It’s a beautiful day outside. The kind that makes me Love the travel, but even more makes me Love the pause. Rowan and I have been shopping for Halloween costumes and fried chicken ingredients. It’s a cloudless day, 68 degrees and absolutley perfect. Maybe even a day of optimism.
I’m looking at the upcoming election with concern and optimism. I sent my vote in weeks ago, we’ll see what the rest of the country has to say about it. Sometimes I think we’re at the brink of disaster. A grey day and a warehouse district, disused buildings falling down around disowned cats and disowned people with newspapers swirling and power flickering, RObocopish in its complete dissolution of urban society – i can see us just collapsing into this hateful, spiteful swirl of refuse.
But on a day like today, I think maybe it’s possible that Tuesday we’ll start seeing some turn. Some optimism. Some contempt for the racist hidden majority in our country…. touring the Midwest can make me fear for our future, sitting at a burrito place at 1 in the morning between playing the Blue Fugue and moving on to KOPN we were caught in the midst of an influx of college kids all yelling racist comments in between ordering food from the men behind the counters. Dressed in stereotypical Indian clothing and slutty little sailor costumes, I was well on my way to judging them in any case, but the shit that was spewed from their mouths was shameful… and I hope that the majority of Americans, if they were to look over my shoulder, would be horrified.
Jeff Wheeler performing with us at the Blue Fugue. It’s fun having him jam along – he’s got a very different djembe style than either Heather or Rowan, much more reminiscent of a double bass pedal or something.
Okay, when you ask someone for their email address, even I’M surprised when they start frantically scrawling all over a brown paper bag. I came away with a LOT of information about this enthusiastic creature.
Rowan and I performing at the Blue Fugue in Columbia, MO. I have no idea what I was expressing, but I was quite passionate about it.
Rowan having a couple of beers with Firedancer at the Blue Fugue in Columbia, MO.
Anna D’Augustino was the host at the Blue Fugue and it was her sister’s birthday – she used the night as an opportunity to present her sister with a new cello!
(pauses for a shower)
And maybe, just maybe we’re at a turning point. Care being taken with the things we own, inspired perhaps by having to actually OWN things rather than ask a credit card company or a bank to own them on our behalf. The turning of fast food joints to the look of boutiques and shoppes. If we cared more there’d be a great change in outlook. And maybe caring about personal identity and corporate identity will someday change to care for national identity. If we can be proud of our country….
I’ve been talking to Rowan a lot about ownership of the flag. After 9/11 I was kind of proud of the fact that America didn’t reflexively bomb the first thing that came to mind, and I was subsequently VERY disappointed when we seemingly randomly did attack Afghanistan. We played Jammin Java the next night and I’d wanted to have Heather do a rendition of the United States Anthem, asking people to stand for what the U.S. had once been. Our drummer at the time, Alfred, flipped out and didn’t want to have anything to do with it….
Well, if the country takes a good turn as of Tuesday, perhaps it’s time to own it again. At the moment the American flag belongs to red-necks and Christian zealots and country stars. It’d be nice if it was owned by artists and black America and immigrants and the occassional woman. People who didn’t agree with the president could be patriots again. That might be nice. We have so little pride in our country that it’s symbol represents everything that a free thinker hates and I think that’s a huge problem. Without some sort of national identity, of course we’re a fragmenting, decaying corpse of a country.
I think a lot of artists feel the need to be anti-establishment, but they have no vision of what happens next. We can’t fight a nation without being part of one, or without wanting to be part of something at some point… at the moment we just want to be separate. You don’t solve problems like that unless we are capable of seceding to some other land… sorry, but I don’t WANT to move to Canada. There’s some pretty good principles in Amercia. Just because they’ve been twisted and subverted shouldn’t mean we abandon it.
Rowan and Firedancer swingdancing to the ferociously infectious sounds of the Hooten Hallers.
The Hooten Hallers at the Blue Fugue. They are one of the best bands in existance. Insane and amazing.
Rowan and I high on Hooten Hallers and in the KOPN studio for Jeff Wheeler’s radio program till about 2am. We were…. quirky.
I’m just thinking outloud. I think I need a little flag pin. People can argue with me about it if they like.
