Randy Newman's Newest Album

My favorite line from "Harps and Angels" comes from the album's title track:

"God bless the potholes
Down on memory lane..."

That old fella has still got it--never mind the crunch orchestral arrangement on "Korean Parents For Sale". Another choice Newman verse from earlier in his career:

"They say money can't buy love in this world
It'll getcha a half pound 'o cocaine,
A nineteen-year-old girl
Big long limousine
in the hot September night,
Now that may not be love but--
it's all right."

# # #

Concert

Goin' to see the man tonight. No telling if it'll be moving, alienating, or anything in between, since it all depends on the vocal delivery and the quality of the sound system.
However, his band is always ultra-tight, so it will be unassailably rockin.

I Got a Story to Tell

Hobe Kytr is a folklorist, songwriter, guitar picker, story teller, salmon defender, and knowledgeable fella of the first order. Mike Seeger said that Hobe should never change his banjo picking style, cause Hobe plays the instrument like no one else. Mike was totally right. Hobe is a human metronome who creates wonderful rhythmic momentum with the banjo.

When I was two, Hobe Kytr made an album, Dog Salmon and Rutabegas. My parents were (and are) friends with Hobe. While recording the album, he needed a bunch of people to sing on the chorus of the title track. My parents, who are not musicians by trade but can carry a tune, were among the friends he asked to sing along. They sang,

You'd better like Dog Salmon and rutabagas,
Boiled spuds, n' green tomatas,
Venison's a standard bill of fare--
And if ya can't live on that you'll have to live on air.

It's a great song, and for some reason my mom brought me along to the recording session, so after that third line the singin falls away for a few beats, at which time (on the cassette version they first released) you can hear me wailing.

My first recording session was entirely accidental, but it worked out rather beautifully. I grew up hearing that album like you do when you're a little kid--it's what yer parents put on during trips in the car. We lived more than 15 minutes from town, so there were daily trips in the car. While I don't recall the recording session itself, some of my earliest memories are of getting very tired at big ol parties with bonfires and sheep on the spit and apples getting squeezed into juice and night settin in while dozens of people are singing all around the place. That's when music is a physical force pressing in around you and yer spirit. That's when I'd hear Hobe's music live.

Really though, those days faded away and I didn't give Dog Salmon and Rutabagas much of a thought until I was three years in to learning to be a two bit, one-thumbed guitar picker. And soon as I got to realizing how mighty folk song is, I got to seein just how fine and forceful a folk musician and balladeer Hobe Kytr is. So I learned a bunch of his songs. Still play 'em. Last time we got together I asked him if he planned to record more of his songs (there's plenty) and he's intent on it, just doesn't say when.

I was touched and honored earlier this year when Hobe asked me to join him on stage at the Fisher Poet's annual gathering out in Astoria, Oregon. He had just released Dog Salmon and Rutabagas in the form of a CD (and about time, too). So we got up on stage and we played and sang the title track and another song off the album, Almost Walk from Shore to Shore. It's great to have such a fine performer and musician, and authentic folklorist, there for inspiration--it's even better to have the guy be your friend.

One thing that really gets me goin when I think about Hobe's next album is that he's kicking around the idea of having some barrel house piano playing on it. Man oh man would that be great to hear.

# # #

Stage Patter

Of course, the first thing you should judge a band by is if you like their sound. But if you stumble upon some live musicians playing in the town square or a street fair, or get dragged to a show by your friends, this just won't be true. Your first set of judgments gets made on the basis of how they look. Then, if you're like me, you'll try to give them a few minutes to make an impression before you get to critical of their sound.

But lots of musicians these days sound fairly decent, so you can better tell a professional outfit by their stage patter. For far too long, I've put off honing in on this aspect of my show, and I'm finally making up for it by developing this part of stage craft. You don't need gags, you don't need scripts, you just need to be able to sincerely tell a story.

What a craft That is.

'The Music Blogging Hive Mind'

I think I might like what's goin on here.

'Oregon or Bust'

Here's a sample of the type of images you'll encounter when I publish the first version of the Woody Guthrie Travelogue website. These images were culled from the public domain photos included in the Library of Congress' online digital archives. They have reams of stuff on there, I just wish more of it was as high definition as this beautiful photograph, which depicts a fella in Montana circa 1940.

