I've never written a song though I imagine the experience is about as cathartic as reaching the fourth act of a greek tragedy. Hubris gone there's only passion and witty speech left to enlighten the reader (listener) as to the complicated details going on, not in the characters' mind but on the writer's tribulations.
Standing here wishing this musical musings would drive pen to pentagram and drive a chromatic scale to new unmet bounds of glory. But wishing does as little for music as squishing an ant does for cleaning my room. Remember it's a butterfly that's important.
I'd write a song to my peeps. The ones made of human flesh and not confectionary sugar meant to fulfill a tiny desire locked away deep in our frontal lobe. It wouldn't be an indie version of things with one stanza of ambiguous lyrics and an abstract word like "coldness-city" or "peaceful-ighty" to be repeated constantly throughout.
I'd model my song after the greats attempting to cover a lifespan of a story in a few choice words crammed into tiny lines meant to fit into the little squares of printed paper inside a CD. A song written not for glory or riches but for guts and soul.
Choosing the genre would be difficult and so I would probably opt for a mash-up. The type that mixes happy go lucky songs with sentimental heart-throbs of decades past and a sprinkling of thug-thumping hip-hop born and raised in streets where warriors wear Air Jordans and hope to god they make it home before their light goes out.
Eyelids closed.
The song you play on repeat for days at a time and you skip through all the other tracks on the cd. The song you and all your (my) friends nod and smile to on road trips. Constantly played at the end of nights out and memorializing your wedding I hopefully toasted and playing in the background of your musical life.
My friends. It's as simple as Do. Re. Mi.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Monday, July 19, 2010
Craving.
I sometimes crave things like chocolate and pickles. As often as not the cravings come separately and at least a week apart from each other. Sometimes I crave for singing birds, golden rings and the salty sea breeze feeling of being under a palm roof.
I've craved a hug received for a while now. The type where you can pull your arms in, tuck your head between your shoulders and fall into it. For some reason I have images of a mechanical hand closing in for the hug, me standing in the middle of it all calmly taking in the whirring noises as I get my hug. It's safer to think that the analog controls within the machine couldn't possibly turn on me like a swarm of hornets or an angry person.
A wiser man than me told me he was always looking for something new. He's been looking for what I think is 40 years but what very well may be 50 or 29 - this business we've gone into has a glory or guts attitude towards aging.
A new voice. A new beat. A new garage band feel that reminisces with the 80s, embraces the modern chemical nature of cooking but also remembers what a mixed tape feels like.
Not the plastic casing or the crackling in the first few second where you cleared your throat for a dedication and the proceeded to stumble across something wrought in care.
2 sides, maybe 12 songs, vinyl scratching in the background.
See, what worries me is that I spent too long on that mix tape and then forget why I started it. Or wonder why the mix tape has to be one and I can't hold a conversation instead that transmits the thoughts running all over my head. Borrow all that bottled glory.
Maybe I should just talk. Maybe I should write down my thoughts and attempt an explanation that doesn't sound like an excuse. But all I want to do is start afresh with the memories that brought brilliance to the past. One full of late nights, tortellini and graceful dancing to middle school dancing.
I miss the "at home" feeling of wooden spoons, simmering pots and morning, freshly brewed coffee.
I've craved a hug received for a while now. The type where you can pull your arms in, tuck your head between your shoulders and fall into it. For some reason I have images of a mechanical hand closing in for the hug, me standing in the middle of it all calmly taking in the whirring noises as I get my hug. It's safer to think that the analog controls within the machine couldn't possibly turn on me like a swarm of hornets or an angry person.
A wiser man than me told me he was always looking for something new. He's been looking for what I think is 40 years but what very well may be 50 or 29 - this business we've gone into has a glory or guts attitude towards aging.
A new voice. A new beat. A new garage band feel that reminisces with the 80s, embraces the modern chemical nature of cooking but also remembers what a mixed tape feels like.
Not the plastic casing or the crackling in the first few second where you cleared your throat for a dedication and the proceeded to stumble across something wrought in care.
