Nationwide Parent/Teacher Strike?

This post is in frustrated response to the murderous killing spree that took place Monday in a K-6 private elementary school about 7 miles from my home. It happened in the school connected to the church where my daughter's independent vocal choir regularly sings. See details at NPR.

A conversation the next day with my dear friend Rocky Alvey brought up this question, which has been bugging me since. I share it here: 

Why is no one calling for a nationwide parent/teacher strike against all school systems? Parents should not have to drop their children off five days a week fearing that they will not survive the day. Nor should teachers or school staff have to go to work daily with the same fears.  

Think about it. Someone has to. And I must admit that I am too old to pursue this. Step up. In any way you can.

Strike end conditions include but are not limited to total ban of automatic weapons by federal, local, and state legislatures and the immediate recall of all such weapons with state-funded compensation for their cost. Send the NRA and their puppet politicians back to the woods with a properly thought out, funded, and implemented online education strategy with true online teacher training, much more than the couple zoom sessions and a "good luck" that the Covid crisis generated, along with commensurate losses in learning. Power/support the strike with a shared set of curriculum and other resources in small homeschool groups utilizing itinerate teachers who, along with their charges, also don't ever again need to fear if they will survive the day.

Following the Uvalde school massacre, Dr. Bindi Naik-Mathuria, trauma physician at Baylor College Hospital, told Yahoo News that the wounds inflicted by AR-type weapons are "virtually unsurvivable."

I wrote this yesterday and if you can navigate the non-scanning lines with care, come up with your own melody and share it with me. Or read it aloud like a poem. A song to consider:

Because They Could 

by Scott Merrick

(soto voce introduction:)

You were so profoundly broken

in ways that went unspoken

that you kept it from your family

until you didn't.

(forcefully:)

Emilie, Hallie, William:

Audrey, why'd you have to kill them?

I'm writing this not because I want to

but because I have to

I didn't know you.

No one did.

Get off your lazy ass 

and to the polls

Send the NRA 

back to the woods

vote them out of office

get their guilty hands out of our lives

the shooter killed those kids

because they could.

And it's your fault

And it's my fault

They couldn't use those guns

if those guns could not be bought

And it's their fault

and it's our fault

They couldn't fire those guns

if those guns could not be bought.

I'm crying now

for those three children

and their families

and the others that you killed,

the hearts your bullets stopped

forever and the cops

who you forced to take your life

with your last free will

Emilie, Hallie, William:

Why'd you have to kill them?

I'm writing this not because I want to

but because I have to

I didn't know you.

No one did.

Get off your lazy ass 

and to the polls

Send those puppet politicians 

back to the woods

vote them out of office

get their guilty hands out of our lives

the shooter killed those kids

because they  could.

And it's your fault

And it's my fault

They couldn't use those guns

if those guns could not be bought

And it's their fault

and it's our fault

They couldn't fire those guns

if those guns could not be bought.

They couldn't fire those guns

if those guns could not be bought.

They couldn't fire those guns

if those guns could not be bought.

Raw Links:

https://momsdemandaction.org/resources/

https://www.alternet.org/tennessee-senator-prayers-nashville-victims/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_congressional_candidates_who_received_campaign_money_from_the_National_Rifle_Association

And a list of US Republican senators who received funding from the NRA and related PACs, from Newsweek:

Republican Senators Who Receive Funding From the NRA

• Mitt Romney (Utah) $13,647,676
• Richard Burr (North Carolina) $6,987,380
• Roy Blunt (Missouri) $4,555,722
• Thom Tillis (North Carolina) $4,421,333
• Marco Rubio (Florida) $3,303,355
• Joni Ernst (Iowa) $3,124,773
• Rob Portman (Ohio) $3,063,327
• Todd C. Young (Indiana) $2,897,582
• Bill Cassidy (Louisiana) $2,867,074
• Tom Cotton (Arkansas) $1,968,714
• Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) $1,475,448
• Josh Hawley (Missouri) $1,391,548
• Marsha Blackburn (Tennessee) $1,306,130
• Ron Johnson (Wisconsin) $1,269,486
• Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) $1,267,139
• Mike Braun (Indiana) $1,249,967
• John Thune (South Dakota) $638,942
• Shelley Moore Capito (West Virginia) $341,738
• Richard Shelby (Alabama) $258,514
• Chuck Grassley (Iowa) $226,007
• John Neely Kennedy (Louisiana) $215,788
• Ted Cruz (Texas) $176,274
• Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) $146,262
• Steve Daines (Montana) $123,711
• Cindy Hyde-Smith (Mississippi) $109,547
• Roger Wicker (Mississippi) $106,680
• Rand Paul (Kentucky) $104,456
• Mike Rounds (South Dakota) $95,049
• John Boozman (Arkansas) $82,352
• John Cornyn (Texas) $78,945
• Ben Sasse (Nebraska) $68,623
• Jim Inhofe (Oklahoma) $66,758
• Lindsey Graham (South Carolina) $55,961
• Mike Crapo (Idaho) $55,039
• Jerry Moran (Kansas) $34,718
• John Barrasso (Wyoming) $26,989
• John Hoeven (North Dakota) $22,050
• Susan Collins (Maine) $19,638
• James Lankford (Oklahoma) $18,955
• Jim Risch (Idaho) $18,850
• Tim Scott (South Carolina) $18,513
• Kevin Cramer (North Dakota) $13,255

