"Farther Down the Line" Lyle Lovett-Lyle Lovett

"Ugly but effective" It was the way my old golf coach spoke of our number one player. He had a low, slight fade which never apex more than fifty feet off the ground, a hideous swing which produced a ball that rolled on and on forever. Myself, I would rather hit high draws that sometimes turned into hooks which wandered into the woods and maybe that is a character flaw but I preferred looking like a player over actually scoring like one.

Lyle Lovett is not a handsome man but somehow he pulled one of the hottest movie stars in her day. His pocked-marked faced mouthed myriad fantastic songs based on a life experienced on the plains of West Texas in Rodeos, Ranches and Texas swing honkey-tonks. Like our number one he wasn't the best thing to look at but he got the job done. In a word he is legit, the real deal whiskey drinking madman riding, as his good friend Robert Earl Keen says "A car down the highway at eighty miles and hour and taking the steering wheel off". Many times he has broken bones on the back of a thousand pounds of twitching pissed-off muscle, so many times he has parlayed that experience into song. But also he has used his experience (such as losing the hottest movie star in her day) to write three minute long, epic Keatsian ballads on loss and the emotions involved in such sad scenes.

Farther Down the Line combines rodeo nomenclature, ideas and actions and mixes them with that most serious of all rodeos...the nightlife at the bar and the procurement of a mate for the night. It fits. Because just like at seven and a half seconds, at times you can feel her slipping out of your grasp, the rope around your hand loosening and her mentally bucking out of control, you try to hold on for just a half a second more and find yourself on the ground left dusty and worse for the wear only to move on to another venue and another bull.

It's a quick three minutes this song but it possesses enough gravitas to be covered by the man Wille himself; a man known to spin a few yarns in his day. Its a quick life spent in the bars, running around from town to town, bull to bull, woman to woman, and it isn't the most rewarding. Strolling away from the bar with rejection in your mouth only to be washed away with some warm whiskey, strolling away from that bull and sliding a snooze of Copenhagen between your gums. But you do it and you move on to the next because you are only eight seconds away from immortality, only a smile and a caress away from satisfaction. In the end it doesn't matter how one gets there, if it is a low, slow fade, a high scraping draw, or a pocked-marked face mumbling lines to someone out of its league. In the end all that matters is hangin on and surviving till that next buzzer sounds and the next casual glance turns into a drink on that midnight rodeo.

"Sous le Soleil" Mixed by DJ Stéphane Pompougnac with the Major Boys Featuring Aurélia-Hôtel Costes:Quatre

Forgive me for the long title, but with sampling there's a lot of people to credit these days. Two main events have taken up the majority of my time, one of which being the catalyst for this post and the catalyst behind me spending hours thinking of a certain place in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region of southeastern France. You know the stories, the beauties laying on the beach baking in the sun after dancing till nine in the morning. Mick is always there, as is Stephanie, David, Gianni Agnelli when he was alive and every beautiful person who wouldn't talk to you in a million years.

But lately I've been talking and hanging out with a few of those people and beyond the artifice and the name I must say that their bad rep is under served and have found them to be terribly genuine, interesting, gentle and warm human beings. In their fashion there have been seven hour lunches at tables swilling Chateau Corton smoking Marlboro's until they turn back into late dinner followed by more hours of excess into the morning. All the while I hear stories of this little town and the nights that take place this time of year.

This song is the soundtrack. The Cuban rhythm, maracas holding the beat together, tight chords of a nylon string guitar with layers of spicy lower latitude piano barging in the door past the gaze of the tempo bouncers. A soft, smoky, sexy voice in your non-native tongue easing her way into your mind while her hips rhythmically shift with the rim shots hidden way back in the track until that guitar comes to the front piercing with purity.

There's a lot of things coming at you full force in this song, there's the aforementioned construction, there's the title which is also (conveniently) the title of a French Soap Opera set in said town dealing with the love lives of Laure, Caroline and Jessica, three of its residents. All those sweaty nights of Latin America mixed with the passion of Mediterranean France combine to overload one's mind until you are at the counter at JFK paying full price for the one way ticket to your new life unencumbered by the constraints you have built up in your day to day operations. Go ahead and do it, you'll never be happy until you've tried.

I'll be there in a few months, trying to bring my French and tan back up to the levels they should always remain at. If Mick is there I'll try not to talk to him, if Stephanie shows up I'll try not to stutter again when talking to her and play it a little bit cooler. More importantly I'll throw my short suit back on (hasn't seen daylight since Rio) and try not to feel hopelessly huge against those skinny French boys, the iPod will remain in the room but this soundtrack will be playing as the sand rises through my toes with every step and (hopefully) and every turned head of the women I walk by.

Chanel - Remember Now Part. 1 (By Karl Legerfeld) from baronshocolaat on Vimeo.

Chanel - Remember Now Part. 2 (By Karl Lagerfeld) from baronshocolaat on Vimeo.

"You Can Have Him" Nina Simone-Nina Simone at Town Hall

Most men have no idea what women think. Most men don't want to know what women think. But deep in that brain, behind those lips and questioning eyes, beyond the roots of silky hair, deeper than what the constraints of society has told them and what their roles should be, their careers and their liberation; beyond that it is my sincere hope and wish that they think like Nina's narration in this sublime, solo piano tune so eloquently performed at Town Hall decades ago. The juxtaposition of an unrequited love, a song telling the listener how little she cares for said man while describing everything she wanted to do to him is probably the most romantic idea for a song I have ever run across. Beyond the standard crooning of love and loss, Byronic in scope while retaining the intimacy she never knew phrased in Nina's own legendary voice and meter is heads and tails above anything else existing in the ether.

Like so much music in the American Cannon this song comes from the great Irvin Berlin. Jerome Kern saying once: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music - he is American music." He truly is the master and father of every he precedes and set the tone for the paradigm shift that occurred in music in the early 20th century.

To escape the didactic and cease the digression, the ideals possessed in this song could solve a lot of problems between men and women. Arguments solved, divorces stopped, the birth rate of the United States would rise and everyone would feel fulfilled in the places that matter. Speaking for a men I think one thing women have lost in the past decades is the idea that they are to care for their men in every way. In no way is this degrading, nor does it downplay their abilities and skills in this world. Rather it is probably the most important, noble task in the entire world. Conversely I think they would find that if they began some of the actions in this tune they would receive the attention and stability they crave in their relationships. There is nothing more endearing than being wanted and to be selflessly taken care of without any need of reciprocity.

It is beautiful. It is the world and the way we are made and it is the glue that keeps us together and from chopping each other's heads off but for now it will probably never happen. So I'll keep Nina on and think of the days when a woman brings me slippers and caresses my head in the morning lovingly after a bender with the boys, grabs me a glass of water and massages my back without yelling about how insensitive I am and how terrible my breath reeks of gin or questions how much money I wasted on strippers the night before. When she realizes that I am next to her not because of any feeling of obligation but because it is her I want to be next to, to feel her arms wrapped around my shoulders while her head rests on my chest, when that day comes I'll throw this song in the recycle bin. For the time being I'll just have to keep this on the playlist, put it on mentally in a crunch when venom is spitting out of the pretty face outside that brain, those pretty lips, questioning eyes and roots of silky hair.

"Fruits of My Labor" Lucinda Williams-Live at the Fillmore

I knew this woman from college, she dated my one of my roommates and was always around. A great girl, terribly fun (no I never slept with her so that is not what I am speaking of when I say fun), smart and just always ran with the flow. One day out of the blue she gave me a call. In a pre-Facebook world it was a little strange to get a call from a woman you haven't spoken to in six or seven years so I was taken back and had no idea what she was up to in her life. As it turns out she was living in Laguna Beach and wanted to get together for a few days, since I was only an hour south in San Diego I decided to take the drive up. When I arrived at her place it was breathtaking and not in a typical McMansion-Orange Country-Douche Bag type of way.

