"Bombs Away" Bob Weir-Ace

On August 9th 1995 Jerry Garcia died in Forrest Knolls, California. I was enjoying the remainder of the summer on the beach in New Jersey before my Senior year of high school and Bob Weir was in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire with his band Ratdog (unofficially the worst name for a band devised). Bob recieved word a few hours before the show, then summoned up a great deal of courage and decided to go on stage.

To Bob Jerry was more than just a band mate and a friend. Raised by his adoptive parents possessing a genius level intellect but managing to be expelled from every school attended, young Bob was an adrift sixteen year old looking for guidance and a way. New Year's Eve 1963 Bob and friend (who would help pen the majority of Weir's Grateful Dead songs) John Barlow were looking for a bar that would let them in when their heard banjo music seeping out of Dana Morgan's Music Store in Palo Alto. They walked in and met a 21 year old Jerry Garcia. From that date on Jerry taught Bob to play guitar and in my opinion gave him the father figure he was searching for. These two massive minds possessing incredible talent would form a creative relationship outside of Mccartney-Lennon-Harrison and Richards-Jagger the world had never seen; I venture to say we will never see it again in our lifetimes.

So that night Bob Weir took the stage and addressed the audience in a shaky voice on the verge of tears "Well, if there's anything our friend taught is, it's that music can be used to ease us through the sad times." With that the crowed clapped in a reserve manner and the opening riffs of "Bombs Away" hustled through the amps. The show itself would be the best Ratdog 'leg I ever heard. Every line carried a mournful weight and gravitas, Weir's usually subdued and technical rhythm playing was sharper and forceful, louder and more apparent.

It is interesting he chose this song to start the show with, possibly summoning up the title words and dropping into an unknown enviroment, except this time instead of love it was death. I find it interesting also because Weir always had a push towards the disco infused rhythms while in the Dead with songs such as "Feel Like a Stranger" and of course the entire Shakedown Street album; this track certainly has disco-mainstream vibes in direct contrast to the usual Dead tried and true combination of traditional American music and trickling extended solos.

It was a sad day to be sure but I would reckon that most beautiful songs and performances can find their conception within sad times; as different as this studio version is of this track is upon hearing it I can never get the image of Bob standing on a stage, truly alone, starting it off and leaping into, for him, the abyss.

"Love Sick" Bob Dylan-Modern Times

When I was nineteen years old I had a dream, this is not a joke and one of the creepiest things that has ever happened to me, I still cannot make out exactly the coincidence, the odds of something such as this happening and the whole weirdness of the situation. The dream went like this: I was at a masquerade party in a Louis XVI mansion with manicured lawns, impeccable art and decor in every direction. Everyone was in white tails, perfectly fitted attire except for masks on their faces. Some were Venetian-like, others were similar standard mime lifeless faces. I was instantly put in this situation in tails and a mask, the dream took off from there. I was wandering through the party by myself while it seemed as everyone in attendance knew each other. Next to a titanic seven foot high fireplace I started speaking with a woman, mysterious not only in dress and mask but also in her tone and conversation. We spoke until she said: "We have to see him." "Who is him?" She replied, "Him."

So we walked through the party towards this massive structure of steps and pedestals until at the crest we saw a man sitting in a marble throne, white tails with black piping, his mask had an enormous, cartoonesque-nose standing out from the white glossy plaster. There was a tension in the air as the both of us stood before this masked man. He nodded and my acquaintance looked over towards me and removed her mask, gesturing me to take mine off. When she did a pile of dark brunette hair fell over her shoulders and striking green eyes pierced through my chest, I felt them refract off of the inside of my back and out into the abyss of the palace of which we stood a part of. Again the masked man nodded until he removed his mask and it was Bob Dylan, nappy Jew hair a mess, sleepy eyes and squint lines over his face. It was a total surprise and I stepped back aghast wondering what a man like Dylan was doing holding court at such a bourgeoisie event. She grabbed my right arm and pulled me away as Dylan watched us depart the room into another cavernous space noddingly, we kissed deeply there, myself groping her body as she pulled her hands off of her and looked me directly in the eyes with her emeralds.

Then I awoke.

