My memory of Davy Jones will forever consist of an image I have of him sitting across the dining room table from me, dressed in a grey shirt and black blazer. He might have black jeans on, or blue jeans, I don't remember. I remember he was drinking red wine. His girlfriend, considerably younger than him (bravo, Davy, she was fine), is in a pink sweater and khaki pants drinking white wine. Davy is totally the center of attention tonight, and we're all totally okay with that. Here I am, 13 or 14 years old, too young to have experienced the Monkees in their moment but certainly not ignorant to their lasting impact, and what a marvelous trip it was to have the guy who sang "Wake up sleeeepy Jean, oh what can it mean to uh...day-DREAM believer and uh, homecoming queen!" sitting across from me, vibing off the conversation and laughing and making us laugh. We didn't talk about the Monkees too much, no, Davy knew something about the higher level of vibration and he kept us there. I brought up a funny recording I heard of a Japanese singer named Dokaka who has recorded some hilarious a cappella metal tunes, in particular his Raining Blood cover, during which he makes a strange sound by buzzing his lips loose and plucking them with a finger, like you do when you're a kid trying to make silly sounds. I was trying to describe it to Davy, who seemed a little confused, but then he clarified the matter by demonstrating the technique I was describing. Amidst the uproar, and maybe my dad asking "what are you doing?", Davy pronounced that he was practicing his heavy-metal-a-cappella techniques, didn't-ya-know?
Even up until a few days ago, I've told stories about that evening to many different people I have come across. Again and again, an important detail comes up about Davy: his humanity. When he walked into our vestibule that evening, he was a myth to me. He still is, in some ways, but at the table that night he brought us all into the moment, and he made us laugh like an old friend does. He infatuated us with his spirit and good nature, like a new friend does when we meet them, vibing off the newfound connection. It wasn't a celebrity walking into our house that day, it was just a dude with his girlfriend happy that some people had invited them for dinner.
Now that Davy Jones has left his body, he's out there, the particles of his humanity floating further and further out into the world he took them from. It warms me to think that little bits of Davy Jones' essence are working their way into the dark corners of the universe, into hearts and minds of both the despairing and the jovial. Anyone could use a dose of the good energy this guy had, and now he shares it with all of us. As we mourn his death and reflect on his life, we can imbibe his spirit and feel his love and energy fuel our hearts, our voices, our dreams. Thanks Davy.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Seattle to Sacramento
Dr. E. Zmon dropped me off with his freshly freshened orange 1971 Chevy truck at King Street station in Seattle Chinatown at five past nine in the morning. The sky was clear except for a few wisps of cloud, but really a beautiful day for Seattle by all counts. I had two guitars and an amalgamation of bags and backpacks and shoes tied together, an amalgamation that weighed in at about 75 lbs. The doctor tossed me one last parting gift over the truck bed from where he was standing on the other side, a sealed pouch that I stuck in the smaller backpack belonging to the amalgamation. We said our goodbyes, shook hands and patted each other on the back, and I left the orange truck and my life in Seattle to write a new chapter in Colorado.
I got my boarding pass five minutes before baggage check was over, and I scrambled to untie all the pieces from my big pack, which I tossed on the belt along with a hard-case guitar. Five dollars to keep that guitar out of harms way. A worthy price, I thought.
Mine was the last car of the train, car 1113, and I boarded, went upstairs and grabbed the first seat I saw, directly in front of the stairs. I put most of my crap in the space above and had the rest of my crap by my feet. A blanket, a guitar, a bottle of wine, headphones, laptop and dj materials, a bag of salty junk food and instant soup and candy bars, and the doctor's medicine.
At the first stop, I think it might have been Tacoma, I couldn't wait any longer and I wanted to step outside and enjoy a little puff. I cracked the vacuum seal and immediately it smelled as if the ghost of Bob Marley himself was in my backpack with no desire to be contained.
