Todd Clouser: Arts Day Out Program

I played last night at Havana jazz club here, my first regular night in quite a while.
It went great. I got to play some of my own material, some old stuff, standards, whatever I want. It was hot and felt all kinds of good. Its nice to be back playing, working, learning new songs, etc. The owners of Havana are really great people and I'll be back often.
My life is off the chains. Its sunny, I get to play music to people at night, teach excitable children during the day, and soak in the Sea of Cortez in my down time.
Its fun and rewarding when things actually work out. Its easy to become accustomed and accepting of cynicism as all the junk gets thrown around nowadays. I done done it, but things are working nicely these days.
Hope everyone is well.

I went to teach Tuesday morning sporting a healthy cough and heavy head, not feeling great. Its actually due to all the air conditioning Ive been sleeping in these days, September being our hottest month. Its not uncommon to be in the mid 80s through the night. Room air conditioners blow out cool air hot sick with all kinds of dust accumulated around town and other junk. Some of the open air restaurants here have been shut down recently by the health police due to the dust.
Anyway, teaching my first class was like going to a doctor well schooled in the trade of head cold exorcism. As soon as my 4th grade class busted in to Lean On Me, adorned in their endearing accents, I felt like a beacon of health. Never ceases to bring a smile. We did some songwrtiting afterwards, the school still operating music sans-instruments, and the tunes the kids come up with are all kinds of wonderful.

Well as Ive mentioned here before, Ive been practicing my guitar more than ever before, spending a minimum of a few hours a day learning new tunes and studying. Its been really rewarding, in that I now have 3 weekly gigs and will be able to make playing and teaching my living. Something I never truly imagined could have happened.

Some of my favorites to be playing these days
- Billie's Bounce
- I did an instrumental arrangement for Blowin in the Wind and Bird on a Wire that are really nice to play
- Anything by Bill Frisell, its bordering on obsession, but some of his playing lends itself really well to solo guitar and is catered to all tastes without making concessions or being lowest common demoninator, honest quality, cant say enough
- Beck's Lost Cause
- Dear Prudence
- I have a song called Born by the Night that I like. Itll be on our next disc.

Thanks for reading. Take Care and hope all is well.

check out the new "Floratone" album. Im loving it.

Standing in front of an arrival/departure screen at a large European airport … Istanbul, Dubai, Bangkok, Rome, St. Petersburg, Mexico City ….. offers a nice slap upside the ambitious and inquisitive optimist gone lazy and resting inside. That guy that used to drive the bus of us, the first and most instinctual to follow, the most enjoyable and memorable, the guy people speak of when they refer to ¨the best years of their life¨, that guy. he ages quicker than the rest of the guys inside us, all arthritic and crippled by our mid 20´s, then dragged out and expected to be functional in our 60´s after far too long a nap, but what he lacks in persistence he clearly compensates for in his generosity and rewarding spirit.
The feeling of uncertainty, mobility, wonder is one that he relishes. They say familiarity breeds resentment, and escape brings shame, emotions
he holes up under awaiting the dirt to be shoveled atop.

Without the impression that tomorrow, or next year, could bring something entirely new and engaging, he hangs up his boots. Thats not to say he confuses comfort with complacency, comfort is nice.
Comfort comes in ones ability to approach, endure, and manage themselves in the world around them, not the ability to protect themselves from it. It’s the get your feet wet cliché. Somewhere between running and responsibility, confrontation and conformation, sleep and hope, is opportunity. And that’s what we´ve got, opportunity to do what we may with. It comes in big and small sizes, and it never learned about fairness, but its ours, and its not going to come running back if we sleep with someone else.

So in the end, Im standing at this airport screen in Prague, next to a line of asian people carrying briefcases, buying a train ticket to Munich, sipping on a Budvar. Its my romance. Its long black dresses swaying in brushstroke wind to the music of Chopin, its Sunday newspapers, and its living.



Here´s some of my favorite cities, an admittedly presumptious list given the many I´ve yet to visit.
I´ve also included my favorite bar in their respective cities. I drink about a quarter of what I used to, but I still love bars. The stools and the stories, all of it. Some people relax in front of a television or on a summer lake boat ride. I´ll take the bar, just a couple hours. If you want to find the character of a city, get a stool and start talking.


San Jose Del Cabo, Mexico

After work I have decisions like, should I go surfing, do some writing, enjoy a few cheap tacos accompanied by appropriately hot salsas, sit at the beach and watch people laugh and splash repeatedly, play my guitar, or take an evening trip up an empty desert highway bordered by mountains falling to the Pacific ocean?
And people know how to live, eat, and laugh.
My favorite bar in san Jose is EL MORO Bar. Its dark, the music is loud, and you´ll know everyone in a few hours. You can sit between an American real estate agent and a Mexican surf champion, and talk about anything you want. Everyone who walks in seems to be a personal friend of the bartenders. And they serve you beer accompanied by a cup of limes, not just the obligatory one hanging over the bottle´s mouthpiece.


