Tuesday, April 30, 2019

For You To See The Stars


Note: What follows is a letter written to Cyndi Hoelzle, who manages Radney Foster (and also happens to be married to him.) Radney has released a CD and a book of short stories, FOR YOU TO SEE THE STARS that are companions. I recommend both highly.

Hi Cyndi,

I read the book in one sitting. I promise this note will address how much i enjoyed what i read, but wanted to share a bit of detail.

As mentioned, I attended MerleFest last week. My wife and I stay in Boone, partly because of quality of hotel, partly because we love small college towns, and mostly for the drive to and from Wilkesboro.

Saturday we sat in the sun too long on the Hillside Stage and decided to skip Sunday at MerleFest and take a long drive into the mountains. I have an outstanding sound system in a Genesis Coupe, one that I had put in by a demonic, if not possessed, audiophile in search of ideal/perfect mobile sound. 

So it was an easy decision to listen to Radney’s record, as well as a new recording by Driftwood, a band that performed Saturday on the Hillside.

Had to stop the car many times and simply be still to hear such wonderful work.

When we came to BELMONT AND SIXTH, i turned off US-19E and found some shade in a volunteer fire department parking lot. A slightly frayed American flag flapped almost in three-quarter time in a field in front of an adjacent house, and we were totally transfixed. 

My wife and I are extremely keen about politics: we loathe the current administration as much as we despise the fractious partisan bullshit that permeates our culture. Thus, with that strong bias, BELMONT AND SIXTH and ALL THAT I REQUIRE were more than just terrific songs, they were strong statements that were presented in such a way that, perhaps, both sides of the political aisle might heed the lessons that were shared. Then again, I’m not totally sure Trump’s base reads willingly. I do know they listen and watch Fox News, which is poison.

We listened to ALL I REQUIRE while driving by a mountain stream, which reminded me of my dad, who taught Shakespeare in the English department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, or UNC. Pete, my dad, died in December of 1999, and while he didn’t make it to this century, he didn’t have to put up with Bush/Cheney and the current menace. He would have loved Obama. Pete’s main distraction was fly fishing, a realm that never hooked me as it did him. 

And while driving by that stream, I thought of some major what ifs. My dad and I had long discussions about Shakespeare. He insisted the words were meant to be read, and as I trained as an actor, and have done numerous plays by Shakespeare, and have been told that I have an affinity for speaking that verse, I insisted Shakespeare is meant to be performed. In the clear and reasonable light of day, we’re both right.

That connection during the drive carried over yesterday afternoon. We have four cats and always return from MerleFest on Monday, giving us one more day in the mountains. My wife went to pick up the cats at Mayfair Animal Hospital, which also boards animals — a perfect spot in case any of the cats have a medical issue. And while Ruth (my wife) was gone, I unpacked the car, then went to my office to open the Amazon package that waited on my porch.

It occurred to me that Radney’s CD and book were echoes of a familiar, cherished discussion, though a strong case could be made that both forms are meant to be read and heard. When Radney read from his book on the main stage on Thursday at MerleFest, I reached for my phone and ordered via Amazon, partly because I’d wished for more than a decade that some form of drama be performed on that stage during that music festival…and Radney reading fit that wish. 

Loved the gentle musical background provided by that insanely talented guitarist, who also joined Radney for the acoustic set Friday. (googled and discovered Eddie Heinzelman — that cat can play.)

We listened to Radney’s CD again coming back from MerleFest on Monday. I’d read Shari’s note about changing the title from SYCAMORE CREEK to FOR YOU TO SEE THE STARS. I loved both songs.

And when i finished the title story, it’s easy to agree that Shari was right. Such a perfect companion to the song, the story paints in vivid detail a rare experience in nature, while addressing an equally rare phenomenon that eludes many families — forgiveness for paths taken as well as those that were avoided.

One can enjoy the song. One can enjoy the story. But as Isabel points out in her story, the combination, like God, is poetry.

At that point, akin to a famished brook trout in an Avery County stream who’d pounced on a homemade fly, I was hooked. I read FOR YOU TO SEE THE STARS in one sitting, allowing the characters and their actions to work on me as a unit.

I think fiction becomes theater in that way.

