Be Good or Be Gone

Sometimes you look at someone, how they treat you. How they treat themselves. And you know that you don't belong there-if you remove yourself from the situation, you will be okay. 

Dating an addict, loving an addict, is hard-if not impossible. You can get sucked into their darkness. 

Being with someone with mental issues, it is about battling the dragon. 

Sometimes, you need to choose yourself.  Even if you don't know what that means.  

Every new stage was an unknown, a fun new stage to discover.  A topography, a home, the location that gets blessed. The music in the air-so fleeting.  All the notes fly off into the oxygen, and like making love-the more intense it gets, the more intense it gets-and then there is a moment when you think of how perfect everything is. And then it is gone.  

How do you keep stoking that fire?  All the things that were perfectly in alignment somehow disappear.  Did you think to enumerate all the things-figure out what it all was?  

Unloading the van, counting each bag. Handing it off, trying to locate all the plugs-making the matches.  The satisfaction of plugging things in. Unrolling all the cable The dusty black rubbery plastic cable, dirty from all the other floors you've ever been in. The nervousness of everything-will tonight be HORRIBLE? Will this performance be a disaster? (With very few exceptions, its usually not terrible) 

The audience always starts out in different camps.  The loyalists-the followers who are there at almost every show. Fewer now. Then the ones who come because of the name.  Who expect some level of talent, but only bought a ticket to have a story for later.  To make fun. 

And granted, some wrong notes, with the guitar and with the jokes. The first song is hopefully fast and fun, energetic enough to help us all ride the wave into the music of the night. A bumpy ride, indeed. But he's a master conductor (train metaphor to collide with the wave) and you know he can guide you out of choppy waters.

Smiles, real and fake. Applause, music, applause. Repeat until intermission.  A few more songs to get back into the groove and then-we hit the pocket.  The pocket of air, he plays and the guitar sings. You sing too, and people complement your voice.  It has a certain quality, they say.  Not everybody, but enough for you to think it is appreciated.  You can't tell, can't be objective about your own voice.  This is always how you sounded.  Of course, better since singing lessons with good days and bad days. You know when you are in good voice. And when its a bit scratchier than normal.  You know that it makes you feel better, euphoric. Even when you are determined to be upset.  Or sad.  Or annoyed.  The clear note of your voice sailing across the room, filling it up, blending with him.  Laughing.  It feels like laughing. Or kissing. 

But you stop singing and he plays in the pocket.  His guitar takes over and suddenly everything is floating on a trance.

Unplugging. Keeping busy so that you can't talk or reflect or get sad.  So much to track, selling cds (hopefully) make sure you take everything back that you had arrived with. Except said cds, which hopefully get exchanged for money, but more often go for smiles, for favors. Sweetening the deal. 

You can't shake the fact that everything else after The Pocket is a let-down.  The audience imagines that its a door he's opened, that he can name an emotion they've never felt.  That he has created something. But any connection is just with the plain old alcoholic that came in the door.  He's a faulted man with an amazing gift. And no amount of normal human conversation can bring it back.

And so we can be gone before they figure it out.  Be Good or Be Gone.

We are gone.

I Don't Wanna Ride this Roller Coaster

Song

Is it about the pain of the virus? Of loving someone who will die? Of being alive?

Is it about this country?  Where it is scary and crazy and sometimes will kill you, but every morning, you want to wake up HERE?

Alone again, naturally

Trapped with him.

She checks in on him during the plague. He's doing horribly, of course.  And then she really can't leave.  She has to stay and take care of him.

Isn't this how she pictured it would be?  The sex was never great.  No great romance, he's a pain,  The only thing he's good for is the music, and now he is much too weak to sing.

So all she can do is look over at him and try to remember what it was like to remember the night, when the music was just over.  The afterglow of the bar concerts.  All the fun they had when it was just her and him and the music.  And maybe a person or two in the audience

Aye Corona!

Because nothing else is going on.

Hospital Songs and Bookmarks

This month I spent too much time in hospitals.