Months later in a deep sleep she came back to me, in the dream I was laying in bed, heard a noise, startled I sat up to see her walk into my room wearing a black corset and patent leather heels. She straddled me and took my mouth in her own, leaning over while I acceptingly let her pin me down. All that transpired was kissing for what felt like hours until my skin was raw when she then sat up and uttered: "Another time."

I awoke once again.

In 1964 in a press conference in San Francisco Bob Dylan was asked if he was to sell out to a commercial interest what would it be? He replied: "Women's Garments."

Forty years later in 2004 Bob Dylan used his song "Love Sick" from the album Modern Times for a Victoria's Secret advertisement. In the video a strikingly similar setting from my dream was used for the set and Bob Looked exactly as he did when he came to me in my sleep. It blew my fucking mind.

The song itself is a powerful combination of minor chords and pent up sexual aggression. From what I remember I was pretty pent up sexually at the time and the imagery from both my dreams and this video was enough for both a music junkie and a, well, a young man to make my head explode. I thought about it in class, during work in the summer and while I spoke with every young woman who crossed my path.

That was until (and this is where it gets terribly surreal) I was at the east end of Duval Street one night four years later and a brunette caught my eye as I was sitting at an open air bar facing the street. She cast a glance in the bar's direction while strolling with a female friend. In that glance I saw her face and her green eyes and realized that she was the woman from my two dreams. Ex-fucking-actly. For a moment I was paralyzed, not only by her beauty but more so because of the David Lynch moment that I was now a part of in the 90 degree heat of the Keys.

After that moment past I ran out into the street and after her. Politely I tapped her on the shoulder and when she turned around there was a full five second pause before I took a massive, deep breath and told her that I know this sounds bat shit crazy but I had two dreams about her. Surprisingly she was intrigued and still stood there. I asked her and her friend to join me for a drink in the bar so I could explain. They did and I went through the entire story.

After her friend departed I still sat next to my green eyed girl who (of course) turned out to be one of the deepest people I have ever met. From Camus to Kierkegaard, the observable universe to the Upanishads, we covered it all until we walked through dead streets back to the boat towards Sunset Key where my room waited.

We tore our clothes off in a frenzy and teased each other for what seemed like hours with kissing until it was time to move on. The next day she left with only a goodbye, just as she entered my life she was gone never to see or dream of her again.

Last night Dylan Fest was held at the Bowery Ballroom and I attended, one of the first few songs was this and whomever it was singing killed it just like Bob did in the video below. It reminded me of that night, those dreams and the crazy, fucked up, metaphysical questions that remain. Once again so many questions were opened and left unanswered while I laid in bed alone wondering just what it was all about.

"A Good Year for the Roses" Written by Jerry Chesnut

There's a lot of lowlifes in the world in some lowlife places, but the ones I am thinking of do not fit the typical definition of the word. More so the brand of lowlife envisioned are people who are truly at a low point of their lives. It is funny how different parts of America conjure up different scenes of people and their low lives.

In Boston I think of some Turkey (slang used by some of my Boston buddies in describing off the boat Irish trash because their speech patters resemble the "gobble, gobble") walking into a some South Boston shithole, firing up a pack after he banged it against his arm a few hundred times, putting on The Pouges and saying the word fuck a few more hundred times as another Turkey listens on about his problems. In New York I usually think of some suit hanging out at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central before he hops on the Metro North to go home to a wife he's out of love with after a tryst with a waitress while Sinatra's "Wee Small Hours" album drifts in and out of the conversations around him.

Out in the Pacific Northwest some absurdly hip, uber green waste product from the grunge era sits in a coffee house wondering why his band was never picked up by any labels and dreads another night at the counter in Radio Shack. South in SoCal there's a 19 year old porn star already too old to make a name for herself sitting at a table in some lounge in the valley thinking about life back out on that farm and another dreadful day on that casting couch trying to go mainstream while she circles her pink nails around a bottle of Pacifico and drifts into the feckless ether.

Maybe the first paragraph was a little misleading, while said people certainly are at a low point in their lives they are also some lowlife examples of the human existence. The point being that while the above characters possess such examples there is another part of the country where just because someone is at the end of the rope, it has always seemed more noble.

