On Not Acting My Age (Because I Don't Know It)

I don’t get it, this getting older thing. Chronologically, yes. But state of mind? Personal aesthetics? Outside interests? No. Rather, I’m not sure. I don’t know how I am supposed to act, or exactly what it is I supposedly like now that I have survived five decades on Earth. My head and heart are caught in a tug of war between the dorky punk I used to be and the curmudgeon into which I am morphing. The tension is real and bizarre.

Routines are much more part of life these days. It is an afternoon habit of mine to have a tea or coffee break at this coffee shop near my office. I do not recall how it started, but almost every day I am there, hopefully perched in a window seat. People watching, daydreaming, writing such follies as this. Near to this shop is the campus of a liberal arts college. As such, the place has its share of students as customers and quite likely as baristas. This shop does not have Muzak or programmed piped music. Proof that there is mercy in the universe, sometimes. But what happens is that the employees typically hook up their smartphones or MP3 players to the shop speakers. Consequently I get to hear a broad spectrum of music, much of which I either know little of or have never heard.

The other day in the shop I was sipping tea and listening to the music. It was otherwise quiet so I was getting a good earful. Deciding I liked what I was hearing I opened the music identification app on my phone and let it cogitate. The result came back for a band of which I had heard the name but not the tune. Cool, I’m thinking I might have to get it. I research it only to find out that the song is an album that was released in 1992.

1992. Twenty-six frickin’ years ago. Blood rushed to my head, then swiftly drained out. Twenty six years is half my life ago.

See, herein lies the problem. I love music from the standpoint of an enthusiastic listener. I used to have a strong sense of time and place when I listened to it. I could orient myself quite well. But these days music is not so much bound by context and location. Also, between having listened to music for decades, the ubiquity of listening devices, and the widespread distribution of music wherever I go, I am simultaneously bored and fascinated by it all.

A consequence of that is I hear old stuff that sounds new and new stuff that sounds old, to my ears. I honestly don’t know what I am hearing sometimes. I just know I like it. Mostly. Recent adventures in music have taken me into rap, hip-hop, a little dub, neo-psychedelic rock, and even electronic dance music. There is much undiscovered country in music, for me, most of which is far away from my formative years in becoming a music lover.

On any given day the music I hear makes me feel old, young, and ageless. That can be a good thing. It can be dizzy-making, too. It feels odd to me to realize I am fan-boying over music that people much younger than me are considering to be the shit. Music is music, right, and age don’t matter to the ear of the open-minded listener, right? So why this mixing up with the issue of my years on earth?

This is a problem in that the onset of summer already has me disoriented and detached from life. My dizziness is only increasing from the influence of this musical curiosity of mine. Music has been by turns exhilarating and exhausting, uplifting and depressing. My head is unable to give direction and my heart is feeling oh so lost. Consequently I am at a loss as to how to behave in my life. “Act your age” is a shopworn bromide I have heard before. But what do you do when you cannot pin that down? The music is helping me to feel something, at least, even if it isn’t helping me think. That might be a good thing.

All We Need is Wooooah!

Wooooah!

I need a few more of these in my life.  Those moments where I could just shout it.

Wooooah!

I'd love to burst out with it in the middle of a business meeting someday.  I think it would be a great way to let everyone know my enthusiasm for the topic at hand. Get some attention, for sure.  Wouldn't that be cool?  Random explosions of joy, of exuberance.

Wooooah!

What holds me back?  Decorum, I suppose.  Not wanting to perturb co-workers or random folks passing by.  Although that wouldn't be so bad, would it?

Wooooah!

I used to shout it out.  That was back in the days of being a young Gumbo, at concerts and dances where it was noisy and I could get lost in the crowd.  The problem for me was self-consciousness and a lack of good musical voice.  Not that being able to sing is necessary, but it is better if you can at least get it in key.  I can't sing, and for me to hit a key is more chance than skill.

Wooooah!

These days I don't get my woah on very often. It has to be the right moment, almost always music inspired.  And I don't do it in public.  Mostly in the car, or in the odd moment at home when I can occasionally be moved to caper about like a fool to something on the radio or my music collection.  I kid myself that I can do it well.

Wooooah!

Sometimes I do get it right.  And when I do, I smile and play my air guitar or put my fist in the air, recalling the energy I once had and the time I cherished where a good woah fit right in. These days, I hear one on the radio and I know that exuberance can be had, if I know where to look.  I used to think that growing up meant I'd have to leave it behind.  For too long, I did leave it behind.

Now I know better. It's still there, peeking out from the shadows of my jaded heart.  It won't manifest every day; that's no longer possible.  But it doesn't have to be every day.  All I need to know is I have it, and all it needs are the right moments.  I'm happy to say that, even in the midst of nearly four months of being jobless, I'm having quite a few Wooooah! moments.

That is a very good thing indeed. Wooooah!

---

Two of the best wooooah! moments I have heard recently is in a new favorite song of mine, "I Don't Owe You A Thang" by blues guitar virtuoso Gary Clark, Jr.  If you want a great pick-me-up, you can listen to the song/watch the video HERE. Great stuff.  I wish I could do it the way he does it!

Saturday Night (Swiffer) Fever

It says something about my current life and state of mind that its Saturday, on a cool but pleasant night, and I am home alone perched on the couch...and I am okay with this situation.  There is good music on the stereo, the chores are all done and I am pleasantly tired and (get this) relaxed.

"Get out!"  you say.  "I know!" I say.

