Robbledegook

Occupy Austin, Thursday, October 6, 2011

2011-10-06T16:46:00.000-05:00

UPDATE 10/11/11John Cassidy has a good take on the Occupy movement via The New Yorker blog. The gist: Anyone (uh, the mouthpieces for the rich/corporate USA) who disses the Occupy movement as some collection of collectivist nutjobs is not paying attention. It's not about overthrowing our corporate masters, we just want them to pay back to the society that greases the skids for their success.

"...Occupy Wall Street isn’t primarily an anti-Wall Street phenomenon. It is a generalized anti status-quo protest movement, for which Wall Street serves as the convenient focal point."

Austin, 10/6/11. This is a report of my (brief) attendance at this morning’s opening day of Occupy Austin, a local offshoot — one of many across the country — of the now weeks-old Occupy Wall Street event that started in Zuccotti Park, a coin toss away from Wall Street in lower Manhattan, NY.

Discovering that Occupy Wall Street was franchising across the country and that members of our fair municipality were setting up an occupation at City Hall, I was keen to check it out. The potential for (un-co-opted) grass roots effected change feels real to me (unlike that other so-called populist movement of the right), and I felt a whiff of exhilaration as I headed to City Hall — a feeling I haven’t really had since I marched against Anti-Apartheid in London in 1986. What would I find when a large crowd of leftists and the generally disgruntled, the police and the media converged on City Hall Plaza?

Well, this is Austin, hardly a hotbed of incendiary confrontation between citizens and security forces and, after I parked in the underground garage at City Hall and emerged onto the plaza, I saw a typical Austin gathering: plenty of relatively earnest, pleasant people, placards, police, photographers, bikes, water bottlers, coffee cups and backpacks, and everyone in good spirits. The gathering was civil and inclusive, like a meeting of City Council when there’s nothing controversial on the agenda.

The crowd, some seated on the plaza’s stone bleachers, others standing in an arc facing them, included young and old, from college students to former Vietnam-era protesters to middle-aged folk, some people brought their kids. Facing the whole shebang was the phalanx of media — TV, radio, social — armed with cameras, mics, iPhones; some old-fashioned types even used pen and paper. The few people there who were well dressed were clearly from the visual media, the TV fizzogs; the occupiers tended toward jeans and t-shirts and sweat. The police presence was notable yet reserved, the cops stood mostly on the periphery and showed no particular concern about proceedings (I heard several bursts of laughter during the hour or so that I was there and turned to see groups of cops amusing themselves in conversation while paying scant attention to us). Police Chief Art Acevedo worked the crowd with a smile and a pat on the back for anyone he came near. More than one person thanked him for being such a visible, friendly face. I’d say the demographic breakdown mirrored Austin as a whole; the crowd was largely white, with a smattering of every minority imaginable.

When I got there around 10:15 in the morning the whole thing had just kicked off. A petit woman in a blue dress, who seemed to be one of the organizers, concluded her introduction and then another in a red dress stood up and made her brief remarks. She invited anyone who wanted to speak to come up to the steps and air whatever they wished for two minutes, “would you please line up here.” A small line formed immediately and as speakers spoke, there were always four or five people standing in line, ready for their turn.

There was no microphone, no bullhorn and the local occupiers and their speakers haven’t worked out yet how to amplify speakers’ voices via the theatrical and inclusive technique that Occupy Wall Street calls the “people’s microphone.” But you could hear most of what most people had to say and it was, as you’d expect from such an eclectic group, a mixed bag of mini-speeches. On topic, I heard men and women lament corporate greed, the divide between the richest Americans and the rest of us and the need for this sort of grass-roots leftist movement to combat the entrenched and moneyed forces of the right. There were anti-Fed comments, a teacher’s plea to end standardized testing (so she and her colleagues might actually teach children how to solve problems) and a fellow from Lockhart, a town 30 miles away, painted a picture of struggling neighbors in a weak economy. There was a man in a boot cast who can’t get a job but wants to work and get off welfare, and there was a black man not in a boot cast who also can’t get a job but wants to work and get off welfare; I saw an Operation Desert Storm vet, a few tie-dyed commentators speaking out against corporate greed; I heard measured comments about the need for everyone to pay a fair share, including corporations/banks/the wealthy. One fellow who liked to shout from the crowd that it was all the Fed’s fault got up to speak and I wasn’t sure if he was going to rant, but he made a quick and articulate plea that this gathering keep up its efforts to ensure equality for everyone. A lawyer (“I’m not a wealthy one”) argued to cheers that it’s time the left stopped getting trampled by the right and its media and moneyed cronies. And a professor in full academic regalia announced he was leading an ongoing discussion about capitalism throughout history under an oak tree on the periphery of the plaza.

There were two occasions when someone got up and seemed to be saying something against this protest movement. I couldn’t hear either clearly, but from what I could make out, it seemed as if they feared for the direction the occupation might take and that we had to slow things down. The first fellow went on much longer than two minutes, and despite rubbing many in the crowd the wrong way, was not cut off; he got to finish what he wanted to say, though he changed no one’s opinion. A woman got up and appeared to be demanding some sort of restrictive rules be enforced about who could speak and when (and about what?). She was met with a burst of “Free Speech! Free Speech!” from the audience and gave up. I think she shared the man’s concerned that this group might get out of hand, but that hardly seems likely. This is Austin.

Like the Wall Street occupation, there are twice-daily general assemblies planned to map out the course of Austin’s occupation of City Hall plaza. This afternoon the organizers and the occupiers will hammer out some sort of operating standard for the occupation, slated to continue until…well, presumably until the group’s mission is met:

Our mission is to assert our rightful place in the political process, and take the reins of power away from profit-driven interests.”

Will we succeed? I have to admit that it’s a big ask that this country, in its current direction, could fulfill these demands:

1. This movement is about democracy. We demand that the government be truly responsive to those it represents. We demand an end to the massive corporate influence blocking the voice of the people by eliminating corporate personhood and limiting monetary contributions to political campaigns and lobbying.

2. This movement is about economic security. We demand effective reforms to prevent banks and financial institutions from causing future economic crises.

3. This movement is about corporate responsibility. We demand strict repercussions for corporations and institutions who cause serious financial damage to our country and its taxpayers.

4. This movement is about financial fairness. We demand tax reforms to ensure that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes.

But it’s worth a good, sustained effort, isn’t it?

Robbledegook Word of the Day: Class Warfare

2011-09-19T12:31:00.000-05:00

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya.

Except for the outrageousness of his hypocrisy,* what jars when Paul Ryan uses the word (okay, words) "class warfare" is the buff hunter-representative's lack of understanding of such a simple concept. He's got it backwards, hasn't he? Of course he has. I thought he'd been discredited for his slipped-on-the-banana-peel-of-accuracy budget proposal earlier this year but he's still lurking around, the GOP's dapper expert on all things economic. On the other hand, getting things backwards yet professing their forwardness is the right's primary oratorical weapon in its, uh, crass warfare on the English language.

Ryan suggested over the weekend that the part of the Obama plan to reduce the deficit whereby rich people pay their fair share of taxes was, sadly, class warfare, which would further divide our nation. It would spur "envy," among other mortal sins, though I can't see who'd be envying whom.

Is Ryan saying that if the poor realized how screwed they were because of the gross inequality in the distribution of wealth in America they might pay enough attention to envy their betters and, heaven forbid, do something about it? Is he suggesting that the middle classes, watching their bettors -- I mean portfolio managers -- mismanage their 401Ks and pension plans (remember those?), might clamor for more transparency by the banks and funds and corporate boards who seem to do quite all right, thank you, even as their customers suffer riding the rollercoaster of the market? Of course not. Ryan thinks that the rich will feel aggrieved that the rest of us don't just ~~lie down and take it~~ let them get on with creating more wealth because, as we all know, when the rich make money the extra trickles down on the rest of us. There is extra, isn't there? Or haven't the rich made enough yet? Please wake me when the gluttonous are sated at last.

Rep. Ryan has never been a genius when it comes to math. His equation that private vouchers equate to government backed health insurance was shown as faulty at best, insidiously cruel at least. And now he thinks that reeling in the rich just a little is going to make things more divisive. Backwards, Ryan! Let's look at the math. Hmmmmm, given how the top percent of earners takes more than 20 percent of our wealth (and growing), I'm not entirely sure how asking these poor rich people to pay, say, an equivalent proportion of their income as, say, their secretaries (god, sorry! "administrative assistants"), would further divide the haves from the have-lesses. Ryan thinks it would. Or perhaps he's thinking beyond mere earthly gain and is trying to save us from our sinfulness. Perhaps he has some quantifiable measure of divisiveness that this class warfare would beget. The more the well-to-do are asked to behave responsibly as citizens of our society the more, uncomfortable they get? The more irked? The more self-righteous? Of course this would make them feel bad -- more at a remove from their fellow citizens, hence: "divisive!" Q.E.D.

I thought all men were created equal and in God we trust. Clearly for Ryan the rich are more equal and in their trusts they [find] God. The rest of us can eat sausage.

Coming soon in this series: "Job Creators," "Elite" and "Socialism."

*Okay, not "outrageous"; it's expected, isn't it? The way the likes of Ryan turn words 180 degrees to suit their need is blase. Listen more closely to Ryan in the video clip above. It's as if the talking points are so embedded they require no emotion in their recitation. Soon they'll have numbers. Instead of calling it "class warfare on job creators" it'll be "doing a #2 on the #1s."

