Well here we go…. A banjo ditty… too hot here for much else. Seems scientists have discovered a humongous colony of space ants holding up a huge magnifying glass over the Earth. As for me, I’ve finally acclimated myself to the relentless heat. I learned this decades ago from an old man from Africa, who was brewing tea on a hundred degree day. I asked him why. (Alfred, what the $#%^ are you doing?) He told me in his super deep baritone voice: You have to fight the heat with heat. I was skeptical as I had been living in an air-conditioned nightmare up to this point. After having tea, we walked out into the heat, and I showed him how to hunt for wild raspberries. He was so gracious that I took him into the American ‘jungles’ to forage. So all this brings us back to this ditty. Hope you like it. Thanks for dropping by, Mark

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Renegade

Sometimes our path, or journey as it were, leads us to an edge. Edges of self, life, circumstances, reality, cliffs, you name it… Some edges are dangerous, sharp and jagged, even life threatening. Other edges encourage us to traverse them. Back in the 1970’s, there was this great sand cliff we used to go to, in Northern Europe, where we could run and hurl ourselves off of it and land in the water below. It was exhilarating, as the hang time allowed for contemplation in the moment, during the free fall. It felt like we were flying like the bluebirds in the sky. At the base of the cliff, we hung out by the water. We were mostly unfamiliar with the freedoms we had found there. Harry ran off and intentionally lost his swim trunks on the beach, while chasing after a beautiful woman who herself was sans swimsuit. He was in love with her. She had other ideas. He was drinking heavily, then he passed out, ass up in the sand, under the blazing sun, after making a fool of himself. It was a sad moment all around. By the time we found him, he had a bad sunburn. Poor guy. Could hardly sit down. A bunch of us were camped in the forest, not far from the cliffs. That night, I was sitting by the fire next to a wild-eyed woman and asked her something in another language. She blew smoke in my face and laughed nervously as if taunting a bear. Then she kissed me. We all seemed to be chasing after a freedom that did not exist in this life, at least for us. Some of us would later die trying to find that same freedom. For some strange reason I survived. We were wild back then and maybe always will be. This song contains some of that freedom among other things.

Have You Ever Been?

Ah, the people we meet, and cross paths with, in this life…. So many experiences. How do we respond, especially if life clashes with these chance meetings? And what becomes of it? Once when looking for a place to rent, (25 years ago) I stopped to talk with an old man sitting on a bench. He had so much to say. My partner slowly became furious with me for taking the time to talk with him. We don’t have to wonder how that relationship went. In other words, this song is not about her…. Hee-hee. Or the old man for that matter. However, there are moments when paths cross, sometimes coming from very different trajectories and all of a sudden something wonderful happens in that moment. Gather, you might have experienced that too. This song is about a brief encounter with a kindred spirit, where our life trajectories did not change: A moment in passing. The song also contains some socially relevant thoughts/ lyrics about the world and my experience of it. Thoughts are thoughts though, and I find the more flexibly malleable I am with them, especially when it comes to the relative truths they may, or may not contain, the freer I am. Seems the more I attach to thoughts and refuse to change, the worse off it seems to get… But that’s just me. Hope you enjoy the song, Mark

Moment In Passing

Hey…. Hope all is well with you. There’s a chill in the air, as a droughty summer says goodbye. I’m in the thick of it here, with autumn chores, mostly winterizing my home, and harvesting garden produce. Birds are migrating through, stopping to munch on berries and whatnot, before they wing away. A mountain lion has been cruising through the neighborhood lately. Heard an animal scream outside the other night, and figured it was a bunch of raccoons munching on the fallen apples, but who knows for sure? Well this is a dark song from my recollections of yesteryear. It is rough and unpolished (as usual), done on my ol’ acoustic guitar with some added homemade percussion. I must be old, so many friends have died over the years. I wrote this for a particular friend, Jim, who was someone I hung out with around half a century ago. Mark

Under The Moon

Hello…….. so many goodbyes in this life, maybe more than hellos? But who’s counting? Not me. I was pondering about some of my more difficult goodbyes. Some happy, some sad, some angry, some glad… (OK there’s the chorus you won’t hear.) Ha. Another short song. For whatever reason, there are some goodbyes that are more difficult to live with than others. This song is about a particularly difficult goodbye. I’ll leave it at that. What about some of your goodbyes? How did they go? As far as the instruments I played on this song, I must say I do like noodling about on the recorder and also on mandolin. They are both instruments I can play without thinking much about notes, or technical musical matters… Although probably obvious to any recorder or mandolin player is the fact that I do not really know the particulars of the instruments yet…. And maybe never will, but it is sure fun nonetheless. In outdoor news, I watched a large flock of house sparrows swarm into the lilac hedgerow. They were so noisy, all of them chattering. I wondered what they were up to. Later, I heard some chickadees scolding. So I went to look for a cat behind the lilacs. Didn't see one, so I sat in my old chair on the porch listening to the sparrows. The chickadees were still annoyed, so I stood up. There was a fledgling goshawk sitting right there on the top beam of the old swingset facing the lilacs. All the sparrows were now quiet. So I walked over, and at first the hawk didn't see me. I was really close. The hawk finally turned its head to see me, then quickly swooped up and over the fence. All the sparrows quietly made a break for it. Gather the goshawk couldn't get at the sparrows when they were in the lilacs. I do see feather piles here and there as I walk around. I found the dynamics of survival so telling while the hawk and sparrows played cat and mouse. And the parallels to humans were uncanny. Thanks for dropping by, Mark

