Hendrix Experience Tour tonight (well, technically last night now)

Hendrix Experience Tour tonight (well, technically last night now)

music musician musical instrument guitar
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Still vibrating in place after the show tonight, two of my absolute favorite musicians on the planet in the same night ?!??! man o man, Eric Johnson is just the goods, so smooth and unique, he makes it all look so easy, what a treat to see every single time, the friend I brought with agreed (she had never heard of him… I may have influenced her slightly!!).  Dweezil Zappa was a nice surprise, dude can play, wild to see the older players – Billy Cox (long time friend/player with Jimi), Taj Mahal (damn he rules, more people have heard of BB King but trust me, Taj is the real deal), and the Slide Brothers (Zira had no idea what a lap guitar is… do you?), anyway they cut into some old blues with that lineup (catfish blues… hello!!??), awesome, awesome (did I mention awesome?).

So Doug Pinnick walks out on stage, something I have seen a thousand times over the years… but not in an environment like this (outside of Woodstock 94), his age… jeez, the guy has always been in insane shape all these years, he still looks the same to me all these years and tours later, I stood for his entire set, I didn’t want to miss a minute or a moment.  I recognize a lot of the moves, the deliberate bass strikes and posing… and timing of riffs I have seen so many times before, but he is playing with Satriani and Aronoff… to me he is the show, the vocals, the presence, he is it all, it is all like I remember.  The bass was pretty damn loud and low, almost too much, and hell he really didn’t get to show off his voice like he can (which would have brought down the house imo)… maybe he can’t hit those notes anymore, there were moments though, that reminded me, of me, of my life a decade ago, following King’s X around the south from Florida to the Carolinas, he shook some hands afterwards, I stayed back in my row, happy to just feel something familiar again, it has faded as of this post, but not completely, maybe I am making my way back, slowly.

I am posting videos on my Youtube account the next couple o’ days…

driving around the ole town…

driving around the ole town…

barb wires barrier billboard building
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available for lease
I remember this place
I always meant to stop in
but never did,
cause and consequence.


notes… things change, this much we know, but do we? We feel like we are going to live forever, that all existence is now because of our presence, perhaps that is the spark of life deep down?  I wrote this passing by this farmer”s market/garden store I have driven by thousands of times on route 27 in Edison, I guess I didn’t learn my lesson, after all the Parsonage Diner just down the street is now a Rite Aid for some time… I can remember so many nights rolling up on that dinner at some ungodly hour after a night of doing quite ungodly things, sure, Jersey is the land of diners, we have an over representation, but this was OUR diner, kind of the last landmark, the shore, the safety point of going home, the edge of the neighborhood after excursions into New Brunswick or Princeton or beyond… what’s the point? ah… you get it.

sometimes you pause.

sometimes you pause.

deadbirdnearwork

upon a dead bird

I did not know your name
or your song
or how long
you have been gone

for I missed you my friend
your peak in flight
now laid here
on unmarked ground
to never know
your voice
or of your sound
your sweet repertory
rests in silence now
the wind animates plumes
like half staff flags
placed upon
this earthen tomb

so for this moment
I take pause
wish you safe passage
into that good night.


notes… we have all seen the occasional dead animal here and there, not sure why this struck me to write, it just did, so,  maybe because I walk by this spot everyday to the office door and notice the little local flocks of birds in their home among the local planted landscaping bushes surrounding what becomes my home most of the time to be honest.  You get used to the little one scratching out existence in this urban-ish environment (Hackensack is very commercial and has the most polluted river in the country).  I cherish my little friends, they help center me, on a bad day, I can walk outside among the cigarette butt ‘garden’ and see how nature deals with everything, it just does, with blind ambition, and there might be a lesson there, if I wasn’t some dumb human.

person holding round smiling emoji board photo
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and as always, any thoughts, critical barbs, long diatribes, structural critiques, letters of hate written using the blood of virgins… all is appreciated if not encouraged even.  I do this to hone my craft and myself, and unfortunately I can not escape this form as currently constructed, so I have to rely on outside forces for feedback, as confident as I am I only know mostly everything… (wink)

the comfort of guilt.

the comfort of guilt.

selective focus photography of skeleton
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“my sin is stone
bearing upon my bones
I wish this was a story I read
and not the one I wrote”


notes… sometimes I dwell, I wish I was a dumb moron, a dump truck who could just tilt back and leave a pile of dirt behind, but I am just not wired that way, I wish I was an electrician so I might fix myself… but what else would I screw up in the process?

music?  even on this topic… I am going light and fun here…

Scatterbrain – I’m with Stupid

(pay attention to the words, OK stupid)

Contemplation from the porch.

Contemplation from the porch.

