bodies...i'm not an animal

MP3: Everyone I Know Has A Body (5 mb)

It's been said that the only reason we have bodies is so we'll be able to take our heads to the places they want to go. That's kind of funny when you think about it, but it implies the body is just a shell - a container - for the mind, and that tends to reinforce the feeling of separation between the two.

I'm inclined lately to think of the body as being like ice cream, and our consciousness is the flavor that permeates throughout it. But then, I love ice cream and haven't thought this through to the last delicious bite, so don't hold it against me (although, if I said you had a lovely body you could certainly hold that against me, arh arh).

In the meantime, we all have bodies in their various shapes and conditions, and just as you probably wouldn't want to spend your whole life inside your house knowing there's a big world outside, why should we be so concerned about staying in our bodies all of the time?

Marble Tea Cover Song Alert:
The Fuel Burning Oracle has injected Who's Been in Your Dreams with his usual psychedelically experimental garnishings. You can find it in his MySpace player, and I'm pleased as punch! Be sure to check out his other tunes while you're there....


EVERYONE I KNOW HAS A BODY

Everyone I know has a body
Everyone I know has a body
Have you ever seen someone
Who doesn't have a body?

Everyone I know has a home inside their head
Everyone I know has a home inside their head
Have you ever met someone
Who doesn't have a body?

Drawing mandalas
And watching Captain Kangaroo
Let's go skinny dipping
In the energy pool

Toss that tambourine
And shake your maracas while you got 'em
We're just embryos
In the time machine

Everyone I know has a body
Everyone I know has a body
Have you ever known someone
Who doesn't have a body?

Drawing mandalas
And watching Captain Kangaroo
Let's go skinny dipping
In the energy pool

Toss that tambourine
And shake your maracas while you got 'em
We're just embryos
In the time machine

Have you ever been someone
Who doesn't have a body?


Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything!

syd meets the marble tea

MP3: Alphabet (2.8 mb)
(written by Syd Meats)

Some of my favorite songs are witty, British and short. Much of that probably owes to a childhood love for the infectious tunes of Herman's Hermits and the chance discovery of Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS in the early '70s. I became a die-hard Anglo-fan with a short attention span and, despite the occasional tryst with prog-rock, my love affair with brief and humorous things from the UK has carried on to this day.

In any case, Mr. Hobbes may be surprised to discover that one of the developments of the modern world that led not only to a life less nasty but also to my further appreciation of the very short song, was the recordable cassette tape - particularly when compiling an assortment of songs for friends or self into the magical mixed tape. Ah, yes. You want just the right songs in just the right order, and very often there was just about 2 minutes of blank tape at the end of each side left to fill. What a perfect opportunity for the very short song to slide in and round out the festivities so nicely! I found myself collecting these tiny tunes to use as needed, but perhaps it was also an excuse to find more of them for my own personal gratification....

It comes as no surprise then that I fell immediately in love with a song called Alphabet by Romsey's own Syd Meats, Prince of Pies and Piper of Prawns. A singer-songwriter of (mainly) humorous songs, he's also a great mate and one helluva bloke. Check out his MySpace page to hear some of his songs and say Hello. His Alphabet is a whimsical and surreal seduction song in the fine English tradition that brings to mind Robyn Hitchcock's I Got a Message for You and Syd Barrett's Love You with its seemingly nonsensical wordplay and seventh note inflections.

Oh, and lest you think I changed a verse just to plug my favorite computers, I'll have you know that it's really a quiet nod to those nutty Bonzos.

RECENT ENJOYMENTS



Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything!

a new free single for tax day!

MP3: Good In Black (5.1 mb)

Hey, before you check out the new free blog song, let me tell you about the new free Marble Tea single. I'm calling it the Back in Time / Demi Moore Single since the song titles themselves are rather long. On the A-Side we have The Girls Who Went Back in Time and on the B-Side Please Don't Cut Your Hair Like Demi Moore. These songs originally appeared on the out-of-print Jersey Shoreline CD, but they've been freshly remixed and mastered for your aural delight right here in the laboratory. You can download the single (for free, in case you didn't hear) at:

http://www.marbletea.com/music.html

In case this next bit of code doesn't show up in your browser, you can listen to it in the player at the top of the page on that link I just gave you.






I hope you enjoy it.

Now, about this Good In Black song. I used to live with a triumphant feline named Sidney The Mega-Cat who was feared far & wide around the complex, but who also suffered extreme bouts of abstract melancholia. When we took walks together, he'd never hesitate to enter a neighboring apartment, nonchalantly gliding past the hissing resident cat with a smirk. He was big and brave and fearless, but on other days he'd only sit and stare, that giant mug stuck in silent contemplation of the stereo's VU meters while I wrote songs about girls. This is one of those songs, another old recording that I've pulled from the vault and cleaned up a bit (but just a bit). This too I hope you'll enjoy.

