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MISSING SONGS
The problem, or one of them, isthe lack of music today. We haveall manner of what people call music,but not the music of the sortwe need, needed once and found,as we stormed the bastionsand bastards who mired us in war,who shunned darker brothersand sisters, who made alienablebasic rights to half of us withoutrhyme or reason,…
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WRITING MY STORY
With the stroke of a pen,they enabled me to write the story,gave a framework on whichI could hang all mannerof dreams and assumptions,inviting a search I neverquite got around to making. I wandered the beachesof Estoril in my dreams,stalked the avenues of Lisbon,looking for a familiar face,but found only ghosts. With the stroke of a…
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MIX TAPE
There is an artto creating a mix tape,more so to day, whentape is usually onlyfound in museumsand antique stores. Then you chose carefullyaware of the sonics,aware of the limits on time,weaving a musical tapestry. You can do a mix CDbut everyone knowsthat with tape you listenedall the way through,for fast forward was onlyfor getting to…
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HARD TIME
I was only in jail once,then for four hours, no chargesand my biggest fear was thatmy parents would find out,or the cops would determinethat I was only 17 and breakingthe park curfew was noteven a misdemeanor. They let me go, gave mea ride back to the park,told me not to go in butI wouldn’t at…
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IN CHORUS
Deep in a small forest,a murmuring brook reflectsthe shards of sun slidingthrough the crown of pines,its whispered wisdominfinitely more clearthan the babbling of menholding the reins firmlyin distant cities of power. The birds know this well,sing of it in chorus, nature’smusic, jazz scatting thatthe graying clouds absorb,an always willing audience,and the wind rushing bycries through…
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TOO WAY BACK MACHINE
Platform shoes, velourNehru jackets, what the hellwere we thinking, and pinkvelour, seriously, for men. At least it was Hendrix, Byrds,and not Pat Boone and AndyWilliams, almost the deathof music as we know it. Reefers were evil, told us so,and when we figured out it waspot, we begged to differ, frequentlybetween hits on the bong, after…
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NOT SLEEPING NOW
The kid is late again today, but thatis sadly not unusual, the old man said.I ought to get rid of him, but I knowhe needs the job to feed his family. In the meanwhile, I’ll now haveto hobble down to the meadowand hope my collie, who’s as old as I,is up to the job of…
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A MOMENT
He would be the first to admitthat he hated most things avant-gardeparticularly when it appliedto either art or music.It was simply a matter of beingin the moment, and he knewyou could not be ahead of timefor there was only the momentin which you were in.
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CAT (PSYCH)OLOGY
It wasn’t until I hitmiddle age, which on my scalewill allow me to live past 100,that I discovered that catsare Celtic deep in their hearts.Our cat, she who adopted meand forced her then ownerto marry me, like it or not,was in love with the tin whistleand the uilleann pipes playinghad her in my lap, unmoving.But…
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THE CLUB
It’s jazz, it’s a club,but there what once wasis no more, there areno ashtrays on the table,overflowing early intothe second set, no cloudof cigarette smoke descendingfrom the too dark ceiling.There is no recognizable odorof a freshly lit Gaulloise,in the trembling fingers ofa young man trying to look cool,trying not to cough on eachinhalation, in the…