I Had A DreaM:

I have finally made it out to the east coast for a visit. I'm visiting Ani DeFranco somewhere near Boston. There is a middle aged male friend of hers there and a female friend who is in a lab coat, I presume she is a doctor. I have brought Paul along and he sits quietly on the couch while the rest of us talk about art and artists.

I say to Ani, "I don't know why we didn't meet before, seems like we have a lot of friends in common." She says we did meet in New York City before her first album. I'd met a lot of artists in the mid to late 80s when I lived in New York so, I think, this could be the case.

We sip on herbal ice tea's in tall thin glass's that her female friend has brought in. "Do you think Paul would like one", she asks. "Looks like he's sleeping now, so no", I say noticing that Paul has slumped over on the couch and is taking up most of it. I think its kinda odd but nice that Ani's room has two sofa's, one of them a long rectangle the other one a large L shape. Half the perimeter of the room is lined soft sofa's.

I try to sit Paul up and ask him if he wants something to drink, but he pulls away and plops back down into the softness of the L couch. "Do you want to come see what I'm working on, I've been doing some work with charcoals?" I'm interested, and think about how much I liked Bob Dylan's book of drawings back in the 90s.

"Sure, I'd love to see them, but I don't think it's wise to leave Paul alone..," he stirs a little and tries to sit up as he hears his name. I think to myself 'what was I thinking bringing him out here, he would have been much more comfortable back at the nursing home, but I thought he'd like to see his family. I don't even remember how the hell we made it through the flight and the airport, that must have been so awful that I don't remember it.'

"He might get confused about where he is....," I try to explain. Ani's friend, the doctor who is administering a medical drip to the middle aged man says she can help. "I've got plenty of Haldol here," she pulls out white packets of the stuff. "If you're concerned about him getting out of line this can help." Grasping at something to help me with Paul I agree. She pulls out a fresh packet and I get Paul to stand up. "She's going to give you something that will help you feel better Paul," I say. It turns out the 'pill' is a spray she puts up his nose. It's quick and it's done.

Were walking down the hall now and I'm thinking 'crap, wait a minute, this is the stuff they gave Paul in the hospital during his brain injury and he came unglued one night. The nurses staff had threatened to put him in an emergency Four Lock, which were cuffs to hold his arms and legs down to the bed.'

But the time in the art room looking at Ani's finished and rough sketches is mostly uneventful. With this exception: Ani's doctor friend says to me, "You must know I've been reading your blog about Paul," she looks at me momentarily then busy's herself with straightening the pills and appliances on her nurses cart. "I've taken the liberty to talk to some publishing houses and there is an offer for your book at Harcourt". I look at her dumbfounded, then turn away and wipe away my tears. We head back toward the rectangular sofa room.

As we enter the sofa room I say to the nurse, "You know I'd forgotten that Paul doesn't usually do well with Haldol, but so far so good. Right Paul?" He grunts and then suddenly lunges at me, picking me up like a five pound bar bell. He doesn't throw me like I think, he actually places me down gently on the other side of the couch then rips open my shirt. Ani and her friends scramble around trying to decide what to do. They finally pry me away from Paul and we leave the room with Paul lunging for the closing door.

* * *

It's another day. Same room but our perspective is from above looking down. We see Paul scribbling something on the wall. His mind is working quickly and his hand is a blur as it writes down a series of glyphs. He has a tattered old tome of a book next to him with similar glyphs.

Ani's middle aged male friend comes into the room. He sees what Paul has been writing and his face goes white. "My god man, what are you doing." Paul smiles and points at a repeating line of symbols. "Where did you get....this, there's no way you could understand", says the ashen faced man. Paul looks at him fiercely and slowly sounds out "eee lau loo, eee lau loo...."

"No, no! exclaims the man, "Dear God, You have broken the code!".

The End.

"This is a work of fiction, and all names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s dream-time or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual medications or locales, sofa's, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental."

Visions and Visitations

For many years as a writer Paul loved hearing from his readers, he still has overflowing files of both email and traditional mail. The interesting thing is that the fan letters addressed all of his writing subjects equally. The Das Energi readers would feel like he'd changed their lives with his practical philosophy. The Bob Dylan Performing Artist readers felt like his series had more minute details of Dylan's artistry. The Philip K Dick fans knew Paul had been Phil's friend and, after his death, the estate's literary executor and no one knew as much as Paul did about what was "in the vault". Paul also had fans of his general writing on rock and roll some of them became regular correspondents and friends and Paul would mentor them-encouraging them to write for the newer 1990s CRAWDADDY!

