Brasilia

Brasilia


From time to time
Spread across the city
You will see a house
Sited askew.

Below the lines
Of the grid and the spokes
The house is aligned
With the ghost of a cowpath
Or the long gone bed
Of a forgotten stream.

Similarly, in language
Beneath syntactic structures
You encounter irregular
Constructions and idioms
Reflecting a reality
Long since passed away.

I will move to Brasilia
And speak Esperanto
Live as a New Woman
Freed from the past.

--

I have become old fashioned
In the sense that my habits remain fixed
While society changes around me.

When it is cool
I wear a grey woolen suit
And when it is warm
I wear poplin.

In the morning
I walk to a sidewalk cafe
To buy an espresso and an ink smudged paper
To thoughtfully read the news of the day.

But today my routine
Lies around me in ruins
Rereading your note:

I will move to Brasilia
And speak Esperanto
Live as a New Woman
Freed from the past.

--

I've got a four track mind now baby
Care to put the headphones on
Kick off your shoes and stay a while baby
It couldn't be that wrong

I'll solve quadratic equations baby
On the back of your hand
Step on up to the boom box baby
I'll introduce you to the band

Don't you wanna?

Step on up to the microphone baby
Do a couple of lines
Just lean back and go with it baby
It's gonna be just fine

I speak fluent Italian baby
A little Portuguese
Come on down to Rio baby
Get topless on the beach

Don't you wanna?

--

Thith ith not the Brathilia I wath led to ethpect.
And what ith thith gibberish that you speak?
I will leave this land
And return to my home
Return home to my love,
Beloved Roderigo

--

Have made a great mistake
Stop
Returning home
Stop
I sail on the steamer SaraLee
Stop
Please throw out the tapes
And dispose of the guidebooks
Landing home
Two fortnights hence
Stop
Love
Stop

--

Rereading the telegram
In my favorite cafe
My world is restored
To its rightful condition
I put on my hat
Pick up my cane
And walk down the promenade
Whistling softly.

Driving Up and Down the East Coast

We are those poor players
Who strut and fret
Treading worn boards
That groan and squeak
Entertaining you
Five nights a week

---

Afternoon in the bleachers at Camden Yards
Evening spent crawling through Inner Harbor bars
Blue Points in Fells Point
With the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe
His raven quoths "Nevermore"
I do love you, Baltimore

---

New England town
A decaying mill carcass down at the river's edge
A whitewashed steeple up on the top of the hill
And a covered wooden bridge connecting the two

---

Eva
Be free
Of your broken
Body
And leave
Your broken mind
Behind
Live with me
In memory
In the golden sunlight
Of a 1970's
Morning

Nadine

Socks and Shoes Chords

I printed out the chords to Socks and Shoes.

Pedagogy

Lima, Ohio

So there is a place called Lima, Ohio
And all anyone eats there is Lima beans.
Mysteriously, no children live in Lima
They have all run away to nearby towns
Like Fishstick, Indiana.


The Eye Of The Bird

Drona and the Pandavas were walking in the woods
Learning the noble pursuit of archery.
Drona stopped and asked Yudishtra, the wisest,
"Look over there, and tell me what you see?"
"I see the sun, the sky
The clouds, the trees,
And on the fourth branch of the tree,
Partly obscured by leaves,
I see a bird".
Drona turned and asked Arjuna, the greatest,
"Look over there, and tell me what you see?"
"I see the eye of the bird."
"What else do you see?"
"I see only the round black eye of the bird."
"You have passed the test my son, now bend your bow and shoot."
And with a pluck and a swoosh, the bird fell dead.


Algebra

"But Bill, she's barely half your age".
So given the equation
x/2 = y
Is there any value of x
For which the function intersects
Acceptable behavior?

Let's Write A Song

Is it the randomness that makes words into art
Or the eye that allows them to swirl off the page?
If I write down your words is that foolish of heart
Or a wine we will share, having blossomed with age?
Are we twinned pairs of quarks, entangled by spin?
I feel your pulse beat from miles away
My words are your meaning, your thoughts are my breath.
But if sense and sound are sundered apart
I have lost you, my love, and must return to the start.

So is it the randomness that makes words into art
Or the artist, who channels from life and time
To map raw thought to a measured line
"You are a fool" she says, "my dear foolish heart
I am unique, irreducible, only myself
My words are my own, and I pour them like silver
You will never find anything that rhymes with me."
So true, my dear, so true indeed.
This lyric is finished, the song is set free
I put down my pen, and give it to thee.

Millicent Demo

Finally recorded a demo of Millicent. Straightforward doo-wop progression, with a tiny turn-around in the bridge. Using Sony Vegas: it does a much better job with the external mics, but it doesn't seem to be able to render 720p/HD.

Rhythm Changes

I spent a week working out the rhythm guitar part, I spent a couple of hours making the rhythm guitar fit with the bass part, and then I decided that a cold first take of vocals and lead guitar would be fine. Is this counterproductive behavior?

Anyway, the Gershwin chestnut.

Out Of Sight

Just back from a week on the beach, trying to squeeze a couple more of these into this month.

A Round Tuit

The greatest gift is time
To do with as you will
And fill it as you would
If you could be
Completely free.

And you ever
Found the time
To get
Around to it.

