tag:susanherndon.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=5Blog2024-01-12T01:38:34-06:00Susan Herndonfalsetag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514872020-01-23T08:27:54-06:002024-01-12T01:38:34-06:00WAKE UP AND FIGHT
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/59dc9b5ae8201809ac52c8f1cb3a41df026d6ca3/original/woody-guthrie-s-1942-new-year-s-resolutions.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6Njc3eDQ5MyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="woody_guthrie_s_1942_new_year_s_resolutions.jpg" height="493" width="677" /></p>
<p><span lang="EN">
<p>Happy New Year to You. I hope and pray that this year brings great good things to you and yours, and lots of love and good cheer throughout.</p>
<p>Here, as we're in the midst of several Woody Guthrie tributes and studies and I'm in the process of learning a handful of new Woody songs, myself, I thought I'd post this wonderful photo of Woody's resolutions from 1942.</p>
<p>My ex used to joke about how many Woody tributes there are, but hey-- there's a reason for that. His songs are still relevant and his spirit, and his family, and the festival in his name, are all living on and on and there's an extended family created by this man and these songs of his that is remarkable to me.</p>
<p>It's also amazing that he wrote so many different kinds of songs about so many different things-- political songs, dust-bowl ballads, kids songs, down-and-out blues tunes, patriotic songs about the land that unite us, songs about dams, and boats, and flights, and love, and even crazy nonsensical tunes.</p>
<p>Even if I were to learn a new-to-me Woody song for each event, I still couldn't come close to learning before i died, all the songs he wrote in his lifetime. All the songs he wrote, and the songs he's still writing-- by virtue of the fact that people are still putting his words to music-- so there always seem to be new Woody Guthrie tunes.</p>
<p>Here's a lo-fi bedroom-recording of some words of Woody's that I put to music several years ago. At a time when i was feeling very down and out~ i found that Woody had already been there and had charted that territory.... of <em>Careless, Reckless Love</em>.</p>
</span></p>
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<p> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514972015-08-26T06:01:34-05:002023-12-10T11:22:49-06:00Filey Brigg
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Filey Brigg</span></p>
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)"><br></span></p>
<p>Didn't wanna go</p>
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">But then, it's so good to be gone</span></p>
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)"> </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Here <span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">along the beach</span></span></p>
<div>The North Sea sings her song</div>
<div></div>
<div>Seagulls wake me</div>
<div>Make me shake the time </div>
<div>Right the wrongs</div>
<div>Sometimes it takes a whole lot of nothing before something good comes along</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Since I quit dancing with the devil</div>
<div>I walk upon your back instead</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Beyond the dirt</div>
<div>In this sand and mud</div>
<div>Across the moors and in the hurt</div>
<div>We sing our song</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Follow the lead of the heart</div>
<div>In the wild wind, </div>
<div>Hear Justice call</div>
<p>Sometimes it takes a whole lot of nothing for something good to come along</p>
<div> </div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Then, </span></div>
<div>
<div></div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Since I quit dancing with the devil</div>
<div>I walk upon your back instead</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Watch the tides</div>
<div>Read the news from home</div>
<div>Rising up on these rocks</div>
<div>Of the dragon's bones</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div>Thanks and praises</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">For my friends, for these changing skies </span></div>
<div>For the sailors' song</div>
<div>Sometimes it takes a whole lot of nothing for something good to come along</div>
<div>Yeah, sometimes it takes a whole lot of nothing for something good to come along</div>
<div> </div>
<div></div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Filey Brigg</div>
<div>Since I quit dancing with the devil</div>
<div>I walk upon his/its/your back instead</div>
<div></div>
<div>Yeah, I quit dancing with the devil</div>
<div>Now I walk upon his back instead!</div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
<div></div>
</div>
<div></div>
<div>(with thanks to Chris, and Addy, Jeni, and Amy, Steve, ....and Tom.....)</div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514962014-12-27T13:37:12-06:002020-01-23T08:27:57-06:00"Sometimes I feel very sad....."
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/a5153c400f7ab1fb849abd88531d293b72be9846/original/fig.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzcweDc3MiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="fig.jpg" height="772" width="370" />Was running just a little bit late to Bell Labs Studios the other day. It was our last day to mix the VAGABONDE record-- finally! But I was also running out of gas, so stopped at the Love's at Exit 120 where the sign said the price for unleaded was $1.99..... By the time I finished filling up and was pulling away, the sign then said the price was $1.97. I looked at the receipt, and damn, missed it. </span></p>
<div></div>
<div>Everything is in the Timing. </div>
<div></div>
<div>I'm out of time. Out of money. Out of patience with the time that it's taken to make this record. But there's still so much to do. And I'm afraid I've proverbially bit off way more than I can chew.</div>
<div></div>
<div>One summer, I was living and working in Greece, on the island of Paros and just outside the window of my apartment there was a big beautiful fig tree. It looked to be about 100 years old. The month before I had to leave, I watched these figs ripen. Every day I looked at them and counted my days left on the island and prayed they'd ripen before my departure date....but no such luck. I had to leave and although they were all pretty plump, they still needed what looked like another 10 days or so......</div>
<div></div>
<div>So I was thrilled this past summer when the fig tree I planted in my garden several years ago gave me about 10 figs and I didn't have to leave before I ate almost every one of them. There was one left, still unripe, but then I had to leave for a trip....</div>
<div></div>
<div>Timing is Everything. </div>
<div></div>
<div>I played a club recently and I couldn't help but overhear a group of girls who were sitting nearby exclaim how much fun they were having. I glanced over at them as I was setting up to play and about six of them were looking at their phones, agreeing how much fun.....</div>
<div></div>
<div>"I just wasn't made for these times........" I thought to myself, feeling completely overripe.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Anyway, this VAGABONDE record has taken waaaaay longer than I ever imagined it would. About a half a dozen of the dates we had scheduled to record and to mix had to be postponed because of "le temps" --the weather, that is. Then there's being at the mercy of studio availability, and other peoples' schedules.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Tom Petty is right, "The waiting is the hardest part."</div>
<div></div>
<div>The fact is, I am extremely stressed that I have promised all of the wonderful folks who contributed to my Kickstarter that the release date for the album and for their rewards would be October, and here it is December. And there's still mastering and manufacturing to do, not to mention all of the design and layout and the publishing rights to obtain and a zillion other secretarial duties to take care of.</div>
<div></div>
<div>So, as I was driving away from Bell Labs Studios, with the final mix under my proverbial belt, fretting about what all there is still yet to do and that I'm going to be about six months behind schedule, i turn the radio on-- and I hear a preacher say: " All things are in God's Time.....you must be patient for God's Glory.....'to everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven'......"</div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514952014-08-20T14:05:43-05:002020-01-23T08:27:57-06:00...just because there's no new blah blah blog for a while doesn't mean there's not sumthin' goin on....On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">It was late when I stopped by Mom's apartment. </span></p>
<div>She answered the door whispering to me, "Daddy is asleep in the other bedroom." </div>
<div>"Huh? Dad is?" </div>
<div>"Yes," she said, "Daddy is...or is it Mother? Well, someone is." </div>
<div>I didn't argue with her. For all I knew, there really was someone asleep in the other room. Even though in this reality there was nobody asleep in the other room, and i would soon be sleeping in there. In that other dimension, maybe there was someone in there. In fact, there probably was.</div>
<div></div>
<div>The week prior, I was talking about films and sitcoms to Grae. I asked him if he liked the Big Bang Theory, told him I loved it. He said, no-- "but my future second ex-wife liked it a lot and I got her the box-set." </div>
<div></div>
<div>On another occasion, Leslie was in the kitchen cooking and I had just gotten to Norman and was throwing some different clothes on for the gig that night. All of a sudden Wayne and Grace start squawking up a storm. Leslie hollers from the kitchen, "are you naked?!" </div>
<div>I was, indeed. </div>
<div>Turns out, Leslie's bird, Grace, doesn't like it when her mate, Wayne, looks at naked human female bodies.</div>
<div></div>
<div>So finally, it came time to move Mom from her apartment into assisted living earlier this year. I was out on a gig somewhere when I got a text from my sister... </div>
<div>Mom had been convinced all along that someone was ringing her doorbell at all hours of the day and night. Whenever I was there Mom would tell me about it, though I never heard it, and frankly, we never believed her. But Ann, my sis, who helped her move, said she was in the other bedroom of the apartment, the place was empty--She and my brother, Hap, had just moved Mom and everything out--when Ann heard the doorbell ring several times... </div>
<div>She goes to the door. </div>
<div></div>
<div>There was no one there.</div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514942013-12-23T10:57:24-06:002020-01-23T08:27:56-06:00C'était le temps des fleurs
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Yahia, my dear old friend, used to say unequivocally that Paris was "La Plus Belle Ville du Monde." </span></p>
<div>Which surely must be true.</div>
<p>But the Metro smelled like piss.</p>
<div>Maybe every metro smells like piss.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I took the RER from Gare de Lyon to Chatelet les Halles and waited for the connection to Charles de Gaulle airport. It was rush hour crowded but i got onto a car of the tram that held less than a dozen people.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I dumped my heavy bags and my guitar on the seat in front of me and crumpled into the chaise across the way from two German twenty-something girls. They were all dressed up in some matching sort of black and white fashion, they wore bright red lipstick and were busy discussing something. A few people behind me were talking quietly.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I looked up above the doors at the linear map showing the stops before we reached the airport. It looked to be about a 20 to 30 minute ride.</div>
<div></div>
<div>All of a sudden, I hear singing. </div>
<div></div>
<div>At the other end of the car, a slight, dark haired, middle-aged woman is belting out <span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">the French rendition of "Those Were the Days," (that old Mary Hopkins' tune, which, it turns out, is an old Russian tune written in the 1920s.) And it's </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">fantastic. </span>
</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">She is proudly delivering the song. And frankly, it's a tough audience. Everyone stops talking for a few seconds to listen. But then they resume their conversations. Don't </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">they realize how much better she has made this ride? It's palpable. The car becomes brighter and more animated and everyone and everything--it's apparent--is uplifted, like she's shone a big light on the train. She rips out the entire song with full fledged "La la la la la la! La la la la la la! La la la la la la la la a las!" at each refrain. And i can't help myself, I'm beaming. </span>