It always drew a great feeling of wonder out of me watching him juggle these various writings and careers. When he had his brain injury in 1995 his brain surgeon asked me what kind of work Paul had done, I told him about all the varieties of activities he did each day and the doctor said, " He won't be juggling these careers anymore, but because of his intelligence he could probably handle losing a few brain cells better than the next guy." Paul was able to juggle pretty well after all.

A month after he came out of the hospital and he was still in out-patient rehab Paul was offered a job as music editor for a new high fidelity glossy zine out of the bay area. As I recall I answered the first call to the publisher and told him about Paul's recent injury. He asked Paul to call him and he offered him the job and that was that. Paul held the position for almost a year and it paid well. For the first time we were able to afford to buy a few things. We got a video monitor to play video's but not a TV, Paul paid a friends wife to set up his new computer and get his books for sale on line, we bought a Cannon camera, and we went to Europe. Within a year he was fired from the magazine.

Only five months since his injury and we were flying to Frankfurt and attending its annual book convention and Paul doing a full fledged lecture tour on Dylan and the Rolling Thunder shows. It was nuts. But it worked and he did an amazing job as a speaker.

I somehow knew that if Paul could get back into his way of life quickly he wouldn't have time to ruminate on what had happened to his brain. And getting the attention for his writing, via a lecture tour, gave him some positive strokes. And in Europe he had full houses of listeners, fans of his words and ideas.

* * *

It used to be visitations from fans and distant friends were a positive reinforcement for Paul and reminded him of his relevance as an author, business partner and friend. Now, he has forgotten not so much who he is but what made him feel satisfied, after the writing was done. The friendships and new adventures, the discussions and disagreements, the flirtations and the admirers.

Now, as his caregiver, I 'm at a crossroads. This past month he has had a bevy of visitors. Very suddenly for some reason. All very lovely people. And they've wanted to visit their friend, family member or the Great Man. And I've watched him carefully to see how to handle these requests in the future.

What I've observed is that he is having difficulty remembering friends he made in the past seven years or folks he only marginally knew. For instance, he doesn't remember becoming a member of our local UCC church. He doesn't remember the family we befriended and have traded child care with on a weekly basis since 2003. He knows he knows them somehow, but doesn't remember the how.

He does remember his family. His two grown sons Taiyo and Kenta who both came to visit him this month, and was very happy to see them. He remembers most of his history, when I ask him pointed questions about CRAWDADDY! , but doesn't remember enough to help a Dylanologist who came to ask Paul a few questions for his own Dylan book.

I can see now that some of these folks confound Paul's memory of himself. He wonders out loud are they related to him or how does he know them, though he'd agreed to see them ahead of time. So for this reason, with the exception of long time friends and family I'm telling Paul's fans that he is not up for the visit.

So much of what Paul wanted to say to everyone is in his books, almost 30 to choose from. And as he once said to me, "I am writing these words for my future readers. When I write I can feel their presence". And I believed him to be telling the truth.

Letter To A College Student

"Hi Cindy Lee, Still I wonder what has been your experience as a woman in the music industry as it is predominately occupied by men? Gender and women's journeys since the right to vote and then some prior has been the picture of this coursework. You've come a long way baby! What's memory of you standing up for your powerful femininity shall you share, my love?"

* * *

I'm not sure what I have to say about it these days. I'm so out of the loop of the music business now. I worked very hard for many years, putting my music work before all else then when Paul had his brain injury accident in '95 things started to slip. Maybe they slipped before...who knows.

My first album came out Nov. of 1987, I went on the road and the whole thing began to take off, in an underground kind of way. I had been courted by Rhino Records since 1985 and it took over 2 years for the negotiations and their offer to come about and things started cranking for women in music by then. Suzanne Vega's first album came out in 85. Then Sinead's came out in mid 87. By the time my album came out two other women songwriters in my area, Los Angeles, also had albums released, Victoria Williams and Lucinda Williams. It seemed like we were compared alot in those early years. We were all informed by Americana type music, folk music, rock and roll somehow.

By 1990 my second record had come out but the indie music world had changed and was fueled by indie boy bands that had a tube-distortion-pedal sound, so it was harder to find a place for me on the college radio circuit. I had to find a new record company too. I had a manager guy that carted me from one company to the next only to hear stuff like "You should sound more like Liz Phair" or "Your music sounds like christmas music" or just plain old "I don't get it ". It's true my sound had changed in the years since the Rhino releases I had rediscovered the music of my youth, the Beach Boys, and had uncovered the hidden music of Brian Wilson (SMiLE, Surf's Up, etc.). While living in Taos, NM for five months I'd had a dream that directed me to go home to San Diego and write music with love in it. I had a vision that I ought to use orchestral instrumentation and then... Garage Orchestra was born. Certainly not 'womens' music and didn't sound like Liz Phair, or grunge, maybe there was a little christmas aspect to it.

