The Grateful Dead--Mexicali Blues

This song always makes me smile. It's just a guy/tequila-drinking/dusty boots kind of song.

New Exhibition Room: Shh!! -- orignal theater in Boston

From Nora Long, one of the founders of New Exhibition Room in Boston.

Hey Everyone I know (pretty much)

I wanted to take this opportunity to personally invite you to my theatre company’s first show. We’ve worked fairly hard over the last 6 weeks to make a quirky, frenetic exploration of censorship. Everything in the show is true or an abstraction of something true, so I think the show is equal parts hilarious and terrifying. There will likely be nudity, gratuitous violence and definitely adult language and content, so this might not be the best show to bring grandma to. It would be great to see you. For those of you who are too far away to come, I thought you might be interested in what I’ve been up to.

Also, it’s free, it’s T-accessible, and there will be cookies afterwards – what more could you ask for in a night at the theatre? Get tix here.

You are, of course, welcome anytime, but it would be particularly awesome to have some friendly faces (and voices) in the house opening weekend (July 9-11). A few members of the press will be coming, so we want to make sure they see the best possible show, which is, in large part do to the audience.

In addition to the show, there will be a reading of a new play each Saturday at 4PM. The writers include John J. King, Theo Goodell and Rachel Kelsey. These readings are also free, and a great opportunity to hear some new work by some of the most talented local writers we know.

Feel free to forward this email around.

Hope to see you there.

Lots of love,
Nora

PS. If you haven’t seen it already, my baby sister made a couple of killer videos of our rehearsals. Check them out.





New Exhibition Room presents Shh!
July 9-25, 2009
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/69085

The Lemonheads at Newbury Comics today at 6:00

The Lemonheads are going to be at Newbury Comics over on--where else?--Newbury Street today at 6:00. If I wasn't going to see Lori McKenna tonight at the Lizard Lounge (tonight she'll have her backup band, so that means she might be playing Monday Afternoon) I'd check these guys.

They were kind of a cult band, who did covered a bunch including Mrs. Robinson and this sweet number from Gram Parsons: I Can't Take It Anymore.

More Than This--Lucy Kaplansky

Lyrics by Bryan Ferry. You usually hear Roxy Music's disco/synth sound, which is cool. But the lyrics are so pretty that I think Lucy Kaplansky does it the most justice with just her acoustic accompaniment.

Sue's been working on this one. I'll tackle it soon, but we know I'll put a country spin on it. God knows what that will sound like.





I could feel at the time
There was no way of knowing
Fallen leaves in the night
Who can say where they're blowing
As free as the wind
Hopefully learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning

More than this you know there's nothing
More than this tell me one thing
More than this ooh there is nothing

It was fun for a while
There was no way of knowing
Like a dream in the night
Who can say where we're going
No care in the world
Maybe I'm learning
Why the sea on the tide
Has no way of turning

More than this you know there's nothing
More than this tell me one thing
More than this no, there's nothing

More than this nothing
More than this
More than this nothing

Real relationships, not the digital kind...

I haven't been blogging that much. Staying away from Facebook as much as I can, too. Remember, I'm pulling back from the digital world, and funny, just when it's starting to be kind of fun.

But I'm getting back into the real world, with real-world face-to-face connections with real people, rather than this jerking off that happens in the digital space.

My cousins, who I haven't seen in 16 years and with whom I was just about inseparable between the ages of about 11 to about 21 came to visit...and we all had a blast reconnecting. I don't know about Cousins Jerry and Doris (yes, where I come from we call each other Cousin this or that; and yes, I do have relatives with two first names--get over it) but there were times when I was 17 years old again, and it was fun and it was alive and it was living, and living good.

I was in a play a couple of weeks ago, with two stupendous actresses (yes, they are stupendous to work with, very giving and open and free on stage) and we had a blast on stage, going out every night and just having fun.

But funny, the digital world is starting, for me, to pay off the way it does for other people. I'm starting to "meet" new people and have reconnected with people from my past--someone from school, 29 years ago, and someone who I acted with but lost touch with. There are musicians I'm slowly starting to connect with, which is so cool because music for me is such a new and exhilarating experience, and I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say I'm still alive today because of music, because of the day Baxter walked into my apartment and handed me Lulu and said, Here, this is yours. You need this.

