I lost a bunch of people over the covid time span.  None from Covid but from depression.   Depression from the lockdowns, job loss, family loss, economic fallout.  Some might have an amnesia coming on as some of those times are hard to stomach looking back at them.
One friend confessed the want to suicide and I wrote this for her.  I never told her that it was for her but I did spend 3 hours on the phone talking her off the ledge.  To this day I don’t know if she ever heard it and I’m pretty sure that she doesn’t even know about this blog so…I don’t mind talking about it here.

As a great author once said, “if it doesn’t concern Love or Death it’s probably not worth writing about.”

“Lonely”

How can it be that with all the love around you you could feel so lonely
if only
someone could make it through to you but you keep the world outside
you built that wall too high
now you’re wishing you were Somebody else or with Someone else
I know I tried
to break that wall
But I can’t

you don’t have to be lonely
on your own
you don’t have to go it alone

Stay with me don’t let the screen take your eyes away
don’t be a cell phone slave
because there’s still magic in the day
but the computers can steal it away
You got yourself too high and now you’re wishing you were Somebody else or with Someone else
Don’t keep the world outside
It will do you no good

you don’t have to be lonely
on your own
you don’t have to go it alone

don’t keep the world outside
don’t close your eyes
don’t build that wall so high

you don’t have to be lonely
on your own
you don’t have to go it alone

If tears could only smile
I might see their personalities
they would show themselves to me
before they fall fast and deep

souls of salt
they lay to rest
for here is the place they choose to die
one by one
I watch them go
I watch them go

There a mystery
Only they can explain in their short lives
In the evening is when you can see
the salt tracks left by these water lines

It’s impossible to hide
Once you’ve seen
the evidence of their short lives

souls of salt
they lay to rest
for here is the place they choose to die
one by one
I watch them go
I watch them go

I’m here for you
When you call on me
I’ll come when its time
Tears have a hold on me
I can still feel something of myself

Once when I was 22 I was working at a music store, getting my “chops up” learning how to teach.
Half hour lessons for $18, lots of kids learning on the first hours of their instruments (they would buy the instruments and take lessons at the store).
One day I was introduced to Steve who was 74 and wanted to learn piano.
He said, “I don’t have much time, teach me to play.”

There isn’t anything that will prioritize your time better than the lack of having time.
I had to re-think a lot of my own process, method and diagnosis (my methodology was already shaping into something but I had yet to encounter anomalies like this).

I threw out a lot of things.
Reading, chord voicing, physical dexterity exercises come to mind. I’m sure there were more.

We went “old school” visual. He wanted to learn song X. I converted it to an easy key, reduced the melody and left hand harmonies (rearranging) show it to him, have him play it back with errors, show him again, have him play it back with less errors.

He literally had to tough his way through it until he could manifest it with rhythm but it didn’t matter much because he was
excited. And, he was playing the piano.

It was clunky and messy but he was really into it.
We did songs.
He was happy.
And that’s really the best you’re going to get.

You don’t always have the time to make, create, or teach the ideal, and so you adjust.
Just like life.

Juxtapose writing a book to doing an improvised live stream rant.

A book was first dreamed of.
Then rough drafted.
Then refined and edited.
Then someone else looked at it.
Maybe they made changes and corrections.
Then it was published.
Then people invested hours in reading it to discover something.
Hopefully something important and not trivial.

The live stream:  you turn your phone on and talk to it.

There are people who do “off-the-cuff” talking “stream of thought“ pretty well.

However, they tend to be the ones who have not only read a lot of books but have written some themselves.

Choosing words is an art in itself.

Today marks 6 years since the closing of the Backpage in Lowell, MA.
I was a music director for a nightclub in Lowell Massachusetts that lasted 6 years called the “Backpoge” (2011-2017).
It was a small 100 person capacity club that was tucked down an alley on a canal in the downtown grid, it offered no food, or TVs, well there was one but it was off almost all the time, just drinks and bands.
1300 shows later it closed its doors for reasons I won’t get into here. But, If you’ve been a witness to the great intersections of many people (bands) patrons (music lovers) and circumstances, in this case, a club just “out of the way” enough to not attract the wrong kind of attention, then you know that such things, historically, don’t last for that long. The flash and they sizzle, they become and embody “the thing.” And then they promptly roll over and die.
But we had a a lot of fun there while it was alive…

Woke up this morning
And my world had changed
I was feeling a little lovesick for the early days
Everyones got a lifeline
They hold onto when the sea gets rough again
But can you tell me what kind of trouble you’re living in

Cause I’d believe in you if you think I could
And if I asked you to do the same for me i know you would

Get back living in the track of a runaway train
Still enough time to turn your world on a dime
Get back stand real tall remember
Be proud of all the good you’ve done

Positive vibration is all you need
That’s what Mr. Bob Marley gave to me
Being lovesick
Might bring you down
You got to do what you can to pick your ass up off the ground

Cause I’d believe in you if you think I could
And if I asked you to do the same for me i know you would

Get back living in the track of a runaway train
Still enough time to turn your world on a dime
Get back stand real tall remember
Be proud of all the good you’ve done

 

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Likes/Views/Streams…numbers.

There’s a large group of people that go to what they think is popular, only because it’s popular. It’s that group that goes to the Phish show that don’t know any of the songs they just want to be with the crowd, or maybe the boys that follow the girls to the Ariana Grande concert…because that’s where the girls are.

But how do you convince people that you’re more popular then you really are?  You buy and in the virtual world everything is for sale especially the conception of popularity.   It’s been going on for a long time but it’s expanded to new heights, whether or not its the bots on twitter, or the fake followers on instagram…

Popularity is for sale, and the higher the price only the richest can play, and so the less interesting the art becomes.
(Not because there are no interesting rich people, just that most of them didn’t become rich by being artists)

Some of the adds I get on a daily basis:

Singing “Mess around” (Ray Charles) with French pianist Jeremy Hababou.

 

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