Birds Do It, Bees Do It, But the Ultra-Orthodox Jews Hate It

2011-09-16T15:00:00.000-05:00

"It," of course, is LGBT [whisper] sex. You know, frolic between consenting adults who happen to share a gender, perhaps -- I mean, who can tell? Oy, the kids these days! In New York's 9th Congressional district a whole slew of Orthodox Jews, registered Democrats outnumbering registered The-Other-Kind by 3-1, really, really don't like the idea of tolerating same-sex couples. It's not natural! Okay, maybe in the animal kingdom and maybe only in song, though the closest even a genius like (shhhh!) gay Cole Porter could have got to reality is "Penguins do it...," making for an interesting conundrum should he have wished to rhyme the word "penguin." (You can imagine the composer's dulled enthusiasm for the original line's reverse: "Bees do it, birds do it..." What next? "Even educated turds do it?" Perish the (scatological) thought. No, really, perish it, sinner!)

It should come then as little surprise that the intolerant Ortho voters of New York's Fighting 9th would vote against "David Weprin...an observant Orthodox Jew, a reliable Israel hawk, and a self-proclaimed 'Scoop' Jackson fan," according to Hendrick Hertzberg in his column noting Weprin's defeat to "Republican Bob Turner, a Roman Catholic former television executive who has never so much as set foot on Israeli soil, sand, or pavement."

I think the thing that gets me isn't so much the intolerance of a group for whom that word could be -- and was -- worn as a badge. That's bad. Nor am I particularly irked that Ed "I love New York, but not its lesbians, gays, bis or transsexuals" Koch turned coat for Turner. Nor do I mind that the Ortho voting block might have been offended enough of the Tweeting 9th's previous incumbent's peccadillo to pull the other lever, if you will, even if that other lever led to the election of a former television executive of "The Jerry Springer Show," that bastion of good taste.

What I find appallingly un-American is that rabbis in the district instructed their flocks how to vote, and the flocks dutifully voted their rabbis' demands: "It is therefore Assur [forbidden according to Torah law] to vote for, campaign for, publicly honor, fund, or otherwise support the campaign of Assemblyman David Weprin, now running to succeed Anthony Weiner in the 9th Congressional district." Um, okay, I guess to preserve the sanctity of my, uh, Jewish soul, had I one, I must vote Republican.

When Christian ministers consort to influence their flocks how to vote, nay, how to think, I'm appalled but not surprised. Christian zealots see the world as theirs and the believers congregate to do their masters' bidding because it hastens the glory of the afterlife or, at least, keeps the "other" at bay. When the Jews do it it's somehow worse than appalling. Considering the age and defiant survivor-ship of our faith in the face of centuries of intolerance, I consider Judaism as, ironically, a most modern of religions, eschewing the afterlife for a now-life of doing good deeds and leaving a legacy of a world made better. How on earth -- or in heaven's eyes -- are we making the world a better place with fatwas aimed at groups of individuals, and their supporters, whose behavior is none of our goddamn business? All that nonsense is in the Old Testament. This is the New World, isn't it? Or maybe we're just arriving at the surly gates of a new New Order.

Texas Tall Talk: Prick Erry Style

2011-09-14T09:10:00.000-05:00

Texas may be a jobs engine, but the sort of jobs being created in Texas, for which our governor is taking too much credit, are predominantly low-wage or minimum wage jobs. Median hourly wage here is $11.20. Work 40 hours a week for 52 weeks in a year and you gross $23k a year. Can I get a side order of health care with that, please?

"Robert Reich:

...If governors try hard enough, though, they can create lots of lousy jobs. They can drive out unions, attract low-wage immigrants, and turn a blind eye to businesses that fail to protect worker health and safety.

"Rick Perry seems to have done exactly this. While Texas leads the nation in job growth, a majority of Texas’s workforce is paid hourly wages rather than salaries. And the median hourly wage there was $11.20, compared to the national median of $12.50 an hour.

Texas has also been specializing in minimum-wage jobs. From 2007 to 2010, the number of minimum wage workers there rose from 221,000 to 550,000 – that’s an increase of nearly 150 percent. And 9.5 percent of Texas workers earn the minimum wage or below – compared to about 6 percent for the rest of the nation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state also has the lowest percentage of workers without health insurance. Texas schools rank 44th in the nation in per-pupil spending.

"The Perry model of creating more jobs through low wages seems to be catching on around America."

Oh, good. When he's president we Texans won't notice a thing.

Memories of the Fall of the World Trade Center

2011-09-09T12:52:00.000-05:00

I write this after years of contemplation and resistance. 10years, actually. The idea of commemorating the events of that particular day isanathema and I have resisted ever putting thoughts to paper about what I wasdoing and how I felt, as if writing about it might add even a little credence orcomfort to what I believe has been a chest-thumping jingoistic travesty — a willful,immoral obfuscation that became an excuse to perpetrate terrible injustices onconstellations of innocents at home and abroad.

But as the tenth anniversary of the fatal day approaches itseems as if some word is due, some thoughts should be archived. If only to puta lid on the thing once and for all. As I say later in this essay, we need tomove on. The perpetual backward look, the never-ending eulogy, the twisting ofhistory, the usury on our credulity — it has debilitated us as a society. It hastested our morality and, in the years since, we have failed that test moreoften than not. Our place as citizens on planet earth, among its civilizationsand all the natural wonder it has to offer, is tenuous. The wholesale change Ihave seen of our turning inward, living in fear, willing to do terrible things becauseof a faulty, often intentionally misleading analysis that has as its gist somecockamamie chest-puffed call to defend the nation — it may have been an inexorableshift over the past 30 or 40 years, but since September 11, 2001, it hasengulfed us like a flame born of an evil accelerant, an endlessly burgeoningnihilism that couches itself in a great lie that we are somehow better thaneveryone else because we suffered more than anyone else. I don’t buy it. Not onthe evidence.

Terrible things happened that day; terrible things arehappening right now. It’s time to open our eyes, hearts and minds and moveforward.

* * *

Where was I on the morning of September 11, 2001?

I was buying new soccer boots at the old Academy on theaccess road of I-35 around 40th Street. I got there early in the morning andthere was practically no one in the store. I found a pair of boots I wanted andsought a clerk to help me find the right size because, in those days, there wasa storage area “backstage,” where boxes of athletic shoes of all sorts werekept.

After what seemed an unreasonably long wait, a large blackwoman finally emerged from the curtained doorway. “A plane crashed into one of thetwin towers and it’s fallen down,” she told me as she collected my display boot’sinformation and ambled back into the depths of the shoe closet to find my size. I was confused.How could a plane knock down a skyscraper? I had images of the Empire StateBuilding when it was hit by a B-25 during World War II. It burned but it stillstood — today, looking up, you wouldn’t know it had ever been hit if you didn’tknow the history. Or maybe what she meant was that a plane had clipped thathuge TV antenna atop one of the World Trade Center buildings and that was the“tower” that had fallen to earth. I imagined what a scene that would havecaused. But my meager self-explanation was nothing like the devastation I wasto learn about shortly.

“Do you want to come back and see?” She apparently had a TVin the storeroom and was glued to the unfolding events, begrudgingly emerging everyso often to see if a customer might be out there needing her assistance. “No,thank you,” I said. Maybe I felt stupid for not comprehending why this matteredto her when clearly there had to be some explanation, and if she’d stop for amoment and not be so outrageous with her description she’d see that thingsweren’t so bad. Or maybe I didn’t want to learn about whatever it was that hadhappened via the medium of a TV in the back room of a sports store if indeedthings were that bad.

I bought my boots and set off for the car. I turned on KUTand discovered NPR’s morning news team was broadcasting instead of John Aielli,the denizen of the local morning airwaves. Something had happened.

I drove back to the other side of the highway and parkedacross the street from The Austin Chronicle offices, where I was a stringer forthe Arts section. I sat in my car and listened to the radio. The destruction.The carnage. The questions. The concerns. The awe. The knowledge and the lackof it. At a thousand-mile remove, I understood the enormity of what hadoccurred even as I knew that there was nothing I could do. I just listened.

When I got to my office job downtown, the mood was a mix of gravityand disbelief, with that adrenalin-induced bravado that some show in a crisis,where they feel the need to take control even of the least little situation.There were groups of people huddled around monitors watching CNN’s coverage. Ididn’t want to look. I knew enough from what I had heard to know we were goingto go hunt down whoever did this and kill them.

The agency muckety-mucks announced that anyone who wanted toleave early could. I’m always a straggler in that sort of situation: not sooverwhelmed that I need to flee, nor so disinterested that I can get to work.I’d leave soon. First I sat down at my desk and pulled out the spiral notebookin my bag. I use these notebooks to craft songs and assorted other bits ofprose and poetry; some of them I return to on rare occasion when I want to seewhat I was musing on at the time. I keep all those old spirals. But I’m damnedif I can find this particular one.

I remember I wrote two sentences. Just two. But theyencapsulated the entirety of my feelings.

The first was “Please let’s not go to war over this.” ThoughI knew that was a foolish and futile thought. The concept of taking an eye foran eye dehumanizes; mercy can be matched with ferocity that needn’t equate toretributive killing. There are other ways to resolve even existentialdifferences. But our land is a land of vengeance and such petty considerationshave no hold on our reality. I have increasingly felt this as I have grown up.So I knew we’d hunt down the perpetrators, or at least the closest we couldfind to them, and wipe them out with all the hardware we had at ournear-limitless disposal, while displaying none of the civility or understandingof history that such an act would chisel into what’s left of our time. It saddenedme to realize with such grim finality that we had so little self-control, sopuffed-up a sense of our patch in the tapestry of life, so inflated an idea ofthe trespass that, though heinous, could hardly have exceeded so many of ourown. American defiance has always seemed overwrought and inauthentic, given ourcapability —and willingness —to destroy all comers on a whim.