All this is playing against the death of the King of Pop, a person who people are mourning but frankly I can't seem to even conjure up more than a simple, Ah, that's too bad, because I at least understand digital relationships but I don't for the life of me understand people who cry for famous people who they never met.

Finally, here are two videos I grabbed at Club Passim last Wednesday night when Noe Venable opened for Blame Sally. I posted these on my Facebook page, but if your not one of my "friends" maybe you didn't see them. Two wonderful artists--well, one artist and one group--from San Francisco, and what is going on out there with the music scene? First The Bittersweets come through Club Passim, now Noe and Blame Sally, all twisting music but making it all so enjoyable at the same time.

Thinking outside the (pizza) box

The Green Box (US Patent 7,051,919), a pizza box manufactured from 100% recycled material. The top of the Green Box breaks down into convenient serving plates, eliminating the need for disposable plates. The bottom of the 'Green Box' converts easily into a handy storage container, eliminating the need for plastic wrap, tin foil or plastic bags.

The perforations and scores that create this functionality allow for easy disposal into a standard-sized recycling bin.

Made from a standard pizza blank, the Green Box requires no additional material or major redesign and can therefore be produced at no additional manufacturing cost. e.c.o., Incorporated owns the utility patent on the Green Box.

Check it out.

Pass the Buddha--Blame Sally

Blame Sally are going to be at Club Passim in Cambridge, Mass. on Wednesday, June 24. Check them out.

Say it aint' so, Neil: Neil Young's Music Archives: Vol. 1 retails for $200.00

Don't you just hate it when your favorite musician sells out? Like when you see a favorite song shilling a car? Or the cost of a decent concert seat, not one in the nose-bleed section but somewhere where you really don't need the Jumbotron, costs more than what you pay for a month's rent?

The first volume of Neil Young's archives is out, and the reduced price on Amazon.com is $199.99, reduced from (I'm guessing) the artist's suggested retail price of $249.00. Now, this just isn't any set. It's 10 DVDs. There are concerts and pictures and lyrics and I guess it's a whole digital experience, but man, I don't even know what I'd play it all on?--my laptop I guess. (There is an 8 CD set for $70, but even that price kind of rocks me in the current free world.) I mean, I guess it's pristine quality. But, right now as I type this, I'm wearing an old pair of patched jeans a la Neil Young and After the Goldrush, and I'm just wondering if Neil has left his roots behind.

Is this all worth it?--and this is only the first volume. (Neil, you do know there's a depression going on, don't you?) You start to wonder just how much money anyone needs in the world, and when people like Young and name you're famous, rich musician who used to sing about life and the poor and the workers and all that, and now something like this comes along and he seems a little out of touch with the common man, kind of like Steinbeck sounded in Travels with Charley.

To get an idea of what you'll be getting, you can check out a vid here. It's all cool, all real Neil and the reason we love him so much, but it's way out this fan's price range. I don't know Neil, maybe it's time to just say, Hey, Hey, bye, bye.

9.4% of nothing is still nothing: Unemployment rate is not easing off...

The unemployment rate "jumped" to 9.4% in May, and thank God the media is now starting to include the point that if other factors are taken into account--people who have stopped looking, people who are working for a lot less, seasonal workers--the unemployment rate would be around 16.4%. I've been saying that all along, but since I don't blog for the Huffington Post, what the hell do I know, huh?

Okay, big time media gurus, here's another little factoid from the trenches that you in your ivory towers wouldn't know. Remember folks, you heard this first from Action Bob Markle.

It's reported that the pace of job reduction is slowing down. First, I don't know why the difference between pace and rate is so important. I'm sure someone good at splitting hairs can explain this, but frankly, it doesn't mean anything. What's happening is there are fewer people being laid off as we roll through 2009, and that's taken as a good thing. And this is where you don't listen to the experts.

Answer me this: You have 100 apples in a basket. And each month I want you to take away 10%. The first month you take away 10. The second month you take away 9. The next month 8, all the way to the tenth month where you'd take away one. The rate is the same, but the pace is slower, for the simple fact there are less apples in the basket. There are simply less people to lay off. Companies can't lay off everyone, for land's sake.

