May Flowers

Saturday in Columbia Missouri. Is it like Saturday where you're from? Probably but the Holy Road House is hushed in anticipation of the return of its favorite son and daughter: Lizzie and Baba are coming back this week.

Prepare to join us this Wednesday evening for a potluck and jammin' and laughin' and kickin'. Much to do to get ready, much more to do once they're back. We have some serious playfulness coming up.

Meanwhile, our own lovely mistress ultra hostess Firedancer bought and installed some flowerage that is, for the moment only, nearly as beautiful as she is.

Karma

One of my favorite zen stories:

There is the story of the man who had murdered ninety-nine people before he met a holy man. Thereafter he retired to sit beneath a tree beside a well traveled path. One day a warrior on his way to conquer the next town stopped before the man and demanded he move from his place beneath the tree. When the man refused, the soldier drew his sword, and the man rose from his place and murdered the warrior with his hands. He had killed a hundred men, but in killing the last he saved a hundred souls who would have died in the town. Immediately upon killing the soldier, the murderer was released from the karma of his acts and achieved satori.

So it goes.

Stories About Stories

Everyone knows I'm crazy for stories. Can't get enough of them. What is it that makes them so irresistable? I know I'm not alone -- our whole culture, our whole species is crazy for stories. We need them like we need air and water. I'm not at all sure we could live for very long if we somehow totally lost access to stories.

Our lives are stories, and we tell those stories to ourselves and to each other constantly. Virtually every conversation anyone has is a story or part of a story about ourselves and about others. Stories validate us, they remind us we're alive, but they're even more than that. We're creating our stories as we go, on the fly, moment by moment. This episode, now this one, and the next one, and this little complication, and now this huge dramatic moment, and our recovery from that, and the story goes on. And on.

So, although I have dedicated myself recently to the task of making up stories, of creating them for amusement and entertainment and maybe even enlightenment, it turns out I'm only one of many. One of billions, as a matter of fact. Which is quite all right with me.

One of the things I have bumped into, trying to learn how to tell stories, is the idea that it's possible to reflect on our lives and see them as unfolding stories, and that we have the power then to rise higher and higher into our real roles as storytellers of our own lives. We can, and probably should, get good at creating our own stories.

Psychologists call it "scripting your life". That's only one phrase to describe it, but it's a useful one. Cast yourself as the highly likeable and wonderfully competent lead in your own play: the play of your life. Then script it every day, every moment even. It's fun being a playwrite. Try it!

Okay. I want to indulge myself for a moment and share a story I just wrote (rewrote, actually - I drafted most of it long ago. It just needed to be completed). You can fine it here.

Love from the Holy Road House.

Remembering Stones

Consider this:

That all of your knowledge is like stones lying in a field. Where did they come from?

You didn't put them there. They erupted -- are continually erupting -- from the earth's bowels, from the soil itself, which is a fine matrix of crushed stones, old knowledge, edges worn away by endless exposure to the light of the sun, the pressures of water and wind, and the ceaseless, restless shifting of the earth itself.

Pick them up and build with them. Build a castle. Build walls, build mills and line wells, build your homes. Live in them, raise your children and animals in them. Line your gardens with them and shape your tools from them. They are endless and they are yours.

In time they will crumble back to the earth and with the help of the sun and moon, they will feed you. Know that they are the substance which feeds you, the substance that protects you. Know that they are the substance of which you are composed and to which you return.

Lay no store in knowledge. It is nothing. Like the stones, it is only earth and sun and moon. It is only the all of everything and only emptyness. You may value knowledge, but only for a moment. More than that disallows it, prevents it, subverts it into something other than its origins. Knowledge is only consciousness. It is the field itself in which you lay. Cultivate it, then forget about it.

As the poet says, "Work without doing."