The second thing I wrote was “I am glad my grandparentsaren’t around to see this.” When they were alive my mother’s parents lived inEnglewood, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River via the inspiring GeorgeWashington Bridge. My family would vacation there when I was young, making anannual pilgrimage that would take in New York City’s amazing structures intheir glory and grunge (this was mostly in the 1970s and ’80s, after all). Mygrandparents were Liberals of the old school. He was a retired salesman who’dspent a career (post-Navy) driving up and down the east coast, she taughtEnglish to immigrants until she, too, retired. I couldn’t imagine howdistraught they’d be to see their city (for they were transplanted New Yorkers,moving to Englewood’s sylvan suburbs when their daughters were young) awash indeath, ash and mayhem. Worse, though, I knew they would feel the same way as Idid about the impending vengeance. Sparing them what was inevitably to followwas a blessing.

It wasn’t until a couple of nights later that I watched TVand saw the images that have since been replayed ad infinitum. I had beenavoiding it because I knew what I would see. It smacked of voyeurism; taking inall those images was ogling other people’s grief. And it only reinforced mydread at what was to come. Repetition made marshal, a beating drum, a march toan endless, unwinnable conflict. Michelle and I picked at our dinners, and itwasn’t until the next day that I realized that as I bathed in the cathode-rayglow of all that stress and all that fear and all that hate and all thatdisbelief, I had been mindlessly picking at the stubble underneath my lip andhad pulled out enough of my beard to render that part of my face smooth!

* * *

When I was young I remember, vaguely, the World Trade Centerbeing built. I was impressed as a kid because it was going to be the tallestbuilding in the world, for a while, anyway. I was a fan of Manhattan: theskyline, the myriad things to do and see. We even rode to the top of one of thetowers once to check out Windows on the World. It was the most boring thing Ithink we ever did in all the years we visited New York. The elevator ride took forever,it was hot, the views weren’t any better than the ones we got from RockefellerCenter, our go-to skyscraper for viewing all the really cool buildings inManhattan. I mean, come on — you could see ALL the cool buildings from Midtown.When you’re in one of them you don’t get the same sense of awe. What wasawe-inspiring was standing at the base of the tower, pressing your face alongone of those long vertical metal lines as you looked straight up. With cloudsin the sky, the building, stretching almost beyond a child’s imagination, seemedto sway a little. Maybe in the breeze the towers did sway. But for me the WorldTrade Center was never as compelling as other attractions. When they dynamitedthe roller coaster at Palisades Amusement Park as part of a fun-killingusurpation of land that left a pair of apartment buildings in that hallowedplace, now that was psychically devastating —how could they demolish theamusement park where we’d had so much fun?

* * *

It’s time to move on from “911.” It’s in the past. It limitsus. It has led to needless, self-imposed restrictions on our way of life. It haswarped our country and my fellow countrymen. It inures the weak-willed andfearful against any compassion for or understanding of the “other.” It offersan excuse to power to grab more power at the abrogation of the harder, dirtiertasks we must undertake to maintain America, let alone see it flourish.

Of course I am filled with sadness and sympathy for thoseneedlessly lost souls and their survivors; I cannot imagine that horror, orrather, I can ONLY imagine it, and for that I am ruefully grateful.

People leave their homes and their loved ones every day andnever return. The reasons are as varied as the stars. Not every loss heralds acataclysmic shift in our way of life; but every loss is a cataclysmic shift inSOMEONE’S life. If there is any legacy of “911” I hope it is that one day we comprehendevery life as sacred and find a way to connect with our fellow human beings withrespect, love and in peace, even as we realize that, ultimately, we’re justvisiting and we must try to leave things better than the way we found them. Wemust.

The (Fourth) Thursday Open Mic at Thrice Café: A Primer

2011-06-29T16:23:00.000-05:00

Updated 6/29/2011

Hello and welcome to Thrice Café’s (Fourth) Thursday Open Mic. Singer-songwriters, composers and musicians (and their friends, fans and loved ones) welcome. Come on out to play or listen; we'd love to see -- and hear -- you!

How the (Fourth) Thursday Open Mic (usually) works:

As you can tell by the title, the open mic occurs on the fourth Thursday of the month
Each performer gets 15 minutes or a maximum of three songs, whichever is shorter
15 minutes includes time to set up and break down
The sign-up list is first-come, first-served
Performers must sign up in person; no surrogates, please!
The sign-up list will be ready for performers to sign up starting at 6:30pm, or as soon as I get to the café!
The open mic starts at 7:00pm and ends at 9pm (sometimes a little later)

I hope we can provide a friendly, collegial place for you to strut your musical stuff. See you on Thursday night!

Robi

A Letter In Support Of Texas Schools

2011-02-28T11:53:00.000-06:00

Our elected officials are wrestling with the state budget and our children's education is in desperate need of voices to try to head off drastic cuts. Legislators don't seem to understand the depths of their proposed cuts, but you can write a letter to help educate them and, hopefully, influence them to find a way to avoid throttling the Texas education system.

This is not a partisan issue: It is something that affects every citizen of our state, especially our kids! Let's work together to find solutions to help fund our children's education.

If you have or know a child attending a Texas public school (in AISD or elsewhere) please read the following and then send letters to your state representative, state senator and members of the Senate and House Education Committees. At the end of this post is a letter ready to be cut and pasted into an e-mail that you can send to your legislators, as well as a shortcut to their various websites.

Austin-Specific Call to Action

AISD is facing a $113 million budget shortfall. Your child's education is at risk. AISD Superintendent Meria Carstarphen is recommending that the Austin School Board eliminate more than 700 teaching positions. How did we get to this point?

A Little History: Robin Hood

In 1993 a court-mandated school financing program was enacted to "recapture" property tax revenue from property-wealthy school districts and redistribute those funds to property-poor districts. Nicknamed the "Robin Hood Tax" by the media, this law robs AISD of 45% of every penny raised through tax revenue. That equates to more than $127 million dollars that our district loses EVERY year.

Our state legislators need to understand the dire need to fund our district's public schools properly. We cannot let politics and a law written over 17 years ago bankrupt our children's education today.

Our Government Leaders Must Fund Our Public Schools Adequately

For the 2009-2010 school year, Texas ranked 37th in the nation in spending per pupil, at $9,227 per student, $1,359 below the national average of $10,586.

10 years ago, Texas was also 37th in spending among states but only fell short of the national average by $281 per student.

Under "Robin Hood" Austin ISD is considered a "land rich" district, yet 60% of our students live below the poverty line!

We have to let our elected officials know that we support our schools and they should, too. How can Texas continue to attract new business if we do not have an educated work force? When legislators speak of enacting laws "for our children" their top priority should be our children's current education!

Cut, Paste and Send

At the end of this post is a letter that you can cut, paste and send to the list of legislators whose links are included at the bottom of this post.

Please take the time to make your voice heard.

Engage Your Family and Friends in This Campaign

We need to make the proper funding of our public schools a top-of-mind issue for all of our legislators. Please forward this post to friends and family members who know Texas students. Our government leaders need to understand how important this issue is to all of us.

How to Find Your State Reps

Click here then enter your ZIP Code and then you can click on your representatives' names to be taken directly to their websites.
Link: http://raiseyourhandtexas.org/index.php/act/elected-officials

The kids are counting on you.

Thank You

Letter/E-mail to Cut-and-Paste (or Create Your Own and Share It!)

Subject Line: Please Restore FULL Funding to State Education

Dear xxxx,

When it comes to frugality, taxpayers hear over and over again how legislators enact laws to protect our children's futures. We all applaud this responsible view of government and the money that funds its operation, but there is one area where surely we must weigh frugality with a real need. That area is our children's education.

I know that Texas legislators are struggling with a budget shortfall and we support every effort to make reasonable adjustments to the way we live our lives in times of austerity, but we must not sacrifice our children's future by cutting funding for their education.

And, instead of just asking you to "fund education," I feel it vitally important that as a citizen and taxpayer I am willing to offer suggestions and take part in discussions of what we can do to help, as well as make shared sacrifices that will lead to a better education for all Texas children.

Here are some suggestions for saving money:

Support House Bill 233, which exempts high-performing students from TAKS/STAAR testing in non-exit years
Consolidate school districts where possible (there are 17 districts in Bexar county, for example)
Support SB 504, which makes school districts eligible for discounted utility rates
Allow districts to institute teacher furloughs on non-instructional days (this would save $2.5 million/day in AISD)
Enact no new legislation that calls for increased spending at the expense of education

Here are some suggestions for raising money:

Accept the federal governnment's $830 million: The money is there; Texas should take it and channel it to our schools now
Tighten the margin tax and close tax loopholes wherever possible
Find items to tax where the revenues could be targeted to support Texas schools; for instance, bottled water
Tap into the Rainy Day Fund (some of it, not all of it!)

Finally, and maybe most important:

Would I be willing to pay more taxes if those revenues went to educating Texas schoolkids? You bet I would!

Citizens of Texas are concerned that we are letting our children down, which, in turn, will bring down the great state of Texas in years to come. I ask you to commit to fully funding our children's education now, and into the future, so our kids can reap the rewards of a great Texas education.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

How Dick Cheney Had Nothing to Do with Egypt's Revolution

2011-02-11T14:45:00.001-06:00

(With apologies to Dr. Seuss.)

...He stared down at Egypt
And Dick had a start
Then he shook!
What he saw was a shock to his heart!

Every citizen in Cairo, the tall and small
Was singing! At President Mubarak’s fall!
He hadn’t seen revolution coming!
IT CAME!
Somehow or other, it came just the same!

