The story resonates for me, and helps me to try to verbalize ideas in one of my favorite books, "The Road Less Traveled" by M. Scott Peck, which I'm trying to do above.  And then there are all those poems, like the ones by good ole' "T.S. Elliot."  

I've got your email address, so lets please stay in touch. I still want to hear about St. Lucia. I really like it there, rain or not. I'd like to visit again. And if you come to NY, we should definitely get together for a couple Piton (of course, its better here if your visit coincides with you at 21 years of age, and an influx of Piton into the New York market).

Best,

Gabriel

So, I think the saddest thing would be lost opportunity.  And I get blocked thinking these things have to say something.  But they don't.  They are a blog and a brief record of my thoughts of the day that I can look back upon.

But as a brief record, they aren't really that open or true, I suppose.  I mean, I'm really thinking about a lot of little things that I just don't want to put here.  It just  seems like too much minutia.  Like, I need a new acoustic.  And I'm still trying to figure out my tone on electric guitar with some different pedals, but I'm not even playing out for lead stuff that much (I play a lot, but its a very clean, rhythm sound).

St. Lucia was fun, but it rained the whole time.  But it happened.  It was fun, but do I need to tell the story?  Yeah, funny things happened.  It rained so hard during our set that while playing, the sound guys had to run around and flip over mic stands and push at the bulges forming in the tent, to push the water off the side.  The group after us had to cancel for fear of electrocution, or something.

But the place was beautiful and the people were really nice and lovely all around.

I'd love to go back and really see the place.  I drank the lager, the Piton.  I refused all over types of beer out of loyalty.  It turns out a lot of the islands have their own lager.  I think that's cool.  I sliced up a local plum and put it in a la mexican beer.  I thought it would be a neat marketing spin and could take off.  I want a Piton shirt now, and for this to be a fad, one that the St. Lucians don't actually do, the plum in a Piton. American's love ritual.  I bet we could make it happen,,,

(like how I throw "we" in at the end).

Happy Mother's Day week to all!

If everything goes according to plan, the shit will hit the fan at half-past two tomorrow morning.

For the experiment, I'm using 100% horse manure, sourced from an organic farm in upstate New York.  The fan was built by fan-mechanic-guru, William Wilkins; all from found parts stripped from abandoned buildings in his native town of Roanoke, Virginia.

The thrower will be outfitted with lab-grade goggles, one scrungie, and a painter's drop cloth.

It will take place in a large room with the fan in the middle and the thrower at designated distances away.

It will go down like this: 

Toss 1, from 10 feet away: 1 one-pounder tossed underhand to fan.  The fan will be set to moderate speed and as in all throws, the face-plate blade guard will not be on.

Toss 2, from 5 feet away: 2 one-pounders tossed underhand to fan, one at a time.  The fan will be set to high speed.

Toss 3, from 2 feet away:  1 one-pounder tossed overhand to fan.  The fan will be set to ultra-high speed.

Toss 4, from 1 foot away: 2 one-pounders.  The thrower in this case will outstretch his or her arms and with each hand flick the shit into the fan.  

I will be watching all of this and taking notes directly on the other side of the fan.  What I'm looking for in my experiment includes:

Will the thrower actually go through with it?

Will any of the shit hitting the fan somehow project backwards in my direction and at what speeds/ distances?

Will the thrower mutiny and attack me with the horse manure?

Will clean-up be difficult afterwards?

Yup.  I feel well prepared for this experiment.  I feel good about it and my data will analysed, synthesized and hopefully make me a winner.

alright, I had my first rehearsal with Jimmy to go over the tunes.  I've always listened to James Brown but just never learned the songs themselves.

As a matter of fact, I've never really learned the songs I listen to, outside of jazz standards.  I mean, if we were to jam and you'd call out a classic rock or bluegrass or any tune, I could hear the changes, I could play it, but I wouldn't know the actual parts.

Which is a shame, because you have to learn songs in order to get your own playing, your own songwriting together. 

I remember growing up with such an emphasize on individuality and originality as if knowing other people's work, or sounding like someone else was a crime.  "Posing" was the worst thing you could do.  And to some degree "posing" should be called and ridiculed in people when it is a general affection in their manners.  But at the same time, no one is an individual, nothing is created.  Everything is a synthesis of existing ideas and patterns.  We need guides, models, heroes, people and things to emulate.

That being said, even if this particular group's steady guitarist does in fact get his passport to go through, and they don't need me for the St. Lucia gig, to just learn these turns properly is a real blessing.  I've told myself hundreds of times to learn tunes I love, but can't get motivated to do so.  This has got me motivated. 

And now I can show up with other folk and really do the tunes.  If Funk Fred from my regular gig (a guy who played with JB for 33 years), if he wants to just run some tunes, I'll have a lot more options.

And this and that.

