haiku: Big Sur

comely sea, angry
jagged rock, green, ragged mist
enchanted meeting

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing." — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790).

Two weeks ago I returned w/ my girl well refreshed from one of the best vacations I've ever had. Last Saturday night I was part of a dinner party that included my love and some great friends, we had one of those magical evenings when everyone was on and a perfect time had by all, you could never plan such a night, it takes star and planet alignment. With r and r like this it's hard to imagine that one could be exhausted. Well I am. This grind is killing me. I have been at it for most of my adult working life. Stuck in realativly well paying jobs that are mindless and unfulfilling. In my twenties it wasnt so hard because at the time I was making more money than even my more educated contemporaries. I always worked in a factory union job or construction and now this telecom gig. It seemed hard to quit, start over and go get an education to do something I was really interested in. Then of course one gets involved w/ relationships, has kids, blah blah blah...next thing you know you're a looser. My afore mentioned contemporaries are now reaping benefits form the gained momentum of education and smart chioces. I'm looking my mid-thirties square in the face and here I am, seemingly stuck in this meaningless, mindless unfulfilling job. The pay is good but this grind is hell. Nearly twelve hours of my day are dedicated to this hamsters wheel, with the commute and lunch, an eight hour tour of duty is stretched to nearly 50% of my day. If I chose to get the recomended eight hours of sleep each night, that leaves four measly hours to run errands, take care of household needs, eat, try to bond w/ my daughter, make sure her errands are run, her needs are taken care of, her emotional well being taken ito account. I have the love of my life and strong relationships take alot of work. She has needs, we have needs and these time constraints get taxing. This is just scraping of the surface of course and I know I'm not alone, but this grind is killing me, killing me from the inside. What oh what is the answer? Idealy I would like to quit, get a part time job and go to school full time, study something that I really dig, pump it out for the next four to five years and get my degree. The time constraints would be heavy still, but just doing something productive, creative would take the sting off of the reality of it. Being out there, I think I could explore my creativity, my wants and needs. I can think of many unique creative ideas for alternate income to suppliment the part time work. Having an everchanging schedule due to schooling and work loads would actually be a refreshing change to this God damn endless regimine that I am forced to stick to now. Just having maybe 3 hours on a Wednesday afternoon between classes and work to steal away w/ my soulmate for lunch or a friday morning bike ride w/ my little girl would be great. Maybe being forced to get financially creative would require me to launch one of the many bussiness venture ideas that I obsess on. Then when my means to the end has been met I could get a job teaching or something, have a fulfilling career with summers off. Jared said it, "Imagine having three weeks off w/ your 'girl' every December!" Oh what a life we could have....Pipe dreams I know. The reality of it is that I am enslaved to a self imposed indentured servitude. I had in the past many opertunities to change the current path but did not. I subscribed to the blue coller cyclical hell, I played alot, I partied, I worked hard like a good little bee should, and did the bidding of the real movers and shakers all the while living for the weekends and a couple weeks a year vacation to to go out and "recharge". I got heavy into debt (relatively), had a kid, and worst of all I got old. Too old to drop everything and follow my dreams to do something which I should have taken care of 15 yrs ago. Too old to subscribe the ones I love to 5-6 years of church mouse style living. Too old to quit this shitty 50k/yr grind to get trained for a job that starts at 30k. Could I be that selfish? I could go on and on and on, but I won't. I'll just grin and bare it, keep a positive attitude and count my blessings, my beautiful daughter Madison, the incredible soul connection that I have with my lover, soul mate and cosmic adventurer Melanie, good friends and my Volvo....

