in Logan Square: I had a combo plate, (I wanted a quick tour of Mexican cuisine) a taco, an enchilada, a quesedilla, beans and rice, guacamole, tortilla chips (it was all quite good, authentic, home cooking - Mexican food is just the ticket on hot day - did anyone say "siesta?!"). The Lovely Carla and I "broke tacos," with the Red-haired Welshman and his beautiful bride. We were all ravenously hungry, we ate with enthusiasm and had a great rambling conversation about everything under the sun.

Then it was off to the old Congress Theater, a cavernous place, (2500 seats) in the heart of one of those great little Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago; the theater, funky and majestic, a beat up edifice with a dramatic, red-carpeted stairway (a little worse for wear), enormous chandeliers (hovering like impossible spaceships), a strangely-beautiful artifact from another time and place. The perfect place for the Windy City Rollers - an all-girl, roller derby league.

By the time we took our seats, the carnage was in full swing. Two teams, skating in little circles on a flat track, bodies slamming into each other and to the floor, the crowd cheering at the exuberant madness and mayhem of it all. There's something brutal, primal, and sort of electrifying about the whole spectacle. It all seemed so "Mad Max," so "Beyond the Thunderdome," so post-post-apocalyptic. It's like the nuclear war that was to devastate our civilization had already come and gone, but someone forgot to tell us.

Afterwards, remarkably, inexplicably, the women were all smiles, you could see a satisfaction, a pride, a cool cameraderie, which had blossomed in the hearts and heads of all the participants. They survived to skate another day, to take on another challenge, another opponent. We were just the spectators, there to witness and to marvel. We walked out of that sad, old theater, shaking our heads at the wonder of it all. It certainly seemed like a beginning and an ending of something.

Modulation, Delay, Reverb

Yesterday, I submerged into a world of my own making. I spent the day at Peter Jones Studio, working with a colleague, hanging a DVD projector for our show, Free Henry Goodbar, Telepath. This was not an easy task. It took a lot of "step by step" patience, not one of my strong suits. We worked for a few hours, took a break for lunch, and finished up in the late afternoon. Then, I was on my own. I set up my guitar and amp and played for a few hours. I came up with a new chord progression, and a shimmering new sound, I played this new "configuration," for hours. To my ears, it was mesmerizing. I lost all sense of time and place, I was lost in the moment of a "new thing." I found a place of "creativity;" a private circle, all-consuming, so simple, all alone, the chords, the sounds washing over me, I worked the strings on my guitar until my fingers ached. I think there is a chord, a sound, a word, that can change us forever. I found myself, in the funhouse, lost in the search.

Wake Up, Buttercup!

Me thinks the human heart breaks a million ways. Little tiny breaks, a million little cuts, maybe every time we hear the news (we can't stop up our ears, our eyes), whatever the news happens to be. And then, do we 'harden our hearts' just to carry on? We carry on, diminshed, or ennobled, or...what? There are a million ways to live, a million ways to die, probably, most assuredly, more. Each of us can step out at any time. Plucked by the hand of fate. And what be the cause? Natural causes? Unnnatural causes? Supernatural causes? Or just BECAUSE?

If we are awake, and, I think it's our duty to be awake at all times, it all comes in. We must let it. What we let in, can hurt us, can harden us, can change us in ways we may not want to change. How do we live and experience, and stay open to life and experiences? How can we not? Someone once said we are perfect beings in a perfect world. Maybe imperfect beings in an imperfect world. If you think about it, it's the same damn thing. We're here, now, and what are we gonna do with this strange and special gift?

London Calling

As the news wafted in from London yesterday, a tremendous, "world-weariness," overcame me. My first thought was for the people; the suffering, the deaths. These attacks are directed at free, urban-dwellers, rush-hour commuters, those who use public transportation, innocent bystanders; we know this can happen anywhere, anytime. I feel a solidarity with those who suffer and I am amazed and appalled at how much pain, suffering and death human beings are willing to wreak upon each other.

My second thought, which may betray my cynicism, my disgust with our leaders ("don't follow leaders, watch for parking meters..."), how will BushCo. use this for political advantage? It is so clear that our "war on terrorism," is off target. It is so clear that those in power do not have the equipment, (the temperment, the intelligence, the understanding) to really deal with the reality-based community of the world. Our corrosive political culture seems to be a part of the problem, not part of the solution.

We must not lose sight of the light, even in the depths of darkness...

"Shine On Your Crazy Diamond." - P. Floyd

Yesterday, I entered into one of those perfect moments of "awe," beyond time. It was in the evening, I was on the back porch, the sun was starting it's descent in the west, the light was perfect, transcendant, Neil Young's album, "Zuma," ("he came dancing across the water, with his galleons and guns...") was on the player, and I was finishing up Nick Tosches book, "The King of the Jews," (not so much a biography of Arnold Rothstein, as a meditation on the mysterious, unknowable nature of man.) Nick, steps out from behind the curtain, and he tells the reader that a good friend of his, a writer (I'm guessing Hubert Selby Jr.) has just died, and Nick goes off on a tangent that has little to do with Arnold Rothstein, but much to do with why I think this guy is such a great writer.

From Nick: "I'm sure that it is the death of my friend that has brought me to pause here...But something else also occurred to me. It occurred to me that everything I knew and loved seems to be drifting away: a whole way of living, loving and being. It occurred to me that anyone who wastes one single breath is a fool. Life is all that we have, and we must live it, for real: like leopards, like beautiful creatures, like stars that pass through the nighttime sky over the wildest, darkest, deepest sea."

And then this: "Why am I writing this, and why are you reading it? What are we doing here? We should get the fuck out of here and live. By the time these words have passed to you, I will be found either at Circa Tabac on Watts Street or the Club de l'Aviation on the avenue des Champs-Elysee. Meet me there, good scout. You're buying."

For a brief moment, I think - I will find him, I will sit down and buy this man a drink and I will thank him for all that he has given me. I will thank him for keeping the flame alive, for opening me up to the mystery of a man, a life; for keeping the flame burning, madly, brightly.

"Sun and Steel." - Yukio Mishima

Yukio Mishima, the Japanese writer, is on my mind this morning. Yukio wrote about "the morning face," the first face you show the world when you awake in the cold light of dawn. Yukio, was a vain man, (as a young child he was asthmatic, later he became a body-builder) he committed seppuka, ritual suicide, as a political act (he wanted the Japanese to return to their military glory in the days of the Emperor), in the 1970's, and as a preemptive strike against growing old (he died at 45). Yukio was considered one of Japan's greatest novelists. He was an outsider, a homosexual, a unique and daring man, who ultimately wanted to be accepted by society, he was the rebel who wanted to "fit in."