I got back on the train, and people walking by were sniffing the air saying, "Damn it smells good here," and then some old black guy said "mannn, all we got is these cigarettes I want some of that shit" Lots of giggles and looks and "ooo-wees!" filled the train car before and after every stop thereafter.
Portland was the biggest stop yet. It was a little before noon, and lots of people got off, and lots of people got on. Someone all in black sat down in the row behind and to the right of me, talking loudly on the phone. It was a girl, and she could have been talking to her boyfriend or some friend but that didn't matter...every word she said was like a line from a movie, and I chuckled and sometimes outright laughed at her punchlines. Her voice was slightly hoarse from smoking and talking loudly all the time, with a papery valour that sounds dry enough sometimes that you almost need a glass of water, but with enough honey that you can just listen, breathe it in, drink it down and revel in the beauty of a mysterious voice.
"I'm going downstairs," she said to the person on the other end of the line, "I can't say what I want with all these PEOPLE around," and she said people with a deep plosive that made the sentence drop and fall to the ground like a brick. Wonderful. She went downstairs and I listened to the rhythm of her sybillance patterns echoing up through the stairwell.
This girl was kickass. All she talked about was drinking and smoking and being wild and free in general, playing shows and throwing bar parties...I knew we would be friends, all I needed to do was say, "Come on, sit over here..." and she was back in her seat, sitting down. I looked over and no sound came out at first, maybe a slight cock of the head, a pat on the seat, and finally "Do you want to sit here with me?"
"I'd love to, that would be great," she said.
She told me about hopping trains, about how you can't hop a train from Seattle to San Francisco because you go through more than 20 tunnels where, if you were in an open boxcar you would surely suffocate. When trains go through tunnels, she said, they travel very slowly, at about 2-5 mph. Carbon monoxide fills the tunnel, and while normal riders are safe in the ventilated passenger cars, boxcar riders are faced with the perils of CO poisoning and suffocation. Some wear gasmasks, others nothing but a bandana for protection, but regardless trainhopping (especially through tunnels) is a dangerous propostion. Of all the train hoppers she knew, including herself, she's only known two to survive the journey from Seattle to San Fran. I was glad now that I hadn't hopped a train from Seattle, a thought that had crossed my mind for a moment but then fortunately drifted off in the breeze.
Her name was Estzer (it said on her ID), born in Hungary and since had moved to Portland and then Oakland. She had been visiting some friends in the former city, and was now on her way home to the latter. Estzer and I finished the bottle of wine I had cracked that morning, along with overpriced Amtrak bar drinks, and we sat in the observation car and met a blond-haired suit named Marcus. Apparently the suit was all a decoy because he was talking about how excited he was for Burning Man, and how his harvest was supposed to be done just weeks before. Marcus got off in Eugene, and the three of us smoked a little joint before Estzer and I sent Marcus on his way.
After Eugene Estzer found a messy-lookin kid who blew her up a xanny bar. She came back to our seat and took out her phone, ready to call this old friend in Portland who she had been arguing with the night before. "Ok get ready I gotta make a prrretty emotional phone call," she said with the emphasis on the rrr in pretty. She went down to the bottom of the stairwell and started talking. It sounded like it was going well until she came back up, almost ready to cry. She told me, "I was about to tell this person who I have been in love with for 3 years how I feel about them, and then service cut out! WHY!?!" Wasn't the right time I told her, and she said "Apparently not," with a grumbly sigh. "Fuck."
She had Clerks on DVD and I had a laptop, so we put it in and turned the volume up and started watching Dante and Randal and Jay & Silent Bob and then scrappy-doo with the Xanax came to our seat trying asking Estzer for his ten-dollar bill. "I think you walked off with my ten homie. It was rolled up, had some powder on it—" the strung-out sixteen-year-old didn't get a chance to finish, because Eztser, almost leaping out of her seat and down his throat exclaimed, "I don't have your ten dollars, look I got a hundred bucks in my wallet and you think I give a FUCK about your ten dollars?" I thought she was gonna push him right down the stairs; there was fire in her voice and this kid looked like...well, a kid strung out on downers. He didn't stand a chance. She emptied her wallet, showed him she had nothing with powder or the like on it, nothing rolled up, tossed him an extra "fuck off" and he walked away and we giggled.
