Sunday, October 27, 2013

A Shadow Of My Former--And Future--Self

So (a high school teacher friend wrote recently that "so" is the new "like," and I think it's true: a ubiquitous, reflexive and usually unnecessary sound we make at the beginning of an articulation of thought) last week I played songs about writing, which included a couple of  titular Ghosts ("Ghost Writer," "Ghost Writing").  As this week includes Halloween, it got me to thinking about doing a show (I do a radio show on wool.fm on Tuesdays, from noon til two-ish) based on that, which was my favorite holiday when I was a kid.  That started me reflecting on my kidhood: who I was as a kid--and at various other stages of life--the people who were around who no longer are, the people who are around but no longer are,  and the like.  I realized that ghosts are everywhere, everywhen, and haunt us in ways we often don't consider.

Life is filled with shadows and light, a chiaroscuro of people and events, of selves and selves and selves (I told you last week that I really liked triplets as examples); people immensely important to us leave us, sometimes temporarily, eventually permanently: they become ghosts, shades, shadows of remembrance.  I'm pretty sure that I don't believe in ectoplasmic manifestations, although I'm afraid of them.  I do know, at least sometimes, how I'm influenced by flesh and blood, and how I'm affected by the passing of certain physical beings who have been essential to me (Charles DeGaulle once said that "Cemetaries the world over are filled with indispensible men," and there's that sic again).  How different life would be if we always had access to those people who were there to help form and shape us.

And yet we are formless shapeshifters ourselves, are we not?  Who was I at 6, or 16, or 36?  Same as I am now?  Not hardly, although the ghosts of my self at various ages still inhabit me somehow, resonating, reflecting, reminding: what was, what might have been, what still could be.  Praps Dickens and Einstein were on to something with the whole past/present/future/always now thing: influences come and go, selves come and go, and what we're left with, along with the hollows and ghosts in our psyches, is that person we face every day in the mirror.  Protean and protein, we stumble through another day, trying to discover our "true" selves, which remain, nimble, elusive and mutable, just beyond our knowing. 

So here are some songs:

The Ghosts That Haunt Me                                                        Crash Test Dummies
The Ghosts Of Saturday Night                                                   Tom Waits
Ghosts                                                                                         John Martyn
Ghost Riders in The Sky                                                            Johnny Cash
Ghost Woman Blues                                                                   The Low Anthem
Ghost Train                                                                                 Marc Cohn
Ghost Train                                                                                 Counting Crows
Ghost Town                                                                                Marc Johnson          
Ghost Town                                                                                Cat Stevens
Ghost Song                                                                                 The Doors
Ghost Of A Chance                                                                    Garland Jeffreys
The Ghost Inside Me                                                                  John Stewart
Ghost In This House                                                                   Allison Krauss/Union Station
Ghost                                                                                          Indigo Girls
The Ghost                                                                                   Fleetwood Mac
Not Fade Away                                                                           Rolling Stones

Zigzagging Through Ghostland                                                 The Radiators
Your Ghost                                                                                  Kristin Hersh
Walking Ghost Blues                                                                  Harry Manx
O Holy Ghost                                                                              Ben Arnold
Not A Robot, But A Ghost                                                          Andrew Bird
Little Ghost                                                                                 The White Stripes
Is There A Ghost                                                                         Band Of Horses
I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You                           Chet Baker
Holy Ghost                                                                                   Mavis Staples
Graceful Ghost                                                                             George Winston
Giving Up The Ghost                                                                   Marc Cohn
Ghost Dance                                                                                 Robbie Robertson
Ghost Blues                                                                                  Loudon Wainwright III
Have You Seen Me Lately?                                                          Counting Crows
Time Fades Away                                                                         Neil Young


As Adam might've said, "It's all hollows, Eve...."

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Writing: Rites To Right Wrongs

I don't really know what that means--or at least don't feel like expounding on it at great length just now--but given my punchant for wordplay, it sounds good to me.  I had a piece (and show) all planned for this week, but the Tea Party wrecked it when they shut down the Federal Government.  In a rare instance of trickle-down theory "working,"  that shutdown has led to, effectively, a gag order on the piece and show I had planned.  I hope that in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to get back to it; in the meantime, then, this.

I could write more about that, the shutdown and the jerks who perpetrated it, but I think I'm sick of that, for now.  I seem to have developed a reputation as a "ranter;" people send me suggestions for post material.  I guess that reputation may be deserved, but it surely wasn't what I intended, if I intended anything, when I started writing this foolishness.

