My so called 'Musical Life'

Mentors (Part 2)....

2011-07-12T06:00:00.004-04:00

This post is about a very remarkable man named Dr. Jack Jarrett.

When I wrote earlier about the insidious side of what mentors can bring (using Simon Cowell as an example of how mentors can be wrongheaded, abusive and debilitating to your creative spark), I strongly cautioned you in that post to be careful about who you let into your life - or let stay in your life, and what you let them tell you.

Point taken, but there is another side, and that is what serendipity can bring you:

Composer, Conductor, Pianist, Teacher, Developer...Mentor - the inimitable Jack Jarrett

1977:
In the spring of '77 I was finishing my first year at Virginia Commonwealth University music school. Having barely squeaked by in my audition by playing the jazz chord solo version of "Misty" - on a guitar more suited for heavy metal - to people who only knew classical music -- I was in the thick of my redemption from my non-triumphant admission to the program.

I was soaking up the boot camp of music theory in my first intensive class - 10 hours a week! One day the professor, the wonderful and woefully under-remembered Dr. Loran Carrier, assigned us each to write a short atonal piece, and he saw something special in the one I did. We went over the pieces in a very early (8 AM) morning session. When he came to my piece, Dr. Carrier played it over and over again - while praising it strongly - to a class of sleepy, clearly non-plussed students. Afterwards he took me aside and told me he thought I had a real talent for composing, and that I should pursue it.

"Go to Dr. Jarrett and request he give you private composition lessons this summer", he said.

SCARY!
You see, Dr. Jarrett directed the chorus I had been singing in throughout all of the preceding year. The chorus in which people - who weren't singing majors, or who weren't orchestral players - went to fulfill their requirement for an ensemble credit. This basically meant that people who had virtually no business singing were up against the serious choral literature of music history. We began the semester with the Poulenc 'Gloria' in G Major. Great piece - not that hard for me now, but no picnic at the time…

Jarrett was a force, and a flaming genius - albeit with a down to earth quality. Yet he seemed to not understand - or maybe not care about - how HARD this was for us. "THE RHYTHM IS DOTTED!!", he would shout. "THAT'S A BAR OF 5/4!!! GET YOUR PITCH FROM THE TENORS IN THE PREVIOUS BAR!!!!! YOU'RE IN G MINOR HERE!!!!!!" He was yelling. Not friendly. Hard assed.

I'll always remember that trial by fire. In the room where we rehearsed for example, they kept the piano keyboard locked (so people couldn't wander in off the street and access the keyboard to play). At the beginning of the rehearsal Dr. Jarrett would crawl under the piano keyboard and find a way to play a single pitch…and that was it for the whole rehearsal! No accompanist. It was a point of pride. It felt like (in drill sergeant's voice): 'Get your act together you maggots!'

Now, I've been in some pretty serious New York City choruses since, and over the years I've sung in accompaniment to Robert Merrill, Marilyn Horn, Leontyne Price, Sherrill Milnes, Jerry Hadley and many others (including Pavarotti) at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Met, and elsewhere in those choruses…

....and I've NEVER seen that done since. They all have pianos playing along with you when you rehearse.

In those groups, for a while I thought, 'why do they want to make it so easy'? 'wouldn't we learn it better if we struggled harder to really understand the music?', 'what if we heard ourselves without someone banging out the notes?'. I guess now maybe now I'm a hard ass myself.

LEVEL ONE:
Reed back in 1977 - being an idealistic sort - thought to himself: 'shucks, this is IMPORTANT, what we're doing is IMPORTANT'.

Perhaps I didn't actually use the word "shucks"...

....but I might as well have. A large, large part of the reason for my feeling that surge of seriousness of purpose....is energetic - in large measure because of the sense of integrity and work ethic - the energy - that Jack Jarrett brought to those rehearsals. I didn't actually get it at the time, since I think I was largely punch drunk from the proceedings, and basically a blank slate. But I felt it. Let's think of this state of seriousness as 'level one'.

Think about this though: it is far easier to settle for non-excellence in order to keep things friendly. But he walked the walk. Plus, he could DO anything he was asking for, with at least one hand tied behind his back. I loved that 'no compromise' way of being.

BACK TO THE LESSONS:
I asked. He said 'yes'. Yet not only was I NOT prerequisite-ready for these lessons, but also the school had a quite strict policy about private composition lessons - juniors and seniors only. When pressed by little ol' me, the people in the office were quite sure they didn't want to make an exception on my account. Let's face it: I have never fit the profile of the high achiever…at least on paper. When I went back and told Dr. Jarrett what had transpired, he said, "well I'm going to take Dr. Carrier's recommendation, follow me". With that, he led the charge as we 3 (Dr. Jarrett, Dr. Carrier, and I) marched over to the front office, and he made it happen.

So, during that summer, he was a glorified babysitter.

Patient.

a.m.a.z.i.n.g sight reader. He seemed to focus about %25 of his energy in actually reproducing the music, and the rest was multitasking his surroundings. He sat and puffed on a tobacco pipe, and he would sit at the piano with one leg folded under his gluts, and he would make comments while he was playing. "You could go into minor here/how about this chord?".

As the years went on, I tried to create more thorny/complex scores, with lots of instruments, and transposed parts, and meter changes - bigger the better I thought. That was an adolescent phase for me, before I'd found a real 'voice' of my own. I was more focused on trying to invent something, than expressing myself. Yet, there was nothing that ever threw him as he read my stuff, the whole time he worked with me, and he'd still be just chatting away. Plus he'd get to the end of your piece, then say "great, now you could go here" -- and suddenly the piece seemed to improve - now that he was spontaneously composing 'your' music!

Still, as nice as he was to me, he didn't pull any punches - even when we were alone in private lessons. I once had written a passage of uninspired harmonies that I - deep down - knew was academic and pedantic in the worst sense. I said to him, hoping for validation in my best adolescent style whine, "What will this sound like? will it sound OK?". He retorted with typical frankness and gentle condescension in his light southern accent. "Well" he said, "it'll SOUND like a bunch of parallel diminished chords".

Ouch.

OK, back to the drawing board. Obviously he's not going to glad-hand me here…and my instincts about how lame this is are on target...

Lesson learned: trust your instincts, especially when you feel something isn't working.

After that summer, I regretfully had to stop taking private composition with him, since they moved me on to a less experienced (or do I mean less cool?) teacher, and his fall schedule filled up with the 'real' composers (juniors and seniors). I did still have classes with him throughout my time there. Conducting, class composition - plus I was in his ensembles. I was especially honored when he conducted one of my orchestral works (pictured below, click to enlarge) at the end of my time there:

MY PASSION FOR MUSIC:
All the while I was taking in everything I got to know about him, by study and by example. There was a bit of a father-figure relationship going on for me (especially since my real father passed away when I was a child - before I really got a chance to know him), yet only one of us really knew the extent of it - even to this day I suspect. I was always quite shy around him. Very quiet.

I wanted to be really good...skilled -- like him. Not only is he skilled at playing and reading, his compositions are superb, and I soaked in a lot from analyzing them. For a while, as a composer he was my main influence, and those with a knowledge of us both would still hear it today. I loved the way he is an unabashed romantic in much of his writing. He embraces tonality, and with a wonderful and unique style. Terrific harmonic sensibility. I remember this sudden modulation in the middle of a phrase of one choral piece to evoke a feeling for a particular word...genius! I asked him why that worked, and he emphasized that you can be in a new key anytime you want to be, without preparation if you like...

This was the opposite approach to 'follow the rules'. I ate it up!

For examples of his music, please visit his website (linked below). Check out the 'Choral Symphony', for example: We sang that piece with him conducting chorus and orchestra, and during the rehearsal period I sat at the piano, home alone nightly with the choral score to that piece - knowing my classmates were partying the night away. I was busy meticulously analyzing his choral parts, picking them out on piano.

GET ORCHESTRATED!
Thanks once again to Jack, a great opportunity came for me when I wrote my first true orchestra piece. I had presented a short score in juries (music school thing) the previous semester, and the jurors were purportedly all excited to see the orchestrated version. I was making real progress.

When I brought in the orchestrated version at the end of the next semester for juries, it was clear (to everyone but me - obviously) that I needed more experience hearing live orchestras. So Dr. Jarrett, who was at juries that day, again used his clout and made it possible for me to play percussion in the school's orchestra. Can you believe it? Being someone who had scant experience to play orchestral percussion, it's hard to express how special an opportunity it was for me to be in those rehearsals learning about the orchestra first hand.

I'd hit the bass drum, the triangle, whatever was easiest. The real percussionists were very, very cool about it, and so I got a chance to stand in the back of that orchestra and see everything….how they were seated, how the violinists use a bow, when wind players have to breathe, how great composers combine the instruments….everything. With some pieces, I actually played the percussion parts from the scores, so that I could see what was going on on the page.

In fact, Jack - as I was now knowing him - was in my experience himself going through a personal renaissance of sorts. He was a sweetheart in these rehearsals. What gives?

Hmm. Well, I attributed it to the fact that he was getting more what he wanted from those players than from the 'singers', since they were doing what they were trained for. It was a far cry from those rehearsals a few years earlier when he barked all those corrections in exasperation.

…Of course, looking back, maybe there was more - it may not have hurt that he found a sweetheart in, and then married one of the bass players in the orchestra, Shirley. Shirley was a really lovely person with a warm smile and easy way about her. You used to see them coming into rehearsal with her carrying the front of her bass and him carrying the back. It was sweet and heartwarming.

One day tragedy struck.

AN INCALCULABLE LOSS:
I come into rehearsal one day, and the mood is dark and somber, and there is another conductor. Word goes out that Shirley has been killed in a tragic car accident, caused by another driver.

How are we going to go on, I wondered? Especially ... Jack. How will he go on?

The music department was a tightly knit enough place that everyone had known Shirley -- and everyone, myself included, was deeply, deeply mourning the loss. There was a service, in which we sang a movement from the Brahms Requiem. There were many tears from everyone in the room, including those of us on the stage, and Jack was clearly in deep mourning as he sat in the front row listening to our performance of "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place". After it was over, we didn't see him for a while, I think it was 3, maybe 4 weeks.

It felt like forever.

One day though, without warning, he's back on the podium to lead the orchestra in rehearsal. Scant few words are said, and he tells us to get out a piece we were rehearsing for an upcoming performance: movement 4 from Holst's "The Planets". The movement is called "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity". You may not know it by the title, but if you're not deaf, or from some remote outpost of the world, you've heard it many times -- a happy, and in places triumphant soaring, piece. He raises his baton, and still shell shocked, we proceed to give it what would be best called a 'polite' reading.

After we finished, a polite and gentle scolding comes from our courageous conductor. I can only paraphrase what he said, but this is what I heard: "Things have been challenging around here lately. Even though our hearts are broken, we must go on. This piece has 'Jollity' in the title" (I can especially remember him emphasizing this a few times in his remarks). "No matter how we feel right now, we are musicians, and we can use this piece to lift ourselves, and connect to our humanity."

He stood there, looking at us, more solid than any rock I've ever seen, focused and fully engaged. A tear dripped from my cheek, and I struggled to hold it together. In doing so, I looked down and averted my eyes, and could feel the swell of emotion in the room, but for my own composure I did not dare look up.

This is a moment I will never forget.

Some time went by. It felt like a long time.

After this emotionally charged luftpause, we went on to play through movement 4 again, and something had shifted.

And in that exact moment, the other shoe dropped for me. Let's call that something 'level two'. Something clicked. Something about art and about music - and about life.

Something clicked for me about Jack too: while I had always seen him as this musical genius, this incredible composer, this great musician…I had now - in an instant - become completely cognizant of a new level that I had been seeing all along, but taking in mostly by osmosis, during those preceding years. It was about leadership, courage, integrity. Once again I thought, "This IS important". Only this time for different reasons...

The right ones.

CODA:
To this day and forevermore, I look to this precise moment in my life for a lesson in how to provide leadership in the most challenging times. I think the most important qualities aren't our abilities, but what we give to the world through them. We all have our skills and talents, but they can't be developed and shared without leadership. To have excellence and integrity, you have to provide that, first to yourself, and then to others. Myself: I struggle, I certainly fall short, but I never would have come half this distance without the mentoring of an amazing artist, musical genius, and finally a treasured friend:

The amazing Dr. Jack Jarrett.

Not only will I never forget it, but for you dear reader, just one of these people - a real mentor in your life - can take care of all the Simon Cowells the world will ever throw at you.

POSTSCRIPT: Over the years I had been trying to contact Jack, and just send him a short note about how much his help had meant to me. After being at VCU, he went on to become the chairman of the composition department at the Berklee School of Music for 10 years (impressive), and then had invented a notation software called 'Notion', which has become a major player in the notation market. A while ago he left the company to concentrate full time on composing, and can be found at JackMJarrett.com. I urge you to pay a visit.

I wrote him emails, first at Berklee, and then at a record label he was on, both with no success. Finally, I wrote him at Notion, and included a CD of my latest film score. A couple of months later a lovely note comes with an explanation that he has moved on from Notion and had not received the package for a while, but with very generous comments about my work and about remembering me and knowing me.

It was a milestone for me, a trip full circle.

Hey, I know I'm no Jack Jarrett - but I'm getting there.

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 9

2010-12-19T21:11:00.045-05:00

Burning Man 2010 - The Temple Burn

on one of my earlier visits to the temple I noticed this written on the wall:

A NEAR-LIFE EXPERIENCE...
Sunday is a challenging day for me because so much of the city is already being dismantled. I don't want to see it end. Hell, it only seems like a beginning to me.

It went by. . . . so. fucking. fast.

Some people, especially jaded veterans who don't feel they need to see another man in flames, have left before the man burns. Others flee immediately after.

In a moment of reflection, I asked Mara if she was sad about the inexorable end coming:

"Naw."

Me: "How do you feel?"

"No Emotion."

That's pretty startling to me. I have emotions when jello hardens. Ummm...good for her, uh...I guess. There's a time in my life when I would have been intensely envious of "no emotion".

Now, I'm not so sure.

So at this point, I'm feeling a lot of feelings. During the day I go out to the man's surprisingly small burn site and people are still hanging around. It seemed so huge the night before, and it has collapsed into a very small area. Some people are unclothed, some are clothed. Some are meditating. One person is even making food on skewers:

As for me, I still haven't packed yet because I have to keep the rental car as clean as possible. For the last couple of days, the winds have been too high to do any serious packing (can't get the car dirty or smelly, so I keep it empty and closed at all times).

Everyone else is dismantling at breakneck pace. This was the highest point in the city yesterday, as tall as - I'm guessing - 100 feet high:

A gospel performance in Center Camp - complete with choir - reinforces my angst, as I wander through for what I know will be the last time:

It doesn't help my state of mind that right now everything in my little campsite world is a epic mess. My toothbrush has been lying in the sand for about three days, the smelly garbage bag is actually in my tent (the car situation means I have to be careful about those odors), I'm eating food off of a dirty mess kit (other 'burners' bring fine china) because I didn't bring the proper cleaning supplies ...... I'm buried in used paper towels....

In short, I'm a super slob!

I'm not exactly a neat freak at home, but I certainly have my act together. On the Playa, other folks have kitchen tents, and water systems, and battery power and wonderful shade, and chairs. I feel like Grok (the caveman's) dirty reject of a brother -- ya know, the brother that's sleeping on Grok's stone couch who can't even get a job with the local hunters.

So....true, I do need to go home and reset.

However....I hope - and plan - to have this adventure again next year. If so, I may find a camp (and kindly was already invited to one), or figure out a way to up my game so that I can have the kind of stuff that expert burners have: a shower, good food to offer to others, drinks to share, shade, etc. … and also music.

BURNING THE TEMPLE
Sunday night has come, and I arrive early for the temple burn. It's as cold as it has been since I have been here in Black Rock. I go by myself, and actually sit right in the front row. I want this experience to be profound, so I come early and shiver the wait away. True, I realize I'm not in the greatest place for self preservation, as the wind is gently blowing towards where I am (Nobooty warned me about this...), but I figure they must have their act together here, right?

No, it's probably not that smart, but whatever...too late to change spots once I realize my peril.

Well, some of the yahoos are still here waiting to start yelling, and at first when the temple starts burning, they are whooping and hollering full tilt. I find it almost intolerable, and I'm getting angrier by the minute, especially since the experienced burners do this as a sacred ritual, and it is billed as such.

Always helpful though, Nobooty cautioned me thus -- "there will be three kinds of people" he said: "those who go to cry, those who go to 'zen out' and those who just go to watch something burn."

So, myself being somewhere in the middle of going to cry and going to 'zen out', I'm seething...feeling mightily pissed. Don't these freakin' yahoos know some of us are on an effin' spiritual journey here?

But then.....then...something really magical happens. When the fire really takes off -- everybody gets stone quiet - eerily so - for maybe 5-10 minutes. The wind whips up quite a bit suddenly, and embers first start rolling along the ground and coming within mere inches of my feet and then stopping (click the pictures):

Before long they are flying directly over top of me:

I do have a hat on, but I'm not sure it matters. Nothing's hitting me. Embers are actually hitting the crowd behind me, and are coming within inches of me in all directions, but leaving me safe. The crowd behind starts to fidget and many actually stand up. From time to time, the only sound on the playa is when someone who gets hit by an ember makes a soft noise of pain. Meanwhile I'm completely unscathed...

After a couple of minutes these strong wind currents start happening, and they take the form of small miniature twisters, almost as if spirits are leaving the place. For the uncynical, you can see them manifest in the smoke from the fire.

The pictures don't document the gravity of the scene, but the moment was spooky -- really, really spooky.....meaningful:

Eventually the yahoo contingent loses their sense of awe, comes back into play and the spell is dissipated. For that moment in time though, these people lost their power completely. Imagine the world like that...

Well, after moving into the fire for a while, I leave the crowd and walk home with the annoyed feeling that I've been robbed, and mostly anger. While in this moment I'm feeling quite cynical about people, when I think about it later, what stays with me was the feeling of that swirling.

It was just SO mystical.

IN THE WEE SMALL HOURS
2 AM rolls around and as I awaken, I notice the wind is finally dead quiet on the Playa. So although I still have sleep left in me, it would seem my time has come. I get out of the bedroll, and as I look outside, I'm struck by how much is gone. It's like a desert again, instead of the city it was a day earlier. I gather everything up for the last time. Nobooty and Chopper are awake across the street as most of the other 'houses' are gone. My feeling of sadness is palpable, and weighs heavily. Since they are rangers, they'll be around till Tuesday - and they have done this many times. Old hat for them.

Yet my heart is heavy.

I can't thank them enough, I tell them. They stay low key about it, in an 'all-in-a-day's-work' kind of way, but as we part ways I hope they know my words are sincere.

A turn of the key, a clunk of the transmission as I pull the car out of Park for the first time in over a week, and it's off to the 'default world'.

…but I know what you're thinking… what about all this 'summer of finding myself'/'midlife crisis' stuff'?

Well, I give myself high marks for getting out there, especially to Black Rock, and doing my best to place myself in a new environment. In a sense, I got back to my roots, and felt connected in a way I haven't felt in many years.

Right now though, it feels as though I'm largely unsuccessful in actually transforming those weaker areas of my nature.

Grade: F. No one is sorrier than I am to hear that.

But - as I say this - I realize I AM pretty hard on myself....

As it happens, I was thinking about my fitness program the other day. Part of it is a stretching routine, and I've never stretched before. I like it a lot now that I'm doing it.

Here's the thing though: after about 100 days of the routine, I can stretch - maybe - 2 more inches than I could when I started. If I miss time, my progress backslides. If the question comes up: 'do I ever think I'll be limber?', the honest answer would have to be no. My guess is I'll always struggle with it.

But I refuse to stop working on it because of that. Plus - who knows - maybe I'll end up surprising myself after all. It has happened before...

Back to the 'summer of Reed' .... well, right now, as I sit on this Labor Day 2010 in this Reno Nevada Starbucks - working on my 4th cup of espresso, I'm not that optimistic. I see the little pattern games my mind runs, I can see how I retreat into the dark corners, how I'm afraid of the dance, my inauthenticities.

Why is this easy stuff so hard for me I wonder?

I will say this: at least for one week in Black Rock City, summer 2010…I tried pretty goddamn hard.

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 8

2010-10-28T01:33:00.032-04:00

My gift to myself/Mara/and the Man burns

Today is the day that the man burns. This should be interesting:

During the day (as directed by my new oracle Reklaw) I head out to the temple one last time to scribe my kind thoughts to myself. This time, I feel I'm prepared to give myself something better. It doesn't come at all naturally though, and I've had to think hard and prepare myself for a fitting turn of phrase.

My angel reader told me to think of myself as God. "God is in the soil, the air, the sunlight.... and in you" she said.

Um, yeah, right. Lets take this one step at a time…

Here's the best I can do at the moment, written in the precious little space that remains:

"REED THANK YOU FOR TAKING ME ON THIS JOURNEY... I LOVE YOU.

REED"

I sit down and meditate at the spot where I wrote the sentence, and as I'm doing it there are a lot of music makers in the nearby area. There is a percussionist playing lightly right near me, meditators sit around a man with a singing bowl:

...and a woman plays harmonium and chants over on the other side:

Far in the distance, you hear the rhythms of some techno.

In the midst of this beautiful sonic pastiche, I manage to hold a pretty quiet mind and remain there for about 30 minutes. Afterwards I wander towards the techno, where people are dancing, and in the middle of it all - in the middle of this desert - people are sitting on dusty cushions, hanging out and listening. I LOVE it. It cleanses the palate for me.

The techno scene:

THE MAN'S LAST NIGHT
So, as it happens I've been hanging out at Alecia's friend Mara's camp a bit. As I leave in the afternoon, Mara kindly invites me to come watch the burn with them. It's a very nice and appreciated invitation, and although I want to join them, I'm scared I'll be imposing.

Finally, I decide I'll just show up - despite my misgivings. Plus, there are forecasts of 70 MPH winds, which gives me extra fuel to go over and inform them of the situation. It feels good to be perhaps helpful, and not just be sponging all the time.

I walk over there. It's not an insignificant distance (but of course it seems much shorter to people with bikes - which is basically everyone but me). At the portopottie next to their camp, I run into Mara. "So, are you going home to get ready?" She says.

"I am ready", I counter.

"But where are your long pants? There's going to be 70 MPH winds!" (guess they heard) "When the sun goes down it's gonna get cold, do you have a flashlight? Where's your jacket?" All points taken, and I'm thinking it's overkill, but I've been caught unprepared before as you've seen, so I'm certainly not the person to argue. Plus yes, it's sometimes cold at night - very cold.

As I return to their camp maybe 45 minutes later, they are all gathering for the walk out to the man. There must be 40 of us all totaled. Electricity is in the air throughout all of Black Rock City, and I am feeling the charge of excitement as I wend my way back. People are running to and fro, making last minute preparations.

At camp, a short perky woman named Tabatha is organizing things. It's decided that we'll have a kind of call for if any of us get separated. The call is "CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP!". You're supposed to answer back: "NANIE!".

So we get out into the sea of people, and we're all holding hands so that we don't lose each other. I've been talking to a pretty Portuguese woman and her family member, maybe her brother. She and I are hanging out together, taking pictures and walking amongst this large crowd. She seems to like me.

I don't get it...

Seriously though, I see her as a little off of my horizon, being that I'm a lot older than she is, and she lives away from New York, so we'll settle for walking around together tonight:

Nice girl though. The brother/family member/friend is nice to me (but has limited English skills so we can't converse). Hmmm, maybe he's not her brother after all....he doesn't seem to hate me.

As we're walking along I can see why the burn was seemingly in jeopardy...the dust is really blowing hard:

(note - top left of the following photo - the man's arms are now pointed skyward, a sign that the burn is imminent):

We get to the man, and where we're going to watch from is pretty close to the action, maybe about 10 'rows' away from front row.

The burn itself is spectacular, with lots of fireworks, and the man topples over and burns in a very hot fireball...

fireworks as the ceremony starts:

As the man is falling:

Mara watching the burn:

At the end, the perimeter is released, and the feeling is sheer pandemonium:

...and people go running into the middle to dance naked, and just be, next to the fire:

Our group goes off to a dance "club", really a mutant vehicle on the playa that's playing music. People are dancing all around it, including everyone in our group but me -- especially Mara, who seems completely comfortable. At one point she sees how uncomfortable I am:

"You know nobody's watching you right?" "Don't worry about it!"

"I _hate_ dancing" I quickly answer back, without thinking. I know even as I'm hearing the words come out of my mouth that it doesn't bode well for future happiness (mine or anyone else who has to deal with me). Why does everything have to be not fun….for me to enjoy it, I wonder.

Later, I back off into the dark - and OK - maybe my big toe's wiggling a little bit. Mara dances up to me. She's delighted - "I see you shakin' that ass!" She says:

Yeah, well...it'll have to be small steps and shakes for me tonight in the darkest part of the 'room'. I can't handle anything else it would seem. I admire people who can dance without compunction. The only other person in my shoes is the Portuguese woman's brother/family member/friend, who is still doing much better than I am.

I guess I have additional work to do...I gotta start making a list...

The call sounds out: "CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP!"…. looks like it's time to go.

We form a conga line and go around the fire. Sure enough, there are naked people all over the place taking in the warmth. It is just amazingly hot there, so much so that I am rubbing the side of my face that is towards the fire so that I can cool it off just a bit. A man gets in behind me, naked, and breaks our line. I'm not happy about that. He doesn't have the right vibe. He feels like one of the 'yahoo crowd'.

Either because of that or for some other reason, we lose the rest of the people, and we can't find them in crowd anywhere:

CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP?......................

........

CHEEP, CHEEP, CHEEP?????......................

Nothing. So after a search we set out alone, first to find portapotties, and then to go to another place. There's just five of us left, Mara, two other woman, a guy dressed like the Indian in The Village People (...with less than a loincloth on, why is this guy not cold?) and me.

As we're walking through the open playa, I realize that I'm losing my energy in a big way, partly because we seem to be moving so slowly (the other two girls are seriously straggling and I'm a New Yorker....not a fan of super slow walks). But, it is nice to have a moment to talk a little more in depth with Mara finally.

We meet - by chance - some folks who are friends of some of the others we lost, and it's looking like we'll be able to find them and rejoin our group...yet...

....as momentum is slowing, I'm finally realizing I'm beat enough that I need to go home. I'm guessing they will be dancing all night.

THE TAKEAWAY?
Amazing spectacle - this burn. It seems to mean different things to different people, but the hardcore seem to be reveling in a kind of ritualistic ecstasy that is somehow elemental. That therapist from the last part might have asked "Where do you get your ritualistic ecstasy?" I don't -- no dancing, no rituals... I just don't.

The 'yahoo' crowd is just a pain in the ass. Part of me thinks these are the same people who come in from New Jersey to scream at the top of their lungs directly under my window at 3 o'clock in the morning. WOOOOOOO!!!

Serious folks, enough is enough.