It is true.  I am relaxed.  This is big.  It has been weeks since I felt unwound to the point where I didn't feel jittery, and I had a grip on my day.  This is what it must feel like, I tell myself, to feel normal.  Perhaps normal is just another way to say 'content', like cows chewing cud.

I attribute this to finally pushing myself to take care of lots of nagging little things, cleaning out some clutter, catching up on laundry and bills.  Oh, and a liberal dose of my Wee Lass.  She wasn't with me this weekend, but the circus was in town, and she and I and her mother went to see it.  Wee Lass was very excited, and seeing that made me feel good too.  She got a stuffed white tiger (with cub) as a souvenir, and we all thoroughly enjoyed the show.  An amazing spectacle, fun for all!

After that it was pizza for dinner, and then home for me.  I briefly considered hitting the tavern around the corner, but then I got distracted.

Distracted by Swiffering.  Yeah, man, I was doing the swiffer-dance and getting the floors clean, and I was really digging it.  There was a brief pang, of feeling pathetic because I'm cleaning instead of clubbing* on a Saturday night...but then with a playlist like this one:

...the regrets quickly faded and I had a great time shakin' what passes for my moneymaker while sweeping the floor.  I think having simple tasks and getting things done was just the ticket to sand the edges off my anxiety.  Not to mention, I also have clean floors!

---

*Not that I ever was much on clubbing.  When I had the energy for it, I lacked the social skills to make a go of it.  Now that I can at least make people think I have social skills, I almost never have the energy.  Seems a tad unfair, yes?

Bookends: Eighties

Me and Big Bro, circa 1984

I was browsing some '80's and '90's music files tonight and I could not help but think of my brother.  The music led me to some pictures, specifically the one above.  It's a Polaroid, and my parents have the original.  I never used to get sentimental over old pictures, especially ones of myself, but things are different now.  As far as I'm concerned, that picture up there needs to be archived in a museum-quality case, suitable for framing.

I am struck particularly by our expressions.  Mine was showing a lot more self-assurance (youthful arrogance?) than I really possessed, and Big Bro?  Well, he was the shizznit, as that expression says it all.  He certainly could pull off the Look.  It gained in strength when he had a guitar in his hands, something I could not (and still can't) do.

I think that picture was taken at a time when I was beginning to feel I had any confidence at all of dealing with the world, out of high school and on my way to college.  It was a time I felt like I was right, even when I wasn't.  Untested youth has a way of doing that to a person.

I'm glad I didn't know then, what I know now.  I see this picture, and I cannot help but marvel at the power we didn't know we possessed.  Me and my Big Bro against the world, two saplings as yet unbent by the storms of life...the hurricane that took him down struck much too early.  The one that might take me, well, I hope its a long way off.

Until then, I'll think of him, and sink my roots deeper into the soil.

---

The following link (to myspace.com) is to a song by The Jesus and Mary Chain, that came out in 1989, which is kind of the cap on what I think of as my first (hopefully) Golden Age.  I listen, and I wish I could have sung this live with my brother on guitar.  I know he would have liked that.

Blues From A Gun

Gaddafi in Flames

Glass of tea, bowl of soup,
TV news chatters across the table
against a 'tsk tsk' and a 'mmm, mmm'

A cough, full of crackers, unintended guffaw,
the talking head intoning like a deejay:
"Here's an image of Gadaffi in flames"

Kaleidoscopic: to eat dinner, watch nations
begin their meltdown, yet thinking to myself
"That's a great name for a band"

Rock and Roll Animal

New Year's Eve, 2010, I attended my first rock and roll club show in years.  Many, many years.  I wanted to see J. Roddy Walston & The Business, a group whose debut album has been in heavy rotation on my iPod since it came out earlier in the year.  I had missed them at a previous show, in a smaller venue, and reckoned now was the time.  Carpe diem, and all that.

The band went on at midnight, right after the ball dropped.  It was like opening the door into a hurricane.  A loud, raucous and just-this-side-of-controlled hurricane.

Standing there, about four people back from the stage, stomping my feet, pumping my fist and shouting choruses at the top of my lungs, I felt something wake up inside.  Something that had been asleep for a long, long time: the animal, and it felt good.  It was like watching a jaguar stretch, flex and growl.  It makes the blood run hot, and alive.

The tired, run-down me shook hands with the rock star me, and together we pushed back the great gray walls of the universe.  The volume knob on life went to eleven.

And it was good.

My Daughter She Done Told Me: A Clarification

Oh, my.  I am behind, dear readers, on my reading and my writin'.  Due to a flood of work and school and personal commitments, I haven't been able to keep up with the world beyond my shoulders.  I haven't been able to respond as promptly to the many wonderful comments I have received on the Gumbo recently, and I want everyone to know I'm very grateful for the kind words and some cool links that folks have been leaving for me.  If I haven't gotten back to some of you, it's only because I'm swimming upstream as fast as I can, but life is like drinking from a fire hose sometimes.  Whew.

One thing I did want to clarify, from yesterday's post.  I see now that I may have inadvertently created some concern amongst some folks, based on the passages referencing bottles and pills.  Please know that the post had its roots in the temptation to reach for such things, and trying to come to terms with it.  I  generally avoid self-medication, I've seen the terrible consequences, and even though some might disagree, I am smart enough to stay away from such things.  They aren't much of a short-term strategy, and they sure as hell don't qualify as a long-term solution.

Besides, a daughter's gifts give me all the reason in the world to treat myself right, something I remind myself of almost every day.

