I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
March 24, 2013 - 4:57 p.m.
Sorry or the late update, it's been a lazy Sunday. I'm fighting to stay awake even though I had plenty of sleep. That might be indicative of something. We'll get to that later.
Last night I went to First Acoustics. This was my first stint there as part of the setup crew. That's why I didn't have much time to write yesterday. We have to transubstantiate the chapel into a coffeehouse, the folk music mass. The miracle part is that this can be done with me "helping."
Coco doesn't know this and don't tell her but she has been the subject of my thought control experiment which allows me to book a concert series without having to do any of the actual work. I just think who I want her to book and she does the rest. You don't believe me? Look at the 2012-2013 season.
September 22, 2012 - Roosevelt Dime with Honor Finnegan
October 6, 2012 - Buskin & Batteau and Freebo
November 17, 2012 - Caitlin Canty, Anna Dagmar and Anthony DaCosta
December 9, 2012 - Meg Braun, Jean Rohe and Carolann Solebello
March 23, 2013 - Barnaby Bright and Deni Bonet
April 20, 2013 - Spuyten Duyvil with Karyn Oliver
May 18, 2013 � Pesky J. Nixon with Kara Kulpa
June 1, 2013 - JONI MITCHELL'S BLUE: A 40th Anniversary Celebration
Tell me that wasn't my doing and I have a very nice bridge in Brooklyn that would be perfect for you that I can let you have at a bargain price. You can take it to First Acoustics, it's right nearby.
So as you can see last night was Deni Bonet and Barnaby Bright. It's hard to judge but my guess is that Deni is the artist I've seen the second or third most often since I started writing Wise Madness. the Kennedys rate to be number 1 and Christine Lavin the competition for number 2. I have seen them both every year since I started. If someone can think of anyone I might have seen more often let me know. If I haven't been seeing them since 2001 the odds are I haven't seen them more often.
Barnaby Bright has to be in the top three of bands I've seen the most often the last two years. I am going two months without seeing them and it seems like forever.
Jeff Eyrich played bass with Deni. I don't think he's done that before. I've known him longer than I've known anyone. I actually remember what year he joined Dave's True Story, 1998. I still think of him as a newbie.
They are all good friends so there was no way I would miss this show. I had to make sure that I was there early enough to let them in the building. Well OK that wasn't why I was there and I didn't actually let Becky and Nathan in but it sounds good.
After we did the transubstantiation and Bruce and Paul did the sound checks there was dinner. At one point I looked at my watch and said, "Doors must be open" As I finished the sentence Chris walked in. I then went to look who else was there. There were two groups, those that came with Chris including Gene & Isabel and Mel who came down from Boston and those that came with Fred. I've gone to a zillion concerts with each of them. I was in my element.
Amidst all this merriment disaster struck, Deni's guitar was broken on the way over, It got caught in closing subway doors. Of course it was her brand new Martin. She took it like a trouper. Her husband Andy came later and he brought her old guitar. The show must go on.
Barnaby Bright were on first. I have run out of things to say about them. I saw them six days ago and I haven't come up with any revelations since then. That probably isn't true. What I should say is that I haven't come up with any revelations that I can remember then next day. But I can give you the impression they left with someone seeing them for the first time that only knew them from hearing a CD. "I didn't know how much story telling is part of their show." I didn't either. It's always been part of the experience for me. I knew them live first.
The young woman that said that was Emily, Erika's daughter I saw Erika for the first time since July the night before. I only met Emily once, it was the day I first saw Mucca Pazza. I was ashamed that I didn't recognize her, good thing she knew me. That's part of the fun of marching, getting to talk to fun people. Jonathan and Krista Preddice, from Miles to Dayton came over to say hi after the show. I have a total mental block on their last names. It's terrible I always know it makes me think of "prejudice" but can never get the actual name out. They talk to me anyone. The people in the folk world are wonderful.
Lots of my friends are fans of Barnaby Bright, the only ones there for Deni were Todd and Amy. It's the kind of thing I don't get. It isn't just that I love her so much it's that her music is totally accessible. She manages to merge sophistication and party music. I object when she calls her music pop because it is so far from simplistic three chord pap. It should be popular but not pop any more than anything but the very early Beatles were. Sure you can just just hear and have your body move of its' own volition but to get the most out of it you have to listen.
She mentioned that her new album, It's All Good was produced by Richard Barone and I was the only one to applaud. He's great. I knew him first from the Bongos, the seminal Hoboken rock band. What he does now is closer to Cabaret, the shows have themes. He was the music director of The Downtown Messiah. Everyone in this area at least should know him. Yoko Ono knows him. You should too.
Oh I haven't even mentioned what she does and as I said, most of my Gentle Listeners are probably unfamiliar with her except through my writing. She plays violin. She has classical conservatory training. She was a regular on Mountain Stage. But now she does her Rock/Folk/Party music thing. She has a lot of Fanny Brice in her too.
After the show there was a donut showdown courtesy of Chris. mmmmdonuts. We then did the reverse transubstantiation and transformed it back into a chapel. I had to make a trip up to the church's Narthex. I didn't know what that was. I'm a nice Jewish boy atheist. But I should know it since I studied church architecture in several art classes. I got A plusses in the courses. Somehow that wonderful word did not enter my vocabulary. Is it in yours? It's always hard to judge what's common knowledge. Please comment of whether you knew the word or not.
I better finish this fast. I am going out tonight to hear music. Oh what a shock.
I never got to the personal part of this. I know why, I'm not feeling it now. But I think I should write about it, so I will. I don't talk about it as often as I feel it but I'm under a lot of stress. I'm homeless for god's sake. This is having some side effects. One is that my tolerance has plummeted. I find annoying people even more annoying. Sometimes it isn't even annoying people. I got annoyed at one of my colleagues for not understanding the basics of what's going on with a computer. The thing is I really like this person. He isn't an annoying person, I just didn't have the patience to explain why what happened on the computer didn't have a simple solution. I did explain it but I think my annoyance slipped into my voice even though I tried to not let it. I knew the person didn't deserve my reprobation. There is a gap between what I know and what I feel.
I also find myself feeling alienated and alone even amongst friends. I am actually handling that better than I used to. I have ruined days for myself by creating the isolation that I felt. Feeling that people were excluding me made me exclude myself. I don't do that anymore. For a while those feelings were totally gone. Now they come back. It even hit me last night amidst so many friends. I successfully fought it off and I doubt anyone noticed anything but I don't want to have to fight it off. I don't want it sticking it's ugly head into my life. I know better. But there are parts of the brain that act like birthers and creationists. They don't care about the facts.
Now I got that off my chest I'll declare victory and bring this entry to an end.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
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Horvendile March 24, 2013
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