Be well and share.

Lex Fridman Talks with Dr. Shannon Curry: Johnny Depp & Amber Heard Trial, Marriage, Dating & Love ...

I've been listening to Lex Fridman podcasts for months now, ever since my buddy Rocky suggested the episode about climate change that is a "sort of" debate between Bjorn Lomberg and Andrew Revkin. That podcast, Fridman's #339, was staggering to me, running 4 hours, 10 minutes. It was really my first foray into "long form" interviews, and I liked it. Since then, I've listened to his shows with Noam Chomsky, Ray Kurzweil, Michael Saylor, and Elon Musk. He comes to controversial topics with a heavy emphasis on empathy, love, kindness, and so appeals to me. The genius of the long form allows MUCH more depth in conversation, and it's a habit I'm glad to have in my Scheduliberation. 

That said, I want to recommend this episode to Anyone, Everyone, and you. Insights on Shannon Curry's views of everything in the title and more are absolutely worth the listen. AND it's a relatively brief one at just around two hours. 

I listen on Spotify, but you can listen and also watch on YouTube. You're welcome. Here:

Happy Spring, and carry on, safe and well always...

Chilly Saturday Morning at Chez Merrique

Well well well. Early Saturday morning and I'll be taking out o' here in a couple hours to do deliveries for Tinwings, the glorious gourmet grab-and-go market conceived and made golden by my lovely wife. I'm the back-up delivery guy, and her former delivery person is herself taking off for a 3 month chef gig in Greenland (!) tomorrow. It'll be fine, and the sky is blue and though it's chilly outside again I do love to drive all over my hometown and leave amazing, delicious food fare on doorsteps of some of the hundreds of clients who partake of her scrumptiousness regularly.

Tinwings in The Nations Nashville

We went to a live performance in the tiny Basement venue Thursday, to see and hear a solo performance by Tommy Prine, and we were treated to one song featuring guest star Amanda Shires. What a treat, the whole thing. Tommy's first LP will release in late June and we were lucky to have heard many of its songs. I'll tell you this: Tommy has inherited his father's gift for storytelling with metaphore, irony, and humor, but he has already proven that he has his own distinct voice, and it's beautiful and I am now a hardcore fan. I taught him every week for years in my University School of Nashville computer lab and I am so proud of hisgrownupself. As we were leaving after he said, "Mr. Merrick, thank you for coming," and I responded, "Ha, you can call me Scott." Made me smile. And I did say hi to Amanda just before leaving, introducing her to my honey. Amanda sometimes comes by to work in Charles's open studio class and she is, besides being a powerhouse superstar musician and singer, a hugely talented painter. She is also one of the nicest human beings it has been my pleasure to meet.

I'm currently working on a couple paintings, and I made good progress on my 16x20 painting of my best pal Watson last week. Charles Brindley's painting class at Scarritt Bennett Center has been on break for a few weeks and starts up next week, so Wednesday I took the hour or so at his invitation I drove up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky and spent a few hours painting under his supervision/tutelage. I got home with this improved version of mah boy (note that some of what you see is visual "notes" for me to revise, but I'm increasingly happier with it):

"Watson", in progress

And Charles gave me some great ideas for directions I can pursue on this abstract, which I am thinking will be dubbed "metronome":

"metronome", in progress

Lastly, for now, I've been doing some recording, and this one below kinda fun, I think. I'm not happy with my melody line yet, or the recording quality (Audacity with a USB mic on my Dell All-in-One computer) but I'm confident it will get there. Here's the lyrics I'm working with. Can you envision a melody for it? I may just keep what I've got and enhance it with other instruments but I'm open to hear a rough recording. Post it here in a comment...

