A Perfect Read

Last night at around 11:30 I decided to go to bed early. I've been so fatigued since the weekend that I thought an early night might help. (It did.)

Anyway, I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep, so I cracked into a book I was given for my birthday, Stories To Get You Through The Night. Thanks to Tobi for this gem! It's a collection of short stories by Chekhov, Woolf, Kipling, Wilde, and many more. Last night I began with Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf, a little jewel box of a piece. I've been a big fan of Woolf since I discovered her in the 1970s.

It is written as if she sat in the botanical conservatory at the gardens, noting snips of conversation as people walked by, all juxtaposed against the movement of a snail and several butterflies that nobody but she notices. Doesn't sound exciting, I know, and that's the point. Only 2,612 words long, it was the perfect read before switching off the light.

You can read it here, if you're so inclined.

Artwork, Kew Gardens, by Dorothy Spangler.

Finally Coming Around

I knew it would happen, you know. I knew that a couple of days after the high of my birthday had passed, I'd get hit with the relative low. It's the balance of things in my life.

Thanks to menopause (which ended in 2005 after a surgically induced sixteen-year siege), I'm no longer manic-depressive, but I do have my moods, which I can usually keep in check. The Hashimoto's thing makes it a challenge sometimes though, especially when I'm tired.

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I was stressed about finances, exhausted, and looking at a house that still needs a lot of de-hippifying from the party. I had four huge loads of laundry, vacuuming and furniture to move around. I didn't get it all done. Just the laundry. After dinner, however, I took a nap. Actually, I took three naps and didn't wake up until after 11:00. That really helped, and I can feel myself starting to rise from the ashes.

Hey, I got some great gifts for my birthday!

• A hookah - I've always wanted one and I just last week wrote about my character Gordon, being given one at his birthday party by Brian Jones. What a great synchronicity!
• The Collector's Series, two DVD set of  "A Hard Day's Night"
• "This Is Spinal Tap"
• "Almost Famous"
• A box of marzipan. (Did you know that my one great candy weakness is marzipan?)
• A bottle of cabernet savignon
• The Autobiography Of Donovan: The Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan Leitch
• Stories To Get You Through The Night ( collection of short stories)
• A stick blender
• Canyon Of Dreams by Harvey Kubernick, with photos by Henry Diltz
• A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song by Steve Turner
• A "Let It Be" tee-shirt
• An "I Am The Walrus" button
• And an evening surrounded by my family and closest (nearby) friends!

I don't remember when I ever got so much stuff. Thanks to everyone. I love you all!

My Birthday Party

The only thing wrong with this picture is the camera flash. If you could see it as it really looked, the only light was blacklight, colored light and candlelight. We had an effin' good time, man. My overall memories:

Led Zeppelin
Laughing
Bonding
Led Zeppelin
Jimi Hendrix
Ernie called me!
Lots of cool gifts
Led Zeppelin

Left to right: Me, my sons Joel and Micah, Ville. We sat there on the floor a long time building and maintaining that "fire".

Don't ask...

Time: The Great Equalizer

When I was 15 this ad summed up for me everything I thought was ultra-groovy. What girl didn't want to look like this? This, by the way, is the first true supermodel, Jean Shrimpton.

Looking at it now, I can see why I tried so hard to look like this. For a short while, anyway. Within the space of about two months, however, I'd found my own look, which was much more existential (for want of a better word), much more bohemian and much more "me". But for a moment in time this summed up my life as a teenager. This was the look in that intake of air right before Madison Avenue caught wind that mind-altering substances were going to change everything and I had to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to look like Jean Shrimpton.

It's a curious ad, and it says something not only about my generation's standard of beauty in the days right before Jimi Hendrix and Sgt. Pepper, but also about marketing at the time. The youth market was brand new—lots of money to be made there—but Self-Realization? Capitulation? How many ads today address any age group with that level of vocabulary? Pretty cool, I think.

Anyway, tonight is the Sixties party we're throwing for my birthday, which is today. When I used to look at this ad so many years ago. I never dreamed I'd be writing about it at the age of 59, wondering where all that rosy bloom went. It's not that I mind getting older—I'm digging it a lot, in fact. I just wish the age we look on the outside matched the age we feel on the inside. If it did, I'd probably try to look like this again tonight. But you know, even Jean Shrimpton doesn't look like this now. It's true what they say, time is the great equalizer.

What Rises to the Top

I've come to some self-realization over the course of the past few nights. Funny the things you come up with when you're under the influence of a steady diet of too many words and too little sleep. Let's see if I can explain this coherently; I'm a little muddy in the brain today...