…and it's hard to believe they let people get so close. It seems a little dangerous. But dangerous in a cool way. Burning Man is dangerous...I like that.

As I drift off to sleep, the city pounding it's rhythms out - sounding like an perpetual, highly grooving earthquake, I think to myself that I'm looking forward to the temple burn tomorrow…

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 7

2010-10-09T23:00:00.002-04:00

Part 7 - Mara's camp and the sandstorm.

A NEW TRIBE
As it turns out I've been hanging out at Mara's camp:

This is a real step forward.

It was an exercise in "Dr. Livingston I presume" to find these folks. I went to the approximate place where Mara would be found on 4 separate occasions. Each time I was unsuccessful. Finally, Alecia told me in her Facebook post: "go to 5:30 and D, and ask the best looking girl you can find -- 'do you know Mara?'". Once I did that, the first girl I asked led me right to her.

Mara was asleep in a chair however, and I didn't want to wake her. So I killed a couple of hours and then came back -- and she hadn't moved a muscle. Tail between my legs, I went home to my humble abode.

The problem? I'm told Mara is notoriously hard to pin down, and sure enough, now that I've located her, I've been going back again and again and not finding her at camp. From my place to hers is a pretty serious schlep by foot, so once I get there, I tend to linger. Instead, I've been finding that the camp's other inhabitants - especially women - in her absence have been very nice to me, even though they don't know me from a bundle of sticks.

I can't figure out whether I just like women better, or if I actually relate to them better (or both), but the men and I look at each other like, "Who the hell ARE you?", and the women keep being sweet and offering me nice things. Fortunately, even the men start mellowing out after a while.

The third time, they invite me in, and give me a nice margarita, and then the next time some food -- much better stuff than the tuna I have, so I can't say 'no' even though I feel like I should. I could get used to this...

They really have this camp together! There are wonderful shade structures, and a great kitchen setup. They also have a little compost pile as well as a place where they capture grey water (like from the shower) which - in the spirit of 'leave no trace' - needs to be taken off the playa at the end.

I don't have a shower. Several camps have offered me theirs, but I can't make myself take advantage of their hospitality. I'm used to being the hospitable one in life.

The food they offered me was SO nice. They had avocado for cryin' out loud! AVOCADO!

Amazing. A shower is one thing, but how could I say 'no' to avocado?

Yet, these obviously very nice people don't know me...uncomfortable. It's mostly in my head though, no one else is noticing that I'm a leech.

OK, maybe a couple of the men...

One of the issues is that this is a so-called 'gifting economy'. The only sales that are 'allowed' in Black Rock City are ice and coffee, so it's weird to say to someone, "can I cover some of that expense?"… "let me give you a couple of bucks for the salad." Which I normally would do. I came so unprepared that I have nothing to give. Thus, it feels weird to just hang there, but ya know…..this is burning man.

I am SO gonna get my act together for next year!

Well, I am getting to know the folks in Mara's camp. Then, one day, I finally find myself seated across from her at dinner!

We talk a little at that point, but generally, it's me and someone else talking, or I sit and listen to them talk about stuff, much of which I have no knowledge of. Mara heads out and does her own thing, of course, as well she should. So, it does feel a little like I'm hanging by a thread, but how nice to be hanging out in a good group!

I am determined not to let my own head get the best of me in this instance, so I just keep showing up -- even though I'm not all that comfortable. In general - the larger the group - the less settled I feel, and this is a pretty large one.

One day I come by, just to say a quick 'hello', and I run into a kind of heartfelt scene. It's Seratonin holding court with Shepardess, Katya and Janet, and they are reading cards that Seratonin has given them. Seratonin has a kind of playing card deck of - let's call them 'mystical' - short poems. I've heard them talking about Seratonin before, and they have a respectful tone when they speak of her, so I know that this is big.

This would be my first and last meeting with Seratonin.

Katya is holding her card against her heart, and fanning her face in that 'don't cry, don't cry', kind of way, so it's clear that this is a moment that I shouldn't be torpedoing with my dumb antics. I stop - and hold - in this scene.

Reverent.

She gives me a card....

.....and when I look at it I quickly say, "can I have a do-over?" (OK, so obviously my antics are hard to repress). I'm kidding really, but everybody seems to take me seriously here in Black Rock City.
I'm funny...what's the matter with these people?

Anyway, realizing that I'm operating in a 'no-hijinx zone', I show the card it to Seratonin without speaking again. She says, "oh Four, that's obviously about women".

Uh…alright…

"Read it", they all say in a unison....

So I read Poem four aloud:

'Empty the glass of your desire

so that you won't be disgraced.

Stop looking for someone out there

and begin seeing within.'

Divani Shamsi Tabriz.

Well Janet loves this, because we had a long talk previously, and it's in harmony with the things I was saying about why I made the journey to Burning Man.

"That's exactly what we were talking about!", she says, excitedly.

I resist telling them it doesn't rhyme. Someone will just point out that it's translated. Must. resist. hijinx.

In deference to my protest about a do-over, Seratonin looks at my next card. She thinks it's interesting. She flashes a knowing look. She declines, however, to surrender or even show that card. I don't press the point....

WHAT ABOUT REED?
Later in the day, I run into Reklaw in center camp. Remember her?

I tell her about my temple writing and about the gratitude for friends that I had expressed, and she gently says in her best unintentional Meg Tilly impression: "you know know what you should do, you should write something nice about yourself. Or maybe set an intention...."

Why do I keep running into this woman? She's like the fucking oracle or something....

The big problem is, she's right.

…and she's given me my hardest assignment...

So, I make a plan to go out that evening to the temple. As I start out there the weather is nice, so nice in fact that I'm in shorts and a t-shirt, and I don't have my goggles, hat, particle mask, or water.....and night is falling....

Prescription for disaster.

During my journey out, a sandstorm is starting. As I'm walking out I'm trying to think of what I'm going to write, and nothing is coming. I guess I'm not feeling that great about myself tonight. I'm thinking I'll figure it out when I get there.

I get to the temple, and I'm feeling the agitation of the weather. As I'm running around, I start writing random intentions -- all lame. I finish and leave, but as I get into the middle of the desert going back towards the city, I'm hesitating. I'm thinking that I've let myself down. The sandstorm is getting worse but I don't care…finally, I decide: I'm goin' back, that's it.

As soon I start out to the temple again, almost on cue -- it's a total whiteout - in total darkness.

A less severe sandstorm on another day:

You can't see anything, and there's no way to know where you are. Soon, I realize I'm going in circles. I can't see the temple, the man, the city -- nothing. I finally happen upon a golf cart with three people.

The person that is on the back is a kind of a hot woman with a mad max look: the goggles, the vest with feathers, boots etc. She's got that raspy kind of Tara Reid voice. You can barely hear people over the wind, so we're shouting.

I hear her talking to the driver of the golf cart, answering a(n unknown to me) question he's posed. "....no, all I have with me is cigarettes, condoms, and Tampons"... She then muses: "what's wrong with this picture?"

Obviously a colorful individual.

She turns to me and screams, "pull your shirt up and cover your nose, I won't look at your tits."

I say back, "don't worry, that'd be the most action I've had in 5 years."

"You need to work on that" she says.

Point taken.

Me: "Whats your name?"
She: [incomprehensible]
"Hippy?"
She (screaming louder): [incomprehensible]
"Hippy?"
"[exasperated] NO!"
"Spell it!"
"P-i-p-p-i"
"Oh...Pippi…"

I love these playa names!

Well, nobody can move at all, and the conditions are pretty tough. So we're hunkered down in the middle of this sandstorm, and Pippi and I are talking about various aspects of life as our conversation meanders.

I just love the serendipity of this place.

I'm telling her about my journey to the temple. She's telling me about her boyfriend (a playa virgin) and about seeing the experience through his eyes. I didn't ask why the boyfriend wasn't present.

Finally, there's enough of a break that we can give travel a try, we both are standing on the back of this golf cart (registered by the DMV for some mutant qualities that sadly will not be appreciated by me in this weather).

I am loving the ride though, and the whole scene: this post apocalyptic costumed woman, the raging sandstorm, hanging on the back of this vehicle which is lurching and honking through the blacked out desert night...people screaming at one another, near misses with other vehicles.....It feels like a cool movie that I've dropped into the middle of. At this point I don't even care what happens, I'm home.

P: "Want to go to a party?"

R: "Well you are going with your boyfriend…what good is that going to do me?"

P: "You don't want to go to a really fun party and meet really cool people?"

R: "Well now that you put it that way…"

No sooner has the invitation come out of her mouth -- that we realize that we're actually in center camp by some stroke of fate, instead of where we thought we were going,

So this alleged party will not be attended by yours truly this night.

The good news is that I can get home pretty easily from here. I find my way through my usual route even though I can barely see where I'm going. So home camp is where my journey will take me now, hunkered down in my little tent - alone - eating one of my 12 cans of tuna.

Oh well...maybe next year...

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 6

2010-09-25T23:00:00.155-04:00

Dr. Bronner's -- aka Foam Mo' Arigato

My mood is up and down at Burning Man. I mean _wildly_ up and down.

In these posts, I realize I'm talking mostly about the down part, because that's the "sharp edge" that Chogyam Trungpa, for example, talks about "leaning into" - the edge I want to work with -- but I'm up a lot too. Don't worry, there's more on that later...

BUT...THE BOTTOM:
I'm walking down the road this morning, and I'm just unhappy. Can't elevate my mood with happy thoughts.

This is not like me.

On the other hand, I'm oftentimes insulated from the fun in others' lives, my existence being a little on the solitary side these days. Maybe I'm just jealous?

Actually, no - not jealous -- that's not me either....I think, maybe unrequited...

Here at Burning Man everyone seems to be having this great time with people they just met, their old friends, etc….and I can't get arrested. They are doing what they want, dressing like they want...having FUN...

...and it just feels like it's my fault that my experience is not better.

Well, it is, isn't it?

Thankfully, I am here to hold my feet to the fire (and remember, everything is burning), so I'm not exactly complaining, but on the other hand...I need the magic formula that turns it all around...

I turn a corner and there's 4 people splashing around in the mud of a water truck. Occasionally the trucks come by and wet down the road by dropping 'spare' (non-potable) water on them. (YUK!)

below: generic Internet photo of Burning Man water truck:

On this day, there are 2 beautiful women in bikinis and 2 young guys in shorts, probably in their 20's, and they are giggling up a storm. Sheer happiness. Closest to me, one of the men is hugging one of the women and she's sort of wiggling to get loose in that playful way. It's a moment when time seems to slow down - in this tableau - before she turns and wiggles loose of his embrace.

When she turns, I can see that she's missing her right arm from just above the elbow.

I feel truly touched, that she seems accepted, loved, happy, self expressed. It's quite beautiful really...

At the same time, I simply hate myself in this moment. Lowest ebb of the trip. Burning Man 2010's nadir.

Here is this person, so very happy despite whatever challenges she's facing (at least right now) - no discernible compunction, unease or remorse - and I can barely smile. I have arms. What is my fucking problem? Seriously - It's like I'm my own worst enemy.

As I walk on, I'm thinking about what I'm going to write in this particular post, and it's dark. Man, is it dark. 'Damn, I can't write that', I think, 'people will think I'm suicidal'.

Also I'm starting to become cognizant to the fact that this all is ending in a few days, and even if I'm not always happy in it -- this is one happy place. I would move here tomorrow if it were a 365 day city instead of a 7 day one.....and no, I'm not kidding.

I'm not ready to say goodbye.

TOUCH?!??
Well, I started thinking about this therapist I once had. One night at the session (this probably goes back 15 years), that therapist asked me this question:

"Where do you get your touch?"

I thought it was totally weird. It's like saying do you get your tomatoes from Trader Joes or Whole Foods? Touch? What the hell are you talking about?

But over the years, I have thought about that question more and more. It's not merely a sexual question. The therapist's inference is that touch is so important to human beings, that it's something that absolutely needs to be supplied - like a basic nutrient. That was not acknowledged in my childhood - not acknowledged by family or environment.

As lovely as my family is, there weren't a lot of tactile signals from them -- especially my mother who didn't love being touched (or so she would SAY). I do want to say, she stood strong for me over the years - very stong, and I feel immense gratitude....but there's definitely a lot I have to learn, that's the bottom line...

...and I admire people who have that gift of being tactile beings in their normal demonstrative moments...yet every time someone touches me unexpectedly, I jump a little. Not in a good way. In the past, I used to express displeasure when that 'jump' happened inside of me.

Now - I don't mention it, instead realizing its life-affirming value, and I try to settle into a comfort zone - which is a small step forward.

On this day after a week away from my short hello/goodbye hugs, plus a little rawer emotionally than usual, I think I was particularly 'hungry'. More than usual...

It's against that backdrop that the next experience occurs:

MO' FOAM:
I heard that there was a place that you could take a shower. At this point it's been a week since I took a shower, so - even within my basic grumpiness - I'm pretty excited about the notion of that. I've actually been there a few times trying to catch them.

The camp is called "Foam Mo' Arigato".

I went by there once and said, in my typical non-threatening, jocular style delivery - "Are you still doing the showers or have I missed it forever?". The guy thinks for a minute and then replies in a guru-like demeanor with a question: "Well, you never really miss anything forever, do you?"

How Zen...I like this place already....

The bad news is that I had, in fact, missed them on that earlier day...

....and it is a really long walk, almost to the other side of the city (at least a mile), but on this day, with the girl with no forearm still very much on my mind... I made it -- for the very last round of showers!

NOTE: I include a few pictures - found around the web - for some idea of the place. I didn't take pictures, with the exception of the one of me below, because no one had clothes on.

Informally to the rest of us, it's the Dr. Bronner truck camp. Remember Dr. Bronner's Peppermint soap? Well, here at this camp, they put you in a plastic shipping container on a flatbed truck platform, and then pump Dr. Bronner's soap into the container from these big vats of it (at least 50 gallons each) they have sitting there...

...and then spray water into the container from a fire truck. I figured I'd give it a shot.

On this day when I arrived, they were doing the showers, and a bunch of really good looking people women and men, were waiting with no clothes on on the ladder up to the container where the wash takes place. Probably all 20 to 30 year olds. All differing, but beautiful body types. The men I didn't look at so much, other than to size them up, so to speak. I had nothing to worry about here…so despite my natural shyness, I took off my clothes and joined the line.

The ladder, but on a different day:

When it's our turn to go in, I respectfully head to my little area on the other side, and the men and women are somewhat separated. The guy who's running it says "that one doesn't work, go over there", and with that he pushes me into the middle of the women, then quickly turns on the soap spray. I've lost my balance and - in fact - everybody is falling around and bumping into one another. Happily I'm on the women's side (or this post might either be about my upcoming round of therapy, or that I have some 'news').

Anyway, it was fun...and natural, very natural.

Happy people with more clothes than us on, different day (and not at Burning Man):

It really felt liberating to actually be naked around a gender-mixed group of other people like that. My experience in military school showers - with all male contingent - was NOT calming, this was. Primordially calming.

This modesty that I got from my Puritanical ancestors is bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Unhealthy. I want a do-over!

Censored photo of me in birthday apparel after the bath:

That dark mood was instantly transformed - - - and I think I stopped - for good - doubting the veracity of my former therapist's question.

Later I walked almost all the way home with no clothes at all on, straight through the center of town. It was my answer to unhealthy modesty. What I met with was mostly indifference, mixed with being subtly checked out by attractive women a couple of times (if those imperfections I mentioned earlier can be attractive to me, certainly mine can also be attractive to the right recipient?).

Ok -- this time -- I'll allow myself to believe I really saw the glances.

I also provided fodder for an esplanade comedian, with surprisingly little embarrassment on my part. I even answered him back. Maybe the fortune was right...maybe the smallest step toward your goal is progress...

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 5

2010-09-19T18:43:00.000-04:00

Click to enlarge (then click the picture to further enlarge): Temple wall detail...

Temple-take 2, reading my angels and another fortune

As the days pass, I am really feeling lonely. Painfully. I am having a lot of trouble with it. Still loving the whole experience, but lonely...

The veterans have other veterans, Lesbian ladies have "Camp Beaverton (a home for wayward girls)", Our 'flexible' friends have the 'Gender Bender' camp.

Where does this wayward soul go?

So, I'm hanging out with people in these large groups, feeling uncomfortable, and very often I don't even say anything for the longest time...

I was at the 'Super Friends' across the street, and after not saying a single word for maybe 45 minutes, I felt like I got the idea, and so I got up and said, "well, I'll be running along". 'Quiet' then says - sounding a little disappointed - "oh, do you have to go?". That was quite lovely, made me feel good and it also bent reality a little for me, because it meant 'we'd like you to stay even though you're not entertaining us'.

I left anyway.

...let's face it - Rome wasn't built in a day.....

TEMPLE - part deux:
The other day when Reklaw (from across the street at 'More Fun, Less Suck') gave me the fortune cookie I mentioned, I opened it and revealed the following fortune:

...and so I resolved that my Temple post of gratitude would be about my dear friends.

I decided I would actually list people - alphabetically, and I thought about the list very hard, spending an entire evening on it. The newest friend is someone I very recently met, and the oldest non-family member is someone I've known for 47 years. Also my mother - who passed away in 1985 - my nephew, and my sister and her husband are included.

It was a careful process. I set down important criteria about who could be on the list. It had to do with the person's integrity, and what they brought out in me, or amplified in me, maybe how they had 'had my back', or experiences that we shared. Some knew my father, now dead for 45 years - more knew my mother. A couple have passed on, some are out of touch. Some are superb musicians...

All are great friends.

Also, there were reasons why some folks who were once great friends could not be on this list, and so I regretfully omitted those names. Also there are people I wish I could list, but I haven't gotten to know them as well as I'd like, and likely never will.

But the list is right.

I composed the prose very carefully. I poured over my memory and lists of contacts to make sure I hadn't left anybody out, and I contemplated each person included. It also gave me a chance to reflect on the future...who might I not yet know? - someone who isn't yet, but will be, on the list...

After I went out to the temple and wrote my message, I shared this post on Facebook for them to know they were remembered and loved:

As I thought about it last night, I decided I wanted to write something more, and something more positive. So before dinner I borrowed a sharpie from a person at the next camp, and this morning - at first light - I set out for the Temple once again, and when I arrived I wrote the following:

'When I arrived here a women gave me a fortune cookie....It said: "Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are."

...so with this burn I commemorate deep and abiding friendship with my love and gratitude:
Alecia, Andy, Damion, Danny, Gary, Jack, Lake, Laura, Lucy (RIP), Mitchell, Murray, Pickens, Robert, Saraswati, Sevgi, Simon, Tom A., Tom B., Tom P., Tony (RIP) and Whit.

Reed Robins - 9/2/2010'

Click to enlarge (then click the picture to further enlarge): 'Reed's friends' detail..

DR. LIVINGSTON, I PRESUME?/CALLING ALL ANGELS....
Following the temple visit, I resumed a search of sorts. I have been looking for Mara.

My friend Alecia, having read on Facebook about my challenges with loneliness and connection, has been encouraging me in her comments to contact a friend of hers who is at Burning Man named Mara. I have gone looking for Mara's camp a few times and not been able to find it, and today was no exception. It has devolved to me just walking around in the vicinity where she's known to be camping, walking up to random people and saying "Do you know Mara?". Next person: "Do you know Mara?". I'm starting to think the search is futile...

So, after abandonment of today's search, and feeling the pinch of that lonely feeling, I happen upon the following sign as I am walking down the road:

I think, 'what the heck, who doesn't want to know about their angels anyway?' I decide to walk over.

The woman who is doing the readings is sitting there next to her vintage 1961 trailer all alone, and she is quite attractive. Her name is Ava, and she speaks with a strange accent. I asked her where she is from, but while I don't remember her answer (Canada maybe?), I can say it doesn't fit the accent, so there's more to her story....

We talked about why I am here at Burning Man for a minute, and then she goes into the reading. All told, it takes about 30 minutes.

She gave me some background on her beliefs about the angels who purportedly follow us and help us. It's not the first time I've heard this.

Anyway, she starts by telling me that when I see a rainbow - actual or representational, or just the colors of - my mother is around. There had been a fairly impressive rainbow after a hard rainstorm the previous day (a rare event on the playa), she may have that in mind:

Then, somewhat of out of the blue, she gets very intense: "Your mother did the best that she could, you know that don't you?"
"I know" I say.

(I'm thinking 'can we take this down a notch?', but as she ups the ante, it's hard not to get swept away...)

Growing even more intense, she says - pretty emphatically: "I want you to know that your mother did all she could." "Things were different…what they knew…"
"I understand", I say, gently interrupting.

...this is getting a little uncomfortable...

Then she throws her head back to concentrate, thinks for a minute - maybe more - and actually sheds tears as she fans her face in that way people do when they're trying to hold it together. Then she looks me over slowly from head to toe...."You are so weighted down, It's like your feet are chained to the earth, you can't fly." (Points to my feet) "You need to unchain yourself."
"You have to realize that when you are with people you are giving them a special gift." "Only you can give this gift. It's very special." Her language circles back to this repeatedly as she continues to talk. She pauses often and checks to make sure I'm taking it all in.

"Imagine your presence in other people's lives as a gift to them"....

Angels or no angels...this feels pretty heavy.

Afterwards we have a very long hug. This is the first real human contact I have experienced since coming to Burning Man, the first time that someone has actually given me the gift of their complete focus. It feels like thirst being quenched, so I want - and ask - to stay....but she has other plans, so we part ways there.

I walk a couple of blocks before I go back and ask to take a picture to at least remember the moment:

It was particularly poignant for me as I walked back to the camp. The experience, basically just a goof at first, had laid me bare.

I felt like a person might feel - parched from thirst, after receiving a single drop of clean cold water...

I decided I'd take the more circuitous Esplanade route back to camp, as I wasn't quite ready to talk to people. I know when I pass 'More Fun, Less Suck' there will be happy, chipper people out there that I'll be snubbing if I don't at least engage a little.

So feeling the need to process all this, I turn the corner onto the esplanade, still pretty far away (1/2 mile?) from our camp and quite preoccupied with my thoughts, and this is who I run into:

It's a city of 50,000 people, but I just 'happen' to run into Reklaw...

After a short greeting and a little small talk, she says to me, "would you like a fortune cookie, or a candy"?

"Yes, thank you, I'll have another fortune cookie."

As I walk away from her, on my way back down the Esplanade, I open the cookie to reveal the contents...

...and this was the fortune inside:

Theme for an Imaginary Western - Part 4

2010-09-17T01:00:00.003-04:00

Part 4 - Fitting in and the temple pilgrimage - take 1

Well - I am working....trying to flourish in this new world. As I mentioned, it is hard for me to just sashay right into someone's camp I don't know and say hello (yeah I know, just like the 'default' world) -- but it's the only way for me to make friends because I have no prior relationships to build on. Other people seem to have no problem...even thrive. I try to say hello to people on the street, especially women, but it's not natural for me.

It is easier than in New York, though.

'NoBooty' tells me I have to just stroll into 10 strange camps a day and start up a conversation. I start doing that, but they always seem stilted and contrived. I don't know how more normal people do it! I was with a friend walking down the street about a year ago, and we - really he - struck up a conversation with these two women we just happened to walk past, and five minutes later we were all sitting down having drinks. To this day I don't understand how that happened...I mean, at the time I saw nothing particularly notable about that interaction: It must all be body language or something...

.....Clueless......

Anyway, I am being far friendlier than I am in the normal world, I'll give myself that.

It feels like everyone here either has shapely beautiful curves, or 6 pack abs - or both, and that's even the older people. Yeah, I know that's not totally true, but still...On the plus side, age doesn't feel like as much of a factor here, which is really freeing for me. Like my father before me, I'm freaked out about my age - I think it's genetic. Of course, when you look what happened to him (he ended up dead) you realize he had a point. One day, I see my shirtless reflection while walking in a car's window and I cringe. YIKES!

Counter to that though, I do realize that my favorite aspect of the women's bodies are their imperfections. How about that? I've only seen a couple of women's bodies that weren't - in some way - beautiful to me the whole time here, big or small, young or old. It's a petite epiphany for me.

Of course, having just been through Western Nevada, I'm well aware these folks are not a representative cross section of the general population.

THE MUSIC MAN:
I'm having similar insights through sharing my music. I brought my guitar, and have also been playing pianos located throughout the city here (believe it or not, people bring actual pianos out to the desert here). In addition, I have been going into center camp every day where they have 24 hour a day performances by burners, and have come to find a very interesting thing:

Prowess is not the coin of the realm here.

Yes, I know, that mirrors that pesky 'default' world too -- but for some reason I'm far more present to it here....and yet it's less insidious, because it doesn't feel so unfair, it just is what it is. Maybe the stakes don't feel so high - I don't know. Maybe I like these people, but don't particularly like Justin Beiber.

I was at 'More Fun, Less Suck' one day, and I played all my best stuff. I was on fire musically, but a little subdued in terms of 'stage presence' ... maybe somewhat...let's say sonically apologetic, kind of waiting for people to be drawn in so I could then come out.

Later a drummer comes by - yeah, he's good I guess - but not amazing. However...He's just putting it all out there from his first downbeat, and he soon has the whole camp dancing in the streets.

Similarly, some of the performers at Center Camp really aren't that good technically, but the level of their connection comes from somewhere else entirely. I find myself sitting there thinking "I'm so much better than that" but of course I'm never there trying to get a slot, so that means absolutely nothing.

I only saw one act that sucked at Center Camp, and they sucked because they didn't connect, not because they didn't know the chords. They seemed uh, clueless...Hmmm, did I just use that word earlier?

Anyway, there were two times when I felt like I was really connecting musically. One day I took a stroll down the esplanade (the 'oceanfront' street as it were), playing my guitar, and I had a German camera crew come up and film me...

After initially hearing me play, they seemed pretty excited, making sure to get a view of me under the distant man (seen over my shoulder in the above picture). I told them the could film me if they also snapped a couple of pictures on my little camera for me to have.

Later, I was playing piano, doing a pretty good blues (just improvising it), and a guy was filming me on his camcorder with an obvious sense of delight. I really think that delight was because of the situation. It was during a full whiteout sandstorm, so I had on my hat, green colored goggles and particle mask, and dust was flying by as I was sitting and playing - and I think he thought that was cool.

Actually it was a pretty cool scene. AWESOME...my new gimmick is performing in inclement weather!!

Very instructive.

Inauthenticity alert: suspect spotted hiding behind technical prowess to avoid vulnerablility.

Translation: It's nice to be good, but it means nothing if you got no heart.

I've lots of work to do on that one. I'm realizing it not only affects my music, but shows up in my personal relationships -- that's onerous…a catch 22 if ever there was one, since my technique obviously needs work there.

THE TEMPLE:
The temple has been fascinating me, ever since I read about it long ago....

As I mentioned, people write things on the temple walls, and then at the end of the week they burn the temple. I'm told the ceremony has a sacred air to it, and some people that are at the temple burn have very emotional reactions, and it uplifts them in some way.

