Text Message Koan

I received this beautiful text message on my cell phone yesterday, “Hush, I’m on my way.”

Dream Recollective

If I remember then vividly enough, and I find them interesting enough I like to write down my dreams.

The Sandwich Shoppe and The Lord

My wife and I had apparently purchased a small sandwich shop in a strip mall. The strip mall was a “U” shaped structure with a courtyard. In the sandwich shop a row of the large ceiling tiles were sagging. Before I could even consider what to do about the tiles a customer walked in. We had not actually opened the shop for business and didn’t have any of thing out of the pantry or refrigerators. We didn’t even have the lights on yet. We somehow made sandwiches for the customers and one of them suggested I talk to the landlord about the sagging ceiling tiles. The customer said that the landlord had actually sold out to some developers but he was in the courtyard at this moment and this would be my last chance to get any repairs authorized by him.

I went into the courtyard and the landlord was walking around with a handful other attentive guys. It looked like one of those Bible illustrations of Jesus and his disciples. Except the disciples were dressed in business shirts and ties, some with clipboards or brief cases and the landlord was a naked balding dude. Well sort of a dude. He was a middle aged guy, with dark hair but very very thin on top. He had a goatee and a little hair on his chest and stomach. Now that I am recalling it, he kinda looked like the BTK killer in Wichita except he didn’t wear glasses. He also had a bald vagina for his genitals. This group was strolling through the courtyard with the landlord telling the attentive, note-taking disciples things that needed to be done about the strip mall and a crowd was beginning to grow around them. I could not get close enough to the landlord to tell him about my sagging ceiling tiles in the sandwich shop.

Ultimately the landlord, disciples and crowd had strolled out of the courtyard and into a large park with a stage at one end. The landlord and disciples took seats at the back of the stage. In front of them were a lot of old ‘rock venue’ amps and mics and monitors. There were old beige and black Marshall stacks, Fender guitar amps, a couple of mixing boards, and a slew of mics and mic stands etc. There was no rock band, but there was a couple roadies working. I remember thinking that it was kinda old and crappy equipment, but that maybe the band wanted it that way for their ’sound’. The crowd in the park was quite large and I saw no way I was going to get close enough to the stage to ask the landlord about the tiles, particularly if a band was about to crank it up.

I decided that my best option was to fly over the crowd and land on the stage. (Editors note: I have been able to fly in quite a few of my dreams over the past couple years but I don’t recall being able to fly before that). I also thought that the landlord, disciples and crowd might be kind of impressed that I could fly. I sprung myself into the air enough to catch an air current. This process is kind of like starting a kite where there are dips and lifts and, with luck, more of the latter until I am able to stay comfortably aloft. I was able to get aloft but was having trouble making my way toward the stage. It was like I was fighting a bit of a crosswind because I kept drifting and angling to one side. It was a slow and arduous effort fighting this crosswind and I couldn’t really pay attention to the crowd. By the time I got close to the stage the crowd was actually dispersing and it appeared the concert was over, and the landlord and his disciples were leaving. I was able to land on the stage just as the naked landlord was about to descend the steps from the stage. He stopped and it was only he and I on the stage. He seemed impressed that I could fly and asked what he could do for me. I told him about the tiles and he said he was sorry, but that the mall was out of his control now that the concert was over. He offered, by way of consolation, that I could have all of the old sound equipment left on the stage. I turned and looked at all the old Marshall and Fender amps and cabinets, etc. and thought that was kinda cool. I turned back and the landlord was gone. Perhaps there was some kind of angel attended ascension into a big high-rise office or something but I didn’t see any of that and there were no angels around to explain.

I woke up a little hungry.

Rant / Myspace = Mepuke.

Why anybody seriously maintains a myspace page is a mystery to me even if you are an ‘artist’. Myspace is the home of the most desperate, noisiest bunch of blatherers on the net. The only thing possibly more pathetic is blogging.

Parallel Crossings – Sandor Szabo/Kevin Kastning

Editors Note: I really should have written this review Tuesday morning while still in the afterglow of listening to this new recording. I hope it still conveys my feelings of that day.

