The Harmonica

I found my harmonicas. Last night I drove the hills of Los Angeles with the moon peeking through the clouds, blowing a blues harp in C. It has to be one of the loneliest sounds god has ever created, but there’s something soothing about it as well. It requires the breath and when I’m thinking about the breath I know I’m living. There’s a simplicity to the instrument, anyone can play one. All you need to be is living to play. Just blow right into it and move it around your lips. I was playing at red lights and noticed pedestrians looking at me while they stood on the corner waiting for the light to change. At first I was kind of shy about playing in front of them, but what’s the shame in creating music. It brought a smile to one woman who was the unlikeliest of sorts. I recommend the harmonica for most applications. It travels well and it’s rare that someone will become irritated by it. It’s not like a guitar. A guitar is trickier to present. If you whip out a guitar you better know what your doing. You can’t be bashful with a guitar, but you can with a harmonica, you can sit there and blow it softly, or get crazy with it and blow it hard. It has a circus quality to it that makes sense in most situations. It’s the instant Leaprecon that you can carry in your pocket. Give it a try.

Tu Fu

I’ve been reading poems for a Chinese poet by the name of Tu Fu, from the Tang Dynasty (713-770). I’m enjoying them. The poems are lucid and easy to read, not too heady and clever. I tend to like poems that don’t require me to think too much, but after reading a good poem I’m thinking a lot.

When I was young man writing a poem was a chance to demonstrate my poetic abilities, my voice was formal and my ideas were not as clear. I was more romantic in my word choice, only to realize years later that a good poem in my view is a good story communicated as simply as possible. Intelligence is pointing out the obvious. Pointing out the things that are right before your eyes that you see every day and wonder about, but for some reason you can’t put it into words. That’s what makes for good comedy. A comedian who can point out the obvious is generally funny. And that’s what makes for good science as well. Intelligence is just a stones throw away from stupidity. The genius of E=MC squared is it’s simplicity. Great writing on the other hand can be many things to some, but to me, it is simply entertaining.

My Invisible Audience

I spent yesterday avoiding people. Lou wanted me to meet him at a bar in Pasadena, it was some kind of benefit jam. I couldn’t do it. I’ve been to that bar a thousand times and a thousand times I’ve gotten depressed. I needed to be alone. It’s not uncommon for me to feel that way. I can get impatient with people when I feel that way, no matter what the conversation, it well strike me as dumb.

Usually, when I feel like I need to be alone I’ll think of the past, and how it relates to the future. I’m pretty hard on myself at times. I’ll think of my mistakes and feel real bad about them, and when I ponder the future I feel empty inside. It speaks volumes for staying in the moment. The truth is, unless I’m working on something artistic I feel a drift, confused. The problem is I can’t create everyday. I need to rest from time to time, and it is on these days that I feel, empty purposeless. It’s a new revelation. It has never been so clear. I always thought that it was the path I had chosen for myself that had brought upon those feelings, my failure in art. But now I understand that it’s the lack of activity that makes me feel bad. When I’m not writing, I’m not praying and when I’m not playing music my soul welts just a little bit.

I’ve built this cabin. I’ll post pictures at some point. Drop me a note sometime, my invisible audience.

The Intelligence of Stupidity

You’ve heard of a polygamist, well I’m a pig-lygamist. It’s my own made up word that I haven’t defined yet, although it does seem self-explanatory to some degree. The word pig is a dead give away. I think it speaks more to the fact that marriage in my view is something to be avoided. Why anybody would agree to be a monogamist is beyond my understanding. I agreed to it once and I felt like a caged animal. I failed. It wasn’t my cup of tea. I’m speaking for myself. I’m not trying to convince anybody to my way of thinking. I’m not pretending to be intelligent.

I had a friend once, who was of the opinion that all people are stupid, and no matter how many books you’ve read, or how high your IQ, the underlying fact is that we humans are stupid. I tend to agree with this idea. To me it makes perfect sense. Our lives are spent proving our abilities. We regurgitate facts and figures, work on our memory, memorize the spelling of words, and then back down the driveway and slam into the mailbox that sits near the curb.

Even a genius can make a bad decision, which seems to negate the principles of genius. Intellect absent of stupidity, is stupidity defined. There are flaws in the intellect of man. Intellectualism is a flawed pursuit. Yet we try over and over to dispel stupidly, we conceal it constantly. The mere suggestion of being stupid is an insult. Lord, if I can’t be intelligent give me wisdom.

