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Everyone I Love Is Here

10 Oct 2008, 12:06

We all cruise along through life at various levels of awareness. Some of us are acutely aware of every nuance of every situation, and some are clueless about the signals they send out and that they receive in return. I've always leaned more toward the latter category. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered that my world was not working the way I thought it was.

When your world is suddenly not where you expected, you start looking around for it. It's a painful and scary experience, not knowing what's real and what's just a self-imposed delusion, but I'm lucky, because I have people around me who aren't afraid to tell me the truth. They anchor me, and help me fix the problems I create.

And in the midst of all of this, there's music. (As if you expected me to write about travel or architecture...)

One dangerous, yet thrilling, thing about a personal crisis is the new meaning that old familiar songs take on. Suddenly, So Much to Say has a depth I never recognized before; the sassy humor of Ben Folds becomes a defiant rallying cry in Philosophy.

Because the emotions can be so volatile and unpredictable, I actually avoid most of my music during times like these. A few years ago, a line from Cool, Cool River hit me so hard, I had to pull to the side of an English fen road and weep while tractors and little, annoyed cars swerved around me. This week, though, I found a special gift in my collection. Finn Brothers Everyone is Here, a 2004 CD I picked up at the library last year.
What does it mean when
you promise someone
no matter how hard
or whatever may come

It means that I won't give in,
Won't give in...
Won't give in...
'Cause everyone I love is here,
Say it once, and disappear.
-Won't Give InThey have my number; the heart of my problem and the solution wrapped together in less than a stanza. But they go further, too, and in six lines, they manage to describe the root of what I'm feeling:Homesick
For the people that I live with
Homesick
For the spirit I'm missing
Homesick
For the country that I'm living in
-HomesickThe hardest problems to see are the ones that are right in front of you. The missed opportunities to show, not tell, someone how you feel. The conclusions they draw when they compare your actions to your words. I've been so busy wallowing in my own Homesickness, I haven't seen what has been happening in my own best friend's heart.
I've never had the time before
Leaving things where they fell
I was going door to door
Always thinking I was somewhere else

You saw me
And what I could be
And now I know what love is for
It's the only thing sets you free
Must be the luckiest man alive
-Luckiest Man AliveSo now I know all of this. I know what I've done wrong, and how to fix it. I know I'm better off than it seems, and how to make it better. But life is hard, and the road ahead is treacherous. There are no guarantees, only faith in each other.

What am I going to do about it?And I will take my chances
'Cos anything can happen
Don't believe it's over
'Cos anything can happen
-Anything Can HappenThat thought cuts both ways; if anything can happen, that means good or bad. But she deserves my faith; and she's hurting, too. She feels guilty for hurting me, but she had to hurt me to get my attention. I don't imagine it's easy to watch someone grapple with a pain that you think you caused, even if you know that it's no one's fault. It's too easy to waste energy blaming yourself. Fortunately, there's some wisdom here for her, too:
All the mud in this town
All the dirt in this world
None of it sticks on you
(You shake it off)
Cause you're better than that
And you don't need it
No, you don't believe it
-Nothing Wrong With YouIn case there is any doubt about it, the Brothers will say it for me: "I walk along with you/There's nothing wrong with you."

There are a lot of things in this world that are insurmountable. Most people don't come back from the dead, and very few can fly or shoot heat beams from their eyes. But there is no reason to give up, not when there is love like ours in the world, and musicians to remind us.A chance is made
A chance is lost
I carry myself to the edge of the earth.
-Won't Give In

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My First EP release

6 Oct 2008, 03:22

Long ago, in another life, I was a community college music student. One of my favorite experiences was the Electronic Studio class, which put me in a lab with a half dozen of the top-of-the-line keyboards, sound manipulators, and Macintosh sequencing programs available in 1992.

