"When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless. Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination." Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2010.

I will focus for a moment on the experiences of "inner pessimism and powerlessness". I play music to connect with my "inner". I enjoy the creativity. I express a lot of inner energy through music. I express emotions and those emotions include my sense of pessimism. My feelings of pessimism arise not from powerlessness but from grief. I am deeply grieving our "detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens." I still sing "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land" as often as I can. We are in this together. When I see young people ambling along with their pants dragging almost to their knees, I wonder who could possibly be affirming this? When I see a beautiful young woman with a tattoo across her chest, from shoulder to shoulder, I wonder who could possibly be affirming this? I am deeply concerned about the essential nature of my fellow citizens. What concerns me most deeply is the need for education and pointing people to higher standards of behavior and self-valuation. When I walk into my office I don't really want to see my fellow employees exposing more flesh than I might see at the beach. What is this about? And I've quit watching TV. I can't find anything that doesn't degrade my sense of values. So I grieve. I hope you'll join me and after a time of grief, join me in some action that will address the needs and concerns and the essential nature of our fellow Americans. Write a song that pulls us up into art, that pulls us up into the very best that we can be, that gives us hope, and shows us a better way to live, a more human way to care for one another.

Leave it for someone else - saying "no" to "the wanting Creature"

I left a good deal hanging on the pegs. If you can find a Peavey Predator, one made in the 1990's and made in the USA, and in good shape, snag it. I believe they play and sound much better than a USA Fender Strat. Or let me put it this way, you can tweak them, like someone tweaked the Predator I've got. What a range of tones, from fat to lean, from SRV to country and, put it the neck pickup and that's a fat, fat tone. I like the jumbo frets too. Peavey spared nothing to make this a very fine instrument. OK, that said, I left one hanging. I Could have had it for $100 bucks. Why walk on a deal like that? Delbert McClinton sings a song titled, "Too Much Stuff". Listen to it. That's why.

Its OK to say you've got enough. Rumi has a poem called "The Wanting Creature". He tells the story of a frozen snake that someone buys and thaws and when they thaw it, it turns out to be "the wanting creature". Rumi says once thawed that beast can never again be tamed. I'll never tame it, but every once in a great while, I say "no" to it.

I get caught between wanting and too much stuff. Right now one Peavey Predator is enough...right now!

Gettin' ready to smile for a couple of weeks

My wife says I smile for at least 2 weeks after a gig. I'll be subbing on bass for the guy who usually plays for Danny Duristanti. Danny and I met purely by chance. I stopped at Picker's Paradise Music Store in Stapleton, Alabama, just north of Foley on Highway 59. Its famous for being next door to Jody Payne's house. Jody's the guitar player for Willie Nelson since 1973. Last time I was in the store, Jody was there talking to the owner about how to get some kind of better sound out of something. I just listened. Five years ago I stopped and Danny was there with his old Guild acoustic. I'll strike up a conversation with anyone and did with Danny. He's quiet and thoughtful and he gave his phone number and said I could call him about playing rhythm guitar for his duo. I did and ended up, without ever practicing with them, doing a New Year's Eve gig at the now defunct "Three Spirit's Sports Bar". He invited me back, this time to practice! I met Joel, the guy who eventually built me a boat. Joel played bass. This Friday and Saturday Danny and I will be at Live Bait at the Wharf at Orange Beach, AL. You can Google it. Danny hails from Cleveland, Mississippi and is very proud of his Delta Blues upbringing. We'll do a lot of old time delta blues, some country, some Tom Petty, and if we need to, take a break. We like to just play. There's so little time to just play. Danny's good, real good! Our music makes me smile!