The South. Sure there are large groups of the population with the same redeeming qualities of previous examples but the scenes that arise in my mind are always so much more romantic. The reason for this is not the people, or the hot, sweaty nights of humidity but rather the music and songs such as this.

This song has been covered so frequently by so many artists that it is hard to pick just one version. So I picked two: George Jones and Alan Jackson's duet and Elvis Costello version from "Almost Blue". Both versions paint a picture of fragility, of noble resignation and happy hopelessness. Both versions I have heard on old Wurlitzers set on hardwood, worn out floors. And in each instance I felt as though I was viewing a Hopper that had yet to be painted. A snippet of classic American life that only exists in such realms. The Turkey? One can see the same guy in Dublin. The Grunge? Not far away from some emmo fag in some underground bar in Paris. The whore in SoCal? Pretty much any place women who are gunning for fame and cash exists such a scene.

For better or worse there's no where else in the world where you can walk into a bar, hear a song like this and see a hulking puddle of a man wash his blues away, A man who just got laid off from the plant, his Chevy's carbs are worn, Sissy is in another double wide with Bud and while he could probably never pen such a song the meaning of it is blowing up in his face that very minute.

At the same time though I often think of country music as a testament to the fact that such strong emotions spurn such beauty as the lyrics of this song. Jerry Chesnut didn't attend Harvard, neither did George Jones, Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings. I would be willing to bet many people wrote them off as shit head rednecks. Maybe they were intelligent to begin with however I like to think that the hurt and booze used them merely as muses and that type of hurt and booze only resides between the 30th and 38th parallels on the eastern side of this great land.

*The image from the header is from the movie Paris, Texas a sublimely beautiful, little known film from the early 80's

Elvis Costello Live at The Beacon 23 May 2011

Monday morning I woke up at six in the for my tee time with a sore throat, a bad sign indeed. I wasn't smoking the night before, yelling or anything else that would lead to such an affliction. In short I was developing a dreaded summer cold. I said to myself and whatever omniscient spirits in the room, to the very virals of the infectious disease to just lay off until tomorrow of which they can then have my body. Not only did I want to have a decent round, as it was already raining and miserable out, a cold would make it exponentially worse; but also because I had a show at the Beacon later on in the evening, the first concert I was to attend for quite some time.

The round was okay, my back nine (as always) significantly better. Lunch went quite well, the Rib Eye special served well as my nasal passages were slowly closing and malaise permeating every ounce of my 240 pounds.

But it held off as I begged earlier in the day. I arrived at The Beacon caught up with strong emotions and memories. Fifteen years ago with the same cowboy boots sticking to the floor I was in the middle orchestra rows watching Dickey Betts, Greg and Warren Haynes take over the venue for the entire month of March. There have been some epic names at The Beacon over the years: The Stones, James Taylor, Springsteen, David Bowie, ZZ Top, Jackson Browne....the list is long and exhausting.

Tonight it was Elvis Costello, an undefinable artist who can't be pegged to a particular genre. Ska, Punk, almost the inventor of 80's music, country, classical, easy listening; Costello can be placed in every one of these columns without argument.

Alone I walked into The Beacon and towards my seat, on stage left there was a massive wheel with over forty songs on it Wheel Of Fortune style but vertical, stage right sat a go go dancer's cage, behind it a two seat bar with martini glasses and an old 60's black and white television producing nothing but white static. Again I took my seat in the middle orchestra rows though this time mere feet away from the stage. This being Manhattan there were the obligatory suits texting away, a few hipster and industry people off to the side looking far too cool for comfort. I spotted T Bone Burnett and his wife Sam Philips a few seats away from me (who would take the stage during the last encore with Costello's wife Diana Krall, though they just hung off to the side dancing).

The theme of the tour is Costello playing a few songs, then picking out people from the crowd to spin the wheel...strangely enough the people picked didn't seem too random (Willie Garson was one, as were some other randoms who seemed to have important names). Also strangely enough the wheel produced every song we all wanted to hear.

Costello stormed about the stage to "I Hope You're Happy Now" while the go go dancer assumed her cage, it flowed into "Heart of the City"->"Mystery Dance" finishing off with an earth shattering "Radio Radio" until he took off the fedora and replaced it with a stove pipe hat and became the MC of the evening rambling through propaganda speak and catchy inside jokes most of the audience understood.

