Seeing

Build the tower.

From the ground

Then have it lean.

If that’s what you want.

Foundation

Is

To

Freedom

As 

Limber

Is

To

Fluid.

Go with it.

You can tease

Gravity

Once

You

Know

How

To 

Fall.

You

Don’t

See

Through

The Mask.

It sees

Through

You.

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

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.

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.

Changes

I've been participating in a weekend intensive with Shakespeare & Company with 10 other actors, the workshop leader named Andrew, and his two assistants, Kirstin and Lucinda.

The class included several wonderful friends and a handful of new faces and souls, all of whom have shared themselves and their focus with stunning honesty and commitment.

For me, when I am working with Shakespeare's text, particularly his verse, the buzzing in my brain is akin to an outdoor grill primed with coals and a fresh dash of lighter fluid, and the process of that text discovery serves as the match.

Songs by Steve Earle and John Hiatt invaded my waking reveries this morning. Would not call dreams as they were extensions, perhaps conclusions, and most certainly reactions.

Two phrases from Steve Earles' "Ft. Worth Blues" 

You used to say the highway was your home
But we both know that ain't true
It's just the only place a man can go
Where he don't know where's he traveling to.

And they say Texas weather always changin'
And one thing change'll bring is something new.

John Hiatt released the spectacular album SLOW TURNING in 1988. It was the follow-up to his break through, critically acclaimed BRING THE FAMILY, and both records dealt with Hiatt's alcohol and drug addiction, which is a cliche that in his case was a bad tattoo that he struggled to shed.

The chorus of the title song is particularly apt in regard to transition:

It's been a slow turnin'
From the inside out
A slow turnin'
But you come about

Slow learnin'
But you learn to sway
A slow turnin' baby
Not fade away.


In "Icy Blue Heart" from the same album, Hiatt addresses the risk/reward that fuels transformation:

She came on to him like a slow movin' cold front.
His beer was warmer than the look in her eyes
She sat on a stool, he said, "What do you want?"
She said, "Give me a love that don't freeze up inside."

He said, "I have melted some hearts in my time dear
But to sit next to you, Lord, I shiver and shake
And if I knew love, well, I don't think I'd be here
Asking myself if I've got what it takes."

To melt your icy blue heart
Should I start?
To turn what's been frozen for years
Into a river of tears.

The question is seemingly rhetorical. And each eventual answer a personal choice.

My advice?

Go for it.

The Bookshop

This is a delicate gem that takes its time, perhaps in the same manner one embraces the essence of being surrounded by books and having the chance to take a stroll among many dusty pages.

Emily Mortimer is the heart of this story, and she's stunning, nuanced, and steely when needed. Bill Nighy, however, is also on his game, as is the ever-present Patricia Clarkson, playing one of those domineering types that speaks in honeyed tones as she's pouring poison in your beverage.

Google it. Find reviews from national critics you trust.

Or, take my word.

And perhaps you'll discover as I did that this quiet, unassuming film is a keen surprise of an experience.

Americana Finds Its Winter Venue

We (my wife Ruth and i) flew to Fort Lauderdale on January 28, 2019. Then drove down to Key West the following morning in a silver Mustang convertible, listening to many of the bands we'd see perform at Mile 0 Fest in Key West .... sunset cruise that early evening, then dinner at Blue Heaven, a Keys icon created by a chef who began his career, allegedly, at the Carolina Inn in Chapel Hill.

Makes a good story, and that's one of the themes in Key West in my view ....a story is a good story not so much that it is true, but that its telling keeps one's interest.

When you mix Hemingway with Buffett, vast throngs of cruise ship types with crusty locals, as well as  codger travelers who have come south and west for music, food and yee hah ... it's a fine line between Saturday night and Sunday morning.

This was the second Mile O Fest. Program states 60 bands were on the island, performing on 13 stages scattered about, with the prime focus on the new Truman Waterfront Park Amphitheater.

Was told 3,500 tickets were sold to Mile O Fest, but I doubt that many ever congregated at the same time at Truman Park.

Music began each afternoon at 3 p.m. at Truman Park, while the other 12 stages had earlier start times and much, much later end times. One can listen to music almost non-stop, if one chooses.

We took a cab from our hotel at 1:45, to get in line as the gates opened at 2 p.m.

We'd purchased folding chairs at a Dick's in Miami, and they served us well.

This was the second Mile O Fest.

Less than 2,200 attended last year. This year 3.500. Festival organizer now considering two weeks of Mile 0 Fest 3.
For folks like me who love the music of the late 60s/70s, this genre is it right now.

The better bands I saw read the energy of the crowd perfectly with well-timed fast songs, morphing into a pithy number to let us all catch our breath.

I happened to stumble on information for this festival by accident in late September as I was trying to find a release date for Flatland Cavalry's second record, and I noticed the date on their tour link. 

If you are a fan of Americana/Red Dirt music, bands such as Reckless Kelly, Wade Bowen, Flatland Cavalry, Ray Wylie Hubbard, The Band of Heathens, American Aquarium, Mickey and the Motorcars, Jason Eady, Cody Canada, Trampled By Turtles, Tyler Childers, Jamie Lin Wilson, Bri Bagwell, Mike and The Moonpies and many, many more ...

If you enjoy warm weather in winter ...

If you have been to Key West and had a terrific time, or if you have never been to Key West, and sense that it might be appealing..

If you enjoy walking in essentially an outdoor mall down Duval Street, tracing the past, the future and the now at the same time ...

