So...how have you been? Fine I hope. Me...well..still here and with many important functions still functioning. The guitar thing is delightfully out of hand. Really. I now have over fifty. Before you end up making one of those statement I've heard before which all seem to boil down to "You have too many guitars and they should be played...." and on and on along those lines. In many cases the guitars are have are a way of preserving companies that are no longer with us because why would someone buy one of them (such as an old second tier Egmond from Holland) instead of buying a spiffy new one made by any number of companies that seem to produce nice stuff for a block and a half over a hundred bucks? So most people wouldn't go out their way to buy a forty year old Framus instead of a nice new Yamaha or Ibanez or one of those other perfectly dandy mass produced numbers? Really. So until I kick off and head for that Hootenanny in the sky I am making sure that until that journey is under way these guitars are safe and humidified and played as often as I can. It isn't easy to play fifty guitars so I try to pick up two a day or so. Now I do not use them all for performing and it is not that I performa lot. I have my favorites for gigs. But not of these were, as I have previously implied, bought for the stage. I have decided to write about each one until they are written about. It is going to take time and I am sure I will not be consistent in my effort. I also will try to create little videos for each of them. I used to have a guitar reselling biz to raise extra cash and I made a lot of videos for that and if you want to look at them you can copy and paste the below address to your browser.

https://www.youtube.com/user/obtusemuse/videos?shelf_id=4&view=0&sort=dd



I just counted and there are 59 guitars I sold. Fifty Nine!!!!  Some of them I would never sell again. EVER!! But that is not worth wasting too much time about. I promise that I will kvetch now and then in subsequent blogs. You can look forward to that. Okay I'm at work and need to get back to that.

Breaking Contact

copyright Lady Linda Gaye Music (me - Ted)

I’m breaking contact

I’m breaking contact with you

I’m breaking contact

This transmission is through

I’m hunkered down in my basement bunker

Like some frightened spelunker

While the rebels appear to have seized control

They’ve got the television station

They’ve got the FM and the AM

They’ve got all the social media too

Chorus

It happened rather quickly

I didn’t notice because I was busy

Attending to the repair of my credit rating

Now the governmental structure

Seems to have severely ruptured

And there’s some new flag on the flagpole waving

Chorus

No one asked for my permission

For this political transition

For this hairpin turn to the severe right

And I’m correct in guessing

That they think they have God’s blessing

This can really help when you’re gearing up for the fight

Chorus

Our representative Democracy

Appears to have turned into a theocracy

With some elected official assuming the mantle of a Pope

And they’ve got this fifty question test

To determine if you lean to left

And if you do you might as well abandon all your hope

Chorus

I’ve a cousin in Jerusalem

I think I’ll get out and live with him

Certainly these patriots won’t be sad to see me go

I’ll be packed in short order

To make a run for the border

What I’ll do then I am sure that I don’t know

Chorus

It turns out that the place you did not believe in
was the chilly place
where winter could no longer be held back
was the quiet place
where you can wait and wait and wait
and realize that whatever it is
you have to get it yourself
was the place where you begin to become the same color as the
background
and people forget your name
except on holidays when remembrance is mandated and paid for
in phrases used again and again
the beginning with your name written in
and the ending with a hasty scrawl
that needs the return address to be deciphered
when there is not enough time
and you suspect there never will be
when you find out that the incline is downwards
and it's only grace it its angle

It is the inevitability of  unasked for
reevaluation

The re-remembering of moments and events
The snapshots that stand out
Even thought the album was not requested
or assembled.

I am past the point
of being able to fix
anything.

No need to put the lean-to back up
if I have no intention of inhabiting it,

It is just that I remembered, vaguely, being unkind
and I am tired of unkindness
real or imagined
current or historical.

Perhaps I am just putting
the top of the bureau in order.
I remember some things.
Who knows?

There are no dead 

who did not die

too soon

The aspen

The fir

Memories

like shadowed ferns

Suddenly facing the unexpected sunlight

from the tree's

absence

Grow brown spots

Grow dry and die

too quickly.

More quickly than you would have thought

The light of our life keeps our shadows alive.

Get up and read the unfinished poem

to people who don't really care.

Stand with sloppy sheets of paper

held

in an unwashed

hand

with imperfect fingernails

and read.

Forget to run spell check

Make an error or two

Let your rough and unsanded emotion result in splinters

in the fingernails

of all who touch the poem.

Don't even try to imply

pain

Don't let lust arrive incognito

Don't offer polite moisture as

tears.

Get some spittle in your

manicured mouth.

Get up.

Get up.

Sing a song and hit the wrong notes.

We are all listening for your beautiful mistakes

I have plagiarized me. I have decided that legal action is unwarranted but delightfully bizarre. I will write the music tonight...or not. I am sure there will be changes dictated by the music but this stuff is sure fun.

Longing is the memory
we do not have
but search for.

Somewhere you pass the place
where the memory was
supposed to be

As if caught in a current
you pass your landing

On the river

Like a movement

Behind you in the forest
leaving only rustling leaves.

Longing is the memory

We can’t quite remember

Like the heat of August

In the middle of December

Like the first rush of love

The very first taste of sex

You can’t quite remember

What the funhouse mirror reflects

No you can’t quite remember

What your mirror reflects

Longing is the coldest night

In the middle of

Summer

No matter what you do

There’s no way

To get warm

Memories like viruses

Eat away at your

Self completion

You’ve lost the talent

To protect yourself

From harm

Longing is the memory

We can’t quite remember

Like the heat of August

In the middle of December

Like the first rush of love

The very first taste of sex

You can’t quite remember

What the funhouse mirror reflects

No you can’t quite remember

What your mirror reflects

I’ve got a poem and some stories

I’ve got way

too many pictures

I’ve got some stubborn suspicions

About a past that might be real

Or not

If I could go back

Well I swear I wouldn’t

I wouldn't even try

I’ve got some stubborn suspicions

About a past that might be real

Or not

Longing is the memory

We can’t quite remember

Like the heat of August

In the middle of December

Like the first rush of love

The very first taste of sex

You can’t quite remember

What the funhouse mirror reflects

No you can’t quite remember

What your mirror reflects