HAPPY B'DAY TO CARNITAS KEN, MY FRIEND SINCE WE WERE 12 YEARS OLD. A COUPLE OF GRAY HAIRS AND A POUND OR TWO AGO...I LOOK THE SAME THOUGH...

EARLY MEMORIES OF RIDING OUR BIKES TO VOGUE RECORDS IN ROSEMEAD TO BUY NEIL YOUNG'S HARVEST ALBUM AND ALSO GOING TO SEE BILLY JCK LIKE 20 TIMES ONE SUMMER WHERE KEN BECAME A STAR, FINISHING BILLY JACK'S FAMOUS LINE, "Where in this world can a man go to find peace and happiness?" WITH "MONTGOMERY WARDS!!!"

ANYWAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLD FRIEND AND I'LL SEE YA SOMETIME THIS WEEK...LET'S GET SOME CARNITAS FOR OLD TIMES SAKE...LOVE YA.

 

How can I truly capture the way I feel at this very moment? My beloved Molly, my confidante, inspiration, provocateur, divine muse, my balance, my angel's advocate, my Exploratory Partner in all things wondrous and subtle, sacred and profane, my sweet spiritual heartbeat hat, lies two feet from me sleeping in her new temporary home. Sleep lying there beautiful across her smiling face. After just a day not far from each others arms after so long, so far apart. And I am truly blessed that if all life went to hell in a flaming handbasket, some cornucpia of shadowy asteroidal frenzy, I would have had her in my arms, my heart, my mind for these past three years, these past 36 hours, these ever-stretChing fragments in time. Some of us are just lucky I guess... and for that owner of my yearning soul who in some previous life did his/her very best, setting up the existence I have lived leading to this gracious moment, I give you nothing but the promise that I will try to rise up to your efforts. I will sit marveling tonight at her stillness, her radiance until sleep takes me to her in dreams as well. I've been gifted a sweet peach whose sheer presence runs down my throat and deep into my heart, annointing me with the very thing I needed most this very moment...awareness of grace.

and Dave Davies putting in his two cents...  (LINK)

I just wrote a blog for two hours and in one quick flash, MySpace ate it. It is gone. It was a long, explanation of the love I feel in my heart from the amazing friends around me. It talked and explored and exposed the love I feel for the women in my life, explaining my theory of polyamory and what I find resonant and difficult about it, It went on to find me working on my definition of love in all its myriad forms.

And MySpace ate it. I do not love MySpace and if I didn't have a tremendous soft spot for it since three of the most important women in my life found me, approached me and we discovered, seduced and accepted me into their beautiful orbits thru the connection we made on MySpace...I would trade the arty, self-expression of MySpace fo rthe addictive mindless drivel of Facebook in an instant but I want to forever look back here and find my three muses just where they found me...

But if I was a tad less romantic, a bit more of the vengeful type. I would pull my life from these dysfunctional pages and spread the word that the voracious and soul stealing vestiges of this devil network are the be run from at full tilt and whatever you do, do not spin on your heels and look back nostalgically for little miss MS will turn you to a digitized pillar of 0's and 1's... I may return to the above mentioned subjects bt as of now, I will try to sleep and dream of strangling my laptop with it's own mouse...

I have been unable to upload photos to either of my MySpace sites for a week now. Also the feature in blogs to search for what you are listening to/reading/viewing now is also not functioning...

Anyone else having these problems.

There are things I'd rather post here than on Facebook but once again the kinks in the system here are driving me elsewhere...HELP!!!

So I've just recently started dating this inspiring woman. And, yes, it's all new so I'm waist deep in the NRE (New Relationship Energy) so my skin is tingling thinking of her fingers lightly tracing up and down my forearms, my head is spinning trying to contextualize all the tidbits of background info she is tossing my way in between my rambling screeds of my lengthy past..trying to remember names, timelines, likes and dislikes when in reality I can't stop staring at her lips and wanting them against mine. All the typical, early romantic give and take. AND I LIKE IT.

You know, I was never a dater...always a wallflower...okay, a fairly vociferous wallflower, mind you but seeming to always point my yammering in directions that never particularly paid off in the romance department. I did get lucky and stumbled across (or more correctly, have graciously placed in my haphazard lap, some wonderful women in my lifetime. And after 25 years with one of the best, we had run our course and split--still best friends, confidantes, and linked forever by our love and compassion for each other's patience, caring and sense of reality.