Travelogue: Woody Guthrie Along the Columbia River

In 1941 Woody Guthrie was hired by the Bonneville Power Administration to write songs for a documentary designed to promote the BPA's dam-building projects. This turned out to be a very great thing for both the BPA and Guthrie's productivity. He wrote 26 songs in that one month (at least, he wrote as much multiple times, I can't quite find 'em all). A few of them you have probably heard somewheres. The more famous ones are "Roll On, Columbia," "Pastures of Plenty," and "Hard Travelin'". In my humble opinion, one of the three talking blues he wrote at the time, "Columbia Talkin' Blues", is one of the finest examples of the talking blues ever written (You can hear echoes of it in multiple talkin' blues by Dylan).

I grew up on homegrown Northwest folk music, and this drew me to the story of the spiritual dynamo that was Woody Guthrie spending one of the most productive months of his life in the very town where I was born.

So, I made a grant proposal to the Woody Guthrie Foundation back in 2007. They accepted my proposal, which was that I would research this month of Guthrie's life at the Woody Guthrie Archives in NYC, and then create a travelogue website documenting the facts and story of that fertile month along the Columbia. Luckily, the fella who put together the one and only songbook devoted to Guthrie's NW creations is a jovial man named Bill Murlin, who I'm proud to now call a friend. Bill and my friend Hobe Kytr (who also contributed a short essay and transciptions of melodies to The Columbia River Collection) both helped me out by editing and writing formal recommendations for my proposal.

Last year I got a letter tellin' me they were actually taking me up on my offer, I received a Woody Guthrie Fellowship from what is technically the BMI Foundation. It amounted to a $500 grant to "defray travel expenses" to NYC, and even better, the honest ability to tell people that I'm "A Woody Guthrie Fellow."

I flew there and spent 2 weeks flipping over thousands of manuscript pages in the Archives, an exhilarating, exhausting, exhaustive, exuberant experience. Woody left over 3000 pages of song lyrics--and that's just the ones that survived. Then there's the letters, newspaper columns, and various other random manuscripts and drawings he produced. Somewhere I read him write something to the effect that "blank paper ain't safe around me"--it all got eatin up by his hungry typewriter.

Anyways, there's no way to describe how amazing it is to read the breadth and depth of the man's work--I was on a mission. I sifted and sorted and made notes and requested a whole stack 'o papers related to Woody's Northwest Stint. Months later I received photocopies of these requests in the mail, which are currently strewn all around me for the hundredth time since that lovely package arrived.

So I'm working to synthesize the letters and NW song manuscripts into a coherent story told in travelogue website form. I aim for it to be the end all and be all info repository of facts and myth-bustings detailing the real deal regarding Woody's time in Portland town and the region in general. When finished, I will post a link to the site on this site. You should scope it out at that time. I aim to have a Beta version up and running by the day before Halloween.

The Travelogue website will eventually contain a Calendar that lists all events taking place in the NW that are relevant to Woody's legacy in the region. It will tell you where we know he went, and the few instances of when we knew where he was when. It's a helluva story, and you're going to dig it, I just know it.

# # #

Bill Murlin is part of a folk duo called The Wanderers (this link will play music on yer computer). On their site you'll hear multiple examples of Woody's NW creations. Check 'em out.

Hobe Kytr doesn't currently have a web presence. I intend to pester him about this.

Improvisation

This fine article in the New Yorker is exciting, and a relief to read, because classical music needs to rediscover improvisation of every sort. I like this:

[pianist Robert] Levin, the Harvard-based musician who for decades has been the chief guru of classical improvisation, believes that performances need to cultivate risk and surprise. Otherwise, he says, music becomes “gymnastics with the affectation of emotional content”—a phrase that sums up uncomfortably large tracts of modern music-making.

I hear a lot of popular music--from instrumental jazz to all manner of pop groups--as being “gymnastics with the affectation of emotional content”. That's a very poignant phrase.

If music is to be more than a person's accessory, more than just what you listen to in order to demonstrate to people who you are, it has got to cultivate risk and surprise. I want to craft a style of music that takes risks in the content of its rhythm, harmony, and lyrics--all at the same time. I want those risks to pay off by invigorating the listener, and compelling them to make a change for the better in their own life.

