Cry 4 Help

Day two broke early, for me anywho. Jim Van Winkle aka The Senator aka Jimmy the Jag requires a full 8 each night. Leftcoast only needs 5 or 6 so I am up later and rise earlier. Houseguest from hell. There is now a Starbuck's directly across the street in the market. I kill some time and read the paper so I don't disturb Jane...oops I mean James. he he beauty rest and all. Ok so I did just finish posting a lengthy wet sack of sorrow but it has only left me with more questions and wondering. The bi-polar holidays are so much fun. I finally figured out how to use Jim's satellite TV wacka cracka remote emote big screen jumbo tronic view screen thingy. Purple Rain was on this morning. I forgot just how good this movie is. Sure we all remember the performance numbers but go back and watch the other scenes. As the story of "the kid" unfolds he tries to find his music and mate while fighting the distractions of his dysfunctional family. Sounds like my house. Just kidding. Anywho (a bonus anywho for u) the manger of the club yells at Prince after he vents his romantic issues on stage. "No one digs your music, but yourself!"

There's a serious nugget worth inverstigating, investermatering, investamumbling,... uh looking into. This thought triggered an avalanche of mental emotional garbage in my head. I thought I had worked it all out last night but apparently the toilet that is my head requires a second flush to clear the bowl. That's really the great question isn't it? Fair enough if no one digs my music but me, now if that bothers me I have a choice to make. Keep playing and hope over time my music catches on or change my music to become more accessible. Turn it up to 11! Ha ah! I'm playing louder and faster then ever before, the frantic last spasms of a drowning man? I'll cry...cry wolf...cry out loud...cry for help!

There has to be audience for me somewhere. I think of real music and some of the artists who have enough of a following to support themselves by being themselves. So just by sheer odds shouldn't someone "hear me". I've had a few people pick up the headphones and check out a few tracks but so far no one has made it through both disks or better yet took a leap of love and bought the thing. My first wife swiped her card but never signed the receipt. In short no sale. My second wife bit but she found a better deal and returned me in the original packaging. Marked down and reduced for quick sale is my label. Repackaged to meet original specifications. We all know what that means don't we. Hmmmmm. Suspect and sketchy. If it was so good why the need to repackage and resell?

Oh my this some thick sauce. Sticks to your soul as well as your ribs. I'll stay with the music analogy for a bit more so please indulge me. Music and peace, real inner peace is nothing new. Music has always been part of our human experience. It reminds me of a story Snowy shared with me earlier this year. Ok it's another free plug for SnowyForest.com.

I have to give the props because she has really stuck with it, I mean put up with it, I mean me. We have a language. It scares some people but eventually they catch on. Snowy told me how music changed Buddha's life forever and it is also responsible for the foundations of that belief system. Apparently Buddha was like this rich guy with lots of stuff and lots of stuff to do. A good if somewhat shallow life. Then he saw in the guitar (or some stringed whacka fiddle strumming thing) a metaphor for life. If the guitar was in tune, meaning the correct balance of tension and string diameter, it would produce beautiful music. If the strings are too loose or too thick they just collide and warble against each other. If the strings are too tight and thin the sounds will be shrill and unpleasant. Balance harmony and opposing forces working together to create music.

"I'm singing this note cause it fits inside the chords I'm playing'...I can't pretend there's any meaning here it's just the things I'm saying...I'm getting in tune...Right in tune...And I'm gonna tune right in on you!" or something like that. The Who's music has always resonated with me and this song in particular has remained relevant for almost, hang on, 25 years. Music works as a metaphor for lots of life's puzzles. This has to be a human thing, trying to find metaphors and meaning in the flat world to give the randomness of life some structure. Build it and they will come. Find a better metaphor build a better church. Oh did I throw that out too? Next week we'll come back to that. Probably on my birthday which I suspect will be spent alone unless Jimmy decides to make to jump to Mountain View.

This time of year really fucks with me. Persistent, nagging, lingering doubts about myself just keep banging away. Here's another metaphor; I'm a balloon and I've drifted far and wide, occasionally dropping a line or anchor but eventually a storm breaks my rope and off I go until I can drop another anchor. I'm running out of rope and I fear I my journey may end with me alone and drifting in the ocean with my half deflated balloon as my only floatation device. Eventually it will empty and I'll sink without fanfare. Long ago forgotten. Uhhhh ohhhh ugh...ugh...ugh

Second flush indeed. Where does all this come from? I have a story. Long ago a boy was dreading the upcoming Christmas season. His father had been sent away and a new sheriff was being auditioned. Money was tight and pressure was all around. For every year since the boy could remember the only real thing about Christmas was the tree. Dad could flip tables and Mom could cry but the tree gave the house the smell and feel of a happy place. One year the boy crept down the stairs to place a gift under the tree and he stumbled onto the death of his baby sister. A police officer brought her back to life under a real tree, see it did have powers.