Goin' Somewhere

by Scott Merrick

We're walking in the morning
Breathing in the freshest air
We're walking in the morning
Looking 'round to see what's there
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
It's all of life we're livin'
We laugh we cry we don't give up
Whatever we are given
Reachin' out to scoop it up
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.
Somewhere a baby cries
Somewhere a lover sighs
Somewhere laughter
Somewhere tears
Somewhere a song begins
Somewhere a train comes in
Somewhere hope
Somewhere good cheer.
BRIDGE
Somewhere the darkest night
Somewhere the sun is bright
Somewhere you're home
Somewhere it's time
Somewhere friends arrive
Somewhere no compromise
Somewhere alone
Somewhere just fine.
 We're sitting on the back porch
Talking out the day's events
We're sitting on the back porch
Wonderin' where the weekend went
And in the sky
a jet plane
flying high
Somebody goin' somewhere.

That's it for this morning. Gonna feed Watson, toss on some warm layers, and drive around Nashville.

Happy Birthday to my magical godson, Seamus. I miss y'all but we'll be gettin' out your way someday soon

March, Coming Up on an Anniversary

I don't mean we are marching towards it, but maybe in a metaphorical sense. It's just 36 years of being legally married. She is my best friend and my life's love. More, please.

I'm doing my things, painting, fishing (not much on accounta the weather), playing some music, taking care of the hacienda, walking my doggy. Lee Ann's working on work, continuing to make Tinwings better in all ways, and maybe keeping a big announcement to herself for a while. No, she's not preggie. 

I completed another painting in what I foresee will be a little series of "vivid rorschach" paintings. I cleverly call it "vivid rorschach 2".

vivid rorschach 2, acrylics on stretched canvas, 16x20 inches, by Scott Merrick 2023

These are fun, especially when planned to mirror color relationships of one another. And I am really enjoying playing with the palate knives. Feel free to click on over to the original to think about what the hell this guy is doing with them. 

I'm going to head down to downtown Nashville this morning to see if I can find some painting-worthy images for my collection of iphotography. Then I'll do lunch at 3rd and Lindsley, timed to enjoy WMOT Roots Radio's "Finally Friday" trifecta of great emerging (and experienced) musical talents. If you are anywhere nearby, or you plan to visit Nashville, this is a must do. The chili and beer is good alll by itself. If you are not in our fair city (Tennessee's liberal bastion now under state administrative attack in an unprecedented way), tune into 89.5 FM from noon to two pm every Friday to listen. A gem always.

See ya.

 Hello.

The mid-February Nashville weather is just plain weird. Here on Valentines Day 2023 it'll reach a high of 65 degrees today. And...

HERE it is on Friday, the 24th, and it reached 80 degrees yesterday. I went to my art class in a short sleeved Orvis shirt and cargo shorts. It's now 41 with a predicted high of only 52. It's Spring, it's Summer, it's Winter again. The plants are going "hell yeah" and budding and even blossoming. Little do they know. 

On the bright side here's the entry into my online Gratefulness Journal today: "Nashville weather, for its perfect mix of moderate and surprisingly otherwise." 

I started that journal during the pandemic and, a lot like my blog, it suffers periods of neglect but I always come back to it. It's private to me, but maybe some inquisitive spawn of mine will discover it and share it one day after I've floated away. I am convinced it is good to me to reflect on my blessings, though I remain unconvinced that society has it right on who/what is doing the blessing.

I finished a painting yesterday that I estimate represents maybe 50 or 60 hours of devotion to light, color, texture, and reflection. It's called "reflection on the ridge" and owes to its existence my friendship with Rocky Alvey and if I counted the hours of light-watching in camping chairs at his home and photographic opportunities there (which most often required putting down my cigar and/or my glass of bourbon on the rocks), okay, maybe 100 hours. Maybe 200. Hmmmmm...

"reflection on the ridge", acrylics on stretched canvas, 2023 by scott merrick

I want to post an abstract in progress and I want you to look at it very closely and will welcome any advice in comments. I for one am leaning toward calling it complete. I'm calling it "vivid rorschach" for now...