</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">She then breaks into a quick chorus of Besame Mucho before walking through the train with her small purse open as she goes around to each of us allowing us to tip her. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">She surely didn't make much. I gave her some Euros. But seems she got a lot of people with upturned noses.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Way back when I was busking, I was told by a Frenchman that the French (even though they love their artists) just don't view busking like Americans do. It's not some romantic thing but rather something base. I didn't care much because it's pretty exhilarating especially when you've just started playing out and you're painfully shy to begin with. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">* * * * * * * * </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I walked all the way around Charles De Gaulle 3 times looking for the terminal for my departure; this airport was surely designed as a mirror of a French mind. It made no sense whatsoever to me. I asked for directions at least five times before I finally found the right gate to check in. I checked my bags but then have to go to a different place to deposit my guitar and a different place to pay for the added cost for the guitar. $200 is what it cost to get my guitar to France and back home. Then, it sat there waiting for some person (preferably someone with the airline and not some rogue thief) to somehow get it on the right flight.... I doubted it would make it home. Every time I passed by, there my guitar still sat. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It's amazing, it occurs to me, how it all works, somehow. How there are a zillion flights in a zillion different cities and towns all going to and from a zillion different places and everyone is working diligently to make all those flights run and all of the bazillion people get on and off the planes and then all the gazillion pieces of luggage going on and off too and then being transferred, not to mention all the humongous planes flying UP IN THE SKY!!!! AND they all run pretty much ON TIME. It's amazing.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I'm heading towards the terminal to go through security when I get stopped by a French military personnel. He and several others push the entire crowd back. There's a bomb threat, evidently, and no one is allowed to pass.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Welp, this decidedly calls for one more pain au chocolat and un cafe. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I pass by the gate where I checked in. There's my guitar.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I have the best pain au chocolat and cafe of my life. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Heading back to security, I see my guitar is still sitting at the check-in gate all alone on a dolly.....</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">* * * * * * * * *</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I want to fold myself deep into a pristine forest and disappear for a century or two.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I'm very tired.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">After the Xanax wears off, we're served some complimentary cocktails with our meal. The man sitting next to me is a preacher originally from the Congo flying back home to Atlanta after his missionary trip. We chuckle at the unexpected opportunity to get drunk on this delightful Air France flight to the US.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">* * * * * * * *</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The flight from Atlanta to Tulsa feels like a flying bus. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It's completely booked and we have to check our carry ons. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I'm late to board because I had to wait for my guitar....</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">But there she finally is!</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">By the time we're in the air and I'm pouring the Skyy Vodka into my tomato juice, the flight is loudly animated and everyone is talking to one another. If they don't already know the person sitting next to them, they do by the time we get to Tulsa. I happen to know a couple of people on the flight who are sitting across the aisle.....</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I'd met this friend at the Annual Garden Deva Festival last year (that I had to miss this year to play at the Amiens Festival).</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">And as great as it is to be in Europe, it's so good to get home to friends and family and to be playing the following night at the Canebrake in Wagoner, Oklahoma and to see everyone there including my cousins, Linda and Joe. And then to Norman to play with Terry "Buffalo" Ware at Tres Cantina and to see my Bestie, Leslie, and Michael and M Tim and Sandy and Neil and Steve there. Then, how nice it was to play a few shows with Susan Gibson at Greg Johnson's Blue Door in OKC and at Robin and Jim's Tilly Ponderosa in Tulsa and what a terrific songwriter she is. And although i'm completely exhausted with jet lag, it just gets better and better playing tunes at the Science Project with Tom Skinner and the guys and with Terry and some Shambles (Marlin Butcher and Bob French) and with the Dirty Power Trio--Bob and Steven Streetman, and in Sweetwater for the West Texas Revue and Beyond with Bob Livingston and Bradley Kopp and all, and it's always great playing with Stephen Rickey Lee at Bodeans and at Tallgrass in Tulsa.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I feel fortunate and know that I'm blessed to get to play music with so many great musicians who are dear friends. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It's a hard-knock-life eeking out a living playing music, being a song peddler, and i always feel that essentially, all i'm still doing is really just busking, although maybe i might be playing and singing in a warm barroom or concert hall instead of out on the cold street--but I'm pretty sure...these are the days, my friend.....</span></div>
<div>We thought they'd never end</div>
<div>We'd sing and dance forever and a day</div>
<div>We'd live the life we choose</div>
<div>We'd fight and never lose</div>
<div>For we were young and sure to have our way.</div>
<div>La la la la la la......</div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514932013-11-19T07:30:33-06:002020-01-23T08:27:56-06:00Heaven. Hell. Borderlines. And stuff in between.......
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">What is the definition of heaven? </span></p>
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<div>A French chef, a German engineer, an English policeman, an Italian lover, and a Swiss banker.</div>
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<div>This was one of the only jokes I used to know. </div>
<div>Brent in Switzerland recited it to me the other day and it was funny to hear it again after all these years. I reminded him that I had told it to him a long time ago when i used to play my steady gig at Rick's Cafe Americain in Tulsa and they used to all come out on Wednesday evenings.</div>
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<div>On the TGV now going back to Paris. I've got a book with me, L'Alchimiste by Paulo Coelho. Read it in English a long time ago, thought I'd read it again this time in French. It's the story of a shepard boy who goes on a pilgrimage and in the course of his journey, learns of a treasure, falls in love, gets beat up, and discovers a secret: the treasure has been buried behind his home in his backyard all along. Something like that.</div>
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<div>My French sucks right now. Use it or lose it. It's been good to be back in Europe. The sanity of the Old World. In Switzerland everyone i met spoke about 3-4 languages well. And it was a great way to end this trip. I was very spoiled by my friend and his friends and the concert and dinner last night were a lot of fun.</div>
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<div>But I miss my friends and family back home.</div>
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<div>Several of my girlfriends before leaving playfully urged me to get a French boyfriend while i was here, (but in much more adorably vulgar terms. :-)</div>
<div>For my first few days back in France, that would have been nice. It was cold and rainy and I was depressed and tried to finish a new song . My songs suck right now and writing is hard. My mind is too focused on just plain survival and the hustle of getting from point A to point B that i haven't written a song I much like in about a month. (Although we did write one that was kinda cool at the songwriting clinic in Sweetwater, Texas a few weeks ago.) Still, I preferred running away from such work and <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">going to the Festival d'Amiens to watch the films. I maybe saw about ten films this last week. More than I've probably seen in the past three years altogether.</span>
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<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It was about a twenty minute walk from the Hotel St Louis where they put me up, to La Maison de la Culture where the Festival was taking place and where il y avait beaucoup de monde. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Close to my hotel, a guy busking in the streets played "Stairway to Heaven" on electric guitar. I swear he got better and better each day I heard him. There was the sound of another familiar melody line i heard but i couldn't </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">place the song..... I finally realized it was "The Star Spangled Banner" drifting down the Centre Ville </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">from the little Cassio keyboard played by a guy sitting in the doorway of a shop at the other end of the street. </span></span></span>
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<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I used to busk some in the streets of France a long time ago when I was first starting to play out. There's a whole lot of freedom you feel when you're comfortable enough being a fool. ("Unfettered and alive!" ;-) But you don't make much money. ("And he played real good for freeeee!"). </span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I dropped some Euros in both their cups.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The sun came out. I went to a courtyard where I could soak up the sunshine. Watched a bee buzzing and doing his thing around a bunch of wildflowers. Figured this was probably the closest i would get to the action my girlfriends requested of me.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">France, for the most part, is nice and quiet. (Except for the guy on the train from Paris to Zurich who talked to his colleague the ENTIRE time. I couldn't make out his French through his thick accent. Was he working on building a small African nation, I think? His voice droned on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.....There was just an hour left of the ride when he finally got off at Mulhouse, THANK GAWD.) Switzerland is even more quiet. It's forbidden to make noise on Sundays there. (Good thing that guy didn't live in Switzerland, he'd never make it.)</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Europeans live in such close proximity to one another, they are firmly and gracefully socialized. (And the smells are incredible.....)</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Now, all of a sudden at this moment, the French Douane are interrogating and patting down the mec seated in front of me. There are six of them. They rummage through his affairs. One of them asks me a dozen questions about why I'm here. They're curious about my guitar..... But really they're interested in the guy. Is he Musulman? I wonder about such harassment dating back to the Crusades and the Middle Ages, i suppose. In Zurich, I was tipped off to how the Suisse are annoyed by the Germans. Through the centuries, Germany has bullied the little country, which I'm told is about the size of Northwestern Oklahoma, with a population less than that of Manhattan, maintains its neutrality and controls 30 percent of the world's wealth. (The Douane descend in Mulhouse.)</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Years ago, in reading The Hidden Dimension in World Affairs, a little underground book of conspiracy theory, it seemed apparent and i was convinced that the world's countries and events were being puppeted by a few somewhere tucked back in that area, or maybe in Luxembourg or Belgiam. Who knows? I just know that the US and its politics look pretty ridiculous in the world anymore, that the dollar has lost all its prestige and much of its value, and that the US border police can be intense too, or so I've heard.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">As the train makes its way just across the Swiss border and into France through fields and farmland, I can't help but think of my dear friend Marcel who along with his family escaped Nazi occupied France by hopping off a moving train as it crossed into Switzerland.......</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">People suck sometimes. And man's inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze me. As I, myself have recently survived narrowly escaping the clutches of vampires and a group of zombies and some awful monsters, it's also really surprising when I find how incredibly</span></span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"> kind some people are. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"> On my way from Amiens to Zurich through three train stations, the RER and Paris Metro, up and down more than a half a dozen flights of stairs and on and off as many trains and trams-- not once did I have to lug my big bag by myself. Every single time someone was kind enough to come to my rescue when it got tough. Bless them! At one point, the doors of our RER would not open at their stop and the buzzers were going off. People were frantic. A gentleman and I look at each other in a sort of, "oh merde!" The lady looks at me and my big bags and my guitar, "ola! Et comment vous allez faire avec tous ca?!" At the next stop, we all rush to get off and the lovely gentleman insistently picked up my big bag and carries it off the tram. (But i also remember the time when I was moving to France years ago, traveling through the metro/RER to get to the train station and the buzzers went off and I was in everyone's way struggling to descend and i got pushed off the tram and they threw my bags and guitar after me!)</span>
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<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">I witnessed about ten murders last week. :-)</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)"> </span>
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<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">If art copies life, you'd think we kill each other all the time. Mike Hodges was honoured and was there and i went to a double feature of his films with Mireille. Although i missed much of the first one because i fell into a deep food coma sleep after eating several crepes and drinking too much wine then eating desert and chocolate. I did finally get to see The Terminal Man which was great. Hodges introduced the film and said he had moved out to LA to write, direct, and produce the film and it was just after the Manson killings. He was very lonely and paranoid at the time.......</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">But I think my favourite film was Serie Noire which was in the group of films that made up the Festival's homage to Tulsa. It's a French film adapted from the book, Hell of a Woman, by Jim Thompson who was from Anadarko, Oklahoma. He also lived in Ft Worth for awhile before moving to the West coast. He wrote The Killer Inside Me and The Getaway, etc. And I had never heard of him.</span></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Evidently, his writing was never really popular in the States, but the French discovered him and loved his work. I could see why.....not too action-packed but lots of dialogue. Patrick Dewaere plays the lead and it might be some of the best acting I've ever seen.</span></div>
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<div>Et alors, what is the definition of hell?</div>
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<div>An English chef, a French engineer, an Italian banker, a German policeman, and a Swiss lover.</div>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514922013-11-13T11:20:31-06:002020-01-23T08:27:56-06:00Reste de l'or.
