Oh, how I wish life were simpler than it is.
I say this about an hour after getting my car jimmied having locked the keys in the ignition. Fortunately I have a friend who works in the establishment I was stuck in front of, so I had a dry place to wait for the tow truck. Life wouldn't be so complicated if we didn't have to lock our doors.
Often I have complaints about people that result in others telling me to cut them from my life. And admittedly, life would be simpler to just cut people out of my life, but life isn't really that simple. It's complicated. And I'm a complicated enough person that just dismissing someone from my life isn't really an option. Perhaps that's a flaw on my part.
I have, admittedly, been down as of late. And some people equate this trait solely to my financial situation, which is an oversimplification. Trust me, I WISH it were that simple. But as things often are, it's not that simple. My frustration stems from more than just the money I don't have in my account. But life wouldn't be so complicated if it were ever just one thing bothering me. Hell, life wouldn't be so complicated if we didn't have to use money for things, either, but that's beside the point.
I hate feeding Mammon under the table while trying repeatedly to convince God that He's number one.
Just finished a chapter in The Once and Future King that details Arthur's childhood, and that in those days, astonishingly, the weather behaved itself. It was exactly as it was supposed to be. Life wouldn't be so complicated if you could predict the weather, and it only rained when you were asleep. Perhaps that's why my mind is stuck on these sort of things.
I hate complication, and yet at the same time, I embrace it as life's necessity. Life is itself complicated. It's not simple. You don't have to look any further than our biology to see that. We are complicated beings, biologically, so it would make sense that whatever life could stem from such beings would be just as complicated.
I don't like both loving and hating a person. I don't like the feeling of not really wanting to talk to someone while at the same time being terrified to lose them altogether. There's a reason they call it being "torn."
I like sad songs. Well, I like well-written sad songs. They actually make me happy. Perhaps it's the idea that I'm not alone in my dissatisfaction, perhaps it's that there's an underlying strength beneath them that empowers me in life. But I like that sort of thing. Sad songs.
And that's complication in and of itself, strength in weakness, power in helplessness. A song that I repeatedly refer to as my "power anthem" is about weakness. The singer makes a declaration of his intent to stand up and be strong, and yet shortly thereafter admits need, the need for help, the acceptance of the fact that he CANNOT do it on his own. I like that.
I've often felt like I've been run dry, and perhaps I have. But I'll survive. I'll get through it. This is not a wall, it is merely a speed-bump, even though it may seem that way, given our ability to complicate things. I'm great at making mountains out of molehills and blowing up a minor setback into a huge attack.
And I hate that complication. Life would be so much simpler without complication.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Musing on Music...
It occurs to me that Kurt Cobain would have turned 44 last month. His fatherless daughter is 18, by the way...
I remember someone once told me that it makes sense that 27 would be the age when famous musicians die, since that's the age when your illusions of an idyllic world are finally broken and realize that it sucks to be here (how positive!). In a weird sort of way, though, I suppose it does make sense...
Haven't written any new songs in a while. Part of me wonders if it's just my muse taking a break, or if I just haven't been inspired, or if I've just been too busy running around everywhere trying to please everyone that I don't have time to write anything down. Maybe all of the above?
I'm at Starbucks and one of the baristas is singing a slightly off-key rendition of "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 and it's bringing a few things back:
1.) Junior High sucked.
2.) I'd be more in pain if I didn't find her singing so funny.
3.) Michael Jackson, regardless of what has been said of him, was a very talented individual.
The three most beautiful instruments, at least in my mind, are Uilleann bagpipes, Hammond organ, and the cello. Just an opinion.
Show in a few days. Town Pump in Yuba City starting at like 8 or so. Please be there...
I find it interesting that culture often springs up around music. Jazz music has its own culture, as does Rock and Roll, as does Country, as does Christian music. I shouldn't be surprised, music has always been a significant part of world-culture.