I wonder why the food in the cafeteria is NOT healthy. Its because most cafeterias are run as cafeterias and not as health centers. You don't want to scare anyone, and want to make sure there is a comfort food option. Who are we kidding? They are run by the cafeteria paradigm-basic food. Ideally not terrible. Put cheese on everything, this is America, dammit. The sawdust cheese, they won't even notice!

I also sketched out the idea for a children's book, called the Bookmark Lady. It is about performative moments in a hospital, and being able to overcome your own emotions by being kind to others-and handing out bookmarks as gifts. Sometimes people need to be distracted by their own simple humanity-just long enough to get out of their own heads about being scared at a hospital.

MIT Hackathon: There'll Be A Jubilee

Attended the MIT Hackathon about XR, actually called a Reality Hack.  I crafted and scripted the narrative about Desegregation in Miami in 1957-specifically a story about Frank LeGree and how his family had picketers outside his house, threw rocks and eventually erected a cross on his front lawn-all in order to get him out of a neighborhood.

The video of the AR experience we created is here: https://youtu.be/C6w3e4wqwfk

Our team would love to do more with AR and explore this and other stories of America's growing pains further. Desegregation of schools, different neighborhoods in large cities i the 1950's. Life for a growing country and how that time period brought forth change that is still unresolved today. 

Connect that period with When They See Us-and #OscarsStillSoWhite and you will see how America still exists in black and white for so many people. The best part of the Hackathon was the idea that so many different people could come together to build a new reality. One in which the only judgments issued are on a lack of imagination.

Ring out the Old; Ring in the New!

Happy New Year!

I Am So Afraid of Dying

There is a song that used to give him chills, even as a young man.

A story about a man mixed up in a war he doesn't understand, wanting so badly to get back to his anticipated life, to the girl he left when she was 21, the summer at the beach that was interrupted. The sea, the birds, chasing after her while she would turn and smile in his direction. The delicate light that would make the sea grass glow in the evenings, like her hair.  The song made everything so specific. And then there was a line-a line so simple, so naked.

"I am so afraid of dying"

It always stood out to him. All the boys across the world, afraid. Of death and whatever else was worse. And he'd forget the rest of the lyrics, afraid to die before he could return to the girl, to the beach, to the life he had left.

It was as if the song had been waiting for him his whole life.  How had things interrupted his life, his childhood, his days at the beach, where was summer? Why did he feel like he could return and everything would be the same? (What was it that took him away from those summers at the beach? A war? Running from the war?)

Cannons flashing, I clean my gun, and think of Galveston.

I am so afraid of dying.

Before I get to touch sand one more time, before I feel the sun on my skin, Sea winds on my face.

An old man wishing himself back into an impossible place.  It wasn't even that beautiful, even when it was beautiful and real. No, it WAS>  But it was him who didn't see it, the beauty.

I am so afraid of dying
Before I am able to go back and fix things, to touch her cheek. To--


I am so afraid of dying- 5/27/17
Galveston by Glen Campbell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTbTHlTmDX8

We'll Both Live a Lot Longer If You Live Without Me

And so, after years of trying to make things work, it got to the point where they began to dread each encounter.

She was ready to just walk away. TO jump in the car and leave him there at the rest stop. She was certain that's what he was going to do with her.  But they were only 100 miles from home now, almost at the end.  They just had to not kill each other and then it would be over.  They couldn't drive any further. The car was low on gas and the rain made everything miserable. They found a motel and were determined to get separate rooms. Such a treat. To splurge on privacy. he considered it an investment.  To treat HER nice. as if she'd get the better, bigger room and he's get a cot.

Of course, there was only one room left.  1 bed.  There was a time when she'd consider it luck, and a reason to seduce him. Now it made her flesh crawl.

How had it happened? Once, they actually looked at each other with LOVE-right?  Or no, maybe it was all just a game and now they had forgotten to play,  There was the romantic flirting-no, agina that was just a matter of him making sex type jokes and her responding and rebuffing, and then she took over and he stopped wanting to play.  It was less fun for him if there was no cajoling.  And he didn't want to be seduced all the time-at least not by her.

