No Left Turn Unstoned

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30 October 2011

 

Janis Joplin with two left handed people.

 

Ken Kesey had a place in La Honda, California, where there was a sign with this message. The world’s first Acid Tests were performed there.

 

The main thing about left handed people is that they are adaptable. They have to be, being born into a right handed world. So, left handers are ambidextrous, shifty, labile, flexible and often sly and slinky. From an early age they learned that there is more than one way to do something. Nicole Kidman had to learn that.

 

There are scholarships for left handed people, because, well, we’re rather backward.

 

I often paint with both hands when i’m in a hurry, or when the background is very simple. I paint the background and foreground at the same time.

RJ Franco took this photograph:

 

The left hand is governed by the right brain, seat of intuitive, non linear thinking, so left handed people are overrepresented in art, music, drama and other creative endeavors.

 

The Italian word for left handed “mancino” means crooked or maimed. “To the left” in Italian is alla sinistra which has sinister connotations. Leonardo was left handed.

 

Manu sinistra pro destra utitur (Latin). She uses the left hand for the right.

But when she plays the piano Aretha Franklin uses both hands. There are no left handed pianos.

 

The rudder on a seagoing vessel was attached on the right side, the steerboard side, the starboard. So docking was done on the left, the port side. Cole Porter often sailed Port Out Starboard Home (POSH).

 

In ancient Hebrew, left handers were called “eetair yad y’mini,” a constricted right hand. Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes opinions with her left hand.

 

Dutch “linker” left handed came from Old High German “slinc,” related to Old English “slincan” crawl, slink. In Swedish linka equals “limp, dangling.” M. C. Escher did all of those amazing drawings with his left hand.

 

In Bulgarian, there are three words for a left handed person. Levichar, levoger and levak. Levak is considered very offensive. There is a term lefteren (from English “left”) which describes something that’s not working properly or isn’t strong enough. Angeliina is as beautiful as her name suggests, and she is gauchée as the French call a left handed woman.

 

In Chinese, the word left is sometimes associated with the “dark side.”

Albrecht Dürer, a left handed person, very successful in his own time, had his own dark side.

 

In Danish, Venstre-håndet means using the left hand. Note the similarity to “sinister” (Latin) Kejthåndet, another word for left handed, has the word “kejthet” in it which means clumsy, awkward. This is a Danish leftist.

 

The origin of left and right as applied to politics goes back to the seating in the Chambre des Deputés, which our own congressional seating imitates.

 

When Democrats enter the House they file to their left, and when the President addresses the chamber, s/he sees the Democrats on her/his right.

 

The Republicans sit on the “right.” That is, on the right as they enter the Chamber, the House. When the President addresses the Republicans, he sees them as being on his left, but they see themselves as being on the right.

 

Barbara Dennerlein is a left handed German woman, worshipper at the Hammond B3 altar, as am I. They didn’t make any left handed Hammond B3s either. You have to play them with everything you’ve got. Both hands and both feet. You could use your nose too, and, god knows, no one would complain. Barbara is such a great B3 player, cool, hot, collected, happening.

 

In Dutch, the word for left handed is Linkshandig. In the Brabants dialect, Links means “inside out,” especially for clothing. The Great Dictator was left handed too, just as Adolf Hitler was. Tellingly, though, Hitler signed autographs with his right hand.

 

Charles Chaplin played the violin left handed. This is very rare. Most violinists, left or right handed, will play the instrument with the bow in their right hand.

 

Elizabeth Cotten was our hero when we were 18,19, and still today. She had a beautiful fingerpicking style that we all tried to emulate. Maybe her special sound had something to do with the fact that she simply turned a right handed guitar upside down, so that the treble strings were on top.

 

In German, Links and linkisch (left) mean awkward. Einstein was a linkshänder, although I see him write at the blackboard with his right hand. He and Picasso used either hand.

 

The Hindi phrase “ulta haanth” means the left hand, and it has the literal meaning “opposite, wrong.” Eudora Welty never married and lived in the same house where she was born in Jackson, Mississippi, all her life. She wrote beautiful, unsentimental stories for The New Yorker with her left hand.

