Jymn now you too have arrived at that age celebrated in the Beatles song.  May you be needed and fed for another year and many more.

Your sincerely,

Wasting Away

Flag Day

 As part of my ongoing project to write a song for every holiday

Flags are waving throughout the land

Come on now strike up the band

I don’t really understand

It’s Flag Day, Flag Day

From every car lot, every mall

Flags are flying straight and tall

Stand up and salute them all


It’s Flag Day, Flag Day

Everywhere the flags are flying

Everywhere they’re on display

It is very mystifying

Why flags should have a special day

There’s no speech, no oratory

No one ever tells the story

All we do is wave Old Glory

It’s Flag Day, Flag Day

Geography of Sorrow

Dennis had said that he wanted to do some new recordings on the theme of "Cosmic American Music," which was Gram Parsons term for his own music, mixing the country music of that era with hippie music.  I don't think that's what Dennis means, I think he just means our songs but with slide guitar and National steel, but here's what I came up with as a first attempt at my own version of it:

The Geography of Sorrow

I placed my flag in the new world

To flourish and to burgeon

And threw myself on the green land

As if it were a virgin

And though I thought I’d conquered it

It all turned contradictory

I found there was no apple pie

In what had seemed a victory

What’s the geography of sorrow?

What’s the geography of tears?
How do we map the loss

The hatred and the fears?

This land’s become my body

A map, immense and vast

It always flows out bountifully

But hides behind a mask

The land remains eternal

Though it’s life’s as short as mine

Silent as a history book

But ticking, watching time

What’s the geography of sorrow?

What’s the geography of tears?
How do we map the loss

The hatred and the fears?

I felt a mighty anger

Fire flooding from above

I’ve felt the wrath of fear

But this is wrath of love

It’s I who am now guilty

It’s I who played the whore

I kneel down and bow my head

Dressed as a conquistador

What’s the geography of sorrow?

What’s the geography of tears?
How do we map the loss

The hatred and the fears?

It rained the other night--always welcome in Northern California--and I felt some twinges in my right ankle.  It took me a few moments to realize that this my old football injury from St. John's greeting me from across 45 years. There are some things the body doesn't forget.

Happy birthday Johny!

 Now the earth's gone around the sun sixty-three times since it first shown on your budding body. And today it starts its round again. Have a good trip, one more time.

If it has a frame, it's a work of art

 

Tracy & Frida, October 10, 2023

RIP Kenneth Anger

 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/may/25/kenneth-anger-obituary

Dennis goes solo

 http://dennisfinnegan.com/new-recordings-2

Latest from Laco

Roman Harvan, Laco Teren - Dreaming Away - YouTubeYouTubehttps://www.youtube.com › watch

Dreaming Away - Roman Harvan, Laco TerenApplehttps://music.apple.com › album › dreaming-away

Hear No Evil

The sounds at night. The sounds I hear at night.
I hear—I do not hear—I hear a tune
The silence and the song is what I hear.
What I don’t hear is you. I don’t hear you.

I hear no—
I fear no—
I hear no evil

I dream of how we’d walk out through the hours
I’d hear: click clack. The ticking. Then it stops .
When I look you’re not beside me. You’re gone.
Still I catch your footprints on the sidewalk

I hear no—
I fear no—
I hear no evil

You’re gone. The song goes on. The song is gone.
No chords. Not even notes. Perhaps just urges.
The silence and the song. But what I want
I want right now. The darkness. Silence. Perfect.

I hear no—
I fear no—
I hear no evil

Steal softly through sunshine...

 Saw Eugene Chadbourne the other evening at the Museum of Art Brut in Lausanne.  Small but very appreciative full house, mostly "young people", i.e., younger than me.  He sang and played a lot of nice songs. His Beefheart cover filled me with joy. I saw him once in Boston about twenty years ago, double bill with Jimmy Carl Black. I think this was better. He's the only musician besides myself I've seen play the Marauder.  Alas, he's sold the parts.

 We were at some sort of county fair/battle of the bands event. Tracy hadn't shown up yet, she was stuck in traffic or something, but we managed to tear up "Spheres" with just the three of us.

#9 Bream Song

The lake in the song is Lac Leman, and the bridge the good old Pont de Mont Blanc, which had a way of shaking as you walked across that now would make me think an earthquake was on the way.  I forget if I actually dreamed this, or imagined it as I was walking across the bridge stoned or just made up at some point.

