Time being what it is

It’s dark in the rear view
Windshield’s blinding bright
White knuckles do the steering
I hope that you’re alright

A mole tells me the future
Scars tell me the past
Every step of every set up
Each one of my disasters

When they said I was, I wasn’t
Now they don’t, I am
When they said I did, I didn’t
Now they don’t, I do

REPEAT 3 verses

To what go they back
When they go back
Go back to themselves
Go way way back

REPEAT endless

Time being what it is, it's possible that your birthday has already ended where you are Jymn. Shine on!

Through the Perilous Night

I put some old solo tuba recordings up for posterity. Here they are, posterity.

Once again

It’s your birthday in a few hours (Singapore time). I like being the first to wish you. Sorry you missed Election Day this year. I hope all your dreams come (came) true.

Thanks for the lovely poster

It will soon be framed and adorning a special corner of 26b Swiss Club Road

Adam & Eve on a Raft

I'm posting the script to Adam & Eve on a Raft for "myself and strangers."

Adam & Eve on a Raft 1: Opening/Expulsion

The man speaks:

Hey, she said.

He didn’t say anything.

Hey, she said, come on. Get up. We have to go.

He tried to pretend he was asleep.

Come on, she said.

I know, he said finally. He knew, but he didn’t think he could move. He couldn’t stand up.

It was so stupid. They’d been living there for free and everything and now they had to leave. Like, right now.  He knew that. He didn’t want to.  It was so stupid.

Look, she said, I— and her voice cracked just a little and he knew he couldn’t say anything.

But, yeah, he said, after a moment. They’ll be here soon. I know.

It was so…look, they hadn’t known, I mean they knew the stupid rules but they hadn’t, they didn’t know anything. They’d always done whatever they wanted to and it had always seemed OK. They didn’t know. And then they did, they did know, and it was too late.

Yeah, he said, and he wished he could just stay curled up where he was. Where they were. Where they both were. It was so nice.  It had seemed like it could have gone on just like it was forever but it couldn’t.  He knew that.

Someone might say that it was her, that it was her fault, but he knew. It wasn’t what she had done or he had done or what they’d done together, but that he should have stood up for her and didn’t. That he should have stood up when she fell, that he hadn’t been able to do that. He’d folded. He fell.

Don’t forget your coat, she said. That nice leather jacket. She already had hers on. He put it on and they walked out the door.  It closed and never opened again and so they were set adrift, Adam and Eve on a raft.
 

Song: Adam and Eve on a Raft (Theme)

Since we have lost our home
We are always blown
By each passing draft
Now we are floating free
With no certainty
On our little raft

We’re caught up in this maelstrom
Spinning and turning all around
Slowly we disappear
Vanish, or drown

Ah it has been so long
Since we’ve smiled or laughed
On our little raft

We’re caught up in this maelstrom
Spinning and turning all around
Slowly we disappear
Vanish, or drown

Ah it’s been so long
Since we’ve smiled or laughed
On our little raft

Adam & Eve on a Raft 2: The Book of the Book

The woman speaks:

When we left we took with us the Book. The Big Book, The Book of Books, they call it.  Of course when we were living in the garden it didn’t mean anything to us. It was only after, on the way out, that we realized it might be important. That it was put there for us, that it was a gift not to help us in the old place but now, when we’re in exile.

When we opened it, it was blank. Unfortunately. We couldn’t see anything in the pages at all. Still, we would open it and study it as often as we could. Eventually we could see little pictures on the pages. It’s possible that we drew them though. Or maybe they were already there and we just drew what was already there. Eventually, the pictures were like those puzzles that they have on bubble gum cards. Little riddles for us to figure out, but once we figured them out they didn’t make any sense. It was like an endless game of Treasure Hunt: every riddle was a clue and every clue led us to another clue. Every time we gave up, every time we felt like throwing the book against the wall, whenever we turned our back on it, that’s when we were most ready to begin again.

Sometimes we liked it best when we didn’t read it at all but just left it sitting on the shelf. Sometimes that was all we needed it for.

Song: Advent Calendar

Each day has a secret

If you know how to find it

Each secret opens up a door

With a gift behind it

Each gift’s like a mouth

Each mouth has its own word

And every word a saint 

And every saint a bird

Every day is like a new book

Open it up slowly!