So early in the week I went out to the temple when all was quiet. I wanted to get my little bit in. I thought about the reasons that I had for coming out to the desert this summer, and what I'm trying to accomplish in my own little journey. Here's how I explained my temple visit to my friends on facebook one cold dawn from center camp:

Yesterday I took the journey out, meandering about a mile by foot with no particular mission.....

....and out of dumb luck, ended up there. When I realized I was at the Temple, I asked to borrow a woman's marker, and on an almost blank wall, I wrote the following: "Fuck Fear, Fuck Loneliness (in a box crossed out), Music!! (in a heart) ...and in another place (not pictured) -- Fuck Repression."....

When I came out of my focused moment, I could see the woman was obviously having a very tearful, emotional moment after what she had written, and I said, "Could I hug you?", and we hugged. I could tell she appreciated it. I think it helped her feel connected and comforted.

It's a very powerful place.

...broad strokes for sure, and - in retrospect - kind of angry ones, don't you agree? It's funny how anger can seep out of my pores without being directly detectable to me in the moment...

Later as I was walking back to camp, I was thinking about how angry and reactionary that seemed, and how I should send something out in the burn that was more about gratitude.

I stopped past 'More Fun Less Suck', as I often would on the way back to my modest digs, and Reklaw was there. Reklaw is a beautiful young woman with an interesting accent. She has a Meg Tilly vibe (sort of a Marilyn Monroe, breathy voice quality) but with very focused intelligent content in her words. More on this later....

Reklaw: "Would you like a fortune cookie?"

"Sure". (I brought - like - 12 cans of tuna and a chunk of cheese, so that's a real treat)

When I opened up the cookie and read the fortune, I knew I had unfinished business at the Temple…

Theme for an Imaginary Western - Part 3

2010-09-10T22:08:00.033-04:00

Part three: 'Welcome Home".

As far as the car's concerned, this thump is most certainly a mechanical problem. I can't tell how loud it is outside the car, but it's definitely a loud sound inside the car. I'm looking at the people standing outside the car to see if they're reacting to it with any level of surprise. Nobody jumps when I shift.

That's good...

It is a change in the way it sounded - for sure. Fortunately, I don't see any dripping fluid, and it's still working fine, so I figure "what the hell" -- I'm just going in. As long as it'll start at the end of the week, and I can get it out of here, we'll sort it out then…

ENTREE:
When you get there, you're in a huge line - and even given that people are waiting - they ask you "are you a virgin?" meaning a first time 'burner'.

I say "In every respect." (By the way, I heard you do revert back after a while.)

"We'd like you to get out of the car and ring the bell". They have an old empty lead compressed gas canister with a sawed off bottom hanging from above the gate which they escort me to, and I'm instructed to hit it with a beater they hand you - "as hard as you can". You then lie down in the very, very dusty soil, and you make a 'dust' angel. When you stand up, you're filthy, and everyone hugs you, and they all say "welcome home".

As a matter of fact, whenever some one asks you if it's your 'first burn' they often follow your answer with "welcome home." It really feels great.

I'm only at the entrance point, I already like the fact that the aesthetic content of the moment -- the 'art' of it - supersedes the fact that other people are waiting in line -- and that the welcome is definitely genuine. When I wake up the next morning after pitching the tent and sleeping a long sleep, I notice that I'm still hearing that sound of the ringing bell dinging in the distance, and that constant ringing would continue for days to come.

When I ride in, I'm looking at and navigating in a grid that has been cordoned off into a semicircular grid of streets....

The city is roughly about half the size of the downtown San Francisco (I've seen this overlay map that shows that), so it's huge. It's about 14,000 feet in circumference, which is about 2.65 miles from one side to the other, so that bike would have come in quite handy. Over the week, I will walk that distance many times over.

I finally eye a spot which is pretty damn close to the center of things, and I negotiate with a guy named 'Novus' for a little spot in his and his friends' area. I'm not crazy about Novus upon first meeting, but the spot is really great, and they finally say that I can park my car right there once we figure out some logistics, and I've got good shielding from the wind. The wind is supposed to be intense at times. I'll actually tie the tent to the car for added safety.

The funny thing is that I never saw Novus again...

I don't know about Novus' name, but as it turns out, many of your veteran burners have 'playa names', so as I'm introduced to people in the coming days, they are named things like 'Smalls', 'Pear Bear', 'Quiet', 'Jugger', and 'reklaw'. I just use my regular name.

Also people set up their camps and give their camps names. I'm directly across from "The Super Friends", and catty-corner to me is "More Fun, Less Suck"....

More Fun, Less Suck have a good setup, they have a shade structure right on the street....

.....and they sit there with a megaphone yelling at people who come by, inviting them in for a drink or asking the men 'to show us your tits' (very good success rate there). As luck would have it, many of the women are already topless.

As for dress, everything is about costumes. Burning Man has the feel of a halloween party that goes on for a week. 'No-No' from the 'More Fun Less Suck' camp pops up from her chair from time to time and says, pointing her finger in the air, "Time for a costume change!" and subsequently reappears in 5 minutes in something new. Other folks are less exuberant or spontaneous about it - but still into it in a big way, and some people assume a personna which they continue in for the entire week. Many times the women are very sexily clad, bustiers, heels, or nothing at all...

God bless Burning Man! You're told to be very respectful about pictures - which I appreciate - so I don't have any of those kinds of photos that I would share - even the ones where I asked if it's OK I take. Some men walk around naked as well, but of course that's not anything that catches my eye.

Amongst all this, I'm definitely the clueless one. I have a hat from Sears - bought at the last minute - which I hate, and a pair of kid's swimming goggles that are lime green. I use a construction particle mask from a hardware store for windstorms....

Everything else is my regular clothes. In other words, I got nothin'. I put zero thought into it, and for the first time - even though I'm not big on Halloween - I kind of wish I had. People are mostly fine with my underwhelmingness, but I certainly see how I'm the 'plain jane' of the playa.

Plus I have no shade structure, I'm on the bad side of the street (with respect to the sun exposure), so there's no hanging at my place. Plus, I have a teenie tent which is getting filthier by the hour....

.....and I'm not a veteran. When the veterans talk about past years, or "what is so-and-so up to?", I'm lost. It's the opposite of my 'real' life in NYC (or what burners would call the "default world").

I am the lowest value person on the playa for sure.

Thus, I have to go hang out with other people - just show up and sit down. You can only spend so much time alone in a small tent in 100 degree weather before you simply have to impose on someone's hospitality -- and to me it feels like imposition. They say it isn't, and in the abstract, it's obvious that there is more hospitality, tolerance and welcoming here than in the 'default world', but I can still detect that some people can take me or leave me, to put it kindly.

At 'More Fun Less Suck' I have a mentor in 'NoBooty'...

...and his partner 'Chopper'....

They are Rangers - in other words they are the Black Rock 'police' - so to speak. There are offical Nevada Sheriffs on the scene, but the Rangers are the first line in keeping the peace and controlling the crowds. The rangers hold the order of the city together surprisingly well. It's an all volunteer group, and they are all 'burners' just like anyone else there, who decided to volunteer to help out. Nobooty - who is a 10 year burner - tells me what to expect, both as the week progresses, and also in the way to experience every event ('stand with the wind to your back at the burn', for example).

It seems, Nobooty tells me, some of the nudity will abate as the weekend draws near due to the presence of the 'yahoo' crowd, which is generally the locals that come in over the weekend to yell and scream. They aren't real 'burners' in the veteran's eyes, since they don't love the art and lifestyle as much as they love a big party with lots of women and dancing.

Crap. I was enjoying that nudity. Now I hate yahoos too!

The culture is jokingly touted as 'openly corrupt'. One day I'm at the ice store: long line. One of the workers there with a megaphone announces that because a woman has brought them drink mix and alcohol she gets to cut to the front of the line. Imagine that in a block long line in New York City…. Here: cheers erupt as she's escorted forward.

I go to the post office (yes, Black Rock City actually has 2 post offices). Seeing my mail, the reticent woman postal worker there (who is behind the counter topless) asks, "What have you got to give me?". I finally get her to agree to take my mail when I agree to walk out on the Esplanade for 30 minutes and tell passing people about the Post Office.

Center Camp is a very cool place (shown here in a sand storm)...

It is a circular building with an open roof that is shaded by strips of cloth and clothing which has a lot of art in it. There are two stages right opposite each other, one has comedians and the other has 24 hour-a-day music. In the middle is a circular spot where people do yoga, or dance. There are people giving massages, and other bodywork, and the coffee place is in there. Plus a lot of people are asleep in there, lying on the floor. There are couches and tables and chairs all over the place, and everything is really dusty....

You gotta love dust here. In a way it's kinda cool -- like living life inside of a movie. 'Mad Max' meets 'Woodstock' maybe.

I spend time in Center Camp in the early mornings listening to acoustic performances at sunrise. It's the only time a primitive Internet connection they have at Center Camp is fast enough to allow even the simplest activities -- and I'm taking the edge off loneliness by being in touch with friends on Facebook.

Artsy, Fartsy:
The art at Burning Man, by the way, is amazing. I have never seen anything quite like it, and New York is known to have some of the best museums and exhibitions in the world….and I don't just mean from the standpoint of uniqueness, I mean I've never witnessed a spectacle this compelling, exciting, creative, engaging....

Part of it is it's sense of whimsey, a quality which in this incarnation can only be manifested by a community. No single great artist could get it this right. I have many pictures, but it's like trying to film the Grand Canyon. Like photos of the Grand Canyon, the best picture will never come close to creating the sensation of being out on the Playa seeing all this stuff happening at once. It's huge. Everything is burning. Unexplainable. Especially at night.

And the so called 'mutant vehicles' are fantastic! The DMV (you guessed it - 'department of mutant vehicles') actually licenses all the conveyances that aren't bicycles, and you aren't allowed to drive anything on the inner playa itself, except a bicycle or one of the art cars, and they must be severely modified in some way to qualify for licensing:

In the middle of all this stands 'the man', that will be burned on Saturday night. The figure is at least 100 feet tall in total and stands on a large platform that has 3 floors of stairs so you can walk up to just below the man:

At the back of the circle that is the City, out on the other end of the open Playa, is the temple. People go to the temple and write intentions, goodbyes, eulogies, and other meaningful things on the temple walls. The temple will burn on Sunday night:

All in all, I am so glad to I came to see and be a part of this. It really does feel like "welcome home".

Yes, These are my people.

Theme for an Imaginary Western - Part 2

2010-09-08T23:33:00.029-04:00

Part 2: Conclusion (pt 1)/The beginning and a rough start

...AND IN CONCLUSION...

"Begin with the end in mind" - A smarter man than me once said that.

So bear with me while I conclude before we begin...

As we dive in to the deep end, it bears saying that I am basically a happy person, probably more so than most people you'll meet. I don't want you to imagine me out on some ledge somewhere.

That having been said, still I want to grow, and to search out the dark corners of my psyche to best self-actualize myself in the time I have left in this life.

So what became of me - in this experience in the Nevada desert - relates to what I am looking for in that search. A lot of people go to Burning Man simply to have a crazy fun good time, but for me it is a little different.

I remember many years ago having an exchange with a quiet student who had been studying with me for a long, long time. I said to him offhandedly one day in the course of a conversation that was music/life related: "…of course, I'm not a very spiritual person". He piped up and interrupted uncharacteristically, and said "You're the most spiritual person I know!"

Well, I don't know about that....but it helped me to readjust my thinking about myself afterwards. I was thinking about religion, he wasn't. He actually opened a door for me.

Lately I have been looking to create a stronger spiritual center for myself. A spiritual center includes - I think - a place for my 'baser' desires/lower chakras…whatever you want to call them. Not just sexual ones either. I had an epiphany on the plane back from Maui when I was reading about sex and the chakras in 'Be Here Now'.

That epiphany was this: that repressing those desires is as bad as - or worse than - overindulging them. Repression is not transcendance. Not that anyone actually said that to me, but I can testify to it because of the life I've lived.

Repressing your love for the people and passions in your life is worse still….the ultimate crime against yourself.

Repression was the law of the land as a military school cadet, and it stuck - big time. Except for the dormant seed that must have been waiting to propagate its weed inside, I was a freer spirit before my military school experience began. Yet life was so crushingly harsh there that the only way to make it through was to keep your head down and keep a low profile -- or -- take as many people out as you committed your own virtual suicide, kamikaze style. I chose the former.

The thing I didn't realize then was that the head-down style is also a form of virtual suicide. Assassinating the self to keep peace in the situation is not wholesome.

In the recent past I have been looking at my life, and examining hard to gain perspective about what the things are that hold me back and how I can address those things to move into a more self-expressed place.

Mission: to conquer those old patterns and habits….
Status: ongoing.

INAUTHENTICITY, PATTERNS AND MY FORTRESS:
This has led me to a couple of conclusions in that regard -- and conclusion number one is that I have a problem with inauthenticity. We all do things where we are inauthentic, and there's no problem…'yes that dress looks fine/no you don't look fat/nice performance'......whatever. That's the human condition.

Lately though, I have become very aware of how it permeates much of the actions that I do - and don't - take. My freedom is compromised. Plus a lot of it is inward, meaning I lie to myself about what I want and need - probably to avoid the discomfort of not having it, the fear of trying and failing, or the dishonor of not having provided it. The subject can be anything: friends, relationships, success -- you name it.

Conclusion 2 is that the negative effect of old patterns in my life are, at times, making me live small. For example, I have a pattern of not entering into relationships of different types (business/romantic/friendship/etc.) because of the possible downsides, and especially since I have all this hard data about how wrong they've gone for me in the past. Aggregate result: life unlived.

To look at the way these patterns work, you have to also look at not only the downsides, but what the 'benefits' are - because whether one knows it or not, there are perceived upsides. For instance, in the pattern I just described, there is the perception of safety and/or control that is an 'upside'.

And that segues into the third conclusion also stemming from fear. I tend to hold court on my own turf.

For example, you come to my space in New York City, and you're likely to say "This is amazing" -- There are cool views, and it's a cool space. I'll play you a little snippet of one of my projects, and the sound system and composing is likely to impress you. Down the hall I've got a great Steinway which I can play pretty well, and as I show you around, I'll usually play enough to prove myself.

The other day a friend came by for the first time, and as I was playing her my newest project, she said "Who hooked all this up for you?", and was quite stunned to hear that I did it - and understood it all - myself. That's one I hadn't even thought about.

It's a good setup (click to enlarge):

AND NOW, THE BEGINNING....
But what would it feel like to plunk myself down in the middle of the Nevada desert, having traveled there all alone, without any of those props that I have in my life? What would it be like to just get real, with some people I've never met? Work without a net. Could I even do it? How .... and/or ... will they accept me?

ON THE ROAD: August 30th, 2010 11:30 PM
Well, I will tell you....that as I barreled down interstate 80 - alone - into the pitchblack darkness of the Nevada countryside at 70+ MPH headed East, for god-knows-where, with no destination in mind and Dave Matthews screaming "Don't Drink the Water" on the CD player turned up to 11......I felt the kind of fright you feel watching the buildup in a thriller movie as I bolted into the desert night.

When I landed earlier in the sleepy Reno Airport at 10:18 PM...

...I was very happy to find a wonderful little Burning Man booth set up in the airport, and I had a long conversation with one of the women manning the booth. "What was the camping like?" I asked her, "do you just stay next to your car?" Since I still had a day left when I would be gathering supplies and I had to fend for myself inexpensively overnight, I asked, "were there any truck stops where you can just stay in your car overnight?". They talked amongst each other and asked around to people in earshot and had some vague ideas.

'This is really great', I thought. 'Everyone's so friendly'.

As I'm talking, I catch the eye of the attendant at the car rental place that I'm going to. 'Isn't this nice' I think, they're right there, 'yay!' When walk over to her, I see that at this vendor, (and every vendor there, since they are all clumped together) there are big handwritten signs that say "You cannot take our cars to Burning Man." Big fees will be incurred for those that do.

I just traveled 2000 miles to come to this thing, and you didn't tell me this until now?

Fuck that.

"What brings you to Reno?" the rental woman says, having just seen me at the BM booth.

"I'm visiting friends."

"Uh, huh…..", she says, a little skeptical.

Dodged a bullet there...I think...saying it out loud definitely won't help.

Her: "Do you want the insurance? We recommend full coverage on the replacement cost of the car."

"Absolutely!"

Her: "here are your keys, your car is in parking spot h-8"

So with that, I enter into the perilous waters of taking a car to a place it shouldn't go. I don't like this feeling - I don't like this one bit…insurance won't cover situations where there was a breach of contract. I'm sure of that.

As I go down the freeway, I decide that I will stop at a place where I can ask if there are any truck stops nearby. On the East coast they are big sprawling busy places where you can just pull up and sleep in a dark corner.

Once out in the Nevada countryside, I walk into the store off of exit 39 - it's open, but completely deserted. Weird. Were they just robbed or something? I hear noises from another room, and when I go in, I'm looking at 5 of the scariest looking guys I've seen in a long time, and one - to me at least - very unattractive bar fly type woman standing at a pool table in a smoke filled room. One lone guy plays a slot machine intensely in the corner, not bothering to look up.

I stand there - for what seems like an eternity - looking at them before someone speaks up:

"Yeah?"

"Um, I was wondering if you knew where there was a truckstop nearby, or a place where I could get something to eat?"

"Well, there's a Wendys at exit 43." the angriest guy says.

"Anything else?"

The woman pipes in about something in the other direction, and I like her idea a little better.

Hearing me perk up, the angry guy interjects, modulating loudly, "WELL, WHICH WAY ARE YOU GOING?"

Yes I'm intimidated. The real answer is "I don't give a shit, anywhere is there some non-crap food"...

"Uh, east." I say.

So I end up at the Wendys -- awful. I stand in line behind a bunch of high school kids who are talking about their lives - and eavesdropping, I take in the conversation. One of them shows this really bad wound he has on his hand. He's proud of it, and loves trying to gross out his friends.

In his defense, it is pretty disgusting.

Even though they're blocking me and not really moving forward, they ignore me completely. There's a 'you-ain't-from-around-here' vibe in the air. I get this really depressed feeling. 'This is deadendsville', I think. The food is AWFUL. Even for a Wendy's. As hungry as I am, I can barely choke it down. Finally I find a rest stop on the Interstate and hunker down for a night in the car. It is SO cold, and I don't have enough clothes to get warm, even taking everything out I've got with me.

It's summer, so I've got no hat, no scarf, 2 pairs of long pants and a few shirts, but only one of which is long sleeve. Yes, I've been watching the NV forecasts in this area, but this wasn't on the menu. I'm in trouble, I think. Good thing I'll be getting supplies in Reno, I'm making a mental note to get some long underwear and a scarf and hat.

I end up sleeping in fits and starts using one of my t-shirts as a scarf, and the other as a makeshift hat. Thankfully I'm still retaining my sense of humor, and so I keep laughing at how uncomfortable I am. I've made a promise to myself not to run the car for heat, and I don't, since I'm not going to have that luxury when I get out to Black Rock. I want to know what I'm up against.

Middle of the night, going a little mad, suffering through the cold:

Man, this is going downhill fast....

The next morning when I come into Reno for supplies, it's rainy and depressing. Everyone's out of things. Almost everything is a challenge, or way too much money, or too far, whatever. Sears, where I've bought a cooler I'm planning to throw away at the end doesn't have a knit cap or long underwear for God's sake! I finally give up. Fuck It.

Spoiler alert #1: that was not a good idea.

I post all this to my facebook page, and when comments are forthcoming I get the idea fast that my people are worried about me. Whoops, 'it's not that bad, guys', I write to placate the worry I've just stirred up. Plus the sun has just come out, which helps - a lot.

However...I'm really itching to get to Black Rock City.

So I decide: that's it, I'm going - NOW. Forget about everything else, forget about the time (it's too early and they'll likely hold you in a staging area and then send you to the end of the line). I don't care, I want to see the landscape before dark, I'll deal with whatever happens.

So by 6 PM I'm on the road east headed for the playa.

['playa' is defined in the dictionary as an area of flat, dried-up land, esp. a desert basin from which water evaporates. This playa was an ancient lake bed. By the way, it's not pronounced 'play'-ah, it's pronounced 'ply'-ah.]

I get to a small town called "Empire" which is about 20 miles from the venue, and my mood lifts suddenly. There is a big party going on. People are dancing in the highway, Everyone has a piercing, or dreadlocks, or tattoos, and it's just fun.

A truck drives by towing a vehicle that looks like a cow.... ....and I KNOW I'm in the right place.

This is COOL. There are vendors.

One crusty local type tries to sell me 'Black Rock Wine'. 30$. "I'll think about it." I say as nicely as I can. "Yeah right" the guy says, being rather condescending. No problem, nothing's going to screw up this moment, I think.

I start talking to a girl and asking her about whether I should go on. She says. "no, no - just hang out - You're going to piss people off if you show up early, and nobody wants that". So for about an hour I bide my time, just sitting in the car….but then I'm antsy, and decide to move on - at least to the next town - which is called "Gerlach" and is about 12 miles from the venue.

I meet a woman vendor who lives in Gerlach that says "I heard a rumor that they're letting people in early this year." She's selling bikes for $50, which they refurbish each year for the event, but I don't have a bike rack on the car so I can't do it. Sure wish…

Spoiler alert #2: You need a bike at this place.

But thats all I need to know. I'm outta here...

I head down to the gate, where the road begins, and just as I'm arriving at the turnoff...... I hear a very loud bang, when a rock hits the bottom of the car. "That was loud", I think, but the car keeps moving so I put it out of my mind. When get to the gate where the greeters are I shift into park, and hear a VERY loud thump...

I try it again. Loud thump. Once more, loud thump. It becomes like the tooth where the cavity fell out and you can't keep your tongue off of it. I keep trying this shift. Something's definitely busted.

Uh-oh….

Theme for an Imaginary Western - part 1

2010-08-26T22:00:00.013-04:00

This is the time of year when it always starts for me -- I get really, really down.

I think the apex of my feeling this way was in my teenage years when I first was sent off to a military boarding school. That's a story for another blog (or eighty), but suffice it to say that during the -- over 3 -- years that I was there at Fork Union Military Academy, I dreaded the conclusion of summer like the end of life itself.

Let's just say Dickens would have killed for a setting as grim as FUMA for 'Oliver Twist'. It practically writes itself:

So every year the swansong of summer feels a little like the end of life once more, and every year I have a yearning, disconsolate feeling that comes as much from regretting opportunity lost as it does from any actual end of things…

It's all a metaphor really. Goodbye to the whiling away of time spent talking on the street corner, goodbye to the informality of people's bodies barely hidden in their abbreviated summer garments, to the sound of people out and about, enjoying (or cursing) the warmth -- where was I for all these things? It all goes by so fast.

Couldn't I have done it better somehow?

Soon it will be snowstorms, and bundling up. It's beautiful too, and yes, I've always chosen living somewhere where seasons change, but summer is special to me.

Yet, I was determined that I would make this year different than the others.

So this year when I made some plans for a second trip (since you are following this blog you remember my Maui adventure), I was actually quite surprised at the range of reaction that it would elicit:

You see, as it turns out….I'm headed for Burning Man…

For those of you who don't know, Burning Man is a yearly festival that takes place near the end of the summer in a place called the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, in what could be kindly called a hostile environment. Very remote area. Daytime temperatures can reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit and by nighttime it can get as low as 40. The area is prone to sudden windstorms - and occasionally short bursts of rain that turn the place into a mud pit. For a week the area is populated by counterculture types bicycling around in tutus and tiaras, walking around in stilts and clown suits, wearing multicolored wigs, driving around in so-called 'mutant vehicles', and generally having a big party using any and all manner of licit and illicit means to supplement their fun. Also the idea is that everyone in attendance is an artist. LOTS of artwork is around.

My sense is it will be like a big Woodstock where everyone is an active participant. Accommodations? You camp, in what sort of looks like a refuge camp for the terminally hip.

Oh, and the population of this impromptu city is about 45,000. Which makes it the 4th largest in Nevada…for a week. At the end of the week - population nearly equals zero.

So is it the biggest, most annoying tailgate party in the history of the world, or a Mecca where enlightenment can be achieved through good fellowship and art? Stay tuned…

REACTION TIME:
As I mentioned, I was quite surprised at the range of reaction from my best and brightest. I'm either crazy - or really on to something. Or both.

On the east coast, there are a preponderance of folks who don't know what Burning Man even is. One day recently I was hanging with some friends, and I offhandedly said:

"Oh, I have some news, I'm going to Burning Man….

…..alone."

After nonchalantly delivering that to the group, I'm focusing on the 25 year old dude sitting directly in front of me, trying to explain what Burning Man is to him (it's not easy) - when I notice out of the corner of my eye that another person sitting to my right in our gathering (40ish - let's call him 'RB') is looking at me very intensely. As I've experienced RB, he's no stranger to 'adventure' - shall we say - and is replete with stories of his exploits which to my mind are pretty astonishing. I think of him as being far, far, far more 'adventurous' - on every level - than I am. We've chatted about Burning Man before, and the idea of my going.

I turn towards him, and he's staring at me, jaw dropped, eyes wide open as though I had just landed in a spaceship.

After a silence I ask: "What's up, man?"

"WOW!", he says…"ALONE...THAT'S A BOLD MOVE!"

Um....should I be more worried about this?

I'M A LOGISTICAL MAN:
I have been fascinated with Burning Man ever since I heard about it. In fact I don't know where I first heard of it, but in the past few years I have thought every year I would 'try' to go. For a while it was schemes hatched with friends who ultimately couldn't make it. Then when I realized that wasn't getting me anywhere, I mulled it over with tacit - ultimately passive - interest, occasionally mentioning it to someone. Finally, this year after discussing it in an email thread with my friend Alecia from the west coast, I began wondering: "what would it take for me to actually do this? -- I mean planning, money, the whole 9 yards."

While not a 'burner' herself, Alecia knows a lot of folks who she says regularly go to burning man. I'm not sure how well. I didn't ask for names, because I want to fend for myself. She had the scoop, though. Ultimately, it was a fragment from her email that finally pushed me through to action:

"...and you don't come back the same person."

Yep, I like the idea of that. Not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but yep I like that idea.

One night, soon after receiving that note, I went to the BM website and started looking at what was involved. A lot of camping gear I don't have for one thing...crap!

Also needed: a plane ticket and some way to get from the Reno airport to Black Rock 'City'. I started looking at ticket prices, just musing about the possibility. It turns out to be really expensive to take a flight to Reno with 2 weeks notice.....really freakin' expensive. $750. It only cost $850 to get to Hawai'i fer cryin' out loud!

Judging from that, I'm figuring it's going to cost maybe $2000 to do the whole trip, including camping gear. Not doable!

I look at fares 4 weeks out -- around $300 before fees. That's what I figured. Oh well, too late.

But….

.......uh, let me just try Priceline. I'll say $400.