She lived a few blocks off the beach on a hill above a three car garage. The front of the apartment was nothing but floor to ceiling window-doors with white curtains wafting in the Pacific breeze. The apartment stretched the entire length of the structure but was very narrow. Looking out one of the many windows with the kitchen to my left and a small bedroom down a narrow corridor I saw the currents of the Pacific obstructed only by a palm tree every few hundred feet laterally. The interior of the apartment was pure white with old deep burgundy hard wood floors, there was no TV only a long white couch pressed up against the wall. From it you could relax and view the sea.

We went to a cafe on a small cliff hanging over the beach. We smoked cigs, skulled Sapphire and Tonics and laughed about college and the stupid times we had, spoke of her ex boyfriend, my ex roommate and how he became a Catholic Priest afters years of debauchery. Spoke of our lives and what the hell we were doing under the soothing sun and standard Southern California Scenery. Those nights I would go back with her and sleep on her couch while she rested in bed. I never crept in there for some reason even though there was a bit of sexual tension running through the air and I was never one to turn down the hint of an advance. Rather I watched the curtains breeze in through the open doors and meditated on my surroundings. I drove her to LAX a few days later and never saw her again, can't find her on Facebook and her old number doesn't work. Last time I spoke with her she fell in love with a Brasilian man and was marrying him against her parents' wishes.

When I first heard this song I was living in Florida and had downloaded it the night before in a drunken music buying binge. I woke up still intoxicated and sweating in the sick humidity of July and hit the play button. After my first listen I was taken back to Laguna and that girl, the azure and sweet scent of flowers wafting through a pure white room. I walked to the store and bought a case of Pacifico ice cold, sat on my own porch overlooking Memorial Park and the St. John's river, clicked the repeat function on iTunes and didn't stop the music until the case was gone. With no company, no phone and nothing but two packs of Bravo Hotels (Benson and Hedges but that's another story...) I wasted myself with both physical pleasure of addiction and the mental jerk off session's pleasure of that week while Lucinda stoked my synapses until I came.

Come to my world and witness
The way things have changed
'Cause I finally left baby
I got out of La Grange.

Got in my Mercury and drove out west
Pedal to the metal and my luck to the test
Baby, sweet baby.

Lucinda Williams was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, her raspy, sultry voice honed by the same humid air I breathed in on my porch when I lost my musical virginity to her that day. Her father was a poet and a pianist, she spent her 20's in the Austin-LA-Nashville loop without much fanfare but privately crafted intensely beautiful songs honed by years on the road. Much like Tom Waits she is known in the circles that matter and not recognized by the pop-bullshit media machine known as the contemporary music world.

Baby, sweet baby if it's all the same
Take the glory and day over the fame
Baby, sweet baby


When I hear this song I think of those two days that are so different and so similar to each other in strange ways. I think about just how perfect life can be on perfect days that you don't realize are perfect until they are long gone. The fleeting nature of life passing by without consciousness like that tightly rolled shitty tobacco from a long Bravo Hotel. I think about how if I was a better writer I could capture it all and let people know just how cool those days were and bring those experiences to them. Or how sometimes you can wake up on the couch in the morning in an apartment you slept in with a fully beautiful naked woman lying feet away from you that you have never touched and be okay with it in some strange way while your animistic impulses are banging against the inside of your midbrain screaming demands that the Cortex ignores. But then again whenever I try to stand on the shoulders of Lucinda and this song I realize that perfection has already been written. That in this song a tat covered Louisiana girl sweating Southern Comfort and bleeding raspy tonality knows about what those two days are like and that many times she was that other women laying naked in the other room, waiting.

"Runnin Kind/Lonesome Fugitive" Merle Haggard-Live At Billy Bob's

The original outlaw and lonesome fugitive, when I think of Merle I often recall one of the truest quotes ever uttered about the man. Sitting at a bar in Nashville listening to one of the many hundreds of great bands that inhabit that town with pedal steels on stage and telecaster guitars fitted with custom inlays the lead singer introduced Merle as the man Johnny Cash pretended to be. While the crowd gasped in horror at the sacrilege I smiled knowing the back story of this epic songwriter, hellraiser and ex con. Then again the crowd maybe knew all that, maybe they don't take to kindly to Merle for he invented a new sound in country music, a sound that trumped said town's for arguably decades.

County music's sound before Merle was significantly different. Think of Elvis Presley's "Don't be Cruel", "Four Walls" by Jimmy Reeves or "I Fall to Pieces" from Patsy Cline. It was heavily produced, over engineered, utilized (I admit I do love it) a new tuning on the guitar in which wound EADG strings on a standardly tuned six-string guitar (EBGDAE)run an octave higher. It is a good sound but in the end gets tired and I reckon I wasn't the only one feeling that way.

Merle Haggard was born in Oildale, California next to another shithole town widely known as Bakersfield. Before readers get all spun up about that comment I suggest they spend a few weeks there. His parents moved from Oklahoma during the Great Depression and in their new land life wasn't any easier. Merle's father died when he was nine years old, from that tender age on he engaged in petty crimes, was interned in a juvenile detention center at thirteen and spent the remainder of his teens in and out of various centers and jails until he saw Lefty Frizzle in concert and decided to pursue music as a career. It didn't exactly take off and just seven years later Merle found himself robbing a Bakersfield bar and receiving a stretch at the famous San Quentin State Penitentiary.

Incarcerated Merle still kept his old ways, he ran a gamboling and brewing racket from his cell, while in solitary he met two men named Drunk Adam and Rabbit who engineered an escape, Rabbit would escape only to shoot a police officer and return to San Quentin for execution. It was the turning point in Merle's life. Also while in San Quentin he attended three of Johnny Cash's concerts the topic of which would later come up later on after Merle's country music fame in a conversation:

Haggard came up to Johnny and told him, "I certainly enjoyed your show at San Quentin." Cash said "Merle, I don't remember you bein' in that show." Merle Haggard said, "Johnny, I wasn't in that show, I was in the audience."

Upon his release Haggard left the dark side for good and began his country career in earnest posting thirty eight number one hits throughout his career and being famous for starting "The Bakersfield Sound" of country music which plays in direct contrast to the Nashville sound spoken of earlier. This stripped down, heavy guitar influence music would be the catalyst for the Outlaw Country Music movement played by men such as Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, David Allan Coe and Buck Owens. The British songs "Act Naturally" and "Far Away Eyes" by The Beatles and Stones respectively encompass the genre, Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers made their names on it.

Aside from all this history (I feel the post is becoming a bit too didactic) this song, which is actually a combination of two famous Merle songs, brings to mind the road, the freedom and the experience of a man who spent the early years of his life with no freedom at all, only the hell of prison life and the misery of watching days tick on with no end in sight. It is purely American in its openness and ideals, self reliance, not offering excuses or apologies. When I drive out west as I often do through the jerkwater towns, the vast expanse of the American continent there is nothing better than throwing on some Merle, opening the windows, lighting a Red and just enjoy being on the run, lonesome and while maybe not a fugitive from the law, trying to outrun that blackberry.

"A Kiss Before I Go" Ryan Adams and the Cardinals-Jacksonville City Nights

My good friend turned me onto this album, he tended to sway more towards the long sleeve T-Shirt under short sleeve T-Shirt-Paste Magazine-Wilco-Whole Foods-Mac-Saab side of the spectrum...not that there is anything wrong with that; and like many things there was a whole 'nother side under that skin that would shine through at certain times. There was always something inherently American inside of him, when I read blogs such as The Selvege Yard, A Continuous Lean, Cold Splinters, Impossible Cool, etc. I see this person. And like those blogs and their creators as well as my friend they have spurned this grass roots campaign of solid American traditions, be it in clothes, people and most importantly music.