And now, it was harder.  They were being polite.  Which was always the WORST.  Laughing, don't look into each others' eyes. Start the mornings with the crayola primary color of the yellow and white eggs, the ketchup. His blue eyes. Her brown hair. Nothing made them smile anymore.

Looking back, maybe she never WAS very happy with him. She was always inches away from what she really wanted. a BIG hug, a big smile, someone to ask about HER. Care about HER and what she wanted. She was tired of the conversation being about HIM 95% of the time.  And how jealous he became when anyone praised her voice.

But no, onstage he appreciated her. or seemed to.  THAT was where she had felt loved. By him and by all the strangers they had met.  Breaking the ice with the first songs, then opening up and cracking jokes, warming up everyone. Even him-bringing out that smile he was famous for-but older, wiser, wizened, more beautiful for all the pain he had gone through.

At least she was still young. 30 WAS young, right? She hadn't been with anyone normal in a while. Hung out with old blues men who were older than her by a good 40 years.  This was the kind of gig you should be able to brag about-but none of her friends knew who he was.  She didn't impress nobody.

Seemed a waste almost.

Millions of people wanted to be her. And none of them lived inside her body.

God, she wanted to pull the band aid off.  Just wait until the morning. The last hundred miles. Maybe she could bum a ride. Or catch a bus.

He went to the hotel bar to chill, he said. She went right to sleep.

When she woke up he was gone.  The car keys were where she had left them, but his gear was gone from the trunk.

Disappeared without a trace.  And without a goodbye.  Such a relief not to have to take care of him any longer. She cried for 2 minutes before she started the car.

Goddamn him. Even when he left, he was there. All the silences came back to haunt her. What if he died this time? Before she could see him again.

Damn, where was he when she needed a songwriter???

Different Drum
Stone Poneys

We've No FEWER Days to Sing God's Praise

We've No Less Days to Sing God's Praise/
Than when we'd first begun
-Amazing Grace

She envied her theater friends ever time she went backstage.

They'd give her a tour.  It always felt luxurious. Spike tape would mark places on stage-covered with clear tape, so it wouldn't wear away.  The idea of stepping on a mark 30 nights in a row, the same spot to call home. 

The dressing rooms were full of homey memorabilia. Dried flowers from opening night, allowed to dry in place and even collect dust. A backstage area and even outer neighborhood that you could learn and feel at home in, even if it were just for a few night or weeks.

They were lucky to have everything back in the gear bag by the end of the night.

But at least they weren't the minimalists. The Stand Up comedians-who came as they are-just a microphone and 5 minutes.

At least they had people who gave them a chance, a rumbling good first song, a few screwups, a few bad jokes, a slow song-holding our breaths-holding out for the hits until later/until the audience had EARNED it.

Somewhere between making yourself at home onstage and being at the mercy of the hecklers. A fine line indeed.

Warm Days Filled with Sunshine/Just a Little Bit of Rain

And she looked up at the sky, and because of the broken window, there was just a little bit of rain falling on her face.  And it was lovely.

The last few sensations she'd feel.

Knowing that you are bleeding out is a funny thing, suddenly you begin to feel EVERYTHING.  You notice the feel of your tongue against the inside of your mouth.  Your fingers. The bits of you that have been severed, those things that tell you how much you will miss having everything connected. And the feel of the little bit of rain on your cheek.

Stare into space, into the space above you, where normally you can see stars.  Or blue sky. Warm days filled with sunshine.  Looking at him across the stage at that folk festival as the sun set over the mountain.  His smile, your smile.

That night in the motel room, when you asked him to just play, dammit, play.  L had just cs'ed, you were inconsolable. But he was there, a deeper friend than you ever knew.  His guitar. His voice, his deep baritone. Just a little bit of rain.

The camera cranes from a deep close up of your face-spinning slightly maybe. raising into the dark night.  Dammit, it WAS a Hollywood movie all along.  You can feel the warmth of the sun on your arms, getting into bed with him. a giant warm hug, like getting into a tub.  A feeling of Warm Days Filled with Sunshine. And him. The last moments of conscious thought are of warmth, and of him.


