Wednesday Duologues: Beth Holub

Man... I'm such a slacker!  I totally spaced on the duologue this week and had to ask for volunteers on my Facebook page this morning!  lucky for me, Beth came through!  It was such a pleasure getting to know her better.... 

me:  hey! you're a lifesaver - again!

and actually this is perfect, since i interviewed all the other ladies who took part in our little leonard cohen escapade...

Beth: cool

me: here's the first duologue i did, with explanation: http://thisbluesinger.blogspot.com/2010/08/wednesday-duologues-brendan-boogie.html

so you can read it and opt out if you like :)

Beth: let me grab my breakfast really quick

okay

me: breakfast is key.

Beth: Hey. sorry my internet has been acting up

Blog sounds cool

me: no worries. got breakfast?

Beth: yup

me: good. i have coffee, so i think we're all set.

so usually i start with the question, "who are you?" but lately i've been thinking the chats are so abstract - we don't really have any picture of the chatters. we could be typing naked on a ferris wheel, for all anyone knows. (which would be awesome.) so i think i'm going to start out by asking: what's one object in your immediate environment?

Beth: Humm, I am surrounded by a ton of worldly stuff...I hat three hats from Mongolia I got as a Christmas present from my former boss.

me: wow! my boss always just gives me a desk calendar...

2010 is cats.

so not as cool.

Beth: that's a good way to have cats...as a picture so they can't sit ON the stuff you are trying to work on, or wine at your door for hours on end.

me: so true. i have one of those at home. major whiner. do you have cats?

Beth: no, no pets. I live vicariously through other people and their owning of pets

me: smart woman.

okay so - who are you? :)

Beth: Classical musician who started playing viola with rock bands when she was 15, ex-pat from Arizona, Arts Administrator

me: nice! what was your first rock band gig?

Wednesday Duologues: Brad San Martin

For a coupla years, my supersmart friend Jess (who was in Boston but moved to my former home of Lexington, KY - weird!) kept telling me TBH should really check out and maybe play with her friend's band, One Happy Island.  Eventually, I got a clue and checked them out and (gig pending) one result is that I've had some very interesting impromtu Facebook exchanges with member (don't even bother asking what he plays - the answer is everything) Brad San Martin.

"it's me playing a solo show (backed by Ian Evans of the awesome UK noise-pop band Horowitz on chair) in the merch tent at the IndieTracks festival in Derbyshire, UK...from late July of this year"

Brad would challenge my attempts at deep status updates and suddenly we'd have one of those long comment threads that aggravates anyone who simply "liked" the status in passing and tried to continue on their merry way.  Brad's comments were always decidedly thoughtful and unusually articulate, so when I posted the first duologue link and he was the first to volunteer -- not just to chat with me, but to "antagonize" me, OBViously I had to take him up on the offer.

me: so - you'd be happy to antagonize me, eh?

Brad: oh, hey -- one sec!

me: no problem!

Brad: sorry -- designing gig flyers. be back in 45 seconds.

me: take your time

Brad: ok.

me: okay you'll take your time or okay you're ready?

Brad: hmmmm

ok. ready! i don't mean antagonize in a bad way, necessarily.

me: ah - the good kind of antagonizing?

Brad: well...i just mean it's good to ask questions and engage in discussions. it seems like people aren't used to reconciling opposing viewpoints: it's all black or right, right or wrong...the art of the debate/discussion has sorta withered in the face of political correctness, i suppose.

but what's that got to do with rock'n'roll?

me: (sorry, back)

isn't rock'n'roll supposed to be subversive

?

Brad: well, i suppose your walking the line between rock'n'roll and pop music. before rock and pop were synonymous, it was VERY subversive. people thought it would bring about the death of society as they knew it. now there is plenty of rock'n'roll that extols the status quo quite openly.

(you're)

me: and what about pop?

Brad: pop is music for everyone, right? anything can be pop.

pop/rock is sort of an oxymoron, isn't it? it's a contradiction, and the friction between the two can be really interesting...or really boring.

me: pop is music for everyone, as in, pop = popular = status quo?

that seems different from saying pop can be anything.