When my friend gave me the album I put it aside, an act as habitual as an addict roping up his arm "Yea if it is that good why don't I have it.." Then later, maybe I'll give it a try and play a random song, decree it is terrible and give it back to said person without an import into iTunes. In this case I was intrigued by the title, we were living in Jacksonville (although not the one Ryan Adams had in mind) and the mood of the album permeated through me throughout my time in residence there, so it ended up on my iPod. Like my twenty year old cowboy boots this song has remained a great friend throughout the years, my consciousness bending the meaning of the lyrics and structure of the melody as toes breaking in tough leather, beating it down as a mink oil into a fabric of silky warm harmonics. The best songs come to you (whether you wrote them or acquire them) both when you are on you last leg and when you are riding high. They speak to you it the bowels of depression and celebrate till champagne-black-out just like that college friend who always wanted just one more drink.

When I hear that melancholy voice utter 1....2...1,2,3,4 and the faint sound a of boot tapping in the background a proverbial Stetson slides forward in my mind and and emotional Lucky dangling from my lower lip get lit by and old tarnished Zippo. The pedal steel slides in played by an old man with slicked back white hair and pearl snap denim. There's a Budweiser lamp hanging above a smoky pool table, cigarette burns on the faded green fabric, gaped hard wood planks for flooring and Silver Dollars varnished into the bar covered by spilled beer and dried whiskey creeping towards a few singles left for a tip.

"The engine turns on a dime but I ain't going nowhere tonight, I ain't been going nowhere for quite any while..." a heartfelt raspy falsetto sans reverb mutters into a stainless microphone. And that man alone at the bar, his hat slides down and reaches for the pack. He lights it take a deep drag with his forearms on the bar, exhales, then looks down at the hardwood planks and the nick on his boots remembering Amarillo. The rhythm man hits an F on a large Taylor Widebody with hand painted roses under the pic guard and chrome vine inlays on the fretboard. Our man solo at the bar thinks of her in Rock Springs two nights ago in that neon motel when he hears "I'll miss those nights at the bar with every girl all loaded like freights, and the pain in the morning comes as easy as it goes." How she smiled in the morning when she looked up from his chest wrapped in faded chestnut sheets, then arose to pull on a tight pair of jeans, button up her blouse with a name tag on the left breast and shove an order book in her back pocket listening to her boots click in staccato on the way out the door then rolling over and out of bed to take a shower to make Jackson in two days.

There's a couple in the dark back left corner who met two hours ago at the counter of a small home cooked restaurant along a small running creek four miles down the road before you cross over the Snake River and into the tiny hamlet. They've only unlocked eyes to survey a hand on a leg, a breast and that curve above her hip bone exposing itself just enough to catch view of powder milky pale soft skin and the promise it brings. She grabs his waist around the cracked leather belt and hooks her right thumb on the inside of his jeans running it side to side and pulling gently outward. "Breath all heavy and slow..." While the white-haired gentleman vibratos the steel on his ZumSteelD10, the Taylor Widebody hits an E chord and the open low echoes off the walls.

And it happens every night. Whether it takes place at Bar Pleiades with characters in Bruno Cucinelli Jackets and Chanel suits, or in the back of Long Boards with Birdwells trunks, Rainbow thongs and USD T-Shirts the story is always the same and usually so is the ending. But as for me, I (and my dear friend who introduced me to this track) remember this one place, a place that has now been corrupted but in my mind was always filled with such characters, such wants, needs and such sadly beautiful stories that are somehow so less romantic outside of the wild American Western cannon.

"Clubbed to Death" Ron Dougan-Furious Angels

Landing Signal Officers (LSOs) are naval aviators specially trained to facilitate the "safe and expeditious recovery" of naval aircraft aboard aircraft carriers. They are called "Paddles" and usually after that word is uttered comes the phrase "are gay". It's an ongoing joke. These guys are aviators who are trained to talk guys down after the "ball call" (which is about 3/4 of a mile behind the ship) and then grade each pilot on their landings. If you are looking for more detail in regards to this matter check out LSO on Wikipedia, so I don't get into the weeds about hook to ramp, high come down in the middle and all the other details that could take hours to explain.

At U.S. Navy LSO school in Virginia Beach, VA they put together this video of crashes and basically everything that can go wrong during the course of landing a 50 thousand pound plane on a moving ship. In that video there are three music videos one of which is called: "Drift and Die". The song in the background for the entire seven minutes is this one, "Clubbed to Death" It took me four years to find out what the name of it was and who performed it, strangely enough I was searching Youtube one night watching videos of old Porsche racing on a track in the UK and as luck would have it the same song was playing, with the help of Shazam I was in business. Now when I say I spent four years looking for this song it wasn't a part time job, no shit I called the LSO school, tried to track down the guys who made the video, talked to everyone I knew who was into electronic music and tried to hum or beatbox the song to them, when I finally found the name it was is not an exaggeration to put me up in the realm of Columbus, Hillary and Armstrong.

I don't particularly enjoy this type of music and still can't piece together whether it was the video (my first exposure) or the actual track that makes me like it and at this time since I am corrupted there is no way to know, you'll have to decide for yourself in your listening because it is impossible to get the actual "Drift and Die" video...the Navy doesn't really dig putting the deaths of men out for the public.

So in that case picture a green and dark green night vision picture of the island (the part that sticks above the flight deck) of an aircraft carrier with rain swept winds swirling around it, the scene cuts to an inside view of a cockpit and an aviator about to land, the camera switches to the flight deck just in time to watch the rear end of the jet catch the back end of the carrier and burst into flames the LSO yells fuck over the radio; another scene where you don't see the jet until it lands because the rain and fog was so thick; one of a plane aerodynamically stalling, flipping over while the pilot ejects into the flight deck, his jet crashing into three others on the flight deck and the screen goes white with flames; a Prowler (EA-6B) landing on top of an Viking (S-3B); a Tomcat (F-14) going inverted and the ejection seats rocketing the crew into the ocean to certain death...meanwhile that pulsing bass and thin piano amping in the background. The song captures what it is really like to be behind the boat when a lot of things are going wrong in the cockpit, there's a lot of bad weather and you are hoping that they find your life insurance policy and you cleaned out all the porn out of that cabinet below the sink in the bathroom. But because you are better than everyone else (or thank God at least believe so) you come out on top, walk down to the Ready Room and joke about it with the boys sitting around dipping and playing die. It isn't an everyday occurrence but it does happen, when it did I can say that the boys we all did it with were some of the best and that's why I'm sitting here writing this.

"Devil Woman" Marty Robbins-Devil Woman

Twenty miles south of the American border there is a small town, outside the filth of Tijuana, the drugs and the murders; a charming town where you can eat lobsters on the beach while the sun sets over the pacific and beers sweat in the sand. In white linen pants barefoot in the sand with a striking dark tan and hair wafting in the western wind you can find a senorita; one with jet black hair and tepid brown eyes that clash against her white dress cinched in the waist by a red sash, the loose end dangling around delicate knees. There's a hombre playing a gut string guitar in soiled clothes, a waxed mustache that collects beads of sweat as they roll off his brow while old Fords and Cadillacs drive across dusty streets stopping only for horses ridden bareback. Your senorita is giving and placating, the whites of her eyes look up from her reclined position in the sand to mumble incomprehensible words of love as she cuddles around your arm and strokes the nape of your back with stop sign red nails.

That night you'll visit her sister in a small tin roof shack, she is violent and fiery, demanding and uncontrollable. You make love to her, she leaves ruts in your back with her gnawed, fragmented nails and bite marks on your shoulder; afterwards she smokes in bed and drinks tequila neat in a chipped glass on the opposite end of the bed while she strokes your lower lip with her big toe and squints with demonic countenance.

Afterwards you'll grab the hombre on the beach, drink Tecate out of thin cans while the sun goes down and write this song.

