"Time To Talk"

This is my nominee for Person of the Year. The contemporary person leaning forward from previously occupied space to take a stand despite the fact that it's an empty gesture.

I would also submit it as a design for a US postage stamp.

Gary Lee Joyner—Atomic Guitar

Gary Lee Joyner—Atomic Guitar

© 2012, 2017

The intention and goal of the content and form of my Atomic Guitar videos is to shake loose ideas about how to learn, how to experience music, how to play guitar, how to think, and so on...to, in fact, play guitar rather than be a "guitar player"...taking the experience toward Husserlian phenomenology, stripping away received baggage and nonsense in favor of simple clarity about the activity. As I said in one of the videos, the name "Atomic Guitar" isn't intended as the sort of explosive hyperbole we have grown accustomed to in today's consumer-driven marketing world. Instead, it refers to the tiniest particles—building blocks.

Session 1


Session 2


Session 3


Session 4

Gauging Your Choices In Guitars and Strings and Life

This message came from someone who has participated in a number of my guitar classes:
Hi Gary Lee Joyner, guitar teacher extraordinaire,
What do you think of light-medium gauge steel strings for acoustic guitar?
An acquaintance of mine has this preference in strings.
Martin MSP4150 SP Phosphor Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings, Light-Medium

My response:
When artist Edward Gorey was asked one time for a list of his “most admired or adored” books he said, “I am almost never invited to tell the world at large what it ought to be reading.” I love that quote.

For similar reasons, it took me a couple days to respond to the string topic. I balk at the prospect of anyone thinking that any thoughts I come up with might imply a directive.

I first had to follow your link to find out what “light-medium” means. I think of strings in terms of specific gauges and never quite trust the consistency of general product names. And so I now know that Martin SP phosphor bronze light-mediums are .125-.55. Interesting.

In the days when I offered guitar lessons at various music stores and played four hours and more a night, many nights a week, in bars and coffeehouses filled with string-destroying smoke, I had the need and employee-discount-opportunity to change strings very often. Every four days or so. It gave me the chance to experiment. A lot. If I were to suggest one directive it would be to experiment as much as you can manage…and discover what works for you. Not only gauge (including creating your own sets), but also brand, composition, winding, etc.

After that halcyon period I tended to get into a specific set for 4-5 years at a time. I had to have the current choice. Then I would suddenly find myself totally dissatisfied with that choice and have to find a new one that I would then stick with for another 4-5 years.

Shortly before we were at Blue Bear School of Music I took a real left-hand turn. It had to do with my getting my first good quality magnetic pick-up for one of my acoustic guitars. (I had owned a DeArmond monstrosity in the early days…weak, unbalanced, noisy, clunky, and it chewed up the underside of my guitar’s soundhole. I wish I still had it!) I had mostly used phosphor bronze strings for a long time up until then. But it occurred to me that electric guitar strings might respond nicely to my new pick-up. I didn’t notice any real difference in terms of the pick-up. But!...I found out that I really liked the acoustic sound of the nickel strings. I loved getting away from the full warmth that is generally associated with phosphor bronze. The sound is…cold…in a way I like…a lot. And oddly enough, I never had as many positive responses regarding my sound before the switch as I have since. And people are surprised by my explanation. “That’s ‘wrong’! You’re not supposed to do that…”

At that point I was teaching in a music store in Petaluma. (Charlie Cowles’ great Tall Toad Music.) So I again was able to do a bunch of experimenting. Along the way I found myself drawn to “.13s” for the first time since my early years of playing. Which is how I found my way to D'Addario EJ22 Nickel Jazz Medium strings. It has caused problems on the road because a lot of music stores don’t carry that particular set. 20 years later I’m still using them on all my steel string guitars, electric and acoustic. For a while I even concocted my own set for a 12-string that I tuned down to C—starting with EJ22s. Lately I’ve gone back to “.11s” on that guitar in order to bring it up to standard tuning.
Some assorted recent circumstances have forced me to vary other things a bit, as well.