Brad: not necessarily. to me, it's music that is relateable, not necessarily popular. but you know, you can attach labels to anything, and endlessly pick at them and undermine them. who am i, derida?

me: i hope not... otherwise, i could be in serious trouble here.

Brad: don't worry.

me: i think relateable is a good distinction, though.

Brad: that's a key word/idea.

me: i've been listening to your full length today. i dig it!

this lyric popped out at me:

Brad: wow, thanks.

(i was being sincere!)

me: (funny how periods have come to indicate sarcasm to some.)

"i insist on not insisting on anything. i insist on not resisting what is happening, it's just happening"

did you write that ["flounder"] lyric?? 

Brad: i did write that lyric.

all though replace "on" with "I'm" -- I insist I'm not insisting on...same idea, though.

me: ah - thanks

Brad: i insist i'm not resisting...

of course, by insisting that you're not, you're insisting that you are.

me: ohhhhh that's quite different.

that sounds more like you (though it should be said i've never even met you)

Brad: well, it's a song about being trapped in a corner: physically, romantically, socially, whatever. all of a sudden i'm insisting that it's not my fault that i'm here.

which means that it is.

me: because you're saying it's not.

Brad: right :)

me: yeah.

Brad: that's a really old song.

me: when did you start writing songs?

Brad: i started WANTING to write songs in middle school. i wrote a few bad songs in high school. i wrote a lot more bad songs starting in college.

me: do you remember your first song?

Brad: hmmm...i remember bits. the first song, beginning to end, finished song escapes me.

for me, i write constantly, and rarely is anything finished.

that's the way it's always been.

and sometimes the song changes even if you don't change the music or lyrics.

me: what does it take for a song to make it to a finished state? is there some criteria?

Brad: well, if you're a songwriter AND a performer, it changes every time you play it. it means different things to you as time passes. but strictly as a writer, i have a hard time saying when a song is finished. i rely on my bandmates for that, or just when it seems to develop a beginning, a middle, and an end. it has an arc.

i toss as many finished songs in the dustheap as i do scraps of songs...i recently compiled an album of outtakes/demos, and it had 22 tracks on it, i think.

me: bandmates are good for that kind of thing.

can you describe your band dynamic in a word or two?

Brad: my bandmates are wonderful. i'm very lucky.

hmmm

it's basically the democracy that every other band says they are, but aren't.

me: ha ha - so why should we believe you? :)

A Serious Mistake: Part One (A bedtime story)

In case the video isn't, oh... coherent enough:

Outside Over There, by Maurice Sendak

(who will hopefully not sue me.)

When Papa was away at sea,

and Mama in the arbor,

Ida played her wonder horn 

to rock the baby still -

but never watched.

So the goblins came.

They pushed their way in

and pulled baby out,

leaving another all made of ice.

Poor Ida, never knowing, hugged the changeling

and she murmured:  "How I love you."

The ice thing only dripped and stared,

and Ida mad new goblins had been there.

"They stole my sister away!" she cried

"To be a nasty goblin's bride!"

Now Ida in a hurry

snatched her Mama's yellow rain cloak,

tucked her horn safe in a pocket,

and made a serious mistake.

She climbed backwards out her window into outside over there.

Foolish Ida never looking

whirling by the robber caves

heard at last from off the sea

her Sailor Papa's song:

"If Ida backwards in the rain

would only turn around again

and catch those goblins with a tune

she'd spoil their kidnap honeymoon!"

So Ida tumbled right side round and found herself 

smack in the middle of a wedding.

Oh, how those goblins hollered and kicked,

just babies like her sister!

"What a hubbub," said Ida sly,

and she charmed them with a captivating tune.

The goblins, all against their will, danced slowly at first,

then faster until they couldn't breathe.

"Terrible Ida," the goblins said,

"we're dancing sick and must to bed."

But Ida played a frenzied jig, a hornpipe

that makes sailors wild beneath the ocean moon.

Those goblins pranced so fierce, so fast, they quick churned into a dancing stream.

Except for one who lay cozy in an eggshell,

crooning and clapping as a baby should.

And that was Ida's sister.

