(drilling down deep to discover the root of the problem)
It was a routine dentist appointment, nothing out of the ordinary. A cavity filling on a recessed front tooth and a few cosmetic patches, made possible by recent health care changes. She couldn’t afford it otherwise, but now, why not?
A few small shots of novocaine and she waited a while, relishing the empty time when she could just sit and collect her thoughts, relax and not have to be working.
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The sky is a constant, as we toil away
in our contracts of love, bound as slaves.
It’s a debt to be paid, we fulfill obligations
allay age-old guilts or dutifully obey,
with the wool securely over our eyes.
As one speaks of pure intent through perfect blooms,
they’ve already been plucked from their natural state of bliss,
imbued with a false purpose,
and surely they begin to wilt and fade.
Bargains are struck which are ofttimes unspoken
resentment builds when those contracts are broken
with the personal lawsuits and battles waged
upon breaches of faith schemes are hatched and then staged
and meanwhile arises a crescendo of mistrust
and a dark cloud obscures the azure sky.
Each pays in turn for imagined transgressions
or seeks a quick salve for the heart’s rejection
throughout all of time from the one to the other
while in the disguise of love.
If I could end this mass charade right now
I would give you the sky with no strings attached
not of puppets played nor plots imagined
but only the azure sky.
Where the birds are free in their state of bliss
descending with messages from lovers delivered
and word from lost ones forever reunited.
A lone eagle over a still blue lake
gazes down at his perfect reflection
he’s startled to see it, his soul’s mirror image
gazing back serenely in comfort
from water that stands apart from all time
under an azure sky.
In the early morning hours, the howling wind and crazy drifting bands of driven snow. This does nothing to ease the ominous feeling of the new year that’s rushed in upon me. I was left, in all honesty, feeling weary and battered from the last one, and where I could have used a warm and hopeful ray of sunshine, instead I was greeted harshly by a cold wind, contracting, closed. The world shuttering its doors and hiding its secrets from me, dark and mysterious.
And the shrouded moon sheds no light on the situation. All I can do is wait.
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It was early evening as she made her way slowly across the Massachusetts Turnpike, an an uneven and halting pace after the long holiday weekend. There was an edgy aggressiveness of harried, anxious motorists eager to get home from stressful family obligations. This unholy angst rose up from the dark pavement like a thousand jagged-edged knives cutting. Hostile Boston-bound drivers are nothing new, but this was worse than usual, she thought. The surly ones darted in between those more frightened and cautious, resulting in a dangerous dance, a bubbling cauldron.
She stayed in the middle lane, steady and watchful though the tedious start/stop motion had caused her restless mind to wander. The pace had quickened somewhat and traveling now at about 30 miles per hour, it was nearly too late when she saw the stopped line of cars in the left lane just ahead. A car darted out manically ahead of her from the left, unaware. Instinct took over, which caused her to veer wildly to the right as she saw out of the corner of her eye the crash, and heard metal on metal.
So close to disaster, she felt the debris hit the side of her car. She kept driving with her eyes riveted straight ahead, unhurt but not untouched, her thoughts back at the site of the crash, in the aftermath.
In her mind’s eye, even as SUVs moved past her, uncaring and unseeing, like a heartless robot battalion, she saw twisted metal and injuries, frightened children and families who faced an all-night ordeal, who would not be warm in their beds for hours, if at all. But for a second earlier, an inch this way or that, she would be there with them in their shock and fear. It all felt like haphazard chance. Who gets caught up in the twisted metal, and who gets to cruise by unscathed?
As she tried to calm her rattled nerves, she thought of one particular SUV she saw zooming past haughtily. She imagined its driver and occupants, an upper middle-class family, shielded in their armored vehicle, secure in their certainty, protective and insular. They watch their sanitized version of the news, make the requisite donations to charities at Christmas time, and consider themselves to be enlightened and well-informed. But did they stop on that darkened stretch of highway to be of assistance? She didn’t stop either, and the thought made her feel ashamed.
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She was fearful of whatever it was that the future held. The familiar confines of her childhood room, this comfortable prison, kept her immersed in a kind of cold comfort. There were warring factions inside — a restless spirit and indefinable dissatisfaction on a low boil, with the tattered clothes of her past around her, her history, which she loathed but from which she was loath to escape.
The impatient snapping of fingers drew her attention to the situation’s importance, and to the cruel passage of time. Rust and mold from the ages grew all around, vines intertwining, and the overwhelming temptation was to hide in the weeds — or to run. But to run from a shadow is a pointless and exhausting exercise.
In a clear mirrored lake she bore witness to her life in parallel, but was powerless to help. The only solution was right in front of her, in her own toils, if only for the courage to face them.
A string of paper dolls without physical substance though enduring and strong as a singular iron soul joined hands in solidarity as her elite guard.
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The current pop wasteland. Clockwise from upper left: Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the reinvented Miley Cyrus at the 2013 MTV VMAs and Taylor Swift, before and after.
I was inspired by a recent Facebook post by Anna Bulbrook, who plays viola, keyboards and is a vocalist with The Airborne Toxic Event. She posted a link to an article about the rude and demeaning things said to female musicians, and voiced her own frustration with the music industry’s rampant sexism. I’d like to dedicate this to all working musicians out there (and music professionals who support and nurture them) who happen to be women.
