moebius k at the beanery

These guys are finally starting to play as well as the quality of their instruments. I remember them playing a completely pathetic version of "Southern Man", but practice seems to be getting them into a kind of cool rocking zone.

That is always fun to see.

Apparently I am a "turbo" dishwasher. At the free meal this morning the head cook said that we may as well use my help because with my "turbo dishwashing" capabilities, they would be out of there earlier. It is true that I am an incredibly fast dishwasher, but that is not really something to brag about, for the most part. It is just a matter of prioritizing and getting the feel of using the standard industrial size dishwashing machine. I had eight years of on-the-job experience. It is not rocket science.

reading

John Cheever is an amazing writer.  Check his stuff out.  I was surfing through all the back issues of the New Yorker that are available to subscribers yesterday, because they were nice enough to provide links to all of the stories that J.D. Salinger published over the years.  It was interesting to read through them in their original typeface, with the original advertisements, everything exactly as it was in the original magazine when it came out.  I realized that Cheever was also probably in there somewhere, so I did a search and read one of his stories.  He has a distinct and gripping style, but not overstated or even loud in any way.

Harold Evans, an editor of the London Times and other papers, just came out with a memoir called My Paper Chase.  According to him, he definitely did a lot of work to uncover corruption of various kinds, pollution, to get the story on tyrants and maniacs in political power, and generally did the job an editor should be doing.  He was eventually forced out by Rupert Murdoch.  No surprise there.

Murdoch actually in some ways was kind of an admirable businessman.  At the time he took over the London Times, the printers' union had excessive power and was continually making demands and shutting things down.  Murdoch build an entirely new printing facility out of town on the ruse that he was starting up a new paper.  He shut down the presses and staffed the new presses with non-union people, managing to break the power of the unions.  It was quite an audacious move, and according to Harold Evans, something that needed to be done.

But the most important thing about Murdoch is that he owns Fox news.  That is unforgivable.

murdering the silence

"the band was not so much playing music as murdering the silence with a vulgar, ferocious energy." LOL. -from Victory, by Joseph Conrad.

What a terrific couple of days. NOT. Some idiot Republican with a truck gets elected in Massachusetts, and the spineless Democrats wuss out on passing what would have been a major major piece of legislation.

Then the Supreme Court overrules the law to decide that corporations can spend unlimited funds to get whoever they want elected.

Talk about a bad day.

If that health plan doesn't pass I don't know what I am going to do. Maybe move to the Brooks Range and make my living by spearing fish.

karate

There is a set way to do every kata. Of course there can be variations, but the kata has to work with the application that you have in mind. At the same time, there are certain principles that remain more or less the same. For example, the tension, inside and outside, in the stances works the same way in every case. There is a certain coordination that will allow maximum speed through stepping techniques, coordinated with their upper body movements. If one always strives to move in that way, then in a real world fighting situation, things may not be so perfect, but your technique will be stronger and faster and will have less extraneous and unnecessary motion than it would otherwise. Shotokan karate as taught by Nishiyama was optimized for speed and for maximum impact for each technique, combined with the greatest possible stability. It is an amazing system and a genuinely new invention in the way the body can coordinate through technique.

Shotokan also has the aspect of kata (forms) which is a similarity to the forms of something like Tai Chi. So karate is not all about fighting, but is also about relaxation and going through movements that may also have a meditative aspect.

fixin' cars.

life is a jaded path and a soporific meandering....

I spent about five hours trying to change an alternator, and almost broke down crying at several different points. The thing to know about alternators is a)have the tools for the job, and b)buy a headlamp so you can see what you are doing. I think I got it in there okay. If I break down somewhere in the pouring rain, probably on the freeway late at night, then I will know that I didn't install it right.

weird-ass ice cream

Here's a bizarre fragment of a story. Completely fictional.



I walked up over the tracks and came to the railroad crossing sign. It looked and felt satanic in the predawn cold, and I felt an evil sort of energy. Down the street, past some trailer parks of the wrecked variety, and the "King Kone", weird-ass fast food shack, I came upon an old and twisted white church. A cat was sitting in front of it, as if waiting for me. I stopped, and then passed by. The street felt more and more threatening, and a strange looking fat guy came out of a wrecked trailer. There was evil looking detritus strewn out all over the front of that trailer. He said "I can't see who it is!", maybe at me, or maybe at someone else. Trucks were rushing by, all the same make and model all in perfect condition, all zooming their engines. I started thinking I was going being watched, but there was a girl my age looking at me. We talked, and she gave me a brownie and some chocolate milk, and blew her whistle at the trucks, called them weak, and said she was just waiting to go to church with her aunt. She said we are all sons and daughters of hippies, and she was getting nervous. I was too. There was a white truck just down the way, revving its engine. I thought I was trapped at that point by some demonic force that was completely foreign to me. We sat down next to a building, and a long-haired type guy came by on a strange long bicycle that looked as if it was custom made and then covered in dirt and grime. He sat down. He said he was going to get propane.

long beard waving in the wind
strange long and silent bicycle
down the dark streets
going across town
looking for some propane.

Pomes '94

#1
to transform a thought into reality
as a cat whose eyes appear first.
or the circular out of the hand in the air
on its way to a certain image,
and the hope, unfolding in manifold leaves
of infinite possibility in the rising sun
or is it the setting of the earth?
or is it in fact that way, Black Peter?
when you feel the force leaving you,
was it there in your old forgotten self
wrapped up in untapped pouring?
or was it flitting by under the thunder
by restless wings?

#2
a girl in a blue volks
pulls up by the curb
a second cup of coffee
the steam rising on the wood
rays of setting sun down Clinton
trees and telephone poles in relief

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.

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.