Now Ida glad hugged baby tight 

and she followed the stream that curled like a path along the broad meadow

and up the ringed-round hill to her Mama in the arbor with a letter from Papa, saying:

"I'll be home one day,

and my brave, bright little Ida

must watch the baby and her Mama

for her Papa, who loves her always."

Which is just what Ida did. 

Life purpose

So, I've turned another year older recently and in a moment of existential concern, shall we say, I googled "life purpose" and came upon and eventually tried this.  In short, I sat down and guessed at my life's purpose until tears rolled down my face.

If you are inclined to do such a thing yourself (are we friends and if not, can we be?) I offer this addendum to his instructions:  Twenty minutes, my left pinky toe.  Give yourself a good hour or more.  I feel I am pretty open to this kind of thing and more emotionally aware than average and that's about how long it took me.  Granted, I took more time with word choice than others might (or should).

Another tip that would have saved me some time (which may or may not be applicable for you) was that none of the guesses that described my effect on others was right.  It couldn't be about something that was beyond my agency, so I eventually figured out I had to focus on what I could do or offer - not on how that would be received or change anything.

Otherwise, my experience was similar to the description.  A few guesses got a swell of emotion or even a brief sting of tears - and those I starred and eventually incorporated into the final answer.  I thought I had it around guess #80, but then when that didn't make me cry, I ran right into that wall of exasperation, which I powered through simply by making silly guesses in new directions.  Then out of the blue, I struck on what became the opening bit of My Purpose In Life, added it to #80, and down came the tears.  My final guess was #92.

I can't believe I'm going to tell you this.  But, well, in case I don't live to live out this purpose, I want it recorded for posterity.  So here it is in all its wordy (but how could my life's purpose be anything but?) glory:

In the face of an unfathomable universe, in which we are all constantly beckoned by our loneliness and isolation, my purpose in this life is to honor and trust the true yearnings of my wildish* generous heart:  to love with unquestioning joy and celebration; to see and by seeing create majesty and meaning; to nurture the embers burning in all I meet; and - with all the juice of my being and talents - to create artful expressions (to include Great Writings!) that will be my truth in the world.


Easy, eh?  No prob.  Now all I have to do is make sure all of my goals for the rest of my life are aligned with my purpose.

Heh.

Expect more earnest blogging.  And possibly somehow even MORE lyrics about coming together to make light in a dark, dark world.  :)


*In case you didn't know, "wildish" is a term I like to use that (in my mind, anyway) means "of the wilderness" as opposed to the kind of wild that is maniacal or ferocious.

Kentucky Poets Week: Frank X Walker

I love Frank X Walker. I'm a little sad I didn't get to know him better while I was in Kentucky, but I did hear him read and I did run into him on the street one evening and I did shake his hand to congratulate him on winning the Lannan Literary Fellowship. He was the judge for a MUCH smaller writing award I won the same year, so I felt special shaking his hand in the middle of the road like that.


Frank X Walker has the best eyes. You probably think there are more important things about him than that, but if you ask me, it all starts with and comes from the eyes.


But okay, there is also the fact that he co-founded the revolutionary Affrilachian Poets and, in fact, coined the term "Affrilachian" in response to a dictionary entry that defined Appalachians as "white residents of the region of Appalachia." In his words here, "I believe it is my responsibility to say as loudly and often as possible that people and artists of color are part of the past and present of the multi-state Appalachian region extending from northern Mississippi to southern New York." The Affrilachian Poets collective now includes 25+ poets of color writing and living in Appalachia.


Frank X Walker also wrote my absolute favorite collection of persona poems: Buffalo Dance: The Journey of York, written in the voice of York, the slave from Virginia who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition to the Pacific and back; the poems follow the narrative arch of the journey through York's eyes. I cannot say enough about how profound and beautiful and sensual and thought-provoking and moving that book is. Nor, sadly, can I share any of its poems with you because - as with all of my most treasured books - I have lent it out to a good friend and, two years later, have yet to get it back.  But I will be buying it again today, along with its sequel, When Winter Come: The Ascension of York.  And so should you.