I was inspired by him, I was intruiged and repelled, by his journey, I read all of the novels, essays and plays written by him that I could get my hands on. I thought his work was extraordinary and disturbing, I was facinated by his obsession with the "cult of the sun," and dedication to martial arts. I also realized I was nothing like this man, my political views, my take on life, the military, society, discipline, etc. were so different. I did not "fit in," and early on, I decided that I did not want to "fit in." I realized that in order to be happy, I needed to emphasize and hone my "uniqueness."

Yukio Mishima showed me another way to live - through his writing, through his life. He helped me define what I "was not." I'm sure there was much "lost in translation." Not once did I detect a "sense of humour," in any of his actions or writings. I look in the mirror this morning and my morning face seems a little ragged and frayed, but there's a trace of a smile. I can see lines that weren't there before; a record of days, years, decades, looking back at me, and I think, "I wonder what's gonna happen next?" Yukio Mishima wanted to impose his vision on the world, I'm happy to see what the world will bring to me today.

"Come in," she said, "I'll give you, shelter from the storm." - B. Dylan

Yesterday, I was sitting on a park bench, sipping a latte, doing my meditation routine, when the weather turned. Seemingly out of nowhere, a gust of wind, came blasting out of the west. The trees above me rattled like old bones, small branches and leaves fell down around me, large wooden slats blew off a building down the way, the power went out for blocks, no electricity for the street lights, the stores, the houses or apartments.

I walked home, in the swirl of a storm, fat raindrops pelting my head. At home everything was dark, no lights, no music, it was strange, the Lovely Carla and I were in an quiet nether zone, everything seemed different, we were forced to downshift by circumstances, we cooked our dinner by candlelight. We ate on the back porch with the little birdies in their cage, propped in the window, all of us marvelling at the power of the storm.

I read great chunks of my Nick Tosches book. I spent the late afternoon in New York City in the teens and twenties of the last century. Early evening, the power came back on, but we were already in a slowed down, more organic mode. We turned the lights off, laid in the dark and listened to the rain tapping on the leaves outside our window. There were sporadic sounds of fireworks going off in the distance. We listened and tried to imagine who could be out there, in the dark, playing with fire.

The Daily Racing Form Vs. the Bible

Step off the "wheel of work," for awhile, and ideas come flooding in. Suddenly, you have time to think, to do the things you love to do. It was that kind of day, yesterday. I kicked around town, took a day off from running, meditated on a bench at the park, went to the local used CD store, browsed through other folk's discards, picked up some classic music (The Grateful Dead in Europe 1972, the Stones at Madison Square Garden in 1969, Pink Floyd at their Psychedelic best, Led Zeppelin deep into their avant-garde metal experiments).

I studied a copy of the Daily Racing Form as a form of leisure. I thought about Nick Tosches and his rant on the Bible, how it is a great work of human imagination, meaning - written by men, (I understand in some quarters "them's is fighting words!"), but the Bible clearly is not the "word of god," unless you want to consider any work of imagination the "word of god," so in that case, "Catch 22," and "Moby Dick," and "The Lord of the Rings," would serve just as well. Can you imagine swearing an oath on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," in a court of law?

The Daily Racing Form might be closer to what the "word of god," would be like, if it too wasn't just men trying to make sense of events of the world. Take a race at Canterbury Park (think Chaucer), and find the truth, the wisdom, the power and the glory in simple notations on paper. This is a bible that just tries to state the "facts." No myth, no parables, no commandments, just descriptions of "what happened." Now that's a bible you can believe in!

Shakopee is a horse running in a one mile turf race for fillies and mares, three years old and upwards. The purse is $40,000. Now you can find that this filly was sired by Evansville Slew (his father was Slew City Slew) and you just know that there's a connection to the great Seattle Slew somewhere in her bloodlines. You can see the history of this filly for the last ten races of her existence, you can see she likes to run on, or just slightly off, the lead, she's won two races out of ten for her career. You can see her times broken into quarters :22 at the quarter pole, 1:09 at the finish of a six furlong dash.

You can find what kind of medication she's on, who she's raced against, whether she likes the dirt, the turf, the mud, etc. Then there a few poetic descriptors that give you a flavor of a race: bobbled, hustled, never menaced, went clear, held sway, shook clear, weakened, forced pace, dueled, gave way, etc. It's all there. But of course it isn't. So much information and so little. What's left out, is probably as important as what's noted. And ain't that the truth too?

This is a bible that doesn't lie, it gives you some info, (is it important or not?), and then it's all up to you. What will you do? There ain't no god looking over your shoulder, god ain't on your side, you don't have no rule book (no stone tablet lugged down from the mountain) that explains it all. It's all up to you, what are you gonna do, how will you live your life, what will you make of it, are you gonna bet that filly, or take a pass, are you gonna burn some cash on a silly horse race, will this be the pony that leads you to the promised land, does past performance give a clue to the future, is there anything new under the sun, what's gonna happen today, and really "are you feeling lucky, punk?" There's no one to petition, no higher power to appeal to, as Philip Dick once said, "you are the authority!" The Daily Racing Form is a bible that empowers!

Anatomy of a Winner

Yesterday was gorgeous, and the Lovely Carla and I agreed to rent a car to drive out to the Arlington Racetrack to play the ponies. We conjured up a little symphony of pure-luck, guile, intuition, educated guesses, and a random hunch or two. We listened to each other, which somehow, opened us to new combinations which, somehow, (improbably) matched up with the reality. The result: we walked out with a combined $250 in winnings. Not bad. In fact, it was one of the most successful betting days I can remember.

First off, I explained to the Lovely Carla the beauty of the one-dollar, three-horse, Exacta Box (Andy Beyer's favorite gimmick bet). The Lovely C. played this little gimmick like a Master (Chairman Mao: "give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish, he eats for life"). She tossed some strange ponies into her gimmicks, but she anchored them with one of her favorite jockeys, Earlie Fires. It turns out Earlie had a great day (two winners and a place) and the Lovely C. parlayed this into some boxcar payoffs.

My contribution included three horses. The first one's name escapes me (he was a first time Lasix - to bet a first time Lasix pony is one of the unwritten rules - first starter), Tejano Who (I liked his breeding), and Number Juan (He used to race on the West Coast in some big races, and he'd been off since November 2004). These winners were all in cheap races - claimers, and first starters; losing horses looking for a win. I backed up my hunches ("this horse has found his spot!") with some serious cash ($20 to win here, $10 to place there). I also did some Exacta Boxes taking the Lovely C.'s advice about Earlie Fires, and figuring there was a little racing magic in the air.

