ThorNton Creek's Blahg Blahg Blahg

Has our revolution begun? I hope the revolution has begun. I want it to have. It feels like it might have.

We like to talk about equality, but, truthfully, we don’t know what that means. So, we really talk about a perception of equality. And we’re willing to live in a world and help create a world that isn’t equal. Up to a point.

It doesn’t surprise anyone that politicians are mostly self-interested and pay back political bribes (contributions) with favors, does it? Or that corporate CEO’s righteously promote they pulled themselves up alone by their golden bootstraps and that the 99% is a myth created to shirk actual work. Does that surprise anyone?

But most of us vote against our own interests, absorb the propoganda and advertisements, eat at McDonalds, shop at Walmart, and cooperate in this game. Why? Because it’s easier. We want our cheap prices, our dividends (if we’re lucky enough), our happy meals. And, face it, most of us don’t want to run a government or a corporation. And that’s okay. Honest, it is. Up to a point.

I don’t think we actually mind greed. We want our children to be politicians or CEOs. We cheerfully give praise and awards to politicians and corporate CEOs. A little inequality is okay as long I still feel valued and not cheated. As long as you cater to my belief that I am still the fabric of this nation, of this world. It’s okay. Up to a point.

Back in my glory days at Montclair State College (now University) I read about the Mandate of Heaven in a Chinese history class. Simplistically the theory was that the emperor ruled because of his Mandate from Heaven. However, if the emperor disobeyed the rules of heaven, that mandate could be revoked and the people would have an obligation to revolt. I am sure there was more nuance than that, but I hope you get the idea.

Today, almost to a one, our politicians have become caricatures of politicians. Can we believe again they care? Our corporations, led by a greedy cadre of CEOs have proclaimed themselves our new Holy Church – sanctioned by the Supreme Court – and we are destined for exorcism unless we keep in line. No one “earns” that much money (my father used to say that); they’re given it. We, the fabric, the people, allow that.

But this time, this time, have they gone too far? Can they appease us and make us believe this is what we want? Have they lost their Mandate? “What rough beast, his time come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”

Has our revolution begun? And, if so, how will it end?

What if you said, “Hey, let’s start a tribe and change the world one song at a time”? What would you do next? What would the spreading mechanism be?

There’s not much to say about Morristown, TN other than Davey Crockett (aka Fess Parker) lived there. My father lives there now. There is a wealth of police cars, lawyer offices, pharmacies, and all the major fast food chains. The arcade center has scripture posted all around the go-cart track.
There are two road signs worth mentioning because they beg for someone to use their Ninja skills to scribe some comment upon them. The first reads:
“Blind pedestrian crossing.” Possible follow up comments include:
“You can’t miss him.”
“I never saw him.”
“He was a fool to wander and stray.”

The second sign reads:
“Cross traffice doesn’t stop.”
The obvious follow up is, “It only gets madder.”

I give that to you now.

I took my dad to O’Charlies tonight where he had a “hand cut” steak, and we wondered how long that probably took. I asked if he had any words of wisdom for his grandson. He thought for a long time and then said he forgot the question. I asked again. He said, “Well, grow old, I guess.”

These are songs to live by.

I had an interview this morning with a young woman from 1340 FM. She said, “I’m 20.” I was shaking like a rat caught in a trap on a winter’s morning. Not a pretty sight, but it’s radio so what the hell.