We're living in an age of Second-Generation Rock and Roll. The Beatles all have children who are musically inclined, as does Bob Dylan, as do Eddie Van Halen and John Bonham. To a lesser extent, Billy Ray Cyrus. Much, MUCH lesser.
I'm fascinated by the egotism that comes with Rock-Stardom. But it makes sense that if you've got smoke being blown up your rear-end all the time, it would make sense that you'd get a big head about it. And then there's David Koresh...
I'm liking being a bar band, to an extent. We don't play nearly enough cover tunes to make a living as one yet, but as long as we can keep people entertained while we do what we do, I'd be happy about that.
You don't really think about it, but musical theater is an ancient art. Shakespeare used to write songs into his plays. Greek tragedy always involved a chorus who embodied the thoughts of the observer and sang refrains about it.
I think it's funny how when I listen to songs on the radio or wherever, I can sit there and either realize or remember that I know how to play the song, but when I pick up my guitar, it's like my mind goes blank, and I conveniently forget all the songs I know. This happens even when I don't have an audience. Crazy.
All for now. Peace Love and Valvoline.
I remember someone once told me that it makes sense that 27 would be the age when famous musicians die, since that's the age when your illusions of an idyllic world are finally broken and realize that it sucks to be here (how positive!). In a weird sort of way, though, I suppose it does make sense...
Haven't written any new songs in a while. Part of me wonders if it's just my muse taking a break, or if I just haven't been inspired, or if I've just been too busy running around everywhere trying to please everyone that I don't have time to write anything down. Maybe all of the above?
I'm at Starbucks and one of the baristas is singing a slightly off-key rendition of "I'll Be There" by the Jackson 5 and it's bringing a few things back:
1.) Junior High sucked.
2.) I'd be more in pain if I didn't find her singing so funny.
3.) Michael Jackson, regardless of what has been said of him, was a very talented individual.
The three most beautiful instruments, at least in my mind, are Uilleann bagpipes, Hammond organ, and the cello. Just an opinion.
Show in a few days. Town Pump in Yuba City starting at like 8 or so. Please be there...
I find it interesting that culture often springs up around music. Jazz music has its own culture, as does Rock and Roll, as does Country, as does Christian music. I shouldn't be surprised, music has always been a significant part of world-culture.
We're living in an age of Second-Generation Rock and Roll. The Beatles all have children who are musically inclined, as does Bob Dylan, as do Eddie Van Halen and John Bonham. To a lesser extent, Billy Ray Cyrus. Much, MUCH lesser.
I'm fascinated by the egotism that comes with Rock-Stardom. But it makes sense that if you've got smoke being blown up your rear-end all the time, it would make sense that you'd get a big head about it. And then there's David Koresh...
I'm liking being a bar band, to an extent. We don't play nearly enough cover tunes to make a living as one yet, but as long as we can keep people entertained while we do what we do, I'd be happy about that.
You don't really think about it, but musical theater is an ancient art. Shakespeare used to write songs into his plays. Greek tragedy always involved a chorus who embodied the thoughts of the observer and sang refrains about it.
I think it's funny how when I listen to songs on the radio or wherever, I can sit there and either realize or remember that I know how to play the song, but when I pick up my guitar, it's like my mind goes blank, and I conveniently forget all the songs I know. This happens even when I don't have an audience. Crazy.
All for now. Peace Love and Valvoline.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Rain Down on Me...
I love the rain.
I love the rain because it washes the world clean.
I love the smell of sidewalks after the rain; that gravely, wet asphalt scent that lets you know the world has been washed away, that tomorrow everything will be fresh.
It's the patter on the sidewalk that does it for me, particularly in a light rain. It is never a bother to have the rain fall lightly on my capped head as I pace through parks and down city streets, walking past people's lawns and smelling the ground beneath turned to mud, that fertile scent.
The gray sky is always lovely as well, dove-tailing perfectly with the crisp air around, the bite of a wet winter day against your skin, soft and yet persistent.