I heard David Sedaris, who (O, blasphemer!) I don't love, and don't get other people's love for, interviewed (again) by Terry Gross on Fresh Air recently.  He talked about how he spends his time now that he doesn't need a day job.  He lives in England with his "boyfriend," Hugh (Really?  "Boyfriend?"  That's the way he chooses to characterize his relationship, at the age of 57?  I really hate the term "lover,"  but how about "partner"?  That seems leagues preferable to "boyfriend.");  anyway, he said that he spends lots of his time picking up trash along roadsides.  Apparently, in Great Britain, or at least England, they are still prone to throwing trash out of their car windows as they motor about the countryside.  Not that we don't do that, too, here in the colonies, but I thought that maybe the Brits would be different.  So Mr. Sedaris spends his days walking or riding his bicycle around his self-designated neighborhood and picking up trash.

That's wicked admirable, but it has had its ironically amusing consequences.  He wrote a piece for one of the London newspapers about this habit; Hugh was in a shop after it came out, and was asked if he were the one who'd written the piece.  He replied that, no, it was his boyfriend (ugh, again) who had done it.  The questioner then said "Well, tell him that there's a road near my house that's filthy, and needs to be cleaned up."

So I write, although I am not a writer, and sometimes try at least to point out the trash in my neighborhood.  Perhaps I am a ranter, though I am not thrilled by what that connotes, perhaps a polemicist, although I think that's just a ranter who's taken a shower, which I do do, occasionally.  At any rate, here are some self-referential-ish songs I'll play this week:

Writer In The Sun                                                                           Donovan
Songwriter                                                                                       Van
Paperback Writer                                                                             Fabs
Lady Writer                                                                                      Dire Straits
Ghost Writer                                                                                     Garland Jeffreys
Denouncing November Blue (Uneasy Writer)                                 Avett Bros.
It's All In The Game/You Know What They're Writing About        Van
Writing In The Margins                                                                    John Gorka
Writing's On The Wall                                                                      George Harrison
Wide World Of Novel Writing                                                          Monty Python
Skywriting                                                                                         Montreaux
Ghost Writing                                                                                    Neko Case
Write You A Letter                                                                            Bobby Whitlock
Write Me A Letter                                                                             Aerosmith

Write Me A Few Of Your Lines                                                         Bonnie Raitt
Write Me A Few Of Your Lines                                                        John Sebastian/J-Band
Why Don't You Write Me                                                                 Simon & Garfunkel
When I Write The Book                                                                    Nick Lowe
To The Ghosts Who Write History Books                                        Low Anthem
Songwriter                                                                                         Van
Rewrite                                                                                              Paul Simon
I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter                   Madeleine Peyroux
I'll Write A Song For You                                                                 Earth, Wind & Fire
I'd Love To Write Another Song                                                       Van
Every Day I Write The Book                                                            Elvis Costello
All I Can Do Is Write About It                                                          Lynyrd Skynyrd
Wrote It Down And Burned It                                                           John Hiatt
Wrote A Song For Everyone                                                             Mavis Staples
Pied Piper                                                                                          Crispian St. Peters

And remember, only 88 more shopping days until we catch up to the government-funding can that those incompetent fools in Washington kicked down the road, and 111 days until the next Tea Party debt-ceiling tantrum that threatens to throw world economies into a tailspin, at best.  "O frabjous day...."

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Is The Desperation Really Quiet, Or Do Our Ear-buds Simply Block It Out?

"The mass of men (sic)," as Thoreau famously wrote, "lead lives of quiet desperation."  Superficially, it's just a really good aphorism; in the real world, though, it may be a matter of life or death, sanity or madness.

My father (to whom I seem refer more and more often, but don't psychoanalyze me, okay?) had another view.  It may simply be an obverse/converse corollary of that Thoreauvian view; it struck me in my youth as exceedingly cynical, but now I'm not sure. His truncated version was "If all of the wealth in the world were to to be re-divided equally among everyone, within 5 years it would all be right back to the way it is now."  Here is the actual quote, from J. Paul Getty's As I See It:

"If all the money and property in the world were divided up equally at, say, three o'clock in the afternoon, by 3:30 there would be  notable differences in the financial condition of the recipients.  Within that first thirty minutes, some adults would have lost their share, some would have gambled theirs away, and some would have been swindled out of their portion...After ninety days the difference would be staggering.  And I'm willing to wager that, within a year or two at most, the distribution of wealth would conform to patterns almost identical with those that had previously prevailed."