In my mind the interview sounded something like this:
1340: Can you tell me about how ThorNton Creek came to be?
4-10 (that’s me, by the way): Maybe.
1340: And?
4-10: Well, Duane played thrash metal. I convinced him to play an acoustic. Jeff, he worked at Microsoft, had put out a CD. I thought I could too. And so I did. And it got good reviews. And pretty soon people wanted to play with me. I didn’t plan it. Does that make sense?
1340: No. So, has it always been the same people in the band?
4-10: Well, TWBA, that’s The Whole Bolivian Army, told me I should play with Don, but I didn’t want to because he argued too much. But one day I agreed and he showed up with a Chapman stick. He was great. And he’s been with me ever since. Duane left and returned. Then he left. Steve also came from TWBA. He joined and then left. Now he’s back. Mark joined and Eric came and MJ. I don’t know how any of them came there. Don is still with me. Does that make sense?
1340: No. You have a new album, A Different Door. Can you tell me about that?
4-10: Oh sure. Well, there’s this great songwriter by the name of Moe Provencer who said she wanted to record our stuff. She works in a studio. And so we started working with her but then finished with a friend who also has a studio, Chris. Mark produced it all. It was fun for me, but I’m not sure everyone had fun. You should have fun. I enjoyed it. Does that answer your question?
1340: No. Can you tell me about how you write songs?
4-10: That’s what I do. I write songs. I mess around on the guitar until something sounds right and then I try to find words. Usually. I think that’s how it goes.
1340: Okay. Is your song “A Line or Two” about writing music?
4-10: No. But I don’t think I should say what it’s about. Is it about writing music to you? If it is, then that’s what it’s about. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about writing letters to someone you broke up with. But it doesn’t have to be about that. What would you like it to be about?
1340: Uh, okay…And your title track, “Different Door” ?
4-10: Oh, well I wrote that while I was in Virginia after my father had a stroke. I was sitting in his condo by his typewriter looking at his pictures he had on the wall. There was a picture of my mother and another picture of a girl he had been in love with before he met my mother and I was thinking about time. Does that make sense?
1340: No. Uh, I really like your song Frying Pan.
4-10: Yeah? Thanks. That’s a great song. We used to call it the G-minor song because I don’t know anything about music and the capo was on the third fret and they told me I was playing in G-minor. Great song. Fun to play. You like it? Me too. I wrote that before my son was born. Does that answer your question?
1340: No. So, you’re playing the Rockfish on September 9th?
4-10: Yeah. Great place. Will you be there?
1340: No. I am only 20 and can’t go to bars.
4-10: Do you have a fake ID? No, I didn’t mean that.
1340: Well, I guess that’s about it. Can you give us a few shout outs for the station?
4-10: What?
1340: Shout outs. You know, like, ‘This is Thornton Bowman and you’re listening to 1340 The Whale’ like that.
4-10: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

I think it went something like that. I’m a public speaker.

Oh, man, it’s been a while. Lazy me.

Still lazy, so I’m just going to post a song. This just hit every guitar nerve in my lizard brain. It’s a John Hiatt song, with Joe Bonamassa shredding blues on one side, Vince Gill shredding twang on the other, and Joe & John singing in the middle. I had to share it with somebody.  (No video, though, just audio.)

Margaret.  Someday I’ll write about her.  For now, I’ll just say it’s been great to be in touch with this crazy person from my past.  It’s so much easier to talk to people from the past than the future, especially if they’re present.

Yesterday she wrote telling me to play at some club in Nashville.  But all i could think about was how my day had begun and I share that with you now.  I wrote to her:

“My day has started well.  I came in and spoke to David and the volunteer at the front desk.  The CEO was already here.  A great guy.  Mike and I chatted.  He broke his finger Friday night.  Turned on my PC.  Got some coffee.  Realized I left my phone in the car.  Got my phone.  A woman walked by.  I thought maybe it was a new employee.  But then saw I was wrong.  It was Lauren – one of the cute women working here.  I laughed, “Ha ha,” and went to tell her I thought she was a new employee.  Lauren, Lindi, and Danielle were all there.  We laughed, “ha ha, hee hee.”  Then I went to the bathroom.  I left the house this morning with my zipper down.”

Life rushes past and you have to take your victories where you find them.

Way back in the dark ages, maybe 1973 or ’74, I was certain about stuff I knew nothing about.  Mostly that meant life in general.  As I heard it, I was the youngest member of the vestry in the United States.  For those of you uninformed about the inner workings of the Episcopal church, that meant I got to sit around with the older cats of the local church and talk about how we could possibly manage to fix the leaking roof.  It was grand.

It also meant meant I was trusted to go to all sorts of out of town meetings where we would talk (in small groups) about such weighty matters as … well…something.  I know we talked about something.  Didn’t we?

