Category Archives: Music

Six Proud Walkers On The Jingle Bell Rainbow!

24 Friday Apr 2020

Posted by in Art, Dandelion Break, Grateful Dead, Love, Music, Poetry

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During the mid to late 80’s I was in school full time for graphic arts, along with a permanent side track for Grateful Dead tour whenever possible. I was also one of those people who occasionally sold things in the parking lot at those Dead concerts. Sometimes I sold food, but more often than not I sold art-related things, shirts and posters mostly.

Back in the spring of 1988 I had started working on an idea for a t-shirt based off of a line in the song “The Eleven” by the Grateful Dead. The words as they are sung are, “Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow”. I absolutely love the imagery of those words. Robert Hunter was by far the biggest influence to my writing. He had a unique ability to invoke powerful imagery, yet somehow leave the images formless so that they must be completed by the imaginer. Upon his death I posted this small, simple haiku that reads so plainly as to escape detection for the art it is meant to be. It was my personal ode to my mentor, and a master wordsmith. Simple, honest words, polished like a golden bowl – the finest ever seen.

Back to the shirt… So, I conceived of a piece of art. It would be bordered on all sides by ivy. And then, coming from the back and arcing toward the front would be the rainbow, but like a bridge being traversed by the walkers themselves. Each walker would be carrying a hand bell, shouting their message to the rooftops. All but one walker, he alone carried the jingle bells. It was an homage to an old friend who himself had to leave this world just to be able to once again walk the jingle bell rainbow.

Now, about the walkers themselves… Since it was the 80’s I drew a lot of eyeballs, little eyeballs with arms and legs. Yep, that was my thing. Most of the eyeballs in this piece looked pretty much the same, except for two of them. One of those two stood out in the crowd, he leans on a cane and has donned an Uncle Sam hat. There he stands, one foot on his soapbox, preaching his word to all who will listen. Every parking lot had a few of these folks, spreading their philosophy like Vegemite. The remaining eyeball was my friend Ken, his pate wrapped snuggly in a bandana, hawking some t-shirt in the parking lot (in my mind, it was the very shirts I was drawing).

Having letters that spelled out “Six proud walkers on the jingle bell rainbow” were also a part of my concept. Done in 60’s concert poster style, the letters snake and intertwine, leading the eye to new places.

When I came up with the design, I didn’t have the ability to do multicolor screen prints, but I could create single color screens. So, using what I had I decided to make the art to be a black and white line-art base that I would screen print onto the shirts first, adding additional color on top later. You can’t have rainbows in black and white!

Eventually, what I ended up doing was to using my airbrush to individually spray each individual color into the piece. Each leaf in the ivy had to be sprayed in green. Each color of the rainbow had to be sprayed along the arc of my rainbow road, each in perspective, hopefully coming from smaller point and getting larger as I went. And while I was spraying all that color onto my rainbow, I wasn’t supposed to be spraying it all over those cute little eyeball dudes walking along my rainbow road. In order to get around that problem, I tried to fashion cutouts that I could place over each eyeball to protect them from getting painted as I sprayed away. It sort of worked with mixed results, but it was a huge pain.

I think I only ever made one or these two shirts that I was happy with. So, after giving up on that method of coloring the art, a tie dye artist friend named Chris created some rainbow dyed versions, which certainly was in keeping with the spirit of the rainbow. But, in the end I sold a lot of black and white versions of the shirt. And after I had drawn it and made the screen, the original art was put in a portfolio and forgotten about, never to see the light of day again for another 32 years. In fact, until recently when my friend Andy sent me an old picture of him wearing one of these shirts (below is a blurry, partial shot of Andy wearing the black and white version), I hadn’t seen the art in decades.

Well, I was recently on one of those covid lockdown tangents/projects when I came across the original artwork for the “six proud walkers” piece in that old portfolio. I decided to scan it in so I would at least have a digital copy finally.

And then I got to thinking… You know, aside from one or two shirts that probably disintegrated decades ago, I never had a finished copy of this piece to keep. So dammit, with the help of technology I am currently airbrushing the color on to my black and white art as it was originally conceived to be done (see below, again). But I am also trying to do it in a way where I can be shared with others, and that maybe it will give a few other people a smile, I hope.

Stay tuned…

A friend wearing one of the original shirts
Finishing the piece 32 years later

Shakedown!

