Mateus Bottles and Colored Melted Wax...

Being born in 1967 I grew up a child of the 70's. Empty Mateus bottles turned into candle holders with multi-colored candle sticks bought from Spencer's Gifts, incense, blacklight posters of black panthers in trees, macramé plant holders, vinyl records, color t.v.'s, flashy cars with chrome and leather couches as seats, bell-bottom jeans, Herbal Essence Shampoo, Goody combs with the big handles sticking out of your back pocket, 8-track boom boxes, Polaroid Insta-Matics, really straight hair or curlalicious fro's, cassette mix tapes, CB radios, bubblegum baseball trading cards of the Oakland A's Billy Martin's Mustache Gang, Hot Wheels, water rockets, dune buggies, and M-80's to blow up mailboxes of the grumpy old men telling us to get off their yard...

Did I mention phones or computers? Nope. A phone was a quick call to meet up somewhere and a computer was something the government had.

This will not be some "When I was a kid we walked in the snow 40 miles to school and we were THANKFUL we could!" kinda crap. We are in a new age. A new revolution. The digital age is here. Like when the industrial age showed up, many jobs were lost because they were replaced by machines. We had to make up new jobs, new ways of doing things, new ways of life. It's that time again. A refresh button on the world.

My greatest hope is that we can change from being a wasteful society to a useful one. Reuse not refuse. Creation not destruction. Upgrade not throwaway. Connection not separation. Understanding not ignorance.

Time will tell. Eventually another revolution will come and wipe away what is now into a yellowed memory. Until then I'm gonna grab a pillow, lay on my wooden floor and put on my "Hot Buttered Soul" album by Issac Hayes and listen to him talk for 8 minutes before he even sings "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"...

Leaving Bread Crumbs...

I'm leaving bread crumbs.

When you leave bread crumbs, you want to be found. Though, halfhearted, because the animals are gonna find those crumbs and eat them...maybe even eat you. There's a good chance you'll never be found. Not good prospects...but it's how I like it.

I'm still wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday. A vintage brown Italian Hounds tooth wool jacket...a sky blue button-snap shirt...a brown tie with golf floral design and little knights on horses jousting...flared blue jeans...brown leather Italian shoes with square tips...a little greasier...face courser with a shadow growing...the shadow will be a small shrub in a few days. I thought that was cool when I was in seventh grade. Now...hmmmm...I don't know. I've had facial since I was 13. I like it because I stick out, but it also covers me up.

Just like this bread crumb thing called the internet. It must be some crazy character flaw I have. Seen but not known. I try to be as honest as I can writing this verbal defecation. It opens me up, and I know I need to do it. To be open. But open is scary too. It's amazing how fast people draw sides, make decisions on other people. Friend or foe. I automatically have new friends and enemies simply by being seen...to be found.

Am I left wing? Right wing? A meat eater? Do I have a sailors mouth? Is Jesus my savior? Has my cock passed the quota of allowed cunts in a life time? Am I an acoustic artist? Too much distortion? Not enough? Is my wit too...umm? Or do I even have a wit? Do I know how to put together clothes in an interesting and creative way?

All these questions have answers...and these answers will make friends and enemies.

Why do I want to be found? Why the hell do I want to be known? Hence the bread crumbs. Honestly... I admit I do want those things, but I am content if I never get them. I like being lost in my forest, but I don't mind a few visitors from time to time.

Sent from the Black Forest...

Hey Now...

A few moments of introspection. Introspection itself is tethered to our outlook.

How we feel is how we see.

For me, I have just about finished a new song for my next album. It's called "Hey Now", a nice sappy love song that I proudly say Neil Diamond might have wrote. I love Neil! My mom brought me up on all those singer-songwriters from the 60's and 70's. Neil Diamond, Carol King, Jimmy Webb, CSN, Neil Young, Nick Drake, The Carpenters and Burt Bacherach...

I need to add a couple tracks of trumpet on it, which I hope to complete next week. I always drive in my car and tool around the neighborhood listening to the mixes, production, and if my vocals suck. Most times I think my vocals suck, but if it's in tune and sounds honest then I'm done with it. I am no judge on my voice. I'm too prejudiced against it. It sounds like me...and I'm not my musical heroes. *laughing*

Knowing this, I am still happy the way the song came out. Only two chords dancing between themselves, building, always building. It's funny how a song grows up. You hope for the best, but in the end, they just do what they do. I'm proud of this one. A happy song-parent. A doting ditty-dad I am...