And now, apropos of nothing, just because I feel it, I leave you with the following video, "Father's Son" by Fistful of Mercy.  Clap your hands and give me some testimony!

WOFF: The New Music Alternative

Another night, just another night and the goddamn radio or mp3 player or streaming audio or whatever the device du jour,  it is possessed by demons.  Sonsabitches get inside the head and play whatever they want to play, DJ's from the hell, for sure.

Because every song you hear is a song that drives another needle into the heart, and you curse the bastards and tell them not to stop.  Think to throw the diabolical device out the window, and you know you won't be able to.  Because then you won't be able to hear every song as a love song, a heartbreak song, a love gone wrong song, another blow to the heart song...a love gone away song.

When did this happen? How did it happen? Even the goddamn shuffle is the enemy, because no matter what comes up, it brings memories with it.  Some good, some bad, many just too much to bear for one reason or another, and some days it seems overwhelming.  Elevator music for 100 floors of melancholy.  Too planned.  As if directed by intelligence, or malice.  Thousands of songs, days worth of music...and the ones that get played are the ones that play you.

So, for it...the only thing to do, as you often do, is hit 'Skip'...

...or find a quiet spot where no one can see, and listen to the memories...and learn to embrace them all.

From The Ground

Pouring from the speakers
Slide guitar from the crossroads
ass kickin' vocals tellin' it right

Believe in "God, the Devil and Love"
he rasps out at me and I flinch
This trinity of everything I am

Or everything I want to be
or everything I want to avoid
hanging in the air, right there

"'Cause there's good deeds and good intentions"
sneered on the back of a chord
far apart as Heaven and Hell, I know

Lips curl in a knowing smile
I sing the blues with Ben Harper
to find God, the Devil and Love.

Italicized phrases used without permission, from "Ground on Down" by Ben Harper.  Badass guitar, indeed.

Kickdrum Girl

"She was a fast machine
She kept her motor clean
She was the best da...(skizzzrwwrrrrxxxkkss skids the needle across the grooves)

"Who is that, Daddy?"

I looked up to see my Wee Lass giving me that quizzical look she has perfected, when she sees me doing something that leads her to question my mental health.  She hasn't gotten the hang of cocking one eyebrow yet, but it should not be too much longer.  Fortunately, none of the other patrons in the sandwich joint had noticed me doing my best Angus Young imitation while mouthing the words, although they could certainly hear the song given the high-pressure volume of the radio blaring through the place.

"What, the music? You know who that is?"  I replied.  I sighed in relief knowing that we managed to drown out the line about ...the best damn woman I have ever seen...It occurred to me that perhaps "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC was probably not the best song to sing in front of my daughter's heretofore unsullied ears.

"It's AC/DC.  One of the best concerts Daddy saw when he was a kid was AC/DC!"  I left out the part about the cannons and Angus Young mooning the crowd.

She scrunched up her face and said "AZ/DeeShee?"

"Ay-cee Dee-cee, sweet pea.  It's a band that I listened to a lot when I was a kid."  I proceeded to break into another round of air guitar, cajoling her to play along with me.  She said "Dah-dee, I don't want to play guitar. Can you play guitar?"

I told her no, I couldn't play guitar.  Fair to middling as an air guitarist.  Real guitar?  I'm a big bowl of suck when it comes to real guitar.  I don't know what made me say it, but then I told her "My Big Bro could play guitar.  Really well, too."

"Did he play air guitar, Daddy?" I laughed.
"No, pumpkin.  He could play real guitar.  One with strings.  Plus, he could grimace musically."

She gave me a startled "Huhhh?" look when I said that.  I could hear the Scooby Doo voice in my head.  I just laughed and tried to explain what "grimacing musically" meant.  I was grasping at the best words for it, when the radio again came to my rescue.  "More Than a Feeling" by Boston: the radio spirits were looking out for me.  This was a perfect song to demonstrate my Big Bro's technique.

So it came to pass, that on a Sunday afternoon I was rockin' the air guitar with my face contorted into all sorts of musical shapes, ones that I remembered from watching my brother play.  He may have looked goofy sometimes, but he did it with honest feeling and verve.  I must have pulled it off successfully, because Wee Lass was laughing that silver bell laugh and asking me to "do what he did again!"

I managed to keep the tears in my throat and a musical grimace on my face, all the while grinding out power chords and banging my head like a pro.  I felt a bit embarrassed to notice some of the other customers begin to stare at me, maybe thinking I had lost my marbles.

That's okay.  They could stare all they wanted.  I had my daughter laughing with me at the table, and my brother playing his guitar in my heart.  And when she picked up those air drumsticks to pat out a rhythm on the table, while watching my feet to learn the kick drum, I felt the circuit close.

Nothing like a little rock and roll with those you love.  Nothing like blood music to fill the heart.

I Wish I Knew

And so it starts
You switch the engine on
We set controls for the heart of the sun
One of the ways we show our age

He had no way of knowing, but James Murphy gut punched me tonight.  Not literally, I mean, I don't know him personally (although I'd like to) but it was the song he was singing.  I had iTunes set on shuffle and LCD Soundsystem came up, and there was James singing "All My Friends", a song I really like but should probably not listen to when I am alone and tired.

Such was the case.  I was reading some study material for a class I am taking, alone in the light of the goofy ceiling fan (the blades look like giant palm leaves) that hangs down from the middle of my dining/living room.  Tired, too, and my mind kept wandering from the task.  So James gets to the part where he sings the lyrics I quoted above, and I...I had to put my head down and take a deep breath.