So we ended up with a four-race winning streak. The Exacta payoffs added up ($45, $40, etc.). We finally hit the wall on the Big Race. I went with a horse named Southern Africa (he raced in the Belmont), but the spell had been broken, and we high-tailed it out of there with our stack of cash. "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned." Yes, I guess it's true. We went to one of our favorite Indian restuarants to celebrate our great day. We were both ravenously hungry. Dinner was on the ponies. We ate and laughed and marvelled in wonder at our run of good luck. "Who woulda thunk it?!"

Reverend Nick Rages Against the Dying of the Light

Well, it's a holiday, so I think I'll just post an example of why I think Nick Tosches is such a great writer: "We should not subscibe to the confectionary lies called history any more than we should subscribe to the confectionary lies of a politically correct and ordered present. We should not even look back. The past, like our shared future, is a common grave, nothing more. All the wisdom that the past ever held is in every passing breath. And wisdom is devastating in its deliverance."

"An Open Space." - Peter Brook

Last night, in a dark gallery space, five actors, stepping through familiar scenes; familiar words, gestures, movements. Sequences are broken down, examined. What's being conveyed, what makes a sequence "stronger," what seems to "work?" There is sweat, intense concentration, no complaints. A group of human beings intent on a vision, a vision coming alive step by step. It is a strange alchemy, the good work; something unique, special, not of this world. The reward is the doing. Each actor contributes, each recognizes the unique energy of the other. There is a shared experience, a shared vision, even if this vision can not be expressed. There is a sense of play, no one hesitates, no one says "no, I can't." Everything seems possible. The world seems like an open door, an open window, each of us passes through, making sure the next one comes along too.

How Many Gods Can Dance on the Head of a Pin?

I scored a copy of Nick Tosches latest book, "King of the Jews," about Arnold Rothstein, who supposedly "fixed" the world series, and emerged in the 1920's as a gambler and fixer extraordinaire. Nick is a great writer, and he's on a roll: previous books have included his take on Jerry Lee Lewis, Dean Martin and Sonny Liston. This time, Nick is really pissed off, and it comes across in spades. Early in the book, he has decided to show how Monotheism ("there is one god, my god, and no one else's god is worth shit!") is an abomination that has led to the plague of Islam, and the plague of Christianity, and how stupidity, ignorance, and lies, have led to the clash of civilizations (Muslim, Christian, Jew) rocking our planet.

So far, there are many great lines in the book. Here are few I really enjoyed:

"All of Judeo-Christian theology can be set beneath kindling wood, save for these few words (from St. Augustine) - If you can comprehend it, it is not god."

"And that is the great lesson of Christianity. THEY LOVE YOU WHEN YOU'RE DEAD!"

"Road Cases." - Drive By Truckers

I lugged my guitar down to Peter Jones last night, to plug into my Fender Bassman amp, and test out my new pickup. It was hot, I was loaded down with my guitar case and my effects-board in a backpack slung over my shoulder. The El was crowded, I found a seat and clasped my guitar between my legs. I'm always impressed by the anonymous nature of riding on the El. City people from all walks of life converge in a little train car, they sit silently, seemingly seeing nothing (we see it all!), no eye contact, no interaction, just people sitting, listening to the roar of the train.

I de-trained at the Irving stop, and as I was walking down the platform, I saw an image of myself as a thirteen year old boy, lugging a guitar down a suburban street. I thought about the continuity of a life. In many ways, I am so different than that little, unsure, kid, but at the same time, aren't these the same blue eyes, haven't they seen everything, recorded it all, filed it away in the recesses of my brain? How do we choose to remember what we remember? How do we choose to forget what we forget? I manuevered through the turnstile and it clicked, registering another traveler on the road.

A Trucker's Dream

Last night, I found myself in a most improbable situation. I sat on the oriental carpet in the living room with a toolbox, a soldering iron, a new set of Fender Custom Shop Pickups, wiring diagrams, and my Fender Telecaster Guitar (totally deconstructed). I was doing major surgery to replace and rewire my bridge pickup (it had died on me at the last Telepath gig). Now, dear Pilgrim, this is not in my usual comfort zone. I look at a wiring diagram, (did anyone say, "Rorshach Test?"), and I see TROUBLE; a visit to my local guitar shop had not been encouraging, the guy behind the counter hearing of my plans had said, "You're gonna wire it YOURSELF?!" What he meant but didn't say, "Dude, you look like you have trouble tying your shoes!"

Anyway, there I was, connecting the black wire here, the yellow wire there, and how come the black wire used to be a blue wire? In the middle of this process, (by the way, I had two wiring diagrams, neither of which quite matched up -- sometimes the map is not the territory), the Lovely Carla comes in from a long day on the road. So, it turns out, I've got the soldering iron all hot (700 degrees!) and ready to go, and who has the most experience soldering wire? Yes, it's the Lovely Carla (during her high school years she worked in a factory soldering computer boards), so she sits down and does the final operation, a little dot of hot solder in each connector. (Question: does Patty Hansen help Keith Richard rewire his Telecaster?!)

So, I put the guitar back together, tighten the screws, re-string etc. All the time I'm thinking "this isn't gonna work." Well, surprise, surprise, it works beautifully. The new pickup is a monster, the classic Tele sound: biting, sharp as a whip, with some real resonance. Exquisite. I was quite pleased with myself, and pleased with my assistant too. I was reminded of The Band's song, "Cripple Creek."

Up on Cripple Creek, she sends me.
If I spring a leak, she mends me.
I don't have to speak, she defends me.
A trucker's dream if I ever did see one.

"We Were the Young Americans." - D. Bowie

I stood on the sidelines, the observer. Yesterday was the annual Gay Pride Parade - first down Halsted, then down Broadway, and I was there to witness (and photograph) the Lovely Carla and the Lovely Robin carrying the banner for the Hooper Freaks (lovely hula hoopers) one of about 250 unique groups participating in this big, sloppy, over-stuffed extravaganza, dedicated to an unbridled celebration of being "happy and gay." And anyway, who isn't? Happy and Gay I mean? Yesterday I felt like a Tom Joad in (metaphorical) red hot-pants, and pink go-go boots. "If you're kinky and cool - I am there. If you're shapely and demure - I am there. If you're scuzzy, sleazy, sweating and doing the rumba - I am there." ETC. What a great explosion of human splendor! I thought to myself, this must be the Conservative Evangelical's worst nightmare - and it was really absolutely, life-affirming, and beautiful, and rollicking, and strange and yes...fabulous!

