“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” ~ Ray Bradbury

I resent that there are people making filk I like. I feel dirty.

…in the bad way.

“The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

There are odd little paths we walk in virtuality.

When I joined SL, I had already been a writer for most of my life. When I was very little, I would cross out the parts of my storybooks I didn’t care for and rewrite them to my liking. As a tween I wrote terribly cheesy horror stories to try and shock the adults who endured listening to them (to their credit, they pretended to be disgusted enough to sate the miscreant in me). As a full-fledged teenager, I did that whole weeping heart in my poetry journal thing. In college I learned I was never going to become the reincarnation of Oscar Wilde; that took some time to heal. As a young adult I embraced the fact that while artful talent might take its sweet time to develop, I had an inherent skill that not everyone gets a chance to wield.

As an adult I have learned that a muse is a fickle whore of a creature and you take what you can grab from her when she deigns to show herself. Between visits you take turns hating her and pining for her and stitching together the remnants of your ego in cold sweat anticipation of her return.

My particular failing is a lack of brevity. If allowed the space, I will ruin my own writing with length. Even knowing this, I never considered myself a particularly good poet, nor did I ever consider that I’d have any gift for lyrics. It was only at the coaxing of musician friends in SL that I shared some scribblings. When I did, quite unexpectedly, a whole new world of collaboration and expression opened up for me.

I have been writing with Grace and Lyndon since 2007. January or February or June depending on how you want to start counting. I shared Lugo with Lyndon that January and wrote Fallen State of Grace for the girl in February. But it was late June when I sent Boxes to Lyndon and Last Chance to Grace and first heard them put their music styles to my words.

I don’t pretend to be able to express what it’s like to hear your poetry come out of someone else’s lips in a way you never imagined it yourself. I suppose, on an intellectual level, it’s a little like watching someone you love hold your child for the first time. There is a tender pride and a confusing loss that take place in tandem. You are parting with something that will never be wholly yours again, but in that giving there’s a sense of incredible connection.

Both of them have been performing collaborative songs for four years now. Four. Years. I consider myself to be at their mercy in many ways. Without me, both of them could go on to write and perform. Without them, this strange new way I’ve found to use my inner voice would be gone. I suppose I should be frightened by that, but I’ve never felt that way. I send them my scribblings and sometimes they like them enough to imbue their magic into my words. It’s a system that suits me. But I’m never quite able to get my head around hearing them play.

For a while now, Lyndon has taken to playing our songs at open mics around Seattle. And that’s where one of his musician friends heard him play our latest song, The Dangerous, and asked for a chart so he could work it up.

So today, I opened my mail and had a link to the above youtube video. It features a guy I’ve never met, never heard, never seen until today singing words I wrote. It’s one of the most strange, surreal three minutes and fifty one seconds I’ve ever experienced. Myriad flavors of emotion I haven’t begun to identify. (Although, I need to find out how to get in touch with him, if only to find out what the hell is going on with his lamp).

I get angry and frustrated with Linden Lab, Second Life, and humanity in general. I get exhausted by my disappointment at watching so much possibility squandered.

But some days I come face to face with the paths and possibilities that keep me on this particular road, and I remind myself that no one promised it would be paved in yellow bricks or lead to bejeweled cities. But the road does weave its way into places I could never otherwise explore or encounter, and I have to concede these small moments of awe.

People often ask one another why they stay in Second Life. I have several answers, but the one that I can’t get away from is that as a creative thinker and a tentative artist, there is nothing in virtuality that offers me the at-my-fingertips tools to unfurl the creative sinew more than SL. One day maybe open sims, etc will catch up. I embrace the possibilities of what is to come. But I’ve looked around at the newborns slouching toward Bethlehem and they don’t have the juice to fill my jelly jar yet. I’m beyond the whole novelty of the environment part. I’ve logged my time in someone else’s growing pains. If it’s not ready for prime time, call me later.

From now on, I’ll have a much simpler answer.

Why am I still here? That’s just the dangerous in me.

“So when people ask me what American Pie means, I tell them it means I don’t ever have to work again if I don’t want to.” ~ Don McLean

It’s that horrible day back from a holiday weekend. You’re tired. You’re cranky. So, here’s something to get the grumpy out of you:

Now see — don’t you feel better?