Sometime around the hockey game on the quick-stop roof Estzer got back in touch with her friend from Portland, texting back and forth and I was rooting for her, but to no avail. Her friend didn't seem much interested in conversation, at least that's what I gathered from her end of things. We let it pass by, kept on laughing at Clerks and about Randal's cousin who breaks his neck sucking his own dick and then uproars when Dante and Randal run out of the funeral home and Dante slides across the hood of his car and they speed away after Randal knocks the casket over. "She's dead, its not like you're worried if she's gonna break something...at least I put her back in! (probably quoted erroneously, my apologies to Kevin Smith)"
It was getting dark outside, and the stewardess asked us to turn off the movie. "Its only got thirty minutes left, we can turn it down a little," I said, and she smiled and said that was okay and she walked on further down the car. With the volume low, we leaned in to hear, and our faces touched. We stayed there, leaning in, cheek to cheek, and I could smell her scent and her breath and I could feel her hair brushing against my ear.
When the movie was over, and when we were ready for sleep, she said "Is it alright if I put my legs over you?"
"That's absolutely fine," I said, "go right ahead." We sidled in closer and closer, until we were nearly knotted together, holding hands and giving little sighs of comfort, the sigh that you give when there's someone there, just someone there to love you and be loved by you. We held hands, I comforted her about her friend from Portland, and she comforted me to sleep, washing away any fear or anxiety that might have been lingering in my heart.
Sacramento came all too soon. A little before six in the morning we saw city lights, woke up and untied our bodies, and Estzer pulled out a cigarette and went downstairs and outside. I asked a mom with her kids if we were in fact in Sactown, and my suspicion was confirmed. I gathered my belongings and headed for the platform.
There was Estzer, black bangs and black glasses, a black pack of cigarettes, black shirt, black jacket black bat belt, black packpack; all a strange juxtaposition to the vibrance of her soul. She dragged her cigarette, and we talked of our journeys ahead. She was going to be in Oakland soon, and I had a six hour layover before heading west across the mountains to the land of milk and honey. The conductor called all aboard, and we thanked each other profusely for the best train ride either of us had ever had. We exchanged numbers, and I told her I would call her if I was ever in Oakland. She told me to text her from the train, "Keep me entertained," she said. We hugged goodbye, and I made my way to the waiting room as she boarded back on the train to Oakland. As soon as I sat down on the wooden peuh, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket: "NEW TXT MSG from Estzer". I opened my phone, and a bittersweet smile spread across my heart because then I knew that she had appreciated everything we had shared in our brief moment together, and I knew that it could be the last time I ever saw her. "I miss you already" it said. Later, after a few texts I told her, "I miss you too."
Its 8:21 AM now, and I'm in the Starbucks down the street from the Sacramento Valley railway station, waiting to take the 11:09 Chicago-bound to Denver. An old life lies behind me, and a new one lies ahead, but here and now there is only here and now, and whatever joys this moment brings we must grasp with all our might because in the blink of an eye they could be gone, and it is up to us to revel in that joy and happiness while we can feel it.
I got my boarding pass five minutes before baggage check was over, and I scrambled to untie all the pieces from my big pack, which I tossed on the belt along with a hard-case guitar. Five dollars to keep that guitar out of harms way. A worthy price, I thought.
Mine was the last car of the train, car 1113, and I boarded, went upstairs and grabbed the first seat I saw, directly in front of the stairs. I put most of my crap in the space above and had the rest of my crap by my feet. A blanket, a guitar, a bottle of wine, headphones, laptop and dj materials, a bag of salty junk food and instant soup and candy bars, and the doctor's medicine.