Edgar Allen Poe used to smoke opium and he wrote a little book called "Eureka," and in it, he posited that we are all little pieces of god. That it is the sum of humanity, the sum of the material and the immaterial that makes up some abstract, god-like, energy. Yesterday, I saw some little pieces of god - dressed in drag, on fat motorcycles, in leather and chains, in bikinis, in speedos, in ball gowns, in skivvies - bounteous, beautiful, ridiculous, outrageous. So, anyway, I'm thinking my abstract, god-like, universal energy was kind of giddy yesterday, giddy and loud and proud and pretty in a pink tutu too!

"Sometimes a Great Notion." - K. Kesey

I have always been fascinated by Boxing. It is a brutal sport, not so kind to the participants, that seems to be a microcosm of those willing to risk it all for a little measure of glory. In my book, (if I had a book) there are two great Boxing Movies: "Raging Bull," and "The Champion." Both are downers where the main protagonist is a guy who burns all bridges on the way to the top, and once he gets there, he finds it very lonely indeed. I also have to throw in a great documentary: "When We Were Kings," a powerful film about the Ali vs. Foreman fight in Zaire in the 1980's. It's a thrilling movie that shows the impact Muhammad Ali had on millions of people around the world.

My favorite books on the subject? David Remnick's "King of the World," about Ali. "The Devil and Sonny Liston," (about the the mystery and enigma of a man) by one of the greatest writers alive today, Nick Tosches. And also, "Redemption Song," by Mike Marqusee, about Ali's politics and religion. (It has great insights on Malcolm X's influence on The Champ.)

Boxing is on my mind this morning because I came across this quote in the latest New Yorker (in an article by Remnick) about Mike Tyson's latest (maybe last) humiliation. Tyson actually echoes a famous Shakespearean soliloquy (is it in Hamlet?) and I thought, wisdom comes from many quarters. The quote: "I'm a peasant. At one point, I thought life was about aquiring things. Life is totally about losing everything." This also resonates with that Buddhist notion of non-attachment to the things of this world. Or as the Belfast Cowboy, Van (the Man) Morrison reminds us: "Sometimes we live, sometimes we die, sometimes we cry, sometimes we fly."

"Ring them Bells." - B. Dylan

Push yourself past the point of exhaustion (this was not by design) and you begin to see things in a different light. I found myself flying along suburban roads on a hot summer night and the colors and sounds and textures of things seemed to have an extra shimmeriness. I noticed patterns made by streetlights, telephone wires and electrical structures, pasted on the blue and darkening sky, the vibrant green of the trees, (trees, these big, bold living things that loom over us) and I thought, these patterns, these random intersections of lines and colors are very much an "art experience." I was reminded of Robert Irwin's formulation that art is what happens inside the observer. If the observer can really "look and see," without labels, without naming, he can begin to perceive a completely new aesthetic universe. The label, the name, can blind us to the reality of our own perceptions. The common, mundane, street-scene, one that no one even notices, offers us color, sound, shadow, line; the observer's eye can select and discover themes, patterns, and yes, even beauty.

Like I said, I was really exhausted. I was playing The Who, really loud, (The Who is one of my "road pleasures," since the Lovely Carla and the little birdies back at the Hacienda, don't appreciate Keith Moon's monster bass drum, or Pete Townsend's majestic major chords). Roger Daltrey was singing, "I once heard a note, pure and easy," part of Townsend's idealisitc version of rock and roll as some kind of new salvation. Pete's Vision: we all contain one pure note, we are all notes in a musical score, each of us resonates at a unique vibration. Our mission is to find that place of purity, to open up to that "pure and easy note" and ring out!

"A Day in the Life" - The Beatles

I'm back in Chicago, but I'm still in a California state of mind. Yesterday was a travel day, which meant I was locked into the routine of cars, highways, airports, planes. At the same time, I was in a sort of fever dream, (too much coffee, too little sleep, too much action) where everything seemed unreal, I was strangely disassociated from the phenomena around me. I perceived the things of the world, and I also watched myself perceiving. I hopped into a Mercedes Benz, big, black, sleek German styling (wasn't this the car where Lady Di breathed her last?) and flew through the neighborhoods of San Francisco to the airport. Music played on the radio, it was like being in a movie, someone else's movie. Shops, cafes, we passed some of the "down and out" parts of town, working class people doing their day to day tasks. The fog rolled in from the ocean, the wisps of cloud, like ghosts rushing in over the hills, while we rushed out of town.

On the flight back across the great expanse (only a Kerouac, or a Whitman or a Melville could even attempt to capture it) of America, (what a view at 32,000 feet - there's Lake Tahoe, there's the Missisippi River, there's the Rockies, there's the flat farm lands of Iowa) I sat in my seat with eyes wide open. My seatmate and I talked about how we "woke up," sometime in our thirties, our earlier existences (our teens and twenties) being an extended time of unconscious unknowing. I meditated, but even the meditation seemed to be the act of someone other than "me." My body went through the motions, de-planing, waiting in the taxi line, zipping along in a cab through the suburbs of Chicago to Evanston.

I opened the door to my humble sanctuary, and hugged the Lovely Carla. Happy to be home, still seeing everything as strange, other-worldly, not exactly mine, not exactly me. Alive in the changing stream. Changing even as the thought of change descended on me as my head hit the pillow.

Frank, You are So Groovey!

I'm back at this Starbucks on Geary St. in San Francisco, right across from a theater showing "Les Miserables." A guy comes in and demands that they put "Frankie," on. Moments later Frank Sinatra's voice comes out of the sound system. This same guy seems to know everyone who works here, he tells the folks working behind the counter..."I'll put you all in my will...no money... but lots of loving, Italian loving!"

So, I'm here for a few more hours, then back on a plane to Chicago. Yesterday, was a long day, many times my eyes glazed over from the insistent numbing chatter about stuff, which, I frankly, have no passion. The real challenge of my job, is to appear that I am happy, engaged, sharp, attentive, when in fact, I'm somewhere else, thinking of other times, other places. How to keep the spiritual quest alive in the everydayness of the material world? This can be a strain, very tiring. By the way, right now Sinatra is singing..."I've got you under my skin..."