Maybe it's because it reminds me of home--and not the "homes" that I've grown up in, but home in the ancestral sense, the Emerald Isle... it's called that because it rains so much there that it's always green... maybe some ancient memory is conjured every time it rains, some distant part of me remembers the Old Country and longs for it, and is happy to have some piece of it that I can walk around in, connect to, and call my own, even for just a moment....
Even so, it always makes me think of the world being washed clean, that simple and yet profound thing... the necessary and yet so fragile and precious ingredient for life falling from the sky, sometimes like light kisses on the ground, sometimes in a pounding torrent that reminds us just how important it is, almost that IT is in control rather than ourselves. And yet, even in it's rage, it still washes this world clean.
Thunderstorms are magnificent, especially when coupled with rain. Whenever the thunder arrives I leave my window open at night and listen to it... the splatter of rain on the back porch... the brief flashes of light illuminating even the dark beneath the clouds... the crack and explosion when the burst finally arrives in my yard... and the repeat of the process happening all over again, rain punctuated by ionic exclamation points....
It is simply refreshing. No matter what the world has done to you, whether it's beaten you down or broken your heart or taken all your money away, walking in the rain just washes it away--it washes it clean, and you are new for standing out in it. You can splash in the puddles or avoid them, watch the white blossoms on the newly budding trees wash off their temporary homes like warm snowflakes and scatter on the ground, speckling the ground like rose petals on a bed, nature's expression of its love affair with us.
It is love from On High. It is confirmation From Above that we're still being thought of, still being considered down here in the mud that comes from the rain, still being shown that all the filth in this world can be and will be washed away, and that afterward we will all be clean again.
It is simple and profound. It is two elements fused together, a very simple compound of nature, and it arrives in many different ways, but quite often it is as rain.
And I love the rain.
I love the rain because it washes the world clean.
I love the smell of sidewalks after the rain; that gravely, wet asphalt scent that lets you know the world has been washed away, that tomorrow everything will be fresh.
It's the patter on the sidewalk that does it for me, particularly in a light rain. It is never a bother to have the rain fall lightly on my capped head as I pace through parks and down city streets, walking past people's lawns and smelling the ground beneath turned to mud, that fertile scent.
The gray sky is always lovely as well, dove-tailing perfectly with the crisp air around, the bite of a wet winter day against your skin, soft and yet persistent.
Maybe it's because it reminds me of home--and not the "homes" that I've grown up in, but home in the ancestral sense, the Emerald Isle... it's called that because it rains so much there that it's always green... maybe some ancient memory is conjured every time it rains, some distant part of me remembers the Old Country and longs for it, and is happy to have some piece of it that I can walk around in, connect to, and call my own, even for just a moment....
Even so, it always makes me think of the world being washed clean, that simple and yet profound thing... the necessary and yet so fragile and precious ingredient for life falling from the sky, sometimes like light kisses on the ground, sometimes in a pounding torrent that reminds us just how important it is, almost that IT is in control rather than ourselves. And yet, even in it's rage, it still washes this world clean.
Thunderstorms are magnificent, especially when coupled with rain. Whenever the thunder arrives I leave my window open at night and listen to it... the splatter of rain on the back porch... the brief flashes of light illuminating even the dark beneath the clouds... the crack and explosion when the burst finally arrives in my yard... and the repeat of the process happening all over again, rain punctuated by ionic exclamation points....
It is simply refreshing. No matter what the world has done to you, whether it's beaten you down or broken your heart or taken all your money away, walking in the rain just washes it away--it washes it clean, and you are new for standing out in it. You can splash in the puddles or avoid them, watch the white blossoms on the newly budding trees wash off their temporary homes like warm snowflakes and scatter on the ground, speckling the ground like rose petals on a bed, nature's expression of its love affair with us.
It is love from On High. It is confirmation From Above that we're still being thought of, still being considered down here in the mud that comes from the rain, still being shown that all the filth in this world can be and will be washed away, and that afterward we will all be clean again.
It is simple and profound. It is two elements fused together, a very simple compound of nature, and it arrives in many different ways, but quite often it is as rain.
And I love the rain.
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