PORCHOSBY TONIGHT
Current mood: pumped
Category: pumped Music

THE PORCH CHOPS with special guest GREG OSBY
TONIGHT at EAST END CAFE
Main Street, Newark DE

Yes, jazz sax great GREG OSBY, fresh from his guest spot with PHIL LESH & FRIENDS last Friday in Philly, again hops onto the porch to join the band for the final gig of the PORCH CHOPS 20th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION which began in early April. He'll be sittin' in with Brad, Stev, Christian and D. Batterie all night long.

Greg, who has just completed mixing his own new CD, 9 LEVELS for his own Inner Circle Music label, has performed with the Porch Chops a couple times a year since 2002 and has contributed to nearly 20 tunes on upcoming Porch Chops studio cds.

He has won numerous awards and has topped all of the major polls for his instrument. In addition to his early career playing in the bands of Dizzy Gillespie and Jack DeJohnette, Osby has recently performed extensively as a guest and member of Phil Lesh & Friends and has joined Joan Osborne, Govt Mule, and The Dead onstage as well as recording two albums with guitarist Jimmy Herring. The first with the PROJECT Z band, and the 2nd on Herring's first ever solo album due this fall.

Currently listening : Friendly Fire By Joe Lovano & Greg Osby Release date: 1999-06-08

2:36 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Love Is Just A Four-Letter Word
Current mood: Loving Life
Category: Loving Life Romance and Relationships

ALL YOU NEED IS "TO BE PRESENTLY CARED FOR"

So my incredible exploratory partner, whom is vastly smarter than most humans, very intuitive, intensely sexy, deeply spiritual, and buckets of fun, well...she and I have a bit of a disagreement. Ya see, she is of the mind that the word LOVE is overused and abused and misconstrued and misused so much that to use it is to tamper with it's real essence. She uses it only when referring to Divine Love, or when speaking to her wonderful son. Okay...I sort of understand all that...but agree with it as a way to live?...sorry, baby. No can do. I'm more from the spread the love school.

See, I think whether the word is being used by some person because of neediness ("I love you pleases love me too"), ulterior motives ("I love you so please give me a little sex/money/attention"), or even just habit ("I LOVE tacos/the New York Yankees/Angelina Jolie), while surely diluting the essence and specialness of the word, surely has enough of the connotation of it's Divine/sublime romantic meaning that even just THAT is a positive enough step to turn the tides of hatred, disrespect, anger, etc. in the world that it is worth the effort.

Now I don't mean you have to be a love cannon, spewing L bombs at the guy who fits your shoes at Sears or the dude changing your tires or the sweet girl making your double espresso. But to make a concerted effort to NOT say it to your friends, lovers, pets, et al is a bit negative is it not. Sort of an ego thing of "I can only share my ultimate love with one person and giving just a smidgin of it reduces my power, my purity, my path"...(now I'm putting words in her mouth but you get my drift)...and like she says, though we will never agree on this one (I don't even particularly LIKE to agree with people on lots of things...makes me less interesting...hahahaha), I can still not "Love" her less, in fact, perhaps even more so since SHE is so fucking interesting and provocative.

Anyway, the lengthy blog below is culled from my various responses to her initial blog describing her discomfort with the word. No rest for the, uh, searching...

She had ended her blog with the idea that perhaps instead of love what we should really say is "I presently care for you"...



Boy, the Beatles would've been huge if they'd only sung...

"She presently cares for you , YEAH, YEAH, YEAH" and

"Presently care for me, presently care for me do / You know, I presently care for you / I'll always be true / so pleeeeeeze...presently care for me do...whoa oh, presently care for me do."

I almost don't have the vaguest idea how to respond. First thought: to deny someone the chance to express their love for you is a vainglorious stroke of ego as well as self-deprivation. Just as denying someone's need to be angry with you is truly the same. It is as if you are saying to that person, "your feelings, however they might not fit my definitions, are unworthy of my consideration."

Perhaps some of us think too much and perhaps many of us have a need to hear the words back. Then again, perhaps there are some of us who say the words, give the hugs, reach out and touch the hands of people we care about for more altruistic reasons. Would it be worth considering that perhaps there could be more than one person on earth worthy of your love? Could there be perhaps a chance that by negating someone's own interpretation, of what love means to them that you are impeding someone else's forward progress, someone's longed for ability to express some kind of universal love they have realized through your presence in their lives and perhaps even if they don't know that you take their words as hollow or contrived or not worthy, then maybe there is some psychic, unspoken block being placed (by your unacceptance) in their path towards finding the love of God in our connection with the folks we find ourselves involved with and by proxy, by all of our fellow sentient beings.