And speaking of segues.  You learn because the more people's styles or tunes or whatever you emulate, the more you hold on to what you want to hold on to.  You tend to filter, trusting some sort of innate instinct or perhaps its just judging by what in your daily life makes you successful.  You emulate, absorb and use what you use.

I was coming from Jimmy's in Brownsville and heading over early to the Gospel Queens rehearsal in Crown Heights.  Getting off the train the weather was nice.  Real nice.  I decided it was time to finally embrace the warm weather.  This past hot weekend, I'd been working, so this was my first real time in the sun.  I needed food and went to Popeyes for fried chicken.  It was tasty and felt nice sitting in the sun, the trees, the flowers blossoming; that great spring smell returns.

And I thought about an old essay by Walter Benjamin that many a college kid read.  And I thought: I must rewrite it, subbing the word in the title "art" for something more relevant to today's mindset.

Get ready for your copy of: "Meat in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."

If i remember correctly, Benjamin, writing in the 30s I think, talks about how art has been revolutionized by mechanical reproduction.  While some may think the Mona Lisa on a postcard is schlocky, he's saying that it enables a socialist view of power structure by directly bringing the possibility of seeing art to the people.  Art, which enables, can now be seen by anybody anywhere.  And while a picture of the Grand Canyon may not be the same as seeing the Grand Canyon in terms of evoking a sublime experience, but maybe its close.

Or maybe I have the argument all convoluted.  I read the thing some nine years ago.  Maybe he's saying that fine art represents a moneyed class based on exclusivity.  And that mechanical reproduction is a democratic means, not necessarily to bring art to people's lives (he's no Matthew Arnold, right?) but to just break down the other hierarchy?   

Point is: can this essay and discourse on art be directed towards factory farming, at least an analogy (and maybe in opposition to Benjamin's ultimate point)? 

If seeing a post card of the Mona Lisa the same as seeing it?  Sure, there is the ambiance, the deifying of the artist and the actual museum experience.  But is that part of the art? 

Secondly, can one reproduce an image, ignoring the texture from the oil, the actual lighting, the closeness to the material?  What is lost when an image is not only taken from its original place, and reprinted in copy, but also mass circulated, part of the popular culture, seen on an everyday basis?

And what about meat?  What happens when an animal is taken from its normal habitat, what chemicals are lost when it is stressed out constantly in its holding pens, eating improperly, led to a pretty terrible death from a really terrible, short existence?

And when the meat is mass circulated?  When it is so part of our everyday that it is mindlessly consumed, so that there is no connection between the eating and the animal? 

And then to break it down (or make it even more sloppy), is the abundance and availability of meat democratic?  Or does it just bring everyone down a notch?

Just asking.

Me?  I don't care.  Because I got a good night's sleep last night and I'm up early feeling rested and its a beautiful day and I'm going to drop off my laundry, enjoy the sun a bit and get back to practicing on this day off from work.

That'll teach them a scientists a lesson.  

I've been reading "Tortilla Flat" by John Steinbeck.  It is a charming little book.  I feel like the writing has this wit about that manipulates the omniscience of the narrator around the story in such a stylized way, a way that I happen to write when writing about quirky characters and their quirky actions.  I wonder if this is one of his first novels?  Or one of his more "fun" novels?  Because the similarities in his style in this book (I can't remember how his other books read), reminds me of what I think is fun but amateurish in myself.  

Harumph.  

So anyway.  I got the call from Jimmy Hill.  I have a rehearsal today and another with the group and I can't see how things would go otherwise then planned: flying out with the James Brown All Starz Tribute Band to beautiful St. Lucia for their big festival.  

Sure, its only from the 6th to the 8th, playing on the 7th.  I guess I'll miss seeing Amy Winehouse and sadly, Michael McDonald.  I'm sure they will miss miss seeing me–somehow I think this.  

I guess I'll never be able to play my original tunes written with Michael in mind for him, hoping he'd pick one up, help polish it off and co-write and produce and make us millions off of it.

I guess somebody else will have to sing, "Saturation of Soul."  Who could that be?  Maybe Amy?

Some days you have to ask yourself, "Will I get a follow up call from Jimmy Hill and the James Brown All Starz Tribute Band after his initial call four days before about filling in for a gig on St. Lucia in approximately two weeks?"

Man, I hope he calls me back.  I want to go to St. Lucia to play the music of James Brown with a hard hitting band. 

But you know, it doesn't even have to be St. Lucia.  In general, the more James Brown I play, the better I feel.  Maybe its the beat, maybe its being part of the tradition, maybe its the opportunity to lay back and just groove with a solo here and there.  

Or maybe its because destiny has offorded me insight into the new revolution of musical/ religious aesthetics, and like Paul to Jesus retelling the Jesus story some hundred years later, perhaps I am the star child to bring the music of James Brown into focus, into a doctrination that can bring salvation to the cosmos.

Or maybe I just wanna go St. Lucia.  I'm not sure.  But a return call would be exceptional.

G.