Okay not too much to say today but am feeling a little guilty about not keeping this page up t snuff. Prob will be a little/much better when and if I get a reg connection but to a great extent am scarred by the events of the past few years and as such behavior changes.
Pablo Picasso used to keep fifty thousand Francs in the trunk of the Hispano-suiza ( a luxury car) at all times just in case he had to make a getaway when the banks were closed. I know how he felt. He once described the difference between himself and other artists as the result of his being more superstitious then them. There's wisdom there in that the things we tell ourselves, however obscurely, are always things we ought listen to.
I don't favor paying too much attention to dreams and songs are but dreams but let's [put it this way. The creator should have some idea of what they have made - of what it means and by and large the art work leads you to an equilibrium ergo this is that and a cause effect ergo this leads to that. Such truths are not necessarily all encompassing nor permanent - thats one of the saving graces of life. There are truths we wish would last and those we can't get rid of fast enough.
next , interestingly the vast preponderance of posts on you tube regarding the economic future are pessimistic. Paul Krugman has taken over from Ken Galbraith the role of economics explainer in my mind, in part because our basic understandings were nearly identical for many years before I even heard of him and, importantly it is needful for one to consider and remember that prior to about five years ago the entire country was in the grip of a collective madness.
I jest that for a people that talk so much about freedom Americans seem at times perfectly willing to lay down and bark before any master with a sufficient whip and a bowl of puppy chow. This is to say that for many years there simply was no conversation you either worshiped at the altar of power and money or you were scum. Coming from the suburbs of NYC I felt this horror acutely as I watched it turn my friends and family into heartless zombies.
There's a Sumerian Goddess by the name of Ishtar who's of minor interest except that she was around at the coming of the thunder gods and like most of the pre paternal matriarchal goddesses, Cybelle, Astarte, Dian, and to a lesser extent Anu, she did not like the coming of the institution of marriage where males were the dominant figures.
I personally don't care to be a dominant male myself - never have - not because I don't like whipping women until they bleed, but because I'm too lazy, but anyway so Ishtar gets mad at her husband who's inthe underworld enjoying the delights of the youth full maidens and after a good deal of effort she confronts him and says "C'mon let's go home" He, of course, is quite happy in hell. The food's good and the river between his legs flows forever.
She's a goddess so she's not about to argue. Instead she says, "Allright, those people above ground - the humans on earth that you seem so fond of - I shall change their lives. The dead shall awaken in their graves and walk on the earth until the dead shall outnumber the living and rule them forever!"
Anthropologically what the priests of Sumeria were saying was "Be careful what you wish for because you may get it." In other words polygamy, hero worship and all the other aspects of a male dominated society may not be all that pleasent to have to endure.
But enuf twaddle.
So, I agree with Paul in most cases but one thing I hesitate to sign off on, although it seems true, is that the swing to the right madness of post reaganism is a result of the civil rights revolution. I don't argue against the idea, and in fact it seems logical.
What frightens me is the idea of the dead outnumbering the living. In other words the quantitative advantage becoming a qualitative one.
I look around sometimes and listen to peoples complaints and think to myself, "Oh , Chillum, you don't know nothin bout the blues"
In the days of the cold war there was a phrase pertaining to surviving such a conflict - "And the living shall envy the dead"
And that happens all to often.
"Don't count stars or you may stumble
Someone drops a sigh and down you tumble"
"It could happen to you" 40's standard
really am sorry having to make everyone wait as long as this has gone on - if you think about it actually though it's been years, decades even, since music has played a vital role in our society and essentially it is not my job to make that happen. I don't and never felt like I owed the public anything - if anything it's the other way around - after all - for gods sake I've got a great deal of training and effort that seemingly is of no value in the market place - and rather then scream at the market place I'll just enjoy my life - something which I am very good at -
plus there's another aspect in play - it's a drag to have to play the same things over an over again - I'll do it - for fifty large an hour or more and go though the hassles but otherwise I can get a kick out of just making new things and playing them new all the time. And what am I missing - God knows love ain't in the bargain the man is offering - nor is it supposed to be - and I'm simple minded enough to want to have that sort of thing be part of life .
You can't do anything about it - you're powerless and so I apologize for reducing you to being a spectator in the ongoing war between me and time warner - or who ever - but thats the way it goes and
don't forget that I released a lot of material - hundreds of songs - before the crash and if it didn't happen then I have little reason to think it will now - other then you know, as Fran Liebowitz said of Andy Warhol - you don't fall on to the top of a mountain. etc etc et all yumma yumma plip plop
Tamlin
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