Little Sammy Was a Punk Rocker...

"Just because you're better than me
Doesn't mean I'm lazy
Just because you're going forwards
Doesn't mean I'm going backwards"

Billy Bragg sang tonight at City Winery.  And I listened.  He spoke, with conviction and intellect.  He moved me.  Inspired me.  Tapped me on the shoulder, before slapping me in the face, to remind me what it means to have a guitar and a voice.  Everything.

This Is Exciting

I Wish I Wrote This

The Dawn

By Federico García Lorca 1898–1936


Dawn in New York
has four columns of filth
and a hurricane of black doves
splashing in putrid waters.


Dawn in New York whimpers
down the huge stairs
seeking in the chaff
flowers of sketched anguish.


Dawn comes and no one recieves it in his mouth
because there is no tomorrow or possibility of hope.
Sometimes furious swarms of coins
drill and devour the abandoned children.


The first to leave understand in their bones
there'll be no paradise or leafless loves;
they know they go to the filth of numbers and laws,
to artless games, to fruitless sweat.


The light is buried by noises and chains
in the obscene challenge of rootless science.
In the neighborhoods are people who wander unsleeping
like survivors of a shipwreck of blood.

A Design For Life

I am in awe and in debt to to this song.  It made me realize that I was not wrong about the power of lyrics.  It is not just a good tune, it is a life affirming one.  A distasteful piece of sonic imagery.  A confession that we may be fucked, but some of us, we get it.  The most optimistic set of nihilistic verse.  A design for life....

Looking Forward

If I could go back I would.
To before I knew any better, to 14 or 15.
When the world seemed giant and conquerable.

Or to 20.
When I moved to New York, and
Dreams rapidly became realities, became memories.

It is a bit sad.   I know.  But
If I could go back I would.

I watch the past in my dreams.  All fuzzy and I
could have done so much more...or maybe just
So much better.

I would go back with the knowledge I have now, or without.
I miss with great longing, the realization that something simple could change my world.
That I could sing on a stage.
That I could be someone.

I have some regrets, but they are few.  And still, I would go back,
Amass more, and charter a whole new path.
Not because this one is so bad, but because I am not wide eyed and desperately hungry
anymore.