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Nothing Gold Can Stay</span></p>
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<div>Nature's first green is gold,</div>
<div>Her hardest hue to hold.</div>
<div>Her early leaf's a flower;</div>
<div>But only so an hour.</div>
<div>Then leaf subsides to leaf,</div>
<div>So Eden sank to grief,</div>
<div>So dawn goes down to day</div>
<div>Nothing gold can stay. </div>
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<div>Robert Frost</div>
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<div>Funny, I come to France and see The Outsiders, this film that was made in my hometown. The theatre was packed. Fabien, the director of the festival, introduced it, the complete novel version. And we all became engrossed in the beauty of the greasers and their clan.</div>
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<div>France kinda reminds me of the US in the 50s or 60s.</div>
<div>And the French love the underdog. </div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">They are the underdog. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"> Or have been throughout history, it seems.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">When I played at the French Hen, S.E. Hinton and her husband used to come in there to eat. If I wasn't so shy and busy playing, I would have loved to have talked with her. I think he played guitar. And they seemed to listen to the French songs i played and always left me a tip before leaving.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I try to leave tips here in France, but they reject them.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Tip is included in the bill. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">And frankly, they don't care much about money, it seems.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It's so refreshing.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Americans have been trained to strive for that proverbial almighty dollar.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It twists your brain.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">And even though the Euro is more valuable than a dollar, things seem to cost less here.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I have to say, I'm impressed with the country.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Many years ago, when i was living here, in Auvergne, the French Minister of Culture passed a law to encourage the transmission of the French language and required something like 80 percent of radio to be songs in French. At the time, we all laughed-- it just seemed like it would be impossible to enforce and make that change. American Pop Culture was rampant and everyone loved it and knew all the songs. Seemed to me then that radio was probably something more like 40 percent French 60 percent American or English songs.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">So on the way from Paris to Amiens the other day, i found it interesting to hear only two songs in English, in about an hour and a half. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">And then, Jean, a Frenchman who lives in Vermont, gave me a copy of The International New York Times and there happened to be an article on how "English proficiency falters among French."</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">(And let's not forget that they don't accept travelers checks or change dollars anymore....)</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Couldn't sleep last night. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Still on Tulsa Time. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Turned on the tv. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">It was a program on Kristallnacht...... </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The other night on tv, it was French porn.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">(By the way, if you've made it this far, I've seen where you might have mocked these blah blah blogs. You know I hate blogs and I probably would make fun of them too if i wasn't out here by my lonesome self with nuthin better to do and if i had a bunch of cushy gigs and the support from a musical community and the love of a beautiful woman like you do and that great luxury of letting your sailor tongue loose. I probably would too if I was as good a songwriter as you are. I suppose it's nice to know you're reading them. And anyway, I ain't hurtin nobody. And I'm gonna love you anyway.)</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Stay Gold, Pony Boy.</span></div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514912013-11-11T21:10:47-06:002020-01-23T08:27:55-06:00Just another day, Part 3.....American Express-- go ahead and leave home without it.
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">"Press 9 only in the case of an emergency such as death, rape, or abduction."</span></p>
<div></div>
<div>This was the after hours voice message of the American Embassy in Paris.</div>
<div></div>
<div>It was good to know they considered such things emergencies.</div>
<div>The fact that I had no money, though, did not fit into that category so I hung up.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Ah, La France. </div>
<div>I'd forgotten all of its charm!</div>
<div>And I feel fortunate just being back here.</div>
<div></div>
<div>If souls were to have a nationality, I'm pretty sure i have a French one.</div>
<div></div>
<div>So, I spent 5 hours walking in the cold rain yesterday looking for a bank, or somewhere, to exchange my travelers checks. Yes, it's been that long since I traveled. Come to find out, La France made a national decision about two years ago to no longer accept travelers checks. And today is Sunday and tomorrow is a national holiday, and everything is closed. And still there is nothing in France that is open 24 hours. </div>
<div></div>
<div>Isn't that beautiful?</div>
<div></div>
<div>And frustrating for an American. </div>
<div></div>
<div>Places close for lunch</div>
<div>(people have lives outside of work!)</div>
<div></div>
<div>I need neosporin for the infection in my foot.</div>
<div>The pharmacies are closed.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I'm walking down the street today to take a rose to the lovely lady at the office of tourism who spent about two hours yesterday trying to help me with the travelers check issue, and a car speeds up and the driver motions me over to ask me if I know of a magazin that might be open.... His wife looked a bit ill....obviously they weren't from here, though I couldn't tell from their French. I told them, "Je suis americaine et je cherche la meme chose--desolee!". They sped off.</div>
<div></div>
<div>The office of tourism was closed for lunch.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I wandered into the cathedral where they were having mass. </div>
<div>It was beautiful with a chorus of human angels singing. This is the largest cathedrale in Europe, I was told by Nourdine, who picked me up in Paris to bring me to Amiens to play some songs for the 33rd Amiens International Film Festival.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I fell asleep in the wings of the stage just before I was to go on, exhausted from the trip and from all of the scrambling to tie up loose ends before traveling.</div>
<div>I thought I was just doing a couple of songs before the showing of Les Raisins de la Colere. But it turns out I was opening the opening ceremony of the festival. So I quickly changed what songs I was going to do. And then Fabien, the director of the festival would come out after me.</div>
<div></div>
<div>There were a lot of people there in the grand theatre and just before going on, Fabien introduces me to the Mayor of Amiens in the dark backstage. I couldn't see him but was told that we would all have cocktails afterwards at the Hotel de Ville. </div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I was wishing we could have had some cocktails right then.</span></div>
<div></div>
<div>I love France. </div>
<div></div>
<div>From the moment you get on the Air France plane, everything turns into Mad Men.</div>
<div>The women are all beautifully dressed and chic. The men are well mannered and charming. And there is a politesse and a certain, "ca se fait pas" about things that just should not be done and are unacceptable. I guess after nearly 2000 years of civilization, there is that. C'est la Gaule.</div>
<div></div>
<div>There is no Red Neck Taliban here.</div>
<div></div>
<div>The lovely Francaise sitting next to me in the flight to Paris sensed my distress with taking off and she reached out and grabbed my hand and held it until we were firmly in the air, giving me a pep talk and a Lamaze class in breathing the entire time. </div>
<div></div>
<div>I had had a glass of wine in the Atlanta airport before leaving. I should have had two. I took a Xanax. But it didn't knock me out. By morning and pretty much no sleep, i realized i should have taken two Xanax. </div>
<div></div>
<div>I asked the guy sitting to my right, "Vous etes francais?"</div>
<div>He nodded. We were all crammed into Economy like sardines.</div>
<div>I asked if he'd ever seen that Seinfeld episode where Jerry's in First Class having a delightful time with a model and some dish that included Saphron, while Elaine is stuck cramped up in the back having a hell of a time.</div>
<div>He says no. He hasn't seen it. And he calls the flight attendant over.</div>
<div>Next thing I know he's moving to a seat in the back of the plane.</div>
<div>And I've got two seats to my self!</div>
<div>(I highly recommend, in your very worst French, to try to engage whomever is seated next to you-- your chances might be good to gain an extra place for your 7 hour flight!)</div>
<div></div>
<div>I looked over at the guy across the aisle. </div>
<div>He wore a mask over his eyes.</div>
<div>He had a beige blanket draped over his torso.</div>
<div>He looked like the Lone Ranger.</div>
<div>He'd been seated like that since before take off.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I looked at the map on the seat in front of me. </div>
<div>It showed the little airplane slowly making its way over the east coast. </div>
<div>The Atlantic looked very deep and blue.</div>
<div>Oh gawd oh gawd I'd hate to fall into that.</div>
<div>I looked at the Lone Ranger. </div>
<div>He never moved.</div>
<div>He was in his own world.</div>
<div>I tried to watch a movie. </div>
<div>It was Hangover 3.</div>
<div>I guess I fell asleep for most of it.</div>
<div>Woke up at the end and one of the characters had breasts.</div>
<div></div>
<div>By now the plane is dark and quiet for the most part.</div>
<div>I look over at The Lone Ranger.</div>
<div>He hasn't moved at all, still seated up straight.</div>
<div>I tried to arrange myself draped across my two chaises.</div>
<div>Not comfortable.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Morning finally comes.</div>
<div>The little airplane on the screen in front of me is now flying over Bretagne.</div>
<div>And soon after, I just have some coffee as they serve breakfast, we approach our landing.</div>
<div>A flight attendant wakes up the Lone Ranger.</div>
<div>He takes off his mask and his cape.</div>
<div>And i envy him.</div>
<div>He has slept a solid 7 hours, not moving one bit as far as I can see.</div>
<div>He is stoic and seems refreshed.</div>
<div></div>
<div>I straggle through the airport, exhausted, finding my bags and very relieved that there is someone waiting for me with my name clearly typed on a sign.....</div>
<div>It's Nourdine.</div>
<div></div>
<p> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514902013-11-08T22:06:35-06:002024-01-12T01:36:28-06:00Just another day.....