Each book is a story in stained glass

All lit up and holy

Each day has a secret room

Where all things belong

Cathedral, atlas, Noah’s ark

Museum, city, song.

Adam & Eve on Raft 3: The Four Sages

The woman speaks:

Once, there were four sages, four holy men, who were the wisest and holiest men of their generation, maybe some of the wisest and holiest men who ever lived and they decided that they would go to Paradise together. Before they left, one of them, Rabbi Akiva, warned the others that when they came to the place of pure marble stones, they should not say, “Water” and he quoted the Psalm that goes, “He who speaks untruths shall not stand before My eyes.”

The visit ended badly though. The first sage died. The second one lost his mind. He went mad, we’re told, “like someone who eats so much honey he makes himself sick.” The third sage became a heretic, and after that no one called him by his name any more. Only the fourth sage, Rabbi Akiva, entered and left paradise in peace.

From which we learn that the ecstasies of the garden can be as destructive as the fires of Gehenna. Sometimes you get swept away. Sometimes your mind is blown. Sometimes you think you can explain it and you’re so absurdly wrong no one wants to listen to you. They take away your name.

The man speaks:  On the first day of creation, light was made,  and on the second day the waters were separated from the sky. Not water from land, water from sky.  “The firmament,” it’s called in the book.  It sounds like dry land, but it’s not. It’s the sky. So maybe—I don’t know—maybe that’s why Rabbi Akiva warned the other sages not to say, “Water” when they saw the pure marble stones.  They were in danger of being overwhelmed and he was trying to separate the water from the sky for them.

Maybe paradise is not where we belong. Maybe water is as dangerous as fire.

Song: Dream the Hardest Dream

Lie, let the darkness come

Let yourself float down the river

Down its sweet, dark stream

Rest, let go of the day

Don't be afraid of night

Dream the hardest dream

You can’t take flowers with you

Just one small smooth stone

Ravens and owls will watch you

You’re not alone

See, the sun starts to dissolve

Goes out like a spark

But stars can only shine 

When the sky grows dark

Lie, hear the river’s song

Words that cannot be spoken

Words that melt in light

Drift into the night

Dream the hardest dream

Adam & Eve on a Raft 4: Spinning on the Dance Floor

The woman speaks:
And eventually they had to stop and just go somewhere and get a drink.  They were tired and it didn’t feel like they were getting anywhere. It wasn’t a very nice place but it wasn’t too loud and it didn’t smell like last night’s party. It was happy hour, so they could get a brandy & soda for $3.

The early evening chatter in the bar was slowly changing from work to banter and flirting, although no one was laughing way too loudly yet or just repeating themselves over and over. It was just an OK place to sit and rest and not talk much and not think about things too much. To get used to no more paradise, just thorn and thistle and the sweat of your brow.

David Bowie was on the jukebox or whatever singing, “You, you can be mean and I, I’ll drink all the time,” and without saying anything she nodded at the little open space and they put their drinks down at the same time, more or less, and stood up and he smiled just a very little bit. It was time to dance.

Song: Spinning on the Dance Floor

You and I are on the dance floor, spinning

We don’t see the cheap décor, spinning

And the tourists and the hicks

They’re only here to pick up chicks

No they don’t know there’s something more, spinning

As I look into your face, spinning

We’re all alone in this place, spinning

Those silly girls are so mistaken

Waiting to get their pictures taken

They don’t know there’s something more, spinning

While we’re dancing, while we’re spinning

In your eyes I think I see

Worlds exploding, worlds beginning

A small map of infinity

In a pond, amoebas make no sound, spinning

Eddies flowing underground, spinning

I only pity those poor clucks

Who grope and feel each other up

And can’t see the galaxies go round, spinning

Adam & Eve on a Raft 5: After the Fall

The man speaks:
After the fall, not only do we need to work to earn a living by the sweat of our brow, and the ground only produces thorns and thistles, and that’s how it goes until you [finger across the throat gesture], but also, somehow, it seems that I’m the only one who can see your beauty now. Sometimes I can hardly see anything else, and yet somehow it’s been hidden from the rest of the world. Maybe this was intended as a blessing, since otherwise the world would spin completely off its tracks, or perhaps just stop dead, entranced. My own heart sometimes feels ready to explode, to leave its shards scattered throughout the world for future generations to collect and reconstruct and learn from.