Just a Little Bit of Rain by Fred Neil
https://youtu.be/G89Qxv2LO0s

Thoreau/Twain in Concord

I'm happy to report that the performance of Thoreau/Twain: Brothers in the River for the Thoreau Society was a tremendous success.

Brent Rinalli, Tammy Rose and Joel Hersh

The main performers were Brent Rinalli, who has been in and around Concord giving lectures and historical interpreting as Thoreau for the past few years and Joel Hersh, a local actor known for his varied musical ability-played Twain.

The main conceit of the show is that an Academic is trying to summon the spirits of the authors, to have them discuss a major, and underexplored parallel of their lives.  Both of them had a deep relationship with a brother on the river of their childhood, and both of them lost that brother to a sudden event. This happened before either of them began to write-but both found inspiration in their brothers and documented the influences strongly in their writings.

The authors -who had never met in real life- get deep into conversation, about their lives, commonalities they share-and especially their brothers. Most of the text of the play is taken directly from journals, letters and the formal published writings of the authors-and their contemporaries. They argue with each other using their own words and get a chance to recount a major emotional moment in their lives. (No pop-psychology or therapy here-the drama comes directly from their own words and existing texts).

Thanks to the Thoreau Society and to all the amazing and attentive attendees!  Especially those who took pictures and gave me feedback on new areas to explore between the two!

And extra special thanks to my fellow Tourguides who make all the research and the entire experience of Concord SO MUCH FUN!!!

New Play: Thoreau/Twain: BEAUTY ON THE SILVER SINGIN RIVER!

Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River

Masonic Hall, 

58 Monument Sq, 

Concord, MA

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

7pm

(immediately after the performance of "HDT's Heroic Journey")

https://www.thoreausociety.org/annual-gathering#Wed

"Be thou my Muse, my Brother--,"

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Both Henry David Thoreau and Samuel Clemens were by the deathbeds of their beloved brothers.  What happens when one brother is left on the river, and the other has to complete the rest of the journey in life alone?

Come see Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain meet under new and unusual circumstances; a meeting that never happened in history. Finally, both have a chance to recognize and reconcile their parallel journeys. 

Primary texts of the play are taken directly from primary sources including A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers & Life on the Mississippi, as well as from journals & letters from the authors themselves.

Written by

Tammy Rose

and Henry David Thoreau

and Samuel Clemens

One

The REAL Peter Tork (Official)

19 hrs ·

#TorkTales. Many years ago, before we had such things as cell phones (*gasp*), #PeterTorkAndShoeSuedeBlues were on a 2-week tour of the Northeast. We had 2 vans and one car to transport everyone, luggage, and equipment from gig to gig. Even with the best laid plans including binders with maps, directions and multiple levels of contact information, the band and the team often got separated.

On one such incident, the team arrived at the hotel well before the band. Upon arrival, there was a delivery waiting for us – the (then) new CD, Saved By the Blues! How exciting! One catch… the distributor sent the CDs completely disassembled. What to do??? No band meant no extra hands to help. Just then, we heard a gaggle of boisterous fans coming up the elevator. The same group of fans that had been following us from show to show along the way. So…. we put them to work assembling all the CDs while sitting in the lobby of the hotel (side note: a couple of these fans went on to become beloved team members themselves!).

While the CDs were being worked on, the team was becoming more & more nervous – where was the band?!?! Finally, the team manager called the venue to let the owner know why there was a delay. “What do you mean a delay? The band has been here for 2 hours rehearsing!” First, a sigh of relief, then several days of road tensions kicked in & the team furiously drove to the venue, intent on scolding the band for not communicating with them ONCE AGAIN.

As the team entered the venue, Peter said to the band – here they are, PLAY IT! And with that, the band launched into the first official performance of the song, Dress Sexy for Me, which they practiced as a surprise for the team! Of course, by that time, the team was so keyed up with emotions, the team manager just brushed right past the band, straight to the venue owner’s office to take care of all the paperwork while just one of the team members stayed behind to listen to the new song.