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Part I:</span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)"> </span></p>
<p><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">Feel like I'm from a different epoch, a different century, maybe I'm just back to the future, maybe I'm from another planet. I haven't flown IN YEARS. Who are these strange creatures? What is this incredible security system. Is everyone a terrorist? Why must they confiscate my huge brand new bottle of Smart Water and test it before they dispose of it? I've<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"> only had a sip, just eaten a salty meal. I'm an idiot. </span></span></p>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Never thought I'd fly again. Been there, done that. So much beauty in the world. So many places and people to explore. But so many spaces in the heart and love for another yet untouched. So much gardening to do. I miss my home. Miss my mom. Miss my friends and family. Miss my puppy dog. Everyone is on their phone or their computer or their tablet. Two men standing nearby are talking about their Smart phones. Two men sitting nearby are talking about how incredibly fast and wondrous is technology. We are robots. Or approaching robot hood. </span></div>
<div></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Part II: </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><br></span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"> </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color:rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469)">The gate agent put my ticket under the scanner....."Already On Board" it said.</span>
</div>
<div>Hmmm..... He handed it to another agent who looked<span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"> into a computer screen.</span>
</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">"Someone is already sitting in your seat, do you mind taking a different place?"</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">I don't mind. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Oh gawd. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Turns out it's an Emergency Exit. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">This would entail some responsibility if something happens. </span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">Oh gawd.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)">I board the plane and glance into the cockpit.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">That small room controls this humongous plane!</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I walk through First Class and resist the urge to grab and guzzle down a man's vodka and cranberry juice</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Passing by my would-be former seat, 28B, I check out the man sitting there. He seems unsuspectingly not to be a terrorist.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I reach my Emergency Exit seat.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Well, it IS roomy.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">There's a man sitting next to me who offers to put my bag in the overhead.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">"Whatdya have in here, GOLD?" he grunts, heaving my bag in the bin.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">He's wearing a camouflage jacket that says, "Guns and Ammo."</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I don't know whether to be afraid or feel safe.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">A stewardess points out that there's an extra seat across the aisle. I leap over into it. I was planning on drinking as soon as possible and i really needed to relinquish the responsibility of the Emergency Exit. Still, I asked Ammo if he'd be alright. Guess he misconstrued my meaning and said, "We can still talk."</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The pilot comes on, says there's a good tailwind to make up for lost time. I watch the flight attendant do her routine. She reminds me of my sister-in-law. I like her Delta uniform. My sister used to fly for Delta. She worked hard and it was stressful. The flight attendant points out the card to consult for emergency landings. It says on the front, "Be Safe.". This seems unnecessary to me. The attendant makes sure our seatbelts are fastened. Which makes me think of Seinfeld joking about how if the plane is crashing at great speed, a little seatbelt probably won't do much to ensure your safety.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The plane careens around a corner as we speed to takeoff!</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">What on Earth?! The plane rises into the air and i throw my coat over my head and bawl like a baby after I watch the wing and think about its aerodynamics and wonder. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I've flown 100s of flights, why I'm terrified now, i don't know. I think it's 911, and the fact that, as a friend says, it's all the big fears wrapped into one: fear of heights, claustrophobia, agoraphobia, fear of someone else being in control. And then there's the fact that SO MANY things have to go RIGHT. This is huge machinery 30,000 feet or more, IN THE AIR!!! I think about the last time I flew which was to Ukraine to play music on a mission trip. And before that, it was to Fiji for a honeymoon. I really just wanted to go to Arkansas, but he insisted. Wonder how cockpit and cocktail both have "cock" in it. Think about all the beautiful people I saw in the airport. Everyone is beautiful. Young, vibrant. Not the big heavy Americains that we used to be last time i flew. Everyone is working hard, going somewhere. Where? Why are we working so hard? Why does our government keep making it all so hard to pay the bills? Why are they so entitled? What about those times of bloody revolution when people rose up and bludgeoned their leaders for being such pigs. How awesome. How horrific. Wait, is that the Arkansas River? No, it must be the Red River. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Are those the Ouachitas? </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">So beautiful. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">The Earth is a beautiful woman with curves and folds and mounds of flesh shining in the sun.</span>
</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I order my Bloody Mary. The vodka is Skyy.</span></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">I am leisurely drinking a cocktail 20,000 feet in the skyy....</span></div>
<div>
<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">We approach Atlanta. The crescent moon and Venus hang in the blue against the vermillion </span><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">horizon of a setting sun. </span><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">All the lights of the city shine and make me think of a poem my friend Ashley wrote comparing such shimmering to the trinkets and wares a grinning Middle Eastern merchant spreads out for passers-by to behold. And we prepare for landing.......</span></span>
</div>
<div></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">Part III:</span></span></div>
<div></div>
<div><span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438); -webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969)"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></span></div>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514892013-09-10T05:21:10-05:002020-01-23T08:27:55-06:00Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!
<p> </p>
<p><strong>It was after midnight when our train pulled into the station just beyond the outskirts of town. Why a train station outside of town? It was late and we were in Portugal. Little made sense. The few passengers who got off at the station dispersed into the dark and only my traveling companion and I were left. The station was closing and they shooed us away. But where to go? The buses had stopped running for the day. There was not a hotel nor a hostel anywhere near. No all-night cafe. Nothing. This was the big middle-of-nowhere. </strong></p>
<div></div>
<div>There was one squat, square building next to the station. It was clean with a beautifully manicured lawn surrounding it and several big shady trees that made up a little courtyard that was enclosed by a three-foot stone wall with openings on all four sides of the building. Ahhh... a welcoming idyllic scene. It was inviting. We unloaded our backpacks and guitars and after traveling all day, heaved sighs of relief as we crumbled onto the soft and fragrant grass inside the courtyard. </div>
<div></div>
<div>Looks like we'd be camping there for the night.</div>
<div></div>
<div>As we settled into the idea of this and the comfort of the earth such as it was, a security guard came upon us out of nowhere and in that one universal language of gesture and uniformed harassment, made it clear: we were not allowed in the grassy courtyard.</div>
<div></div>
<div>We pleaded our case.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Nope.</div>
<div></div>
<div>Please???</div>
<div></div>
<div>No.</div>
<div></div>
<div>This was the Portugese John Candy character in Vacation, and we'd just arrived at WalleyWorld after a long and miserable journey across the country...."Sorry, folks, park's closed."</div>
<div></div>
<div>After several futile attempts of sneaking back onto the grass only to get thrown off again and then again, my traveling companion found a big piece of cardboard, spread it out on the concrete sidewalk and this would be our bed for the night.</div>
<div></div>
<div>This would be our bed for the night?! </div>
<div></div>
<div>I would make a rotten homeless person. (Which is unfortunate since I feel that I am always just one mis-step away from being homeless. I'm always thrilled each month that I can pay my rent.) But I whined and I whimpered and I swore that I was finally too old to be sleeping on a piece of cardboard for the night. I needed my f&$king creature comforts!!! <span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)">..... when I should have just been grateful, I know.</span>
</div>
<div><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color:rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color:rgba(130, 98, 83, 0.0898438)"><br></span></div>
<div>So now, when I'm out on the road, driving 800 or however many miles, peddling the songs that I and that we have written, lugging equipment around, trying to find places to crash for the night, hoping to save some money when i can, I am eternally grateful to the friends and family along the way who provide a place to stay for the night, warm meals here and there, gas money, and just good companionship. </div>
<div></div>
<div>You know who you are...... Leslie, Ellie, Andrea, Dean, Kathleen, Sammy, Jeff, John, Scott, Colleen, Michael, Andy, Rick, Hap, Stacey, Barbara, Dan, Mark, Joseph, John, James, Karen, Matt, Will, Amanda, Nancy, Greg, Heath, Jim, Robin, Amy Scott, David, Paul, Robert, Kim, ....and on and on....</div>
<div></div>
<div>Thank You! Thank You! Thank You!</div>
<div></div>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514882013-05-22T10:25:12-05:002020-01-23T08:27:54-06:00Moore
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<br>Left Okemah one week ago today to play at the South East Regional Folk Alliance in NorthCarolina and to do some songwriting in Nashville along the way....<br><br>And just before leaving, I threw some moonflower and morning glory seeds in the ground, and planted some cucumber, zucchini, and squash seeds; and finally got more onions in the ground....<br><br>And now, I'm home.<br><br>And in one week, all the seeds have sprouted and are up, along with everything else in the garden.</div>
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<br>And on Monday, most of the city of Moore was razed to the ground within less than an hour by an F-5 tornado.</div>
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<div class="im">And Okemah dodged a bullet....</div>
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<div>Here's a rough draft of a song i'm workin on....</div>
<div>(click on "Read more" to hear it)</div>
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<br><br><br>Begin Again</div>
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<br>Watch the storms roll in<br>Fairweather friends<br>We can't stop the winds from blowin<br>And in the end, in the end, we begin again<br><br>Caught in Little Rock<br>Watch as now what's not<br>We can't stop the winds from blowin<br>And in the end, in the end, we begin again<br><br> Out from Nashville to the coast<br> Round the Blue Ridge I think of Moore the most<br> On the open plains from Asheville<br> Sirens sound, diving down, cling for life underground<br><br>Are you still within<br>The wreckage and the falling in<br>We can't stop the winds from blowin<br>And in the end, in the end, we begin again<br><br> Oh, these souls! Oh, this season!<br> There is no rhyme or reason.<br><br>We rise up<br>We get knocked down<br>Cleaning up<br>Rebuild our hope around<br>We can't stop the winds from blowin<br>And in the end, in the end, we begin again<br>Yes, in the end, in the end, we begin again<br>In the end, in the end, we begin again.</div>
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<div class="h5">"Moore," Susan Herndon @ Okie Turtle Music 2013</div>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514862012-10-18T07:01:25-05:002020-01-23T08:27:54-06:00but i'm still,..... willin'
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<p>So, it's dusk, and I'm just East of Memphis, driving back from Nahsville...</p>
<p>Rockin' out to John Hiatt's latest, <strong><em>Mystic Pinball,</em></strong> re-living the fantastic show he and his band had put on the previous night, I suddenly gather that there are flashing red lights behind me.</p>
<p>I pull over.</p>
<p>I have no idea how long they've been following...</p>
<p>I wait.</p>
<p>The guy walks around the truck and I roll down my window.</p>
<p>His badge says, DEA Special Agent Johnson.</p>
<p>He tells me, "You were weaving."</p>
<p><br>"I was what?!"</p>
<p><br>"You were weaving."</p>
<p><br>Hmmmmmm</p>
<p><br>He asks me to get out of the ride....</p>
<p>He wants to know what I do for a living, where I'm coming from, where I'm going, what I've been doing.</p>
<p>I swear to him I'm not carrying anything illicit.</p>
<p>... a musician, singer-songwriter, caught weaving between Nashville and Memphis....</p>
<p>He seems not to believe me.</p>
<p>It's nightime now. And for the next hour, he searches every bag, every case, every sack in the vehicle. Looking. For something. He opens my guitar case. Nothing. He looks through my CDs. Nothing. He searches every compartment-- places I didn't even know existed in this thing.</p>
<p>Nothing.</p>
<p>He opens up a door and a bright red chiffon tutu springs out and bounces in his face.</p>
<p>"WAOH!" exclaims Johnson.</p>
<p>My friend, Andrea, had left it there after she and her friends had gone to a festival in Colorado. They had dressed up as mushrooms.</p>
<p>I start thinking, wondering if maybe they had dropped some magic mushrooms in the truck?</p>
<p>But Johnson, as he eagerly goes through my affairs one by one in the suitcase, seems disappointed.</p>
<p>Not one stem. No seeds. No moonshine.</p>
<p>Not even any beer in the cooler.</p>
<p>How pitiful.</p>
<p>....And I think of my hero, Willie.....</p>
<p>And I think, I need to have more fun! ;-)</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514852012-09-03T08:53:36-05:002020-01-23T08:27:53-06:00Dear Senator Inhofe
<address>to hear the rough draft of a new song (copyright 2012, Okie Turtle Music), click on the above text: "Dear Senator Inhofe" and wait a moment for it to load</address>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514842012-08-29T06:14:39-05:002020-01-23T08:27:53-06:00CLOSE TO TOAST
<p>Hurricaine Isaac has been sitting over New Orleans and they say the price of gas will go up. I wonder how BP is doing out there.... how nice it was of them to air public service announcements about how much they're doing to help out after their big oil spill several years ago-- encouraging vacationing on the Gulf Coast.<br> I'm sitting in my garden hoping to see that the beets and the carrots and the peas that I just planted have come up, when i hear a commotion. It's a couple of dove that fly up onto the fence, their feathers are ruffled, they seem bothered and they're saying something. A moment later, I see the ground move about a foot from where I'm sitting. It's a snake! It's s about four feet long and an inch and a half in diameter and it's slithering in between the tomatoes and the basil and the peppers and the onions. I get a closer look and there in the middle of the bed is a little baby dove. It looks up at me with its big black eyes, completely unaware of the snake. "NO!" I scream out. The snake looks up at me and sticks his tongue out several times. It doesn't seem poisonous but it could probably wrap around a little dove and choke the life out of him. I grab a stick and try to scare the snake away from the bird. The baby dove waddles away and the snake slithers out of the garden, but not without trying to get at the bird again before he goes back to his den in a big tree trunk down the back alley. I follow and get a good close look at him. He is BEAUTIFUL. He moved with such power and stealth. And how he could hide and you would never know he was there. <br>My neighbor had mentioned to me that the pile of limbs that sat next to the fire pit probably made a good hiding place for snakes. But the drought has been so bad, there's been no burning, so the pile just keeps growing as the dead branches fall.....<br>It's a wonder that anything in the garden is still alive. The temperatures were so intense for more than two or three weeks this summer, with a heat index at 115-120 degrees, watering felt nearly impossible. The heat was unbearable, NOTHING can live under those conditions. And I didn't think I could. It made me ill. Sick to my soul.<br>Last night on the news, Brian Williams says that statistics show the polar caps have melted more than ever this year.<br>What are we doing? And why are we doing this? <br>And now there's a national convention going on..... is climate change and global warming even an issue? Is everybody bought and sold? Do these people REALLY represent us? One candidate has so much money, it doesn't seem like we're even from the same planet Earth; the other candidate bailed out the banks billions of dollars with no strings attached, it kinda makes you wonder..... And then, does it really matter whether we vote or not when somebody can steal the election if they so W-ill to?<br>I know I know. Very unfashionable for a singer-songwriter to talk politics. <br>But this is not about politics. This is a matter of survival and what we value and hold dear. <br>Several days ago, I'm running errands, driving around in my car, burning fossil fuel, listening to NPR. Peter Byck, the director of the film, <strong><em>Carbon Nation,</em></strong> is on. He urges that people are not polarized in opinion here, we're in agreement about energy efficiency and alternatives. The solutions will make life better for everybody. (<a href="http://www.carbonnationmovie.com" data-imported="1">www.carbonnationmovie.com</a>)<br>....he also says that we're "close to toast."</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514832012-06-01T05:53:34-05:002020-01-23T08:27:53-06:00Sweethearts of the Rodeo
<p>Admittedly, up until now, when I'd hear the phrase, Sweethearts of the Rodeo, I would think of that great album by The Byrds, minus David Crosby, whom I love, but with Gram Parsons, whom I also love.</p>
<p>Alas, it's been over thirty years since that album was released.</p>
<p>My first and only rodeo experience was when I was about six years old. I'd go out to Coyle, Oklahoma to see my grandma, and my best friend out there, Cindy Downey and her family took us to the rodeo. They lived right across the road of that old Highway 33 and they had horses and cattle, and maybe they had someone in the rodeo. It was a great experience although I can't really remember the Sweethearts....</p>
<p>So, last weekend, I went to see the movie, <em>Cowgirls N' Angels</em>. <br>It's the poignant tale of a young girl who sneaks off to join the rodeo in search of her long lost rodeo-dad, and along the way she becomes a Sweetheart of the Rodeo. A new release, filmed in Oklahoma, <em>Cowgirls N' Angels</em> has two of my songs in it, "Lay Me Down," and the song, "Oklahoma Girl" which I wrote with Bob Livingston and John Hadley. It also features some friends, the Rangers, in a bar scene, with a great close-up cameo of Don Morris. It's a sweet film and I cried all the way through it.</p>
<p>And that night, there they were ~the Sweethearts of the Rodeo~ riding all through my dream.....</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514822012-05-10T06:15:06-05:002020-01-23T08:27:53-06:00I'll Have Another....