People who know how

He fixed it in five minutes. I had indeed reversed the polarity on the 2x12 cabinet. I did it at the input plug. I read somewhere that most folks who fail at fixing something do so because they don't look at the problem long enough. He looked hard at the input plug, found the connection for the tip and the stem and made sure the hot side and the ground side didn't swap sides somewhere in the muddle of connections. I plugged my Crate Powerblock into the speakers and my Ibanez classical guitar into the Crate amp. Sounded really good. I'll use the cabinet with my bass rig. I'm subbing for the regular bass player in a duo. The gig's at an outdoor bar at a local Marina, 5pm - 9pm. That's what I enjoy doing. I never know what song is coming next. I watch and listen and learn. Most of its 1,4,5 blues songs, occasionally something more complex. My job is to keep the root of things intact, nothing fancy, basic bass guitar: be there on the first beat. I can do that.

If its fixed, don't break it.

I bought an old Peavey 2x12 ported bass cabinet loaded with scorpion speakers. It came from the factory 4 ohm. I used it several times as part of my bass rig. I use a Peavey 2600 stereo power amp and a Peavey Bass Max preamp. Great sound till I decided I'd change it to an 8ohm cabinet. If its fixed, don't break it. I didn't really know what I'd done to it. But I eventually sold it and eventually bought it back. The guy I sold it to couldn't use it. He said it sounded real flat, no resonance, etc. I called a buddy of mine and asked him if he could return it to 4 ohm status. He said, "that's easy and I'll check the polarity. You have to make sure you have your polarity correct. If you don't, the speakers more or less cancel each other out, sound flat, no resonance." Hum. I guess I screwed up the polarity. Is this a parable? Kinda! Here's a quote from Walter Wink, a guy who studies parables:

"Parables are tiny lumps of coal squeezed into diamonds, condensed metaphors that catch the rays of something ultimate and glint it at our lives. Parables are not illustrations; they do not support, elaborate or simplify a more basic idea. They are not ideas at all, nor can they ever be reduced to theological statements. They are the jeweled portals of another world; we cannot see through them like windows, but through their surfaces are refracted lights that would otherwise blind us -- or pass unseen... Nor can parables ever be exhausted; they always contain more than we can tell. They are the precipitate of something ineffable; they percolate up from depths wherein the Kingdom itself is working its ineluctable work. They come from the same energizing reality that causes the seeds to germinate and the leaven to rise. They rise with the leaven. "

Maybe you'll discover a parable among your old guitars and stuff.

My bass player friend and the boat he built for me.

My bass player friend has leukemia: blood cancer. It came on so quickly and it has become acute. He said yesterday, "It doesn't look good." So this morning I sat in my studio/ office and looked at my amps and guitars and wondered when I'll stop believing I'll live forever. Right now I still believe this because my not being just isn't imaginable. Oh, I can see the empty seat in my studio. I can see that someone will someday walk into my studio and look at my accumulations and shake their head, "What did he do with all this stuff?" I loved it. I played it. I let it take me along, up and down, in and out, in and through, down and through, up and through: Through until I am through. I hope my friend sat with his instruments and amps and song lists and remembered the wonder piled deeply in the cold tubes and wood and strings. That's where the wonder sleeps until we wake it into a gig. So, it doesn't look good. And I am shaken and sad. In honor of what is, I will get ready for my next gig. What is, is. What is not, is not. God is.

Vintage MXR micro amp

Vintage, I looked up the definition. Enduring appeal appealed to me. So I walk into Ricks Gun and Pawn in Foley. There's a guy playing an ovation. He's got some pretty good chops. He wears a woven rope headband slightly off center. He might be 25, hair braided in a bunch of those small braids like you can get when you're on a cruise stopped at the last "private" island, with beads. I pick up an Epiphone bass made in Korea, $119.00. We talk. His friend girl stares at me. I put the bass up and go talk to Christina. She and her brother Bryan shoot pool as a team. I see behind her several stomp boxes. I ask to see them and the very last one I check out is a well worn mxr micro amp. I don't know what it does. I take it over to an amp and try it out. Seems to be a clean boost with some comp and a little twinkle on the highs. I like. The price says $14.95. "What's your best price on this?" $12 out the door. "It doesn't have a light and no way to plug it in. You have to use a battery. I'll give you $10." Christina grins. She loves to play this game. She knows she's going to win because she knows I'm going to buy the thing. "I'll split the difference, $11." I take it home and clean it and love it. Yesterday on Ebay a guy sold a 1978 MXR Micro Amp for $282. I asked him how to date one. He told me. Mines a 1979. He worked for MXR in 1978 - 79. In September 1979, he told me, MXR began building prototypes with lights and power input. So there you go. Pawn shop gold: Eureka!

