disconcerted musings

Wandering through the forest, the lines of clouds are there somewhere, designing intricate elemental arrows somewhere. The cold is here and the dark is somewhere shining down onto the pieces of sky. Incrustations and maniacal laughs concerning proper spelling and complete nonsense shout through the twilight.
I need a bunch of stone to start carving into some shape. That would take a while. I have been playing chords, and when I can get the thing in tune that has seemed like a thing to do, but after watching six French gangster films in a row, it occurs to me that no French gangster probably could get a guitar in tune to save his life. If they are carrying a guitar case around, it is far more likely to contain a submachinegun.
Have I learned anything in the many years that I have been alive. I suppose that I have, but I have also learned that there are a great many things that do not make any sense. For example, the guy from Pink Floyd who flew off the rails mentally.
It is interesting to get into playing a bit of banjo related music, although that is far from being the only sort of music that I like. I think our group, with two banjos and me playing guitar, does not sound very bluegrassy and sounds sort of folky, with a female vocalist, playing sort of honest and simple tunes that may have kind of a Cat Stevens/Neil Young feel to them, and are completely lacking in irony or overly tight t-shirts and any kind of citified sheen.
Banjos were actually invented by slaves, so I think, but they now are associated with redneck types and poor racist whites from the hills, but up here in Oregon they are popular but not for that reason. The old timey music has a certain power to it, part of it being the religious fervor in it, (not that we are a Christian group), but certain groups, like the original Carter Family, have a kind of power and world-weariness coming through the lyrics.
I wonder if I can really get anywhere with the music. I suppose I am getting somewhere if I am having fun and I should just leave it at that. All those years I spent grinding through all the chord changes, coming up with various patterns and styles, has gotten me to kind of an original technique, but that may be more a function of how my mind and personality work anyway.
I went through and memorized Cold Jordan this week, a gospel song done by many people, but I was inspired by Jerry Garcia's version. The whole song is about how we are going to need Jesus when we die and cross the Jordan and get judged as to whether we are going to heaven or hell. You may as well tell me that the moon is made of green cheese. Still, it means something to me, and Jerry sang it like it meant something to him, although he was not any kind of Christian. Probably because he is from that background.
Things were tough in the olden days. They needed religion to have hope, and it can still serve that purpose.

sonnets to orpheus part 2 number 2

Even as a handy sheet of paper

sometimes catches a genuine masterstroke,

so, often into themselves the mirrors

take the one blessed smile of girls who awoke

and tried out the morning, alone-

or in the attendant lights' glitter.

And where the breath of their real faces

shone

there falls but a mere reflection, later.

What have eyes once seen in the blackening

coals

slowly cooling upon the hearth?

Glimpses of life, forever lost.

Ah, who knows the losses of the earth?

Only one, who praises nevertheless,

can sing the heart borth into the Whole.

-rilke

These poems follow a nonlinear path, kind of like my mind, introducing suggestions here and there, and impressions, but not having some sort of structure that necessarily makes much sense. Life is like that anyway. Logic is one thing, but real life is anything but logical.

Kelly's blog: my ex-wife

This is my ex-wife Kelly's old blog, the link on the right that I just added. Mostly concerned with an anti-war protest, and a lot of tatting stuff. She may be putting more posts on soon.

Neon Gypsies at the Beanery

The Neon Gypsies played at the Beanery Friday night. They sounded great and dressed in colorful clothing. Thanks to Kalvin's wife, Keri, for scheduling them. They have a different sound and a different approach from any other band that I have heard.

Here's a drawing of the guitarist:

the song the idiot sings

They don't bother about me. They let me be.
They say, "Nothing can happen."
That's good.
Nothing can happen.  It all comes and wheels

steadily around the Holy Ghost,

always around the same Ghost (you know)-

that's good.

No, of course not, one mustn't think any danger

could come in that way.

Of course the blood exists.

Blood is the heaviest.  Blood is heavy.

Sometimes I think I've had too much.

(That's good.)

Oh, isn't that a wonderful ball!

round and red as nothing and all.

Good thing that you created it.

But will it come if you call?

How strangely this whole thing behaves,

into each other driving, out of each other swimming,

friendly, a touch uncertain.

That's good.

-Rainer Marie Rilke, translated by Robert Bly

Nothing can happen.  Things happen under the same essential reality.  So don't stress...I guess..or something.

