Be forewarned: not a music post.

December 1, 2017 - Anchorage, Alaska. Be forewarned: not a music post.

Once again I let nearly a year pass by without taking the time to reflect.  In a way it is indicative of these times. Time to reflect, at least for me, has become difficult. Every day a new affront. Every day another shock to the system politic. So let's call it what it is: a breakdown of those very systems we have all been proud of, valued, promoted, collectively - Republican, Democrat, Independent. But before I describe that breakdown. Before I outline the things I see happening to this country, let me take a moment to respond to the arguments that have been prepared before I even make my views known. Those arguments have already been formulated without me having uttered a word of opposition - for that is part of the new state we live in.

What will they say then? Perhaps: "You lost the election and now you know how we have felt for the last fifty years..." No, that would be sensible. How about: "Listen snowflake [whatever that is truly supposed to mean to them], you and your Antifa friends just can't take it that we are winning and you lost....Get over it!" [They use the term "Antifa" as some kind of oppositional attack, but do they know what it really means? Or, if they do, and just find that it is easier then saying "Anti-fascist", do they realize that doing this must set them up as being the fascists to who we are 'anti'? Do they realize this?] Yep. That sounds a bit more like the meaningless phrase they will use, ending with "Get over it". "Get over it..." like it is a game that was lost instead of the nation's ongoing struggle to forge identity and purpose.

"Get over it" as though watching everything that has been built for generations be dismantled because one side won an election, and the other side didn't..., rather than the patient struggle of time, the give and take of policy, that has had such a profound and positive impact on the development of our institutions...

"Get over it" because, in truth, they are unable to otherwise identify anything (outside of the election victory) that any other actions that the President is proposing will actually do to improve the country, wages, working conditions, lives (outside of the wealthy). Instead they fall back on a dollar store slogan "Make America Great Again" which they shorten to MAGA because, perhaps, even that phrase is to complex.

"Yep," I might answer back, "you won. Now its time for you to 'get over it' and take a look at the consequences of that victory..."

And people really should look at those consequences. It is amazing what the President has managed to accomplish in a short ten months - more than any other President has ever done in ten months, he said this week. And that is actually true. Here is a list of some of those accomplishments:

1) Today his Republicans (only Bob Corker stood against it in the Senate) passed a tax reform bill, that was actually hand-written in part (that hasn't been done for over 200 years...) as they continued to cut last minute deals on a 500 page bill that was never,  I repeat: NEVER, shared with the rest of the members until the last minute. But what do we know about this bill? We know it represents two things that I thought the Republicans adamantly opposed: 1) a massive state organized transfer of wealth; and 2) an explosion of the debt by a conservative estimate of at least $1 trillion. Tax breaks for actual people in the bill will expire in 2025, while those for corporations will continue. The debt will have to be covered by cuts to Social Security and Medicare. The rich get richer. (Though let's be clear, they will blame the deficits on Democrats regardless.  It's an ingrained behavior, and it is a trope people seem to always believe- while not true for at least twenty years).

But the tax bill is actually something that passed through the levers of Congressional Power - so, really, that is an accomplishment by Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan - let us give proper credit for these things. The President didn't seem to fully understand the tax. In fact, he clamed that he would lose money on the tax, even though in one provision alone - elimination of the estate tax for billionaires - he and his heirs would benefit by more than a $1 billion (of course that is based on his estimate of his wealth).

So lets narrow this to his known major accomplishments of this past ten months:

1) For over 70 years first the Soviets, and then the Russians, have tried to drive a wedge in the NATO alliance and the "Special Relationship" that exists between the United States and our primary ally the United Kingdom. The President managed to do that in less than ten months. And he doubled down on it yesterday (because he cannot help that) when he retweeted unverified and false videos promoted by a neo-fascist party in the UK that has led to condemnation from every major party in the UK. In response he attacked the Prime Minister.

2) For the past fifty years China has invested much of their economic effort into becoming the leading global economic power. They are not there yet, but our withdrawal from support of other nations has opened that door faster than Nixon "opening" China's door in the 70's. Our retreat from both alternative energy and our pacific trading partners has provided China the lead in both areas without a struggle. That all done in less than ten months.

3) For nearly thirty years we have witnessed a steady de-escalation of nuclear proliferation - but we now are on the brink of a real nuclear confrontation with the second most irrational leader in the world. That was actually accomplished in under five months. So extra points for that.

4) For the first time in modern American History a President has overtly decided that people carrying Nazi flags, shouting racist slogans, and spouting hate speech are the equivalent of those who oppose such actions. Under seven months for that one definitively, though there were earlier examples. This, by the way, appears to be the norm now (see "retweeted" under point 1)

5) He has had at least two campaign and one administration official indicted as of today. That has to be some kind of a record...

