since we spoke....

are you finally footloose

and feline free

out of the fish bowl,

behind solid walls where

you can hang your guitars? 

guitars you stroke, caressing

their satiny curves

letting the bitterness seep

out of your joints , wearing that guitarist

 it hurts so good expression

to wring the most from the contact 

the contact that makes us human

re-enforces the certainty that there’s something

bigger; something

to hang on to 

I hope you’ve found that something

in a space molded around you

that’s just for you 

was a shock for me when

my space  evaporated  

when I got unstrung

fell off the edge –

of that looming precipice

that had been hovering over my head 

hanging on by fingertips now,

jammed up inside a too small space

back kinked, heart pinched

so very tired and

no place to stretch out  

packed away--

unhung, unsung

forgotten inside a closed case

no fingers to play me

no hands to caress my satiny curves

no essential contact to vibrate the log jam of pain,

loosen it, let it flow out, low, long and moaning

into the music of the night

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Scott....

I met Jane back in the seventies when she came to a teeny library I frequented to discuss some of the biggest rock bands of all time and how influential Cleveland was in the music scene.  I think the library was expecting a full house, but the audience turned out to be a teenage me, one of the librarians and a bemused elderly gentleman who just wandered in for the cookies.

Jane didn’t care. She entertained us full throttle and when she was done, she sat down with me, pulled a bunch of grainy candid shots of the Beatles traveling on a plane out of her purse and proceeded to tell me about being with Jimi Hendrix when he bought a car.  I think that was the first time I ever wished I could crawl into somebody’s pocket and live there.

John Soeder [The Plain Dealer’s Pop Music Critic] posted an article online today announcing that The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dedicated a statue to Jane this afternoon. Describing the statue by Cleveland sculptor David Deming John Soeder says:

The statue is slightly larger than life, with neat details. Scott's beaming likeness has a concert ticket pinned to her jacket, as was her wont. Her bulging purse includes a jar of peanut butter, because she made a point of carrying peanut-butter sandwiches while on assignment. And in her notebook are written two questions that she often asked the musicians she interviewed: "What's your favorite color?" and "Where did you go to high school?"

Jane was a really interesting woman and not a bit afraid of being who she was 100% of the time.  If I thought they’d let me, I’d go into the Rock Hall and stick a post it in her notebook – I’d thank her again for the candid Beatles photos I took home with me that day, but I think the more important thing I took home was the idea that you can choose how you want to be regardless of the situation. 

Jane never felt like a fish out of water, even though she was sometimes twenty to thirty years [or more] older than the rockers she was interviewing. She loved her job and did it with style and heart for fifty years. There’s a really lovely piece she wrote when she decided to retire called in part “Jane Scott, witness to rock history….” , but another piece written about her called “Forever Young” really resonates with me. She was a grown up, but she wasn’t afraid to feed the child inside.   Gotta love a woman like that.  

Jane Scott statue by David Deming unveiled at Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame July 5, 2012
[image from cleveland.com]

Read more about Jane Scott [May 3, 1919 - July 4, 2011]   here and here

Thank god for Eric Clapton….

You always hear people say life goes on and it does, no matter what else is happening around you. One moment leads into the next into the next and so on. ..

And I truly believe that if you live in the now you have so much more joy in your life than pain.

But sometimes you have to take a breath and give yourself over to things to allow the body and mind to feel what it's feeling. Take the time to let all the systems reset. Walking outside, connecting with other people and listening to music have always been great ways for me to do that.

Music has always been a mood enhancer for me. Partly because I love to get up and allow my body to feel the music move through it, to truly surrender myself to the words, the rhythm. Surrendering to music is a lot like making love, you can have a mind/body/spirit connection with music, just as you can have a mind/body/spirit connection with a lover, or you can have a lesser connection with either. It's up to the individual to decide how much they are willing to open themselves up to the experience.

Happy music can make you happy, sexy music can make you feel sexy, techno music most likely just makes you feel like you've had too much coffee.

Then there's the blues. I love the blues. The blues do double duty for me. There are some songs that are just so sad that they make me happy. Then there are songs that make me sob and sob. This morning I had someone reach out to me in a way that was heartbreakingly beautiful. And I hardly know the person. They just felt that they wanted to respond to something that was going on in my life and let me know that they were thinking of me. I was extremely affected by that simple act of human kindness.

About two minutes later someone sent me "Bell Bottom Blues" in an email.

Those two things together completely unglued the let's just get through today and then we'll deal with this other stuff Monday I was having, and I sang along while having a good long cry and let everything out. Scaring all the beagles within earshot I might add.

So, I'm sharing. If you need a spiritual experience to reset your bubble today, listen to and sing Bell Bottom Blues right out loud there in your cubicle with Eric.

After all, He is god.

So if anybody asks ……….you're simply practicing freedom of religion.

Dance like there’s no one watching

Gawd there's just something about certain songs that speak to my hind brain. Joe Cocker's You can leave your hat on is like that for me.

The opening strains hit me like a tsunami and my hips start circling, my hands start traveling my body and I have to find the nearest solid surface to gyrate against. Every part of my body has to meet and mingle with this music.

Why are humans wired like that? Why aren't all humans wired like that? I know that there are some people who claim to have never been affected by music. Then there are those of us who burst into tears during The Circle of Life in The Lion King.