At the first stop, I think it might have been Tacoma, I couldn't wait any longer and I wanted to step outside and enjoy a little puff. I cracked the vacuum seal and immediately it smelled as if the ghost of Bob Marley himself was in my backpack with no desire to be contained.
I got back on the train, and people walking by were sniffing the air saying, "Damn it smells good here," and then some old black guy said "mannn, all we got is these cigarettes I want some of that shit" Lots of giggles and looks and "ooo-wees!" filled the train car before and after every stop thereafter.
Portland was the biggest stop yet. It was a little before noon, and lots of people got off, and lots of people got on. Someone all in black sat down in the row behind and to the right of me, talking loudly on the phone. It was a girl, and she could have been talking to her boyfriend or some friend but that didn't matter...every word she said was like a line from a movie, and I chuckled and sometimes outright laughed at her punchlines. Her voice was slightly hoarse from smoking and talking loudly all the time, with a papery valour that sounds dry enough sometimes that you almost need a glass of water, but with enough honey that you can just listen, breathe it in, drink it down and revel in the beauty of a mysterious voice.
"I'm going downstairs," she said to the person on the other end of the line, "I can't say what I want with all these PEOPLE around," and she said people with a deep plosive that made the sentence drop and fall to the ground like a brick. Wonderful. She went downstairs and I listened to the rhythm of her sybillance patterns echoing up through the stairwell.
This girl was kickass. All she talked about was drinking and smoking and being wild and free in general, playing shows and throwing bar parties...I knew we would be friends, all I needed to do was say, "Come on, sit over here..." and she was back in her seat, sitting down. I looked over and no sound came out at first, maybe a slight cock of the head, a pat on the seat, and finally "Do you want to sit here with me?"
"I'd love to, that would be great," she said.
She told me about hopping trains, about how you can't hop a train from Seattle to San Francisco because you go through more than 20 tunnels where, if you were in an open boxcar you would surely suffocate. When trains go through tunnels, she said, they travel very slowly, at about 2-5 mph. Carbon monoxide fills the tunnel, and while normal riders are safe in the ventilated passenger cars, boxcar riders are faced with the perils of CO poisoning and suffocation. Some wear gasmasks, others nothing but a bandana for protection, but regardless trainhopping (especially through tunnels) is a dangerous propostion. Of all the train hoppers she knew, including herself, she's only known two to survive the journey from Seattle to San Fran. I was glad now that I hadn't hopped a train from Seattle, a thought that had crossed my mind for a moment but then fortunately drifted off in the breeze.
Her name was Estzer (it said on her ID), born in Hungary and since had moved to Portland and then Oakland. She had been visiting some friends in the former city, and was now on her way home to the latter. Estzer and I finished the bottle of wine I had cracked that morning, along with overpriced Amtrak bar drinks, and we sat in the observation car and met a blond-haired suit named Marcus. Apparently the suit was all a decoy because he was talking about how excited he was for Burning Man, and how his harvest was supposed to be done just weeks before. Marcus got off in Eugene, and the three of us smoked a little joint before Estzer and I sent Marcus on his way.
After Eugene Estzer found a messy-lookin kid who blew her up a xanny bar. She came back to our seat and took out her phone, ready to call this old friend in Portland who she had been arguing with the night before. "Ok get ready I gotta make a prrretty emotional phone call," she said with the emphasis on the rrr in pretty. She went down to the bottom of the stairwell and started talking. It sounded like it was going well until she came back up, almost ready to cry. She told me, "I was about to tell this person who I have been in love with for 3 years how I feel about them, and then service cut out! WHY!?!" Wasn't the right time I told her, and she said "Apparently not," with a grumbly sigh. "Fuck."