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<p>'Dr. Dre' and I went to the hospital to see a friend who has cancer. Hang out, play a few tunes. Her sisters were there and brought food, some bruschetta for her. She asked for some Van Morisson. Wanted happy songs. "Happy~Happy" she kept saying in the twilight as the nurse brought some more pills for her.... "Happy~Happy." Her sister asked if she wanted some more bruschetta. "Yes, I'll have another...."</p>
<p>It's amazing we're here. Let alone, alive and well, if we are. Planet earth, the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy, the universe. I mean, what are the chances? And how many things can go wrong to ruin our chances? It all seems like one big giant amazing game and gamble at risk.</p>
<p>So then, to gamble on top of it all, seems redundant to me.</p>
<p>I, myself, don't gamble.</p>
<p>There was one year, just minutes before the Kentucky Derby, I glanced at the names of who was racing, and I had a complete and shining hunch that Giacomo was going to win it. He was a long-shot. His odds were 50-1. But I just knew it. I told my husband and he said that he'd place the bet for me. It was about 20 minutes before the race and we happened to be in a casino where he was performing. Naw. I don't bet. He tried again, just 20 bucks. No, my gosh, blow 20 hard-earned dollars?!</p>
<p>Giacomo won.</p>
<p>After beating myself up for the next six months, I swore to myself that from then on I would take a lot more risk in my life.</p>
<p>I wanted to place a bet this year for the Kentucky Derby, but the race snuck up on me, and in the mad scramble to take care of the few people and things I love and care for, in between my gig Friday night in Tulsa and my gig on Saturday night in Norman, and then the hustle to stop by my home and water the garden, since it had been several days of heat since I'd been there-- there was no time to place the bet.</p>
<p>It really would have been a symbolic bet anyway, in honor of my father who loved the horse races. He wasn't a big-time gambler, at least we didn't think he was since no one ever came to re-possess the cars or the house; but when he finally retired, every day he would study the racing forms, do the handicapping, and go place his bets at the fairgrounds where they run a simulcast of the races from all over the country.</p>
<p>It seems that just about everyone in my family gambles in some way: the horses, the stock market, football games, the lottery.</p>
<p>For me, playing music for a living is about the biggest gamble I can make.</p>
<p>And then there's the gassing up of your car.... should I get gas at this convenience store or can I make it to the one down the highway, closer to the Keystone Pipeline where the price of gas is less expensive?</p>
<p>The last thing I did gamble my money on, and took a big risk, was late one summer. It was nightime. It was a Sunday. I was at the house all alone. I turned the tv on. There was that infomercial for the Time/Life Soul Train DVD collection. Damn. It had been awhile since I'd last seen this thing. Maybe two years prior, and I had wanted to purchase it back then. Four easy payments of $29.99, they assured me. I was depressed already. I had no money. Plenty of bills to pay. Not to mention the zillion other things that were just plain not right in my life. But gosh, "Betcha By Golly, Wow" by The Stylistics; "Everybody Plays the Fool" by The Main Ingredient; "Have You Seen Her" by the Chi-Lites; "The World is a Ghetto" by War; and Marvin, and Stevie, and Smokey, and the Staple Singers, Lou Rawls, and the Jackson 5, and Al Green, and Luther, and Sly, and on and on and on. Geezus, I HAD to have this collection. My life would be better if I had this in my possession, I just know it.</p>
<p>I called the number on the screen. Duane answered. He spoke in a deep and re-assuring, calm voice. He took my order and would I also like the CD collection that goes with the DVD collection?</p>
<p>I said, no.</p>
<p>He persisted.</p>
<p>No.</p>
<p>Duane said, "because you'll want to listen to these songs in your car, too, while you're going down the road."</p>
<p>Gosh, he was right.</p>
<p>"And now it's only six easy payments of $29.99."</p>
<p>I asked him if they could take out the Lionel Richie songs, but go ahead and leave the Commodores in the collection.</p>
<p>Actually, even though I should probably have spent my money on health care instead, I did win big in that transaction. And the O'Jays, and Gladys, and Bill Withers, and the Isley Brothers, and all of the Soul Train dancers, and the Afro-sheen commercials, and especially Don Cornelius often remind me of what a great investment I did make.</p>
<p>Bless Don Cornelius for such a great creation and how sad to hear that he was found dead by a self-inflicted bullet-wound to his head this past February.</p>
<p>Life is hard. But here we are.</p>
<p>And "I'll Have Another" won the Kentucky Derby this past weekend.</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514812012-04-18T01:38:36-05:002020-01-23T08:27:52-06:00Tits and a Vagina.
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<p>Two musicians are talking, one says to the other--"gawd, I just got back from Jersey, played this club up there. The gig sucked: four hours, only two breaks, no complimentary food or drink, it only paid 200. bucks and then the check bounced." "... oh yeah," the other musician says, "and who books that?"</p>
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<p>I'm heading back to play a place that I haven't played in about a year. It's on the way to a festival I'm playing and there's another gig on the way. So, in a way, it makes sense....</p>
<p>But the last time I played there, just as I was leaving, saying goodbye to the soundman, he tells me, "You were great. And hey, everyone here loves you, the managers, the people who work here, and everybody who comes in. It's just the guy who does the booking, he doesn't like you because you have tits and a vagina." :-)</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514802012-03-28T04:04:58-05:002020-01-23T08:27:52-06:00Austin, Nashville, Memphis, Austin.....
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<p>It's not yet April and I've been down to Texas to play five times since January.... and to Nashville and to Memphis and next week to Arkansas. And I'm wondering if it's time to move.....</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514792012-03-19T04:08:58-05:002019-12-13T21:36:32-06:00SXSW and Folk Alliance.....