 

The Hungarian language has the word “bal” for left. “Balszerencse,” left luck, means disaster. “Baleset,” left event, is an accident.

 

Gaelic “ciotóg” left, means “the strange one.” “Citog” means left or stupid.

Fiona Sit likes to draw with her left hand. She speaks Cantonese, English, French and Mandarin.

 

Romanian “stangaci” means left hander as well as unskillful.

Paul Klee is left handed and his birthday is 18 December. We have a lot in common.

 

Australian slang has the phrase “Mollie Dooker,” for a left handed person, meaning something to do with having fists like a girl.

If you’re going to be a feminist, and who in their right mind wouldn’t be?, you could always look like Germaine Greer, noted left hander. Germaine lived at The Chelsea Hotel when we did, and she was always cheerful, kind and smart.

 

Polish people say “leworeczcy” or “mankut” for left handed, terms that also mean illegal. Goldie is using both hands to assume the position here.

 

“Canhoto” (Portuguese) is left handed. Canhoto also means lacking ability or physical coordination, clumsy. In Portugal, the Devil is canhoto. A common saying is “Diabo sejas cego, surdo e mudo! Lagarto, lagarto, lagarto sejas canhoto!” (Devil be blind, deaf and mute. Lizard, lizard, lizard be left handed!”) Michelangelo, definitely left handed. My “Leftar” would have told me that even had I not known. I mean, any artist who would argue with a pope must be more than a little obstinate and gauche.

 

Remember the Eugene Levy character in Best In Show? He had two left feet.

When Tamra Engle is sailing down the Seine towards the Atlantic Ocean and she passes through Paris, la rive gauche, the Left Bank will be on her left, the south side.

 

Tamra Engle with Steve Martin. No… just kidding, it’s the equally estimable Willy Porter.

 

Tamra in front, the farthest from the left.

 

In Mexico, “chueco” means “bent.” It also means left handed. There are other words for someone like Jessica Alba, zurda, manca, siniestra, all meaning left handed.

 

I’m going to pay him a left handed compliment and say that I will vote for him, but I’m not going to be totally thrilled about it. I’m hoping that when he gets in there for his last term, he will really step on it and deliver all of the beautiful promises he made the first time.

 

Filipinos say “kaliwete” for left handed. When someone is called a “kaliwete,” it can mean that the person is unfaithful, a two timer. Lady Gaga is left handed.

 

In Russian, left handed is “levsha,” meaning not trustworthy. In the Orthodox church, the women sit on the left side. Paul is a lefty, but he plays drums right handed.

 

Scottish people can be corrie-fisted which comes from the Gaelic “cearr” which means left or wrong hand. My Leftar (like Gaydar, only for left handers) would have told me that Marilyn Monroe was left handed even had I not known that.

 

“Zurdo” in Spanish is left handed. “No eres zurdo.” (You’re not lefthanded) means “you are clever.” Right handed people are “diestro” (able, dextrous) and left handers are “siniestro” (creepy, freakish). In Spanish there is also a very proper word “manco” (cognate with Italian mancino) that means left handed. Picasso era manco, zurdo, chueco y siniestro. He’s painting Guernica with his left hand.

And he’s painting this plate with his right.

 

In Swahili left is kushoto, or weak. Weak would hardly describe Oprah Winfrey, though, and she’s left handed.

 

Ahhh, here we go. In Swedish, vänsterhänt is left handed. “Vänster” left originally meant “the favorable side,” and is related to vän (friend). Rafaello Sanzio (Raphael) drew and painted like an angel and he did it with his left hand.

 

Turkish solak (left handed) also means obstinate, clumsy, out of balance, not functional. Pink, who uses her left hand for most things. She was once going to play Janis Joplin in a film.

 

Lifshá (Ukrainian) for left handed means sneaky or mistrustful also. Benjamin Franklin was sly, inventive, a typical left hander.

 

Chwith in Welsh is left handed. O’i chwith means something is wrong or out of place.

 

Baseball diamonds were often made with home plate in the western corner of the field so that the sun would not be in the batsman’s eyes. Thus, when a left handed pitcher faced the batter, the pitcher’s throwing arm was on the south side. He was a southpaw. Lenny Bruce was definitely out in left field somewhere.