She had Clerks on DVD and I had a laptop, so we put it in and turned the volume up and started watching Dante and Randal and Jay & Silent Bob and then scrappy-doo with the Xanax came to our seat trying asking Estzer for his ten-dollar bill. "I think you walked off with my ten homie. It was rolled up, had some powder on it—" the strung-out sixteen-year-old didn't get a chance to finish, because Eztser, almost leaping out of her seat and down his throat exclaimed, "I don't have your ten dollars, look I got a hundred bucks in my wallet and you think I give a FUCK about your ten dollars?" I thought she was gonna push him right down the stairs; there was fire in her voice and this kid looked like...well, a kid strung out on downers. He didn't stand a chance. She emptied her wallet, showed him she had nothing with powder or the like on it, nothing rolled up, tossed him an extra "fuck off" and he walked away and we giggled.
Sometime around the hockey game on the quick-stop roof Estzer got back in touch with her friend from Portland, texting back and forth and I was rooting for her, but to no avail. Her friend didn't seem much interested in conversation, at least that's what I gathered from her end of things. We let it pass by, kept on laughing at Clerks and about Randal's cousin who breaks his neck sucking his own dick and then uproars when Dante and Randal run out of the funeral home and Dante slides across the hood of his car and they speed away after Randal knocks the casket over. "She's dead, its not like you're worried if she's gonna break something...at least I put her back in! (probably quoted erroneously, my apologies to Kevin Smith)"
It was getting dark outside, and the stewardess asked us to turn off the movie. "Its only got thirty minutes left, we can turn it down a little," I said, and she smiled and said that was okay and she walked on further down the car. With the volume low, we leaned in to hear, and our faces touched. We stayed there, leaning in, cheek to cheek, and I could smell her scent and her breath and I could feel her hair brushing against my ear.
When the movie was over, and when we were ready for sleep, she said "Is it alright if I put my legs over you?"
"That's absolutely fine," I said, "go right ahead." We sidled in closer and closer, until we were nearly knotted together, holding hands and giving little sighs of comfort, the sigh that you give when there's someone there, just someone there to love you and be loved by you. We held hands, I comforted her about her friend from Portland, and she comforted me to sleep, washing away any fear or anxiety that might have been lingering in my heart.
Sacramento came all too soon. A little before six in the morning we saw city lights, woke up and untied our bodies, and Estzer pulled out a cigarette and went downstairs and outside. I asked a mom with her kids if we were in fact in Sactown, and my suspicion was confirmed. I gathered my belongings and headed for the platform.
There was Estzer, black bangs and black glasses, a black pack of cigarettes, black shirt, black jacket black bat belt, black packpack; all a strange juxtaposition to the vibrance of her soul. She dragged her cigarette, and we talked of our journeys ahead. She was going to be in Oakland soon, and I had a six hour layover before heading west across the mountains to the land of milk and honey. The conductor called all aboard, and we thanked each other profusely for the best train ride either of us had ever had. We exchanged numbers, and I told her I would call her if I was ever in Oakland. She told me to text her from the train, "Keep me entertained," she said. We hugged goodbye, and I made my way to the waiting room as she boarded back on the train to Oakland. As soon as I sat down on the wooden peuh, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket: "NEW TXT MSG from Estzer". I opened my phone, and a bittersweet smile spread across my heart because then I knew that she had appreciated everything we had shared in our brief moment together, and I knew that it could be the last time I ever saw her. "I miss you already" it said. Later, after a few texts I told her, "I miss you too."
Its 8:21 AM now, and I'm in the Starbucks down the street from the Sacramento Valley railway station, waiting to take the 11:09 Chicago-bound to Denver. An old life lies behind me, and a new one lies ahead, but here and now there is only here and now, and whatever joys this moment brings we must grasp with all our might because in the blink of an eye they could be gone, and it is up to us to revel in that joy and happiness while we can feel it.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Last night...
I stuck out my thumb just past the one stop light on vashon island for the second time, and a white work truck that had been waiting at the red signal pulled through the intersection and over next to the curb where I was standing with a beautiful woman with whom I shared our first kiss minutes before. I opened the door and inside sat a friendly-looking man with glasses, a salt-and-paprika beard, and a faded baseball cap with a metal clasp in the back. "Are you going towards the ferry?" I asked, and he nodded. I quickly kissed my girl goodbye as I got in the passenger seat. "Just one," I mentioned to the driver. I closed the door, waved goodbye to my date (who lives close to where we were), and the white pickup drove into the night.