Though I've written songs like Damn I Wish I Was a Man, I can't say that I've tried to come across as political or topical. There have been times where a song like this has popped out suddenly and then I'm a 'topical songwriter' again in some eyes.

I have to admit that I've, at times, gotten some attention for being a female songwriter when some of my male counterparts couldn't get the time of day. Wearing a little black dress, combat boots and singing Damn I Wish.....Man got me some attention to be sure. But in other ways it was a struggle being a girl musician. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like women have to be better vocalists then men songwriters do. I never wanted to sound like any other female singer but I've been told over and over by music executives that that is the game. Maybe, if I could I would...but who told Bob Dylan, Neil Young or Lou Reed to sound like Perry Como?

I love some of the great female rock singers like Patti Smith, Chrissie Hynde, Byork (sp), Jefferson Airplane. I never tried to sound like anybody else however, I just never learned how to do that. I'm okay with my own weird sound, but it would have made me a few more bucks I think, if I'd had the pipes of Sheryl Crowe or Lady Gaga.

Now I'm in a place where I can accept what tiny bit of success I've had and except the loss's without feeling regret. I've also made some tough decisions along the way that took me away from the single minded, purpose driven, career carpool lane. I helped my husband Paul gain his strength and confidence after his injury in 1995, I had a child in 2001 and have made my life with him a major focus. And, I did everything in my power to try to help Paul keep from falling into what we now know is early onset of dementia. Trying out different suppliments and vitamins, anti depressants, anti dementia pharmaceuticals, exercise and various health regiments. Only to find none of these could hold back the flood gates. Eventually I came to see that the disease was winning. If I hadn't taken the time to help Paul I would have felt lousy that I hadn't tried to make him okay.

So maybe I gave up a few years there, did the mommy track, played nurse. I'm older now and I don't give a Flyin' Rats Ass that I don't sound a thing like Celine Dion. That's the beauty of gettin' on and doing things your own way.

Hope that helps you Shell, clb

The Pleasure of Ruins

Earthquake update: I was at a kids/parents Easter party today at 3:40 here in Encinitas. We'd played 2 hours of super-soft ball (with a tennis ball) and we were setting up dinner at a friends home. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when a feeling of vertigo came over me and I thought, 'wow, I'm woozy, low blood sugar, better get something to eat soon' then it occurred to me that it was a rolling earthquake. It lasted almost a minute and felt like I was on a boat on rocking seas. The sensation was very much like an inner ear infection I endured in 1999 where I had a sustained sense of vertigo and always felt like I was on a gently moving boat. The kids were playing Foosball and none of them felt a thing. Young Jake said he knew something was amiss when he saw the kitchen chandelier swinging.

When I came out of the bathroom I expected a lot of excited talk but it took a few minutes for the other parents to realize what had just happened, everyone looked a little disoriented. The pool water was still sloshing about. Then we had dinner checked the news and saw that it had actually been quite a big quake, 7.2 just south of Mexicali.

I grew up in Southern California and my first awareness of earthquake action wasn't the quake itself, rather its after effects. I must have been about 3 or 4 years old when my parents took me on a drive to view the damage to a dam in the Silver Lake district. It had a big crack in it and the water was gone. I remember hearing the news reports of flooding on the big boulevards. We drove around the lake singing "One little fishy and a mama fishy too....and they swam and they swam all over the dam.." The idea of a big cement thing like a lake breaking was a stunning visual realization at age 3.

Perhaps that dam bursting was the beginning of my fascination with cataclysms. By age ten I was playing guitar and writing my first song, Cretaceous Times, an ode to the demise of the dinosaurs. Twelve verses and a one line refrain..."So had come an end to Cretaceous Times"...which outlined the three or four popular theories on why the dinosaurs went extinct so quickly. I had made a dinosaur file in my desk which summed up the variety of fossils found and sound bites on the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

It kept my mind off of things at home, reading about far away time periods and cataclysmic events beyond my control. In some ways those times were more under my control then my own life, I could read for as long as I liked and then put the book down and be done. This I could control.

After I'd satiated my interest in dinosaurs I found archaeological sites to be a new passion. My favorite sites of destruction were Pompeii, Easter Island and Troy. Like visiting the broken Los Angeles dam of my youth, I got a jolt of electricity from reading about ancient ruins, cities and societies of people that once existed and no longer were.

Then I wrote my second song, Pompeii, which became a family hit. Much later, In the mid 90s I opened a Largo show for the wonderful producer/entertainer Jon Brion and he asked me to join him during his set and play my first song. I played Pompeii and the audience went nuts. It was still a hit.