A message pops up…

Message:

"The price you bid is most likely too low. Many of our customers enjoy up to %40 savings, but your chances of success will be higher with a higher bid."

To hell with that…CONTINUE.

Message:

"Your bid of $400 has been accepted, full price $446."

"ehh, still a little high, but I'd do that", I think...CONTINUE.

Message:

"Sorry but we cannot find a flight for you at this time. If you want to adjust travel times the following bid is available for a limited time only: $328 with taxes and fees."

Uh-oh..............

It would seem it's now -- or never. Like...RIGHT now.

"How long am I going to keep putting this off?", I ask myself. "When am I going to step up to the plate?"

My heart races, literally pounding in my chest. Fear is screaming at me: "Don't Do It!, What if you can't meet anyone, what if it's cold?, What if it's hot?, you won't have anywhere to sleep for a couple of nights!, You can't carry all that stuff!! - what if - what if…."

Please allow me to introduce my inner 8 year old -- still trying to protect me, but woefully behind the times. He remembers the military school years all too well.

I tell myself - as calmly as possible - "trust. the. universe."

pause......hesitating.........heart pounding..........pause.........

..... p a u s e .....

CONTINUE!!

Message:

"Your confirmation number is on the following page:"

Well, whaddya freakin' know? I'm going to Burning Man…..

THE COSMOS, AND MY BEST AND BRIGHTEST:
The universe starts responding - big time - sometimes in wonderfully unexpected ways.

My buddy Robert is an amazingly open and spacious, awake person. All along I've been sharing my nascent planning with Robert, since he's my first go-to for taking care of my dog, Tito. Plus, he enjoys my space, and uses the studio, so it's a synergistic relationship. He's unshakably supportive.

I tell Robert it's a go, so expect to come housesit and Tito-sit. Once I explain it a little more, he volunteers that he has all sorts of camping gear - in fact everything except a sleeping bag. The next night he shows up with a spaceage tent, portable shower, lanterns, flashlights, cushions….this is all stuff I thought I was going to have to buy - and small enough that I can fit it in bags that can go in checked luggage on the plane!

A dry run of the new accommodations, kind courtesy of Robert:

At the other end of the spectrum, my dear friend Murray, upon hearing the news, is clearly feeling exasperation. I joke that it's either my summer to 'find myself', or a delayed mid-life crisis.

By the way, why is it only I find that funny?

"Can't you find yourself on some mountain in upstate New York?" Murray blurts. I have no answer for that one.

Uncharacteristic for him.....hmm.

Later though, he calls me - unusually late - especially to clarify. "I'm sorry I was so hard on you", he says, "I was feeling protective." He adds quickly: "Elena thinks it's great." (Elena is his wife, and a good friend too). I hear her in the background of the phone conversation confirming that.

"I just thought you'd want to know that", Murray says - signing off in what feels a little like gentle confession. Later the next day, Murray has sprung into action as well, finding me a sleeping bag and a mess kit amongst his stuff.

NOTE TO SELF: Methinks Elena has exerted a gentle hand in this late night call.

So it turns out I have very little to buy. When I hit 'continue', I thought I was going to be buying everything. Thanks universe!

SO, ARE YOU WITH ME?
OK, some of my friends were shocked. I just did a big cannonball into a pretty placid pool.

Maybe that means I am on to something.

Going for the bacchanalia? Fear not friends, I'm way too much of a hard ass for that. I didn't suddenly turn into Caligula overnight. Still, it wouldn't hurt if I could dance like no one's watching - just once in a while.

This trip though, cadet Robins....

.... is expecting a 50 mile hike in full combat gear.

This feels like something to confront - a bookend to that dreaded summer goodbye, and yesteryear's annual return to military school. Obviously it's 180 degrees from that prison, but still inexorable, inevitable, inescapable...uncontrollable....a parcel in the mail that's now out of your hands.

Something to confront, but this time, something to not just endure but maybe conquer. Maybe even... enjoy.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves here.

Primary feeling? Yeah, quite honestly it's still dread. But as a trusted advisor said, operate over the fear, don't wait for it to subside - because it's not going to.

So a few people misunderstood me. Maybe I misunderstood them. Hey, my heart is in the right place, that's the important part. After all, Murray came around quickly enough.

...and come to think of it, maybe my timing's a little off. I could've set this up sooner. You know, when you think about it - Mercury is in retrograde.

Thus, in the final analysis, I need to remember what my reluctant guru told me - not so long ago:

"Everything is just right as it is.
Thats what I think.
Doesn't mean it always feels good."

trust. the. universe.

…and so, it's off to the Black Rock Desert.

Pt. 7 - Unfinished Business on Maui

2010-08-22T19:43:00.010-04:00

note: the following blog post was split into 6 installments, and each was posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. Mysteriously, this seventh installment has also surfaced.

Its purpose is to deal with some unfinished business...

see the first installment here
see the second installment here
see the third installment here
see the fourth installment here
see the fifth installment here
see the sixth installment here

You may remember that in the 4th installment of my Maui trip blog post, as I described my reticence to get and and play the newlyweds a song, I wrote the following:

.....It's at this moment that the exact low point of the trip comes for me. I'm sitting here with my folded-up body language, nervous, not knowing what to say. Saraswati and Raghu pass by, saying their hellos to all, and mention that their friend is going to serenade them with her guitar, and if anyone else would like to play…

OPPORTUNITY! Deep down, I know I could create a magical moment, really give Saraswati and Raghu a serious present. I know it, but do I believe it? Also - let's face it - it could also be my instant ticket out of nowhere-land. This was the instant 'get-out-of-beating-free' card when I was 12. The friend gets up. There's two false starts, which she blames on the surf/noise distractions. I can't think straight. I'm not paying attention.

I start to think about a couple of songs I could do. I'd have to sing - too noisey in this environment for solo guitar. Hmmm. The first song that comes to mind is "Little Wing". Perfect description of Saraswati. Yet it's a little high for me, but only about a half step. "What if my voice cracks?", I think. "Is there a guitar pick? I could tune the guitar down"…but I'll need it at concert pitch for the second thing I think of (an obscure but quaint little Duane Allman song called "Please Be With Me…"). "It's low, could I make myself heard?"

"I haven't practiced singing in weeks!"

I'm frozen, completely up in my head watching this moment pass by in slow motion like a car crash - and then the opportunity dissipates without being seized…people start eating - some wander about…the moment is lost…

Forever……shit.

Well, as the weeks have passed I have been thinking about this unfinished business, and I decided, with some very supportive people who have helped me with my timidity, that it would be good to offer those 2 songs here, in a video recorded in the living room of my NYC loft.

A far way from Maui...

...and not exactly the same as a live performance, but maybe a keepsake, a show of love, and some movement forward...

Try to act surprised, Saraswati:

Pt 6 - The Yoga Class and Farewell to my Satsang.

2010-08-13T20:00:00.003-04:00

note: the following blog post was split into 6 installments, of which this is the final post, and each was posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. As always, click the pictures to expand them if you like.

see the first installment here
see the second installment here
see the third installment here
see the fourth installment here
see the fifth installment here

“Life is suffering.” Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.

"Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable." - "Be honest and transparent anyway." Mother Teresa 1910-1997

SPEAKING FROM THE HEART:
....I never did have that connected, heart to heart discussion that was in my fantasies, with Ram Dass. When I spoke to him, I was always trying to contrive what my words would be - think of what I was going to say - instead of speaking from the heart. Maybe he would have been the one to tell me that my "mind was broken, not my heart", if only I could have revealed that heart.

It's OK though, I'm blessed to have the teacher come forth in Saraswati. Boy, do I remember her from another lifetime…when it seemed any teaching done would have come from me.

Near the end, Alecia told me her story of connecting with Ram Dass. To paraphrase, she said that she told him that wasn't that familiar with his work, she hadn't read any of his books, but that she did find that the community of people that he had put together spoke to her strongly about his character. When I heard this, I knew that it was a connection made skillfully, and I told her so.

She then said that at the end, after she was getting ready to turn away from the conversation with Ram Dass, he said "I want to hug you," and they hugged.

Bravo Alecia.

I'm trying to get through the emotional roadblocks that hold me back from making those connections. The guitar performance not played, the connection not made, it's all part of the same challenge, and that is to come directly from the heart in all things.

I fear it, it seems.

When I mentioned my squandered opportunity with Ram Dass to Saraswati, she commented:

"Life is very unsatisfying....

I guess you will have to go back and see him again!

and by the way, who says you're in charge of everything anyway? It's not like you can make connective moments manifest.

Everything is just right as it is.
Thats what I think.
Doesn't mean it always feels good."

Thanks for the lesson, teach.

…on the last day that Alecia and Rosemary were there -- Saraswati's "everything-is-just-right-as-it-is" notwithstanding -- I'll admit I was suffering a little bit. I tried to hide it as best I could.

For me, that day began with carefree joy. We went again to Yoga. This time there were five of us. Alecia, Saraswati, Rosemary, Cindy (who is herself a yoga instructor) and me. Well, there's a part in the end of class where you go into a pose called the wheel:

In un-advanced classes, you use a partner to do it. Your partner stands over you and helps you get into the posture. You lie on your back, put your hands on your partner's ankles, and then they adjust your arm position. You then arch your back and push up from your hands until your body is in the shape of a wheel. To accomplish this your partner supports under your shoulder blades. It's an amazing feeling to do it, even though - or maybe because - you're getting assisted.

The day before I had been assisted by a friendly man named Wolfgang - very friendly. He's in great shape, quite helpful and I had a textbook - almost perfect - move. After my posture he did his unassisted. Impressive. Nice enough guy, but when we were done it felt like we'd picking out furniture together next time.

No thanks Wolfie.

Perhaps I'm flattering myself.

This day, I was standing next to a guy who was maybe 200 pounds - well suited to assist a person of my size. Alecia and I decided to be partners, but a second later she was reconsidering, and said "maybe you should go with him", pointing to the man. "No", I said, "it's you". I was firm. Unconvinced, she reluctantly agrees.

A: "Who goes first?"
Me: "You go first."

It's easy to do her, because she's more advanced than me. Right away she tells me what she needs: "more shoulder blades!" she says as she's in the pose, and I adjust her and help her do it twice. Then it's my turn…

They all gather around me. It would seem I'm a real project. Alecia is coaching me. "Move your elbows in!." Cindy runs over: "Your feet should be more THAT way", moving them in towards my glutes. Cindy stands on them once they're in place to give me support. Saraswati is standing over the proceedings beaming, as she often does. Later I'm told that, but right now I can feel it in the air.

Then it happens, I'm up! Everybody's giving me encouragement, supporting me physically and emotionally. Finally, from across the room the teacher says "That's enough Reed, come on down". It seems I'm the last to finish.

And - for me - it's a moment of epiphany.

This entire week - and everybody in it - has led up to this instant.

Is epiphany always followed by change? I don't know. There is a lot to unlearn:

It's not about perfection. The perfect pose, the perfect performance, the perfect conversation, none of that got me to this moment today....

...I wonder what did?

I've either lived my whole life chasing the perfect moment, trying to be perfect, or leaving moments unlived because they wouldn't be perfect. The non-attainment of perfection becomes suffering, and it's a cycle.

But this feels like the metaphorical equivalent - a fleeting glimpse - of what life could be. Held, supported, loved -- in my community -- by my closest people -- just because. It feels like I've got a lot of work to do with that. There are walls to break down. Big tall walls. And how do I live my life on a daily basis without this wonderful feminine energy? - without these people?

And soon they'll be gone, scattered to the four corners of the globe. Sadly, nothing is forever...

...except a moment lived. My heart, will remember this moment forever….

and after all…isn't it really what's in your heart that counts?

EPILOGUE:

….and so my once-hardened heart is broken, and refilled, this week on Maui.

Later we walk, the last seven of us, into the rainforest in a spot where waterfalls are, under a steady soaking rain.

It seems fitting to be under the rain today.

I am staying about 50 feet ahead or behind of the group to get some solitude, thinking about what we had experienced over that week. Lots of joy and laughter and sweetness. I need space to hide - I feel too vulnerable.

I guess old habits die hard.

You see, as the day wasted away I was becoming sad - quite sad - to see this little adventure end.

But this is where the rubber meets the road:

BE HERE NOW:
The title of Ram Dass' book says it all: Be here NOW. Translation: the present moment is all we have.

In his house Ram Dass has a clock. There is no 1 or 2 or 3 or 4. Every hour on the clock says "now".

They say worry about the past is about regret, and worry about the future is about fear. The present moment is what matters.

After we said heartfelt goodbyes at the airport, I returned to my room and listened to the silence, and the only sound is rain pouring outside the window. A nice spot to be sure, but It didn't matter without the Satsang, especially Alecia and Saraswati. I didn't care to be there any more. Still, it held a profoundness in the moment which I worked to stay present to, maybe learn from.

Funny that when I booked the trip, I planned the last night - spent alone - to be for relief.

The next morning, I thought about a yoga class, but when I looked at the schedule it didn't say 'all levels' like the other days. Without my crew to advise me, I just couldn't do it, so instead, I went to the restaurant. I'm guessing the waitress thought I was crazy (or perhaps didn't notice) as I sat alone in our same booth - for four - with a single tear running down my cheek. We made small talk about coffee refills.

I notice they have the radio on pretty loud. I never noticed music in this place before....that's great, it feels like comfort food for the soul to me right now.

A song comes on from when I was a kid. It has a potently nostalgic quality for me today, and I'm listening with a musician's ear…'look at how long it takes to get to the first chorus', I think - 'That would be unallowable in today's market'. 'I love the sense of excursion between the 2nd and 3rd chord changes', I muse. Then I become focused on the lyrics as the first chorus plays:

"Ride, captain ride upon your mystery ship
Be amazed at the friends you have here on your trip
Ride captain ride upon your mystery ship
On your way to a world that others might have missed"

The teachings say that our suffering is like the clouds on a rainy day -- the sun is always up above. Best to be in the suffering, and then it passes. The sun is always shining - even if you can't see it. Even if your heart is broken....

...like here on Maui:

BE. HERE. NOW.

pt-5 BREAKFAST, AND THE INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM

2010-08-10T19:11:00.022-04:00

note: the following blog post will be split into 6 installments, of which this is the fifth, and each will be posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. As always, click the pictures to expand them if you like.

see the first installment here
see the second installment here
see the third installment here
see the fourth installment here

As it turns out our innkeeper John is not feeling well this morning, so we're on our own for breakfast. The wife is away in Georgia with family, so when he can't do it, there's no one to do it. It's OK for us, because - with strong encouragement from my 'satsang' - we're going to yoga class (my 2nd class ever, although I do it alone at home).

As a rule, I'm not a fan of looking stupid in public, which is a concern here.

When we return, Mike (AKA Donald Trump Jr., see previous post) wants us all to go out to breakfast together. Alecia and I are in our room rolling our eyes, trying to figure out how to get out of this torture, but Rosemary is already out there in the living room - in the line of fire, and it's getting set up.

So I snap: 'OK I'll do it -- but only on the condition that we take our car!' This is because the last thing I want is to get kidnapped by this guy all day - I'm not gettin' in his car!

As we are leaving Alecia suddenly says, "I'm going to walk". I get the feeling she thinks driving is stupid. She's right too - as a New Yorker and hopefully a good citizen of the planet, I would never drive to 14th street, but here I am driving 2 blocks - in freakin' Maui. Then as I'm getting in our car, Rosemary is not coming with me, but instead is getting in Trump Jr.'s car, so I'm left driving to the restaurant alone. That feels really stupid, but I push on. When exactly did I lose all influence?

Once at the restaurant, I get out and go in - and wait. 10 minutes later Alecia walks in and tells me she's learned they've gone to a different restaurant. It all feels really discombobulated, but it's sure OK with me!

You know those World War 2 movies where one guy jumps on the grenade to save the other's lives?…today that guy is named 'Rosemary'. When we saw her again at the inn, she had a story about Mike's political discussion, and how he had ticked off some of the local patrons of this place (being a loud talker and all).

In the meantime Alecia and I had a wonderful and calm breakfast, full of great conversation.

Thanks, Rosemary!

ITINERATES:
Back from breakfast, and someone has just shown up who wants a room. She's newly arrived from Italy and needs to stay somewhere and is really tired. I tell her to go up to the shopping center and ask around, but Mike/Trump Jr. wants to handle it. He gives her tea, sets her up on the couch, shows her stuff to read and what have you.

Well, John the innkeeper is in his little house in the back yard....

....and someone goes out to get him but can't wake him up. He really MUST be under the weather.

Rosemary and I decide we're going on a little excursion to pick up some t-shirts for my good friend Andy, and it turns out we're gone 3 1/2 hours. This is a bigger island than I thought!

We get home, and the woman is still waiting. I go in the room to get a shower, and a few minutes later, Alecia comes in the room and says, "something bad is happening. Two police cars are in the driveway".

So we're trying to figure out what's going on, but I don't want to actually go ask. After all these years removed from a checkered past, I'm still reticent about police. Less police the better I always say (although NY cops are usually dealing with real crime, or actually helping you in some way, so that mantra is only used outside of NYC).

Plus they'll want to take my name and ask questions -- what the hell, they'll find me if they need me.

"I think it may be a drug bust", says Alecia. I didn't notice a druggie quality from this guy, but whatever. I wasn't particularly paying attention. I'm clean.

Turns out someone had gone back out again to John's house, and he's still in the exact same position from before: DEAD.

Yes, the innkeeper - dead of a massive heart attack. In the middle of our idyllic Maui vacation. 58 years old. Talk about unexpected!

Didn't I see this in a Monty Python sketch?

OK, it is sad - I'll grant you. It's certainly awful for the wife, who I've never met or spoken to, but as far as John's concerned, he got off pretty easy, probably pretty quickly.

Plus, remember the wife's NOT here.

I've seen some long hard deaths - cancer, emphysema, you name it…my mother, my father, friends - so when you're walking around one minute and gone the next, that seems like a pretty good deal. I'll take it. In fact I'm free next Thursday if the grim reaper wants to schedule me.

Plus we'd only met John a couple of times.

Umm, so naturally this situation is primed for humorous quips and such, yes?

Let's face it: John would have wanted it that way.

CRISIS, WHAT CRISIS?
What was really interesting was to see how this little community reacted, pulled together and coped. Donald Trump Jr. is really bummed at first. I mean really bummed. He comes across as kind of a lout when you've just met him, but at this point he's sitting there slouched over, with his head in his hands in that distraught way, and people are patting him on the back ('there, there…he's in a better place'). Seriously? He knew John for - maybe - one more day than we did…..

Rosemary is a junior detective, logging all her incoming and outgoing calls, talking to the police, and generally in crisis solving mode. We're telling her, "Rosemary, it's not a crime scene - relax."

She's not relaxing.

Alecia and I, seeing the big picture here, think this whole scene - while tragic for the kin - also has humorous aspects and irony, and so we're making little innocent jokes, off to the side. The more intense everyone else gets, the funnier it is to us, and so the crescendo begins. Alecia works in a critical care area, and so while she is clearly very compassionate, she also has experienced enough of this and so is used to it. Plus by this time, we've gotten to know each other pretty well, so as I've come to realize, she's HILARIOUS.

This is a little dangerous...

At one point, trying to move it along and get to the dinner where we're expected, I say, "I'm hungry, I need to eat."

Alecia says, "yeah, we really need to get to the restaurant, we're late....
~long pause~
I'll tell ya' who doesn't need to eat…"

Can't write the timing of course, but every one she comes up with is better than the last. She's clearly building on a motif. Also, I'm stonefaced (as the 'mourners' are in hearing distance of me). She's thinking these aren't landing, so she keeps upping her game. At one point she asks to make sure she's not offending me.

Offending me? What I'm trying to do is not to let my laughter get out of control, especially since everyone else is so serious...

...so very reverent.

Again, of course, not laughing about the wife -- to reiterate though - she's not here.

NEW INNKEEPER:
Well, as time goes on, Mike (Trump Jr.) is taking over the booking and upkeep.

The first thing the next morning I come out of my room groggy, and a couple I've never seen is there standing with Mike right in front of our door -- he's showing them around. "Hi, how are you?" the new man pleasantly says to me. I grunt hello. Mike says in a cheery salesmanlike way: "Here's the Aloha room." "Out back here is the plantation grounds." "I think we can get you into this other room over here later today."

At what point do you just say, "the proprietor's gone to a better place, sorry but there's no room at the inn?"

Plus, I don't know exactly how it happened, but in a single day he evicts the Spanish guy, which - keep in mind - John was not able to do for some time, and has found a place for the Italian woman on a fold away bed in the front hallway. Mike is just a guest - and he's only been there for a day longer than we have.

Maybe he did do an impressive real estate deal...

Later we go to dinner with a few of the reunion folks, their numbers dwindling. Ram Dass, Krishna Das, of course the bride and groom and some others are there.

"Sorry we're late, but our innkeeper just dropped dead".

Thankfully, Saraswati saw the humor in it too. It's not just me…

The grounds in happier times, complete with deadbeat Spanish sunbather in background:

Next: The Yoga Class, and farewell to my Satsang

Pt-4 THE WEDDING, DINNER AND A MUSICAL HAIKU

2010-08-09T06:23:00.010-04:00

note: the following blog post will be split into 6 installments, of which this is the fourth, and each will be posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. As always, click the pictures to expand them if you like.

see the first installment here
see the second installment here
see the third installment here

A bed and breakfast definitely can create an interesting microcosm of people and activity, and we're interfacing with all sorts of odd people, some amiable enough, some bordering on insufferable.

First there's Jane. She is an elderly woman from England that has come back to Maui from England to help take care of her daughter's baby. She has all the stereotypical English mannerisms: very polite, tells un-amusing anecdotes and then laughs at them quasi-nervously herself like they're quasi-funny. She generally has an uptight personna - straight out of "Upstairs, Downstairs".

Don't get me wrong - she's very nice - and perfectly pleasant to have breakfast with (which is when you see the people). It feels stiff though, so I have problems connecting with her, since I have my own stiffness problem when I don't know someone. I don't make much conversation, as my inner morning person is AWOL. Alecia gently engages her in the mornings, asking questions and showing interest in the answers.

Then there's a boarder (a little more long term, I get the feeling) who - if I recall correctly - is Spanish. Swarthy. Neck-down hirsute. The scuttlebutt is he hasn't paid recently and he won't leave. He sunbathes around the grassy grounds a lot (what - like you can't find a beach here?), and smokes as he walks around outside in his bathing suit. He nods and then quickly looks away without speaking when you see him. We rarely see him though.

Finally there's Mike. Mike is here from Los Angeles. He initially comes off - to Alecia and I at least - as a giant pain in the ass. He's gone on and on about some real estate deal he did, talks about his money successes and big screen TVs a little too much (not impressed, dude), and speaks disparagingly to me about a woman who he's here to see in Maui with other people present (in a way that I wouldn't do). Basically he strikes me a nebbish Donald Trump wannabee minus the comb-over.

It's hard to describe here, because it's really more about his tone than the actual content of his sentences. Trust me, he's an eye-roller. A groaner. We generally aren't enjoying his antics. I'm trying to steer clear of him entirely, but Rosemary has a way of engaging him, as she's nicer than I am. As she's speaking to him I'm thinking: "In the name of all that is holy and good...please don't ask him another question!" Oh well, we finally get done with him and after a quick visit to a nearby beach it's off to the wedding.

I was tipped off by Alecia that there was going to be a poster board (as it turns out the other side of the poster seen at right in the 'preparations' picture below) where we will be invited to make a haiku. We've been staying in Haiku Hawai'i, so it's called 'a Haiku in Haiku'. Going with my strengths, I sit down in the room right before we leave and compose a little musical haiku. I've honestly never heard of that before, but someone must have thought of it, right? Anyway, as a haiku I decide it is to be three measures long (for the 3 lines), and while I composed it in music notation software there in the room, I'll write it in hand on the paper at the event. For my method, I interpret syllables as beats. You could argue that rhythm (and not beats) should be syllables, but I won't be debating that point. It'd be way too short then! As it is, it only lasts maybe 15-20 seconds.

A Haiku is 7 plus 5 plus 7 right, right?? Piece done.

Here's my, uh, musical haiku (as it turns out, the first draft):

The idea (in my fantasy mind at least) is about 2 elements existing in harmony, but each with their own autonomy. I did this with the harmonic language, and the element of right vs. left hand. At the start, I made the melody (right hand) outline a C chord which is juxtaposed over a Bb major chord. Then when the left hand chord moves to a C harmony (2nd inversion - don't want to be too obvious now, do I?), the melody moves to a B natural, for a cross relation against the Bb chord. I try to be clever with that kind of stuff. The last chord is a real ring-y pan-diatonic D over /C maj as seen in the examples.

Yes - Blah, blah, blah…pretty chords. If you don't understand it by its description here don't worry, I play the haiku below for them in an embedded youtube video.

Arriving at Ram Dass's house, the preparations are beautifully laid out. There are rocks lining the path, and flowers flowing with the rocks.

A woman opens the ceremony by blowing a conch shell instrument and then singing a hawai'ian song, which traditionally is thought to clear the spirits. Then Gopal will recite a verse, Krishna Das will play a song, Alecia will recite a lovely poem she chose and then a man from India, KK, has a reading and will direct the couple to circle the bowl of incense 7 times while he directs them through some vows.

Ram Dass does beautifully, and even injects some humor from time to time (when Saraswati's response can't be quite heard at the "Do you take this man" part, he says enthusiastically with a smile - "She said YES!"). People giggle.

Every one else does well too:

Gopal's reading is wonderful, which he delivers with quiet intensity in a no-nonsense style (My favorite line: "May this marriage have a fair face and a good name, an omen as welcome as the moon in a clear blue sky." Ode 2667, Rumi).

Krisha Das plays a beautiful song "A Heart as Wide as the World". Even right now, 4 days later the melody flows gently through my head when I'm in silence. It has a little picardy third cadence in there (for some of you music geeks), that never gets old even though it comes again and again.

Alecia's poem, which she recites from memory, is also marvelous and touching - I happen to know she worked on it hard (an excerpt: "There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. " 'From Blossoms' - Li-Young Lee).

Should I have brought tissues?

The 7 circles ritual caps it off nicely. Wonderfully evocative.

Ram Dass at the ready:

Cousin Ronnie walks the bride down the aisle:

The happy bride during 7 circles:

The first kiss as husband and wife:

Dear friends share a heartfelt moment:

After the ceremony we head to a lovely restaurant called 5 Palms which is on the beach to see the sunset and then have dinner. But on the way in the car, I'm told that a haiku is actually 5 plus 7 plus 5.

CRAP.

I'm a little freaked out (seriously, like anyone's gonna know?…). Still, when I get to the restaurant, I take out my laptop and start revising furiously, sitting on the beach while the sun is setting. Krishna Das walks by as I'm working, and seeing me on a laptop he says, "writing a letter?" When he sees it's music though, he's intensely interested. How cool is that? Well, I guess a score is, after all, a visually beautiful thing.

