February 2010
14 posts
January 2010
41 posts
Benny Goodman - Stompin’ at the Savoy
From a certain distance...
…on one of the rising lips of the rambling hills that run to the east and west, on those particular days when the rains clear the air of the dust the earth-tillers kick up and the smog from the running ream of cars on Interstate Five, you can see from the far southern bank of the San Joaquin Valley all the way to the northern edge. On days like that you can make out the snow cap on Shasta....
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Strawberry Letter 23 - Shuggie
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What today has every good right to feel like.
The...
Is it raining where you are?
It’s raining where I am. I’m scraping my bowl for the resin and contemplating whether or not I should brave the winds and rains to buy a new lighter.
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Ballad of Tie One
Tie One down Down to the ground Tie One down Down to the ground From Stockton to Frisco He took to the walls From Stockton to Frisco He took to the walls For every last brick Was another foot to crawl There’s blood in the cans These cans in my hands There’s blood in the cans These cans in my hands My town quakes neath the words From these outside lands
He cried, “Wait man, hold...
A Man from Shasta
My first walk down Market Street, the raw and exposed nerve that runs down San Francisco, was without excitement. I had left a job interview at a canvassing group on New Market (a job I would get the next day and lose within a month) and was headed back to the MUNI station. I was ready to take the first train out to San Francisco State, but turned away on the platform and back up to the surface. I...
A Complicated thing
One forgets how sealed life at Home was. Hermetically sealed? Not quite. There are fissures on the surface walls of every house that let even the faintest lights of the outer world in. But within these walls - my old walls; walls I never owned - time takes labored and shallowed breaths. My mother keeps photos of me showing the face I forgot I had. My dad seems to have forgotten what books of his I...
Blind Faith
How I write when I know I'm writing
Just found this on my computer. I can tell I was “trying” to write this. You can read the effort between the lines. I wrote it for a friend’s band (a band that doesn’t even exist anymore) when they were looking for liner notes or something…
There’s a delusion to be exposed in modern music: “It is the artist’s responsibility to smash style.” Guitarists Leo M. and...