When I was eight years old my mother died in October, just before Halloween. I remember the time period well because my dad bought me a shopping bag full of ghosts, witches and ghouls to hang around grandma's house in Laguna Beach. Two significant things came to my attention just prior to her death one of them was a program on Dr. Leaky and the work he was doing in the Oldivai Gourge with the excavation of the newly discovered Australopiticus skull. And a program about Stone Henge.

A few months after my mother died dad picked me up from Grandma's house and drove me home: past Los Angeles ( Griffith Park pony rides), past the Tar Pits, over the Ridge Route (Techachipi Mountains), through Bakersfield and into Delano, I had a revelation of sorts. I decided that my mother had been an archaeologist working at an important ancient American Indian site and had contracted Valley Fever (sometimes called San Joaquin Fever) a fungal disease that can live dormant in the dust for years, and died a noble death in the line of work, while digging up ancient artifacts. I read * recently that this kind of myth making is common in children that lose a parent.

My mother wasn't an archaeologist, I came to understand, but I loved ruins just the same. There's something lovely, serene and sad and compelling about them all at once. So long as they stay 'long ago and far away' and disappear when you put the book down.

*The Loss That Is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father by Maxine Harris, Ph.D.

The Murky Ever Rolling River

Noooo, ALEX CHILTON gone? Only, 59. So sad, some of my favorites gone this year, Jim Carroll too. I met Alex at a show in DC, opening for him in 1991. That night I sang my new song, Song For Brian which is a love song for Brian Wilson, and dedicated it to Alex. He then dedicated a Beach Boys song to me. Back stage we talked about our signs, he a Capricorn and how that didn't fair too well with Gemini, me. He was very sweet kinda flirtatious and it was a great show.

A friend of mine that is in the middle of a relatively amicable divorce said to me, "Now that I'm dating again I'm gonna have to ask any serious contenders to get a physical, guys can start dropping like flies in their 50s if they don't take care of themselves." And in response I said, "Madonna was questioned recently about why she dates men so much younger than her 51 years and she said 'Have you seen men my age?' ".

Okay, I'm thinking I've got a husband in a nursing home and when I do start dating....again. Well, do I go the younger route or the older. A few years ago I was hanging out backstage at a Patti Smith show and I said to my friend, her guitarist Lenny Kaye, 'Is she with that young guy in your band?' And he said yeah, they had a special thing. And I thought, that's nice, that's what I want when I'm in my 50s.

But I love those old guys from the 1960s American Renaissance. Like Paul, Alex Chilton, Jim Carroll. Take care of yourselves. Dang. Maybe this is why it's the women that are the elders in old native American culture.

Which brings me to something in Chinese medicine called Jing and the three treasures. According to Ron Teeguarden's book RADIANT HEALTH: The Ancient Wisdom of the Chinese Tonic Herbs, there are three treasures in the human body. Jing, Qi, and Shen. Jing is the superior treasure, "and existed before the body existed and this Jing enters the body tissues and becomes the root of our body". Sometimes its called essence, when it runs low we are forced to tap into our original Jing reserves, which can become so depleted that it runs out and the person dies. It goes on to suggest we take care of ourselves on a daily basis taking care of our daily immediate energy called Qi. And then Shen is our spiritual energy.

So get enough sleep (I tell myself). I know I'm ranting, I'm feeling the final throes of a cold and too bored to do nothing, too low energy to get busy.

I'm sad about Alex Chilton. When I last saw him it was 1997 in Charleston West Virginia, we were both on a live broadcast radio show. I was out on the road touring across the country and had been booked on the NPR radio show called Mt. Stage with Alex C., John Prine, and Jill Sobule. I played a new song of mine, Antarctica on keyboard that night and my 1996 single, High Jump. I remember Alex being distant and sullen after the radio performance, I thought he wasn't feeling well so I left him alone.

I'd flown Paul in from San Diego for a few nights, we went out to dinner with the shows producer before the taping began and he and Paul got along really well. The next day we drove up to Wheeler and caught a Bob Dylan show and my friend Elizabeth slipped away mid show and next thing I know she's on stage sitting under Dylan's shadow watching the master up close (until a roadie caught on and whisked her away). Then Paul flew home and we got on with the tour.

Alex Chilton I am with you in Memphis digging the soul of the land,

I'm with you in youth crazy with too much too quick sudden crazy fame,

I am with you on the long dark drive of the soul onto the next night show,

I am with you in the stupidity of music business expectations lost gone never existed and enter the new day of Internets dawn,

I am with you in Memphis again at the gates of Elvis eating fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches and puking in the Mississippi River,

I am with you at the Greyhound station where bus driver says to me "only bad girls stay in this town" and I get off the bus sick with strep throat swooning with love for this holy land staggering to the river and back to my shabby hotel,

In my dreams you walk with me bolstering my flagging spirit lifting a lovely melody above the plastic seat of my greyhound up into the sallow yellow of fading light and now/born stars that come to visit again over and over the murky ever rolling river.

