I'm Wide Open

Usually, I have a plan, but not this time. I've learned from past experience that some of the best things that happen are not things I have planned at all.
Here I am, it's 8am and I have no idea at all of what I'm doing today, tomorrow, or for the next 2 weeks. It actually feels pretty good and I'm not too worried about all that time getting wasted. If nothing else, there will time for reflection and sunsets, and suddenly a plan springs to mind...a photo of sunrise tomorrow morning!

The Relic

I'm really getting into this new music we're working on, and I keep seeing images in my mind of me playing an old B-3 in the fantasy shows. I kept trying to find parallels in the south and southern old revival churches. There is something about this music that wants old gear and sweat.
I finally traveled to the place where they restore these old Hammond organs and once I took in all of these old beasts in varying stages of restoration, I knew it was true: This is what the music wants. I dreamed about it and am still trying to figure out how it would ever be worth all of the trouble.
I can think of a similar story in John Mellancamp, who has made a career of writing and performing songs about growing up and old in the midwest, living in small towns and farms. I've never had any part of that, but his music makes me understand it for a moment. Even though he was once referred to as the "poor man's Bruce Springsteen", he has kept true to his original design: the music is organic. Yes, there were old organs, violins, accordians, and I appreciated all of it.
I'm hoping we can bring that same recognition to the vanishing life of Florida, as the concrete pushes nature back until the animals have to make a living in parking lots. I'm also sure hoping that I can bring one of the old Hammonds to the experience...

The Sucker Punch

You're just walking along, happy with life in general, and it's always worse when it's like that. Things are good and the world seems to be singing, but then the interruption comes and it's something nasty out of the clear blue sky. A loved one, or a stranger, just starts with angry stuff that seems to be for no reason. You know the problem is inside them, and not with you, but that doesn't help. Your good vibe is gone and has been replaced with the feeling that you somehow deserved this by being happy for a moment.
Perhaps the solution is to grow a thick skin like we believe New Yorkers to have, where any encounter at all could be gruff. I don't know, to walk through life looking for trouble doesn't sound like what I want. However, I am exercising my mental abs in preparation for the next sucker punch...

Finding It

I'm glad to really have this opportunity. There have been times here and there when I would listen to music I have recorded with different people throughout my life and I would often return to a group from my 20's where the music seemed to have something. I did a lot of music since then, but it seemed more like I was working hard to make it good enough, but could not reach the goal. I was getting closer and closer, but the image of an old black man with a beat-up guitar on a street corner, playing something true, kept popping up in my mind. Was it that I really had nothing to say? Was it that no matter how much I polished the recorded tracks, I would find the music lacking? Why is it that the image of the old man, broken and worn out, stuck in my mind? The music just poured from him, and the notes were right, even when they weren't in tune.
Then I just plain got lucky. I assembled a group of friends and my son and requested that we just try to play some songs they made up. Instantly, the songs were not much like the original ideas, but something special that was created in the room by this bunch of guys. The music poured out effortlessly, just like my fantasy of the old black man. It dawned on me then, that art is not work, it is something that wants to escape and that is what is happening now...

The Campfire

We are having a real experience here, with some of the coldest weather in my memory. Today, I could go surfing early, but the ocean temperature is still in the 50's and the last trip, I sat in the water shivering in my full wetsuit with gloves, booties, and hood! The only good part is that the cold really thins out the crowd, and the next few days we expect some very good waves.
The cold reminds me of last year and our camping trip at Blue Springs, where we found ourselves standing close to a small campfire, trying to stay warm in 20 degree weather. Your front and hands stayed warm, but anything facing away from the fire got the chill. The thought of leaving the fire and trying to sleep in the tent was not enticing.
This comes to mind now as our family and friends draw together in some of the worst times that anyone can remember. In spite of some good indicators showing the economy is improving, people are losing jobs and homes. Prices are still high and everybody is pretty much hanging on, hoping to get through this. What is on the increase is desperate behavior. More robberies, more backstabbing at work, and more repair guys that take your money and run.
What does put a smile on my face is that we still have the fire burning here and having my family around it with us.

It's All Fun And Games Until...

We got the news yesterday and this morning it was plastered on the front page of the newspaper: South Florida Kiteboarder killed by pack of sharks. Only now, they're saying it was a lone shark acting independently and the other sharks were hanging around after. A lifeguard spotted the guy in trouble and paddled out and brought him back in, but the guy died before they could get him to the hospital.
I suppose that will be the end of the story, but I can't help but think about the balls that lifeguard must have. To paddle out into a pack of sharks on your surfboard and try to drag a bloody person back to shore? Maybe the man did not survive, but that doesn't change what it took to go out there and help. I'm trying to imagine standing on the shore, seeing the guy yelling for help and noticing the fins circling him and going out there anyway. I hope there are a lot more lifeguards like that guy!

A Walk On The Dock

I was on short vacation, a 5th honeymoon of sorts, and found myself alone on the beach at dawn. My wife is a late sleeper, so mornings are always solitary events for me. The day was starting out cold, with a brisk wind blowing, but I really wanted to get out on the water to watch the sunrise. For some strange reason, the cold in that part of the country seems to also make the water the most beautiful blue that you could imagine. It was perfectly clear, like light blue glass and I could see the tiny baitfish everywhere. I walked out onto this long dock that belonged to our beach apartment, hoping to see some of the larger fish that can be found hiding in the shade under the dock, but they were too well hidden for my eyes that morning. I stood for a while, until the cold started to find ways under my sweatshirt and decided to head back in to refresh the cup of coffee I had been carrying along.
It was then that I spotted something unusual. Two dolphins were swimming along the shore, in very shallow water, too shallow I thought, swimming straight with their dorsal fins splitting the water very much like the shark scenes in the movie Jaws. I was already wondering how a dolphin could swim in what appeared to be two feet of water, when they reached the dock and giant splashing ensued. The first dolphin popped his head up with a big old snook in his mouth. He then swam off and the second dolphin came up with a smaller sheepshead. I watched them swim off into the distance, checking out each dock on the way down the shore.
I thought, man, these guys own this place....