GOOD IN BLACK

Sidney sits and stares all day at the stereo
I joined him today I think I'll stay
I like it
He never says too much
I wonder what he's thinking
Does he need affection?
I know all about that affection thing
or lack of it, do you?
I know you do
You know I meant to tell you:

You look good in black
You look good in black

Sidney has a special way and a certain foe
I watched him today keep it at bay
Amazing
You never see those things coming
that'll take you down
But you get a feeling
I know all about those creepy little
coming up kind of things, do you?
Uh huh oh yeah.
I was going to tell you:

You look good in black
From the front, the side and the back
While you're dressing
I'm requesting
That you put on the black

Sidney sits and stares all day at the stereo
I joined him today I think I'll stay
I like it
He never says too much
I wonder what he's thinking

You look good in black
You look good in black

Zambiland, zambiland
Zambiland, zambiland

Interiors
Amp radio
Magic fortune teller
Rainbow

A Postscript:

Dylan Kight moved his once-a-week song blog to http://www.wildernessofthemind.com/. Check it out.

Sunburst Carrier has just released their first EP. It's called Sound Sensitive and it's beautiful. Lilting, cascading guitar-esque instrumentals for melancholy illumination. Sidney would've loved it.

Kate recently turned me on to Just Fontaine, and their new Four Views EP is another must-have. Great sardonic Brit-pop that fits squarely into my collection.

And if you haven't picked up the latest Max Eider disc...wtf are you waiting for?! I thought it was brilliant the first time I listened to it, but now I want to be buried right in the same coffin with it. Get your own, Spotty.

Who needs major labels?


RECENT ENJOYMENTS
Book: Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins
Music: Oracular Spectacular by MGMT
Film: Arrested Development - The Complete Series (Seasons 1, 2, 3)

Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything!

the final countdown

MP3: Don't Look At Me That Way (1.5 mb)

At the risk of ending up like George Oscar Bluth II (GOB), banned from the Magicians' Alliance for revealing the tricks of the trade, I am going to tell you how easy it is, my dear friends, to become your own personal pop star.

This month's song (sketch, really) was recorded quickly and completely in Mau's Brooklyn apartment using nothing more than my old iBook and a crusty acoustic guitar with ancient strings (indeed, I tuned it as best I could but was later told that its neck was in such a precarious condition that the strings needed to be tuned down...way down).

My intention was to keep myself busy while he was out by laying down a song idea in Garageband (which comes free with every new Mac) and then importing it into Logic for further fleshing when I was back home. Well, as often happens, I promptly forgot about the recording and, since I neglected to write down the chords or any other ideas surrounding the genesis p-orridge of the tune, I was unsure of what to do upon rediscovering it on my hard drive. Ah, I know: I'll put it up on the weblog as an example of how easy it is to do this stuff so maybe everyone else will give it a go as well.

So yes. While it's not a particularly good song (or even a complete one), you can see what possibilities abound. There was no external hardware involved (not even a pick!), meaning that I recorded the guitar and vocals without headphones directly into the iBook using its built-in microphone (that tiny little hole on the right side of the monitor...this is an older iBook, before the built-in iSight cameras), and used only the stock plug-ins etc that come with Garageband. The drums are one of the included GB loops that I dragged into the project without modifying, and the bass is one of GB's software instruments whose notes were played using the computer's keyboard.

As GOB would say: Ta-da! It's really amazing what can be done in less than an hour with this modern technology, even if that lead guitar sounds like some song from Mau's collection of 70s Yacht Rock.

But with all these modern advancements, why can't I get The Final Countdown (GOB's theme song) to play as a ringtone on my cell phone?


RECENT ENJOYMENTS
Book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
Music: Sniff by The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group
Film: The Weather Underground

Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything! And while you're at it, check out Dylan Kight's new blog, where he's posting a new song every Tuesday...

life goes on within you and without you

MP3: Faces on a Train (5.2 mb)

You know how sometimes you'll be having a conversation about one thing and several minutes later you'll be talking about something totally different and you think "How did we start talking about that?" and when you look back through the topics you discussed you see how one thing led to another (yeah yeah yeah) and often it's only one or two steps but sometimes it's quite many and you'll see how things fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, but not really like a jigsaw puzzle because the shapes of thoughts aren't that well-defined, they're more like amoebas shape-shifting around like the particles in our bodies which, they say, are constantly morphing and so leads many to believe that the body can heal itself, and still others to feel that it goes much further than that since everything is comprised of these malleable, affective particles and so why is it so hard to believe that someone like Uri Geller could bend spoons with his mind when really all one would do is cut the perceived distance and difference between the utensil and themselves into smaller chunks until there was no distance and everything was one thing?

Well, here's a song about travel.