2 sides, maybe 12 songs, vinyl scratching in the background.
See, what worries me is that I spent too long on that mix tape and then forget why I started it. Or wonder why the mix tape has to be one and I can't hold a conversation instead that transmits the thoughts running all over my head. Borrow all that bottled glory.
Maybe I should just talk. Maybe I should write down my thoughts and attempt an explanation that doesn't sound like an excuse. But all I want to do is start afresh with the memories that brought brilliance to the past. One full of late nights, tortellini and graceful dancing to middle school dancing.
I miss the "at home" feeling of wooden spoons, simmering pots and morning, freshly brewed coffee.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
9:48
An interesting thought in audiovisual sensory overload reminded me of a new cult-classic in the making. One less involved with faux leather overcoats and more involved in an eclectic mix of waking life, eternal sunshine and the time traveler's wife.
2+2=5
Funny how traders are fond of saying that 1+1=1/2
Like all things, it was/is all relative. A walk down the block in humid, thick as amazonian air, heat feels like a mile ran alongside a chilly schuykil night.
I'm no longer a part of philly. Or as much a part as I could ever have been without having been born there or lived a particularly large portion of my life there. Though proportionally it'll come to roughly 20% if I ignore the next 50 years.
I wish we could aggregate years in number to something being more like years experienced rather than years lived. That we could tell people we were a certain age and everything else would fall into context.
tbc....
2+2=5
Funny how traders are fond of saying that 1+1=1/2
Like all things, it was/is all relative. A walk down the block in humid, thick as amazonian air, heat feels like a mile ran alongside a chilly schuykil night.
I'm no longer a part of philly. Or as much a part as I could ever have been without having been born there or lived a particularly large portion of my life there. Though proportionally it'll come to roughly 20% if I ignore the next 50 years.
I wish we could aggregate years in number to something being more like years experienced rather than years lived. That we could tell people we were a certain age and everything else would fall into context.
tbc....
Truth is complicated.
But truth is golden.
And this weekend wasn't one that started with the end of a week. It started on a Thursday with a presage of better things to come or of worse things past. Either way it was an allowance, a permission for excess and revelry involving beach-sipped crowns and limes. Lobster, steak and ragu.
Some french tunes thrown in by the 60 year olds in the crowd that rang particularly well with my old bones and august soul.
And on Friday I worked on a model, not the photographed kind but one equally elegant and complicated in the insightful righteousness of their eyes (i's).
And I've thought of filial connections a lot as of late. I once contributed to a piece of collective thought called brosperity. The almost too-collegiate-for-writing word inspires in me a feeling of home and success, the idea that behind the frattiness and ice and tanks and boat shoes lies a stronger connection that is always tangible if only rarely visible. Vineyard vines tie stronger bonds than the knots on a 25 foot skiv.
Bro. Bros.
Term does not only apply to guys. It has a broader context that allows it to refer to anything, friend, best friend, co-worker, cousin.
I met a lot of them this weekend and even though my night ended before Jimmy appeared in the picture, Timmy did make a solid A.
A bottle of russia sneakily hid in the scoops bag (Tostito's of course) and failed to surprise its target who instead calmly reached for it, failed to adopt the one knee stance and instead popped the cap and sipped happily.
Jose also made friends that night, even after a couple of Maggie's on the rock and an insufferably hot spell on Mexico's rooftop we hid in the dungeon-like coolness of the first floor of my home.
The truth is that familiar settings like this are rare and far between. Throughout the years the bros around me (of all flavors) have followed a sinusoidal wave of closeness. Never farther than one but only touching at one brief instant near zero. And though I find myself finding a y=0 equation, or nearly so, I find other experimenting with the scatter plot around me.
Some follow a tri-asymptotic curve I didn't know it was possible.
For now Ill revel in those I still have and consider to be a part of my filial family in a country that keeps my two different life's apart.
Adios.
And this weekend wasn't one that started with the end of a week. It started on a Thursday with a presage of better things to come or of worse things past. Either way it was an allowance, a permission for excess and revelry involving beach-sipped crowns and limes. Lobster, steak and ragu.