2nd and final draft:

Ultimately, I'm happy with this because I think the second effort is better. Unfortunately, when I finish in about 5 minutes - by that time everyone is seated. Even worse, I also went and did the piece in hand first before sitting, since I needed room on the paper. Now I've got no place to sit…except the kids table - the REAL kids table.

Yay! I see a place at the bride and groom's table - too good to be true, I start to walk over...someone sits down…wait there's an empty…nope…how about…

It's high school all over again! Actually, I had a little more luck with this in high school on the first day, but that's another story for another time…

Well, I finally found a seat and it was fine, but again I'm a little uncomfortable. I sat with a group that were all living on Maui - locals you could say. Once I got over my initial nervousness I was OK. Very nice people. Still, I couldn't hear what some of them were saying all that well though, so I found myself just nodding and smiling a lot. I wish I could blame it on dialect...Is my hearing on its last legs as well?

It's at this moment that the exact low point of the trip comes for me. I'm sitting here with my folded-up body language, nervous, not knowing what to say. Saraswati and Raghu pass by, saying their hellos to all, and mention that their friend is going to serenade them with her guitar, and if anyone else would like to play…

OPPORTUNITY! Deep down, I know I could create a magical moment, really give Saraswati and Raghu a serious present. I know it, but do I believe it? Also - let's face it - it could also be my instant ticket out of nowhere-land. This was the instant 'get-out-of-beating-free' card when I was 12. The friend gets up. There's two false starts, which she blames on the surf/noise distractions. I can't think straight. I'm not paying attention.

I start to think about a couple of songs I could do. I'd have to sing - too noisey in this environment for solo guitar. Hmmm. The first song that comes to mind is "Little Wing". Perfect description of Saraswati. Yet it's a little high for me, but only about a half step. "What if my voice cracks?", I think. "Is there a guitar pick? I could tune the guitar down"…but I'll need it at concert pitch for the second thing I think of (an obscure but quaint little Duane Allman song called "Please Be With Me…"). "It's low, could I make myself heard?"

"I haven't practiced singing in weeks!"

I'm frozen, completely up in my head watching this moment pass by in slow motion like a car crash - and then the opportunity dissipates without being seized…people start eating - some wander about…the moment is lost…

Forever……shit.

Shyness. I don't wish it on you. In the end, the friend's false starts (which to me - the music professional - should be the only viable justification for the continued administration of capital punishment) were nothing worse than charming to the attendees of this gathering. There's something to be learned from that.

Later, I confide in Alecia about it. She's kind and supportive to me, but inside I remain pretty pissed at myself despite her kindness. If there's in good news in this matter it's that the confiding itself is a small victory, as is mentioning it here.

This was so easy for me when I was 12 years old...what happened? Lack of threats of physical violence? They oughta have an emergency room with nothing but therapists in it. I could've been hauled in on a stretcher at that point.

PAGING: DR. PHIL...

Not long after though, one of the highlights of my trip comes at the end of the dinner. I have a good talk about music, and life, with KD. For someone who has such a following, he is quite kind, full of humility, and generous and respectful to me. I tell him about my projects, and we end by promising to be in contact and possibly work together. My heart fills a bit.

.....the universe taketh away, and the universe giveth.....I guess....

At the wedding with KD before heading off to the restaurant:

…and here is the final version of the haiku, which I recorded in this video for Saraswati and Raghu once I returned to NYC:

Next: BREAKFAST, AND THE INMATES RUN THE ASYLUM

PART 3-SWIMMING WITH GURUS…AND A REHEARSAL...

2010-08-04T01:13:00.027-04:00

note: the following blog post will be split into 6 installments, of which this is the third, and each will be posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. As always, click the pictures to expand them if you like.

see the first installment here
see the second installment here

Monday begins with a swim with Ram Dass.

We take a long drive over to another part of the Island, and then get to the beach where we'll be swimming. Ram Dass had a severe stoke in - I think - 1997, and so he's confined to use of a wheelchair. He can however, swim. He uses a life preserver, and gets around pretty well in the water. This is the first time I'll be seeing him.

All sorts of devotees and followers are there to join us, maybe 40 in all, and he has a few assistants who cheerfully and unselfishly help him along (not just today, but in all endeavors). Photographers - with professional looking equipment - are on the scene photographing everything. Here he comes down to the beach in what looks like a kind of recumbent bike, made out of plastic:

Group shot -- Ram Dass is sitting on the bike:

As we go for the swim, people are throwing flowers into the water around him. I understand this takes place at every swim. At this point I have nothing much to say to him, so I don't interact.

I mean, what am I gonna say anyway?

"What's with that airline food?"
"Uh...Did you see Letterman had stupid pet tricks last night"?
"I hear Brittany Spears is working on a new album...!"

I guess I'll keep workin' on it....

There are people throwing around what looks like a lemon (forgot what it's called) like a ball, but they never pass to me. Boy, this feels like grade school all over again! The only difference is now I realize how unhelpful my ego trip is…who cares if they don't throw it to me, as long as I don't? I don't even know what the thing's called for cryin' out loud...

OK, maybe I do feel a tad neglected.

I tag along with the group, but it's hard to fit in. Ram Dass does look at me a couple of times and we exchange smiles. We get to a ball in the water tethered to the seabed for navigational purposes, and when we reach the marker he excitedly exclaims "Oh Buoy! Oh Buoy!", about 5 or 6 times. I'm later told affectionally by Saraswati that he makes that joke every week. Hmm.

He swims every Monday it seems, although today's contingent is a little bigger than usual. Their names are Ravi Das, Balaram - names like that...hard to remember names. A man with a friendly face gives me some sunscreen. He looks like he should be named 'Fred', but his name is 'Gopal'. I would later find out he's an attorney. Some of these folks answer to no other names, and some are called by English language names in their normal lives. Balaram, for example, is also Peter. There are lawyers, photographers, producers - it runs the gamut of professions. All are likable on first meeting. They share a kind of personal depth, it seems.

Many of them also speak with regular regional accents, and have mannerisms from their places of origin (like Long Island for example). It's pretty funny and kind of endearing to learn this.

As we're leaving the beach, Alecia and I are to go pick up our third occupant of 'Cannery Row" at the airport. The group however, is going to lunch, so I just encourage her to go along with them. I'm impressed by how she kind of wants to accompany me to the airport for moral support, but with some convincing I get her to go along with the lunch crowd. Afterwards I hear it was great. I go to the airport to pick up Rosemary.

Rosemary reminds me a lot of my sister (albeit with - let's call it - a new age twist). She's about the same age, and is a very nice woman with numerous stories of her life's experiences and is an artist. She paints with a giant brush. She's also a teacher, and has lots of experience with things like face reading. She tells me that I have issues with my mother (OK, got one), diagnosed by a crease in the skin between my eyebrows, and that the creases near my earlobes indicate that I have a good "bullshit detector". I think that's right too (about the detector, I'll have to take her word about the creases). She tells me I should write a letter to my mom (mom's passed) and then I'll be in a relationship. I might try that…

Rosemary talking to the groom in Ram Dass' great room, the day of rehearsal:

Well, Alecia is a force, and when she got up earlier that morning she went into action, telling the innkeeper - John - that we need to rearrange our room so that we can accommodate this new person. She has so much energy when she tells me her plan. I love it!...and Alecia's ideas about rearranging do make more sense, but John - seeing more work for himself - cops out quickly, and tells us that we can use the empty adjacent room free of charge. So Rosemary sets up in there and we head out to the rehearsal.

This is good.

The wedding is to be held at Ram Dass's house, and we are a group of a select few who Saraswati has invited to come to the rehearsal. Ram Dass is asleep when we arrive (his condition is challenging), and Saraswati encourages his helpers to let him sleep, but soon he appears, determined to be a part of as much as he can. We're out in the backyard when suddenly the chair lift makes a loud mechanical sound and he descends from the upstairs. I'm slightly amused as I notice it feels a little like "The Wizard of Oz" to me, when the wizard is behind the curtain. Helpers run over to receive him and help him navigate to the spot where he will sit. He will be performing the ceremony, and he wrote a lot of the text, and wants to make sure it's done well.

This man is impressive! As challenging as his body situation is, his soul is radiating out like some sort of supersonic prism. His smile has a ferocity to it, and at the same time a softness and compassion which is hard to describe. His countenance radiates a joyful quality, and he laughs easily as they basically 'mark' the ceremony (in other words, go though it nonchalantly for blocking). It's easy to see why people find him so compelling. At the same time he's clearly tired. He soldiers on. At one point our eyes meet, and he seems to be a little surprised to see me there in what is basically the inner circle. I smile at him and he smiles back.

If you don't click another picture, click this one (then click again to expand completely - check the look on his and Saraswati's faces):

The spot where the ceremony would take place is on a hillside by the sea, with lovely views of the ocean. Idyllic:

I'm surprised to find that Krishna Das, who as I mentioned is the rock star of the group (from a musician perspective that is) is going to be singing at Saraswati's wedding! How lovely. This really is a happening - thank God I came! As I said in an earlier post, I had a feeling that this would be a very, very special event. KD and I have a nice little chat, which puts me more at ease. I've been feeling a little intimidated by him whenever I encounter him. I think he might be trying to help me with that.

The remaining part of the evening we go to the rehearsal dinner, which was at a pizza joint called "Flatbreads". Man, keeping my simple carbohydrate intake down has proved challenging! Alecia, Rosemary and I sit at the 'kid's table'. The inner circle is all at the other one. Occasionally, someone comes over to talk to us. We're definitely integrating in fits and starts here.

Grown up table:

'Kid's' table (with a couple of visiting grown ups in background):

...sigh…
fits and starts...

Next: THE WEDDING, DINNER AND A MUSICAL HAIKU

PART 2 - A NEW FRIENDSHIP….AND KIRTAN

2010-08-01T15:50:00.020-04:00

A NEW FRIENDSHIP….AND KIRTAN

note: the following blog post will be split into 6 installments, of which this is the second, and each will be posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below. As always, click the pictures to expand them if you like.

see the first installment here

How do you solve a problem like Saraswati? (apologies to Oscar and Hammerstein)

Yeah, it's more like, how do you afford a trip to Maui?

Saraswati had put several of her friends in touch to see if we could work out an arrangement for keeping lodging costs down. As it turned out, Alecia and I were going to be arriving at the airport in Maui within minutes of each other.

Alecia and I had a conversation on the phone the night before I left, and I already knew I was going to like her. She has a kind pleasant way and a thoughtful skillful communication. I like the way her voice goes up at the end of sentences, and the smooth lyrical quality of it. I'm very sound oriented, so voices are important to me, I can't deal with an uncomfortable voice. Thank goodness, you can never tell through email.

Landing in Maui:

Arrival: Saturday July 24th
We make a plan to meet at the rental car place in the Maui airport. When I arrive at 7 PM I set up the car, and she arrives shortly after. It was instantly clear (at least to me) that we'd be spending a lot of time together, and so we agreed we'd leave the driving to me (I LOVE to drive), and save the additional driver charge.

Setting off to the inn, we found a sort of a bar/pub to have some food, and got a great coconut beer along with it. Both being friends of Saraswati, the conversation proceeds with easy camaraderie. We were quickly seeing how quirky the island's inhabitants are. Being from New York, I'm not used to seeing people lock eye contact with you when you briefly glance at them, but here that's what was happening. In Virginia, I would have considered this a redneck bar, but I don't know what you call it in Maui.

AT THE INN:

My new BFF:

We're in tight quarters as expected, in what Alecia dubbed "our own little cannery row", but it's nice. The plan is that it's eventually going to be 3 of us in a single 150 square foot room. I had long ago decided that any friend of Saraswati's is a friend of mine, but this is already surpassing all positive expectations. I had limited idea of the scope of the wedding before coming - and no knowledge that the 'Be Here Now' reunion was a part of this - but as we talk about the upcoming proceedings (Alecia knows far more than I), we both agree that we're the outsiders, and we are starting to see that we're going to be closing ranks together.

The digs:

The first public event is a Kirtan Sunday night with Krishna Das at Studio Maui. I'm excited about that!

Sunday daytime is spent on the Hana highway. We slowly putt down this narrow windy road, stopping to take in some painted trees,

and a black sand beach,

and at other places being thwarted by onerous keep out signs.

Alas, we wouldn't make it all the way down the highway, but it was a lot of fun, and we turn around in order to get back to take a shower and then to the Kirtan.

KIRTAN:
If you don't know, Kirtan is a form of responsoral singing/chanting, and Krishna Das is arguably it's most famous practitioner, certainly so in this country. He was also one of the folks who was with the Maharaj-ji in India and is here for the reunion. I'm excited to see Krishna Das - to me, he's a bit of a rock star. His voice is a sort of Bass/Baritone, and it's one of those voices that instantly transports you. The music is very simple, humble really. He plays a harmonium as his accompanying instrument, and he also has a drummer, a tabla I think. I have some of his CDs, and have seen him a couple of times before in NY. There he's usually with a bigger group.

Alecia and I grab some dinner at a little place in the shopping center next to the venue, and when we call Saraswati just to let her know we're on our way, she shows up immediately. Saraswati couldn't be more bubbly, in fact, she's always been vivacious, but now she's more so than ever. This is the first time we've seen her since we arrived. The banter comes back as quickly as if no time had passed, and soon we're all giggles as we head into the venue.

Inside, it's a kind of Woodstock vibe, and I like it! For some reason, these folks know how to wear their tattoos, and sarongs, and all sorts of neat jewelry and hair styles. Self expressed individuals, I guess. Maui works well for this.

KD doesn't disappoint and his set takes us through many moods with effortless grace. I am sitting right behind Ram Dass, but there is no discussion amongst us. I can't see the stage, but it's OK. The audience is really entertaining, they are completely into it, singing alone and moving - sort of seated dancing really. The seating is cushions on the floor. Saraswati offers me her seat, presumably to take my seat next to Alecia for some catching up. I try to sing along, but I become mildly disgusted with myself because I keep getting the phrases wrong. In my defense. I think other people are too. They're kind of long phrases, maybe you have to be familiar with them.....I'm a perfectionist when it comes to me and music. Not a good combo for this scene! So I shut up and take it in. Plus, I'm just SO TIRED, after all, it's 4 AM in NYC, and my travel time was about 18 hours, with 2 changes of plane.

At the end I swing in really quickly to say thanks, as I'm really tired with the time change, and so I just speak to him for a second.

Nervously, I interrupt a conversation in progress: "Do you remember me?" I stammer.

KD: "Uh, I think so...where do I know you from?"

"New York."

KD: (pauses, looking surprised) "Really?" (he's from NY as well, which I already knew.)

He's very kind to me, as we exchange some more small talk, which is great because I'm so intimidated in this moment I need all the help I can get. I gotta get out of here before I pass out!

I tell him, "I'll see you tomorrow at the swim…."

Next: Swimming with Gurus

PART 1 - HEARTBREAK ON MAUI….

2010-07-31T23:26:00.009-04:00

note: the following blog post will be split into 6 installments and each will be posted in roughly 2 day intervals beginning August 1st 2010. your comments are welcome below.

HEARTBREAK ON MAUI….

post date: Aug 1, 2010

I had my heart broken on Maui.

Broken open.

The story starts with a wedding invitation. Suspiciously, the invitation only went out about a month before the event. Amongst other things, because of that I sensed something special must be up...you could say I was suspicious it might be auspicious.

IN A GALAXY FAR FAR AWAY:
Backing up a bit, 30 years ago today (August 1st 1980 - still have the receipt) I bought a book - on a lark, really - from the Carriage House bookstore in Richmond Virginia. That same copy of the book has been on my coffee table almost continuously in the 30 years since. At the time I understood little about what the content was, but I knew it was about Eastern spirituality, and the middle of the book was filled with really cool psychedelic illustrations. Since that time, my understanding has grown, and it has been a resource to return to for inspiration and guidance about the tenets of one of the oldest spiritual systems on the planet.

That publication was written 40 years ago by a man named Baba Ram Dass, pictured here at home on July 26th 2010 at the wedding rehearsal:
Ram Dass had been a professor called Richard Alpert at Harvard, and had various research grants with prestigious institutions like Yale and Stanford. He was at the top of his field. In the early 60's, he met and worked with Timothy Leary, and Aldous Huxley and started experimenting with various psychotropic substances, especially as a way of elevating consciousness and spirituality. He was also heavily influenced by ideas of eastern spirituality, and in 1967, disillusioned by his life as it was, he left and traveled to India. He lived in the tutelage of the Maharaj-ji, a spiritual leader in India, who passed away in 1973. He spent a number of years there, and there he took the name Baba Ram Dass.

The book he wrote, "Remember: Be Here Now", is considered a classic of eastern spiritual thought. As I sit in the Maui airport typing this, I have that very same copy purchased in 1980 in my carry on luggage, my cover is below:

A number of people who were in that place along with Ram Dass in India during that time period with the Maharaj-ji some 40 plus years ago were in Maui this week for a 40 year reunion of the book's publishing. Ram Dass himself, who is now 79 years old, lives on Maui now, and hosted this event at his home.

AND THE BRIDE:
I have had a friend since high school originally named Robin Eisen. (Hiking with her on Maui earlier this week):

Robin has grown and flowered in ways that astound me constantly. She is also stunningly beautiful in the physical sense (as well as the inner sense), and the years have been kind to her in both aspects. Also, I am a friend of her family's, as well as of her. Her brother Danny and I have been friends for over 30 years also, and saw each other daily from our college days in the early '80's until he left New York for San Diego in the mid '90's. In the late '80's, I escaped New York under despair of a failing relationship and stayed with Robin's mother for over a week, and she consoled me and provided me companionship and solace while I built shelves in her new apartment. I mention that because I can't imagine staying with anybody else's mother like that. The entire family are special, full of good energy and positive vibes. Some of the best people I've ever known, or can even imagine knowing.

Robin has been on a spiritual path in this lineage that Ram Dass represents for some time. In fact, several years ago, she traveled to the same place in India as Ram Dass and his group, and was given the name 'Saraswati' by an heir of the Maharaj-ji's. With respect, I will refer to her in these posts as 'Saraswati' from here on out. Saraswati has also been deepening her relationship with her partner Raghu, and they decided to marry. Raghu was one of those people staying in India when Ram Dass was there, and is good friends with him, and takes a part in running the affairs of the good works their foundation does. I was deeply honored to be invited to Maui to share in their ceremony, and to share in their Satsang (community), for the 6 days that I was there.

note: Some of the above historical facts may be a little inaccurate, especially dates - it's basically the story as I understand it. I urge you to seek out other sources for better info, this is just for background.

UH-OH!
When I first got the invitation, I was finding all sort of fear coming up. For example, did Saraswati really want me there? How would I (unworthy me) interact with these amazing people? What about the money, and logistics? What about emotional equilibrium (like ego)? I talked to a trusted advisor, I ran it by my friends, and in the end, decided to take the leap. This was to be a pilgrimage for me, and I sensed it could be a turning point in my emotional life.

That was the biggest fear of all. All of those emotional layers are so tightly coiled and wrapped - trying to keep it together. Life for some of us is a fight to keep it together isn't it? Tight. as. possible - avoiding the dance so you don't look silly, avoiding your tears so you don't look stupid. We can't let others see these things, or they find out you're silly, or a whimp, or unwanted, whatever.

What would it be like to give all that up?

I ran it by Saraswati in an email…you really want me there? She wrote me back: "You are just so funny! I would love for you to be there. You are someone who has threaded through my entire life in a very unexpected and sweet and meaningful way."

OK. I guess that's not the problem?

In the early morning of July 24th as I I stepped on the plane at Newark airport, all those fears were very much in the backseat, and a sense of adventure was the primary feeling. Like a parcel put in the mail…it's out of my hands now……

…and I was about to have my heart broken…

next: A NEW FRIENDSHIP

Mentors (part 1)....

2010-03-23T00:12:00.019-04:00

Not long ago a friend and I were talking about American Idol:

I will reveal with trepidation that I have watched on and off during the show's run. What appeals to me about it is not the music but the human drama. They put these people, who are basically green - sometimes totally so - through a horrendous hazing. I'm sure these newbees are working exhausting non-stop 12 hour days, trying to wring out as good as possible a presentation in the short time they have. Then they are put through a harrowing gauntlet as they are critiqued on live television after basically baring all - singing in a situation with virtually no safety net. It's brutal.

How do they even handle it? When I'm slightly behind on a work deadline my heart starts pounding like I'm going to go into cardiac arrest!

One can certainly argue vociferously against certain aspects of the show, and I would join you happily in that viewpoint. For example, imagine a young Bob Dylan, or Jimi Hendrix, or Patti Smith, or David Byrne, or John Lennon trying out for Simon Cowell? The artistry that those people created would be totally lost on him. So the show's viewpoint is very narrow -- painfully, painfully narrow.

And that brings me to the point of this...

Watch out for what your mentors say. It's not the truth:

You read that right - it's not the truth. Think about that for a minute...

The other night as I was doing some sidework in the studio, I had a show on the TV in the background called "American Idol Rewind". That's where they rehash the trajectory of the show's events from a previous season. I usually hate the rehashes, but I was struck by this particular show. It was devoted to a contestant named Chris Daughtry, who was eliminated in a previous season in the 4th spot, but who has gone on to a very successful career (more successful than some winners). In my opinion, he's one of the more authentic performers to have come from the show.

To start off with, Simon voted thumbs down at his audition, saying he could hear his singing in any two-bit bar in the country (paraphrasing). In my opinion that's hubris, pure and simple. It wasn't because it was in any way cringworthy, he just didn't like it because of the bee in his bonnet, which was masquerading as the "truth".

All along the way - condensed in the rewind show - Simon had similar kinds of comments about Daughtry.

It started dawning on me that the narrative that exists out there about Cowell "telling the truth" is incorrect. Simon Cowell is decidedly UN-shy in giving his opinion, but his opinion should NOT be construed as the truth.

In fact, looking back on this particular case, I perceived Cowell spoiled snob who's unable to recognize another reality might simultaneously exist. Yes, Simon's been able to have success guiding people's careers, and that's an admirable accomplishment, but it's an act of creation, not reduction. Put another way, there's not right, and there's not wrong. It's all possibility. Maybe his 'make or break' credentials in the industry lead him to believe he's looking through some special "truth lens", but what he's really doing is deciding on a personal preference and then mobilizing to make that possibility (one of many) a reality.

My guess is one of two things - 1) that he's not emotionally awake enough to have that distinction...either that - or 2) he's an actor playing a very piss-y part.

Enough said, I don't mean to pick on him for not being a spiritual guru. I'm no Bodhisattva myself.

But what I mean to say is this: Be very, very careful when you listen to those voices that tell you you're not doing it right, or that you're not good enough - even from high places. Learn to recognize when the harsh voices in your head are yours (hint: if they're overly harsh that's unlikely) or someone else's. Also watch as to whether they resonate truthfulness, or instead prey on insecurity.

Here is a key distinction taught to me by a kind and mindful spiritual teacher I know: If you find yourself internally judging yourself rudely or harshly, it's not your voice doing the talking.....it's the voice of others - strangers, friends or family - who have judged you unkindly in the past. In fact, if you think hard enough, you can usually identify the speaker (as in, my mother used to say "x", my high school teacher told me "y".).

Although it may be sometimes hard to believe, you love yourself unconditionally.

Here's the kicker: those voices are not going anywhere - and don't expect that they will. Sometimes they will be made manifest in your head, by people on the periphery, or by people actually in your life, and they will undoubtedly litter your path throughout your journey.

But if you play your cards right, and work to keep them in perspective, they will be a small residual refuse of something great that you create....

Ego and "the watcher"......

2010-03-05T12:48:00.016-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about the concept of 'ego' as it relates to myself, and how my ego can hold me back....

Now if you're thinking to yourselves that you never thought of Reed as a person with an enormous ego, I can say that until recently I would have agreed.

Many of us think of persons with a big ego as generally being rude, or angry, or overly demonstrative, or having difficult personalities, but I've recently come to the realization - both through my own experiences and the wisdom of friends - that ego also has a flip side. Ego can cause one to be passive as well. Ego can be the enemy of self expression. If that expression manifests in making a contribution, then it can actually prevent you from giving of yourself. It holds you back from writing your music, reaching out to your friend...expressing yourself.

This ties into the buddhist concept of 'the watcher'.

In all of us, there is an ability for self awareness outside ourselves. We can stand outside of ourselves - almost as if we were watching a play or TV show - and judge our performance. Often harshly. On the positive side, this is what keeps us safe in certain circumstances when we choose to not act on an impulse. On the negative side though, the watcher is also prone to be judgmental. Unfortunately, this can severely limit our ability to acheive peak performance. A simple example: imagine if you were to think about every little motion with analytical focus and judgement as you were driving your car...some things are best done in automatic mode.

Ever tried to sing or play a musical instrument while simultaneously thinking to yourself "that note as flat", "that phrase dragged", "I wish I was better" or even "I suck"? It's not helpful! I know that situation all too well.

I experience my lovely little dog Tito as a case study in minimizing the role of the watcher. When he sees someone he likes, he whines embarrassingly, he approaches with no compunction, and he demonstrates affection fiercely. I am often moderately embarrassed, and in revealing that, I'm often made aware that the person who's the object of Tito's affection doesn't understand or connect with what I'm saying. "Why would you be embarrassed?"

In my own personal life, I am far more likely to be aloof - to pretend to be nonplussed. This is the action of my ego. I have to pretend that I don't care to avoid embarrassment.

The ego is not to be confused with 'the self'. Ever caught yourself not laughing because you feared someone's (or your own internal) judgement? Ever wanted to call someone and didn't do it because you thought they'd be bothered? Ever wanted to dance but not allowed yourself -- to sing? What you were doing was letting your ego take charge of the self. Sometimes the ego doesn't like it when the creature it inhabits is self-expressed. The self threatens the survival of the ego. The ego lives in fear.

For me, my fear of embarrassment is sadly almost pathological. I'm sure a lot of people have a similar experience. That's my ego doing the fearing.

Here's a trick, realize that often 'the watcher' is the voice of other people - bullies, critics, unhappy people (or people manifesting their unhappiness in your direction) - that is present in your memory. For example an abusive parent could be the voice you're hearing, the unhappy ex-spouse, people from childhood, old teachers...whoever.

The self unconditionally loves you. The ego judges you.

I was recently reminded of Oblique Strategies, which were first released as a set of 'playing' cards by musician Brian Eno and artist Peter Schimdt as an aid for productivity in their art. Each card has a single sentence or phrase on it that is there to jog your mind somehow. Example: "Is there something missing?".

There is a card in there that says "what wouldn't you do?". That's my favorite one.

That's my task, think of what that is and then do it, regardless of the discomfort.

-- what wouldn't I do?

on the net:
forum for hindu awakening
Spiritual Research Foundation
oblique strategies Wiki

A work in progress...

2010-02-18T18:52:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I'm not thrilled about sharing works in progress...it scares me.

