Music, Politics and New Course

Just Come.

I'm always uncertain about everything, it seems, lately, and ready to jump ship. This week all I have thought about is being in Glasgow. A bit of rain, some small meat pie and a dark ale.

The smell of wet clothes and dogs.

I love California. I love Los Angeles. I love North Hollywood.

I have loved it for over 20 years, and that is a long time. I have ownership, and opinions. I get pissy about what I see. I even talk to myself. I say things like "OH COME ON!!" when I see mounds of trash, or a man collapsed on a mound of trash, his mouth open, his body so shrunken. I have no idea what to do about this.

Well, maybe I do need to phone my councilman and make an appointment.

I'm not a NIMBY. I swear. I love history, mom and pop restaurants, back yards, green space, neighbors I know, small markets, Trader Joe's, dog parks, In and Out Burger, Laemmle Noho Theater, The El Portal Theater, The Republic of Pie, Hayley's Wines, even The Noho Diner, Pitfire Pizza, and Granville. NOHO is supposed to be a Theater Arts District, so the more theaters the better.

What I don't like is the seemingly abandoned strip of Lankershim from Oxnard to Victory, where pandering and prostituting, litter, waste and utter filth clog the landscape. A lonely Starbucks and a Superior Grocery store that reeks of rotting food outside itself.

Meanwhile, developers are building homes east of Lankershim, sucking up space and providing no parking. Our street looks like a parking lot. It is becoming increasingly expensive to live on my block, which means no one is buying. Even renting is unaffordable.

What does this rant have to do with music and politics?

Much as I have refrained from reading papers and watching news, I feel politics. I see the effects of the budget cuts and the austerity, where I live. Sooner or later, laws enacted affect everyone's quality of life.

My tendency is to try to escape. Escape with music from another time, a time before I was alive and aware.

But friends. That isn't working. I don't want to get drunk, high, distracted. At the same time, I do not want to get angry, moody, bitchy, and overwhelmed.

What is social responsibility? What is survival? What is it to write and perform music that means something to someone else?

One word occurs: FREEDOM. Feeling free is a beautiful state of being. Cutting loose. Dancing without thinking. Laughing one's arse off. Watching something and getting lost in it. Doing a minimum thing. Like having an extra five bucks and giving it to someone who's looking for a meal.

Yeah, the big things are voting. Protesting maybe. Writing postcards. Calling reps.

But the biggest political musical life thing is to keep the energy up. Not to give up. To do the minimum, but to do it. Everybody doing the little things really does change the course.

There is LOVE and there is REST. Living is a balance of these two.

So much going on. So many people doing so many things. This is the excitement of living in one of the great cities of the world.

I am releasing a song this week, just before the 4th of July. It is called "The 25th Hour" and it is about that feeling that we are on the edge of something. It is about a feeling of isolation, in which friends don't pick up the phone, and everyone is aware of greed and power men taking more than their fair share.

But this song is a guitar jam, free style, a place to feel in a groove and play with heart, not knowing exactly where we are going but trusting in the rhythm.

To me, performing should contain an element of this freedom. Not knowing but ending up ok. Suspended in a groove with other people who are part of the performance and affecting what is played. You can't underestimate an audience. They affect everything the performers do.

Just the way constituents affect politics. We can't underestimate the value of being present, just showing up, being there.

A friend of mine recently confessed he would rather be playing his guitar than coming to watch someone else perform. This comment saddened me, because it implies that audience members are passive and not a part of the performance.

I would like to think I play differently depending on who is present. It's never the same, nor should it be, if it is a freeing thing.

The new course, I think, at least for me, is to recognise that I matter. This means it matters to others when I show up. I am not invisible and I am not without power. Listening is power. And performance, it could be said, is only a response to that generous act of others willing, waiting and excited to hear.

We have to believe that this is the best politics. And it is for all of us.

So come. Let's do this together.