One of those meetings happened in Blacksburg, VA.  I was the head of the youth group of the Diocese of Southwestern Virginia.  Carol (mighty white of you) White was the vice president.  Carol was smart.  If anyone deserved that position it was Carol, not me.  I lost touch with her over the years, but have to believe she’s running some country now.  She let me run the show.

I was a budding teenage boy.  I ate 4 loaves of cinnamon raisen bread in that meeting and probably drank two kettles of earl grey tea.  Then the meeting was over.

But the weekend wasn’t done.

Blacksburg is a college town.  Yes, it’s a cow college, but cows know how to party.

At the time, Yes and Tolkien were all the rage.  Blacksburg sported a bar called Middle Earth.  You walked down steps into a dayglo and blacklight lit area fashioned like a cave.  You crossed a bridge to get into the bar.  It was SO cool!  I’m sure Relayer was playing.  They served odd adult beverages mixed with Dr. Pepper.

Okay… shhhhh, don’t tell the kids.  I wasn’t old enough to be in the bar.  But it doesn’t matter because the bar has nothing to do with the story.  Really.

The very next day in Blacksburg was hazy.  I walked about the town bewildered by the transparent fog that seemed to engulf the town.  And then it happened.  It changed my life for…some period of indeterminate time.  I came across a music store.

As weird as this may seem, Gentle Reader, back then recordings were purchased on something called Vinyl.  Can you say that? “Vinyl.”  Good.  And the store was full of the stuff.  Even better, you could stroll through aisle after aisle looking at all the artwork that covered the vinyl.  Glorious.  (You can’t do that on Pandora – everything has a limitation.)

I stumbled across a fantastic cover of an album titled “Why Quit When You’re losing?”  It was a 2 album set by a band called Cowboy.  Apparently they had released two albums.  Neither of them sold well and so they put them into one and released it under the Capricorn label. 

I bought it.  Took it home.  Listened to it for hours and decided my friend Robert Campany had to have a copy.  It became something of a mantra for us.  No one understood and so we became who we are today.

A few years back I found one of the two original albums on CD.  You can still hear the analog hum.  I took it to work today and shared it with my younger and more musically savvy friends.  The report?  “This is great stuff.”

Victory!

Scott Boyer and Tommy Talton of Cowboy still are making music in Georgia if you ever are curious.  But here’s the rub.  They offer a little slice of unpretentious wisdom in that album.  I hate preachy lyrics, but this really gets to me and I share it with you now: “You don’t got to play so many notes if you just get what each note means.”

Amen

Benjamin had his 8th birthday on April 6th. The special activity he wanted was to go to Great Wolf Lodge over his spring break. In case you don’t know, GWL is a chain of Disney wannabe waterpark / hotels. They’re expensive, noisey and packed with all the people you wouldn’t want to spend a weekend with – especially when they’re scantily clad and smelling of chlorine. It’s one of those you never have to leave the hotel type of deals. They have an arcade, a Starbucks, an ice cream stand, two restaurants (different prices but the same kitchen serving pastey food), and all sorts of assorted kid activities.

Washington’s GWL is conveniently located just off I-5 in the inconvenient town of Centralia. Centralia may be the center of something, but mostly it’s a gas stop just after – if you’re travelling south – McCord Air Force Base and Fort Lewis. According to Wikipedia “In pioneer days, Centralia was the halfway stopover point for stagecoaches operating between the Columbia River and Seattle….In 1891, the population, over 1,000, found its mail confused with that of another Centerville in the state, and the name of the town was changed to Centralia.” And there you have it.

There’s a good bar in the official town that is a few miles off the highway, but you can’t get into it because it’s probably the only good place to eat for miles. (I should add, I’ve never actually eaten there but it’s part of the McMenamin’s brewery sites. There are a few of their pubs in Seattle and I’ve quaffed a few pints in all of them and had some tasty meals there too.)

Benjamin commented that although GWL is nature themed, there isn’t a live plant in the whole place. Hmmmmm.