'Set the controls for the heart of the sun' put me in the wayback machine, because he 's right.  It did make me show my age.  Indirectly, I must say, but showing all the same.  I recalled that line as the title of a Pink Floyd song, which made me think of my brother.

I thought about him, and how huge his absence seems to me.  All the albums we bought, the songs we listened to, the time (not) wasted messing around with the stereo, cassette decks, tuners and amplifiers.  The insistent electric piano in "All My Friends" came back at me like a new wave version of Philip Glass, a version I could really wrap my head around.  This as opposed to the time back in college, when I spent some days listening to Glassworks and for the life of me I couldn't quite get into it (sorry, Philip.)  The piano reminded me that maybe I should give it (Glassworks) another go.  Perhaps another time.

So it was the song, me and my memories.  James asks "Where are your friends tonight?"  This is a question I could not answer.  I closed my eyes and listened intently to the music, and for a few precious moments me and Big Bro were back in his room at my parents' house, with the low end wood look paneling and that ridiculous shag carpet in a hue that had aspirations of being orange.  And the paneling and the carpet and the cracks in the ceiling didn't matter because we had the turntable and a stack of albums set up.  The tape deck was running and we were making a mix and drawing covers for the cassettes.  He was good at it, he could have been a great graphic artist.  We put the music on and mixed and laughed and quoted the good parts of the songs, which I wish would never end.

I suppose they never did, never will as long as I can remember him.  I wish, oh I wish, I knew where he was tonight, my friend, my brother.

Oh, if the trip and the plan come apart in your hand,
you look contorted on yourself your ridiculous prop.
You forgot what you meant when you read what you said,
and you always knew you were tired, but then,
where are your friends tonight?

Lyrics from "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem, from the album "Sound of Silver".  Used without permission.  i hope James doesn't mind.

Broken String

Clash played on the stereo,
teenage wreck party long ago.
He sat, girl in lap, laughing
as I mouthed the words.

Coolness was his light,
Basking in it, my lot.
Heard him saying
"That's my brother"

Affection just made it
through the buzz blanket
wrapped around my head:
In that moment, I belonged.

Clash on the stereo tonight
all guitars and sneers
and me mouthing the words
to his picture in my head

No beer tonight, too pathetic,
Besides I want the clear memory
of him unvarnished, unaltered,
of that guitar in his hands

Mouthing the words again,
theater of the mind lit
by his crooked grin and
woodpecker laugh.

I know the songs,
"Know Your Rights" with guitar!
and by all rights, my brother,
you should be here

Touched by madness,
Loved by gods and mortals,
a vibrant broken string
uncoils in my heart.

In memory of my Big Bro.

The Only Bargain That Matters

Taking a cue from Schmutzie's "Grace In Small Things", how about this: I was wandering a local branch of a well-known chain bookstore as I am wont to do when seeking free or low-cost entertainment ('cause that's how I roll sometimes), and what do I spy with my little eye? Behold:

Pretty cool, no? Well, to make it an even bigger jar o' awesomesauce, this tome was on the BARGAIN BOOK table. So I snagged it, for less than the cost of a burrito at Chipotle. Grace in small things, indeed!

This post dedicated to Dawn B., who reminded me of this book, a little while ago. Word!

Real World is Hungry

"When you start to doubt yourself, the real world will eat you alive" - Henry Rollins, "Shine"

I understand the hunger of the real world. It paces me, follows me like my own shadow. I have had many a conversation with it, in grimy diners and noisy machine rooms. The hunger never seems to be rattled, and never seems to sit still. Even motionless, the edges of it blur. I gave up long ago on rubbing my eyes, or focusing. But that makes my head hurt, and now I have no idea what to do.

No. No. That isn't quite true. The back of my mind knows what to do. The front of my mind has so far resisted making the adjustments necessary to sharpen the picture.

Then, today, I heard something I really needed to hear, but no one who could say it to me.

It's hero time.

A Joyful Noise...I Wish!

Do you ever find yourself wishing you could do something you cannot do, and do it well? Wishing it so much it gets to the point of obsession because you think about it so much?

I do. I've got it bad right now. Aside from jonesin' for PHOTOGRAPHY these days, I also really, really wish I could sing. Seriously. I don't need to be a virtuoso, I would just like to be able to hit the notes well enough. Why, you ask, do I want to sing?

Damned if I know. I just do.

I suspect it has to do with the creative impulse, and the inability or unwillingness to ignore those voices in my head and heart that say I must, or that I should at least try. The problem with singing is that I have no talent. No real talent, anyway. I can on on occasion sound like I can sing. I can do a credible imitation of Metallica's James Hetfield* when I set my mind to it, and I do enjoy that. Sometimes, I can sound like Johnny Cash on his cover of "Sea of Heartbreak". Actually, I don't know if I sound like Johnny Cash so much as I can almost harmonize with him on the chorus. Plus, I usually do that while driving, and the road noise covers up a lot of the flaws I'm sure.

This does not mean I want to do karaoke, an entertainment for some that I just do not get. The very thought of singing karaoke-style, on purpose (like in some sort of misguided team-building exercise, or after a heavy dose of liquid courage) makes me cringe. Any sort of overt public performance also has always been anathema to me. In high school, once, I took an 'F' grade rather than get up in front of class and recite a memorized speech, with memorable results**. Even to this day, I abhor the thought of public speaking, although I've had to do it in limited form as part of my (former) job.