And then suddenly, sweet mother of God, I was single. Don't think I ever really WAS single before. Not that I always had a girlfriend from the time puberty hit me like a Dave Winfield line drive up the side of the cerebellum (and lower) but that I always DIDN'T...DIDN'T DATE, DIDN'T TRY, DIDN'T THINK I HAD A SHOT, DIDN'T HAVE A CLUE...So suddenly at age 48, I'm "on the market"...with no frame of reference from which to flail about. Like a diver in mid-jacknife who suddenly notices there is only about a foot of water in the pool, I was a bit panick stricken...and again, in 2004, I found myself approached by a woman who changed EVERYTHING. I felt I was undateable...that I'd "never date again, never go out with anyone who didn't look exactly like my ex" -- I was NOT looking. I was numb, hurt, but realistic in that Lynn and I needed to split, should've done it earlier and actually quite proud that we did it so relatively gracefully, with no lawyers, no yelling, just plain old loving understanding and empathy...still the greatest accomplishment of my life...divorcing with grace.

So an old friend finds me suddenly "available" at the same time as she is. We gathered our 14 years of friendship into a wondrous 6 day exploration of all things transcendent, sexual, free and inspiring and come out the other side falling heavily for each other. But it WAS easy since I was leaving immediately for California and there were no expectations, no dreams of futures, no plans...but when emotions of that intensity appear so instantly things get complicated quickly and after a year, what had begun so spontaneously and so purely had twisted into a quagmire of confusion, misunderstanding and logistical impossibility. Bottom line we were not right for each other but through the process I, for one, come out with a cart-load of epiphanies that have allowed, nurtured, inspired and forced me, at the abyss's edge, to become a new person. Confident, inspired, more creative emotionally than I have ever been, open to not only the muse in all her guises but relaxed with the fact that the process is INDEED who we really are, that there are NO concrete answers, just new lists, new paths, new worlds within ourselves to explore. That "within OURSELVES" being the operative scenario. For when you concentrate on the OUTSIDE exploration you never really are able to bring what you need back or give out what you need to give, you're just hunting and gathering blindly. Quantity verses quality across the board.

In essence, I had to toss the desperation for defining myself by what someone else sees over the cliff on the furry back of the nearest 100 lemmings and just enjoy the view from up there.

And the view I have right now, is quite fine indeed...and I will tell you about her soon...but I am, alas, in need of getting my ass to the Arden Fair where we are playing in a couple of hours...

This past Wednesday night, MAD-SWEET PANGS played their last gig at Newark’s HOME GROWN CAFE for awhile, and it was a wonderful evening of inspiring music and friends and good food.

We will all miss their acoustic shows here, which every other week have been providing not only two great sets of PANGS' tasty and tight, delicate and demonstrative acoustic finesse but also featured a different special guest set each week in between MSP sets. The "deli meat" set was performed by a talented solo performer or group from their large coterie of musical friends and colleagues. CHOPS fans would recognize many of the folks who played the mid-meat set over the years..BRAD from the Chops, Leslie Carey (w/ Brad in tow), Butch Zito & Friends, Bart Frohlich (MSP bassist D-Man's D-ad), Caleb Stine, and many others...

This past Wednesday was unique in that it featured a rare solo set from the Pangs own guitarist GORDON LIPPINCOTT...Gordon played everything from the Duane Allman instrumental classic LITTLE MARTHA to tunes by Mississippi John Hurt, Derek & The Dominos, blues, bluegrass, country rock and much more. It was a real treat.

Resident lip slinger BRAD from the PORCH CHOPS sat in as he often does when he's in town on harmonica and vocals. He added his thang to Randy Newman's LOUISIANA 1927 and the Pangs' own BLACKWELL RENDEZVOUS in the first set and popped up to join on the show ending gaggle of tunes: Gershwin's SUMMERTIME; the Dylan/Old Crow Medicine Show tune WAGON WHEEL; and the folk standard, MAMA DON'T ALLOW...(a vid of the latter is presented here with apologies from Rob that only half the band is seen in this unedited snippet. He was taping the evening for an audition demo. Brad apologizes for being such a goof ball...these are final-song-of-the-night shenanigans so perhaps I was a TINY bit buzzed...).



Any CHOPS fans who haven't seen the PANGS yet...don't wait...you will dig this, I promise. The electric shows will peel your face of and who cannot use an occasional exfoliating...and all of you PANGS heads who have been too "busy" to come out these recently DON'T NOT WAIT...heed my advice...get your PANGS on...they are playing tons of stuff you haven't heard and very cool new arrangements of some of their classics...I'm serious...you can thank me later!

MAD-SWEET PANGS
July 30 - Asbury Park
July 31 - Cambridge, MA
August 1 - Logan House, Wilmington, DE
August 6 - Deer Park Tavern, Newark, DE

My review of Wednesday's show from Facebook (also more photos there):

Pangs rock! Gordon sounded great in a rare solo set and I LOVED sitting in. So great to hang with Jessica, Bill, Nick, Marilee & Phil...wonderful to see Janine and Butch & Jess & Bobby & Amber & Emma Sue & Joey & Rachel & Annie & Dawn & Zack & Darren & Ramz & Briian & on and on and on...stupendous company for a great night of music!!!! YAY!!!