The first spin hit a part of the wheel entitled: "Detectives vs. Hoover Factory" when brought to a vote it was unanimously decided "Watching the Detectives" was going to be the tune. The spinner, a terribly elegant looking older woman with a last name four words long in tight black pants and equally tight black shirt covered by a shall took her seat at the bar on stage and had a drink until she was urged to join the young woman adorned with go go boots and a skimpy psychedelic mini dress in the cage to shimmy. The pace started picking up while that familiar bass line echoed off of the Neo-Grecian interior and then we all starting rising to our feet.

He rolled through some big songs with the next spin, the theme being Time("Clowntime is Over", "Strict Time", Man Out of Time") until the wheel was forced to pick the next tune, one of my favorites "Oliver's Army". It brought down the house at such an early part of the timeline of the show, intelligently followed by a solo acoustic version of "A Slow Drag with Josephine" that comes from a his most recent album "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane" done with Burnett and hearkens to more country roots.

The acoustic theme continued with Costello's brother and his band "The BibleCode Sundays" taking the stage for some Celtic grooves and a bit of fiddle jamming, immediately followed by "So Like Candy"->"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". It brought it all back together and whatever sand deposited in the eyes during the acoustic set was wiped clean with "All Grown Up".

The last two songs lost me for a bit as I was sensing the show coming to an end. "Turpentine" and "Uncomplicated" not being some of his most inspiring, a little dark and rough around the edges for a live performance. Nonetheless he pulled it off probably better than expected.

Then came the two encores. "Lipstick Vogue" was done with Alex Turner to little fan fair. I don't know if it was because no one knew who he was (lead of the Arctic Monkeys) or because his performance wasn't too inspiring. For me it was the latter, he simply couldn't match Costello's stage presence and booming voice. But then "Waiting for the End of the World" rolled through like a freight train right into a seamless transition into Morrison's "Gloria". Finished off by "(I Don't Want to go to) Chelsea" and the sublimely beautiful "I Want You". Though it was Costello's song I can't help but think it was a slight nod to Dylan whose birthday was mere hours away. He left the stage and had everyone thinking a bit that it was over.

Until that A-E-Gm-C#m chord progression pulsed through the amps and Alison was alive, the remnants of a voice problem that caused the cancellation of a show in Jersey a week ago was no where to be seen and he hit all the highs and traversed the lows frighteningly adept. It flowed easily into some beautiful hints of classics "Tracks of My Tears", "Tears of a Clown" and of course "Suspicious Minds". (The Angels Wanna Wear my) Red Shoes came next, the backup phrasing "Oh why's that...?" callbacks from the band sprite and succinctly playing straight man to Costello's bellowing. This was followed by a mind blowing-insane "Purple Rain", then "Pump it Up" into "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (as I said Dylan's birthday was mere hours away) closed with "(What's so Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding".

I was enthralled, walked out onto Broadway in the rain, my cold coming on strong at this point, the deal was over and the price needed to be paid. It was worth it to say the least, it was the best concert I've seen in years. It brought back some hope and some beauty to the world that has been dull and grey lately. I am still reeling from it on the couch in sweats with tissues up my nose and watery eyes; with those eyes booking tickets for his return to the old Count Basie Theatre in late July another legendary venue that deserves such a legendary artist.

"Pick Yourself Up" Diana Krall-Live in Paris

I've been frequenting The Carlyle since I was twenty years old, when Bobby Short played two gigs a night, when the air was filled thick with sophistication so thick one could watch it inhaled into your nasal passage and instantly straightening your tie and fluffing your pocket square as your name was engraved into the social registry. On Mondays Woody Allen would play clarinet to a crowd who was there to hear jazz and not take pictures of the Hollywood legend. When Tony didn't have to ask people to stop taking pictures, before Rosewood purchased the property and imposed draconian cover charges simply to sit at the bar.

For a while I had enough status to sit down and not be charged with said cover as I was a regular who thwarted the advances of the professionals from Eastern Europe, and was always properly dressed, even if it was in ripped jeans and an old ripped up Oxford from Prep school. Before I lived in Manhattan it was my home in town and many magical nights transpired within its walls surrounded by a pleasant staff trained in the utmost values of class and confidentiality.