I bought a Yamaha Silent steel string guitar for travel. It came with a set of “.10” phosphor bronze, including an unwound G. I’ve never liked an unwound 3rd on any guitar. It’s gotta be wound for me. So after asking around about safety for the guitar I put EJ22s on it. The neck and structure could take it, but a series of perplexing problems occurred with the piezo pick-up. Bottom line—it seemed that the gauge was causing the problems. I searched around and found a D’Addario set of nickel “.11s” with a wound 3rd. It’s working out nicely and I’m enjoying the difference in gauge. It’s imposing some alterations in my playing approach on that guitar.

On another front, some physical issues made me try moving to EJ21 “.12s” on one of my acoustics. I do miss the string resistance on that guitar so I might go back.

Picks create another element that influences gauge choices. These days I am constantly switching my pick combinations. Thumbpick and bare fingers, thumbpick and four metal fingerpicks, flatpick and bare fingers, flatpick and three metal fingerpicks. Each combination makes a different demand on string gauge. And each brand and size of thumbpick, or each size and thickness and make-up of flatpick, strikes the strings differently. A large thin Fender flatpick hits the strings very differently than a Tusq, or a Dunlop Ultex, or a tiny “jazz” pick. And I like to try them all. Varying sounds. Varying feels. Varying demands on string gauge. It’s all so much fun.

Tunings also affect gauge choices. And playing slide guitar (bottleneck or bar). Some of us like heavier gauges for lowered altered tunings. On the other hand, guitars probably aren’t gonna like being tuned higher while they are wearing heavier gauges. Martin Simpson told me that he used a .15 (!!) for his 1st string because it supported his slide in a way that he liked. He also stipulated that he would never tune it up to standard tuning.

So you aren’t going to hear any rules or dogmatisms out of me. No surprise there, right?
Summation: There are no laws in my art world. It all depends on the needs of the player. Physical issues, sound objectives, style, strength of attack, etc.

I guess I didn’t actually answer your question about light-mediums. I’d try ‘em. Especially if I could find them in a nickel electric set.

Now…nylon strings…that’s were choices really get complicated for me...

By the way, Raymond Queneau’s “Exercises In Style”, Sylvia Waugh’s five “Mennyms” books, and Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities” topped Gorey’s list. Great choices. We all OUGHTA read them.   :^)

Folk Music and Cowboys and How Did We Get From There To Here?

Here's another view of GLJ explaining the nature of sound to the Minneapolis Police Department on Lake Street. Back in those days there was an objection to live music at the Uptown Art Fair...businesses and artists believed that it hampered the entrepreneurial activities of the event...hard to believe such a thing now when people don't know they're having fun unless they're being bombarded by decibels.
****
May I digress? The cowboy on the left is a-hankerin' to slip his hand over to the blunderbuss on his hip. And me there holding my lethal guitar.

It reminds me of an episode that occurred when I was 4. I met a real-life cowboy who was working for Billy Graham...rustlin' up some souls. His name was Redd Harper. The BG film company had made a movie about the guy and Redd himself made an appearance at a showing that I attended. Four year old me sashayed up to the varmint and asked, "Where's yer gun?" He looked around, grabbed a Bible and waved it in my face. "Why it's right here, ya little sidewinder!" I stumbled away from the ravine, confused, disappointed, and eager to get back to my Lone Ranger/Rifleman/Wyatt Earp on TV.
(The moral of the story: They were indoctrinating us 'merican children already in those days via TV and movies and radio...convincing us that the only real convincer was a piece of weaponry. It's buried deeply and subtly in our culture. Clayton Moore as The Lone Ranger had his two six-shooters and those silver bullets. Chuck Connors as The Rifleman had that tricked out Winchester. Hugh O'Brien as Wyatt Earp had the strangely hyper-extended revolver. Doc Holliday had a big mustache and a double-barrelled shotgun that could take down the side of a building. Steve McQueen as Josh Randall, and Nick Adams as Johnny Yuma, had their curiously sexy sawed-off shotguns. Johnny could spin his around his finger in a fun way. I used to think that these were all nothing more than painfully obvious phallic symbols. Now I realize that they are also simply and blatantly intended to implant a subconscious love for guns. )
************
The pivotal point of my recollection is not Redd’s response…which was quite predictable for a missionary evangelist.
No, it hinges on the question that preoccupied my undeveloped four-year-old mind. I didn’t stride down the noonday street with the sun glinting in my eyes and ask the imposing rounder “Where’s your horse?” or “Can I see your guitar?” or “Do you eat your campfire beans right out of the can or off a tin plate?” or “Does it hurt the cows when you brand them?”
Firearms were nonexistent in my household—not even a hunter in the family—but I was programmed to think about smoke-wagons. “Where’s your gun?”