Before leaving that life to enlist in my new one, I made a couple of cassette recordings. Last week, I found those cassettes, and since my sense of humor is so much more developed than my sense of self-respect, I decided to post some of those recordings online:

No One Called Larry - Old School EP

At the time, I was listening to a lot of varied stuff; from Peter Gabriel to Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo; show tunes and Ludwig van Beethoven; The Pogues, and even Prince. If I wanted to be painfully honest, I'd have to say the biggest influence on my song writing at the time was Danny Elfman's Batman theme, which was used in the Animated Series then in production.

Sad, I know.

I'm actually most proud of the way the "Birthday Disco" turned out, and of my arrangement of DeBussy's "Beau Soir". But the rest still amuses me, even though it does make me want to sit down and watch the Dark Knight do some detective work!

At the time most of these were recorded, I was rooming with Emlyn Ellis Addison. He's the one who got me started listening to folks like Jean-Michel Jarre, and probably told me about the Studio in the first place. "Manic Atari" was something I did on Emlyn's little Casio, before we started the class, and "Manic Atari II" was the version I did on the Ensoniq in the lab; the two versions of "North West Side" are the results of a project that Emlyn and I did together as a joke. Emlyn's much larger and better selection of tunes can be found on Last.fm also.

Now, one of these days, I hope to put up a "real" No One Called Larry album... but I don't like making promises, because life has a way of interrupting. But let me know what you think, and I'll keep you posted as events warrant. I've got Brent here now, to keep me on task, so possibilities are looking up.

PL+U!

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Lb4Lb#6: Music for Recuperation

31 Aug 2008, 16:42

I've written before about the way my body reacts to over the counter cold remedies. People have told me, "People pay good money on the street to feel that way," but I'd rather keep my money and NOT have to deal with the "side effects". As amusing as it might be to have my bedroom furniture talk to me, or to sit and watch the ceiling fan turn rainbow colors while lofting little fairies into the air around me... I'd just as soon stay in control of my own imagination.

Cheer up, honey I hope you can
There is something wrong with me
Radio Cure

I've been told that certain albums are improved by having your mind artificially expanded. Radioheads keep telling me I'd "get" some of their more obscure stuff if I'd just take a little something to help out, but I like The Wall just fine when I'm cold sober, thank you very much. I think music should stand up on its own, in general.

I have to admit, though, that being wired on cold meds has given certain albums more impact that they would have otherwise had on my cynical brain. Sometimes I don't let them work on the dark, secret parts of my psyche that they are intended for.

So while I won't go seeking them out, my few brushes with the High Life - at perfectly legal and unmodified dosages of Dextromethorphan and Phenylephrine - have given me some appreciation for "pharmacologically enhanced listening experiences"... a "radio cure", if you will.

I wonder why we listen to poets
When nobody gives a fuck
Ashes of American Flags

Experiencing physical weaknesses, along with the usual emotional or spiritual crises, leaves one with time to think about the less obvious ailments. If art has to have a purpose, isn't that a good one?

I was down hard when Wilco crossed my transom; life was demanding a lot of us, and on top of the long hours of work and commute, I got hit with a pretty serious sinus infection. So, out came the drugs.

I am an American aquarium drinker
I assassin down the avenue
I'm hiding out in the big city blinking
What was I thinking when I let go of you
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart

Is there a better way to start an album when you have a fever of 102 degrees Fahrenheit, and are whacked out on decongestant? I swear I could taste the aquarium water, and the fever was causing flashes of light behind my lids anyway.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has an interesting story behind it, anyway, which you can track down elsewhere easily enough. For me, the first impression was of a man trying to battle down the dazed delirium of his life and seize the flashes of beauty and joy that he hoped were real before they evaporated into the dream. The teetering balance of breathless harmonies and pleasant pop with the odd and disturbing sound scape creates an effective picture of someone exasperated with his situation, but determined to fix it.

I could certainly relate to that.

Every place around the world it seemed the same
Can't hear the rhythm for the drums
Everybody wants to look the other way
When something wicked this way comes
Jeremiah Blues

Sometimes, even if you feel it coming and take precautions, sickness can carry you out to sea. Waves of nausea crash over, capsize you and leave you wishing for that blinking city. That's where I was when I ran across The Soul Cages near the end of my college career.