Just a good way of showing how numbers can be manipulated, and you can't believe everything you read. Or at least, you have to still be able to think, and not be spoon-fed everything that's in news.

A Cantabridgian moment

I was waiting for the elevator at the Holyoke Center in Harvard Square to take me up to the Passim marketing meeting. A woman approached the elevator and we smiled at each other.

Don't I know you? she asked.

I don't think we've met, I said.

You look familiar. I've seen you somewhere.

By this time the elevator had arrived and we got in.

I"m certain I've seen you. Are you an actor?

Uh, yes I am.

Then I've seen you in something. What have you been in?

Lately I've been doing small shows in the South End.

Not the ART.

No.

Then I've seen someone who looks like you, she said, stepping out. Then, over her shoulder she said, He was very good looking.

Runner's high

Today I laced up the running shoes and went for a run for the first time in about three years. Actually, I did go for one short run this spring that scared the bejesus out of me, I was so tired an winded. Three years ago, though, I was running 15-milers. Then my back went out, then I went to work at an ad agency where I basically sat at a desk all day. Offices have always been places where my health went right out the window.

But today the doctor gave me a pretty clean bill of health. Cholesterol, pulse, weight, sugar, and a few other numbers were a little higher than I wanted them, but all in all it doesn't seem I'll collapse face-first if I push it uphill.

Not that this run today was anything special, forgetting that it was the first one in three years. Like a lot of starts, it was pretty inauspicious. But I do so much better when I'm running. At some point on later runs, my mind will just unhinge, and then I can't tell you the things I'll think about. Who needs drugs when you got endorphins? But great things, along with bile and all kinds of negative shit, will just rise up and every time I'll wonder, where did you come from?

Mind and body will be energized. It's all related, work, home, family, friends, the world, your apartment, and when I'm running and really active, it all just fits together. Or maybe I'm just more aware of it.

Anyway, what do they say?--a long journey always starts with a single step? I've been a runner since I was about 13. That's forty years. There have been a few hiatuses in there, like the one I just went through, but I think we're back on track again. Work is starting to pick up, and it's a simple matter of working it into my day here at home.

And happy trails to everyone.

New Exhibition Room: Shh!!

New Exhibition Room is the company that producing the project, Shhh! being developed by A. Nora Long and Dawn Simmons, two really creative, "thoughtful" theater people in Boston. FYI, that "thoughtful" crack is an inside joke in the play that I'm writing.

Anyway, check out their video, create some buzz, and then go see the production when it comes out in the summer.


"Since we can't tell you what the play is about, we thought we might show you the first few hours of rehearsal. Maybe that will help. Video shot & edited by Kendra Long."

Shh!: It Begins

A blog in the moment

In the moment here. I have no idea what I'm about to say. Sue is practicing Lucinda Williams, Side of the Road. I just worked out a sticky part of Act II of Red Dog. That's how I've been writing it. Bit by bit and it's coming along. It's almost writing itself, which, as any writer will tell you, is pure heaven when a piece does that.

I'm excited. I haven't been this excited about a writing project in a long time. I've handed Act I over to one person, and she liked it. I'm hoping to finish Act II this week, at night after coming home from this little contract I have. My goal is to have a staged reading in the fall.

I've been going to this office for the past two weeks now. It's really quiet there. People just sit at their desks and do their work. Intent. I guess that's the way an office should be, but any office I've ever worked in has been bloody noisy. Ad agencies and marcom departments. I did a couple of stints in a news room. Try telling reporters to shut up. You'd get a knuckle sandwich.

The digital world: Back in the cage...

It's been over a month since I've blogged. The digital world and I are slowly parting ways, even though the work I've been able to scrounge of late is all Web work.

I last blogged about a week before we left for Spain and Morocco. That last week was pretty hectic. I purposely didn't take a laptop or even a cell phone with us, and the two times we stepped into an Internet cafe it was reluctantly and only because I had to get messages to Allison. Those two weeks of not constantly glancing at a cell phone for messages that either were or weren't there, not thinking about a status line on Twitter, not wasting 45 minutes at a crack on Facebook, just randomly clicking with drool coming out of my mouth, were golden. Then, on returning to the States, I got a small contract working for two weeks on-site where they block Facebook, MySpace, and all that.