Setting aside the breathtaking cynicism (okay, I guess I mostly still think so) and cocksureness--such as the fact that apparently JPG thinks his wagers are more surefire than those of the great unwashed,  I'm reluctantly coming to see some glimmer of truth there.

I currently find myself on the "good" side of a situation that also makes me feel like Snidely Whiplash (Oh, come on, Boomers; Dudley-Do-Right's arch-nemesis...?).   I'm not tying Nell to the railroad tracks, but I am in the position of foreclosing banker, and it shakes me to my Liberal, One-World roots.

The specifics are unimportant.  I hold the mortgage on a property, the terms of which the putative buyers are unable to maintain.  After months of falling behind and desperately trying to catch up, it is apparent to me, if not to them, that it'll never happen and that they're simply wasting what money they have.  It's a sad and unfortunate situation I wish not to be in, and I'm trying to extricate myself in the kindest and most expeditious manner possible.

I wasn't going to write about this, exactly.  I was going to write about a bit I heard on Wait, Wait.... yesterday, about how Americans are falling behind the rest of the world in basic and necessary reasoning, logic and connection-making skills (those may be Department of Redundancy Department examples, but I like a trinity when making lists).  I wonder if the underlying reason is that (at least nominally) that admirable American indefatigable optimism, the up-from-the-bootstraps, rags-to-riches model is so deeply ingrained in the national psyche that we can't assess the likelihood of it actually happening for any particular individual, such as ourself.

One example of this failure, which blows my mind each time I see it, is signs supporting Republican candidates and causes stuck in the windows and, if they exist, front yards of people for whom the R's have done nothing, and will do nothing, EVER, except to nurture that elusive and in most cases illusive dream of success and, by the way, scaring these folks into voting for them by instilling a fear that our trend toward Socialism (really?) will deprive them of even the meager holdings they have.

It's probably true that, as Browning put it, "A man's (again, sic--when will those dead guys learn?) reach should exceed his grasp/ Or what's a heaven for?", but, Jeez, that has to be tempered with some cold- and clear-headed examination, some risk assessment, or folks are just going to continue to vote for empty promises of future wealth that, they are told, absolutely shouldn't be taxed now. They'll continue to make decisions based on fantasy and assumption of achieving The American Dream, whatever that is anymore.  More likely, they'll end up in the greedy clutches of slimy bastards like me, gleefully tossing them into the mean and bleak streets that are their more likely destination than a penthouse on the Upper East Side, or even a three-bedroom ranch in small-town Vermont.

This week's songs, then, are concerned with desperation, hope and hopelessness, money, and numbers.  Seems to me that often our desperation and hopelessness--if they're not the result of love unrequited or just gone wrong-- spring from lack of money, or our general innumeracy (we might can't read or write so good, but we can't add for shit, either) when, again, we are faced with risk assessment or reasonable, logical, sensible choice-making.  As Greg Brown says, "Life ain't what you think it is, it's just what it is."

Here they are:


All The Desperate Men                                                          John Stewart
Gorilla, You're A Desperado                                                  Warren Zevon
Desperado                                                                               Eagles
Doolin' Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)                                      Eagles
Desperadoes Waiting For A Train                                          Jerry Jeff Walker
Desperadoes Under The Eaves                                               Warren Zevon
Desperadoes Waiting For A Train                                          Nanci Griffith
Desperado                                                                               Linda Ronstadt
House Of Hope                                                                       Toni Childs
Losing Hope                                                                            Jack Johnson
Hopes On Hold                                                                       Ruben Blades
Hope In A Hopeless World                                                     The Staples
Hope                                                                                        Monty Alexander

When Numbers Get Serious                                                    Paul Simon
You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)                        Fabs
Wrong Number                                                                        Doobies
Roll Another Number (For The Road)                                    Neil Young
Rikki Don't Lose That Number                                               Steely Dan
Numbers On Paper                                                                  Mose Allison
No Face, No Name, No Number                                             Traffic
Wrong Number                                                                        Aaron Neville
My Days Are Numbered                                                         Al Kooper
The Mighty Number                                                                Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver
Lost A Number                                                                        Nils Lofgren/Grin
I Got Your Number                                                                  Boz Scaggs
Feel Like A Number                                                                Bob Seger
Be My Number Two                                                                Joe Jackson
You Never Give Me Your Money                                            Fabs
You Pay Your Money And You Take Your Chance                 Bruce Cockburn
Blue Money                                                                              Van Morrison

You may have noticed something over time:  I'll often play several versions of the same song, if I love the song and the versions.  I also have tongue in cheek fairly often; this week it's Zevon's "Gorilla...." and Neil's "Roll Another Number...," which is obviously not about numerals, but may be about calculations.