Somewhere in recent times that changed. The lobby was still pure black and white marble, the staff in white gloves and starched white captain's dress but I sat down one night and there was a twenty five dollar cover on my tab. A tab which consisted of five drinks at twenty dollars a piece. And with that I boycotted the place never to return again.

Except for every Sunday in May when Hilary Kole (pictured)came to Bemelmen's. She was perfect, sultry standing by the piano in a tight black dress and Louboutin heels, the bottoms dripping red, engorged with blood pumping through her veins rubbing off on my own. Her singing follows her sex appeal while silent and there are not many who sing traditional standards with such panache.

One empty night with myself being one of three people in the room she asked for requests, walked over to my table, leaned over, her mid waist hair falling and flowing over my shoulder showing me an ear fractions of an inch away from my lips. With such an open proposition I whispered "Pick Yourself Up" of which Diana Krall first introduced me to many years ago. She pulled away and smiled, grazed my right shoulder with her thin, petite hands which sadly housed a wedding ring and uttered she would love to do such a great song.

As a man maybe I am always thinking about sex but there is a tension in this song that makes it so seductive. Maybe it reaches back to a time when women required a man who could be their provider and savior, possibly it is the want and need to have a woman behind you who will let you fail and provide the confidence to Phoenix-ily rise from the ashes to greater horizons.

I can't really figure it out and while the track I list is not Hilary's, Diana is a terribly close second. Uplifting, whether it is from the goove, the lyrics or Hilary's sultry body grazing against combinations of Maple and Hornbeam, Beech and Spruce I may never know. But there are two weeks left and if you are looking for me on a Sunday night just know nothing is going to pick me up from table seven.

Mystery Line

Today I was listening to a song from a favorite album of mine and a line hit me. It hits me every time I hear it and then after a few days the line and the song slips back into the ether of forgottenness while life transpires around me. The entire song of which this line is constructed around is an excercise in craftsmanship, the seams of a shirt compiling an entire garment with this line being the finishing touch on the cuff, the final quarter panel on a Ferrari and the case back to a Patek Philippe.

When this song first hit me I was sitting at a bar in Jacksonville with a very good friend lamenting the loss of a woman and speaking of her. He was sympathetic, kind and caring as he could only be, but then for some reason he unconsciously uttered one of the cruelest things anyone had ever said to me, "What would you do if she walked into this place right now?" My heart dropped and I pictured her shyly stepping through the open door frames, somewhat unsure of herself as she usually was, self conscious and looking around the room with pure blue eyes scanning the room in faded jeans and rinsed out t-shirt.

I didn't know how to answer the question at first, not because I didn't know how but rather I simply couldn't tell him the answer without breaking down in front of him and the other patrons. After a few seconds, while resisting reaching for a sip of the seventh martini of which I was on I uttered "Well I really wish she would and make me happy again." And then I reached for the strength that rested on the bar in that clear V shaped glass.

It's funny that to this day he probably doesn't know how much that hurt, and ironically how he was the man that turned me on to this song that broke my heart for so long and the line that echoed through my mind every night until I had to kill it, to stop it from thinking with booze and stupid acts of masochism and unequivocal whore fucking.

A simple Google search will provide you with the song and the beautiful tear stained tapesty of which this artist created years ago when he was surely in a similar situation. The skeptic prick may say that dredging up such emotions is a not an economical utilization of one's time, however the song, like the emotions itself are ingrained for eternity, whether it be on vinyl, mp4 or in the synapses of the mind. I like to think this line was always there but the unspoken artist was the first one who ever harnessed its power, I would like to know his muse but then again I know who it was written for, the one who never walked through that door.

"I could find her in a thunderstorm just by the way that the rain would fall"

"Seven Stars" Peter Green-In The Skies

A few nights ago I was at Rose Bar in the early evening. It is the best time to head out there before the "crowd" gets there and ruins the vibe, crowds the fireplace and enforces the Manhattan club scene of too hip and far too cool to even be there aura. There's no sleek blond with sunglasses on who tells everyone she is a model but in reality is a waitress from Ohio who failed and now gives herself up late in the night for rent in her LES 300 square foot apartment. At that time there is also few boys who claim to be Managing Directors at Goldman or the washed up drugged up douche bags who keep telling said blond that they are designers working on their new line and "of course beautiful I may be able to get you on the runway, Richie Rich is a close personal friend of mine and last week I was out at Schnabel's place in Montauk." Earlier in the night there is none of that bullshit, which is the way I like it.

