The Batman

In life, sometimes, there are moments of purity and clarity. Moments when you do the right thing and you know you’re doing the right thing and nothing else matters.

When I was very young, probably around 4 years old, I had gotten a used Batman costume from a yard sale. This wasn’t a plastic thing, it was the real deal, made out of cloth, with a dark blue cowl and a cape, with a grey suit to go with it. It looked just like the costume Batman wore on TV. It was wonderful to behold. I put it on and looked at myself in the mirror, amazed how I could become the Batman.

Then one summer day the opportunity arose to utilize my newfound glory. There was a little girl living across the street from us. She was a bit younger than me and she was beautiful. But she had a villainous older brother who picked on her, and I noticed him across the street performing one of his many acts of villainy, making the little girl cry.

And I knew just what to do.

I ran into my house and quickly changed from the mild mannered me into the fearless Batman. I quickly checked myself in the mirror to be sure my Batmaness was complete. It was. And I was fearless. I remember it clearly. With that cowl and cape I had nothing to be afraid of. The world would stop on my command.

I charged out of the house. I ran across my yard and across the street. I ran to the rescue. I started yelling at the girl’s older brother for his dastardly deeds and told him he better leave her alone. He seemed very old to me at the time. Maybe he was 9? 10? Almost an adult to a 4 year old. But I berated him in front of his friends. I told him to leave her alone. I put up my dukes and was ready to let him have it and he was stunned for a moment into a speechless stare.

I imagine it was just before he came to his senses and beat me to a pulp that their mom came outside to see what all the fuss was about. I told her he was a cad. Well. In so many words. I did tell her that he was making his sister cry and his mom did the right thing. She made him leave his sister alone and go sit on the back porch until he could learn to act right.

I was rewarded for my bravado with some cookies and milk, which I shared with the damsel who was now distress free. It tasted very, very, very good.






Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Yawn

One time in High School I was sitting in a practice room that was along the wall of the band room. There was a piano in there that I loved to mess with. I tapped on the keys, finding things, discovering. I was very relaxed and happy with the world. And a little tired.

I started to yawn and it was a good one. A big, long, restful yawn. It felt so goo...

I woke up on the floor. I had literally yawned myself into unconsciousness and fell off the bench. I had no idea you could do that to yourself. Whoduthunk? I laughed nervously and got up, trying to collect my dignity. I think my girlfriend at the time was in the room with me. It’s hard to remember. Realize, I was in the middle of recklessly depriving my brain of oxygen.

To this day, I still love a good yawn, but I’m a bit apprehensive. Too much of a good thing and all. I guess I have a bit of a yawn phobia. What if I put myself out for good? What if I kill off those few remaining brain cells I rely on to think about types of cheeses? What if I lose my ability to do music? What if I suddenly understand what’s happening on Lost? Crazy stuff might happen, you never know.

I’m just saying: You sleepy people. Be careful out there.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Chased

...like a running man, but he is finished running because he is exhausted and he’s run as far as he’s going to, and yet the thing that is chasing him has not been lost or fooled into missing him, it still comes after him, merciless, and the moment comes where it is closing in, he can feel it and his senses are all telling him that he needs to get out of there, but he can’t because he has no energy left for flight and he’s backed into a corner with no way out as the thing closes in on him, but he looks around him for an out anyway, there must be an out, it has to be there but it’s not, and without the hope of escape he does the only thing that comes to mind, he screams and screams and screams, tearing his throat, as if trying to get something ugly out of himself, as tears pour down his face and the muscles of his arms and legs contract, pulling in toward the core of his body, to be smaller and safe, and his mind wonders what is happening to him, what is happening because he cannot see anything chasing him.

And now he is numb.





© LW Publishing 2010

The Boy & The Bus

The boy got off the bus. His year in kindergarten was almost over. He could smell the birth of summer in the spring air. He was half a block away from his house, partway up a cross street. Kids went their way. Needing to cross the street, he stood on the curb, waiting for the bus to pass. That whole section of street was curved. But the bus went straight.

The huge, black wheels reached up onto the curb and grabbed his left foot, rolling over it and pulling it out into the street, under the bus. His right leg twisted up under him as he was pulled to the ground. His body was pushed tightly against the curb. The wheels on the back of the bus drove carelessly across his left leg, across the calf, the knee, the thigh, while the boy watched in an oddly detached but focused manner. There was no frame of reference for processing what he was seeing. There was a tremendous pressure that suddenly snapped into nothing. No feeling at all. The wheels of the bus hardly noticed him as they came off his leg, leaving him behind.

The bus didn’t stop.