“I can’t play. You’re looking at me.” ~ Jackson C. Frank

I have always been a throwback when it comes to music. I inherited albums that most of my peers in high school had never heard of. When I “came of age” in the 80s I flirted with light punk and enjoyed aerosol rock and pretended not to like any of the pop music, but what I really enjoyed and listened to over and over were my Dad’s records. Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Jim Croce, Cat Stephens, Joan Baez, etc. Bear in mind there was no Elliott Smith or Soul Coughing yet. Music in the 80s had no poetry in its soul. So I had to turn back to find it.

I can say, with some measure of confidence that I have an extensive knowledge of folk rock from the 1960s and 70s American scene. I love coffee house players and folk music festival obscure numbers, so I know a lot of songs that musicians who played the eras often haven’t heard; I pretty much operate under the theory that if it was good, I know it.

So how the hell have I never heard of Jackson C. Frank?

While watching a movie preview for an upcoming release (Martha Marcy May Marlene), there is a clip of John Hawkes playing a haunting song called “Marcy’s Song” that I’d never heard. I immediately Googled some of the lyrics and found Hawkes’ performance embedded on a site. It took some additional Googling to get the name “Jackson C. Frank” in connection with the lyrics. And then the adventure began.

Mr. Frank had one self-titled album back in 1965 which wasn’t re-released until the late 70s. It was produced by Paul Simon (Paul frikkin’ Simon). As it turned out, I had heard two of his songs without ever knowing they were his. One, “Blues Run the Game” which I’ve always assumed was one of Simon’s and “Kimbe” which I heard but didn’t know the origins of.

His story is gut-wrenching and includes being caught in a school fire at age eleven (which he survived, but was left with burns over half his body), being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, enduring homelessness and poverty in later years — as well as taking a stray pellet to the eye in his 40′s from kids messing around with pop guns at random.

You can hear the minglings of Simon influence in many of the cuts (or possibly we were hearing Frank influence in Simon’s songs, who knows?). The most poignant for me is called “I Want To Be Alone (Dialogue)” which cannot help but inspire reminders of “I Am a Rock” although this delicate plea is far more powerful than the anthem like declaration of Rock.

Part of me is thrilled to have discovered this guy; it’s like finding buried treasure in an ordinary day. On the other hand, it’s heart-breaking to know that this voice and this individual were lost into obscurity. There is such a toll taken on those for whom the world is too much with them and so often gifts and curses we can only imagine weigh them down to the bottom of their personal oceans.

“Fate is nothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was little, my father was extremely fond of Don McLean’s American Pie album. Being a hippie child, I, of course, knew “American Pie,” the song, by heart, but my father maintained it was far from the best song on the record. I thought he was out of his mind.

Years later, as a teenager, I found the album hiding behind Rick Springfield’s Working Class Dog (yes, it’s a horror and a blasphemy, but it was the 80s — no one got out clean, okay?). I removed the vinyl from its sleeve upon which was printed a poem to William Boyd, and listened all the way through. After that, while I maintained a fondness for “American Pie,” I understood my father was right. There were far more interesting secrets whispering in its grooves — and not just “Vincent” (which was my father’s favorite).

I’m not sure why I identified so deeply at that youthful age with “Crossroads,” but it is a song that I come back to over and over and feel kindred toward. It speaks to me, and it always speaks the truth. While others I’ve shared it with tend to find it sad, the song always rings of hope and patience in my personal interpretation. The way forward can’t be reached by turning back, and in the end, we’ll be where we are, no matter what we may have intended. Practical. Peaceful. Perfect.

Every crossroads in life should have a sign with these lyrics printed on it. The simple reminder always makes choices so much easier.

Crossroads
Don McLean

I’ve got nothing on my mind: nothing to remember,
Nothing to forget. and I’ve got nothing to regret,
But I’m all tied up on the inside,
No one knows quite what I’ve got;
And I know that on the outside
What I used to be, I’m not anymore.

So there’s no need for turning back
`Cause all roads lead to where we stand.
And I believe we’ll walk them all
No matter what we may have planned.