According to Frank Sinatra

           

"Orange is the happiest color."
           —  Frank Sinatra

It’s a gray and gloomy day here
but just after Zebu left for school, I saw a flash of color in the bushes.
And then to my delight, this Western Tanager landed at the feeder:

                                                                                         © 2010 Tracy Abell

And this is one of the Black-Headed Grosbeaks that has been visiting all week:

                                                                         © 2010 Tracy Abell

It doesn’t look as if we’ll get any sunshine but all the glorious plumage has already brightened my day.
Maybe I’ll put on some Sinatra . . .
           

Hoop or Treat

      

It’s been one of those months (a whole year of those months,
actually) and I decided to have some fun with the frustration
via Ryan Adams’ "Halloweenhead."  Antics ensue.

Warning: "mature" language.

             

Wildebeest and Winnie

       

Wildebeest is out on the couch right now.
Sewing a patch on his favorite jeans.
Focusing on tiny stitches.

And singing.
Winnie the Pooh.

Well, a combination of these words, anyway, with an emphasis on willy and silly:

Winnie-the-Pooh,
Winnie-the-Pooh,
Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff.
He’s Winnie-the-Pooh.
Winnie-the-Pooh.
Willy, nilly, silly, old bear

             

Creativity Reminder

For any and all of my creative friends out there, some wise words from
Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day songwriter, singer-guitarist……..

"If you’re at that place where you’re working hard
but don’t feel like you know what you’re doing anymore,
then you’re on to something."

Sounds as if he knows a bit about the muddle in the middle.

       

Give Up the Funk

It’s been one of those weeks.
A week-long funk.
Yesterday I felt crushed under the weight of it all.
But I forced myself to spin my hoop
while Zippy did his treadmill workout.
As we twirled and walked, we listened to an album that came out 25 years ago.
Yikes. 

And I thought about where I was 25 years ago.
I remembered listening to that album (tape) in my car during lunch hour
when I worked for Giant Turd Enterprise (GTE).
I’d eat my fish sandwich from McDonald’s
and think about, well, I don’t remember what I thought about.
Probably not much.
Maybe I thought about the sweltering parking lot and
how my boss was the world’s biggest asshat.
Or that maybe the next day I should pack a lunch.

Fast forward to this week
in which I’ve had feelings of being that gerbil in a wheel,
always running and moving,
but never getting ahead.

It’s no fun feeling that way.
It crushes your spirit.

So I say to myself:
Tracy, you have made progress.
For one, you’re no longer spending time in a paint-peeling ’64 Ford Falcon Sprint,
sweating and ingesting questionable food.
And you don’t have to answer to that horrible boss-man ever again.

So.

Give up the funk, Tracy.

               

A Thought on a Friday

“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched.  You got to ride it like you find it.
You got to change with it.
If a day goes by that don’t change some of your old notions for new ones,
that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.”
—-Woody Guthrie

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend
filled with new notions
and maybe
a wild ride or two.

If you need a weekend soundtrack, this is a great one.

 

Free Money in the USA

Okay, there are a couple f-bombs here
and the music is so perky you almost forget
the seriousness of the situation
but I cannot resist sharing this latest video from Paul Hipp:


FREE MONEY IN THE USA

I can’t pay my bills, my cards are maxxed
but the same old greedy banker hacks
are taking million dollar bonuses from my tax
Busting laws and breaking backs
AIGee your dumb said the man in the suit
With his bonuses and his sack of loot
The same guys who caused the train to crash
Are the only people still making cash

AIG I’m dumb FDIC my thumb
Shoved up my BofA
Free money in the USA
I got no place to stay
I lost my 401k
Now it’s all gone away
Free money in the USA

Binding legal obligations
In a broke and worthless paper nation
one six five million in bonus pay
Free money in the USA
The first banker to press that case
may win in court but will one day face
an angry mob that he will meet
coming through the gates of easy street

Cancel all bonus’s or put them in jail
We’re all to goddamn big to fail

With so many people out of work
I hear some wealthy banker jerk
Say they can’t attract the brightest and best
Like the ones who got us into this mess
Without hundreds of millions in retention pay
Free money in the USA
Go down to the unemployment line
There’s a lot of people who’d do just fine
To right this ship and fix your bank
For a decent wage and a hearty thanks
for some honest pay for an honest day
Fuck aig fuck BofA-holes

© Paul Hipp 2009

www.paulhipp.com

            

He’s a Ramblin’ Guy

Today I read this article about Steve Martin’s new CD of original banjo music.
Did you know Steve played banjo?
I did.  I saw him in concert waaay back in ’77 when he wore an arrow through his head and
plucked a banjo. 
He was very good. 

Here’s a clip of Steve with his banjo.  It’s kind of like what I witnessed except there weren’t
any Muppets in the audience.

               

You and that One Song

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Last night at dinner Zebu told us about his Language Arts assignment:  choose a song you feel represents who you are and what you are about.   