Isn't Divine compassion something we all are seeking and striving for and is not a simple and easy and literally quite harmless way of furthering that process, even one quantum itty-bitty step at a time available to us in our daily interactions with those we find in our circle.

Perhaps it is one's journey to be those stumbling blocks for others, perhaps this is why we find a world of people mistrustful of their feelings and those of others to the point of closing themselves off from God's love that is all around them, reaching out to them. So many of us seeking to explain our doubts rather than accepting our blessings.

Part of my meditation each day is to give thanks for those I love and to ask that through a widening of that circle I can eventually feel the love and compassion of all of those in creation and in turn be filled with the love of the Divine Love. And I wave to kids on school buses. I send my oneness to them in that small way. I sing from stages to everyone there whether they are listening or not because in singing to them I send the word out to the heavens, to the world all around us. I attempt to vibrate as fully with whichever moment I am in. Hard work, hard to be present so much. I fall every other instant that I climb. And if we do fall in love which is a horrid phrase, agreed, then we grow the next instant. Nothing is permanent, not the phrase, not the feeling, not the emotion. All things change and shift and deepen and recede. There is nothing but ebb and flow. Difference and difference again. And that is love. Not a Stevie wonder song or a Valentine card are a heartfelt or even needy pronouncement. Love is being.

The masters, the scientists and the prophets tell us that there are three ways to learn: 1) Learning by experience which is the hardest way to learn for it takes action which precedes greater understanding. Be it burning yourself on a flame, be it falling out of "love". The path to the goal is unclear so we try things out. We take steps towards a goal and we either get closer or we are richer for the lesson learned. 2) Learning by reflection which may be the noblest but takes a longer time to learn since thoughts are only part of what we are made of. We can often avoid mistakes, avoid being burned, avoid "falling" for the wrong love, etc. But it takes time. 3) The fastest way to learn is to learn by imitation. To either copy from an already functioning example, be it from steps already performed and taught by a master, be it from books, be it from the example of others who proselytize a way that works for them. For instances of technological or artistic learning this imitation does not work as well since creativity fosters the biggest leaps of faith that lead to insight. But imitation IS a near instant allowing for more direct, less perplexing, an ultimately quicker (a relative term obviously) way towards an productive state of learning.

Is this learning really also just exactly what we seek from God as WELL as what we seek from love on a more secular level? With love the rollercoaster of emotions and events and second-guessing and passion and exhilaration is experiential and often though we learn much, we also experience the pitfalls, pratfalls and sublime leaps of faith that aid in this furthering of our concepts of love. In love's reflection, the before, during and after of our constant internalizing of love's parameters, meanings and complexities adds greatly to our ability to define and make real our ever expanding determinations of what love means to us and why we need it, fight it, chase, it embrace it and run from it (not necessarily in that order:)) Realize that the word "love" in the paragraph above can refer to either Divine Love or Earthly Love in it's generally idealized meaning.

A huge part of what we yearn for in a lover, in an object of affection, in a partner, in a God is that very reflection...the ability to see better who we are, who we aspire to be, who is the image of God's creation staring back at us each morning...and with love's radiance reflecting our way from another of those very souls with whom we share this existence, which is a noble and glorious way to learn. Buddha's life showed these first two ways of learning. He sought the teachings of masters in the forests and learned invaluable lessons but ultimately that they were "not able to lead him beyond concepts and ideas" i.e. experience worked, to a point. When he became an ascetic and in trying to attain advanced insight through deprivation, he found that while he furthered his understanding of material things and impermanence, the mind wasn't at his best when starved of physical nourishment. Thus, reflection, to a point, worked until all one reflects upon is one's lack of sustenance. The third method of identification (imitation) came into being as those who followed him sought to emulate his teaching.

And if enlightenment (i.e. Godliness in other terms) is the goal, does it not strive to express itself for the benefit of all sentient beings through not words and concepts but as feelings of effortless happiness, lack of fear, and yes, love?

Again, the logic of non-logic sometimes allows for all of the above, the path of no path...of accepting what is...all seems so very essential, if not simple or complex in its inner truths, at least conceptually jewel-like, olid, multi-faceted, reflecting, radiant as well as transparent.