Who's Judging Whom?

I've been performing an experiment today.

Randomly throughout the day I've been turning on the radio. Every time...every single time...the first words to come out of the speakers have been Orlando, massacre, guns, or shootings.

Once the ecstatic self-serving media frenzy dies down, like the after-gloom of an unsatisfying episode of sex, things will go on. Nothing will change. We'll go on being cowed by affluent monied corporate interests, and voting in people who make the stasis inevitable.

We're getting what we deserve.

Certain bizarre right-wing media mouthpieces are once again ranting about "God's judgement on homosexuals". If Americans are under "judgement" it's not because of our sexual choices. It's about all the evil being done in our name all over the world...as well as here at home...things that are being advocated and supported by those same mouthpieces. They have a peculiar vision ailment that only allows them to see the "sins" of others, and never their own. And some of you will recognize what I'm talking about here...they still think that Rev. 3:20 is a "salvation verse". Claiming to understand and live by the Bible they are completely missing it.

Banjo Rights

Linus van Pelt once said that the world would be a better place if everyone was issued a banjo at birth.

So here's my thought...

Abolish the NRA. Replace it with the National Banjo Association. Make it easy for people to get banjos without a background check. Sponsor unregulated banjo shows. Create a class of high-paid banjo lobbyists.

Some say (some say!) that people should need a license to operate a banjo in the same way they need a license to drive a car. I disagree.

Some people just like to take their banjo to a picking range. And as citizens they have that right. It's a social thing. They don't want to hurt anyone with their banjo. They just get off on making noise and hitting a target note. And they always wear proper hearing protection.

There's got to be an amendment somewhere that can be twisted enough to apply to banjos.

As far as I know, there has never been a mass murder committed by someone holding a banjo.

Look Into My Eyes...You're Getting Sleepy

This is the most important aspect of everything that is going on around you in current political "news".

It is infinitely more important than Trump's latest inanity or why Bernie chose to give a speech at a Christian university.

As an example for my point I'll use a recent article that Latest.com posted about Bernie Sanders' visit to Liberty University.

One line in their article:

"Oddly, the response to this news was not impressed with Sanders reaching out a group he didn’t agree with, but questioned why he was going."

When media tell you what people are thinking, how people are responding, it is all a fabrication. Media are the transparent creators of what you think.

You don't even know that you see the media. You think you are looking at the topic of the moment, but you are seeing, hearing, and thinking what they want you to see, hear, and think. They are controlling you. You are only seeing ideas that they want to impose on your mind. It isn't exactly subliminal, but it is powerful and it is devious.

People take in the statements. The statements play upon innate drives to be a viable part of whatever is "trending" (a ridiculous concept to begin with)...and those drives have previously been implanted using the same methods.

Upon consideration the statements would reveal themselves to be vague and meaningless. Ask questions. ASK QUESTIONS! Who is responding this way? Was I responding this way before they told me how to respond? Are they forming my response without my even being aware of it? And what AREN'T they telling me?

Two words you should always mistrust when you hear them used together: "Some say..."

Yes, this is going to entail some activity on your part because you are going to have to find your own answers.

And those of you who are capable of more abstract complex thought...consider this: There is no such thing as an "objective documentary". The moment someone decides which way to point a camera and when to open the shutter subjectivity is running the show.

This Little Light

You may be asking yourself, “Has GLJ gone off the rails? Has he abandoned his life to sit drooling over a keyboard and ranting like a maniac?”

Oh ye of little faith.

First of all, I hope that my posts and blogs don’t come across as rants and rages. Someone told me I need not fear, that my concise, focused, well-honed writing wouldn’t be mistaken for “rants”.

I hope he was right.

I’ll tell you a story.