I dreamed as I was walking across the lake

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

The bridge beneath my feet began to shake

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

A school of flying fish rose up in synch

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Electric yellow, neon green and pink

Like dead poets, bless the poets

I recognized those fish flying overhead

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

Were the poets I read in my youth, now dead

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

The shining spirits of poets who had died

Like dead poets, bless the poets 

Through neglect, disease or suicide

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream 

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream 

Like dead poets, bless the poets

The only beauty it seems that we revere

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

Will flash and shine, explode, then disappear

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Like Berryman and Dylan, if you please

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

Anne Sexton, Sylvia and Weldon Kees

Like dead poets, bless the poets

We all so love to dream of a special heaven

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

For rock stars who have died at 27

Like dead poets, bless the poets

And what’s illuminated in their wake?

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream

Is it the blue of sky or blue of lake?

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream 

Like dead poets, bless the poets

Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream 

Like dead poets, bless the poets, &c.

 Pelé may be gone, but Baby Pelé will live on forever.

 Jimmy, I'm sorry I forgot your birthday.  I hope it was filled with cheer.

Forgotten, but not gone

 Missing my birthday greeting!

Been there, done that

 

Happy birthday Johny

 And how you are celebrating today?

Dum Dum Boys

https://youtu.be/jRivyhE3JvU

Nice interview. Nice hearing them sing together, too.

Do The Murmuration, Baby

When 10,000 starlings fly

They mur-mur-ate

Make a kaleidoscope in the sky

They mur-mur-ate

Dancing without holding hands

More precise than marching bands

Just doing what the dance demands

They murmurate! They murmurate!

Humans on earth, let’s do it too

Let's mur-mur-ate

Let’s join together like starlings do

Let's mur-mur-ate

Can’t we learn to take a page

From those starlings who engage

To make the whole sky their own stage

Let’s murmurate! Let’s murmurate!

We too can move in a big formation

Let's mur-mur-ate

Rising and falling in a great gyration

Let's mur-mur-ate

We don’t need leaders, we don’t need rules

There’s dances you can’t learn in schools

Come on all you dancing fools

Let’s murmurate! Let’s murmurate!

Let's mur-mur-ate!

This is a 60s dance craze-type song for my dear friend Larry Starling.  Because he's dark-colored and lives in a birdcage he's hard to photograph.  This is the best I could do:

Epithalamion

I also wrote this one for him.  (Ned Stone = Philip van Ouse.)

Yesterday we wept

Tomorrow we will fight

But let there be no tears,

No anger on this night

And even if tomorrow is

The day the world ends

Tonight there is still time enough

To celebrate our friends

Though I am not a believer

And barely an agnostic

I do believe in this union

Of Van Ouse & Tomasic

Tonight there is no room
For the fear we all have carried

Tonight there’s only room for joy

For our friends who’re getting married

Don’t rise up from the table

Don’t turn away the cup

Tonight all sorrow’s chased with joy

Tonight we’ll drink it up

Though I am not a believer

And barely an agnostic

I do believe in this union

Of Van Ouse & Tomasic

Sonnet 43 or so

 My friend Ned Stone's getting married next month. I wrote this song for him (by way of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and John Cage)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the droop and breach and heft
My soap can reach, when feeling out of samples
For the ends of buttons and ideal grandmother.
I love thee to the liver of every day’s
Most quaggy niche, by soup and canine light.
I love thee frizzily, as men strip for Richard.
I love thee purple, as they turn from prairie dogs.
I love thee with the passport put to use
In my old gravy, and with my chicken’s fade-in.
I love thee with a love I seemed to loop
With my locked saints. I love thee with the bakery,
Smock, teapot, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after Delaware.

RIP Mary

 My mother died at home in bed on 11 May.

RIP Steven

I Am Waiting

I was thinking of like a Bowie song from "Lodger."

