sparrows and towers

and yesterday was a blur of hours. walnut creek. concord. berkeley. oakland. piedmont. san francisco. and finally, albany, where i rest my tired eyes. oh that i was a bird and could twist and turn in the sky like the sparrows. a shifting mess of color, dancing my chaos against the wall of blue. the sky turned as it does last night, while i was driving into the city to watch odessa chen sing her songs. i wish i could have watched the world above me change as she sang. she was her own bird, full of breathy confessions like the utterances of trees in a silent forest. her music was delicious. it was the taste of fog, as it wraps its thin fingers around the bellies of trees at night. oh but today, more work. i wish today that i was taking time off from recording, to sit on the beach in barcelona. perhaps ride the train down to sevilla for the weekend. but i am still not in spain. oh how narrow our longings can be. i read a quote from arundhati roy and feel that familiar sadness mixed with hope for the world~

"our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay seige to it. to deprive it of oxygen. to shame it. to mock it. with our art, our music, our literature, our stubornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness~ and our ability to tell our own stories"

the apple thief

and i am met with a million things to say~ i am disgusted with this absurd race for governor, led by the shiny campaign of "the terminator" {i refuse to call him anything else out of a lack of respect} who doesn't allow his wife to wear pants in public because she is a woman. which of course makes one wonder what else he does or does not 'allow' her to do, and why she doesn't tell him to fuck off, and why the people of california want such an asshole to have a huge impact on the politics of their state. he is not a politician people, he is a piss-poor actor who has starred in a number of terrible and overtly violent films. what are you possibly thinking? first and foremost, anyone running for office should have strong opinions on the issues facing what will potentially become their decisions. when he first announced his plan to run, he had none. none. frankly, this is unacceptable. furthermore, the entire situation of recall is bullshit. the idea of recall is an important component of democracy, but i wonder why nothing is being said in the media and judges quarters, about the fact that a private company was hired to bring in hundreds of employees to gather signatures. that my friends, is not democracy at work, it is the evil hands of a corporate run state. the ability for recall exists so that the people can make this decision if they see fit and are so determined to make it happen. the very fact that a private company essentially made it happen, seems like hollywood itself. not to mention the fact that they have ever so silently slipped prop. 54 on the bill in hopes that people will remain ignorant with the lack of time to gain knowledge. no. no no no no no. vote no on prop 54. {more here}. i could blather on and on and on. there are so many problems with the politics of this country that it is completely dizzying. but good things are happening too in this great state of ours. the marquee at the grand lake movie theater in oakland reads something to the effect of "how is it ok to impeach a president for lying about sex and not impeach one for lying about war?" personally, i find oral sex to be an amazing experience...one that all humans should repeat again and again and again. war or the other hand should never occur. never. also, a bill has passed in the senate which will finally abolish/greatly limit the soda contracts that pepsi and coca cola have in our public schools. their sponsorships of these schools if fucking sickening, and i have absolutely no tolerance for it. at this point, the bill simply needs to be signed by our mr. davis and a great battle against the corporate brainwashing will be won. write him at governor@governor.ca.gov
as for jefferson. well... ron, kristina and i work away on the new songs. which i am in love with. i will tell more in time. and i have been running and running and running. my route now, is ever changing as i keep finding new apple trees. last night, i climbed up onto a fence and pulled from a branch what i believe to be the best apple i have ever eaten in my life. which is quite a statement from me. apples are the perfect runners fruit. easily held in hand, but solid and not easily smooshed. quickly eaten, they never cause me cramps and the sugar seems to swim into my blood immediately. so i run and eat and run and eat. the sun begins to fall and the apple thief walks home content watching the sky spin and blend into a fury of reds and oranges. and apples.

oh fall dear fall, where art thou?

the mornings here have been grey and foggy. skies like dark oceans reflecting down their somber light on the tops of our lives. these mornings make me long for fall and grow weary of summer. i wish to be walking in the evening somewhere back east. vermont. massassachussetts. somewhere that fall feels honest and convicted to its soul. but summer will linger here. the fog will burn and the hot sun will break from its forest and slither along the earth.

the hunter

last night, kristina and i had dinner with gordon and his wife judith. oh if only the world were filled with such generous and giant hearted people. if only this great big country had the courage to feel. i rise, and while making tea, thumb through the newspaper. water to baghdad broken. guerilla warfare that they don't really mention. arnold. jesus. where is the poetry? i think they should have printed this on the front page of the new york times yesterday. go hunter, go.

"who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? who are these swine? these flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like george bush? they are the same ones who wanted to have muhammad ali locked up for refusing to kill their "gooks." they speak for all that is cruel and stupid and viscious in the american character. they are the racists and hate mongers among us~ they are the ku klux klan. i piss down the throats of these nazis. and i am too old to worry whether they like it or not. fuck them."

~ hunter s. thompson

birds, and a general lack of free time

and i pay for the freedom to ride my bike for weeks, with an incessant trail of long work days. it makes life feel so bloody compressed and squelched when you wake, eat, work, run, shower, eat, sleep. no wonder the american populous is so vacant and bereft of passion. how can one retain passion when there is so little time to foster the seeds of its needy belly? i find that while my heart aches to be making music, reading, or lying on my floor in a sea of candles, i must instead find those places in the airplane trail moments of my day. the flight of a hawk. wings spread wide, it breaks the air like fire through trees, but leaves no trace. it lands and disappears into the thick of my visual history. a brief moment of a busy day.

like invisible horses

"i will have to wait for the fog,
and flying salt, the scattered sun,
for the sea to breathe and breathe on me;
because water is not just water
but a hazy intrusion,
and the waves roll on in the air
like invisible horses."

~ neruda

birds and infinity

and with the concept of home {interesting that it infiltrates my physical world so much of late, as the new record will be entirely about the abstract and not so abstract realities of what home means/is etc} comes a punch to the chest. while i feel more thrilled about, inspired by, and generally determined with music, i at the same time feel completely out of breath. how is it, that i can want something so badly for so long and not have it. tiring. as i question what "having it" means and the emotional complexities of my world, i laugh at the seriousness of it all. oh yes, and i think there should be a fine for people who comment out loud tirelessly, throughout an entire film. "shut up goddammit," says jefferson. lovingly of course.

"intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. it operates in spite of the warrior's indulgence. intent is what makes him invulnerable. intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity."

~ carlos castaneda

walking quietly.

and after so much slow movement, i ride home from portland oregon in a car~ the land a blur of blue, just outside the glass. amazing the distance one can go in a day with our modern machines. and what does one say after living a life in a month? days of such patient wandering. after drifting off to sleep amidst the calling of coyotes. and where are they now jefferson? where have my dear coyotes gone, and have the lions ever shown their faces? riding bicycles into parked cars to avoid certain death by other cars rocketing down the highway. falling. more than once. walking one's bike for miles on the freeway with a shredded tire. gary and pete and ted and andre and dave of course. oh dave, sweet dave. i missed him before he left. but today calls as it always does. our lives are here and now. today. how difficult not to long for yesterday or tomorrow. and coming home from any trip is such a complex handful of emotions. so deeply happy to be home, and yet wishing to go and go and go for as long as time exists. oh but life calls. today. tonight i will see a film. and i will walk. and walk and walk and walk, feeling quiet.