I really wanted to volunteer for the Bernie Sanders campaign. Circumstances did not allow me to participate in the categories that were specified at his campaign website. So I looked around and asked what CAN I do?

Here’s what I came up with:
1. I’m a deep thinker.
2. I’m a highly skilled writer.
3. I’m a highly skilled communicator.
4. It’s been proven repeatedly around the world that social media are effective tools for spreading messages, advancing causes. The Sanders campaign is benefiting hugely from this.

So this is what I can do…I can participate in this way.

I know that my audience is comparatively small. But we sang a song in Sunday School…“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

And even if I'm only preaching to the choir, I hope that the choir finds some encouragement.

You can help by sharing my FB posts and blogs when you appreciate them. “Likes” are encouraging and greatly appreciated, but “shares” put the ideas on the road.

From now on when you see one of my posts I hope you think, “There’s GLJ doing volunteer work again. Now what can I do?...”

And by the way, I’m writing songs and making visual art like a madman. A new set of songs will be available soon.

Sympathy For the Victims

It's clear to even a passing glance that the current Republican Party is completely different than that of our parents and grandparents. It's similar in name only.

I've heard it put this way:

Today's Republican Party is made up of three classes.
1. Those in control. (The oligarchs, the One-Per-Centers, the corporations, the banksters.)
2. Their hired shills, (Politicians; the pundits; the media. Mercenaries who are being well compensated for their participation.)
3. The suckers. (The real people "on the ground" who are being tricked into thinking and voting in ways that serve class number 1. They are fooled with emotional triggers that get them heated up and blinded to what's really being perpetrated. Issues that are usually based around race, gender, birth choices, and all sorts of misrepresented "rights". Stink bombs. Trojan horses.)

I don't like the term "suckers". It has an unuseful pejorative tone. Sometimes "The Duped" is used in an attempt to be more conciliatory. I prefer "Victims". They are good people whose own better natures are being turned back to knife themselves in the heart. And they are coerced into grabbing the handle of the knife to help drive it in.

The Mahatma and Bernie

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

Mahatma Gandhi

Think about that as you consider this:

Bernie Sanders is consistently drawing 5,000 to almost 30,000 people per event. One evening a couple weeks ago 100,000 people gathered at the same time in various American homes to support and/or express interest in Bernie. That event has been called the biggest political event in American history.

People are flocking to Bernie Sanders because he is speaking the simple, obvious truth that we are all dying to hear. He hasn't changed his message. He's been talking about and acting on the same values for over 40 years. He lives the way he speaks. While other candidates are flying around in private jets Bernie is still flying tourist because he doesn't want to lose contact with real people. He can be seen walking to work in DC. (Obviously, at this rate he's not going to be able to keep doing these things. And it's clear that he won't be happy giving them up.)

And yet, the media are not telling you about any of this. They are telling you about buffoonery, lies, and nonsensical proclamations in campaigns and faux-campaigns that are thriving on the publicity.

The media are owned by people in power who DO NOT want you to hear the truth. Even the Democratic party is "owned" by political insiders who don't want to yield their power to an outsider like Bernie Sanders.

If Clinton, or Trump, or Walker, or any of the clowns out there drew a small fraction of the people who are flocking to witness and respond to Bernie you would be hearing about it around the clock.

They aren't going to be able to keep ignoring him. So watch for the next step in Gandhi's model. They will ramp up attempts to mock him. It's already beginning to occur.

In the face of all this, support for Bernie is growing at an amazing rate.

Notice that the title of the link below says "crowd of 20,000" while in the next line it says that he drew a record 28,000 that night in Portland, OR. This is not a typo. It is not obfuscation. 8,000 people had to be turned away because the venue wasn't big enough to hold them. This is consistently happening day after day. No one was prepared for the quick rise of interest in Bernie Sanders.

Last night he drew 10,000 in Madison, WI. If you are thinking "well, sure...Madison...left-wing college students"...this morning he drew almost that many in Rochester, MN. This was the second time he drew that many in Rochester in the last month or so. Rochester is known to be a Republican enclave.

Bernie Sanders is drawing people across party lines. They know the real deal when they find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t32JN7ShLJc

Heard and Not Seen

Heard and Not Seen

© 2015 by Gary Lee Joyner

What kind of guitar do I like?