Since the Sixties I've felt a bit out of touch musically, like my finger is never quite on the pulse of what's going on. That's why when I was a teen I relied on my friends to play me "the good stuff" -- Pat Demory introduced me to Jimi Hendrix, JP Deni introduced me to Peter, Paul and Mary, Arlo Guthrie, etc. Maybe it's because I'm a songwriter myself and I've always had my head in my own music instead of that of other artists. I've always felt a bit out of step, like a waltz in 5/4 time. A good example of this is how I've only just in the past year turned myself onto Jimmy Page, Rory Gallagher and Brian May, and this past week the songwriting talent of Nick van Eede, of Cutting Crew (pictured above).

For decades now, I've attributed this "always being late to the party" condition to just so much having my head up my backside and of being oblivious to what's going on outside of my own artistic endeavors, but I now know that I was wrong about that. The truth is, I apparently wait and see what survives after all the hoopla of a musical decade is over. I wait for the cream to rise to the top. This is handy because I never have to waste time and energy sipping the bilge. And when I "discover" someone, it's like they're all mine because I'm no longer hearing them every time I turn on the car radio. It's personal, private, and I encounter the artist as if they're sitting in my living room. The chaos of their fame is over and they're telling me about their work rather than their press, their image, or their success. It's pure. It's about music, not celebrity.

I converse with a lot of ghosts these days, both the dead and the living.

Good music is timeless and a good song will remain a good song even after the artist has moved on or is no longer walking around the planet. As time passes, like a child that strives for independence, good music gains a life and an identity of its own and it goes on to inspire others. When the pre-fab pop idols that are stroked off by the star-maker machinery are gone, the good stuff will remain.

Here is a perfectly crafted song from 1986. It's as good--if not better--today as it was back then. Hard to believe that van Eede is 52 now. By the way, their album, Broadcast, is excellent. You can preview the tracks here.

It's Starting to Look a Bit Like the Sixties

Last night I started decorating for my Sixties birthday party this coming Friday night and I have to admit that I've missed the beaded, feathered, funky look of the rooms we lived in back in the day. My spaces always looked like a cross between an opium den and a bordello, and I still love it. I have a floor lamp, for example, that's from the Twenties. I bought it from an antique store back in 1984 after falling in love with the red satin fringed shade. It's a little tatty these days, but when I put it up last night I realized that it still adds a definite ambiance to whatever room it's in.

Because I've moved on into the second book of my trilogy, which takes place in the Seventies, I'm letting the party serve as my official farewell to the Sixties. This saddens me. I had a better time reliving them and writing about them than I had surviving them. Still, I've made peace with a lot of the unresolved issues I've been carrying around all these years.

I wouldn't count on a Seventies party any time soon though. They really weren't all that much fun in my little world.

Want Frijoles, Matey? I Got 'em!

I cooked all day yesterday. I mean, in the kitchen cooking, not, well, you know, cooking.

We'd invited Heather and Bryan over, and because Bryan really enjoys eating, I decided quantity was the chief thing. I decided on a Mexican meal, with pollo chili verde enchiladas, cheese enchiladas, "Itchy" rice and homemade frijoles. (The rice is called "Itchy" because I got the recipe from a friend of mine in California whom I nicknamed "Itchy". Just thought it was important to explain that.)

The meal was great, and I have to brag that the frijoles were the best I've ever eaten. And I've had a lot of them in my life, being a native SoCalifornian.

After the kids left, Nettl and I sat in the living room with candles burning, listening to, among other things, Ravi Shankar's Bridges LP. Very nice.

Today, I've done absolutely nothing, and that's good because tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day, which promises to be a lot of fun on Facebook. The picture above shows you just how much I'm into it this year.

My life.

I have the entire trilogy outlined! I've discovered that constructing a trilogy is exactly like constructing a symphony. There's a form nestled within each book that ties them all together, each book being like the movements of a symphony. Let's call it the sonata-allegro form. A-B-A. These must be created in such a way that they create the same form overall. Microcosm/macrocosm, and all that good stuff.

A (a-b-a) B (a-b-a) A (a-b-a)

See? Anyway, the entire work has a clearly defined direction in my head now, and it has caused me to cut one of the principals in the second book. T'ra!

I intend to get cracking on it tonight.

Have a great Pirate Sunday, me hearties. Arrr!

BergVille: Pants, The Saga Continues

Made by Ville

(Honestly, I promise this won't go on forever... It's just that when Ville and I latch onto something like this, we have a sick imperative to run it into the ground.)

BergVille: Pants

Made by Berg

BergVille: Hobby Lobby Hangover

Made by Ville

Blog In Question

Is Blogger's Angst a recognized mental illness yet? I just can't seem to get it up to blog right now, and I feel like I'm letting people down. Not that I have a huge readership--I'd feel this way if there were only two of you. There are two of you, aren't there?