I'd be the guy who would spank it, knead it, massage it, refine it, update it, refashion it....until it's exactly as I want it to end up. That's because I want you to LIKE me, and I don't want to be criticized. Not very Buddha nature, I know.

So that's my dilemma. I have to work with the challenge of being unfinished, and unpolished, unrefined, undone. So in that spirit, I'll stop typing now, and without looking back, I'll just post a little snippet of an idea I've been working on, which I'm going to add to later, and make a full piece out of.

OK, maybe I'll just go back and check my spelling once.......

This Vessel....the sequel

2010-02-02T01:25:00.011-05:00

Most often, when we post on Facebook it's little humorous dalliances, fun little musings and other fluff from the minutia of our existence.

But then, someone will post something that really shakes you...

A friend, a wonderful person who I have known - and had worked with way back in the '90's - just posted that his partner passed away today, calling her in his sad post "the love of my life". This is the second post like this I've seen recently, from folks who were once in my life in a bigger way, and then moved on somehow. Facebook is a boon for these relationships, allowing us to be a little bit in touch. This guy is living 1000 miles away.

So many mixed emotions...I reach out to comfort and give appreciation for a person whose troubles I would have never been aware if not for Facebook, and that seems like a blessing -- to be able to at least try and be of some comfort.

I'm thankful for that opportunity, as I concurrently hope - with some doubt - that my words give the comfort that is compatible with how I feel. It feels like an affirmation to reach out. Of course, I feel the sadness as well, being well acquainted with the goodbyes that the end of life bring.

Still, I've never said goodbye to a partner at the end of their life. It feels clumsy, presumptive and embarrassing to say I know how it feels.

At a particularly low ebb in my life, I once wrote a fatalistic song. The opening lyric: "we're all alone my friend, we're all alone today -- and we're born and we die that way."

But is that true? We're born with a mother in waiting who is instinctually prepared to nurture us to maturity, and likewise instinctual is the propensity to comfort and help those who are passing, or are losing their loved ones.

I recently met a man with inoperable cancer who didn't have long to live, and he told me "my cancer is a gift." Of course he quickly added "I'd give it back if I could." Still, he was seeing an opportunity that was coming up because of it. He passed away about 2 weeks ago. So it would seem that my song lyric was a point of view, which has a ring of truth, but ultimately as fact it falls apart on reflection.

At the same time however, I sit in my room high atop Manhattan's never ending cycles, staring out at the sweeping view, where lights have faded from the frantic pace of rush hour, and the sense of aloneness is palpable. Outside, even now at 2:00 AM, a siren wails quietly, a train horn's plaintive sound in the distance and the garbage trucks making their rounds takes me back 25 years in an instant, to those days when I was a new transplant, roaming NYC's streets at this hour with the optimism and joy of the feeling that anything could happen. Just around the corner, there's greatness waiting patiently for me.

Tonight, there's two thoughts I think. The first is: what is it - this life - all about?

The second is: who am I...really?

More on the second thought later.

My thoughts on health care....

2009-08-20T00:22:00.004-04:00

This was a response to a facebook status update by a friend, basically agreeing with his thoughts

First, I think that we should have a single payer system. On the other hand, I have no illusion that that is currently politically possible.

I personally (and I say this respectfully, because I'm sure you mean well) don't understand the logic of folks who say that the government can't be trusted to accomplish the oversight of a reasonable health care system. As an example, look at the subject of schooling -- only the most far out of the mainstream person would think that we shouldn't have schools for everyone. No, they may not all be first rate, some may be poorly run, but what's the alternative - that only the rich people get educated?

Plus, you can still pay for private school if you want and have the resources.

Another example - suppose every one of us is responsible for the little piece of road in front of our house? Won't work. The government (state, local or national - depending on the road) HAS to do it.

The same people who support our keeping a standing army run by the government trot out this notion that the government can't do anything when they want to obstruct change. Why don't we all get some guns individually, and then we'll meet up in the town square when someone invades? Even John Boehner doesn't think that (note to John: lighten up on the spray tanning product, fella.)

We need the government, when things aren't working in government, we need to improve them by voting, protesting etc., but government is a reality.

Also, those who say they don't want the government between them and their doctors are forgetting that for-profit companies ARE, with far more insidious results.

People who talk about waits? I have a three month wait for my dentist NOW, and I have no insurance.

These companies at the very least need to be regulated. These companies are screwing you, and me. It's just that simple. If I had a terminal disease, they wouldn't even give me the privilege of screwing me, because of my pre-existing condition.

So if you have a problem with existing legislation, great, what's your idea? If you can offer a better idea you have my undivided attention, but if your comment is the general 'government can't be trusted' - you know, because they can't be trusted - that's not a solution, that's obstruction.

Finally, my feeling is imperfect legislation is better than nothing, we need to move the pendulum in the right direction even if we can't create perfection the first time around.

Stop ragging on Woodstock.....

2009-08-14T16:12:00.011-04:00

.

MY LETTER TO THE AUTHOR OF THE ARTICLE LINKED BELOW:

Dear Mr. Tyrangiel,

I'm stuck by a comment you made in the article in Time Magazine "Woodstock: How Does It Sound 40 Years Later?"

You said: "To have not been alive during Woodstock, we're told, was to have missed the freest moment in American history.

Boomers do this regularly, of course — make up stuff about how great they are. They're also eager consumers of goods that jog the memory of their greatness."

I am enough struck by your cluelessness that I felt compelled to write. You might be surprised to hear that I wasn't presently engaged in "making up stuff about how great I was". You'd be right to assert (as your article does without directly stating) that nostalgia is indeed a sort of prism, and some of the light it yields is amplified truth, and other light is not refracted at all. It stands to reason that one might encounter or experience an exaggerated sense of justice or purpose in the events of 40 years ago, and in doing so look past the foibles.

My observation to your thoughts is this: in my humble view, pretty much every comment you make in this section of the article, really exhibits a value system existing your personal core beliefs that completely misses the point -- of the event, of the music, and to a certain extent - of life. I'd have more success explaining music to the Taliban.

If I were to try to explain it to that Taliban person, it would to say how music - at its best - uplifts the human spirit, and brings us closer to our essence, emotionally and spiritually.

On a more brass tacks level, I could refute some of your musical judgement, by mentioning - for one example - that contrary to your view, Richie Havens performance is far more polished in terms of intonation, than CSNY's "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes". To get into that point by point is to wallow in mud I have no interest in being in. The thing that they both have, which seems to be missed by your assessment is the passion by which they are delivered, and they both score highly in that regard for me.

The summary is that the values extant in your viewpoint ultimately exploit different capital than those of the Woodstock generation. Try this on for size: money's good but it's not everything, singing in tune is good, but it's not everything.

The real important stuff is elsewhere...

...but no matter -- I'll bet you have (in a metaphorical sense if not in actuality) autotune installed and hard at work on your computer as we speak....

Welcome to 2009!

This Vessel....

2009-06-28T01:59:00.012-04:00

I've been thinking a lot, with all the celebrity deaths we've experienced lately, about this vessel we travel in during our time on this earth. It is so resilient -- but paradoxically it's so fragile too.

Michael Jackson went (seemingly) stunningly fast, but Farrah Fawcett held on until she literally couldn't perceive life/people/events around her. Her struggle, as related by the people around her (I watched a TV show about it) was SO brutal. Lots of love for her, but OH the lingering!

My own mother's story seems like an amalgam, a sudden setback, but then a lot of suffering. I don't know about you, but I saw myself and my mortality in my mother, the coming story to be repeated.

In addition the Farrah story reminds me of my neighbor Regina's struggle (again with cancer). I spent a lot of time with Regina in the final months. More than anyone else except paid nurses, I think.

Each an unimaginably deep loss, for friends, family, the unique person inside their aging vessel.

I've also been thinking about other people (in addition to mom and Regina) who aren't lucky enough to get the attention of the world when their time comes. Darfur, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan...not to mention the endless parade of cancer sufferers, accident victims, etc.The world is FILLED with these stories.

That's why I wish CNN would get the super duper Michael Jackson headline off their site and go back to covering the news. Michael's gone, whether or not we know every little detail the minute it's knowable. Yes it is news, and he obviously suffered in ways that most of us would never understand, being in a fishbowl for life, but the good that journalism can do is not manifested in this endless prurient obsession with every detail of this.

For a loving and insightful tribute to Jackson, see what the amazing Deepak Chopra has written.

Let's play his music (link included mostly because of the dancing), and make other music instead.

Then I look at my nephew's kid (the pictures on vacation at the beach), whose body looks so much like mine did when I was 8, and then I look at myself in the mirror, and I'm struck by the changes in the vessel.

Which reveals the most unforgiving part of all...time ticking away, no time outs...

For now, time to go ... I usually end these posts with a joke.

This time...I got nothin'.

Chorus from PS 22 in Staten Island...

2009-06-15T11:49:00.002-04:00

I found this video through the twitter universe (via Aston Kutcher), and wanted to share it. It shows a lot about why music is so important in our lives, and how cool NYC can be.

The passion and joy on these kid's faces tells the whole story:

Fighting....

2009-05-03T05:26:00.009-04:00

I'm on facebook (like who isn't?), and tonight I'm noticing all these status updates by these women friends I have, mentioning names that I don't recognize, and in googling then I realize we're talking about prizefighters.

I'm not sure why it's the women, I thought only men were stupid enough to follow this...(oh no I DIDN'T!!)

Of course the status updates have follow up comments "I can't believe how fast so-and-so was", "I thought it would go more rounds" etc.

Am I the only person who thinks people shouldn't be fighting each other for sport? We don't let consenting adults have duels with pistols anymore, why should we let them fight with fists?

I mean, wrestling is one thing, athletic competition is fine, but hitting?

I don't go for it. There -- I said it.

Andy and Reed go to Jimmy Fallon, show #1...

2009-03-07T11:12:00.014-05:00

The other day Andy and I went to see the studio taping first ever episode of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

The show was taped on Monday March 2nd at 5:30 PM and aired at 12:35 am later that night. Good buddy Andy Brick is a pulsating-head-style musical genius, who also happens to be a good friend and all around good egg. Rare combination of qualities!

I think Andy was surprised by how much he enjoyed the festivities. I told him later it felt like I was "leading him to slaughter" but he warmed up to it quite nicely.

Self portrait waiting in line before the show:

The house band is called "The Roots". I thought I would hate them, but they are really pretty good. They played a long set to start off before the show. Man was it loud!! I should know one thing...if Simon likes a band, bring your ear plugs!

Here we are in the crowd, top left (click to enlarge):

Guests were Robert Deniro, Justin Timberlake, and Van Morrison. There were uneven bits, but they're just getting their footing, so let's give them a break for now. One thing called "Lick it for $10, where they gave audience members a $10 bill to lick something (looked promising at first but fizzled), Also a "clip" of a "movie" that Deniro and Fallon "did together" was a little lame, but kudos to Deniro for being a good sport.

The good bit was called "Slow Jammin' the news", a bit with Fallon in camera foreground talking about current events and the Roots in background with the singer commenting on the news bits with a sexy funk undertone. Too hard to explain here, but definitely funny.

As you'd expect, Deniro was very shy in an almost threatening way (Jimmy made him come off well), Timberlake was extremely charming, and Van Morrison was shaky. He's got a great voice, but I didn't love the song, and the sound was not great.

I think the coolest part - and I love all these tapings, but this was unique - was to see the people behind the scenes so excited. For one Loren Michaels was there hanging out sidestage, and there were a lot of exec looking people who were thumbs upping each another, so as if to say "We got a show here!"

We'll see if it flies...

On The Net:

Andy's place
episode 1 of Jimmy Fallon

Robert hits it out of the park!!!...

2009-02-18T23:49:00.030-05:00

Tonight I went to see a film at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) [love the rotating sign]:

The film was called:Peter Matthiessen: No Boundaries
Wed, Feb 18 at 7:30pm

(2009) 56min
*Q&A and booksigning with Peter Matthiessen and filmmaker Jeff Sewald -- World Premiere
Produced, written, and directed by Jeff Sewald

But it wasn't just any film, my buddy Robert Weinstein composed the amazing original score. Here I am with the distinguished composer:

It's a film about an amazing writer named Peter Matthiessen. He is a prolific artist who has written both fiction and non-fiction. He is also a very committed activist, who has a lot of integrity, and puts himself on the line championing causes in a fearless way.

Robert talks with director Jeff Sewald at the reception:

Robert's music team:

Left to Right - Paul Butler: Woodwind master -- John Marshall: Percussion extraordinaire-- Unknown -- Composer/guitarist: Robert Weinstein

Robert and Good buddy Von Robinson:

A look back at the hall as I head back for Manhattan:

It was a truly special evening. Robert's music was perfect for the film, and certainly works on it's own as well. I felt this was an ideal project for him. He's a man who always waters the roots, in music and in life.

I owe a great debt of thanks to Robert for so warmly introducing me to his friends and colleagues, and being so supportive about my work in the process. It's a really good group. I could feel their generosity and support, even though they haven't heard a note of what I'm doing.

These last few years I've really had a feeling of joy in the community of musicians I now have around me, who have been so wildly supportive and trusting of me. Andy, Murray, Robert, and many others...my relationships have grown with all these people, who are amazingly talented. Being a musician ain't easy...unless you've got this kind of support!

For many years I dealt with folks who were more aloof, and now the tide has completely changed.

... and yes, I always harp on it...as I head back to the city in the subway train I just thought again of how blessed I am to live in this whacky town. From the comfortable hall of BAM's famous opera house, I descend into the subway for a long ride sitting next to a woman preaching apocalyptic religious views to the whole train. She's screaming at the top of her lungs: "You're all sinners" "The end is near", etc. No one paid any attention!! People sitting with their earbuds in, two friends discussing a show they had seen, a guy playing a game on his phone...everyone's oblivious. I love it. In the sticks, everybody would be freaked, there'd be swarming cops...

What a show!

NYers are special people - even the nuts. The funny thing is, they don't even know it...

I did also have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Matthiessen for a second, but I was so lost for what to say that I actually made _him_ nervous!

But no matter -- A good night in all!

Late Night...9 shows left before the end of an era...

2009-02-11T12:57:00.014-05:00

Yesterday Tom Bolling and I went to see a taping of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien".

See the episode here

Screen cap from the monologue, Tuesday February 10th 2009:

It's so 'New York' to go to these live tapings, see the teenieness of the studios (which don't seem at all teenie on TV), and the professional-ness of the way it all goes down. Very inspiring.

Also it's being in the presence of history to be there in 30 Rock (the main building at Rockerfeller Center).

The musical guest was Levon Helm. Real treat. He's getting along in years, but his musical style makes it suit him. Respectfully, I can't imagine Brittany Spears singing "Oops I did it again" at age 68. "The Weight" is better now somehow. He had an onstage band of 14. Very pleasant surprise.

They make the show very funny and welcoming. Letterman tapings are more perfunctory and unpleasant. I'm not sure I'd want to go back to Letterman. There are only 8 more tapings of Conan's show as of today. He heads out to LA to do the tonight show after this.

I go to Jon Stewart a lot as well.

Below are some pictures of our outing:

Tom in the Cab on the way up:

Tom in front of 30 Rock:

Self Portrait, near the ice rink having some food:

Leaving the show after the taping:

Ellis Paul....naked

2008-12-17T00:25:00.029-05:00

Tonight my buddy Murray and I went to see a musician named Ellis Paul at the Rubin Museum here in New York City, located just two blocks from my place.

The Rubin is an AMAZING space, devoted to art of Tibetan and Eastern cultures. The influence is heavily Buddhist. The museum is in the space formerly occupied by tres chic Barney's Department store, and is now several floors of beautifully displayed art. Also there's a lot of great stuff in the gift shop (maybe slightly cheesy, but I love this kind of stuff) and a really nice looking bar/cafe.

My relationship with Ellis Paul is a 6 degrees of separation kind, but I really have a lot of respect for his music, because my first introduction to it was very profound....

Here's the back-story: I have a buddy/colleague/collaborator who began his association with me as my guitar student, back in Richmond Va. in the 80's, named Damion Wolfe. Damion is an amazingly talented guy who was not then a prodigy, but has by now grown into a musician that has a depth that can't be acquired by easy means. We had been out of touch for many years, when one day his CD arrived, maybe 1997 or so, unsolicited in the mail. I felt a lot of trepidation when I put it in for the first time, remembering the friendly but struggling student from years before, but to my surprise, the CD blew me away.

That was the beginning of a new relationship with Damion in which we became colleagues, and it made it very satisfying, particularly knowing the part I played in his earlier years.

So our relationship progresses, and we come to a point where we are working on Damion's second CD, "Here, There and That Way", from 2001. The work was progressing nicely when September 11th 2001 occurred, and I naturally (living about a mile from ground zero) had a bit of trouble getting back into it. Of course we all remember it well, but it is notable that 14th street was the furthest downtown that you could go (I'm on 18th). There were heartbreaking posters on bus stops and store windows of people who were missing with handwritten pleas by family members to contact them, there were candlelight vigils every night in Union Square Park, which is two blocks below me and in my view from my window, and smoke was still billowing up from where the tower had stood. People were walking around in stunned silence weeping uncontrollably.

In this backdrop, I languished for days, not being able to find the strength to go back to work. Finally one day, I decided to force myself back to the studio. Well, Damion had given me a stack of CDs that had examples of the kind of sound he was looking for (He had changed from mild mannered student to ball buster in the intervening years...). I picked up one of the discs and read the post-it note on the case: "Track 11- nice vocal sound". I put it in the player, located track 11, and from a high sweet vocal (accompanied only by a solo guitar) came the following lyric:

"Tell the man who repairs the wings for angels,
That one has fallen among the mortals on Bleecker Street.
I lent a hand, but she looked up at the steeples,
as if to blame them for the pavement beneath her feet.

She said 'I don't really much like flying,
but the job requires trying,
the hard part's avoiding buildings and concrete.'

Spread the news: I saw an angel fly from Manhattan,
in front of paparazzi, in front of television crews
let the people choose, would a little faith come to harm them?
print the headlines up in the New York Daily News-
It was just another day, like any other, other day,
a Tuesday afternoon....."

Wow.

I cried like a baby. For days I did nothing but listen to that one song- over and over and over. Even as I write this, I get a little choked up thinking about it.

That song was my first introduction to singer/songwriter Ellis Paul. It's called "Angel in Manhattan".

So when I heard Ellis was coming to New York to play at the Rubin Museum in the Naked Soul series I was quite excited to see him. Naked Soul is a series which takes place in the Museum's 137 seat theater, built almost entirely of Cherry wood, which is acoustically very live. The musicians use no amplification of any kind.

Ellis was solo, and he had 2 guitars and a nice (real) piano for the show. It was not incredibly well attended given the hall's capacity, but the folks who were there were obviously fans. Ellis is an amazing performer. He has an enticing way of sprinkling in good humor, interesting stories and easy banter which really makes the audience feel comfortable, and he himself has a great comfort level. For those who have not experienced it, it takes a lot of fortitude to actually stand in front of a group of people alone and sing, naturally, with no huge band or vocal effects to hide behind. Also, the emotions, the subjects of his songs are heartfelt, and presenting them is also an act of courage. It's quiet courage, not aggression, but it's courage nonetheless.

For the Naked soul series, the performers are asked to pick a piece of art from the space which is then projected on the wall behind them. They are supposed to tailor their song selections around that. Ellis had chosen a work called "Circle of Bliss", which were two figures in copulative bliss, accompanied by a lot of imagery. It depicts a sacred and tantric kind of sex.

He is also a song machine. Much to my chagrin, he didn't perform "Angel in Manhattan" (I assume because it didn't fit the mission), but he obviously had a plethora of material to choose from, since I knew a few of his songs (good ones) that he did not do. He also performed new stuff. In fact, in one spot he forgot the words, and it got a little scary for a second. Thank god Simon Cowell wasn't around to comment!

But it was a solid hour and a half of good material. There were moments of real transcendence. His voice is very high (a true gift in a male singer) and his intonation is impeccable....almost. There were a few long held notes that went flat as they sustained, but it wasn't too bad. It was a concern for me however. When I mentioned that to Murray (who has ears like a dog) he said "yeah, but only a couple of times". I agreed. Murray then said that he was sometimes bothered by the intonation of the guitar. On this I couldn't have cared less.

The thing I loved about the guitar is that he only played one piece in a standard tuning without a capo. There were a lot of alternate tunings, which I love. As a veteran guitarist, the sound of a different tuning gives me the feel of a different instrument, and so there's a variety there that is really great. Many of the tunings he used were real earthy, so that lent a sense of the primal to the songs -- really evocative. When you're retuning all the time, intonation will be challenging. Also he broke a string, which adds a difficulty. I never use new strings on a gig because they go out of tune quickly.

With his guitar playing, he has an almost orchestral approach, he emulates the sound of a rhythm section in his finger picking and there are percussive techniques used there. [As a side note, Damion has also incorporated this approach, and takes it to an amazing level.] Ellis' chords are filled with all sort of beautiful voicings and accessory tones, and he fills the melodic points of rest in with sweet little 'hooky' kinds of fills, hammer on/pull off stuff, sliding 4ths and other tasty things. It's really nice.

On the piano his approach is a little more one dimensional. I couldn't see his hands, but I could hear what's going on. Mostly it's octaves in the left hand and triads in the right. There were very few fills complementing his lovely singing.

How's this for a suggestion Ellis: in "Home" the chorus is C-F-am- C/G->G. How about adding a 'd' (the ninth) in the 1st C chord, a 'g' (also the 9th) to the F chord and/or the 'a' to the G chord? Those 9ths with no 7th would add the sense of yearning you are creating. That's what you'd do if it were on the guitar, I'll bet. Also, add a passing tone or two in the bass to make more of a part out of it. Lose the octaves, except maybe in the climaxes. Try to separate the hands a little to create more of the 'orchestral' effect you achieve on guitar. Add a fill or two in the right hand at a point of rest in the melody, or maybe a passing chord. A couple more curlycues here and there.

Also watch for the rhythmic spaces, if anything wait longer in that profound moment where there's a 4 beat silence. My piano teacher used to say about my solo piano playing "what are the drums doing?". When you play solo guitar, I know exactly "what the drums are doing" (if you get what I'm saying).

Now before someone says that I didn't enjoy it because of the last two paragraphs, I have to say that 43 years of music making leaves me with very strong ideas about the possibilities. Don't take that as more negative than it is. The piano is on balance an addition - another color. This guy delivers from the heart, and he does so with an amazing amount of talent and commitment and gentleness and warmth and humanity. This evening was one of the great evenings for me. Also, this is one of the first tickets I've paid for in 2008, and that says something, because I do see a lot of concerts.

Postscript: As the days went by after 9/11, I finally realized that Ellis probably had other songs on this album I would like, so one day, instead of starting with track 11, I went to the top and played the whole CD straight through. This is a live album, and so there is some talking on the tracks. I was surprised when I got to track 10 to find Ellis explains what the song 'Angel in Manhattan' is actually about, and turns out that the song is written with a transvestite in mind, who Ellis saw ride up on a bicycle one day to an outdoor cafe he was sitting at. The guy had a lyre I believe.

It's really about a guy living his life in a unique way. Which leads me to the next paragraph.

So, one day last May my next door neighbor, a beautiful man named Dan, passes away in a suicide, and I once again returned to the song "Angel in Manhattan". Regular readers of my blog will remember this episode. We had known each other for 23 years, and I was the last person to see him alive. He was also a guy living his life in a unique way.

Well, I worked up a cover of the song -- mostly just to get myself through the day. The cover is transposed down a little, and the guitar (again it's just guitar and voice) follows the emotional arc of the music a little more 'classically' than his does (which grooves a little more throughout). I built in stops, and moments of silence, stuff like that. I also end it in a more introspective way, as Ellis' ending is quasi triumphant.

I've never performed it for anyone, but I thought about doing it for Dan's family at the service. I couldn't ever get through it without tears...

I figure I'll probably do a recording at some point. It's daunting though, because although people give me good feedback on my singing, I'm really a guitarist/pianist who sings a little. Ellis is a SINGER. I had hoped to do a quick take and personally give it to Ellis to hear, but I didn't get the chance. Oh well...

There were a few too many folks lined up to say hi, and my conversation topics were all long ones...Does he remember Damion? How does he like Charlottesville? (he moved there, and I spent a lot of time there on day trips from military school - another story for another day). So I just bolted. Also I would've wanted to tell him what I've told you above. Oh well...

So thanks for the music Ellis, and a wonderful show, and that's from the heart...

On the Net:

Ellis on myspace
Buy an Ellis Paul record, or contribute to his new one.
Damion's page
Rubin Museum

Hubert Sumlin @ B.B.Kings Club....

2008-11-25T23:33:00.021-05:00

My buddy Murray Weinstock invited me to join him and his pals for an evening of blues tonight at B.B King's Blues club located on 42nd street in NYC's Times Square.

Times Square is cool. Not as cool as when you could've gotten killed walking through it...but still cool.

I was along for the ride with a couple of his buddies from the old days.

The program was Hubert Sumlin and friends. Hubert Sumlin is known for playing with Howlin' Wolk, and James Cotton.

HUBERT SUMLIN
Featuring:
Sp. Guests
BRAD WHITFORD (Aerosmith)
JIMMY VIVINO
RICH PAGANO
JOHN SEBASTIAN
DAVID JOHANSEN
JAMES "The Worm" WORMWORTH
BRIAN MITCHELL
MIKE MERRITT

+ A special stage introduction by JANIE HENDRIX

* This show is dedicated to Mitch Mitchell (July 9 1947 – November 12 2008)
2008-11-25
8:00PM

As mentioned above, Janie Hendrix, Jimi's sister was there to introduce the band. That was nice. She is somewhat pilloried in the fan community for Hendrix, because of Experience Hendrix' way of doing business. That said, I got a mostly earnest vibe from her.

She talked about how the then younger group of players, including people like Clapton and Hendrix, cited Hubert as a big influence. Also Mitch Mitchell, mentioned above, was Jimi Hendrix' drummer.

The performance itself was quite uneven to me. Here are a few impressions:

BRAD WHITFORD: Killer blues guitar player. Great tone, really overdriven, sort of a Stevie Ray Vaughn sound. He played with an impetuousness which really felt passionate. Best blues player on stage.

JIMMY VIVINO: There were a lot of players from the Conan show there, and Jimmy seemed as though he was leading the band. He spoke the most, gave the intro (other than Janie), said goodnight, sang, gave conducting cues, etc. Great playing. I wasn't totally in love with his tone for this style though.

JOHN SEBASTIAN: I had the pleasure to meet John for a moment before the show. This guy is one of the greats of the 60's and 70's. I wore the groove out on my copy of Woodstock on the cut where he sings "I'll paint rainbows, all over your blues". Murray played piano and sang background on the song "Welcome Back Kotter" for the show in the 70's.

He is a lovely, lovely human being. You get that from speaking 2 sentences with him. One of Murray's friends gave John a publicity shot which he said was an original that was of John's father from the early 60's. John's father played classical music on the harmonica, and I'm told played Carnegie hall.