Paul Williams: THE BIO-PIC ( Part 2)

I'd like to thank Ben Greenman for the (happy surprise) really nice article on Paul and the Beloved Stranger blog at the New Yorker website:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/goingson/2010/03/mind-and-matter.html

Now on with the show....

15. Paul sez “Jon Landau, certainly one of the best and most influential critics of the rock era, debuted as a rock writer in the fifth issue of CRAWDADDY!, September 1966. Paul now back in Boston was going to Club 47 three nights a week and hunting down rock and roll shows where ever he could,the rest of the week. Flipping for bands like The Animals’ two hour show at Rindge Tech, The Rolling Stones at Boston Garden and Lynn Football Stadium, The Beatles at Suffolk Down “plainly audible, beautiful to look at, and confirmation that we—and I—existed as a special body of people who understood the power and the glory of rock ‘n’ roll.”

16. Between the fifth and sixth issues Paul took a 2,200 miles “mostly business trip”, hitchhiking from Boston to New York, Cleveland to Chicago, and Wisconsin and back. In Chicago on a blues fan’s pilgrimage Paul stopped at Chess Records’ recording studios which resulted in a full page ad in CRAWDADDY! and an assignment to write the liner notes for new albums (each called More Real Folk Blues) for artists like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Sonny Boy Williamson. When Paul gets back to Boston a local magazine distributor has ordered 2,000 copies of the sixth issue, which now has a print run of 2,800 copies (up from 1,500 copies of the previous issue).

17. CRAWDADDY! moves to New York. Paul writes in The Crawdaddy Book (Hal Leonard), “The new office was a big second-floor room overlooking Greenwich Village (I used to spend a lot of time sitting on the ledge of a large open window with headphones on, watching the endless parade of people walking across Sixth Avenue and Third Street). The room had previously been a guitar shop called Fretted Instruments, and the walls were pleasantly lined with natural-looking pine planks installed by the former tenant. All of us (additional staff persons came along soon) did much of our work on a huge table in the center of the office. There was a small back room with no windows (halfway up the stairs from the street) where Tim (Jurgens the assistant editor also from Boston) and I slept.” An article was written in the Village Voice of CRAWDADDY’s arrival, it was just the beginning of a lot of press attention.

Paul Williams: THE BIO-PIC ( Part 1)

1. Film begins with footage of the first atomic bomb. Parents meet and fall in love at Los Alamos both employed by the Manhattan Project under Oppenheimer. Robert Williams a young physicist, is invited to come watch the detonation of the worlds first atomic bomb. Women are not allowed near the test site but Paul’s mother Janet and a girlfriend sneak away and drive down to White Sands where they watch the exposion, from a safe distance, hidden behind boulders.

2. Paul was brought up in Cambridge but lived a short year of his childhood in Princeton where his dad taught Physics….at age 5 Paul was left to “babysit” his 2 younger brothers and decided to walk them several streets from home to a library. His youngest brother changed his mind midway while crossing a busy intersection and refused to budge. A friend of the family happened by and scooped up and saved the 3 young children. Janet, Pauls mother said “Paul was so mature at that age, he seemed fully capable of caring for his brothers”.

3. Paul teaches himself to read at age three while looking at old 78 RPM records. His father said he was tired of reading the names to him and Paul taught himself the names. By age 4, it is said, Paul would read the New York Times while being driven to nursery school.

4. Paul, age 5, writes a note to his mother one day “ Dear Mom, I have gone to Clinton’s house, but don’t be surprised if I’m home, because Clinton may not be home”. She sends it to the New Yorker where he has his first piece of writing published in the Talk of the Town column under the title “Logician”.

5. According to family legend, by third grade it is discovered that Paul has an exceptional mind and is given an IQ test, the score is 180. His parents move him to a private grammar school in Cambridge. He has trouble fitting in at school no matter where he goes and once admitted that kids called him “spaz” because his hand would fly up for every question.

6. In sixth grade Paul starts a newspaper, The Sunlight Herald.

7. At 15 he attends his first Science Fiction convention, soon after he starts a Science Fiction Fanzine called “Within”.

8. Age 16, Paul graduates from Browne and Nichols and decides to go to Swarthmore College. According to his mother he’d been offered a full scholarship from Stanford, where his father and grandfather had both graduated, but he turned it down… “I didn’t want to be lured into the whole bay area music scene, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on my school work.”

