Down River

There are things I have seen or heard these last few weeks that no person ought to see or hear without having been properly sedated. Mark Twain wrote that when we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. Unfortunately, I've come to that point in my life when much of the time, I don't really care to have an explanation, so the mystery and the madness are just more things I could do without.

Life remains essentially good. if parts are yet unexplained. Other parts of it are tiresome to be sure, but that's always the case. With the start of school came new energy, a shift toward achieving whatever can reasonably be achieved, from keeping whatever jobs one has to trying new things. In our little home we seem to be in constant motion. But it's fun, most of the time. My oldest is now in the marching band and it is as wonderful to watch him enjoy it with the other kids as it is to appreciate how great they sound. The younger one is acclimating to a new school, new feelings, new ways of expressing herself, new routines, growing older and accepting all that comes with that. It's been a time for change to be sure.

I have missed writing. I've had plenty to write about, but not the time, or the quiet, or really the proper space, mental or otherwise. Last week while on a business trip in Hartford, I had a few minutes to walk the grounds of Twain's home, and that of his neighbor Harriett Beecher Stowe. This was a good moment for my tired little soul. I didn't have quite enough time to tour inside either home, so I visited the Stowe center, found my way around the Nook Farm neighborhood, lingered a little in the Twain bookstore (well guarded by a life-size Lego figure of Twain), and stood in a little awe of that famously red Victorian beauty with the deep porch and the atrium in the back filled even today with lots of lush green plants. It suddenly occurred to me that here in this very northern town -- much of my previous day had been replete with Rhode Islanders and the accent that goes with them -- was at home a man born and bred alongside the Mississippi, whose heart was all about riverboats and the songs that go with them but whose mind worked best here in this nook-and-cranny Yankee hub. I had to stop, and admire that. He was at his most prolific there in that Hartford home where he also was beset with such tragedy as might kill the rest of us.

Just before my trip I spent a wonderful weekend in the mid-Atlantic with extended family. They are happy and prosperous. I decided there is no reason not to be. And so setting out on my New England adventure just two days later, I determined my trip should be easy and successful, and it was.

The rest isn't that easy. People are unpredictable, and the things that happen to us, just as unpredictable. We don't wake up expecting to hear good news or bad news or something just so downright stupid that it alters the course of a day. But that's generally what happens. We just forget. And when something good does happen, we don't believe or accept it because we're so used to being suspicious or afraid of our own success.

When I think about someone like Mark Twain, I think too about all the pain he had in his life. He could have been a complete failure, and I think he tried for this a number of times. But his humor and his enormous passion never let him down. He had an open heart, that man, and a wit to make the most of it. Someday I'd like to visit Hannibal, Missouri to see where he spent the early days of his life, his formative years. There is something about growing up along the river that changes a person. It makes those of us who did a little bit impossible.

Music, in particular string band music, seems to set right with Twain and other river-bred folks. Although he is a literary man he's got a heartful of my kind of music. He wrote: "When you want genuine music -- music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose -- when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"

Can't say it any better than that, really. And I can't think of anyone to celebrate the notion than the late, great Mr. John Hartford. Here he is, so much younger than I've seen him, with a modern concoction called Steamboat Whistle Blues.

If Hartford and Twain had been contemporaries, I imagine they would have been friends, too. I wish I had such heroes now, but maybe they make better muses.

Another Year Taller

Tomorrow when I wake up, my baby girl will be nine years and one hour old.

Kids are the greatest lesson ever invented. As my mother warned both my sister and I, having a daughter is the most amazing challenge and gratifying experience a mother can have. So far her words have been proven true. Headstrong like every other woman in my family (and after a few in her dad's too!), she definitely marches to the beat of her own drum. For pretty much every minute of the last nine years, she's kept me on my toes, even when she wasn't right under my nose (or feet).

