Seven Turns:
Before I launch into the merits of the music a little context is needed for this yarn. We all know death but do we know it as a good thing? Believe it or not and it makes no difference to me I’m not here to convince you of anything but if you haven’t experienced the jolt of death the righteous slap in the face that it is you have no idea and zero comprehension of life. It’s a rude awakening but it is an awakening. You may think you know it but until you experience it the proverbial rug has not been swiped from under your feet and the seemingly emptiness revealed. Death challenges you and braces you like turning into the wrong neighborhood at night in a different city where you have just arrived. Death wakes your ass up. Death provides gratitude and awareness it provokes faith and amplifies and informs your life. An unexpected death like a bolt from a canyon rips the false veneer of shallow comprehension off your back and drops it at your feet. Pick it up or run away it still provides the provocative phenomenon that a spinning oasis in space is just a start and what the hell is really going on here? Death raises your consciousness even if you think you have already raised your consciousness to dizzying heights. Death is the ultimate thunder clap and sudden death is its howitzer.
I’ve been blasted by that howitzer several times and in its place fleeting memories and artifacts and phenomena. My beautiful older sister knew how to act. With a sly smile and a warm heart and the true sting of a Scorpio. Perfectly placed five years older than me she sometimes paved the way and when in her sphere raised me up. On rare occasions she pointed her boyfriend’s little sisters my way. Looking out for me she would have stuffed a little surfer girl in the mail to me from Hawaii if she could and told me so but all I got was a tee shirt. She was honest, brave and fun and then in a snap she was gone and I’m still so very young.
Seven turns landed in my lap in 1990. After the wilderness years of solo albums, band feuds, people magazine covers and releases that had glimmers but only a few tracks to cling to I ripped the cellophane off the new CD. How the fuck do you open a CD Jesus mother of marry get that freakin’ label sticky crap sealed again under the cellophane off? What fresh packaging hell is this!? Wait don’t break the plastic case. Okay CD’s came out in the mid 1980’s but I mean seriously!!?
I deposited the new disc in my player and like many of you I was ten years in the waiting….please don’t suck, please don’t suck, please don’t suck. Heightened anticipation positive but still please no more over synthesized pablum puke for the masses. Not since Brothers and Sisters come on we need a complete effort not just one or two righteous explorations and then fill come on mannnnnnnnnn.
So there I was in my old Victorian on the precipice of exaltation, disappointment or somewhere in between. I was all alone no roommates, holding down several gigs, making ends meet, no television, finalizing Journey Home and my music and art surrounding me. Vintage hippie pad, crooked floors, bay windows, complete with tapestries, incense and Native American flute music emanating from the windows. My Cousteau Calypso flag hanging from the second story out front proudly. Plants and bookshelves The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Van Gogh, acoustic and electric, an old typewriter two kittens pesticide free pest control and support system please don’t shit in the rubber plant Sylvia it was Jeana’s.
The marinara steeping in my small antiquated kitchen, pasta at the ready, fresh bread and a nice bottle of red. Good Clean Fun comes roaring out of the speakers! Yeeeees! Fist pump, arms raised, eyes to the heavens nirvana in my crib but no one to share it with. No matter I’ve always been a god damn independent. As one song rolls into the other and I’m preparing my modest feast the thought that grows naturally from my soul and heart is that Duane must be so proud of his younger brother right now and I feel it I really do and the smile is there the music is righteous, strong, invigorated and there it is right in the middle of the floor as I turn my sisters fedora with the feather she stuck in the trim ribbon waiting to greet me.
We live in a beautiful world an amazing world surrounded by creativity and beauty and honor and goodness and magic. It’s a reality unknowable and the ying and yang of it all gives us our work to do and presents those challenges. If met we are the wiser for it more fulfilled brimming with soul satisfaction and awareness at every step, every waking moment and in our dreams as well the visions abound both here and there. It really is a beautiful world and it’s all tied together whether we know it or not in ways we cannot seem to see but sometimes do and more often then afterwards we hear the song birds sing thank you.
