Becoming a musician

The Healdsburg Guitar Festival was here last weekend. Guitar makers from around the country and a few from Japan. Probably about a thousand handmade guitars being exhibited. It is an overwhelming experience for a guitar player and lover. I played maybe a dozen instruments- all a joy to hold and play- all far somewhat superior to my instruments. Two years ago I played an archtop by a Japanese maker and it was my overall favorite. Again I played another by the same maker- the feel, the look, the touch, the sound, the vibrations... So many things make a guitar a work of art.

On entering I bought another music book, called something like "An organized approach to jazz improvization". By page three I am over my head- Dorian, Frigian, Aolian, Locrian and so on. But I will take a little bite at a time. I purchase a dozen "Django" style picks and a video by Taylor Martin playing some jazz standards, amazing stuff. I can play the chords or the melody. But he plays chords, melody and bass at the same time. I am starting with learning the bass part to "Rhythm Changes", alone it sounds very cool. Now I just have to get the other fingers working in coordination. About 2 hours a day for maybe another six months and I think I would have "Rhythm Changes" mastered. Yet I do not have that time or discipline.

My love, joy and faithful companion since I was 15 years old has been my guitar, not always the same guitar but a guitar. Sometimes just to accompany my singing, usually alone, sometimes at gigs, sometime to relax, sometimes to practice. I've traveled many directions in music since those early days- pop music, the sixties folk scene, Old Tyme, Bluegrass, Irish Traditional Music and now several kinds of jazz. All have been joyful musical journeys with my companion.

Yet I have not been a faithful suitor. I have been distracted by other lovely bodies- the mandolin, the fiddle, the octomandola and yes, even for a brief time, the banjo. But I always come back to the guitar.

(That is me, by the way, in the photo. I will not tell you what year. It is my television debut in Buffalo, New York. All true!)

Dubito ergo?

Most people are familiar with Descartes' famous "quote" or should I say insight. Somehow folks think that "Cogito, ergo sum." (I think...therefore I am.) somehow proves we really exist. I learned this phrase in philosophy class but never really understood how a person could reason that some kind of surity about thinking, truely proved his or her existence.

Then I read an article that explaned the Descartes whole thought process. Descarte questioned his own existence. Even if he thought that he might really exist, he was unable to prove this conjecture to himself in hard and fast manner. Then he hit upon the central crux of his thinking process. He doubted that he was thinking, he doubted that he existed or could prove his existence. His doubt was the thought process that he could say with surity that really did exist. Even though nothing else seemed proveable, he knew that he doubted. Doubting was the one thinking process of fundemental surity. Doubting is thinking, therefore he knows that he doubts and thinks, therefore he knows that he exists. How ironic that the fundemental thought process that led humankind into the Enlightenment was doubt.

I bring this thinking into my own world view in several ways. I know that my subjective view on things is only that. It is a limited one person view confined by the limited experiences, prejudices and physicality of one person. So I am in a continuous state of doubt. I think of the opposite. Those people who are sure of everything. I think of those institutions that preach such surity. To me they are the most narrow and closed minded of all people.

I prefer to live my life in an open and doubting position. Perhaps I raise issues of trust. And it is true, I trust propoganda few institutions although I rely on so many of them. I trust individual people but that is an affair of the heart, rather than the mind.

Nude Realism in Toronto

OK, six months and no blog. Hey, six months and no readers either. My plan for the fourth blog was my first sexual experience. Maybe that will get some marginal literary types. But, no. I am going to break the mold. I will move to present day. I shall move??? We shall move... We shall not be moved...

I had a friend tell me. "I want a life like yours." It was a nice compliment and yes, for 58, my life is pretty good- in the summers anyway. (You know I am a teacher?) I flew to Toronto on July third to attend a two week workshop in figure painting- nude of course, at the Academy of Realist Art. During the first days I was overwhelmed by my incompetence. By the second week, I was starting to feel a little practiced again. All of this explanation for you is an esoteric discipline but I love it- a la prima, French 19th Century Realist methodology.


An abbreviated version of a longer story: About 15 years ago I began taking lessons from David Hardy in Oakland and he changed my life- Since moving from the East Bay, I have been using my summers to pursue this style of art. I teach all year long- history..., computer skills, etc. Then in the summers I take this fantastic journeys trying to learn this style of art. It has been a family tradition. Well, my dad was an amatuer artist, but instilled in me a love for it. I have done it as an avocation for my whole life, sometimes marginally, sometimes very seriously.

In Toronto I stayed in a 10 foot by 10 foot room (toilet and shower right there in the room), tiny color TV, sink, my clock radio and a Chinese computer (another story that will not be told here). I will tell the address: 588 Dundas, an incredible deal at $40 a night but no English spoken- the heart of Chinatown and near Kensington Market. I purchase a bicycle for $50 and drove to the other end of Dundas for my lessons- wonderful and perhaps a little dangerous commuting by bicycle especially over the the railroad bridge under construction.

Back to painting: You may know this. Talent in art is overrated. Practice is the key and there were some wonderful artists at the school and in our class. I was on Day 4 of the 4 day pose by Cindy (not her real name). I needed one more day for a basic fill in of areas but then another week for final glazing. I write this because I feel compelled to show at least one of the pieces I did in Toronto. (My sister in Philadelphia is the proud (embarrassed) owner of this partially finished work. Then I would need another week for the final glazing. With all of those caveats I am posting the painting here. I will leave for another blog the rest of my exciting summer and the my earliest sexual experience.

Hey, maybe the words: nude and sexual will get me some more readers. Feel free to write me. I will give a prize to my first unsolictied reader. That another good word unsolicited, rather solicited may jar the search engines of the sexually bored.