"What's your name?" I asked the friendly stranger as we wound along Vashon Highway, the dark artery of the island.
"Coffee heath bar?" he replied, and extended a freshly cracked pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with a spoon stuck in it cockeyed. I accepted readily, ate a few spoonfuls, and I asked his name again, this time to no response. I ate more ice cream.
"What do you do for work?" Some obscure answer about water consulting, then, almost as an afterthought, "...I also teach nonviolent communication."
This intrigued me. Earlier that day I had been talking with Jean about that very subject. His friend Sarah brought it up when we met at the public house last week, and her words had resonated with Jean and he had been bringing it up in different situations. Now, here I found myself with a generous soul who again brought up, "...nonviolent communication. Its about looking past the words someone is saying, looking past the emotional content and reading into the deep dream and desire that everyone is trying to express, what everyone is really trying to say" he explained.
"And what is that?" I asked. He went on to say that really the questions on everyone's mind are "How can you make my life more wonderful?" and "How can I make your life more wonderful?" All anyone wants is to be able to accept people and be accepted, be loved, and be heard he told me. I told him of moments when I might be talking with a friend and I might raise my voice. He told me that's just the desire to be heard. It brought me back to discussions with Jean about what Sarah had said, that one person has one point of view, another person has a different one, and if each person can understand the other point of view, and stand in the other person's shoes, then they can reach an understanding.
As we approached the ferry landing, the driver continued talking and the thoughts connected in my mind. All that any human wants is to feel that brotherhood, sisterhood, that total love, acceptance, and acknowledgment from people around them. The anger, the sadness, and the fear that is transmuted when we communicate stems from a misunderstanding, from someone not feeling heard. If we practice nonviolent communication, we can perpetuate love and understanding and we can teach ourselves and others how to really be good to each other. Let me put an emphasis on "ourselves." It's so easy to write off somebody's actions as offensive or somehow contradictory to our values, but if we can look past that and see into the dreams that we all share then we can work through those differences, hand in hand, brother and sister, all bound by love...
The truck was now stopped, and cars were pouring onto the ferry. I had to get going. I thanked the driver from the bottom of my heart, shook his hand, and asked one more time, "What was your name, sir?"
"Doug," he said with a smile. "Yours?"
"Andy." I replied, and wishing Doug a goodnight I walked down towards the water. The gate had already closed between the road and the ferry, and I was the last one on the boat before It disembarked back across the sound to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal.
"What's your name?" I asked the friendly stranger as we wound along Vashon Highway, the dark artery of the island.
"Coffee heath bar?" he replied, and extended a freshly cracked pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream with a spoon stuck in it cockeyed. I accepted readily, ate a few spoonfuls, and I asked his name again, this time to no response. I ate more ice cream.
"What do you do for work?" Some obscure answer about water consulting, then, almost as an afterthought, "...I also teach nonviolent communication."
This intrigued me. Earlier that day I had been talking with Jean about that very subject. His friend Sarah brought it up when we met at the public house last week, and her words had resonated with Jean and he had been bringing it up in different situations. Now, here I found myself with a generous soul who again brought up, "...nonviolent communication. Its about looking past the words someone is saying, looking past the emotional content and reading into the deep dream and desire that everyone is trying to express, what everyone is really trying to say" he explained.
"And what is that?" I asked. He went on to say that really the questions on everyone's mind are "How can you make my life more wonderful?" and "How can I make your life more wonderful?" All anyone wants is to be able to accept people and be accepted, be loved, and be heard he told me. I told him of moments when I might be talking with a friend and I might raise my voice. He told me that's just the desire to be heard. It brought me back to discussions with Jean about what Sarah had said, that one person has one point of view, another person has a different one, and if each person can understand the other point of view, and stand in the other person's shoes, then they can reach an understanding.
