Anyway. there are a lot of fun musical projects in the works around here, and I hope to be letting you know about them very soon. Stay tuned!

PETRI DISH

Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish
Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish

Today the rain came down in bubbles
The bubbles wiggle then they disappear
Then some more come down to take their place
Ignorant of any fear

Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish
Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish

Today the morning looked like Summer
By afternoon everything was gray
When the evening came it all shut down
Creaking as it crept away

I can’t get no result
I can’t get no result

Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish
Sometimes I feel like a failed experiment
In a giant scientist’s petri dish

Stanley Francis Baconstrip had just finished reading the sentence, “The discoveries of modern science have no doubt given their own verdict of opposing alternatives – of either the Buddha or the bomb, for instance – and it is up to each of us to decide which path to follow [1],” when the old tea kettle began its gurgling, pre-whistle throat clearing.

“Better get to it before it screams and wakes the missus,” he said to no one including himself, being the only one at the early morning kitchen table. “Don’t want to send any sirens into her dreams.”

As he took the four steps to the stove, the plastic-covered foam cushion on the seat of the chair he’d been sitting on for the past half hour attempted a slow puffing up toward its usual fullness. He turned the dial on the front of the stove to OFF, causing the circling flame to retreat from the eye, and the gurgling water within the kettle to settle to a soft yet simmery stillness. Lifting the kettle from the stovetop, he hovered it above a Disneyworld mug which contained, flung over its rim like a kite crashed in a ditch, one small bag of Tetley tea attached to a string.

He began pouring the steaming water out of the kettle and into the mug, but that’s when a funny thing happened. His wife suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway, slightly tussled from sleep but obviously well awake, holding the same mug into which he had just been pouring the water.

Startled at the sight, he looked down and saw that the mug was no longer on the counter – how could it be? – and the kettle was resting quietly on a back burner of the stove, rather than in his right hand. His right hand, and in fact the left as well, was pressed down upon the countertop, and his stance and demeanor were exactly like someone standing in a kitchen trying to remember what they were doing.

“Thanks for the tea,” she said, walking toward the sink to rinse the mug. “That was sweet of you to wake me with it.”

“Mmm,” he said, staring at the stove and trying to remember. He looked at the tiny clock above the burners in hopes of placing himself somewhere in time, but that did no good. He’d always considered clocks to be no more than measuring cups for time, using them only to gauge how long he had between, say, his dental appointment and his office meeting, and when he should arrive for each. They served him no purpose when he had no place to be, so he had no idea at what time he’d started tending the tea.

He turned to speak to her, but felt a sudden stinging in the fingers of his left hand and realized that he had overfilled the mug with hot water that had now flowed across the countertop and spread to the fingers he had resting there. He quickly placed the kettle back on the stove as he shook the water from his wet hand and wiped it on the leg of his pants. Grabbing a dish towel, he wiped the counter clean, as well as the sides and bottom of the mug, and took a breath to calm himself.

From the bedroom down the hall, he heard the chirping of his wife’s alarm clock, and then a muffled moan and thump to retrieve silence. He smiled thinking of her in those early morning moments when her guard was down from sleep, and decided that a fresh cup of hot tea might make her transition into the day a more pleasant one.

By the time he entered the bedroom, she had already forgotten that she’d been dreaming she was in the kitchen reading as the kettle threatened to boil.

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THE BUDDHA OR THE BOMB

You’ve got left and right
And you’ve got up and down
Would you recognize silence
If you didn’t know sound?
If I’m moving toward you
I’m moving away from something else
And anything I touch
Is being touched by a thing (called me)

Black and white
Day and night
Right or wrong
It’s the Buddha or the bomb

Consciousness is renewable
And evolving too
Just look at the spaces in
You think, you say, and you do
Everything is vibrating
But looks like sitting still
And even destiny aligns
To your own free will

Black and white
Day and night
Right or wrong
It’s the Buddha or the bomb

You’ve got left and right
And you’ve got up and down
How can anything intrude
On your hallowed ground?
Hallowed ground is everywhere
And everywhere is everything
So what I do to you
Circles ’round the ring (of life)

Black and white
Day and night
Right or wrong
It’s the Buddha or the bomb

[1] from Sri Aurobindo: Evolutionary Ideas Of Sri Aurobindo by Kishore Gandhi

I’ve recently become disappointed that none of the biographies I read devote any significant amount of time to the dream lives of their subjects. Considering we spend approximately 1/3 of our lives asleep, and much of that dreaming, that adds up to a considerable chunk of time. Granted, most dreams are forgotten by morning, and many of them appear to be little more than re-hashed if not twisted fodder from our waking hours, but I’d like to suggest that in order to get a true and complete picture of a person – a picture that allows us to really understand one another – peeking behind the curtain for an examination of the dreaming life is essential.