 

In Belarus (White Russia) there is a word “liewsha.” It means left handed, and it also means sneaky or mistrustful. Shirley MacLaine is left handed.

 

Dave Barry, one of the many people who is left handed, but who plays guitar right handed. Duane Allman and Gregg Allman are two others. I’m another.

 

A left handed snowboarder is called “Goofy,” and a left oriented board is called a “Goofy Board,” because the board is designed to slant in the opposite direction of the right handed boards. Tina Fey is goofy in her own goody, goody style.

 

Cack handed to mean left handed is term I have never heard, but it is apparently quite common in the UK. It is related to Old English cack, excrement or dung. Cachus was Old English for a privy. These words come from Latin cacare, to defecate. Matt Groening celebrates left handedness in his own left handed way.

 

Left handed people are also over represented in the gay community.

 

A left handed person photographs left handed people. Cecil Beaton.

 

In Thailand, there is a phrase “e sai pai kee,” which means people who use the left hand to touch excrement.

 

Tippi Hedren, left handed mother of Melanie Griffith.

 

You don’t want to be left handed in the Arab world. These people lived in the desert where there was little water, so the left hand is used for all unclean purposes and the right hand is used for taking food out of the communal bowl.

 

Albert King not only played the guitar left handed, but he also strung and tuned his guitar differently so it was often impossible to tell what he was playing. Those beautiful string bends that he used resulted from his being able to pull the strings down instead of having to push them up as right handers do.

 

In Japanese and Chinese, “left” is written like this:

 

The above is basically a drawing that represents the left hand in this position:

 

The left hand was considered a helper for the right hand, so the original meaning of this character was “to help.” Now it means “left” and in Japanese can be pronounced SA or hidari. When the character is used in combination with other characters, it is pronounced SA. When it is used alone it is usually pronounced hidari.

 

In ancient times, the right side was considered to be better. Left meant inferior, low status, contrary, evil.

 

Hidari kiki (left handed in Japanese)

 

The characters for left and right written together have several meanings:

 

“I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.”     Mark Twain. (left handed)

 

We’ve left.

(Taking the kindergarten diploma in my left hand.)

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Back to the Big Rope.

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23 October 2011

 

 

 

Wesley Freeman took us to Okinawa.

 

This is the way Okinawa is written now,

and Okinawa prefecture.

 

One of the many folk etymologies for Okinawa is “big rope.” The island looks like a rope on the map and the sound of oki nawa in Japanese could be heard as “big rope,” so the derivation becomes as irresistible as it is false.

During the harvest festival, there is a tug of war, perhaps the grandest in the world, where male and female sections of rope are joined by a pin.

 

Elise is an oncology nurse, and she also teaches and uses several types of models for demonstrations.

 

 

The pacific ocean from our hotel room.

Okinawa has always been in my heart.

My voice has always been from my diaphragm. i am quite shocked to see how high it resides in the thoracic cavity. Why, it’s just under the heart and lungs. I had imagined it much lower, down around my, oh, you know, penile area. That’s where it feels like the voice comes from.

 

I have had a yen to return to Okinawa since I left at age 18.

(77 to the dollar this time. I remember when it was 360 to the dollar.)

 

Wes put us in this beautiful hotel near where we used to live on Okinawa.

 

We played for the Uchinanchu Festival.

 

Uchina means “Okinawa” in the native language, which is completely different from Japanese, and “chu” means person, so Uchinanchu is the Okinawan people.

 

Konkai kono tai kai no tame ni kaette kimashita.

Now we have returned for this occasion. (With Nao-sensei)

 

This is a very emotional return to the Ryukyu Islands.

 

“People with their roots in Okinawa, wherever they now live in the world, will come back to their homeland to mingle with 1,338,000 prefecture citizens,” said Okinawa’s governor, Hirokazu Nakaima.

 

Minna-san, Tracy Freeman on drums!

 

George Murasaki’s chart for Down On Me. This is Wes Freeman’s photograph of the chord changes and it saved George from having to write out everything again after he lost the first chart. The mystery to me is how people read this stuff onstage with all of the chaos that is going on. I like to memorize everything, but often there is no time.

