You can't share everything

I admit I have listened to, and watched live, Bob Dylan since my youth.

Just today one of my younger friends said "Bob Dylan? Oh yeh, the 'Blowing in the Wind' guy".

I can't believe that the 'folk singer' thing still hangs around him. I know he gets no radio play, and if you don't own the albums you won't hear him, but did they miss Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde? Maybe they don't even know about Blood on the Tracks. He had his ups and downs creatively over the decades, but maybe young people just don't get Time Out of Mind...and as for Love and Theft with his most recent band, well, I can't even put it in a category of contemporary music, but it cheers me up just to hear it.

Can't convert the people who just don't like his voice. Even when I say, well, think of him as a poet and songwriter, and listen to other people interpret him...

My partner (younger than me) didn't even know that Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" came from Dylan's pen...or "Wheels on Fire" (music for Ab Fab). What can you do? (sigh)

So what a delight to hear KT Tunstall doing beautiful renditions of the first two tracks of Blood on the Tracks for the Talking Bob Dylan Blues tribute concert. Fantastic stuff! Tangled Up in Blue, and Simple Twist of Fate versions to die for. Actually, I felt quite touched by Robyn Hitckcock's take on Not Dark Yet, as well.

Apart from that I felt fairly disappointed. A bunch of old folkies, perpetuating the 'Blowing In the Wind' myth, as though he had never abandoned them 40 years ago. And, I guess, the readings from his autobiography Chronicles did put him back in the folk spectrum, when he talked of the power of those old, honed songs, and why he felt the urge to take them up and run with them...for the modern age.

Worth yet another sleepless night to catch the repeat on tv so late in the night...(I don't have a working video machine no more...) but, as ever, I preferred the young folks. And I really couldn't work out why Roy Harper chose "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease" as his second song...except that he always was unpredictable, to say the least...and that seemed to have nothing to do with folk, protest, the USA or anything in particular for a Tribute Concert to Bob. Hey ho.

It Rocks!

I just got introduced to an online rock station from Canada - 94.9 The Rock - Killer Classics and The New Rock -which I have enjoyed while doing my 'homework' for the intensive course I got involved in with the Maybe Logic Academy...with Antero Alli getting us away from our screens and keyboards, and even (as tonight) when at the computer I have played with pictures rather than words. I even ended up chatting with the DJ (Hi Ozz, I haven't forgotten about the pix!)

The cards I have made up of the 8 Circuit Model (Leary/Wilson/Alli) still look a little clunky, and square, as I would cut around things with scissors, and make the shapes more organic, but I don't have time and patience (and software) to lassoo outlines, and change transparencies, etc...Apologies to all artists and photographers whose work I have sampled from the web...it's just a small experiment to go with our course work...to try to visualise the circuits...

So they remain sketches, and work-in-progress, but I enjoy 'em. Regular visitors may notice I have changed my First Circuit picture today...

Not just me then

If you got tired of pictures of me, I thought I would post up a happy picture from Barcelona last year.

Julie has gone to the Pyrenees on a vision quest this weekend, but I battle on with my various roles and functions, and can only hope she enjoys herself (mobile phones not encouraged at the retreat).

Happy daze.

Too many hats

As I came out of the library today, I noticed two posters (relating to my other faces) on our noticeboard, and realised what a busy life I do lead. The Circus poster for ImMortal reminds me that I will attend a board meeting for NoFit State tomorrow (Good Friday to you Christians), having found some places to advertise their local gig online - then return to work in the library on Saturday - then go to Newport to meet some Star Wars fans on Sunday.

No wonder I always seem to have 'social jetlag' (the latest name for getting up too early in the morning if you have the bodyclock of an owl - like me). I particularly dislike people who tell me living by daylight 'is' natural. Nonsense. The cold-blooded animals ruled the earth until those warm-blooded mammalian ancestors worked out how to stay awake at night, move around in the cold, and feast on dormant diurnal dinosaur tails.

Till Roenneberg believes that more than half the population are in effect socially jet-lagged all the time, because their body clock is permanently out of synch with their working hours (Chronobiology International, vol 23, p 497). New Scientist

Almost cut my hair

When I found myself approaching 60 I started letting my hair grow (I always did love hair) just as a matter of defiance, but once I turned 60 I just started to feel like the old guy with the ponytail. Funny though, that the only guys wearing long hair these days seem like the guys who would have jeered back in the 60s, and offered to cut it! Bikers, Truckers, World Wide Wrestling ‘actors’, Heavy Metal rockers, etc.

I kinda like the Gandalf/wizard thing of silvery locks, (even if I don’t do fantasy and sword and sorcery, etc) – sort of goes with being a granddad.

Ah well…

Almost cut my hair
It happened just the other day
It was getting kind of long
I could have said it was in my way

But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly
And I feel like I owe it to someone

Must be because I had the flu for Christmas
And I'm not feeling up to par
It increases my paranoia
Like looking into a mirror and seeing a police car

But I'm not giving in an inch to fear
Cos I promised myself this year
I feel like I owe it to someone

When I finally get myself together
I'm gonna get down in some of that sweet summer weather
I'm going to find a space inside to laugh
Separate the wheat from the chaff

Cos I feel like I owe it, yeah
Said I feel like I owe it, yeah
You know I feel---- like I owe it yeah to someone

ALMOST CUT MY HAIR
David Crosby