So instead (as a bonus nod to Obama's visit to my hometown of Iowa City today!) I'm snatching a poem from The Charleston Gazette, posted on Election Day 2008 and in turn snatched from Jeff Biggers' blog on The Huffington Post the day before.

OBAMA SHUFFLE

by Frank X. Walker

To the seasoned black women in line behind me when I went to early vote

we move as if chained together, we move like we are
pacing out the complex steps to the new line dance

thank you for taking off work today, for standing
outside in the cold on sore feet for so long
bundled in winter scarves, long skirts, leather coats,
faux fur, bandanas, fatigues, sweats and jeans
clutching designer purses, book bags and paper sacks

to the right, to the right, to the right, to the right

thank you for clearing your throat
when anybody forgot to move the line

thank you for leaning on your canes
for looking over your reading glasses

to the left, to the left, to the left, to the left

for casting a watchful eye at the poll workers
and at me and at everybody within squinting distance

for wearing my mother's nose on your faces, for wearing
her shoes, for standing with your hands on your hips too

now kick, now kick, now kick, now kick

now move as if chained together, now move like we are
pacing out the complex steps to the new line dance

now walk it by yourself, now walk it by yourself

Some true things I'd like to tell

Dear Diary, I woke up at 6:30 this morning, raised my head to turn off the alarm on my iPhone (a little ethereal piano clip I took from Angelica by Lamb, apparently stolen from Debussy), saw a display of gold and orange streaks across the eastern sky over the tall buildings along the Charles. I thought of getting up. I looked at my phone and a text had come in while I was sleeping - a friend still in college asking me if I was watching the meteor shower. I missed it. I missed it when I was in college, too, even though I always sorta remembered when it was coming. I fell back on the pillow. When I got up an hour later, I did a sun salutation yoga series for the first time. Sunshine was glowing in my windows. It seemed the thing to do.

And valleys and fields and it crowns kings in every movement

My grandfather was a butcher in a small Iowa town with a big train station. This was long before he started working for the Gummy Bear factory and started bringing us 5lb bags of gummy stuff at holidays. Anyway, back in the days when hobos rode the rails, sometimes one would come around the butcher shop to see if my grandpa had any scraps of meat. My grandpa is one of the most accepting and friendly people I know, and would of course give them what he had and chat a little. He told me that there was a celebration every year to crown a Hobo King, and the time it was held in this small Iowa town, he gave them meat for their hobo stew. I can just imagine my grandpa taking a break behind the meat locker, smoking a cigarette in the humid Iowa heat and passing a bottle back and forth with a man who smelled like railroad and all of America at once. I can hear their voices, the crickets, and the liquor sloshing in the bottle. Maybe they stepped into the locker to cool off among the monolith-like hunks of meat that hung from the ceiling. I remember them from when I was very little. 

I don't know how to justify or explain writing a blog entry about this, it was just on my mind. I feel sad I missed out on this time. Rail riders and barnstormers.... Slow dancing.... I'm nostalgic for an older generation's past.

Hell, I feel sad that soon the phrase "mixed tape" will be obsolete.

If this isn't nice

Y'know, the word "nice" gets a bad rap from wordies. (Is that a word? like foodies? if it's not, it oughta be.) And yes, sometimes "nice" is a lie -- one of those words we use when the truth is we don't really have anything nice to say, but we feel the need to say SOMETHING. (Why is that?) But if we're really true to the meaning of the word, as wordies must be, then "nice" is a perfect word to use whenever something truly pleases or delights us.
I just finished This Blue Heaven's first live radio performance/interview on WERS and now am zooming through the sunshine under blue skies toward Portsmouth, NH where we're performing at The Muddy tonight. Tomorrow, we celebrate the GP's birthday in the most appropriate way I can think of for a guy who, as a boy, once had a dream that playing the electric guitar gave him super lightning-type powers: by performing our biggest show yet at Boston's Paradise Rock Club.
I know this sounds like a plug, and of course I want to reach as many of you as possible; I believe in what we do. I believe that what we have to offer -- what I can offer when I step onstage -- is an opportunity for people to forget for a moment the trivial, the draining, the monotonous, and remember their (your) own heartbeats.
But this blog is first and foremost a space for me to remember MY heartbeat. So I want to return to a charge made in my second post ever on this site, taken from Vonnegut's Timequake. I'm looking around me right this pleasing, delightful minute, and I have to say it.
If this isn't nice, what is?