9. Paul becomes a DJ for the Swarthmore radio station. Paul has an argument, a disagreement in philosophy class with his professor, the man gets so riled up he threatens to kick Paul out of the class. Then Paul begins his first issue of CRAWDADDY Magazine from his dorm, two fellow college students contribute to the first issue. The name CRAWDADDY! came from Paul’s admiration of the UK music club where the Rolling Stones got their start.

10. After the first mimeographed copy of CRAWDADDY! is printed, Paul gives away as many copies as he can by hand, he receives a phone call at his dorm from Paul Simon who thanks him for his wonderful writing on the single “Homeward Bound” and praises him for writing intelligently about rock and roll.

11. One day while walking into his dorm a student yells out “Hey Williams! You got a phone call from Bob Dylan”. Dylan had read the latest issue of CRAWDADDY! and liking it invited Paul to come and hang out back stage at a show on the Blonde on Blonde tour. He also offers Paul an interview.

12. While attending Swarthmore Paul heard that his friend Richard Farina had died (Paul met him at a club in Philly where he was gigging and asked Richard for permission to reprint some of his writing in CRAWDADDY!, they hit it off) … there was to be a funeral for him in Carmel, CA. Hoping to catch a free ride on a cargo plane Paul is stopped in the airport and confronted by a Philadelphia police officer who calls him a hippy. A few hours later Paul is in jail and the next day in court for assaulting a cop. Paul told me the whole thing got thrown out when they realized that as he said “my glasses assaulted the cops fist.”

13. Unable to concentrate on his school work at Swarthmore…he moves back in with his mother in Belmont, MA where he starts his fourth issue of CRAWDADDY!, issue five would include writings by Jon Laundau a clerk at the local record store, Briggs And Briggs. Landau becomes someone that Paul would consult on music and current record releases. At some point Paul’s grandfather decides CRAWDADDY! is a good investment and pumps a little money into the paper, encouraging his grandson to start a business like he had, he’d manufactured a device called “the sniffer” which sniffed out gas leaks.

14. Issue number 4 had Bob Dylan on the cover with a now widely reprinted article called “Understanding Dylan”. Paul ambitiously takes handfuls of copies of CRAWDADDY! to sell at the 1966 Newport Folk Festival where Jack Holtzman of Elektra Records bought a complete set. Elektra was to begin advertising in CRAWDADDY! with the next issue. There is a well known picture of Howlin’ Wolf performing at the festival that year, the photo includes a clear image of Paul behind him. He is also seen in the film “Festival” dancing with a young black woman during Wolf’s set.

Hazy With A Patch of Stars

Alexander and I took the binoculars out last night and did a little amateur night sky observing. Nearly at the zenith, Mars lolls about between constellations, it's rosy light bright enough to obscure nearby stars. In the south I show Alexander the constellation of Orion. At age nine,a year older than he is now, I found a deep love for the winter sky and in particular the 3 stars that make up the belt of Orion. On a childhood vacation by car from California to the Texas Panhandle, I watched those same stars whiz by the trees and snow capped hills we passed late at night. Past weird signs promoting Mystery Spots and Rabbits with Antlers, past Meteor Craters and Lands of Enchantment. I didn't know that cluster of stars had a name just yet and so I gave them a name myself, Omar, which I believe came from a mysterious character in a Nancy Drew book.

A year later, in summer school i took a science class and found out those stars were from a grouping of stars that make up the constellation of Orion. I fell in love with Astronomy that summer and took my fathers Navy issue binoculars out every night for a look.

It was amazing what you could see with binoculars. Those little stars and fuzzy patches puffed right up to big fuzzy blobs. I made drawings of what I saw and kept files in my desk of my nightly observations. Then I got a book called The Field Guide To The Night Sky and read about telescopes. I looked at the pictures of what you might see with a good scope and the naked eye and realized I'd been looking through the binoc's all wrong. The images hadn't been in focus. I'd made big hazy out of focus blobs in all of my drawings. When I finally figured out how to properly use the binoc's I was disappointed with the results. The stars looked like slightly brighter dots. Big deal.

Then for christmas I got a telescope from Santa. It wasn't very powerful, but it was a lot better than the binoculars. I found out the scope was a refractor and later if I wanted a more powerful scope I'd probably have to go for a reflector (which eventually I did).

I spent countless nights out in front of our house with that 60x Tasco telescope. During the late afternoon I'd sometimes pray, "please God, make the clouds go away and if it be your will make it a clear cloudless night." The best nights were in the winter for sure and of course that's when my favorite constellations came out, Orion, the Dippers, The big and little Dogs, Taurus.