The object that raised Ms. Bulbrook’s wrath (and started me on my investigative journey) was titled “Infuriating Things People Say to Women Musicians”. It was written by Steph Guthrie, who performs with Toronto-based band Patti Cake. The cringe-worthy comments from male musical instrument store employees, sound engineers, managers and others “in the biz” read like something out of the 1950s, but sadly they’re not. They’re comments that were made in the present day to seasoned and experienced female musicians. Sexism, of course, exists everywhere. Men in the music business still can’t get their heads around the fact that there are plenty of serious women musicians who are proficient with a wide variety of instruments, music composition and recording technology — and this includes the sacred lead guitar, historically the machismo status symbol of the (male) rock god. “Take Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Only two women, Joni Mitchell and Joan Jett, were honored. In a Washington Post article written in response to Rolling Stone’s list, the writer suggests that as interest in electric guitar was revving up in the ’60s, women weren’t encouraged to step out of their ladylike gender roles, leaving them with an impossible game of catch-up to Jimi Hendrix and Page.” (from The 12 Greatest Female Electric Guitarists – Elle, 2009). I can only assume that this disrespect stems from an inferiority complex, leading men to feel threatened by strong women. Regardless of how far we may think we’ve come in gender equality, clearly we haven’t actually progressed beyond The Flintstones.
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Rust Never Sleeps at Johnny D's in Somerville 11/16/13
There’s something about a heartfelt live music performance that can melt away any amount of hardened pain. For me, and unlike any other art form, a piece of music, even a single phrase from a familiar song, can bring back not just distant memories but also the emotional feelings that accompanied them. Exactly as it was, so many years ago, there’s the taste and the very essence of that moment. The experience is like a drilling through seemingly impenetratable granite, an unearthing of old sentiments and forgotten dreams.
Rust Never Sleeps is a Boston-based band that celebrates the music of Neil Young, not only by beautifully interpreting his songs in a faithful way and with stellar musicianship, but by infusing their performance with the warmth and honesty of the man himself. Check out some video and audio clips on their site. I had the pleasure of seeing these fine musicians at Johnny D’s last night, and they have a few area shows already scheduled for next year.
“I am just a dreamer,
But you are just a dream,
You could have been
Anyone to me.”
– Like a Hurricane, by Neil Young
A Los Angeles story of madness and awakening, in twelve parts
Elysian Park ~ Echo Park, Los Angeles
Under normal circumstances, as pleasurable as a vacation is, by the end of it, one is usually looking forward to going home. In my case, however, the vacation was weird, at times stressful and bizarre, at other times like a pleasant daydream filled with warm, engaging people — and I sincerely dreaded returning back to my life as an East Coast recluse. I don’t know why, but things just seemed easier for me there. Even as I struggled to find a happy balance between getting some promised work done, seeing bands, connecting with old and new friends and trying to support my haunted host, it still seemed to flow far more naturally and it all made sense somehow, when things in my life often don’t.
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A Los Angeles story of madness and awakening, in twelve parts
Solstice Canyon, Malibu
I was slowly coming out of a 10-day whirlwind, considering such heady issues as the role of fate in our lives, the soul’s journey, the seductive pull of despair and madness, the lives of struggling rock bands… I had the great fortune, while on this vision quest, to spend some quality time with old and new friends. It may just be me, or it may be that my internal rhythms just don’t jive with Boston’s internal rhythms, but this just doesn’t seem to happen here. It occurs to me, as I write this a startling two months later, that it’s the extensive effort required to connect with like-minded people in Boston that exhausts me and results, most of the time, in me being emotionally worn out and still alone. But I persist.
My 30-second therapy session at The CAMP, in the form of a succinct inspirational message -- you're welcome, no charge.
The morning after my strange experience at what I had thought would be one of the highlights of my trip, I had a very pleasant lunch at Native Foods, a wonderful vegan restaurant in an absolutely fantastic little alternative shopping center known as The CAMP. It was the antithesis of the Costa Mesa I had experienced the day before. My friend Tammy and I had a great lunch and “mutual debriefing” of the previous night’s Delta Spirit and Airborne show at the Wavelength Festival. Human nature and motivation continue to confound me, but it’s the ongoing search and struggle for understanding that’s most important.
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A Los Angeles story of madness and awakening, in twelve parts
The Airborne Toxic Event with the Pacific Symphony at the Pacific Amphitheatre
Driving around Costa Mesa, looking for a decent vegetarian breakfast, it occurred to me how much the city is like a sprawling Simsbury, Connecticut — or, for you Bostonians, perhaps Newton. There were the endless upscale shopping centers, pristine landscaping and not a single non-white person to be seen at the outdoor yuppie-style cafe I finally came across in one of the many fancy yet nondescript strip malls. Even the name was vaguely elitist: Haute Cakes. Perfect. Two haute couture women were sitting next to me, chattering non-stop, while their equally stuffy and primped little dog wound itself around my leg. The food was good but no match for the ‘Angel’s Mess’ at Millie’s in Silver Lake, which was life-affirming.
I was thinking about the importance of the show I would be seeing that night. I’d been a fan of The Airborne Toxic Event since 2008, and though they’ve performed with an orchestra before, this was the first time they’d done so in the Los Angeles area. It was part of the Wavelength Festival, and they’d be appearing with the 85-piece Pacific Symphony at the state-of-the-art Pacific Amphitheatre. Fellow Angelinos Delta Spirit, a marvelous band and headliner in their own right, was opening for them. Over the five years I’ve known Airborne, they’ve continuously raised their game. They’ve become more accomplished musicians and performers, and their musical arrangements, particularly for the orchestral shows, ever more impressive. I can’t imagine how much time and energy it takes to work out parts for 85 additional players. Add to this the majesty of performing in a world-class amphitheatre with a world-class symphony orchestra, in front of what most certainly would be Southern California’s finest in terms of sophisticated music aficionados. All of that was bound to add up to a beautiful experience, right?
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