 

Our opening act. They were outrageous. The Okinawa All-Stars.

 

Lena, one of our singers, with Wes Freeman.)

 

We could be smirking about this smorking area, until we try to write Japanese ourselves and see how many mistakes we would make.

 

I like to see how the Japanese personalize their houses.

John Patterson and Reny Civico.

 

One drink is called piss and the other is called sweat.

 

On the same day, Elise and I were separately involved in dog rescue efforts on Okinawa. She worked very hard to save a dog, tick ridden and miserable. Elise made many calls to vets around the island and really went the extra distance to help her. Mother Elise saves people and animals every day.

 

I was out walking and rain began to fall in torrents. Hearing a desperate yelping somewhere above me, I looked across the street to see a puppy wound around a stake, stranded in the downpour, so I climbed into the yard and down a slope to free her. She ran happily to dry shelter and, seeing me walking on the same street next day, barked and wagged her gratitude.

 

To me cicadas were always “locusts,” probably because they were often called Seventeen Year Locusts, so, when I heard the passage from the Bible about the Plague of Locusts, I always thought, “Well, they make a lot of noise but I don’t remember them eating all that much. Turns out the “locust” is what we call a grasshopper. When the “locusts” descended on Salt Lake City, and the seagulls ate them all, that was a grasshopper plague. Still, to this day, when I hear the word “locust,” it is a cicada that first comes to mind.

Anyway, the cicadas on Okinawa have much higher voices. They sound like a fleet of frogs in the Fall, you know, that high cricket chirping sound that seems to come in waves? American cicadas sound more like motorscooter sputtering or lawnmowers. I always thought the cicada song was hypnotic and meditation inducing. Sitting under a tree with thousands of cicadas singing has always induced a kind of trance in me. It’s like a didgeridoo or a harmonium. How do such small things make such a big noise?

 

While walking toward the Pacific coast from our hotel, Elise and I found a commercial art studio where all manner of objets d’art abounded.

 

This was most interesting and reminded me of days spent with Mouse and Kelly at their air brush studio in San Francisco.

 

We found this Okinawan atelier early in the morning, just as the artists were arriving for work.

 

There is a certain cannibalistic impulse, that I recognize very well, with these workers to use any image as grist for their mill.

 

Since we were rooting around in their refuse, they immediately saw us as kindred spirits and yelled happy greetings.

 

When the Andrew family first lived on Okinawa, the town of Koza, just outside of our gate at Kadena Air Force Base, looked like this.      (Photo: Mark Irish Payne)

 

It looked like this in 1959.

 

Then, much later, Koza (now Okinawa City) looked like this.

 

Now it looks like this.

 

Chiko and Mark Irish Payne.

 

Mark’s mother.

 

ONE of Mark’s restaurants, or 25 feet away from it anyway.

 

I used to go to this place with my girlfriend when it was the Okinawa Yacht Club. She was 17. I was 18.

 

Wesley Freeman gave us a tour of Kadena Air Force Base, where my father was stationed twice.

 

Cheerful and helpful Ken Robillard came along on our Kadena tour. He speaks the fastest Japanese that I have ever heard.

 

For this tour, as the joke went, we had our own doctor and our own nurse. Elise and Brett, a flight surgeon.

 

Elise  looking towards Hawaii.

 

Elise Piliwale and Gary Epperson looking at the China Sea.

 

Last time I lived on Okinawa (1958-1960), our house looked something like these in this same neighborhood. Stearley Heights, Kadena.

 

Gary Epperson, singer, lived in this house on Kerby Loop near where I lived.

 

Cheryl and Al Rogers, once Okinawans, now live on the Kitsap Peninsula across from Seattle in Port Orchard. I have played there, and also in Port Townsend and Port Angeles.

 

Raymond Carver, a talented writer, lived in Port Angeles.

 

After the Kadena tour, we went to the Officers’ Club where an incredible buffet was in progress.

 

Okinawa is a good place to learn Japanese, Chinese or Uchinaaguchi, the native Okinawan language.

 

Shinjichi nu ada nayumi.   (native Okinawan proverb)

Kindness will never be wasted in any way.