Phone Voice

Don't you talk to me with your phone voice, honey
Save it for your customer calls
It makes you come off like such a phoney, honey
Like the world is hanging from your balls
And if you really want to get your hands in my pants
You'd be better off speaking Chinese

Be my Wisconsin tenor, baby
Your voice doesn't need to be that deep
I hate those deep dark English sounds
But your Chinese really speaks to me

I'm the Tiger mother to your daughters, baby
The dutiful wife who cooks you Chinese food
Just talk to me in your real voice baby
Because I fell in love with a Wisconsin tenor
And that's the voice that puts me in the mood

Be Prepared

Courtney was a painter
And a sometime figure model
Who liked to read Cervantes
And used a pair of chopsticks
To roll her hair into a bun

She lived out with her single mom
On the darker side of town
Her mom worked nights as a bartender
And sold a little weed on the side

Bobby was an Eagle Scout
Who liked to follow rules
His social clique were awkward boys
His mom and dad were awful proud

Courtney had decided
She was going to go to Bonnaroo
Get a week long pass
And camp out on the grass

She could have taken anyone
But she said Bobby Smith's the one
Cause he's a Boy Scout and they're always prepared

So Bobby packed his lean-to
And a pair of sleeping bags
His scout knife and some water
And a camp stove just in case

They hitchhiked down to Bonnaroo
Set up their tent and caught the shows
Danced in the mud and partied with strangers
Went back to the tent under the full moon

She climbed into his sleeping bag
Caught him by surprise
He said "I've never done this before"
She said "I'm not surprised"

She took a packet
From her pocket
And rolled it down his shaft
"If you don't come prepared, you won't come at all
And a Boy Scout should always be prepared"

They dated all through college
Got married in grad school
Bobby loosened up
Even if he never became cool
They still go out to festivals
And camp under the stars
Climb in the double sleeping bag
And do what couples do

And she says
"Back at school you were a dork
But when you put those drops of honey
On my plastic camping spork
I knew you were the one for me"

Fragments

A song about one of my co-workers

Don't you talk to me with your phone voice, honey
Save it for your customer calls
It makes you come off like such a phoney, honey
???
And if you really want to get your hands in my pants
You'd be better off speaking Chinese


A song about marital discontent

Can I tell you
That when you

It really made me feel sad
etc.


A song about a high school girl who takes a Boy Scout to Bonnaroo because he will be better prepared to handle the requirements of camping

Back at school you're a dork
But you put those drops of honey
On my plastic camping spork

Bernadette

The Holland/Dozier/Holland song. The bass part is not harmonically complex, but hitting all the grace notes and articulating the arpeggios was very challenging. The guitar part turned into a 4/4 funk groove instead of the original 2/4 backbeat groove. I couldn't decide which drum track I liked better, so I kept them both.

Midtown Manhattan on a Saturday Night

A martial snare plays rat a tat tat
On the marital rhythm of tit for tat
But now the tux and the gown are all packed in a bag
And they're off to Manhattan for a Saturday night.

An expensive dinner and a cab downtown
To a basement in Alphabet City
Jazz, funk and rhythm and blues
With a modern sensibility
The dance floor is packed with the lust and sweat
Of familiar possibility

Slinking through the darkened lobby
Empty bottles of water from the minibar
The mirror reflects on the king size bed
She stands on her head
With legs spread wide
Like an apple tree weighted with fruit

The kick drum plays thump a thump thump
On the quick deep strokes of an oft postponed fuck
In Midtown Manhattan on a Saturday night

Terry cloth robes and a room service breakfast
The sun through the curtains above Hackensack
While he reads the paper she looks in the mirror
And it seems like her wrinkles are written in black
But she turns into the room and looks hard at the roses
And says "there's time for a quick one before we have to pack
And get back
From Midtown Manhattan and our Saturday night".

Bodhisattva

Not a Denny Dias fan. Blues with a bridge, huge swaths of harmonized guitars and needless chromatic slurs.

Body And Soul

The Swing standard. I spent some time working on Coleman Hawkins' solo, but it was a very slow process, so I cut bait and moved on.

Strings Of Our Genes (Synth Version)

Spent the weekend playing keys.

Modern Science

Late one night, a man is standing under a streetlamp, looking at the ground. Another man comes by and asks him what he is doing. The first man replies “I'm looking for my keys”. The second man starts to help with the search, and asks “where did you lose them?”. The first man replies “in the bushes, down there”. Annoyed, the second man asks “but, then why are you looking here”? To which the first man replies “well, this is where the light is”.

We started off
Trying to design a new drug
Which would treat a common illness
In a novel and exciting way.

But drug development
Is a long and expensive process.
And when we suffered a setback
In our second round of clinical trials
Our investors had grown tired of the game.

So we decided to sell a tool
(To allow researchers
To design new drugs
Which might treat common illnesses
In a novel and exciting way).
This approach
Promised reduced marketing costs
And a shorter path to profitability.
Our investors were rejuvenated
And ready to get back in the game.

I went to go visit
A lab that used our tool
To design some knockout mice.
Their hypothesis is novel and the theory exciting.
They hope to start clinical trials
By the middle of next year.

The only problem is that the mice
Refuse to breed or even coexist.
Inside the cages they attack one another
Hacking off mouthfuls of raw flesh and fur
Till they have eaten each other alive.

Ain't Too Proud To Beg

The great Temptations I-IV groove. I also like the Stones version. I've played this one for years - recording it wasn't much of a stretch.