Harboring the moon

My fat orange cat is even more howly and velociraptory than usual.  Meanwhile, I am feeling that particular electric mix of melancholy, rebellion, and creativity.

Must be a full moon.

Here are some things that sound like good ideas to me today:

1.  Playing hooky and wandering the city taking photographs of graffiti, stopping only for ice cream, hot chocolate or Italian pastries.

2.  Standing in the middle of the river of Sox fans heading into Fenway tonight and handing out cards with typed definitions of such awesome words as ataraxia, formication, and defenestration.

3.  Fingerpainting 25 portraits of my fat orange cat, hanging them to dry on the clothesline on the back porch, and forgetting about them until July.

4.  Calling up random receptionist/customer service type people in the south (banks, grocery stores, biology departments) and asking random but easy questions and thanking them profusely for helping me out in the hopes of eliciting some genuinely friendly "honeys" or "you have a wonderful day now ma'ams."

5.  Illustrating The Boarderchildren with pastels on black paper (in honor of Nick) while listening to Radiohead's In Rainbows on repeat.

6.  Renting a Plymouth Prowler and driving up the north shore in my stocking cap and pink sunglasses and the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs' It's Blitz! blasting from the stereo.

7.  Getting all my best good friends on conference call (since they're scattered across more states than I care to count) and letting them find out what they all have in common besides me (grand laughs, sweet hearts, busy minds and probably at least a certain tolerance for 8th grade humor).

8.  Flying my three sisters to Tuscany and sitting around drinking and eating until we forget all the miles we've ever had between us and never remember them again.

9.  Writing that story about the man who feels he misses something or someone but can't quite see or say what it is.  With, hopefully, my fat orange velociraptor asleep on my lap.

10.  Joining an indie pop rock band, co-writing an amazing song about slow dancing, and performing it for people across the world who will be moved to slow dance with each other and love each other a little more sweetly and preciously than before.

The (okay, My) Saneaholic's Serenity Prayer

Inspired by http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/page/10/ 

God grant me the serenity

to go really loony and start collecting all the things 

whose names I really love.

Roadmaps of towns like What Cheer, IA for example.

Packets of frangipani and white triumphator.

While I'm at it, maybe sticks and stones 

from all the places I'll travel all alone with books in tow,

both blank ones and ones with lines-filled-in.

Shells too, obviously, or yeah! 

a labeled jar for each beach's peculiar salad

of stones, sands, plants, and shellfish debris.  

(E.g. Useless Bay: crushed mussel shells & 

barnacles, gray stones, coarse sand.)

Oh- and more old typewriters like my Skyriter to clack out 

lyrics I like a lot and passages from the aforementioned 

books, and the beach jar labels, of course.

Grant me the courage to display all this stuff, 

including the books - yes even the Beebo Brinker Chronicles, 

all over my home; and the wisdom to only invite people in

who want nothing more than to drink something hot 

like chocolate or cider or one of my thousands of teas 

with names like Bee Balm and Honeybush

and be changed.

Hallelujah Blue

Love is not a victory march, it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.  So says Leonard Cohen.

I've had this idea for many years now that blue is the color of love.  Not just any blue, though.  It has to be a blue both deep and luminous.  Chagall had it down.  It also appears for a few fleeting moments at sunset on a clear evening, approximately three-quarters-sky distance from the sun's slicing the western horizon.  I am constantly on the lookout for this blue.  

I wrote lyrics the other day basically rejecting Cohen's definition of love (Turns out hallelujah means rejoice).  But still, if I were to design my own personal box of crayons, Hallelujah Blue would be my favorite.

To h-e-double-hockey-sticks in a handbag

Recently, the Guitar Player and I have found ourselves discussing fears of various things disappearing from our culture.  It's strange at my spring-chicken age to already be thinking "kids these days" kinds of thoughts, but at the same time, this whacky world wide web and other technology seems to have accelerated the pace of change.  Since this topic has become a trend (three occurrences = a trend, no?) I thought it perhaps blogworthy.  