I am waiting for instructions
I am waiting to be given
The most recent set of orders
I am waiting for directions
I am waiting for a stockpile
Of gasoline and toilet paper
I am waiting for the drugstore
To renew my last prescription

I am waiting
I am waiting

I am waiting for the sirens
To stop their ringing for a moment
I am waiting for the militia
Getting closer to our borders
I am waiting to hear the anthem
Cheering on our local Farm Team
I am waiting for the ice cream truck
I haven’t heard those chimes in days now

I am waiting
I am waiting

We need the Good Guys, at least allies
The hotsie-totsies who punch Nazis
The dads and mommies, anti-Commies
Mounties on horses with their forces
I am waiting for the code
To this episode
The book, the guide
All the answers found inside

I am waiting for the moral
To this fable I keep hearing
I am waiting for the secret
Explanation to this story
I am waiting for the punchline
Of this endless shaggy dog joke
I am waiting. Can you hear me?
I am waiting. I am waiting

RIP Ronnie

https://youtu.be/_3QA2ATgIb0

 

Stood Up By A Song

Last night I was stood up by a song

I thought we had a date

I stayed home to wait

Did I get the day or the time all wrong?

Tuned my guitar and poured some wine

Gave my best cowboy boots a shine

But why did I get dressed

To be stood up by this guest

This shiftless no-show friend of mine?

Oh, I fill my head with words

Harmonize in thirds

Yodel country blues

Grab my book of synonyms

Then start chanting hymns

Bow down to the Muse

Guess that song’s not coming ‘round

The wine has all been downed

I’ll go quietly to bed

I’ll just have silence instead

No song, no words, no sound

No use for rhyming words

Major or minor thirds 

All I know of blues

Lose all those synonyms

No use chanting hymns

Just silence for the Muse

RIP Robbie Shakespeare

https://youtu.be/VVIsTZPp0iM 

Today's Verse: 2 December 2021

I want to sell you my birthday

It cannot be replicated

It's eternal, since the moment I ushered forth

We can exchange a digital handshake,

Itself unique in all the Universe,

Incorruptible and eternal

You will acquire sole ownership of

Any and all warm wishes, 

Ab initio and without termination,

Of my family, friends, lovers,

Airline loyalty clubs, hotel and/or restaurant chains, etc

You gambit: "What do I get out of it?"

You OWN it, baby!

How much?

Today's Verse: 1 December 2021

The neighbours found his body.

That's the beginning, and the end, 

of the story.

Today’s Verse: 27 November 2021

A little thought

I forgot

Directly from my Fridge to You

 

RIP Don

 I remember Junior year Jimmy had that little Close-&-Play in his cubbyhole in East Pinkney, and played the Everly Brothers a lot (and also Johnny Burnette, if I recall correctly.) I thought it was just some Happy Days "Wake Up Little Suzy" camp and got tired of it, but Jimmy said, No, listen to it, it's really beautiful.  I did and he was right.  

 Italy's recent soccer win reminded me of the summer of 1982 and the Italian team's mad goalie Zof and the one day that the banker's town of Genève stayed up all night to party.

Bric-A-Brac

Everybody has a drawer

Of things they don’t need any more

Pictures cut from magazines

Little parts from small machines

Bottle caps and little tops

Take-out menus, cards from shops

Extra sets of unknown keys

Everyone has things like these

Useless little things like these

People find room in their hearts

For machines with broken parts

Things they should have thrown away

The old, the damaged and the stray

And I too seem to fill my days

With silly little throwaways

With gewgaws, junk and oddities

And useless little songs like these

Little songs like these

(after Dorothy Parker)

Today's Verse: 28 June 2021

The future has no future
There I'll be
In one big now
Scrapping to scrape by, survive

Slipping down the pole

Nature won't prioritise

Just desire, need, raw power

I understand

I won't control anything

Throw the dice with all my might

Ready as I'll ever be

Dig in, grit my teeth, smile 

My Own Skylark

 Going all in on the pretentiousness:

I sit alone, as day dissolves to night
And notice, high above, a bird in flight
Wandering, like the raven from Noah’s ark
Singing just for me, my own skylark

The sound that through the ages poets have heard
Cannot be turned to image, song or word
It turns back on itself like a question mark
That’s the riddle of the song of my skylark

The sweetest songs are those 
That tell of saddest thought
My heart rides on your wings
Inside your song I’m caught
What is this dream or vision
Brought to me from afar?

I want to say, although it sounds absurd,
“Thou wast not born for death, Immortal Bird.”
And then the singing stops. The sky is dark.

