The Unforeseen and Peppermint Ice Cream Pumps...

I have a temperature. A fever. For real, not the Peggy Lee song. NyQuil in the daytime. Laying and lying in a field of down pillows... I'm tipping and tapping. Mind mind is not here but there, thinking of here.

Everyday is a new chance to discover the Lesbian-Made Strawberry-Thai-Chicken of Life. Everyday is a chance to to lick the Cool-Peppermint-Ice-Cream of the Unforeseen. Ritual deceives us into thinking days blur into an unchanging circle of predictability. It's a lie.

I know...I know...I love ritual too. Being a renounced, but still-heavily-stained Catholic...I know the pleasure of ritual. It smiles at the chaos...showing it's shiny teeth. It bites both ways though. Keeping chaos at bay, it also keeps our discovery at bay. The bottom of my trousers are scuffed, frayed, and yellowed by the anointment of street-laden-burrito-blues. My shoots (part shoe, part boot) are happily worn and drunkenly free stepping into the shampoo-y bubbles of chance. *pop*

*cough*

Rapping My Knuckles While Walking Zeno's Steps...

I'm holding your hand. When you hold something long enough you might not feel it anymore, though...there it is, still cupped, loosely fast forwarding the day to slowly make. Will weakens and wakes. I will always be there. If there is permanent impermanence, then permanence exists. Zeno tells me I'll never get there. Well I'm there already Zeno you naysayer! Math is a clock. Handy, but what is clock without time? What is this ground if I not cover it? Spilling my seed to where nothing grows...sometimes you just have to. It feels good to let it out, sans the outcome. The doing and the finishing. Let me wipe this up for you.

I rap my knuckles all day...in my bed, in my car, on the sidewalk, and on the edge of my toilet seat. Should I wash my hands? Am I dirty? I must accept the shit inside me. Worms do. Everything...everything is clean. One man's dirt is another man's field to grow in.

Don't let go of my hand...we're already there. Clean and naked.

I'm On the Party Line!!!

I'm on the "Party Line"! For you young-uns...it's a Kinks song about the old days when you couldn't have a telephone line all to yourself...you shared it with others in your building or neighborhood. Damn...I WANT TO BRING THAT BACK! BRING BACK THE PARTY LINE!

A group of your friends all yelling at the same time on one line. I want to bring to fingerprints and smudges back! Digital can handle it! Let's get messy! Mud pies, dirt clogs, and spit. I mean...what are friends for?

CIRCLE...CIRCLE...DOT...DOT...NOW I HAVE A COOTY SHOT!

I'm sorry I got grass stains on your favorite dress. You put your smell on me and I'm gonna put my smell on you. Everyone can tell something happened. So what? They wish it happened to them.

Well it can. Come on the Party Line! Are you with me?!

Baby I'm Amazed...

Fingers to keys today. I have to write. For you. You know who you are. You crazy, amazing, giving person who held out your hand and said "Here you go. I hope this helps." You visited my Atom Orr Patronage page and gave to me. Just because you wanted to and you could.

In these times. Tough for all, people still surprise and inspire. Perhaps especially because it is tough.

I will not pontificate, drumbeat or ramble-dramble much longer because words will dull my feelings of humble awe and appreciation. Just know I truly thank you for what you've given me and what you given me inside. Hope. Acknowledgment that in a small way I may have given something of value to you. Today, tomorrow and other tomorrows...

Thank you.

My Weightless Feather Cloak...

I have my weightless feather cloak on. What is a weightless feather cloak you ask? I dreamt it. At the time I didn't know what the heck it was. I like the idea of it being weightless. Holding on to nothing, but connected. This is a premise that has stirred in me for a long time. Images of sandy hour-glasses spilling down...breaking them open to stop the sand, but even then we can't stop the sand from falling. I did this when I was 8 years old. My parents were getting a divorce and I had this toy hour glass. I thought that if I could stop time, I could stop the breakup.

It was a gold painted hourglass. The glass was plastic. Very hard to break. Nothing was going to stop me. Going to the garage and into my father's red tool box, I took out his hammer and slung it down. I broke it open and held the red magic-time-sand carefully in my hands. Some of it immediately spilled out, but it was okay. As long as I had some of it, I could stop it. An hour went by and my hands were numb and tired from the tenseness of my muscles. I suddenly realized I was not going to be able to hold on to it for very long. The very idea of holding on to anything for a long period of time seemed pointless. It was then I let it go. It felt so good. Letting go. Putting it down. Moments is all we have holding on to something. My parents are going to divorce and there's nothing I can do about it. I developed a faint smile. A relief. There can be pleasure in letting go.

5-MeO-DMT (5-methoxy-dimethyltryptamine) - I'm not really into drugs per se...weed and alcohol have been my only real experience up until this isolated compound found from a poison of a South American Bufo Frog was inhaled into me. *laughing* Typing this is hilarious, but the experience was quite sobering and has forever stained me. A good stain. We all need a little staining now and again. Let's just say, after my life changing experience, I have nothing against psychedelic astronauts or Burroughsian super-sticky sexed-up typewriters, though being a very tentative and respectful astronaut participant I find important.