22 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in Grateful Dead, Love, Mental Health, Music, Spirituality

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Every time I see woodcocks do that funky little walk, I can hear Shakedown Street in my head. So, I made this video. My hope is that now you’ll hear it in your head every time too!

If you like this, share it. It you want to, go ahead and steal it. It if made you smile, pass it on. We need more smiles right now!

Hot Rats

27 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by in Music, Zappa

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I went to see the Bizarre World of Frank Zappa show in Boston last night. I was psyched when the show was announced and jumped on tickets, but as the shows began I read a couple things on social media that made me a little nervous just days before this show. Luckily, as it turns out I didn’t agree with them anyway.

Ahmet is a weird dude, and so was his dad. But it was obvious that some people were turned off by his antics, and some of the social media commentary reflected it. In my opinion though, I thought it was awesome. Some people might not, but I recognize that FZ fans are also a naturally jaded bunch, so there’s no pleasing them all anyway. And it seems like EVERYONE has an opinion on how Frank and his music should be honored (and for some reason they also all seem to have an opinion on Zappa internal family politics).

First off, the band was tight. There’s something about hearing the vocals of Frank, Ray White, and Bobby Martin (the latter two both still have excellent voices) that really made it fit like an old glove. The playing was on point! Some of Frank’s prerecorded guitar work was just phenomenal. And the band were such an accomplished group who knew the music and played it with obvious heart. There was plenty of ripping jams much of it demanding technical precision, and an excess of unbridled buffoonery.

For me I think the key was that I didn’t go into with a standard live performance expectation. Because it is, and it isn’t. It was a visual, audial, and eyebrowial live showing.

Do Dweezil and Co. play awesome music in Frank’s spirit? Yes. So did these guys. Is there some eyebrows present at a ZPZ show? Sure, but this shit was a step above.

If you liked the more avant-garde edge of Frank’s stuff, and some of the cringey weirdness of his shows (think some of the dance off and audience participation, but thankfully no panty sniffing party) then you’ll love it. If you enjoy spotlighting the funnier side of Frank’s music, you’ll love it. And if you liked some of Frank’s art, then this show is a visual smorgasbord. I laughed my ass off throughout. Sure, Ahmet’s antics could have been half as long, but you can’t tell me his dad didn’t have fun with some of the same kinds of shit.

I felt like the whole night was a homage to Frank’s sense of humor, his music, his creative spirit, and most importantly his ideas on art in general as it hit you with multiple mediums at the same time. I just felt like it had a lot of Frank’s spirit present for the eyes, the ears, and the eyebrows.

In Memoriam… And it’s time to get to work

06 Saturday Oct 2018

Posted by in Change, Compassion, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Fear, Healthcare, Heroin, Love, Medical Marijuana, Meditation, Memorial, Middle Way, Music, Open mind, Politics, Recovery, Sameness

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The last few years has been a tough ride for me personally. I lost a brother to an overdose. I lost my mother to cancer. I lost one of my oldest friends, and the best man in my wedding, to Alzheimer’s. There’s also a handful of other major events that would take too long to explain in this particular post. When I look back at every one of those losses, there is a fairly large gap in my blog post history. Who knows why? I suppose it’s one of the ways I don’t deal with grief, by simply ignoring any decent coping mechanism I have for processing it.

A week ago today, I lost one of the most influential people I have ever had the privilege to know and collaborate with. This time the loss is directly relevant to my spiritual well-being, as well as what I write about.

Brian and I met over a decade ago, when he was hired by a friend of his, who was also my boss. A lucky break for me since the same guy had been telling me that I would probably get along really well with his friend Brian. A suggestion that sparked one of the most pivotal relationships in my life.

He was more than just a friend. He was a mentor in a number of areas for me. At other times, he preferred to be the student. It was one the purest definitions of friendship I have ever experienced. For myself, I believe that’s because we recognized ourselves in each other.

Over time, we created and authored a number of blogs that discussed a range of topics. He was one of the few people I can honestly say was able to deliver criticism to me in a way that completely bypassed my defenses, and the need to defend myself from the criticism. He could bypass my defenses and deliver information in a way that made it easy to see his point, simply removing my normal need to save face.

I don’t write because I want to. On most days, it’s more of a need. But, when my ego flairs, writing the type of stuff I do can be painful sometimes. Based on what I know, I suspect that Brian had to learn how to reduce his own ego before he could help anyone else with theirs. I am a far better person today for having known him.