Another boy looked back and saw the boy on the ground. He was looking at me. He paused, trying to find words. He said, “Did you get run over by the bus?” He laughed. It had to be a joke, right? I said, “Well, what do you think?” The laughing boy stopped laughing. A look of terror came onto his face. He ran screaming down the street to my house, “Dave’s been run over by the bus! Dave’s been run over by the bus!”

I tried to move my legs but I couldn’t. I reached out and touched my left leg. It was almost like it belonged to someone else. There were small rips spread over the fabric of my pants leg. I could see the tread marks of the tires, dusty imprints, on the dark material. Oddly enough, my right leg, twisted up under me, hurt more than my left.

A guy who had just gotten home from Vietnam heard the screaming and saw my mom running down the street. He said, “What’s going on?” Mom shouted, “David’s been hit by the bus.” My sister had died just a few months before. This was another nightmare. It was happening again. Mom thought I was dead. They ran to see me. When my mom saw I was alive she started weeping. The vet, his name was Blake, he picked me up and carried me to my house. No doctors were there to say, “Don’t move him!” He didn’t know any better. It was a kindness.

When I finally saw a doctor, he was stunned to find that my leg was not broken. It was “impossible” but true anyway. Still, I had no feeling in that leg. He said the reason I wasn’t feeling anything was because the nerves were all damaged, crushed. And it should have been permanent. But it wasn’t. All the feeling came back into my leg within a few days. They could not explain it.

My mom tells me my kindergarten self said something I don’t remember. I’m sure I said it though. She’s good about remembering these things.

Me: Mom, you know why I didn’t get killed by the bus?
Mom: Why’s that?
Me: The angels picked up the bus and kept it from being too heavy.
Mom: Oh yeah? And how do you know that?
Me: I saw them.






Psalm 111:2-4
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Signify

Years ago I went to see Chick Corea’s Band. Chick on keys, John Patitucci on Bass and Dave Weckyl on drums. In case you don’t know, these are musician’s musicians, at the absolute top of their craft, playing fusion and traditional jazz. These are awe inspiring, gifted players. But, for the most part, I was there to see Dave Weckyl. I grew up playing drums. I was never great at it, but I like to play. So I saw Weckyl play, and my emotional response was that I should never touch a drum again. It was like Salieri seeing Mozart’s sheet music in that Amadeus movie. He was stunned and destroyed because he knew that, no matter what, he would never be that good. That great. It was not going to happen. And it made him bitter to the point that he wanted to kill Mozart.

I wasn’t bitter, so Dave Weckyl is safe. But some part of me, probably the American part, felt like, “Why bother! What could I say with the drums that this guy hasn’t already said a million times better.” It was childish thinking. I mean, what if only the “best” basketball player in the school was allowed on the court? No game. What if only the “best” musician was allowed to play? No band. What if only the “best” teacher was allowed to teach? No education. Think about it. It’s stupid.

If you can be original, that’s great. If you’re the best at something, hey, that’s great too. I’m not trying to take away from that. I could watch Michael Jordan jump-shot replays all day long, and I don’t even like sports. Dave Weckyl, Michael Jordan, Mozart, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Tiger Woods: that kind of talent can be taken as evidence of divine creation (I said talent, not morality). I think that if people can relate to and enjoy what you say or do, that’s great. It adds to your sense of community. The more the merrier. It might even make you some money, especially if you express yourself through plumbing. And who says you have to be original? Who says you have to be the best or sell a million whatevers? Where do these rules come from?

Be all you can be. Go for it. Just do it. Don’t quit. Never give up, never surrender. Boldly go where no one has gone before. Please do. But at some point you’ve still got to think about why you do what you do. People may not want to pay you for the thing you love to do, and maybe they shouldn’t. If that’s the case, then you won’t be putting food on the table with that particular thing. And so what? That doesn’t mean you have to live like a sponge, absorbing forever and a day. Perhaps it’s time you allowed some of your heart and mind to move off into the world around you. Produce something. Maybe it will just echo back for your own pleasure. Maybe others will hear and want to hear more. Maybe they’ll throw you a tip. Who knows.

Did you know that Vincent van Gogh only sold one painting in his lifetime? Why do you think he kept painting? Was he just crazy? Maybe he was.

If only we could all be so crazy.

From what I’ve read, it was apparently van Gogh, the man who sold one painting, who originally said, “Winning isn’t everything...it’s the only thing.” This is why he’s remembered as a painter and not a philosopher. No wonder he chopped his own ear off.