Before I launch into the merits of the music a little context is needed for this yarn. We all know death but do we know it as a good thing? Believe it or not and it makes no difference to me I’m not here to convince you of anything but if you haven’t experienced the jolt of death the righteous slap in the face that it is you have no idea and zero comprehension of life. It’s a rude awakening but it is an awakening. You may think you know it but until you experience it the proverbial rug has not been swiped from under your feet and the seemingly emptiness revealed. Death challenges you and braces you like turning into the wrong neighborhood at night in a different city where you have just arrived. Death wakes your ass up. Death provides gratitude and awareness it provokes faith and amplifies and informs your life. An unexpected death like a bolt from a canyon rips the false veneer of shallow comprehension off your back and drops it at your feet. Pick it up or run away it still provides the provocative phenomenon that a spinning oasis in space is just a start and what the hell is really going on here? Death raises your consciousness even if you think you have already raised your consciousness to dizzying heights. Death is the ultimate thunder clap and sudden death is its howitzer.
I’ve been blasted by that howitzer several times and in its place fleeting memories and artifacts and phenomena. My beautiful older sister knew how to act. With a sly smile and a warm heart and the true sting of a Scorpio. Perfectly placed five years older than me she sometimes paved the way and when in her sphere raised me up. On rare occasions she pointed her boyfriend’s little sisters my way. Looking out for me she would have stuffed a little surfer girl in the mail to me from Hawaii if she could and told me so but all I got was a tee shirt. She was honest, brave and fun and then in a snap she was gone and I’m still so very young.
Seven turns landed in my lap in 1990. After the wilderness years of solo albums, band feuds, people magazine covers and releases that had glimmers but only a few tracks to cling to I ripped the cellophane off the new CD. How the fuck do you open a CD Jesus mother of marry get that freakin’ label sticky crap sealed again under the cellophane off? What fresh packaging hell is this!? Wait don’t break the plastic case. Okay CD’s came out in the mid 1980’s but I mean seriously!!?
I deposited the new disc in my player and like many of you I was ten years in the waiting….please don’t suck, please don’t suck, please don’t suck. Heightened anticipation positive but still please no more over synthesized pablum puke for the masses. Not since Brothers and Sisters come on we need a complete effort not just one or two righteous explorations and then fill come on mannnnnnnnnn.
So there I was in my old Victorian on the precipice of exaltation, disappointment or somewhere in between. I was all alone no roommates, holding down several gigs, making ends meet, no television, finalizing Journey Home and my music and art surrounding me. Vintage hippie pad, crooked floors, bay windows, complete with tapestries, incense and Native American flute music emanating from the windows. My Cousteau Calypso flag hanging from the second story out front proudly. Plants and bookshelves The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Van Gogh, acoustic and electric, an old typewriter two kittens pesticide free pest control and support system please don’t shit in the rubber plant Sylvia it was Jeana’s.
The marinara steeping in my small antiquated kitchen, pasta at the ready, fresh bread and a nice bottle of red. Good Clean Fun comes roaring out of the speakers! Yeeeees! Fist pump, arms raised, eyes to the heavens nirvana in my crib but no one to share it with. No matter I’ve always been a god damn independent. As one song rolls into the other and I’m preparing my modest feast the thought that grows naturally from my soul and heart is that Duane must be so proud of his younger brother right now and I feel it I really do and the smile is there the music is righteous, strong, invigorated and there it is right in the middle of the floor as I turn my sisters fedora with the feather she stuck in the trim ribbon waiting to greet me.
We live in a beautiful world an amazing world surrounded by creativity and beauty and honor and goodness and magic. It’s a reality unknowable and the ying and yang of it all gives us our work to do and presents those challenges. If met we are the wiser for it more fulfilled brimming with soul satisfaction and awareness at every step, every waking moment and in our dreams as well the visions abound both here and there. It really is a beautiful world and it’s all tied together whether we know it or not in ways we cannot seem to see but sometimes do and more often then afterwards we hear the song birds sing thank you.
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