Improvisation should be just as central to the education of any musician as ear training or a firm sense of rhythm. One reason classical music can sound stale is that you're hearing a lot of musicians (probably not all of em, I'm not quite saying that) who have barely ever tried to improvise.

Just so you know that I'm willing to take my own medicine, I'll tell you that these days I'm starting to scat sing.

Renegade Minstrels Ramble Forum, Part II

In Monday night's band meeting, the happiest moment for me was when Jon, our stalwart and funky fresh trombone maestro, announced that he wanted to take more of an active roll in shaping the sound and direction of the group. He opined that we should take the band in the direction of a whole lot more Um-Chicka Um-chick uptempo shoulder boppin type rhythms (I'm paraphrasing here, believe it er not) crossed with Squirrel Nut Zippers-type slinky tunes in the mode of our song "Drill Sergeant's Ditty." One word that I remember Jon used repeatedly was "sultry," and I dug that deeply.

In fact, I was wholly delighted, not just because I'm always seeking new ways to engage my bandmates in our pursuits, but because Jon's vision lined up quite finely with mine. I had written down in my notes for the meeting that we needed to go toward "rump shakin blues stomps and swing." So what he said was right up that same red light district alley.

Fear not, folky fans, for folk songs such as Hobe Kytr's Tillamook Burn will still have a place in this music--that song's easy to swing.

Luke's contribution to the discussion was this: "We always play from chord charts--why don't we do more with Line (all of us playing a riff in unison-type grooves)." I thought that was a wise idea as well, so expect to hear more of that sorta thing in future compositions and arrangements.

Jon's other suggestion, which I was also immediately onboard with--but hadn't thought too much of before--was that I play up the lead singer / harmonica player role more and just play guitar when necessary. I like this a whole lot cause it allows me to focus on shaping the delivery of the lyrics and the dynamics of the performance.

After this lovely little Minstrel symposium, we played a few tunes to try the new ideas out, and Lo, the feeling was grand.

Now if we can only get plenty More rehearsal time to make all these ideas happen...

Renegade Minstrels Ramble Forum, Part One

We had a very fine band meeting last night with the five members of our five piece ensemble all in attendance. First thing we had to figure out was bassist-duties. Since our main man Luke Dennis has gigs with some other bands going on for the next few weekends, you'll be seeing a varying cast of bass players in his place. That starts this Thursday, when our dear friend Willy Gibbs will be holdin down the low frequencies on his 100 year old upright bass.
However, for the next few weeks we'll mostly bring in Luke to rehearsals as an arranger. Luke has better instincts about how to shape the dynamics and structure of a song than most any other musician I've played with. So in a fundamental sense, his imprint will still be heard on many of the songs we play, even when he's not there.

Self Marketing

Dylan is considering a new kind of recording career: giving you directions as a voice for satellite navigation systems. Bob watchers like me can't even get surprised by this type of thing. He has continued with his distinctly quirky choice-making n taking of commercial licensing agreements. Remember when he played guitar in the middle of a bunch of scantily clad women for a Victoria's Secret commercial? Selling out? Not so much, I think he's just sculpting his image as he's always done.

"more Mark Twain."

This points out a few interesting issues:

"You knew [Woody] wasn't some dark, dark agitator angry leftist guy. He was more Mark Twain."

First of all, Nora Guthrie is right on about her dad--his faith in people didn't force him onto the side of any one party or clique, he simply told it like it was from the outside, from a place where he could survey the whole scene honestly. Second, Woody's legend and image suffers in much the same way that the upheaval of the 60s suffers--it gets muddied, romanticized, and blurred with oversimplifications. Here was a man with communist sympathies who joined the merchant marine and wrote songs for hire to promote practices of the largest capitalist society in existence. Woody's perspective wasn't simple, and he was no populist simpleton. He was a deeply complex artist and person.

At the end of the article, Nora says,

"I think we're kind of slowly, with technology, inching towards really hearing Woody Guthrie for the first time, in a way."