So what am I feeling right now? Understanding of your long desire to not be hurt by this word "love" that you have had such a hard time believing in the past; not wanting to diminish the Divine Love you seek by accepting the frailty, the uncertainty, the edgy-teetering-on-the-abyss feeling of taking in a simple word and letting it flow over you.

Where we allow the past failures of a word (or a concept or a feeling) to hinder our ability to refresh the myriad possibilities of that word, concept or feeling, to find new levels that perhaps we were never in the position for, not prepared to accept before, that is where we fail ourselves.

The more water you add to a hole, the fuller it gets. The more love you add to the world the more loving it becomes.

If it is just a hollow word to one, who is to say it is just a hollow word to someone else? To some it is a hole flooded with water, to others it is a lake. I think back to my previous concepts of God..bearded Santa-esque lover of all things springtime-like and blossoming...Sunday School all-powerful, do not waner or you'll be damned lesson force fed and railed against...hollow concept used by lost souls to gain power of others...acid drenched chemical glimpse behind creation's curtain into quantum level vibratory unexplainable mystery...me, you, all, now...when I see the ever shifting concepts of God/godliness that I have held, like my shifting idea of what is good music, good food, good sex, good sense...how can I presume I can define such treacherously precarious concepts such as love?

I must believe in what I feel and what my definition holds at the very moment. Which is, again, of course, all that we have. I must experience, reflect, identify...

If God is Love and we are all God and God is reflected in our connections to each other, then every chance we get to glimpse Godliness in someone else through their expression of their seeing God in us is a good thing. Just because they may use the word love in place of the word God, or Us, or One does not mean they are not getting (or giving) the message.

And I sit trying to decide between:

"OK, so she doesn't want to hear me say the words. So I will stop. Never again. Not hard, it's just words. I don't have to stop feeling it. Just expressing it."

Or "I will never stop telling people I love that I love them. My love for EXP is very different from my love for my parents or SV or my friends. If the Eskimos have a bazillion words for snow and we have one word for a bazillion gradations of love where does it leave us? With snow and love, ultimately. So what the hell..."

So I love you, you neurotic and brilliant and sexy and tempestuous and giggly and thinkin'-too-much-like-me and impatient and getting-some-I'm-jealous-of-you-but-ecstatic-for-you, you God seeking, perverted, beautiful, Hindu chanting, Deadhead, punk rockin' bi-domme, creative wonder woman. So take that...and if you don't like it...tough.

"I am he as you are she as you are me and we are all together..."

"There's nothing you can do that can't be done / nothing you can sing that cant be sung / nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game...it's EASY..."

"Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
We can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved"

LOVE by John Lennon

8:00 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

PORCH CHOPS 20TH
Current mood: jammin’
Category: jammin’ Music

Ok so some of you may not be friends yet at my band's myspace page...whatcha waitin' for /porchchops is the tag to find me. In the meantime, we are in the early stages of a 3 month PORCH CHOPS 20th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION... Below is what you've missed so far...

For more info on indivicual gigs go to our myspacepage and cluck on dates on the SHOWS calendar...

Friday, April 11 – BUZZ WARE COFFEE HOUSE – ARDEN, DE
Brad from The Porch Chops solo
NATALIE WOULD
THE NIGHT & ITS MOON
A THING FOR ROSES
A CONSTANT STATE OF BECOMING
SAYONARA, SO LONG, GOODBYE
I CAN'T HELP IT
TRIAD
OBSTACLES/GATES
LIBERTY ON A BENDER
LIFEBOAT
AGENDA
NO REPLY

Saturday, April 12 – DEER PARK – NEWARK, DE
Brad sat in with the Mad-Sweet Pangs on harmonica and vocals on Dylan's IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH, IT TAKES A TRAIN TO CRY
And on harmonica on the Pangs original, ANGEL IN BLACK WATER

Sunday, April 13 1:30am-6am – WAREHOUSE PARTY
for Brad Newsome's Birthday
Brad sat in on electric guitar with Greg Fain, Jon Monck, Scott Morris, Steve Pepper, Brad Newsome, Pete Gerber, Kalai King, etc. on songs including a whole set of Steve Pepper originals, a bunch of Skatologists tunes including PRESSURE DROP, ONE TIME, FULL STOP, the Rolling Stones' SLAVE, BROWN SUGAR, The Who's SQUEEZE BOX and I CAN'T EXPLAIN, Clapton's GET READY, Dylan's TANGLED UP IN BLUE, etc.