As we approached the ferry landing, the driver continued talking and the thoughts connected in my mind. All that any human wants is to feel that brotherhood, sisterhood, that total love, acceptance, and acknowledgment from people around them. The anger, the sadness, and the fear that is transmuted when we communicate stems from a misunderstanding, from someone not feeling heard. If we practice nonviolent communication, we can perpetuate love and understanding and we can teach ourselves and others how to really be good to each other. Let me put an emphasis on "ourselves." It's so easy to write off somebody's actions as offensive or somehow contradictory to our values, but if we can look past that and see into the dreams that we all share then we can work through those differences, hand in hand, brother and sister, all bound by love...
The truck was now stopped, and cars were pouring onto the ferry. I had to get going. I thanked the driver from the bottom of my heart, shook his hand, and asked one more time, "What was your name, sir?"
"Doug," he said with a smile. "Yours?"
"Andy." I replied, and wishing Doug a goodnight I walked down towards the water. The gate had already closed between the road and the ferry, and I was the last one on the boat before It disembarked back across the sound to the Fauntleroy ferry terminal.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Boulder 2
I'm here in Denver International Airport waiting at the gate for my flight to leave for PHX. Once there, I'll simply have to wait in my seat while people deboard, board, wait while the flight attendants say the same thing they said a couple hours before, and then hopefully get a little half-sleep before touching down in Seattle. At the moment, I have about three hours in this airport to reflect on everything that has transpired in the past two weeks.
I saw some people who I hadn't seen in years and it felt like just days. I reconnected with old friends, and I made new friends. In a few cases, I turned some loose relationships into new friendships that I hope will last in my absence. I have had a little reconciliation for trespasses against me, and while I don't feel a total sense of closure, there are some things I can move on from now; I can keep my eyes on the road ahead.
I had some crazy nights like only Boulder can offer, and I have had some incredibly peaceful nights and days like I haven't known for a long time. I've seen beautiful sun, beautiful mountains, beautiful women, and many more of the beautiful things that boulder has to offer.
The most beautiful part of Colorado is the people. In particular the musicians I get to play with when I am here. It's a good group of friendly, honest people who all love to play music. I came out in part to do a gig, but even though two bookings fell through, a wonderful opportunity opened up a couple days ago, and it was the perfect cap on this Colorado adventure
I played a satisfying amount of music with a diverse crew on Saturday night. The band Lunch Box hosted a day-long jam session/house concert in Nederland complete with a full drum kit including a Roland SPD; a full keyboard rig comprised of a Microkorg, a Yamaha Motif, and an old Hammond spinnet organ with drawbars (I think it might have been an A-3 but I never checked); a whole host of top-of-the-line guitar amps; lights; a 16-track digital recording rig; and to top it off a keg of Hazed & Infused that lasted for many hours of jamming.
I arrived with Technicolor Tone Factory around four o'clock in the afternoon, and music had already commenced. Over the course of the day, the sound of jams and performances by Lunch Box, Technicolor Tone Factory, The Magic Beans, and others filled the high-ceilinged living room. By 2 AM, TTF had finished their second set and the crowd had become increasingly more select. A few minutes later I stood up to play the first live Sonic Geometry set since February in Boston, and it was very well received by those who were there to receive it. The reactions I received have given me supreme confidence to go forward with what I have been doing all this time.
When the clock struck 4:20 we were still passing an acoustic guitar around the campfire, everyone joining in familiar songs. My dear friend Jarrod (guitar player for TTF) and I had a moment to sing each others' songs, an opportunity that has come much too rare in the past couple years. Hopefully soon he and I will share that opportunity again. Until that time, I'll sing about my brother.
I saw some people who I hadn't seen in years and it felt like just days. I reconnected with old friends, and I made new friends. In a few cases, I turned some loose relationships into new friendships that I hope will last in my absence. I have had a little reconciliation for trespasses against me, and while I don't feel a total sense of closure, there are some things I can move on from now; I can keep my eyes on the road ahead.