FACES ON A TRAIN

Faces on a train
The streets of Madrid, Spain
So many to see, so few to know

Getting on the boat
And heading to the sea
Staring at the waves that rise and fade

You can't count them all, they all become the sea
All the waves in you are all the waves in me

Pieces of a dream
Like pearls across the floor
I raise my arms and fade into the sky

Everything I am is everything that is
I listen closely and I found out what it says

Cells in a body
Bodies in a country
Countries in a planet that spins and hums
[sing that stanza twice, please]

Faces on a train
The streets of Madrid, Spain
So many to see, so few to know

RECENT ENJOYMENTS
Book: Middlesex: A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
Music: Back Numbers by Dean & Britta
Film: Michael Clayton

Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything!

you may say i'm a dreamer

MP3: I Wish It Would Snow (Electrically) (4.5 mb)

****************************************
LATEST NEWS

These songs are now available as a Podcast on iTunes. Check it out here:



Also, you can download each past years' tunes in separate tidy packages for ultimate Marble Tea convenience here.

****************************************

It just occurred to me that this is two months in a row where the songs dealt with wishing. Hhmmm, how 'bout that then? We could talk all night about wishing and dreaming (and hoping and praying, and anything else Burt and Dionne might warn you against), but there are other matters to address now so let's save those explorations for another fireside, shall we?

First let me tell you quickly about this song. True, there's a free acoustic version available as part of the Slave to the Tuna EP. This more electric rendition first appeared on the out-of-print 2001: A Case of the Tea CD, but I'm offering up here the cleaned up version that Jeff Booth so graciously set his knobs to. Considering the state of my timing and singing, I think he pulled it far out of the mire!

Second, I'm stent-free baby, so how 'bout we get a little snow on the Shore, eh?


I WISH IT WOULD SNOW

She said,
"I wish it would snow all winter long
Because I need something fun to tickle my little tongue.
Oh, flurries are fine: dusting my face and glitter my hair,
But they're infrequent, just like my lovers,
And I'd rather just stay in bed...."

She said,
"I wish I could do whatever it is that you do."
Well, this forced him to laugh and re-evaluate everything.
"No, don't wear my shoes: I'm always tripping and stumbling about.
And even though they look like they fit
Well, they're really far too big...."

I never understood selective generosity
And why does the shame of the past
Govern my thoughts like a fog?

She said,
"I'm waiting for you down by the dock,
And I'm tempted to throw myself in to see what Shelley saw."
Are kind words enough for someone whose head may burst into flames?
And in her diary the words are all true
But it never seems the same:

I never understood selective generosity
And why does the shame of the past
Govern my thoughts like a fog?


RECENT ENJOYMENTS
Book: Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
Music: A-Z by Colin Newman
Film: The Science of Sleep

Be sure to Subscribe so you don't miss anything!

if 6 was 9

MP3: If Wishes Were Fishes (3.9 mb)

Pardon me for being an old hippie, but I think that in much the same way Love can wound or heal, Vision can be a prison or it can be freedom. How do you see the grass, Glasshopper?

Er...I mean, how do you see the glass, Grasshopper? Half this or half that?

As an experiment, this song was recorded in Garageband (as opposed to Logic) so that I could reacquaint myself with that astonishingly ubiquitous program.

IF WISHES WERE FISHES

If wishes were fishes
Then dreamers would fish
For wishes and fishes
And dishes delish
And I'd still be in a boat
Out on the ocean

If money was honey
It'd hang from a tree
Like honey but money
And all very free
Would you still stick your paws
Down in my wallet?

Don't get any ideas about my beehive
Don't get any ideas about my fish

If oranges were violent
We'd all be surprised
We'd put them in cages
And run for our lives
Maybe they're not dangerous
Just different

If lovers were dolphins
They'd never say 'No'
They'd always be happy
And ready to go
Would I keep dangling worms
Into the water?

Don't get any ideas about my oranges
Don't get any ideas about my girl

If doctors were lawyers
They'd put us on trial
Disease is illegal
Buy your health in a vial
Maybe we should reassess
Those fishes

If vision was prison
Well maybe it is....


RECENT ENJOYMENTS
  

i got stoned and i missed it

MP3: Litho-Trippy (3.6 mb)

What a drag it is getting old.

Indeed. I've just had a medical procedure done on me called lithotrispy in an attempt to blast an obstinate kidney stone out of my body. This seems to be the best way to have these sort of things taken care of these days, but mine has been fraught with minor complications that have made it something of a bear to deal with. I'll spare you my moaning here (Lord knows Kate has heard enough of it, bless her generous heart), and should state for the record that all is generally well.

This month's MP3 is what I imagine the procedure would sound like if it were run through a digital audio workstation and sweetened a bit for the chill-out rooms. Don't be frightened, my love, it's all very harmless.

Here's wishing you a wonderful Holiday Season and a New Year filled with joy. Drink lots of water!

**Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed!**

There are also official Marble Tea releases that you can download right from my website!


RECENT ENJOYMENTS
  

life on mars?

MP3: Life on the Moon (1.4 mb)

Another quick one this month. I'd really rather not live on the moon...Mars might be kind of cool, though.

** Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed! (Or you can scroll down to see the most recent.) **

There are also official Marble Tea releases that you can download right from my website!

the tortures of the damned...

MP3: Ingrid Pitt Indeed (2.9 mb)



In the late 60s/early 70s, there was a midnight horror movie show called Shock Theatre that came on TV in Montgomery every Friday and Saturday night. I was glued to the set each week as they showed hours of famously frightening movies starring the black and white likes of Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr, but the ones that really caught my budding eye were the ones by a British company called Hammer. These lush and gothic films, shot in technicolor and seemingly always featuring Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee (or both!), careened my imagination far into overdrive...especially when they brought out the busty actresses who were either innocent victims or vicious temptresses, but always alluringly sexy. What more could a young boy want?

This tribute to Ingrid Pitt - Hammer's Queen (what, you were expecting maybe Barbara Steele?) - is from the out-of-print Marble Tea CD 2001: A Case of the Tea, a collection of home recordings from earlier this century. Happy Halloween....

INGRID PITT INDEED


I've got a Hammer horror film in my head
Starring Ingrid Pitt as the Queen of the Dead
I walk into the laundromat
with red and ripped sheets
a roll of quarters in my pocket
so I can wash rinse and repeat

I've got a Hammer horror mood in my brain
Sheer white gowns and a castle in the rain
I step out of the restaurant
and fall to my knees
rip my shirt down to the waist
because I know that she'll be pleased

I've got a Hammer horror look to my face
Ingrid Pitt wipes her mouth on the staircase
I don't know where I was today
I just woke up scared
when she comes again tonight
I'll try to be more prepared

Ingrid Pitt
In the Vampire Lovers
Ingrid Pitt indeed
Ingrid Pitt
As Elizabeth Bathory
Ingrid Pitt indeed
Ingrid Pitt
In Sound of Horror
Ingrid Pitt indeed
Ingrid Pitt
Dah dah dee dum dee dah
Ingrid Pitt indeed

** Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed! **

And don't forget that there are also official Marble Tea releases that you can download right from my website!

Hey. Go buy the new Max Eider album. It's FANTASTIC!!

walkin' with jesus

MP3: Iron Cross (4.6 mb)

Wilhelm, it was really nothing. And I swear to you there's nothing militaristic about this song. A dear friend gave me a beautiful cross made of iron as a gift, and that's all there is to it.

IRON CROSS

Iron Cross
Aye yay yay yay

I see you smiling
I see you laughing
I see you giving me

Iron Cross
Aye yay yay yay

On the road toward God
You need an accurate map
But there are so many
From which to choose

Iron Cross
Aya yay yay yay

You pick a path to go down
Find a spot and set up a house
Have you forgotten where you were
Going?

Iron Cross
Aye yay yay yay

I see you smiling
I see you laughing
I see you giving me

Iron Cross
Aye yay yay yay


** Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed! **

And don't forget that there are also official Marble Tea releases that you can download right from my website!

Speaking of, have you bought the new Max Eider album yet? It's FANTASTIC!!

chocolates for breakfast

MP3: Chocolates for Breakfast (3.5 mb)

Pamela Moore wrote the book Chocolates for Breakfast in the mid-1950s when she was just 18 years old. Its story of upper-class teen-aged decadence in a world of martinis, long white gloves and Stan Kenton records - set, most notably, in Manhattan (but in Hollywood as well) - intrigued me from the get-go 'cause I'm a sucker for that whole nicely-dressed and overly-educated but still slightly ill-mannered mid-morning cocktail in an Upper East Side apartment liberal/bourgeois explosion kind of scene. The style and constraints - and the breaking thereof - create, for me anyway, a really interesting story landscape.

Back in the late-80s, after having read the book, I brought the song I'd written not so loosely based upon it to the band I played in called Blond Popsicle. We worked out an arrangement and played it live frequently (we even called our second full-length cassette Chocolates for Breakfast), but we never recorded it. That's a shame....

About a year ago the itch appeared to give it its due, so I sat down to begin recording. The project became a little too ambitious, and I soon lost interest in it. However, a recent cleaning of my hard disk brought it to my attention once again, and it's not as muddled as I initially thought and it certainly deserves an existence somewhere in this interconnected universe of ours. Even though this version is somewhat different, I'd be remiss if I didn't thank Steve & Kenny (and Jim & Toasty & Brent & Clark) for the contributions they made to the song back in those Popsicle days.

I hope you find it tasty....


** Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed! **

senses working overtime

MP3: Old Letter Opener (2 mb)

I've just returned from my first visit to Seattle, home of coffee convenience and entitled pedestrians. A cousin was married in a park upon a hill overlooking water and that gorgeous skyline, and it was great to have some small semblance of a family reunion during that festive occasion. However, these things are often laced with a bit of sadness when family members that you'd hope to see at these events are no longer with us, and you feel a large gap where their presence might have been.