Interlaken, Switzerland
Interlaken is no secret any longer, well Id guess for the past decade or so, but its natural beauty and opportunities to make use of it give good reason to its popularity. Jumping off waterfalls, bridges, mountains in a parachute, rafting, etc. make days go fast. The cold water that makes its way down from the glaciers is best felt after a 20 meter jump off the wall of a crooked gorge. When I was there I went canyoning in the morning, rented a bike where I was dropped off, biked the city up to the mountain where they´ll take you paragliding, jumped off the mountain with a guy that really looked like Uli Kunkel from the beaver pictures, and then fed some ducks with a friend while having a cold beer.
My favorite bar in Interlaken is POSITIV EINFACH, where I walked in to find a jazz band playing in town on an off night from France. I sat in with them and we drank pints of german beer on tap. Beware of the hostel bars there, its depressing and will make you want to never go back to the US or Australia.


Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is simultaneously lavish and seedy, a dichotomy it cant work out and I hope never does. You can climb cobblestone streets to the perfectly silhouetted castle, drink a beer on the Charles Bridge, and then watch all the Brits trip in and out of the town´s seedier joints, accompanied by beautiful eastern European women. In the morning you can walk your way through the immaculate square, air adorned by the sounds of a military orchestra, all dressed good and proper, and then make your way to the city´s train station on your way out of town, perhaps the least asthetically pleasing in all of western Europe, thought its full of action inside.

My favorite bar in Prague is Rudolfa. Its small, down a small set of stairs, and everyone there seems to have seen better days. You sit at picnic tables and will undoubtdeldy accompany/be accompanied by other bar-goers. The stories you´ll get are great, if you can get through the heavy accents and heavy beer-breathed slurs. Its actually quite an endearing place.

London, England
Everyone knows, but I most enjoy it these days as it offers an experience quite contrary to life here in San Jose del Cabo; orderly (people actually do stand on the right side of the escalators and walk on the left), well dressed, sick full with art and alternative lifestyle, and the cops mean business.


My favorite bar in London is just off the Earl´s Court tube station, take a left, go a block, you´re there. Its not fancy, just a big shared space where I found a young Brit playing original songs and Beatles covers one night, with no mic, no amp, just a guitar sitting a bar stool… and he was great. I met a hippy Australian lady who had just traveled India and Sri Lanka on one side of me, and a Kuwaiti businessman in town to visit his sick mother at an area hospital. That was before the drunken Danish pair came in and cleared the place out with their stumblings. Got me home early.

Okavango delta, Botswana
Its not a city and it doesn’t have a bar, but its place here is secured by the forthcoming story. I was in 4x4 with family and a Botswanan guide named Molemi, an incredible person, when we pulled on to a little island where there was said to be a leopard quite close. I looked to my left, being in the front passenger seat of the Brit style, wheel on the right, cars, and there the little guy was. Pretty like the pictures, but bigger nails on the paws. We made eye contact. Im not certain, but Im pretty sure he meant to tell me with his eyes “ïf you don’t reverse out of your little parking spot and let me crawl to where I was going after this wonderful nap, I am going to jump up on the car, where my nails would first land on your back, take a little bite of your ear, and then hop to the other side so I can get on my way.” I considered that friendly, given the animal carcass or two left by leopards I had seen up to this point. Molemi called on his little radio to see what we should do when a leopard is “about half a meter away”, then whispered to me, careful not to disturb the leopard´s fixated stare at my white face, “this is the closest Ive ever been.” Awesome, you´re a safari guide nearing 30 years old who grew up on a farm in Botswana, and this is the closest you´ve ever been to a leopeard and I am in between you and that same leopard. In any case, after a few more minutes of anxiousness, all of which seems wonderfully pleasing in retrospect, we did manage to back out problem-free.
We saw the same leopard a day or two later (there were three in the area, just the one male). He was napping on a tree, but woke to the snapping branches and bushes under our automobile as we neared. He saw me, smirked and licked his lips.



Cites and Bars To Be Continued

Living here in Mexico has been great for me on many accounts, the most recent of which I am most happy with. In preparing everything for the tourist season down here, Ive found that this year I'll be able to make a living as a professional musician. Thats something Ive been after for a few years with widely varying degrees of lack of success, weathering occasional bouts with most states of up and down I could imagine. Anyhow, its all worked now to the point that by teaching music and weekly gigs here, I'll be able to support myself. That feels nice.
Its a frighteningly lonely task to find a place in the dense, historied, and often backwards place music holds to all of us. Being away from the states has allowed me to slowly ween my thoughts from the traditional music industry and the expectations and compromises living inside it create. Some people can live up there and just do their own thing, seemingly unaffected by the climate of modern music, its identity and scene-ness. I was never one of them. Its too dissapointing for me.
So Im fortunate to have found a place where I can play to a room of vacation-minded diners under a palapa roof backed by the occasional breaking of ocean waves, climbing my way through "cold duck time" sporting the odd muscular contortions that seem to make their way onto my face. Its not Red Rocks, but its nice, and its music, and its mine, and I get to pay my rent with it.

I was at our local town bar the other night, where I enjoy a number of Pacificos on a select night or three of the week, conversing with an American teacher livinng and teaching high school science here. He went on reminiscing about the days when he was 21, telling me those were the best of his life. Im living 'em. No reservations about saying so, these are them, and thats the way its gonna go from here on out.

Thanks for reading.

Im on website vacation. We'll do a big update when the season begins here, about the 2nd week of October. Hope things are well as the weather turns its back on you in the states. Seasons here just feel like various shades of summer to me. I found an ice scraper in one of my packed away bags I drove down here with as I was moving apartments the other day. I felt like a Mongolian man looking at a hot dog. Huh?

I love when people write on the guestbook here. A lot. I think a lot. It can be an issue, but often my thinking runs its way over people and friends I have known. I have a soft heart for people I have shared time and experience with. A lot of good people. The opportunity to keep in touch while keeping in motion keeps me updating this website regularly. So thanks for writing anything there.
We just had Henriette fight her way directly through our town of San Jose del Cabo. She was about 6 foot, missing her two front teeth, and pissed off. Everybody survived her rumblings, about 8 inches of rain and 100 mph wind, though the towns streets, electricity, and a helping of its trees were not among those spared. The eye of the storm came right over town, and I had Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" on repeat in my head. There is indeed calm in the eye of a hurricane... after all that the song does indeed make sense. huh. Nice song Mr. Young.

The hurricane has closed school for a few days, so Im just hanging out, practicing guitar and trying to finish "What is the What". Ive done enough real practicing in the past few months, maybe for the first time since college, that I believe when things get gong in this town in mid October, my guitar is going to explode into a fierce firestorm of miraculous notes and screaming solos. A lot of bottled up time will spit its cap off and sing. Looking forward to that.
Thanks for coming by. And dont be shy on the guestbook. You know who you are.

Word is Benny is going to master the songs we did a few months back this week. Im looking forward to getting going on the artwork and maybe try to release this in a mostly digital format, with some art and writing attached to each song. I think you'll enjoy it. There's some familiar songs on there re-worked and played by ringers, and a handful of new songs.
Ive been removed from it for a while and have been at work writing tunes for a new instrumental album. Im really excited about the writing thus far. Im writing and playing in a more relaxed way these days, and with more confidence. I ve learned a lot this past year from playing with Benny and doing the Baja stuff, so Im excited to feel like we're getting towards a good spot.
Things are quiet in Los Cabos right now, but as the town begins to see some action in October I'll post the events Im doing on the calendar here.
Thanks as always for coming by.

As many of you know who read here, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to travel this past
summer. Im having trouble getting started with this, knowing what I want, need, to write about my experience without seeming presumptious or overambitious, but what I want to get at is perspective. Inside me is this persistent necessity to write about things, encapsulate them, find reason. Sometimes I think I may be better off to just sit quietly and ponder experience over a sunset. I guess this is the only way I can rest, to feel Im digging at truth. Theres that and the idea that my feet have the problem of never affording me the opportunity to stand in one spot and debate, a problem for which I am eternally grateful and forever lucky.

I also want to say that I am writing with the knowledge that, though I feel my experiences to be nourishing and learning, they are but a tiny piece of a giant place, and felt from the distance of a person knowing he will return to the comfort he has been afforded. I also concede that I write as a mere observer, a lay man, whose knowledge of socio-economics and international politics is limited and backed up only by a desire to learn and feel... and a music degree. That being said, I feel its a story worth telling. Its one that ends in hope and the triumphant nature of humanity, should we allow ourselves, or be allowed, to act according to such.

The idea, hardly novel unless you actually consider it, is that there is so very little that separates us as people.

I want to bring up the USA, only as a tool in discussion, given that the US serves as the country from which most of our perspective is born (apologies to non-American readers)... which I know will have many of us flipping the page or clicking the red x of the close box. Despite my cynicism towards current American government and what I feel to be its misguided direction, there are indeed a wealth of aspects America holds that make it "great"... its favorite adjective. It is built on smart discourse and dissent; its foundation appearing to have strength enough to withstand even the most direct attacks upon its mechanics. We are a nation largely afforded the opportunity to change our situation within our lifetimes, an opportunity we must protect. In my brief experience in South Africa, I saw that the years of apartheid have so completely defeated the economic, education, and social standing of a group of people that it will take generations to recover.... to begin the process of proper education, of necessities like water, toilets, etc. In Zimbabwe, their national currency is worth little more than an acorn, due to government mismanagement, and the recovery of that nation will have to take place witha fraction of its current population. On a large scale, we dont have to deal with these things. Is it luck, or is it our own participation in the system that allows us to live outside these desperate circumstances? I dont know. Why these examples?
My thoughts are as follows; America's "greatness" will only be determined by its ability to afford, within its own power, the OPPORTUNITY for the greatness of others. Solely the opportunity. This is not a handout, or a world policing. I believe it translates to a personal level as well. Now this becomes a slippery slope.... one we can dig through on our own.