Out Of My Mind

A fantasy:

   ”Hello Doc?" On the telephone.
   "Yes, Dr. Finster here."
   "Oh, okay. Say doc, I want you to do something for me. Do you think you would?"
   "Well, give it a try. What do you want me to do?"
   "I want you to declare me mindless."
   "What?"
   "I don't have a mind, doc. I want you to declare me mindless. Got it?"
   "I can't."
   "Why not?"
   "Wait a minute. Is this a joke?"
   "Not unless it's on me. Yesterday I had a mind. Today I don't. I've lost it. It's gone. Just, poof! "
   "Are you trying to tell me you're insane?"
   "Sorry doc, I really don't know what 'insane' means. I know that I don't mind at all that my mind has disappeared. Quite a burden lifted, if you ask me. But it would really help me out if you would go ahead and fill out a paper declaring me mindless. I can probably draw some sort of social security benefit or something. After all, it won't do any good to go to my job now, will it."
   The doctor had an idea. "Why don't you come down to my office and I'll examine you and if it looks to me like your mind is gone, I'll sign you into the state hospital." That'll do the trick, he thought to himself.
   "Can't you take my word for it? Who should know better than I?”
   "If you're mindless you're not going to know anything, are you."
   "Oh, you've got that all wrong, doc. See, I'm not my mind. I'm me."
   But that doesn't convince the doctor and he hangs up. What can I say? There's nothing mindless about modern medicine, is there.

Troubadors Weekend

Alisa and I tripped over to Bellville Illinois Saturday to visit our great friend Suzibird and her menagerie of parrots. Then up to Edwardsville to the oddly named "Stagger Inn" cafe and bar for what turned out to be a wonder show featuring the Duct Tape Duo Trio, this time as a quartet with our buddy Jeff Wheeler, and following them, the amazing Troubadors of Divine Bliss.

Folks kept buying me drinks and despite that, I had a great time. The next day we enjoyed a fine breakfast of scrambled eggs with pepperjack cheese and bagels, then went to an art fair and were fully awakened finally by Roscoe Beano and seven of his friends and family (again featuring Jeff Wheeler on djembe). Incredible wild energy all around, especially for that time of day.

Sad to say, I accidentally deleted all my photos of the Troubadors, but they will be back. I look forward to hosting them at the Holy Road House this fall. I believe they are hosting Lizzie and Baba as I write this at their place in Indiana. They completely blew me away, even though I was prepped to expect that to happen. Two of the smartest and bravest women I've met.

Long Bet and Spiritwalker

"The Long Bets Foundation - make long-term predictions and hope someone will bet against it. Winnings go to the winner's choice of charities. This is a partial spin-off from The Long Now Foundation, which is building a 10,000-year Clock and tools for a 10,000-year Library. Long Bets is one of the Library tools. A Stewart Brand project."

and

Hank Wesselman, Spirit Walker: Messages from the Future (and related books)

"Hank Wesselman is a physical anthropologist (UC-Berkeley) whose career activities include research with teams in Africa’s Great Rift Valley where Lucy and other early human ancestors have been discovered. His background as a physical anthropologist concerned with long-term ecological change plays a role in these books, but their real import has to do with a very different path--one of spontaneous and then deliberate shamanistic experiences that reveal a dramatically different future for humanity." (review by Michael Winkleman. quoted without permission)

More later.

The Tops of Our Heads Are Missing

Well, they just left. Another great national touring group - the Fat Little Bastards. They came, they played, they left, and a small number of us in Columbia are trying to piece our lives back together. Never has this town heard sounds like we heard last night. Part jazz, part classical, part fusion, part rock, part world music. All of it with incredible energy and amazing musianship. And this on the tiny downtown stage in the Blue Fugue.
Three very talented and well trained young musicians from Boston and Brooklyn, and cool fun guys too. Andrew Stern on guitar, Eric Platz on drums, and Noah Jarrett (yes, Keith's son!) on upright bass. This was music that normally we would only hear on the stage at Jesse Hall or possibly the Missouri Theater - big stage, big audience. Instead, there were maybe a dozen of us in the bar who were mesmerized, with maybe that many again outside staring through the big open window in awe and amazement.