No time for City Lights. No time for running. No time. That has been the theme of this little trip. Everything has gone well, the deal has been furthered, we've solidified bonds, earned trust...we are actually helping San Francisco become more "energy efficient," which is a good thing. But I've been running, to keep up with myself, I'm dancing, trying to stayed balanced, keep it light, keep it real. Did Sinatra just say something about a "magic carpet ride?" PSYCHEDELIC!

"If You're Going to San Francisco" - J. Philips

I'm on the grand tour of American cities. Today I am in San Francisco. It is a beautiful city, I don't know if it's the light, the water, the the hills, the cable cars, the old world funkiness, the people, or everything all together, but it feels good here. It's a classy city on a hill. I'm staying at a grand old hotel, the Warwick, and it's comfortable, and somehow classic, old-world. This place seems a relic from a grander time, although, here everything seems to be thriving, there's a feeling of prosperity, but also of cultured funkiness that's cool and comfortable.

San Francisco for me represents the Beats: Ferlingetti, Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder. I'm looking forward to stopping into City Lights bookstore, it is the literary Mecca. This city also evokes the "summer of love," the Grateful Dead, Santana. Plus there's Coppola's Zoetrope. It's also the city of Gavin Newsom and his crusade for the Gay Americans. I'd say San Francisco represents some of the best of the American Experiment.

I'm blogging from a Starbucks this morning. Sipping a latte. Hoping that the business meeting I'm heading to won't absolutely bore me out of my skull. It looks to be a long day, I'm hoping to be able to break away and soak up some SF energy.

Touchstones

I'm scheduled to fly out to San Francisco, later this afternoon. I'm planning on a long run on the lakefront this morning, and a good long meditation to set the tone for the day. These are my trusty tools to help me settle into my body. I think I've finally recovered from the benefit on Saturday, two ten-hour sleeping sessions have left me feeling refreshed.

I am re-reading a book that is one of my touchstone's (along with "Impro," by Keith Johnstone - "life is a status game!"): "Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees," by Lawrence Weschler. It is a profile of the artist Robert Irwin, who through his paintings and "sculptures," and "environments," explores fundamental questions about what, and how, we "see."

It also a book about "the search." Irwin is one of those inspiring characters, who reminds us that we can live with mystery and wonder and flow, and the best way to do this, is through the disciplined examination of our art and life; through the "good work," (which can be anything that lets us use our imaginative, creative selves) we can open up to fundamental, transformative realities. In Irwin's formulation the "art experience," is what the art object creates inside of us. What we do, what we see, transforms us, if we are intent, awake, if we let it in!

"God said to Abraham, 'kill me a son,' Abe said, 'man you must be putting me on'..." B. Dylan

There was that "one hit wonder," from the late seventies or early eighties, by, (I'm amazed I remember this woman's name), Melissa Manchester - "There's Got to Be the Morning After." I don't actually remember any of the verses (was she singing about a one-night stand?), just the chorus, but it was the line I kept hearing yesterday morning, in the wake of the Black Forest Benefit. I was back at the Peter Jones Studio with our skeleton crew, cleaning up, tossing beer bottles, emptying garbage cans. It was great to see the space, back to normal, (life-drawing was going on), artists were intently sketching, listening to classical music, as a nubile beauty was baring it all for art.

There's something to be said for consistency, persistance. It's how we actually accomplish things. There may be the burst of inspiration, but it always comes down to "carry through." The mission has been clearly defined, take our show on the road to an international audience. We have much work ahead of us, but that's the real kick, the reason to be doing this in the first place. The social aspect of this is really just a sideshow. It's important not to get distracted by the sound and the fury of the crowd. There's a contradiction inherent in theater. In many ways the writing, the acting, the directing is a very private affair. It's an inner journey. The "result," is then presented to a group, in a very public and open way, it's an exposure, a blood-letting, in some strange way, a sacrifice. It's important to stay detached, to not let the public aspect consume the performance, the performer.

"The Morning After," we are alone once again. Back to the source, back on the search...

Edinburgh Beckons...

All of my wounds have been self-inflicted... It would of been better if we could have just sacrificed a goat, although, not so great for the goat. I ended up burning up some brain cells for the cause last night. Our little benefit for Black Forest went off without a hitch. It seemed a good time was had by all. The cast and crew was phenomenal. It's amazing what a small group of dedicated people can do. And surprisingly, yes, we did have a nice, supportive crowd. We made a good sum of cash for our Edinburgh trip. Another step on this crooked path. I'm paying the price for "too much fun," this morning. My head is fuzzy, my body aches, there's an emptiness that haunts me, but hell, I didn't get to sleep until about 4:00 a.m. so, I guess it's to be expected. Now the work on the play really begins, we have less than a month to totally restage and refine the show for the Fringe Fest. There's no turning back...

"Geronimo!"

Finally it's all in the hands of the gods and goddesses...The old Greeks used to say that a man's character, was his fate... I guess, what we call "fate," is what happens, and how we deal with what happens. So, this is the summer of the "Great Cloud of Unknowing." Our little theater group is edging out into uncharted waters. First, tonight, we are having a "benefit," to help get us to Edinburgh, Scotland. It's got all the elements for a great night, but the big question mark, will anyone show up? Who knows? We roll the dice and see what happens!

Then there's the whole Edinburgh adventure itself. In August, we are bringing our unique brand of theater to an international audience. This is a leap into the void. It's a little strange, not knowing what looms in our path, but isn't that the "truth," on any given day? Anything can happen. My attitude is: "damn the torpedoes." There's a kick to getting out of our little comfort zone. The risk is disappointment, disillusion, what? Really, what is the risk? We have an experience, we discover something about the world and ourselves. Isn't that the game we are in from the get-go?

"Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees." - L. Weschler

Success, breeds success, I guess... Suddenly, the clouds blow over and everything is sunny. It turns out I've got a hot deal on the West Coast and a hot deal on the East Coast - simultaneously. My "positive mental attitude," (thank you Starbucks!) has carried me through the ups and downs (What have I learned? What goes up must go down, and vice versa!) So I'm riding a particular "vice versa" like a big, beautiful roaring wave. How long can I ride this wave? Is this the Big One? Hmmm, is it really beside the point to even ask the question? Probably so. There's always another wave, the waves have been hitting the shore for what, millions or billions of years? So I think I'll ride for awhile and see where this all goes...spending my time waxing my surf board, kind of like waxing philosophically... "The question is asked in ignorance, by one who does not even know what can have led him to ask it." - Soren Kierkegaard.