Monday, April 14 – MOJO 13 –
The original PORCH CHOPS acoustic trio played the original set we played 20 years ago at our first gig...
Sdck:
OBSTACLES/GATES (Brad solo)
NO REPLY (Brad & Tom)
MONKEY & THE ENGINEER (trio)
Set (our original set from 5/16/88):
TANGLED UP IN BLUE
POORBOY SHUFFLE
> EASY TO SLIP
MR. CHARLIE
> NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME
QUINN THE ESKIMO
SIN CITY
THE FIRE INSIDE
DARK HOLLOW
> LOVE IS A ROSE
> SPACE
MIDNIGHT MOONLIGHT
WILD HORSES
Encore:
CARDS ON THE TABLE
JUST A MEMORY
GET READY
and Brad* played harp and sang bv joining BUTCH's later solo set:
HYPOTHETICAL (IF)
70s CHILD
BRING YOU HOME*
WALK IF YOU DARE*
SPEED OF THE SOUND OF LONELINESS*
PARADISE*

Friday, April 18
Brad sat in with MAD-SWEET PANGS again at the East End playing harp on Louisiana 1927, It Takes A Lot To Laugh..., Rocky Waters, Soul Shine and a couple more...way fun.

Friday, April 25
Listen to WVUD in the morning...Brad will be performing on Scott Birney's show

Friday, April 25 -- EAST END CAFÉ –
PORCH CHOPS electric quintet

Saturday, April 26 – HOME GROWN CAFÉ –
BUTCH ZITO & FRIENDS

Friday, May 9 – BUZZ WARE COFFEE HOUSE –
BUTCH ZITO & TERI DOBRA…headline the Open Mic night

Saturday, May 17 – EAST END CAFÉ –
The PORCH CHOPS acoustic/electric quintet
with middle set by the SIN CITY BAND

Friday, June 13
Listen to WVUD in the morning...Brad will be performing on Scott Birney's show

Friday, June 13 – HOMEGROWN CAFÉ - probable
PORCH CHOPS acoustic

Saturday, June 21 – EAST END CAFÉ –
The PORCH CHOPS quintet with
Opening act Butch Zitos' New Wednesday Night Bluegrass Band

Saturday, June 28 – EAST END CAFÉ –
PORCH CHOPS quartet featuring jazz great GREG OSBY

9:55 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Mensa Invitational
Current mood: Dictionhairy
Category: Dictionhairy Games

FYI - this has nothing to do with saxophonist Don Mensa, so jazz fans please don't write in wondering...The following post was sent to me by a friend and I howled so I must pass it on.

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the winners:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.



The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:

1. coffee, n. the person upon whom one coughs.

2. flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. willy-nilly, adj. impotent.

6. negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.

8. gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. flatulence, n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. balderdash, n. a rapidly-receding hairline.

11. testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.

12. rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. pokemon, n.. a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

Currently listening : She Wouldn’t Eat the Mushrooms By Norm Crosby Release date: 21 January, 2003

2:27 PM - 2 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

HOLIDAY MEMORIES - OY VEY
Current mood: amused

Mom used to call me her Christmas boy. I was born at 4:44 am on December 23rd so the house was decorated with Christmas stuff, presents were wrapped under the tree and BOOM here I come in the middle of the night.

So my mom and I for very obvious reasons have always been night people. Getting to sleep in the early morning hours...always finding something to read, a movie to finish, a problem to solve...

So I was ALWAYS first one up Christmas morning trying to see thru the wrapping paper, riding the vike around the living room before anyone else was up...getting my brother to go wake up the parents when I couldn't wait any longer...

and this was after weeks of marking the Sears catalog...there was always one thing on EVERY page that my greedy little self wanted. And when Mom was wrapping presents, I be trying to first look and then climb through the bedroom window to get an early peek at the stash...

I also loved the family get togethers...generally the huge Riesau crew was all about Christmas Eve at Beema and Peepa's or later at one of their kids houses...big, fun, loud stories, TV trays of food, plates balanced on laps since no one room or table could hold us all...Uncle Jack always turning blue from either choking or laughing...Beema even had one of those silver metal trees for a while and a spinning tri-color light (my first psychedelic light show)...and my older cousins always buying me hip music...ROlling Stones "What A Shame/Heart of Stone" 45 or Temptations "Puzzle People" LP...I was stuck up enough to not really be too excited initially since I was a Beatles elitest but years later I'd see just how hip these choices were...and then there was the wild though smaller Christmas mornings and then days at Nana & Papa's with my close cousins...getting full enjoyment out of whatever new stuff we got and could play with with each other...