Some french tunes thrown in by the 60 year olds in the crowd that rang particularly well with my old bones and august soul.
And on Friday I worked on a model, not the photographed kind but one equally elegant and complicated in the insightful righteousness of their eyes (i's).
And I've thought of filial connections a lot as of late. I once contributed to a piece of collective thought called brosperity. The almost too-collegiate-for-writing word inspires in me a feeling of home and success, the idea that behind the frattiness and ice and tanks and boat shoes lies a stronger connection that is always tangible if only rarely visible. Vineyard vines tie stronger bonds than the knots on a 25 foot skiv.
Bro. Bros.
Term does not only apply to guys. It has a broader context that allows it to refer to anything, friend, best friend, co-worker, cousin.
I met a lot of them this weekend and even though my night ended before Jimmy appeared in the picture, Timmy did make a solid A.
A bottle of russia sneakily hid in the scoops bag (Tostito's of course) and failed to surprise its target who instead calmly reached for it, failed to adopt the one knee stance and instead popped the cap and sipped happily.
Jose also made friends that night, even after a couple of Maggie's on the rock and an insufferably hot spell on Mexico's rooftop we hid in the dungeon-like coolness of the first floor of my home.
The truth is that familiar settings like this are rare and far between. Throughout the years the bros around me (of all flavors) have followed a sinusoidal wave of closeness. Never farther than one but only touching at one brief instant near zero. And though I find myself finding a y=0 equation, or nearly so, I find other experimenting with the scatter plot around me.
Some follow a tri-asymptotic curve I didn't know it was possible.
For now Ill revel in those I still have and consider to be a part of my filial family in a country that keeps my two different life's apart.
Adios.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
The subject line matters
Often as an afterthought I let my fingers float above the keyboard in a half second that is comparable only to the moments leading to the release of a jump ball as a basketball game starts.
I read a new source today that spoke of character development and theories. A move from sometimes angry feminist literature to a maturity of a character willing to tackle everything from sex to broad political hot topics. The kind that a certain Cajun talks about and not the middle America mall outlet with ironic people who claim they feel the pain that their retail experience inflict upon their undying soul.
I'm just saying.
I'm saying that today was a sunny day with a variety of sports and seashells and glass types and sizes. A nice 20something incited me to jump into a pool fully clothed with the ever effective technique of chanting a name repeatedly until it becomes one big mush of magical incantations. Abracadabra was definitely a sentence before it degraded into what it is today. It was probably a result of the need to hide one's magical self and mutter it under one's breath.
The inquisition burned practitioners of magic - or those accused of it. The government attacked communists for a time - or those accused of it.
One of them even worked in a capitalistic machine.
Im charged with energy after an exhausting day. A feeling I'm sure my pillow could smother and one that will eerily escape me tomorrow the moment I hit the midday wall.
So for now, and in Ricky Bobby style, Clam and BAKE.
I read a new source today that spoke of character development and theories. A move from sometimes angry feminist literature to a maturity of a character willing to tackle everything from sex to broad political hot topics. The kind that a certain Cajun talks about and not the middle America mall outlet with ironic people who claim they feel the pain that their retail experience inflict upon their undying soul.
I'm just saying.
I'm saying that today was a sunny day with a variety of sports and seashells and glass types and sizes. A nice 20something incited me to jump into a pool fully clothed with the ever effective technique of chanting a name repeatedly until it becomes one big mush of magical incantations. Abracadabra was definitely a sentence before it degraded into what it is today. It was probably a result of the need to hide one's magical self and mutter it under one's breath.
The inquisition burned practitioners of magic - or those accused of it. The government attacked communists for a time - or those accused of it.
One of them even worked in a capitalistic machine.
Im charged with energy after an exhausting day. A feeling I'm sure my pillow could smother and one that will eerily escape me tomorrow the moment I hit the midday wall.
So for now, and in Ricky Bobby style, Clam and BAKE.
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