1.  Slow dancing

In the last maybe year or so, I've been visited again and again with this image of slow dancing.  The way a song gets stuck in your head or a dream comes back to you in the middle of the day, I think of slow dancing and yearn to do it.  And not in a Dirty Dancing kinda way, but a croony cheek-to-cheek kinda way.  The other day my uncle wrote a Facebook note about the tunes that were popular when he was a teeny bopper, songs by The Crew Cuts, The Diamonds, The Four Lads.  It reminded me of a story about my grandparents slow dancing on Sundays, the details of which I might have invented myself -- I'm forever making up love stories -- so I'll keep them to myself for now.  But anyway, GP posed the question:  Does anyone actually slow dance anymore?  Does the radio play slow dance songs anymore?  I was hard pressed to think of any, which of course makes me want to write one.  I will definitely keep you posted.

2.  Rock stars

GP read some article or other about how superstars are a dying breed in music, which re-ignited a recurring rant of his about how the industry no longer allows for bands to become really big.  Not only is it hard to do with SO many bands, all of which have more access to audiences (thanks MySpace!) and sound-improving technology than ever, but any band who comes along with the ambition to become really huge is automatically treated with skepticism (at best) from critics.  

Personally I have mixed feelings about this whole thing, for two reasons.  One is that I of course love discovering little-known eccentric ANYTHING -- towns, bookstores, fruits, bugs, blogs, and yes, musicians -- because I am eternally delighted by variety.  The other is that for music to become really huge, it has to appeal to a whole lot of people, all of whom of course have widely varying tastes and things they want from a song.  That means that the artist either has to be just exceptionally good across the board, with universal but provocative lyrics and somewhat groundbreaking music (The Beatles, U2, and Radiohead come to mind) or they have to be generic enough that there's little in the music to turn listeners off, in which case they rely a lot more on sex and catchiness (a la Britney Spears -- and the Bass Player says Hinder but since I've never heard of them, I don't think they can be counted a household name).  I would argue that the Britneys still get much more culture-wide attention than the Bonos (maybe just barely in this particular case, since Bono's such an international do-gooder and Oprah hearts him), so hugeness may have nothing to do with quality, in which case I say good riddance.

So if anything concerns me here, it is the decline of quality.  Part of the problem is that the industry is SO saturated with fairly good bands, all of whom have more or less equal access to audiences, it's neither easy nor necessary for a truly superb band to emerge.  Another issue is the fact that technology has made it far less important to be a truly good musician.  In theory it is totally possible to build a fan base without ever having to play live, thanks to the net.  The majority of people, in my estimation, find music online or through friend recommendations or on iTunes or Lala  -- certainly not by checking out local shows.  And recording technology has advanced enough that a mediocre band with enough cash could make a pretty good-sounding record.  

All of that said, I'm not nearly as worried about it as the GP.  The long tail may be where it's at now, but I think people need their rock stars.  There's something in the human psyche that will always seek a god or goddess.  I have to believe that even globalization can't steal our need for ideals.  Obama's a good omen in this respect.  Don't give up hope.

  

3.  The integrity of the English language

I'm just gonna paste in our IM conversation about this from the other night, which all started with GP mentioning something from his day called a "Webinar," a word that struck me the wrong way at that moment and sent me off on a rant.

Singer: here's the problem.

it's the same problem all around, which is that masses of lazy-minded people all have access to a forum (message boards, blogs, etc. etc.), so new words catch on very quickly, even stupid words created by lazy-minded people, which would otherwise die in their heads or at best, their circle of friends.

   or their company.

just like masses of mediocre musicians have access to an audience.

the result is a decline in quality. of music and of language.

as evidenced in pepsi ads everywhere.

GP: webinar is a stupid word?

Singer: it's not an awesome word.

it's a utilitarian word trying to masquerade as an awesome word.

which annoys me.

that's the business part of it.

GP: why as an awesome word?

Singer: or at least a clever word.

GP: i think it's primarily about brevity.

not cleverness.

so what you're saying is, you're not into the whole brevity thing.

esp. not when there's a beverage involved.