My wife had placed mail from Monday on my bedside table but I hadn’t even noticed it until Tuesday morning. The mail included two CD’s, one from Amazon and another, the “Parallel Crossing” CD from Mr. Kastning. I had some heard a little of the pre-final-mix excerpts from “Resonance” (the first release of these recordings) and had no qualms about purchasing that CD when it was released. Hence, I was honored to have received this slightly advanced copy of “Parallel Crossings”. I elected to listen to the CD on my drive to work which I wouldn’t normally recommend for these recordings. Besides the sophistication of the music itself, the recording quality of these CD’s really demands a more pristine listening experience. Knowing I was compromising the experience, I did elect to use ambient-sound headphones. These primarily improvised guitar duets defy categorization in any popular sense. I am going to offer this comparison only to attempt a crude beginning point of reference. The music is kind of like a convergence of 20^th century chamber music, Ralph Towner or Egberto Gismonti improvisations, and any number of ECM label soundscape artists. The instruments themselves - 6-string baritone guitar, 12-string baritone guitar, 6-string extended baritone guitar, and 12-string extended baritone guitar – and their tunings are forays into new territory. The music itself is dense and complicated but also ethereal. The recording is a superlative example of truly capturing the ambience of the acoustic instruments in a consummate final mix. This is NOT easy listening and best listened to without distraction and in pristine audio conditions. That said, many sections are really marvelous ’soundscapes’ that hold up as meditative ‘background’ music. I have actually looped a few sections for contemplative times, though I’m not sure what kind of endorsement the artists themselves might give for relegating the music that way. It’s my impression that Szabo brings a slightly detectable East-European influence to his part as Kastning brings a more chamber music sound to his side of things. There are some parts of some tracks that lean to the chamber music side with invention or fugue like motifs but they never bog down there (bog down admittedly indicating this listener’s bias). Both “Resonance” and “Parallel Crossings” CD’s are in my frequent rotation stack of CD’s. If you like music that is challenging intellectually AND spiritually provocative you should dig this.

>Parallel Crossings / Amazon / CD Baby

>Resonance / Amazon / CD Baby

Gots No Gumption

I have days like this too often to amount to much but infrequent enough to keep me from sleeping under a bridge. List 1. Me 0.

Crop Cover Grain field

I pass this farmer’s field every day on my way home from work. There is some kind of crop cover grain growing there now and in the setting sun it glows gold.

What a weekend it was…

..in that it already occurred and so not a weekend that will be…or that is occurring now… but rather was… but I undress.

Chapter 1

Some days ago, Baby Bro had called to see if he could procure the services of Old Blue, my environmentally rude pick’em up truck for Saturday. Old Blue is also the name of my nads but we’re talking about the services of my truck now. It seems Bro had purchased an inflatable above ground pool for his 5 kids. It was on clearance at the local home-improvement super-vast-and-confusing store during the winter and sat in his garage till now and he was preparing to set it up. I confess I thought inflateus.com was an entirely different kind of site, but I digest. The pool actually uses some of the water you fill it with to create the walls so it needs to be set up on level ground. Otherwise you get a scale model tsunami as the sides collapse. The location in Baby Bro’s back yard had a slope to it so he was going to use screened dirt from Gardenville. Gardenville is one of the few places left around here that will load up tractor buckets of landscape materials right into your pickup truck. I agreed to meet him there on Saturday morning.

In the meantime Baby Bro had squared and strung up the site with batter boards to calculate how much dirt he was going to need and discovered that he would need 4 yards. In case you’re not familiar with this, those are cubic yards and that’s really more or less dirt than it sounds depending whether you have metric dirt or not. Regardless it would be several pick’em up truck loads so he decided to pay to have it delivered on Friday morning. He called to say he wouldn’t be needing Old Blue on Saturday after all. Still the 4 yards of dirt would have to be moved from the front yard to the back yard so I offered - he did not ask - to knock off work in the morning to come help him. I arrived Friday morning around 8:30 with a couple of shovels. I actually have only learned to use one at a time, but maybe I was hoping a neighbor would see what fun we were having and want to pitch in. Baby Bro had his own shovel and a wheelbarrow. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring a wheelbarrow. In case you’re wondering, 4 yards of dirt equals 30 to 50 wheelbarrow loads depending on the size of your wheelbarrow (And you know what they say about the size of a man’s wheelbarrow). But not to worry, Baby Bro had a buddy bringing by a trailer to pull behind the riding mower that would hold about 3 or 4 wheelbarrow loads of dirt. I can’t imagine how Baby Bro thought he was going to do all this by himself. I also imagine that right about now the incredible clearance price for the pool didn’t seem so incredible. After a bit of coffee we started digging in. We started with the wheelbarrow. In fact we probably did almost 1/3 of the dirt making trips back and forth with the wheelbarrow. The guy with the trailer showed up and dropped it off. We got a big chunk of the stack done before I had to leave for work. I had put in about 2 hours of shoveling. It wasn’t hot and it was a reasonable pace so I didn’t have too much soreness. I worked a couple hours at the office and had a checkup with the oral-wallet-surgeon (see previous post) and was back at the office for work when I called to check on Baby Bro’s progress. Well, it seems he miscalculated and would need 1 or 2 more yards of dirt. So I offered to meet him at Gardenville at 4 in the afternoon. They dumped a yard in Old Blue and she moaned just a teeny bit in protest. But she held her head high (if not her tail low) as we took the dirt to Baby Bro’s house a few miles away. We still had the buddy’s trailer and were able to shovel Old Blue’s load in a couple trailers full over about an hour. After raking and screeding the dirt, the truth in front of us was that he needed that other yard of dirt, but Baby Bro was spent so he was going to make do with what we had. We observed the manly rite of chatting while leaning with our forearms on the bed of the pickup truck for a while. More than one “yep” was exchanged. He thanked me profusely and I was on my way.

