For Joseph

The Chase

Originals (In their entirety)

Would-be sound tracks if only there were movies accompanying them.  Cannonade is the full tally of original instrumentals from 2006 to 2019.

Cannonade

The Middle Years - 2011 - 2013

It was June, and after the winter that refused to quit, we suddenly found ourselves in pre-summer triple digit heat again. What little escaped the sub-zero freezes and blizzards of April was blighted in drought and heat. Suddenly, like the return of a bad penny, an all-to-familiar plume of grayish-black smoke rose to once again diffuse in the air that chest-stinging smell Coloradans know so well. "O Lord, send rain!", the voices raised to Heaven. The drought had reached stage 4, and the city council bickered over whether to restrict watering California-style lawns that shouldn't even be here to either two or three days a week. Suddenly, on June 28th, the rains came. And July rolled in and the welcome southwestern monsoon with it. And the vegetation flourished, and the lawns brightened, and the local utilities breathed a sigh of relief. And August arrived and the rains still came. And came. And came. Until on August 9th, having dodged the bullet the better part of the summer, the rain became sinister, and the burn scars began to hunker down to the serious business of making good on their threats to punish the people who mistreated their forests. And the rains still came, and boulders and mud with them, and suddenly, people died, multiplied millions of dollars in damage to small businesses were lost to the flood caused by the flames. And the rain came, and came, and the monsoon lingered until early September, when she began her annual ebb south and west, and the dry heat returned to the Colorado front range. And the triple-digit heat of June returned again. And the monsoon looked back, and was not pleased...and decided to vanquish the summer heat once and for all, and with it every man whose home and fortunes lay in the mouth of the canyons. And still the rains came...only this time they mustered all the ferocity of an east coast hurricane. For seven days it rained, some rainfall amounts exceeding 20". Thousands, no tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lives were upended, some were lost. The rain had won at last. When I saw the torrent that fell in eastern Colorado on Sunday, this was all I could do. And the rains still came.


And Still The Rains Came

Weekend almost over, a couple more workdays, then zoom!  Jeff boards the big white bird to SeaTac, and his honey's arms.

Happy 'Cause We'll Be Together

Four Scores And Seven Years To Go

Thirty Hours, 1900 miles...and it all began today. 

2-10,11-09...The Final Journey

Recovery from addictions, whatever they be, require one in Heaven and two on Earth  To truly win the race, one must turn one's will and life over to the care of God.  That being done, God turns the race over to one coach at the starting gate, and one at the finish line.  It is vital to start right and finish well, and for that we must have one ever urging us away from whence we came, and the other reminding us of what awaits at the finish line. Though they be repeated over the course of hundreds and hundreds of miles, there are but 12 steps to this race,  and they must be dispatched in full measure, for the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.  It is the mind made intentional by the will turned over to the care of God that will finish in the end.  Thanks to Matt and Ken for their place in the marathon of recovery, and for my beautiful Pauline, who is the wind beneath my feet.  This is written for you all.

The Sponsor And His Sponsee

"Words are all I have, to take your heart away"...until you find yourself caught in...The Blackout. 

The Blackout

Russell's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day‎

Highway miles at night
Interminably long
Desperately dark
Sparkling city lights give way to shadowy canyon walls
On the Journey Home. 

The Journey Home

The Princess and her Squire-Knight.

Wasn't much of a winter in Colorado Springs, but still, the arrival of Spring is always an occasion.  

Thoughts of Spring

Nighttime by the sea, where rolls the relentlessly rhythmic tide, lulling all to sleep and leaving nothing but peace in its wake.

Nighttime by the Sea

This is a little something I started working on last night...a musical interpretation of the firestorm that breached Queens Canyon and spilled over into the Mountain Shadows subdivision of Colorado Springs, taking out one house after another.  This is definitely a work in progress. 

Update: 346 homes burned to the ground within hours.  The horror cannot be captured by instruments...this is my impression of it all. 

The Waldo Canyon Fire - June 26, 2012 - The Run Up Queens Canyon

A strange, horrifying chapter has closed in Colorado Spring history.  The eerie silence of blackened hills where homes once stood is all that is left behind.

The Containment of The Waldo Canyon Fire

How I Love You, Pauline

Three Minutes One Friday In May

The Rising 2019

Side By Side

What Does A Day Hold

Fifteen states have now petitioned to secede from the Union.   The Texas petition reads as follows:

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government’s neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

The Second Great American Civil War of 2012

Five decades ago, a British group called "The Hollies" did a song entitled "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".  The song extolled the virtues of one carrying his brother when he could no longer carry himself.  That song has taken on so much more meaning since my own brother has become all but incapacitated.  This piece is not to lament my lot to now carry him, but to lament my own weakness and powerlessness in the face of his great need.

My Brother's Pain

Two Cold And Snowy Days In March

Alone Together (The Great Worldwide Isolation Of 2020)

Whether it's a search, or whether it's a chase, life seems to be careening at a maddening pace down a lubriciously precipitous slope at breakneck frenzy never before experienced in human history.

The Chase (The smoke-out and capture of the Boston Marathon Bombers)

A Dozen Piano Exercises

Snowsquall In April 2020

A. Symposium o covers and originals in coneflower variety style

The Chase (The smoke-out and capture of the Boston Marathon Bombers)

Coneflower Basement Band