This fascinates me because while I studied at the Woody Guthrie Archives (where Nora is chief overseer of the rights to Woody's songs, writings, and legacy), the archivist there told me, "If Woody were alive today, he'd have a blog." I soon agreed with her once I began reading over thousands of pages of Woody's various writings. What Woody would have done with the internet is delicious to wonder about.

I find it stupendously fascinating that Nora seems to be saying, "Digital technology is allowing us to hear Woody in a way we never have." One thing I most dig about Woody is the unpolished nature of his voice and of the quality of the recordings made of him. I believe that time transforms the way we hear Woody, not technology. And by "time" I mean the transformations wrought by time upon the relationship between imagination and reality. But saying that makes me realize that Nora is actually right: technology is the major factor in recent alterations of this relationship. The internet has made our relationship to recorded music entirely different, and the populist nature of the internet prompts the question of what mighty populists such as Woody would do given this radical tool.

If there's one thing we can use today, it's more voices with a wry edge, that tell it like it is with a sly slant of some sort. Let's all be a little more Mark Twain.

# # #

This post makes me realize I need to write another post later on about how the Internet changes the role of the folklorist in society. Also, I need to explore how it changes the relationship of people to recorded music.

'Jazz'

Duke Ellington was quite ambivalent about the term "jazz." (He's got a great interview including this, that I suspect might be him interviewing himself, in his book Music is My Mistress). Now here's the NY Times addressing some new stats that Jazz is on the decline. However, they point out that surveys about attending a jazz concert don't necessarily include groups like the Bad Plus (an utterly top notch jazz trio that covers pop songs with multiple stylistic flavors), whose music reflects the rampant cross-genre saturations of intriguing music today. You and I might not go to a Bad Plus show thinking "we're going to hear jazz," but without jazz the group wouldn't really exist.

So I find the fretting about "the decline of jazz" to be quite beside the point. Jazz is one of the many offshoots of American blues music--the thing that makes it most distinctive is that it is the offshoot that demands innovation and fusion more than any other. So, melody-solos-melody to a 4/4 swing beat will probably keep dying out slowly slowly for a very long time, but that don't mean jazz is dead. Jazz is the most radical musical language in the English speaking world, a language of adaptation and transformation. It was made to change--continuously, rapidly, for as long as it lasts.

That assertion prompts the question, "Well, ok then, what is jazz if what I'm hearing isn't recognizable as jazz?" The answer to this brings us back to Sir Duke--he chafed at labels for his music because his music was so many things, it wasn't united by anything but an incredibly special spirit. Listen to Master Jelly Roll play "Black Bottom Stomp" with his Red Hot Peppers, hear Satchmo blow some "Basin Street Blues," then listen to The Duke's "Mood Indigo." Your iTunes tells you that's all jazz, but it ain't quantifiable just why that is. But feel that spirit that weaves through all three? That's jazz.

# # #

I am forced to grapple with the issue of musical categories all the time: telling people I'm in a band they routinely go, "Oh, what type of music?" So last week I'd say "art blues" this week I'm changing to "Blues Stomps and Swing." I am continually maddened by the folks at my local jazz station, KMHD, because of all the DJs there, only one will give our band airplay. Click here and listen to "Swing n Friction." Then tell me what type of music you'd call it, if not jazz.

Apparently, most folks at KMHD want to keep their shows pure with 4/4 swing tunes and accepted "jazz" artists, with rare instances of local talent thrown into the mix. They call what they do, "Jazz, Blues, and NPR News." I don't know what our music is but the first two.

Anyways, I don't like ranting on about KMHD, they still play better music than the rest of the radio stations in Portland 90% 'o the time. Surely some DJ there will read this and then scramble to put my song on the air to make amends.

Mike Meyer is the one KMHD DJ who showed us love. He's got a show called "Mississippi West," and did us the favor of having me on the show for an interview just before we did our record release party, and he played "Swing n' Friction" on the air. That was fun. Hope to go back on there sometime.

Anyways, all you other KMHD DJs can ignore me forever, but do us all a favor and play at least 1 song by an lesser-known NW-based artist every half hour. 4/4 Swing tunes are great, but they are just a fraction of what makes jazz Jazz.

