Abstractedly Constructs Or Something Else Altogether

When you don't feel well, your life slows down and you find a proverbial bush to hide beneath for a little while, so that you won't be found ( or called or texted ). And in a way it's like your personal electrical system has gone off the grid and your water source comes from a place much closer to home.

I had friends that lived liked this, off the electrical grid, miles outside of town in Taos, NM. I stayed with them a time or two just to get a whiff of what that life must be like. It takes a lot of time for one thing. And it takes some preparation.

And so I forage for food at the grocery, things that will last most of the week. And bring home multiple DVD's from the library. It's no fun being sick and I'm on my 11th day down with a virus that's caused by Chicken Pox, aka Shingles. So I'm tired, so tired, itchy and achey.

But here's the interesting thing that came out of being sick; the altered state of consciousness. There were some very psilocybin moments going on and I wasn't taking in far-fetched meds, simply an anti-viral and Advil.

I had a nice connection with the orange tree outside our door. Yeah I've noticed it before, but I'd never really thought about how it's a living being, living it's life right alongside ours for the past 20 years.

And this; the nat-like bugs that are so attracted to the bathroom, one of them flew around me obnoxiously, I was swatting the air trying to push it away, be gone! Then I realized this; I'm here paying rent on a place, working a job to pay the rent, but this bug is flying around in the air here, in this apartment, rent free. Everywhere the bug goes, its free. The food is free. The water is free. And then I thought, hmmm, there used to be a time like that for humans, you know when all was free. Like how it is when you see guys fishing off the pier and they make a little catch and eat it that night. Free. Sure there's a cost to freedom, maybe it's anarchy-the biggest fish wins. But I started to realize, all the things you're brought up to believe in like; marriage, college a good job, are all in cahoots to this civilization thing called Non-freedom.

So that right there, is what a viral infection can get you....


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Each day now I am a little stronger, feeling better. And it's a good thing because next weekend I go in the studio to record 2 songs. Two songs some of you have heard maybe in the last year; An Affair of the Heart and Somebody's Angel.

Cellist Renata Bratt and I have been collaborating on the string parts via email and phone and I think we've come up with some really good stuff. I'm excited!


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Meanwhiles...

...this photo of Paul came in the mail via our friend Gabriel Voiles yesterday. Paul and I moved to Encinitas in 1994 and he befriended some of the young musicians in the area. One of them was Denver, who was 19 or 20 and in a band called Powerdresser. Denver was about to move to Chicago to hang with some new music friends there, he visited Paul the day before he left. We saw Denver, with his hoodie smiling at us through the window as we sat eating at our local taco shop. That night Denver passed away. Things weren't entirely clear; he had taken acid, and gone for a swim, perhaps had a fallen off the sea-bluff. It was very hard for Paul, he'd felt a real connection with Denver, and it was quite reminiscent of a loss he'd had when he was 19 and his friend Don McNeil (who was a young writer for the Village Voice) died while swimming in a lake and on acid. 

Nonetheless, this is a beautiful photo of Paul. Perhaps it was taken by Denver.

Here's Paul's SD READER story on Powerdresser and that music scene 

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2003/jul/24/lost-powerdresser/