For a while I was caught up in that bullshit, waist high with porous waiders trying pretend that it was the place I needed to be, for of course this was the town and there was primo trim hanging around regardless of how high it piled, it was worth it in the end. Somewhere along the line I stopped caring and when that waif Ohio slut started telling me about her next gig I decided to call bullshit on it, walk home and take care of myself without the hassle of dealing with her and her ego which I would be hard pressed to fit into my apartment.

So on that early night I was lubed up and feeling high, sitting at the bar with an an acquaintance flapping about various things. Facing the bar on the right in that back corner was the DJ who was straight off the J and Q line via fixed gear bike, thick black rimmed fake glasses, flannel shirt and black skin tight jeans with headphones the size of stage monitors around his head grooving to whatever the fuck it was he though fit the mood.

When all hope was lost I heard an A minor come through the speakers, it oozed blues corrupted by acid fueled days of schizophrenia and electroconvulsive therapy, shearing vibrato and ten second sustains. I knew the song within an instant even though I couldn't place the name. It reeked of Clapton without the ego and hearkened back to the days of Mike Bloomfield and John Mayall, the Bluesbreakers, and a faithful Les Paul doing the dirty work.

Peter Green was the one of the founders of the epic fuck-each other literally-band Fleetwood Mac. Back when he was at the helm it was significantly more blues inspired, before Stevie's flowing scarves and while great, such indulgent songs as Landslide and Lindsey Buckingham's beautiful fingerpicking.

In truth it made me want to leave Rose Bar and hole up in my place, burn some incense, spark a spliff and eventually take a few tabs while I watched the walls melt around me in a chromatic haze of melody worms burrowing into my brain. To sit there incapacitated, shirtless in baggy jeans while a different, skinner blond with iron pressed hair in a headband reeking of patruli and unshaven armpits dosing on E grabbed and groped as I laid there motionless entranced in the experience.

There's something about this groove that is so perfectly fit for nights such as those, while they are far behind in my past I can recall those days, days in which that hipster spinning off in the corner has no knowledge or experience of, I still can't even fathom how he knew of this song to begin with and I must say the fact that he put it on in such a false atmosphere detracts from the work somewhat, cheapens it and makes me want to take it out of my vinyl collection.

But then again I come home and put it on in the long hours and think of those days, Peter isn't the one who sold it out, the world has sold out around him and because of that our children will never know such debaucherous, hedonistic bliss in its purest form such as I have, rather it will be a constant reaching, imitation of a past time when musicians had the balls to take their own progressions and creations to the level they envisioned in such narcotic inspired hazes.

"Lions" Dire Straits-Live at the BBC

First introduction to Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits was "Walk of Life" on MTV when they actually played videos. I was around nine years old and they showed clips of sports plays and celebrations sliced in with live footage of Mark playing with a headband on and a bunch of day glow neon clothes rocking the stage. My next recollection was the classic "Money For Nothing" which screamed 80's with its computer graphics and Max Headroom like feel. After that I remember listening to "Sultans of Swing" in my friend's basement while skulling Shafers lipping Copenhagen as the lyrics poured out of the vinyl. Years later in the movie "Spy Game" I hear his enchanting guitar when Bishop is walking off of the train in West Germany, the song was "Brothers in Arms".

Presently I play golf with a friend every Monday morning outside of the city in Westchester, on the way home we make a game of throwing the Ipod on shuffle and trying to name the songs that come on before each other. Last week this song came on and within a few notes I screamed "Lions" Dire Straits. Something clicked inside of me and my mind came back to those nights listening to this album in my friend's basement in high school, live at the BBC.

Mark Knopfler is a classic musician that they just don't make anymore these days. He can play anything and has done so. Rock, Country, Soundtracks...it doesn't matter the man can do it. I can't describe how jealous I was when I saw him singing duets with my girl, my future wife, Emmylou Harris as he played his acoustic clawhammer style instead of the standard plectrum that most musicians use.