close up photo of street lamps
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the lull of white suburban noise.
I contemplate the sameness of my street, for me all this has always been here, but surely this hallmark will be gone, strange to think of dinosaurs, beasts, and all manner of creatures traipsing about this space where I sit now, concrete foundation in this tamed landscape, or so for now, soft sounds amplify in space like this, a neighbor walking mistaken for some demon lurking just out of my sight’s reach, until a bright yellow breaker rolls into view, and I concentrate on their steps, how uneven they are against the lose layer of debris that resides on top of the asphalt, the non perfection of form, scrapes of humanity, I could call this a soft cool breeze tonight, but somehow it is lighter than that, almost just the subtle presence of air settling down, not enough to provoke thoughts of cold, or flight back into my hole, still waiting for the spring, patience, I know, but still it wears thin on me, the dull low roar of commercial flight reminds me I am not far from the airport, I could go anywhere right now, but where would I go? where would I be? I have trouble accurately describing the sound of passing cars driving by, I know the technical side, tires on pavement in rotation against the ground, some seem calm, others rushed, as I try to make out the muffled music during the brief encounter, or to build a story about a neighbor filling a jar full of momentary assumptions flavored by flash judgements, based on a car, driving by, in only this matter of time of my arbitrary observation, a neighbor, I only know because their house is on the same block, a stranger, in any other contextual lock, the same person walking comes back from the other direction, on the sidewalk this time, not sure why, variety I suppose or no thought to it whatsoever, my direct neighbor across the street gets delivery, no signs on the car so I can only speculate, they had a little girl, she used to play outside, I have not seen her in a few years, how little we know about those in just the next house living whole lives next to ours, I wonder what lurks in the shadows and dark spots and corners, but in all honesty, there is nothing here that can harm me for real, this tame banal suburbia, the lull of white noise, the sleepy outdoor gaze of a jersey night


illuminated city at night
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notes part of my Porch series, tonight spring crept in, I even heard some children plotting games from the yard in back of mine, just waiting until the spring shakes back and forth like my dog after a bath except spring is looking to shake off the cold yoke of winter, which certainly is stubborn this year.  all thoughts, comments, questions, and quiche recipes are appreciated.

a simple thought about, well, everything.

a simple thought about, well, everything.

landscape sky night rocks
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“the theory of everything,
a flash of light
and then the ending”


written 3/19, sometimes I like to distill things into base ingredients, this would be one of those times.

music… to groove by…put on your buds (or better yet pump up the home system to feel the bass in your people space)

Sounds from the Ground – brightwhitelight (full album)

hubris.

hubris.

brown concrete cathedral
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reflection

you warned me
but I came anyway
still unprepared
and by the furies
down the phoenix rain
molten bullets perforate
penetrate my mental armor
leaving searing, smoking, holes
and I thought myself ready
to bear out my soul
false bravado is a fire of cold
fear would have been a sharper advisor
but the time has passed for that
as an empire is in ruins
littered, broken doric plumes, in uneven piles
with no fiddle to play
or gambit to last
I’ve lost, in pyres reflect
here in the hopeless corners
of the darkest men

regrets (about love lost)…

regrets (about love lost)…

broken car vehicle vintage
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I wish I could tell you
how well I have come along
without you,
of a life fulfilled

I wish I could tell you
my decision was wrong,
all those years ago,
half my humanity gone
I pray you have fared better
and forgotten my name

I wish I could tell you
my love still endures
but, the hour is late
and time has passed over this house
I have never forgiven
myself

if only
a decision made with two,
I close my eyes
to conceal all this from my sight
if only I could tell you –
you were ever the only one

one day
I will pass from this earth
I wish only
to be by your side
transformed into light
with you, my eternal love
with you, once and final more


music…

Minus the Bear – Last Kiss

that says it all my friends… (this poem written 3/6, thinking about her… while listening to this song)

View from the porch (on going series)

View from the porch (on going series)

(my ongoing thoughts free-form (trickle of consciousness or better) and naught, I sit on my front porch and just breath words into the page, hopefully)…

gray dove perching on tree branch
Photo by Magda Ehlers on Pexels.com

the gentle but solitary coo
of the mourning dove
the last ten top feet of copper fading
atop the highest trees
three quarters full day moon above
artfully placed against the blue
even surface features visible to this naked eye,
and onward the call
woo-ah, coo… coo… coo
woo-ah, coo… coo… coo
robin’s still bickering, over this lullaby
a jack’s seasoned camo so sublime
even a good size one nearly escapes my view
a bird of prey enters the scene across the street
I carefully stride forward, closer
to identify and get a clean look
with a great whoosh down in flight
crossing my eyes
a falcon’s unmistakable lines
for a moment all other sounds
commit to silence
I was not the only one
paying attention.


abstract black and white blur book
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notes… wrote this sunday night (I thought my post sunday made more sense to post with the St Patty’s theme, call me pandering, I agree), I have some crummy photos of the falcon from my phone, which sucks because I had it framed against the day moon, a huge bird of prey sitting on a perch in my backyard under a day moon… damn I suck, lesson learned, I will bring my SLR out more when I write… but it is so apparent the world is ready to bloom, to explode, I can feel the feeling building each time I go out and listen, spring is ready to break through the not so perma frost, I can feel it.

MUSIC, as always my friends I love to infuse you with my musical madness…

Tori Amos – Marianne (live in NYC 1997)

And… to be fair, I was at this show, I have seen many shows in my day (thousands), and I am a total metal head… but this… this… she owned everything from the material, the performance and the crowd…. this was a special night, thank you Tori for all…

scene from an irish pub.

scene from an irish pub.

restaurant dark bar architecture
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sitting in an irish bar, alone
in the month of st patrick
having the obligatory guinness
of course, sunday bloody sunday
comes on
there is no tv to stare at, in the corner I have chosen
so i do not have to pretend
I listen in to the revelers
recalling stories they have told each other a hundred times
I catch now familiar names
and begin to experience the stories myself
landscape absorbing the tales
their jocularity is infusion
even if, for just a moment
i finish with an ipa
feeling I have interloped quite enough
i leave a good tip
as if to stake a claim
but I am just passing through
a phantom
in a local’s place
drifting between stories and pints


notes…  written tuesday 3/12 when I decided to visit a local irish pub for some grub, this to me, is observational poetry, I am trying to take you into the moment, not sure if I succeed, that is up to you, with those eyes, reading this with your mind, thanks for the read, your comments are always appreciated.