And finally, 6) He has done all this with virtually no opposition from his own party. Oh, there are occasional expressions of outrage at his tweets and comments. But there has been no action. I have a rule I apply to the many groups I work with: If you are silent, we take that as assent. And that is a very dangerous road to walk down. Is holding your office (for these folks fear the wrath of the "Trump" voter) so important that you would put the safety and security of the nation at risk? Are we really that parochial? Are we really that shortsighted? Sadly, in the case of national Republican leadership, we are.

So where do we find ourselves now? For those who voted for this President, perhaps the question should be "are you better off then you were ten months ago?" If so, how? What's better? Are you making more money from all the stocks you have (if you believe the exit polls, the President's voter profile does not invest in the market, so probably not... but I expect a few of his Mar-a-Lago members are...)? Were better jobs available? Higher wages? Will you be able to afford Health insurance now, or will you just forgo it? We will see what the next few years hold, but I suspect the answers may not be pleasant. You were scammed. You were conned. And now he's taking your money and giving it to his rich buddies - and himself. You should be outraged. He did not drain the swamp. He is the swamp.

And for those 3 million more Americans who did not vote for him? Find one more who didn't vote at all.  Find one more who stands to lose their opportunity to succeed. Find one more who still cherishes a hope for the future. Find a way to engage them. Find a way to educate them. Find a way to support them so they have the time and the opportunity to vote. And change the nation. It's not too late. Not yet.

The lost days of 2016...

January 29, 2017 - Juneau, Alaska. It's been over a year since I have written here. The lost days of 2016... I travelled, I wrote music, I wrote poems, I performed, I worked in justice, I helped on campaigns, I ran for State Senate in Alaska and I won... a busy year. It is a new age, right? So focusing on my activities would seem to fit... But it doesn't. I want to enjoy these moments, but I can't. With a sickening horror over the last twelve months I've watched the worst of 'Merica come out. 'Merica - I saw it stenciled in the back window of a pickup with a "Trump that Bitch" bumper sticker stuck right by it. I guess it's easier to contract, create new words, fake it. It's the new norm. It would be funny, if it wasn't.

I reread that entry from 2015 tonight - written after a long night of driving, as I headed west to pick up my Mother in Carson City and drive her to Alaska where Sarah and I had a wedding party. We'd invited our friends, played music, drank wine, enjoyed time and I left behind that entry. I intended to write here, I intended to act, but I did neither. Like so many of us, I watched a slow train wreck cruise through the American political landscape, wobbling, de railing, appearing to right itself only to derail again, and again. The full impact dawned on me when I drove from Lakeland, Florida to Austin, Texas in late October. My Father-in-law would take his Clinton sign in at night for fear of it being stolen or damaged. I didn't see another sign of Clinton until just outside of Austin. But I saw a lot of Trump - including hundreds of signs and a two mile line for a rally in Tallahassee. I was heading to a reunion of friends in Washington State and, by the time I got there it looked like it might all be over. Compounded error, an angry and misled public, confusion - it all added up to 50,000 people in three states making a choice they'd not made before. We'd done our part: Not fighting back hard enough against a group of Senate charlatans who were more interested in screwing the country for their hollow ideology than they were in serving their country. Denying a Supreme Court appointment for 11 months? Thwarting every effort at stimulus because they claimed to oppose a deficit? The shear level of disingenuous dialogue will be swept away by short memories and new levels of outrage spit at us at ever-increasing rates of speed. Designed to wear us down and wear us out. Us. Those who still care for a constitution and a country. What really does make a patriot?

Yes, I reread that entry tonight, from last year, and now that warning from the past, a warning I ignored myself, has come to pass.

We are on the brink of a crisis, much greater than any we might have foreseen. Federal Courts have said this new Presidential Order that would single out Muslims, hold them against their will - even when they are carrying Green Cards, or Visas, or even holding citizenship - must be stayed. But Homeland Security and the Border Patrol ignore the courts. What are the historic outcomes of this behavior? Trail of Tears. Civil War. Internment camps. Alien and Sedition acts. The muzzling of the Press. We have survived these things in the past, and we have rebounded, but sometimes at enormous cost. Will we this time?

I had promised Matt in Austin that I would begin to write my thoughts when they had crystallized. They are beginning to do so. There really will be more to come because this is not over yet. Far from it.