So why the obsession, the singing badly, loudly but with gusto when no one else is around?*** I return to the creative impulse. Writing, photography, singing...any creative endeavor seeking manifestation eventually wants to express itself, and that means exposure and vulnerability, both things I typically avoid. But lately, things have been wanting to get out, working their way to the surface. I still don't want to be vulnerable, I don't want to be rejected...yet true and honest expression requires risk. 

I think writing opened the gate a bit, photography pushed the thing wider, and I realized that it doesn't matter if I can't really sing. I'm not going to be a professional singer, anyway, so I should sing primarily because it makes me happy...similar in effects to the writing and photos.

The saying goes "Dance like nobody's watching" so I suppose the corollary is "Sing like no one is listening". It is a good lesson for life, I finally realized, because it can take me out of myself and learn to enjoy the act of creation simply because...that's all, simply, because. It helps shed the fear engendered by self-consciousness and allows the creative mind some room to grow. It helps me stop thinking so much about myself, paralyzed by the fear of error and too timid to show myself. This is all good, my heart gets it, even if my mind hasn't quite embraced the concept.

So these days, I've been listening and I've been thinking, and here are a few songs I wish I could sing:

"Fuel" - Metallica

"Unsung" - Helmet

"Sea of Heartbreak" - inspired by Johnny Cash

"Oh, Darling!" - The Beatles

"Gasoline" - The Airborne Toxic Event

"Hard to Handle" - Otis Redding (with a nod to The Black Crowes)

"Feels Like Rain" - John Hiatt (with a nod to Robbie Schaefer)

No particular order there, and I suppose it doesn't matter. All I can hope is that I can keep singing, pushing away the fear of my self and of being alone, holding out until I can find at least an audience of one.

*James Hetfield himself once described his singing as "yelling on key", something I'd like to do. I can growl like him sometimes.

**A post for another time, dear friends.

***I have discovered that I can embarrass Wee Lass, if I sing a certain way. She sometimes gives me the stink-eye and says "Daaaaa--aady, stop singing that way!" Okay, dear, but just wait until high school, hehheh...

Laughing 'Til It Hurts: The Lighter Side of Heart Trouble

It has been 6 months since my Big Bro passed away suddenly, last August. It took my breath away to face that realization, amazed and saddened that it seems like such a long time and no time at all. Six months and the brother-shaped void in my heart is nowhere near to filling up.

I think about him, in some way, nearly every day. It most often happens when I am listening to music. Recently I was shutting out the world with my iPod, headphones on and air guitar amped and ready to rock. As often happens, a song will come on and Big Bro is right behind it. This particular day it was "Sheer Heart Attack" by Queen. Not exactly what you would call 'easy listening' music, more like 'six-Mountain-Dews-and-a-head-full-of-teenage-angst' music. It's fast, it's aggressive and it kicks ass. In the context of my brother's death, it is also funny as hell.

Funny to us, anyway.

Big Bro most likely died of a massive heart attack. When I think about it, I'm not sure he could have gone very many other ways. His was a life and an attitude that invited the quick, the sudden dramatic event. Do I wish I could have said goodbye before he slipped away? Hell, yes. But he knew and I knew, deep down, he didn't want a long drawn out and ultimately futile fight. So perhaps it was better for him this way.

I also know this: his sense of humor was deep, sharp and wicked. He more than most people I have known could enjoy tremendously the bittersweet joy of rockin' out to a song named after 'what done 'im in'. And when I hear Freddie Mercury snarl "DoyaknowDoyaknowDoyaknow just how I feeel!", I can hear my my Big Bro saying "Yes...yes, I do."

(drum solo!)

Hey, heyheyhey, it was the DNA!

That made me this way!

Hey, heyheyhey...

Ain't Seen Nothin' Like Him

Sometimes I wonder, 

what I'm gonna do, 

cause there ain't no cure 

for the wintertime blues

(awesomepowerchordprogression)

(bestairguitaristever)

(exceptformybrother)

(wait)

(mybrothercouldreallyplayguitar)

(dammit)

So I'm in the car the other night and I'm yawning at the same time my mind is racing a million miles an hour, all I want to do is go home, just go home, so I can eat and rest. It occurs to me I cannot figure out from what I need to rest. I don't mine coal or pick vegetables or work on high steel. My ass sits at a desk most days and I push buttons and move a mouse and draw stuff on tracing paper.

Oh, and I use a lot of Post-its.

Anyway, I'm in the car trying to stay awake and the radio is on

"and the radioman says it's a beautiful night out there

And the radioman says rock and roll lives

And the radioman says its a beautiful night out there in Los Angeles..."

AIIIIGGGH...no, that's "Screenwriter's Blues" by Soul Coughing, which is a good song but it is not even what was playing on the radio. The radio. The radio plays almost all the time while I'm in my car because I like music and songs and lyrics...

...and I am, in all honesty, sometimes afraid of the quiet...

...because that means I'll have to listen to the noise of  my own head. I suppose that is why I have always been easily distracted and irritated by outside noise. I'm sensitized to it, and I struggle to control the internal stuff and outside noise is just more rocks in the pond. I am getting better at disregarding the noise and embracing the silence. I am practicing, I get help. Just not right now...

See? So, like I said I was in the car, sitting at a stop light, listening to the radio and 

"Radio is a sound salvation,

Radio is cleaning up the nation

They say you better listen to the voice of reason..."

