This Land is Your Land

At the local discount store I found a lovely little collection of Woody Guthrie songs for $2.99! I've already learned a few, with "This Land is Your Land" being one. I love the timbres of antiquated microphones and recorders and players; if I had the money and the time I'm sure I'd be busy collecting old 78rpm records.

While we're on the subject of music: I'm enthusiastically strumming a new copper-body resonator guitar. If you've never heard of such a thing, just try to envision something halfway between a guitar and a banjo: not too much twang, but more percussive than your standard acoustic guitar. I chose the copper body because it seems to contribute to a uniquely haunting sound.

I didn't earn the guitar; it was given to me by my wonderfully supportive parents. Thanks, mom and dad. I've been making great use of it already. Wrote a song on it, and it's not even a week old!

More soon. Goodnight.

Daylight Shavings

"Daylight Savings Time" confuses me. The following seems obvious, but let me remind myself and everybody else who's listening: shifting a man-made system of measurement does not actually produce any more sunlight in a day.

What it actually attempts to do is shift everybody's daily schedule backward by one hour. Here in Maine, this means that twilight descends somewhere around 3:30 in the afternoon, but the sunrise corresponds more closely to when most diurnal people are waking up.

Daylight savings time was first explained to me when I was a child; my mother said simply: "We get an extra hour of sleep." She meant that night we would get an extra hour of sleep, but I didn't know that. I thought that meant we got an extra hour of sleep every night from then on.

Daylight savings time actually shaves an hour of daylight out of my schedule. I can't sleep most nights, including this one, until very very late. By the time I wake up, sunrise is at least four hours in the rearview mirror already. So the hour that's tacked on to the beginning of the day? I never see it.

I hereby declare temporal war on the diurnal people of my time zone! Nocturnal people, unite to reclaim one of our few hours of sunlight!

Current Projects

Here's what I've been working on for the past week or so:

• The Halloween Parade, which is a small book of about two dozen or so limericks centering around fictional females dressed up in costumes performing acts that would make their fictional mothers blush.

• "A Man Does What he Can to Get On," a song about a musician busking during hard times. Nobody has any money for him... but characters keep giving him whatever they can, whatever's available. Comedy.
  
• "A Taste of Nature's Weapons," a song about the dangers of getting involved with a beautiful woman who doesn't think you're as great as you think she is.
• "There are Thieves About," a song about a moral-obsessed family locking their daughter away so that she can't be tempted into even the healthiest, safest sexual exploration.
• "Put Down Your Telescope," a song about a girl who loves only unattainable men... it's also about the very attainable man whom she ignores.
• "Homebody Alone," about the feeling of having stayed home all day by choice, then realized you feel left behind while everyone else is out having fun.
• "Redeye," a song about a beautiful insomniac.
• "Better-Rested, Healthier, Miserable," about a man who has the time now to start all kinds of good exercise and dietary habits as a result of losing his job.
• "Eddie Catch a Pretty Thing," a character sketch of a guitar player and raconteur.
• "Devil he Can't Shake," about nagging existential concerns.
• "My Little Blackbird," an attempt to express female sexuality by writing from the perspective of one during an amorous encounter.
• "Suspense," about sitting up awake late each night because the speaker lacks a sense of closure in his or her days.
• "Steady Time," about how there's a clock shop keeping time out there somewhere, even when things seem completely erratic and senseless... a clock is keeping neat, regular time.

So, that's thirteen or fourteen songs and a collection of limericks. I've listed only the projects with sufficient progress already made... many, many more are in the pipeline.

If one or more of the above ideas stand out and pique your interest, please let me know by commenting here!

Farewell for now.

Dirty Songs

Many traditional songs contain adult-themed subject matter. From "The Red Light Saloon" to "Roll Your Leg Over," bawdy songs kept folks entertained in the days before radio.

The most gruesome so far is a sea shantey built entirely of limericks, called "The Good Ship Venus." or "Frigging in the Rigging." It's ghastly. Parts of it of course are laugh-out-loud funny, but most of it is astonishing and terrifying. She's perfect.

By the way, I believe a recording of "The Good Ship Venus" is available on Rogue's Gallery, a double-disc set of sea shanteys that includes a singing performance by Johnny Depp under the assumed name of Jack Shit. There are also two performances by Baby Gramps. I wrote about him earlier this week.

Happy Belated Halloween! Mwa ha ha.

An Early Awakening & Farewell

As I finally packed myself into bed at 2:00am last night, I feared that I wouldn't be able to rise by 9:30am.

I woke up promptly at 7:30, though, thanks to a fortissimo performance of "Composition for Garbage Truck and Soprano Dog." Finally it's 9:00. The truck has roamed on. The dog is silent. And I'm grateful to be awake, because I've struggled vainly for months to sleep earlier at night and wake earlier in the morning. Despite all efforts, I don't often see daylight until ten or later.

As Winter approaches, some friends are taking off across-country; others will soon return home for the holidays. It has become an annual rhythm, like snowfall or turning leaves; some perch while others fly.

Some of you, like forces of nature, embody the summertime. That season is shrinking in the rearview mirror, but I can't wait to see you all again.

Safe journeys!
-Nicholas

P.S. For a lovely farewell song, sing yourself a rousing chorus of "Bound for South Australia."

I'll Give You Sugar for Sugar, Salt for Salt.

I've been digging through books, old records, and archives. The goal is to unearth roots music that I can learn, enjoy, expand upon, and perform. The search has been fruitful: I've found sea chanteys about falling in love with anonymous prostitutes, traditional blues songs about existential angst, broadside ballads full of the filthiest limericks I've ever set eyes upon, and British drinking songs about lecherous clergymen.

My favorite lyrics so far, though, may belong to "James Alley Blues," which was originally recorded in 1927 in New Orleans by the man who wrote it. His name was Richard "Rabbit" Brown. The second and third verses set the theme:

I've seen better days, but I'm puttin' up with these...
I'd have a much better time, but these girls are so hard to please.


'cause I was born in the country, she thinks I'm easy to rule...
She tryin' to hitch me to her wagon and drive me just like a mule.


Kinky. Now have a peek at the last three verses!

I'll give you sugar for sugar, let you get salt for salt...
And if you can't get along with me, it's your own fault.

You want me to love you, then you treat me mean...
You're my daily thought, you're my nightly dream.

Sometimes I think that you're too sweet to die... too sweet to die...
Another time, I think you oughta be buried alive.

Now those're some strong blues.

"Life is a Hard Puzzle, I Know..."

My good pal Dan saw an amazing performer named Baby Gramps on the David Letterman show performing a traditional sea shantey, "Cape Cod Girls." View it here:



The didgeridoo is an Australian Aborigine instrument, of course. There also happens to be one surgically implanted somewhere inside of Baby Gramps.

If you liked that one, have a gander at his rendition here of "Satisfied 'n Tickled Too."



"Life is a hard puzzle, I know. A hard puzzle..."

Certain art, certain acts, certain people help us forget about the world's teeth and claws for a while. Baby Gramps strikes me as an old-time bluesman or medicine show entertainer juxtaposed into the present day. I have never seen another human being entertain a crowd like he does.

There's literature in Gramps's repertoire; I've heard him quote Shakespeare and Friedrich Nietzsche during live performances.

Check him out by visiting his steam-powered website, www.babygramps.com!