Gone Fishing?

 

I miraculously weathered all the mini-crisis’s of the past 6 days— like my hearing aids not working on the date of my departure— and here I am at 9:00 pm heading to the airport for my midnight flight to Hong Kong and then on to Hangzhou. My biggest worry is that I’ve seen all the movies I care to on these flights and any new ones will certainly be the usual fare of guns, guns, guns, superheroes, end of the world, brutality.Snore. Does anyone make real films anymore? (I did see a reasonably good one on my flight from New Orleans called Tow, but having surfed through some 65 movies to find that, the pickings are slim.)

 

China will present the usual challenge of access to the Internet and even e-mail— though I think the Surfshark ap I got last time might solve the e-mail problem, if I remember how to use it. But no Internet means no Blogposts, so if you don’t see anything here for the next 12 days or so, that’s why. Don’t give up on me! And I’ll dutifully write them anyway and post them when I get home. 

 

Dear reader, it’s a blooming miracle that any of you are still reading these things. I wonder if anyone has been following these for the entire 15 years I’ve been posting! Is there really anything that continues to hold your interest? I guess I’ll never know and that’s okay, but in the past months, the readership has skyrocketed to some 10,000 readers per day! But really? Are these real people or bots? And if the latter, why? And if the former, it does give me that little dopamine rush, but as mentioned last time, that kind of “success” is meaningless. It literally changes absolutely nothing about my life, financially and otherwise. It hasn’t brought more people to my books or Podcast or movie or CD, all of which would give me a little thrill and a little money. And if those 10,000 are people, I have absolutely no relationship with them. So better to have one genuine friend than 10,000 fans. 

 

But meanwhile, for you handful of faithful readers, some of whom I know and some of whom I don’t, assume I’ve “gone fishing” and look forward to re-uniting somewhere around July 20^th. Meanwhile, let us see what awaits that justifies the long hours of travel, the carbon footprint and missing the next episodes of the engaging Shetland TV show I’m watching! 

 

Note to Self

Still in the midst of a funk, not so surprising with the windy, foggy, grey weather for six days straight, the return of some chronic dizziness and still reeling from a betrayal hinted at in these last posts. Playing a little game with myself, I wondered what news could possibly come from the outside to lift me out of it and my first go-to answers were revealing. I imagined things like the interview invite from Terry Gross or Oprah, the Podcast gone viral or a Netflix offer to film my Jazz, Joy & Justice book. Interesting that my choices are all about recognition and accomplishment. But when it comes to true healing, that’s exactly what it’s not about. 

 

We all should give ourselves a stern talking-to every now and then and here is mine. I don’t need more recognition or respect or appreciation or mild adoration. All of that, like my favorite quote about money (“How much is enough?” “Just a little bit more.”), are insatiable. They will never be enough.

 

Instead, I just want what we all do— genuine friendship, enjoyment in my company (and vice-versa) and a love that sees all my foibles and loves me anyway. Perhaps loves me because of them. 

 

This is not easy to share publicly, a confession more vulnerable than my usual, but I’ve done my best to be honest here about whatever’s happening for me, highs and lows. Mostly in hopes that others recognize themselves there as well and here we are, together, all the walking wounded just keeping each other company with a spot of tea or coffee and pastry. 

 

Years back, I wrote a poem about it, revealing more than I usually do here, but hey, while I’m at it, why not include it? It is me talking to me, in the most honest voice I could find.

 

These days, most every place you travel to

 

          is where you wholly belong, 

 

arrived at through the ten thousand small steps

 

       you have been walking your whole life long.

 

guided by the thread of your steadfast loyalty

 

    to the things that fit your peculiar blend of being. 

 

 

From childhood, you’ve moved forward confident

 

   that you would arrive and yet… 

 

always slightly astonished to find yourself there, always

 

        the sliver of doubt that you are worthy and deserving. 

 

 

Along the way, you have learned to turn loneliness

 

     to solitude, lovelessness to a love 

 

for all of humanity. 

 

 

But in the end, it is not enough. 

 

Humanity won’t bring soup when you’re sick 

 

             or cast a flirtatious eye or 

 

                 hold you close simply to share the wonder of it all. 

 

 

This you did not expect. That all the love you hoped to give

 

       and all the love you hoped to get

 

              is still waiting to arrive.

Old Tricks

 

Tomorrow I’m off to China to teach for the third summer in a row. When I came to teach in 2024, I figured out that I had taught before in 2006, 2012, 2018 and now 2024. Some mystical 6-year rotating pattern. I joked to my host that it might be a good idea not to wait until 2030 for the next invitation and I guess he agreed, because he immediately invited me for 2025 and again for 2026. 

 

In starting to prepare for the two courses I’ll teach, I asked my host what percentage of the first course’s participants had worked with me before and his answer? Some 75% of them! Last year! That is a game-changer.

