call me israel...

I have it from a well-informed inside source that the gray whales are migrating right now and that they have been breaching, right off our very own coastlands. And apparently a whale breach is significantly different than a breach birth. When a whale breach(es?) it jumps up out of the water FACE first. Though it would be pretty cool if one could pull it off the other way. I mean, maybe it is like the X-Games. A trick seems impossible until one athlete finally pulls off the triple-axle-endie-360-tailgrab-wangshiggie in competition and by the next games every other kid in Decorah, Iowa is doing them on Main Street. So one of these days one of those whales has to get on that...

So I had another million-dollar idea. Nerf harpoons. All the fun of whaling without endangering species. The Japanese would eat that up! Especially if you worked it into a game show. Plus you could make accessories: eye-patches, peglegs, and whaling dinghies.

Any investors?

without a little barleycorn...

Was talking with a fellow hammer-swinger at work today about music. He leant me a great documentary about Townes Van Zandt. So here is the question: Where are the great songwriters today? There are some great musicians out there, and some good tunes. But when I listen to Townes or to Dylan, they have a way of weaving a story in song. There is just something satisfying in a good solid narrative that draws you in, takes you places, if only for a few minutes. Thirsty for some solid American mythology writ sweet in gritty song.

One question that entered in... what is left to sing about? The folk folks of decades past had the coalminers the moonshiners the hobos the outlaws... those society left behind and those who left society behind. But it seems like these days the edge has lost its sexy. I mean, it seems like most of the downtrodden have trod themselves. You can't write the great American song about the meth-head-who-smells-like-piss the union-member-that-prices-himself-out-of-the-industry the high-tech-hacker-who-robs-banks-via-the-internet. And even the staples of the balladeers of yore, like peace and civil rights have become mindlessly mainstream. Every time we send troops somewhere to clean up some international mess you see the huge corporate-sponsored post-peacenik rally full of college kids cracked out on Red Bull and wheat grass breaking out 'Masters of War' as if they'd wrote it. I might be able to take them seriously if I heard just one student make the case in a way that gives the slightest impression that they could at least point out the country in question on a map, or knew something about the geopolitical costs and benefits. I don't know... It makes me want to write a song about standing over the graves of the 'Masters of Peace'. At least that would have a slight hint of damn-the-man.

I know of some great artists that write good songs that take you into a moment, but I need some legends, some stories, some myths... So there is the question... is there anyone making music to slake my thirst? Are there folk telling tales today?

In the meantime, some of the other carpenters and I may start a band: Staiyn Graiyd.
Already working on The Ballad of John Freeman Whipp.