I lived in a small working class town in north central California. Oroville had been a goldrush boom town, then a railroad town and by the time we lived there it was just coming on to it's next boom time with the "world's largest earth filled damn" being completed in 1968. We were there when the lake started to fill up and all the old roads that were down below a certain level of the hills, and all the old grave sites and tiny towns and mines were completely covered with water. It was weird seeing those things disappear, looking at the full lake and knowing their were lives that had been spent in places now submerged.

Their were a few songs that played in my head and on the radio a lot that year. "Honey" by Bobby Goldboro, which was a sad story about a man who plants a tree with his wife and it grows up and so do their kids and then the wife dies. I'd watch the blurr of pine trees go by the car window and get all chocked up in my own world in the back seat. And another Bobby, Bobby Gentry sang "Tallahatchee Bridge" and we'd pass over the big new bridge that took us over a large tributary of Lake Oroville. Other songs that I remember, "Games People Play", "Skip A Rope", anything by Johnny Cash, they all made the prospects of growing up into adulthood look, less than desirable. I decided I'd stay a kid, not male not female, and become an astronomer. Or a writer.

I wrote my first story in the fifth grade, Mystery Of The Winding Stream. And my first song, Cretaceous Times was written the same year. When my guitar instructor heard Cretaceous Times with all of it's twelve verses which included the various theories of how the dinosaurs may have died out, he nodded at me and said, "you might want to cut it down to just a few verses". And I thought, 'well, which theory's should be cut, Einstein'. But these are tales for another night, and another chance at a crisp winter viewing of natures lights.

LiScenCe PlAtE EYeS

I don't want to write. I'm tired I'm burned out and I just wanna eat popcorn, dream of a better day, watch an old movie, go to perezhilton.com, any thing but write. But here I am.

I had a great time last night. I had one of those, no need for alcohol-having too much fun anyway-stay up 'til 4am, don't have time for dinner, kind of evenings. Of course I'm talking about going to the Fiftieth Birthday party of my old friend and musical buddy, San Diego's own, Steve Poltz.

If you've never seen a Steve show, here's what I can tell you. You don't want to follow his act. He's the kind of entertainer that makes folks like John Doe say (as he did to me a few years back), "I never want to go on after Poltz again, the audience was completely done for the night." Even wild man Mojo Nixon, another San Diegan, with a radio show on Sirius called The Loon In The Afternoon, looked nervous last night performing his newly penned song called Steve Poltz Is An Old Motherfucker. And offered the audience this warning, "I'm 53, and look at me, Steve Poltz is gonna look just like this in a few years. Of course the women all love Steve now. Just wait 'til he looks like this," and his hand fans the air around his extended sweating torso.

And things went off from there. With cameo performances by many of San Diego's musical Illuminati, including a bit of harmony from me on one Steve's new songs. The list of hangout friends last night was enormous...I haven't seen some of these folks for ages. Which bespeaks volumes on how out of the zone my life became in the last 10 years. I'm just a local ol timer kid, but I had my dey in Rolling Stone and MTV. Whatever.

Old and new friends in attendance...Stevie P, Gregory Page, Lisa Sanders, Marcia Claire, Dr. Paula, The Rugburns, Berkeley-Hart, AJ Croce, Anya Marina, Mojo, Java Joe, Frank Drennen, Mike Halloran, .....etc etc etc

* * *

Paul is getting his new hearing aids this week. The nursing home has taken responsibility for their loss and ponied up for the bill. Or at least, they say they'll pay.

A few weeks ago the Hearing Aid place called me and said: "We checked Paul's hearing and made molds for his new hearing aids but his ears are enormously clogged." I had asked the nursing staff at the home to clean his ears 3 months ago when he got his brand new hearing aids, you know, the ones that the home just lost, and they said "yes, we put the drops in".

Well hell, I can put the damn drops in. Don't they know how to wash them out with the water pump thingy? No, they don't know that way. So I take him to Kaiser and have the real nurses clean his ears. It takes a whole hour, with me helping hold his head straight, to get the gunk out. It's not surprising then that, now even without his hearing aids, he actually kind of hears normal pitched speaking. A minor miracle.

I'd like to go off on a screed now about Health Care, and the plus' and minus' of human corporeality, and the virtues of sharing a bill last week with the legendary Jim Kweskin. But I'm 'completely done for the night'. x's and o's, clb

(photo credit: Tori N. Porter)

Lost and Found

Before we start I'd like to put out a little request. If you are someone that is or has cared for a loved one in or out of a nursing facility I"d love to hear your comments. Several of you have written to me by email about your experiences and I'd love it if you felt free to talk about them here. It has always been my hope from the inception of this blog that we could create a kind of community to support one another through this passage of time....That being said, I'd love to hear about music too.