Introspective reflections on his father, and cerebral ocean metaphors were not what the critics wanted from Sting's second solo outing. A lot of Police fans considered this a sign that Sting had "lost it", or had gone soft.

It gave me something to float on while I was drowning, though, and helped me smooth the emotional seas I was navigating. (It didn't hurt that I was recovering from some kind of allergy attack with the help of some anti-histamines, of course.)

Men go crazy in congregations
But they only get better
One by one
All This Time

Nothing is a panacea. There is no "one-stop shop", no "one size fits all". Every drug affects everyone differently. These are just two examples of good medicine, taken as needed.

Next time you're down, try these out, and call me in the morning.

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Attack of the Johns

17 Aug 2008, 05:02

Every now and then, I notice something about myself that I hadn't realized before. Occasionally, it's some glaring personality trait that needs to be changed or an article of clothing; maybe a strange glowing lump that speaks appears on my forehead... you know, those everyday little things that crop up?

Well, I was looking through my Last.fm library last week and noticed that there had been a kind of surge in the number of Johns in my list. Not that I purposely select my listening material based on first names, but it is a little eerie.

The big, standouts are guys like John Mayer, John Scofield, John Flansburg & John Linnell of They Might Be Giants fame, and of course, Johnny Cash. Continuum and Try! have been a staple of the iPod in recent weeks, and I found Legend of Cash volume 1 and vol. 2 at the library (when I was picking up the reserved copies of No! and Here Come the 1,2,3's).

Scofield's album of Ray Charles covers, That's What I Say, has been a favorite of mine since it came out last year, and I really liked what he did on Out Louder... oh, John Medeski would be another addition to the list! Combustication takes me to good places, and like TMBG, Medeski, Martin and Wood recently did a cool kid's album - Let's Go Everywhere - which featured a funkily twisted cover of I've Been Everywhere, bringing us back to Cash!

It's a grand old Web o' Johns, isn't it?

That isn't even the end of it. Jonathan Coulton hasn't lost his charm; if anything, I'm increasingly impressed with him the more I listen. The kids ask for Code Monkey all the time (and Creepy Doll freaked out my Goosebumps-loving 9-year-old), and I just found out what I'm Your Moon was about, and fell in love with that one.

How many more could there be? Well, you did ask... I checked out the new John Hiatt, since WTMD was talking up his Hot August Blues appearance. John Petrucci, as in the guitarist from Dream Theater, is on a renewed ascendancy on my playlist. Heck, I've even noticed a Johnette (as in Napolitano, the singer from Concrete Blonde) lurking about on there.

John Coltrane is kind of a given; I've been listening to Blue Train a lot, though not often on a scrobble-friendly medium. If I really started to dig, I wonder how many exciting, embarrassing, or unexpected Johns I might run into? Mellencamp? Bon Jovi? Adams?

Just goes to show, patterns emerge in the strangest of places. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to use the... um, you know.

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Lb4Lb#5: But We're Okay, We're Fine

16 Jul 2008, 03:33

I wanna clear my head,
I wanna drink that sun,
I'm gonna love you good and strong
While our love is good and young.
- Get Out the Map

Normally, this "lb4lb" thing is about an album (or two) that particularly moved me in some way. Nothing is as frustrating as buying an entire CD that only has one or two tracks that you really like on it; and few things are as satisfying as finding a collection of songs that flow together and keep you coming back for the whole set.

But THIS time, I want to talk about a "lb4lb" career.

The best thing you've ever done for me
Is to help me take my life less seriously
It's only life, after all.
- Closer to Fine

Folk music doesn't get paid the respect it deserves, partly because folk fans pay it FAR too much respect. It's an art form based on intimacy, and the fandom associated with other genres simply spoils the effect.

Nothing kills the joy of listening to Peter, Paul & Mary like hearing someone blather on about the symbolism of Puff The Magic Dragon. (I know it's a work of subtle genius, man, you don't need to explain why!) Nothing makes a noble Woody Guthrie protest song more boring than hearing about how noble and historic it is.