Do you mean a certain brand or style?

Or one particular fetish object?

Listen

Listen

A guitar needs to stay out of my way

A guitar must not get in my way

Transparent

As soon as I notice it I don’t like it

I like to make love in the dark

The touch that isn’t there

The touch that’s so elemental

It may not even be there

Listen

Listen

Here’s the truth

Here’s the deal

This is how it is

It may not have the romance you’re looking for

But listen

Listen

I’ve been married to guitars for 48 years

No divorce in sight

Three things become clear over that length of time

1.     You now look like each other. (Check out Segovia at 90)

2.     It’s hard to be in the same room together for any length of time (ignoring each other helps)

3.     You accept that you are stuck with each other for the duration

OK, four things

4.     Don’t you touch her without asking
I’m standing right here for god sakes

Listen again

As we both know

If she ever did leave

I would sit every night at an open window

With a cold-burning candle

Ready to guide her back home

Complicated, isn't it?

Not Your Father's Guitar Capo

© 2015 by Gary Lee Joyner

www.garyleejoyner.com

A former participant in my guitar classes at Blue Bear School of Music, San Francisco, who is now a geographically distant friend recently asked my impression of guitar capos. Here's his question followed by my response. By the way, his name is also Gary.

Question?

Gary, What are your thoughts on capos? Playing guitars with a friend, he was of the view that with acoustic guitars, we should play in first position. I occasionally capo for singing.

Response:

Hey Gary

My first thought is how good you are at bringing up interesting topics.

I love thinking about capos. I have led lots of workshops about capoing, often under the title “This Isn’t Your Father’s Capo”.

And I like bringing different ideas together…to expand ways of thinking.

For example, in a tangential way one might compare capos to the movable frets of a sitar. Similarities, differences, parallels? Fun to think about.

Or…since capos are in fact simply clamps they might be compared to clamps in a workshop…or in surgery. Holding something together…keeping something at bay…musical sound as glue or blood flow…

Or…more directly…capo usage can be compared to a transposing instrument. One can play and think in C while actually sounding in Eb by capoing at III. This tidy benefit led to guitarists being seen as poor musicians when they had trouble communicating with other musicians. A pianist isn’t impressed when you say “I don’t know, I’m playing in C” when he/she is hearing Eb.

These days I encourage people to think in terms of the key they are actually sounding with a capo in the mix…rather than the forms they are playing. It’s really not that hard. A thorough, accurate understanding of the CAGED concept is all it takes. Sadly, talk about CAGED tends to be ill-informed, not thought through, or polluted by fear and/or arrogance. For starters, calling CAGED a “system” leads to confusion.

The term “system” can be conceived in a couple of significantly different ways. I suspect that people hear “CAGED system” and misunderstand it to be a proscribed methodical approach to something, similar to the “Stanislavski System” of acting or “the 12-tone compositional system”. It may be less confusing and even useful if one compares the CAGED “system” to a plumbing system, a matrix. An understanding of an inevitable structure can help one function. But you don’t need to know about it to turn on the faucet. Musical sound as water...

But I digress. Picking up where I left off about capos…

A curious thing is that sitar playing or building a birdhouse in a woodshop or vascular surgery or Eb alto saxophones don’t arouse the dogmatism, argumentation, arrogance, or misconceptions that the proposition of capos arouses.

Here’s the deal. If you never use open strings when you are playing guitar a capo won’t be of any use to you. Actually, that’s not even true. Let’s say it won’t be of musical use to you. There can be physical applications. For example, if you are training yourself to play something with wide stretches in the fretting hand it can be helpful to capo at V or so and slowly work down over time as you become more limber. Another example of a purely physical application—a capo can make the action feel “lower”…that is, the rise of the string above the fingerboard is higher off the nut than it is over a fret. In another way, a purely sound-related application can be demonstrated by playing “Here Comes the Sun” in the key of D without a capo and then playing it with the same chord forms, but capoed at VII (which means you are actually sounding in the key of A). The sonic/timbral difference is immediately clear. You were playing on a “big” guitar with long strings. Now you’re playing on a “little” guitar with much shorter strings.

