to move even the oceans

i cannot stop listening to jimmy gnecco...not that i am attempting to stop. perhaps his heart is actually some portal for spirits and they fly out of his mouth when he sings. i wish so badly to do that...to move even the oceans with my voice. it remains a mystery to me, but i shall not relent. last night i lay awake in bed for hours, listening to the recording of the show we played with him. and again tonight. i wonder if jimmy was lying awake listening to me? i wonder if anyone ever lies awake in bed at night, so touched by my music? i would like for that to be the case. i would like to connect with people on such eternal ground.

"Always I marvel at you, you blessed ones ~ at your demeanor,
the way you bear transient jewels with eternal ease.
Ah, if we knew how to blossom: our hearts would be out beyond
all lesser dangers, safe in the single great one"

~Rilke

eggs and time and a handful of rocks

two hours into my ride, i broke up over the crest of a hill and began my descent into a valley. as i gained momentum and felt the playful hands of the wind, a red miata with the top down came straight at me from the other direction. i had little time to think, but there was still enough distance for something other than pure instinct. instinct mixed with a nanosecond or two of thought. just as i was swerving off the road preparing myself mentally for the fall at 35 miles an hour, the car darted back into its lane, and the air was filled with eggs. somehow, i managed to duck just right, narrowly missing all of them. of course in my attempt to avoid a potential head-on collision that could perhaps have proven fatal, i had indeed left the pavement and flewn off into the brush, littered with broken wood and small rocks. thankfully, by the time i fell, i was able to slow the bike enough that i escaped any injury aside form a sore shoulder and thigh. i was met with a strange mix of exhuberance and anger. i immediatley picked up several rocks {approximately medium avocado sized} and ran back into the road. the car had stopped up the hill a ways, and they were laughing and flipping me off. this was not funny. thankfully, my animal instinct of rage left almost instantly, and i lay the rocks back upon the ground and returned to my bike shaking my head. i then had the thought that i should embody love and compassion in a situation like this, and asked myself what is it that would compel them to do such a thing? i contemplated attempting to approach them peacefully and introduce myself and be human together. implore them to stop before they permanently alter someone's life. they drove off, horn sounding through the vacant hills. my bike was okay, and i rode, thinking about how difficult it can be at times to love that which threatens us, that which we are afraid of. interestingly, i was mildly nervous before heading out on the bike this morning. hmmmmmm. this last week, i have been thinking much about the nature of time. though i have never really oscillated too greatly, i have at times questioned whether or not i feel it to be linear. the events of my life of late, have finalized any questioning. no. no no no no no. perhaps, if we could truly understand time on not only scientific, but also deeply spiritual levels, true empathy would be more easily attained. perhaps the world would shift as it so greatly needs to do. sigh. i am home now, and i am safe, and i am clean, and fed, and i will go buy a cup of tea and a book. my day will carry on, a mix of past and present and future. a delicate and beautiful mess of everything.

jimmy the angel~

every so often, life opens its fragile arms and offers us the warmth of a truly magical moment. last night watching jimmy perform was one such opening. a vast and neverending expanse of absolutely staggering beauty. being in the presence of such an extremely gifted artist and wildly open soul, gives me great hope for the universe. you are an angel jimmy gnecco. i thank you endlessly for your brilliant gift to the world. for your infinite spirit. thank you thank you thank you. carry on~

fuzzy fuzzy

cycling through tilden park this time of year is tenuous, for the ground is littered with caterpillars. i must constantly remind myself that to swerve into the middle of the road in attempt to avoid one of these delicate and beautiful creatures could bring my death. therefore, i ride slowly slowly slowly down the hill with my gaze transfixed on the black cement. during my ascent, i am afforded the great bliss of watching them push and pull their fuzzy little bodies on to new life. i notice a great propensity of them beneath gatherings of oak trees. as i ride, i wish that there were no cars, so that all of them would live and in time the air would be a mess of their dusty, scattered, flying. i often wish the world had no cars. none. as i break through the hills and look out upon the vast clearing, i hear cattle. i am humming the cure. "you flicker and you're beautiful, you glow inside my head."

