The Intergalactic Cowboy

Today’s movie was The Good Shepherd. It was not exciting at all; all two hours and forty-five minutes of it. I actually dozed off for a few minutes, right there in the theater, this, during a movie that Angelina Jolie has a role in nontheless.  A.J. plays the most tame character of her career. I personally like her better when she portrays a bisexual, drug crazed, seductress. In my half-awake state, I never understood the connection between the storyline and the title, The Good Shepherd. This movie is about loving one’s country more than one’s family. I see nothing good or shepherdly about that. Maybe I will get it later.

With disinterest,

I.C.

I am in Atlanta for a couple of days, enjoying the benefits of city life. This afternoon I saw the new Mel Gibson movie. It was a lot more intense than I expected. The trailers make it look like a docu-drama but let me tell you that it is not for the faint of heart.

The movie begins with some scenes from Mayan family life in the Central American jungle. While the village is sleeping, another tribe comes and captures the village, burning down all of the huts. The village people are taken into slavery, but not for the purpose of doing work; they are taken to a city to be used as human sacrifices to the god of that city.

During the death march to the city, the enslaved tribespeople are subjected to some of the most graphic torture and humiliation that has ever been caught on film. The camera angles and lighting capture the abuse in gut wrenching detail. Perhaps I should describe it in this way :

Imagine a version of Clockwork Orange that is set in ancient Mayan times. The production and directing of this movie is equal to Stanley Kubrick. Then imagine that Quentin Tarrantino was allowed to write and direct the torture scenes a’ la’ Kill Bill Vol. One and Two. Well then you would have this movie. I was really expecting something a little more cultural. A couple of people had to leave the movie after about thirty minutes. The acting is incredible, or maybe the violence is just so in your face that you don’t notice the acting; I don’t know.

Viewer beware,

I.C.

Today I received help from physical, mental and spiritual sources. I thank you all.  A much needed email arrived from software goddess / medical technician  S. P. , who advised me on the proper use of a hand splint. I learned that I need to use it when I sleep in order to prevent my wrist from curling inward.

At the health club today, everyone else split at 12:45 pm, giving me the privacy that I needed  to set the weight machine to the twenty pound setting and exercise my upper body muscles to at least a minimal degree. I do not want to totally neglect my upper body strength, but, on the other hand, I don’t want to completely disable my right wrist before this upcoming performance. We will see how the wrist feels tomorrow morning. This gig at Smith’s Olde Bar may just be a one nighter, but I have to get my playing up to as high a level as I would to begin a tour. I can’t let the audience down simply because it is a one night event. My rehearsal today involved simply finding the notes; not putting any emotion into them. The music may have originated in the heart, but the remembering of it originates in the mind and sometimes even in the body; in a seeming reverse order to the way it was created. And speaking of looking back at music …

For the past two nights, while lying in bed, I have been listening to some old Nobz live recordings from 1979 and 1980.  We fancied ourselves at that time to have evolved from a punk band into a more polished new wave band. These live recordings are so raucous that we sound just as punk as we did in 1977, without realizing it at the time. At the 1979 gig at The Big Dipper on Ponce de Leon Avenue, our bass player had left the band and I had to play bass and sing at the same time.  Today, I am shocked at how well I pulled it off, considering that I have no aptitude for bass playing. Two of the songs from this show will be used on the next Nobz re-issue.  The other live recording, from 1980, was made at the Agora on Peachtree Street. The songs are mostly written by the other guitarist, Tim Trautman, who did most of the singing at this gig. Tim’s free form lead guitar playing was in top form at this show !  He and I both play occasional keyboards at this show, which neither of us had any aptitude for. I can’t believe that we displayed our lack of keyboard knowledge at a 1,000 seat club like this, but then again, arrogance was one of the prerequisites for being a part of the new wave movement. If you didn’t have arrogance and a total lack of talent, the new wave community would not accept you. This may have been the night that we opened for the Swimming Pool Qs and the Method Actors; I’m not sure. There are three or four rockin’ songs from this show that will be used on the CD.  

With reacquaintance,

I.C.

right hand still immobilized but pain free.

alleve helps.

it’s either a strained ligament or a torn tendon.

internet articles say that you just have to wait it out; but for how long ?  i have to start rehearsing for this gig in atlanta in february !

oddly, my mind and spirit are feeling much better than usual. morning sittings have been succesful in the act of sending out love to other people.

at least i am good for something…

i.c.

its bad luck to brag.

right wrist in terrible pain from workout.

hurts too bad to even type with it.

using alleve and wrist immobilizer.

dammitall.

i.c.