Tonight John played the harmonica. Really couldn't hear him well. The sound person will be skewered later...

JAMES "The Worm" WORMWORTH : He's the drummer that sometimes sits in with the Conan band when Max is on tour. KILLER!! did I mention KILLER? He was - for me - the treat of the evening. He is really a great drummer. In this evening there would be eventually two drummers. He came out first, and the groove could not be denied, and then....

RICH PAGANO: The second drummer joined in. He seemed, uh, good. Taken together though, I wasn't enjoying it so much.

Let me say this emphatically...from a musical perspective (my own) two drummers playing the same pattern does not work -- it didn't work in the Allman Bros, it doesn't work here. Theoretically, maybe, if they played different things, to form a whole...but two drummers hitting the same 2 & 4 snare...forget it! The good news is that they seemed to be having fun.

BRIAN MITCHELL: Good player. I would have liked to have heard %90 less glissandos though. I been harping on that with Murray, who plays along nicely. Ooo...double pun!

MIKE MERRITT: The bass player from the Conan band. I like this guy. He played a bass guitar that was on a peg like a cello, except he stood up. Solid time, good sound (at least at the beginning) until the sound person started mucking things up. I think he should bring this thing to the Conan show. It could be a topic of conversation for sure...

DAVID JOHANSEN: Yeah I get it....He's a bad boy, he has that ruddy sort of raspy quality. When he strode on stage, I almost thought he was Mick Jagger making a surprise appearance. I can envision a great sound coming from him, but it was not to be this evening. I could put him in front of a nice U87 or 414 through a great preamp and get a nice rich sound, but coming through an SM 58, with this sound person...it made my eardrums bottom out every time he sang a phrase.

The musical selections were the stalwarts of blues songs, Killin' Floor, Sitting on Top of the World, Voodoo Child, all that stuff. Endings were ragged, and it was obvious it was not a well oiled machine. All is forgiven though.

Later on in the evening there were a few more surprises. Some guy, a bluesman who I didn't know [note: Noah tells me in a comment it's Joe Louis Walker, Thanks Noah!] came out to ostensibly sing "Happy Birthday" to Hubert, but after he went on to front the best part of the evening, playing some of the best blues solos and singing his ass off. great work. Also, Brad Whitford's son came out to contribute a solo or two. His solos did not have much maturity, although his tone was good and he'll be someone to look out for. Showbiz families seem to be helpful in the endeavor of getting into show business.

Also Mark Pender, trumpet player from 'Late Night' was spotted on stage during the last tune. He didn't assert himself much, but in other situations he's incredible. There were probably 14 musicians total at the height of the stage's population.

Finally -- open letter to the Club Management of BBKing's -- the sound SUCKED. This is the second show there that I've seen where the sound was awful. My guess is that it's the same person, although I didn't check them out. Maybe it's club policy. Everything was incredibly loud except John Sebastian, who you couldn't hear, it was an orgy of midrange nastiness.

GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER. When I saw the Tubes with Simon there a year ago, I had to sit with my fingers in my ears all night.

Now look, I know mixing 4 guitars is troublesome. That's a midrange challenge to begin with. On the other hand, it's called 'sound reinforcement' for a reason. Let the band get their sound and then amplify it slightly, that's it. This is blues -- not AC/DC. There's a certain point where sound volume becomes counterproductive.

Through it all, Hubert flowed over the top, never quite soaring, but also handling himself quite nicely. He's 77 years old (this was a birthday celebration), and as he mentioned a few times from the stage, he wasn't feeling well. He was genuinely touched by the loving reception he got from his musical friends, and seemed to leave with a glow from his fans appreciation even if he didn't feel so well.

Good man, many happy returns Hubert!

At the end we all went over to the backstage area. Murray dissappeared into the room for minute, but his friends and I couldn't come. I always feel uncomfortable in those situations. There's a professionally unpleasant person, who's called the "bouncer", telling everyone to get away, and then there are your favorite musicians - who you have a lot of affection for - and who are looking at you like you're a serial killer because you're in this group of people they don't know, and that they don't possibly have time to meet.

Of course, I always feel like I belong in the backstage area, just no one knows it.

It's a lot like dating, some people got game...I'm just not one of them. Debilitating. I think of my friend Danny, who (in the 80's) got backstage at a Billy Joel concert by pretending to interview the drummer Liberty Devito. No press credentials, just by talking...

...and he actually conducted the 'interview'.

Comp tickets!!!!!!!....

2008-11-18T16:00:00.020-05:00

One of the great things about being a musician in NYC is the opportunity to go see great shows, sometimes for free...sort of takes the sting out of not buying clothes, taking vacations or having health insurance... :)

Seriously though, my colleagues are very generous, and this has been a good week for generosity!

On Saturday, I caught a matinee of a new musical called "Illyria" staged by the Prospect Players. It was presented in a small black box theater on West 26th street between 8th & 9th Aves. I'm always surprised by all these great little theaters tucked away in the buildings of this city. They're everywhere...

My friend Tom Piercy hooked me up. Tom and I go back all the way to college, which at this point is 30+ years(!). He was always one of the standout musicians where we went. He made an honest man out of himself by going on to a good graduate school (I didn't), and he has been in the NY scene ever since. He is amazingly talented.

Recently, we've had a chance to work together, both on my latest film score, where he played clarinets and bass clarinet, and also on a CD of his, which is for clarinet and classical guitar duets. He and his guitarist came in for a couple of marathon sessions a few months ago, and we're putting the finishing touches on that now. We also did a nice session for Michael Lydon a few months back, him on the clarinet and me behind the mixing board.

"Illyria" is an adaptation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night". It was hilarious, and the music was outstanding.

Thanks Tom, I totally enjoyed the show!

Then Monday night, out to NJ, where my good buddy Murray Weinstock took me out to see Steely Dan for their 'Think Fast' tour. We had the whole 9 yards, amazing seats (worth $150 a pop) as well as VIP backstage access:

The band was comprised of 13 pieces. Murray knew several of them. They are as follows:

Tawatha Agee [Backing Vocals:'08]
Keith Carlock [Drums: 03-'08]
Jon Herington [Guitar: '00-'08]
Michael Leonhart [Trumpet, Keys: '00-'08]
Cindy Mizelle [Backing Vocals: '03-'08]
Jim Pugh [Trombone: '00-'08]
Roger Rosenberg [Baritone Saxophone: '06-'08]
Catherine Russell [B. Vocals: various dates '08]
Freddie Washington [Bass: '06-'08]
Walt Weiskopf [Saxophone: '03-'08]
Jeff Young [Keyboards, B. Vocals: '06-'08]

As well as those two other guys....

The show was tight! The familiar songs seemed to come again, and again, and again. You forget how much these guys have done. No "Reelin' in the Years" though. Still, the hits kept coming.

If there was a weak link to the show, it would've had to have been the room itself, which was a little too reflective. One of the techs from the theater asked about it, and I told him the room needs a rug or baffles. The room is I think comparable to Carnegie in size, but this show would've sounded amazing there. It's the room treatment. On the other hand, you can't drink beer in Carnegie, so I realize the rug idea is a nonstarter.

This also was probably not Becker's very best show of all eternity, but the guitarist next to him is so freakin' good that it's hard to keep up I'm sure.

Also, I'd like to implore Jon to give the telecaster a break, or EQ a little of the brightness out of it. It's cool on a record, but a little overpowering in person...I'm just sayin'...

I personally dislike telecasters, soundwise.

Finally, I felt a little like I was channeling Margaret Mead, watching the natives exhibit their mating habits and rituals in their natural habitat (Montclair NJ). It felt like going back to my childhood, when people actually had fun, instead of working all the time. It's not an age thing, it's a New York City vs. other places thing.

Dig the myspace self portrait of Murray and I:

...and Murray with the Front of House mixer, Night Bob, who was responsible for the nice accommodation:

Thanks Night Bob, and happy birthday!

At the end, we hung for a minute, but ended up headed back for the city pretty quickly. As a drunken women wandered over to us to make friends afterward, imploring us to go over to her place, I fantasized I could've stayed for the "festivities". Murray was my ride, and happily married, but a thought did pass through my mind, if not his. Oh, this place where people are out doing the party thing...

...and yet - this night - my inner Mead was not to be indulged...

The dogs of NYC were waiting...literally:

Thanks Murray, really great show!!

Murray Weinstock....

2008-11-08T18:10:00.010-05:00

My good buddy of almost 15 years Murray Weinstock was in today for a quick session. I was just giving him some technical help. Seems one of his audio files in a DP session had become corrupt after a crash.

We worked it out. Success is always sweet.

Afterwards we went to lunch, and he told me about this video he did, which I have posted below. It's a lot of fun, and has a great piano solo by Murray.

"Takin' it back with Barack, Jack! (for swing voters)". It's a parody of a Louis Jordan song:

Hate to see the nation being run by a hack
Dig the situation that he dug in Iraq
Half the population wants to give him the sack
And now he's lookin' round for somebody else to attack
We need somebody great to get us back on the track

So we're takin' it back with Barack, Jack!

Choo Choo, Change to believe in
Woo woo, we can achieve it
Choo Choo, Change to believe in
Takin' it back with Barack, Jack!

Now that global warming is a matter of fact
The only real question is just how to react
The new administration needs the guts to enact
Drastic legislation, leave the planet intact
We can't be foolin' round with some Republican Mac

So we're takin' it back with Barack, Jack!

Choo Choo....

He only gets his money from your regular macs
Doesn't take a penny from some whackity PAC's
For bringin' folk together he's the man with the knack
And he'll supply the hope and inspiration we lack
Cause he's the best we got and did I ....mention he's black?

So we're takin' it back with Barack, Jack!

Harmonica, vocal, guitar, lyrics- Will Galison

Piano, vocal- Murray Weinstock

Drums- Wally "Gator" Watson

Bass (sound recording)- Paul Nowinsky

BG vocal (video)- Ilene Kristen

BG vocal (audio) Shije

Flugal Horn- Ryo Sasaki

Tenor Sax- Yaacov Mayman

vocals- Murray Weinstock, Shije Solid, Dean Franzen

Bass (video) Dean Franzen -

On the Net:

"Tales of the City", Murray's latest album

review at amazon.com: "On first look, this seems like a cute novelty record. Not so. This is actually a loving & genuinely remarkable valentine. Murray Weinstock, who has worked with the late, great psychedelic doo wop group Jake & The Family Jewels, not to mention John Sebastian, The Planetones, The Camaros, and Manhattan Transfer, has corralled a bevy of his friends (including Dr John, Phoebe Snow, John Sebastian, members of NRBQ, and many more) to join him in crafting a first class album of self-penned songs about dogs. The overall effect is akin to hearing The Johnny Otis Revue live at an animal shelter. It swings, it sniffs, it wins your heart effortlessly."

Historic...

2008-11-05T01:44:00.011-05:00

New York City is a great place -- in my mind truly the greatest city in the world. One of the reasons that I moved here 25 years ago was for the incredible diversity of cultures and ethnicities, and also because I felt like the political and social environment was one that supported my core beliefs. It would be my joy to finish my life in this city I've come to love so much. I count myself lucky daily to be able to live in this booming metropolis. A savvy New Yorker once famously said "I'd rather be a lamppost on a New York City street than mayor of any other town."

Ditto.

...and tonight is one of those moments where I feel like I'm home.

Case in point: at about 11:30 PM last evening from Chicago, Barack Obama gave a stirring, poignant and beautiful speech accepting Sen. McCain's concession in the race for the presidency.

The scene in New York city tonight is filled with an excitement like I've never experienced here before. Sitting in my apartment, it sounds like I'm in the middle of a sports stadium. People are whooping and hollering, cars drive by with horns honking, there are fireworks, and the sounds of celebration are stronger than at any time this evening, even though now it's 1:47 am.

We're all in agreement here in Gotham.....time to celebrate!

---------------------------------------

I have great hopes for the future now, having lived through the Bush years. Finally, I see a leader that expresses similar values to my own. While I'm sure our previous president had a love for his country, he was, in my opinion, morally bankrupt, intellectually vacuous, and the people he surrounded himself with were beyond contemptible. It was a dysfunctional situation to an extent that was almost surreal.

It's a long nightmare we've lived through, and there is at least a hope that it is actually over, and that we can repair the damage done.

My only fear is seeing how closely our country is split. I think the republican party should have received 0 votes. The fact that they won almost %50 is inconceivable to me. We've still got a long way to go.

Tonight: happiness. Tomorrow, I only hope that there will begin a process in which more of our countrymen and women that will have some sort of epiphany. It's similar to getting women the right to vote, or demanding that all of our citizens be able to sit anywhere in the bus regardless of skin color. It's an opening of minds closed off by fear and intellectual inertia. We've got a lot of work to do.

Big work...

But sitting here tonight in my little piece of New York, I vicariously am reveling with my city...

Singer Todd Almond comes in.....

2008-11-04T20:04:00.000-05:00

Todd Almond was in today for an awesome session. I'm working on a number of pieces for release, and I had him in for some backup vocals. Wonderful man, so easy to work with, incredibly talented, beautiful voice.

Happily, it took my mind off the election, which was just what the doctor ordered.

Watch for his CD with Ellen Mandel coming soon. (see the previous post for my thoughts on their wonderful work.) What I didn't expound upon enough in the previous post was the incredible voice he has, and how much he brought to that project.

I'll have Todd on speed dial from now on!...

the first of all my dreams...

2008-11-01T12:36:00.002-04:00

Multitalented composer Ellen Mandel joined me recently in the studio for the mastering of her gorgeous project, entitled "the first of all my dreams." The project is basically piano and voice, featuring tenor extraordinaire Todd Almond.

This is the second collection of songs for piano and voice from Ellen. The first was exclusively settings of the poet ee cummings. This one includes ee cumming texts, but also some Yeats, and some original Mandel text. On the instumentation side, she stretches out the piano/vocal thing this time out, to include some bass and also a guest vocal or two.

I have been working with her for almost 15 years, and I can say the music is some of her best. Very American sounding in spots, with beautiful introspective moments, as well as exuberance and subtlety. Perfect for its subject matter, tasty, nostalgic, full of sentiment and power, this music will definitely be on my playlist at home in the future. I don't say that about too much stuff that I work on.

The really good thing? She didn't make me turn it up to 11.....

On the net:

Ellen Mandel

Todd Almond

The Election...

2008-10-31T16:59:00.001-04:00

...has got me so freaked that I haven't been blogging much. I'll leave it to you to try and figure out who I'm for, but all I have to say is what's with you other people? Seriously...

I'll get back in the swing of things soon!

Walt Elson in for mixing

2008-10-04T19:53:00.006-04:00

My good buddy Walt Elson was in for a mixing session today, for his new piece "Let Me Luv U".

Some of you may remember Walt did a great job singing on my song "I Don't know Why", which appears in the movie "Strange Girls" which I recently finished the music score for. He did an amazing job with that. I'm still getting great comments that track.

Here he's in his element. He's doing his own song, which was recorded in his home Pro Tools set up. He brought it to me to do a final mix, and for some of my 'ear candy'. I think it was sounding great when we finished, and so did Walt. Big smiles all around. You have to work to get this man to smile!

Great hang too.

Here he is trying to take over:

Also featured on Walt's track was our friend Monk, who brought the rhymes.

Great session, I'm already looking forward to the next one!

On the Net:

Walt Elson ("Let Me Luv U" will play first)

Monk

Here to listen to Walt sing "I Don't Know Why"

Remembering Bob Bass (part 2)....

2008-10-01T16:27:00.037-04:00

As I promised, I am posting part 2 of my experiences with the conductor Robert Bass, a great mentor of mine. Looking back, our relationship was not helped by my shyness and reticence. Even as I post this story, which on its surface seems exclusively to be about a conflict we had, the truth is the conflict was mostly inside me, and I'm remembering this with great fondness and warmth towards him -- and a large dose of amusement. He was, at least on a certain level, oblivious (and I don't mean that unkindly - it's almost 'cute'). In the the end the important part is what I learned, and that's a lot.

Bob did offer me some of the first opportunities I had -once I had come to New York - to do real work in this city. Today I relate an episode on which I now look back and laugh, but at the time I couldn't have been more upset.

It was 1991, and one evening Bob was downtown, doing some work in my studio. He was a little out of his element being an upper west side, classical musician guy. I don't remember exactly what it was we were working on, but at a certain point in the proceedings he started glancing around at all my equipment. In those days music studios were more distinguishable as such, because they had lots of 'music-looking' things. In other words, now I have a single keyboard and lots of computers, whereas in those days you typically had multiple keyboards, lots of tape machines, etc. It looked more 'music-y'.

So, Bob looks around the studio and says "we're getting ready to enter a contest, how would you like to write a piece of music for it?" I was very receptive and said I'd love to do it. It was to write and submit a version of a jingle for Diet Pepsi which was running on TV at that time featuring Ray Charles. The tag line was Ray saying "You've got the right one baby, Uh-huh". The submission would be a videotape, and the prize was $10,000.

Then he says excitedly, "and you can use all your toys!"....looking around at the various keyboards. His voice rises as he sweetens the offer: "We'll split the money with you."

Fair enough. I went to work quickly and came up with some music for the spot. Below is the shortened 15-second version in my own handwriting:

I decided to go a different way for the spot than techno or pop, and instead wrote a parody of a baroque 'classical' piece for chorus. Really it was a direct takeoff on a style prevalent in Handel's Messiah, an oratorio from 1742, known for the famous piece the "Hallelujah Chorus". This Diet Pepsi piece was supposed to be a little more like "For Unto Us a Child is Born", from the same work. You can check that out here on youtube. The humor was that I had the chorus sing an extended melisma on the word 'Uh-huh' (notice the way the sopranos sing the word 'born' starting at 32 seconds on the youtube clip - lots of notes on a single word, which is very typical of that historic period). It had a 1 bar introduction and then it was straight in. The urtext version was 30 seconds, total. If you can read music, you'll notice the version above isn't long enough to make a that big an impact on it's own, but if it were preceded by showings of the full spot, it invokes the memory of the Handel-like approach. I was thinking big!

Also (and I'm saying this because of the linked clip), I would have loved to have had an orchestra, but I knew I could only use piano, or something similar, as the budget for musicians was zero, so I wrote for choir and piano (or I would have preferred harpsichord). The only thing it had in common with the commercial in the music was the very first and very last bar in each version (that's a typical thing - think "At McDonald's", for example - it's called a musical logo). I knew syncing up to prerecorded sound would be a problem in this environment, so I didn't go there.

Looking back, I don't think Bob really thought of me as classically trained at that time, so he was expecting some sort of little pop ditty.

Anyway, I sent him the score. [In those days, not everyone was doing audio demos for all submissions like they do now, and we counted on our imaginations and training to be able to look at a score and make sense of it. Plus he was a conductor, so I assumed there'd be no problem]. One night the phone rings and Bob's on the other end:

"Hi, I got your piece," he says. "Is this all?"

"Yes".

"There's nothing else? No other instruments?" he offered...

"Nope".

Well, a little red flag went off in my head, but I didn't think too much of it.....

Finally the night of the videotaping, we arrived at Cami Hall, a space on 57th street across from Carnegie, and we started rehearsing for the taping. It was a nightmare. To begin with, he had the wrong approach completely, he was doing it too slow, heavy and ponderous. It might as well have been bad Wagner...terrible. It's supposed to be light and crisp. He must have had the quarter note at 60 BPM (beats per minute) instead of the 90 that is marked in the score, and everything was at least forte (loud) if not louder, not piano (soft) as marked.

I was stunned, aghast, a deer in the headlights. I was raising my hand wildly and trying to get his attention. It was not generally understood by the members of the chorus this was my work, and so I wasn't in the front of the room. Instead, I was all the way in the back, in a room full of 200 people. I couldn't get a response, although I'm sure he was aware of me gyrating in the back.

If it were now, I'd march up to the front of the room, and make my views known, as I have developed a backbone - but I didn't have the courage then. After unsuccessfully trying to get his attention, I sat there and watched this slow motion train wreck. He was completely rewriting it after a while. He had stuff being sung up an octave, he was adding notes, and having everyone sing everything (that's a typical Bob thing anyway).

At the end of the night I was FURIOUS. I just left without a word, and as the weeks went by, I thought about it, and thought about it, but I was just too scared of him to confront him directly. Finally I sent him a long letter, where I explained myself in detail, the musical approach, and my feelings about the outcome. I'm sure if I read the letter today, it would be equal parts humbling and hilarious. I cannot overstate how angry and hurt I was. After writing it, I put it in the mail to him. It was a feeling of satisfaction, and also of dread, since I knew I'd be hearing from him...

Another week goes by, and one night, about 11PM the phone rings, and it's Bob. I happened to be in the studio with someone recording so I couldn't have a long conversation.

"Hi Reed, it's Bob", came the voice.

Reed: "Hi Bob"

Bob after a silence: "I got your letter"

Reed: That's good, thanks for calling...listen Bob - I'm in the studio with someone right now, can we talk about this later?"

Bob: "sure that's fine...One thing before we go though..............we won...."

Yep, you read that right - we'd won the jingle contest. Frankly, I still can't believe it!

Later there were interviews, which I was invited to attend,there were some news reports in the local media and the money was collected by the Chorale. I never did get paid, and I never was mentioned as the composer.

...and Bob and I never spoke of it again.

Good session today....

2008-09-26T23:20:00.015-04:00

Today producer/composer Behn was in the studio. We did a mastering session for a new tune of his called "Shooting Starz", featuring vocalist Bliss. This will be available on itunes in the near future.

Behn has a great style. This one, like all his stuff has a lot of influences. There's a sort of Chinese vocal lick in there, 2 voices in fourths...you'd know the sound upon hearing it. I liken his approach to a sculptor who goes out in the street to incorporate all sorts of found objects. In the art world they call it 'pastiche' (but pastiche more in the sense of combining elements, than of imitation). I've mastered a lot of his records, "Vibemachine"

and before that "World of Paper, City of Boom".

Love the titles!

I also love he look he gets on his face when he's listening really hard. At first you suspect you're screwing up, but turns out he's just focused...

Here we are in a myspace type self portrait after the session, this was the best picture I could get, with my shaky camera technique. I couldn't figure out how to use the timer feature in the heat of the moment:

Behn was cool though, he could have brought up that it wasn't good I didn't have my camera technique down (in my defense, it's a new camera), given that he was trusting me with all this technology used in mastering his tune.

He tells me he'll be back through to master the whole album with Bliss, so I guess I passed. I'm really looking forward to it!

ON THE NET:

Check out Behn's myspace profile and hear some tunes here

Bliss

remembering Bob Bass (part 1)...

2008-09-11T20:05:00.077-04:00

1989.

For me it was the year that an important relationship in my life imploded, and as a result my world took a precipitous nosedive. I was on really shaky ground emotionally, in a way that I've only been a handful of times in my life.

The story of that woman is for another day, but I decided that I needed some structure and inspiration in my life. As always I turned to music for that. It was a very active year. I started playing in a funk rock band, and I was working really hard writing music for dance performances. Also, lots of studio work was occupying me, and I had a "day" job - actually the graveyard shift at a satellite TV station.

I was not planning on giving myself time to ruminate on my situation!

One day an advertisement in the Village Voice caught my eye for an audition with a chorus, called the Collegiate Chorale, which is a venerable, famous old chorus of about 200 members founded in the 1950's by the legendary Robert Shaw. The Chorale did concerts at Carnegie Hall, and Avery Fischer, among other venues. I wanted to return to classical music, and this was a great vehicle. The year's program was the New York Premiere of a Richard Strauss opera called "Freidenstag" (see the concert's CD release here), a couple of concerts of Beethoven's 9th, and I believe, Mendelssohn's "Elijah".

The music director was a man named Robert Bass. I had already heard about him - and the Chorale - from musicians who I knew in Richmond VA, and so I was awestruck to be entertaining the thought of working with a man who was - to me - famous. In those days, a conductor, who had been concertizing in Carnegie Hall was a full out celebrity to me, and he had a reputation which proceeded him.

So I set up an audition. It was for a time when I would be the last appointment of the day. I would be meeting the maestro and a cadre of others at an apartment on 72nd street. It's a new York thing to meet musicians in apartments, I guess real estate is the driving force in that. I was a little nervous as I anticipated this meeting, but I was far more preoccupied with the downward spiral that I was experiencing in my other life.

The day of the audition, I had a very difficult phone conversation with the aforementioned woman, who had fled New York City a couple of weeks earlier for the companionship of someone else, and I was catatonic. So I went to a bar. I slammed down 4 beers on an empty stomach in just shy of a couple of hours. If you know me, you can probably guess that I was pretty 'lit'.

Still, for some reason I went to the audition anyway, despite my obvious disadvantage.

When I got out of the subway, I couldn't find the building, so after some searching I called and said I was running late. Finally I did find it, and so I went up to the apartment.

I still laugh when I think of the scene: 45 minutes late to a meeting with a famously 'type a' conductor: I stepped off the elevator with long hair (halfway down my back -and which probably hadn't been combed in a week) - God knows about my hygiene - in ripped blue jeans falling down drunk...

To this day I can remember the look on his face -- he was NOT happy!

We went into this little room with a piano, and I proceeded to belt out "Is Not His Word Like A Fire?" (For the uninitiated, here's a real singer singing it) which is the tricky aria that Elijah sings in Mendelssohn's Elijah, and I also sight read a little excerpt they gave me from Paul Hindemith's "Elementary Training for Musicians" (which BTW ain't THAT elementary), and from what I remember it was a musically perfect audition. I think Bob was somewhat stunned by that part, given the visual. The Mendelssohn was delivered mostly accapella, since they had already let the pianist go home. Bob plucked out a couple of notes as I sang it. I remember him having a lot of trouble turning pages. I nailed it though. I had been practicing it for an audition with the city to apply as a public school teacher. That person told me at the time of that PS audition that I was the only %100 he had ever given in an audition, so I'd been practicing.

Still, thinking back to that look on Bob's face, I thought -- No Way!

Later, the next day, I got the call that I had been accepted into the Chorale. I couldn't believe it! Ultimately, I was privileged to sing in a great season. Carnegie Hall, Avery Fischer...and I'll never forget the feeling a had in the last minute or two of the Friedenstag...400 or so people on stage, multiple chorus, full orchestra, famous soloists, and this moment at the big climax when a shiver went straight up my back. Being part of something that big, having that feeling, it was possibly the ultimate singular sensation I've ever experienced. I literally cannot describe with any words the magical feeling of the moment that was created there that evening for this good ole boy from Richmond VA, actually on stage at Carnegie Hall! Ultimately I spent 5 years in the Chorale, sharing the stage with Luciano Pavarotti, Sherrill Milnes, Leontyne Price, Paul Plishka, Beverly Sills, Marilyn Horne, Kathleen Battle, Robert Merrill, Samuel Ramey, Angela Bofill, Narada Michael Walden, Paul McCartney, James Conlon and a whole host of others. I have worked with the Chorale ever since, providing studio services, doing arrangements, remote recordings, mastering and such.