I wish I could transport Mad-Sweet Pangs out to all of you in Calif to experience. These guys are not only great musicians, songwriters, and stellar human beings but their girlfriends, families, friends and fans ROCK!!! It is a WAY serious comfort zone for all involved...like a blanket of good vibes, a bonfire and a shot of whiskey...just warm all over. Great hearts and smarts in fits and starts. Oh, and did I mention they put up with me?

So go download some live music and buy their cds at www.mad-sweetpangs.com
Tell 'em the old fart sent ya...

Way too much fun...

Faith in The Adorables

What is this wealth of riches
Working hard not to sacrifice my deep respect
Striving, polishing my honesty and reflection
For those who give me their cherished moments
Their subdivided hearts willingly;
For those who share their stories
Aches and joyous epiphanies;
For those whose fingertips trace
Epic tales of romance across my furrowed countenance
Lost loves, souls torn with time’s scornful glance
Life’s diverted energies focused
If ever so briefly upon my grizzled grin,
Whose hands hold all of this very moment’s hopefulness
Whose lips whisper the only truths we are sure of
Whose arms comfort and envelop me
In their neediness as well as mine.
I praise the deep longing for what only we can give each other
Whatever is distinct from what the next will give,
The last withheld,
from the dream we all search for
of The One we may never find.

How I cherish their willingness to accept my fragility
My smokescreens, my flailing attempts at flinging myself head on
Into the path of the battering ram of self-reliance --
Oh, how they surround my aging gracelessness with the kindness
Of compassionate longing
And what they find there in the darkness is me.
Simple in the very complexity that I brandish
A credo of web-like stickiness
What is and what should always be
never quite making the grade
That they see in me what I do in them--
Humanity masquerading as something so much grander
Reaching for the ring and reaching yet again
And we hold each other’s care to our hearts
Defying definition by any previous standards
Because our friendships
Our devotions
Our lusting and loving
Can only be seen as the courting of the impossible
Of the toe-on-the-rail, abyss leaping swan dive
into The Perhaps.

Leap with me, wrap your wings around me
Adorables
Freefall together
Past jealousies, fear, doubt
As lovers, muses, friends,
Believing
In love’s mystery
The heart’s resilience
The soul’s compassionate grace
Believing
In the undiscovered moment.

- For The Adorables: JS, MM, RR, SV - the amazing women in my life...alphabetically, of course ;-)

For more original poetry check out my poetry blog
www.poetryfromtheporch.blogspot.com


 

No, not how many times I log onto Facebook (just stay logged on basically). Not how many times I think of sex (way low, puppy dogs). Not how often I forget to do what I got off the recliner to do and instead do something completely unconnected which begins a whole series on innate ramblings as soon as I sit back down and bring up Facebook or my secret sex blog or some Phil Lesh chat group..wait...what was I doing.

100 times a day, I breathe deeply pulling myself back from the precipice, the abyss' gaping maw winking up at me all cravass-like, gorge-esque, black-holish as I teeter on my heels ready willing and blinded by sheer intellectually flummoxed hesitancy from just diving, half-ganor, back-flip, swan dive Louganian perfection that not even the Chinese judges can resist as I glide into the pool of romantic longing and schmaltzy full-court press "genius womanizing" poetic rapture to tell you with no second guessing, no concern or fear that I might drive you as far away as a human can go by confessing the depth of my feelings for you , the desire to try something tangible, grab on and clutch closely to me some sense of purpose so I won't someday say, too late, FUCK I SHOULDA.

But you don't want that, we both probably don't need that kind of pressure, and I might just get distracted by some glimmer of light reflecting off of the rim your tall glass iced mocha as you gulp and giggle and then what...yeah, BELLY FLOP, the slap of hairy gut on water oddly similar to the sound of a leather paddle on your sweet behind but with the extra added attraction of a big splash dousing you, wet again in your inconclusive procrastination. Which actually, is pretty fucking hot and damn interesting and intriguing and why define something so resiliently fucked up and inordinately flexible. I'd tell you to bend over, just about now, but I'd get a mouth full of chlorine. So much for the Chinese scores being high...

CONTEMPLATING A TEMPORARY VANISHING ACT

So every once and awhile the shit hits the fan. Lots of people are down now because of the economy, worried about losing their jobs, concerned about the state of the world, whether this incredible charismatic man we have elected to be our next President will be able to muster the forces to even sand off the scariest bits of the monster wall of muck he will have to address...

Me...I don't spend a lot of time worrying about these things...never cared much about money...financial security...balanced checkbooks...IRAs...as my ex will tell you, the minute anyone talks about something that includes a number, my eyes glaze over, I start singing show tunes and quoting Choo Choo Coleman's batting average as a member of the 1964 NY Mets...just not my forte (unlees of course, you stop counting at three...threesomes I can calculate...just a personal quirk...but I digress...) Mostly, I worry about people I love, about being misinterpreted about my own ego weakness and such stuff...