"vivid rorschach", acrylic on stretch canvas, by scott merrick 2023

There. I've addressed the blog neglect issue for this day, and I hope you have a good one, whenever you may be reading/viewing this. Peace out.

It's the merry end of January

 ...and I'm pleased that this may be the last day I'll be putting brush to painting on a piece I've been working on for around a month. It is an attempt to capture the mood and lighting in my pal Matt Melon's small detached garage workshop in East Nashville, on a cold day when he was working and invited me and my buddy Rocky Alvey over to watch Columbo reruns on his laptop with studio sound hooked up, whiskey's in hand, and cigars lit. My plan is to gift it to him for his great new workshop under construction in Lyles, TN. Here's a panorama pic of that featuring Rocky and Matt: 

I took a photo of Matt at one point that was head-down, mask-on, torch blazing...

And here's the current state of the image I have been working on. I will post the "finished" one after my class today with master Charles Brindley. As Charles says, "the artist paints the seen and the unseen, often to share what contributes to the piece's whole. I know many artists who are literalists, tied to reproducing everything in great detail and accuracy. They are, by and large, the unhappiest people I know. This afternoon I will be adding a very few little details and a blended blue glaze layer that will bring the fire to life, and it will be complete. I'll add it below this version when it's done. Just sharin'...

(added later: the final, signed piece, delivered to the collection of Matt Melon on 012823

Good day on ya.

Why?

 Well, I don't know.

I just know the arrival of each day is the opportunity to discover how one's being at any moment is important. I'm working on a song, a painting, and a...what? There have to be three things, don't there? 

What's the third thing?

The song is this (dashed parts are phrasings I need to remember):

If-I-had a timemachine clock

that ticked while it tocked

I don't think I'd turn back its hands

I many not have had

as much as I want

but believe it's bout all I can stand

Ahhhh, retirement

Stayin' alive 

is the sole requirement

I did my time walkin' the line

and now that it's mine

I play all the time

It's warmed up to freezing

which has me believing

that I may go outside today

I got nothing to do

but write this for you

to sing what I have to say

Although you may not hear it

or come anywhere near it

I'll quietly sing it and play

You-may-not-be around

to hear the sound

but that goddamn tree fell anyway

instrumental break 

Ahhhh, retirement

Stayin' alive 

is the sole requirement

I did my time walkin' the line

and now that it's mine

I play all the time

instrumental break

I will put on my hat

my coat and my gloves

and take my dog out for a walk

it may sound lame 

but just the same

sometimes I wish he could talk

Scheduliberation

the ultimate vacation

I did my time walking those lines

and now that it's mine

I play all the time...

The current painting is of my friend and brother Matt Melon, he of Magic Metal Designs fame, from a photo I took of him working while my friend and brother, Rocky Alvey, and I sat watching Columbo reruns on Matt's laptop, smoking cigars, and drinking bourbon in his makeshift workshop in East Nashville on a  cold November day. Matt is welding and well, I guess I just love the photo image and wanted it to be (more or less) immortalized in acrylics on canvas, as if my painting it would do that. When I finish it I want it to live on the wall of the big shop he's building outside of Lyles, TN. I'm still working on it:

The third thing is you. I don't thank you enough. I don't tell you I love you enough. I need to work harder to do both of those things. Thank you. I love you. If I didn't have a mental image of you I would not be able to do this. I do. Maybe I should paint that. Maybe it's too vast to reproduce, or maybe too miniscule.

Happy 2023!

 Happy New Year, y'all!

We had a fun get together yesterday, the last day of 2022, at our home in The Nations Nashville. I didn't take any pics because I was properly dedicated to enjoying the moment and the unique group of people we had in the rooms. After record low temperatures and snow, and rain, and wind, the weather took mercy on us and we had temps in the 60s, allowing me to open both front and back doors wide. The drop-in party was cleverly scheduled for 1pm to 5, and the 30 or 40 friends, family, and neighbors amiably killed a case+ of beer, 2 magnums and 4 bottles of Segura Viudas Brut, an affordable but delicious bubbly which is a staple of our home bar, along with 3 bottles of red wine and maybe 5 of white. We had sent out a Paperless Post invite only a week before, figuring if only a handful of folks showed up it would all be good. Turnout was impressive.

It all went swimmingly well and I am thankful for everyone who showed up. I wish all of them a happy 2023, along with all of you, which I am well aware is just another handful, but clearly one with discerning reading tastes.