(That's not to say covering folk isn't a great idea. Billy Bragg & Wilco paid a fine tribute to Woody with Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue Vol. 2; and Bruce Springsteen did Pete Seeger proud with We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions.)

Folk is at its best when it is left alone; a troubadour with an instrument. A guitar, three chords, and the Truth. And a little bit of history.

All the shiny little trinkets of temptation
(make new friends)
Something new instead of something old
(but keep the old)
All you gotta do is scratch beneath the surface
(but remember what is gold)
And it's fools gold
- Power Of Two

They've played with Michael Stipe of R.E.M. They toured with The B-52's bassist, Sara Lee. Stephen King set part of a novel around one of their concerts. They sell out tours around the world.

But, there is no reason on earth why the Indigo Girls should be so damned popular. They don't get airplay. They aren't "pretty". Their songs are arguably "all the same" (unless you're actually listening to them). If you're looking at surfaces, theirs is dusty, and someone has written, "Best Buy is that way" in the dust to help move you on.

Scratch beneath that surface, though... you see denim. You feel the calluses on your fingertips. You might smell some weed smoke. But you'll hear those voices. You'll look up to see two women with guitars, and you will swear they are angels giving you something that will change your life.

My friend tanner she says you know
Me and jesus were of the same heart
The only thing that keeps us distant
Is that I keep fuckin up
- Shame On You

I don't really know many facts about Amy Ray and Emily Saliers; I heard they were Christians, I heard they were lesbians. I heard they used to be a couple, and I heard...

I heard the music.

That's all that matters, in the end. There is nothing I can say as a fan that will matter, or make a difference to you. But if you listen to that music, those words.

It took a long time to
become the thing I am to you.
And you won't tear it apart
without a fight, without a heart.
- Become You

They are tough, honest, beautiful. You won't care about every song on every album; at least, not at first. But they will speak to you, and you will feel something; and it will be like the realization that part of you was asleep. Something you didn't know was hurting will be soothed.

When we get a little distance some things get clearer
Give em the space our hearts grow nearer
I ran as hard as I could and still ended up here
but it's alright
- It's Alright

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Library Trippin' - Adventures and Updates

4 Jul 2008, 14:37

Been a while since I made it to the library, and with the big 4th of July holiday upon us, I figured I'd see if they had anything new to help me through the elongated weekend.

They did.

There was a lot there to experiment with. In a few cases, they didn't have exactly what I was looking for, though. I wanted to bring home the new Death Cab for Cutie album because my wife and daughter were both obsessed with I Will Possess Your Heart during our vacation. I ended up bringing home Plans. We also heard a track on WTMD by The Decemberists last week, and I hoped to find that. I don't think it's on Picaresque, but we'll see what is there.

Two I picked up out of curiosity: Tom Morello's solo project - calling himself The Nightwatchman - entitled One Man Revolution; and Riot Act, a Pearl Jam album I missed because I was too busy in 2002. I don't expect to be blown away by either of them, since Pearl Jam hasn't been satisfying since releasing Vitalogy, and even though I like elements of both Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave... I harbor the secret opinion that Morello's solos tend to sound like a cat being raped. (I hope he proves me wrong here.)

They had a couple of interesting jazz discs for me. The Essential Charlie Parker and a 2-disc special edition of 'Round About Midnight. Always a sucker for Miles Davis, and I already know I like Bye Bye Blackbird. I also picked up Stanley Jordan's brand new State of Nature, which reinforces his reputation as a phenomenon. Mozart's Piano Concerto #21 stood out on first listen, but the whole disc is great.

Daby Touré's Stereo Spirit caught my eye, too; I'm pretty sure I've heard it before, but because I've also listened to his dad - Ali Farka Touré - I might be wrong.