DAMMIT! There it goes again! "Radio, Radio" by Elvis Costello. You see what I mean? You see what I am up against? That kind of crap happens all the time. Some days I can't seem to finish a thought because my mind constantly gets sucked in by all these tangents and eddies and sidebars and asides and really, folks, sometimes I wish it would stop, STOP, STOP so I could at least remember what it was I set out to accomplish.

SO, I'm in the car, at the light, blah, blah, blah, and this amazing song comes on. It was amazing not only for the classic rock song that it is, but also because I hadn't heard it in years. YEARS. I was amazed and stunned and yes, even had some little tears in my eyes while I was smiling.

"Pinball Wizard" by The Who. I heard that opening guitar strumming sequence, followed by that power chord...and the lyrics just started spilling out of me and there I was in my brother's room at home listening to the stereo (yes, people, an honest-to-god turntable along with dual cassette decks) or maybe we were in the car with the volume up way too high but it really didn't matter, no it didn't, it didn't, because what really mattered was that Big Bro and I and some friends were strumming that air guitar and windmilling just like Pete Townshend onstage and...

"Ever since I was a young boy,

I played that silver ball

From Soho down to Brighton,

I must have played them all

But I ain't seen nothing like him

In any amusement hall..."

...was spilling from our lips like we were born to sing it, rock it, just they did and I realized that I was singing it, loud, just like we used to and that's when I choked up and out of the corner of my eye Big Bro was playing his guitar and grinning like a possum and I realized then and there that yes, I ain't seen nothing like him, ever, and never will again.

But he sure played a mean guitar. And on the stage in my mind, I'm leaning into the mic and he's in front of that huge Marshall stack and he hits that chord again and plays, plays, plays and I sing, sing, sing. I surprised myself because I remembered all the lyrics. After all these years...

"How do you think he does it?

(I don't know)

What makes him so good?

I drove on down the road, a rolling one (or maybe two) man rock and roll band singing badly at the top of my lungs. It was perfect. How could it not be? With backup like his, I always sound good.

Good Day In The Field

(HOUSEKEEPING NOTE: PLEASE SEE ANNOUNCEMENTS AT END OF POST. THANKS!)

One advantage to being unemployed is that, while I am stuck at home working up resumes and scouring the Internet, I get to listen to music as much as I want as loud as I want. I am free to play the air guitar and the air drums (even the occasional air bagpipes) and shake my moneymaker all over the damn house without shame, censure or scorn. Well, perhaps a little scorn. I am pretty sure my cats look upon all these antics as a truly vulgarian display of poor taste and worse manners. I care not, for I am an artiste.

Of course, all of this imaginary musicianship does little to further my career as an architect. It pays to be creative in that profession, as a rule, but I have yet to encounter a single prospective employer who wants to know if I can accurately play the chord sequence to “Monkey Wrench” by Foo Fighters while grimacing musically.* This is quite the pity. I have been practicing, I know I can nail it if they just give me the chance!

I have been assisted greatly in my musical excavations by the receipt of an iPod as a gift on my most recent birthday, in conjunction with a wireless rig to some pretty good bookshelf speakers that I purchased with some bonus money.** A consolidated music library with the flexibility of streaming from the iPod or my laptop has allowed me to listen to a deep catalog of stuff I haven’t listened to in years. Thank the lawd for shuffle!

One of the most striking aspects of “Music Appreciation Month” in the Gumbo house is the sheer breadth and depth of memories and emotions I have experienced. At various times I have been nostalgic, deeply pensive and riled up. I have been sad to the point of tears and overjoyed to the point of crazed laughter. Sometimes all within the space of a few minutes. All sorts of memories:

1: Sitting on the benches at a local playground on a summer weekend, my friends and I eating cheap carryout pizza and ill-gotten beer. When we could, we would pitch in and get someone to buy us a case: Three six-packs of Budweiser and one of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Guess who drank the PBR. Heh. “Free Bird” wasn’t far away, either.

2: Carrying around my brand new (drum roll) boom box with an 8-track player in it, wearing out my copy of “Deguello” by ZZ Top. Yeah, it was the definition of unhip, but it was mine and I didn’t care. “…Spied a little thing and I followed her all night, In a funky fine levis and her sweater's kind of tight, She had a west coast strut that was as sweet as molasses, But what really knocked me out was her cheap sunglasses…”

3: I can remember sitting on the edge of my bed, head in hands, wallowing in anguish and self-pity because the first great love of my life didn’t love me back, she just really wanted to be friends. “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin was on the stereo. I hated that song for the longest time after that day, but lately it has worked its way back into my playlist. It is a great tune.

4: Freshman year in college, the blond streak in my hair, skinny ties in the closet and I had Oingo Boingo’s “Cry Of The Vatos” on the turntable in my dorm room. Not so much a song as a collection of funny noises set to a melody, it always put me in a silly mood. My next door neighbor, a true son of New Jersey and a die-hard Bruce Springsteen fan(atic), knocked on my door and said “What the fuck is the matter with you?”. I laughed and said nothing. Later that year, he got me drunk the night my nephew was born and I was trying to study for a calc test. My nephew turned out fine, but the calc test was a train wreck. Ouch.

5: My fourth year in college and I had moved in with two of my friends, into an off-campus apartment. One of my roommates was the Audio Equipment guy, had a great rig with huge speakers and a CD player. Because of that, I bought my first ever CD: “Electric” by The Cult. The song that did it: “Wild Flower". It still gets me, right there.