The idea is that there is so very little that separates us as people. From our basic needs to the joy we find in art to our social desires, we are almost impossibly similar. In my experience, this holds true in cultures that have developed largely independent of each other.... of which now, in a globalized world, we have but remnants and educators to show of.

Im sure its obvious I haven't reasoned this all out yet. And the "yet" is awfully generous.
I get deep into these things and to a degree they become circular, though humanity, our tending to ourselves and each other, and the prospect of hope and progress, feel as the endpoints of the discourse.

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On a more observational note:
There is a distinctly American phobia of foreigners. We believe we are hated, that we are in danger wherever we go. I experienced none of this. I was always regarded on my merits as a person in my travels, for better or worse.
I also have felt a general sense of apathy and cynicism growing within the people I spoke with in the US. There is a feeling of powerlessness. Nowhere in the world is that less true. In countries where a daily wage is 6 dollars, or education is a privilege, or you are driven to work standing upright in the bed of a pick up truck huddled in a group of 20 some men, people still have hope. That is another thing that can make the US great... our standards and ideals. We do not accept corruption and abuse as a fact of government business.

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Well I am tired of running through all this and feeling like I cant get to a thesis or something like that... what I can say is that the more I see, the more positive I become.

It is all said much, much better in Bob Dylan's poem "Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie". Its all there, and told with the wisdom and clarity I could only HOPE to achieve. "you need hope kid, and you need it bad".....
Im getting it Bob.

Dave Eggers' "What is the What" is taking some of the time Id normally spend writing. Its going to be worth it. My creative potato sac is amassing dynamite and matchsticks, anticipating an explosion of biblical, actually scientific, not biblical, more like the big bang than the big flood, proportions.
Really its a great book. One you can live in.

I've been listening to Grant Green a lot, and some South African CD's I got this summer. I showed the kids at school a bunch of pictures from southern Africa. The youngest classes are mostly just confused by how people live in the couple villages and township I visited. They just kind of tilt their heads and look at the photos like a family dog does when you are dancing naked in your bedroom. Curious but beffudled. Some kids say "ick". Thats a really interesting reaction to explore. Im not sure if its the cleanliness of the photo subjects they are reacting to or if they are imagining themselves in those circumstances, or something different altogether. Some kids, natural reaction as it is, feel sympathetic. I try to explain that these pictures, the people that live this daily, are not asking for pity, and this is not sad. We are learning. They have things to trade with us just as you have things to trade with them, your experiences more rooted in the similar than the dissimilar. Thats where music enters the conversation. Thousands upon thousands of kilometers (go metric America, you're the only hold out) from here, drums were being carved the same way you carved them, covering the tops with skin, in your backyard. Rhythm is universal. So is hope and the ability to be positive, to grow beyond what we accept ourselves as capable of, what is acceptable. Our survival instincts as a whole, if not bearing much foresight, are remarkable in the short term. When a movement of people transcends the short-sighted nature we often act according to, as seems to be the case with the end of apartheid (the ability of the opressed to forgive the opressors, to move on with vision), this is hope. Its smart survival, and its distinctly human, though some would argue that. It really works best when we make use of ourselves. There is that tendency to sleep through it all.
Well this went places other than the expected. I guess thats what makes "musings" an appropriate title.
Take Care

I go back to MN tomorrow just for a few days to tie everything up before the school and business year starts down here in Los Cabos. Im going to pick up the mixes of the songs we did back in May, which Im really excited about. Benny's gonna get to mastering them andwe'll hope to have it all ready by Mid-September.
Starting mid - October Im gonna be playing every Friday at the Tiendas de Palmilla Terrace. Its outside, view of the ocean behind the band, nice. We've partnered with a local charity for the events as well. Looking forward to it.
For now, lots of practice and teaching. Hope everyone is well. I'll get the new songs up here as soon as I get 'em.

Though I find my general anxiousness and state to be in a nice spot these days, I do have what some people may call a bit of a stage performance anxiety issue. Its actually quite ferocious. I think we all experience it to a degree.
My issue presents itself in an often debilitating manner when preparing to play, or often keeps me from getting that far, just not scheduling gigs to avoid my body first and mind following reaction. My fingers shake like a bottle in wind, I cant feel the strings, my palms sweat out more salt than I thought I could have acquired in a lifetime, my face goes hot and twitches a bit at the corners of my mouth, and my mind starts running laps.
I listen to some of our recordings and think "that solo could have been 3 to 4 times longer, it wanted to go places". Now why did I cut it short, and do I continue to do so despite ample self-coaching and preparation? Because my heart felt like it was growing horns and breathing fire. I can hear the notes of the melody quiver under my finger tips, coming out like a nervous man's stutter. I start to confuse the wall of noise in my head with the noise the band is creating. These feelings can make the process qutie unenjoyable.
In Rusty Trombones, I self-medicated with a healthy helping of alcohol prior to most performances. Unfortunately, alcohol has quite a few personal and performance side effects. It builds you up and then bulldozes you. Not a remedy, though it had its perks.
When we did the Baja shows down here, I just sweated it out, and sometimes about halfway through our set, Id settle in and start to think creatively and live in the music. Otherwise it feels like crossing monkey bars looking down over a playground of starving crocodiles. Same in Europe, in often the most unimposing circumstances.
Well there are positive ways to address this. The physical piece is something that there are remedies for. The mental piece, I think, just requires positive preparation, and the physical piece to not be present.
Im getting after it so I can get out and play regularly again, remembering when the goal was to explore the possibilites of the tune you are playing, to live in it, to give it the feeling it deserves, as opposed to just getting through it. The anxiety has kept me from pursuing quite a few possibilities, and that cant happen any longer.

I think the results will show themselves here in time.

Hope everyone is well.

Hope this finds you well. I head out tomorrow to Mexico City, eventually back to Los Cabos. Im really looking forward to getting back and getting on with many things. This summer has been an incredible time that has allowed me to continue to grow and realize where my vioce lies in this big place, and I hope that will be reflected in the music and writing you find here..... I hope the wait for new songs will be a worthy one. Im most excited about returning and getting a new group together, along with teaching. I feel more focused and confident in my ability to do these things effectively and with purpose, which has wained at times. No matter where I go, I always end up with the same passions, and playing music comes first.I feel lucky to be looking forward to playing out on a regular basis in a place wonderful and easygoing as Los Cabos. Its free of any recognizable scene-ness or big talk music.There's still that sense of music for its own sake. I anticipate this next year being the most focused and positive in terms of music. Along with family, and you that come to read here, its the best thing I've got.
Ive been working on learning a bunch of songs I surely should have before, but its come to a good group of tunes I think we can play out for everyone to enjoy and relate to. My favorite now is "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", written by Joe Zawinul, and "A Night In Tunisia" as well.
We're already beginning to plan a week of shows for Benny/Adam/Greg to get down to Los Cabos and make it happen. Some unique and cool events, but in the meantime regular gigs will feel very nice.
Hope everyone back in Minnesota is well after the tragedy there. Best to all.

I understand poetry's baggage.I fully realize its modern rap as limp wristed softball tossing. I get it. A cohort took the friendly pub-talk chide at me, speaking to a third party, saying "Todd was in Hyde Park today composing haikus".. wakka wakka wakka. HOT DAMN I WAS! And they gonna make you sweat. Yep.
Mocking poetry is like mocking a bald guy. Its easy, its cheap, and we all get it.

I get the "oooooh... Clouser's gonna write a poem about it" or "Im gonna write poems for your website" a lot.. chuckle chuckle.
Poetry smokes. Its hot biscuits and cold vodka drinks, night lovers and morning trains, king's knives and beggar's whistles, the stuff we realize we knew without ever having known it.

Now Im gonna go to the park and write poems. Yea. Feels different now.

Hope you are well. I just arrived back in London, where I'll be for a few days before heading back to Mexico. I was really lucky to be able to spend the past couple weeks with family in southern Africa. A real learning experience, from nature to culture. Just yesterday I visited one of the Townships /Informal Settlements (accurately described as shanty-towns, though not reffered to as such) of Cape Town. Despite the poverty and often unsanitary conditions, it was inspiring and hopeful to see the will of the people in this place to continue to move in a positive direction after years of systematic oppression. Its a testament to our resiliency and hope as humans.
Met all sorts of great people through our travels through Zambia and Botswana, and was able to take in a lot of information on the wildlife. New friends. Good people. Big. Really an incredible experience I feel so lucky to have had. I'll be back.
Back in London now and am going to spend some time getting my head round all I've seen these past couple months and organizing all the thoughts and pages I've written.
Im looking forward to getting back to Mexico and work. Something about a schedule and a paycheck sounds nice right now. I'll be back teaching at the school and lessons in a few weeks and hope to incorporate a bunch of the photos and contacts Ive made on this trip into a world music class. Ive got all sorts of ideas about it that Im sure I'll write about here once they get going.
We should have the final mixes of our new album all finished up in a couple weeks, and I'll get some tracks up here. I've been away from it for a while so it will be interesting to hear if it all matches up with my fond memories.

Other than that, planning for some events in Los Cabos and shoring up my song catalog in a conscious effort to play out a couple times a week this coming year. Trying to finish up songs I wrote on this trip.. a lot of fragmented stuff... sometimes I wish I could turn off the writing faucet and just flip it on for the good ones... that would be nice, but impossible. Oh yes, and London is expensive. A lot. If I look at it in terms of work, lunch costs me about a guitar lesson, and a train ride from Heathrow Airport and back costs me about a day of school teaching. Ow.

Hope this finds all of you well. Thanks so much for coming by here often and I hope things are of some interest to you. I promise a big post of music, writing and photos once I weed through everything.

Best to everyone. Take Care.