And Dick Cheney, and all of his pals on the right
Stood puzzling and puzzling at this wonderful sight

“It came without shock! Without awe! Without Yanks!
It came without Blackwater, Rumsfeld or Franks!"
And he puzzled for seconds, 'till his puzzler was bruised.
Then Dick Cheney thought of something he never once mused!
Maybe revolution doesn’t come from FOX News.
Maybe revolution…perhaps…comes from those once abused.

And what happened then…?
…in Egypt, they say
That Dick Cheney’s fake heart
Was unmoved to this day

For the man without heart will never feel right,
When the people, themselves, step up to the fight
And so old Dick Cheney slunk back out of sight
Happy freedom to all, and to all a good night!

Compare and Contrast Anna Calvi and Bauhaus

2011-02-10T17:45:00.000-06:00

Just watched/listened to this plum piece on the Guardian by Anna Calvi. Hadn't heard her sing before or play guitar, but she's fascinating. Great voice, and I like what she's up to on the guitar, especially mixing up bass and lead lines.

Then I saw this video for "Love Won't Be Leaving".

Anna Calvi - Love Won't Be Leaving (Live at The Luminaire)

Anna Calvi | Myspace Music Videos

Which, once she gets going on that guitar, made me think of this, naturally.

Whatcha think? Her MySpace page suggests she plays "Tango," which I can sorta hear, but her sound is way more complex. Though she has the passion, that's for sure. And the look.

My Brain At Work

2010-12-22T16:08:00.000-06:00

John, esq.:

Woke up this morning after a terrible night of cat yowling and insomnia. I wanted to get up early, go to the gym, maybe play some music as I prep for an impending recording session...instead I finally tore myself out of bed sometime after 10, feeling sore and absolutely loathing everything.

I shook it all off; showered got dressed and made some tea. Kids were in front of TV/riding bike/sick in bed. So I went to the study, and looked at the lyric I sent you yesterday for the Wal-Mart song and thought: "Well that rewrite...hmmm." Verse 3...it's the verb/verb combination across the third and fourth lines that still niggled. Is "skirt" the right word? Well, sort of. But, duh, the better RHYME with "build" is, of course, "gild," but my brain says: okay, yeah better rhyme; but can I defend the word choice, is it really the better word?

Well of course I can defend it; and, yes, it is the better word.

Before:
We skirt the laws and starve the state / We build the walls then bar the gates

Revised:
We gild the laws then starve the state / We build the walls then bar the gates

I like the parallelism of sounds -- much tighter now; and it adds some extra layers to the lyric, if you're into that sorta thing.

This is my brain at work.

The Wedding Strummer

2010-12-06T17:47:00.000-06:00

When the Priest Gives You "That Look," You Know It's Time to Stop Playing

Friends of mine got married Saturday. They're a delightful couple, as their self-produced website shows through innumerable cute, darling and downright cuddly photos.

They'd asked if The Late Joys would perform at their post-vows reception but we couldn't get it together, which, given the size of the reception shack (and lack of space therein) worked out for the best. But I agreed to play some songs as part of the wedding nuptials themselves so off I went to College Station with the task of plucking some Christmas-themed songs while Shawn and Katie evolved into ShawnandKatie.

On the set list, a quartet of tunes to accompany specific sections of the ceremony. And Wagner's "Bridal Chorus," more popularly known, for ye of few weddings/little opera, as "Here Comes The Bride."

Having never played any of the five titles before, let alone as instrumental solos in a Catholic church before a hundred or so reveler/worshippers and their priest -- and HCTB was in tablature (finger picking for you non-classical guitarists* out there), just to add to the degree of difficulty -- my levels of nervousness, angst and dread rose daily as the blessed day approached. It's one thing to perform as the frontman for the band. And I find it easy to strum and sing on my own in front of an audience who, mostly, wants to listen to said strumming and singing. It's quite another thing, however, to be the featured solo musician in a wedding ceremony in a strange town in a strange church brimming with total strangers.

So how did it go?

Well the drive to College Station from Austin, if you haven't made that particular trip, is both a rural Texas delight and a peek at the accerelating decay of rural Texas. Forget the bit from Austin to Bastrop; Highway 71 is about as urban-meets-industrial as you can get on a modern inter-city corridor, with the few remaining fields begging for buyers to turn them into airport-convenient hotels and parking lots even as the cows stand around and chew.

Bastrop, rhymes with "gas stop," is just that -- a main road through a town that must have houses in it somewhere -- boasting Central Texas' three major home improvement stores each within spitting distance of each other and nestled among all manner of cookie-cutter big, medium and little box outlets, national chain eateries and auto dealers. Oh, and the pecan stand with the Bunyunesque LED sign. (Answer: Lowe's, Home Depot, McCoy's -- you could pretty much walk from door to door to door, except this is Texas, where we drive from door to door.)

Ah, but then you turn onto Highway 21 and head along the cool, moody pine tree lined road for a tranquil, woodsy spell, until the land opens up once more and it's rough fields with derelict jetsam and flotsam, peppered with ramshackle double-wides, light (or make that decaying light) industry and the odd hamlet-near-gas-station for a good 70 miles until you get to the outskirts of Bryan, Texas, at which point light industry gets shouldered off the route by heavier industry. For a college town that, to go by maroon bumper stickers seen around Austin, professes absolute hatred of all things to do with burnt orange UT (and, gulp, Austin), College Station is a remarkably low-key place, and rather pleasant. At least from the moving automobile.

At the church, then, I set up in the choir along the right-hand wall as you survey the dais. Out of the way. Out of sight lines. Behind the organ. Just in case. I practiced the songs again. And again. Finally the guests began to arrive. A word with the priest before the ceremony yielded enough information that I thought I knew what I was supposed to play and when. The rub, it turned out, was for how long I was supposed to play.

The first tune on the dance card was "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," music to cover the entrances of the families, groomsmen and bridesmaids. Oh, and the ring bearer and flower girl. Father David, for that was the priest's name, suggested I start plucking that melody at about two minutes before the hour, to get the attendees primed for the grand arrival of the celebrated couple and kin. So at two minutes to two o'clock, I began to perform quietly, while stealing glances toward the back of the church for the parties to process down the aisle.

At about 10 minutes after two I saw Shawn making his way down the side aisle toward me. I have spent enough time in the theatre to know that when the star/co-producer of the event approaches 10 minutes after curtain, something is amiss. What was amiss was Shawn's miss: Katie was still in the clutches of her makeup artist and hair designer at the hotel; could I just keep playing for the 10 minutes or so until she and her party arrived? No problem. So, "Hark!" went into a melodic loop-de-loop, sometimes louder, sometimes softer for about 10 minutes until I noticed a woman stalking down the same side aisle in my direction. A member of the advance team, she reported no progress with the hotel-bound Katie's hair and would I just please keep playing anything to keep the seated masses entertained. No problem. I trolled the catalog of my own songs for those with relatively decent melody lines that I didn't have to think too much about and started to pluck and strum my way through song after song after song. After song. After song.

Almost an hour after I first began to play the ladies in waiting and Katie finally showed up, the priest flashed me the "go" sign, if priests flash anything these days, and I hearkened back to "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing." Round and round I looped as the various personages strode down the center aisle. Finally, everyone in their places, I stopped. Only to realize the diminutive flower girl and ring bearer were still mid-stride and I'd left them to march up to the dais in breathtaking silence.

Then Father David signaled to me once more and There Came The Bride. I haven't played tablature style since I was 12 years old. I had found a readable version of the tabs for Wagner's pop classic and had been practicing it for weeks, but it is such a foreign way of playing the guitar, seeing as I'm largely self-taught and have practically no technique to speak of. But the opening strains of the tune were clear as was the final flourish, never mind whatever took place between them, and -- finally -- I could put down the guitar and just sit for a spell.

The next number on the performance list was "We Three Kings," set to go, according to Katie, with the "exchange of gifts." Seeing as this was a Christmas-themed wedding, I thought to myself, "I wonder who's bearing gifts?" It wasn't until they started to exchange rings that it dawned on me that those were the gifts and I'd missed my cue to play what was probably the strongest song of the five I'd been entrusted with. Thankfully, from the church's bell tower rang out some sort of melodic performance for a Saturday afternoon, and that served as the underscore for the ring swap.

The next number was "Silent Night," to be performed, according to my directive, "during communion" and which was to last until "everyone goes through the communion line."

At this point I should point out a couple of things. First, I'm Jewish, so all I know about communion is that Catholics line up and the priest offers them a cracker and a sip of wine as part of the Mass and that these denote the body and blood of Jesus Christ and has to do with things everlasting, of which my ignorance is one. The second thing is that I've never actually been to a Mass, which meant that I was intrigued to witness it for the first time and that I had no earthly (or heavenly) idea just what was about to unfold, nor how it might affect my performance.

Father David signaled me to start the song as two children bearing chalice and dish of wafers approached the dais, gave the items to the priest and took their spots. I continued, as quietly as I could, to perform as underscore to the priest's prayers and preparations, until he shot me a look and shook his head in so understated yet punishing a manner I realized I was crossing into excommunicative territory even for a Jew. To any musicians who might get a similar church gig and arrive uneducated to the ritual of holy communion: When the priest gives you "that look," you know it's time to stop playing.

Once the ritual blessings received priestly airing, the good father turned to me and indicated I should start again, and I was damned sure to play and keep playing until the last pilgrim had tasted immortality and retaken his pew.

Phew.