I was going to play keyboards in church on Sunday and really needed to practice because I knew I had a busy day on Saturday. I tried. I practiced for about a half hour. But I was just too tired to really give it much effort. I also needed to make up some lead sheets as the usual pianist usually plays with piano manuscripts written in a different key than the ensemble plays in. She just modulate using some buttons on her keyboard. Since I don’t really know her keyboard that well (hello!) and I also don’t sight read too reliably, I usually make up lead sheets with melody and chords. I was too pooped for that as well so I was going to have to wing it on Sunday.

Chapter 2

Besides being so charitable with my time and labor for my Baby Bro I had offered for my wife and I to keep the granddaughter while daughter/son-in-law packed for their ensuing move and held a garage sale on Saturday afternoon. We all had a wedding to attend that evening and we had already agreed to keep her that night. But I thought it would be helpful to not have her under foot during the garage sale. I am so !@#$ing magnanimous sometimes. We were going that afternoon to the University of Texas where my son attends. He is a member of a ’service’ organization (read frat-lite) and they were hosting a “parents day” tailgate party for the baseball game. I’m guessing “parents day” means 30% less beer consumption that usual. We picked up the granddaughter at noon in New Braunfels, and headed off to Austin. We scored a good, and forever to remain secret, parking place - a rare rare commodity in Austin and particularly at UT. We strapped the granddaughter in a stroller and headed to the parking lot where the party was. There was a nice grassy section in the middle so there was lots of room for the granddaughter to run around. Agreeing to be at a tailgate party AND tote around the granddaughter is totally against my usual curmudgeous credo but the sun dappling on the smiling faces of my wife, granddaughter and son were truly heart warming even for one as black as mine. My granddaughter is 17 months old and she is just starting to say some words. She is also doing this thing where she invites you to sit next to her by patting the area next to her and grunting. A lot of the college girls at the tailgate party were wearing t-shirts, short denim skirts and cowboy boots and hats. Sort of like a red-neck schoolgirl uniform. The granddaughter kept inviting them to sit next to her on the curb. She is, of course, irresistible so they would have to try and manage to keep the skirt down while they took a seat on the curb next to her. I could barely stifle the leer… er uh… grins. We hung out there a couple of hours. You can sort of see pics here of the tailgate party but they’re mostly of the granddaughter. Hey! I said she was irresistible.