I've already played the Flight of the Conchords, which is the soundtrack to their HBO show. I laughed me arse off the first time I heard Business Time, and there are some other funny bits on the disc. I also picked up Blame It On Gravity by Old 97's, which is a favorite group of my friend Dave (of One to Hold the Lightbulb fame), and The Very Best of the Grateful Dead. I'm sorry to have to report that while I appreciate the Dead... they bore the crap out of me. (Sorry! Please don't send angry sprigs of weed, colorful teddy bears on spikes, or tie-dyed hemp crafts to protest me!)

Anyway, there's a lot to listen to; think I'll start with Anna Netrebko's Russian album to cleanse my palette. There's nothing that says "Fourth of July" like a dozen Russian soprano arias! :)

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Lb4Lb#4: Where There's Smoke There's Fire and Trouble

26 Jun 2008, 05:58

Just got back from 2 weeks in Arizona, and I state for the record: I'll take 99.9 F° in Phoenix over 85 in Baltimore ANY time. When they say "it's a dry heat", they ain't kiddin'.

But now we're back, and the settling in process can begin: buying groceries, finishing chores that were left hanging (like blogging and posting music journals), and trying to absorb our fortnight of adventure. This includes, of course, scrobbling the 294 tracks played as we drove all over the Grand Canyon state, and ripping the CDs purchased and - so far - unscrobbled.

Great trip, full of music and family and food, and lots of driving. The lovely bride allowed me to pick up the new Weezer (Pork and Beans seemed to be the theme song of the trip), and the recent Lyle Lovett (It's Not Big It's Large), which impressed both my father and my 5-year-old daughter with both Up In Indiana and Up In Indiana (Acoustic Version).

To visit the Grand Canyon, we borrowed my aunt's cabin, which wasn't far from the famed Route 66, a road so famous it has a song ...which is also so famous that I can't link to all of the versions that I know and love in one journal. (I highly recommend comparing the Depeche Mode and John Mayer covers for a real kick in the head.)

But it was a small bit of serendipity that brought my favorite version up on the iPod as we drove along that stretch of road in Flagstaff, Arizona (don't forget Winona): Buckwheat Zydeco's cover on his album Where There's Smoke There's Fire.

Talk about an album made for the "lb4lb" tag; from the smokin' lead off question What You Gonna Do, to the gentle reminder that It's Getting Late, Buck doesn't let up. There's a healthy dose of rollicking blues, pure bayou madness (Pour Tout Quelque'un); Dwight Yoakam shows up to duet on Hey Good Lookin', and David Hidalgo of Los Lobos fame produces the whole shebang. It's simply 11 tracks of pure love & joy being squeezed out of a flaming accordion, and it is Good.

But it's short.

In fact, I'd feel like I was cheating you if I only gave you a taste of this stuff, so I'll mention Buck's more recent release, Trouble, which I'd dare say sounds even better (though none of the tracks are yet available yet on Last.fm).

Man... vacation rocks.

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Bury the Needle of the Weird-Shit-O-Meter

4 Jun 2008, 02:20

Twenty years ago, I was a high school band geek with access to an ancient Chevy Malibu. It had the three things necessary to make me a person of some importance: seats, a big trunk, and a good tape deck. That's when I started driving Chris around all the time.

By then, I had managed to discover some cool stuff on my own - Billy Joel (especially digging The Stranger and Glass Houses), Joe Satriani's Surfing With the Alien, The B-52's Cosmic Thing... stuff like that. Okay, well... I thought it was cool.

But Chris is the one who started bringing along the experimental stuff. He's the one who took me from The Beatles to the Led Zeppelin; broadened my horizons with Bob Dylan; showed me the joys of The Pogues, Tom Waits, and Buckwheat Zydeco. Many a night, we'd hit the used record shop and spend the rest of the gas money barreling around town with the windows down, listening to something like The Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith.

Occasionally, though, Chris would decide I wasn't "ready" for something. He gave me many things that didn't catch on right away (Zeppelin took more than a decade to sink in), but I was intrigued by the music that he thought was beyond me. And yesterday - twenty years later, remember - I found a 1970 album at the library that Chris had declared out of my grasp.

So of course, I brought it home and listened to it.

Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band might just be your cup of tea. If so, I apologize for my inability to appreciate it, but... THAT is some messed up shit. I can't call it "bad", because that would not be accurate. "Bad" would imply that they were trying for "good", and they weren't. The combination of unstructured music and trippy-absurdist or deconstructionist lyrics is, to put it more precisely, challenging.

There is a much better analysis of this Frank Zappa-produced album out on this link here. And if you're intrigued by the notion of uncomposed honks and squeals on a pair of bass clarinets, gonzo guitars, and lyrics like those found in Dachau Blues, then you should check out the album.

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/captain-beefheart-dachau-blues-lyrics.html Dachau blues those poor jews
Down in Dachau blues, down in Dachau blues
Still cryin' 'bout the burnin' back in world war two's
One mad man six million lose

When it comes to value words like "bad", "good", or "sucks", this stuff defiantly waves a finger (or fin) at all of it. This is music that did not come here to entertain you, you self-centered pop-prisoner. The challenge is to break the listener out of normal for a bit, and breathe whatever there is to breathe in space. Maybe that's what you're looking for.

As for me, I know my limitations when it comes to strangeness. And apparently, even 20 years ago, so did Chris.

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Lb4Lb#3: Kiko, the Pistol, and the Heart

30 May 2008, 12:33

La Bamba is one of those utterly ubiquitous songs; I've heard it played a million times in a million places by a million different bands. From Hawaiian dancers at the Arizona State Fair to a pair of Spanish guitarists in a cafe in St. Petersburg, Russia, it seems like everyone has taken a crack at it.

It's always a fun song to hear, but my favorite version of La Bamba has always been the version that Los Lobos played on the La Bamba film soundtrack (1987). Not only do they manage to capture the sound of Ritchie Valens, but the last few seconds of the song feature the band playing something that sounds more traditionally Mexican. It was this traditional sound that I loved more than anything else about the song.

I was fascinated enough to seek out the band's other albums; they came out with The Neighborhood, and then the awesome Kiko. Kiko was a mind-blowing breakthrough for a number of reasons. I loved the dark innocence of Kiko and the Lavendar Moon, and the wistfully mellow beauty of the Dream In Blue. Peace is still one of the tracks I give people when I want them to discover this band, because it showcases David Hidalgo's fantastic voice and intricate guitar skills so well.

But as much as I enjoyed these songs, I kept going back to the last few seconds of La Bamba, and wishing they'd do more songs with traditional instruments. It reminded me of the restaurant we used to go to with my grandparents on the occasional Sunday afternoon; it made my skin remember the feeling of the Phoenix sun, and I could recall that sensation of being full of exotic food, surrounded by people who loved me and the clean and nourishing smells of tortilla and dust hovering in the dry air.

This was in the days before I had internet, of course, or I would have found La Pistola y el Corazón a lot sooner than I did.

I was cruising through the stacks at the public library, and I was looking for something new. I'd heard about this new Buena Vista Social Club CD, and had wandered into the Spanish-language section to check it out, and there it was: this Los Lobos album full of traditional ballads, corridos, son, and... okay, I'll be honest: I don't know or care what you call them. These are just good songs, and a strong argument against ignoring music in other languages (how much sooner would I have found this gem if it had been sorted with the rest of Los Lobos' albums?)

The album only clocks in at 25 minutes, but it's 25 minutes of pure genius. This is a band that knows how to make beautiful sounds stick to a recording medium, and they are playing the songs that they loved when they were growing up. It's that love that comes through.

I ended up buying a copy - and that's saying something; I'm notoriously cheap. I took it with me to England when we were stationed there in 1998, and when the grey gloom got me down, I would put this album on in my E-reg Mini Cooper, and blast through the tiny villages, fields of rapeseed and rabbits, and across abandoned train tracks with golden sunshine in my heart and badly mispronounced Spanish pouring from my lips.

Needless to say, I've been happy with their more recent stuff; This Time was timeless, and I had a blast hearing favorites like Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, and Richard Thompson cover Los Lobos tracks on The Ride. Cesar Rosas's Soul Disguise was another favorite while I was in the UK.