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<p>Both of them, a blast. If you get a chance to go~ GO!</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514782012-03-07T02:19:19-06:002020-01-23T08:27:52-06:00"Some humans ain't human, some folks ain't kind...." (john prine)
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<p>It was such a beautiful day today~ I took Tootie, the puppy dog, for a nice long walk at the dog park. We were about to get in the car to go, when I answer a call on my cell phone from a friend. Just then, a youngish woman walks by us and scowls, "you need to keep your dog on a leash." Tootie is pretty well behaved, but I answer politely, "oh, i'm sorry, did she do something....?" "Well, I had to pick my dog up," she snapped. I look behind her at the acres and acres of empty park, wondering about this encounter, when she then exclaims, "And get off your phone!"</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>Ten years ago, in my politesse, I would have sucked this up and let it all go. But I'm older now, less calm and more cantankerous, have not been doing much Yoga lately, and very little meditation. In fact, I've been completely stressed and under quite some duress in my life, so I let this self-appointed-cellular phone/doggiepark policewoman have it.</p>
<p> ***</p>
<p>I really hate conflict and thank goodness things like this don't happen very often. But it did make me think about an incident that happened about five years ago when I was on a gig in Tahlequah at Roxie's.....</p>
<p>It was a song swap with a bunch of guys and a girl comes out and assaults me and then she goes around slandering my name. In hindsight, I think I was so stunned-- first of all that this person did not even live in that town, had driven however far to get there, and then attacks me-- I did nothing. I went home, told my husband about it and a few friends and just chalked it up to her being crazy and to steer<strong> </strong>clear. I took what I thought was the high road.</p>
<p>But then a few months later I hear that she had started a rumour and spread a lie about me..... and then a few months later I learn that she's trying to malign people in the musical community against me. I'm suspecting this at first, but then I find out for sure when my best friend forwards me a message that this girl had sent to her where she's pretty much trashing me. My brain just does not wrap around someone doing this. Still, I do nothing. I'm thinking: this girl is a sociopath.</p>
<p>In the meantime, I'm getting a flood of messages from the sociopath and she's wanting to be my friend. And more and more, there she would be at the same social setting where I was, being sugary nice to my face and in front of other people, while all the while i knew she was trying to screw me from behind...... Still, I take the high road and just keep to myself and keep going about my business.</p>
<p>(...the problem, I've found out now, five years later, is that NOBODY IS ON THE HIGH ROAD! Everybody is down on the low road dishing the dirt. Even God. Or so it seems. And if you don't say anything~ you're doing yourself and the world a disservice.)</p>
<p>Look at Hitler and Nazi Germany. How stupid humans are! Look at all of those people, in their herd mentality, following this insane little man.... slowly taking over 1/3 of the world, killing how many people.... and not until a chunk of the world rose up was this evil defeated. How scary and frustrating to the spirit when some weird fraternal order goes about imposing its exclusionary beliefs on society.</p>
<p>And that's what really creeped me out about this particular little vignette in my life-- almost more than the hungry-ghost behaviour and evil-doing of this girl, although that was pretty creepy, but-- that anybody would believe her. A dear friend of mine (from whom, come to find out, she'd stolen some stuff) kept telling me~ "Be glad! She's doing you a favor weeding anybody who would believe her out of your life to begin with! You wouldn't want to be friends with them!"</p>
<p>But it was creepy, nevertheless.</p>
<p>I would gig someplace, she would try to gig there. She would hear my song about the roads in Oklahoma, next thing i know, she's got a song about the roads. I go to look at the trailor a friend is selling, she hears about it and goes to look at it too. I get a short hair cut, she gets her hair cut short. I become friends with some obscure person, the next thing i know she coyly seeks him out and befriends him. I schedule a show or event, she would schedule something similar at the same time. And on and on and on. It was getting a little freaky.</p>
<p>Again, in my mind, the universe is infinite and expanding~ like at the doggie park~ there are acres and acres of universe! There's enough for everybody and more! But, things are also finite and you go down your chosen path and it's a lot of hard work and sacrifice to make music for your livlihood-- did she, who's been given a barn to live-in and apparently doesn't really understand what it means to work for a living, have to come around and try to tear down what I've worked hard to build? Did she really have to come stealing after something in my life? And do people really believe her crap? As big as the universe is~ it's also a small world, after all....</p>
<p>And in it, my little ego wants an apology from this damned souless and sinister creature of evil for coming after me.....</p>
<p>Of course, I won't get it. ( For that matter, I doubt she's apologized to all of the wives and girlfriends of the guys she's blown.)</p>
<p>I'll never forget, years ago~ I was waiting tables one night at a place called Pinks and I stop at the bar to fill a drink order. Paul, sitting there, turns to me and says with that great smile-full-of-wonder, "You know what I don't understand sometimes? Why does God let some people exist? You know? Why does He even have them in existence?"</p>
<p>Hahahahahahahahah!</p>
<p>I've wondered that same thing since then, myself.</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514772012-02-14T00:12:15-06:002020-01-23T08:27:51-06:00Ain't too proud to beg, Sweet Darlin'....
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514762012-01-26T03:16:15-06:002020-01-23T08:27:51-06:00Gliddy glub gloopy
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<p>There's a warrant out for my arrest....
</p><p>I sent a check in to pay for the speeding ticket, but i guess they didn't receive it in time, so i'm an outlaw.</p>
<p>We were on our way to play Good Folk Concerts in Fayetteville, Arkansas for Emily Kaitz's birthday party and we had a great time. Of course the ticket was for 9 dollars more than what i made at the gig, and with the warrant it's a whole lot more now, but of course, one doesn't play music for the money.</p>
<p>When I played out in San Francisco in August, I got a parking ticket and that sucked because i came out more than 50 dollars in the red on that little venture. But it was good to see Guy and Sofia whom I'd met in Okemah last summer at WoodyFest. And they had come over from Santa Cruz so that was cool.</p>
<p>On our way to Fayetteville we stopped off in Tahlequah to see a friend, Bill Erickson. He has a ton of great songs, and one that we want to cover he put on a CD for us to take. Which also really came in handy because Emily has so many great songs, but some that stick in your head, ~not that that's a bad thing~ but one in particular that she sang this night we absolutely could not shake the entire first half of the drive home.... <em>"Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose...."</em> we kept singing it over and over in that particularly Jewish mode, laughing and groaning hysterically. In an effort to remain sain, we tried to occupy our minds with other things but then there it was, popping up again: <em>"Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose...." </em>We remembered we had Bill's song on CD. Quickly, we stuck the ammunition into the CD player.... <em>"Katy was a beauty, had to have her...."</em> Ahhhhhh..... we spent the second half of the drive listening to that song over and over working on memorizing it..... by the time we got home, somehow,<em> "Mamma, what happened to Suzy Rosen's nose"</em> had finally slipped out of our minds and the speeding ticket was just a piece of paper I had forgotten about.</p>
<p>Such was not to be the case with <em>"Gliddy glub gloopy."</em> </p>
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</p><p>I was in a department store, and there it was: <em>"Good Morning Starshine! "....</em>gosh, I always loved that song. It had been YEARS since I'd heard it. I didn't know any of the words, didn't even know that first line or that that was the title, but the music and that curious melody are so infectious~ I wandered the aisles happily thrown back into my childhood humming along.... forgot what I was doing there, that it was the dreaded holiday season, that I had things to buy, that i was in a hurry.... until the song was over, and I snapped out of it, went back to being about my business~ somehow feeling a little lighter, and thought it would probably be years before I'd hear that song again.....</p>
<p>But then, there it was again.</p>
<p>It's about one week later, and I'm driving down to Luckenbach, Texas for the "Piano Sessions," a gig that wonderful singer~songwriter, Bill Lewis has invited me on, when my traveling companion (who shall remain nameless in an effort to not musically incriminate him,) all of sudden breaks into song: <em>"Good Morning Starshine, The Earth says hello, You twinkle above us, we twinkle below!"</em> It's THAT song~ and he knows all the words! I can't believe it. I can't believe it's that song again. And I can NOT believe that this person knows the words, not only to the entire first verse, but also slightly knows some of the words to the chorus, which I had no idea what they were. But, wait. He's mocking the song. How could he mock this song? I love this song! He actually googles the lyric on his phone to mock it some more, and he reads it out loud like a secretary might read the minutes of a boring meeting: <em>"Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba lee lee lo lo tooby ooby wala Nooby aba naba Early morning singing song."</em> "That's just someone giving up completely on songwriting," he states. I can't believe it! I'm just thrilled, argue that it's perfect, can't believe it's this great song AGAIN, can't believe THIS person knows the song, and truly, am in utter disbelief that THIS is the actual lyric. "Genius," i say! The nonsense perfectly conveys that feeling. And anyway, I never even knew the words; it might just be that the music is more important. "One of those one-hit wonders," he scoffs. "Yeah, maybe, but it's almost 50 years later and we're googling and singing the song!" We go back and forth, and now, for real, i can not get the song out of my head. It's there when I go to bed that night. It's there in the morning when I wake up.</p>
<p>One week passes. It's still there. <em>"Good Morning Starshine...."</em></p>
<p>Now I'm starting to get scared: <em>"... the Earth says, 'Hello'"</em></p>
<p>Seriously, ......what if it never leaves?</p>
<p>Two weeks pass, I'm lying on the couch. I think I've got the flu or something. I fall asleep watching "THIS," the movie channel... it's some pleasingly cheesy long-haired hippy film from the 70's that's on, but i'm not paying much attention. I'm feverish, like somehow I've possibly been slipped a hit of acid.... the next thing I know, half-asleep, half-awake, I squint my eyes to see, and there on the tv, all these hippies are riding in a car down an open road in the early morning sunshine. I hear them first, though-- and there they are, all of them singing: <em>"Good Morning Starshine, you lead us along, My love and me As we sing our Early morning singing song, Gliddy glub gloopy nibby nabby noopy la la la lo lo Sabba sibbi sabba nooby aba naba lee lee lo lo tooby ooby wala Nooby aba naba Early morning singing song!"</em></p>
<p>I am crazy. There's no doubt about it.</p>
<p>But without these songs, I would be completely insane, and I'm even more sure about that.</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514752011-12-22T13:51:51-06:002020-01-23T08:27:51-06:00the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon (...a re-dedication, nevertheless.)
<p>
</p><p><span lang="EN">
<p>For a number of years, my dear friend, Jim Tilly, used to produce the <strong><em>Holiday Harvest CD</em></strong> which was a compilation of seasonal songs from artists around the region. Proceeds went to the Community Food Bank. It was a really wonderful tradition he had going. ....One year I wrote a Hanukkah song for it with the traditional <strong><em>Ma'oz Tzur</em></strong> liturgy. My Hebrew's not so great, but here it is:</p>
</span></p>
<p>
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<p><span lang="EN">
<p>So, last night I made a fire for the Winter Solstice.... thankful the days are growing longer now, finally.... (there's something to just plain and simple paganism. Especially this time of year ;-)</p>
</span></p>
<p>But religion is great and useful, (...unless, of course, you're killing because of it,) and just after my Boss RC-20 Loopstation, it's my most favourite tool, I've done some form of Yoga all my life, and probably the best thing i've ever read are <strong><em>The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.</em></strong> (Andrew, my Ashtanga Yoga teacher gave me the book a long time ago.) But, I was happily raised Methodist ("faith without works is dead"), had some experiences with speaking in tongues in my early teens (thanks to some Charismatic friends), slowly became an athiest (late teens) but grew miserable, so switched to agnosticism, which led to studying existentialism, which led to Buddhism, which in turn led me to some time at Plum Village in France (where I found myself one winter doing a hundred deep prostrations face and body all the way to the ground, along with about one hundred other people from around the world in celebration of New Year's Eve...and that was a memorable turn of the year.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Found it hard to practice Buddhism after moving back to the States.... (I think the drive that it takes for the ego to maneuver around this 'culture' plus not finding a sangha with which to practice made it difficult.) So, while being deeply entrenched in a Catholic community, I began having a series of dreams of a Torah procession....which led me to visit the Synagogue in my neighborhood, which eventually led to my conversion.... which has led me full fool circle back to being a pagan....</p>
<p>And so this week, I'm lighting the Chanukah candles, back to practicing Yoga and doing sitting meditation, back to finally learning the Band's, <em>"This Must Be Christmas Tonight",</em> and back to walking around the Medicine Wheel and the Winter Solstice Fire.</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514742011-11-17T05:39:00-06:002020-01-23T08:27:51-06:00L'enfer,
<p>c'est les autres.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>~Jean-Paul Sartre</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514732011-11-12T08:13:05-06:002020-01-23T08:27:50-06:00"... the Earth is made of molten rock..."