When I was created, when we were created, I had your face. I mean, we had the same face once.  We shared it.  That was alright. Sometimes after we’ve been talking all night I see my face in the mirror and it seems wrong to see that face I see when I’m shaving, instead of the beautiful woman-face I’ve just spent so much time looking at.  The face I lost, I guess. No, that’s not it. The recollection of the face that was mine before the one I have now.

But what puzzles me is that you yourself don’t seem to be able to see your own beauty.  Maybe you don’t have anywhere to look. Maybe that’s what’s made it hard for you to see it.

Look in my eyes, you can see it there.  I’ll try not to blink. I don’t want the world to accidentally come to an end.

Song: Still Life (with scone)

I’m rushing to get to the place we had named 

Then stop on the sidewalk: you’re perfectly framed 

By the front window of the café 

A still from some cinema verité  

Just this: 

Still life  

You’re sitting at the table alone 

Frowning at some stupid thing on your phone 

Without really looking, you’re trying to pick up 

The scone sitting next to your coffee cup 

Just this:

Still life  

Perfectly frozen, this moment a picture 

The window a frame, you within it 

Not quite real, not quite a fiction 

A memory, a dream, something infinite  

You see me and wave, the spell is then broken 

I’m not quite in a dream, not yet awoken 

Between two worlds, I can’t quite decide 

Then I smile, wave back and go inside 

Is this 

Still life? 

Adam & Eve on a Raft 6: The Language of the Birds

The  woman speaks:
What bothered him, what drove him sort of nuts, was that once, he had understood the language of the birds. The language of all the animals, actually. They were as much fun to listen to as you’d think they’d be. The birds especially. But it’s not like they were actually saying anything. They would say things like, “Yoo hoo” or “Here I am” or “Coming.” The baby birds would say, “Feed me feed me food food food.”

The man speaks: But that’s what was so nice. It wasn’t words, like you hear all the time now. I mean words are fun, I love words, but there’s this very beautiful thing that’s not words, but it’s still, I don’t know, still speech, or still language.  Expression, I guess. Expression without words, and that’s what he’d lost, that’s what bothered him, he’d swapped one kind of knowledge for another.

The woman speaks: Sometimes it would come back, like if he were sitting at the beach listening to the waves, then he’d hear a sound and know that he was hearing the language of the birds again. But if he listened to it too closely then right away he’d lose it and it was words again, words all lined up in a row, not the beautiful language of the birds.

The man speaks: That’s what naming the animals had been like, honestly. You just listened to what they said and it wasn’t really a trick to name them. It was just what they said.  He’d heard that the angels had tried to name the animals and hadn’t been able to, but of course they couldn’t. They couldn’t hear them. I mean, no disrespect but they already knew about good and evil, so of course they couldn’t name them.  You know? They didn’t understand what the animals were saying.

The woman speaks: And this is why the idea of a talking bird is so appealing and yet so absurd. What we want to hear them say has nothing to do with what they’re saying. We’re like the angels now, we know too much.

Song: Small Brown Bird

A small brown bird got trapped in the bar

Where I sat drinking my beer all alone

The barman chased her with a bar towel

And shouted, “Go home! Go home!”

Pursued, she flapped one wing

Hopped up and then started to sing

her song 

And I was the only one who heard

That small blue song from that small brown bird

Adam & Eve on a Raft 7: To Begin Again

The woman speaks:
And so they began one more time, adrift once again on their little raft. She, always the more prudent, protected her exile with silence, or at least quiet. Plain sentences, a nice easy place to hide. He preferred to protect himself with words. Silly, foolish monkey words, a fortress of chatter, a sort of short, goofy-looking Tower of Babel to hide behind. And the beautiful thing is that people stopped listening. From her, they waited for some word that would reveal everything, but from him they knew it would just be something stupid, funny but no more than that. He thought he was awfully clever. She knew why he did it, but she wouldn’t mind if he’d shut up.

The man:  For a bit.

