D-Day

Hi, it's been years. Literally. I am real curious if anyone will read this. I have double D-Days coming up. I will be blogging about it here. Just want to see if this still works.

Declaration of Peace Concert Wed. Sept. 20

It was the kind of night where you remember everything that happened without the names or places. I had just completed a DePaul class on E-Commerce technology. It was raining. I love it when it rains gently like it did that night. It was a year or two into W’s first term. I was working on a bender with some of my classmates. It was our final class we were celebrating-- on our way to second bar near Chicago Ave. and the Brown line. Yeah it was that kind of night.

The guy in the cab next to me was talking politics because I started it. I commented that the media was strangely skewed to the right and that the democrats seemed incapable or unwilling to speak out. I told him I felt like a ghost. I could see and hear everything around me. I could see the train wreck coming and started screaming out but no one could hear me or cared to listen. He just looked at me and said, “Now, you know what it feels like to be a conservative.”

In retrospect I didn’t really get it then but I did eventually learn what he meant. It has been really hard listening to rhetoric that I don’t agree with take shape as action that I cannot personally do anything to stop.

I have been thinking pretty hard about promoting this event. Deciding to do the gig was simple because I really want to stand up for what I believe in. I have a lot of friends who are not democrats, a lot. These people are good friends. Lately, the friendships are more important than where they stand on the issues. So I wanted to post this because so many of us fall on different sides of the same line these days.

The concept behind this event probably seems very partisan but we know the issues on the table go way beyond the checkers game of “Liberal vs. Conservative”. We have got serious issues to deal with way deeper than which side of the board you sit on.

So please come out and hang out with some people that you may or may not agree with. We will serve ourselves best this evening by spending time with one another. You know, we need to share some food wine and good times. We have hard work ahead of us. Let’s spend the night together. It is my guess that whether or not you share their beliefs you can at least understand where they are coming from. Look them in the eye and realize that they are just as concerned about things as you are.

Come on out and dance and show me how does your light shine…we're on the road to Shambalah!

Mastering Music

It is unclear to me whether or not learning to be incredibly good at something doesn't defeat the some part of the overall purpose. I was thinking, comparing the inspiration that first makes you want to pursue something, the way one might sit and worry over a chord book until you can play the song, with the requirements of being truly good at it-- the discipline of the practitioner. They are different ways of approaching the same goal-- like the difference between having a baby and making a human being from scratch. I guess it is a good analogy because my question would go something like this: Do musicians get any closer to making music than scientists get to making life?
Specifically, do guitarist have the same relationship with early bluemasters/musicians as doctors have with say witch-doctors. If you think about it there are a lot of similarities. Both disciplines have benifited from study and the sharing of knowledge in ways that they never would have if left to the etheral persona of witch-crafting. I have a friend who was just become a professional mid-wife and I told her I was very excited for her. We talked about the work she had done to get there and I realized that she knew a lot about the human body and was qualified to work as a nurse. I thought I was encouraging when I said, "So, why don't you get your PhD?" she didn't snap or anything but she had a very interesting answer that I will paraphrase here. She said that the discipline required to become a doctor included some work ethics, ways of viewing patients that she did not ascribe to. She continued that she would in fact have to behave in ways that she felt were contrary to her profession or at least her personal ethic. That becoming a doctor would require her to act differently with patients-- it would change her bedside manner. Needless to say the comment stayed with me.
It is not like you really have a choice. If you want to be good at something you have to pursue it. You have to take on the discipline and sit at it's feet and wait on it hand and foot. But the discipline of mastering a thing can change the way you experience it.
It reminds of what it was like to practice magic. I was a magicians assistant in the early days. My greatest trick was the "Metamorphosis". I would put the magician in a straight jacket, tie him in chains, put him in a canvas, cinch it with chains and close padlocks through the links. That last part was done while he stood in the open trunk. Then he was pushed down and the lid was closed. I then stood on the box raised the curtain up around me with my arms-- I would count to three and he would finish the count to five. The box would be opened and I would be let out of the bag & padlocks & straight jacket. When I see magic done today it never really grabs me the way it used to. But I have a few card tricks that I enjoy doing for people. It is so cool to see the look on the faces of people who really are amazed. It is not like you really have a choice. If you want to do the trick you have to learn how it is done. And so in some sense it that magic stops for you.
What I am thinking about today is how you have to go beyond the discipline to achieve your original goal. You have to take everything that you have learned and turn it back into magic. Sometimes I think my sense of what empiricism is focuses to heavily on it -- logically obtained knowledge of things-- practice processes. In the end the magic is in the story your ability to draw them in-- to relay your passion about your discipline in such a way that it looks-- simple. That is why it is one of my favorite quotes, Edward Albee, The Zoo Story:

"Sometimes, you have to go a long way out of your way in order to come back a short distance correctly."

You go through the whole in the wall but when you come back you are not the same. Serious Ying and Yang stuff man!

Dear Nate

Dear Nate,
                    I just finished the John Mayer DVD. He is a hot guitar player. He reminded me a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughn but I definitely heard Roxy Music overtones in there as well. He has a large library of music to draw from and does so. He is quite the showman. Reason enough to be wary of him as a polished entertainer. I mean—he just doesn’t make any mistakes. Every lead is a finished idea—no meandering.
     “I’m just a crazy guy caught in a crazy world” he said while bantering with the audience. If you are not careful you could miss his integrity completely. “I know a girl she puts the color inside of my world”. One really has to look at him through a Stevie Ray filter i.e. he really is as good as he is pretends to be. This MF can play the hell out of the guitar. And he can sing his a—off. He has a sweet sense of emotion that is always present. He can be playful with his own tunes. He sings like Stevie Ray and he has a lot of really good blues skills of his own. He writes a good lyric. I would never describe him as amazing but he is very original, very talented, and has some really good chops.
     He is a little unbelievable. His voice has that raspy quality that we all like, he writes in any style he wants to. He is handsome and personable. In short, he is a marketing dream. The funny part is that he seems to genuinely rebel against all of that. This is most evident in the song, “Who Did You Think I Was”, where he challenges his listeners to check their prejudgments of him and his music at the door. I hope I don’t presume to much when I say that the line from that song, “I got a brand new blues that I can’t explain”, belies a sense that he has that his work is greater than he is. And sometimes when I listen closely he seems to be channeling 3 or 4 different singers and guitarists at the same time. You know, like maybe some of the stuff comes out faster than he can write it down.

I dig him. See you tomorrow…..

bill

Sitting

The thing about sitting on something is that eventually you have to get up. I have stuff to post I just don't want to put it out there. See you tonite.

Happy Holidays!!!!

Happy Holidays to everyone! Please take care of yourselves and have a happy holiday season!!!!

Progress Report

Open up the comments section on my main Blog. - Done
Put an explanation of the name ShooBooty on the main blog. - Done
Put up song sheets on the main webpage for my classes.
Talk to SarahB about the security piece again. - Done
Do follow up on the contacts I have made regarding booking for Groove Cognizance. - Done
Work on Changing the name of the band Groove Cognizance. - Yeah Right!
Work on the BLT bookings for the holiday season. ( there are currently none ) - See You Next Year
Start booking my singer songwriter series at the new space. -
Nail down a time for guitar lessons and practice with my daughter.
Nail down a time for guitar lessons and practice with my son.
Post my technical resume on my website.
Post my artists resume on my website.
Put a link on my website to my chicago public school website for my little guys.
Do a write up about SarahB and Steeldog on my website.
Write a response to the feedback I got on the Shimer College Blogsite. - Done
Add feedburner for blogsites - Done