Now she is truly coming into a new age, a silly, leggy skinny thing with a voice we all recognize as a cross between Greta Garbo and Ed Asner. She somehow dances along with the winds of fate. By that, I mean, on a path paved with bird poop, she is humming and dancing along to the tune in her head (it could be anything, really) and still manages to miss the poop every time. Lordy if only we all had that skill.

Blessings on you, little one, getting taller every day. I know you'll stay forever young.

Judge Not

A man rejects the opportunity to be near his father while his mother lay dying. Years later he chastises his father for living.

We all have had the misfortune of bumping into the occasional self-appointed Moral Arbiter of the Universe. Mark Sanford is my recent favorite public persona of this unbecoming dread archetype. Sanford, a blistering right-winger from the deep Bible belt, campaigned vigorously against the Stimulus package and rejected the funds that his citizens sorely needed. He also vocally led the impeachment cry when Clinton had his missteps. And now he’s a weeping mess, all strung out over his soul mate while his political career disintegrates before our eyes.

Eventually, we all have to pay the price, and for some it will be steep. The process of projecting our mistakes, our choices, our misshapen values and secret lives onto the real lives of others happens all the time when we are troubled or uncomfortable. I’ve been either subject or witness to this phenomenon more frequently in the last several months and when I realize what’s happening, it literally turns my stomach.

Recently I had been called to petit jury duty, but was never asked to report. While I was a little disappointed, I was more relieved. The idea that a stranger’s guilt or innocence might depend on my ability to judge him or her based on evidence, and not circumstance, was worrisome. The juror has only the facts presented to work with, or so I assume. But that wouldn’t stop me from wanting to understand the mitigating circumstances, the whole picture. For some, the whole picture amounts only to a sliver of what the rest of us might see, but it’s the sliver that they know best and so therefore it’s become their truth -- the limiting belief upon which they hang their decisions. If we all continued to limit ourselves to our own perspective in such a way, we might still be convinced the world is flat.

As I get older, the one thing of which I am quite certain is how uncertain I am about most things. My dear son gets quite vexed with me when I tell him I’m not sure what it is I believe about religion. He wants me to declare myself, and I can’t get him to quite understand that certain things are more journey than absolute. I am wary of absolute. There really are very few things that fall into that category, and I would wager most of my belongings that our frail human judgment is not one of them.

We have all these recent deaths of famous people who represent various archetypes – the Pitch Man, the Iconoclastic American Beauty, the Tormented Artist, the Star Athlete (sorry, I can’t really think of one for Karl Malden) and then we have the figurative death in Mark Sanford’s career and the death of the traditional Southern GOP platform with it. As disgusted as I was by some of these, I never once felt the urge to pontificate as I might have even a few short years ago. Who the hell am I to do so? I’m nobody, and everybody, plenty far from perfect. Outside of the guidance I try to provide my kids on the decisions they make as they emerge into adults, I have no control over anyone else’s behavior, nor do I have any claim to authority over it. At the end of the day we all poop about the same (with a few exceptions I’ll spare you here). And we all end up the same, eventually, although opinions vary widely on what happens after that.

A few weeks ago hanging out with my dear family and friends, we dug a good many Indigo Girls tunes. This one is off their latest effort, "Poseidon and the Bitter Bug,' which has acoustic versions of all the tracks. This is one of my two faves, hope you enjoy it, even if the banjo is missing.

By and By

Halleluia the kids and I are getting the hell out of town. there are about a hundred and one things that have been on my mind that I've been wanting to write about, but there just hasn't been the time. So much seems to be going on. But just because I'm trapped in the hamster ball doesn't mean I'm not paying attention, no siree.

Meanwhile this weekend brings a long awaited and very badly needed visit with my dear sister and her family along with some of my best friends, my extended family, people so special to me it's like having an extra couple of siblings. When I get to worrying about things and start to complain I stop and count the blessings in my life. The people I'll be hanging out with this weekend are in the top six.