Here are some observations:

Radney’s writing is lean, always to the point, crafted rather than spewed, patient instead of hurried. Reminds me of Elmore Leonard’s acute and perfect style, a writer whose major tip to others is to “leave out the parts that nobody will read."

If one was not aware that Radney had written songs, a suggestion to do so might follow. Radney stitches elements in his written stories like poignant arrangements with an arsenal of apt instruments in ways that brought to mind T-Bone Burnett’s work with CRAZY HEART.

The story ISABEL hit me hard. Partly because of my dad, and mostly because of its gentle pace that allowed the images to appear and then attach themselves to my mood. 

ANOTHER DRAGON TO SLAY felt like a Twilight Zone episode, and I could spend hours discussing why this story works so well as a warning without mentioning the key person involved. It is perfect. Not the least bit hyperbolic. And that makes it all so pathetically sad.

History has a way of repeating if no one pays attention: 1935 in Berlin can easily be 2019 in Houston, or Dallas, or Palm Beach, or wherever illusion has thwarted fact.

That’s one of the great powers of fiction. A character can tell us truth that we might not accept from a “living person.” Too bad.

i expected SYCAMORE CREEK to be one hell of a story. I was not disappointed. The details about music and guitars were wonderful, and I wished I could listen to Radney and his friends talk about music in the ways that musicians do when they gather. And then hear them play. 

The details in the song GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH are some of my favorite lines, and that writing reminds me very much of Guy Clark, who often latched onto real “things” and nudged those things into an imaginary, but precise realm.

A CD, like a film, has a designated length of time. One can stop and start, but the running time never changes. A book of stories is more like baseball … you’ll be done when you’re done, and if you have to go to extra innings to do so, so be it.

What a terrific concept to have a CD and a book of stories stand on stage together.

The combination becomes script and soundtrack to a film in one’s own imagination.

Maybe an actual film is the logical next step … that Radney craft his stories with his music, while using the camera to weave in images that those words and music amplify, a trifecta of expression, which has its own truth.

Secrets and wisdom lurk in the details, and while it is such a cliche that it will always be true, love is the answer.

All the best to you both.


Mark











Friday, April 19, 2019

Crossroads

Sometimes events become so twisted, so absurd that the oft-used phrase, CAN'T MAKE THIS UP, serves as balm in the Gilead that is driving you crazy.

Then again, maybe what's happening in plain view in our national discourse is not driving you nuts.

Maybe you're pleased that the President of the United States is a serial liar, as are his underlings, that if he says a color is red, it is likely blue, and that he is a pawn of former KGB agent who now runs the country that has never stopped being USA's greatest enemy.

Maybe you like blatant nepotism to the point of endangering reality itself. Jared Kushner is going to solve the crisis in the Middle East? Santa's also dropping by a bit later.

Maybe you're a big fan of cruelty for cruelty's sake.

Maybe you favor putting kids in cages because their parents made the fatal error of wanting to come to a country that at one time promised a better life for everyone.

Maybe you don't care that your grandchildren will not have water because of the greed of fracking.

Maybe you agree that climate change is a hoax.

Maybe you don't feel the need for comprehensive health care coverage. You and you alone will never get sick.

Maybe you endorse putting flacks on the highest courts, so that the President of the United States can attain whatever justice he desires.

Maybe you just don't care about any of this as long as a woman or a black man is not in charge.

Maybe your mind is so closed, so stagnant, so made up that you don't even bother to watch what was your one source of news/entertainment — Fox News. Now, you check Twitter to see what your leader insists is the the truth.

Maybe you've forgotten what you might have learned in civics class back when you went to school. Those phrases that actually meant something ... Home of the Brave. Land of the Free. America — The Melting Pot.

Or maybe you believe your leader is right in regard to immigration that the United States is full.

It's full all right. With corruption and human waste. Right up to the brim.

The release of the redacted Mueller Report shoves all of these concerns onto the front burner. Sane observers have long been aware that Trump will stop at nothing to get what he wants, that he is amoral ... morality and law don't exist for him. He lies every time he opens his mouth and demands those who enable him to lie. Some, like Mitch McConnell, go along with this lout willingly, helping drag whatever decency remained back into the swamp that was never drained, only amplified.

