The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Another Lucid Dream – The Amazing Flexible Pants

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Medford, Oregon, November 15, 2015 — A week ago, I had a lucid dream that went on for hours. I wondered if I could do it again. And the answer is yes and no.

No, I was not able to recreate the state — being conscious in the middle of a dream, knowing that I was dreaming, able to do whatever I wanted as the dream unfurled — at least, not the next night, nor the next.

And then last night, again I awoke around 3:30 and went to sit in the front room and there my meditation activities calmed the body and lower me down toward sleep, and soon enough I grew sleepy and trundled back to get comfy in my bed, and then …

… as I drifted down, down, down I felt a very-specific shift as I had felt a week ago. It’s hard to explain. The closest I can come is that it felt like a window was in front of me, and then the window opening moved toward me and went around me, and as the window opening enclosed my body, there was a warm feeling-shift of relaxation. As quick as the click of a lock, I’d changed from one being-state into another, as immediate as walking through a door. A door of wonder. And there I was, inside the dream, and knew it.

It Was Fun!

It mutated around like dreams do, with irrational changes of scene, and things mutating as you look away and look back. But it’s so much more fun when you KNOW it’s a dream! OK, so here’s what happened — [Read more…]

A Gift from 1986

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Panhandle Park, below my Garret Apartment
Panhandle Park, below my Garret Apartment

Lyon and Oak, San Francisco, 1986 — I’d fallen in love with synthesizers, and learned to compose and play. And how to record these songs. In my garret flat, high above the Golden Gate Panhandle Park, with Simmons drums, a Yamaha keyboard, synth modules from Oberheim and Yamaha and Ensoniq, and an early Apple computer, I created music.

Some of these songs had been first recorded while I worked in Dallas for StarTel. The playing is pretty poor, but so thrilling to be able to do it.

Composing songs, however … was effortless. I had a secret method. I’d start a drum machine or repeat a set of chords, and then just listen for the melody that was already in there. Maybe that’s cheating, but it worked for me.

Enough for a Cassette Tape

I realized I had enough songs “in the can,” to make a cassette tape, and I thought what a wonderful Christmas gift to send to all my fans-  Oops, I mean friends and family. A cassette tape featuring songs by MEEEEE!

So I did. And that’s why … [Read more…]

Peeping and Hiding

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Wichita Falls, Texas, 1971: In my apartment I played my stratocaster. I was thin and trim in those days, and I’d picked up a girlfriend for a week or two, by the name of Mary.

I don’t recall how I met her, but she had a teeny-tiny little apartment some dozen blocks away from where I lived, and so who knows? Maybe I met her on the street. But I’d met her somewhere, and always an eager experimenter at that time, I’d fetched her to my place for a while.

I didn’t think she was a truly pretty girl, but she was eager and earnest, and … well … those are good qualities, with the right timing.

And Mary was a devotee of something called Sloe Gin. It’s a weird kind of sweetish alcohol beverage, and she’d been drinking quite a bit of it that day there in my apartment, and she came to sit on the carpet about a foot away from where I stood, playing my statocaster.

I was rocking out. I must have thought I was pretty cool, and I was having a good time.

And ignoring Mary, for she commenced to writhe around my legs.

For just a minute there I thought I was probably Keith Richards.

But then other thoughts intruded, and we shall now pass over later events of the day. In silence.

Now, as it happened, I only kept company with Mary for a little while.

Maybe I got a better offer. Maybe I became bored with her. I no longer remember. But callous youth, I moved on, and forgot about her.

About a year later, I was walking up my street. It was a grey and overcast day, of a neutral temperature. I don’t know what I was doing, probably just taking a walk to stretch my legs. Somehow the walk got longer and longer, and when I was on the block that was near Mary’s old apartment, I was crossing the street, and about a block away, I saw Mary.

She was pushing a baby cart.

I ducked.

I jumped behind a car, and peeked out cautiously. Yup. Mary.

Yup. Baby cart.

Skulking out of sight, I went round the block in the other direction. She never saw me. With an interesting mix of thoughts and emotions flooding through my mind, I crept back to my apartment.

And that’s the end of the story.

Remembering John Lennon

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Entrance to John Lennon's home at The Dakota

New York, December 9, 1980: In the evening, John Lennon returned from the recording session at The Record Plant in New York. The limosine let him out in front of The Dakota, the gothic stone building pictured in the movie “Rosemary’s Baby”, and as he and Yoko Ono approached the building, Mark David Chapman called out “Mr. Lennon?” and shot Lennon five times with a .38 revolver.

Lennon was hit in the torso and the back. He called out, “I’m shot,” took a few steps, and collapsed. When policed arrived, they found Chapman standing nearby, the gun on the ground. A building security guard asked Chapman, “Do you know what you’ve done?”

Chapman replied, “I just shot John Lennon.”

Police rushed Lennon to the emergency room at the Roosevelt hospital, but he could not be revived.

Something died for many of us that day.

The sound of the Beatles, coming from the radio, startled us, back in the day. Those were college days for me. But perhaps you remember when you first heard their harmony, the enthusiasm, the sound was new and fresh.

A memory floats, quiet, like a blossom in a busy stream, and rushing around a bend, is gone.

The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club

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Weed, California November 2008: Hot on the heels of the Mobius Magnificent Layaway Plan … comes the “Holiday Cheer” Touchstyle Club, with perhaps hundreds of dollars of savings for deserving little girls and- Oops, I meant to say dollars of savings for deserving musicians around the globe.

Yes, the Touchstyle Club, strange visitor from another planet, who came to Earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man; and who, disguised as Kent Clark, mild-mannikin at the Daily Bungle, a grape necropolitan snoozepaper …

As you can see, things are going downhill fast here at the on-site news center. That’s because I stayed up late last night, and then woke up early with yet another set of bonus stuff for anybody wanting to save perhaps Hundreds of Dollars — oh, did I say that already — well, perhaps I did.

If you’ll take a quick peek, you can see why I’ve become over-excited. Be sure to *read every word*, from top to bottom, and then let me know what you think, you good little boys and- I mean, you good musicians, you.

Here it is —

The Holiday Cheer Touchstyle Club.

So Long — How James Brown Wrote Those Songs

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Cabana Hotel, Dallas, 1966: Sometimes I was a desk clerk, and twice a week I filled in for the night auditor. This is the cashier who works the midnight shift and balances the day’s charges for the rooms and restaurants and the bars in the hotel.

The Godfather of SoulIt was a fancy hotel. Sometimes famous people stayed there. This particular night it was James Brown and his entire band, the Famous Flames. He came strutting through the lobby, looking just like he was ‘spozed to. No cape tonight. Disappeared into the elevators.

Later, lounging on the huge round sofa in the lobby, I had the opportunity to talk with a couple of the band members, who were relaxing after the gig.

“How does he write those songs?” I asked.

They told me.

James Brown had a system. It went like this —

First they’d rent a recording studio. Mr. Brown would have just the drummer and the bass player mess around until he heard a groove he liked. Then he’d ask them to lock in that groove.

Then they’d build up from the bass groove, just going up the frequency range. They’d add rhythm guitar atop the groove, and then Brown’s voice atop the rhythm guitar. And last they’d lay the high-pitched horns onto the very top. Listen to one of the songs; you’ll hear it.

He would mess with the rhythms and the harmonies, until he thought maybe they’d got it right.

But then, the test. It worked like this. They’d open the back door of the studio, and recruit a half-dozen kids age five to eleven, and they’d bring these kids into the studio. They gave the kids a dollar to “stand right there.” Then James Brown and the Famous Flames played the song.

If the kids, all on their own, started dancing, the song had made it. It would be recorded.

Apparently, every James Brown song you ever heard … made the kids dance.

What wonder then that it made us all want to dance? Because we are all kids.

Dying this week from pneumonia and congestive heart failure, in Augusta, Georgia at age 73, the Godfather of Soul is gone. Our world remains the richer for his time here. Whose life doesn’t have the flavor and the rhythm this man brought into our world?

Makes ya want to … break out … in a … cold sweat!

Hunh!

So Long — Robert Moog to Infinity

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Asheville, North Carolina, August 22, 2005: Robert Moog, 71, the inventor of the synthesizer, died today at his home, from an inoperable brain tumor. A childhood interest in the theremin
young bob builds the synthesizer led him to create sound modules, creating the first synthesizers used in early electronic recordings such as ‘The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music.’

Early recording artists such as Walter Carlos — later Wendy Carlos — and two musicians I met in a Los Angeles Warehouse, Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause — brought synthesized sound into the radio landscape, where it has become the background music for our lives today and into the future.

Despite hobnobbing with headliner musicians world-wide, Moog remained quite humble about his place in the world. For example … [Read more…]

The Chapman Stick

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Trak Does Tuxedo!Lyon Street, San Francisco, 1990: I’d been playing keyboards, and I found the strange instrument in the keyboard magazines. It looked like a black board about four feet long, with lots of strings. It was kind of like a guitar, but more strings.

You played it by tapping the strings to the frets with both hands. Though it was expensive, I was intrigued. I called up the company and asked if they had any used ones. No, they didn’t. I scouted music stores. I found one, and bought it, then set to learning to play.

I was lousy.

On a week’s vacation, I practiced. After a week, I could play the song “Just in Time”, and felt very proud. A year later, I had some time off. I’d just sold my business, and had my first vacation in many years. For several months, I practiced daily, and then I was ready to play in public.

I was terrified, so to get over it, I’d drive to San Francisco where I’d put out a hat and play in Ghirardelli Square with a portable amp. I wasn’t very good, but some people liked the music. I made gas money, and got over being scared.

Ready for the big time, I learned 30+ songs, and arranged them in a binder. I bought a tuxedo, and had studio pictures taken, then made up a kind of program, with a story (somewhat dramatized) about my musical past, and a big list of songs in the middle. It was like opening a menu at a restaurant, but it was a menu of songs.

With a little tape of my songs, I talked several restaurants into letting me play on certain nights, for tips and a meal. Since I didn’t know many songs, I’d play a bit, then walk around and hand my menu to folks. They’d choose tunes, I would go back and play them, then they would put tips in my tip jar. This way they never requested other songs, because I didn’t know any others!

It was a lot of work, hauling the amp and setting up. From these jobs I got a few paying jobs: a corporate meeting on the Embarcadero, a wedding in Tiburon. But I never got even close to making a living.

As my money drew near its end, I had to choose: get a job, or start another voicemail company. I had a voicemail machine. I started another voicemail company. It quickly grew to provide a living, but the time spent playing in public dwindled and dwindled, until I stopped doing it.

Yes, the career of a musician is an exciting thing. Yup.

 
 

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