Drivin' up to Salem for karate.  The weather is rainy.  I'm in okay shape but could be in a lot better shape (karate shape).  But that's the continual quest for karate perfection.  You never get there, and the art does keep changing and developing over the years, which is the fascinating thing.  It's definitely more of a exact science than it was in, say, the '70's ....but the basic forms have been there since Gichin Funakoshi in the '30's.

It was near four o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was well-brewed to a visible haze. There was a deep stillness, broken only by a light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an occasional montone in French, such as might be expected to issue from an ingeniously contructed automaton. Round two long tables were gathered two serrried crowds of human beings, all save one having their faces and attention bent on the tables. The one exception was a melancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their natural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a fancy dress. He alone ...

From false astrologies and somewhat dismal rites,
changed into the undying and always laid aside,
I have kept a tendency, a solitary savour.

From conversations wasted like powdered lumber,
with the hummility of chairs, with words wrapped up
in slaving for a secondary will,
having that feel of milk, of wasted weeks,
of air locked above cities-

Who is able to boast a more enduring patience?
Prudence envelops me in a tight skin
of colour concentrated like a snake's:
my creatures are born of a wide recoil:
oh with one drink I can say goodbye to this day,
this day I picked from the sameness of earthly days.

Brim-full with substance of a common colour, silent,
I live like an old mother, patience impaled,
a church of shadows, the res-in-peace of bones.
I go, full of these waters profoundly bedded,
laid down in mournful, concentraled sleep.

In my guitar-like innards an old tune plays,
dry, rosonant, fixated, motionless,
a loyal diet, a puff of smoke:
a steady element, a living oil:
a sentinel bird looks after my head,
an invariable angel inhabits my sword.

Eugene karate

I started going down to Eugene to train with Pete and Marie, who I've known for 26 years, since I started in Shotokan. The vibe is good and Pete teaches a good class, with good concepts, and the feeling is that I'll probably start doing that on Fridays. It's only fifty minutes down there. We are training in a gym on 27th and willamette, whose name I forget. Eight bucks for a day pass, and the floor is a good wood floor. It just feels very relaxed and reminds me of the good old days in karate, when we had some fun and sweated a lot, and nobody broke any bones.

letters on the page

If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why this
could be muted, and the neighbor's laughter
and the static my senses make-
if all of it didn't keep me from coming awake-

then in one thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.-
rilke, book of hours

thoughtful thoughtations

"I wish to live ever as to derive my satisfactions and inspirations from the commonest events, every-day phenomena, so that what my senses hourly perceive, my daily walk, the conversation of my neighbors, may inspire me, and I may dream of no heaven but that which lies about me."-Thoreau

Is there, for honest poverty,
that hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
we dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
our tils obscure, an' a' that;
the rank is but the guinea's stamp;
the man's a gowd for a' that
-Robert Burns

sanctimony and starfish

Starfish and coffee
Sign of the times
annoying people
chopped wood
meowing cats.

poems penny each

Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God? For to be equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
And make the necessary embrace of breeding
Beautiful also as fire,
Not even the weeds to multiply without blossom
Nor the birds without music-
There is the great humaneness at the heart of things,
The extravagant kindness, the fountain
Humanity can understand, and would flow likewise
If power and desire...
-Robinson Jeffers

ship of fools (hunter/garcia) by me

industrial stuff in Portland

open mic

I'm playing at on open mic tonight at Fireworks in Corvallis.  Feel free to come down or tune into the webcast   starting at 9pm.  I won't be the only one playing, but I will probably be the only "Chris."  Maybe I can sell another cd.  I'm thinking of buying a whole bunch of equipment so that I can start playing cafes, because my voice definitely needs amplification.  My guitar is loud anyway, but my voice is kind of weak.  I think I would need a mixing board in addition to an  amplifier, because all I have right now is an acoustic with a pickup built in, and a microphone and stand for the microphone, and that is it.  I think I have the self-confidence to get up and sing and play for two hours, and I have enough songs, so I might as well get started.  However, there aren't a lot of venues in Corvallis, and I haven't got anything going as of yet.

I played the Interzone last year and it was a disaster.  I thought I had some good songs, but something about the atmosphere was just completely stultifying.  Plus there was like two people there.  At the most.