Lost:

When I was 11 years old my sixth grade teacher discovered I could read (she tested me by making me read 2001: A Space Odyssey, goodie!) she had me borrow a book of hers acquired in college which had classic short stories and I took it home. After a week I'd read about 4 stories and thought the best was a fictional account of Paul Revere's ride narrated by a dentist from that era.

It was Sunday night, I had to take the book back to school the next day but I couldn't find it. It was lost. I'd looked everywhere. I remember that night standing in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror praying that God would send me a sign and help me find the book. I knew it had some sentimental value to the teacher and would be irreplaceable. If God could just give me a sign somehow...Then it happened. I got a headache. I laid on my bed moaning to myself how I'd messed up big time and lost the teachers special book. I was on my bed when my mom came in the room she suggested I go get an aspirin, I did and it turned out the book was on the shelf next to the aspirins. Wow, just like that I was saved. The sign was actually there, the headache was the sign from God I was looking for.

I like it better when the signs from the heavens are non pain inducing.

Found:

After our white German Shepard, Duke, was either stolen or ran away, a new dog started showing up in our yard. We named her Lady. Whenever we'd take the horses out on trail rides up into the hills, going away for hours at a time, she'd come along. She was a yellowy mid size mutt and a happy girl. In contrast Duke had always been somewhat sad and brooding, probably because he'd been abandoned by the previous owners of our house. I imagined Lady to be like those 60s Lassie stories, an irresistible happy go lucky dog that people fell in love with and adopted for a month and then she'd be on her way a rogue at heart, ready for the next adventure.

Her adventure with us included puppies, which were born in the horses tack and feed barn. Within a month we had another surprise our new horse, whom we'd been surprised to find pregnant, foaled and we had a sweet little girl horse to play with after school. A time of abundance. Surprises abounded.

* * *

A week ago a friend of ours here at the blog passed away, . His name was Larry (L.A.) Johnson, he was at home on his houseboat in Redwood City, he was 62. He's picture is still on the list of subscribers.

I met Larry by phone in 2007 when I was organizing a series of shows at the hip Los Angeles venue, Largo. The shows were protesting the war in Iraq and at the same time celebrating the community of musicians that were featured at Neil Young's Living With War website. Several hundred of us had written songs about the war and they were up on the site for folks to listen to, each listen became a "vote" and one of my songs went into the top 10. Then a few months later a mysterious journalist wrote a rave review of the song and signed it RB Warford. Larry told me later it was likely a surprise attack from Neil himself, who apparently likes to cloak himself in the 'garb of the every man and wander amongst the natives'. Of course I was thrilled.

At any rate, Larry brought a film crew down to the first Largo show and interviewed me and some of the other musicians while we were doing our thing. It was alot of fun and I'm told that film still lives there in the official archive next to some valuable piece of Neil performance.

Larry was a film maker that was one of the primary cinematographers on the Woodstock film. I'm pretty sure he also helped film Dylan's film 'Renaldo and Clara'. But for many years, the last 20 or more, he was Neil Young's production manager and friend.

Larry and I stayed friends by email and phone and he was always supportive of my musical efforts and particularly my organizing of benefits, often calling it the "good work". He has a mother with dementia and we talked at times about our loved ones suffering from the condition. He will be missed.

* * *

A week ago Aviara, the nursing home where Paul lives, lost his hearing aids. I've been too upset to write about this. It's confounding, frustrating and infuriating. He can barely hear without them. And they cost a bundle, about two thousand dollars. I'd been afraid of this, so when they were new, before I even took them in, I put Paul's name on them with bright red fingernail polish. Bleh.

I looked through all the drawers all of his dirty laundry, which by the way has been piling up for over a week. I looked under and around his bed. Nowhere.

On Monday I left a message with the "social worker" at the home, I left 2 messages actually, and didn't get a return call. So I went in today and looked some more and brought home the papers to fill out a formal complaint. Whatever.

While I was there someone from the family of Paul's room mate, an elderly man in his 80s, talked with me about her experiences with lost hearing aids. "One was crushed, another set was found in the washing machine, the third and fourth just disappeared", I'm paraphrasing but you get the idea. "A pair specially ordered slippers" lasted a month.

Where do they go?

Things I found this week:

The new song about Haiti (see below), an upbeat email from my friend Lenny Kaye, A few new guitar students, Some chat room time with old friend Lynne Robinson, A new gig for February, My picture in the Taylor magazine arrived today, Some quality time with Paul doing a crossword puzzle together (he didn't have to hear me for that), Paul's son Taiyo will be coming to visit around Easter, Paul's friend Philip K Dick's daughter will be visiting early March, I remembered that I like to play music in front of people last week when I played at Ducky Waddles Emporium, being flirted with by a couple of guys, Alexander is writing a science fiction story.