"When a Body Meets a Body." - J.D. Salinger

Yesterday I was stuck in the "everydayness," of a life, waiting for a plane, making the trek back to Chicago, looking for my carry-on bag in the airport (I found it), a long taxi ride in heavy traffic. It seemed like everything took more time than it should. I was trying to catch up to the day, I never quite did. It's good to be home, everything is familiar, comfortable; in a way, everything is renewed, just because I was away from it, and I'm here now. There is a flurry of activity ahead of me. Rehearsals, and set-up for our big benefit event on Saturday. Activity itself can be an end; the momentum, the forward motion giving one the illusion of purpose. The purpose is to keep going...to the next moment, and then the one after that, etc....

To Be Onto Something

The DOE show is over. These things are tests of stamina and endurance. I guess I passed. I packed up the booth last night. I fly out a little later this morning. I will be glad to be back home. I did a little more wandering in the streets of Nashville. Turns out, it's a really cool town. Music made this town. There are little clubs and bars with live music on almost any street. There are more monuments to guitars (also to Jack Daniels, he of the whiskey rye) than politicians - this, I think, is a good thing.

I found myself at the South Street Crab Shack last night just down from Chet Atkins Lane. I sat at the bar, watched the Spurs and Pistons on the TV, and ate a salad and a Tuna steak. I was so damn hungry, I ate like a man possessed. It was like I hadn't eaten in days (not true). I think I couldn't eaten the napkin and maybe even the bar, but I stopped at cleaning my plate.

Earlier in the day, I had read this little quote, and it reminded me of what this thrashing and rolling and tumbling is all about: "The search is what everyone would undertake if he were not stuck in the everdayness of his own life. To be aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair." Walker Percy, The Moviegoer.

"Stuck Inside of Mobile, with the Memphis Blues Again." B. Dylan

Dante, when describing the circles of hell, conveniently forgot to mention the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center in Nashville, Tennnessee. It is truly a monstrosity of enormous proportions, a sham world, a corporate dystopia, a perfect place for the shameless schmooze of industry and government. The Department of Energy, or as they affectionately refer to it here, DOE (think Bambi!) wants to do business with people in business who want to do business. I'm thinking this is the kind of business that's driving our beloved country into the embrace of the Smart Bomb, the SUV and the GULAG! Somehow the smiling faces, the fake friendliness, the blind acceptance of mediocrity and tastelessness seems to me to be a symptom of a greater, deeper soul sickness...

Anyway, I was able to explore the real city of Nashville and found out that it is a kind of cool and funky town. I really do love cities. I love the messiness, the funkiness, the diversity... Nashville is about music! Country, Blues, some Soul too. I found a cool little coffee bar where tatoos and long hair were prominent, and as soon as I walked in, I breathed a big sigh of relief. The girl (a sweet little slip of a thing) serving up my latte had a large black tatoo of a cat on her thin white arm. She was about the most beautiful sight I came across all day.

In the evening, (I skipped the DOE sponsored Hoedown), I wandered around in my rental car, chomping on a blueberry bagel, the Who blasting on the CD player, and kind of soaked in the streets of Nashville. It was a welcome and neccesary antidote. I found a cool little guitar shop and played some really fine guitars (a Custom Shop 1960 Les Paul Standard and a Paul Reed Smith) for about an hour. I fell in love with the Les Paul, it really is my destiny to own one...

This is the last day of the show. I'm stuck one more night, I have to pack up the booth and get it back to FedEx. Then maybe a little more wandering/meandering. Maybe there's another guitar shop worth checking out.

A Nashville Nadir

This is a test...this is only a test... Well, (as per Woody Allen), if "god" wanted to test me, why couldn't it be mutiple choice? I have entered some nether zone...the last place on earth I want to be...at a Department of Energy (Bush's energy plan? An industry boondoggle, hey let's kill A-rabs to keep the oil flowing!) conference in Nashville, Tennessee. I'm staying at a smiley-faced, Facsist/Authoritarian (everything is so neat and orderly, everything has it's place, everyone is so happy, there is no life, spontenaity, disorder, diversity...HELP!) Paradise, an Air Conditioned Wonder, called OPRYLAND. It is an enormous, and enormously ridiculous place (a sanitized "Mall on Steroids,") with inane little shops, hideous decor, a slowly revolving restuarant, an incomprehensible floor plan - "I know my room is somewhere in the Cascades quadrant," --- the coffee is weak, the food is..."Please do not feed the ducks and fish, your food is INDIGESTIBLE TO THEM" - yes, I know what you mean, it's a false place...a place where falseness is the norm.

I just knew it was gonna be bad. I left Chicago Sunday morning, kissed the Lovely Carla on the forehead and headed out the door... her last words, before "goodbye" and "I love you," "Nashville...you'll be like a fish out of water..." oh yes, the words are so true...I'm flopping around down here, gasping for air, looking for my sweet and comfortable aquarium. This is what all those meditation classes were about, to give me the strength to put up with this shit! I know someone (from appearances a lot of someone's) must like this place, but "It ain't me babe!" There must be something cool down here, (I think to myself - both Dylan (Blonde on Blonde) and Neil Young (Harvest) recorded great albums down here) but the cool cats, the funky little studios, the great session musicians, they must be off the beaten track, hiding out in some dark smokey bar, or jamming in some basement hideout. So, I'm here til Wednesday morning...hmmm. There must be something I can find that will make me smile...well, we'll just have to wait and see on that pardner....

What You See is What You Get

Yesterday was a long rehearsal day, both for the play, and the band. All went well. We've had a few bumps in the road, (it's to be expected), but every session has been productive and instructive. What's amazing is this idea/process of looking intently at something (for instance a scene from the play) and seeing new connections and meanings with every run-through. Every move, every gesture can/will/does carry motive, intention; there is the actual and symbolic, they are intertwined, they can be perceived or not; by perceiving, everything is transformed, everything can/is invested with meaning. The observer, and the observed are in a collaboration - to make meaning of simple words and gestures...OR NOT. This does not need to be overly-intellectualized, in fact, it's not about the intellect at all; a man or woman onstage, reciting words, moving, gesturing, they carry enormous loads of information in their bodies, their voices, their words...the more you look, the more you see. We can be senstive and open to this reality, or we can choose "not to see" anything. I think it's actually a spiritual/energy kind of thing. I think this is how our lives work. We can see the world with open eyes, and by being open, by being willing to invest the world with meaning, the world responds to us with meaning. We can trust our vision, make connections, discover a world of wonder and mystery and beauty. Or not. We can use our heads and spirit and vision, OR NOT. It isn't up to the world, the play, or the thing we are experiencing, or "seeing," IT IS UP TO US.