6: Senior in college, and I am heading back to my apartment after a late night in the architecture studio. It was some distance off campus, and I was (in my mind) lucky to have a creaky old 1977 Chevy Nova as a form of transportation. Sort of a pre-hoopty, but it ran and it has a radio. Zipping down the road, and “Copperhead Road” was blaring out of the speakers. At the time, listening to Steve Earle snarl out those lyrics, I thought he was the bad-assest of the badasses. Great song, just don’t drink whiskey while listening to it!

I graduated from college just before the 90’s, entering the ‘real world’ and leaving behind the easy access I had to the same range of music I was lucky with in my studio and dorm. I was relying primarily on one local radio station, did a lot of listening in the car during my commutes. It’s weird, I have a bit of a musical memory drought from those years. Mostly what I remember is either goofy (Presidents of the United States of America), grungy/poetic (Soundgarden, U2) or angry and dark (Tool). What I can recall is mostly singing along with one or another of those groups (Nirvana, Foo Fighters and Alice In Chains should be in there, too), and being vaguely dissatisfied with life. It didn’t start out that way, it was a gradual thing, but looking back I realized a bit of a cloud had settled in on me by the end of the decade. I know it sounds really weird, but “Aenima” by Tool actually helped me through a rough patch.

2000 and beyond has been a bit of backwards and forward for me. I started getting into all the music I had left behind from my teen and young adult years at the same time I was expanding my horizons into “the softer side of Irish Gumbo”. I was getting much more interested in folk, country, funk and rap. I picked up a taste for some “alt country” and old blues. I ended up listening to a much broader range of styles, with an exponential increase in singer/songwriters in my music library. I can now count among my collection various works by Ellis Paul, Jeffrey Foucault, Eddie From Ohio, Johnny Cash, Son Volt, Parliament/Funkadelic and Jeff Lang***. It was also about this time that I started attending the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in Hillsdale, New York almost every year.

It was at the 2001 FRFF that Jeff Lang provided me with one of my all time favorite music memories. Jeff is a blues/folk oriented singer/songwriter from Australia, and happens to be a monster guitar player, to boot. I was fortunate to catch Jeff on the Workshop stage, a smaller one than the main stage, in a group workshop with about 8 other performers. We were sitting on a blanket in the grass, and the weather was sunny and excellent.

The performers were taking turns playing songs based on a set theme for the workshop, I don’t recall the theme, but I’ll never forget the song. Jeff stood up to play “Ballad of Hollis Brown” (a Bob Dylan original) but discovered a problem with his guitar. He asked to borrow one from Mary Gauthier, who was sitting next to him. She gracefully obliged, and Jeff proceeded to play.

I wasn’t a big Bob Dylan fan at the time, so I didn’t know anything about the original. Jeff launched into the song, setting a fast pace for it, and tore into the lyrics. About a minute into the song I realized that I was hearing something special. Talk about passion for the music! Oh, lawd, he lit that thing up! He was really bringing the story to life, and his guitar playing was inspired. Possessed, almost. He did a bit of a solo, kinda fast and bluesy. My jaw was dropping, and when I looked around, mine wasn’t the only one. We were gobsmacked, flat out. When he finished playing, there was about two seconds of silence, and then everybody starting clapping and shouting and hollering. We were on our feet, standing ovation. The other musicians on the stage were just staring at him in awe, and clapping. Jeff turned to Mary to hand her the guitar, and she is looking at him like he’s a lunatic. She looks at the guitar, then looks up at him with a smile, and says “What in the hell did you do?”

What the hell did he do? Why, he amazed us by creating magic, that good day in the field.

*For the record, I cannot play the chords. I can grimace musically, in a variety of styles. Including klezmer and Tuvan throat singing.
**The last bonus before the Crash of ’08. I don’t regret the purchase one bit. I likes my tunes.
***Geek that I am, I actually have three signed CD’s from him, plus I introduced myself to him at a show he played at the Kennedy Center in D.C. Nice guy, and tolerant of doofuses like me.

PSA #1: Tomorrow, Saturday February 7th is another Pic and Prose collaboration with Michelle at Confessions of a Desperate Housewife. Please stop by both of our blogs and drop some comment luv, it’s a feast for the eyes and the mind!

PSA #2: The simply smashing Petra at The Wise (*Young*) Mommy has invited me to participate in a contest to win her affections, for the weekly “HeBlogs/SheBlogs” post that she runs on her blog. Ordinarily, Heinous at Irregularly Periodic Ruminations is the lucky fellow to keep Petra company, but Jim will be on hiatus while he takes care of some personal matters, and we wish him all the best and have him in our thoughts. Please visit with Petra for the rules and stuff. Myself and seven other strapping young lads are competing for the honor, and you lucky readers will get to vote on us! Contest entries will be posted beginning Monday, February 9th on The Wise (*Young*) Mommy, two per day for the week. My entry will posted Monday, so please visit and vote!

In Motorhead We Trust

Synchronicity. Chaos theory. Strange attractors. And possibly my new favorite theory that I don’t really understand, but may be running my life: Quantum entanglement, which allows for the possibility for objects separated in space to have physical effects on each other with no known mediator of the action (like gravity, as an example). These are all ideas and theories that take on the Herculean task of trying to make sense of the mysterious behaviors and events in the Universe that have such a far-reaching effect on how our lives unfold. From the simple level of “Why did that person say that to me?” up to the complexities of the turbulence at the tip of an airplane wing, the unseen and unknown can and do make our lives interesting. Sometimes, they can make us feel glad to be alive.