But strictly speaking, if you don’t utilize open strings a capo won’t be of any direct musical use. And that musical use is essentially transposition. Jazz guitarists don’t seem to gravitate toward capos. It’s not because they are more highly evolved human beings. They just don’t tend to use open strings. Using a capo with awareness of true keys and musical effects is very sophisticated in itself. A grounding in transposition is a great place to start.

(Ironically, Peter Einhorn, a jazz guitarist, has developed one of the most brilliant partial capos on the market. See next paragraph.)

Here’s a related topic that has excited me for a bunch of years now—partial capoing. This has to do with capoing only selected strings, often at different frets using multiple capos. (The sitar analogy becomes even more apt.) This can be approached simply or deeply. There are a number of partial capos on the market that offer a place to begin. I customized a couple dozen different variations for myself before Peter Einhorn created his universally applicable Spider Capo. Shubb Capos are particularly amenable to the alterations I experimented with on my own. I still use a bunch of them.

Depending on your guitar neck, it might work to begin by simply flipping a standard Kyser capo over to simulate both Esus and A partial capos. The piece that was on the back of the neck is now on the front. Or you can simulate Drop D tuning by clamping your Kyser from below and leaving string 6 open.

Confusion has entered the scene because partial capo manufacturers advertise partial capos as quick ways to altered tunings. This is wildly inaccurate. Standard tuning, altered tunings, and partial capoing are three separate and distinct approaches. Each one is a completely different entity—evidenced by people like David Wilcox, and myself, who have combined altered tunings with partial capoing to create yet another playing environment. But the beauty of basic partial capo usage, i.e. a partial capo used with standard tuning, is that you still have all your familiar chord forms while the “open” strings offer wonderful new combinations of sound that can be surprisingly and happily disorienting.

(There are many topics touched on above that need meta-hyperlinks because they each open entire new cans of worms. Pomo guitar ruminations. No time now.)

A final thought. The idea “he was of the view that with acoustic guitars, we should play in first position” really has me scratching my head. I operate with the idea that “shoulds” and rules don’t serve art/creativity…preferring to think in terms of what is useful in pursuit of a desired result. Any rule is useful only for achieving and/or avoiding what the rule is about. If you want the opposite effect the rule needs to be reversed. The “rule” your friend mentioned strikes me as particularly ill-considered and self-limiting. Acoustic guitars sound wonderful in first position, but a lot of fine music wouldn’t be achieved if we limited ourselves to that area. Maybe there was an implied intent that I’m missing…

A final-final thought. I once heard a drummer interviewed about working with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. They were dealing with some predictably difficult music, and she was having a hard time with it. Really freezing up. Starting to cry. She said that Shorter stopped everything, took her to another room, and gently said, “Relax. It’s only music.”

www.garyleejoyner.com

The Great Gatsby—Great or Grating?

A certain stratum of Twin Cities “intelligentsia” loves to grovel before “The Great Gatsby”. Three women on Minnesota Public Radio are at it again this morning. They aren’t only calling it the greatest American novel, but the greatest novel period.

"What makes it so Great? Why does it endu-u-ure? Why do we keep rereading it?"

I've read it several times. It's on my shelf right now. Why? A repeatedly unsuccessful search to catch a glimpse of any latent transplendence. To me, it's dull, shallow, cheap, simplistic melodrama that I have to slog through. The only thing that lingers for me is the billboard with the "watchful eyes".

Some prof-type talked about "The best seven pages that have ever been written about America" lurking somewhere in Gatsby...??!!!!

The host and guests on the radio show vied to outdo each other with the overwhelming ravishment each experienced the first time she read Gatsby.

Well, these folks have to make a living, too, and this is one way to go about it.

But it makes me think that even though they read a lot, they must not read widely. It's "greatness" pales in the presence of...for starters:

Anything by Robertson Davies. (Not an "American" because he's Canadian? Our friends to the north would argue that provincial view.)

Mark Twain's "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court".

"The Subterraneans" and "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac.

"Women" by Charles Bukowski.

"Clem Anderson" by R.V. Cassill

Even Herman Wouk's "Youngblood Hawke" is more compelling in all its popular novel-ness. That potboiler was fun both times I read it.