A Meal, More than A Meal

What do you get when you mix organic Rain Forest Blend, with organic Wild Blend? An excellent pot of coffee (Organic Wild Rainforest Blend!). Finally got a good night's rest. The Lovely Carla and I finished up Friday evening with a wonderful meal at Rick's Cafe on Sheridan. It's run by a French (I think he's French Morrocan) couple, the sweetest, kindest folks you could ever meet (they are down to earth and regal at the same time), he's a marvelous chef (I had the salmon and wild mushroom soup, the Lovely C. had a salad and the spinach and artichoke ravioli) and she's a dark-haired, mysterious, French beauty. There's something about the place, the food and service (it's a two person show) are great, but it's also the ambiance, the energy of the place; simple, almost mediterranien (think Morrocco) decor, the pictures of Bogey and "the black bird," (the dingus) on the walls. You expect to see Peter Lorre and Sidney Greenstreet sharing a table in a corner. It's one of the few places where after the meal, after we've paid the bill, and we're walking out of the place, the Lovely C. and I each give our hostess a warm embrace (strange soul mates from totally different worlds making some kind of deep and life-affirming connection). Somehow it's acknowledged that we are a "unique couple," special people ("you're not from around here, are you?") or (as our hostess simply expressed it: "some people don't use their heads,") and so are they. It's about the light, the flame, you can see it in the eyes. Is the flame turned up, does it burn brightly. Can you see beyond your senses five? "Energy is eternal Delight!" Wm. Blake and yes, of course, it's about "the stuff that dreams are made of." S. Spade.

Breaking Open the Head

Changing your mind. That's part of being on the Enlightenment Train (don't need no ticket, you just get on board). It's built into the scientific method, test your hypothesis, see what happens. So changing your mind, about events, people, is a fundatmental principle. There's shifting perceptions, shifting loyalties. What do we have to hold on to, what do we cling to, what do we resolve not change our minds about?

Everytime we "make up our mind," we close a door. Living in a world of closed doors may allow us to feel more secure, but doesn't it also isolate us, cut us off from new experiences, new ideas, new perspectives, other people, etc? Open door, open mind.

"I Dig Love. I Love Dig." G. Harrison

I'm trying to do everything I have to do, and do it well. I'm living in "accelerating" time, or at least, that's how it feels, I'm rushing through the paces, from one appointed round to another. There's a certain kick in just trying to keep up with myself, just the forward motion seems to give me a mission, a purpose. I'm happy just to be standing.

We have built a world of stuff. Buildings, streets, cars, cell phones, trains, planes, computers; all our dazzling gadgets, all our pretty toys. We fill up our lives with material and we hypnotize ourselves to believe that this is a material world. We think our "stuff" will save us. We run our lives like a business - there's debits and credits, balance sheets, the law of diminishing returns!

But there's no denying that we are mystical creatures, we are strange beings, made up of contradiction, our very existence is essentially unexplainable, baffling; the end of existence is impossible, enigmatic. We don't know where we came from, we don't know where we are going. We are the light between two darknesses. There is no gloom in the mystery. Our hope, joy, purpose, and meaning transcends the material. We are spiritual beings, on a spirtual journey. This opens the door to the FunHouse. Let's party! Let's rock on! Long Live Rock!

The Flip-Side of a Dream

Hell, I guess everything is an experience, even being in hell is an experience; once there, can you find something to divert you? This was my mission yesterday at McCormick Place, I participated in one of those little sham worlds we have constructed, a (horror of horrors) Trade Show. This one called Sensor Expo (oh yes, I'll be there again today). We live in a world of our senses five, we have built these machines and technologies that "sense" and record "phenomena," and turn it into digital information. It's a strange world indeed. Just what we need: more information!

So, it's a test, of stamina, of character, of...damn, what kind of test is this thing? I kept my head, my cool, I looked for the humour, and in fact, it was everywhere, the whole thing was kind of funny. After the show, I found myself walking the lakefront (there's Adler Planetarium, there's Shedd Aquarium) with a woman who could NOT STOP TALKING. She was the "booth babe," hired to lure poor saps into our booth (everyone has a booth). She was a nice woman with the right configuration (long-legged blond) who makes her living (I guess it pays pretty good) going from show to show, serving as the "eye candy." What a strange existence!

So, just another experience, something else I've been through, something I survived. What did I learn from this little test? Trade shows are the land of the living dead, yes, but I can make it through, this too shall pass...hell is a place, a time, it's a mirage, a bad dream, it won't last, it doesn't really exist.

"The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses." - C. Bukowski

The last two days, (Sunday and Monday) have seemed like a week already. I'm back home, but I'm off to some kind of business show today...this is like going to the Land of the Living Dead! The Big Apple is tempting me with the Big Deal, (this could be the ONE!). I'm burning the candle at both ends, I am the candle. So finally, when it all burns out what am I left with? Flame and only flame? Or ashes, only ashes? I'll look on the positive side and say...flame! "Shine on you crazy diamond." - P. Floyd.

"The Bridge...we'll build it...it may take a lot of time." N. Young

Another Brooklyn morning. I have lived this movie. Arrived in NY yesterday afternoon. 90 degrees, sunny. The Hindu Goddess and I spent most of the afternoon walking the Brooklyn bridge, from Brooklyn to Manhattan and back. I am enamoured with this bridge. It is a phenomenon, a reality, a potent symbol, an enigma, an impossibility; it holds a lot of meaning for me, it reminds me of how I think and feel about the lakefront at home.

The walkway starts at street level, you are a pedestrian surrounded by cars, then slowly you rise up, the pavement turns to wood, there's a steady incline pointing you to the sky. By the time you reach the middle of the bridge, you are in another realm, up with the birds and gods, yesterday it was all sunshine and blue sky, you look down and see streams of cars coming and going (it's Sunday and it seems everyone is out and about in the world). People of every shape and size, every nationality, on bikes, rollerblades, walkers, runners, lovers, families, babies in strollers...of course the energy...poised between two immensities...Brooklyn, Manhattan.

The Hindu Goddess and I talk, about everything under the sun. At one point she says, "You must have the will to do, what pleases you to do." It hits me full on. A simple formulation, saying so much, so little, it depends on how and if you can let it in - a motto to live by, a credo, a goal, a means and an end...

A bridge is a hopeful expression, joining people together, it declares, "let us share this place." The suspension, is a suspension of disbelief, an assertion of possiblity, of, dare I say it, fraternity, brotherhood. Thomas Merton, tells us, "no man is an island," and it's true, we need to build bridges...it's how we get to the other side.