Chapter 3

The wedding that evening was actually to take place on a riverboat on Lake Austin. Daughter and son-in-law had made plans to actually stay the night at the Radison Hotel on Ladybird Lake with friends who were attending. [Town Lake or Lady Bird Lake and Lake Austin are all part of the Colorado river that flows through Austin]. We arranged to use their hotel room for a brief refresher stop between tailgate party and the wedding. We got to the hotel room around 4pm. We got darkened the room and that got granddaughter and wife to sleep for a nice nap. I slipped out for a walk on Town Lake hike and bike trail. While rounding the corner of the hotel toward the trail a guy briskly walks past me carrying a bicycle. I figure he’s got a flat and is now having to hoof it to his destination with bike in tow. But as I head down to the trail he does also but with a detour to the side. Under a tree, he whips a pair of heavy wire cutters out his shorts pocket and starts working on breaking the chain locking the front wheel. I take a few more steps as I ponder what’s occurring. I’m adding it up in my head and its clear he’s stealing the bike. I turn and watch at least a dozen other people walk by and he is in plain sight of all of them. I decide to go back and confront him. I don’t know what I expected to happen. He wasn’t a particularly big or mean looking guy. I guess I hoped he would just run. So I walked up to him and I said “Dude” (wanting to appear like I had some street cred) “it looks like you’re stealing that bike”. He replied without looking at me “@!!#$ off”. Huh. I hadn’t really planned past this point. Now what. I repeated myself with slight variation. “Dude, I really think you’re stealing that bike”. “!@#$ off” again was his reply.. still no eye contact. I was talking loud so maybe somebody walking by might wanna offer some assistance. None. I’d like to tell you now that I deftly and summarily disarmed him and detained him for the police. But instead I walked quickly back around the corner of the hotel to see if I could summon a cop. I was conflicted a bit, ‘narcing’ him out like that. But somebody was really gonna be bummed when they discovered their bike was missing. So I grabbed the Valet and told him a guy was stealing a bike and could he call a cop. He came around the corner with me while radioing to the desk for police. By the time we got back, Dude and bike were gone. I felt like the most pathetic avenger ever. Anyway, within a few seconds after that bicycle cops that patrol the trail showed up. I gave them a description of the bike and Dude. While giving the description a couple other bicyclist came up and asked if we were looking for a bike thief. They explained they’d seen a guy urgently peddling down the trail but missing all the gears so they felt sure the bike wasn’t his. One bike cop took my name/number info and the others peddled off in pursuit. After that I hiked down the trail for a ways all the while imagining myself spotting the guy somewhere along the trail and confronting him with my best Barney Fire ever. “My hands are registered lethal weapons!”. The trail is beautiful this time of year. After about an hour between police chase and my hike I returned to the room. I didn’t have time for an actual shower but I washed up and changed for the wedding. Daughter and son-in-law arrived and we drove to the boat dock.

The groom is a retired chef turned stock trader and the bride the divorcee of a wealthy lawyer turned school teacher. I think the groom had been married before too so they elected to go ‘whimsical’ for this wedding. Besides being on the afore mentioned boat it featured a belly dancer, sword swallower and those guy who shoot flames from their mouths. No, not the right wing republican radio talk show hosts. These were actual flames. Like the ones the talk show hosts will burn in for eternity. Although I had made a pact not to spend any more of my remaining days on this earth at weddings except possibly my own children’s I have to say it was kind a of a nice cruise. I didn’t even go on the top deck for the actual ceremony. I just stayed down and took in the scenery. The belly dancer was much cuter than the usual belly dancer fare I had seen before. We definitely locked eyes during one of her performances and I think we might have shared a moment there. I’m pretty sure she’s still thinking about me today but I hope she is able to move on. The sword swallower was from New Jersey which took some of the lustre from the act because in Jersey they’ll eat anything. I mingle-mingled a bit with the assistance of a beer and half a vicodin. The cruise was actually two trips. The first trip ended at 9pm so those who weren’t serious committed revelers could disembark. Wifey, granddaughter and I were among the disembarkers. Some pics are here .

We got home a little before 11pm. Granddaughter had fallen asleep in the car. I had hoped that she would remain asleep when I put her in her crib. We had elected to actually sleep in the guest room with her. She sleeps there when her and momma stay plus I had to be up early for church and I didn’t want to wake her. But she awoke and would not go back to sleep in the crib. Ultimately wife and I laid down with her in the guest room bed and with some singing and gentle massaging I got to sleep, er.. I MEAN she got to sleep just before midnight. Still, all night long she would stir and whimper a bit. This would wake me up as I was on already high alert and over stimulated from the day of college girls in short skirts and belly dancers. Somewhere around 5:15 I went to my own bed. The alarm went off at the most painful 6:30 ever. I didn’t even bother to make coffee for fear it would wake the baby. I dressed, and drove through a donut shop for some C- grade coffee and a croissant on my way to church.

It was a small group playing for church. Bass, rhythm strummy-strum guitar and me on keyboards. I got through all the selections for church, including intros and endings without too obvious of stumbles. We actually got some compliments on the ensemble sound so go figure.

Afterwards we grabbed breakfast at the local taqueria and then went to the house. I can’t tell you how exhausted I was and we still had several hours before the hand-off of the granddaughter. I just basically watched in a stupor as she littered every square inch of the den and kitchen with either her toys or stuff deemed not sharp or poisonous within her reach and thereby deemed her toys. I used only the minimalist of motions to keep her from breaking herself or my stuff. When we were driving to meet the daughter and son-in-law I actually felt like I might fall asleep at some of the stop lights. I had wife drive home.

Chapter 4

I still don’t know if Baby Bro got the pool up and going.