I’ll never hear again my own skylark

Today's Verse: 19 June 2021

I'm sending you a postcard
Of a place I'd like to be

In April, May, or June

Ideally you're with me

Wait, wait

We're getting closer

Wait, wait

We're closing space

Wait, wait

We're toe to toe now

Wait, wait

We're face to face

I'm sending you a postcard

Of a bridge across a bay

Of a summit in the welkin

Of a world that's far away

I'm sending you a postcard

Of lava burning bright

Waves crashing on the shoreline

Of jewels that span the night

Wait, wait

We're getting closer

Wait, wait

We're closing space

Wait, wait

We're toe to toe now

Wait, wait

We're face to face

I'm sending you a postcard

Of a place I'd like to be

From now until whenever

Ideally you're with me

Wait, wait

We're getting closer

Wait, wait

We're closing space

Wait, wait

We're toe to toe now

Wait, wait

We're face to face

Rock Scissors Paper

 It's been a long time since I've written an Eno-esque nonsense song.

I was born squalid

Or—whatcha call it?

I’m just a big orangutan

who likes to toss his feces

I’m a young savage 

Quite below average

I will hit you like a rock 

And I will smash you into pieces

CHORUS: Oh, rock scissors paper

Rock scissors paper

You cut me now but I’ll cover you later

Paper rock scissors

Scissors paper rock

We tick & tock and click & cluck like a kooky cuckoo clock

Night singing skylark

Knife swinging mud shark

I’ll sweep you up and cut you down 

and slice you into slivers

I got my weapon

Watch what you step in

The click-clack that you hear is just 

The slicing of my scissors

Oh, rock scissors paper

Rock scissors paper

You cut me now but I’ll cover you later

Paper rock scissors

Scissors paper rock

We tick & tock and click & cluck like a kooky cuckoo clock

Oh, you silly dandy

You piece of rock candy

You’ll disappear completely like 

a quicksand-sinking lover

You’re think that you an Uzi

You silly floppy floozy

You can smash and you can cut 

But remember, I can cover

Oh, rock scissors paper &c.

Today's Verse: 11 May 2021

Going home to see my lover die
To whisper fondly "goodbye, goodbye"
All at once, all is undone
An abyss yawns where there was none
It's hungry and I can't resist
Being swallowed in its kiss
O! Alas! I'm losin' it

Today's Verse: 8 May 2021

I can't hold on, I'm letting go
Of everything I want to know
Free will and sensuality
Together have deserted me
Docile and considerate
I lie in bed and reminisce
O! Alas! I'm losin' it

Today's Verse: 7 May 2021

Tides are servants of the moon
You and I are servants too
Cycles take us high and low
Tumbling through the surf we go
Breathless we're deposited
On the sand to wait and sit
O! Alas! I'm losin' it

Today's Verse: 6 May 2021

There's comfort in slouching
Lying down on the job
Taking it easy
Being a slob

Today's Verse: 5 May 2021

Pleasure is a jellyfish
Dangerous, diaphanous

In an ocean of desire

Floating like a holy fire

Current makes us intimate

A little scared I must admit

O! Alas! I'm losin' it

Today's Verse: 4 May 2021

Good is bad and bad is good
The wolf is little red riding hood

Grandmother's out of touch it seems

She mixes up real life and dreams

The pieces of the puzzle no longer fit

The world is small and full of shit

O! Alas! I'm losin' it

Today's Verse: 27 April 2021

It's not curtains
I'm worried about

Let 'em rise, let 'em fall

By now, I've prob'bly seen it all

Though I nurture

A little doubt

April's Fool

what kind of fool would leave his friends in space,

 when they were right beside him, ready for the race? 

 why ever miss the chance, though they are far away, to join them in the dance that makes each day a play? 

 just words upon a screen, a cynic might opine, but their words touch my life, like fresh lips tasting wine.

 so call me April's fool, and call my longings folly, I know my foolish friends will always keep me jolly.

Today's Verse: 27 March 2021

The snails are rising
In towns and cities

The snails are rising

Throughout the land

The snails are rising

It isn't pretty

The snails are rising

They're out of hand

Inside their shells

There's trouble brewing

Inside their shells

The flames are fanned

Inside their shells

The fire's fueling

Inside their shells

Revolt is planned

What do they want?

What is their creed?

To satisfy

Their endless craving?

And to assuage

Their shameless needs?

