My Feet Are Burning Holes in the Ground

Life & death are things you just do when you're bored...

We were sitting listening to a John Cale record. And I explained that John Cale was the guy from the Velvet Underground. The one who wasn't the chick drummer. Or the dead guy. Or Lou Reed.

The other one.

And she stared at me with those green eyes. The kind you could imagine yourself falling into and drowning. “What if,” she said, “there’s no such thing as fear?”

“But I know there’s fear. I’ve experienced fear. Fear and I are on a first-name basis.”

“What if that’s not a thing?” she said.

“That’s not possible.”

“What if it’s just a story? Something we tell each other?”

“Then it’s the worst and stupidest story in history.”

*****


My father once said to me “What will happen if you lose your job and your car is stolen and you don’t have insurance and there are wildfires that make your allergies act up and you can’t breathe and the Chinese fire nukes, and you have to live under a railroad trestle?”

And I said the only thing you can say to something like that: “No problem. I’ll jump onto my magic unicorn that poops money and ride off taking shortcuts on double rainbows to a magic valley where everything is wonderful 24 hours a day.”

*****

“But what if there is no such thing as fear?” she said again.

I couldn’t think of anything to say. So she continued. “What if fear is taking the worst thing that hasn’t yet happened and suffering through the consequences of it before it happens when you don’t even know that it’s going to happen? What if fear is a process that only exists in your mind that keeps you from enjoying the life you want?”

“I don’t know. What would that mean for all the things I’ve feared for my entire life?”

“It means they crumble into dust. And blow away.” Then she smiled.

And I realized it also means not being afraid of drowning in those green eyes.

Iditarod40 Part 2

I'll be cohosting a nightly Iditarod show broadcast live on Radio Free Palmer (89.5 in the Mat-Su Valley) every night at 6:30pm Alaska Time/7:30 Pacific/10:30 Eastern.


Click here for more information and for the latest podcasts.

The preview episode from Friday night is here.

Iditarod40

Portions originally posted 2 years ago.

The Iditarod starts today. Or Tomorrow. Depending on how you look at it.

The race has a ceremonial start in Anchorage today. Mushers and "Iditariders" go 11 miles through downtown Anchorage and out into the woods on ski and bike trails.

About 15,000 people come out to watch the mushers live. It's packed shoulder to shoulder downtown, but if you move 10 blocks away the crowds are much more spread out. And if you go into the woods where the bike trails are and the locals hand out cookies, hot dogs, and pastries, you can go a few hundred yards in between clumps of fans.

There's a lot you might not be to know watching the event on TV. The first thing is the total will and concentration of the dogs -- their controlled bursts of energy and the quiet intensity of their breathing.

The second is the complete and total joy of the mushers. (As much as this comes through on TV, it's a million times more intense to see it live.)

The third thing is how happy the crowds are. Yes, this is a weird event with its own customs and rituals, but it's also an event that fans can feel is theirs. Mushers mingle with fans freely in a way that's unimaginable for the top competitors in any of the larger professional sports.

Today is just for fun.

No one keeps track of today's times because they don't really count.

The real race begins tomorrow in Willow (about 70 miles away) and the winner will likely arrive in Nome 9 or 10 days later.

It's hard and it's cold and it's long. And the people and dogs who run this race are amazing and disciplined and tough.

And inspiring.

Which reminds me of this.

Leap Day Rerun

If the sky that we look upon...
[Originally posted August 22, 2011]

In the early 1970s, Paul McCartney was vilified for recording and releasing a series of wimpy songs (and insanely uneven albums).

During that same period, John Lennon struggled to find his own voice, careening from the stark primal scream of Plastic Ono Band to hopeful hippie anthems ("Happy Xmas"), unashamed rockers ("Instant Karma"), odd anthems ("Imagine"), and sappy mystic anthems ("#9 Dream"). Not to mention Sometime in New York City, about which the less said the better.

When the Beatles broke up, Lennon was freed from the need to compete with Paul McCartney for leadership of the biggest band in history. But he drifted, trying to find his voice (which, he famously tried to disguise in whatever way he could because he didn't like the sound of it).

So tonight, with wispy clouds passing overhead and a cool breeze blowing in off the water, I find myself thinking about a John Lennon song. It's not his best song, not his biggest hit, and not even a song he wrote.

But, somehow, while recording an album of oldies with Phil Spector, Lennon was able to shrug off the need to be the voice of his generation long enough to deliver his most relaxed and confident vocal performance since the Beatles broke up.



New Leap Day Bonus: This is the second song I'm learning to play on guitar, and I love the distinct sound of the strings being muted -- which counterbalances the difficulty I have playing a song with more than 3 chords.

If you're keeping track at home, the first song I learned is John Lennon's "Working Class Hero," which only has 2 chords.

Why? Because sometimes 2 chords is enough.

Tears on My Pillow and Ave Maria

Guilty Pleasure Saturday

Not a great song, but a goofy and catchy one.

The song is filled with place-specific lyrics that underscore a point in time when the zeitgeist was stretching and seemed like it could go in any of a number of directions (the waterfall at Paramus Park, "I said hi, she said 'yeah, I guess I am,'" a sax solo that sounds like it's channeling a Big Bopper song, and the idea that TV stations sign off at night after playing the National Anthem).

And while it's certainly all over the place, it has its charms... and in today's fragile world, sometimes that's enough.



This would be Dean Friedman's only hit -- and it appeared on Cashman & West's Lifesong label (which also had a huge hit with Henry Gross's "Shannon," possibly the best and sappiest ode to a lost dog ever).

Also, according to Wikipedia (which must be right cuz it's on the internet), this is the only song ever to appear on Billboard's Top 40 singles chart that contains the word "Paramus."

And, thanks to the interwebs, here's a little ditty from Half-Man Half-Biscuit, 1987's "The Bastard Son of Dean Friedman":



And Dean Friedman's answer, "The Biscuit Song":

Big Birds Flying Across the Sky

There is a Town in North Ontario... or North Jersey

I forget which...



(They're not booing, they're yelling "Neillllllll.")

Life Stretches Before Me Like An Endless Mystery

I feel the heartbeat of the world...

She slid around the corner like she was gliding across a pond.

"There's a softness in the world tonight," she said. "A power and a smell. A glistening sense of possibility."

I looked around, unable to sense anything. "Is there?"

"Yes. Definitely. Right here."

And she pointed. So I looked.

And saw nothing.

But I didn't say that. I didn't want to annoy her.

Later, she glided away. Back to her car.

And I sat in the diner. Listening for the glistening.

Still hearing nothing.

But somehow sensing it was there.

And... wanting to believe.