The last piece, the least imposing, was "Joy To The World," which I struck up a moment after Shawn and Katie were pronounced man and wife and turned to their adoring families and friends for the march up the aisle and out of the church to much applause. When the major players had left the building I stopped, relaxed for the first time in weeks and then quickly packed up my gear so I could head out to the reception and serve as emcee and DJ for the afternoon's party. Compering was a piece of cake compared to what I'd just done.

Suffice it to say that nothing gets people onto the dance floor like "YMCA" and if I have to pick my favorite moment of the day, it had to be when one of the sets of grandparents (I don't know whose) got up to dance to "Great Balls of Fire."

Katie and Shawn are a delightful couple; I'm honored and grateful that they asked me to play guitar for their wedding and serve as emcee for the reception. Thank you!

*You may add me to that list of non-classical guitarists out there!

Austin Brit-Pop Combo Seeks Drummer

2010-10-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

Click this link to read how you can help The Late Joys find a new drummer and win something special in the process!

The Antidote to the Musician as Entrepreneur

2010-09-23T13:02:00.000-05:00

Or, at least, a reasonable argument that counters today's "gotta-do-it-all" musician self-promotion.

Room Renovations a la IKEA

2010-09-13T15:13:00.000-05:00

As a neighbor pointed out, once you choose to fix one room, automatically you are forced to fix four more. In our case the fixed room was the so-called "Children's Retreat" or den or erstwhile "TV room," now the "library." Many bookshelves, two desks, a mini-armchair and various lamps (and mucho$ dinero$, though not an unreasonable amount) later, the girls have their own work spaces, the computer desk is free to be just that and the room no longer hosts the TV, its gargantuan wardrobe or the mismatched shelves. The openness, the designedness of the room is a breath of fresh air.

While not boring you with the details, suffice it to say that, like a mystic square/Sam Loyd puzzle, our house undertook several "moves" as we slid various bits of furniture around to accommodate our new library. If you include the garage, beneficiary of at least one bookshelf and some unsympathetic "archival object" management,* we have condemned five rooms to varying degrees of freshness though in all honesty two of them are looking much improved. The other three are works in progress, but the end is surely nigh. What next? The dreaded garage sale, of course!

Oh, and the response? Small boy is fascinated with things new and things to be constructed/deconstructed. Younger daughter delights in having her own little workspace. Older daughter is a teenager now and grunts approval or disapproval depending on influences beyond our ken, though I think she likes the changes.

Perhaps photos forthcoming.

*I trashed a bunch of old crap.

The May Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine

2010-05-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

May Day! May Day! Indeed...

For some reason it felt a little like the Gong Show last night, and I was the gong. Well, as the event organizer I was sort of gonged, but as a performer things turned out all right.

If April was slow, last night was almost a dead stop: regulars Southernmost Smoke and Gary DeVries showed up, as did a couple of college guys (Michael and Daniel -- apparently they don't give out last names with final grades). And we had a youth activist poet, too. Ordinarily I'd try to maintain a songwriters only protocol, but we needed voices on stage, plus this was a young woman poet, and we need women's voices as the OM tends to be male dominated.

Smokey got things rolling or, rather, I did, with my song, Texas Angel, a bluesy number on which Smokey played along. I don't think I've ever seen Smokey so chipper. He explained his nickname to me for a start. He went to college in Key West, the "southernmost" city in the U.S., farther south than Brownsville (with whom there's some sort of "how low can you go" rivalry, latitudinally speaking). Friends gave him the moniker to use for his business: Stone and, uh, pipe carving. Now you know where the "Smoke" comes from, right? Smokey did a couple of classics: San Antonio Rose and the Tennessee Waltz, plus a couple other harp numbers in between, then he skedaddled to meet an infirm friend.

Our female poet/activist, Lindsay Coley, took the stage next for a pair of poems ("Youth" and "Old Enough To Kill" the latter about young soldiers who can't get served in bars 'cos they're not 21). After youth activist poetry more active youth: The young men of college and no last names took the stage for original and recently "learned" songs. The best was an original number about Facebook. Whatever that is. Ah, young people these days! In Smokey's day they carved pipes for a living; now them youngsters are all connected to Senator Stevens tubes (Die Stevenstube!).

Gary D. played a trio of tunes that are familiar to regulars; he sings so damned well! Sort of like Paul Simon if he'd worked some blue collar or manual labor gig for a living and played music with Simon Garfunkel on the side.

And, sadly, that was it for the guests. Three of our regulars phoned or e-mailed me earlier to say they couldn't make it; the others? Whither the others? So I got up and played. A lot. I strummed Elvis Costello's (The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes for our audience member from Phoenix, a professed Elvis fan. I hope I got the right Elvis (Red shoes...blue suede shoes...toe-MAY-toe...toe-MAH-toe...). After that I did a bunch of songs The Late Joys don't perform: new tunes (Sweet Pretenses, Little Swimsuit), acoustic versions of former LJ blasts (Bloody Little Numbers Game, Haymarket Rain) and some really old stuff that surfs well under the radar (Extra Ordinary, We're Going Steady Now). I did the slow, original version of Just Like Gravity, and when the recently transplanted Phoenician requested I play a song in the current LJ repertoire, out came Everybody's Going Away. Toss in Land of 1,000 Girls and you can see why on the one hand I was having a good time performing, while on the other I was wondering where the heck everyone else could be last night -- they missed so much stage time. Ah well, we'll catch them next time 'round.

Speaking of next time 'round I have some ideas on garnering a bigger crowd of musicians for June (assuming there is a June O.M.!). And that's beyond guilt-tripping all the no-shows into playing!

Wrong corporation for this advertising campaign

2010-05-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

But just as ill thought out

A Lapse in Maintenance

2010-05-20T15:46:00.000-05:00

"What rapidly became clear after the theft was that the museum's security system had failed catastrophically."

That's the line from the Guardian's coverage of a daring, and sad, art heist last night. What strikes me, even more than the loss of our cultural heritage -- though that is thoroughly depressing in and of itself -- is the sense that we're not taking care of the things that are most precious to us, instead allowing supposed security systems and fail-safes to lapse into insecurity and failure.

What is up with our systems of checks and balances? Is this the logical evolution of the Bush administration's eroding of said Cs and Bs? Not really: Even that low point of governance appears a mere symptom of a larger, more intransigent ailment of mankind: laziness. I'd venture to say it's greed, which, indeed, motivates the omission of proper oversight: an oversight of oversight! Except that so many of the recent disasters we've faced (the man-induced ones, not nature's) seem to be the result of people just not doing their jobs, jobs that demand discipline, attention to details, a system of checks to ensure that life goes on without catastrophic incident.

I mean: oil derricks go unchecked and explode (to say nothing of a recent history of needless spills and explosions). Planes go unchecked and crash. Trains derail on unchecked tracks. And now this. It's a "serious attack on humanity." Well, yes, but humanity seems to prefer shortcuts and inaction when it comes to ensuring our culture, environment, our very existence is protected. Humanity could care less: it's attacking itself! Or, more to the point: We're attacking ourselves!

Is it because our attention spans have waned and we don't want to -- or can't -- take the time to ensure everything is in proper working order? Is it that we feel we are above the quotidian tasks of checking and rechecking systems to ensure safe operations? Is it that we just don't care enough? It's someone else's problem? I'm disconnected from the results of my oversight? What is going on?

Catastrophic failure of our security systems, whether protecting invaluable artwork, delicate environments or precious lives, should be exceptional. Nowadays is anyone surprised by such lapses?

A Recipe for Matzoh Ball Soup

2010-05-18T11:45:00.000-05:00

It's forking brilliant!

[I shared this with a friend recuperating from surgery. But you don't have to go under the knife to benefit from the healing properties of matzoh ball soup!]

Open a bottle of red wine. Let stand for a little while or until your patience runs out. Pour a glass. Drink. God, I do love to suck down some red wine while I cook! Right: The soup.

Toss a few bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts in a large pot of water (you can also use a whole chicken if you like). Add salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika. (How much of each? Good God man, do I look like a measuring spoon to you? Put in enough of each and not too much of any.) Bring the lot to a boil. Keep your bird or bird-bits on the boil for, say 20 minutes. After that you could let the pot stand and cool or, if you're in a hurry, pull the boiled chicken out of the broth and place to the side/in the fridge. You're gonna get your hands on it sooner or later and the last thing you need is retributive chicken burns.

While the chicken cooks, dice/chop/emasculate some potatoes, onions, carrots, celery (maybe mushrooms, too, or leeks; whatever you fancy in a soup, this is your soup!).

ALSO, while you are letting the bird boil, you can prep the matzoh balls. Here's how. In a mixing bowl lay three eggs -- sorry! "add" three eggs -- a tablespoon (large dollop) of olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic to taste and a bit of boiling soup broth.* Mix (it's a mixing bowl, for fork's sake!). Add Matzoh meal a bit at a time. Mix. Keep doing this until you are happy with the batter (too dry? add more soup!). But whatever you do, do not stoop to using pre-fab matzoh ball mix in a box. I don't care what rabbinical supervisory blessed that sawdust. Use real, unadulterated matzoh meal, blessed or not. How much matzoh meal do you add? Good question. I add it until the batter is sorta firm and your fork has to work a little harder to get the stuff to move around the bowl. Not exactly bread batter thick but at least a little stiff. In a hurry? Skip to ** below. If not, cover and let stand in the refrigerator. My dad swears this makes the balls hard, and he likes his balls hard. HEY! Keep it clean, you: This is my DAD we're talking about. I've found that no matter what you do your balls take on a life of their own and attain the firmness that Yahweh always intended and you can do nothing to change them. So it is written. (Yield approximately 8-12 balls, depending on how greedy you are.)