Recently I let slip, in a fit of fatigue or unresolved anger or perhaps unleashed honesty, some of my dissatisfactions with the influence that certain Unknowns have had on the course of my life. I look on it as being similar to punching a hole in a gas line that I knew was there, but not in the location I thought. A huge gas leak is an emergency situation with far-reaching implications and must be dealt with immediately to avoid further damage and heartache. Having punched the hole with my own errant backhoe, I immediately switched into ‘hazmat cleanup’ mode scrambling to figure out a way to stop the leak and get the mess cleaned up. In the midst of those efforts I was blessed to receive plenty of advice and suggestions on what to do, from people I have not met or seen in the physical world. Some of these offerings were sympathetic, some practical, some “tough love”, and all were useful in some capacity. I am grateful to have been able to receive it all.

Some of the correspondences I have had began to stand out in particular, as they relate to my efforts to get some peace of mind. And in some ways, they seemed almost accidental as to how I came across them in my search for information. I call it a search for information, but in some cases in was more of a search for non-information, more a search for relief and distraction. I tell you, my head hurt, I was stressing out so much. One of the items I came across in my fevered trips through the electron cloud that is the internet was a post by my new friend The Mister, entitled “Contradictions” (click it, read it, it’s good) in which he offers up three contradictions he encountered in a single day, that made him think deeply about the state of things. It made me think deeply about the state of things too, especially Contradiction #3, which I will quote from:

“How can it be that I love Jesus and Motörhead too?”

There is much more to it than that sentence alone, but it knocked my hand out from under my chin, leaving me to smack my face on the table. How indeed? Well, it got me to thinking (will I ever learn?) so I went back and reread the comments on the post that had generated all of this navel gazing, wherein I realized there was another gem from The Mister:

“I wish your path had run in a different direction. But if it had, would I have ever read your words?”

Another gobsmack in a week full of them. I should also point out that The Mister’s other half, The Missus, had left a comment that dovetailed nicely with what I just read. All of this had the effect of making me realize that I was indeed, a very fortunate man, and I had no idea. Here I was agonizing over God or the lack thereof, and the confusion and betrayal I had felt, realizing the sheer difficulty I had with trying to understand the what and the why.

Remember what I said about strange attractors and quantum entanglement? I didn’t realize it, but I was already experimenting with those concepts. I hemmed and hawed, turning those remarks over and over in my head. Finally, after a lot of hesitation, I sent Mister and Missus and e-mail with some thoughts about what had been said. I don’t often do that, but in this case it felt like it made sense.* The replies I received dispelled any misgivings I had about a cold contact like that, and I was very glad I had decided to reach out.

We covered a lot of ground in that exchange, far too much to discuss in this post. But one of the things that really grabbed me was related to the Motorhead quote above, and it was about music. The music that we listened to at various times in our lives and what it means given the context of our circumstances. It turns out Mister and I both have a penchant for driving home blasting the music LOUD and singing (shouting) the lyrics, just because we feel the need. I recalled something similar in my Braino post from November, and I had been wondering, just like Mister, how do I reconcile that with trying to be close to God, knowing that the two things seemed to be at odds with one another? Traditional takes on religion don’t look favorably on folks who like to sing ‘Face Pollution’ or ‘All Gone to Hell’. I never was comfortable with that gap myself, so I stayed on one side of it.

As it turns out, there does not have to be a gap. What I learned, as The Mister and The Missus so eloquently explained to me, is that you can have God in you and you can listen to the music you like, just because you like it**. Doing so is not incompatible with the idea of belief in God. This is a simplification of what we discussed; the music is really just a stand in for a set of larger issues that speak to personality, attitude and (most importantly) what is in your heart. Belief does not equate with repudiation of what you are or were. It matters greatly in how you look at it, what you choose to do with it.

I cannot say that I had some great ‘conversion’, that I was flooded with Grace and ended up dancing down the street singing praises at the top of my lungs. As The Mister said to me, it isn’t that simple, and these things happen bit by bit. I believe he is right. This is good advice. I may not be a convert now and maybe never, but it is getting me closer to understanding what I want to know about God. As my friend cIII at The Goat and Tater said:

“…every time you're really down, you know, really deep in the fucking Weeds, folk will sometimes give advice. and they give this Advice a definition. Defining a solution to a problem makes it an Availability.”

True dat. Availability to a solution. This is what I am looking for, and I am getting it. Of course, I don’t have the total solution, not yet, maybe never will. It is the search that is crucial. I don’t mind searching, I’ve been doing it all my life, and I’m good at it.

Strange attractors. Quantum entanglement. Unseen forces acting on me at a distance. That sounds suspiciously like…God? Maybe. More likely, it is those chance encounters, those songs heard in passing, those voices that you hear when you decide to quit building walls and start opening doors: These are the things that allow for the possibility of grace. One day, it may happen to me. In the meantime, I’ll crank up the radio, stick my head out the window and shout the songs to my heart’s content. I’ll be cruising the highway and flying my freak flag, emblazoned with a guitar and the words “IN MOTORHEAD WE TRUST”.


*I also sent e-mails to a number of other folks on the same topics. For the record they all have been forthright, honest, and extremely generous with their time. Another debt that I am scratching my head as to how to repay. Special blessings to Braja and ChurchPunkMom!
** I also had this insight from my discussions with the aforementioned CPM.