With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
August 22, 2009 - 3:06 p.m.
It's 1:23 PM, time to start writing my "morning" update. As Christine Lavin says, "A good folk singer gets up at the crack of noon whether she has to or not." I was actually up around 9. That's where I've been lately. When school starts I have to move it up to 7.
So what happened last night? I had a bit of a health scare. I wasn't really hungry at dinner time so I didn't make the steak I defrosted, I just had peanut butter. When I feel full like that before I've eaten it can mean a Crohn's attack is on the way. I'm OK now so whatever it is passed. I'll have the steak tonight.
That didn't stop me from going out of course. I wasn't feeling sick and it takes a while for it to come on so there's no reason for me to stay in. Last night was a special show. Not only was Piñataland playing but Deni Bonet joined them on the violin. I've been a fan of Piñataland for years. I've been a fan of Deni for years. Yet I've never seen them together before.
The show was at Jalopy. I hadn't been there in months and now I was there the last two nights. Once again it was a late show, scheduled for 10:00. On the way over it struck me how much I love New York at the end of August. Know why? So many people leave so it's infrastructure isn't overused. In other words I didn't hit traffic. Most of the year going on the BQE at 9:15 on a Saturday night would mean crawling along. Last night I zoomed and got there in 25 minutes or so. Jean Shepherd often talked about the virtues of New York in August. He said that when the city empties all that's left are the real New Yorkers. He's right. My friends are still here, just the annoying people using up valuable resources like parking are gone.
When I got there the previous act was still on and Deni and Paul were waiting up front in the bar area. Paul is Deni's friend and manager and roadie and … . He's a cool guy. Jalopy's nice, we can talk there without disturbing the performance. I never seem to see Deni enough either socially or musically so it always good when I do. We got to do plenty of catching up. She didn't know that I broke my arm. She broke hers the same way. It's worse for her, she's a violinist. She actually had to do a gig without the violin. I missed that one. It must have been interesting. She has a band so they played while she sang.
I hung out with Paul during sound check then he went to the back where he likes to sit and I stayed in the front row for the show.
When they were setting up someone from Jalopy asked if they needed chairs on the stage or if they'd stand. I said, "The tuba player will need one." The guy thought I was joking but I wasn't. Piñataland's bass and rhythm is provided by a tuba. Usually that is, he couldn't make it last night so they had a bass player. That isn't as good so there was the plus of having Deni but the minus of no tuba.
I'm glad I reconnected with Piñataland. They are one of the seminal practitioners of Neuro-music, even without the tuba. Their material is not like anyone else's. Who else would write a song about Brits digging up Thomas Paine's body and bringing it back to England to put in a golden mausoleum? Another song was about a Madame that had FDR and gangsters as clients and testified against the mob. Oto Bengo is about a pygmy that was brought to the US for the St Louis World's Fair and after that lived in the Ape House at the Bronx Zoo. They are troubadours singing the history not taught in school.
Here's a shock, I took photos.
l to r: Deni, Robin, Doug
Deni
Doug
Robin
I often talk about neuroworld and neuromusic without defining the terms. To me it's like pornography, I can't define it but I know it when I see it (or hear it). I picked up neuro and neuroworld from Carey who came up with it with Megan. The words fitted classifications that pre-existed in my brain but were nameless. I think I came up with neuromusic with Carey. One of these days we'll put on the long planned neuromusic festival in a warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront. For now I'm going to let Carey and Megan define the terms. Someone asked about them on Facebook and I asked them to explain them.
Megan: Neuro World - when the world goes into an altered state of consciousness, but you don't...
Carey: neuromusic is music that comes from that altered state of consciousness. the bonzo dog doo-dah band is classic neuromusic. rushad eggleston's snee music is totally neuro. punk marching bands, freak folkies, and anything involving unusual instruments may also qualify.
Is Wise Madness neuro? How can I know? You only see neuro from the outside. Still somehow I think it is.
Playing God (How about James Earl Jones in the role?) - August 27, 2009
Pensees - August 26, 2009
Jews and Canadian Health Care - August 25, 2009
The True Story - August 24, 2009
R-E-S-P-E-C-T - August 23, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile August 22, 2009