Magic the Music Box

I went over to Martin’s house and recorded a tune. I got it on the fifth take. I had a difficult time staying focused. On one hand I was trying to create beautiful music and on the other hand I was thinking about what I did the night before. It was almost as though I was dreaming. My mind was wondering and I had to repeatedly bring it back to the guitar and the next chord and the next line to be sung. I was being extraordinarily careful with the guitar. I was trying not to land on a wrong note and cause a buzz. The room was silent. I was tense, but trying to relax.

A song is a presentation. There are many factors that can alter one take from the next. I realized that every version I did was different in body and content. I added a line here took out a line there. It wasn’t my intention, but it was the result of wanting to survive the take. I was trying to get through the song with as few mistakes as possible. My changing the song as I went along was a masking agent for failure. I sometimes feel that’s what art is, the continuous process of hiding ones mistakes, altering, reconfiguring until your satisfied within yourself with your work.

Recording to me is synonymous to having a camera in my face for three minutes and for those three minutes I do my best to act like the camera is not there.

After my session I stopped at a hardware store to buy seven two by fours. I tossed them in my Honda four-door sedan. The back seat folds down and you’d be surprised how much wood you can fit in a Honda Accord. I’m building a landing for the entrance to my cabin.

The Honda has been good to me,. Yet, the other night I was ashamed of it. I was with a new friend, a person I didn’t know that well, and she dropped my off at my car. I’m not sure why I was ashamed. It’s a great car. It’s a 1993 white Honda Accord with one hundred and ninety-one thousand miles on it. It runs well. It has never left me stranded, not like my Mercedes, but there I was ashamed of it. I’m fine with it when I’m alone, but for some reason I was ashamed then. It was an odd feeling. It was a feeling of being exposed.

The Drink Offensive

I’ve come to terms with the blogging thing. I’m just going to use it as a journal. I haven’t told anyone about it. I don’t think anybody reads it. I’ll write away, and document myself in a digital manner.

I had noodles for lunch. My sister and I took the train to Little Tokyo and we had noodles. Noodles, is a word I like quite a bit. It just sounds funny to say aaahhh noodles. It’s second best to “what the cupcake.” What the cupcake is that? It so easy to say fuck’en. Fuck’en is not creative and down right offensive, but cupcake, now that’s a word I can stand behind. I’m one of those old school guys that likes to keep the language clean. I come from a good family and think it best to be classy if you can. These new kids don’t know anything about classy. It use to be that the culture was set up for it. That was the purpose in life to be classy. There were classy cars, classy hats, classy cologne, classy dresses, classy suits. Now it’s all mock classy. It’s the anti-class. I’m guilty of it. I don’t like to tuck my short in. I have a history of having long hair. From time to time I’ll let my beard grow. Dumb things like that can detract from classy. On occasion I’ll don a suit and come back to classy.

People don’t strive for classy anymore. It’s purposeless materialism that we possess in today’s America. It’s aimless. It’s more about the blue jeans then the black strapless dress. The farmers have taken over the world and their selling the rural community to the people of the metropolitan. Huh? I’m writing to my self. To who ever I pick up on the way. It doesn’t matter what I write about. It’s all an exercise.

The Lakers are on the tube tonight. I better hit the road before I lose sight of what’s important.

The Side Streets

I went out for a few bourbons last night and had a good time with Timmy and Marty. We went out to the "office,” and had some laughs. It’s good to laugh every once in a while. My favorite bartender was there and he treated me like I was his favorite customer. Big Jim the cowboy got up and sang a song, he flubbed it. I told him he sang great anyway.

I decided to take the long way home to avoid unwanted encounters with the Los Angeles police department. I was nearly two in the morning, and it seemed there was nobody on the streets.

I was sneaking around on side streets when it occurred to me that over the years in an attempt to provide a service of some kind, the city had erected a stop sign at every corner. They’ve done away with the slow sign altogether. It’s all on the shoulders of the stop sign now. I was thinking the city could save a lot of money if the stopped erecting stop signs. They could make a lot of money if they took down the useless signs they had and sold them on the black market. I’d like to mention right about here that the city could save a ton of money if the eliminated the speed bumps that people plow through as well. The asphalt alone is worth millions. It use to be easier to travel in Los Angeles. It was smooth. Not now. It’s all about the break now. Stop and go has an entirely different meaning then it use to,

In my inebriated state I decided that the stop signs were a hindrance to my drive, so I blew through them, cautiously of coarse.