Marty Robbins left a troubled home at the age of seventeen and joined the Navy, during World War Two in the Solomon Islands he taught himself to play guitar. He married a sultry woman named Marizona Baldwin whose first named when uttered takes the wind out of my lungs and the blood from my head. He took the stories from his childhood Phoenix home and turned them into classical American masterpieces. He drove in the Daytona 500, has a star on 6666 Hollywood Boulevard, and added to the myth of the stoic gunfighter roaming through the great arid west.

Before children dreamed of becoming Covenant Elites, their eyes welded to televisions, fingers bloodied by plastic buttons made in Chinese sweatshops, they would listen to the radio with a cowboy hat on and draw on their mothers as the came into the living room. After a restless sleep they'd wake and spend the afternoons running around the yard with companions hiding behind bushes dreaming they were wooden slat doors of a saloon while horses drank cool waters and men sipped warm whiskey. Later when those children ate from the apple they dreamed of those bite marks on their shoulders surrounded by red lipstick, all the while Marty Robbins providing the soundtrack to their fantasies...and in the rare case realities.

"Your Bright Baby Blues" Jackson Browne-Solo Acoustic Vol. 1

I just booked a ticked out to San Francisco for the end of April, while what spurned the trip is a dear friend's wedding I've been feeling the need lately to head out west to the sea and to a point in my life when I was as happy as I ever have or will be. Granted, back then I couldn't have afforded to schedule a T time at Pebble as I just did or have the time to do another drive down the PCH but back then things were (as they always appear to be) much more simple. So in a Blake-ian Songs of Innocence and Experience way I plan on returning with my eyes opened a little wider, a little more crow's feet, trammeled and will expect to view it slightly different than I had before when I was a young Chimney Sweeper.

When I was that brighter-eyed sweeper I drove up the PCH for the first time in an old battered Range Rover and was formally introduced to Jackson Browne. I had known him before and from various works with The Eagles, Roy Orbison, and his eponymous first album which contains another perfect JB song, "Jamaica Say You Will". But for the most part I never delved into his work and wrote him off as part of that whiny, liberal-activist genre of musicians.

That is until I past Hearst Castle peering out through the fog, looked out west across the vast Pacific landscape and heard the first bars of slide from this song. I have never heard it before, never knew it even existed; hearing it with new ears while viewing new scenes through new eyes frozen with beauty. I was in the zone for the first time outside of the athletic field and realized this is what the shamans see in their pursuit for a piece of Brahman, it clicked. The words permeated through the three speakers of out twenty four that worked, Jackson was taking what I was feeling and putting it into words at the exact second I was thinking them, I had no idea how it could be possible but it was unfolding before my eyes and vibrating in the canals of my ears with dreamlike surreal accuracy.

I adore the conversations contained in the lyrics of his songs and in this first verse particularly:

I'm sitting down by the highway
Down by that highway side
Everybody's going somewhere
Riding just as fast as they can ride
I guess they've got a lot to do
Before they can rest assured
Their lives are justified

And then while pondering those thoughts looking out over the Pacific he calls to a separate person of whom the above thoughts were dictated to and asks for a little help:

Pray to God for me baby
He can let me slide

It is frank, outside the character of the first seven lines and the format is repeated for the remainder of the song until the climax in the last line where instead of seeking for redemption and aide from God he asks for her hand. The song's progression, from a random rambling man lost out on the fringe, close to the attainment of happiness that remains just out of his grasp fades into the criticism of his affection until he stumbles into the abyss; then finally comes back in begging nature for her.

Those are just my thoughts which could be 180 out from your own, take what you will from it. But the stripped down acoustic guitar and the neck of a beer bottle slide give the track a haunting feel, the performer just like the narrator is alone sans artifice. This song humbles me, it clears my mind and brings me back to a place where I can feel the blood coursing through my veins. I relax and the world becomes clear, blissful in just sitting there staring out the window be it at Big Sur or the street below my apartment window.

I remember putting it on on Spring day in Manhattan laying in bed with someone I was madly in love with after a long afternoon of wearing ourselves out; sitting up in bed smoking a cigarette those first few bars came through again and while I couldn't be happier she was 180 out with Jackson. Many times over she would break my heart and I could never figure out why I kept falling into the honey trap over and over again, I still don't. But I do know that much like that drive up on the PCH Jackson was telling me something in real time.

"My Rifle, Pony and Me" "Get Along Cindy" -Rio Bravo*

There is not a better musical clip from any movie...ever. I will not do it any disservice by trying to elaborate. The songs are traditional however a great version of "Get Along Cindy" is out there by the legendary Texas musician Bob Wills.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IpEnsdXwFM

I just watched it and have to say something about it. My God the way it opens, Dean laying on the bed with his hat cocked back a hand rolled in his hand, the Duke pouring some coffee and then limping out of a cell to sit down and enjoy, Ricky Nelson sitting on a table with an absurd hairstyle for a cowboy while Stumpy throws in Harp riffs between his missing teeth.

I used to have this same feeling of longing contentment this song and scene exudes when I was living on Perdido Key in a stilt house on the Intercostal Waterway, my front yard the ocean. In the searing mid day sun I would run six miles in the snuff-thin white sand in a short pair of shorts barefoot on a deserted beach. Upon completion I would lay in three inches of water, close my eyes and fall into that trance-like in and out of sleep mode while tiny waves broke over my body until I walked the hundred yards back to the house and laid down again on the couch with the windows open, out of the sun and the ambrosial southern breeze wafting in through the windows.

It was heaven and possibly the reason for my agnostic state of mind as an adult, if heaven is not similar I don't want any part of it. However almost two hundred years ago when the land I resided on was still inhabited by Seminoles and Spaniards I don't think such a scene was possible and the linked one with Duke Wayne, Deano and Ricky was probably a more likely way to spend a lazy afternoon after a strenuous day of work.

I so do wish scenes like this have taken place, that they aren't just in movies or fantasy. In thinking of it it makes me feel as though everyone is a member of the same whole human race, possessing the same problems, desires, needs, wants and when it was all over they relaxed in the same way. Two hundred years ago globalization existed deep down in the DNA of every person walking the planet and we simply just didn't know it. There were cowboys in the jail cell singing songs in standard G-C-D format, Chinese Eunuchs playing harpsichords in segmented triads and Pygmy throat singers on the African planes all releasing the worries and cares of the day. Maybe they supplanted Camels or Kudu for Ponies, spears and swords for rifles but there was always that third imperative part of the mix, the creators and the dramatists of the world theatre.

*I attempt to refrain from linking scenes or anything similar however to my knowledge this is the only example of said songs performed in this style and the only way to gain access to the original content.

"Masked Ball" Jocelyn Pook-Flood

This afternoon against my better judgement I took a stroll down to MoMA simply because I haven't been there in quite some time. I despise going on the weekends because it is crowded and there are always bratty kids running around and tons of Eurotrash tourists practicing their own art which they are quite adept at, getting in the way and being rude. It never ceases to amaze me how terrible it is on the weekends and how rude people are, standing in front of you, talking on the phone, taking pictures with huge Hubble Space Telescope-like lenses and flashes...

But this afternoon it was different, all the above was there but I was presently surprised at the performance art in the main space, a work by Marina Abramovic. Marina is widely known as one of the founders of the genre and some of her past expositions involved her putting herself into a coma and Rhythm 0, from Wikipedia:

Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were scissors, a knife, a whip, and, most notoriously, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions. “The experience I learned was that…if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.

This time around she is sitting at a table staring, she is there from the time the museum opens until closing and she remains basically motionless the entire time. Anyone can sit down and stare back at her if they chose so. When one gets up to leave she lowers her head until the next person assumes the seat and she looks up, the blinking of her eyes the only movement.