My father and his older brother both passed on within the past few years, and they were giant men with giant personalities - Greek gods they'd been called, though their blood was more Jewish than Athenian - so imagining them there was easy, and then disappointing in the light of reality.

Well, sorrow seems to be the standard springboard for creativity, at least that's what I've heard and been told. You wallow around alone in it and then let your feelings out in a beautiful piece of art. And that's where the trouble begins. Sometimes this beautiful thing is just an expression of depression, often conjuring tired imagery that we've all heard a thousand times before. At least that's what usually happens to me in these situations, and why I generally lean toward exploring things (serious or not) from a more whimsical vantage point: I hope to spare us both the cliches of sadness.

That said, there was an outpouring of songs when my father died, and they live in various states of completion and predictability. Here's one about the letter opener I watched him use since I was kid (it had been his father's before him), and which I now count as one of my most valuable possessions. The noisy and quickly recorded mp3 file can be found at the top of this blog entry.


OLD LETTER OPENER

I'm looking at an old letter opener
It's got to be 45 or 50 years old
The handle has your father's name engraved upon it
It's made of silver but in my opinion it's gold

The handle's kind of worn from your hands upon it
I can feel the imprint of your fingers where they would bend
As you opened up your correspondence with glee or horror
And I'm sure on occasion with some indifference

This was your father's key to the letters
It was your key too for a while
Now it's mine, and I'll keep it here with me
To open the letters that'll never come from you again.


** Don't forget to check the Blog Archives to get the songs you missed! **

catch a wave

MP3: Seaside Hula (1.2 mb)

What do you say we become little cartoons for a minute and hit the beach? I'll bring the hula if you bring the hoop....

and now for something completely different....

MP3: Mine All Mine (4.2 mb)

So there was this slasher flick that was looking for a song to compliment a scene where one evil, punkish sorority sister had kidnapped and seduced the devout and angelic girl she'd had her eye on for some time. The producers wanted something that blended the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Ramones, My Bloody Valentine...and XTC of all things. Hhhmmm. My noisy demo is presented here this month. It didn't make the cut, but at least I got another song out of it...

...and it let me explore that whole innocence defiled thing, which holds a certain attraction but often makes everyone involved want to take a long shower the next morning.

Oh, PS and BTW: there's a new single in the works. I hope to have it mixed and available within the month-ish. Acquirable via download only. Watch this spot for details....

MINE ALL MINE

I've been waiting for you like a night for a moon,
To hold it in its arms and to love it

Oh yeah Oh yeah
You're gonna be mine
You're gonna be mine all mine

It's not like you have wings and I'm pulling your strings
But my heavenly girl, don't you want it

In the fleeting of flight, I'll be your only light,
I'll be your start and end, and you'll love it

Oh yeah Oh yeah
You're gonna be mine
You're gonna be mine all mine

I've been waiting for you like a night for a moon,
To hold onto its light and to love it

It's just like you have wings and I'm pulling your strings
O my darling delight, don't you want it

Oh yeah Oh yeah
You're gonna be mine
You're gonna be mine all mine

the quiet game chronicle

MP3: The Quiet Game (1 mb)

When I was a young lad and my family would pile into the car for a long trip, my sister and I would - as children do - be quite loud and obnoxious in the backseat throughout the journey, deprived as we were of any of the usual stimulations and attention required by those of that age. (This was long before we even dreamed of having a portable DVD player to calm us.) In what was to be at once a successful and beautiful stroke of genius, my parents told us how to play "The Quiet Game" which was a very simple game to play in that whoever made any sound first lost.

Determined to be winners, my sister and I shut up for long stretches at a time, much to our parents' delight, though we weren't beyond trying to trick each other into laughing or screaming. Naturally, the rules were modified a little to prohibit any touching or prodding of the other contestant.

I've never been the quickest bullet out of the gun, but years passed before I realized the true purpose of that game, presented as it was in the spirit of fun. Both of my parents acted in the local theatre, so I'm sure that didn't dampen their persuasive skills....

Well, fast forward to now and I realize the importance of imposing my own Quiet Game upon myself. The world is too much with us, this is true. As fun as that can be, there come times when I need to let the world not be with me for a while so I can soak in the stuff behind the clatter and pull the magic back into my life (and hopefully spread it around a little bit). It seems increasingly necessary now that they put High Fructose Corn Syrup in just about anything you could possibly want to eat.

Anyway, one of the things that stayed with me from Haruki Murakami's book The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was the magic achieved by the protagonist during his imaginative time spent sitting at the bottom of a deep, dark, quiet well. A place of silence and sensory depravation, where he was able to, if not unravel the mysteries of his life, at least journey through them toward some resolution.

A one-minute audio experiment from this quiet, rainy Jersey Shore day is at the top of this blog for your consideration....

time of the last persecution

MP3: Time Is Like A Dream At Dawn (1.2 mb)

I have a real problem with time, besides there never being enough of it. For one thing, I can't wear watches because there's some weird electro-magnetic current situation in my body that always causes them to quit working. It's true, and not a particularly rare condition from what I understand.