'Blues', 'Folk', n Songs

When you learn and sing and marinate upon the earliest recorded American folk & blues music, you quickly realize that blues music is folk music, and that even the purest of the folksters--such as the Carter Family--draw deeply n freely upon blues tradition. There is no difference between "blues" and "folk" music in America: each is the other. There is a difference between blues and folk musicians. The difference between blues and folk musicians is that, while they draw on a lot of shared material (three chord songs, call and response forms, common vernacular such as "worried mind" or imagery such as the railroad train are but a few examples), each has a different relationship to that well of material.

The folk musician is a museum curator--and the art is her songs. She seeks to absorb as much of the music as possible and keep it intact, sharing it without comment, confident in the belief that if she lets the song shine through her, the material do its work. The folk musician is a preserver and purveyor of tradition, they aren't too inclined to alter what they inheret. Any alteration they do make to the material is inadvertent, it happens by a slip of memory.

The blues musician continuously alters his material, he couldn't stick to the script if he tried. He'll take a verse from here, a vernacular phrase from there, and an original verse of his own and mash them up without compunction until the traditional elements of his material are transformed by his personality or persona. He freely inserts his ego into the music, making his lyrics and melodies into opaque windows that refract his soul.

There's no way to draw a firm line between who's a blues and who's a folk musician. Everyone is both, to some degree or another. Most days I tilt more toward the bluesman than the folkster, but I revere both archetypes, and respect the role that each plays in enriching the music.

Bob Dylan, past the age o' 50, said, "The world don't need any more songs." He was both wrong and right. Many many of the feelings you or I feel already have plenty of songs reflecting those feelings. And a well constructed song like "Angel from Montgomery" or "Crossroads Blues" is going to do what songs do for those feelings for a long old time to come.

But I got feelings and thoughts and ideas that just aren't in any songs, and so I must write songs so that I can sing what I see is urgently needing to be heard. Many times I'd rather it was otherwise, that I was satisfied with covering tunes, but it won't do. Writing songs is damned difficult, even harder than making a decent recording of a song. And as fulfilling as it can be to hear a song you wrote come off well, that fulfillment ain't equal to my restlessness for the next one.

If there's one thing that sets me apart from the legions of people like me striving to make their songs heard, it's that I know more of the tradition than most of those my age, and I smell and think and feel and breathe songs that aren't merely made to make you feel good, distract you from your blues, or comment on what's in the news.

The only reason I will sing a song is because I need to hear it, and that I believe it could do your inmost soul some good to hear it.

Fun Clicks

Hello stranger, put your lovin hand in mine, n hop on to Renegade Minstrels' fanpage:

Renegade Minstrels on Facebook

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Poetry: The only form of writing online that improves your ability to focus.

Food for them that's got an appetite to feel incredulous.

It comes down to bein' real, and it's so simple.

If what you've got to give is true to you--
even if it ain't ever barely clear to you,
follow it relentlessly and pour and force it forth.

What do I crave to be?

A multi-instrumentalist performer composer
who's a constant student,
who is diabolically prudent
and consistently shrewd.

A rabid writer who fills multiple forms full
with congruent dynamism.

A jazz scat freestyle rapper who can cut deep,
a playwright unveiling legions of new archetypes,
each of whom remains both real and true
both awake and asleep.

A rabid conversationalist
fluent with technology.

Who refines his crafts n skills every day
whose songs, when heard, lift from you
your need to pray.

A teacher who spurs students to forge their own way,
and hone their pursuits by the day.

A melody creator with the wry elegance of Duke,
the funk of Superstition,
vulnerability pure as Lennon's,
swagger sheer as Satchmo's,
truth raw as Joni Mitchell blue,
mystic eyed as Dylan
expansive as Whitman
concise as Emily

innovative in observation as the Bard.

Is that so much to ask?

It has never been the case
that the crown is obsequiously requested.
You take it.

I do not shudder in the slightest under the absurd
reach of my ambition. I patiently believe--
this person is already in me,
some of the one I am now is not me.

Let these spirits all pour through to infuse me utterly,
Let me become annihilated in sublimation to the forces
swirling true as the unseen world still whirls.

Embrace abandon, face the music
Carve new acres of oceans, plains and groves.
Groove.

JPS 7.16.09
written in Mt. St. Helens' shadow.

A Simple Thing

If you'd care to take about 90 seconds and give our band a boost, I'd deeply appreciate it.