I used "I" about two zillion times in this post.  Does that mean I am self-centered?  Maybe.  But this is just about playing music.  It doesn't mean that I have zero concern for anybody else, which I undoubtedly do.  

It's art for art's sake, and I find that if I can concentrate on making the song sound the way I think it should sound then it works out, because I have a opinion that a song is good, and that if I play it right, it will sound good, which brings me to the fact that I'm playing exclusively songs that are written by somebody else, most likely Hunter/Garcia, Cat Stevens, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, or somebody similar.  Some of them are old folk songs that predate all these people.  Tonight I play on playing Bertha (Grateful Dead), Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel), Rubin and Cherise (Hunter/Garcia), Dry Your Eyes (Neil Diamond), Stella Blue, and maybe some more.

negative comments

One thing that really gets to me is getting negative comments.  It's like "Thank you for the time you spent to analyze my video and decide it was worth one star.  I really appreciate it."  It's especially funny to get the dismissive comments on my karate videos.  I may not have done the forms perfectly, or even close to it, but there was a considerable amount of training and practice involved.  And the commenter probably has never even done any karate at all, and  is in no position to give any criticism anyway.  Then there are the people that say my music is terrible.  Thank you for taking the time to take me down a peg.  Give yourself a pat on the back.  Whatever.  The music is what it is.  In any case, it is sincere.  That is good enough.  If it is sincere, nothing else matters.

  I won't name any names, but there are some funny bloggers around Corvallis, people that can take the most run of the mill incidents and make them seem funny or at least interesting.  The vast majority of blogs are not too readable, or at least not too readable unless you are friends with the person, but many are not too bad at all.

there is a breath through the air

the resilience leaves

but there is always that voice again

out there somewhere

wondering and calling

going through the motions

mining the conclusions

and the restless mannerisms and details

....here and there

life being what it is

Some guy is in the beanery playing a kind of guitar with a sound that is too high on the treble. He just did a John Denver song, and John Denver always kind of weirds me out for some reason. Denver's songs were bizarre. He was super-popular (I guess) for like two years in the seventies and then after that he was virtually forgotten. Anyway the guy playing tonight is not too bad, but he would do better with less treble on the amp.

I decided I have to be less materialistic. Do I really need an espresso maker? In the long run, it will cost money. In the long run, I'd be better off sticking to the teapot and drip coffee method. That's good enough.

I'm practicing for an open mic on Monday at Fireworks. Why bother? Why not. Life is about, among other things, art and the singing of nice songs, and playing of nice chords. That's as far as I could explain it. Besides, it's not like I don't have the time to practice. I'm thinking of putting together a story from my extensive journal entries, but as far as real work, I don't have any. Machinists are not in high demand at this point. But I'm continuing with the classes....

sittin' around the beanery

It was darn cold driving down here, and rainy, and it occurs to me that the rain may freeze up at some unpredictable point, maybe before I drive home.  The Bean seems to be closing early, possibly because they are worrying about the very same thing.

Is the Beanery my favorite coffee shop?  Yes it is.  This place has had quality coffee and atmosphere ever since the early seventies, so basically that is ever since I can remember.  They also have free music, big windows, and they are located in kind of a nice area near the river.   The Interzone has great coffee, but it is a small place, and being near campus it is dominated by young students that never seem to read the Oregonian.  Maybe they read it online, but probably not.

Having recently gotten a laptop, I am attempting to figure it out, but I have always been a big internet surfer, ever since the days of lynx and yahoo being a big deal.  There are some amusing local blogs...

In fact, there is so much online that it is impossible to keep track.  When it comes to sitting down and reading a book, though, there's no experience like a physical book made out of paper.  Furthermore, the writing on the internet has a fairly homogeneous feel to it.  If you go into some dusty book shop and pick out something by, say, Sir Walter Scott, or Thomas Wolfe, you will get something quite different; a more beautiful form of writing that is has a quantum difference from the usual pabulum.

Music:

Valerie Lopez played here Saturday night, and it was a standing room only crowd.  I wasn't too impressed with her the first time I saw her, about two months ago.  She seemed like she was trying to sound like a pop star rather than doing something original.  This time she seemed more real and interesting, and her guitar and banjo playing were good.  Moreover, she had a good band backing her up, and they were all good, from the bass player, to the drummer, to the flautist.   The crowd was nearly in hysterics.  That was a bit much.  She's good, ....maybe she deserves all the cheering,...but anyway it was a large crowd, that is for sure.