While all this is going on there is music in the background, I am not sure if it is Jocelyn Pook but the eeriness of the sounds and the circumstances reminds me of one of her most popular songs which was used in a popular film released years ago. I won't mention the film, in doing so I would change your opinion of what you are reading here and the work described above. Nonetheless the scene in that film is just as creepy and unsettling as what I witnessed today, I couldn't imagine how strange it would be to be there when the museum was basically empty, but I plan to find out this week early in the morning on a weekday.

As for this song Miss Pook took a fragment of an Orthodox Liturgy and played it backwards, then added Romanian chants over it on another track. The feeling derived from it is unique to say the least. It is walking into a pitch black room and hearing a noise, its someone dressed up as Hitler with a clown mask on watering the lawn or a baby talking with a man's voice. You don't know what it is exactly but something just doesn't make sense. Musicians have been doing this for years, check out Arvo Part or Stockhausen, arranging music in a way totally foreign to our ears, especially for Americans.

That is the reason why Indian or Asian music is so strange, it runs on a different meter, tonal scale and tempo. Whether it is Blues, Rock, Soul, Reggae...whatever they all fit into a very small spectrum of music, music we have heard since birth. Like Abramovic's performance today, Pooks work steps outside the realm of the everyday, out of the banal and into a world most people are not familiar with. Whether you think it is over intellectual bullshit or the Mona Lisa and Symphony No. 5 of the modern world you can't argue that it hits something somewhere and some place you have never been touched.

Often I take flak from people in regards to my musical tastes and knowledge because in appearance I stick to a limited catalogue of genres and schools. They say that I should open up my experiences and dive into others, meaning: I should listen to the music they like. Then when I ask them about Pook or Stockhausen they give me that look like the dog does when it catches you and your other half in between the sheets. Come back and explain to me the Spatialization and Electroacoustic theories of music and maybe I'll start giving Pink a little more time on my iPod, though probably not because she is shit.

"Agua De Beber" Astrud Gilberto-The Astrud Gilberto Album

Astrud Gilberto was born in Bahai, Brasil to a Brasilian mother and (curiously) a German father. I say curiously because it is widely known that many escaped Nazis landed in this part of the world after the Second World War. And while nothing could erase the damage they did to the world, the horror and sheer misery they created, we can take as an act of contrition the fact that because of them there are insanely attractive Latin women walking around the beaches of South America with blue eyes and jet black hair. If you mention Brasil to any American man that is without question the first thing he will think of and rightly so. Preconceived notions and stereotypes exist for a reason and I can tell the men out there that everything they are thinking is true. Everything.

But Rio is so much more than that and I loved every second I spent there. Whether it was eating dinner along the glorious pool at the Copacabana Palace sipping Caipirinhas between bites of steak wrestled by gauchos while ten foot swells crashed on the beach or walking along Rua Maria Quiteria under the cool shade of tree lined streets dodging eleven year old boys pick pocket attempts the city is entrancing. In The River of January you will find awe inspiring views both natural and man made, it houses amazing examples of modernist architecture including one of my favorite buildings in the world, The Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum.

The building like everything else in Rio is a complete fantasy, a structure from another world inhabited by creatures alien to my own eyes. In the favelas frightfully cruel, poor, violent creatures killing each other for fractions of Reals while a mile away six foot bodies, tanned and toned, glisten on the beach with a stitch of clothes on; the women also wear very little and are in great physical condition. The sea rivals in ferocity any break in the world including Hawaii and Northern California, Ipanema literally meaning bad water in Portuguese.

While laying on the western side of Rua Farme in Leblon everyday I contemplated the surreal quality of such mellow bossa nova music in a land of constant turmoil. In the states such music is usually confined to elevators and cheezy middle aged men's bachelor pads, a terrible disservice for these grooves. For all the good in the world us Americans provide we have a penchant for taking constructs of beauty and turning them into our own proverbial strip malls and Branson Missouri-s.

When I want to truly chill and feel the sun from the little latitudes on my skin, the gentle caress of a fragile hand running over my speedos and aquamarine rollers crashing into white froth on the beach I can always count on Astrud putting me in the proper frame of mind, in particular this song. I don't speak Portuguese and without looking up the lyrics I have no idea what the hell she is truly singing about. Just to be sure she wasn't crooning about mass castration of all males named John I looked it up.

AGUA DE BEBER (DRINKING WATER)
Your love is rain, my heart the flower.
I need your love or I will die.
My very life is in your power,
will I wither and fade or blossom in the sky.
Drinking Water,
give the flower water to drink.
Drinking Water,
give the flower water to drink.
The rain can fall on distant deserts,
the rain can fall upon the sea.
The rain can fall upon the flowers.
Since the rain has to fall, let it fall on me.
Drinking Water
Drinking Water
Drinking Water
Drinking Water
I'll never see another springtime,
I'll never feel the summer sun
unless you're there to share that springtime
and like the rain and the flower our hearts are one.
Drinking Water
give the flower water to drink.
Drinking Water
give the flower water to drink.

His love is drinking water, the sun is drinking water and those seventh and extended chords in a medium tempo provide me with all the tabular hydration I could ever need. It is an oil change for the soul, the sludge drained out and resupplied with clear liquors leave my mind in waves like the art deco sidewalks that run along the ocean. Laying at the roof pool of the Caesar Park Hotel for the first time I heard this song piped in through the speakers while I drank pure sugar Coca-Cola and watched a woman slowly climb out of the pool against a light azure sky and reach for one of their purple and orange towels.

I still use one of their towels every time I trek down to the beach and I still have the picture in my mind of a severely browned woman laying next to me on it talking in a language I could barely understand with Astrud smoothly slinking through the ether off in the background. Sadly, I am always awakened on that very same towel by the screeching Northeast accent of some white trash extra from The Jersey Shore yelling at her juiced up boyfriend who by the way is wearing eyeliner and is fresh from a wax with every piece of Ed Hardy apparel known to man in his possession, the lifeguards are whistling at someone who is up to his waist in water while a hyper blond teenager is breaking my balls because she can't see my beach badge until I look to my left and see a three hundred pound woman in jeans and sneakers hacking down a butt and stubbing it out in the sand. In such instances the iPod comes out and I am thrown back to a world that could never be imagined inside an elevator nor manufactured in China and sold in a strip mall. I am back in Brasil where all my fantasies came true, more so those that were not carnal in nature, for those are terribly fleeting in comparison to all the other senses heightened in that resplendent land.

"Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong" Mike Bloomfield-Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man

I am not going to begin by telling you about this person. I will say that he is the greatest blues guitar player who ever lived, hands down.

And this song embodies the everything the blues was meant to be: Smoky, Desperate and Devout. It is a scotch going down the back of your throat followed by a drag of an unfiltered Lucky. It is that black man in a red suit and a white fedora sitting at the bar shaking his head slowly with a 1978 black Cadillac Eldorado parked outside, a Gibson Hollow Body, fluorescent lights reflecting off of a rain soaked street at three in the morning, huge vibrato, minor pentatonic scales with a side of chromatic thrown in for good measure and it is NOT any type of distortion. This song is the pinnacle of the guitar-voice trade offs and an example for all those would be bluesmen of perfect phrasing, however it cannot be done better than this.

Buy the song now and give it a listen.

Eleven minutes and five seconds later I can tell you about this backwoods slave descendant from Mississippi....if that was who the man was. Rather, Mike Bloomfield was born in 1943 in Chicago to wealthy Jewish parents. He was a skinny white boy with curly hair and confidence problems. He was also the man who took Dylan electric at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, the lead in Mitch Ryder's hit "Devil With the Blues Dress" and a session musician for a myriad of songs from the late sixties and early seventies. Chances are if you hear a song from that time period the man behind the lead guitar was Mike.

I was introduced to Bloomfield by an aged English professor who smoked too much weed, drank too many shots and lived a little too fast. However he saw Dylan in the Village when his name was still Robert, Miles downstairs before the Vanguard sold out, The Allman Brothers when they still had Duane and Reed before he became an iconoclastic idol; he had over five thousand records and could play every song contained within them. Many drunk, high nights I'd pass out up on the bench of the bar at six in the morning with all the skin on my right thumb missing from playing and a dead squirrel in the back of my throat. And from those nights I learned a lot about music and what was the real deal. Reed over Dylan, Bloomfield over Clapton...his thoughts on music ran in direct contrast to most everything I had held dear but when he invested the time to explain it all nothing was more clear. Though he was an adept teacher and a shaman of the blues when I asked him to teach me how to play like Mike he lowered his eyes straight faced and told me it was impossible.

Mike Bloomfield died at age 37 in circumstances that were never known. Towards the end of his life he was a heroin addict and the most productive notes he put out were used for cheap 70's Porn. In short, he lived by the blues and died by the blues, that is the way all the greats expire. Nonetheless there is eleven minutes and five seconds worth of his life that was not spent on the floor of a gritty bathroom, jonesing and shivering, in reality there was a lot more and while worth listening to I still haven't tired of this perfection.

"You've Got to Hurt Before You Heal" Bobby Blue Bland-Live on Beale Street

One rainy night a few months ago in a foul mood after a date gone awry I strolled into Terra Blues down on Bleeker Street in the Village. I don't know what I was looking for but it wasn't the first thing I saw when walking in the door, a six foot five transvestite. It was actually quite attractive to be honest and I sat down at the bar in the back while a fast boogaloo blues number was performed on stage by Saron Crenshaw, still hoping that the lonely woman dancing by herself would not ask for my help. I started thinking about that old line Never turn down a woman's offer to dance...never. "Did it apply to trannies?" "I don't want to be impolite" "Well hopefully she won't ask". My mind raced.

Thankfully she never asked and found an older, lonelier gentleman as the song ended, when Saron slowed it down a bit and began the slow intro to this beautiful R&B number. The scene was pretty perfect, one man on stage singing his guts out, a dark room, rainy night and two people slow dancing enjoying themselves, somehow sharing a moment. It worked wonders for my own mental state at the time, jaded, pissed and misanthropic about the world, brought me back into the fold. Sometimes life can be funny like, sometimes seeing a tranny in the Village where they belong and always have been can put your mind at ease. With the corruption of SoHo and Meatpacking it is nice to know that there are still some freaks running around New York because that is what New York is all about. That Statue of Liberty sitting slightly to the southeast of this rock wasn't just asking for immigrants from other lands but also those that don't just quite fit in their own. All the better when they dig great music.

But I guess the freaks and the fringe have always had a monopoly on music and so much of it was born in this town. From Lou Reed to the Ramones there has always been a place in New York's heart for such people and have always treated them with the decency everyone deserves.

Bobby Blue Bland is not much of a freak and I'd imagine his momma from Rosemark, Tennenesse wouldn't think to kindly of her little boy associating with such kind. Rather Bobby was raised on Gospel and Choir music, the blues at times, when it wasn't so Goddamn sexual bless its heart. Eventually Mr. Bland would make his way through the ranks of Beale Street bands and find himself collaborating with B.B King on multiple albums. He was the first to cut such famous songs as "Turn on Your Lovelight" and "Further On Up the Road" and is a man Van Morrison counts as his biggest influence. His trademark falsetto voice and throat clearing grunts gained him entry to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame back in the early 90's well before they started letting such trash as ABBA into the hall.

That night watching an empty room sans two people dancing and myself at the bar with Saron hitting every note in a la Bobby Blue it wasn't just the scotch warming my soul. More so it was...

When you lose the one you love
You heart goes through changes
Especially when your sweet memories
Still hold their thrill
And just when you think
The pain is all gone
Don't fool yourself
'Cause here's the deal
That's the way love works
You've got to hurt before you heal
Oh, yes you have

Those southern boys have more clarity than a showroom Rolls windshield at times and the delivery removes any doubt just what exactly they are saying. For me it was enough not to miss that terribly attractive blond I left rather abruptly a short hour ago, in fact it was better than being out still shaking my head yes and agreeing with every foolish self absorbed word she uttered. It was much better. It was much better to be with people who were real, regardless of whether it was the struggling singer on stage or the sexually confused woman dancing with (well, soon to be) equally confused, lonely man. It was good to be alone and to not have to fake it anymore. Bobby never faked it, every time he's a-gonna give you just what you are looking for if you are smart enough to look for it in the first place. And if you are not, if you are looking for hours of listening to the words Hamptons, Page Six, Alligator Birkin, Mustique and Standard Grill over and over until you are about to throw up in your mouth I know a perfect blond who is just prime for the taking.

"The New Kid in Town" The Eagles-Live in Melborne

The Eagles, the definitive California band...with only one member being from California (Sacramento which we all know is not Cali), the remainder hailing from Detroit, Gilmer Texas and Wichita Kansas. I never really took to these boys, yea they had great harmonies, yea some catchy songs especially when Glen was living with Jackson Browne but for some reason they were vanilla, nothing special.

However the reason I write about this song is not because no one has never heard of "The New Kid in Town" even though it is not one of most popular. I write about this song because it, and the Eagles came to me when I really needed them most. It not only pulled me through a tough time but it solidified a group of people together and gave them something we will never forget. That is the power of music, how it cuts through the fecal matter we carry around on a daily basis and taps past the stanky excrement into our souls and the true people we are past the facades. Among that group all that ever has to be muttered is "The Eagles" and we all know what the point is, never has two words meant so much.

It was my first time out to sea for an extended period of time, I was leaving my most valuable possession at home, alone. She was lost and shaken, frightfully young, an animal taken from her native environment and placed in a strange town, strange state, strange coast and now the only thing she had to depend on was leaving for two full months. We were taking the carrier down to the Caribbean under the ruse of finding "Narco Terrorist" but in reality we were showing Chavez that we could make him a nervous man in a just a few days time. In reality the Admiral just wanted two months in the sun and port stops in St. Maarten and Antigua.

I left knowing, in that part of the brain we never listen to, that when I returned she would be gone. She would be there but never again look at me with those eyes again. I remember leaving her at the door, putting my gear in the car, running back up the stairs and saying goodbye again, and again and again.

We pulled into St. Maarten after about a month at sea. We rented a suite on the beach with a pool and a Tiki Bar. The first night I had Watch on the boat while all the boys enjoyed the sun, sand and strip clubs. I used the phone to have a long conversation with her that was dead, a struggle to find what to say because you knew you should say it but could never address the subject. It was lonely and as I laid in my narrow rack that night with my Wings of Gold hanging on the hook, the pressed dress whites longing over me I stared at the ceiling on the verge of tears until I passed out.

The next day I took the small boat to the beach and found all the boys by the pool, it was eleven in the morning and they were all hammered already. I went to the room and placed a call to an empty phone, walked down to the Tiki bar, the pool and the boys and dug in trying to let it all sweat out in the Caribbean sun. There was a skinny black girl tending bar, serving Rum Jumbie shots and flirting with everyone; there was a stack of concert DVDs under the TV, one of which was The Eagles Live in Melbourne. For the next four days the first disc of that concert was never shut off, not ever and this was the setlist:

"The Long Run" "New Kid in Town" "Wasted Time/Reprise" "Peaceful Easy Feeling" "I Can't Tell You Why" "One of These Nights" "One Day at a Time" "Lyin' Eyes" "The Boys of Summer" "In the City" "Already Gone" "Tequila Sunrise" "Love Will Keep Us Alive"
"No More Cloudy Days" "Hole in the World" "Take It to the Limit" "You Belong to the City" "Walk Away" "Sunset Grill"

I did some stupid things during that week, I swam across the mile and a half harbor drunk at midnight on a bet so I could feel like a man again, I bought a set of diamond earrings and a box of Cubans (don't smoke cigars), I played golf hammered in a button down, loafers and my uniform pants, I danced with the young black Kay behind the bar even though she reeked of body odor and was not attractive and roamed around the slums so drunk I was beggin to be robbed, lost thousands at the blackjack tables and worst of all called her every second I had trying to change her mind. The last day we drank until the last second expired to the Eagles and it was glorious. Everyone had a big time and even I was except for those few seconds when I wasn't drinking, smoking or wrastling with the boys, then she crept back in. On the way out I stole the DVD.