Maybe it's because I've just spent the past nine months writing about 100,000 words and creating more characters than I have actual friends and relatives, I don't know, but I'm feeling really boring right now and I can't seem to come up with anything interesting to share with you. I don't have the time or energy to comb the web looking for crap, either.

Here's an idea: you tell me. I mean, just give me some ideas to eke me over a couple of weeks. What do you want me to blog about? Want to ask me a question? Need a recipe? I'm here--ghostly, but here.

BergVille: The Box In The Car

Okay, so it's not as funny as the one featuring RW and Dave. Since when was I supposed to be brilliant? This one features me (Berg) and Ville. Old drinking buddies that we are...


Made by Berg

Art Does Not Apologize

From The Writer's Almanac:

It was on this day in 1981 that Picasso's famous painting Guernica was returned to Spain to hang in the Prado Museum in Madrid. Picasso refused to allow it to be shown in Spain until the rule of General Franco ended.

Pablo Picasso said, "Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy."


I've been a great fan of Picasso's work from the first time I encountered it at the age of 12, but I've developed a new appreciation since I've become interested in the Spanish Civil War and the writings of Lorca. How I wish Maestro Frank Salazar was still here. I'd love to ask him questions--he was a walking encyclopedia on the subject, especially the art, writings and music that came out of it.

It seems to me we artists are facing much the same thing where education and the arts are concerned, and that we need to cry out against the modern fascism that threatens our personal freedom of expression.

Thank you Señor Picasso for this timeless painting.
________________
(Hat tip to Fb friend Rebecca Perry for inspiring this entry.)

Hermine is Nearly Here

Time to batten down! We're under a flash flood watch for the next three days.

Nuttin', Honey

We had a huge weekend and I'm hugely spent, flattened and all talked out. Give me a day or two to recover.

My Musical Roots: The Rooftop Singers

I think this group had only one big hit, Walk Right In, but I played the heck out that 45. Both sides (the B side was Cool Water). It was, of course that pairing of two beefy 12-string guitars that made the record so popular in early 1963, and it was what began my lifelong love affair with Folk music. I'd always wanted to be a Beatnik anyway, and the Folk music scene was just an extension of all that, with candles in wine bottles, Cubism on the walls, the poetry of Ginsberg and Kerouac and the obligatory existential, black turtleneck.

It was about that time that I borrowed a guitar from a kid at our church and began trying to play it. I was 12, and since I didn't know about chords, I picked out melodies and played a slide style using a butter knife. I don't know how I knew to do that. I taught myself a few things and then I had to give the guitar back. It would be another two years before I finally got my own.

I didn't know about 12-strings either, until The Beatles and The Byrds made them popular. I bought my first in 1968 with money I'd saved from my first job, stringing and tuning guitars at a local music store. That's how I met Deni. By then I was a full-fledged "folkie", playing Dylan and Donovan, and anyone else whose LPs I could get my hands on, the acoustic 12-string guitar my signature instrument. And all because of the Rooftop Singers.

MAIN INFLUENCES: The 12-string acoustic guitar, not being afraid to be a little heavy on the bottom strings, the power of Folk music.

P.S. Sorry, this is the only decent video I could find of this song.

Why We Canceled the Cable & Turned Off the TV

By Tom Tomorrow

My Musical Roots: Fats Domino

Oh, but I remember my brother, Rick, playing Fats Domino's 45s. Although he was only seven years older than me, Rick was of an entirely different generation. While the 60s loomed ahead for me, in the 50s Rick was all about Elvis, Conway Twitty, The Platters, The Ventures, and Fats Domino.

I wasn't all that fond of Elvis. Even when I was still in the single digits age-wise, I felt there was something pre-fab about him. Something contrived and manufactured. Later, I learned that it was his manager, Col. Tom Parker, who castrated him musically.

But Fats Domino was a different matter. He played what my mom called Boogie Woogie (which he did, sometimes)--his records were allowed on the family hi-fi because his was "real music". Yeah, Fats was like a member of our family, and I grew up seeing his beatific smile, his beautiful hair, and hearing his smooth voice nearly every day of my young life. I love Fats. His sweet face still makes me smile and feel all happy inside.

MAIN INFLUENCES: Rhythm and pacing. The piano as a viable instrument with the discovery of a leading left hand, and, again, just as Joe and Eddie reaffirmed for me a decade later, the joy that music brings. But most importantly, he taught me that words really matter.

“Something that happened to someone, that’s how I write all my songs. I used to listen to people talk every day, things would happen in real life. I used to go around different places, hear people talk. Sometimes I wasn’t expecting to hear nothin’, and my mind was very much on my music. Next thing I’d hear, I would either write it down or remember it good.” Fats Domino

Bless you, Fats!