After the team manager came out of the office, Peter came up like a kid who knew he had forgotten to “call home” one more time. “Didn’t you like our surprise? We wanted to do it for you guys first!” He asked with a face of mixed emotions – excitement/regret/uncertainty. Well, how do you stay mad at someone like that? Of COURSE we loved it, and loved/forgave the guys again for gifting us with it.

Such was life on the road and beyond in the music world. Everyone wanting to make everything so right for everyone else always seems to lead to tensions and tempers, but the moment it all comes together, there is a camaraderie and such a sense of accomplishment that you forget all that went before.

For years, Peter would bring up this story time & time again. “Remember that time we tried to surprise you? We should have thought it out more, but it was fun, wasn’t it?” One thing about Peter… he remembered things. And if he had been in the wrong about something, it stayed with him, and he tried to be better afterwards. Of course, he also always saw the comedy in each situation, too. And that is something the team is so grateful for having learned from him. Always remember the Ying to the Yang. Thanks, Peter! <3~ptfb team #ShineOn #PeaceLoveAndTork #TorkTorch

https://petertork.bandcamp.com/track/dress-sexy-for-me

Finally Decided My Future Lies

She just wants to be home in bed.

She just wants to be able to go to the Pond.

To hear the toads, he peepers, to be back at that edge of the grass, holding a tiny frog.

To see a statue holding a toad-seeing this living thing in metal.

She just wanted to be able to turn back into someone who was able to go back to bed when she wanted,
She just wanted to be able to sleep.

And go home.

She wanted to stop feeling like she's selling out. And being a prostitute about it.

Music As You Lay Dying: Sha La La La Lee

we were talking, just another night, but this is what I remembered

Years alter, driving alone, I'd think of him in this moment, wondering

A happy song came on to our background music soundtrack with a happy hook. We were driving, or at a party, or in a restaurant. He was sitting on my left side and whispered into my ear.

"This is the song I think I'll hear as I die,"

I sat there, not knowing what to say. Puzzled. Accepting. We had a running conversation about what DAY of the year we will die; how funny it is to pass it every year without knowing. The opposite of a birthday. Kept a secret to us, until it is literally carved in stone next to our name, defining our memory. Haunting everyone around us.

I probably nodded. I'm sure I didn't argue or fight the notion, or dissuade him from discussing morbid thoughts. Was he trying to be overly dramatic or just opening up a random deep thought to me?

It was a happy tune, with a happy hook. Not too deep, not too complex, not too popular. Simple-like the early stuff you;d expect from a newly formed band that has yet to commit to actual lyrics or attitude.

Will he have the opportunity to choose the music? Will it just be a cue in the background that he's about to have a heart attack? Or get hit by a bus? Will he turn the car across the yellow lines and take out an innocent driver in the opposite direction?

I nodded. And every time I think of it, I nod.

There's gotta be a song for me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjBEUTDhajI

Book of Love is Long and Snoring (Part 2)

So many medicine bottles, you wonder how much will be used up. The 3 a days go pretty fast, but the 30 pills for the upcoming month seems like so much for a man with such a little future ahead.

The bottles and the dishes and the layers of stuff from a hoarder cover up his past, but not enough. You still see the photos. His family. You. The gold record he got, covered with cat hair. The album you did with him. Pride of place on the mantel. Nothing in front of it (because there is no room, but still, you smile)

Funny how love drains out. Like water, you overfill it on a hot day, an outdoor kiddy pool, so much that it runs over the side. And one day you look out and not only is the pool empty from a leak, but it is the kind of cold where you can’t ever remember the sun on your face. The bathing suit and the shorts seem so insufficient. You chill at the memory.

There was a time this man made you shiver. You were too nervous to speak. He made a funny face when he saw that you were terrified. Oh no, another one paralyzed by my beauty. It really makes me feel like Nedusa. 

Your hair isn’t right for Medusa.

You think of your young self.

Trying. There’s got to be some love in there. 