And they were kind enough to say good things about Mike's Peanut Butter Pancakes the next morning. I am glowing with pride just to have met these guys.


I've been lazy about blogging, but it's all good. Yesterday Alisa came over and we worked on setting up the Holy Road House production office on the first floor. She and I are tripping to St. Louis this weekend to enjoy and party with the Troubadors of Divine Bliss, our Louisville friends, mend some fences and solidify some friendships, and just have fun.

It's turned cool so I'll be spending more time outdoors today and tomorrow, mowing, raking, trimming. Flowers are everywhere. The Garden of Eden seems determined to spring back into existance. Enjoy it, everybody, I know I am.

Food, Computers, Books

Obviously my life revolves around food. And monitors and keyboards. And books. It occurs to me that in this way, my life hasn't changed as much as I imagined it might. I certainly am a creature of habit. And of appetities.

And I can never tell where inspiration for words will come from. This morning it came from my skillet. I have never been a great cook, I will be the first to admit, but I've always enjoyed cooking when it's been thrust upon me. And living alone has encouraged me to cook more, even if only for myself. And doing so, I've determined that I have a real talent for cooking. I'm getting really good at it, see. So I've decided to share my skills with the world. I will start adding some of my favorite recipes to this blog. Don't look for them every time - great work takes time to mature and of course I'm picky so I'll only present the best and most useful ones for your enjoyment. I should add that my recipes will be of most interest and use to people like me, in my sort of situation: a bachelor male living mostly by myself. So, without further ado, here is my first contribution.

Scrambled Eggs
This one is easy enough to get you started, in case you are a single male, say a young man just out on your own, or suddenly divorced (through no fault of your own, I'm sure), or you've just gotten out of prison and you can't find a roommate. Just follow these simple directions:

1. Put two or three eggs in a pan.
2. Plan to cook them over-easy (you know about that: it's what the cooks at Denny's do all the time. You may know one of them actually, as many of them probably got out of jail about the time you did).
3. Forget to grease the pan.
4. Flip the eggs.

The result: perfect scrambled eggs.

Of course, this raises a new question: how to get the residue of the eggs out of the pan, since you probably scooped up as much of the eggs as you could and sat down and ate them, forgetting to turn off the heat under the skillet so now they're stuck on there like tar on rice-paper. There are a couple of things you can do that are pretty easy:

1. Wait for a hail storm. Put your pan out in the yard and let the hail clean it. This has the additional advantage that the rain that usually follows the hail will help clean out what's left. If there's no rain, you may be able to count on a neighborhood dog coming along and licking it clean.
2. If you're lucky enough to be living in a house with a clothes dryer (sorry all you jailbirds, I know how unlikely this is), then just place the pan, along with a good hefty shovelful of sand, in the dryer. Turn it on and let it work for, oh, maybe an hour or so. Note: this works best with skillets with steel or wood handles. Plastic, not so good.
   

That's it. Next time: the easy way to make Bird's Nest Soup.

We Are What We Eat

Well, Mike Clark's done it again - fixed a fabulous meal at the Holy Road House. His favorite, shrimp curry on jasmine rice. Um um. That, and fine conversation and orienteering (Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens, the Bronx - I've always been curious where they lay in relation to each other).

So good food, good friendship, good information. This house just keeps feeding me in so many ways.

Bean is back too - another old friend on hand.

Worked on a strange story today from my childhood. Short short version: I had to talk one of my best friends (when I was about fourteen) out of killing his father (truth). More than once. Curious the sorts of things that shape us when we're young.

Quiche Music

Is quiche a form of kitsch? A kitchen seems a good place to contemplate quiche, especially a kitchen filled with kitsch, don't you think? The aroma of kitsch, nothing like the aroma of quiche, fills my mind when I think of silly Americana like, oh, brass hen heads or candleabra under the table, say, or glass jars for syrup which resemble a stereotype of Aunt Jemima, full round skirt under her broad apron, all edges worn away by centuries of relentless daily work.