When I arrived in St Malo, after a night at sea :

Its 8 a.m., maybe 7 here, Im unsure, and I just arrived via night ferry to St Malo, France, a port town on the northern coast that a guide book would surely call "charming". I'm sitting on a wooden bench ten yards from the harbour on a small cement walkway, an empty dark sand beach between the sea and I. The town has not woken up yet, this being Sunday; the French being no fools as to how to live the day properly.
There are seagulls humming around and the sound of unsure Sunday morning waves lapping themselves onto the tiny shore. The harbour, straight ahead is home to countless sail boats, most of modest size, their naked masts swaying under a gray colored morning, creating some sort of modern art piece you could one day see at the Tate Modern occasional drops of gentle rain.
Its perfect a morning as I can remember. Morning as it should be. To my left, about 150 yards is a point, cliffed about 60 feet above the sea, the rocks at the cliffs feet breaking the waves into thousands of tiny salt tears. The greens above the cliff and falling into town are impressive, occasional walls from which cannons used to fly. In 30 minutes I will walk up to these cliffs and feel the blood moving inside me, my body full of wonder and short of breath, thinking what I can do in a place so perfect. Stay, go , take a picture. I dont know how to respond. The lazy rock islands fading themselves out to sea, the God wind. Its too much.
But now, a man has opened his 4th floor window behind me, all the buildings in town of the same height, all weathered in the right way, the kind of weathering that builds integrity and, yep, "charm". I turn around and look up from my little bench under the old lightpost. He is a black man, plump, smiling at the morning. The wrinkles on his face hanging like the leaves of trees in fall. We make eye contact, he smiles, and knows what is happening. He reaches below, where I cannot see, and his hands return above the window holding a small child, pink dress, maybe 1 year old. He holds her up and they look through the white framed window to the harbour, the town still. Her eyes look like mine.

Well I didnt make it to Cordoba, but I did play a couple nights here in London, then heading by ferry to St Malo, France, then some trains thereabouts in the northern Bretagne region of France. My body feels as if the floor here is still swaying side to side after two nights of sleeping on boats. Need to catch up after a couple short nights of sleep, but Ive got some things to post before days end.
I played a few songs here to a receptive and encouraging audience which I'll write more about later. Also ran into my friends from Minneapolis, Keri Noble and Jeff Arundel. Had dinner and drinks with them, talking music. Im too tired to explain anything right now. I have a real bed to sleep in and my legs are wobbly.

Im feeling well nourished this afternoon. I just left the Tate Modern Art Museum here in London. Saw what felt like an important exhibit about 7 cities around the globe, all represented by aerial shot, indepent films, photos, numbers, so on. The idea was to study the modern city, the rapid growth of urban areas, and how the cities must adapt to accomodate the masses of folks moving their way. I ended up spending more time there than I hought. I generally operate on a pretty short leash of an attention span, my mind starts tugging me away quite quickly from these sorts of things, but this was really engaging. I sat in the entranceway lawn afterwards and wrote in a healthy London afternoon sun. When the sun has been out the past couple days here, the buildings and parks go on vacation. Inviting, after a week of consistent rain, everything relaxes.
After living in desert climate for a year, seeing rain is like seeing an old high school classmate. Oh, cool, ok, fine, enough. So sun is good, is what Im saying.

I saw a play called Baghdad Wedding yesterday at the small Soho Theater. Id be surprised if some form of it didnt end up in the states at some point, or as an indie film. It follows a group of Iraqi students studying to be doctors in London, one of whom is a novelist as well, and what occurs with their families, professoins, loves when returning to the Baghdad of the war. It was written by an Iraqi, and is illuminating, not ideological. Its a human story, not one of sides, and a portrait everyone could benefit from seeing, regardless of their positions. I hope some more people get the chance to see it.

Im going to post some writing Ive been working on when I get back to the apartment this evening. Im going to a songwriter showcase where I hope to be able to get in a couple songs. Up to now its been instrumental stuff this trip so Im anxious to play a couple songs.
I rented a small, really small, apartment about 20 minutes outside of London where Ive been writing every morning and then taking the subway into the city. Its a fun life for a little while.
Hope this finds you well and thanks for reading. We're up to 176 unique visitors a day on average! Keep coming by. When I return Ive got a bunch of music to post as well.

Some new song titles
"Big City, Only One"
"2 Means Alone"
"Your Mistakes will Make you Pay until You pay them Back"... a little long I know

Im planning on going to the International Guitar Festival in a couple days down in Spain if the travel works out. There's a workshop with Pat Metheny there.... nice.