*If you have lots of time, let the soup cool then scoop up some of the fat off the top and use it for the matzoh balls instead of the broth. Oh my forking god that is good!

Remove the chicken from the pot replete with recently boiled bird broth and shred the meat from the carcass. If that's too gruesome you could just shred the meat and ignore from whence you are shredding it. Or pull it off the bone and cut it up, la la la, no carcass here, la la la. I don't care: Just make sure you put the meat back into the broth having turned it into bite-sized morsels of some fashion. Add all those veggies to the re-chickened broth.

**Bring soup to a boil again. When it boils, drop little balls of matzoh dough into the roiling waters. HINT: To keep the batter from sticking to you and thus dropping as perfect little spheres into your soup, wet one of your hands. No, there is no Talmudic rule as to which one. How do you make little balls of matzoh dough? Use a spoon, scoop up a little batter (approximately the size of an adolescent golf ball), roll it in your wet hand and drop it into the boiling soup. Yes: Splattering, boiling broth is hot. Try not to scald yourself! If scalded, there's probably a rabbinical supervisory blessing you could utter or at least a good bit of Anglo-Saxonry to thwart your focusing too much on the pain.

If you have lots of time, extend all the steps above by another bottle of wine or by a factor of three or four episodes of "NCIS" or something more brutal (if you have HBO, that is). The longer the soup sits, the longer the balls cool, the more time everything has to "flavor-up," if I might be so bold.

Serve the soup to slavering guests hot, but not boiling hot (see that bit about scalds above -- you want everyone to eat with a tongue that can discern your soup from sewer water). You might serve with Tabasco, if you dare, and red wine (whatever you didn't drink while you cooked). L'chaim and bon apetit!

A final word on matzoh ball soup: As with everything of Jewish origin, this soup gets better and better over time, or so my wife tells me. Day two will taste better than day one, day three better than day two, and if your soup lives to be as old as Methuselah, you probably ought to throw it away.

On The FA Cup Final (Tomorrow)

2010-05-14T12:20:00.000-05:00

From the Guardian's daily teatime take on football, "The Fiver," this makes me laugh. Then sigh.

"Tomorrow we must decide whether we would like a team built on money from Great British charities, small business-owners and taxpayers to bask in glory, or whether we would prefer the trophy to be hoisted aloft by a side constructed using what amounts to another nation's natural inheritance, given away during a dark and weak hour in the country's past and since monetised, exported and converted into so many superyachts and full-backs"

The whole thing appears under the sub-head: "Every Ash Cloud ..."

A Quick Word About Our Supreme Court

2010-04-14T13:14:00.000-05:00

Now this is a terrific article on what to expect of your Supreme Court justices.

(from the NYTimes op-ed page, by Geoffrey R. Stone)

And You May Ask Yourself, Well, How Did I Get Here? (Part One: From Cradle to Cacti)

2010-04-01T12:14:00.000-06:00

8-Track Tapes, The Fab Four and Match of the Day

In the words of another famous, yet more treacly old song, "Where do I begin?" I begin -- or began -- in Poughkeepsie, in 1965, if you really must know. If you hung with the notorious gangs of the day, the Bibs and the Cribs, your mom was at Vassar or your dad worked for IBM. For little old me it was the latter. But, Poughkeepsie, I never knew ye (sniff...). Scarcely eight months had Gerbered by and the parental units opted to follow the dusty wagon train to the far West. Yup, they packed up the Chevy and moved to Arizona. Swimming pools. Cacti.

My mom was petrified; my father, a survivor of invasions by the Nazis and the communists in his native Budapest took it all -- and us with him -- in stride. So began my youthful southwest sojourn. I grew up in various suburbs in and around Phoenix, southern California and I even spent 365 days in El Paso. El Paso, I never knew ye.

And all this while there was music. Dad dug the classics: Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Brahms, Bach, all those Strauss-ers and anything opera or even barely operatic. He pushed his stereo up to 11 when listening to the Dies Irae from Verdi's Requiem or Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries." And then there was the host of Broadway and other sundry musicals among the parental vinyl: Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Man of La Mancha, Mary Poppins. It was living-room music: If you strayed into the living room chances were there was something spinning on the turntable, and it was loud.

* * *

I love music of various styles, periods, moods and meanings, though I trend towards a monotheistic zealotry when it comes to favorite acts. I can spend months listening to one band's work (hell, I can listen to a single album, a single song) to the neglect of all else. My first taste of rock-and-roll monotheism, beyond Sesame Street's greatest hits,* was The Beatles. No surprise: That religion still holds sway over me.

It began when friends of my folks bought my sister and me (I was six) the Beatles' Red and Blue albums. On 8-track cassette. Remember those? Never mind. I listened exclusively to those two double-albums for the next few years. Oh, and Carly Simon's greatest hits, also on 8-track. There may have been a Beach Boys album in there, too. And whatever resounded from the living room on any given weekend. Semi-mostly-exclusively, then. Anyway, if you want to know which musical root of mine is longest, strongest and nurtures me 'til this very day, 'tis The Beatles.

When I finally picked up a guitar, I played from the Fab Four's canon. Exclusively. From three holy song books of limited accuracy. For five, six, seven years. And even then all I did was strum the chords as written. Never bothered to figure out the intricacies of the actual guitar parts. At least not until college; but that part of the story's coming later. Did it matter then? Nope! Nirvana in familiar chord changes, singing along to increasingly frayed and folded musical charts in those songbooks.

This eclectic mix of Beatles, classical music and show tunes taught me that great songs have great hooks, compelling stories and intricate (or interesting) structures; and the best music moves you and sticks with you and acts as a shamanic guide to memories that, ordinarily, would have evaporated long ago, except for that soundtrack in your head. I can still walk into the living room and flip through my dad's record collection, hear those favorite tunes, cower at the volume. I can hear the click of the 8-track swapping tracks on Red and Blue albums (and interrupting Carly's crooning -- what dolt couldn't figure out how to get an entire single song on an entire single track?).

* * *

What cemented my complete longing to absorb everything Beatles had nothing to do with music at all. I turned on the TV one Saturday morning and, instead of a cartoon, there was a soccer (sorry, football) game on. It was PBS broadcasting Match of the Day (this was back when there was only a single match broadcast in its entirety, unlike the feast of footie available on the airwaves today). A team all in red was elegantly, powerfully running a blue and white team ragged on its way to winning the game. The reds' overwhelming ability -- a ballet of force and subtlety -- amazed young me. I was hooked. I learned the team were Liverpool FC -- Liverpool! -- where the Beatles were from! Such synthesis! Such convergence! Aye, I was hooked, reeled in, fileted, deep fried and served with a heaping side of chubby greasy chips on a newspaper wrapper with salt and vinegar condiments. Liverpool. Home of great football and great music. This I divined from the 'burbs in old Phoenix in the mid-1970s. Such a prodigy.

I suppose had I truly prodigidized (word, no?), I'd have sought out more Beatles and more Liverpool and found a way to get there, to be there. Well, in a way, that came next, almost.

Maybe I'll get around to writing the next leg of the journey (the next course of the feast?) sooner rather than later? Stay tuned.

*I can remember a particular fondness and affinity for a rocking little number at the end of the Sesame Street album, an actual pop song, produced and sung like one and featuring one of the humans, no muppets. I'd sing it under my breath in the front yard of our first Phoenix home as far from the house as I could get without being seen from the street, 'cos I was shy. "Some day, little children, on a day I'm thinking of...there's gonna be a world of people, yeah, and they'll live in peace of love...Yeah they'll live in peace and love some day, to last a hundred lifetimes through...And you know who's gonna make it happen? Little children I'm depending on you..." Hmmm, guess that song had more of an impact than I realized.

The March Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine

2010-03-29T12:07:00.000-06:00

I hosted what turned out to be a full slate of performers last Thursday night at the Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine. The lineup included a quartet of gentlemen (two Jims, a Greg and a Rane), who took a few slots over the course of proceedings and played in various lineups supporting one or other of 'em. Highlights included "Do Geese See God?" a song crafted entirely of palindromes, some deft blues harp, the delightful number, "Automatic Robot Answering Machine" and the wise assessment that although we grow up with the lesson that "Sticks and stones will break your bones but words can never hurt you," words can, and will, hurt and you can make hay outta that realization in song. Repeat performers from February's U.O.M. include Louise Richardson, whose middle-English Chaucer poem was backed by ace harpist, Smokey, who did some songs of his own, too, later returning to jam with Douglas Roberts for a blues number. Don Phelps arrived to play some blues with Arizona themes, and banjo neophyte William Scoular opened with some nice picking and even better wit. David Jones was back with more Flavola-flavored songs, aided by Brad Johnston on accordion (see photo); Brad swapped to guitar to play a new tune he's working on then picked up the accordion again to help me finish off the evening as backing keys on a moody "Ghost Town." I closed the night with a decent rendition of "Black and White," which invariably makes me hungry to relearn some Phil Ochs numbers. We'll see what comes of that!

David and Brad's band, Crystal Flavola and my outfit, The Late Joys, share the early double bill at The Carousel Lounge this Thursday night. Music starts at 7pm; y'all can be home in time for The Daily Show! Come on out this week or, better still, come out this week to hear us play then bring your musical instrument to April's Ultimate Open Mic, scheduled for the 29th, and play some of your own stuff. I'd love to see you there!

Robi at the E Street Cafe

2010-03-17T21:08:00.000-06:00

While on vacation in Encinitas at my folks' place I thought it'd be good to play a solo gig at a local SoCal venue and the E Street Cafe obliged with a Monday night spot on the spiffy little stage at the smart cyber cafe. Besides the regulars and stragglers and anglers, surfers and coffee sergeants, my parents' friends arrived in quantifiable numbers for what turned out to be a rather good gig. Thank you, Yancey, Brian and all the folks at the E Street Cafe!