I tried in vain to convince Benjamin to opt for a place called Suncadia. It too has a swimming pool with a slide, but it’s so much nicer, less expensive, surrounded by beautiful country and bike paths (you can rent bikes), and if you get tired of the facility you can take a quick jaunt over to Roslyn (famous for being the town where Northern Exposure was filmed) and get a fantastic slice of pizza and a good beer. Washington’s oldest bar, The Brick, is there. Granted Benjamin can’t get inside, but I can drool at the doorway and that’s worth something.

But no. I tried. Alas.

So we went to GWL and had a fine old time. Benjamin was super sweet, he listened, played with his sister, and didn’t moan about a thing.

Sometimes things just work out in spite of you.

We live our lives in relative obscurity. Facebook doesn’t change that.

Once, back in a room before Benjamin was a thought, when there was a home to go back to, when the night was a time for talk and whiskey, my dad and I sat up together. He cradled his glass between his hands and told me things. Sometimes he would stop and stare at the gold in his glass like it was some kind of anchor, an inspiration of words, fabulous words dancing on the rim of salvation.

One night he pulled a treasure off the shelf and told me of Issac and Archibald.

It was a glorious habit of his to begin, after crossing the distance between one cup and many, reciting poems he thought had something to tell. It was his way of telling me who he was.

I would go back there now if I could.

“If you had asked me then to tell just why
I made so much of Isaac and the things
He said, I should have gone far for an answer;
For I knew it was not sorrow that I felt,
Whatever I may have wished it, or tried then
To make myself believe. My mouth was full
Of words, and they would have been comforting
To Isaac, spite of my twelve years, I think;
But there was not in me the willingness
To speak them out. Therefore I watched the ground;
And I was wondering what made the Lord
Create a thing so nervous as an ant…”

My son turned 8 today. And I held him, and I tried to tell him something. And now he’s asleep. I love that boy.

“But even unto you, and your boy’s faith,
Your freedom, and your untried confidence,
A time will come to find out what it means
To know that you are losing what was yours,
To know that you are being left behind;
And then the long contempt of innocence—
God bless you, boy!—don’t think the worse of it
Because an old man chatters in the shade—
Will all be like a story you have read
In childhood and remembered for the pictures.”

I wrote about Frank in my last post and about how he gave up his mortal veil. There’s a morbid sort of hilarity in getting older, but that same crooked humor is often not so easy to find in death or the funery rites. Fortunately, some of us have a cousin Ethel.

Ethel wakes up every morning and puts the weight of everyone else’s world on her shoulders. She spends the rest of her day trying to lighten their load and giving them a reason to smile. I’m sure she has bad days, but I wouldn’t want to be the bad day that tried to mess with her.

On the day of Frank’s funeral, she, and her husband Denver, packed my father up and drove him many miles down the road to Green Springs for Frank’s service. Later she wrote this about that:

“We got there about 45 minutes before the service started and took that tiny little elevator down to the only quasi handicapped bathroom in the building. I left Denver outside the bathroom door guarding Lowry’s privacy and I wandered into the larger room to talk to some relative whose name I did not know, and I don’t know it now. Denver yelled “Ethel, Lowry just fell in the floor.” I yelled back “No he did not.” Denver snapped “Then he’s in the floor for some other reason.” And he was, bless his soul, on the floor with his pants down and his pride shattered. We dragged him out from under the sink and up on his feet and on the toilet. We went back outside while he finished, managed to get him back into the wheel chair and the floor dirt brushed off of him. He seemed a bit rattled but sucked it up and forged forward into a huge crowd of people many of whom seemed quite delighted to see him. Denver was in a sweat – he was certain that Lowry had hit his head and that he was going to go into a seizure at any minute. I assumed we would see a punk knot or a bruise or something before a seizure took him down. I don’t think he hit his head but he was way under the sink. All went well after the pitching into the floor incident and today he has not one new bruise, knot or any other thing wrong with him that I can see.

Tomorrow we go to the dentist. God only knows how much damage we can do with sharp instruments.”

And that’s exactly the way she sounds. I just had to share.