134

today, the acupuncturist told me that the needles in my ankle were in about an inch deep. though i imagine this is the same depth that they have gone in each time i've received a treatment, the knowledge of this fact was initially somewhat difficult to stomach. though i trust him entirely, i find it hard to wrap my mind around the staggering complexity and precision of this ancient healing art. perhaps that is why this treatment was less transcendent and ethereal than the others. less transformative. unfortunately, i was stuck in my mind. as i lay there on the table trying not to move, but wishing [as always] to look at them sticking out of me, i kept thinking about his explanation of a tecnique used where they actually weave the needles beneath the skin. usually along the leg or spine, he said that these needles are often more than a foot long. oh how grateful i am that he tells i should live to be over one hundred years old, and that i likely will never need such a treatment [depending of course on my karma]. he was not joking, and i am terribly pleased by that fact. the number that has been in my head for years, is 134. i constantly try to remove that number from my head and increase it, as i feel that our preconceived ideas of our lives have more weight on their direction than we will ever be able to understand. perhaps over time, i can get the number up over 150 and see how i feel when i get to 134. 158 sounds good to me. i wonder, do you really have the secrets Tom Robbins? will you share or are they things one must discover on their own? needless to say, i will search and search and search, for such is life.

and speaking of years, a happy birthday ron~
may your wisdom and joy grow with your numbers.
a great man~

unfortunately, my car is not dead. it is simply cracked and bruised and fractured. the insurance man made sure to give the lowest estimate he possibly could, so that i would indeed pocket no money. i feel as though there should be some clause written into the semantics of insurance policies, that assures me a certain amount of money for my time spent dealing with the situation. of course it's all relative. i complain of such trivialities while the museum and library are reduced to ash in Baghdad. meanwhile, the US military machine guards the oil reserve building. how pathetic. the nearsightedness is staggering. when the oil runs out in fifty years or so, will it really have been worth the lost texts which were hundreds and hundreds of years old? the lost lives, and shattered economies, and borken heart of an already ailing nation state. this morning, i listen to Lucinda Williams, her fragile voice a slight breath from the belly of the earth. warm hands on the back. dusk in the springtime.

green tea and alphabet cookies

green tea and alphabet cookies join me in the sun, my room being the world of windows that it is~ my tired legs are cleany washed after a ride in the hills. something i try so hard not to take for granted, even on days like today when my body says "no. go home jefferson...take a nap." but i rode and rode, thankful for the sun. spent my morning with a man named dave from allstate insurance...damage assesment on my plasticky, rickety car. if i felt it safe to drive, i would take the money and buy something meaningful for myself. a piece of recording equipment. or perhaps a trip to thailand. it has been far too long since i've travelled. i miss those places i've never been. though i am rather in love with my home, the world calls out, infinitely seductive.

oh dear world.

this morning we are met with rain. it walks unafraid and with purpose. grabs my arm with force and glares into my eyes. says nothing. no ride today sir pitcher. last weekend i was in Portland and Seattle playing a smattering of relatively miserable and extremely poorly attended shows. by poorly attended, i mean that the largest crowd of the weekend was approximately 10 people at one of the shows, who happened to be the grandparents and nephews of one of the musicians. it rained virtually the entire time i was there. i am done with rain for the year, but it appears that rain is not done with me. i am also done with the inherent exhaustion that lives in being an 'unsuccessful' artist who plays shows to no one. oh dear world, please bring me my dream now.
please.

just like cars

today offers my return. the faint sounds of clicking fingers and the wheels [or whatever they may be] turning in my head. oh but it was a graceless day, full of gray skies and crashing cars. breakfast at french restaurants and early bedtime. songs about being the perfect man for a certain few things which i haven't quite figured out yet. Just like cars. My first concern was the child in the backseat, though he is not mine. He was scared, but I actually think he felt rather excited to have been in his first accident. Me? Well...It will certainly be a great hassle, but I've never liked the car anyway which makes it all the more easy to ingest. It is cheap-ass and poorly designed. Plasticky. Rickety. Lacking character. I was edgy about that damn woman as she passed me on the highway before taking the exit, driving too fast and zipping all over the place. Fucking around with the radio. Looking at her friend too much while they talked. You simply cannot make that much eye contact while you drive. Alas, I am tired of driving. I Wish I could just ride my bike, or walk everywhere. Just walk.