Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: June 21, 2008

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Fender Stratoscaster

Enu­mer­a­tions

I am sit­ting in a wooden uphol­stered chair built in the nine­teen fifties (I know because the table it came with had the orig­i­nal sales receipt from 1957) at my com­puter desk lis­ten­ing to Jimi Hen­drix per­form­ing with the Band of Gyp­sies on New Years 1970 at the Fil­more East almost two years before I was born.

My cat Sibyl is sleep­ing behind me. She is almost 13. Hard to believe. She looks five and has the most beau­ti­ful black/​​orange tortoise-​​​​shell fur I have ever seen. She also has an incred­i­bly sweet and talk­a­tive dis­po­si­tion. (I have known many cats and by far she is the most gregarious)

I am 36. Time is spin­ning a web around my head. I am think­ing that the chrono­met­ric pars­ing of our small gasps of life may be the death of us, machinelike,…

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Posted on: February 29, 2008

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There are days when I curse being a musi­cian. I work long hours for a ridicu­lously small wage and often under crummy con­di­tions. Think about the loud­est, dirt­i­est, smok­i­est bar you have vis­ited with your pals in the last 12 months. I have prob­a­bly per­formed there, or at least some place exactly like it. In fact the word per­formed prob­a­bly needs the qual­i­fier of “tried to” before it, because like the fabled tree falling in the for­est, if you are play­ing for an audi­ence where no one is lis­ten­ing, are you really per­form­ing? I have per­formed dur­ing bar fights and pub­lic break ups straight out of a Hol­ly­wood movie. I have been knocked off stage by drunk­ards who then snatch up my micro­phone and start singing them­selves. I have per­formed while patrons surf Inter­net porn with their com­puter screens fac­ing all of us on stage. I have sung behind chicken wire and in front of…

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