I still like this song...

carousel

climb aboard baby
I might be chipped but I've been around
if is this your first ride
well you couldn't have picked a gentler mount

round and round we go
a spiral never ending
and where it stops, we do not know
that's what we're saying

this circle we're traveling
this carnival calliope of circumstance
you're holding cotton candy
wet, wet sugary lips

round and round we go
barely touching, shallow breathing
round and round we go
that's where we're staying

oh no
don't cry for the time you've wasted
don't cry for the things you're losing
don't cry... we all know you dear
love lives inside you like a cancer cell
you're really crying for the carousel

the carousel is weeping
for the horses all locked inside
pierced by these posts of need
and ridden into the night

round and round we go
a spiral never ending
and where it stops, we always know
an old world ending…
and where it stops, we always know
an old world ending…

oh no
don't cry for the time you've wasted
don't cry for the things you're losing
don't cry... we all know you dear
love lives inside you like a cancer cell
you're really crying for the carousel

today

THINGS I LIKE TODAY: long walks off short piers, large print book clubs, unintended double entendres, writing my dreams down, starting things, silent H's, romantic strolls through auto junkyards, big ideas, elaborate solutions for nonexistent problems, not shaving, over-using the ellipsis...

THINGS I DISLIKE TODAY: my ceaseless inner dialogue, words that aren't words such as 'irregardless', my bum left ankle, wind-blown sand in my eye.

AND NOW, A STORY: When I was a little kid, I always wore a six shooter on my hip, in a holster. I was watchin' out for the neighborhood. I meant no harm... misunderstood sheriff. I wore the gun well past the point that it was cute. Some call that obsession. I call that commitment.

Mediating the interior and the exterior.

I've been thinking a lot about how art, any art, is a BYPRODUCT of the artist's process. (I know, Duh) And... how the process IS THE POINT.

And how a piece of art is actually, to be more specific, the byproduct of an artist trying to negotiate or mediate the discrepancies between his/her INTERNAL WORLD and his/her EXTERNAL WORLD.

And when you hear or see a piece of art, you're seeing an artist's conscious and/or unconscious attempt at trying to make those two worlds reconcile... or make sense... or meet....

And how some artists use their art to make their external world match their interior world... almost an imposition... or an attempt at re-casting their external environment.

And how other artists do the opposite...

And how I tend to like art made by the former and not the latter...

New song about the family car

I woke up today and wrote this song about the family car during my formative years....

orange volvo
april 4, 2009

I grew up in a volvo
it wasn't one of those
an orange station wagon
that my father chose
chosen for its safety
chosen for its size
they put me in the way back
I never realized

mom and dad and brothers and me
driving down the road like a family

orange volvo
facing toward the rear
watching things pass by me
was my new career
orange volvo
I never did get hurt
but I think I know how I became
a grumpy introvert

we drove to pennsylvania
in that orange tank
my daddy found a job there
south of harvey's lake
no one likes the new kids
my brothers got real stoned
I stayed in the basement
playing legos all alone

mom and dad and brothers and me
driving down the road like a family

orange volvo
facing toward the rear
I see that little boy still
in the rear view mirror
orange volvo
I never did get hurt
I think I know how I became
a grumpy introvert

funny what leaves an impression
on a boy of seven or eight...
a swedish station wagon
built like an iron crate

(rip snortin' solo)

orange volvo
facing toward the rear
watching things pass by me
was my new career
orange volvo
I never did get hurt
but I think I know how I became
a grumpy introvert

mom and dad and brothers and me
driving down the road like a family

orange volvo
facing toward the rear
I see that little boy still
in the rear view mirror
orange volvo
I never did get hurt
but I think I know how I became
a grumpy introvert
I think I know how I became
a grumpy introvert

orange volvo...
orange volvo...