I haven’t used his full name for a few reasons. The first of which is that I haven’t sought any sort of permission from his family to compose a written memorial. But also because I think I knew him well enough to know that, the idea of anyone trying to memorialize him in any way, would have given him the heebie jeebies.

Over the years he pushed me hard to get over myself, and to finally realize some of the projects I wanted to work on. But, like most people, most of it’s blocked by whatever bullshit excuse for a fear that I’d given myself. Each time that he pushed, he was careful to do so in a way that was always most helpful to others, and less likely to focus accolades back on us. In other words, Brian showed me what humility was, from the inside.

…

Okay, so now after having written all of that nice stuff, it also appears that I have also acquired my own glasses-wearing, mustachioed Obi Wan-ghost, wandering around and bugging me that I’ve still got work to do.

You see, I am not trying to memorialize Brian so much as I am trying to write about the passing of a close friend as a way to exercise my own demons. And also to let people know that I plan to change directions with this blog for a little while, if that’s okay (and even if it’s not). This blog was never meant to be a political bitch session. That’s purely a side effect of our current political climate.

I have been working on a series of essays that discuss the current and ongoing change in status that cannabis is experiencing as medicine, as well as how that might affect people in recovery for things like alcoholism.

Because of some of the training I have, both personally and professionally, this is a topic of great personal importance to me. It’s also one that few seem willing to tackle. And it’s here that Brian recently applied his gentle pressure, for me to continue to explore the subject, so that we could continue to help others in whatever way works for them.

My secondary reason for this post is to ask help from the readers: If you know anyone who can be helped by this information, please share it with them, this topic must be a give and take. Like much of our political discourse these days, the medical benefits of things like cannabis are subject to media favoritism. And the popularity of certain methods and medicines, ebbs and flows on public perception. A perception that is largely informed by backdoor deals and lobbying efforts, usually designed to enrich someone else, somewhere else.

What we really should be doing is using the technology we passively browse, and instead push it to increase our own access to information. We need it to help us expand our knowledge of the truth, and about the real efficacy of our medicines, and our politics. And for many who are trying to recover from addiction, helping them to increase the quality of their own internal lives.

Having said all of that, I want to once more thank Brian for everything he was able to teach me (not always such an easy task). And to also let him know that I miss him, and that I love him. Something I’m sure he knew, but I don’t think I got to say out loud.

This guy is only in the news because normal, sane people, are boring to write about.

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, First Amendment, Guns, Hate, Making Sense of Guns, Male superiority, Mental Health, Middle Way, Music, Patriotism, Politics, Terrorism

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Ted Nugent, a board member of the NRA, has decided to proclaim that the students who are protesting in the wake of their friends being slaughtered, are nothing more than soulless lying media shills.

Now, I wasn’t there, so I have no way of knowing if Ted offered up evidence to back up his claims that what these survivors saying are saying is false. I mean, I would hope that he offered up evidence. He can’t possibly have just claimed that they were all lying at the behest of the media, and that they should be silenced, so that real measures can be put in place. He wouldn’t do that, right?

Of course, when Ted says “real measures can be put into place to actually save children’s lives”, I am assuming he means that the NRA has finally come up with some real measures. Because, arming teachers ain’t it.

For that matter, adding more guns into the populace would only help the gun manufacturers anyway. The claim that “the only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” is not at all true, or what happens in the vast majority of cases.

Statistically speaking, a good guy with a gun is more likely to know someone who will use that gun to commit suicide. Yes, even if it’s properly locked up. If you’ve ever been around someone who is suicidal, then you know that they watch your every move, watching for that two seconds out of years of being careful, that the gun ends up unattended. And a good guy with a gun is more likely than someone without a gun, to see that gun involved in an accidental shooting by a child.

Putting aside, how safe guns actually are (i.e: ignoring the fact that they are designed to kill things), the question still remains, “Who in their right mind would ever use Ted Nugent as a model for morality, and/or demonstrating, or having a soul?!

Seriously, here is a guy who is known as the Motor City Madman, and is proud of that moniker. He has made a living out of acting crazy, but he still wants to be taken seriously. That’s not how it works Ted.

Let’s avail ourselves to a few of Nugent’s moral, and soul-lifting quotes:

“Apartheid isn’t that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man… They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands… These are different people. You give ’em toothpaste, they fucking eat it.”

“Big bangs don’t make this. That’s not a big bang. God made that. That’s a liver. That’s mystical. You and I can’t make livers. Things banging don’t make livers. This is mystical stuff. This is magic. This is perfection.”