Elise with her toes in the pacific ocean.

 

The most beautiful things in the most unlikely places.

 

“You don’t see one of these everyday.” (George Harrison, Hard Day’s Night)

 

Elise and I explored a lot of tombs. Fascinating. They are so new now.

When my brothers and I explored them, they looked like this.

Now they look like

 

Elise venerating her camera.

 

In Mexico they put a worm in their tequila.

 

In Okinawa, they put an entire poisonous snake, the habu, in their awamori, a liqueur to which honey and herbs have been added. The habu, a pit viper, is believed by some to have medicinal properties.

 

When I lived on Okinawa, there were habu mongoose fights. People would bet on the outcome. The mongoose would kill two or three habu, and then when it was tired another habu would kill the mongoose.

 

Cruel? Stupid? You bet. Habu mongoose fighting is illegal now.

 

Elise and I were walking by the Pacific and we saw these signs.

 

To all flight attendants and ticket agents of all airlines:

See?   My guitar will go in the overhead of a Boeing 767… with room to spare.

 

And they are my witnesses.

 

Sayonara.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Will The Circle Be Unbroken?

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11 October 2011

 

 

We are on Okinawa Sunday 16 October.

 

The first time I came to this island was 27 July 1946, sixty five years ago. We were the first American children on Okinawa.

 

Look where we left from, Fort Mason, San Francisco. I taught music there at Blue Bear School of Music in the 1980s.

 

Notice that the trip to Okinawa took two weeks on the USS David Shanks.

 

Years later, in 1958, we returned to Okinawa, and, when we left in 1960, my father, an Air Force officer, was stationed at Hamilton Field, Novato, California. This is the base hospital. I think my brother Stephen was born here.

He said, “Yes, you can.”

 

An auto repair shop on Okinawa in the 1960s.

 

It was an adventure being on Okinawa both times, and, of course, I am thrilled to be back. 1946, 1958 and 2011. This island has meant much to me.

 

In my next week’s writing there will be many photographs of the island as it is today.

 

David LaFlamme (It’s A Beautiful Day) and I at The Whisky a Go Go, Hollywood, California.

 

Elise Piliwale and Lizzie looking out at the rain.

 

John Dylan Whitcomb Myler learning the tricks of the trade from his father.

 

We did a play called Love, Janis, together. Well, he wrote and directed it and I was the music director. A great experience.

 

Okinawa 1960, the last time I was here. Jimmy Grant, Larry Henson (my rhythm guitar player in The Cool Notes) and Jim Mason. So I have returned after 50 years, probably the largest closing of a circle in my life.

 

Cathy Richardson and Mary Bridget Davies who did Love, Janis, with us.

 

Duking it out with James Gurley.

 

Vesper who has excellent social skills. She’s a dynamo.

 

I see her almost every day across the street from this mannikin.

 

My father (Andrew) at the Okinawa “Officers’ Club,” 1946.

 

These guys are on the other side of the world, Europe in 1944, near some jumping off place.

 

Mädl. She lives somewhere below.

 

With her.

 

It was difficult to leave Okinawa in 1960. We formed serious attachments there and really never got over the place.

 

I began university that year and we all went to the Surf Theatre in San Francisco to see such films as Otto e Mezzo (8 1/2). Marcello Mostroianni didn’t care much for Anita Ekberg, but he loved Anouk Aimée. I was right there with him on that one.

 

 

Alton Kelley, Gretchen Golden and Yossarian Kelley in an iconic photograph by Irving Penn.

 

This is that baby Yossarian as a man. He looks like his father.

 

L’Avventura, La Dolce Vita, Il Divorzio all’Italiana, Le Chien Andalou, Viridiana,  La Strada, Rocco e i suoi Fratelli, Giulietta di Spiriti, Throne of Blood, Rashomon, Woman of the Dunes, Street of Shame, Zéro de Conduite, Au Bout de Souffle,  The Horse’s Mouth, A Taste of Honey,  and, three or four years later in that same Surf Theatre, Hard Day’s Night, were an education for us, as important as classes at school. More important perhaps.

