A daily almanac of events and people I admire and appreciate. All things, and the people who did things, that were WORTH DOING! Songs and Cartoons and near-insane ramblings by me, too.
Time again to turn your brain back on after a week of the boss man making you shut it off!
Here's part 2 of Guy Clark's live "Keepers" album from 1997. Get yourself yourself your favorite beverage and smoke of your choice, it's time to get your mind right!
"She Ain't Goin' Nowhere" - she's just leavin'! Guy don't write no idealized love songs. They're all from the real side...
"South Coast of Texas" - 'takes the dignity of whoopin' cranes and the likes of Gilbert Roland!' - how do you write that stuff, Guy?
"That Old Time Feeling" - a very comfortable feeling, indeed!
"A Little of Both" - don't ask me to choose between extremes...sometimes a little of both ends hit's the spot!
"Out in the Parking Lot" - Like Guy says here, the 'antithesis' of 'the Boot Scootin Boogie'. The dance floor is NOT where life is really unfolding.
"Let Him Roll" - another great story-song by the master and another example of a REAL love story...not the kind you see on a "Lifetime" movie! - 'He always said that Heaven, was just a Dallas whore.'...
"Texas Cookin'" - this song makes me hungry...and makes me wanna git up and dance at the same time.
"Desperadoes Waiting on a Train" - this song makes me happy and sad and proud and ashamed all at he same time. 'To me he's one of the heroes of this country, so why's he all dressed up like them old men?'. Yeah. How does that happen?
I hope you found a now favorite or two.
Remember, these files are not available for download here, Guy is a working artist and if you liked what you heard, visit his website and find much, much more.
Ah, it's the end of the work week again and time to take your brain out of mind-numbingly unimportant menial tasks and hopefully get on a plane of what's really worth-while.
Ironically that's almost what Guy Clark said when he first heard his friend Townes Van Zandt play a song for him. When Townes explained that he had written that 3 minute piece of music (whatever it was...it was a Townes song...and that's all you need to know), Guy remarked to himself "That's something worth doing!" and he went out and got a guitar and learned hisself to do it too!
Guy is a craftsman at heart. He loves wood as much as he loves songs and whiskey and his wife Susanna. He's built guitars for a living and he's built boats for a living. He comes to songwriting with the same sensibilities that what's worth doing is worth doing well and taking out all the rough edges.
If a tree is a piece of art by God, so too does God love a 2 X 4. And so are the lines of a good song hewn and rubbed smooth.
You'll note, Guy does not spend a lot of time telling stories between songs like Prine does, he just plays 'em and lets you fill in the blanks.
Like I said last week, I have plenty of unreleased live music by my heroes, but this is a primer for what's to come. This is all from Clark's 1997 commercially available 'live' album "Keepers".
Enjoy!
"L.A. Freeway" - 'if I could just get off of this L.A. freeway without gettin' killed or caught' - I feel that way sometimes...
"Texas 1947" - The tale from Guy's childhood when he and the past saw the future coming...FAST!
"Like a Coat from the Cold" - for his wife Susanna...
"Heartbroke" - a heart breaking song that sounds like it should be played at a rodeo...
"The Last Gunfighter Ballad" - This is Guy shining...a true master of the 'story-song'...
"Better Days" - sometimes romance doesn't go like it should. But that's OK, it doesn't for everybody...
"Homegrown Tomatoes" - 'there's only two things that money can't buy, and that's 'true love' and 'homegrown tomatoes'. Ain't it the truth, brothers and sisters?
These songs are not available for download from me. Guy is a working artists and you can find this and a slew of other great albums and merch at his website. Go visit, you'll be happy you did!
A few years ago, I was directed by my doctor to undergo a full body CT scan. An evaluation of my innards, which 40 years earlier would have meant slicing me down the middle and the doctor taking a physical inventory...
...100 years earlier, would have meant the "doctor" anointing my body with poultices to drive out "the bad humours"...
...CT scan sounds like a big deal until you put it into perspective.
Over the course of 12 hours before the test, I was instructed to drink about a quart of barium, but otherwise fast (why do they call it a "fast" when it seems to go so slow?).
I arrived at the cardiology lab, sure to wear my lucky "Cat in the Hat" PJ bottoms (no metal snaps allowed in the CT)...
...and the tech placed an IV in my arm containing a radioactive isotope, that would react with the barium and make my innards glow all different colors for the scanner to see!
After taking a reported 386 pictures of all the dark things in my soul, which when processed in sequence on the lab's computer looked like an animation flip-book of a "Fantastic Voyage" through Jeffy-Land...
...the tech's assured me that my lungs, heart, stomach, liver, kidneys, thyroid, et al, were all problem free and I had nothing to worry about.
I added up my years of smoking and drinking and eating deep-fat-fried-cheese-covered-fat with gravy on top, and knew they had obviously mixed up the scan with some other patient's, but figured "The joke's on you, suckas!" and ran...not walked...home...I had my own tests to run.