To begin is always to begin again.
At first it was just to get away. Anger and frustration and maybe shame, too. But then to begin again was to try to do better. To hope, at least. This time they had a car. That made it easier. This time there was a cat with them, in a carrier in the car. Maybe it didn’t make it easier to have the cat in the carrier in the car, but it did made it easier to have the cat.

Even on the lam, though, you can make choices.  Even when your world is getting smaller, even when it’s very small, you can still make choices. And the world is still so big. Still so awful, still poisoned, but still not without possibility.

Sometimes, to begin again without even hoping that it’ll be better this time because otherwise, what. To at least pretend you have a reason for wherever it is you’re going this time. Something to tell people, even if it’s no escape at all.


Song: This Prison is a Paradise

Once this world was a prison

Where my bond had no price

I’m still trapped but thanks to you

Now this prison is a paradise

I couldn’t bear this tiny world

Marked only by sacrifice

But now you’ve transformed this cage

Now this prison is a paradise

Dreams, ah I have dreams

I see the world breaking at the seams

And yet somehow I’ve found peace

I’ve found release, yes I am released

In the void, in the dark

The slightest light will suffice

Now I bless you and I thank you

Now this prison is a paradise

Adm & Eve on a Raft 8: Florham Park

The woman speaks:
They pulled over and stayed at a hotel for the night. She woke up sometime in the middle of the night and realized it was snowing. Even without looking out the window, she could tell the snow would be piled up several inches high.  Pain in the ass to dig out the car tomorrow. But while it was in the air coming down, it was perfect.  And that light, she thought. Is it from the reflection of the snow on the ground, or does the snow in the air do something with the light?  She wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or closed any more. Even without looking, she could tell that the snow covered everything, everyone, awake and asleep, living and dead. Even without looking, she knew that everything outside had been made more beautiful by being hidden. She sighed and turned over and tried to feel herself disappearing into the snowy night.

Song: Florham Park

Outside snow starts piling deep

Inside you sigh, smile and turn in your sleep

Soft and silent, a white sheet

Like this blanket covering us, warm and sweet

The snow muffles every sound

Casts an eerie pale light on the ground

You lie sleeping next to me

And it’s all that I’ve known of ecstasy

When it ices, hard and gray

That’s tomorrow, I can wait, that’s OK

You lie sleeping next to me

And it’s all that I need to know of ecstasy

Adam & Eve on a Raft 9: Truth Cast Down

The man speaks: They were sitting in a bus station early in the morning, waiting for the first bus out. She was reading and he had his eyes closed. A family was waiting opposite them. A little boy was playing some kind of game on a phone, and his little brother was swinging his feet, kicking his chair.  No one in the bus station was talking much.

The woman speaks: He opened his eyes and said quietly to her, “When God was planning out the creation of the world, he called in the Angels as consultants. A divine project management meeting. And what turned out to be most controversial was the creation of humans.

“The Angel of Love said, ‘Man will be capable of love in ways that no other creature can be.’ The Angel of Peace said, ‘And yet Man will always be fighting.’ The Angel of Justice said, ‘If you want to bring your Law into the world you’ll need Man, as only he can execute it.’ The Angel of Truth said, ‘And yet Man will always lie, to himself most of all.’

“God considered all this, and then suddenly cast the Angel of Truth from Heaven to Earth, and humans were created after all. The other angels didn’t say anything when they saw their colleague cast down, but God told them, ‘Truth will yet spring back from the earth and rise up to heaven.’

“So now Love and Peace and Justice are up in heaven. But Truth is down here with us, trying to make its way back. It’s another puzzle for us to figure out.”  He nodded. “Right?”

The man speaks: “I don’t think the bus will be here for another ten minutes,” she said. “I’m going to go get a cup of coffee.”