If you like meeting people from all over the world, some of them who dont give a shit about all of the entries above, but give a damn about at least one ...

Then, Mile O Fest is for you.

Eager to return next year. In a big way.

Flip That Switch

Might be

A power forward

Who loafs on defense.

Might be

A thriller

That uses the dark

To build suspense.

Might be 

A centrist voter

Who slides off the fence.

Might be

A Cuevro driver

Who gets everyone tense.

Just a matter of time

Before that ping

Finds its pong.

Before the young king

Finds his kong.

Before a caged bird

Finds its happy song.

Where ya gonna be

When the lights come on?

The Flow

Each afternoon round about five

When the front gate is locked,

The house spirits emerge,

Watching Day-Glo cruisers

Trudge back to the docks.

Then, some ease into the garden.
Others find familiar chairs:

Front porch, side porch.
Some linger near the stairs.

One corner remains open

Until a stocky sort

With a crafted, grayish beard,

And intense, laser eyes

Heads toward his nightly perch.
He’s got a trusty pen and legal pad

In one hand, a half fifth

Of Caldwoods Rum in the other —

A can opener in his back pocket.

Soon, he is surrounded

By a vast throng of mostly

Calico, ginger, and tabby friends

Who dart, meander, scratch and wash

With one shared purpose:

To be close to Papa.

Groucho, the eldest,

Like most veterans,

Knows all he needs to know:

He waits for Ernest to settle,

Then, in one, simple blur of motion

Hops into the lap of laps.

Two of Groucho’s associates,

Perhaps brothers,

Maybe sons,

Tussle near Ernest’s right foot,

While a sister,

Maybe a daughter,

Tugs on the loose shoe-string

Of the opposite foot.

This is them.
Who they are.
What they do.
Forever and key lime
In an evolving paradise.

Yet another conch train

Rumbles past the property on Whitehead,

Heading toward Truman

To take a left on Duval

With speakers blaring.

It's packed with sunburned visitors,

Listening to HE WENT TO PARIS,

The one song Ernest learned by heart

Because it is so true

And so close to his own path.

Each hearing prompts a wry smile:

Ernest knows Jimmy is getting the current laugh.

From time to time,

A nouveau specter

To the Keys

Approaches Ernest on his porch.

“Sir, would you sign this copy.

It would be such an honor.”

Ernest scrawls his name

On the first page of a volume

That only ghosts can see.

Another factor, perhaps,

Why no one reads much any more.

The newbie

Drifts off, 

Clutching his prize,

Gazing back at Ernest

One final time.

“We had our time,”

Ernest says,

Rubbing Groucho’s back,

Whose purr soon rumbles to an island beat.

Groucho shifts 

His focus to the can

Of albacore tuna

In Ernest’s vest pocket.

A casual paw stretches,

Then rests on the shape of the pending treat:

Groucho’s way of reminding Papa,

That, for some,

It’s time for dinner in the Keys.

In the distance,

An Americana band

Has cranked into gear

On the new Truman Park stage

For Mile O Fest,

A freshly minted, Old Town attraction:

What better way to mutter

So long to January and hello to an early spring.

They’re freezing up in Buffalo

While down in the islands.

It’s all about shorts, sun screen

And laissez-faire.

Bands from Texas

And Oklahoma

Remind the crowd 

Of music’s prime purpose:

To connect,

To embrace,

To encourage spirits to soar.

And they do, too.

Back at Hemmingway House,

There’s dancing on the roof,

In the gardens,

On the porch.

Even Ernest

Is tapping his foot,

While Groucho

Eases both paws on his pending can.

Soon, he’ll get that treat

While the sun slowly sinks into the sea.

It’s another night in the Keys,

And if you look close enough,

You, too, can see:

It’s such a fine line

Between what is

And fantasy.

      

50-50

Think about the times

You won. 

And the times 

You lost.

What was the difference?

Did it matter the nature of the game?

Were you confident?

Did you win big?

Have you lost big?

What is winning?

Winning and losing are not routinely 

Cut and dry, or black and white:

Fine lines outbid absolutes.

Mostly, our lives linger in the shadows,

On the border of where

Expectation and Hope rub shoulders,

Neither is out of reach or is accessible.

Bummer, isn’t it?

That most of life is a series of 50-50 balls and calls.
Those moments that can go either way,

And maybe the deciding factor,

As it is with most endeavors,

Is your attitude.

Here’s a convenience store

Psychology test.

You have half a bottle of an expensive beverage,

Or maybe just a beverage hard to find,
Or that you simply crave.
Whatever.

Is it half full?

Or half empty?

Be honest with yourself.

Half-full is one way to accept and deal with the world.
Half-empty is another.

Are you an optimist?

Are you a pessimist?

Why?

And why not?

Do you believe in the power

Of positive thinking?

Or is it fool's gold —

A fake pearl in front of an actual swine.

When you shoot, putt, aim, steer, roll or seduce,

Do you have an image of success?

Is reality pre-destined?

Does free will exist? 

Where can you rent it?

Ha.

One thing i do know is

that process is the result.

Each process is a universe,

A life and arc of its own.

As The Who would say:

I'm singing this note 'cause it fits in well
With the chords I'm playing
I can't pretend there's any meaning here
Or in the things I'm saying

But I'm in tune
Right in tune
I'm in tune
And I'm gonna tune
Right in on you
Right in on you
Right in on you