But no. Just like with all the other boys. Even L. Even after he killed himself, you were torn apart. But now, nothing comes. Maybe it’s good that your insides are hollow. 

There used to be a time when you (actually both of you) were surrounded by people. Friends, you thought. But maybe they were just fans (people who were nice when it was easy to be nice).

Nobody is going to miss you if you don’t go home tonight. They won’t even miss you at work, although you like to think they will.

There was a time when you were young, when there was so much in front of you. People told you the best part was health and beauty and openness and making mistakes. But it was also the openness. All the doors you could open, people you could talk to and now , you don’t have the energy or the interest to do anything new.

You can’t even find the girl who loved him. although you suspect it will be like a strange language, or a song you can’t recall, but you hear it and suddenly, you know every word.

Like you know his snoring. More ragged now, but comforting. Like in all those motels.

The Book of Love is Long and Boring

There is something about music-it hits you in the memory palace. You can reconstruct everything around you, what you knew and when you knew it-except it isn't true.

Because everytime the song comes out, you are slightly different. Imagine all the Russian nesting dolls wrapped around your favorite songs.

And all the love songs, you know why they exist?  Because "love" is long and boring and dull and annoying and frustrating and every once in a while, it's fun.  But we forget that part. So we have to set the good parts to music. It's a giant ad campaign to remind us not to kill each other.  To give people a reason to remember to make love instead of just fuck.

If we read the book of love when we were just starting out, none of us would be here.

Pour Myself a Cup of Ambition

The whole idea of having a desk job had seemed the opposite of who she thought she was.

She looked around at all the others, wondering if they saw her playing her role, watching them watching her-to see if there were any cracks in the facade.

The notion of imposter syndrome was strong in her, except it was true.  She was the real imposter. 

The longer she stayed there, and talked to the others on the career ladder, in the cubicles, in the lunchroom and the hallways. She wasn't sure about her uniqueness anymore. Nobody else wanted to be there either.  Everyone else had a dream as well.

But she had lived hers.  She had been on the stage, she had been singing.  She had lived inside the music in a way that she couldn't find life anywhere else.

She wasn't sure that she was ever going to focus on getting a promotion, but she knew she was disappointed when she didn't get them.  The coffee wasn't her driving force, but it helped the mornings pass and it made her happy.

On the weekends, when she didn't drink it, she might spend the morning crying, which ruined her voice for singing for the rest of the day.  So she made sure to remember her ambition on the weekends, ambition not to become CEO of her company-but to SING.  Not even onstage again, but just to carry the music in her throat. In her mouth, it felt better than being kissed.  It felt like being loved.

Only Trouble Is/Gee Whiz!!

She worried early on, already in her 20’s that is was BAD to fantasize about being married to this guy. To imagine a life with him, frockling through the buttercups (like in the sweet-sappy love scenes on TV).

A year went by before she realized that her fantasy life was still active.

He worried, at this point in his life, mid 40’s, that he hadn’t made it at all.  That the early success should just pave the way for a lifetime career, that he was always just a few dingy bar sets away from a return to the spotlight. He had stopped performing for a while, but had never stopped playing.  

He found himself in the mirror of his bathroom playing and looking himself in the eye.  THAT’s what got him back onstage. To call up his friends who were gigging, to ask if he could get his sea legs again.TO get up a band when he could, to invest back in himself, the ONE thing he knew he was good at.  To get to that penultimate song. To break their hearts. (Damn, he wishes that there was a deeper hatred in him, something bitter, so he could ATTACK his audiences-really tear them apart and break them-not just their hearts but everything-so they could see the error of their ways. But sadly for any cowboy who has more heart than he wants to admit, he doesn’t WANT to hurt anyone.  All this breaking he does, he just tears apart their hearts so they will mend back together again.

And that’s what he is most proud of.

This thing he cannot articulate, but KNOWS IN THE MOMENT that this is the only thing in life he has.

This power to heal strangers.

And then they just ask for an autograph and the spell is broken.

==

Dream

by the Everly Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbU3zdAgiX8