Setting our clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time rarely affects me since I have no solid comprehension of the passing of time in my day-to-day life anyway. It's like time really is a river, rolling into nowhere, but how can that actually be if time is round? And if it is round, is that why we're doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? And if that's the reason, then why am I not getting any younger?

I have a real problem with time. However, I've always felt Philip Seymour Hoffman would make a delightful Cheshire Cat.


TIME IS LIKE A DREAM AT DAWN

She wants to make a movie
Based on the life of her cat named Cole
And she wants Philip Seymour Hoffman
In the title role.
But these things take time
And time is like a dream at dawn
It's gone by the time you wake.

i can see it (but i can't feel it)

MP3: Theoretically Being There (1.04 mb)

It's been a while since I read Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination, but one interesting thing that stuck with me - if I remember it correctly...and so many times I don't - was that when the characters would "jaunte" (or teleport) from one place to another, it was important that they have an image of the place they would be landing set firmly in their mind's eye or else things could go horribly wrong.

As Dr. Mystic and I have discussed, there's a plethora of theories out there about making your life what it should be, and most of them hold to the belief that it's important to see oneself vividly being where one wants to be in order to...be there. That's oversimplified, of course. Basically, thoughts precede action and all that. Wanna be a fireman? See yourself fighting those fires, complete with coat, axe, badge, and boots, and see it often. Rock Star? Tighten up those pants, lad, and strap on a six-string in your mind.

Anyway, our cat Cosmo brings this down to earth. When he's about to leap onto something unfamiliar, he stares at it intensely, vibrates for a moment, and then jumps successfully to his destination. Kate and I call this the See It...Be It configuration. He sees where he wants to be, and then he is there.

With this in mind, I hope this simple song will provide some nourishing entertainment along your path.

THEORETICALLY BEING THERE

You can't be anywhere
If you're not already there

You've got to see where you want to be
If you want to be where you want to be
Coz

You can't be anywhere
If you're not already there

borrowed soul

MP3: Cheese (2.2 mb)

If you got a digital camera for Christmas, congratulations to you. But one thing has me puzzled: do we still run the risk of having our souls stolen in the picture taking process when film has left the equation?

As a way of somehow explaining what I mean, here's another one of those late-night 4-track recordings. Proceed carefully, children. Dangers lurk in even the most incidental appliances....

CHEESE

Today I had my picture taken
Today I had my soul stole
Today it went into a camera
And landed on the film roll

We took it to the drugstore quickly
Development in just one hour
It's rare that these things often happen
But when they do it's ACTION TOWER [...I don't know. Ed.]

I sat around oblique and friendly
Unaware I was un-whole
My friends took care of all the details
And soon they had the prints in tow

They put them in my hands discreetly
And magnetism did its job
It filtered through the waxy colors
And I had what was almost robbed

Cheese....

one christmas for your thoughts

MP3: Silent Night (4.6 mb)

You know what? I love Christmastime. I love the Holiday Season. My spine tingles from all the bell sounds and the crispness of the air, and I know it's generally the last bright spot before another dreary Winter, so it's a good time to get in a last round of cheerfulness before the hibernation begins.

And what about the music?! So many great tunes covering so many different feelings in so many styles: the classic spirituals; the celebratory songs of gathering with family and friends in the cold; the lonesome and sad songs of being disconnected from the ones you love; the funny, catchy ones that make you laugh; those great obscure blues numbers about how everything's gone wrong. Anything you want, there's a Christmas song somewhere about it. It's gotten to the point where I even enjoy watching carolers! (Am I mad?)

Now you can tell me how you're sick of all the bogus Holiday cheer, and how it's become too commercialized, and the original joy of giving has been overtaken by the joy of getting. You can even tell me you don't believe in Jesus so what's the point.

Well, I'd say just try this: forget all that and just be happy for a moment (it's something you do, you know, not something you are). Don't worry about how anyone else is treating Christmas, just consider it a fine excuse to smile for a minute. Trust me, there's a lot more to be troubled about in this world than to get bogged down about a Holiday....

falling and laughing

MP3: Falling (Even the Angels) Demo (5.1 mb)

The revelation hit me hard once, as I lay in the grass looking up at the sky, that I was in reality looking out at the sky - much as a magnet stuck on the fridge is looking out at your kitchen - and I swear to you I became dizzy with the thought of suddenly catapulting out into space if gravity decided to unexpectedly give up the ghost. And who's to say it won't one day? You can't take these things for granted, you know.

Anyway, it was autumn and one of the best things about that as a kid was playing in the piles of leaves on the edges of suburban lawns, the sweet smell of Fall all around. When the air's just right, you can see the angels sparkling in front of you like tiny white fireflies. Oh you'll blink your eyes thinking it's a trick of the light, but they're there all right - dancing and winging about elusively and challenging your ability to hold them in your site, taking the pleasure with the pa-pa-pa-pain.

