http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3c32wBYdU0
Same Mistake by James Blunt
The Olympics should not be in China. The games are not about sport, they are about everything else. Whether it is politics, terrorism or human rights, something will over shadow any individual sporting achievement. I feel sorry for the athletes, because their once in a lifetime chance is going to be overshadowed by a substance greater than the great wall of China smog. Personally I could care less about the Olympics, I am sure I will watch some of it but I am not alone in my lack of enthusiasm for it. By going to China the Olympics have shamed themselves, they obviously didn't learn any lessons from going to Moscow. Olympic games cannot change cultures, they can alter lives and perhaps stimulate economies for a short period of time but in the end politics will win the bigger gold medal. China and the Olympic committee can put up their own smog but after the Olympics leave China will still be its controversial self.
"They come out of the blue sky but you never know where they're gonna go..."
Miller's Angels by Counting Crows (Too bad I can't find a link to the song)
The beautiful thing about the Internet is its abundance of "free" music. It makes collecting and listening to live bootlegs of your favourite band very easy. I naturally do this with Counting Crows. There seems to be no shortage of their performances and late last week they themselves launched http://livecountingcrows.com/, a website with soundboard recordings of their concerts. These concerts can be purchased and initially there was a free concert for the first 10,000 fans who signed up, which I was one of. It is a good show with a unique set list.
Yesterday I was listening to another show from November 1995, prior to the recording of Recovering The Satellites and it contains raw songs that would and wouldn't end up on RTS. The show from the Hollywood Grand in Los Angeles is impressive for Margery Dreams Of Horses (unreleased), Chelsea (hidden track, rarely played live), Suffocate and Good Luck (unreleased) but the highlight for me is the very raw version of Miller's Angels. The album version sounds pretty raw but this is even more so. The song which is rarely played is beautiful and depressing. It isn't a concert song, but it is a song I would want to hear at a concert. Which is what makes me a real fan. After the concert ended, I started listening to random songs from my iTunes player and immediately Miller's Angels came on. So when I sat down to write under the limited star sky last night, it influenced my writing.
The Living Dead Cannot Be Haunted
There are a few scatter stars tonight
The moon is low and reddish
Summer nears its symbolic zenith
We are in the dog days of August
Where it is hot, humid and overcast
I am waiting for the colours of September
The weather making women more beautiful
With voices like Jewel and faces like Natalie
Imagining is my dreaming unlike sleeping
Where tossing and turning are common
The normality of this silence is not shocking
I have come to expect nothing less or more
Voices are only ghosts of a distant past
There is little for them here with me now
The living dead cannot be haunted
We are already scared and ready to die
Unfortunately or fortunately our time waits
For what the moon does not answer
Our questions are too many anyway
All the good answers have been spoken
There are no angels coming out of the blue sky
Whenever those skies are returned to us
After Romeo and Juliet have finished
What began with Miller and his angels
Even Samson and Delilah’s love was flawed
There is nothing that is not with time
I am as much indebt to it as anyone
Though it is unlikely it will be paid back
The enormity of my waste is too vast
A life should be used for living and trying
There is some honour in this type of failing
I am a disgraced soldier in humanity’s army
A coward of the heart and a thief of the mind
My love, my ideas, my words and my life
They are only fragments of somebody’s imagination.
08/05/08
"I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers and all other instruments of faith and sex and God..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yP6Vwc2vJY
Rain King by Counting Crows (August 5 Hersey PA)
Today I watched The Last Castle, a movie from 2001, starring Robert Redford, James Gandolfini and Mark Ruffalo. It was an alright movie with a little suspense, some action and some good acting. Though nothing spectacular, it passed a couple of hours. Redford plays a disgraced General sent to prison, Gandolfini is the "murderous" warden and Ruffalo one of the other inmates. The power struggle between Redford and Gandolfini is the focal point of the movie because there can only be one king of the castle. There is a link below to information about the movie.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272020/
"Come and sit with me, and cry on my shoulder, I'm a friend..."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uKPFBr_Nqc
Cry by James Blunt
The following is from A Painted House by John Grisham.
"As we left town I thought about the end of the season. Baseball began in the spring, when we planted and when hope were high. It sustained us through the summer, often our only diversion from the drudgery of the fields. We listened to each game, then talked about the plays and the players and the strategies until we listened to the next one. It was very much a part of our daily lives for six months, then it was gone. Just like the cotton.
I was sad by the time we arrived home. No games to listen to on the front porch. Six months without the voice of Harry Caray. Six months with no Stan Musial. I got my glove and went for a long walk down a field road, tossing the ball in the air, wondering what I would do until April.
For the first time in my life, baseball broke my heart."
Anything we love will eventually break our heart, it will leave and if we are lucky it will return. Though in most cases, memories of love, heroes and our youth will be all that remains.
jr.
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