I miss writing. I miss taking a part a subject that matters, or that matters to me. I miss introducing people to music and artists. But I'll get back around to that. I even picked a bit with my brother and another guy from his band last weekend. Meanwhile it's get through each week and try to enjoy what's around us all. This song goes well with that, It's really right now about the by and by. We all need to let it go and just do what we can each day to get to the next day. By and by, as it were. No drama, just living.

Have a happy Fourth. I'll be celebrating my independence and wishing America a better birthday next year.

All Worth It, for a Night Like This

I've missed this legend every time he's come through Cleveland. And I'm not going to miss him again. As my summer plans turn into what largely constitutes a staycation situation, these are the escapes that keep me in one piece.

If you are unfamiliar with the extraordinary contribution and talent that is Richard Thompson, do check him out.

Tomorrow (June 12), The Kent Stage, 175 East Main, Kent. 8 p.m.

Rearview....Clear View

Now. Tell me how many of you really did NOT see Susan Boyle's breakdown coming?

For the last week or so I've been reminded why I don't really hang out with TV anymore. Sure, I miss Keith Olbermann and a few other choice delights, and I do try to remember to plug in for 30 Rock and the occasional episode of somethingorother. But the last week, with the American Idol drama ("Will the REAL gay singer please stand up?"), the Cavs hype, baseball, that Joe and Kate family (honestly, I didn't know who they were until a friend explained it to me over the weekend) and the hockey frenzy, you really can't swing a hard-cover book without smacking someone who's all uptight about something that happened not in their life but that they watched on TV.

Poor Susan Boyle. Exhausted? No shit. So am I, by America's endless, driven hunger for bullshit. A genuine bonfire of vanities. So much of it so meaningless. I know that a lot of people really enjoy that but the degree of real despair over one or more of these televised events is what disturbs me.

I wonder if that's what got Susan in the end. Suddenly pushed over the precipice of success, she was driven nearly mad by the demand to continue to perform. The world of the unsung flung its Shadow over Susan, the great hope of the underdogged talent, but she withered under its tremendous weight. It's not the first time we've seen this happen. She's lucky she got off the ride when she did. Just today there was news of more Marilyn Monroe photos. Will we ever let that poor, miserable woman rest in peace? I bet I know what you're thinking: "Why...so....serious?" Precisely.

If Americans were less concerned with other people and their success, if we all just stuck our noses back into our own business and started to dig out of the holes we'd dug for ourselves, what a country this might be. But we continue to be a country of blamers, a society in which nothing is ever really your fault -- it's the fault of your parents, your teachers, your ex, your elected officials, your poor fortune. Some days, I wonder how we manage to wipe our own arses.

Let's stop this. Just for one night, turn off the damn TV and read a book, play with your child, sing a song, WRITE a song, take the dog to the park, make pancakes for your sweetheart for dinner, pick a tune. Make it your life for a change, a life that is genuine and beautiful to you. Quit chasing, waiting for someone else to come along and light up your night, fix your problems, make you happy, let you get away with fooling yourself. Do the work yourself, enjoy the rewards, learn from the pitfalls.

When you look back, at least you'll know, this life was genuinely, authentically, yours.

In My Life

Make A Bee-Line for the Beachland This Thursday

It must be all the pollen in the air because the Dixie Bee-Liners are coming back to Northeast Ohio this Thursday night, June 4, after they warm folks up over at the legendary Ark in Michigan.

These fine folks have so much going for them and have written or co-written some wonderful songs, but last they plowed through Ohio in January, they pulled off some old standards that had me up and outta my seat--in a good way. The Bees also gave themselves permission to dazzle us with some instrumentals so I hope if they're out there they'll do it again! This one, "Walls of Time," is to me, as loyal musically motivated readers will already know, just about my favorite all-time standard time Bluegrass tune. I can't wait to share singing it with pickers somewhere down my own crooked road.

For local folks, visit www.beachlandballroom.com for details on the 8 p.m. show. Y'all check out www.dixiebeeliners.com to find out whether they'll be buzzin' your way during their Textual Activity Tour.

See you there!