Then after losing some of the holiday bug due to distance...first college then the 20+ years back east away from my family...I felt distant from the excitement and closeness and it took me years to get used to the very by-the-book holiday routine of my wife's very small family scene...

But the biggest problem was that I became a retail warrior. I worked in music, video, record and cd stores for nearly 20 years and I grew to hate the season...the long hectic hours...the stressed co-workers constantly restocking shelves, re-pricing ...all the usual retail drudgery except done while flying around at a frenzied pace with some red, itchy cap on trying to be festive while customers became increasingly more rude, obnoxious, panicked as if it was your fault that they waited until the last minute, circled the lot diving for parking spaces, and of course had no idea what the hell they were looking for.

I hated the greed and the non-spirit based vibes that soared all around, the shitty music that once brought joy, the pine needles in my socks...you name it I hated it. Was it worth my barely minimum wage to be treated like scum by foaming maniacs and then going home to soak my feet, wake with an aching back to start all over again. NO. And unfortunately no matter how wonderful and gracious and sweet and festive my family and friends were it was just brutal to try and raise one's own level of faux festiveness up to any serviceable level.

Much less having time or inclination to get out there and shop for the people you love was like someone saying..."now that you've walked on hot coals for a month...how 'bout a sauna..."

Now that I've been out of the grind for almost ten years I am JUST NOW getting back into the spirit...slowly, mind you. I'm still jaded and a bit past it but I find that only the company of loved ones makes all the rest worth while. I cherish the new ability to be again with my close family (though I miss my extended family back east all the more this time of year) and I spend much more time counting my blessings.

Given that...here are a couple of great ANTI-CHRISTMAS songs (or songs that make you hate the holidays just because the songs exist-obvious which are which). Some of these are incredible and some are incredibly bad. Worth the search at any rate. I list them here for you poor retail tied folks and I just want to let you know that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The second week of January is only a few weeks away...

1) %^*$ Christmas by FEAR
2) Fuck Christmas I Got The Blues by Legendary Tiger Man
3) Red & Green Blues by Brad Riesau
4) Ru-Paul The Red-Nosed Drag Queen by Ru-PAul
5) Dallas Christmas by the 1986 Dallas Cowboys
6) Christmas at Denny's by Randy Stonehill
7) Christmas With The Devil by Spinal Tap
8) Have A Cheeky Christmas by The Cheeky Girls
9) Merry Christmas (I Don't Want To Fight Tonight) by The Ramones
10) That Was The Worst Christmas Ever by Sufjan Stevens

Currently listening : Have a Cheeky Christmas Pt. 1 By Cheeky Girls Release date: 09 December, 2003

3:08 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

CHRISTMAS SONGS
Current mood: Jingled
Category: Jingled Music

My friend Mike from SUPERTIX in Wilmington handed me his yearly holiday compilation CD recently. He puts a ton of effort into these discs and they are lots of fun and always have a bunch opf odd and unique versions of holiday chestnuts and newly written holiday novelties.

So here are two questions for y'all...

1) What is your favorite holiday song of all-time?

2) What is the most unique, strange or twisted version of a holiday classic you have heard?

3) What version of a holiday song would you be happy to never hear again?

My choices...
1) My fave holiday tune is The Christmas Song (you know, "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire") but my favorite version of a Christmas song ever is Aretha Franklin's take on "Winter Wonderland". Magnificent.

2) "Please Daddy, Don't Get Drunk This Christmas" by John Denver or "Dominic The Italian Christmas Donkey" by Lou Monte. Two classics you 'd better wish you never hear.

3) "Macarena Christmas" by Los Del Rio (oddly this was released in 1996, a bit late for the Macarena craze...but not late enough)

Currently listening : Dr. Demento Presents: Greatest Christmas Novelty CD By Various Artists Release date: 31 July, 1989

2:49 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

DREAM THEORY
Current mood: dreamy
Category: dreamy Dreams and the Supernatural

So I went to TAVERNA D'ATALIA with my former Rolling Thunder partner MIKE tonight and made the mistake of being exhausted when I got home at 10. I decided to nap for 2 hours, then planned to wake, do dishes and start to pack a bit, go back to bed at 3am and sleep until 9am before heading to Philly to work.