Today at the health club I lifted sixty pounds with my injured wrist. It did not feel as though I had damaged it any further. Wonderful !  Sometimes when the manager of the club is off property, the fitness attendants play their own CDs on the sound system, rather than the approved radio station. Today, the attendant was playing a modern band that sounded a lot like the 1970s band ” Renaissance.” You know, female vocalist; lots of mellotron and acoustic piano; chord progressions of more than three chords. You get the idea. I walked into the office and asked her who the band was. “Evanescence”  was her reply. I had heard of them but had never heard their music before. I told her that they sounded like Renaissance. This young woman had not even been born when Ren. was out playing. I saw Ren. at the Electric Ballroom in
Atlanta in about ‘74 or ‘75. One of the women that I was with that night fell asleep during the lush, dreamy performance. She didn’t sleep during the opening act however. It was the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, whose opening number was “Faith Healer.” What a powerful, theatrical spectacle. This band helped to influence me into the direction of theatrical rock. I read on the internet somewhere that the S.A.H.B. had done some reunion shows in England with a replacement singer. Alex Harvey himself passed on to his great reward many years ago. I will never forget him and his band.

Yesterday, the g.c. aphorism generator displayed ” Sometimes no answer is the best answer, especially if the answer is no.” That statement is resonating with me today.

Onward,

I.C.

Yesterday I received an e-mail from Bennett Books with a quote from J.G. Bennett that I had never encountered before. The quote is about the difference between enjoyment and pleasure. The distinction between the two concepts is that enjoyment involves the creation and conservation of energy, but that pleasure involves the wasting of the energy of enjoyment. Obviously, conserving energy is better than wasting it, but my understanding of the distinction between enjoyment and pleasure is a little fuzzy.

Perhaps it could be thought of in this way :  Sometimes in life, we encounter what I refer to as a ” flirtation in the world of interacting hearts.”  We may have met someone with which we can see ourselves as having a lifelong bond with. This experience can cause our hearts to fill with joy. The temptation may be to go jumping up and down on a couch like Tom Cruise did on a talk show recently. A better use of this joy would be to allow it to power us along in our everyday work, while maintaining a relaxed and attentive state.

I have a lot more thinking to do about this, but these are my initial thoughts on this subject.

With new found intrigue,

I.C.

Since writing my NYE entry yesterday, I have accomplished a lot; a lot for what is normally considered a holiday, that is. Yesterday, I spent over an hour working on my income taxes; capital gains and losses specifically. There were about twenty of them to compute. I then changed the strings on my Ovation. Ahhh !!!  The joy !  The joy was in the sound of the new strings, not the changing of the old ones. But frankly, yesterday was a day with some extra free time.

Today I went to the health club with the intention of exercising my lower body muscles. The right wrist is still experiencing a little pain. When I arrived at the club, there was not one single other person working out there. I decided to test the wellness of my wrist by lifting the minimum amount of weight on the military press machine.  Since no one was looking, I could set the machine to twenty pounds without embarrassing myself. Believe me, not even a skeletal, anorexic / bulimic would be caught dead lifting a miniscule twenty pounds in this club, much less a 180 pound adult like myself. I lifted the twenty pounds with no problem ! Hooray !  Then the door of the gym opened suddenly ! A man walked in !  I quickly moved the pin from the twenty pound weight to the one hundred pound weight to create the impression that I had just lifted one hundred pounds. At that point, I got up and moved to a lower body exercise in order to just avoid the whole subject of how much weight I had just lifted. It turned out that the man that had walked in was a friend of mine named Andy. Andy is an accomplished musician himself and I felt that I could explain to him why I was lifting so little weight, which I did. He understands what a big part of my life guitar playing is and how I didn’t want to jeapordize that by intensifying my injury of last week. He confessed that he had previously had to give up weight lifting for a year due to an injury. He cautioned me to be careful. So, at this point, I walked back to the military press and lifted progressively more weight in small increments. When I lifted forty pounds with no injury, I felt that I had had a successful workout on that piece of equipment. I even lifted forty pounds on the arm curl machine. The exercise that I need to avoid like the plague is the one where I jump up; grab the parallel bar and hang for a few seconds. That, in my estimation, is the one that injured my wrist. It may be good for my back but it is just to dangerous for me right now.

My year is beginning with small, incremental changes which are transformative. I hope that the rest of the year continues this trend. I also hope to have the company of supportive people like my friend in the health club today.

With accomplishment,

I.C.