All those digital tools are great. I wouldn't want to live without Google, or something like it. Just today I was talking to Johnny, and wondered which band Peter Frampton was in before he went solo. Johnny Googled it, and the quick answer came. I'm not going to say the answer; that's for you to find out. And just this week I connected on Facebook with an old, old friend. But in the two years I've been on Facebook, this has happened exactly once. Yeah, it's a nice service, but that's about it. It's not much more than a time suck, that I can see, and I've been meaning to hit the delete button for a while now.

I actually leave the apartment more and more without a cell phone. I like being untethered. I like being untethered in so many ways.

I'm writing a play, and think that communicating that way might be a better way than even this blog, which I still think is super, but...I know people read it, I know some read it consistently (because they tell me and I also run some pretty decent analytics on it, so you can run but you can't hide) but I miss the face to face. This weekend we went to a friend's 50th birthday party (happy birthday, Joan!) where we saw some old friends and new people. Yesterday we went to Sue's niece's graduation party (congrats Jenn!!) and it was great to see some of Sue's family and just sit around and talk and laugh--in person.

Coco & Lafe on the Blue Plate Special

Coco and Lafe, who are buskers you can see routinely around and about Boston during the summer, are doing a live performance on WDVX in front of a live audience tomorrow 4.24), to be broadcast across Tennessee and Kentucky and the whole wide world through a Webcast.

Details: 12 noon eastern (for those in Europe and down under, you’ll have to do the math).

From an email: We’re actually performing at a new, high tech performance venue called “The Square” (as it is located at 4 Market Square in Knoxville, Tennessee). Fred Eaglesmith and Joe Lamay/Sherri Reese will also be performing.

You can connect here or at their Website here.

Good luck, you guys. And if you're sitting in your cube tomorrow at noon with nothing better to do because, oh, I don't know, maybe one of your biggest customers or clients is about to go belly-up, give Coco and Lafe a listen.

We're leaving on a trip; why am I depressed?

We're counting down the days we when we leave for Spain and North Africa. Doing all the little errands, paying off the Amex so we can put more on it for more frequent flier miles for future trips, buying presents for the people we'll be meeting for the first time, putting finishing touches on our itinerary, which basically amounts to when do we leave Spain for North Africa; Sue and I are very loose.

There's something about traveling, in the leaving, that makes me a bit sad, though. I've noticed it all my life, and I'm aware of it, the same way I'm now aware of the letdown that I'll have when a play that I'm in closes. I know the drop is coming and I'm prepared for it. It's like being depressed in the spring. Everyone thinks you're supposed to be so happy in the spring, just like you should be so happy when you're leaving on a trip. But I get depressed in the spring, just as I've learned so many other people do, and yes, I've read about people, serious travel writers, who have identified the depression that occurs in leaving.

And for anyone who thinks I'm overly sensitive, you know what you can do. I'm so tired of people--usually ones who are thick and dense as a block of wood who experience life with all the vigor of a sea slug, telling me how I should or shouldn't experience life.

It's all in the leaving, and guilt that I'm doing something really nice for myself, a problem I've had all my life thinking that I really don't deserve nice things. (Try growing up poor in the working class; it isn't all a Matt Damon movie.) There's the guilt that I'm leaving behind responsibilities (for awhile, at least) that may need my attention.

It's awfully decadent to be traveling in this economy, isn't it? Even though Sue and I live so frugally in order to travel, and pretty much backpack wherever we go. It's the life we want to live, and it's the life we set out to live. Still, there are all the shoulds: I should be saving my money. I should be spending my money on something more practical or saving it for an emergency. I should be concentrating on looking for permanent work or even a really good contract. Even the play I'm in makes me guilty because last night the cast and director met for the first time and it's a really tight group of people, and I'm leaving and we could be rehearsing when I'm away and I want to do a really good job for the director who I really like, and I don't want to let my cast members down, whom I like and have a lot of respect for.

It's all in the leaving. And I learned a long time ago, on my first really big trip, that you can't look at it that you're leaving, but that you're going somewhere. Never look back (and never look down, either!) But look to where you're heading, and you'll do fine.

2009 Boston Marathon Day

The Boston Marathon was run today. We went in to watch it for a while, and caught the women's finish. But unless you get to Copley Square at the crack of dawn or you have a VIP pass to the stands, you're not going to see anything except flags and the backs of people's heads. Still, this video gives a good sense of the excitement and anticipation as the runners headed down the home stretch. You can see the flags getting whipped by the headwind the runners had to face the entire face.

Still, the marathon doesn't have the appeal that it used to have for me, back in the days when I was running hard, 40, 50, 60 miles a week, if my shins would let me. Back then I called it Boston, and everyone I was hanging with knew what I was talking about. I had runners from all over the country sleeping on the floor and on couches one year, coming to Boston trying to qualify for the Olympics (none made it, but there were two very low two-digit numbers under my roof at one time.)

Things, life, hasn't let me out on the roads in about, God, is it three years now? But even back then I was running up to 15 miles at a clip, in the dead of summer with a Camelback loaded with Gatorade and a packet or two of GU (raspberry was my favorite.) I want to get back into it, but first I have to find a doctor who will give me a stress test and say, sure, no problem, you're heart is fine. At my age, with heart disease part of a big one-two punch in my family (the other being the Big C) I don't want to get out there on the roads and collapse of a heart attack. (Well, at least he died happy.)

So we checked out the finish, where we couldn't see anything except the backs for people's heads and some flags. Around the corner there was a veteran's display. I have to think when dealing with a crisis like that in your life, 25,000 (I was told that was the number of runners today) endorphin-junkies is going to look pretty lame. From the work I did on The Boys of Summer, something like dealing with someone's death through warfare sticks with you for the rest of your life. You pretty much wake up everyday, and that's the thing that slams you between the eyes. It wasn't a dream, is the first thought through your head, and I feel for those people; I really feel for them.

Farther up Newbury we saw the Hempest store. I had heard for hemp being used for clothes, so we wandered in to see what the fuss was about. I have to say I really liked a few of the shirts, but still, I'm not going to pay $89 for a shirt, no matter how much I like it. I wouldn't be leaving for Spain and North Africa in a week if I spent that kind of money on clothes and luxuries. I'm a backpacker, and I like living like that. I've said if I won the Lottery the only thing that would change is I'd drink more premium beer and less beer on sale.

Farther up, Natural Bean was giving away free coffee to celebrate the opening of a new store. Sue told them I'd blog about them, so here I am doing it, but I'm not just doing that because Sue said so. It was really good coffee. I mean, really good. And giving it away is one way to get people turned on to your stuff. (Hey, fat-cat music execs--are you listening?)

We ran into a stream of runners up on Hereford Street that we couldn't cross, just like you might with a swollen stream out in the wilderness, so we turned around and headed home, via Park, going through the crowds again. It's weird, how the race and the runners just became a backdrop for our day, instead of the focus like it used to so many times in the past. The end of Marathon Day was always a cookout. Today we went to REI to pick up a couple of things for our trip.

Anais Mitchell at Club Passim 4.19.09

Anais Mitchell played her magic tonight at Club Passim. Amazing songwriter when it comes to the opera she wrote about the story of Hades. She told the audience tonight that Ani DiFranco is part of the project. She said it was due out in the fall. When it's released, definitely check it out.

I've seen her three times now, twice at Club Passim. It's a small, intimate place, perfect for someone like Michell who has almost a delicate way of presenting her voice and herself. She has a really unique voice and way of phrasing songs, that can get a bit tedious. But when she throws her talent into a cover, like she did tonight with a Gillian Welch number, the tedium is brushed aside and it's like seeing her again for the first time. (Sorry, one of these days I'm going to start bringing a notebook to concerts; I swore to myself tonight that I'd remember it, but at this late hour it's completely gone from my head.)

Sorry about the poor quality. But it does give a good idea of her voice, which is so unique.

Second Annual Record Store Day...huh?