Song: At the End of the World

We’re out of gas and out of luck

We’re down to our final buck

Don’t know how we ended up

Here at the end of the world

We’re free, with nowhere to go

All alone under the mistletoe

Stone broke under the rainbow

Here at the end of the world

A bus comes through every week or two

We never really know which day

And every time it just blows right through 

While we watch it drive away

It’s the end of the line, my dear

We’re killing time just waiting here

No one seems to know that we’re

Here at the end of the world

Last time: 

They say that Truth has been cast down

To rise up one day from the ground

Till then, like us it’s hanging ‘round

Here at the end of the world

Adam & Eve on a Raft 10: Postcard to Eva

The woman speaks:
Dear Eva:
I’m sitting in what must be the most boring hotel bar ever, trying not to hear the most boring music ever, faced with the most boring choice of draft beers ever. Miller or Bud Light. I’m trying not to overhear the two idiot dudes bragging about the fifty seven beers and thirty six shots with a chaser of rat poison they drank last night.  The only reason I’m writing instead of calling you is that you asked me not to call too late and I don’t want to, except I can feel myself falling apart. This morning I was still up when the sun rose. I’d heard the mermaids singing, that same old song, come in with us come in with us come in with us come on come on come on, it always sounds so good, but I didn’t listen to them this time. I know that the waters of Paradise can drown you as easily as the fires of Gehenna can burn you.  I waited and watched the last of the old moon setting, just a tiny crescent, the stars doing a perfectly executed fade-out, me in last night’s clothes, the day already a mess before it had begun. And I wondered, can you call light crepuscular in the morning, or only in the evening? I’m sorry you’re not here. I’m really trying not to bother you. I miss you. I love you. See you soon I hope.

Song: I Don't Feel Like Dancing (After Simko)

I have my directions

Written in some uncertain kind of code

I know the groves and orchards

But not the people I see on the road

I have changed my money

For the paper they use here to pay

At stores where they speak another language

Where street lamp shadows slip on the doorways

Oh I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold my hand tonight

No, I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold me tight

‘Cause I don’t feel like dancing any more

It is snow.  It’s snowing.

Footprints running like a line of news

Black marks on the white lined paper:

Only history, just an insult, just a bruise.

The fields here don’t quite fit

Like a map I don’t know how to fold

It’s one story.  It still matters

For as long as that story’s told.

Oh I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold my hand tonight

No, I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold me tight

‘Cause I don’t feel like dancing any more

Even with my eyes closed

I know this place that might have been my home

The woods where trees are still scarred

With my name carved in like a poem.

I barely fill my coat up

The sleeves are empty as the twilight sky

Heading to the empty house where 

I last saw my father cry

Oh I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold my hand tonight

No, I don’t feel like dancing

I wish you could hold me tight

‘Cause I don’t feel like dancing any more

[adapted from The Arrival, by Daniel Simko]

Adam & Eve on A Raft 11: The Two Boys

The woman speaks:
They had two boys and they lost two boys. The younger one was always empty and the older was always full. Empty, like you couldn’t tell what was in him, and full like he was always filling up but never had enough. One of them killed and one of them died and that’s how they lost both of them. The older one was always on the run, always looking for something more. Like his parents in that way. His mother was so happy when he was born. She said that now she was the one who was full.  He was so bright. I mean not just smart and clever, though he was, but there was a brightness, always as a child this beautiful brightness you had to love.

They never understood the younger one. They didn’t understand what was there. Here and then gone. But he loved his parents, that’s for sure. He was quiet, it’s hard to remember him saying anything, but so affectionate. It was hard for them to believe he was dead. It broke their hearts.

The man speaks: Afterwards the older one went off to the Land of Nod. He completely disappeared from their lives.

This is what the Book says: “And Cain spoke with Abel his brother: and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.”  They never saw either of them again.

Song: The Two Boys

Once there were two boys

Both their parents’ pride

One brother killed

The other brother died

Once there were two boys

Generations turn

Families reverse

The blessing can

Become a parent’s curse

Generations turn

And so the lender 

Becomes the debtor

And the begotten 

Begets the begetter

Sin waits at your door

Yet you still may rule

Was that bleak 

Judgment kind or cruel?

Once there were two boys

Adam & Eve on a Raft 12: Finale/Chatter & the Noise

The woman speaks:  
Once, there were four sages, four holy men, the wisest and holiest men of their generation and they decided that they’d go to Paradise together. One died, one went mad, one became a heretic and only Rabbi Akiva entered and left paradise in peace.

[Vocal reprise of “Adam & Eve on A Raft Theme.”]