Instead I set the alarm wrong in my stupor and woke at three from a fascinating dream I wanted to share with you all...here's my journal entry I just scrawled...now I must try to sleep again...wish me luck.

12 – Wednesday
3am – I wake from a dream with the beginnings of heartburn from sleeping so soon after a gorging of Italian food and pop three fruity Tums before I scramble to write this baby down before I lose any of it. I feel compelled to get this one right onto paper (uh, laptop) immediately…no scribbled notes to try and decode hours later…

DREAM -

I am out in my grandma's (Nana's) backyard and I am with "my girlfriend" (?). She's dirty blondish, tall and pretty thin and wearing sunglasses and a green, summer blouse with spaghetti straps.

We are talking about guitars. I tell her my uncle plays flamenco guitar and is taking lessons with a famous guy today in that very yard.

We look out onto the grass and there are a handful of chairs and a glass-topped round outdoor table and sitting in one of the chairs waiting for my uncle is someone who I recognize as classical guitar great John Williams.

In this dream I never formally think or mention his name but somehow it is him. It doesn't even really look like him except in a very subtle way. He is a guy older than she and I. She looks about 30, so I feel 30 in the dream though I never see myself. I am ALWAYS in the "behind the camera" position in this particular dream, i.e. everything is seen from my eyes.

Now, perspective shifts and instead of us both being in Nan'as patio looking out at the grass, I am out in the corner of the yard walking towards the table and Williams is seated facing me and she is walking towards the table from the patio from behind him. As she reaches him, she hesitates a moment and then bends to allow him a kiss on her cheek before she takes a seat at the table. That seems odd to me, as if she's being overly "familiar" with someone whom I presume is a stranger.

She sits opposite him at the table and as I walk up they begin talking. What I hear is some nice, friendly and a bit flirty conversation from him that seems to imply that she was a student of his, possibly unrequited or even a fleeting love interest, and he starts talking about the nature of love.

He says something about people being "one of two types of romantic" though I don't recall how he said it or his conclusion. She says, "Well, I guess that puts us in opposing camps." They both laugh, a tad uneasily, as if that isn't what he really wanted to hear her respond, though that seemed his point exactly. What I heard him trying to imply was, "Too bad things didn't work out for us…guess we just didn't jibe." Sounded like he was fishing for the "maybe we just didn't let things develop far enough…come here and fuck me" response.

I, of course, never being one to hesitate to put my 45 cents into a scintillating conversation began my own rapid fire discourse…

"I disagree. I, myself, am at least three very different types of lover…" I always seem to be relating to my own most prominent romantic experiences…

I then consider how unique my recent exploratory partner and I were and quickly a visual of a small deck of cards, a fluttering Rolodex of lovers shuffles by in my mind (a lot of blank cards waiting to be filled, I think) and I reconsider mid-sentence, but before I spit out a re-treaded hypothesis she blurts out through a grin, "Only three types? How modest of you." We all laugh. She's letting him know we are involved.

"Perhaps it is more a matter of complexity," I continue. "We are only as disparate and flexible and unique as our experiences allow. Maybe we are completely…" I take long pauses between mouthfuls of ideas and at one point I wonder if I am making any sense at all. "…We are totally at the whim of the way our experiences collide with our fantasy. Then again you can only dream of what your mind has at some point come across."

"The old our-thoughts-are-all-we-are theory…" he proffers.

She collates his interpretation, "We are only that which we think."

"More like we just are and the rest is how we perceive ourselves and each other." Am I on a roll? Or will I be eaten? I continue to vamp.

"Then again, maybe there really aren't any archetypes. Perhaps we just all have some kind of constantly evolving propensity to love, which is proportionately influenced by the opposing person of choice's own similar, and dissimilar qualities. So we fall as hard as the surrounding atmosphere allows and when we are lucky enough to sprout wings of similar size and strength, we soar around each other as long as we are able."

"No, wonder you're fucking him," Williams laughs. She looks back my way with an odd smile at the corner of her mouth and I can almost feel her wings growing underneath her blouse.

I realize that I really need to run in the house and write this dream down because some of this shit was good but that they might think me a bit pretentious, transcribing my dream as it is happening. I wished I had a recorder going.

