Thursday, August 31, 2006

Help, in all it's forms...

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We just returned from a fantastic trip including LA, Seattle, and lastly Anchorage, Alaska. The time in Alaska was amazing. Medicinal. My thoughts were also with the Greenbelt festival in the UK, where Jude was rocking it Redemption-style.
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I was flipping through my photo library on my computer and this one called for posting. It's a picture I took at what we thought was an orphanage. We went down the road of committing to fund water catchment tanks for this place, and a friend on the ground in Rwanda has uncovered the whole thing is a scam. Not even an orphanage. It makes me feel ill. I don't really understand what to think about it. At the end of the day, we want to help people. Those we met, like this child pictured, needed assistance with resources. Why should helping people be such difficult work?
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Here is Lis, as we were being welcomed into another village. Singing, dancing. Joy embodied in the voices of people who live life on it's edge, and lean past the edge frequently. I saw her lean into the edge with them, receive the embrace and grab hands.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Second Printing...

From my friend Jim's blog...

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Garrison Keillor went to a ballgame the other day:

Seeing men compete at the height of their ability is pure inspiration these days, politics having turned so cheesy. What you thought of as civics turns out to be a basic service industry, like bartending but without the jokes. Politics today is about money. Abramoff was the rule, not the exception. The cultural issues, the Christian values, they are pure camouflage, and so is national security. Congress is mostly about serving its clients, who are not you or me, and now this gang of misfits, nitwits and yahoos is hoping that the arrest by British police of a band of terrorists might enable Rep. Blimp and Sen. Foghorn to play the security card once more. There is no limit to their brazenness. They would swipe your wallet and then return it for the reward. Lord, have mercy.

We have never (in my years anyway) seen this level of open cynicism in the White House – Congress, maybe, but not the White House. Not even in the Nixon Adminstration who at least had a sense of shame when they broke the law and the decency to try to hide their crimes. But these guys . . . When I see what they do in public, i cringe to think what's going on out of sight.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Morning with Noam Chomsky...

There is nothing "gateway" radical about this guy. I've been reading his book "Hegemony or Survival," and it's giving me a lot to think about. I've taken to getting outside in the morning, as it's cooled off a bit, so reading and playing are more of an option. Ella rode her bike in the driveway and after reading, I got out my newly purchased cello and honked and squeaked for a bit.
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Here's a photo from the video we filmed for the first single to AAA radio, called "Work." It was filmed in one take (six times) at a studio in LA, and we got soaked everytime. Lots of fun, and we had a great sushi dinner with Janet & Tera at management, and a new writer friend we met named Allen. He's a wonderful guy, and to hear his story was an honor. I love what music does to/for people.

More to come - I still want some reflection done on my Africa trip. I feel that's a gap in my heart right now.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Spontaneous cremation...

My friend Jim brought his family over yesterday, and we were sitting around talking about this piano that I had been given from my Grandmother who had passed. It was a gift that held most value in memory. It had lost it's tune, and wasn't playable anymore.

Well, this is the solution we came up with. It would have cost too much money to repair the old spinet piano, and rather than pay some company to take it away, we moved it to the fire pit.
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When it was all said and done, this felt like an honorable way to say goodbye.
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It was an artistic sendoff, with lots of great visuals.
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