Please believe me, and I’ll try to believe myself. You don’t have to be the “best” at something to express yourself. You don’t have to be “market worthy.” You don’t have to be the winner of some opinion poll or have the biggest house, car, following, church, sales record, whatever. Simply treat your expression, your art, your talent, your thing you do because you are you – whatever it is – treat it as the sacred act that it is. Enjoy it. Develop it. If it’s what you do for income, then do it the best you can. If it’s not, then do it the best you can. Imagine that whatever you do – no matter how well you do it at the moment – imagine that you’re doing it, not for Donald Trump, not to impress people, but for God.

Are you alive? Signify.



Colossians 3:23-24
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

Purge

I write songs. Pretty much always have. Hundreds of 'em. It's what I do. And I was really young when I started. Somewhere around the 4th or 5th grade. I’d come up with ideas and I kept a notebook full of lyrics that I was working on. I would take two cassette recorders and record tracks by dubbing back and forth. I’d sing a melody line into one recorder, then play it back and record it on the second recorder while adding a harmony. Then I’d play that back and record again adding another harmony. Ad infinitum.

High tech. That’s how we rolled.

When asked why I write songs, I find it hard to explain. I’m tempted to say, “Why do you vomit?” It’s not very elegant, but it does make some sense. When you’re sick and your body wants to get it out, it gets it out. Just try and stop it. Well. That’s sort of what it’s like. Ideas and sounds start buzzing around the grey matter. They start to take over, falling like puzzle pieces into place. It’s like sporadic OCD. I can’t concentrate on other things while it’s in there, taking up space. I feel like, if I don’t get it out, my head might explode.

You could call this the George Romero philosophy of creativity.

Sometimes I think it’s a way of avoiding madness. Life crams so much into us all the time, if we don’t pour something back out, I think it can be crippling. In order to relieve the pressure we have to purge. For some people, tears are enough. Or laughter. For me it’s mostly songs and stories and good conversations about what makes for great coffee. For you it might be something else. At least I hope you have some form of expression. Working on cars. Painting. Needlepoint. Singing in the car while driving to work. Whatever. Everyone is different. Trust me, finding a way to express yourself in healthy ways is a lot better than exploding with anger or being addicted to drugs. Some forms of expression can kill you. Like Freddie Mercury said, given certain circumstances, even “too much love will kill you in the end.”

There's a man in the Bible who was hit with practically every bad thing that could happen to a person. His children died in a storm when the house they were in collapsed. He lost most of his possessions. His wife had given up on him. And so we get page after page of Job, expressing himself. He says, "So I won’t keep silent. I’ll speak out in the anguish of my soul. I’ll complain in the bitterness of my soul.”

He had to say something. I think he was just trying to stay alive.




Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010

American VI

Just listened through the posthumous release of Johnny Cash, American VI. I wasn’t expecting this one. It was a surprise to see it. I thought they’d just keep releasing over-priced box sets of out takes and who knows what for the next 300 years. All of which I would have happily laid down the legal tender. Word is that there are a lot of unreleased recordings.

But this recording is a very special thing. It’s like finding a letter written to you by a friend after they’ve died -- a letter that says everything is going to be okay. It really seems to capture the heart of Johnny Cash. I especially like “Ain’t No Grave,” which a guy named Russ Taff did a killer blues/rock version of years ago. I am also partial to “Satisfied Mind” and the Marty Robbins cover, “Cool Water.” These songs are right up there with “Delia’s Gone,” “Hurt,” “The Man Comes Around,” God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” “Drive On,” “The Mercy Seat,” “The Beast In Me,” “I See A Darkness,” etc. etc. etc. There are so many great, great songs from the American sessions.

This is a phenomenal recording. Pure American. With shades of darkness but hopeful at the same time, just like Johnny Cash. Like a candle in the dark that is VERY aware of the darkness because it has so fully been touched by that darkness. I don’t know if I like this recording more than American I and IV, both of which I consider masterworks, but this is great stuff.

Johnny Cash’s music isn’t for everyone, but nothing is for everyone. What’s great is how his words just drip with honesty and Rick Rubin has surrounded that honesty with simple, straight forward music. You might not agree with what he’s saying, but you know he believes it. It’s not a front. All of the American recordings have this feeling of simplicity and honesty, and it’s an admirable thing. There’s something powerful about listening to a broken man singing his broken but heartfelt songs, with the hope of hearing perfection some day.

American VI ends with Aloha Oe, which makes perfect sense. The last words on the recording being “until we meet again.” And that’s what Johnny Cash would want. He’d want you to know his Savior so he could meet you when your time on earth is finished.

By the way, if you like the American Recordings, there is a much lesser known set of recordings released by the Cash Family soon after Johnny’s passing called “Personal File.” This is a long two disc set of recordings that were found in a box in the studio that had been done as acoustic demos years ago. Genuine “lost” recordings that have a very “American” sensibility to them. It’s well worth getting.

Good listening and...


Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010