And Henry Miller's gigantic "The Rosy Crucifixion". This massive trilogy is set in the same era as Gatsby. If you want to talk about having one's world shift while reading it for the first time...

That covers a few “great” American novels. If you’re claiming global greatness for Gatsby the list of contenders multiplies. Musil, Gombrowicz, Broch, Kundera, Kafka…and on… As the N’yawkas like to say, “fugedabahdit!”

But what’s this compulsion to establish greatness? There’s some masturbatory, self-serving element to all this. If you like it, it’s good. Like wine. Evangelistic browbeating is pointless. Oh, right…everybody has to make a living. Even Jay Gatsby at some point, as I recall…but I think my mind was always wandering by then…

Good News For Consumers

Pay attention to the media that you choose to access.
You are no longer a human being, a citizen, a person, or even a Communist "comrade".
You are a consumer. That is the identity and role assigned to you. That is your function.
"Good news for consumers today...."
"Consumers are asking...."
And so on...

I'm not hearing anyone talk about this. Not in my world, anyway. And when I bring it up to individuals face-to-face the reaction has been: "What? Oh. Oh.... Wow! Yeah..."

Snow Never Stops Falling

SNOW NEVER STOPS FALLING

©Copyright 2010 by Gary Lee Joyner

The air is warm, but the sky cold gray

We finally rise to face the day

Search for the hint of a hopeful ray

But the Snow Never Stops Falling

Collecting in boxes on silver chains

Across dead grass and sidewalk stains

Hiding memories of summer rains

The Snow Never Stops Falling

Canvas faces surround us here

Faded paint blurred by tears

Unblinking eyes, a hint of fear

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Snow that falls this slowly

Never touches the ground

The earth takes it into her mouth

And swallows without a sound

She’ll gently use her tongue

To guide its journey down

Come back to this bed of flannel sheets

Or leave me alone to sleep in peace

To dream in a world of imagined feats

Because the Snow Never Stops Falling

A lion crawled into my room

Sniffing like a dog lost in a tomb

Before slipping away at the first scent of doom

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Here’s a soul that’s bleeding blue

Like faded ink in an old tattoo

Can we bring back color and make things new

Will the snow ever stop falling

Snow that falls this slowly

Never touches the ground

The earth takes it into her mouth

And swallows without a sound

She’ll gently use her tongue

To guide its journey down

One walks out, another steps in

A moment of relief and then

Take a breath, begin again

And the Snow Never Stops Falling

Thursday, April 10, 1986

Imagine getting up tomorrow and finding today again.

In a way, we do this every day, but...I actually lived Thursday, April 10, 1986 twice.

I was working in the entertainment department on a cruise ship heading east from Japan and we crossed the international dateline. I was prepared for the oddness of doing April 10th twice, but the utter weirdness of doing two Thursdays in a row caught me off guard.

The cruise line paid the staff for one day's work saying," It's April 10...it's one day," while they charged passengers for two...

Album 1700

Once upon a time in the distant past a tall, lanky, gorgeous, Swedish blonde bass player with a sweet name stole my songbook for Peter, Paul, and Mary's "Album 1700". I recently found a used copy of the book.

Peter, Paul, and Mary played a significant role in my beginning guitar years. I eventually had a personal connection with Paul (hipsters call him Noel) that I'll tell you about sometime. Still further along the way my interests went in other directions and P,P and M became irrelevant for me.

Rediscovering this songbook sent me back to the old vinyl albums. (I had to go to The Electric Fetus for copies of a couple because I wore the originals out in high school.) I'm having fun looking and listening from a different lifetime perspective. There was a lot of commercial nonsense (after all, they were created artificially by Albert Grossman to meet the "needs" of the current commercial folk market), but they did some very nice vocal harmony work. And sometimes their acoustic guitar sound was quite full and good...for the times.

Two of the albums ("Album 1700" and "Peter, Paul and Mary Album") occasionally approach real hipness because their back-up band was...are you ready for this?...The Paul Butterfield Blues Band...including Michael Bloomfield!!

God only knows the wet dreams that Mary inspired.

And I must add that the more I reconnect with the passion for music-making that P, P and M inspired in me the better off I will be.