[ok that might just be me]

For the sake of this posting's accuracy I tried experiencing The Circle of Life with and without the visual of the tiny lion king being presented to his subjects.

It turns out that I have to have both the visual and the song to get me to well up.

But funnily enough if I watch Joe Cocker sing it makes me want to cry.

 

Music to judge me by

I often marvel at people who announce what's playing on their iPod in the sidebar of their blogs

I didn't even fill out the favorite music portion of my bio.

I think that some folks announce what they're listening to so that reader can use the music they've chosen to judge the current mood of the listener.

Kind of like a barometer with a beat.

I understand the immediacy of that. The hey I've got something upbeat on because I'm jazzed, or I'm listening to THIS because I feel lower than a snake's belly.

But trying to make a list of my favorite music just seems unrealistic. I'd need charts and graphs and three dimensional diagrams to express the depth of my feelings about music.

I love so many different kinds of music that I think that it would be nearly impossible to give someone a clear view of my musical tastes without talking to them for a couple of hours.

And the type of music I listen to also depends on what I'm doing.

So for me to say on blog what I have playing at any given moment wouldn't make sense unless I actually had a running list up so that you could see ALL the things that I listen to.

I have music for exercising, music for meditating, music for dancing, music for writing, music for making out, music for hanging around reading a book, music for waking me up if I'm flagging, music for settling me down to get ready to sleep.

Music is why I don't need drugs.

Music is mood altering.

Music is life affirming.

Music is soul enriching.

Music inspires passion like no other artistic medium can.

Music can bring people together, and in some cases tear them apart.

How many cases can you think of off the top of your head where music brought people to blows? Either because someone was playing it too loud too late, or because someone insulted someone else's musical taste?

Now how many times can you think of that you've seen music bring folks together? Like at Woodstock or at a Live Aid concert or really at any concert where there are enough people gathered who love the artist.

Music reaches out and grabs you by the heart and shatters age/race/gender barriers.

Music is one of the best things that humans ever invented.

I think that music is what separates us from the apes.

Well, that and the fact that we don't generally fling poo.

Is it just about the music?

i believed in god when i was younger, but then he changed. it used to be about the music.

-brandon

Now this statement is funny, very funny. In fact, it was so funny that I had to get in touch with Brandon and ask him if I could quote him.

It alludes to the rock star that sold out. One who just doesn't put his heart and soul into his craft anymore.

But the funny thing is when I was a child church was all about the music.

When I was very young I often tagged along to a very straight laced very fundamentalist church with my best friend from elementary school. The church rules included a strict dress code and didn't allow dancing, but boy did this church have hymns that you could sing. I mean really belt it out, feel the spirit move through your body songs. Once a week or so l got to feel that glorious feeling.

I enjoyed the music of the church.

When I got older, I went less and less. One of the reasons was probably because I found music out in the world that affected me the very same way. Music that I could belt out and would move through me and make my spirit sing. All kinds of music. All kinds of people singing it. I could feel this feeling any time I wanted.

I enjoyed the music of the world even more.

Then I found other people who liked the same kind of music I liked. Who also felt passionately about music. I started to commune with those people.

I enjoyed a community of friends who loved music.

I went for a long long time without going to a church service.

And it's not because I don't believe in a higher power. I am very spiritual. I just don't necessarily have to commune with the universe inside a particular building at a particular time.

A recent move made me consider making new acquaintances by going to church.

I found a Unitarian Universalist Church that looked interesting.

I pulled into the parking lot and noticed that the car next to me had a bumper sticker. I read the bumper sticker, and agreed with it. I noticed that the car next to it, and next to it, and next to it each had bumper stickers as well. I walked the row reading bumper stickers and agreeing with them.

My car was the only car in four rows without a bumper sticker.

It's not that I don't feel passionately about things, it's just that I don't like the idea of someone rear ending me while trying to get a handle on my political agenda. I've also scraped a couple off of cars, and it's a pain.

All of these cars had owners who not only cared passionately about displaying their bumper stuck views to the world they didn't care if they got tennis elbow scraping them off or into an accident with a near sighted tailgater.

I remember thinking, my god, I've found my people.

I went inside and was greeted pleasantly. I sat in a pew and looked around. I was in a big airy room with a lot of light and many lush living plants.

The minister started speaking. He was interesting, thought provoking, funny, quoted Einstein and Buddha in the same paragraph and had a folksy way about him.

Then we were asked to join him in song.

I opened my hymnal to the required page and began to sing with the congregation.

Now I don't know a lot about this particular denomination. I do know that they aren't bible thumpers and that their teaching leans toward the liberal. So, no fire and brimstone, no holy trinity, no confession, no need for praying to the higher power through an intermediary. You could wear jeans to church and not lift an eyebrow. All things that I related to.

But their music sucked.

It was very careful music. Very unconfrontational music.

I read through a few more songs during the offering and although each song obviously had been written by someone with intelligence, they had no oomph. They were hard to sing and lacked passion.

I went a few more times to this church. I did meet a few nice people, some of whom became friends.

But ultimately I decided that if I was going to drive forty minutes on a Sunday morning to do something good for my soul, it would have to be something that made my spirit sing.

Like a great park, a beautiful museum, a live concert, a brunch with friends, an amazing movie, laying on the ground with a good book and looking around me and seeing god in the details.

Or I could just stay home and blast Aretha.

For me church is all about the music.