In the intro to this song he states that "it is another strange kinda song" and I have no idea what the hell he is talking about. I think it, like most songs, has something to do with the predatory nature of men and women waiting to be trounced upon at the bar. What she is thinking and what is going around her in the world as things are taking place around her.

But in this version there is nothing better than listening to him play that first Bm chord followed by the simple D that is hit with a one-two punch of a strum. Sometimes chords are just that powerful. The chord progression in this song: Bm-D-A-G7, followed by Bm-D-A-G7 once again is worthy of the statue of the E-A-B Bo Diddley beat and the power chords of Nirvana that revolutionized modern rock music.

Knopfler's smokey barroom straining voice lulls one into a smooth state of drunkenness sans hangover the next day. He is cruising through the lyrics like a 1970 Eldorado floating along the highways at 80 mph with the top down and sunshine streaking through his hair with his axe sitting shotgun. The man knows how to tell a story in a way that the words aren't even significant as you are brought to a trance like state by his timbre and melody.

He might be one of the most underrated musicians of our day, forget about the countless iterations of Dire Straits and (just as Parliament) the many members who have called themselves a part of the band. Knopfler is a legend and not only this song proves his validity but this entire album "Live at the BBC" where the rawness and sheer sexuality comes springing at you like a pair of breasts coming to life as the bra strap is undone, the life hitting you in the face as you walk out onto wet city streets sleek and ready to head out for the night. It slaps you in the face with its rhythm and intensity just like this songs namesake is sitting in the bush waiting to pounce and capture its prey. Thankfully one should be happy to be the hyena in this metaphor and be willing to give up his meat to the predator of rock and roll.

"Sinaloa Cowboys" Bruce Springsteen-The Ghost of Tom Joad

I've ranted time and time again about Springsteen and I won't explain myself for writing another post about him because there are so many reasons to tune in and inhale this amazing poet, especially this album "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

The reasons for listening to this song is not for the G/C/D tempo, nor is it for the picturesque way he portrays the American Southwest. It isn't for such insight as "For everything the north gives it exacts a price in return." which holds truer than most every quote uttered outside of Churchill and Kipling. I think sometimes it may be worth listening to for such rhythmic words playing off each other as "drove" and eucalyptus grove". Or maybe it is the idea of two men crossing a river in a Moses like quest towards towards some promised land that never really existed. Then again you could comment on the story of two brothers reaching out and risking it all for some ideal of a better life that existed if they could only skirt the consequences of the law. At times I think of Roberto Bolano and his epic work of "2666" and how they all fit into the picture of the despair of the Mexican common man. Maybe sometimes one could draw a parallel to Hemingway and the simplicity and terseness, the frugality and power of 24 simple words that portray so much as "The hydriodic acid Could burn right through your skin They'd leave you spittin' up blood in the desert if you breathed those fumes in." Then sometimes I think of John Steinbeck writing about spending a year in the orchids for pennies handed out by the boss man.

But the ONLY reason for listening to this song is to hear the Boss' voice crack at 1:16 when he croons "Word was out some men in Sinaloa". There is nothing more pure in any song I have ever heard. In my mind he didn't make it crack on purpose but rather it occurred naturally and when cutting the track he decided to leave it in there. And the fact that he decided to do so, or maybe John Landau did is an example of a craftsmanship that rarely exists in songwriting presently.

There's a lot of hurt in the world that we pass by on a daily basis. In Manhattan no matter how chic the restaurant you are dining at the sous chef is a Mexican working for pennies. On the golf course where we all live the life of privilege the men cutting the Bermuda grass and trimming the rough trace their roots to Ciudad Juarez where the donkey shows run 24/7. We are blind to all these faceless men. I am not advocating we prop them up on a pedestal simply because of their lot in life. But I can say that their stories are a beautiful act of contrition, maybe supplication honoring the life that we lead on a daily basis. It is pure, it is holy and it makes us feel alive that there are men still willing to take a risk and endure the hardships starting with the coyotes and ending under the thumb of the big boss man threatening to send them back home across the river to a life of poverty.