“I’ll show you some security and I’ll show you some peace: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. You fuck with us and we’ll fucking melt you.”

“I have obviously failed to galvanize and prod, if not shame enough Americans to be ever vigilant not to let a Chicago communist-raised, communist-educated, communist-nurtured subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.”

“Should a kid going to a Grateful Dead concert who’s caught with sugar-cube-encrusted LSD go to prison for life with no parole? Of course not. But should that guy get caned? Yeah. And should he go to prison in an overcrowded cell where a huge, unclean black man will fuck him in the ass every night? Yeah. Now, that sounds cruel, doesn’t it? Well, tough fucking shit.”

And, in closing, I’d like to offer this last gem. Nugent’s comments are meant to be inflammatory, so most of the things he says get ignored by most Americans. And you can see why he does it. It’s really all he has left. He’s not selling records. He needs the attention. But this last tidbit is far more revealing.

Ted, like every other Might-Makes-Right-Second-Amendment-Defender (they are a different breed than your average, level headed American, who realized that the Second Amendment is just as important as the First Amendment, and the rest of the Constitution. And therefore, all of these things need to be given equal weight in the consideration of the law), sees guns as the great equalizer for his neanderthal beliefs, and for his fading demographic.

And so in parting, let’s hear what Ted really believes is all we really need. Because with a gun, you can make your own laws.

“If it was up to me, if you uttered the word ‘gun control,’ we’d put you in jail.”

Dear Veterans and Forefathers 

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by in Change, Compassion, Conspiracies, Dingleberries, Ego, Emotional Intelligence, Guns, Heroin, Human, Islam, Kids, Male superiority, Medical Marijuana, Middle Way, Music, Open mind, Patriotism, Politics, Race, Sameness, Spirituality, Terrorism

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Thank you.

Thank you for my freedom

And what it’s truly worth

The freedom that you fought for

The freedom that you died for

The freedom to express my thoughts

The freedom to allow all others to speak

The freedom to love my country

The freedom to hate my government

The freedom to own a gun

The freedom to hate firearms

The freedom to love who I want

The freedom to marry and grow old

The freedom to work against hate

The freedom to seek my own center

The freedom to worship as I please

The freedom to choose the scientific method

The freedom to pledge allegiance to the flag

The freedom to burn it in protest

The freedom to stand in reverence

The freedom to sit in protest

The freedom to hate blind patriotism

The freedom to disregard political correctness

The freedom to hunt and kill

The freedom to tend a garden

The freedom to vote

The freedom run for office

The freedom to vote my conscience

The freedom to vote against your candidate

The freedom to defend my home

The freedom to fight for my water supply

The freedom to wander the countryside

The freedom to lose myself in work

The freedom to drink my liver away

The freedom to live simply

The freedom the destroy my own life

The freedom to rebuild as I see fit

The freedom to walk away

The freedoM to join you in defense

The freedom to know

Freedom is not tied to any one belief 

Boom Boom

30 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by in Human, Memorial, Middle Way, Music, Quantum, Spirituality

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No matter what, music helps. Today I needed a John Lee Hooker break. Check him out doing Boom Boom from the movie The Blues Brothers. Make sure to turn it up really loud!

I was lucky enough to see John Lee once during the summer of 1999 at Suffolk Downs in Boston at a festival called The Guinness Fleadh, before he finally moved on to the great gig in the sky. 

It was a music lover’s dream of a festival with names like Van Morrison, Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson and John Lee Hooker and a ton more! The running joke days before the concert was whether or not Van Morrison would show, as he is known for just not playing when it doesn’t feel like it. True to form, he didn’t show. But for me, I couldn’t wait to see John Lee anyway. And as he was pushing 80 years of age I likely wouldn’t have another chance.

My friend Tom and I got right up front for his set so that when he came out we could see both of his teeth perfectly! He played great and it was worth every penny. Everyone in range of hearing the music was moving with the blues. He’s was a musician the likes of which we don’t see much anymore. 

One thing that sticks in my mind from that day is that word had it that he was supposed to be introduced by legendary Boston DJ Charles Laquidara (a.k.a Dwayne Glasscock), but some promoter decided to screw Laquidara out of this once in a lifetime chance. It’s too bad to think that some yutz like me was able to be closer to that old legend than he was.

Anyway, take a minute to check out the video. I don’t think it’s possible to do so and not to move with the music. It’ll shoot you right down, knock you off of your feet… A-HOW HOW HOW HOW!