<p><span lang="EN">
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/53b3b72127027d2dd1d23090dcdddae3c78e3f8e/original/sanandreas.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjUweDMzOCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="sanandreas.jpg" height="338" width="250" /><span lang="EN">There have been at least a half a dozen earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past few weeks. A geology professor here says it's absolutely not from fracking, that the quakes have appeared at depths significantly deeper (approx. 3 miles) than deposits where fracking takes place. But who knows really? Even though he does study the Earth, it's not like he's spokesperson for the Earth. After all, it's all just one big rock that we live on top of ...and he does work at a university that's in partnership with the petroleum industry.....</span></p>
<p>Last night i had a dream that we were having another pretty big earthquake.... it was very real... but then when i woke up and checked the USGS site~ nothing.</p>
<p>Maybe there's still a big one yet to come....</p>
<p>I wrote the following in September, which, now that we're having these earthquakes so frequently, is kinda funny in hindsight....</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Evidently there was an earthquake in Red River when i was playing out there the other day. Something like 4.5 on the Richter Scale. It happened in the middle of the night and i was sleeping so didn't feel it.</p>
<p>I've always been a little bit afraid of going out to California~ (having the feeling like that line in Steely Dan's <em><strong>My Old School,</strong></em> "California~ tumbles into the sea!") but then, when i was playing out there last month, the big earthquake happened not on the West Coast but on the East Coast in the D.C. area. Come to find out though, there was an earthquake in the San Francisco area right after i played there, I didn't feel that one either-- i think it happened after i had left the next morning. Getting to the desert that afternoon, just east of LA, someone said so matter of factly, "oh, yeah, we have earthquakes here all the time." And i swear, the earth was undulating beneath me all the while i was out there....</p>
<p>About 9 years ago, i was in an earthquake right at home, (which isn't so unusual, as we've been having them a lot lately, due, they say, to fracturing.) This particular one happened around 3 in the morning or so. At the time, I didn't think it was an earthquake. The guy in the apartment above me cooked meth. And i was pretty sure he had finally gotten around to blowing the enitre complex up, so i tore out of the apartment house and down the street, still asleep and in my nightclothes....</p>
<p>Later, the news was, we had indeed had an earthquake, on the line there at the edge of the New Madrid Fault that runs through Missouri and Arkansas.....</p>
<p>All this to say, you just never can tell. The Earth is Alive.</p>
</span></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514722011-11-03T05:11:58-05:002020-01-23T08:27:50-06:00the question.
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> To Be or Not to be,<em><strong> That</strong></em> is The Question.</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514712011-10-23T07:31:18-05:002020-01-23T08:27:50-06:00"... a thousand flowers are in their lovely bloom, for what? for whom?"
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/da29d7ee308c5d2e894f9be15ea082e76d1c8ecf/original/moonflower.jpg/!!/b%3AW10%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" /></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514702011-10-12T09:18:39-05:002020-01-23T08:27:50-06:00"And Mamma hollered out the back door, 'y'all remember to wipe your feet...'"
<p>it's been a long while since i read Charles Mingus' autobiography, <em>Beneath the Underdog,</em> but i recall and always loved the part where he describes the conversations that he and his jazz band would have during the gig while they were playing..... <br> <br>every now and then there'll be a musical moment that is just so rich it's really indescribable, but it's worth a try anyway..... though this particular scene is hardly in the intellectual realm of Mingus and his ensemble.....</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/10a2803c4f3eb4a6e996b5ec03a8848aa8f4f0c5/original/bobbie-gentry-resized.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjM5eDMwNSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="bobbie_gentry_resized.jpg" height="305" width="239" />the other day someone ~who shall remain nameless here~ suggested i should cover Bobbie Gentry's, <span style="text-decoration:underline"><strong>Ode to Billie Joe.</strong></span> <br>(my dear friend, WSH, has been trying to get me to do that song for a couple of years now-- at least ever since she bought the album on vinyl. <br>--and there on the back cover is that wonderful Bobbie Gentry walking out in the country with her guitar, and she's in those jeans, looking back over her shoulder at the camera....)<br>what a great song. what great songwriting. <br>i told he-who-shall-remain-nameless that i would learn the song, and would play it the following night.<br>he didn't believe me. didn't think i could learn it and perform it so soon. <br>we made a bet.<br>and i won.<br>so the other night, when someone requested the song towards the end of our gig, we went ahead and played it.<br>Skinner was burnin' up that great bass line, Stephen Rickey Lee returned from his bathroom break jumped on his guitar and provided all that great ambiance line.... and someone in the room who was singing along-- you know who you are and bless your soul!-- got up and did an interpretive dance to the song.....<br>~this was heaven~<br>i couldn't watch her or i'd mess up the story and the song, since it was all still new to me. so Stephen took a few lead breaks, while i'd get it back together again...<br>but then we get to the line, "and she and Billie Joe was throwin' somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge," our dancer asks us, "what are they throwing off the bridge?" Stephen takes another sweet lead, and while i'm answering, "that's what everyone asks, and it makes the song so good, cause we really don't know exactly..." SRL, in the middle of his lead, looks up and hollers, "it's a foetus!" .... i turn to Skinner, "he just said 'foetus,'" and Skinner, grinnin', holding that bass line down says, "yeah, he did."<br>after the song, our dancer exclaims, "I'm even <em>from</em> Tallahatchie!"<br>to which Skinner replies, "I<em> thought</em> that was the Tallahatchie Stomp you were doin!"</p>
<p><br>and that's how from this point forward, SRL got the name, 'Foetus'</p>
<p><br> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514692011-10-09T10:05:36-05:002020-01-23T08:27:49-06:00death and taxes.....
<p>got an extension last Spring to render unto Caesar that which is his; so been doing my taxes lately. <br> which is kinda ridiculous, as it's certain i'm in the poverty bracket of this great society of ours.<br> but it's always good to do some accounting, and i found, not to my surprise, that there is more money going out, than there is coming in....<br> which brings me to my point:<br> they're saying that our economy is more than sluggish because people aren't spending any money....<br> who are these people? and why aren't they spending any money? don't they know about the whole "trickle down" effect!? ;-)<br> let me just say, that i have definitely been doing my part to inject all of the small amount of money i make-- and more--into our economy.</p>
<p>.... and i'm thinking that i should be rewarded in some way ;-)<br> like maybe at least a big purple economic heart.</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514682011-09-22T04:27:42-05:002020-01-23T08:27:49-06:00"seriously, Mommy, let's go home now."
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/ae3e9333d61677749f3f5f0b614f2207c761e5b1/original/tootie-seriously.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6Mzc1eDUwMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="tootie____seriously___.jpg" height="500" width="375" /></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514672011-09-15T04:31:47-05:002020-01-23T08:27:49-06:00Bolts of Calico (and of lightning)
<p><span lang="EN">
<p>I'm on my way to the gig in Las Cruces in New Mexico.... and i'm thinking about radiation....</p>
<p>Do you think it's still out there in the desert where they tested the first atomic bombs?</p>
<p>Did the radiation drift anywhere? Did it get into the ground water? Is it in all of the rocks?</p>
</span></p>
<p>Evidently if you go out there-- and my friend, Lee, tells me you can only go twice a year when a shuttle takes tourists out there to visit the site-- you'll find glass in places where the heat transformed the sand. I'm also told that when they did do the tests, people who went out to watch the spectacle took picnics with them.....</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Last night I played the Cowgirl in Santa Fe, which i love. Last year, Bill Hearne came out to hear us and sat in with my band, which was fun. It was fun again this time around,too. Nancy Apple, wonderful singer/songwriter from Memphis, whom i met at WoodyFest in Okemah, was out here and she sat in. I got there early for dinner and sat at the bar. Met Jeremiah among others. Jeremiah is a physicist at Los Alamos, (he also does some contract/side work detonating bombs in Afghanistan. And I'm pretty sure we're in good hands there.) When I was asking about Los Alamos-- where the atomic bomb, i guess, was invented-- VanDyke, who was sitting at the bar, said you had to take provisions out there with you when you went, including things like bolts of calico.... which i'm not sure what that meant but i couldn't help but snort some beer out of my nose as that's not a phrase i often hear, at least not since a former lifetime in my days as a pioneer. (Which was something Jeremiah and I agreed on-- reincarnation, that is-- as he says he has an innate understanding of physics which he switched to after being a rodeo star in his college days. I, on the other hand, am afraid even of electricity, which is probably due to my having been electrocuted by a bolt of lighting in a previous life.)</p>
<p> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514662011-09-14T10:08:02-05:002020-01-23T08:27:49-06:00Stale
<p><span lang="EN">
<p>i'm told that my website is appearing stale since i haven't posted anything for several days.....</p>
<p>but you know life is tough sometimes....and it's hard to drive the bus, roadie, gig, guitar tech, write songs, practice, do the PR, road manage, office manage, do the accounting, and the booking, and then webmaster.... i'm not really good at any of the above... and it's funny i guess~ you get into music because you love it and live for those moments and you just wanna play and write songs and make music with others and keep recreating opportunities for those moments.... and then before you know it, music becomes a mere fraction of the work.</p>
<p>so it's always nice to be off grid. just out in a place where you can't even get the internet.</p>
<p>you know, i can recall that there was a time when we all did live without the internet....</p>
<p>do you remember?</p>
<p>and still, i like to think that experience is singular and particular to a special space and time.</p>
<p>even when i'm on the grid, my internet connection is so precarious, so low-tech, and so slow, and so often it all-of-a-sudden just kicks me off and out of cyberspace, it's all just too much of a pain in the arse to bother with.</p>
<p>i really love the Earth and physical reality.</p>
<p>and I've been thinking more about cyberspace, and I think that it's training us all to be more telepathic and to use our minds more....</p>
<p>but are we in just one place or are we everywhere and nowhere in particular? </p>
<p>there is so much distraction!</p>
<p>and the universe is a big amorphous blob of one energy of which we are all a part... if i think of you, it pulls on the mass.... and maybe you know my thoughts.</p>
<p>so if you want me, just think of me.</p>
<p>i'm there.</p>
<p>... or is it, here....</p>
</span></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514652011-09-06T05:00:04-05:002020-01-23T08:27:49-06:00best friend and sweet traveling companion.
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/49acc7954ff327a7df40b0d5c6f49187b8c374b6/original/tootie-traveling.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjE1eDQ2MSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="tootie_traveling.jpg" height="461" width="615" /></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514642011-09-03T04:32:52-05:002020-01-23T08:27:48-06:00the joshua tree...