This made me remember. Made me remember what we all know, and what we forget. We are connected. Connected to everything. We are bound together in a permanent making. Why bother hold on to what you're already connected to? These hands are a temporary illusion. Our bodies are but a vessel that will break...like my golden plastic hourglass. I am romantic about the past, hopeful for the future and in Awe of the now. Awake. Though do not misconstrue being "awake" with G.I. Gurdjieff's idea.

Now...I stop. I freely say that I know nothing. These statements I've made are the closest I've come to a faith. A faith with no name... that I wear like a weightless feather cloak.

Release...Recoil...Reload...

Whew! Another album released. It was quite a year in the making. It's always so joyful and terrifying at the same time. Yay it's finished! Of fuck...it's finished. I feel them with equal vigor and trepidation. I won't go into the making of the album, as I've already done so in an earlier blog post. I'm just letting my conjure out of the bottle and letting it do its thing, whatever it may be...whilst I look on like a child who just set his plastic army men on fire with lighter fluid...

This Was Tomorrow

I rarely blog with an intended purpose, because I assume a more stream of conscience approach to them, hence their apparent randomness and sometimes delusional state. This time however, with my new album release eminent on April 22nd, I wanted to talk a bit about the album and the process of it's inception, to the final post coital cigarette stage. *exhale*

It all began when I had a farm in Africa...no wait. Call me Ishmael. No...wait. When I begin an album or write a song, I begin because I have a vision for it. A title...imagery, a movie in my mind. Blank pages daunt me. I feel if I write before I have a direction, I feel like I'm spinning to nowhere. This vision is my compass point where I can at least feel I can start. Perhaps I might change direction, but once I've started, the momentum has begun. Or maybe I'm just tricking myself....hmmm...

I thought about my past work and how for the most part I would avoid writing love songs, or songs pondering love. I initially rationalized not doing them, because there were enough songs about love. True or not, I've come to the conclusion, it's not how many songs there are about a subject, but what I feel I need to explore in myself.

The first song I wrote for this vision was "Hey Now". It came rather quickly and surprising. When I finished it, it was hard to sing. There are only two chords in the whole song and it just builds and builds. The lyrics were uncomfortable for me. I knew I was on the right track if I was feeling that. If nothing bothered me, then I didn't dig enough. "Hey Now" for me was like I was talking to Love itself. Telling it...acknowledging to it the power it wields over me. Very uncomfortable...but really nice to sing now. Now that I've come to terms with it.

Reacting from the heaviness of "Hey Now", I wanted to do something more dreamlike. I keep a journal with titles, nothing but titles I like. I saw one..named after a vintage shirt I bought in a little shop in Santa Monica...it looked like a "Green Lollipop Forest". This title while very interesting to me, was a problem because...what the hell is a Green Lollipop Forest song gonna be about? *laughing* Then I thought about it and came to the idea of myself simply watching my lover dream while she dreamt of being in a green lollipop forest. Whew! That will work! Recording it was difficult because of all the very high falsetto harmonies in it. Being a baritone singer...choir boy harmonies can beummm...hard. My testicle vice was in heavy use that day. The solo in the instrumental part of the song, I had originally wanted a flute. A real 60's sounding flute part. While waiting to find a flautist I whistled the idea and I had so much fun whistling it, I kept it. It reminded me of my father and I watching spaghetti westerns and all those Ennio Morricone soundtracks I love so much. So it stayed.

Just a Dream" was actually the very first song I wrote when I began singing. I was 23 years old. It was originally was titled "Confessions of a Thief" and never recorded. It was kinda country sounding in waltz time. 20 years later I had some different ideas for it. Getting rid of the country thing...changing it 4/4 time...there was no real chorus...and "confessions of thief" was just too heavy for itself. I wanted to make it lighter...to make it fly up...adding slide electric helped that a bit. Anyway...it is MUCH better than my original version. I was really happy to finally have it on an album of mine. It took 15 albums for that sucker to make it!

At this point I was at a standstill with my album. Uninspired. Drudgery. I was fortunate to go on tour with Steve Poltz to recharge my battery, to soak up my sponge that was dry. During the tour I befriended via Facebook and guitar luthier Art Davis. We geeked out about guitars as geeks do. When I got back to San Diego, I went to his work shop. He made beautiful guitars. I played a few. Then I picked up this one and I went "Whoa! What's this?!" It was a weird, alien, yet from my planet...my alien planet. Art said it was a baritone acoustic guitar. Baritone?! I'm a baritone! Holy shit! I don't have to sing UP! I can sing and let it rest and nestle right into it. Wow! Inspiration! So I wisely spent all my tour money on it. Yep...all. It hurt so good.