We all started thinking about the songs we’d choose and discovered this is a pretty tough assignment.

One song that represents who you are and what you are about.  One freakin’ song.

Should it be a song that makes you smile every time you hear it?  The eight-and-a-half-minute song you listened to again and again when you were thirteen so you could transcribe the lyrics just right?  Any song from the album your family listened to over and over on the Wisconsin to Florida and back again drive, an album you could sing in your sleep?  The song that reminds you why you want to keep fighting the good fight?  A song so beautiful you get lost in the words and feel a lump in your throat?

It’s hard to choose.  But this afternoon I figured out my song:

LET THE MYSTERY BE by Iris DeMent

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

Some say once you’re gone you’re gone forever, and some say you’re gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they’re comin’ back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

Some say they’re goin’ to a place called Glory and I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact.
But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory and I don’t like the sound of that.
Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
But I choose to let the mystery be.

Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.

(Video here)

Your assignment, if you choose to accept:  select the one song you feel represents you and what you are about.

    

Fidelity

In a stunning display of misplaced priorities and energy, Ken Starr (yes, that Ken Starr) has filed a California legal brief to forcibly divorce the 18,000 same-sex couples married before the passage of Prop 8.  Because, you know, we’ve got too much love and commitment going on in this world. 

I’m so damned sick of this but one thing I can do is this.

You might not think this stuff has anything to do with you but it does.  When one segment of society is singled out and told their love is meaningless and unworthy, we all become lesser people.

I cried watching this video filled with people asking to be allowed to live and love as their hearts dictate……

("Fidelity" by Regina Spektor)

          

Tenth Avenue Freeze Out

Just watched the Super Bowl halftime show.
I’ve got lots of great Bruce Springsteen and E. Street Band memories.
Wasn’t at this particular show but had the good fortune to be at shows like this
when they’d play for 3 1/2 hours and wear us all out.

(Capital Center, Largo, MD on the 24th of November 1980 )

          
         

Random Notes

Last night Zippy and I, the temporarily childless couple, went to the Denver Botanic Gardens to hear Loudon Wainwright III and Richard Thompson play.  The evening was perfect.  Dinner and a bottle of wine on the lawn as we listened to two extremely gifted songwriters pour out their hearts.  I laughed and I cried.  Loudon was coerced into performing The Acid Song (oh happy day!) and Richard sang Walking On a Wire (a song he wrote when he and his former wife/singing partner, Linda Thompson, were splitting up; Linda sang it on their album so I’ve never heard him sing it).  Wow.

Earlier in the week, R’s nurse and I were discussing the frustrations of trying to get R to drink some stuff he needed to drink before having a procedure he’d agreed to have done.  R was in rare form and had dug in his heels.  Big time.  He complained about what he couldn’t do and complained about what he wanted to do but refused to take any action that would alleviate his complaints.  It was infuriating.  The nurse told me she’d worked with him on a previous hospital stay and that R kind of cracked her up.  I told her she had a great attitude but that his contrariness was making me want to bang my head against a wall.  She said, “Don’t do that.  Then you’ll have a headache AND a pain in the ass.”  That really made me laugh (I was tired!) and I felt so much better.  Nurses are the best.

I’ve been disciplined about my writing goals this week and hit my word count five days in a row!  I’m realizing how important it is for me to establish a routine and stick to it.  And yes, I’ve had this realization before and then lost sight of it along the way so I’ll probably be back here in another few months saying, “You know?  It’s really helpful when I set a word count goal and then hold myself accountable to it each and every day!”  Feel free to laugh when that happens.

My other cool writing-related development is that I have a new technique for handling my inner critic.  Lately I’ve really been plagued with negative thinking whispered in my ear by that horrid inner creature.  I guess William Faulkner’s off drinking or having sex or something because he’s not doing a very good job watching my back right now.  But that’s okay because I now have an actual voice to put to that inner critic.  And that voice is………………R’s voice!  That’s right, folks.  Whatever nastiness starts echoing in my head (You know, Tracy, this isn’t very good.  No one’s going to want to read this.), I repeat aloud in R’s rasping whisper.  And then I laugh!  And keep writing!  I totally recommend this method for thwarting your critic.  Not everyone is as fortunate as me in having a near-constant negative person in my life who complains about everything in a very unique voice (his vocal chords were damaged years ago) but I’m sure you could use your father-in-law’s voice or that nosy neighbor’s or the twit at the bank the other day.  Try it, you’ll like it!

Wishing everyone a glorious weekend.

 

Making Every Word Count

Last  night as I listened to this, one of my favorite Billy Bragg songs, it occurred to me the song’s like a mini-YA.  Everything you need for a satisfying story, right here.  In just 267 words.