Dreams have inspired scientists and philosophers, artists and engineers, saints and politicians, probably even you and me at some point. They’ve been documented as providing lucid blueprints for some of our greatest discoveries. They’ve shone a light on our fears and anxieties, and uncovered feelings we never knew we had (and perhaps even created a few that we didn’t have). They’re a curious part of our existence, a unique playing ground for our imaginations and emotions…and possibly entire other parts of the Universe of which we’re unaware. They’re just too damn weird and common to be written off as insignificant, and like it or not, they are a large part of who you are.

So please, potentially famous readers. Keep a dream journal and maybe, when your story is told and sold in whatever may pass as a bookstore in the future, we’ll be blessed with a more complete picture of who you really were.

This month’s song is another random frequency experiment, but it felt like dreaming to me. (Up at the top, above the video.)

The taxman’s taken all my dough
And left me in my stately home
Lazin’ on a sunny afternoon

Well it’s tax time once again, and I wanted to record a song celebrating this most unjoyful time of year. Key, that: record, not write. And so it lands right above the first verse from itself at the top there.

The obvious choice – perhaps the only real choice, Taxman by the Beatles’ George Harrison (who’s fairly frequently my Fab Four fave, and who uttered the title of this post in a live version of his tax song) – was just a little too…erhm, obvious. That didn’t deter me, though, from learning the song and funking glee all over the studio when I nailed the awesome and surprisingly easy bass line (except that part in the 3rd verse/bridge where he does I don’t know the hell what). But you know, the song’s too iconic for my meager skills, and so I left its bony skeleton hanging in the computer for another day and turned my sights to another formidable English songwriter, the Storyteller hisself, Mr. Ray Davies. (Oh yeah…that doesn’t set the barre any higher, now does it.)

Growing up, there were precisely three (3) songs by Davies’ group the Kinks that I was aware of: Lola, You Really Got Me, and All Day and All of the Night. [As a quick aside, if I may, I was playing that third song on acoustic guitar once in high school along the banks of the Tennessee River when one of my classmates came along and started singing, "Hello, I love you won't you tell me your name...." "No," I said, "it's Girl, I want, to be with you in the daytime...."]

On a whim, the summer following that Kinksy/Doorsy confusion, I picked up an album called Kinks Greatest Hits and to my surprise grew swiftly tired of the three (3) songs that had prompted my purchase, falling in love instead with another trio of tunes that I must have heard along the way somehow but that had never soaked into my head as they did now: A Well Respected Man, Tired of Waiting for You, and Set Me Free. This was something else altogether, and something worth treasuring. I still have that album, by the way.

So onward we go and my love affair with the Kinks has run hot and warm, but rarely cold because even when the latest offerings weren’t so great there was always something from their vast catalog seeping into my brain and pressing the “Like” button. And I’ve got a secret to tell: you’d never know it from just listening, but it was Ray I was trying to conjure vocally on what I suppose is the first official Marble Tea song.

There’s miles of evidence to suggest and affirm that Ray Davies is one of the most wonderful and prolific of contemporary songwriters. Fortunately, one of his songs concerns the Taxman (among many other hinted dramas), and so I’ve chosen to try my hand at recording it for you today. I hope you’ll enjoy it (it’s up at the top of this post if you missed it). If you’re not familiar with the song, here’s a video to give you an idea. Now go and get Kinky!

Travel Light on Your Road

For some reason, I was reading an article about traveling songs and I remembered a song I’d written a few years ago but not posted here for you. I have the feeling I let it out somewhere though, so apologies if you’ve heard it before….

As much as I love seeing new places and experiencing hotel culture (yeah, I’m one of those weirdos that actually enjoys hotel rooms), I’m not particularly fond of traveling, and I think the main reason can be found in one essential preparatory act: packing. I’ve never found that sweet spot of bringing along just the right amount of items with me on a trip. Always too much or too little, but I’ve found that the less I’m toting around with me, the more pleasant the journey.

Some say modern developments in technology make it unnecessary to actually have to travel anywhere, allowing you to experience and interact with distant places and cultures without leaving your home. As great as that sounds to a homebody like me, we both know that one hasn’t really been to a place if one hasn’t eaten the food, breathed the air, and smelled the skin of the locals. But it’s interesting to me that I’ve driven down roads in Hawaii that I’d swear were exactly the same roads I’d driven down in Alabama, and sat in a park in Spain that you’d be hard pressed to convince me wasn’t a park in San Antonio. There’re lots of differences in this vast and varied world we live in, but there are also many, many similarities.

Now this song obviously isn’t really about traveling in that sense. It’s just a mantra for freeing up your mind and your body as you take your journey down life’s lonely and exciting highway. (And remember what the George-mouse said.)

Also don’t forget: There’s a 5-song EP called A Blizzard / A True Storm that’s available as a free download exclusively for Marble Tea Facebook friends. Come be one and get your copy!

I’d Rather See You Than Avatar

Not too long ago, I received an email from Hackydog that simply said,

I have a title that could use a song:
‘I’d Rather See You Than Avatar’

I’m not sure why exactly, but I connected with that and within about an hour had recorded the song presented to you today. It’s silly and absurd, but it’s also very short. All the things Avatar is not, as I understand it. I was a little concerned about the questioning of my pronunciation of minotaur, but I’m happy to find that the American Heritage Dictionary, at least, backs me up.

So no, I haven’t seen that movie, and I doubt I will for quite a while. Probably I’ll eventually check it out on DVD (or Blu-ray or whatever happens to be the technologie du jour down the road), but I’m currently suffering from that nagging inability to separate the man from the art thing with James Cameron. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of any of his films – well, Terminator was cool and the sequel looked really good – and I don’t think I’d enjoy having dinner with him under any circumstance I could imagine. Your mileage may vary of course, and I realize it’s a shame to let my personal hunches about someone interfere with my enjoyment of their creations, but you know…that’s how I feel right now. I will say that his hair looked really good on SNL a couple of weeks ago, though.

Have you ever liked or not liked something just because of the person behind it? You can be honest with me.

And oh yes, in case you don’t know: I’ve just released a 5-song EP called A Blizzard / A True Storm that’s available as a free download exclusively for Marble Tea Facebook friends. Come be one and get your copy!

You can hate me if you want, but Catcher in the Rye is my least favorite book by J.D. Salinger. In fact, it’s not even one of my favorite books by anybody. And yet, oddly enough, Salinger is one of my favorite writers.

Certainly I recognize the importance of Catcher in shaping the lives and outlooks of any number of angry young men (and, perhaps, the women who love and hope to understand them), and I realize too the profound cultural impact it’s had. However, it seems to me that Salinger was just warming up with that one.

I was sitting on an airplane once, reading yet again my worn paperback copy of Franny and Zooey, when the gentleman next to me said he had heard Salinger had only written one good book, that Holden Caufield one. This was probably twenty-five years ago, and the man appeared to be about the age I am now, though much more successful judging by the fabric of his suit, the shine of his shoes and the length of his belt.

I looked at him with every intention of explaining why the other books were at least as worthy of the praise – my God, the spiritual themes, the poetry, the letters, that wedding, the soldiers, the bathtub, the apartment buildings, the cigarettes…Seymour Glass, of all things beautiful and holy – but all I said was, “No, the others are really good too.”

How could I explain to him the magic and power of that slim little book I held in my hands; the way, after each reading, I’d slid into a cocoon of sorts, a place not completely unlike Murakami‘s deep well where time and place and I were indistinguishable, and from which I emerged each time with renewed vigor and creativity as though I had indeed been a caterpillar waiting to blossom into a colorful butterfly, now free and vividly alive in the world – in it and of it – embracing and lifted by the spontaneous and erratic breezes of life? “No, the others are really good too.”

That’s all he needed to know, and probably all you need to know too if you haven’t read them. So do. Please.

Now J. D. Salinger has died and the irony is that we may see more new work from him than we did during his lifetime, if the rumors are true. And I hope they are.

RIP, Jerome David Salinger.

9 Stories
He gave me Nine Stories by Salinger
And I gave them all to you
Will you think of me every time Seymour dies?
Because you know I was over that line

I’ve been dreaming
I’ve been dreaming
I’ve been dreaming about bananafish and you….