This entry's MP3 is a late-night recording about all that done on the old iMac. I'm hoping soon to re-record it for better sound and performance.

FALLING (EVEN THE ANGELS)

We took a blanket and laid it down
Smoothed out the grass beneath like icing
Untied our shoes and then
Tied up our arms
Stuck to the side of the world
We looked out to the sky around

And there were angels dancing
But we didn't know what they were
So we laughed until they ran

It's like I told you:
There's pain in humility
and even the angels will tell you

We had a magnolia in Cloverdale
The street smelled like autumn for so long
Into the leaves we fall
Into the leaves
Over and under again never thinking
Of falling out

And then the angels brightened
Just like they were lightening bugs
So we tried to touch their hands

It's like they told us:
There's much to be sorry for
and even the angels will tell you

an unrelated thing

MP3: Love Bomb (2.3 mb)

THE NEW EP IS HERE:



You can listen to all the songs on your computer anytime you want and, in addition to it being available on CD, you can also buy it in MP3 format. Totally cool, but even cooler is that there's a FREE downloadable EP of 5 more groovy tunes when you buy it. Do it now...you know you want to.

With all this love raining down, it seemed appropriate to post another song here this month. So what you have here is an older song about dropping a bomb of love that might hopefully open the eyes and hearts of...well, just everyone in general. Much better than those nasty ones that destroy lives, right? PEACE AT ANY COST...find me a political party with that platform and I'll sign on.

[UPDATE 10/25: Kate has informed me that "Peace at any Cost" sounds a little harsh, as if to say "We'll bomb 'em into submission." Truly, that's not the intent of the phrase, nor the direction of my beliefs. I just liked using the word "cost" while offering a free song, and then segueing into the bit below about COSTCO. Understood? Thank you.]

Camera update: COSTCO really came through. As mentioned in the last entry, I returned my 2-year old defective camera to them (with receipt and I found the box) and they gave me store credit not only for the full price of it, but - since sales tax had increased here in NJ in the interim - even a few cents more! Sweet. I used the credit to purchase a brand new, much better camera than my old one.

camerA

MP3: Pumpkin Postcard (1.5 mb)

My camera's broken. Sometimes I wish my cell phone had a camera on it, but it doesn't so I'm without an image capture utility at the moment. Let's see if the rumors are true: I bought the camera at Costco two years ago and I still have the receipt (but not the box). I've heard they're pretty liberal with their return policy so I'm going to be testing that very soon. I'll let you know how it goes....

Since it's October, a pumpkin song seems in order! I received a postcard a while back that had a picture of all these little kids dressed in crazy animal Halloween costumes, and they were splayed about someone's yard amongst a smattering of pumpkins. It looked like they (the kids and the pumpkins) had all been thrown there haphazardly by some giant hand, and it kind of freaked me out. Sometimes when I get freaked out I write a song. Sometimes when the song seems sparse I cut little loops into it. And sometimes when it seems even slightly interesting, I'll post the song here. Ah, the 21st century!

The new EP is at the duplication palace and should be available within the month!

Oh yes and finally this: I've got a spot on MySpace.com now, so come on over and be a friend, eh? The URL is myspace.com/marbletea. I've got the little Blogthing going there too, and I'm trying to synchronize them in such a way that there's complimentary information that reading both will reveal in some obtuse way. Yeah, I didn't explain that very well. Let's just say REM, Christopher Isherwood, and Julie Harris are all in on it, m'kay?

where the ocean meets the eye

MP3: Me & the Sea (For Better or Worse) (4.5 mb)

I have been looking for a long time
For something to ease my troubled mind
The closest thing I've found
Is an inaudible sound
That I discovered accidentally tonight

I went out walking by the ocean
I went out under the dark sky
Autumn has begun
So all the tourists have gone home
And I was watching the big waves go by and by

At first it seemed to harmonize so sweetly
Above the crashing waves upon the sand
But then I realized
What I was hearing with my eyes
As it was coming from the sea to take my hand

Now I'm not one to go for new age icons
Or pantheistic flights in empty verse
But when it held me near
And it devoured my little tear
I had to "Halleluh" for better or for worse

busted afternoon

MP3: Welcome to the Neighborhood (3.5 mb)

Here's a song based on my friend Cliff's experience moving our friend Lisa Marie up from Montgomery to Atlanta several years ago. As these things generally go, the lyrics are a combination of separate events, and I'll have to admit that Cliff was somewhat disappointed that they didn't reflect the seedier aspects of the situation. I'm inclined to agree, but was pulled in the direction of writing a fairly "safe" laid-back country-ish tune this time around.

In other news, the new EP is almost finished and should be in your ears very soon!

white punks on dope

MP3: Suburban Girls on Tranquilizers (1.6 mb)

Or perhaps they feel kinda sexy, but they look pretty dumb. You know the look: droopy eyes, funhouse mirror faces. I rather dig it sometimes....