<p><span lang="EN">
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/61dffd2f83a54252fe7693012dfc2a4dff04eeb4/original/tootie-and-the-joshua-tree.jpg/!!/b%3AW10%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="tootie_and_the_joshua_tree.jpg" />i was driving down 29 Palms Highway, wondering to myself why anyone would choose to live in the desert, when i pulled off into the Joshua Tree National Park....</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>wow.</p>
<p>what an amazing and wonderous and enchanting place!</p>
<p>there are really no words to describe the experience of being there.</p>
<p>it's stark and vast and beautiful and quiet and calming and exciting all at once.</p>
<p>it's magical.</p>
<p>sadly, i only had one hour before my gig, which is not nearly enough time to romp around there amongst the weird joshua trees and the strange rock formations, and i could not get enough of it so i stayed longer than i should have and kept going deeper and deeper into the park, as long as i could....</p>
<p>i loved it.</p>
<p>the puppy dog did not like it at all, which was confounding: she had a blast at the beach--</p>
<p>why didn't she like the desert? i told her, "Tootie, it's all sand, just like the beach, just without the ocean!" She didn't believe me. And i guessed she was right. Maybe there were thorns or stickers on the ground. Maybe there was the scent of wild animals. Maybe its eerieness was just too much for the little puppy dog, but she kept pulling on me to get out of there.</p>
<p>We stopped at the Visitor Center, where they were mopping up after the torrential downpour they had just had, and the most helpful of all park attendants told us it had just rained for the first time since December. I got some Joshua Tree Seeds to take home with me and checked out the photos on the wall... big prints of those great Henry Diltz photos from the early 70's that he took of the Eagles and America out in the Joshua Tree for those first albums of theirs.</p>
<p>But strangely, there was no sign of Gram Parsons.</p>
<p>hmmmmmm....</p>
<p>I guessed it was the weirdness surrounding his death?</p>
<p>I dunno, but I read the <em><strong>20,000 Roads</strong></em> biography of him by David Meyer and thought it funny that Gram is quoted as having called the Eagles' music "plastic dry f-ck"...</p>
<p>which is neither here nor there.</p>
<p>i played some Gram at the Joshua Tree Saloon that night-- which is really a great place.... and Mike did sound for me, and Ed and the beautiful Jessica served us and someone in the audience told me that some guy had died out in the Joshua Tree last year... that the guy wasn't out there for very long, and maybe he just flat-out got dehydrated and completely drawn-in to the place and kept walking and just passed out and died....</p>
<p>i drove out of there, away from the Joshua Tree Saloon and down the 29 Palms Highway. and now i understand why someone would want to live in the desert.</p>
</span></p>
<p> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514632011-08-28T07:17:30-05:002020-01-23T08:27:48-06:00"hello? is there anybody in there... " (if you can't beat 'em....)
<p>there are so many drawbacks to playing music for a living... but one great thing about it is that drinking alcohol is really in the job description. it's of course not a requirement, but it is a bonus, and one of the only jobs i know where you can actually drink while you're working and it's even encouraged. as singing cheerleader of the room, a drinking musician can boost sales, which boosts the club's bottomline... and don't we all know, it's all about the bottom line.</p>
<p>i aspire to play in honkytonks and dance halls.<br>and yes yes a good listening room too from time to time.<br>i don't drink that much at all and i'm not endorsing drinking alcohol... <br>just all this to say, i recently played in a couple of cafes on my trek out West.</p>
<p>wow. <br>seems it's been a long time since i really left the house. <br>i was thinking, "Cafe" ~like the old 60's coffeehouses where there's live music and a hearty exchange of ideas. poetry. hippies. performance art.</p>
<p><br>no.<br>it's all cyberspace now.<br>cafes are now cybercafes.<br>the human race has now merged with the computer mind and we are now cyberpeople.<br>creatures who barely glance up from the computer screen and are slightly annoyed with anything that interferes with the all important work in cybermyfacespace.<br>everybody's clean-cut.<br>and there's no alcohol served.</p>
<p>it's hard for me not to be surly playing music in a setting like that.<br>(granted, one of the cafes was in silicon valley, so what do i expect?) <br>it's just that it's surreal and so stunning!<br>it feels to me like i've stepped into a 1950's sci-fi flick or a creepy twilight zone episode.<br>for one thing, i, personally, can not do anything else when there's music playing. complete one-trick-pony here. am completely taken with sound. <br>but the new human is a mighty multi-tasker~ (and who knows how many windows they've got open and are working in? or is everybody just on facebook?)</p>
<p>i saw the movie about the genius boy portrayed to be a creepy guy with no friends who stole and created the facebook and became the multi-billionaire. there was a line in it where someone says something like, "people used to be on farms, then they moved to cities, now they're in cyberspace."</p>
<p>and here am i, blogging, like nobody's business.</p>
<p>i need a drink.</p>
<p> </p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514622011-08-23T06:12:33-05:002020-01-23T08:27:48-06:00...not somethin' you really hafta think about in the heartland....
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/f18f87cc253a09eb0f9d38e88480355168eb813a/original/txunami.jpg/!!/b%3AW10%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="txunami.jpg" />... still, i think i might could get used to livin' here...</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514612011-08-20T14:37:37-05:002020-01-23T08:27:47-06:00"... and it's all just a dream as far as we know, it's just a fantastical roam... if i never find time for exploring the world, there's still so much adventure at home..." ~Ray Rodgers
<p><span lang="EN">
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/c84a98e01f5727d8dc5178a74eef23200bf5b775/original/starfish.jpg/!!/b%3AW10%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="starfish.jpg" />The road is lonely and it's hard. <em>("living on the road, my friend, is gonna keep you clean and free, now you wear your skin like iron, your breath is hard as keroseen"...)</em> And today i sat in Portland traffic for two hours. Who are all these people and where are they going? What on earth is so very important outside the home that we all must get out and go?</p>
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<p>I should have toured after my first album, <strong><em>Quiet Cave,</em></strong> but why leave the house? Does the world really need another sensitive singer-songwriter out going about from town to town creating a huge carbon footprint in order to fullfill the ego-driven romantic dream of being a troubadour? I spent my 20s bumming around and summers backpacking through France and Europe~ which i don't know very well, but which i actually know way better than the US. When i started really playing music "professionally", gigging 4-5 times a week, and then got married, I was happy to just be a working musician in my little town and create a home.</p>
<p>... but the plumbing breaks and the water rises and wells up from everywhere and then you somehow get pushed out of your nest, or maybe you need to just go....</p>
<p>anyway, the muse is a bitch sometimes.</p>
<p>And now, here, <strong><em>All Fall Down</em></strong> is my fifth album, so I'm traveling door to door selling this record and these songs. And had i not left <em>("Get your compass and your sharpest knife,"</em> --and, it's true: <em>"people.love you, when they know you're leaving soon...."</em> ~John Gorka) i would not have had these great experiences in Hays, Kansas (seeing my beautiful cousin there) or in Boulder, Colorado (with Starletta and Heath who so graciously harboured me and my travelling mates) or in Denver (where we had a cool pizza party with many sweet surprise guests in their crossroads of traveling) or in Portland (where, thanks to Amanda, i had the great good fortune of having pedal-steel player, Dan Tyack, sit-in with me) or in Manzanita, Oregon (where i saw my friend Matt for the first time after 25 years, and it was incredible, and the wine flowed generously...) or in Seattle (staying with dear Nancy Dillon, and again playing with Dan, and then hearing some great music by Lijie and Zach Fleury, with whom i shared the bill).... and just all the wonderful encounters with good people along the way, and the incredible sights and sounds.</p>
<p>and now here am i.</p>
<p>somewhere in Oregon.</p>
<p>alone and lonely.</p>
<p>(but, oh yeah,...<em>"the road goes on forever and the party never ends..." </em>:-)</p>
<p>...and, "there's still so much adventure at home," --and i can't wait to get there.</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514602011-08-15T16:54:19-05:002020-01-23T08:27:46-06:00musky musings on mountains....
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<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/cfff0e6f1d996439c4602570d98f8b7fa57295ce/original/greg-and-andy.jpg/!!/b%3AW10%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="greg_and_andy.jpg" />Wyoming is beautiful and the wind is fierce and might actually blow harder than in Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain. It strong arms and wrestles the vehicles on the road; though the weird rock formations and the mountains give some sense of assurance and stability to the drive, it's still a fight.The place seems strangely familiar, but i've never been there except in my mind while reading Dee Brown's, <strong><em>Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee</em></strong>, which you know, if you've read it, is a story that breaks your heart.</p>
<p>The first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains standing on the Great Plains is the proverbial sight to see.</p>
<p>For a flatlander, their amazing majesty nods to that overall sense of being and existence: <strong><em>We Are Here! </em></strong>~it's resounding.</p>
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<p>In between the mountains in Colorado and the Wyoming terrain, I got a "pootorial" by my dear friend, Starletta Felcher, (not his real name ;-) who was so very gracious as to show me how to disembowel a vehicle of waste matter and dump such into the sewage. Important stuff. Thank you, Starletta! I love you!</p>
<p>Which made me think of a time some years ago, when a good college buddy and I used to go rock climbing out in the Wichita Mountains in Southwestern Oklahoma, near Lawton. (i'm told that the Wichitas are some of the oldest mountains in the country, they're just no longer all that tall like the Rockies.) On one particularly hot day out there, we stopped to cool off in a rest area and sat down at some running water that was rising up out of a well-like-thingy on the ground. We had taken our shoes and socks off and were splashing ourselves with this cool water, which seemed refreshing, when at the same time, scrunching our noses up and looking at each other because something was sure smelling stinky, we hear a good ol' boy who had been standing there watching us this whole time, yell out, "you girls is bathing in the septic tank where RVs dump their shit!"</p>
<p>In retrospect, i should have kept the mountain of sewage for some weight on the trek across Wyoming....</p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514592011-08-12T17:29:11-05:002020-01-23T08:27:46-06:00"i'm still here, you bastards!"
<p>a friend sent me a <em>Wall Street Journal</em> article about Bob Dylan~ questioning his ability to perform-- whether he still 'had it' or not or whether he should just give it up, for being too old. Does this seem offensive only to me? here is our great Poet Laureate who gave us "Like a Rolling Stone" "Blowing in the Wind" "Masters of War" "Tangled Up in Blue" "Forever Young" and on and on and on and on... and a few critics don't like his show? Is our culture so hung up on youth and beauty that age and experience now have no relevance? (Of course, in my mind, Stevie Nicks, having written "Landslide", has done a piece of work for a lifetime and given the world this beautiful song, so she can just call it quits; but she continues working, as does Dylan, and Bless Them Both!) <em>".... can i sail through the changes, of my life? ... i don't know...." </em>sometimes i feel like Steve McQueen in the final scene of <strong><em>Papillon</em></strong>... .... escaping from prison, floating on a bag of coconuts out here in the wide open sea.... a wide open sea of cyberspace.... <em>"i'm still here, you bastards!" </em></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514582010-12-03T04:18:52-06:002020-01-23T08:27:46-06:00... like a fish in a tree...
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427556/d9bf957a949878e922d597e5b71d4d98f7c08798/original/fish-in-tree-jpeg.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjgxNngyMTEyIl0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Fish_in_tree_jpeg.JPG" height="2112" width="2816" /></p>
Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514572010-11-30T09:17:15-06:002020-01-23T08:27:45-06:00blogs-1
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<p>bla blah blaugh blog… precious words reporting on everything… and nothing… so many words flying around… what happened to silence… I wonder… as the sound of someone’s Fox news drifts in on its wave of urgency into this back room… I shut the door… the puppy dog pushes it open to come in… without words she looks up at me imploringly… blog, flog, dog, hog, gog, cog… (“…and I feel as if a cog in somethin' turnin'”) … at Plum Village… after morning meditation… breakfast was in silence… in his Dharma talks, Thich Nhat Hanh would urge us not to take-on too many projects… this was way back before the time of blogs… but now,… I blog… you blog… he blogs, she blogs… we all blog…</p>
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Susan Herndontag:susanherndon.com,2005:Post/61514562010-10-22T12:08:00-05:002020-01-23T08:27:45-06:00Really? A Blog?
<p>Blah Blah Blah</p>
Susan Herndon