 

I looked at last year’s material and noted that we had done some fifteen games, five folk dances and ten arrangements for Orff instruments, amongst other things. I’ve finally come to peace with the truth that you can repeat material in situations like this without apology. The brain’s need for repetition means participants actually often welcome it, having forgotten most of it and needing a reminder. They also feel a bit more familiar with both the material and the way I teach it, allowing them to focus on details impossible to fully appreciate the first time. They also might note how I never do things precisely the same and enjoy, as I do, new twists to the familiar. So truth be told, I probably could do the exact some material and they would be fine with that. All my old tricks cultivated over a lifetime of teaching still with something new to offer. 

 

But I also see each workshop as a new opportunity for me to keep growing and to keep things fresh. I did have the idea of focusing exclusively on the pentatonic scale, so familiar in China, with the idea of comparing their use of it with pieces from some 12 other countries on all continents. I’m also very excited to be collaborating with my friend/translator and let her teach some traditional Chinese pentatonic songs within the framework of the Orff approach. However, it does mean that all the modal and harmonic material I’ve developed will be off-limits for these five days, so that’s both a challenge and an opportunity. Looking through the repertoire stored on my computer, I came up with fifteen new games and twenty pentatonic pieces for Orff Ensemble. That should keep things interesting!

 

Much more planning to do—and once again, packing! See you at the airport!

 

New Tricks

When whoever wrote the inscription on the Temple of Apollo in Delphi reminds you to “Know thyself,” they probably weren’t thinking of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences. But one facet of self-knowledge is indeed an understanding of how your particular network of axon and dendrite connections work. When you notice what comes easily to you and what is challenging, you have the possibility of following the one in your life-choices and forgiving yourself for the other. We all seem to be gifted one for free— without effort, find ourselves singing notes in our mind or crafting words or imagining shapes or colors or noticing patterns and such. That’s important information. 

 

As is the flip side. When we wonder why this person can so easily perform a musical passage that trips us up or notice the social undertones in a gathering that completely eluded us or speaks with an eloquence beyond our reach, the idea that we are all a unique blend of intelligences is useful. And yet more important, the understanding that we don’t have to be —indeed, cannot be—equally smart in them all. 

 

From my childhood until yesterday, I’ve been terrible at the kind of follow-the-given-direction thinking that had my friends putting together model airplanes, my biology lab partner finishing way ahead of me, my friend taking apart a car engine with the ease I felt in playing Bach. Yet as a young adult I realized that I could keep working on Bach and hire a plumber or a mechanic to deal with the things that I could not. I did feel some slight shame as a man who was never handy, but hey, let’s hear you solo on some blues!

 

Having made it almost 75 years without having done more than change the oil or a tire (I can do both!), it has worked out okay. But the advent of the computer and the new way of getting through the maze of voice mail and codes and Youtube instructional videos has forced me to try to up the game in my non-preferred intelligences. And when it succeeds, there indeed is some satisfaction in knowing that I’m not as stupid as I’ve thought I was. 

 

For example, in the last two days, I finally figured out how to unsubscribe for thebestpdf service that I kept seeing on (and paying for on) my Visa bill. I finally figured out how to pay UPS bills online and find the shipping info on the invoice. I restored a mysteriously disappeared Britbox on the TV. And most remarkable of all, I solved the problem of being out of my Now’s the Time CD’s that accompany my book by remembering that I had an external disk drive and could upload the one remaining double CD that a friend in Bangkok had leant to me and upload the songs to the computer, to be converted into a shareable and sellable item. Go, Doug!

 

All of this drives me mad, but yes, it feels good to finally sit down, be patient, feel some confidence in my overall intelligence and discover that (sometimes) I can do it! Turns out you can teach an old Doug new tricks. 

 

But please don’t ask me to fix your car or plumbing.

S.A.D.

S.A.D.

 

“During my life I have often had to eat my own words, and I have found them a wholesome diet.”   Attributed to Winston Churchill

 

 A few posts back, I wrote about San Francisco’s natural air-conditioning of summer fog and said, “I’m loving it!”

 

That may have been true for a short time after the 95-degree New Orleans sun, but now it just makes me S.A.D.—ie, after three days of it, I’m suffering from Seasonal Affect Disorder. It’s foggy, cold and windy and I’m longing for the sun. I take it all back!

 

And it’s not the only reason I’m sad. Any alert reader will have noticed my generally happy countenance and perhaps over-the-top praise of the life I’ve been blessed to lead. Such joyful, satisfying work in such good company and the great pleasure of being of use and often (but not always) inspiring others to a greater happiness through music, good work and my praise of their gifts and particular genius. But the shock and mild trauma of the recent betrayal I’ve alluded to a few times keeps echoing and I’m having trouble finding the on/off switch of its dark music. 

 

Looking for that Winston Churchill quote cheered me up a bit and rather than invite you to my pity party, I'll share a few of his choice witty words. Hopefully they’ll make you smile as well and justify taking the time to read this post. Meanwhile, I’ll try to take his advice in his last quote. Enjoy!

 

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." 

 

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something in your life."

 

"I'm prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

 

"I may be drunk Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly."

 

"Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip." 

 

"If you are going through hell, keep going." 