And I swear to you, I woke up laughing and the back of my neck was sweaty and I leapt out of bed and wrote this down. Now there's a vivid dream. I don't remember ever talking this analytically in a dream before, usually it is more blatantly gibberishtic. I must be sleepy...the thought that Gibberishnakov would be a great name for a Russian dancer just flew across my cerebral cortex. I always presumed long-windedness was a waking trait of mine. C'est la vie.

Currently listening : Images and Words By Dream Theater Release date: 07 July, 1992

2:18 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

HEAR US ON WEBCAST TONIGHT
Current mood: grinnin’ and pickin’
Category: grinnin’ and pickin’ Music

MAD BUFFALO PRODUCTIONS will webcast a live concert TONIGHT 12/5 from
CLUB MALAWI beginning at 8pm ET featuring

original music from

KURT HOUFF from MONTANA WILDAXE at 8pm

BRAD RIESAU from PORCH CHOPS and SKELETON KEY starting at approx. 8:50-9pm-ish

BUTCH ZITO from BZB, STACKABONES, PORCH CHOPS etc. starting at approx. 9:50-10-ish

Get it? In the best of all worlds, three smoothly flowing 50 minute sets of original tunes, witty banter and good-looking men (ok, I know I'm stretching a bit here...)

Paul does a great job with these shows and it's a lot of fun. You can also heckle us live online so chime in...

Catch the shows here:

CMU ESM

or here:

FlapDaddy

and look for MBP

8:35 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

CHOPS GIGS THIS WEEK ETC...
Current mood: Begging for fans
Category: Begging for fans Music

New gig info and PORCH CHOPS studio update at our PORCH CHOPS My Space blog.

Find us in the FRIENDS links on this home page ("we're having linkage problems" - Farmer John)

Currently listening : Symbols of Light By Greg Osby Release date: 31 July, 2001

2:33 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW ME?
Current mood: quizzical
Category: quizzical Quiz/Survey

OK, so I hear that the test I posted is a spam generator...bastids...too bad it was fun...

Tell you what, here are the same questions...take the test by sending me your answers as a comment or message and I'll tell you how you did via email with the correct answers and post your scores in an upcoming blog...

So far Corey scored 85% and Bart 71%. Not bad fellas. I've added a couple of questions since they took it so they might not be so smart next time...

HERE GOES, JUST COMMENT WITH QUESTION AND ANSWER LETTER...

1. Who's the only sports team I give a hoot about?
a) Phillies
b) Eagles
c) Yankees
d) Angels

2. What do I drink when playing gigs?
a) Single Malt Scotch
b) Hot tea and lemon
c) Myers & Coke
d) Shot of Patron and a root beer

3. Who is my favorite poet?
a) Arthur Rimbaud
b) Charles Bukowski
c) Allen Ginsberg
d) Rumi

4. If 1+1 makes 2 and 2+2 makes four, what makes three?
a) 1+12-10
b) Manny, Moe & Jack
c) Diarreah
d) Me

5. My favorite song?
a) Tangled Up In Blue
b) Triad
c) Sandy (4th of July, Asbury Park)
d) Tomorrow Never Knows

6. Who are you?
a) Are you a snake? Are you a fish? Who are you?
b) Pete Townshend
c) I'll Be Your Mirror
d) Im am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together

7. Name any of my three pets...
a) Stella, Sandy, Cody
b) Cody, Mikey. Bozo
c) Bozo, Stella, Coati
d) Sandy, Willie Mays, Torre

8. What's my sign?
a) Leo
b) Stop
c) v32
d) Capricorn

9. How do I spell relief?
a) R-o-l-a-i-d-s
b) M-e-d-i-t-a-t-i-o-n
c) M-a-r-i-a-n-o R-i-v-e-r-a
d) S-t-r-e-t-c-h p-a-n-t-s

10. Where do you find me on most Thursday nights?
a) on the couch blogging
b) sushi and a movie
c) a jazz show
d) Target Recording Studios

So every question has a very distinct CORRECT answer...2 points for these.
Every question also has a very possible 2nd choice that could apply but not as significantly as the other...1 point for these. The other two answers are either unlikely or downright ridiculous.
Also 5 bonus points to anyone who can tell me what all four answers to question 6 refer to...Have fun...

Currently listening : The Twilight Zone: 40th Anniversary Collection (Television Series Scores) By Various Artists - Soundtracks Release date: 19 October, 1999

2:31 AM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment