GOLDEN SILENCE? WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT

I’ve experienced golden silence? Nooooo.

But I’ve come close.

Like the time I woke up in a tent while spending the night on a mountain I’d climbed.

So quiet, at first, then the sniffing sound.

Since it was Alaska, it may have been a bear. I was silent.

Or the time I was supposed to report the party line on command.

I stayed silent, then explained myself before being dismissed.

My favorite happened with a guitar buddy I’d been practicing with.

We were set to do an open mic, until the night before.

He drunk-called me and quit.

I didn’t do any golden silence, more stunned silence.

His wife called a few minutes later to explain this peculiar behavior.

Her husband, she said, was an alcoholic with delusions of grandeur.

How did I miss that? We didn’t drink together.

His was a meltdown call, a failure call, and I was glad it happened on the phone and not in the middle of Knocking On Heaven’s Door at the open mic.

The wife said he always got nervous the night before performing, but that he’d be fine the next day.

Some guys are always fine the next day, the day after they burn their relationships down to the ground.

I simply needed to understand, and act like nothing happened, which probably works better with the wife.

Since I wasn’t the wife, I took things in stride and moved along. And away from what seemed like a bigger problem than I knew what to do with.

I’d like to say I went to the open mic and slayed. I had a new guitar for the special occasion.

Instead, I stayed in my dinky apartment in NW Portland and played my set-list for the neighbors who I knew were listening since I could hear their music.

To be sure, I sang extra loud. They were the same songs I sing today.

Follow me for more advice on musical progress.

 

Helping Each Other Keep Up

I remember the feeling of friendship as a kid.

It didn’t take much back then, just living near each other and not being weirdos.

One kid lived near a pond and invited me over to catch frogs.

Sounds fun, right? It was great fun with the catch and release, except he took his catch back to his yard and nailed them to a tree.

Or the time we set up our little toy army guys for a big battle and he squirted lighter fluid on them struck a match. Napalm attack.

They melted.

I didn’t tell my parent about this kid because they would have called his parents and told them, which might have been a problem for me with my buddy and his pals.

To make sure we all understood each other, we had a smoker, an invitation to the local kids to stand on a wooden canopy of a pick-up truck, put on the boxing gloves, and see how long you could last.

The canopy was on the ground, no adults involved, just neighborhood kids I knew from school. This wasn’t my neighborhood, but I knew everyone.

The first two kids got up. One went down, another went up.

Then I went up.

By watching from the start, I had a strategy from having a big brother, and watching Muhammad Ali matches before his suspension for fighting the draft board when his name was called for the Vietnam War.

I hopped up on the canopy and moved in a circle one way, then the other, while sticking my opponent with a stiff left jab just like Ali.

The first kid stepped off, or fell off, and the next one hopped up, a kid bigger than me.

There had to be a misunderstanding of rules because the first thing he did was wallop me upside my head before we got started.

Up until then it was all fun and games. His sucker punch had to have been fun for him based on his cute smile.

The crowd liked it.

I recovered before any more damage could be done and started moving in my circle, then reversing, peppering him with that left jab.

Soon enough the big boy got tired and stepped off the canopy.

I hopped off too, getting even for his cheap shot by pounding him with body blows. A left, a right, another right, doubling up with a left hook – right cross combo.

I didn’t hit him in the head, but it was too much. A parent came out to check on the noise and saw the action.

The smoker ended and I was sent home. The send-off sounded like I should have felt ashamed.

“You should be ashamed of yourself for your behavior you little hooligan.”

Today’s nostalgia for growing up the 60’s and 70’s is right. Kids in those days had it all.

 

Nostalgia For The Good Old Days

Oddly enough, those grade school days have had a profound effect on me, and I’m not just saying that to fill up space on an unread blog.

I’ve got readers? I’ve got you, babe.

I’m talking early-60’s when I was six or seven years old.

I remember an old bald man talking on the TV now and then. That was President Eisenhower.

Then his replacement, a young man around my father’s age. That was President Kennedy.

The First Lady was named Jackie. My Mom’s name was Jackie.

My Mom was a First Lady? She was now.

I remember the thing with Kennedy and his hat.

I remember his rousing words of hope and call to action.

 

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required — not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

 

PS: Historical reminder here about American military bases and foreign aid since WWII, because I’m an expert?

Nooooo, but I pay attention.

In the 1930’s, two modern nations took a detour back to the bad days of mass casualties and land claims because each one decided they didn’t have enough room to live as they deemed fitting for their people.

They grabbed land and property, and because they were modern nations in the 30’s and 40’s, they used scientific methods to kill the local people on an industrial scale.

That two modern nations, and I repeat, modern, used their intelligence and science to carry out the most damning ethnic cleansing in history won them a lifetime supply of American military bases to keep an eye on things.

 

PSS: American foreign aid to nations in need is a policy to grow people out of hunger and desperation. That’s the aim I see. It could be more, it could be less, but US and UN funded services seems the only ones to deliver, or try to deliver, the right help at the right time.

Am I the pollyanna here? Maybe, but . . .

 

You used to ride on a chrome horse with your diplomat
Who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat
Ain’t it hard when you discovered that
He really wasn’t where it’s at
After he took from you everything he could steal

How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be on your own, with no direction home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

 

Golden silence with Bob Dylan, who still won’t quiet down.