Just another forced holiday, and if anyone bemoans the decline of records, CDs, whatever you want to call the hard round things that have music on them, this is just a last-gasp effort to delay the inevitable.

I'm part of that demo that still buys CDs. Newbury Comics. Looney Tunes on Boylston Street by Mass Ave. In Your Ear on Comm Ave. in Allston. They're all still my favorite haunts, especially the used CD stores for the bargains. Also Amazon.com, where I also buy used. I download, but still like the quality of the sound that comes from my Denon stereo and Mission and Advent speakers. But my seventeen-year-old daughter won't go near a CD. She'll cringe, just like I cringed at my father's heavy, 78 RPM records. My world was the vinyl LP. It's all digital downloads for her, all the way to playing her iPod in her car. Digital is her world.

A great book to read to understand all this is Appetite for Self-Destruction, The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age. Written by Rolling Stone Contributing Editor Steve Knopper, it minutely trace the players and events that led us to where we are today in the musical world. It was greed, pure greed (surprise, surprise, huh?) coupled with just plain on bad business that sunk the record industry. They were making money hand over fists selling CDs, and never saw the Internet coming. Well, some did, but they were too stupid to figure it out. Illegal downloads. I just don't understand that concept, to tell you the truth, and that's a subject for a whole 'nother blog. Downloads are a way to promote music, and the record industry was too stupid to figure out a way to do it. Steve Jobs with iTunes and the iTunes Store finally figured it out. And now just about every "media" company is pushing their digital downloads. My cell phone that I just bought in December has a link to the ATT store that I can't delete from the phone's menu. They're still trying to ram it all down our throats, and the big, greedy suits probably will never get it.

But...when I say the record industry is sunk, that doesn't mean music is tanking like the economy. Music is more vibrant than ever, with more new music and more ways to hear it and grab it that ever before. Who knows what the Next Big Thing will be. But for sure, the little stuff is the way to go for smaller, up and coming bands. MySpace. Yourbandsname.com. Internet radio. That's just three.

Just the other night I saw The Bittersweets at Club Passim, one of the sweetest venues in the Boston area to see an act. They're touring, they're hitting the right audience, and guess what, they're promoting digital downloading of their music. That night they were promoting their latest live album on noisetrade.com. Pay what you want, including nothing, and you download the album. If you don't pay, you give up five of your friends' email addresses (sorry guys, but I picked five of you who I thought would be interested in music.) That's kind of a interesting way to look at things. If you don't pay, you give them email addresses, which actually are just about good as gold in the marketing world.

I highly recommend the album, by the way. Scroll down a bit on Action Bob Markle and there's a widget on the left you can click on.

Count your blessings if you're employed and stop your complaining

About four hours ago this status line appeared on my Facebook wall:

Wishes it was 5:00


This is from a person who is working. Working at a very good job, I might add.

Well, I'll trade places with you.

I don't mean to be mean. Just ironic.

I'm at least familiar with this person (because I do have "friends" on Facebook who I have no idea who they are), and I know this particular person didn't mean any harm. I also know that there are people working who are probably suffering, doing work that is so stressful that it might end of killing them--very literally. Actually, this particular person just may be a good example of that.

It's just that, sometimes it seems that we can only get perspective on things after we lose it. Like a job. We bitch and moan and complain about our jobs, our bosses, the loudmouth in the next cube who can't talk quietly on the phone. But you take all that away and you suddenly get a good idea of what you've lost.

Kids are like that. I used to wake up almost every day to a woman screaming at her kids. Get up. Pick this up. I'm not telling you again. That kind of stuff. This family was wealthy and frankly I couldn't figure out what the woman had to complain about; she had everything any human being could ever want. And there I was, lying in my bed, my kids living in the next town and I was seeing them maybe a day or two a week, if that much, and I thought to myself, you don't know how lucky you are. Yeah, kids can drive you crazy, but you know, maybe it's only when you don't have them in your life anymore, through divorce, like it was for me, or even you almost lose them through sickness, that you really get a good idea how much of a treasure they are.

So, tonight, if you got a job, get down on your knees and thank the good Lord. And if your kids are in the next room sleeping, go in and kiss them on the head. Like I've said before, the warmth that comes off a sleeping child's head could raise a dead man.