Singer: no that's not at all what i'm saying, duderino.

i mean.

how hard is it to say "web seminar"

it's not.

we're talking about a single syllable saved.

which is why i think it's more about cleverness

GP: how hard is it to say cannot?

will not

Singer: but can't is not being used in the same way

GP: does not

it's being used for brevity.

entirely.

Singer: plus you say can't, won't, shan't how many times a day?

okay maybe not shan’t, but y’know

of course it's going to get contracted. it happens just by talking fast.

how often do you really need to say web seminar.

GP: they put them on every other week

i bet it's somewhat common in business.

Singer: plus to -not a word is a whole pattern of language

yes. it's common in business.

and that irritates me.

just because it does.

GP: I HATE BUSINESS.

 :D

Singer: because business people do not care about words.

and i do.

and if they do care, it's for NEFARIOUS purposes.

like selling stuff.

GP: they're BUSINESS people.

Singer: precisely.

and they're ruining my language.

along with the LAZY-MINDED people.

it's this whole "go go go" crap anyway. brevity…

we don't have TIME to say web seminar.

we have important STUFF to sell.

er, do.

none of that has any business screwing with language. language, which affects our very brain structure.

so there.

it belongs to the downfall of integrity conversation every bit as much as the death of the superstar does. is my point.

corruption of quality.

Which underlies everything

Mark/BP (Bass Player) says my fatal flaw is a stubborn belief in the underlying goodness of humanity. Maybe he's right.

I did write the lyrics to "Where the Living Starts" -- lovingly known around the office as "The Asshole Song" -- whose chorus is:

Everyone in the world is an asshole
But underneath has a really good heart
So let's air it all out then let it all go
This is where the living starts

These lyrics came out of the loss of a very important friendship in my life, and my ongoing struggle over the next several years to reconcile the substantial beauty and joy of that friendship with the betrayals that finally ended it forever. I asked myself over and over, how could both be true? Was it the best friendship of my life or was it the most terrible deception in my life? How could it be both? The answer I finally accepted was that it could be both because human beings are both: "We cheat and deny, we scowl and deride, but we can still choose the loving cup."

Loving people and accepting love from other people is hard. Maybe it's the hardest thing. We are fundamentally separate, so the question of whether or not we can believe in other people -- whether it is possible to bridge the distance between us -- is ultimately something we cannot know. What do we have to go on? We have the other's word, our own self-knowledge, and our understanding of people in general -- trusting in any of these things requires a leap of faith.

Maybe it's a foolish leap. Maybe it will be my undoing, as BP tells me it will. What I know about myself is that underneath all my bullshit is a pure desire to connect. What I believe I understand about people in general, and what I really mean when I sing the chorus of "Where the Living Starts," is that this desire is our common bond, no matter how many ways we find to refuse it. I believe in the end, when we give our final words before the executioner, those words will be of love.

So the only thing left to question? The words themselves -- the word of the other. So much rests on this -- our ability to communicate with each other, our willingness to speak and accept truth. But then, there's nothing on which I'm more likely to stake my life than words.

(Okay, maybe love, but then, as I think I've just concluded, for me words are love, just like food is love to my Italian cook friend Nick.)

Those who know me won't be surprised this is where I ended up: words matter. Any blog entry on any topic runs the risk of ending up here, if I am the one writing it.

I read a line in a book this morning -- I'd Like, by Amanda Michalopoulou (which I recommend highly). "I'd entered hundreds of homes whose owners had endless shelves of books and believed in words more than anything else in the world." I read that line in the middle of the page and felt less alone in the world -- more connected to those hundreds of fictional people, to the character who'd met them, to the writer who told me it was so, and through her, to humanity.

This, too, is why I write, whether I am writing lyrics, blog entries, stories, or a few words scribbled on a coaster I dug out of my purse to tuck under someone's windshield wiper. This relentless word-love comes from the same source as the rush I feel singing for a bouncing, dancing crowd, which is the same source of the lightning that strikes my core when I meet the gaze of the person I love, which is nothing less than the desire to connect, which underlies everything, which is -- you got it -- where the living starts.