The New Gateway: Putting the "War On Drugs" Focus Where It Belongs

The lamentable death of P.S. Hoffman has everyone talking about heroin, of course. The media (a plural word) thrive on this sort of energy.

In the process, information is coming out that the biggest drug problems in recent years (death, addiction, crime, etc) have revolved around prescription drugs. This isn't news, but it is brought into a new focus.

There are also reports about users moving on to heroin when their Rx drugs run out because heroin is now cheaper and more readily available than the prescriptions.

At the same time, new reports are out about the incredible and barely graspable corporate profit margins for the drugs that are constantly being pushed at you via the media (a plural word).

Here's a reasonable conclusion that you won't be hearing in corporate-controlled media (a plural word) because it doesn't serve pharmaceutical profit purposes (even though the same thinking continues to be disingenuously and artificially used as an excuse for maintaining a criminal status for marijuana): Rx drugs are now clearly established as "gateway" drugs. As such, they should be criminalized.

Aspen Magazine

In the mid-70s a friend of mine showed me his issues of Aspen Magazine. He had seen an ad in another magazine and decided to send off the $5 required for a subscription. Given the times and our financial situations this was an admirably brazen move on his part. His guess that it might be a scam was supported when nothing showed up in the mail for awhile. But eventually things did appear--unpredictably and irregularly. Each issue was in fact a magical box of art pieces, recordings (things like Neal Cassady chattering at an SF Acid Test in the 60s), poetry, printed materials, art manifestos, and so on. It all reflected maverick approaches to art, maniacal collaborations, and other marvels that enflamed one's creative passions. He let me borrow these treasures for awhile and I photocopied various things, made copies of the tapes. I discovered ideas that affect my work to this day.

And speaking of this day, I looked up Aspen Magazine on-line this morning and found an issue for sale at Abe Books. The cost? $22,500...

http://www.abebooks.com/book-search/title/aspen-magazine/sortby/1/page-1/

JFK’S MOTORCADE: THE JOYNER FILM

JFK’S MOTORCADE: THE JOYNER FILM

            I'm writing this on Friday, November 22, 2013. Today people of a certain age are remembering what they were doing 50 years ago. We attribute a certain kind of importance to specific measures of time.

            My personal experience of JFK involves a November, but it was 1962. I don’t remember the day of the week or whether I had to skip school to execute my plan.

            I was living in Minneapolis, and the president was in town. I decided that I wanted to see his motorcade drive down Park Avenue. I needed to see the president.

This was not the first or the last shameful impulse I brought into our right-wing, evangelical Republican home—meaning I wasn’t free to talk much about my intentions. (“The pope’s running the country now. THE POPE’S RUNNING THE COUNTRY!”  Bang went the fist on the table.  “Nixon, Nixon, he's our man/Kennedy goes in the garbage can.”)

            I told my mother I was going out. I hopped on my red single speed bicycle with 26-inch tires, and headed toward Park Avenue. It was the longest bike trip I’d ever taken. I wended my way further and further through unfamiliar urban neighborhoods. I remember it being chilly with a familiar bone-deep loneliness.

The avenue was already lined with people when I arrived. I jockeyed my way to the front and stood with my bike at my side, gripping the handlebars. I’m not sure how long we waited on the wide, empty one-way street with our necks craned to look down the road. Expectation and excitement filled the air.

            Finally we saw distant motion and heard the faint rumble of approaching motorcycles under the increasing swell of cheers. A couple other cars came first carrying assorted dignitaries who weren’t the least bit important just now. And then…there he was…passing a few feet in front of me…sitting on the back of the rear seat of his limo…young and strong and in control…confident and out in the open…the famous tousled hair over the square face, the droopy eyelids, the compelling smile, the visible humor, the easy shift of the body that he’d shown in press conferences on TV, the simple wave. It was fast and it was powerful and he was with us and then he was gone.

The crowd quickly dispersed. I climbed on my bicycle. As I made the long ride home I enjoyed my familiar solitude and I tried to absorb the experience—the anticipation and then a flurry of activity that only lasted a couple of minutes at most…or was it two and a half years?

He was real…and then he was gone…