To make some "ambient noise" for a couple hours I plugged into an amp for vocals and strummed my guitar. The guitar, my acoustic Gibson (the relatively new one), I purchased maybe a dozen years ago from just up the road in Encinitas. A homecoming of sorts. My parents took up the front table and peopled it with their pals, lots of Hungarians; auld home night. It was nice to be able to chat with those who wanted to hear the deep background to my tunes and just as nice to hear those "ambient" listeners in all nooks of the room applaud on occasion. Best received songs? Black and White, Everybody's Going Away, Honestly. Felt good the whole evening, honestly!

The two set lists in full:

Set One
Land of 1,000 Girls (Scruffy the Cat)
Haymarket Rain (the "local" version)
Cheap Luxuries
Sweet Pretenses
She's Got A New Spell (Billy Bragg)
Little Swimsuit
We're Going Steady Now
Ghost Town
Just Like Gravity
Everybody's Going Away

Set Two
A Tilt Of The Cap, A Handshake And A Beer
Windsor Road
Honestly
(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes (Elvis Costello)
Infinite Kiss
Black and White
Like Big Girls Do
Twisty System
(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love And Understanding (Nick Lowe)

Ankle Gah!

2010-03-08T13:59:00.000-06:00

Played soccer with my Sunday league team yesterday. This is a photo of my right ankle this morning.

You can actually see the stud marks from where the other guy (literally) put the boot in. To be fair, though it hurt when I got "tapped," it wasn't an extraordinarily bad challenge. We just got the ball at the same time and he got a bit of me as well. I played on a little longer and then subbed myself off for the rest of the game, to be safe, 'cos it hurt a little more than your average knock. I could walk on it (heck, I ran on it for the little while I was still on the field) and I drove the 40 minutes home well enough. No big deal, right?

When I was 19 I broke my other ankle while playing keepy-uppy with a soccer ball, all on my own, on my parents' rutted driveway. I turned it in a divot and heard the crack as my ankle buckled. I limped into the backyard to report the injury and my grandparents, of the shake-it-off school of utilitarianism, told me it was probably just a sprain and the best thing to do for a sprain was "walk on it," which, dutifully, I did. When I awoke the next morning and saw the swollen discolored joint I freaked, then spent six hours at the ER getting an x-ray and, finally, a cast. That was in June right after my first year in college. I had scored a summer gig as a clerk in the fulfillment department at Cheese Lovers, a mail-order service, where not only did we find ways to get people their favorite cheese-mocking processed products delivered to their doors, we sold catalogue-issue gemstones of dubious provenance. That was my desk: the gemstone fulfillment sub-department, shared with some other college-aged guy whose name long ago alighted on one the distant-most branches of what passes for my memory. The so-called gems were merely polished rocks with fancy names or so we believed (we might have given too much credit to the folks in charge), and we reveled in the vanity of the gulls who bought this junk. Better still were the hate letters we received (and kept on display) condemning us to eternities in Hell and worse for duping the poor dopes who bought our crap.

The fulfillment sub-department was an anonymous room on the second floor of a typically anonymous office building in a typically anonymous complex near Islip, a town in the middle of Long Island that has an airport to give it some sparkle. Our building had no elevator. So in my newly minted cast I had a daily climb up and down the concrete steps. Up to work; down for lunch; up to work; down to leave. Breaks were also taken outside, where the mostly middle-aged women congregated for their gossip and nicotine. I tended to stay upstairs, saving me a climb. I'm glad I wasn't a smoker. What a drag.

My grandparents would have been extremely proud of me yesterday. For not only did I run/walk/drive on my injured joint, at my daughter's birthday party I spent a good 90 minutes ice-skating on it. This morning's relative surprise (I could tell even in my morning blindness that one ankle appeared larger than its twin) led me to the after-hours clinic, x-rays and the initial diagnosis of a sprain. Some radiologist will review those x-rays later today and render a final verdict. I hope he or she is not paid by the degree of the diagnosis!

The (Debut) Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine

2010-03-01T13:16:00.000-06:00

Before it fades into the mists of my ever-diminishing memory, a brief recap of the first Ultimate Thursday Open Mic at Cafe Caffeine, which I hosted last week (2/25 if you're keeping track). Besides a small coterie of friends who helped me out by appearing and performing some terrific tunes were a few locals and one fellow, Redeye Carl (or "RC"), who happened to be in town that day having traveled from the Houston area. RC kicked off the evening with some finger picked, bluesy numbers. Following RC came the "Cougar Jones Band," a trio of guitar, (Rickenbacker) bass (1970s vintage, blue, yum) and hand-held drum, the name of which I've inconveniently forgotten, but Brad Johnston would know...(Brad?). "Not all our songs are in minor keys," offered Cougar, and the combo proceeded to play Jerry Jeff Walker's "Hill Country Rain."

Louise Richardson, local light -- or light opera? -- took the stage for a 15-song medley she sang a cappella in about six minutes (previewing her musical that debuts at Cafe Caffeine in April)! We got her back onstage for an encore later in the evening and I defy you to find anyone else in the history of music to end a rhyming couplet with "Raisinetted" (from a cinematic number she sang).

The next local to hit the stage was "Smokey," short for "Southernmost Smoke," who performed on harmonica. The man's encyclopedic: Not only in terms of knowing the history of the instrument but the way he played it, bending notes and creating a theramin effect by waving his hand wildly about the air near the harmonica. I was a little concerned when he left and then returned for "today's paper," as the rough-hewn harpist looks a little like the sort of fellow who'd use it for a blanket. Not, I'm told, the case. I'm looking forward to hearing him play next month.

David Jones and Brad Johnston performed songs new and slightly used. They're part of the local outfit, Crystal Flavola, which, they say, is gearing up to start gigging again in a neighborhood near you in the coming months.

A fellow named Gary Devries dropped by and borrowed a guitar for a couple of dulcet tunes, and then Scottie Hickman and I took our turns with tunes new and slighly used. We'll be joining the other Late Joys on Saturday night at Jovita's for the band's sorta-annual birthday gig.

Once we'd gone 'round once there was time for most of us still in the cafe to have another turn. I closed the proceedings with a sloppy "We're Going Steady Now," but it felt good to play; take that!

Things I learned: clearly I need an alias. The night effervesced with the likes of "RC," "Cougar," "Smokey"...all fine monikers of a rather rough-hewn Texan nature. I'll take suggestions if you've got 'em. Plus I think I should dress up a little. The evening couldn't really get any more informal, but it'd be nice to introduce the performers as a slightly more dapper MC. We'll see. Maybe I'll wear a hat.

I reckon next time (3/25 if you're still keeping track) we'll have some more performers; I hope to see you there, too: Sign up is at 7pm, and the open mic runs from 7:30-10pm. Cafe Caffeine has a fine selection of beers, coffee, food and a congenial atmosphere. Don't miss it!

Avatar

2010-02-16T16:25:00.000-06:00

Yes, we all want to live on Pandora, as Na'vi, in communion with all living things, full of confidence and humility as we interact with all that intersects our lives. Elongated, elegant, sinewy, sensual, dragon-taming blue creatures with poison-tipped arrows making quick, humane kills? Why not?

My more earth-bound response to the movie: My eyes felt cold as I watched in relatively glorious three-dimensions. I don't know that the extra dimension did anything to enhance my viewing experience, though the panaromas of Pandora and the flora and fauna looked...uh...out of this world. A magical place, certainly. Could the movie have succeeded in plain old two dimensions? Yeah. In fact, in terms of composition, I'd argue that the audience in our three-dimension-ready specs was spoon-fed where to look even more than in a stodgy old two-dimensional endeavor. (The audio, too, offered more heavy-handed spatial thuds: Off-screen sounds behind us didn't necessarily lead to consistent entrances and exits, be the noise-maker bug, magic seed or chunk of capitalist metal.)

Oh, but these are quibbles, as are any complaints about the derivative script, the lack of surprises plot-wise, the hackneyed characters, the violence. (Are we really like that? Don't answer!) The overarching beauty of the idea of a world out there that beats ours and our petty ways by a factor too great truly to comprehend makes Avatar worth watching, absorbing. Commune with that. Then figure out how to treat Earth, just a little, as if it shared the magic of Pandora. Because it still does.

Open Mics and Me

2010-02-10T16:06:00.000-06:00

When I first arrived in this hallowed land of musicians, clubs and all those trappings of the world's "live music capital" I sought out open mic nights to try my tunes out on the unsuspecting populace, the lucky beggars. Of course, open mics are mostly frequented by the musicians who perform and the joint's lucky/unlucky bar staff. Still, OMs offer aspiring musicians a stage, a generally convivial -- if slightly skittish -- audience, a supportive MC (usually) and something of a performance atmosphere; it's a happy medium between a full-bore spotlit gig and strumming your latest tune in your bedroom to your girlfriend/boyfriend/cat.

I focused on two venues in particular: The Cactus Cafe and the Austin Outhouse, both because they were between UT, where I was attending graduate school, and my house, where I was attending to all things un-academic. The Outhouse is long gone, having made way for the expansion of Flamingo Motor Cars (that brown, rounded building on the left was the Outhouse.) The old broken neon sign lived on for years, but I think that, too, is gone. Everyone and his guitar-strumming aunt knows the impending fate of the venerable Cactus.