The snails are rising

The earth is trembling

The snails are rising

It's judgement day

The snails are rising

In ranks assembling

The snails are rising

Too late to pray

Gone straight

 

Today's Verse: 18 March 2021

Felice has gone away
Dawn saw her silent leaving

Her neighbours fret and pray

She will not be returning

We loved her very much

We loved her very, very much

We loved her very much

Now she's gone away

I saw you hesitate

In between both now and then

Trying to seduce fate

Any way you lose and win

I love you very much

I love you very, very much

I love you very much

Now you've gone away

Daybreak came

I fell asleep

Afraid of losing you

When I awake

My mind at ease

You tell me what I always knew

Fire will consume us

In smoke we wander home

Water will entomb us

Nevermore to be alone

I loved you very much

I loved you very, very much

I loved you very much

And now you've gone away

Dancing with my demons

Making out like my sweet lord

The world is only seeming

A dream and nothing more

We love you very much

We love you very, very much

We love you very much

Now that you've gone away

Today’s Verse: 2 March 2021

 In a classy limousine 

He is often vaguely seen

Though the window’s not yet shut

You can see his shiny butt

Hover in the gloaming air

All at once, no longer there

RIP Phil

 I well remember the time around sophomore year at St John's when I had the Wall of Sound on constant rotation. Genius? Madman? Looked great in a wig. I'm looking forward to reading his prison journals or seeing the Netflix movie of same. Please Al Pacino.

RIP Sylvain

Sorry to read of his departure.... to a private world no doubt.

Today's Verse: 1 January 2021

 From the day I saw light first

I was blessed and I was cursed

Precognition is the gift

I was made to struggle with

Let me share it clear and plain

Everyday: more of the same

Love Cult!

 I took a poke at your Love Cult, Jimmy. The original song was written to an already-existing tune with no chorus, as Dennis favors the 32-bar AABA form.  I used the same form, so once again no chorus. However since Dennis thought "anthropophagic" was too hard to sing, I've cut his supper up for him and used (almost) all words of one syllable. Love cult!

Love cult, love cult

Come be part of our rite

Love cult, love cult

We only meet at night

 

Love cult, love cult

We sing our hymns of praise

Love cult, love cult

Just like the good old days

 

Boys and girls

Meet by night lit by the stars above 

Make their vows

That they’ll give their lives to live for Love

 

Love cult, love cult

Let all love be free

Love cult, love cult

Come make love with me!

 I dreamed I was getting new strings for my bass, and as I woke up, my left hand was playing "Baby, Won't You Come Upstairs." What a great song that is.

Happy Birthday Jymn

 I seem to have gotten my birthday wish--may you get all yours!

The Tragi-comedy of Love

Love is comic
Anarchic and anomic
Love is hilarious
So funny, so precarious
 
Love is tragic
Grotesque and anthropophagic
Love’s Grand Guignol
With a mad king and mad queen role
 
Angels laugh
When two lovers kiss 
And suddenly their hearts beat faster
Demons laugh
When the whole show turns to
Horror and to disaster
 
Is it catharsis?
Is that really what this farce is?
How can we know?
On with this tragic vaudeville show!

Music From a Time of Immaturity

 Archivist Phil Milstein sent me this fragment of a solo electric tuba performance. My guess is Chet's circa 1987.

https://soundcloud.com/user-60976419/solo-live-electric-tuba-fancy

Happy Birthday Johny! This is a big one!

I sincerely hope that my birthday wish for you is the same as your birthday wish and that it comes true.

Love on ya

Yer Darn Tootin' Round Two

 The Book of Jones will be presenting our pitch to be Your Next Favorite Musical next Thursday the 27th at 8 PM Pacific time. It was supposed to be a live competition last April but instead it's an online video, which means that you my dear friends who are far away can view it by following the links from here. If you miss it the first time, it should be archived at that site afterwards.

King Corona

Here's my Covid song. I was thinking of those old blues songs about diseases, like the TB Blues



There’s an old demon worryin’ ‘round my door
Oh, King Corona
I told him I’m not the one he’s looking for
Oh King Corona
I said, Sir you must be mistaken
I locked my door, but he tried to break in
He’s a nasty devil and he means to score
Oh, King Corona

I thought maybe I could hide
Oh, King Corona
Spend the rest of my life inside
Oh, King Corona
I don’t know what makes him desire us
So much power in one little virus
Couldn’t get away no matter how I tried
Oh, King Corona

When he comes knocking, will I be able to refuse?
Oh, King Corona
Will I be the one that he grabs and subdues?
Oh King Corona
First you have a little cough
Soon that demon tries to carry you off
Don’t want to sing those ventilator blues
Oh King Corona

Today's Verse: 24 July 2020

We met on the eve
Of Covid 19
Your lips were rubies
Your eyes shiny green

We made love all night
You left the next day
I learned from the app
Covid took you away