Kitsch is fun, but quiche is delicious, especially fresh, hot out of the oven and steaming, crust a golden brown that crumbles when you look at it wrong. Eggs and spinach and brocolli and sea salt and ground pepper and paprika on top. Should have had mushrooms but those all went in the salad, along with the last of the leftover onion, which is why these two are onion-free quiches too, and no cheese either, simply because I didn't think to put it in. That's what happens when you're hungry and in a hurry to fix lunch and you don't take time to meditate properly on what the contents of the perfect quiche might be. Good quiche today, but not perfect.

Good life today, if not perfect. Friends over for dinner - Alisa and her son Skye, such a cool kid, and Pam, who showed up a trifle late but actually right on time. Alisa brought fresh fruit - an unexpected treat of strawberries and pineapple, which we cut into finger sized bits. I fetched a bag of powdered sugar and that made the perfect dip. Pam brought her regular, carrots and broccoli (uncooked) but with a special treat: a jar of Guiltless Gormet Roasted Garlic Hummus dip and to call this a treat would be like calling a tornado a mild draft. Although its effect on one's taste buds is arguably more subtle than a whirlwind.

Regardless. We talked Coop. We talked Magazine. We talked Burning Man and boyfriends and booking local bands and beluga (not really, I just like that word). We talked about the joys of sharing and encouraging and uplifting and empowering, and how some people just don't get that and can't stand to hear it. But some do and we talked about the felicity of friendships and fine feathered friends. Finally, we agreed to brainstorm the magazine into existance, starting with e-mail and then with sit-downs and lists and such. I sent Alisa home with a teeshirt one of my daughters bequeathed me, a tie-dye with a huge plant leaf on the front. I wonder what that could have been.

As for me, I managed to finish loading approximately 35 gigs of wave files from our last C3 show into my PC and have completed the first mix pass. That and enlisting my best friend in the task of critiquing the story arc of my novel and I'd call this a pretty successful day.

Although what makes a successful day? Perhaps remembering to feed the fish and water the plants and make a grocery list, which I also did. Maybe taking time to read a fantastic short story in the New Yorker, which I did not do, but which holds the promise of improving tomorrow just that little bit. Every day is a successful day when you remember to Remember, when it dawns on you at least once to recall that we're creating our reality here, bit by tiny bit, moment by tiny moment, and that every moment is this moment and no other.

To tomorrow then, which I fully expect to be another today, another opportunity to live in the Now.

The Music of Summer Rain Rising

Spring is well here and summer is coming on quickly. Missouri weather is odd though: fifty degrees at night, mid-eighties during the day. After spending more than twenty years living in air conditioning both at home and work, I'm pleased that living without it so far has been so easy. The Tumbleweed Hotel is cool during the day on the basement and first floors, warmer on the second, and plenty warm on the top floor starting about nine or ten a.m. and lasting often well past midnight.

This is the way I lived my youth. Cross breezes from open windows, hanging out on the porch, especially around sundown. Fans. The home I was raised in was stone and the bottom floor was cool mostly, even on the warmest days. So I find myself reminded of my childhood and young teen years here in so many ways. I couldn't have hoped for more: both a throwback and a throw forward, changes upon changes, encouraged to abandon old grooves and habits, finding new and better ways to live. And especially so when the house is filled with the bustle and energy and joy of young lives. I am dragged, screaming and giggling with the fun of it all, back to my youth by this new life. Howlelluja!!

The gardeners have shown up again - the community gardeners, not the Holy Road Gardeners, but I look forward to their return too - and have staked out small plots in the newly plowed ground next to our house. Suddenly half-grown tomatoe plants appear, complete with circular vine cages. Good time for this: days are still mostly cool, and it seems we get at least a few minutes of rain every day.