The next month contained sleepless nights and terrible depression, I lost twenty pounds and never ate. I jogged everyday in the hangar with a buddy who never tired at listening to me bitch and moan. I could never be alone and talked to every person I would see for extended periods of time to keep my mind occupied.

When we flew back to base all the wives were there dressed up like sluts (Standard Navy procedure), there were balloons and smiling faces, beer in the hangar and people clapping. I walked towards the hangar and saw her standing in the background shyly like she always was, dropped my bag and hugged her letting the shit fall from my mind. We arrived home, closed the door and just laid together for a while, we kissed and took our clothes off and didn't make love. A few days later she threw a surprise birthday party for me at a close friend's house and all the boys were there. She gave me a inflatable guitar signed in Sharpie: "Johnny one day it is going to be just you and me and the road. -Bruce Springsteen" She stayed for a few weeks and then took that long drive back to Cali, I went upstairs and cried, drank till I blacked out for two weeks and crashed a car. When she left she told me she'd be back.

I took a Navy jet out there to see her one week and stayed in her house and her bed, we laid around every night listening to the Pacific just out her window and smelled the salt air permeating the waving curtains. I played Torey with a great friend and when we finally left things between us were back to normal, she just needed some time.

A month later I flew out again and it was dead, the whole time there was a new kid in town and I had been pushed to the sidelines. I left her on the corner of Orange Avenue and drove to the base, it was the last time I ever saw her. We preflighted the jet and were ready to start it up until we found out we had no oxygen and had to wait for a new canister. Skipper and I sat on the tarmac of North Island looking towards Point Loma, he asked me if she and I had sex one last time. "No, it is over." He had three divorces under his belt and spent the next hour of waiting telling me about them and the self destruction that ensued every time in the most gentle tone I could ever imagine. He patted me on the back, we hopped in the jet and headed back to Florida.

After twenty seven years, with that NASNI ONE departure and wheels in the well, I finally became a man and left my innocence behind.

And with that The Eagles finally had meaning. It was two-fold, the glory of five days in a foreign country with your friends, each of which who were dealing with something in their personal lives (as it would come out years later) but just letting it all ride for the moment; it was lines such as

You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
Where you been lately? There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don't they?
Now he's holding her, and you're still around

finally having meaning, not what you think or imagined they meant but what you experienced them as meaning; what you knew and felt they meant.

From those days on I always took that disc with me when I was on the road flying, on the carrier and in the middle of the Iraqi desert, it is in my DVD player in Manhattan constantly. When I was scared behind the boat at night it was always in my pocket, when we partied on foreign shores it was always with us and when we were miserable on the boat in a room with six groan men sharing the bottle of scotch we smuggled aboard all anyone ever had to say was "Man I just want some Eagles" and we all knew what he meant. He wanted the freedom of sun and rum, the release of earthly troubles and especially the liberation from women, we all wanted to be together feeling good one more time.

It is the crucible of pain that true friends are born and that week in St. Maarten my good friends became the type of friends I would want my wife to marry upon my death, the ones I could call in the middle of the night and ask for ten grand for a fake passport no questions asked, the ones whom I shared a level of connection rarely known to man and women, or man and woman.

I think of those days when I hear The Eagles, I think of that beautiful Southern California girl I left behind and the days we had on the beaches when we had that peaceful easy feeling until the new kid came to town. I think of how it could all be over in a New York minute and whether I am in the city or on the corner of Winslow Arizona that sometimes she can only be there for awhile but there will always be another tequila sunrise and a bunch of pretty maids in a row all waiting for me at that hotel California. But mostly I think about being born in the city and there is no one there to catch you when you fall, that is except for a bunch of boys and one DVD that caught me when I was hanging off the edge, they let the young man fall and out of the Phoenix of the desert a new man arose already gone.

"Private Number" William Bell and Judy Clay-Boy Meets Girl

Desert Island Discs is one of the longest running programs in the history of radio, it first aired on January 29th 1942 on the BBC. Guests are asked to chose eight song selections (originally gramophone records), they are also given The Complete Works of Shakespeare and The Bible as well as one other book of their choosing. At the completion of the show they are asked to narrow down their song choices to one particular work. The list of guests is staggering, as one would expect from a show that has been around for sixty-eight years.

The idea presents a whole host of questions and tough decisions, however I would have to have some Motown, in particular this song. I can think of no genre of music I can listen to over and over that never loses its luster. I can think of no genre of music that one can listen to and derive meaning from whether you are skipping down the street or shuffling around a corner with your head held low with the blues. It fits every emotion, every scene of life and lets you know where the real motherfucking living is...if you don't dig it you are dead.

Most younger listeners will recognize the bass line from "Private Number" which has been sampled by Rappin 4 Tay and METAFORM, but in its original clothes this track is so much tighter and more layered. After you let is simmer for a while check your Bang Olufsens out, run a finger across the grill and you'll find that sweet soul grease dripping, use it to slick your hair back before you head out...it's the only product you'll ever need for that beautiful shine.

I. Love. Every. Second. Of this song. I love these two voices merging like the big brackish waters of the south. I love the visualization. I love the story, the fact a man goes away for a while and upon his return can't get a hold of his woman, thinking the worst he asks the woman what the problem is, the listener figuring just another story of love lost until Big, Black, Beautiful Judy comes in with her North Carolina Gospel pipes and croons:

I'm sorry you couldn't call me
When you got home
But other fellows kept on calling
While you were gone

So I had the number changed
But I'm not acting strange
Welcome home
Baby, nothing's wrong---so I'm SINGING...

BABY BABY BABY youcanhavemy prI-I-I-I-Ivate number! The bass is running, the strings are screaming in their falsetto harmonies, Judy is standing before an old stainless square microphone in a pink prom dress while Billy Bell is looking tight, trim and tenacious in a slick black suit with every button undone on his shirt, a deep crimson rose in da button hole; the horns are polished up erect in the background Da Da Da Da Da Da...DaDaDa.

If they put this song on in a bar on a Saturday night no one would go home alone and they would all feel great about it the next day, not only would they feel great she'd spend the morning dancing around in nothing but his button down and him in her robe screaming the refrain at the top of their lungs, then slide breakfast off the table and let loose right there. If they put this song on at the UN Israel would be dancing with Iran, Mugabe would open up the palace to the oppressed and North Korea would finally wonder what the hell the big deal is about the 38th Parallel.

I would be on an island alone after finally figuring out how to power my iPod with flotsam washed up on the beach. Using the logs I've pieced together to resemble one of the Shirelles I'd be dancing my ass off under the stars, the monkeys would be watching from the trees in amazement at just how far they have come over the years; not at the speakers, the iPod or the strange, hairless, weak monkey they see before them but rather that soul inspiring Goddamn refrain from the Gods. Suddenly the monolith would disappear from the background, its work done as the human race has reached its zenith.

"Corpus Christi Bay" Robert Earl Keen Jr.-A Bigger Piece of Sky

I just returned from an almost four thousand mile adventure through this great United States including one twenty hour straight stint averaging 80 mph through Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee. And while there was 93 Octane running through the flat six the real fuel for the road is music, I don't feel sheepish saying that it was one hell of a playlist. I discovered some songs I never knew and others I have totally forgotten about, songs that, to my amazement, stayed on the edge of my consciousness.

My brother is six years my junior and because of this there were times where we never really hung out and raged, we always got along well but when I was twenty one he was fifteen and not staying out till eight every morning like I was. Our relationship was a product of our time in life and unlike some of my friend's brothers we just never were that close in a friendship kinda light. Today we are pretty close however he lives on the opposite coast and it is rare when we can get together. The relationship I was always thinking about is displayed perfectly in "Corpus Christi Bay" and after a few listens you'll know exactly what I am talking about.

Robert Earl Keen Jr. is a songwriter for the ages, his persona, story and lyrical craftsmanship will see to it that he is known well beyond his death. Maybe I think this because the lifestyle he writes about is one I have embraced over the years. As per this song I have gotten stoned along a sea wall, rolled a car drunk, had a tab at every bar in various areas of the United States and threw a bunch of my ex-wives's shit into the ocean in forgetting about her and what we had.

But it is more than that, and this song is more than the exploits of a rig worker on the southeast coast of Texas. It is the bond of two men growing older through the years, the cyclical nature of life and making the same mistakes over and over again. Most importantly it illustrates, for better or worse a time in my life in which I had great friends but always wished there was someone there connected to me via blood. Someone whom no matter how fucked up I eventually became would be there unquestioningly on my side. In these character's lives I see myself in both of their experiences and my brother as well. Maybe we should write our own song (he is a far superior guitar player than myself), maybe one of these days if we are not too old we can rage around for a year or two, I certainly hope so.

And the summation of Robert Earl Keen Junior's message is that it is never too late and you are never too old. Dig into his catalogue and the messages of his songs, whether you are nineteen or fifty nine it is never too late to head out into that world and find contentment. Whether that is in another person or the bottom of the glass is not any of our business, and that is the business of this country, a business that has spurned such great, open, full throttle song writers as old Bobby Keen.

"Baby Baby All The Time" Diana Krall-All For You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio

One of my very best friends from college, Jules, taught me much about the guitar. As luck and hard work would have it he wound up being one of the founders and the rhythm guitarist of the band Rev Theory. Along with Dave and Rich they started the band and played the old Townhouse Thursday nights in Lawrence, Mass. I never really dug their music but I appreciated it and it is quite cool to know that the boys I called friends a long time ago topped the charts with their single "Hell Yea". This past summer I caught up with them on tour and was captivated by the entire scene, backstage and just seeing some good old friends. Rev Theory is probably the farthest thing away from Diana Krall but I do have a reason for bringing it all up.

One night in my apartment on campus Jules and I were listening to music, I was constantly trying to show him the way and the light, to ween him off of the hard stuff. To his credit he always listened. It was late, we were quite drunk and I remember listening to Clapton's "Hand Jive" and pointing out a few of my favorite parts both on the guitar and vocally; particularly a line where Clapton drags his voice at the end of a line into the next verse. Afterwards with sober clarity he said: "Dude you really listen to music, all of it man, you really listen to it." He was terribly serious and if I do say so myself enlightened. I didn't have anything enlightening to say except for "Yes I do, everything".

And I really do, there are no throw away notes nor any unimportant syllables, the artist sweated over every second for a reason and it deserves to be cherished and enjoyed. In "Baby Baby All The Time" the first two seconds could be all that one would ever need, and I have hit the back side of the iPod after 0.02 countless times. It is the most seductive, classiest, svelte and sexy two seconds of piano I have ever heard, and it is also the only thing I can play on the ivories.

As captivating as those two seconds are prudence dictates that I engage the remainder of the song, all remaining 3:33 are just as intoxicating. Diana Krall's smoky voice is one that has been the background to countless rendezvous and in retrospect it is unclear whether or not I was focusing on the task at hand or Diana in the back of my mind. Sadly Mr. Costello now has those honors but I can still have my dreams and her to myself as I do now late in the night in an empty New York apartment with a cold bed.

Until the next rendezvous it will have to suffice, it is more than a mere sufficient way to spend an evening alone. I'll continue to wait for Diana to come to her senses, for that smoky voice to roll over and gasp "Baby" in the morning, only to get out of bed to hit other notes on the piano. She hits them all, just like the intro her piano playing is flawlessly simple and perfect, her phrasing holds true and steady until her last gasp of "Time" thereby bookending three and a half minutes of sultry foreplay.

My fantasies notwithstanding this song is what we picture those we want singing in our absence or after it is all finally over. In that way I can at least picture Diana in her apartment blocks away laying in bed with her husband, her mind singing this tune in her head looking out of her window over towards my place with desperate longing. I don't have to picture it because I know it, just like I know each and every note of this and every song I ever write about or own. Details not only contain beauty, they are the beauty and if you are missing them you are missing the point. Which is why in writing this blog on a weekly basis I tend to overuse the words terse, clear, stripped and clean. In the deep layering of modern music I feel much gets lost in the fray. Unlike a painting in which you can stare at the details for hours up end, in music you have to grasp it as it is progressing along its 4/4 tempo; when fluff is added the true notes have a tendency disappear.

Both as a part of my unrequited love fantasy and in its musical purity of the jazz genre this song is one of the best and Diana Krall is in her best form on this album. I can only imagine the offspring her and Elvis will one day produce.

"Fallin' and Flyin'" Jeff Bridges-Crazy Heart

Though I enjoy film I despise actually going to the cinema, the filthy floors, that person constantly opening up a bag of gummy bears in my left ear, coughing, sneezing, whispering...it is all too much for me to bear. The other night I ended my seven year sabbatical from the theater and dove into Crazy Heart, I came out pleasantly satisfied.

Knowing that Jeff Bridges was the star and T-Bone Burnett was in charge of the music I should not have been surprised. T-Bone Burnett is one of those shadowy figures people not in the know have no idea of but those in it revere with the gravitas he deserves. The founder of DMZ Records has left his print on movies such as The Big Lebowski, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, and The Ladykillers. He has produced and worked with Steve Earle, Robert Plant, K.D. Lang, Tony Bennett, Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Counting Crows and Warren Zevon. The iconoclastic zeitgeist of modern music adds to his resume with this song and the entire soundtrack of a movie based loosely on the lives of Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard.

The country and western music of Kris, Merle, Waylon, Willie and Johnny is a prosopopoeia of American blood running through the veins of the continent; culture capillaries invigorating a land founded on freedom and personal image creation. In the standard hypocrisy constantly displayed by the common NY/LA hipsters, where rap hip hop and pop is king and others genres are relics of a tired past such music is so often dismissed as the religion of a pious inbred congregation. With these beliefs they only illustrate the close-mindedness of self proclaimed prophets. If instead they actually drove through the fly-over states such offenders would grasp the essence of the openness and freedom that exists along the highways that connect the most beloved of the congregation, land and lives in which the inhabitants walk daily with a rope long enough to hang themselves with on a constant basis.

In their simplicity and terse construction all country deals with the most human of emotions; the elation of being on the ragged wild, loss, death and the self realization of fucking up and having no one to blame but yourself. Mistakes are not written off to parents and situations, both literal and figurative hangovers are embraced with Epictetus stoicism. From that crucible of self reliance the shrinks couch is supplanted by metal strings and thin wood bodies, the psyche is cleansed with four line verses, pedal steel guitars and a great refrain hook.

Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake embodies all these ideals in both their beauty and outright misery. The cliche of a country singer is somehow born anew in this film while still retaining the cliches that made it as such. This song is exactly the same, on the surface it could be written by a seven year old, but the more you hear it and let it run through the synapses of your own personal interstate you realize only through the experience of an old washed up man could such lines be born. If like me you despise the movies, suck it up and check this one out; then buy the soundtrack. Better yet buy the soundtrack and skip the movie, head out on the road with no destination and put the circulation of this land back in motion once again, it is long overdue for an Angioplasty.