Here’s a video with the 9 Stories song and some drawings by Tom Hachtman:

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Let’s start the new year’s gaggle of songs with an instrumental, shall we? Above is a recent one I wrote & recorded for an independent film about an ill-fated Hindu dating service. The film’s a comedy, and some of the humor reminded me of those over-the-top sixties films that I love so much (I mean, those colors and miniskirts are outta sight, cat daddy!). In the usual manner of things, I’d recently re-watched The Party (1968) starring Peter Sellers, and it seemed a not surprisingly appropriate place to start for a bit of musical inspiration.

Here’s the trailer for that wonderful film if you’re not familiar:

I love that movie. It’s weird because it goes from madcap to nearly contemplative quite frequently, alternating, as many parties do, excitement and boredom along the way. Sellers is brilliant, and this was the only non-Pink Panther pairing he had with filmmaker Blake Edwards. You should know that…it might help you in a trivia game one day.

So now let me ask you: do you dig those sixties films, or do you find them tedious?

Well a happy Birdie Num Num to ya in either case!

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I love snow. Probably because, growing up in the Deep South, there wasn’t a lot of it around. Oh sure, we managed a flurry most years, but accumulation was a rare and meager thing: one inch and the whole town shut down. White Christmas? I didn’t know what that song was about until I was a teenager, since having snow on Christmas Day was never even a remote consideration.

Living in New Jersey these past nine years has allowed me to get to know snow better, and I still love it. Yes, it comes on big and brawny sometimes, and shoveling it is a royal pain, but as long as it’s cold outside it might as well be pretty, says I. And it is, at least until it gets mucked up along the roadways with all the dirt and grime of life and travel. Ah, but we must take the black with the white. Always.

Here’s a view out my window when I was recording yesterday:

And that brings us to this month’s song. Written by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne in July 1945 (in Hollywood of all places), it’s always been one of my favorites of the Holiday Season. But that’s kind of a shame really, that it’s so closely associated with Christmas…there’s no mention of that joyously celebrated day anywhere in the song, its authors were Jewish, and it was written in the middle of the Summer in Hollywood, CA for Pete’s Sake!

As lauded as the these two songsmiths are, I know that I’m not the only person to think the opening couplet should have been written slightly differently, and I took the liberty to do just that. You’re welcome.

So – while I present this version as a Christmas song, even though the tone is more somber than festive – remember that it’s okay to sing it whenever snow may appear throughout the year. Even if you’re noshing Gefilte fish by a pool under the bloody red sun of phantastic L.A.

Happy Holidays to you!

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Thanksgiving came and went without so much as a burp, if by burp you mean song (and I do). This song was intended to be a song for that holiday, but well you know me and so it’s moved along and become probably just what it wanted to be all along: not that at all. Oh there’s still some Thanksgiving in it – we haven’t finished all of our turkey, after all – but it’s mostly Tom Hanks giving you a hard time, not me. Just let it go….

Coincidentally, if you believe in that sort of thing, Mr. Hanks appears on David Letterman tonight. I did not plan that.

IS TOM HANKS GIVING YOU A HARD TIME?

Tom Hanks is a movie star
Cadillac is a fancy car
The Pavilion was my favorite bar
But it’s gone gone gone

Tom Hanks in a rocket ship
Section 25 From the Hip
Can’t kiss if you got no lip
It’s just gone gone gone

It’s gone, all these things have gone
But I’m happy for the other things
That keep coming along

Bosom Buddies and a face like mine
Slice of pizza and a jug of wine
Skinny-dippin’ back in ’89
It’s just gone gone gone

It’s gone, all these things have gone
But I’m happy for the other things
That keep coming along

Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Just let it go, let it go…

Ol’ da Vinci never had a clue
That I may be more than quarter Jew
Or about the things you like to chew
He’s just gone gone gone

Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Is Tom Hanks giving you a hard time?
Just let it go, let it go…

Tom Hanks on a fated trip
Jungle dancing in a sexy slip
Give me one of those I’d like a sip
And we’re gone gone gone

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Perhaps there’s no better time for a sacrilege than Halloween.

As the end of this month was drawing nigh and I was finally finding some time to work on this month’s song, I decided to do something in the frightful orange spirit of this holiday. I’ve been catching up on the first season of True Blood (having abandoned it last year as too not for me after watching the first episode…vampires don’t socialize with humans, after all), and I’m enjoying it now. I somehow got sucked in – if you’ll allow me to stick my neck out and say that – for the second season and so had to go back and find out the things I’d missed. Netflix to the rescue.