Dear Colleagues - I hope this finds you well. Ive been in London the last few days enjoying the rain. This city lives with a cloud hood on, and its strings are tied tight.
Since I last wrote I took a plane from Praguee, one of those without assigned seats, and settled in here in London, meeting my father for a couple very nice days.
I spent quite a bit of time in Prague at a cafe/bookstore/music venue called the Globe. A good spot to check out and meet people should you find yourself in the city.
On the subway ride home the other day I found myself in conversation with a couple young Englishmen and heard Bright Eyes was playing at a place called Shepherds Bush Empire here in London, just a short tube transfer away. I followed along and bought a ticket outside for what may seem a reaonable sum of 20 pounds, which was face value, but then we must consider that the pound is currently worht twice as much as the dollar. 40 bucks. They played for one hour and twenty minutes, including Connor Oberst's drink swills, monologues, and 2,000 dollar amplifier tossings. I do enjoy his songwriting and arrangements, and his ambition and dedication is remarkable, but I think he's started to believe his own, or the miles of critics lining up behind him, bullshit..... which we are all guilty of at times. I think its a diversion that many exceptional writers encounter and pass through in their careers. The room also could not accomodate the instrumentation; the density of a rock band complimented by a string section, occasional horns, flutist (flautist?), so on was too much for this small theater. The sound was like a poorly produced record, where none of the individual instruments have a voice, just dense.... hardly the band's fault.
I read a review of the show in the paper. The critic, as seems requisite in speaking of Bright Eyes, compared Oberst to Bob Dylan in his stage antics and instability. That kind of garbage is just unfair to everyone... reader, subject, compare-ee. Gets nothing done.
Anyhow, as often happens at concerts, I came down with a bit of inspiration and rushed home after the short show writing songs in my head on the tube. I also left wondering, not for the first time, what the point and place of writing songs is. I think the only answer comes when you cannot stop yourself from doing it. You have to. Where they go and where they come from hardly matters. When those pieces outweigh the natural process and inclination to write is when things go bad.
Im not sure what I want to do with my songs, but I have to make them, even if I return to dislike them. Im lost without that process. The idea would be that one day someone would listen and relate, or move to them, or just consider them, but seeing the show the other night made me wonder what the best way, while keeping health (artistically, emotionally, physically), is to go about that. No answer.
Well the computer is telling me I only have two minutes left, which is annoying because Iif I ddidnt have to keep clicking the box off, I would have more time.... take care

Happy wedding weekend to Joe and Katie. Wish I could be there to celebrate with you.

Every word ends in a vowel or a "y" here, it seems. More so in Slovenian...
Its just after lunch here in Prague and last night was eventful. I went out for drinks with some other writers I correspond with online, and had a great time talking all sorts of topics. I got back to my apartment at about 3, which apparently is about the time the sun begins to rise here. Down at 10, up by 4 or so. The views walking along the Charles Bridge at that hour are fantastic as the sky begins to light up. Castles, churches, and all sorts of things that greatly predate anything I grew up around in the states. Havent seen a strip mall all trip, though there is a lady outside the internet cafe here wearing a "Subway" (sandwich) Prague shirt, holding a Subway umbrella, and passing out Subway flyers. A real die-hard. Hope she's getting paid.
My friend and travel partner showed up at about 7 a.m., apparently after a long conversation and ride with the Czech police where he was advised and reprimanded for walking intoxicated. Keep in mind there is a lot of intoxicated walking done here by drinkers spanning all corners of the globe, so to be fished out of the sea of drunken stumblers and deemed a hazard is quite a feat. Too many Cuba Libres. All is well though here in a new day.
Im going out to a jazz club with some Prague living American ex-pats tonight and hope to put my fingers to the strings. Though Im thinking today may not be a day for the arts, as my soft spot for the Minnesota Timberwolves is creeping in on me and Im analyzing NBA draft scenarios online. Silly maybe, but I like it like it, yes I do.

Should anyone be passing by Fur Seal Studios in Minneapolis in the next couple weeks, ask them whats goin on with the mixes for our new disc. Im still waiting to hear any of 'em, though the recording sessions remain a fond memory.

Take Care

Hello. Im short on time here at the computer once again, but have arrived safely in Prague. I spent two nights in Ljubljana, Slovenia and got to play at the jazzfest there. It was down on a small creek leading to the river the town is sort of centered around. Played kind of funk jazz, but not too funky, we were of course in central Europe. I'll describe in more detail in a future post, there were some funny moments.
Spent a couple nights in Munch and relaxed after my body had kind of hit the wall from a couple weeks of fast paced travel.
Thanks for reading as always and I promise one of these days I will have the time to post something more interesting.

Good morning --- Well I havent had much time to get to a computer and post the things Ive been working on. Its probably a good thing. After a week or so in the French and Swiss Alps, a couple nights playing jazz with two brazilians and a french alto sax player, Im in Florence now. Ive made an effort to stay out of bigger cities in this trip, but Florence was impossible to skip. The art and architecture, no secret to anyone, is incredible. Ill leave the picture painting to the thousands of guide books, art history and philosophy scholars, and historians with better knowledge than I, but you can feel the rennaisance still living in this city.
Im leaving today for Slovenia and hope to get back up into the mountains after a night in Ljubljana. Have a long train ride this afternoon. The train rides have been productive times thus far, lots of writing and listening. I listened to Rufus Wainwright's -Want Two- last train.... lots of Tom Waits, Brad Mehldau, Bill Frisell. I listened to Phish's Slip, Stich, and Pass on a train from Valence, France to Grenoble and had an inspired moment of full-cirledness. Made me want to play guitar. Im ripe to be picked by any passer-by offering inspiration right now... whether it be music, art, people, food, its all sending me places, which is good, being sent.