Pearl Harbor Day

December 7, 2015 - Elko, Nevada. Pearl Harbor Day, but its overshadowed by a different frame... Looming terrorism, threats that seek to undermine the Constitution, climate change, unrelenting argument, disagreement, discouragement.... It is what all of these things have in common. How is it possible that a leading Presidential contender in America could say Muslims should be banned and claim to love a country that respects religious freedom? Donald Trump is a sick man. Interviews on the street from NPR have those they talked to agreeing that this was the only way to be safe... So will Trump call for the banning of bearded white rural males the next time one shoots up an abortion clinic?  Will he demand that young white males be outlawed "until we are able to determine and understand this problem..." when one takes it into his head to destroy another grade school classroom? I thought not.

So, the shooters in San Bernardino had legally purchased assault weapons and they apparently used them regularly at a shooting range or ranges in the L.A. area. When a bunch of Saudi's flew into the World Trade Center, we found out that the pilots had been trained at a Florida flight school (and I think one in Arizona). After that we began monitoring those who went to flight school to keep abreast of the potential threat. Do you think we will track those who use shooting ranges? Right. Or Republicans in Congress scream about protecting the homeland, but when it is suggested that those on the "No Fly List" be denied firearms, the call it a "distraction". The distraction here is that it appears that these people actually don't give a damn about the "threat" or the solution to it. That would be too much work. Instead they call the President a "pussy", rattle sabers and claim that they would kick some Moslem ass. But it is really just about the bullshit of power, and creating whatever mileage they can out of fear to retain and secure power.

It's sickening. But instead of calling it what it is, we argue with them about the nuances of these points - as though this was a legitimate set of arguments that could be reasoned.  Reasoning between two people takes, well, two people willing to reason. Otherwise? It is just a waste of time. The ending to this story is not going to be pretty, I suspect. 

Here is a better idea: do what Highland Park did. Determine how you want to be governed at the local level. At least seven Supreme Court Justices agree that local governments have that authority. 

I really should listen to the radio less on these cross country trips....

Mari's River City Eatery

December 5, 2015 - St. Peter, Minnesota. Heading to my evening gig in Windom at Mari's River City Eatery. Its always a great time and often either the first or last stop on a tour. Here in St. Peter I've stopped at the River Rock Cafe, as I often do.  The town is hopping. There is a steady enthusiasm and bustling in the air, college (Gustavus Adolphus is here) is nearing finals, Holidays coming - you can sense an enthusiasm.  I've spent so much of the last few days watching clips about San Bernardino, Russia and Turkey, Syria, and the frightening thugish idiocy of Trump, that this all seems surreal to me. I wonder how all of this will appear in ten years... twenty.... I am in a window seat here, but will people still choose window seats at restaurants? How will we look at strangers and those who do not look like we might? Will we look back at these days and the days preceding San Bernardino as some kind of "better time"?

Where the world is going - where we are going - worries me. I often comment on the political system here when saying these things, but I think it speaks for itself - so I can reserve my thoughts this time.... Except to say that I worry for an America where the leading contender of the other party says the President is tantamount to a traitor. Where the answer of a Pastor to the San Bernardin shooting is "arm them all!". Where hatred drips like tinsel in the season of joy. Where neighbor looks at neighbor, not knowing what they see, where our children are taught to trust no one.

But here, in St. Peter, at least for today there is laughter in the air, greetings, hugs, and smiles.  At least here, now, there is Peace on Earth.

World Cafe

November 30, 2015 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Just finished playing at the open mic at the World Cafe (photos to follow) after another lovely night at Andrea Clearfield's Salon. The Salon is a magical experience that I wish all of you could experience. Andrea has been doing it for 29 years, and each of the six times I have performed there has been a pleasure. I build my tours around this two song experience and for those who have been here, it is easy to understand why. I read a poem, and Sarah and I performed two songs. The first was a new one "Paris 2015". While the Salon audience was the first to see it performed, I premiered it on WMNF in Tampa on Jeannie Holton's Acoustic Peace Club. You can hear the whole show here this week, but this is the new song "Paris 2015" (warning: slight errors - hey! It's a new song!). Thanks to Jeannie, Ian, and Noah for making this possible. More on Paris in the next entry, but before then a final shout out to John Hayes for his great photography at the Salon and the World Cafe. This guy knows what he is doing.