This morning we started out the year with a bottle gifted by a guest, and sadly I have no idea which one or which couple brought this for us. Going from a packed fridge to a nearly empty one, save for 6 new and diverse bottles of bubbly, we figured that before Lee Ann had to go into work to oversee a store deep-cleaning by a new service, we'd better get started. We opened the Prosecco, which was incredibly cold and pleasing. I did a little food prep while my love sought something New Years related to watch while we ate (we settled on the 2018 Steve Martin and Martin Short New Years special. I plated a meal we have often, Nova Salmon with sides on an Everything bagel. DElicious:

New Years morning gnosh

As we ease into the new year, I want to reaffirm my gratitude to life for keeping me along for the upcoming next ride around our sun. I am completely blessed, whether by God or Fate or just (and I mostly suspect this is the one) pure blind Luck. 2023 marks the 40 years I have known the love of my life, and just how did that happen? Just lucky I guess. Here's a pic from the past to celebrate:

5 years ago at Couples Negril in beautiful Jamaica

That is all for now. I have a dishwasher to unload. May you be as lucky as I in your own way for 2023 and always.

Brrrrrrr December

 Okay, it's not nearly as cold as most years at this time but I'll repeat that Tennessee cold is colder than any other because of the omni-present humidity. That humidity is cursed in the summer and the winter with equanimity. 

On a happier topic, I'm beginning work on a new painting, another dive into another arena of complete inexpertise (there is some uncertainty if this last is actually a word, but apparently Wictionary approves).

I had a chill (in every sense of the term) experience at my friend Matt Melon's detached garage workshop in Madison a few weeks ago, sitting with mutual friend Rocky Alvey, smoking cigars, drinking some Green River bourbon, and watching Colombo episodes on Matt's laptop while Matt worked (see https://www.magicmetaldesigns.com/ for how truly magical his metal artistry is). I snapped some pics and one of them is this one:

Matt Melon making magic

There are soooo many angles and objects in this image that I may well tame it down. On the other hand, that is what gives it its interest, so I may lean more toward realism than I have really yet to do. It's never boring, largely because if it seems to be getting that way, I will veer away onto other paths of decisions. Stay tuned.

I recently finished a pic I alluded to in my previous post (https://scottmerrick.blogspot.com/2022/11/december-2022-looks-to-be.html) and I'm pretty happy with it. Anyway, here are two stages of it--the first is what I brought into the workshop, and the second is what I consider the finished piece:

UPDATE 121622:

I attended the awesome Blended/Broken Color full-day workshop led by sensei Charles Brindley yesterday at Scarritt Bennet Conference Center and Charles made some suggestions for my "rocky's ridge" painting that I spent the whole afternoon implementing, (pictures above). Luckily for me, ten feet away from me in the full-to-capacity painting studio the amazing beautiful and amazing Amanda Shires was working on several absolutely beautiful abstract canvases. I got to meet her at the end of the day when Charles gathered the artists around my easel to view the final painting. I laughed when he told them "this guy came out of nowhere" to learn painting. Amanda was painting with her mother, Lisa, also a very capable artist, and both were really, really nice human beings. New adoring Amanda fan, check.

On another topic--Yesterday my brother Ed and I sat in on a Zoom meeting with our first cousin twice removed, Kathy M., who lives in California and who recently tracked me down via this blog. Her mother, the daughter of our half-aunt (nothing is simple), recently passed away and left behind what appeared in Kathy's background to be a dozen or so bankers boxes of letters and photographs. I won't be sharing these as they come my way, but childhood pictures of our dad, baby pictures of us with our mom, and the like  are exciting to look forward to. As of now the only baby pic I have of me is on the cover of my novel, Lives, and Kathy has already sent me another one. Who's that grumpy baby?

Mom and me at 4 months old

I look forward to continued correspondence with this distant newly in-touch cousin!

Finally (let's just go for it--is this the randomest blogpost ever?) I'm hitting The Blue Room Bar at Third Man Records Friday night, with my pal Rocky, for a show featuring the Lockland Strings, a group of East Nashville musicians who get together and perform a concert once a month or so. I am all giddy and expectatious (sic) to see Madi Diaz live, as well as to be introduced to a tidy handful of other performers I have not heard, until I put together this playlist on Spotify with one "record" from each artist who will be there. Feel free to listen, and I do recommend randomizing, if you can't make the show. (Note: Peter Mulvey will not be there, but it was the album with SistaStrings I found that features the most of them.)

