Brave and Crazy

While having lunch with my old friend Alan today (don't ask how old of a friend, let's just say we met when Johnson was still in the White House) I quoted from Tom Cochrane's "Brave and Crazy"...to those of you of the right creative bent, this is more than a nice lyric...this is a manifesto for the creative artist.

I quote, and trust Mr. Cochrane is not offended by my praise of his insight and his wordsmithing:

"He sat down with his guitar in a distant place
When a man walks up and tells him
"Buddy there are some things you cannot say"
I'll be damned if you'll tell me
What I can and cannot feel
I won't be no puppet here - none of your back room deals.

Modern love was invented by the minstrels in the dark ages
Where they used to hunt them down from town to town.
Man, what deck are we dealing from here
When a girl walks up and says
"You got something we've got to hear"

Brave and crazy...brave on
Brave and crazy...brave on

Along the boardwalk of this burned out tourist town
The ghosts of another day stalk the barren beaches
Where all come to hide from the rattling of the sounds
Of skeletons in the closet
Hoping nothing brings them down
She says "I have lived nearly all my life"
"I scare them to death because I say what I like"

Brave and crazy...brave on
Brave and crazy...brave on

There's a war here between freedom and the hypocrites
Who will try on all disguises just to see what fits
Truth is the one thing to live, love and die for
Raise your barbaric screams
High above the rooftops of the world
The rooftops of the world

Brave on...

He packs his car and picks a course upon a map
Maybe east of eden or maybe farther west than all of that
Writes down everything he's seen, everything that he feels
Then rips it up - it doesn't say enough - then throws it is a passing field

Brave and crazy...brave on "

If you resonate with this, you understand. If not. Ah well, maybe you're just waiting for another go round.

It resonates beyond mere creative force, as I have lived "East of Eden" in Salinas, California and I have had a merchant tell me what I can and cannot write while in his establishment.

Me, I'll bet on getting it right this time.

Latest from Ground Zero (South Mississippi and New Orleans)

The lists continue, the body counts staggering, the missing number in the tens or hundreds of thousands...

Legendary rock-n-roller Fats Domino is now listed amongst the missing.

My dear friend (and one hell of a poet) Pat Robinson has checked in with me so that much I know...

Still no word on Ann or her mother. They have shown good sense in past times, so they are probably safe with relatives, but my heart goes out to them...I am sure they have a hell of a job ahead of themselves rebuilding, and I hope they check in sooner or later so I can relax a bit.

I haven't heard from my priest, Rev, Brian Seage, but I trust he's got a good head on his shoulders...if not, his wife, Kyle, also an Espiscopal priest, is sane enough for both of them.

First Word from The Katrina Zone

Just got email notification from my friend Pat that she and her life-partner Ro, who lived on the Bay-St. Louis-Waveland border, are safe in Alabama.

One down, about twenty more to go...

Had lunch with my friend Alan, where we discussed many artsy and intellectual and philosophical things. My brain now hurts. He's going to look into repairing my copy of "Art&Soul". I had gotten it from the people at the Appalachian Education Initiative at their big press conference in Charleston in July and collected a few of the other honorees' autographs...but when my boys came to visit, one page came loose (the page with me on it, surprise, surprise...)

Alan, besides being an extraordinary musician and Beatles historian is a dedicated craftsman who lives to repair things. Anything. So, he's going to patch the loose page.

I get to see my boys this weekend, and am taking them my old iMac, which will still be a step up for them in regards to computing power. The order I have in with Apple for my Mac Mini has gone from fulfillment in 1-2 days to now four business days and it is still just being prepped for shipping. This means I will miss the transfer window and will be puter-less for a few days.

I am also going to get to see my old buddy Anastacia. Even she has been sympathetic towards Ann's situation in Missisippi due to the storm (which I give her full props for, as Ann did a lot to alienate my fuzzy buddy...).

Say a prayer, light a candle, do, as I am doing, acts of kindness for strangers in case she is in need at this time, as well, and may need a stranger to show kindness to her and her family. My Wiccan friend Maggie has offered to light a candle.

All is appreciated.

Volume 7: From Leg Cramps to Nymphomaniacs

Bad leg cramps last night...usually that means I'm stressing (amazing, if you know your body, what you can tell about your mental state).

With their leadership in transition, Arts Monongahela has not really had the opportunity to fully engage on marketing THE MORGANTOWN SUITE POEMS, which is cool. I'm not going to tell them how to run their game - although, if they're smart, they'll figure out that there is money to be made fronting it out. You have a highly transient student body at WVU...if you can get each incoming class aware of the book (churn of 5-7 thousand new students every year) then you can make a few bucks off of it.

I only mention that as advice...I get no money for the book, and did it purely as a labour of love.

We know how those things turn out in my hands.

I'm sitting on my stack of THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLE copies for Brigit and Mari Laureano, awaiting mailing instructions. I also had set aside copies for a friend in Bay St. Louis and the Bookends bookstore there...but will have to wait for word of their fate and estate before I make a move to help.

Anastacia turned me on to www.zabasearch.com last night. It's a free people search engine. In five minutes I had addresses on every person I thought I'd lost over the years. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I think I will at least make a passive contact attempt, to let them know I care they are alive and to wish them well.

I posted a note on a blog/bulletin board for Diamondhead, Mississippi, that is being used to connect people with missing loved ones in the aftermath of the storm...may take a day or two or ten, but phone lines are down (yes I tried to call and that may tick some people off, but you know what, if anyone is THAT immature, it is their problem, not mine (slapping my own hand for reaching for the Batpole))...I am not assuming anyone wants or needs my help, I just would like to know that people who are precious to me are fine (you should have seen me the one night when I thought my daughter Peri was in peril, I mobilized half the state of California...and she had even asked me to take steps.)

Well, going to go run now. Nice the doctor told me I could get back to rebuilding this wreck of a body (actually, I may be out of shape, but I've got no real health problems...sometimes it is annoying I don't just drop where I'm standing, but what can you do, eh?)

E.J. says he has a candidate for muse for me. We'll see. Last time I let him fix me up...er...actually, she wasn't that bad for a nymphomaniac gymnast. One more person I need to look up on Zaba.