Don't Want To Say Goodbye

Hey…. Did this song go in so many directions until this final recording. It started as an electric slide song, then a mandolin song, and finally as an acoustic guitar/recorder song. You know I laugh every time I play recorder. Just imagine a rough and scrappy, wild old man creating such a thing. Hahahahaha. Anyway, there are a lot of crows here. When I was working on the slide version, I heard them cawing outside as they flew by. (I scrapped my impromptu birdcall crowing on this, no one needs to hear that, not even the crows.) Lyrically the song has 2 distinct moods with some vocal transitioning. And guess what folks: As a novice singer, I can finally vibrato my voice… some more shenanigans you’ll have to put up with. Back to the crows. In town, we have a huge flock (murder) of town crows. Hundreds. They sure love fast food, and hanging out by the high school where tasty, tossed tidbits can be had. They are organized too, as if in an air force, as they are mostly wary of us humans… Finally, happy holidays to all who celebrate, and happy times to everyone else. Hope you enjoy this one. I sure did. Mark

As The Crow Flies

Hey… Hope all is well wherever you are. Happy Winter Solstice, Holidays, or whatever you may be up to. Thanks to all those who listened to the song I briefly posted then deleted yesterday. It had to go.  So I did this jam for my friend Joe, who died 8 years ago. Never got to say goodbye. He was always down on his luck, but somehow found something to laugh about. He knew I was a musician, so he'd leave phone messages with him banging on a chair like it was a drum as he laughed his ass off. He called me Wild Man. I basically just played some loud distorted slide on this, doing my own thing… with a ton of feedback. My music often gets loud and angsty when I am working through tough stuff in my life. So this is mostly cathartic noise. I really didn’t want to sing anything as I was pretty grumpy at the time. Feel like I should redo this with more lyrics and less distortion, when I am in a better mood. Thanks for dropping by, Mark

Joe.......

Hey… glad you dropped by. Gonna get real cold here, and I have a bit of snow shoveling to finish before the cold snap, so this is a short song. More an exploration of ideas than a song, as I fumble about with music. Maybe the season? Or my age? Or life in general? Or my dreams at night about my life? Whatever it may be, I am certainly wondering about where I am right now, how I got here, what I am doing here, and where I might be headed, if anywhere in particular. Sometimes I catch little glimpses of the essence of all this. I am an old man now. Maybe this comes with the territory? I stumble about through these days, especially if I don’t watch where I am going. I’ve lived through far too many wars, too much collective global hatred and violence, and witnessed outright cruelty. That has made it more difficult to live on this planet, as time passes. I’ve also found myself lost in the beauty of this world, fascinated by everything around me. It is as if time becomes irrelevant, as everything just happens. Everywhere I turn I am amazed and grateful to be alive. I don’t want to miss a thing. We live, we die, we laugh, we cry. Thanks for stopping by and hanging out for a while, Mark

This Crow, Don't Ya Know?

Hey… thanks for dropping by. Years ago, I mentioned to a 30 something co-worker: At this point, I’ve already lived 2 of your lives so far. I was old then, older now, and at times I reflect back on ‘where I came from’ in the essence of my younger days. I have gone through some profound changes since then realizing the necessity of doing so. A childhood friend recently visited me. He went back to my old stomping grounds and told everyone: Mark’s really mellowed out. It was true. I suspect a lot of us have had these ‘crossroads’ moments. Granted, I am still rather rough around the edges. Hahaha. The ghosts (bad memories) of my past are often reminders, letting me know how it was back then. In a timeless sense, I don’t want to go back to that old life. This song is a louder, grumpier companion to: This Crow, Don’t Ya Know. It reveals the struggle to get to that place where… all of a sudden I found myself ‘under the trees’ with the crows. Hope you like it…. Mark

Ghosts & Bad Memories

Billions Of Years From Now came about as I pondered this endless plight of humanity, and the apparent possibilities of our extinction by our own hands, which does seem diametrically opposed to our oft benign nature, especially during crises. These aren’t original ideas, as so many others throughout history have thought about this as well. To Love The World Anyway is a phrase that asks us to care about the world even in difficult times, through personal hardship and suffering, by accepting the world as it is. When I first heard this phrase, I laughed at its apparent, naive folly. Over the years though, as I cared for plants and animals, and helped others (often begrudgingly)… I was slowly learning about what loving the world anyway really means. It is kinda like weathering a storm, while simultaneously balancing anger and frustration with compassion and unconditional love. Being a parent has taught me a lot about this as well. In other news… we just endured a powerful winter blizzard, with heavy snow, and strong winds that caused a lot of snow drifting. The best drift in the yard was in my driveway. It is 4 feet deep. After the storm blew through, the temps dropped to well below zero. I was outside shoveling for a good part of the day. A neighbor with a backhoe was plowing out our drifted-in road, and was making a few 15 foot piles of snow along the way. Some of us were essentially snowed in. There are thick ice jams on the roof which have revealed another place I’ll need to patch this spring. During the winter, I usually go up on the roof and shovel the deep snow off of it. Later that day, I put extra forage out for the animals, and noticed one rabbit had holed up underneath an old couch I have outside on the porch. The local elk herd (Wapiti) is down out of the mountains now. The herd can be seen in the hay fields just down the road from here. They head for the windswept, south facing knolls, and it is fascinating to see how they survive in this harsh climate. Once in a late night blizzard, I had to stop on the road, and was engulfed in the elk herd as they passed by. There were a hundred or so in the herd. Well, hope you like this song. Thanks for dropping by, Mark

Billions Of Years From Now

Hey. I am a late bloomer musically. Initially I started on acoustic guitar, then within the last 4 years: Banjo, slide guitar, dobro, recorder, harmonica and singing.  Most of my songs are rough, unpolished, unpracticed, recordings made on an old laptop. Thank you for the love and support, the insights and ideas, the camaraderie and fellowship, Lammbone

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