The time has sure flown.

...2008.

Bob died a couple of weeks ago at age 55. He had been in poor health recently. He had a heart transplant in May 2007, and then a stem cell transplant in November of that year. He had been conducting since then, believe it or not, and actually the last performance I saw him lead was, in my estimation, by far the best I'd ever seen him do. He was always at his best when the chips were down.

That last performance was a bookend to what was for me a remarkable relationship which lasted 19 years, and a chance to feel in full force the thrill of seeing Bob doing what he did, and being at his best doing it. A very happy moment for me.

The other thing I want to say is that he was like a father to me - even though I was only 4 years younger than him - in a way I'd never experienced (my own dad died when I was eight). It followed a classic trajectory: At first I just worshipped him. I was always seeking his approval and trying to please him. Later, as I grew and matured, I started to see some chinks in his armor, and I also had some bones to pick with him. There was a rebellious phase. [Later, I'll do a blog on some of those experiences, some of which are entertaining in their own right.] Finally, there was a sense of peace, and I felt, in my own estimation, like more of a colleague. I was so looking forward to sending him a CD of my latest film score, which I thought he might like (He had heard some of my music, but in my perception had never really given me the thumbs up). Most of this was (and is) going on in my own head.

I think deep down he knew all this, but like a parent who never quite "gets" you, we never discussed it in detail. Not the "father" part. I worked closely with him, yet we never had dinner. I expressed frustration and anger when times were hard, and yet there was never the feeling of real reconciliation with those, only acknowledgment. I always felt he never forgot that first meeting, and in a sense never thought of me with abiding respect. I might be wrong about that. Maybe that's just who he was.

I will say that I always respected his courage. Of course he was courageous in his response to his illness, but also in the everyday, moment to moment things. I always wished I could be more like him in that way.

There was one time though, after a 5 year absence from choral singing, when I joined a select group of the Chorale for the opening of the MTV music awards, held in 1999 at the Metropolitan Opera House, where he came over to me and patted me on the back with pronounced and genuine affection. For that moment at least, I felt as though I was respected, or valued, or acknowledged. It felt like a triumph.

Regrets? Well, I really regret that I hadn't talked to him since he'd been ill. Somehow he seemed invincible, so it never occurred to me that he'd pass away. Still though, I try to analyze what that means -- I felt like I'd be intruding. Really though, it's nothing more than fear on my part. I shouldn't worry about 'disturbing' people, or that I'm somehow not valuable enough to be involved. if you are showing your concern, that's far more important than waking someone up from a nap or disturbing their dinner. That'll be appreciated. If it isn't, your mirror still looks a little better to you.

I'm vastly un-proud of that. No second chance here, but I hope to learn from this. I could use a little more of Bob's courage, in the daily things.

Fast forward to last week. I went to the memorial service, and after, I went out to a bar and sat once again alone (this time with glasses of wine). It seemed fitting to memorialize this loss similarly to that failed relationship of 19 years ago on the day of our first meeting. I was there to get a buzz. There was a difference though: this time I drank to Bob - a silent solitary toast. I sat there in the Upper West Side neighborhood about 4 blocks from that first meeting 19 years ago (almost to the day), as people walked by and the world kept on whirling and tried to imagine it without Bob in our lives.

Later, I went to his apartment to celebrate his life with some of his friends and his widow, and I had made a little progress, first in having fought my instinct to stay away. When I arrived I sought out his wife Juliana, and I shared the story of our first meeting. She enjoyed hearing a little about my affection for him, and about the story, but I sensed she didn't completely "get" the significance of his meaningfulness to me, and somehow that was OK. I mean, Imagine what she's going though,anyway.

I didn't share it with ultimate skillfulness, but I did share it. Another triumph. On we go...

So here's to Robert Bass. Conductor, Musician, Father, Fearless and feared leader. Thanks for letting me make music with you. I wish I could have done more somehow...

Technical stuff has got me down...

2008-08-27T00:28:00.009-04:00

I won't go into the details (this blog's already getting boring enough), but I decided to do some computer/studio updating work, to try and improve performance. It has turned out to be a slippery slope...I've been at it for the last two days!

Just as an example, how'd you like to see this message on your screen:

"Re-enter iLokManager Exception Description
Application: iLokManager
Error: com.webobjects.eoaccess.EOObjectNotAvailableException: No com.paceap.businesslogic.server.License found with globalID: _EOIntegralKeyGlobalID[License (java.lang.Integer)5073116]
Reason:
Stack trace:
File Line# Method Package
NA : Non applicable, JIT activated"

Yikes!

Thankfully I was smart enough to put it at an unbusy time when I could afford to do some tweaking...

My kingdom for an abacus!

Simon says....

2008-08-25T12:30:00.004-04:00

...he hears the mix of "I Don't Know Why" as not being 'done'. He feels it doesn't sound like it's all in the same room.

Hmmm...I heard that for a second when I was listening in phones before I posted it, but I thought I was going crazy. Good ear Simon!

Now that I go back, I don't know how much I care. It does sound pretty great. I was listening and comparing to Isaac Hayes stuff from itunes (that's my model for this tune - and ya gotta revere the masters!), and I can hear Isaac puts more reverb in the higher instruments, so jangley guitars tend to be pretty wet, but he's more austere with say the drums. I think I'll try that.

Point taken.

The thing is, Simon said "the recording strikes me as being at a "demo" level, somehow". OUCH!!! He was never much for pulling a punch.

I DON'T DO DEMOS! Them's fightin' words where I come from!

Fortunately, I think we are talking about small increments at this point...

I know so much more about mixing orchestral music......

How cool is this? ......

2008-08-21T23:16:00.031-04:00

I am doing a recording of a short classical piece I wrote for a funeral of a friend last year, performed live at the service, called "Dona Nobis Pacem". This means "grant us peace" in Latin. It's a pretty little 2 1/2 minute piece for a cappella 5 part choir.

I'm doing it as overdubs, so each singer will come in and record separately. I started with sampling software called 'Symphonic Choirs', which has a program called 'Wordbuilder' that allows you to build a performance of a choir by adding each syllable to the text. The sample then responds with the appropriate note and vowel. I can't tell you how tedious the construction of this is, or how long it takes! I will say that with the right know-how (which I think I have), you can produce a choir that is quite convincing in an orchestral texture, and amazing but a little too synthetic sounding in an a cappella (no instruments) setting. Not good enough for a final though, in my opinion.

So I'm bringing in some singers to replace the symphonic choir samples.

The first singer, who sang three pieces for me last Thursday, had trouble staying with the track. Totally understandable - because it speeds up and slows down, like any good classical piece does. Of course, she's in another room so I can't really signal or conduct her. Plus even with visual communication, there's a lot to do in a recording session if you're behind the board. I dealt with the timing issues in editing...and it's fine...but then I came up with an idea.

I recorded myself with a video camera conducting the piece to the track that preexists (not the most up to date camera there, but it got the job done). Then I imported the video into my computer and synced it to the music, which I'm then going to send out to a regular TV. It'll be a little tricky because the firewire bus tends to get overloaded when sending video and audio, but I'll figure it out (maybe I'll figure out how to run the video from a 2nd computer and sync it to the 1st). That way the other singers will be able to follow my conducting, and see the tempo variations. The video like the music, is random access, meaning you can start from anywhere virtually instantaneously.

A conductor is so much better than a click, because you also see the space in between the beats. Also a lot of the stuff you say to a performer to get the music shaped correctly is expressed in the physical gestures, so you have to spend less time explaining things.

click to enlarge

Anyway, the screen capture above is the Digital Performer environment, which includes a still picture of the movie of me conducting. Also in the picture is the mixer controls and sound wave data for existing tracks.

Now there are two of me...I'll be able to run the controls while another one of me will do the conducting.

Is that amazing or what!!!???!!!

A productive day...

2008-08-21T00:15:00.030-04:00

I had a good day today. I finished the audio of the master for the film "Strange Girls". This was the final final. I worked with the final output level (I've been having some trouble with the very last loud portion having enough impact). Short answer? I turned it up. Sounds easy right? Don't count on it.

That's because turning it up requires signal processing, so I put [go to sleep for the next sentence if you like] a Waves Ultramaximizer on the main output bus, and created a new bus on an aux track and routed the audio to that bus and then to the main output, where I rode the aux up a few db in that spot. I managed to do as little harm as possible...

Of course, I could have turned the other stuff down, but I'm way too much of a hero for that -- and we got a loudness war going on!

What does that mean? Well, every CD you pick up has to be louder than the last. It's all out war. That's because we who create music have forgotten that people have this knob on their stereos (or slider on their computers) that allows them to increase the volume to a level they find desirable. As an engineer, you can't argue against it, you just have to join the fray.

When I'm just mastering other people's stuff, I'm encouraged to turn it up way past the point of distortion, and they say "it sounds great!". I've lost my mojo to fight too, I used to give the long "loudness wars" sermon. Now I've shortened the sermon, and I just do what they want, cause that's what they're hearing in other music. You should have seen me back in those days -- I used to go into this whole thing about fractal geometry, and the three dimensional aspects of sound. It was so cute..

It always ended up as loud as possible in the end anyway...

This is the kind of stuff I obsess over. I have an exponentially harder time getting anything done I wrote myself because of this...well...perfectionism.

As for the material, I went with the all orchestral approach. I'm going to put the pop songs ('pop' is used here in the broadest possible sense, as differentiated from classical sounding orchestral music) I wrote on another release at a later time. They didn't fit as well as I would have liked and I would have had to turn them down (those loudness wars again).

...and I've got 60 minutes on this CD as it is...

I also completed the mix on the song "I Don't Know Why", which makes a very short appearance in the film. I wrote it for the film, but I decided to expand it a bit and recruit vocalist Walt Elson, who has a bit of a Isaac Hayes [much respect] vibe going on.

It's on my myspace page if you want to check it out. The lyrics are a little more vacuous than anything I'd write for personal expression, but that was part of the fun.

Again, I was obsessing over the mix. I just got it as good as I could and then sent an email to all the musicians asking them to send me their thoughts. First I listened on my big system. LOUD. It was awesome. Second, I moved it to my laptop and listened, very trebly. HMMM.

So I go back and back out a little of the high hat, which was the bothersome part. Then when I check that out in itunes, it still sounds a little ... I dunno...hyped

Then I remember, itunes defaults to a sound enhancer in it's preferences every time they update it. ENOUGH WITH THE SOUND ENHANCER. IT SUCKS APPLE!! I turn it off in the preferences. Luckily I haven't gone overboard with the high hat attenuation. I checked against some other stuff at the itunes store.

Then I listen on headphones, do the drums have enough of the plate reverb? Should I pan the backup singer Pamela back a little more to the middle? Is the Walt's 5th word in tune? I gotta go back...

Back to the studio, after a few more dives into the mix...well you get the idea, I'm driving myself crazy!?!

But all in all it was a good productive day, and I hope I'm finished with this mix...

I going to let let someone else tell me if I'm not.

As I was walking home from the gig...

2008-08-19T15:35:00.027-04:00

...I was thinking: "what a lucky dude I am!"

But I digress...

The gig (see below) was fun. VERY LOUD. My ears are still ringing. I wasn't too sure at times if I was even hearing myself, so I'd stop and listen to see what was missing. Happily there was generally a missing element at those times. At other times, you'd think, "am I playing that?" or you'd hear a sound and think: "what instrument could that possibly be?".

In a musical existence where I'm generally adding a dash of this or a pinch of that, this was a wild sex orgy for music (Yes, it's a mixed metaphor). I met the participants about an hour beforehand at the venue, and we did a minimal setup. We didn't play a note together until the event started. There was no attempt to discuss in detail what we would do. I walked around the stage as our contingent took out their wild toys, at least those that were preset. Some would make an appearance only after the music had started. Then the bandleader introduced us, we started playing, and two hours later it was all over after one of only a few decrescendi of the evening. Beginning to end - it was continuous with no break. We said our goodbyes and that was it. But it wasn't like an orchestra (where the music is written out), or even a band (where you know the songs), this was an all out free-for-all. The feeling was wildness.

I wish all my relationships were like this!

But seriously...

The evening was designed to bring together the world of film, poetry and music. At the start there was a screen in front of us, and films played. All the films were by emerging filmmakers, a few of whom were there in attendance. Then there was a poet, who from time to time, when inspired, would read poetry from her seat in the audience. You couldn't hear her that well either

From the start notes were flying everywhere.

Our percussionist [Ravish Momin] had a small kit: a tiny (by most standards) kick drum, a snare and a cymbal with a large ride and small splash on the same stand, and an assortment of percussion toys, some of which I saw, some I only heard. There were shakers, and hand drums and things.

The bass player [Tom Abbs] had an upright bass, but he also had a digeradoo mounted in between the body of the instrument and the strings, cattycornered to the fingerboard of the instrument, and on top he had a violin bolted to the bass in the upper left quadrant. He played a lot with the bow (meaning 'a lot' if you're thinking of jazz) but also a lot of pizzicato (fingerstyle). The program says he also would be on tuba, but I didn't see that one come out. This guy was coming up with all sorts of unexpected stuff. I really enjoyed his energy and adventurousness.

Our guitarist [Bruce Eisenbeil] was as adventurous in approach, if not in instrumentation. He just set up a standard Stratocaster and a Fender twin. He did have all sorts of pedals, some of which were quite old, with lots of those old school sliders for real time interaction. Occasionally I would l look over at him and he'd be holding a feedback note - channeling Jimi Hendrix - and adjusting his musical figure with his knobs on the pedal (one of which he had on a stool so he didn't have to lean over while adjusting).

I was just playing a piano, and I was the most conventional in the mix by a long shot (imagine that!). No gadgets, no uncommon instruments - just piano. Once I got into the swing of things I did strum the strings a bit -- I wish I had taken a guitar pick! Oh well.

[Josh Sinton] played Baritone sax and Bass Clarinet. He took out a bunch of metal bowls at the beginning, but I didn't ever see him use them for musical purposes. He was right next to me too. Perhaps they were for spiritual or ornamental purposes, I never did find out. At one point in the proceedings, he spilled some water and went to get a paper towel, but I wasn't sure if that had to do with the metal bowls or a drink.

Finally our leader [Dan Godston] played trumpet, and came out with a few different horns surprising me during the evening. He had the standard trumpet which he used with and without mutes (which as you may know, are often less about muting per se, and more about timbre change on a trumpet. A muted trumpet can be very loud played forte.) Also he had a piccolo (small) trumpet, and an instrument he called a "slumpet", which was a trumpet with a slide, similar to a trombone.

As the evening spun out, the films ended and the screen was rolled up and we just kept playing. I felt like the music got better at that point. As a film scorer, I'm used to adding just a little to reinforce the film, so the in your face feeling of the music re: the films was something I wasn't used to. None of the film's audio was used, so we were the only sound. Afterwards I was discussing it with one of the musicians, and he mentioned that he had assumed the personage of one of the characters in one of the films. Interesting thought. There are of course lot of ways to score a film. You can score the action, or the emotion. You can score the setting, you can score the mood of the setting or of a particular character. You can also comment on the action/setting/mood/character either directly or by writing against it (think of the "Adagio for Strings" in "Platoon"). You can decide to drive the action, or to comment on it - in it or above it, so to speak. While impractical in a conventional sense, the music we were making didn't go with my default approach, but it definitely opened up possibilities.

One funny thing was, I was so sure everyone was going to be impressed by my touch. It's kind of 'my thing' as a pianist, because I can really play amazingly softly, which is difficult -- but it didn't come up!

I was nervous - after all - in the beginning. As we were playing, when someone in the band would look at me, I had this feeling they were thinking "don't play that, we don't do that here..." Afterwards though, the band was generally complementary. I was holding down the rhythm a lot. Like the proverbial group sex experience (and proverbs are the only experience I've had with that) you'd focus on one person for a while and then move on to the next. I found I was most comfortable getting with the bass and drummer. Often when I played single melodic lines I couldn't be heard, even though I'd play them at double or triple octaves as loud as possible, so I moved into more percussive stuff, taking a chord voiced in a 'part writing' style (lush and jazzy, in the middle of the keyboard) and hammering away, wandering chromatically about. By later in the evening, I had decided to let Dan, Josh and Bruce go on their way - occasionally musically commenting on a rhythm they made - while mostly holding with drums and bass. Other times I would do very high arpeggios, figuring that would be a way to leap out of the texture, and commented or complemented that way, like a bird flying quickly through the scene and attracting attention though quick movement and high altitude. The piano had by far the highest range of any of the instruments, so I spent a lot of time above middle c.

It was a test of technique which I felt pretty good about. I did trills, and tremolandi figurations that lasted probably for 2 minutes or longer, which is pretty demanding, without feeling like I was going to pass out.

Unfortunately, while there are pictures of the event, I don't know who took them, so I decided to write here at length for posterity.

Many thanks to the awesome Rona Mark for hooking me up to this gig!

...and that brings us back to me walking down the street after the gig feeling lucky. What wild dream did I have that in the space of one week I could be recording vocalist Carol Woods, playing electric guitar over a soaring pop ballad, recording strings, working with singers on a composition I wrote for choir, mixing a funk tune I wrote, working on my world music project, and doing this free improvisation gig last night?

It's everything I could have ever wanted out of life. Lucky.

Everything except the sex thing...

Nervous?!!??......

2008-08-15T23:53:00.012-04:00

...yeah, a little.

I have a gig with the following folks (click to enlarge) on Monday the 18th of August:

We don't know each other, have never met, and there will be no rehearsal -- we will not be seeing the films in advance, or hearing the poetry....just improvising based on what we're experiencing at the moment. This is the kind of thing that could be incredible...or not.

Even though I improvise, I'm a control freak, which is why I NEVER go dancing, but I have been in an actual dance performance as a "dancer". (Parenthetically, I also co-choreographed that piece with dancer Janet Gerson. This was in the 80's. "Rituals and Incantations", it was called. I came up with the title and concept, which I always liked. Musicians dancing, and and dancers making music.)

...but I digress......

Somehow, this kind of reminds me of that...the only difference is that we REHEARSED Rituals and Incantations...

Anyway, it's a great venue. It's a place called Cell which just opened. I suggested this place to the guy (Dan Godston) who is putting it together. I saw a really great Turkish performance there with Sevgi a couple of months ago.

I am practicing though, although I don't know how to practice for it....

Sessions for "In Your Heart"...

2008-08-09T12:26:00.012-04:00

This week I've been doing great sessions for a song called "In Your Heart". The song is by Lyricist and overall renaissance man Christian Holder and composer Noa Ain who is also a wonderful visual artist, with arrangements by the superhuman Andy Brick.

We had some great performances this week:

Vocalist Carol Woods came in to do a take-no-prisoners killer vocal. What a pro -- ready to deliver and completely accommodating -- she was totally prepared and ready to go! She has actually recently appeared in my neighbor's movie "Across the Universe". I also understand she's appearing on Broadway in a revival of "Chicago". She came in during the day before the show.

Saxophonist "Sweet" Sue Terry came in for some sax work. Sue and I have known each other for about 13 years. It was a pleasure to work with her again. We just turned on the song, put her track in record and she proceeded to negotiate some sophisticated chord changes like some shaman, guru-like intuit -- no chart in front of her (!). She's a monster.

After the first three takes, we said "Sue, do you have the music?" and she said "no". (US) "Would you like to see it?".... (HER) Uh...I, guess, yeah that'd be cool"...

Scary!

We also had some great background vocals, arranged on the spot by three great singers, whose names I barely caught as they flew through. One of the singers had worked here before on a previous project, but I didn't even recognize her until about 1/3 of the way through the session.

Also, there was a fairly copious amount of other friends and family coming through. It's starting to feel like the Hit Factory up in here!

I was honored to pluck the guitar a little.

Special shout to Andy to trusting me to do this with this gang!

Screen captures from the talkback video feed (video link between control room and booth) are here

A new axe....

2008-08-05T23:34:00.019-04:00

It's been years since I bought a new guitar! The last one I bought was a bass whose only owner was the great Jaco Pastorius when he was still alive, and he died in 1987. I still use that thing.

We used to follow Jaco around when we first came to NYC, and see him in various clubs. One night we even saw the Word of Mouth Big Band with Toots Theilemans on the harmonica and Paul McCandless among others! Jerry Jermont sat in for a lot of the gig on Bass. That was at the original Lone Star Cafe (now a deli). Jaco liked to party (not letting any secrets out) and he let his bass go so cheap (in order to fund the party) that I couldn't help but pick it up. Simon found it at Matt Umanov's.

Well, I got a new acoustic last week. It's an Ovation, which is the kind with the rounded back. I bought it sight unseen since I heard that they were closing some factories and were going to start making them overseas. Also it was severely discounted on closeout.

As you may know though, guitars are a very personal thing, so it was a gamble. Acoustics are even trickier. I never even owned an acoustic steel string till I was in college.

I remember about 30 years ago (college days - yes I am old) my good friend Tom Bolling was working at a guitar store in my old hometown of Richmond Va., and he called me one day about a steel string guitar in his shop and said, "come down here immediately and bring your checkbook, because I just found the guitar that's going to change your life" (I still remember the exact words). Up until then I had only owned electrics and classical (nylon string) guitars. I had stayed away from steel string acoustics.

I did as he said, and later that day I had my first steel string -- and it did change my life.

Of course that was a fellow guitarist, a good friend that still lives about 50 feet from me to this day (different city even), and he was talking about this one particular instrument he'd found and personally played. This is because he knew that for me, I need really great action. The sound on that guitar wasn't unbelievable, but it opened up a little over time. The action was killer though...these days the instrument has gone downhill, as the neck is becoming warped. It's really unplayable, and right now I'm using a loaner steel string (an archtop - also Tom's). I used the loaner on a "School House Rock" (Yes, it's coming back) session a couple of months ago (thanks Andy!), but I hate the sound of the recorded instrument (sorry T). It did make it on that recording though (at least I think, more on this later...).

Fast forward a little -- to about 10 years ago I went into Sam Ash guitars on 48th street and while browsing picked up a guitar that played so well and sounded so good that I put it down immediately, because I knew that in a couple of minutes I was going to fall in love with it, have to buy it, and spend 5 grand on it (or 10 grand by the time I amortized the credit card debt). I realized at that moment how far guitars had come in the years since I bought that 1st steel string guitar back in Richmond. The guitar from 30 years ago was as costly as non-collector guitars were in those days. But there were no 5 grand guitars that I remember.

Anyway, I'm feeling pretty good about about the new axe.

A few things actually caught me by surprise. For one, I love the sound of it unamplified! I was expecting - based on my discussions with Bob Mondok at Sweetwater - that I was not going to be overly enthusiastic. It's not really loud (I don't need really loud) but it has a nice rich well balanced sound. Given Ovation's reputation, I was expecting loud. It has rich low frequencies, good highs, no annoying midrange, just like I like in an acoustic. I got the balladeer model.

I'm not in love with the direct sound, but I haven't heard the acoustic guitar yet on which I really liked with the internal pickup, so I'm not surprised by that. It's thumpy (but that's the nature of the beast). I was willing to be pleasantly surprised given what I gathered from Bob. but it's OK. It may be great as supplemental to a miced sound, we'll see.

I recorded with it today, and we had to go direct because I couldn't leave the control room (I was playing guitar but didn't want to leave Andy to fend by himself, although he's totally up to it, and because it made sense to talk to the other people in the room for suggestions). The sound worked for what this project is (guitar sits in a richly populated pop/funk mix), but it won't make me give up good microphones.

I'm still excited to see how microphones work with it. When I get some time, or the right project, I'll blog about it. I have a feeling I'm going to like it with my U87.

The action is a little on the high side, I read in the owner's manual that the bridge has shims in there that can be taken out, so I'm going to try taking one out and seeing about that. In the old days, I would lighten up the strings, but I don't want to lose that richness of tone.

All in all a hit.

...and the built in tuner was a nice surprise I wasn't expecting!

Playing the Building...

2008-07-29T16:14:00.016-04:00

So, Whit and I went down to the Maritime Building just off NYC's Battery Park City to see an exhibit curated by David Byrne of "Talking heads" fame.

It was very cool. Byrne had set up a keyboard controller from an old organ he adapted to this purpose. The sound generation device was the building, and there were 3 basic methods to produce sound:

1) the vibration of heavy motors located on the building's skylight (pictured above)

2) the percussive sound of clappers striking the metal columns of the building (pictured above)

3) the use of air blown across pipes which had holes cut into them (pictured above)

See the whole gallery of our antics here:

Strange Girls Screening and the old neighborhood...

2008-07-23T18:01:00.016-04:00

Last night, I went to a screening of "Strange Girls", the film which I recently scored. It was at the Anthology Film Archives, which is a nice Indie type space occupying the entire building on the corner of 2nd St. and 2nd Ave ("the nexus of the universe"...or was that 1st & 1st?).

I don't know how they do it. In the past when the neighborhood was a funky, funky place it made sense. but it seems as though Trump would have swooped in by now to make luxury condos.

Let's hope it can endure the current real estate building boom. I think the boom will likely slow down soon.

In fact, I was amazed to see how much the neighborhood had changed. I walked past the old site of CBGB's OMFUG, and I was amazed by how hygenic it felt. I couldn't even really recognize the storefront, although I know it was the right block. We played there many a night back in the day, and the funky, dangerous, urban feel made you think you were so cool.

Check out this short video for a taste of the feel of the scene.

At that time, CB's was the only place around, except for the homeless people lying around on the street. Everything else was commercial and shuttered that time of night. Down the block,on 3rd ave. people were selling goods (most stolen) laid out on blankets, one after the next after the next, going on for blocks and blocks. I looked like the conservative one with my shoulder length hair. Everyone hanging around CB's looked like the lead guitarist for the Plasmatics...

Yet I felt right at home.

Now it feels like San Diego (no offense, really, I just didn't move there because I wanted funky instead). Truthfully - it's not bad right now, it's kind of in a sweet spot where culture collides, but look for it to jump the shark sometime in 2009.

Back to the matter at hand, it was really great to see the film. Of course, I'll never be able to see this film with any level of objectivity, but the audience seemed to genuinely enjoy it. I got good comments on the music. I felt a lot of it could be a little louder, but the good thing is I think the director agrees.

I think it gave me a little juice to move on. The music is good. What an undertaking though!

It even works OK in spite of the fact that the final mixes, though done, are not married with the movie yet, and still it was pretty good.

I also went to a bar afterward and talked to some new people for a while (who had been at the screening).

A ticket to the screening: a deal at $5
Price for 1 glass of wine: highway robbery at $9
Witnessing the end of an era: Priceless

Strange Girls

2008-07-17T11:36:00.007-04:00

Here is a link to an interview of the film maker (and review) of Strange Girls.

The verdict?

"...one of the year’s finest indie horror flicks."

Enjoy.

I can't sleep....

2008-07-06T04:01:00.001-04:00

...and it's 4 in the morning. Tomorrow will likely be challenging...