I took it home and songs started pouring out. "Picasso" and "Tilt-A-Whirl". They have always been linked together so I kept them together. I began using open tunings, which I've never done except when playing slide...I came up with an open C tuning... C-G-C-F-C-E. With a baritone acoustic, since it's so much lower than a traditional guitar this tuning is a breeze to tune to. "Running Fast" came after a night on the couch trying to relearn this new tuning while watching "The Last Picture Show"...there's this scene with Sam "The Lion" (Ben Johnson) reminiscing about swimming naked with a girl. Fucking amazing scene. It stirred me. The recording took a while. The downside of doing everything yourself. The bridge was not happening...it didn't build like I had envisioned it. I must've redone that bridge 15 times until I got it right. It's just drums (from my amazing friend Matt Lynott), guitar, and vocals. That's it. Having a baritone guitar, you don't miss the bass as much as a traditional acoustic guitar. The drums were difficult too...Matt had to play against my track with no click as a guide and it wasn't matching up. It didn't sound flowing. So we do what we always do when we come to an impasse. We go to the movies. We went out and saw "Machete". Wow. You know it's a good movie when one of the first scenes has a naked woman pull a cell phone out of her vagina. A high adventure we had! We came back, and on the very first take he nailed it. Wham! Matt...you fucking rock.

When truly inspired, lyrics aren't hard to come by. I was a lightning rod and the words were the lightning. Not hard to come by, but still hard to sing. I was really trying to touch on the parts of me I rarely let get touched. It's easy to grab your cock, but so much harder to grab those vulnerabilities...real nakedness. Ummm...can't we just do a head shot? Or...even better...not use my head either and use someone else entirely? *laughing*

This Was Tomorrow" was initially just an little instrumental. Then Matt had to go and put a real nice drum part on it and we looked at each other and said...oops...now I HAVE to write some lyrics on this song! Damn...all these songs have a price. It costs to make. I was getting empty and exhausted. I thought about my timeline...my life...things I thought about being a kid...what was love then? What is love now? Has it changed really? Do I just have more words and excuses for love now? Am I full of shit? What would my 8 year old self have to say? What does my 44 year old self say now?

One of the things about rules is that they must be disobeyed every once in a while to give them more meaning, to keep them strong. I never have lyrics written before I have the vision. But by chance I had written a little doo-dad and posted it on Facebook. It was a while ago. A FB friend  asked what about that song lyric I posted? When do they get to hear it? Oh...yea...I forgot about it. I pulled out the lyrics andmatched it with a strub-ba-dub chord thingy I came up with, being high on a magic cookie. Presto chango! "Walking Snow White". I didn't think it would work for the album. It was my least favorite of the songs...but the energy was needed. Lust. Lust was needed. You can't have a love album without lust. So...weakest song or not I kept it. Sometimes the arc of the album as a whole is more important than just the individual songs. Of course this is an old idea now-a-days. Fuck it, it's how I like it. I like it that. *grin*

One morning I woke up. Most mornings I wake thankful. Grateful for my life. I sleepily and instinctivelypicked up my guitar and wrote a thank you song, "You Held Me". A thank you for Love. I don't want to sound all sappy and shit but I cried that first time I sang it. Not because it's a great song, but because I meant it. This is why I did this album. I fucking meant it.

Mateus Bottles and Colored Melted Wax...

Being born in 1967 I grew up a child of the 70's. Empty Mateus bottles turned into candle holders with multi-colored candle sticks bought from Spencer's Gifts, incense, blacklight posters of black panthers in trees, macramé plant holders, vinyl records, color t.v.'s, flashy cars with chrome and leather couches as seats, bell-bottom jeans, Herbal Essence Shampoo, Goody combs with the big handles sticking out of your back pocket, 8-track boom boxes, Polaroid Insta-Matics, really straight hair or curlalicious fro's, cassette mix tapes, CB radios, bubblegum baseball trading cards of the Oakland A's Billy Martin's Mustache Gang, Hot Wheels, water rockets, dune buggies, and M-80's to blow up mailboxes of the grumpy old men telling us to get off their yard...
Did I mention phones or computers? Nope. A phone was a quick call to meet up somewhere and a computer was something the government had.
This will not be some "When I was a kid we walked in the snow 40 miles to school and we were THANKFUL we could!" kinda crap. We are in a new age. A new revolution. The digital age is here. Like when the industrial age showed up, many jobs were lost because they were replaced by machines. We had to make up new jobs, new ways of doing things, new ways of life. It's that time again. A refresh button on the world.
My greatest hope is that we can change from being a wasteful society to a useful one. Reuse not refuse. Creation not destruction. Upgrade not throwaway. Connection not separation. Understanding not ignorance.
Time will tell. Eventually another revolution will come and wipe away what is now into a yellowed memory. Until then I'm gonna grab a pillow, lay on my wooden floor and put on my "Hot Buttered Soul" album by Issac Hayes and listen to him talk for 8 minutes before he even sings "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"...