Back to my point...how we feel is how we see...or perceive rather. I feel great! So...the world looks beautiful! It's a sweltering day here in Southern California Inland. Do I care? Hell no! Not today! The breeze, the sky, the rustling date palms, even the angry busy-bee-automobiles buzzing and whirring 'round are beautiful. Now I know I'm under a spell! A spell of hope and beauty because I created something today. Whatever it becomes or not becomes isn't important, but that it was made. It's what I do, my nature. Succumbing to my nature is like falling into the arms of God, the Great Om, the perpetual spin into oblivion.

Happy am I. For today, for now...and I didn't even touch my absinthe yet.

The Analog...

We are analog beings. We do not make perfect copies of ourselves. Our memories bleed like a watercolor canvas. Never truly static. A little water will change everything. Our nature is true. Our chemistry sets are somewhat predictable though volatile.

My age is showing. When I see film emulsion, magnetic tape, watercolors, oil paints, charcoal drawings, imperfectly drawn circles... I see us. Skipping down the sidewalk with decay. The slow fade to black. No color. No color at all.

Why are we so scared? Why do we hold a death grip fighting change? Do we really think that at this very moment we are at the height of our capabilities? That this is it? Our possibilities are just diminishing returns from now on? Is this why digital technology is so appealing? The perfect copy. The perfect memory. Static and immortal for all time?

We are immortal. It's just that we are just a part of it. The notes of our echo are still ringing, just not perfectly from our initial bursts. They may barely resemble us as we think of ourselves now. Just as we barely resemble ourselves from when we were children. We've grown up. We've changed. Life has stained and run us through.

A painting is no less powerful whether it be new or old. It is what it is. However faded it becomes, the residue and essence remains true... as we.

524 Words About Truth

"Michelle loves Willie"
"Our little Sarah"
"Daughters of the American Revolution"
"Stryper loves Jesus" and I love a girl
Against my better judgment
'Cause I feel like a squirrel...

This song rings in my mind. "Bug" by Vic Chesnutt. I have no idea why these particular lyrics at this moment have hit my synapses, but they have. When I think of Vic I smile. Not an entirely happy smile. A complicated smile as the man he was. Still...a smile. The world was bettered when he was here.

It's funny. Sitting here in front of the keyboard looking at the blinking cursor I have no idea what I'm gonna tip and tap about. Just exhaling. Letting go some of what the world put into me.

I met Vic once a long, long time ago in the early nineties. My old band Blacksmith Union opened for him at a now defunct coffee/record shop Disc Cafe in La Jolla, California. I loved that shop. I was an exciting time. Live music was strong and pulsing. The salad days of the old ways of music and people.

I was pissed at Vic.

Never having met him, he was late for the show. The place was packed. People literally out in the streets looking in, they were not going to be denied a show. Finally, he pulls up. Drunk. Drunk from going to Tijuana, Mexico. "Fucker" I thought... I was young. The Now me, would smile and laugh. The Then me...well...he was a lot more uptight. *laughing*

We did the show and Vic came on. In his wheel chair, still drunk and he started rattling his beat up classical acoustic guitar. His voice warbled up in the air like a far off stammer. Stronger and stronger it rose and the words spoke truth. Honey-filled truth. A Southern truth that I understood. A truth so unvarnished and naked it seemed to cut you as it licked you.

I stood silent and took it.

Afterwards, I came up to him and told him what a wonderful set it was. His eyes shown a real gratitude and humbleness that few show. "Why thank yo...." Then a fan interjected for an autograph and I let him be.

I drove home listening his new release at the time "West of Rome". He struck a chord with me that still is vibrating within me. It was that truth. That damned truth.

Whatever a man or woman does or doesn't do in their lives...it is the truths that they reveal is what matters. When I say truth, I do not care about lies. Most of our lives are lies. Our perceptions, the facade we show to the world, even ourselves. When we can summon the truth about ourselves and freely show it to the world. Those are the glimmers of essence of our true selves. It is then that we have achieved something. I'd like to think of heaven like that. Not a clouded and winged heaven glistening with gold, but a swirling glow of glistening truth.

I think Vic shown us a lot of truth. I hope I can. I hope I can let myself.