This year the boy was informed that a second hand artificial tree would be replacing the real one. The final straw for a young confused mind. Where and how does the new regime get away with taking away the last real thing he had. Babysitters, weekend Dad, new guy, new kids, tired angry worn out Mom, school and now this. Angry and belligerent the boy went to the basement and smashed the truck of the fake bake tree against a support beam. The particle fiber poly glue wood product shattered. Literally, sending shards of pulp and other brown dust everywhere. A sister was looking on and she too was surprised by the amount of destruction that single blow caused. They looked at each other and they both knew this was going to be bad.

The reaction was worse than anything the boy could imagine. He could imagine a lot too. Belts, brushes, drunken tirades, and the chair for capital crimes were all part of his history. Didn't matter that the boy didn't understand. How could he? What does a boy know of love lost and love found? How can a boy understand the bigger picture? This is why I fear having children. If you get it wrong it takes a long time, if ever, to fix. Back to the boy. The mother is crushed and the new sheriff is indignant. The boy will tried as an adult since the crime is so heinous. The charge is ruining Christmas for everybody. The penalty is a two foot tree and the scorn and shame of being the Ruiner. The story will be told so that more shame and scorn can be collected throughout the holiday season.

There is a secret back story to this tale. The boy did feel horrible and he internalized the shame and guilt being heaped upon him. A heavy weight since the boy should have known better, he should? The boy spent frantic hours trying to repair the damage before it was discovered. Of course there was no hiding it but perhaps a salvage attempt might help. Nothing worked. Glue, nails, duct tape, paint, bubblegum, anything he could think of was tried, but they all failed. We need a grown up, a man, hmmmmmmm. The boy knew it was a gamble to reveal his crime to another but this was serious. Two neighborhood men looked at the broken pieces and shook their head. The boy was doomed. He had revealed his crime and he wasn't able to fix it. The grown ups loved that the story was out in the neighborhood. Ugh! The boy struggles as he is admonished and told that his actions were the reason everyone would have a ruined Christmas. A new tree, real or otherwise would cost money that wasn't available. The boy thought he had an answer, money. He was grounded but since the parents were away and the babysitter was on the phone he often was able to escape undetected.

The boy was lost in this clutter of shame and self loathing but he didn't really want the other kids to pay the price. The boy spent 3 afternoons going up and down the street ringing doorbells. He made a confession each time and asked if they might help him regain a Christmas for his brother and sisters. Now the boy didn't even realize how this might look to the neighborhood. It was quite literally begging and once this activity came to light a whole new twist was added to the boy's nightmare. Shame for shame. Years later the boy could see it was all a series of mistakes misfires and a bunch of grownups struggling with a life a boy doesn't understand yet. He will though. Most people have never really begged and the experience does change your life forever.

There is a long process of self reduction that has to occur before you can actually actively beg. You have to feel that you are of no value and totally bad or unredeemable. You have to believe that you can do nothing to help yourself or others. You have to see yourself as less than a victim since you caused your situation. Every time you present yourself to a stranger and ask them to make a value judgment (what's more value oriented than asking for money) your pride takes a fatal blow. Most of the neighbors declined and a few seemed bothered so the boy would adjust his confession to show more self shame in the hopes it would garner a few ducketts. I have a hard time with thinking about it. What a sorry piece of crap I must, I mean the boy, must have looked like.

I have spent long years trying to get back some of what was lost that holiday but instead each new holiday season brings new salt for old wounds. They say the truth is in the eyes of the children so thank god I haven't been able to screw any of those up. I guess I can just keep screwing up my own life until. Until what? Each year the until gets closer and I don't think I'm packed for it. Crack a joke, enjoy a stolen moment, wish upon a star. Better yet make some music. If I make music in the woods alone is it music? If a painter keeps all his work in a closet is it art? If no one likes my prose is it worthwhile? Maybe... I feel better letting it out and trying to find the lesson. What if there is no lesson? Yigh yigh yigh.....Here we go again. I can't change my music so I guess I better hope that someday an ear will hear my songs and want to dance. Better yet maybe they have something to add to my songs or want me to sing theirs'. I play loud sometimes and I play soft sometimes, nobody may like all my stuff but I do have more than one tune. Maybe one or two will get noticed this upcoming year. There!

Done and done! I think I got it all. I think I can move on now to new business. A fresh year. Well I'm off to the studio to record my new album.

No Peace this week,
Sean