This link will open your iTunes to a mix I created called "Rollicking Songs." If you like, give 'em a listen, I think that some of em are truly great.

All I'm requesting you do is give us a good rating for the iMix I created. If you have an additional 30 seconds to spare, share the iMix with some friends.

What's Woody Got to Do With You

Even if you aren't a folk music fan or a modern day folkster, but yer an American, Woody Guthrie matters to you. I think a lotta folks might not quite believe this, they might think "He's one of those people you're Supposed to know, he's just a scratchy old voice on some records, and yeah yeah he influenced a whole lot of mighty musicians--that's wonderful but he was for his day and he came along a long time before these new issues came to be."

Well here's what's funny. You go to the Woody Guthrie Archives in New York town and turn over page after page of what Woody wrote, typed, scribbled and scrawled all over all kindsa paper and you'll be shocked at just how much of what he wrote is gleamingly relevant to this very day.

Ol woodrow wilson Guthrie is just important to you, man alive it's true.

Here's some reasons why.

His songs are exemplary examples of what being an American is all about. His songs say among other things: trust yourself, don't let no one else tell you how it is, question everything, and glory in the mightyness of nature.

His recordings document a very great performer. One who delivers humor and stories and tragedies and majesty and the Joad family with clarity and spunk, with wise syllables and laughing wonder. I believe that so much attention gets paid to Woody the Icon or Woody the guy who wrote more that 1000 songs or Woody the guy who wrote "This Land is Your Land" or some other Woodys--and we never talk about how fine a performer he was. There's very few flubs and glitches on his many many recordings, and I doubt he had the patience to do multiple takes of many of his songs.

There's many more reasons, but the one I'm getting at is this: Woody Guthrie's relationship to the U.S. Government is fascinating, and particularly so today, because he was the beneficiary of Government money by way of FDR's New Deal. Woody wrote songs to warn folks about VD when he was in the Merchant Marine, and he wrote songs to promote the Bonneville Power Administration's dam-building projects as well.

In case you don't follow too much news, there's a whole mess o' government moo-lah just about to come down the pipe, and (who knows) perhaps trickle down to little old you and me. So examining how Woody fared back in his heyday when the last such glut of government funds came down is particularly relevant.

I'd love it if you told me what you dig about Woody, or how you're surprised by some way in which his body of work makes him relevant today.

Context

The thing I like about blogging is that they lend themselves to being concise while you can also ramble on as long as you like. For instance, Andrew Sullivan's blog mostly consists of posts that are less than 300 words, but when he wants to, he can write as long a post as he likes. One reason he's so successful in the medium is that he only writes as much as is necessary to make his point. That's invaluable. I don't know how many articles and columns and papers I've read that take many more words to make a point than is necessary, simply because the form being used demands a certain amount of words.

You need a lot of space & time to make your point if you're making a complex arguement or your topic requires abundant proof, and so time and space is dedicated to your sources. Otherwise, please, we're all in more and more of a hurry. Get to the point.

The Ultimate Evil

Hollow: the bluster of friends n pundits n politicians. Cost: the effectiveness and accuracy of our discourse.

Hollow: our cursory attempts to atone for the tragedies inflicted upon slaves n natives. Cost: our country's burgeoning spiritual crisis.

Hollow: Current attempts to cure these ills Cost: Real and true freedom, or: maximum liberation.

But when I speak of "maximum freedom," remember what the song says, "I see true freedoms need checks just to be..."

We face failures where ramifications can't be measured because the real costs are just barely beginning to be felt. For instance, whole ecosystems are collapsing while we keep up our wasteful ways. The examples are legion, I bet you'll agree.

One Song I'm Workin On

Songwriters and writers of any sort, please steal freely from these, the raw content of lyrics that I'm chiseling down and reworking relentlessly into a song. If you want to give me co-writing credit though, that's cool.

I should also mention that I don't use the phrase "hollow cost" lightly here, I'm using the extreme resonance of the sound of that phrase to point out that we are not truly facing the many drastic ills afflicting us. My next post will explicitly state why I believe the phrase isn't overkill, but the only appropriate phrase to be used for my purposes.