For me, part of what drives me nuts also keeps me sane. What if Trump were actually smart? What if he didn't telegraph all of his bullshit? What if Trump was as clever as he assumes he is?

Well, he isn't.

Here's the proof. Trump has tried to diminish the effects of the Mueller investigation by having his flunky of the month, Barr, do his bidding by "selling" the notion that there is nothing to see here. That the report exonerated Trump. And as we know now that is the exact opposite.

To use one of Trump's favorite words, SAD.

And worse than sad — Big mistake. Like Nixon's tapes, there is evidence. Not as burning hot as Nixon's kryptonite, but what Mueller and his team accumulated amounts to a road map that I believe Schiff and Nadler will follow.

To dismiss Mueller, Trump needed to remove Mueller before the investigation. Not after, thinking that he, in effect, can send another version of Sean Spicer or Sarah Suckabee to the podium to tell us the "truth."

Instead, The Mueller Report and its many splinter investigations EXIST.  Clearly, if Trump were not a sitting President he'd have been charged. Multiple times. And when this monster is no longer President, karma is going to do its thing. Big time.

Yet it's hard, almost impossible to stay positive at this point.

That's my goal. Just to keep some form of faith that all of the things that we can't make up will eventually arrive at the intersection of actual truth and justice.

Sooner the better.

For those seeking proactivity.

Vote.







Monday, April 15, 2019

What Goes Around

I am a member of a golf thread on a message board.

One of my friends wrote that he felt he was in a dream yesterday.

My reply below:


It was surreal, particularly when you factor:
1. A fantastic leaderboard, with most of the greatest players in the game having a chance., and the kaleidoscope effect of turning the dial to see which one of those players might prevail. It was a large list after Molinari’s Miscue on 12.
2. Sunday at The Masters always, ALWAYS, amps the pressure, which becomes a tangible force ... a lurking, hovering menace that might strike anywhere and anyone at any time.
3. Add the threatening weather, with its capricious gusts, followed, at times, by driving rain, and the uncertainty of when the worst of the weather would strike. One might say that that was overkill in the manufacturing of suspense.
When you care about the outcome of an event, you are an easy target for that suspense. Very easy.
There are people on this thread I know only because of this thread, and how far back we go sharing the hope since 2008 that Sunday would happen again.
I’m guilty of many tedious offerings on this thread (this is another) of what Tiger Woods means to a game I love. I get it that some don’t share my point of view, and at one time, it was a lot more than some that despised Tiger.
There are some who cling to the premise they can like Tiger the golfer, not the person. And they maintained that point of view instead of peering through a more current lens that revealed a man battling his worst enemy — himself — IN PUBLIC — and somehow managed to rise above the worst of himself: his arrogance.
The scandal and the injuries, however, stripped that arrogance away, and slowly, in plain view, Tiger Woods rebuilt his swing and began the long, tedious process of regaining confidence, while also shifting as a person. One could not happen without the other.
If you can’t see that dynamic, and you have no respect for what it entailed, I’m not sure I can help you. I wish I could because you are not grasping the magnitude of what has just happened.
Some will say TIGER DID THIS. TIGER DID THAT. HE’S A JERK. HES A BLAH-BLAH-BLAH.
All opinions are valid, no matter how obtuse or restrictive.
As Dylan said, “I’m not here to argue or judge.” But allow me to suggest that everyone deserves a second chance. Golf even has a special word for it. Mulligan. 
Imagine, though, commentators doing Featured Groups at The Masters …. “I don’t know, Billy, he hasn’t taken his mulligan yet.” As if a mulligan were a Marvel superpower that the hero would employ when the situation warranted.
But that’s in a comic book — a mulligan is an amateur’s denial of reality, a tool in his bag next to his best weapon, which Chi Chi said was his pencil.
The pros don’t have that option. Life and golf are not fair. When you play the ball down in either, there will be adversity. Everyone makes massive blunders, and sometimes, they get away with it. Sometimes they don’t.
Karma casts a large net. It’s also patient.
One could say that karma had a strong hand in creating the mental and physical struggles Woods endured, just as much as it engendered the reward at the end of that long, tedious process of recovery.
Karma, not Patrick Reed, put that jacket on Tiger yesterday.