I Watched Her Tango

                                          

Under The Bed

As the speed of history continues to accelerate, I'm listening to the slow songs. The sad ones. When we get back to the happy ones again, I'll be the first one on the dance floor.

Once karma makes sense on a practical level it gets easier to see the future. You can get in on the peace and love thing here or you can run the risk of appearing unfashionable. God knows I don't want to be unfashionable.

Give us peace on earth and end this dreadful, dreadful war.

I'll Write The History

History is written, of course, by the "winners." We wind up looking back on straight vs. gay; Shia vs. Sunni; black vs. white; Yankees vs. Red Sox; Democrat vs. Republican, ad nauseam, through the lens of the victor. After a generation or two nobody questions the narrative.

They don't ask the poets to write the history. Not since Homer.

My records once graced the Top 10 on the Americana charts. Then the guys in suits took that genre and turned it into big business. Movies. TV shows. Satellite radio channels. Back to "cult artist."

That's alright. It's got an underdog thing going. You know- we had "that thing."

Well, friends, I have decided to write the history. While it's fresh. Current. While it can be verified.

Pompous? I'm a cult artist. I do what I want. My opinion, my point of view?

You bet. It's the only one I have.

While they're dropping like flies, I want to point out some of the people who have managed to make hate fashionable. I'm not going to waste a lot of my time digging up background on these villains. You know the history of most of them. I'm just gonna slander them by putting them all in the same pen and you can google any one of them later.

Let's just start with Roger Ailes. Of course that leads right to Rupert Murdoch. Jim and Tammy Bakker. Of course George Wallace was a pioneer and his protege, Lester Maddox, put some additional color, pardon the pun, into the mix. Oops, another pun.

The history that I'm outlining here is the fashion of hate in our culture.

Sometimes they're Democrats and sometimes they're Republican. My list would seem to indicate that they're usually white and almost always male. Well, in my history book here, that's because it's usually where the power lies. Another pun. I don't want you to be missing these.

Kellyanne Conway is way up there on my list and so is Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Right under Steve Bannon. Ivanka makes the list, right under Jared. Dang, another one!

Hate is fertilized with ignorance.

The sad part of this little ramble is that the folks responsible for separating us are available. Obvious.

Ultimately, love will win. Always. Every time. In the meantime people suffer. War rages. Families split.

The culprits who facilitate the hate for their own personal gain will eventually fall in disgrace. They always do. We'll always have Hitler and Mussolini for role models. Poor old Dick Nixon helped put a sympathetic face on the model.

Save the bonobo. Pray for peace. Search for truth. Settle for love.

If that seems a bit sketchy for a history blame my attention span. It's time to eat. There's a banana sandwich and a glass of wine calling me from the kitchen. We'll get back to this. Or not.

Waiting To Say Goodbye

"Ronny Elliott and John Coltrane."

Two names you really don't expect to hear in the same sentence. The question had been, "Who have been your biggest musical influences?" I had just gotten into the car and the radio had just come on. I recognized the voice answering as Ray Villadonga.

I wasn't alone in the car and I didn't know whether to get out and run away or to bust with pride. As nearly as I can remember I tried to drive while shuffling my feet, talking loud, changing the subject and blushing.

The key to the mystery here is that I'm the "older kid." Ray grew up in his beloved Tampa with the fire of rock'n'roll in his soul. I was already out there doing what I do. For him it was all about the bass. Always has been for me, too.

The most recent recording release from my friend was Ear Flixs from a year and a half ago. My expectations are always big with anything that Ray does. This record just knocked me flat, though. I remember hugging him and telling him that I knew that I was going to like it but that I had not been expecting art. That is not a very good description of his masterpiece but I just didn't have the proper vocabulary to describe it. I still don't.

I've lost quite a few friends lately. Now I'm sitting here waiting for the call that everything is okay for me to come to tell my sweet brother goodbye. I never talk to him without him reminding me that he loves me. I wish I believed in heaven. It's hard for me to consider living in a world without Ray Villadonga.

I love you, Ray.

A Good Start

You don't come into the game with many chips. Wet, naked, blind. Some stranger gets paid to slap you on the bottom to get you to breathe. Then the luck of the draw really kicks in.

If only everybody could have the great fortune that I've had. It's all about the love from that point on. My mom didn't just love me. She lived for me. It was all love. And music. It was a fine line. Still is.

You might say that my music has never been right and you could definitely say that my love has been all wrong. Nobody has ever wrung more out them than I have. Oh, it's easy to boast about such ethereal claptrap. There are no tax returns that show any such results.

Now you may be invited to Mr. Zimmerman's house and there will be gold records on every wall. I'm pretty sure he drinks better wine than I do, too.

They don't give out awards for successful romance but, if they did, I wouldn't have any of them hanging, either.

Nevertheless...

Cuban Heels and Deadly Nightshade

Answers? Yeah, I have answers. More than enough. Matching them up with the right questions is trying my mettle. I'm luckier than most. Sadder, too.

Now, I don't want to buy the world a Coke. It's bad for them. Maybe a Topo Chico. 

There are always new heroes. Thank goodness. How about Reality Winner? Oh yeah and the three men on the Portland train? All of our disasters reveal levels of true humanity that we frequently overlook.

Never without hope, I wait for the call.

                                       

Swampland

Less than a gleam in her eye. That's alright. I'm that dog that has caught too many cars as it is. I'll pour my own drinks and I'll pretend to listen to every word that I mumble. I'd use big words if I knew any. I know it's time to go home but I am home.

It's all songs but I'm wanting to live Zippity Too Dah or Wooly Bully at the least.

Oh, I don't feel sorry for me. It's just the rain, the gloomy weather. That Gene Kelly number was fiction. 

I love the lightning but I'm scared of the thunder.