Open Song

I had a little secret

I had a secret just for you

I found a little stone

A perfect little pebble

Gray and smooth like any other 

For you, it was for you

For no one else but you

I couldn’t put it in your ear

I couldn’t, so I put it on your tongue

Behind your tongue

Beneath your tongue

I put it under your tongue

I had a little secret

I had a little button and I didn’t know where to hide it

So I put it under your tongue

A secret for you to find

To find when you were ready

Maybe one day as a lisp

Maybe one day as a stammer

It was a little pocket with a secret 

 I hid it under your tongue

Your little tongue

Your little tongue

A little snake that pops out

A little jack-in-the-box 

I made a little puzzle

I made a little riddle

It was just for you, I made it just for you

I made it for you but I kept a piece for me

Just one piece for myself

I wanted to give you something to read

I wanted to ask you to read me but I didn’t want to

I was afraid to

I made a thing to read to you

A little thing for you to read

Folded paper, folded words

I kept one piece and I hid the rest

I hid it where you could find it 

You know where, you know where

I hid it where you can find it

It was a present for you, that’s all

I wanted you to find it

I wanted you to read me

Little button, little pocket

Little riddle, little present

Little secret

Little stone

Today's Verse: 3 June 2020

My god is a son of a bitch
Thank god he's a son of a bitch
He'll make you suffer one two three
He'll make you suffer so you'll see
Nothing on earth is stronger than he
My god is a son of a bitch

I was born to sing his praise
To worship him and be his slave
Through countless nights and countless days
A joke, a jester, and a knave
Lost inside his endless maze
Confused, confounded, and half-crazed
My god is a son of a bitch

I was born to be a tool
To realise his awesome might
A dunce, an idiot, a fool
Irreverent and impolite
My god is a son of a bitch

I was born to be a shout
Proclaiming his omnipotence
A goof, a hooligan, a louse
Shameless in my innocence
My god is a son of a bitch

I was born to bear the load
Of Sovereign desire
Light me up and I'll explode
Bursting into righteous fire
My god is a son of a bitch

My god is a son of a bitch
Thank god he's a son of a bitch
He'll make you suffer one two three
He'll make you suffer so you'll see
Nothing on earth is stronger than he
My god is a son of a bitch

Selfie in place

I hope you don't mind that I put you in the song, Poppa. One worries.



Selfie In Place

I just wanted to take the time to say Hey--
I’m healthy and working and doing OK
No sign of the virus, no fever, no cough
I haven’t been furloughed, still not laid off.
I’m inside all day working, which I know’s not unique
I walk the dog once a day and I shop once a week.
I cook dinner most nights, then I read or hang out
I’m trying to quit drinking, it’s bringing on the gout.

I wanted to write you a quarantine song
How we’re all in this together and need to stand strong
A song full of uplift and affirmation
Or a blues about being lonely in isolation
Or something putting down fools who won’t stay six feet apart
Something clever and fun, inspiring and smart
But I can’t, man. I can’t. Whenever I do
Just sounds hokey, cliché and untrue.

If I get the flu and am laid up in bed
It won’t be much fun but it beats being dead
I worry abut my dad, he’s now 89
Younger than Lee Konitz but much older than John Prine
And my friend James who had surgery last year
They took out his teeth and then took off his ear
If he gets sick he’ll die, which he says he’s not scared of
He just has some shit he was hoping to take care of

Even if we flatten the curve out and all
The virus will probably be back in the fall
There’ll be fires in the summer, and universal depression
Things may just get worse with the November election.
A vaccine might be ready in 2021
I can’t imagine myself or the world when it’s done.
Well, when it’s over let’s get wasted like Noah after the flood
‘Til then
         I’m as ever
                Your friend,
                     Mister Blood

Say it isn't so!

little-richard-flamboyant-rock-n-roll-pioneer-dies-at-87

Today's Verse: 22 April 2020

Peter stepped out of his mind
To leave all his troubles behind
His body a shell
That echoes of hell
His eyes though wide open
Are blind

Peter's gone out of his head
To find what it's like to be dead
The things that he feels
Are all very real
But nobody hears what
He said

Peter was Adonis
Peter was Einstein
I can't believe that Peter
Was a friend of mine

Peter's taken leave of his senses
Of posturing and of pretences
He's naked and base
The smile on his face
Betrays not a thought or
Intention