"Isn't it all basically the SAME DAY?" - J. Joplin

Yesterday was one long day...

Up early and out to Peter Jones for an early morning "Henry Goodbar," rehearsal. We're restaging the play, based on dimensions of our performance space in Edinburgh, Scotland. This changes the production substantially. It's an opportunity to re-think major portions of the piece. What's unique: the cast is tight, we're nearly off book, we've done this before, we can reinvent, refine, rediscover. What's great for the Lovely Carla and I, we can take the production to a completely new level; usually by the end of a show's run, we are finally getting to a place where we can "play," where some of the instinctual processes arise. This time, we can start at that place, and see where we can push ourselves, our cast, and our audience.

In the afternoon, we did a Telepath Jam. This is still not a clean machine. We have a set list, a mission, we're not just aimlessly jamming, but it feels like an outfit that's pulling in different directions. The group dynamic is a little shaky. Part of this can be attributed to a poor sound system, (I'm hoping to remedy this soon) so vocals and guitars and drums are all competing with each other. But there's also a little tension in the band, (different visions, agendas?) Our two original songs are my favorites at the moment, which does bode well. But if we don't get the mix and the energy all working together (does anyone tell Neil Young to turn his guitar volume DOWN?!) not sure if the Telepaths (in this configuration) have staying power.

Late afternoon - went for a massage and a Space Time Tank float. All I can say is, thank you John Lilly. What a strange, unique way to explore the inner world. Then had a nice meal at Angelina's on Broadway. Finally got home and packed my bag. I'm heading off to Brooklyn, New York today. I'm sure I'll be posting from the road. As always...to be continued.

"Power to the People." J. Lennon

I'm reading Michael Frayn's play, "Democracy," which concerns the reunification of Germany, East and West. It's quite good, funny, intelligent, uses the events of that time to reflect the major political currents of the 20th Century.

Willy Brandt is the central figure, there is a crowd of characters (spies, lackeys, boot-lickers) that surround him. What comes across is the humaness of the politicians, the government bureaucrats, and in a way, their humaness is their strength: compromisers, and those who are compromised, consensus builders. Willy is a man who wants everyone to be happy and at peace. He counsels forgiveness, patience, he battles depression, he drinks, he has affairs with women outside his marriage. He is a Democratic Hero, flawed, imperfect, one of us!

I like this line from the play: "Capitalism is a system where man oppresses man. Socialism is the opposite." The hope for us all is to realize the flaws in the system, in the people who run it, in the people who live in it. Yes, in order to be a hero, you must be human. It is the man who sees everything in black and white, with certainty, with moral fervor, the righteous, the moralizers, those who would impose their vision - these are the enemies of the people!

"What if Six Turned Out to be Nine?" J. Hendrix

A few days back, on Memorial Day, I kind of hit an emotional "bottom." I was low energy, and the world seemed a little overwhelming. I tuned out the news, unplugged from all the rolling and tumbling. It's strange, since then, I've found an odd calmness and peace. ("I'm the one who'll die when it's my time to die, so I'll live the way I want to." - J. Hendrix). This attention to death, to endings, to the shadow thoughts, to the darkside of the moon, seems to me to be a necessary strength. I think the darkness and tragedy of our lives makes the light and happiness that much more precious and soulful.

It's the Jungian idea of light and shadow, the strange duality of exitence. To be happy and shallow, to be in a place where everything is always sunny and easy, is a sham paradise. Instead, we live in an incredible world of hard realities. Reality is a great teacher. To find the beauty, the light, and the goodness in the "real," all wrapped up with the pain, heartache, loss, acts of cruelty and the "evil," men do, yes, that is the strange alchemy of a life.

The Terrible Trio?

Marx, (Karl, not Groucho), Freud, and Darwin. I was reading an article about the dawning of "the age of enlightenment," secularism, and materialism, and these three gents were mentioned as the "terrible trio."

Now it's the 21st century and these three guys sort of seem to be frozen in an earlier, dustier, world, but I think its safe to say that all three still have interesting and consistent things to say about capitalism, psychology and biology.

Can a sense of wonder, spirituality and transcendance co-exist with the thought of these three? I say yes, absolutely, in some ways their dangerous ideas are incredible descriptors for the world and the way we live and work. Marx's description/critique of capitalism seems definitive. Freud's ego, superego, and id offer a nice shorthand for the turbulence inside us, and Darwin's astonishing discovery of natural selection/evolution knocks down doors and opens heads.

I don't think any of them really "demystify," the world, although, their descriptions make you see things with new eyes. Some people just can't handle a universe without an all powerful "creator," overlooking the entire shebang!

Now, how to live a life? Marx's "workers utopia," seems like a false Eldorado. Freud's psychoanlysis seems to offer a lot of fruitless wallowing in absurdity (see Oedipus). Darwin's natural selection is a blank impersonality.

Still, I see beauty and wonder, and possibility. The meaning of a life, is the meaning we bring to it. We are in a dialogue with an incredible universe of form and content. We decide what we choose to hear and what we choose to say.

The Precursors

I've been writing a new play, I've got a character, and he's kind of rambling on at the moment. Not sure where he's going, but I'm following him anyway. I started thinking of the writers who got me started in the first place, especially, Robert Louis Stevenson ("Treasure Island"); my first sustained narrative, was a story called "Mistaken Pirates," (good guys, mistaken for bad guys) written in seventh grade. Kurt Vonnegut totally enraptured me in High School; his imagination, his dark humour, his crystalline sentences of simplicity ("And so it goes."). I was inspired by the guys who wrote in a frenzy: Hunter S. Thompson, Jack Kerouac, Herman Melville, Henry Miller. I tried to avoid writers who struggled, or, guys who had "writer's block," not wanting to catch the malady.

Plus there were the writers who were so good, it was kind of intimidating: Shakespeare, Joseph Heller, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neil. (In music the Intimidators are: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan). I found my way into playwriting through Sam Shepard, a writer who has an almost musical sense, the words coming out in a blast, like a saxophone or trumpet. It was a volume of early one-act plays that convinced me that I could "do it too." I still go back to Shepard for inspiration. Kerouac too. I like the idea of writing in a blast, a stream of consciousness, where words come up in a torrent, and lead to new places.

I find that Samuel Beckett is the anti-Shepard. Beckett's work in some ways is about the impossibility of language. He reduces things to their essence. Powerful and scary work, and not what I want to be thinking about when I'm trying to discover "the flow." So there's the writers I want to tune in, and those I want to tune out, and then hopefully I can find my own channel and let it come.