Oklahoma City and Seattle

November 15, 2015 - Austin, Texas. Finished great shows in Oklahoma City and Seattle - House concerts hosted by friends who care about their communities. Margaret and Dan in Seattle on the 8th - champions of justice in the battle for the lives of youth; Mike and Carol in Oklahoma City - heroes of neighborhoods seeking to create a better city from a near-past that nearly destroyed that town. Radio with Phil Andrus and Eva on KTPZ in Port Townsend was also a kick. Two interviews, great stories, fun music... I'll be back in Port Townsend in late October for a couple of shows for sure and now with new friends! Thanks to you all (and don't forget to donate to KTPZ!) The cross-country trek continues: Austin tonight, New Orleans the coming week, then Florida, Philadelphia, DC, Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota and then a drive back home to Alaska (Mom's joining me for that!)

Few took me up on the challenge at the end of my last entry - how do we deal with this ever-changing world - one where the patterns are beginning to show? I wish I had a less clunky way to communicate these things (other than one that wasn't limited to 140 characters like Twitter). Sometimes at a dinner (like tonight with friends Paul Schomer, his sister Amy and her husband Keith) I unload these thoughts and the dialogue (perhaps bordering a bit on a rant), crystalizes into a vision. Now, in the shadow of Paris, voices already muted fade into sad cries of anguish. Where will our next pain come from? What war is being fought here? What drives this deep-seated hate? 

The commentators say it is Islam, religion, and the perpetrators echo that call, but there is no God that would see these acts of slaughter as some kind of ticket to heaven. That is a lie masking something else. But what is that something else? Why would young people - youth of a certain age and ethnicity or religion - choose to shoot and kill the innocent, maim humanity, take their own lives? Who so doubts the value of life that they destroy it randomly?  There appears to be no moment of doubt. The path is chosen, the trigger pulled, the result certain. And yet there it is - on our screens. The consequences already unfolding: no more refugees; borders closed; ground troops from France in two weeks... If it is so predictable, why can't it be dealt with? What are the roots of the problem? Does anyone meaningfully ask? Or will we forever politically posture...

The pursuit of wealth, of power, of fulfillment of desire, rips off the masque of humanity from the leaders of this death cult leaving bare this visage of... nothing. No moral belief in humanity, certainly no real claim to spirituality. Instead it is a nihilistic view of the world, of life (though even saying that gives it much more meaning than is deserved). They prey on those who have nothing and no prospect of a future, victims at every turn of a world that rips them off, demands bribes, assaults them, hordes the wealth they produce, leaving them a prognosis of a slow death from starvation.

With no hope for themselves or their children, they cease to value life. And then there is a promise: "You give up your life; you go after those who have done this to you, and those you love will benefit. We will take care of them. You will wreak your vengeance in the name of God and in your death your family will thrive". And the author's of this? They believe in nothing. They twist the moral certitude found in these desperate survivors that the life of their own child or family is more important than their own, and they offer them a way to provide for that family within the context of the last thing they hold dear - their God. These incipient "authors" are nothing more than abusers, cruelly manipulating those of moral character to an end that twists their belief and that only serves the "authors". What do those "authors" get out of it? Power, sex, thrills, wealth... Whatever they want.  All in the name of a false piety.

How to dissuade someone from taking a path that has been so effortlessly presented to them? A path that so pushes back against the Sisyphean weight of their existence? The only answer is one our political systems will never provide them. The must have hope of a future for them and their families; a vision of a future that matters. And this cannot be a false hope. It must be real.

I wrote a line in a song once ("The Wave") "Where are all our moralists and all our leading hearts...? While the unnoticed keep on dying, they're building walls and shopping marts..."  And that's the rub.  If you want to have people value the lives of others, you have to provide them an opportunity to value their own path in life. The one who does the best job of offering a realistic future wins. For example, how could someone in the Assad regime ever hope to succeed? 

Tired of the corruption of the state robbing their future, at first people protest peaceably. When Assad strikes back they believe they can take their future in their hands and the revolution turns violent. To Assad power is more important than the lives of his "citizens" so he levels their neighborhoods. Without homes or livelihoods the last vestiges of hope disappear just as they watch the state disappear. Westerners wring their hands and say "if only they had left the strong man alone...". But they did not. We encouraged them in fact waving the hopeful flag of democracy only to snatch it back when things went South. Because that's how we always seem to do it... It helps us sustain our apparent beacon of possibility and hope. A beacon that now appears to be nothing but a mirage.

The irony of Paris is that it will lead to the end of the refugees flowing into Europe and that won't punish those who have given up hope - those who killed those innocent people - it will punish those who still have hope and have chosen a path, a desperate but real path, toward realizing it.  And then, after we take that from them, where exactly will those two million people go? What exactly will they do? Who exactly will they turn to?