All good stuff; but when I want to hear Los Lobos, it is La Pistola y el Corazon I reach for every time.

Peace.

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Kerouac and Ginsberg Grow Up and Get Jobs

18 May 2008, 14:08

(Originally posted on my blog at Tad's Happy Funtime.)

I was absorbed in cyberspace when I thought I heard a suspicious sound in the real world.

I turned and glanced around the cluttered office, but nothing was moving. My ears sought the telltale sounds of kids playing in the far reaches of the house. The last thing I wanted right now was for someone to come asking to play Nintendo or watch one of the "America's Funniest" animal clips on YouTube. All seemed to be quiet enough, so I turned back to the screen.

What had my attention so fixed was a message from someone I hadn't expected to ever find on MySpace.

A fellow trumpet player (for 11 years!), and a fellow traveler through the late 80s/early 90s ordeal of growing up in White Middle Class America. He was the unintentional center. He was the guy who discovered things and shared them with the rest of us.

Wanderer, explorer, welcome bum. He had roamed the suburbs of Northwest Phoenix from age 12, getting into and out of the kinds of trouble only an over-tall kid armed only with a thick Stephen King novel or true-crime/serial killer book can find.

He was the conduit through which I discovered a love of Tom Waits, The Pogues, Wilco, Nana Vasconcelos & The Bushdancers, The Police, Elvis Costello, Ofra Haza, Les Négresses Vertes, Chris Isaak, and Buckwheat Zydeco.

He's the guy that edged me out of childhood reading material such as the Hardy Boys and into Salinger, King, Gaiman, and even a little divertissement called "Les Miserables."

He is the guy who was there for 1993 - about which, the less said the better - and yet still considered me a worthwhile person.

And I found him again on MySpace.

All of the sense memories, and not a few images from the past, were on my mind as I read his note. A catching-up kind of missive; just enough to say, "Howdy" and yet imply that there was a lot more to say. If you can't already tell, thinking about the old days takes me back to a place that most would think of as "the bottom of the barrel." And frankly, it is.

It is the Waffle House of memories, where the coffee is bitter, the spoons are never clean, and the air is full of grease, smoke, and Hank Williams songs coming from a fascist jukebox that won't play what you paid to pick.

It is all of the porn shops, bars, and flea markets we used to visit; not so much for the shopping, but for the sake of watching the people we found in such places.

We already knew our safe, suburban world, and we had always been told which way was "up"... but these places and these people were the Other Option. This was the threat our parents and teachers had always held over us. More frightening was the fact that this WAS us. If we failed, or gave up, we had every reason to expect to end up there.

And now I was chatting with this old companion of the Waste Lands from my safe, warm house full of children via a slick, silly online forum.

It felt good.

Just knowing that for all of the close calls and odd adventures, we had made it to places that make us happy, or at least to some compromise between the forced potential and the rocky alternatives.

But there it was... the old rebellious urge to show him that I was still somewhat "hip"... that I still maintained my edginess. To downplay my "Mr. Mom" role, and revel in the dark side. Like the old days...

Of course, that was the moment that I felt a breath on my neck, and realized that there was someone behind me. Not just behind me, but literally climbing over the back of the chair!

With memories of horror movies and crazed homeless people -- or even some supernatural beastie from another dimension -- fresh on my mind, I was seized by cold, wet, unreasoning fear. Lacking breath to scream, I emitted a small "urk."

Then, the little girl toppled over the top of my head and into my lap, giggling like a mad little imp (see, supernatural beastie from beyond!).

"I love you, Daddy!" she said, batting her eyes, which she knew would save her from any unpleasant reaction. As my heart rate returned to normal, I pieced together the "surprise" she had perpetrated; putting the kitchen stool in my blind spot, creeping up on me. Come to think of it, all of the good things in my life have been surprises.

So, sitting with her in chair, I dash off a maily to my old friend from my old life, and tuck away the hobo memories for another day.

"Daddy," she said, "Can we watch the 'Funny Dogs' video?"

Sure, honey. Why not?

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