Two Views of the 4th of July: Second View

“I had the misfortune to be nourished by the dreams and visions of great Americans—the poets and seers. Some other breed of man has won out. This world which is in the making fills me with dread. I have seen it germinate: I can read it like a blueprint. It is not a world I want to live in. It is a world suited for monomaniacs obsessed with the idea of progress—but a false progress, a progress which stinks. It is a world cluttered with useless objects which men and women in order to be exploited and degraded, are taught to regard as useful. The dreamer whose dream are non-utilitarian has no place in this world. Whatever does not lend itself to being bought and sold, whether in the realm of things, ideas, principles, dreams or hopes, is debarred. In this world the poet is anathema, the thinker a fool, the artist and escapist, the man of vision a criminal.”    

 

As the Quakers say, these words from Henry Miller’s book The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (p. 22) “speak to my condition.” Though written over 80 years ago, their truths (sadly) still are true. Both the portrait of who seems to be running the show and the reminder that they're not the only show in town. As a part-time poet, a thinker, a musical artist and a person of vision, I am at once exiled by the mainstream of my home country and aligned with a glorious counter-culture of American poets, novelists, musicians, artists, thinkers, visionaries. I started making a list and it’s long. Americans I’m proud to claim as fellow-citizens who not only refused the materialist nightmare of exploitation and degradation and monomania, but actively cultivated an alternative vision. 

And not only those whose voices were carried into the national discourse through books, films, recordings and such, but millions more decent, caring, hard-working, playful and loving people whose names we’ll never know. And those whose names we do know, not as famous people or celebrities or stars, but as friends, neighbors, colleagues and family. It is important to remind ourselves and each other that we, too, are America and that flag flies for us as well as the others who are creating such havoc. 

 

So if you choose to celebrate the day, let’s take back the original vision of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” feel the fireworks not as traumatic explosions from the war-machine, but our inner skies lit by the color, design and drum-beat epiphanies celebrating a life well-lived. 

 

And, of course, don’t forget to wish Louis a happy birthday. 

Two View of the 4th of July: First View

July 4, 1900. This was the day that Louis Daniel Armstrong was born. 

 

Or so he thought. Later, a piece of paper was found that claimed it was actually August 4, 1901. 

 

Which is true? The second may be literally accurate, the first a mythological truth. The Angel Gabriel descended to Earth to remind us mortals what true freedom and independence looks, feels and sounds like. That date also acknowledges “Pops” as one of the founding fathers of our countries and the one best qualified for that title. Why? Simply because 41 out of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence owned people as property while claiming that “all men are created equal and endowed with certain unalienable rights.” And so on Independence Day, I go around greeting people with “Happy Louis Armstrong’s birthday!”

 

Today, I’m willing to split the difference. Keep the day on July 4^th and the year as 1901. That means that this would be Louis’ 125^th birthday, exactly half as long as the 250 years we’re supposed to celebrate today. In 1901, Jim Crow was still in effect, women did not yet have the right to vote, homosexuality was illegal, labor unions where on the rise but most strikes resulted in violence coming from police backing the bosses. It would be two more years before Mother Jones organized working children in the “Children’s Crusade” with banners demanding “we want time to play” and “we want to go to school.” Though the President refused to meet with the marchers, the incident brought the issue of child labor to the forefront of the public agenda. That’s where we were at the end of the first half of our 250- year history.

 

The next 125 years saw the rise of movements that moved the moral arc closer to justice, that filled the spiritual bank with sufficient funds to allow all to cash the promissory note the Constitution and Declaration of Independence promised—that all Americans would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (See MLK’s I Have a Dream speech.) The Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, the Gay Rights Movement, the Anti-War Movement, the Environmental Movement, the Free School Movement, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, the Trans Movement and more all rose up, with a Jazz and Rock and Soul soundtrack that began with Louis Armstrong. 

 

Had more Americans followed the trend to more justice, more care for each other and our precious resources, more acceptance and tolerance and celebration of difference, more commitment to our own spiritual promise and liberation, this day would indeed be something to celebrate. Instead, the backlash of those determined to put unchecked greed, unearned privilege, purposely manufactured ignorance, mean-spiritedness and vitriol and division and hatred at the front of the line has pushed us further away from our spoken founding vision than any of us could have imagined. It is most decisively NOT a moment to celebrate. 

 

And yet. If we can see this as the dying gasp of the worst that we have been, the almost unbearable labor pains of the new world that awaits us, there is still room for hope. Let us consider Henry Miller’s words written in 1941 and re-double our efforts to bring this vision back to life as we enter the next 125 years. 

 

“ If it takes a calamity to awaken and transform us, well and good, so be it. Let us see now if the unemployed will be but to work and the poor properly clothed, housed and fed; let us see if the rich will be stripped of their booty and made to endure the privations and sufferings of the ordinary citizen; let us see if the people can voice their wishes in direct fashion, without the intercession, the distortion and the bungling of politicians; let us see if we can create a real democracy in place of the fake one we have been roused to defend; let us see if we can be fair and just not just to our own kind, but to all…”

 

                                             The Air-Conditioned Nightmare: Henry Miller

 

Then we might finally sing along with Pops: “It’s a Wonderful World.” Oh, yeah.