Tonight Paris mourns and I mourn with her. But what can I do, or you? You see it's not up to us. The resolution of this rests with those who have the power to create a hope for the future for those who have lost hope. That means that those who can will have to give up some of their power, their wealth, and practice their humanity. So the question then is really this: do our leaders believe in humanity? And the answer to that question is the only one that matters.

No great ruminations

October 23, 2015 - Anchorage, Alaska. What a trip it has been these last few months.  No great ruminations as I sat back in disbelief and watched the rapid dissolve of American politics, drifted in to poetry and began to write music again. A summer in Alaska was most welcome. Hanging out with Sarah at the House. Dinners and sunshine - all combined for creative time. Read too many novels, but found again my joy in writing prose. More to come on that I hope, more to come...  Played a small house show earlier this month in Paciano, Italy for a great group of folks - guests from Alaska, Austin, Carson City and right there in town. Old friend Vonn Marsch joined in with Banjo. Local chef Tonino played a mean mouth harp, and Sarah backed up on vocals and sang too!  All in all a great time with new friends Leslie, Jody, Bob, Ruth, Tonino and Alan. Sarah and I decided to make it official to boot!

It has been a great time of reflection on who we are and how we live. I haven't taken the time to write here as I have been troubled by the veneer of freedom that we seem to all operate under.  Today, reading a copy of History Today, I saw this quote:

“With an increasing awareness of slave discontent, slaveholders targeted what they perceived as contributing to that restlessness: instruction of reading and writing. Suspicious of slave gatherings and paranoid that literacy could 'spoil’ a slave, they recognized that learned slaves who freed themselves from the shackles of slaveholder-imposed ignorance would be unsuited to a life of perpetual servitude.”

Indeed. It is that last bit: "learned slaves who freed themselves from the shackles of slaveholder-imposed ignorance would be unsuited to a life of perpetual servitude” that has me thinking... It is crystalizing a thought that has been nagging at me for some time, and beginning to influence more and more of my music. We dumb down education, we dumb down news, we dumb down our people, until the slow ossification of the bonds of servitude are not even noticed anymore... When you are overseas, everyone debates and gets what is happening around them it seems. Yet they look in bleary-eyed mystification at us: how can Trump and Carson be at the top of polls? How can the constant and escalating "shout" of our politics be the marker of the great democratic experiment? Where other nations build fair processes, we retard them. How can we claim a fair process when just 158 families dominate American political giving? When on one hand California expands voting rights, while Alabama forces Driver's License requirements to register, then closes DMVs in the counties with the greatest propensity to vote Democratic outside of the cities? More and more likely the rules are rigged here, but other great democracies endure change, grow with it and from it. Not us, it seems.

So where does this leave us? For me, its turned me, oddly, to music and writing and away from political activism. If the system is rigged, you have to learn to move outside of the system. I choose this path.  Living a good life, living and sharing that life with good friends, reveling in our human gift and modeling it for others. This seems to me, here at least, to be the path that might work best... What do you think?  Tell me, what do you think?

Juneau, Alaska

April 19, 2015 - Juneau, Alaska. It has been quite a few months since I wrote here. Life seems a whirlwind!  I had a successful Fall tour - great reception for Traveling Through, the new CD, and some great adventures since then.  I am gearing up for the Spring tour now - Starting in Reno on the 25th as part of Todd South's showcase series at the Wildflower Village, then Aspen, Colorado at the Salon at Justice Snow's (many thanks to Andrea Clearfield's unflagging support for that!) After Colorado, its back to Boise, Idaho for a Cinco de Mayo (May 5) House Concert then hard cross country to St. Paul, Minnesota for another (here for reservations and information for both) on the 8th! I finish this leg of the tour in my favorite restaurant in Windom, Minnesota, River City Eatery on the 9th. After a quick trip home I'm back on the ground and heading to Kerrville for a long weekend before returning back to Alaska.  Whew!

But where have the days gone? There has been a flurry of writing, much reading, but, as in so many other years, I am in Juneau mostly these past few months working on the things that matter to me in Alaska. Far too often I have watched as the future of my home state, Alaska, is put on the line in a political process that has, at times, been demoralizing. But, as in past years, I am again optimistic that when they finally gavel out this session, they won't have undermined the very foundation of public education, denuded public broadcasting or devastated our basic services to Alaskans who face an uncertain future.

There are many people of good conscience in this body that are momentarily distracted by the politics of winning rather than service to the public. But, time and time again, I have been surprised at the resilience underneath it all and how even those who have been bombarded with superficial sloganeering rise up and vote the good vote, cast the right ballot, make the tough decisions that pit them against the loud, but on the side of the good. So I sit here and wait on this last day to see what they do next. Let us all wish them well.