THE SATURDAY BOY By Billy Bragg

I’ll never forget the first day I met her
That September morning was clear and fresh
The way she spoke and laughed at my jokes
And the way she rubbed herself against the edge of my desk

She became a magic mystery to me
And we’d sit together in double History twice a week
And some days we’d walk the same way home
And it’s surprising how quick a little rain can clear the streets

We dreamed of her and compared our dreams
But that was all that I ever tasted
She lied to me with her body you see
And I lied to myself ’bout the chances I’d wasted

The times we were close were far and few between
In the darkness at the dances in the school canteen
Did she close her eyes like I did as we held each other tight
And la la la la la means I love you

She danced with me and I still hold that memory soft and sweet
And I stare up at her window as I walk down her street
But I never made the first team, I just made the first team laugh
And she never came to the phone, she was always in the bath

In the end it took me a dictionary
To find out the meaning of unrequited
While she was giving herself for free
At a party to which I was never invited

I never understood my failings then
And I hide my humble hopes now
Thinking back she made us want her
A girl not old enough to shave her legs

** This video ends before the song’s finished but it’s the best quality version I could find on YouTube.  Just a taste….

“And friends, they may think it’s a movement.”

This morning a family friend who is home from Carleton College came over to hoop.  Zippy and I had already gotten her measurement (floor to navel) and made her hoop.  I left her with the gaffer tape while I took Zebu to school.  A few minutes after I got back home she gave me a somewhat exasperated look and asked if she could finish taping later.  Taping is tiresome work and I was glad to learn I’m not the only one who stinks at it.  Wrinkles, anyone?  Gaps?

We went down to the basement and hooped for about 90 minutes.  

We laughed as our hoops hit the ceiling, flew across the room, and knocked the backs of our heads.  We grinned in triumph whenever the hoops twirled just the way we wanted them to twirl.  And we agreed that thigh hooping is damned difficult and slightly painful, and maybe not a trick we need to learn.

We made plans to hoop together again very soon.

This evening Zebu taped his hoop.

I’m calling it Tracy’s Hooping Anti-Massacre Movement.  Somehow I think Arlo would approve.

            

                      

Dylan Does Dylan

I couldn’t figure out how to post two videos in one post so apologize for multiple posts. This is the companion piece to the Russ Feingold video….

For those who might never have seen (gasp!) this segment from D. A. Pennebaker’s film, “Don’t Look Back” (a documentary on Bob Dylan’s tour of England in 1965) in which Bob holds cue cards while “Subterranean Homesick Blues” plays:

Russ Feingold Does Dylan

If only Russ Feingold would run for president. And I ain’t just saying that ’cause I’m a former Cheesehead, either! Here’s Russ doing “My President Will Be . . .”

I highly recommend checking out the Progressive Patriots Fund.

What Book Are You?

Okay, I usually avoid these quizzes but this one appealed to me and not just because I ended up with this:


You’re Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you’re
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You’d
be recognized as such if you weren’t always talking about talking rabbits.

When I was fifteen, my parents let me skip school one day to wait in line for Bob Dylan tickets.  He was touring for the first time in years and it was a huge deal.  I’d requested permission to camp out but the best they could do (which was still pretty cool) was let me get in line at 5:30 in the morning.  My best friend, S., and I got to the Dane County Coliseum and were amazed by the many tents and the many, many bedraggled people who’d been waiting in line for several days.  Bottles, cans, paper bags, and sleeping bodies were scattered about.  Among all that general debris was a copy of WATERSHIP DOWN.  It didn’t seem to belong to anyone so I picked it up. 

After hours of anxiously waiting and hoping, S. and I got tickets just minutes before they sold out (we felt bad for but were also grateful to the “disoriented” folks who hadn’t made it back into line).  Our excitement was temporarily dampened because our tickets were stamped “Limited Vision” and were for seats behind the stage but then we decided to just be ECSTATIC.  And when the time came, Mr. Zimmerman didn’t let us down.  He turned and played much of the night to his fans seated behind him, giving us nearly front-row seats.  The show was phenomenal.

Well, somewhere in that timeline I read and fell in love with my newly adopted copy of WATERSHIP DOWN.  And I guess after that maybe I did a lot of talking about talking rabbits because S. and other friends started calling me Bigwig (which they continued doing throughout high school).

My ticket stub is in my scrapbook.

That copy of WATERSHIP DOWN is on my bookshelf.

And S.?  He’s in my heart.

  

World Without Tears

This one’s for newport2newport because sometimes the best way to cleanse your soul is with a good cry. Here’s Lucinda Williams……..

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

If we lived in a world without tears
How would heartbeats know
When to stop
How would blood know
Which body to flow outside of
How would bullets find the guns

If we lived in a world without tears
How would misery know
Which back door to walk through
How would trouble know
Which mind to live inside of
How would sorrow find a home

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

If we lived in a world without tears
How would bruises find
The face to lie upon
How would scars find skin
To etch themselves into
How would broken find the bones

How would broken find the bones
How would broken find the bones