Take Care

Hello dear friends ... Im in Grenoble, France and having an incredible time here in the Alps. Ive been writing a lot but have little time to post anything right now.... I hope to get to it in the next couple days. My mind and body are in a really positive place right now that is giving way to some writing ane playing that I feel good about.
Just a quick note about France that runs in opposition to both my previous experience in Paris and popular American opinion : the people have been incredibly friendly and helpful. When I am sort of doint wide eyed open mouth circles on the street corner lost to zhere I am, numerous times people have gone out of their way to help, convene , and translate. Meals and conversations are had in a pleasant manner. Its certainly not exclusive to France, and is perhaps more a reflection of where I am in France, that being in the Alps and generally smaller towns, but its woth noting for me given my expectations. Indeed it is the most visited country in the world for a reason........... anyhow, Im not really sure what Im talking about anymore, but things are very well here and I hope to post a bunch of the results of an inspiring few days here soon.
Thanks as always for spending time here.... A quick thought... here,s the titles Ive been thinking of for the album we recorded last month, being mixed right now ... let me know if you have any preferences, you,ll know my favorite when you read it :

Songs With no Outfits
Music with no Outfits
Standing Naked in the Hellwind
A Bright Life
Shake The Flag

Thats it for now. Rôck it.

Capability

Humans are capable of extraordinary things. Our bodies and minds are wired in an exceptional manner, offering all the tools necessary to accomplish physical, intellectual, and emotional greatness. Unfortunately, we are in charge of ourselves. It takes a remarkable amount of self-discipline to make use of what we are given. The requisite discipline is compounded by the manner in which modern popular society and culture function. To these ideas we will return, but first I want to consider the two “illnesses” we develop that dissuade us, decision by decision, from developing the self -discipline and dedication that allow us to make use of ourselves.
The first illness is laziness. A simple and un-academic word, lazy is more than a man on a couch. It is a cyclical process and progressive illness that affects our decision-making. We don’t do it once, we shame ourselves, don’t do it again, until it reaches the point where we altogether disregard and distance ourselves from the original activity or dream because it feels of failure. One simple example is that of an aspiring musician. He/she comes to a point where he realizes his skills need refinement, practice, and study should he be interested in achieving his dream of being a professional, or even for just creating the music he aspires to. He cannot bring himself to practice. His skills plateau, the inspiration he once found in music follows closely behind. He tosses his dream away because it hurts to know he had it. His laziness killed it, perhaps self-consciousness as well. This occurs in all sorts of professions… business entrepreneurs, artists of all types, sales people, so on and so on. A lot in our 20’s… not the roaring 20’s.
It is important to know that while laziness is progressive, so is its recovery. Once the boulder starts coming down the hill, it gains speed. We start practicing more, being more active, accomplishing, taking pride in it. It is the anti-cycle of the cycle of laziness.

The second illness is self consciousness. There is a healthy and necessary degree of consciousness of one’s self, but too often we are personally pacified and herd-ified by a society that promotes mass-consumerism, “branding”, and divisive political and religious thought. We are left to join a group, not form one. Our emotional needs and instincts keep us from considering the lonely path of an individual. There is interest by big business and government to pacify us, making us predictable, and making power and money a math equation hardly threatened by your consumers or voters.
Society is one big clique, and if you don’t eat at its lunch table, you have to hang out with all the librarians (that being said, I respect librarians greatly, but considering the mindset of a high school student, that seems the least desirable of lunch arrangements). We grow this unhealthy self consciousness when we feel we are not part of the group, being told the group is where we need, want, and are supposed to be. This dissuades from attacking a life we really want. It is not our fault we are overly self conscious, that thought in itself is self deprecating. We can develop this from a childhood marked by a dominating figure, a failure in our professional or personal lives, and many other ways. It is natural and the forces in our modern lives are not on our side, but if we are able to identify the problem and begin to consider why we make the decisions we do, often not allowing ourselves to be just that, we can begin to recover.

All of the recovery begins with honesty. We have to rid ourselves of the armor we have grown in reaction to our failures and outward negativity. Its tough to feel when you’re armed with swift defensive comebacks, a company in your back, and a disdain for the inspiration we all once felt. It feels good when we start to get it back. The wind feels better when you’re naked anyway.

I must say I always took pride in my spelling, and even if I mustn't, I will and am. Unfortunately, that discipline, or at minimum the eye of revision, looks to have escaped me recently. A misspelled word is like a yoga teacher with a machine gun over her shoulder, it can't expect to be listened to. Its also like a a series of foot-size bear traps. The reader's eyes get stuck, take time to be pulled out, and then can't refocus or recall where we were at in the first place, just dragging that hunk of word metal around the serene little path through the forest of fire that we had hoped to carve for them.

Along with my spelling, my English teachers would be ashamed these days. Being friends, business partners, and teachers with and of people of whom the greater majority speak english as a second language has me using phrases such as "no seems", "is good, no?", and all sorts of other short-sentence-spits that would surely have me laughing at myself, was I another.
I hold little hope of recovering from my digressions this summer in a land of many languages, very few of which are mine. However, the first step to recovery is indeed identification and proper consideration of the problem, ain't it (i know)? Segway to next musing.........