That Friday night was a band consisting of four young guys with nice instruments.  To bad they couldn't play them.  I think that some of them actually are pretty good at some of them, but the drummer should have been playing the guitar.  They were trying to play Southern Man and just totally destroyed it.  What a waste of a good guitar.  You can buy an expensive instrument, but if you can't do a bar chord and have no technique and don't practice, it won't help.  Then again....why rain on their parade if they were having fun?  Why not?  I just can't stand a song that is supposed the be played in a screaming and powerful style played in a weak and barely-there style.

Latch-Hook Robots at Interzone: loud and powerful sound, screaming vocalist.  Kind of not too bad, really.  Four stars.

political blog

The car companies are going under. What a drag. They haven't made too many good cars for a while now. So what to do? Well, according to the Senate Republicans, it is time to try to demand that wages go down for all auto workers. They can't stand to see any middle-class workers earning decent wages, and they can't stand to see any functioning unions. If it was up to them, we would all be serfs earning a dollar a day, working for the rich Republican overlords.

Anyway, the government has to demand major changes from the car companies, including seeing all the current CEO's losing their jobs. Furthermore, it is time to move into innovative, fuel efficient car designs. But right now, until Obama gets into office and comes up with something comprehensive, the country can't afford to see all those good jobs just instantly go away. We would be looking at depression level conditions, and total devastation. Furthermore, with credit the way it is, bankruptcy wouldn't lead the reorganization. With finance the way it is now, credit is not available, and we would see everything liquidated, and the factories empty and slowly rotting all over the country. Perhaps down the line, with a national health care plan, the car companies could reorganize and lose all of the expensive health care benefits for retirees that is a large part of why they can't function competitively.

the lamest

rendition of "Southern Man" that I have ever heard, I heard this evening. Talk about a flaccid version with the riff cut down to nothing at all. It was excruciating.

Man Carrying Thing

The poem must resist the intelligence
Almost successfully. Illustration:

A brune figure in winter evening resists
Identity. The thing he carries resists

The most necessitous sense. Accept them, then,
As secondary (parts not quite perceived

Of the obvious whole, uncertain particles
Of the certain solid, the primary free from doubt,

Things floating like the first hundred flakes of snow
Out of a storm we must endure all night,

Out of a storm of secondary things),
A horror of thoughts that suddenly are real.

We must endure our thoughts all night, until
The bright obvious stands motionless in cold.
-wallace stevens

brune:

1.
	a dance that caucasin males do when highly intoxicated. often includes some sort of grinding motion and an uncontrollable loss of control of the upper limbs. usually results in dancing by one's self on top of a box/elevated dance floor. a great move for clubs that play 80s favorties like Bon Jovi, Foreigner, and REO Speedwagon. By pulling out "the brune" at a club, usually results in the sad, but common, night alone. -urbandictionary.com

wondering at the languages I don't know

I wish I could read German. I have read many translations of Rilke. Some sound better than others, but they have many differences, leading me to wonder what the original actually contains.

Hail to the spirit, with power that connects;

for we live in figures. And with tiny steps

the hours go by, keeping pace

alongside our actual days.

In the absence of knowing our true location,

we deal with interrelation

the antennae feel the space

and the empty distances carry...

Pure tension. Oh music of forces at play!

From you, is not, through casual commerce,

every disturbance deflected away?

Even the farmer who works and lives

where seeds transform themselves to summers

never does enough. The earth bestows. -Sonnets to Orpheus, Ranier Maria Rilke

coffee 'n' stuff

there was a coffee spoon
given to me
however
I drink my coffee black
newspapers around
here and there
perhaps even the metro section

Johannes Agricola in Meditation- by Robert Browning

There's heaven above, and night by night

I look right through its gorgeous roof:

No suns and moons though e'er so bright

Avail to stop me; splendor-proof

I keep the broods of stars aloof:

Fir I intend to get to God.

For 't is to God I speed so fast

For in God's breast, my own abode,

Those shoals of dazzling glory, passed,

I lay my spirit down at last.

I lie where I have always lain,

God smiles as he has always smiled:

Ere stars were thudergirt, or piled

The heavens, God thought on me his child

Ordained a life for me, arrayed

Its circumstances, every one

etc.