Harmony meaning and the question "What is life for?"

What is life for? I believe Wendell Berry poses that question in a poem. I found the question embedded in a discussion of theology, specifically the theology of the cross, and within that, a discussion of Jesus' work and our human predicament of trying to work out the meaning of our lives. I believe there is no one to answer the question, "what is life for?" There is no expert to tell me or you the answer to this question. There are small groups of us working on it. The question poses an "adaptive challenge" (Google Ron Heifetz). "What is life for?" You can rule out nothing. You can rule in anything that doesn't lead to cruelty or result in cruelty to any part of creation. (I'm borrowing this idea from Reynolds Price.) My Harmony Meteor and I and my jam band will enjoin this question tomorrow night. The experience will be episodic and yet, not without continuity to both past and future. I will come away from our jam with immeasurable satisfaction, because I took part and the meaning will be made with the Harmony Meteor and the other old guys and our memories which is what life is for, the making of memory.

Making Harmony

Someone installed a new bridge on the Harmony Meteor. I discovered last night that it must be in exactly the right place to make for correct intonation. I loosened the strings and moved its little plastic feet into the spots they have tattooed into the old finish. When I did, intonation was perfect up and down the fret. Do you suppose we have a bridge that some force can move just enough to throw our intonation off? I tuned the strings with an analog tuner. The tuner said "perfect". Then I played a chord: way off. And the more I moved around the neck, the worse the intonation problem. Hum. I told someone today that other people's problems often become my problems. I also said, "When I head in this direction, I need to get back to working the steps." The 12 steps of AA work for me when I work them. Its like carefully repositioning the bridge so every fret makes Harmony with every other fret.

Lost rings, found guitar

A friend lost her wedding rings. She removed them because her finger itched. I believe her body spoke "in sighs too deep for words" about a deeper irritation. She took them off about a month ago and has yet to find them. More on this if it develops.

This led to the search. I told her to tear out the lining of the purse she thought she put them in. Not there. I said, "Let's go to the pawn shops and alert the owners." There are three pawn shops in Foley, AL. We jumped in the Rav4 (she never complains about the dog hair.) First stop. No rings and no guitars. Second stop, Ricks Gun and Pawn. No rings, one guitar and met a buddy, fellow guitar picker/ great singer Ken Lambert. I passed on the guitar. There is a very fine Jackson Professional V-tail there. It has seen several birthdays there. He's also got an old Ibanez 12 string with very good tone, but no electrics. Last shop is the yellow one owned by Sammy. She talked to him, I spotted the Harmony. No rings, however Sammy had a close match and maybe, since she hasn't found hers/ theirs...don't wedding rings really belong to both the bride and groom, the marriage itself?

I played the Harmony through an Crate beginner amp. I knew right away someone had loved this guitar. They had loosened the strings after last playing it. That's a commitment. It saves the neck. Someone had crafted a new bridge. The old ones were/ are/ you can get them on ebay lousy. The action is great. The tone awesome. "Sammy, what's the best you can do?"

Harmony Meteor 1967

Found it in a pawn shop in Foley, Alabama. How does this happen? Eureka: Pawn Shop Gold! Bummer: Who gave this away and gave away so much for so little? Anyway. Mine now. And talk about tone! The Meteor sounds so different than the usual guitars old guys probably play. Strats, Les Paul's, even the Gibson 335. And The Meteor sounds so different through my different amps. I'll give you a list here: Riviera 55-12; Vintage Sound by Rick Hayes 12 watt; Crate VC 508; Peavey Pro Studio 40; Peavey Classic 30; I'll give you more of the how I found it story which is a story next time.