Yes it's true. I never had a synthesizer back in the 80s and I'm experiencing a mid-life crisis. Wouldn't you?

a feast of snakes

MP3: Martha & the Snakes (2.4 mb)

If I had to choose, I'd say that my favorite Harry Crews book is probably A Feast of Snakes (though that Gypsy's Curse story from the Classic Crews collection ranks about as high as anything). Grotesque more often than not, his tales expose the slithering underbelly of rural Southern culture in sharp contrast to those of greats such as Capote and O'Connor. It can be vile and depraved, but it's sure good for your eyes.

Martha's snakes aren't quite as real, and therefore aren't quite so frightening. With the change of a word or two, it might make a nicely disturbing children's song.

pure imagination

MP3: Pure Imagination (2.6 mb)

This entry's mp3 was written by Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse for the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Jeff Booth and I recorded this version of the song at his studio for the LittleWalks New York children's video, and I'm not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up here but I thought it would be nice to make it available at least for a listen.

Besides being a great guy on all fronts, Jeff's an amazingly talented musician and someone that I'd like to nominate for sainthood right now for all his patience with my never-ending struggle to find the "right note." (Check out Jeff and his brother Dwayne's music here)

My favorite part of this song is the instrumental break. After we figured out the backwards guitar lead and Jeff kindly let me play it, he added a beautifully complimentary guitar part using the e-bow. I couldn't be happier with the way the melodies snake around each other. Excellent.

For those interested in the playing credits: I played a couple of guitars, Jeff played some guitars, bass, tambourine and drum programming, and Tim Shea played some drumstuffs. I can't remember if we lifted the organ intro from my original demo or if Jeff played that fresh for this version. Oh well. Enjoy....

dreams never end

MP3: Who's Been In Your Dreams? (2.4 mb)

Several months ago, I had a dream that I was having a telephone conversation with the very funny comedienne Amy Poehler, the details of which are documented in this entry's MP3.

It got me thinking again about the people that populate our dreams: usually they're people we know, or occasionally celebrities of some sort, but many times people that aren't familiar to us make appearances of varying degrees of note. Often I'm sure they're huddled in the background, bit players in the performance, but sometimes they play a more dominant role - such as the unknown man who sold doughnuts in many of my childhood dreams. Paging Dr. Freud. Who are these people?

My first guess is that their faces are ones we've seen somewhat peripherally during our waking hours, whether on the street or maybe even in magazines or on television. But what if - sometimes - they were real people who happened to be having their own dream that got cross-referenced with our dream?

For instance, what if Amy Poehler actually had a dream that she was speaking with a stranger on the telephone while she was eating Chinese food, and that stranger was me having the same dream but from my point of view? You see, I would be a stranger to her since she doesn't know me, and because of that the dream would probably offer little reason for her conscious mind to remember it. But - it was me on the phone, whether she knew it or not.

A simple movement or rhyme
Could be the smallest of signs

Don't you just love early New Order? I like to think Amy Poehler does too, but that's probably just me dreaming....

somewhere apart

MP3: There's A Girl I Know (3.7 mb)

I'm in the process of ripping all of my CDs (and some vinyl and cassettes as well) into the computer since that seems to be the way I mostly listen to music these days. It's a never-ending task but I've got a dedicated hard drive, and iTunes makes it all streamlined and organized.

Last night was the night to tackle the Robyn Hitchcock discs, and there are quite a few of them. I've usually found that the music I like best, rather than being something just enjoyable to listen to, is the music that inspires me in my own attempts at writing. Robyn never fails there. His surrealistic tendencies, memorable melodies and explorations of both body and spirit (often in humorous and enlightening ways) are always a spark igniting the fuse to my muse.

Listening to his songs, the itch to do some recording landed on me hard, and I thought what a great exercise it would be to try recording one song every weekend and post the results here. A lofty goal I know, but I was doing something similar a few years ago - recording and uploading two songs a month to my website - and I found it an enjoyable and educational experience. Plus, working with that type of deadline/commitment helped lift a lot of the old songs off of the notebook paper and into their proper dimension in space...and it kept me focused (the bane of my existence being a lack thereof). The results may be predictably quick, rough & noisy, but modern technology makes it fairly easy to clean them up when there's time or a suitable reason to do so. No guarantees that I'll pursue that but I might, so check back and see, okay?

So - properly inspired, I sat down to write and record a new song last night. Unfortunately, it was becoming late and the few words and chords I had strung together weren't quite getting anywhere. Then I remembered a song I'd written several years ago and often played when sitting around with guitar in hand, but never recorded. I suppose still being shocked at the recent death of Nikki Sudden brought it to mind as I had been living with some records by Epic Soundtracks (Nikki's brother, who passed away in 1997) at the time I wrote it. "That's the one," I tho