Cheers! Have a lovely Winter Holidays season! 

Wait! I want to share that Thursday night we'll be attending "A Sonos Christmas," live at the Parthenon and getting to hear our marvelous, beautiful, talented, and, well, perfect daughter Miranda sing. She auditioned for the choir a couple months ago and was embraced into it, happily. Although I had the pleasure of attending the Timbre Cierpke Christmas Concert at a Nashville church this past Thursday and got to hear her sing, my honey has not and I couldn't be more excited to sit at the base of the golden Athena and share that experience with my life's love. Well, I couldn't be more excited until Friday at the Blue Room!

Now go be good and have fun!

December 2022 Looks to Be...

 ...a fairly normal month. Which is to say that, yes, anything can happen.

It's thickly foggy outside my studio window this morning, Saturday, 26 November, 2022. I have been delivering food orders for my dearest's business, Tinwings, for a couple weeks now and despite that twice-weekly addition to my schedule I do miss my painting classes with graphics master Charles Brindley, which are suspended until the first week in January. I took a lovely full day Brindley workshop on underpainting and paint application techniques a couple weeks ago, and did enjoy the drive up to his home in Adairville, Kentucky to do so. I'm just rambling here so stop me anytime. 

I finished my penitentiary painting (because at some point you just have to call it done) and I'm pretty good with it. 

After a still frame from Brian Siskind's brilliant video portrait of the abandoned Tennessee State Prison, "On the Inside"

The day of the painting class in KY I started a new canvas, which is an attempt to capture the mood of a photo I took up at my friend Rocky's ridge. Here's the photo:

Sunset on Rocky's ridge

The colors are beginning to work, as I apply layer after layer to the canvas. I think this will be a long effort. Yes, I expect it will. One pervasive challenge is implementing the transition between what is seen and what is not seen until it is painted. Charles says "We artists paint what is seen and what is unseen" and has said that "visual literalists must be the unhappiest people in the world." I smile.

My Life's Love Lee Ann and I went out last night! We were invited to go downtown on a Friday night, and though we don't normally venture out on weekend nights, our friend Michael Sharpe's Sinatra tribute set in the gorgeously decked out bar within the Hyatt Holston House last night was early in the evening, and we wanted to see the show mainly to support him. We were thoroughly entertained! Michael's voice is perfect for the iconic Rat Pack crooner style. Technically on target, he pays effective respect to his phrasings and is pitch-on throughout. I believe that those long pitch-perfect word endings can only be achieved by hours of rehearsal and a perceptive and self-critical ear. The trick in that is to do the trick without it sounding like a trick, and he's certainly mastered it. Michael also brings an infectious joy to his show--a little self-deprecating banter here, a sizable helping of music trivia there, the well-placed prop; he's got it all.

Michael Sharpe in a li'l Happy Holidays pose with my sweetie, Lee Ann

I have a rare day off with my honey today--Tinwings is traditionally closed on Thanksgiving and the following weekend. We have ambitious plans to relax around the house. A little day-drinking may well be involved. A nap. Certainly a nap. 

I hope things are well in your world and I say come on, December, come ON!

There and Time, Recorded 2020

In the course of doing a little YouTube management this morning I came across this little ditty I wrote several years ago while visiting my dear Godbrother, James Morrison. At the time he and his (also dear) family were living in a cozy little house on North June Street in Hollywood, just 3 miles, as the California Crow flies, from the famed HOLLYWOOD sign. I was in running form then. I will admit that running is something I miss from my life prior scheduliberation.

On a morning run that included Beverly Boulevard, probably something like this,

I started by humming the melody that generated the first line and the song took off. It was one of those that I finished in one day and it never took any later revision because I was satisfied with its gestalt. My current assessment of the performance/recording is that boy oh boy do I have some serious looks on my face, and...it's a pretty good song. I also like my rhythm patterns and yes, it's a pretty darned good song, despite the fairly common misinformation about the Einstein quote.

Please pardon the sleepwear. I was pretty much confined to the home for much of the pandemic and this video was a trial for a series that never came to be. I have to laugh at the Covid Beard in my profile pic at the time. Checkout Jimmy's website, linked above, and enjoy...

and just for good measure, here is an archived pic of him and me with our band behind us. JK, it wasn't really "our band," but the cast of the Western spectacular, "Diamond Studs" from the Alaska Repertory Theatre's season in I think '78. We're ancient history!

Peace out. Stay Safe and Well.