I had some crazy nights like only Boulder can offer, and I have had some incredibly peaceful nights and days like I haven't known for a long time. I've seen beautiful sun, beautiful mountains, beautiful women, and many more of the beautiful things that boulder has to offer.
The most beautiful part of Colorado is the people. In particular the musicians I get to play with when I am here. It's a good group of friendly, honest people who all love to play music. I came out in part to do a gig, but even though two bookings fell through, a wonderful opportunity opened up a couple days ago, and it was the perfect cap on this Colorado adventure
I played a satisfying amount of music with a diverse crew on Saturday night. The band Lunch Box hosted a day-long jam session/house concert in Nederland complete with a full drum kit including a Roland SPD; a full keyboard rig comprised of a Microkorg, a Yamaha Motif, and an old Hammond spinnet organ with drawbars (I think it might have been an A-3 but I never checked); a whole host of top-of-the-line guitar amps; lights; a 16-track digital recording rig; and to top it off a keg of Hazed & Infused that lasted for many hours of jamming.
I arrived with Technicolor Tone Factory around four o'clock in the afternoon, and music had already commenced. Over the course of the day, the sound of jams and performances by Lunch Box, Technicolor Tone Factory, The Magic Beans, and others filled the high-ceilinged living room. By 2 AM, TTF had finished their second set and the crowd had become increasingly more select. A few minutes later I stood up to play the first live Sonic Geometry set since February in Boston, and it was very well received by those who were there to receive it. The reactions I received have given me supreme confidence to go forward with what I have been doing all this time.
When the clock struck 4:20 we were still passing an acoustic guitar around the campfire, everyone joining in familiar songs. My dear friend Jarrod (guitar player for TTF) and I had a moment to sing each others' songs, an opportunity that has come much too rare in the past couple years. Hopefully soon he and I will share that opportunity again. Until that time, I'll sing about my brother.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Geometry
One night after playing a house party in Boston, a young reveler asked me why I called the music Sonic Geometry. She didn't see the connection, she said, between the music and the name, and I had no satisfying answer. This question led me on a journey through dusty tomes and ancient records, antique measuring systems and their sacred roots, and ultimately to the deeply metaphysical question, "What is our reality made of?"
To that question I may never know the answer, but I have discovered that if we look at small particles like cells, they have many geometric structures in them based on simple, small whole number ratios that are present all through nature, as well as in art and music. The smaller we go, down to atoms and subatomic particles, the rule of ratios holds true, and geometric forms still spring from the most microscopic of woodwork. This seems to indicate there is a structure, simple and beautiful, upon which we stretch the canvas of our manifested reality. No matter if we look closely with a microscope or step back to see the big picture, the world turns into a beautiful kaleidoscope and we witness The Sacred Geometry of Life...
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Boulder
Touched down in Denver at 9:00 PM last night, crashed in Westminster, and now I'm here in Boulder. Ahhh, what a beautiful place, what a beautiful feeling. Seeing all the sun and the people gets me goin...I'm waiting at a friends house waiting for a new musical toy to arrive in the mail, in the mean time trying to link up so I can sink in with everyone now that I'm back in the swing of this neverland. Also, putting last tweaks on my Ableton sets in preparation for music making over the next week and a half. Now to it...
-Andy
-Andy
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Journeys
Life is a journey, literally. Last August I left the apartment I had for two years in Colorado for big promises in Louisiana, but before the end of December I was en route to my parents' house in Massachusetts where I stayed. I came to Seattle in March, and here I've stayed, though the circle will be complete when I fly into Denver tonight for a two-week visit to my favorite state. In the more typical metaphorical sense, the "journey of life" has been even greater and more expansive than my physical travels across the United States. I have had the opportunity to learn both beautiful truths and harsh lessons, I have struggled in the face of adversity, and I will struggle more, but these are the tribulations that give way only to blissful metamorphosis of the spirit.
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