I wonder what got into Peter
A ravenous, glorious creature
It came in the night
Flame burning bright
Transforming his pain into
Pleasure

Peter was Johnny Thunders
Peter was Frankenstein
I can't believe that Peter
Was a friend of mine

Today's Verse: 8 April 2020

I'm looking forward to the time I will forget you
There'll come a day that you'll have vanished from my mind
Every night will be a night that I can get through
And tomorrow is the reason why
I'll be glad you're left behind

Today's Verse: 3 April 2020

Now I have the time to ponder
Have the time to stare
Look out the bedroom window
Life's growing over there

Now I have the time to wonder
Floating in my head
Businesses unfinished
Memories un-dead

Things I need are nagging me
To tend them day and night
But what I want's abandoned me
And taken appetite

Yer Darn Tootin'!

Dennis and I and the rest of the Book of Jones will be doing a live, extended version of this pitch in April.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqQohRwWgjo&feature=youtu.be

There!

A very happy birthday Jymn! Sacrificial remains make it hard to forget.

#116

Recently Dennis and I did a piece at a little Shakespeare event, where he performed a musical setting of Sonnet 116 and then I gave a midrash. In case you forget, here's how Sonnet 116 goes:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
     If this be error and upon me proved,
     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


And this is what I read, while Dennis backed me up on guitar:

I love that this sonnet about the permanence of love is by the man whose characters are so divinely fluid, whose stories are full of mistaken identities, twins, and men who don’t realize that the boy they like so well is the woman they will marry. That’s comedy, isn’t it, not “the marriage of true minds.”  Ha ha ha. 

Let me be clear. In this sonnet he’s not saying that lovers never change, but that love itself is “ever-fixed,” that it’s “a star to every bark.” Love, we’re told, is not Time’s fool. It’s not a clown, it’s not a chump, it’s not a comedian.  

Let me play the Fool here a bit myself. You may remember that in the plays, the Fool is the character who is allowed to mock the wise. His fooling shows them their own folly. The powerful tolerate him or ignore him; the cleverer or more cynical characters see the wisdom in his folly.  Well that, I think, is what Love does to Time: it mocks the Great King even as it bows to him, keeping for itself, at least for a moment, the pleasures that Time and Death cannot reach.  In that way, maybe Love is Time’s loving Fool.

Think of the most loving and lovable Fool in the plays, the Fool in King Lear. He taunts the King and he teases him; he offers Lear his fool’s hat to wear, and he says that he and Lear together are the sweet fool and the bitter fool. He also follows him into the fierce, raging storm; as in the sonnet, he “bears it out even to the edge of doom.”  To the edge but not beyond, since the Fool famously disappears after that scene. 

In a strange way, in the way of words, the Fool returns at the very end of the play, just before Lear himself dies, when he calls Cordelia, “my poor fool.”  When he hears that Cordelia is dead, he says:   

“And my poor fool is hanged: no, no, no life

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more

Never, never, never, never, never.”

The moment when he finally acknowledges his love for his “poor fool” is the moment of no no no and never never never never, the moment of death.

Some people say this reappearance of the Fool, a reappearance in name at least, was an inside joke, since Cordelia and the Fool might have been played by the same actor.  Some say that they are actually the same person.  I don’t know about that, but it does befit Love, Time’s Fool, to say to the King, the Father, to Time itself with his bending sickle, as Cordelia does say, “I love your majesty according to my bond, nothing more, nothing less,” which is to say, only infinitely.  That is the bond of love that does not “alter when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove,”  as the sonnet has it. That’s the love that “bears it out even to the edge of doom” and maybe in this case beyond. 

And just to play the Fool a bit further: Perhaps Love has its own Fool, the joker that tries to kid Love, and in the end outlasts love. I mean poetry, I mean these sonnets.  After the lover and the beloved are both gone, after Love itself may have left the stage, the poems stay on to tell the story, like Horatio at the end of Hamlet. 

Touchstone, the fool in As You Like It says that, “the truest poetry is the most feigning” but he’s fooling, right? If love is changeable and fickle, why then, the sonnet tells us, Shakespeare never wrote. So tell me, who’s fooling whom?

Happy birthday Johny!

Raising an imaginary cup to my lips, to your health!

Jolly's at home everywhere

Please remind me: what rhymes with "forage"?

Mysteriously, unbidden, "Believe You Me" came to me this evening after a light supper, while I was eating chocolate ice cream.