I finally found two bags of bird seed in the barn and now the birds are all over their feeders. It's like they and the squirrels were watching from afar, waiting for the feeders to reappear, and when they did, they all threw a huge party in the yard. All kinds of birds and squirrels - they all seem to get along with each other without squabbling, a relief to this old man, having already raised my kids and dealt with my share of hungry infants. I wish I had a good camera with a telephoto lens. I can't get close enough to this colorful mix of partyers to get a picture of them. The small black and yellow feeder is dominated by small black and yellow birds, some kind of small finches maybe, who clearly own that feeder and rarely allow other birds close to it. Other birds, all kinds but especially redbirds and robins, crowd the larger feeder and knock plenty of seed to the ground, where the squirrels wait and feast. A happy synergy that makes it fun to watch from the kitchen window as I wash dishes.

Shane, my former bandmate, dropped by yesterday. He wants to get a new band going - almost anything will do, as long as he gets to write and blow the sax and sing his songs. So the next project is starting to shape itself, as I knew it would. He and Kathy, the hot punk drummer friend of ours, and maybe Stuart on guitar. We'll see.

Another great year for music in Columbia is emerging. It's irresistable, as always - like steam rising from the streets after a hot summer day's rain.

Mother's Day in the Rain

What a pleasure it is to be able to sit and watch the storm roll in, watch the rain hit, smell the wet on the wind, hear the hiss of the downpour, and not have to run inside. Front porches - a past necessity, and a present gift, at least here at the Tumbleweed Hotel.

It was a two-gig weekend, and long gigs at that, a total of ten hours on stage this Friday and Saturday nights at a restaurant in the Ozarks. Cinco de Mayo, Mexican New Year. I saw exactly two Mexican-Americans at that party, but considering the place featured worse than average food at high-class prices, I'm not surpised. Who except those determined to drink until they were thoroughly obnoxious would go to a place like that. Well, I did, but I was paid pretty well to be there, and I had exactly one beer. As a band member, I not only had to work my butt off and put up with drunks, I was given the privilage of paying full price for anything I consumed. A dollar-sixty for a small cup of coffee? Okay, I see how this goes.

But I got to see some old friends and pretty much enjoyed the music both nights. I have no real reason to complain and every reason to be grateful.

Today I slept late and tidied my room while listenening to Ira Glass's This American Life on NPR. The challenge for the day: cut the long long grass before the storm hit. I did it, but just barely. Tomorrow I rake.

It's Mother's Day. Best to you, mom. Love, your kid.

Irises in the Rain

I was pleasantly surprised this morning to see white irises blooming next to the Holy Road Barn. Maybe I should have expected them - they are a spring flower, but I think they bloom earlier than this. Regardless, they are lovely. I can't bring myself to pick them - maybe tomorrow for the Wednesday potluck.

There's not often much to say about my days in the Holy Road House. It's writing each morning, work for the house and coop in the afternoons, and a lot of that work, like today, is repetative and hardly interesting enough to talk about, and the result, like my story drafts, are often not ready for prime time. Nonetheless I made good progress today on readying the Tumbleweed Cabaret web site for Lizzie and Baba.

I don't know who's coming tomorrow for the potluck, but I'm going to prepare something special, something other than soup or stew this time. Something interesting.

Here's the second of ten exercises:

II.

Martin la Folet turned his face to the wind and sniffed. Rank, he thought, as usual. One would not want to go there. He quickly banished the image of the docks and their rough company that formed in his mind – he'd left all that and he preferred to think of the waterfront and the ocean, if he thought of it at all, as a foreigner might: simple romantic scenes of pleasure and indulgence painted in cooling pastels. It was as if he had never been there, really, a neat trick of the mind if one simply chose to look at it that way. The past was the past and long gone, and this was now, a new day brimming with opportunity. Martin stepped smartly in his new pointed leather boots toward that part of the city which was now his destiny. Without turning his head, he glimpsed another businessman, like himself, who was surely admiring this tall well-turned young man in the new suit, dark hair neatly cropped, thin face with sharp nose facing straight ahead as he walked crisply toward the Evans Imports Co. office building in the heart of the city's commercial district.