Be Well John

Stopped by to visit my friend John Roof this morning. John and his wife Betsy run a general store/furniture
restoration business in the little town of Staples, TX. My daughter had a table that was damaged on the top by some kind of defense department secret weapon ingredient that is also used as potpourri. I had another piece of furniture to get an estimate on as well.

My mother owned an antique store in Martindale, TX which is near Staples. John and Betsy were frequent
visitors so that was my original connection. Many years later, after my mother passed away, (and my abject
poverty - though there’s no connection between the two) I contacted John about restoring a huge display cabinet from my wife’s parent’s pharmacy they operated on South Congress Avenue in Austin (now a very “hip” part of town). The cabinet was 12 feet long and 8 feet high and at least some of the sections were 80 plus years old. This job was more than a little restoration. It was a virtual reconstruction. Still, the piece is practically the only furniture I regard as of any value dollar wise or sentimentally. The job was not cheap (and I am a notorious cheapskate), but I don’t think anybody else would have tackled it at all, much less with the pure love John did, for any price.

John and his wife bailed on corporate life some decades back to open up the furniture restoration/general store and they fashioned an apartment for themselves in the back of the store. John is also an artist. John can be temperamental and a certified kook and an admitted agoraphobic but shouldn’t every artist be? I find him delightful. I imagine he can be a pain in the arse.

This morning John didn’t look so good. He says he’s been fighting diverticulitis since December. I hope that’s all it is. He hadn’t really been painting to much in recent years but he has apparently become more prolific since I last visited with him. I got to see some of his recent series of works as well as their remodeled kitchen in the apartment. Both the paintings and the carpentry work made me terribly envious. I turn into all three stooges at once any time I attempt the slightest bit of handiwork. Besides furniture and art, we discussed everything from absinthe to politics to grandchildren. He gave me good advise on the daughter’s table and an outrageous price on restoring the other piece of furniture. But if I pay anybody tackle that job its likely to be him.

Meatloaf Moment 2008-04-15

In an earlier post I mentioned that I go to Cracker Barrel for lunch on Tuesday for the meatloaf special. I’m sure I mentioned that I find Cracker Barrel a surreal experience.

Today at the table across from me sat an elderly couple. The woman was facing me and the man sat with his back to me. The man was a big guy. My guess is a good 6′2 or 3″ and probably went around 250. He was wearing some chino pants and a green shirt with green suede cuffs. He had wide green suspenders and a cammo ball cap on. Both of their hair was completely white. I was struck by how still the man was sitting. His hands were on the table in front of him and his head very slightly bowed. I made mental registration marks around his head and shoulders to observe his movement. I could see none. His wife would make a remark and go silent for a minute or two, then another remark followed by more silence etc. She never made eye contact with him while she was talking. Rather, she would scan the other tables or look out the window. He was so still that it was like he was in prayer or meditation. He never moved for the five to ten minutes it took for their food to arrive.

Once the food arrived they were a flurry of eating activity. They both ordered spinach or turnip greens..the completely drowned and boiled of life variety. They were cutting and salting to taste … and tasting. They had requested catchup and the waitress hadn’t come by yet. They kept furtively looking about to see if she was coming with their catchup yet. I saw a bottle at an empty table and I went and got it and took it to them. They gave me huge smiles and said thanks.

When my meatloaf came to my table the old lady leaned to the side so I could see her behind her huge stoic husband. She held up the catchup and gave me that raised eyebrow smile that said “You need some?”. I smiled and said no thanks.

What? My spell checker changed all the ketchup/catsup to catchup.

What’s on the hi-fi 2008-04-15

Ok ladies. I’ve put on my robe, slippers, and ascot; made/poured the martini; and dimmed the lights. So what’s on the hi-fi as I ease into my hanging Papasan chair? Okay, so I’m driving the environmentally rude - just broken in (165k miles) pickup truck and spilling a starbucks coffee on my jeans while listening to the mp3 player. But I’m listening to Greg Hoskins: Alone in the Mayor’s House…Almost. (Note: I’m not endorsing or disparaging candyrat records. I bought/downloaded from Amazon because its so unbelievably and delightfully convenient) This is one of those sparse, singer/songwriter kind of recordings of a live concert in Ontario, Canada. I bought it/dig it because:

1. the guys lyrics and voice are interesting

2. The guitar and drums only instrumentation is interesting

3. The recording quality is great.

Standout lyrics:

* How did I get this way? Everyday I chose to stay.

* God knows the man I want to be. The devil knows the man I am.

* Beneath the truth lies the bones of a truth more complete.  I bet everything I own its a truth that’s bittersweet.

Amen brother.