What does worry me now, what triggers my present state if blase-ness, the catalyst for my angst-ridden, melancholic, down-in-the-dumps inability to focus, is my absorption of the suffering of people I love...my folks growing older minute by minute and HATING it; my cousin drinking himself to death between jobs and hooking up with another incessantly needy and profoundly annoying new woman; I won't even discuss the workplace dramas; the two women I most love in this world currently have their own issues on either the health front or personal disorders in their daily lives that are adding momentous stress to their normally resilient and beautiful countenances. Seems everyone I know is hanging onto their jobs, their laughter, their doubts and their fears more tightly than usual.

And me...I am still in flux...back and forth between coasts. At once, luxuriating in the blessed wonder of having two very distinct and separate groups of people who look forward to my arrival, put up with my yammering and know that without them I'd be lost. But, also I'm always wondering where is home? What am I missing where I am not? There is always that nagging in the back of my mind...where do I belong? What am I running from or towards? I am adored when I return but am I missed when I am gone? Does this fragile ego really need such stroking? Can I continue to exist by subdividing my affections, my attentions, my time and my love? Is the ever-present ache an odd form of loneliness? Does this rambling search for God, for spirit, for oneness, for answers really just a cyclical trap, a never ending whirlpool of glimmering resonance just as it seems the flip-side's search for human affection and love and quenching of desire seems is just as out of reach all of the time, no matter how wondrous the epiphanies, how beautiful and fascinating the company?

Now, don't get me wrong the last year or more precisely the last 2-and-a-bit years has been the most eye-opening, transcendent and positive that I can recall for me. I adore my beautiful life, my insanely challenging and supportive family, my triumphant friends on both coasts, the incredibly beautiful, intelligent, sexy and splendidly fascinating women who have graced me with their time in the past couple of years. I cherish my still-loving and loyal and magnificent ex-wife Lynn who has had possibly the most difficult two years of her life and still keeps her head up, her heart open for others and her smiles full of dimples. I am humbled by the two overwhelmingly sensitive and caring and voluminously sensuous women who allow us to share this passionate, loving, honest and cherished time in our lives together even with the distance. We are always there for each other, in each others thoughts and dreams, ecstatic for each others victories and aching with each others pains -- acceptance, compassion, empathy, love, patience, exhilaration and joy...

But right now, I am again frustrated, depressed and exasperated that I just cannot do enough...a person I hold as dear to me as any I know is in dire straights and flailing in the proverbial wind...losing her faith in herself, in those around her. She is backing away from the strong spiritual strength she has shown in other times of strife...just hurting inside...knowing that her actions, her stabs at rectifying her situation, are perhaps rushed, misguided, desperate and still she needs to continue on...

I was in those shoes in 2005-6 as many of you know and you all allowed me the time and the venting, the tears and the insanity to eventually find my own way out...your words and love and kind attempts to hear me out, to offer me solace, opinion, comfort are well appreciated. So I try to do the same for her, trying to keep my selfish agendas at bay and put my needs in the situation on a back burner...

And again, the only way I can figure is to sit tonglen...to concentrate in meditative moments of stillness, in reeling moments of tearful exasperation to try and embrace her pain, to draw it to me and understand it, accept it into my being to hurt for her...striving for an empathetic and compassionate embrace of her profound suffering and take it upon myself, bat at it with my strength and to slowly ease it out of my system, set it free...like people do at funerals, sharing, helping to lessen a family's grief because being one step removed we can more easily let it go.

This process for me has been a transforming one that I first discovered in my own need to forgive and move on in a situation a few years back that found me teetering on the abyss...I have since used the technique/practice of tonglen in 3 other occasions when people I loved were in need of some heavy sharing of the load...

It makes for some very difficult and intensive mental work that leaves me exhausted and fearful and in physical and mental pain...my dreams become apochryphal and dark...my days sad and edgy...but the transformation of feeling helpless to do anything is ever so slowly converted into a realization that you are indeed helping to lift some very weighty things from the spirit of someone you love. Ultimately, immensely fulfilling for me. But the potential to get caught up in the pain, in the angst and disconnection is palpable so if by chance I disappear from all of this networking for a while, never fear, I will return. I miss you all too much when I don't connect even for a few days so that's the story...I'll still be reachable and working and playing a bit but just not my usual sprightly self...

Right now, I am in the first few days of process, of realizing I'm going to be taking this on...ouch...a daunting experience every time...but I would go to earth's end for this person to se her happiness return.

Then again I may just need the outreach and input to keep myself sane so we shall see so you may not be rid of me so easily readers...just ranbling as always...

XOB