when I watch what people do to eachother

all I wanna do is have a banana split at Sander's Ice Cream shop in Detroit but back in 1975 when the damn place was still open and downtown Detroit was intoxicatingly urban and I was pulsating with everything possible and rare. On that note:

I bowled this weekend. My bowling name was Evie Sweets. I did pretty good. I'd love to make a regular thing of it. The West Bank rules on a Saturday afternoon, even with no a/c in the car.

Happy Talk's set at d.b.a. last night really did save my soul. It's good to watch a band grow, to have participated in that process - I love devotion. I love loyalty. I guess I was an abandoned kid. Funny how what's important to us can reveal our wounds.

I just wrote Dog about how performing can teach so much about mortality/ownership/ego. How it can (and this is the more common route) exacerbate/stimulate fantasies of immortality, ownership, & delusions of grandeur - but on the flip-side it can offer a golden opportunity to transcend that, look at it, physically let it go, and grow. You can get there singing songs about tricycles, you can get there singing songs about surviving rape. The thing is: the transience/impermanence of live performance, the essential absurdity of it all, is the best psychotherapy going. Plus it feels good. So there.

Comments

[Man On Road In Van]

yes to this stuff about performing. and if the band's got this attitude to it the audience can get it to - without even knowing it. Deciding factor is what motivates us to do it. What's being fed, pursued? I like this.
Like you.

[J.EM.]

Didja hafta watch people treat eachother like shit? It's pretty disenchanting but remember it's not you.
I really hope you get yrself one of those b. splits. I'm gonna get me one too.
I agree w/Man On Road about motivation. I"ve seen so much rock & roll bullshit it's just funny at this stage. I make music cuz I need to not cuz I need anyone to worship me. I swear! You?

[drr]

Me, I do it because I want to push on the limits people make for themselves. I see so many people going through life without just letting go once in a while. I'm not about extremes, or art (o.k. once in a while, but art is sometimes where you find it, not where somebody put it), or anything much but a certain kind of physical ROCK AND ROLL pleasure that I've enjoyed all my life and most people don't even understand.

I like to move, and I like to listen to my own voice, and I do like to see people act a little stupider than they normally do. I like the back pats too. I like to surprise people, because my stage persona is my REAL self, my daily face is just a mask I wear. I much prefer playing live to recording, for those reasons. Maybe those are the wrong reasons but there they are.

I doubt my rock and roll is adding much to the sum total of dignity, peace, or love in the world
but to me that's the world's problem.

[drr]

Man, I could go on about this all day.

It's funny, I've never been able to assemble a touring band, though my ambition since I can remember was to tour with a band.

I used to only sing in bands but I couldn't get the people I played with to write the kind of songs I wanted to sing. So I taught myself guitar...slowly. I still think of myself as a novice. I play just by the smell. But I can't imagine a day without picking up a guitar anymore.

Have you heard the new Reigning Sound CD? Put on Track 4. If you don't feel like picking up a guitar you are a bassist.