When I got home I tried it all. Tried to fly, tried to run super-fast, tried to walk through walls, tried to turn invisible, tried to stretch, tried to stick to walls...nothing!
I couldn't even shrink or shoot power beams out of my eyes!
The potent cocktail of barium and radioactive IV had not cause so much as ONE genetic or otherwise molecular mutation!
I had gained NO super powers!!
Stan Lee was WRONG!!
Sigh...oh, well. At least Guy Clark didn't lie to me. Here's a song.
Guy Clark was born this day in 1941, he is 68 years old today...and sounding better with every passing year.
Guy loves words. Guy loves wood. His words sound like fine wood that he's carves and moulded and shaped.
One of my "Holy Trinity" of songwriters (along with John Prine and Billy Joe Shaver...Todd Snider is D'Artagnon) Guy is considered a true craftsman on songwriting among song writers.
His wife Susanna once described the kinds of songs Guy writes as the stuff that gets spread around and gains new fans with one "You gotta hear this" to another. Guy's songs are personal to his fans. He wrote 'em for us.
Guy at one time or another worked building guitars in Long Beach, California and building boats along the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana and still works on guitars and does carpentry "for fun". He once wrote a song in praise of the carpenter and woodworking, with a great line "Don't the Lord love a 2 X 4".
His records sound like wood too. acoustic, warm, inviting. You can almost smell the oak and mahogany.
Guy's got a new record coming out this month...I can hardly wait. They don't come fast and furious to this man. Usually 3-4 years between new releases, he says "I wait until I have 13 good songs...then I make a record.".
He doesn't just "have" or end up with new songs...he forms and lathes and sands them like a fine wood carving. Then when their suitably crafted enough to come into the house, they're finally born.
Ready for some "you gotta hear this" and to be passed around by some new folks.
The day got away from me I guess...it's been a hectic one. I got up early and had my coffee and Raisin Bran on my front porch while I watched all the neighbors go to work...then I took a nap. Then I got up and made some chili and biscuits for lunch and got distracted watching the hummingbirds feed outside my window. Whew! I am beat!
You see, today is the first day of a weeks vacation for me. It's important not to jump into these things too quickly, remember the warm-up and cool-down are the most important parts of your work-out. You don't want to hurt yourself.
I'm having my favorite kind of vacation, the kind where you stay home and make no plans. I hear this type is becoming more popular during our current economic crisis, they even have a nickname for it, the "Stay-cation". I'm not trying to be trendy here though, this has ALWAYS been my favorite type.
I've never really understood why people work as hard as they do just to find a way to leave their home when they finally have free time. When I go to work, the whole point is coming back home again. All my stuff's here. It's where I like to be. Around my stuff. Home shouldn't be a place where you put in your time until you can afford to be somewhere else. It should be where you most want to be.
Which brings us roundabout to the final movement in my little musical interlude spotlighting love songs from different points of view. There are a lot of folks out there who work to make money to get things, just so they can say they got things that have some kind of monetary value to them. I work to get things I like to have. I don't care what the bankers and accountants say they're worth...I know their worth to me.
That set of "good" china or silver tea set your Grandma gave you shouldn't be valuable to you for it's antiquity or precious metals dollar return you hope to some day claim. It should be valuable because your Grandma gave it to you as a gift and you should be enjoying it. By the same token, that "good" friend of yours over there should be valued for the friendship they've given you, not because he/she is a valuable "network contact" that you can one day gain something from.
This is a song written by Guy Clark and Rodney Crowell about the value of things. I hope you like it. I do. Recorded in a dark and empty room...'cause sometimes you can see things better that way.
I'll see y'all tomorrow. I'm on vacation from work (the kind that pays the bills) not from this (the work that the bills get paid so I can enjoy).
Man...look at the day getting away from me. I almost missed my Fudgicle break. Damn!
Guy Clark once explained why he started writing songs. He had been a carpenter, a boat builder, a luthier...a craftsman who worked with his hands and liked the feeling of wood and liked the feeling he got shaping it into another thing. If a tree was a useful thing and a work of art, it must be kind of magic to help transform that tree into another useful thing and art object like a boat or guitar. One day his friend Townes Van Zant wrote a song, then another. Then he wanted to show off his new discovery to Guy. Guy listened and thought to himself, "That's something worth doing." and tried it himself. Turned out they were both born to it...and sure enough, it WAS worth doing.
I've turned that phrase that I first heard Guy use in a few of my prior posts, and if there's any theme to my daily almanac here, it's that everything I enjoy, admire and respect about all my subjects it's that they all did "Something worth doing".
Today is "hump day" and there are no anniversaries of note in my calender to write about, but as I sat here staring at an empty screen, my nephew Brian called and we had a good talk. We talked about everything and we talked about nothing. And you know what?
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