Well, two days ago I was driving around listening to the Velvet Underground’s Loaded, and an idea hit me. I hit it back, because there was no way I was going to take one of Lou’s songs and bastardize it into a tune about a TV vampire. I’m not Weird Al Yankovic you know. For better or worse, I’m not Joe Louis either so I succumbed to the idea’s punches and have carved out this hopefully enjoyable quick, rough and nasty for you. Happy Halloween!

Here’s the original for you:

LONESOME VAMPIRE BILL

Lonesome Vampire Bill cries the blood red tears
Lonesome Vampire Bill, you’ve got to see him
Face your darkest fears

Lonesome Vampire Bill cries the tears so red
Ever since the Rebels fell, cries the tears so red
Drinkin’ True yeah, suckin’ Sook
You gotta see him go
And all those fang-bangin’ girls
Well they just don’t know

Lonesome Vampire Bill cries the blood red tears
Lonesome Vampire Bill, you’ve got to see him
Face your darkest fears

Oh, Lonesome Vampire Bill still cries the tears so red
Up around Merlotte’s Bar she can’t see inside his head
Sometimes even Shreveport, down by Fangtasia
And all those fang-bangin’ girls
Oh well they still just don’t know

Lonesome Vampire Bill cries the blood red tears
Lonesome Vampire Bill, you’ve got to see him
Face your darkest fears

You’ve got to see him when he looks at her
In the evening and she’s in distress
You got to see all the people scream and shout
They call him
Lonesome Vampire Bill
Lonesome Vampire Bill
He goes, “Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrgh!”

Lonesome Vampire Bill cries the blood red tears
Lonesome Vampire Bill, you’ve got to see him
Face your darkest fears

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When someone tapes your voice, does it sound strange to you when you hear it played back? Mine does, as it does for so many people. The sound I hear myself making from inside my head, from within the acoustical confines of my skull I suppose, is often embarrassingly different from the sound emitting from the tape recorder. And I wonder if this implies a certain lack of self-awareness, or if it’s a matter of the way sound behaves in different spaces (inside a head, for instance, as opposed to out in the open air or magnetically captured onto tape). I have a feeling it’s the former, unfortunately.

Singing can be a whole ‘nother thing because we’re making noises with our voices that hopefully equate to certain notes on a musical scale. Often, a singer hitting wrong notes in a song can ruin the performance, but at other times it doesn’t seem to matter. Lloyd Cole once said something like, “I learned from Bob Dylan and Lou Reed that you don’t have to have a great voice to be a great singer,” and I think that’s true. Most of the singers that I like would rarely be accused of having great voices, but there’s something about their delivery that just fits the songs they sing.

And that, in a weird sort of way, brings us around to this month’s entry in the ever-rolling Marble Tea songfest. I’ll be the first to admit that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to singing (or tuning instruments, keeping time, etc.), but when I was recording this song I had the definite idea in my head that I should sound like Matt Berninger of The National in order to fully convey the mood I was hearing in my head. And in a way, in my head, I did indeed sound like him. The tape, on the other hand, reveals a totally different story.

So, if you really want to get a feel for my intention with this song, put yourself in my head and we’ll be somewhere in the ballpark. It’s just another ditty about the magic of universal consciousness after all….

BECAUSE WE ARE THE SKY

I’ll tell you one thing I have learned
There’s never a good time to be burned
On a stake
With your hands pure and soul like silver
And your eyes wide to life’s one river

I’ll give you one night to rehearse
The melody and the phrasing of the verse
Of the moon
That reflects into your dark cover
Telling you there is just one lover

And it knows it’s you
And it knows it’s you

So we ride, because we are the sky
And we are the sky so we ride

I’ll take you away from your heart
And we’ll glide along like sisters in the dark
To reveal
That our shadow selves are anchored to us
Like the wave of light that shines right through us

And you know it’s you
And you know it’s you

So we ride, because we are the sky
And we are the sky so we ride

If you’re playing around on Facebook, come be a friend at facebook.com/marbletea, and also be sure to check out the progress of my forthcoming EP at trumanshat.wordpress.com where I show you how you can make your own fun recordings from the comfort of your home, singing chops not required. Thanks for listening!

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