The man speaks: 
Right, those four sages who decided they’d go to Paradise together. Their win/loss record is pretty unimpressive. Only one of four. There’s two of us, and it’s not like we’re the wisest and holiest of our generation or anything, so the odds don’t exactly seem to be in our favor. But look, we were born in paradise, we may not be that wise or holy, but that’s our home.

Woman: Was our home. We got asked to leave.

Man: Was our home. Right. Thanks for reminding me, I might have forgotten. Look, I don’t want to return and live there forever, I just want to enter and leave Paradise in peace.  I just want to visit. It was so nice there. All the animals and the trees and flowers and oh man, the food.

Woman: The food was so good. But now we know. We know it wouldn’t be the same.

Man: We should do it. We should just do it. I don’t care if I go mad or become a heretic. I don’t even care that much if I die, although it won’t work if you die. If you die and I, I don’t know, I become the heretic, then no. No, I think I would go mad then.

But what is that ocean that envelops you there? What is it that’s so beautiful that it’s unbearable? Is it love? Is it some kind of overwhelming love that’s not meant for humans?  No, it has to be. It must be for us, that’s where we come from. How could that enormous, tidal, overflowing…I mean, I don’t even know the words for it. How could that kind of love not be for us?

Woman: But what about the other kind of love? You know, the me-and-you kind? I mean, that’s what we have every day. I like it.

Man: I know. I like it too. It’s awfully nice. I guess we belong here now. I guess. It’s just so awful most of the time. No wonder we’re always beginning over again. What if this is really it?

Song: Chatter & the Noise

There is a place without music 

A place of quiet and rest 

There’s a place with no words 

A place for the bless’d.  

And yet dear Lord I love this world 

Its troubles and its joys 

O sinner that I am I love  

The chatter and the noise  

Once you cross the river 

There can be no violence 

No word or sound can ever break 

The beauty of the silence  

And yet dear Lord I love this world 

Its troubles and its joys 

O sinner that I am I love  

The chatter and the noise  

There’s a beautiful garden  

Where the wind never blows 

And the flame that burns there 

Can’t consume the rose  

And yet dear Lord &c.  

Sons of Clovis

nice talking to you last night. Couldn’t reach Jim. This is the painting I was trying to remember: https://g.co/kgs/vibvY4

Nice postcard

Sorry I can’t make it. Have to be in London. Good luck!

SF dates

Hey Johny, I read a post from you on Facebook a while ago promoting your upcoming festival dates. I didn’t quite catch them. Might be possible for me to attend. Please confirm dates.
Wouldn’t it be nice.

When Paul McCartney Died

The greatest shock I ever saw

In black and white and Polaroid

Was Paul McCartney jacking off

Naked and inspired

A genius for banalizing

CHORUS

Nobody likes a nice guy

Nobody wants him to win

Your own worst enemy

You stink, and yet you swim

Cheeky cheeky’s not a standard

To which to measure up

Sneaky sneaky’s cuter and

No one gives a fuck

A doe-eyed smile, compassion flowers

You freely harmonise

Your throbbing underlip fellates

I’m complicit, you beguile

When Paul McCartney died

You felt bad not feeling bad

For feeling bad

You felt bad

For not feeling bad

For feeling sad

You felt bad

How is it, like some fish

Age changes gender

Female to male

And male to old maid

The nice guy doesn’t die

But’s strung along

Till quaint, irrelevant

Nothing worse

But the drummer

CHORUS

When Paul McCartney died

You felt bad not feeling bad

For feeling bad

You felt sad

For not feeling bad

For feeling sad

You felt bad

Just wanna say

I am not a robot

Reunited

Today’s Verse: 17 February 2018

Today the script is finalised
Now it’s time to edit
Today the cast is hired
Soon they may regret it

Between the script
And final cut
Lifetime improvisation

That’s the way it’s always done
That’s the way we do it
If you know a better way
Get down and let’s get to it

It’s Not Easy Reading Poetry

Each syllable a little brick
Her breathing is the mortar
The crowd is waiting for a trick
The next act to abort her

A concept’s limping into view
Unfulfilled and tired
The crowd extends its sympathy
But circumstance belies her

The shambles done, a cupola
Of feeling placed atop it
We recognise she’s vulnerable
Applaud and glad she’s stopped it

Happy new year!

Burning the effigies of 2017 in the snow and sand