Daily Archives: September 9, 2003

Hello Dali

cast

andrew wyeth
pablo picasso
salvador dali
georgia o’keefe
francis bacon

THE ACTION TAKES PLACE IN A COFFEE SHOP IN MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE

SCENE ONE

AS THE LIGHTS COME UP, WE SEE WYETH, PICASSO, AND BACON SITTING AROUND A 50’s STYLE KITCHEN TABLE ALONG THE EDGE OF THE COFFEE SHOP. THE WALLS ARE DECORATED WITH KITSCHY ART-DECO TRASH RETRO TYPE STUFF. SOMEBODY’S HAVING AN ART OPENING (SOMEBODY’S ALWAYS HAVING AN ART OPENING SOMEWHERE).

A HEATED CONVERSATION IS IN PROGRESS AS WE JOIN THE THREE ARTISTS.

PICASSO:
. . . you don’t seem to understand, Andy. The world is not completely logical, nor is it able to be represented in non-abstract terms.

WYETH:
That’s all well and good, Pablo, but there seem to be so many quote artists out there that present what I think is nothing more than primer vomit on canvas; when you ask them what it they are capturing, they say, ‘this is a representation of my feelings about being raped by my father.’ You can’t argue with their experience, but is their expression, or rather, their exploitation of expression, valid?

BACON:
It’s all bullshit. You guys are looking for symbolism in a world that is just raw, sensuous image. There is nothing in the world except violence and pain. Pablo, in your work you seem to understand; why is it when you start to explain yourself you end up spouting endless philosophical crap? I don’t think the nose is really in the guitar, but your head is up your ass!

And so on and so forth.

1994

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Like the World Does Not Know

If all the world would find you lacking grace
and see in every thought and act some fault,
behind the smile that lights up your sweet face
discovering some dark and bitter vault,

if some belittle and would treat you poor
because your heart is open, reaching out,
believing it a weakness, nothing more,
or cast on your intentions scorn and doubt,

have faith that I have never been deceived
by those nay-saying cynic tongues that bite,
and will not place my trust in any voice

that speaks ill of you and would be believed.
When I look in your eyes, I know what’s right,
and choosing you, know love to be my choice.

09 SEP 2003

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Primary Colors

You can’t trust the politicians,
but they’re really not to blame
’cause we give them what they work with,
handing over without shame

all the best of our intentions
and worst of our desires,
all the evils we won’t mention
but that honesty requires.

So in every politician,
there’s a bit of you and me;
they do try to represent us
and they do, to some degree:

all the quick conclusions
and the power we adore,
all the easiest solutions
that end in poverty and war.

There are some good politicians,
but they don’t stay good for long
because who they represent is us
and we are often wrong:

all the selfish motives
and all the foolish pride.
All the general vote is
is picking for your side.

09 SEP 2003

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Half Way Home

My last post about the hurricanes reminded me of a song that I wrote back when I was in what I might call my Kris Kristofferson phase. I was outlaw country, I guess, and had a lot of friends who were bikers and truck drivers. At the same time, my grandmother was suffering greatly from Alzheimer’s and the way that it affected her mind and robbed her of her memories really had a profound impact on me.

In the spoken intro to the demo version of this song there’s little spoken word thing … “I started out writing this song for older people, who start losing track of things, their memories … and then I thought it was perhaps about young people, some of them friends of mine, who experimented with one thing or another and didn’t make it all the way back from wherever it was they had gotten themselves to…”

At some point, I really considered trying to get Merle Haggard or David Allan Coe to record this.

The shadow on the road is getting longer
And the moonlight just won’t help me find my way
Silence on the radio and it is growing stronger
3 a.m. and no more songs to play

Been down this road so often in the springtime
But the winter hides my memory locked in chains
And the road rolls ‘neath my wheels like some old sweet rhyme
When the words are gone, just melody remains

I’ve tried to make it back to you one more time
But the road is now a lost trail that I roam
So fare thee well, for I can’t tell
The highway from the chrome
Guess I’ll only make it half way home

For many years this road’s been friend and lover
And the silver lines have led me to your smile
But tonight my mind is tired and can’t recover
The memory of that last familiar mile

The light that you left on I’m sure is burning
And the walk up to your door is straight and clean
But I can’t see past this dark road’s gentle turning
And I’m riding on between daylight and dream

I’ve tried to make it back to you one more time
But the road is now a lost trail that I roam
So fare thee well, for I can’t tell
The concrete from the chrome
Guess I’m only coming half way home

The shadow on the road goes on for ages
There’s no way now of telling where to go
And my map seems to be missing all its pages
How I’ll make it home I just don’t know.

1996

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Through Hurricane Glasses

All these years spent riding the eye of the storm,
at the edge of the wind and the rain,
ahead of the weather, before it could form,
you’d think patterns would make themselves plain.

But the nature of the cyclone is spun from without;
subtle shifts in the slipstream can deceive.
You can read the cloud patterns, but there’s always doubt
that the nightfall’s what morning believes.

And the hurricane takes you to places unknown
that the points on the map do not show.
At the start of the season you’re out on your own,
for the doors are all boarded up closed

And the crux of the matter, at the cusp of the wind
where your sense of direction is confused,
is to not fight the current when you feel it begin
if you don’t want to end bent and bruised.

You start in the ocean, just a speck in the sky
building up size and momentum by the mile,
slipping under the radar for the first by and by,
then appearing at the curtain with style.

And the hurricane brings you to uncharted zones
that the guidebooks don’t often reveal.
At the height of the season, you’re there all alone,
for the levees and beaches have been sealed

It’s true, sooner or later, you burn out or make land
and the bluster slacks out of your sails,
ending up just some thunder on a few miles of sand
Filling gutters and storm drains and pails.

And a few busted windows, or a few flooded lawns
are the best you can manage to show
for the years riding shotgun, just carried along
at the edge of the winds as they blow.

And the hurricane’s dropped you so far from your home,
way beyond where the charts start to fade.
At the end of the season, you’re left all alone
with the wreckage that your trip has made.

09 SEP 2003

Maybe this one is about storms, but I doubt it. It’s more likely to be about those people around us who seem so wild and free, little caring about the effect the great maelstrom of their existence has on others – does the hurricane care about the shorelines it devastates, the paradises upon which it wreaks havoc, the homes it destroys? So like the hurricane are so many people, hurrying and hustling through their lives, bulls in china shops, leaving nothing but wanton destruction in their wakes. I’ve known a few. And I’ve often wondered about their purpose in my life — was it to discourage my attachment to mere material things, to a few precious valuables and so-called unbreakable commodities, and seek out things that the vicissitudes of this life cannot damage? Or was it to point out the very unstable potential of each of our natures, that finds expression only in random violence and senseless cruelty, and keep me from “riding that wind” myself, if only to provide a safe harbor for my own more landlocked dreams? Perhaps. I only know that I have longed to be a “storm rider” in the past, and surely have harnessed my share of lightening. Being burned is only half the story. As anyone who has spent a lot of time in the water will tell you, it’s not the current that ultimately gets you, it’s the exposure.

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