Verse 1

Look out mothers cause I'm gettin explicit
Flow relentless as cold thunder driven rains
And the gnawing flood of peoples that drained this land's natives away.
Swindle upon swindle punctuated by massacres
between promises and exiles the reservations blur
While underneath it all there lies the land
The land they were forced from before
we forsaked them and it--
the land we must embrace
if ever our ways become legit.


It sounds like my rhymes are internal but look out
what I spit rhymes with what's around you eternally.
Hear yer preacher braying "What he speaks is infernal!"
But only our better angels are conversant with me.
It takes gumption great as Lincoln's to face these onslaughts today,
Blues greater than his will grip [you] if you can't embrace the array.


I live where the culture's all imported
Cause we done drowned out the native life
Through technologies all senses get distorted
Like time distilled our artifacts of strife.

What's tacky's all that's soulful in these nowhere towns out west
Meanwhile diverse eyes keep lookin' doleful in this land I know the best.
Don't we all crave and pave over this land of false named "Indians."

the resilient indians
whose name was falsely given
who knew the value of the land

Verse 2

Slavery, our unoriginal sin
isn't over here when
I pour out some of my fifth for those descendants
of the liberated slaves
of whom more than a fifth now strive
in a prison or a ghetto
thronging thicker than sin
striking deeper than stillettos

Like fine rock scoured off mountains down through plains and valleys,
the spirits pour through churches and alleys

Whores, hip tappers, hustlers, trappers, pimps
loose sailors, cheap players and rich nymphs--
let's put together a grand get together
that drives these sterile blues clean away
and breed a whole new brand 'o blues.

This is not my land we live in now.
It's a flat graveyard that once knew the plow.
The fiery gumption must now blaze anew.

Let's do this in New Orleanian fashion
and get the lewd and their lush piano ticklers
roaring forth from out the bawdy doors.


Verse 3

The driveby media done riddled another demographic with a constricting perspective.
We zoom in through so little so quick there's no space for contemplation.

Folks crave a scene with constant happenings,
some feel that goin on online.
But most of you can shift yer pixels all you please
What you fawn over often feels thinner than 2D.
and for all the acres I can click through
it still feels hard to get through to
somewhere something's meaningful to me.

In congress, on screen, out back and all over disunion
you watch the faces change while all else remains the same

Language continues its warp
but it's viewed as no more than a tool,
all too rarely made to resonate
or renovate the ways we think.
Language must outpace technology.

This is why my hope is smaller than microbes growing
in a wide eyed infant's drop of useless drool.


The currents ripple wickedly
cross breeding aims resonate
our oligarchy smiles indulgently
bemused at the flailing outrage.
They fold their hands
and go on as they please.

It's hard being elegant and simple
stifling simplemindedness won't do.
A roar is pounding through the temples
Like the northern line barreling through.

the way it is now money means more freedom
and this means money's hard to come by,
thus freedom's far from cheap.

The currents ripple wicked dragging
these flagging hopes off course
let the winds take you
or else take what calls to you, by force

It's hard to gauge the depth and breadth of the disorders--
Fiscal and attention deficits yawnin wide.

Sure as greed begets swindlers repetition kindles affinity
Mass and volume drown out value and values.
Overseas blues got families displaced n driven away
Like a silent dust storm blown in from back in the day
The crises mount like dark clouds piling over yonder
Aimless swells of anger can't be drained away without cold thought
Sure as there's only so much New Orleans' levies were built to bear.
Now that clamping catastrophes have got loose can non attention spans caught
We may just damp disaster's fuse before too many more flash out n' flare.

Like so much else, this all remains under-understood.
By we who cannot face how many profits stifle good.

How do you strive for progress when the tides decree we aspire to the mean?
I search lady suicide bomber to choose a side 'midst the dreams
Heaped among still seething piles of bones
Oh oh the pickins are lean.

All that's certain is that we ain't gainin on too much that's been lost--
We ache n' scrape to fill in deficits of this culture's hollow costs.
All that's certain is: we ain't gainin much of all that's been long lost--
We ache n' scrape to fill the deficits of this culture's hollow costs.

Breathe in fuming airwaves shiv'ring thick as traffic exhaust
Strain to fuse and ache to pay this culture's hollow costs.