The way open mics work, and certainly the way they worked in the early 1990s, cough, is that you showed up and signed up in the order you arrived for your 15 minutes or three songs, whichever was shorter. I can't recall anyone going over their allotted time, though one or two shaggy dog troubadours came close, "Alice's Restaurant" an evident influence on the weak willed. It's still like this for the most part: show up at such-and-such a time, claim your slot, sing. A time-honored scheme.

But sometimes the muckety-mucks who run the OMs tamper with the formula.

To whit: A few years after my first forays I returned to the Cactus and discovered that musicians had to put their names into a hat as part of a random drawing for the limited number of slots (that the MC was taking 30 - 40 minutes right in the middle of the night didn't help). The drawing occurred as the night wore on, too, not at the start of the evening. You could arrive at 6:30 for the 7:00 sign-up only to discover as midnight drew closer that you weren't going to get on stage. No thanks! I switched my allegiance to the (then) newly opened Ruta Maya International Headquarters, which still does an OM, though I see it's a lottery now, too, sigh. I wonder if the MC draws names before the OM starts? At least then you'd know if you were playing without having to wait and wait and wait...

Is there some lack of trust of the musicians? I always saw us as a polite, orderly little fraternity, taking note of who was there when we walked in the door and who came after us. I remember no fussing at all about whose turn it was to sign up for a slot. People who arrived too late took it in stride that they weren't going to get on that night. Yeah, yeah, musicians can be jerks, but not open mic-ers, whose biggest fault is usually going for those vocals just a tad too hard or apologizing unnecessarily if a song doesn't go the way they want.

I guess I can put all this to the test when I start to host an open mic night at Cafe Caffeine, the Ultimate Thursday Open Mic.* I plan to run it the old-fashioned way, with sign-up on a first-come first-served basis. So you can choose your time then call everyone you know to come see you play. Yeah, I'll do a slot, maybe the first one, or maybe the last. I'm looking forward to hearing what I anticipate will be a variety of genres and skill levels as I make the acquaintance of a slew of Austin's talented strummers, pluckers and warblers. Plus I intend to drag some of my friends in for those prime mini-sets to hear their new material. I'll post the few rules soon.

First open mic is Thursday, February 25. Sign up at 7:00pm. See you there!

*Because it's the last Thursday of the month, naturally!

I Don't Want To See You Around

2010-02-05T11:00:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that there were two songs that emerged from my primordial creative ooze in late December/early January. Sweet Pretenses was one song. This post is about the other.

I was listening to KUT on the way to work, in the truck, as usual, and a Jon Dee Graham song was playing, don't ask me which one. He was reusing/repeating a set of chords and I was sort of humming along and blurted out what turned out to be a promising opening line to a song. So I turned off the radio and embarked on some improvisations as I drove.

At commute's end, what had I got? The first line to a song and a repeated payoff, the punch line to each couplet:

It's brutally cold and the cops are out
You better buckle up and you better slow it down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

I should add here that it was brutally cold that morning and the cops were indeed out in force, ticketing drivers on Mopac and Loop 360. I sang that line as a reminder to myself to keep it in check as I drove the all-too-familiar route to work. The payoff? Well, I guess I just felt it was time to express a need to be alone. Though I'm still not sure that's what the protagonist really wants.

Now what? Well, two things started to work themselves out between me and my muse (not my "nurse," Andrew S.!): One was that the song felt like it was a slow-burn kinda thing, starting spare and getting more and more robust, leading to a real rocker of a break. I figure with the band we can build from a finger picked, quiet growl to a bit of a roar before we settle back down. Part of making that happen was to sing the payoff after every couplet, sort of reinforcing the admittedly misanthropic impact of each misanthropic verse.

The second thing is this sense of rottenness I'm feeling about how we're living our lives these days. Or not living them. What is it? Unfulfillment? A lack of cohesion between us as friends, lovers, neighbors, people? I don't know. I just know that "I don't want to see you around" feels right in this setting.

Which brings me to the rest of the song. And my struggle with its bastard love-childness.

Now, if you've followed my song writing at all you know that I really want the lyrics to stand alone, sans music, because they're really strong and can withstand that sort of exposure. That's the goal, anyway. And it works more often than not, I think. I'm not at all sure this song's lyrics stand up to such scrutiny, though. They're a bit Samson-esque -- post-haircut.*

Why? I figured out the music pretty quickly, but the words weren't coming. I know the song is about someone whose partner leaves, probably with cause. Or maybe not. Feeling vague about it, I opted for a highly artificial process to kick-start the lyric writing. First there's the rhyme scheme, which I kept identical almost throughout the tune. The challenge was to stick religiously to "old"/"out"/"up"/"down." Of course, I took a liberty or two.

It struck me the protagonist was a gambler, or should be, hence the forced conceit. Nothing like a song about someone who's a loser on two fronts. Or is it three?

Musically, and you'll just have to wait until the band comes 'round to performing the song, I went full throttle with a "plan," where I tweaked the chord structure by one chord in each round: two couplets and their punch lines.

The overall, nagging feeling is that the song may be too artificial, too contrived, and yet it sings well and it feels pretty good when I sing it. Which goes a long way, for better or worse, to making it seem as if it's actually okay, that it's stronger than it first appears on the page. Maybe it can hold up the temple after all. I'll let you be the judge.

It's brutally cold and the cops are out
You better buckle up and you better slow it down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

The die has been thrown, you want to cash out
But you gotta ante up before you lay your cards down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

You say it's getting old so now you're getting out
First you bundle up and then you dress me down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

One thing before you go did you ever have a doubt
That I would screw it up, you placed your bet I'd let you down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

I heard the door close as you saw yourself out
I know I rode my luck I rode it straight into the ground
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

We were good as gold, I heard you say it out loud
But you gotta keep up your appearance in this crowd
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

It isn't what you know it's how you're found out
I could make it up somehow but, baby, I'm too proud
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

You left me all alone with my shadows and my doubts
I should pay that debt but I'm beyond that now
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

I'm sitting in the cold trying to work it all out
I fill another cup but my sorrows won't drown
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

The rocking break finally arrives here

It's brutally cold and the cops are out
You better buckle up and you better slow it down
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around
I don't want to see you, I don't want to see you around

*I guess that means don't be surprised if the lyrics undergo some sort of alteration (a perm?) in the coming months!

Sweet Pretenses

2010-02-03T16:33:00.000-06:00

No decent recording of this yet, though at a ruinous 6/8 it reminds me of "Satellite," by Elvis Costello (the one he sings with the help of Chrissie Hynde on "Spike"). I started off calling it "Nothing Much In It," but that was before I stumbled on the last, apt phrase. Because I'm so wordy, I'm toying with plopping "Nothing Much In It" as a sub-head, not that it matters, but then these days ALL modern works of fiction (or non-fiction; or semi-fiction; or duplicitous truth) call for an explanatory sub-head...we'll see.
Dunno if it's going to be a Late Joys song yet, as it's rather delicate. But if I swing that gig in Southern California in March you can bet I'll give this a troubadour's best effort! Here are the lyrics:

There’s nothing much in it between love and disaster

Was it only beginning? Was it all in the past?

In less than a minute, in one or two sentences

You’re at your limit; you’ve dropped your defenses

Did you get what you wanted? A little more clarity

Were you better not knowing? Had you taught yourself not to see?

How could you have missed it, all of the evidence?

Oh what a gift if you’d never come to your senses

You jog on the treadmill, push the cart up another aisle

It’s a matter of inches but it feels like a million miles

You’re second guessing your second guesses

It felt much better when they were all sweet pretenses

There’s nothing much in it between truth and denial

It’s a matter of inches but it feels like a million miles

You’re second guessing your second guesses

It feels much better when they’re all sweet pretenses

Update: Got the gig in SoCal. E Street Cafe. 3/15/2010. More anon.

New Tunes

2010-01-18T16:35:00.000-06:00

Maybe it's the new year. Maybe it's because I'm starting to write lists, as everyone in the know suggests for success. Maybe it's because Scottie brought a new song in and I'm just that competitive. Maybe I just lucked up.

Whatever the reasons, and I'm sure there are a more than one, two new songs have emerged in the past few days from the primordial ooze of my creative juices. Two more are sliming ahead in their own evolutions. By month's end I might just have four new songs, which is three more for the month than I targeted on my new year's list. And a daunting target for next month!

I have to admit I'm in a rather dark place lately. Lots of friends are going through tough times. We're all getting older. The things that hit me hard, the things that want to become song material, come from what might seem like staid suburbia, but there's so much pain out there burdening so many good friends it insinuates itself into my consciousness and, when I put pick to guitar, what emerges reflects (shadows?) all those shifting landscapes. What we thought we knew, the lives we thought we were leading, nothing is turning out the way we expected.

I'll post soon on both new tunes.

Robi's Page of Gobbledegook: Robbledegook!

2010-01-05T12:44:00.000-06:00

Let's just for a moment assume I have something to say. Let's say it may or may not have something to do with my band, The Late Joys, for which I toil in the realm of social media to the neglect of any non-musical creative output. Let's say this might be a good place to scribe all that other stuff. Maybe let's give it a try.

I'm verbose. Perhaps that's not explicitly the correct usage for writing reams and reams of self-imagined fluff, folly, facts and fantasies (to the great disappointment of Mr. Orwell). Yet type-type-typitty-type-type I go. The digital counterpart to "'blah, blah,' I go." Which I do, too. And if much of what ultimately airs and inks is gobbledegook, and if it hails from Robi, is it not "Robbledegook?"

Expect, then, that this forum is a place for me to jam on words, thoughts, ideas, dreams and all the unsung prose and poesy that's getting crowded out by the musical me.

So just for a moment, let's pause and take a deep breath...and then, as the Feelies once sang, "Let's go!"