I'll be at wool.fm on Tuesday from noon till past two, from the looks of things here.  Hope you'll join me.



Monday, October 7, 2013

I Suck At That Emotion...

That's not what Smokey Robinson said?  It's "I Second That Emotion"?  Ah, that's a whole nother thing, innit?  Nevertheless, it seems to me that there are two main emotions men are allowed to express in American society:  Anger and Love, both of which have been bastardized/co-opted/corrupted and turned on their heads from what they should mean. 

Anger is the single most common emotion that we expect/accept from our men.  We're  (white guys) almost expected to be angry today, mostly because the power and influence we have wielded since the dawn of "civilized" society is on the way out.  Women, blacks, black women, Latinos and Latinas are stepping forward to assert themselves and their relevance to our national discourse, and we white guys, especially the late middle-aged ones, don't especially like that.  The world was ours, and we see it slipping away.

The Tea Party is one prime illustration of this, for me.  They want to return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, and just can't get their heads around the fact that things have changed.  The Wall Street Journal, of all places, has characterized their orchestration of the current government shutdown as "a full-on charge into fixed bayonets."  And yes, I know that there are lots of women who belong to the TP (hmmm, "TP," huh?) and even hold positions of leadership and spokesmanship (no gender-correct terms for those babes), but all that does is put me in mind of East German (nominal) Women's Olympic teams:  the chromosome counts were always off, and I'd bet the same would be true for TP women.

So there's that, the anger of those-in power-but-soon-to-be-dispossessed, but there's also Love;  men are allowed to show it, but only from a position of strength:  we can say we love in a possessive way, but we can't show need.  "I love that bitch, but only when she toes a line I define."  We can't show angst, or anxiety, or grief, or fear, or despair; those are all valid emotions (oh,  Possible-All-Powerful-Being, I've lapsed into Therapspeak), but they're not for Real Men (wow, didn't I hit the capital "R" and capital "M" hard, there).  The all-giving, all-accepting form of Love which women have been conditioned to provide ever since god stopped being a woman is not ours to give.  "We'll give 'Love,' but only on our terms" seems to be the best we can do.

Anyway, this was meant to be a commentary on the current crisis in our "government,"  a look at how men have devolved into second-class (at best) emotional beings, and an examination, again, of gender-defined roles.  Instead, due to to time/intellectual capability constraints, it's just whatever I could put together.  Someday, when I have lots 'o' time, I'll write something good.  I promise.  Anyway, here's the playlist for this week:

True Emotion                                                                         Jennifer Warnes
Sweet Emotion                                                                      Aerosmith
Show Some Emotion                                                             Joan Armatrading
Real Emotions                                                                       Los Lonely Boys
Mixed Emotions                                                                    Rolling Stones
I Second That Emotion                                                         Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
Emotional Rescue                                                                 Rolling Stones
Emotional Weather Report                                                    Tom Waits
I Second That Emotion                                                          Jerry Garcia/Merl Saunders
Emotionally Yours                                                                 Bob Dylan
I'm Not Feeling It Anymore                                                  Van Morrison
I've Got A Feeling                                                                  Fabs

Feelin' Alright                                                                        Joe Cocker
Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad                                        Grateful Dead
Prelude/Angry Young man                                                    Billy Joel
Mean, Angry, Nasty And Lowdown                                      Shirley Scott
I'm Not Angry                                                                        Elvis Costello
Angry Eyes                                                                             Loggins & Messina
Angry Blues                                                                            James Taylor
The Angry Monk                                                                    Tony Furtado/American Gypsies
An Angry Blade                                                                      Iron & Wine
Remember                                                                               John Lennon
This Wheel's On Fire                                                              The Band

FYI:  Lennon's "Remember"  references "the fifth of November," Guy Fawkes Day, in memory of the fellow (can't say "guy," right?) who wanted to blow up Parliament; I don't get why we're not all marching on Washington with torches, pitchforks, tar & feathers to clean out the House of Reps. and get things moving again.  Emily Dickinson said that "hope is the thing with feathers...;"  she just left out the tar.

Women.