A Personal Punk Rock Paradigm

When did this so-called “punk rock” begin? Or more importantly, when did it begin for you? When did this angry, middle finger in your face, angst-ridden, thought to be, hoped to be rather, flash in the pan take hold? Was the two and one-half minute, socially conscious three chord raging scream the Answer to one-song long side two opuses from psychedelic acidheads who jammed for twenty-seven minutes with wind chimes and violin bows on their stratocastors? Did the pogo, gobbing and slam dancing replace white-hot pyrotechnics, ten-inch tongue-wags and the field level-seating wristband? Did stage-dives and crowd surfing usurp the pop throne of Broadway like theatrical extravaganzas complete with upside down drum solos and three-dimensional set design? Let’s face it music fans, the backlash is inevitable.
Some would say it started with the early Seventies post glam nihilists like the Fugs and The Stooges (soon to be known as Iggy Pop), or was it before that. We’ve all seen our favourite Mod, Pete Townsend as the amped out speed freak hopped up on “goofballs” destroying the stage and equipment. His band, The Who, had a progressive, disenchanted sound that smacked in the face of the pop/blues based “Mersey-beat” made so popular by their fellow countrymen.
Let’s go further, the Southern blues men and free jazz practitioners in the Mid-west’s Metropolitan dark corner speak easies were very radical, smoking marijuana and drinking home-made solutions until nearly blind jamming until all hours. Mostly black men, they were feared and hated those who subscribed to main stream pop culture of the day, doo-wop, dippity-do bullshit, vomited up by squeaky-clean, WASP friendly crooners.
In the early nineteenth century an Italian solo violinist, Nicolo Paganini, flabbergasted audiences in an era when opera singers were the only performers of note. He contrasted their pretentious fat woman theatrics by wearing tight pants and sporting extremely long hair. His performances are the first to have documented accounts of fanatical woman fans screaming and fainting. He held such mastery over his instrument and audiences that soon he was accused of selling his soul to Satan, ala Robert Johnson in the 1930’s. A concert review of the time soberly related having seen Satan himself on stage guiding the hand of Paganini.
Punk Rock is the backlash. It just didn’t get tagged “punk” until about 1973. From Paganini’s operatic backfires, Little Richards Negro piano and Elvis’s gyrating hips, me generation angry kids on both sides of the Atlantic spitting at the audience, to affluent white suburban surfer/skaters disgruntled with successful parents and the American dream. Punk is the backlash, the reaction, not the music. The style is secondary. What caused the backlash? What is this rage against? Why do music lifers of all varieties and all generations eventually tire of the convention that gets fat and boring and demand the envelope be pushed, the decibels blare and the message say “fuck you establishment?” Who are we; this ages old Klan of malcontents who through the times seek out and embrace the new, the angst, and the anti. Who are these fans that shit upon the stodgy and laugh with whole hearts at whatever may be the current icon on the pop landscape?
We are the real fans. We are the ones who rail against the status quo. Though there was a bonafide punk rock scene at the time, in 1978 I was stuck in an elementary school vacuum that could never reveal such progressive ideals. The New York CBGB sounds of Blondie and The Ramones, their English counterparts, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and the rest of those socialistic, working class pride, queen hating Brits, and later, a revised, refreshed California sound, goodbye Eagles and Crosby Stills and Nash, hello Black flag and Dead Kennedy’s, was alive and well and I was oblivious to it. Kids in my class were bringing the “popular” records to school, the big ones of the day, ABBA, The Bee Gees, Village People, other disco tripe and the Grease Soundtrack. In my early pursuance of acceptance, I decided that I should bring some records to school.
My parents’ record collection combined had about a dozen albums and maybe fifty 45’s. My old man had a pretty cool Manfred Mann and Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots are made for walkin’. My mom was big on Mo-Town as a teen, which I must admit was pretty punk rock in the mid sixties for a white middle class teen-age girl. She spun tales of Ike and Tina Turner at the Apollo in 65’ during the Watts riots, somehow taking in the concert and the riots in one magical L.A. weekend. Having no access to other music, no older siblings, no money, no frequent trips to the mall etc. I had to make do with what I had. I set off to school armed with one Michael Jackson; Rockin Robin 45, the B-side to Ben I believe, the aforementioned Nancy Sinatra work and Shaft, The Original Movie Soundtrack. Of course most of the class cracked up at what were obviously my parents records and the teacher seemed faintly reminiscent of them. But my two good friends, Todd Estelle and Tim McMullen loved them. They had been to my house when we would play them from boredom on my parents pull out consol stereo, and these were our favourites. Nancy was so hot, like a dominatrix with her sexy, threatening boots. Of course, who doesn’t love any thing by the even then king of pop, Michael Jackson? And yes, Shaft is a Bad Mother Fucker.
The three of us were the lunatic fringe; we were the only ones to embrace this different sound. We flew in the face of popularity, daring to be different, blasting Shaft and Nancy during inside recess due to weather. Our contemporaries thought queer of us and that soon became the motivating factor. If they hated it, we liked it. If they bought it, we cursed it. We were not dismissed though, we wouldn’t have it, and we would be accepted as the fringe, the minority, an alternate voice in our insular little world. This would soon progress to our dressing and speaking just a little differently as the need to further separate and identify ourselves grew…I was hooked!
I loved it. I loved the sense of camaraderie that developed as we three nerds found a common bond. I loved how we ran roughshod against the most popular grain and the notoriety that soon followed. Now one could be noted, and be popular without being “cool”, one could have a sense of belonging and purpose even if it is only based on something that some may deem relatively meaningless, a common passion for music. The feeling is intoxicating. One feels as if they’re in on a secret of some sort. Something that only the small minority knows about. Superiority at it’s finest. Scoffing at the force-fed contemporary radio sounds and those weaklings who subscribe to it. Now we can have something over even the coolest kids in school.
This addiction continued to be satiated from then on. In junior high it was my nerdy model rocket friends who put the punk rock spin on things by shooting the rockets at each other from across the schools field, cranking The J. Geils Band, Freeze Frame on someone’s sisters very crappy boom box. We thought it was hard-core because it was loud. Then early on in high school I was turned on to the real deal, the for real punk rock scene. I went to see The Addicts and the Bad Brains at The Jackie Robinson YMCA in about 1984 and that was it, punk rock forever!

To be cont...work in progress

Day one, not really sure what I'm doing. I guess I just got caught up in the hype, the bandwagon. I am afraid to be diferent, I fear when I percieve that I may be missing out on something. If it seems to please me I'll post often and maybe pass out the link...we'll see!