 

Big Brother and the Holding Company saw Hard Day’s Night in that same theatre, the same night, as The Charlatans, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Country Joe and the Fish. We were on our way.

 

School was out.

 

Forever.

 

Nick Gravenites remembers a lot about James Gurley from 1961, 62, 63. I love hearing these stories.

 

Tom Finch’s daughter, Makenna, named for Makena Beach, Maui, where I lived with James Gurley off and on for a couple of years.

 

Allen Ginsberg on a beach in Japan shortly after I left Okinawa.

 

Among the first 1000 to die in Iraq. I thought I could paint them all.

 

Big Brother opens for Quicksilver.

 

Elise Piliwale and I in our avatar phase. Study for a painting.

 

Joel Jaffe, a prince among men, runs Studio D in Sausalito, California, and Matt W. helps him a lot.

 

We did a recording session with the woman who is the most illuminated, Shiho-san. She is a big star in Japan, and she is on Okinawa this week.

 

Joel with some of his other friends, Maria Muldaur, Joan Baez and Jane Fonda.

 

Andra Mitrovich, so beautiful, so warm, so great with an audience.

 

On Don Aters’ porch in Kentucky.

 

Our home town guitar player Tom Finch with his daughter Makenna and wife Tara Coyote-Finch.

 

Etak is a good guitar player too.

 

Chris Leighton ! Patti Allen-Lehman ! Hot stuff. Chris is such a great drummer. We had some beautiful gigs together. With Chris on drums it was always like, “Hey! This is the big time.”

 

Our little friends. We put these people on the inside of an album cover, and I wish we had done this on every recording we did.

In many cases here, most cases, really, this is the only image of these people we have.

 

Norton and I wrote a couple of songs together. One of these days I will find that tape. Norton and Lisa Buffalo.

 

We’ll see you next week with some photographs of today’s Okinawa.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

_________________________________________________________

The Musical Secret of Life (or one of them anyway)

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9 October 2011

 

 

 

For any of our friends who will be on Okinawa during the Uchinanchu Festival, there will be an invitation only event on Sunday, October 16, 2011 at Sam’s by the Sea. Because space is limited, tickets are required and are available upon request, but the event is free, and is open to the alumni and teachers of Kubasaki, OCS and CKS, and to all of our friends from around the world.

 

A little honesty can get you in trouble. A lot of it can be downright dangerous.

 

Well, if I called the wrong number, then why did you answer the phone?

Photo: Max Clarke.

 

A che cosa serve la noia?

What is boredom for?

 

This face has lasted for a long time. It’s a Barrymore face from the 19th century.

 

Drew’s father was John Drew Barrymore. If they ever made a film about his life, Sean Penn could play him in a second. Drew has two great acting strains  in her family, the Drews and the Barrymores.

 

John Drew (1853-1927) was an actor and a matinée idol, one of the great stars of his day. His father was also a great actor. Louisa Lane Drew, John Drew’s mother, became the manager of the Arch Street theatre in San Francisco, which she ran successfully for thirty years.

 

On her opening night at age 21 in New York, Ethel Barrymore was scared, and someone shouted from the gallery, “Speak up, Ethel, all the Drews are great actors.” A lot of people still think she was the greatest actress of her generation.

 

We should show life neither as it is nor as it ought to be, but as we see it in our dreams.    (Chekhov)

(John Barrymore)

 

Lionel Barrymore, a huge talent, painter and actor, who had so many great roles, maybe the most interesting in Dinner At Eight (1933).

 

So, let’s just say that Drew Barrymore has a lot in her soul. Still continuing the tradition after more than a hundred years. Here’s to you, talented one. You are a Drew and a Barrymore.

 

Big Brother and the Holding Company, Sophia Ramos.

 

Elie Piliwale, the youngest and most attractive member of a very young and attractive family,

 

Art must begin locally so that it may end universally.

 

Will The Circle Be Unbroken? (I just today learned the trick of painting this, after a week of frustration. I’ve only got a little start, but it is a start, and now I know how to do it. That was a tough beginning. (Photo: Max Clarke)

 

What we love tells the story of who we are.

 

Laura Joplin and her daughter Claire.

 

An old saying in English: She was “in the pink,”

means roughly the same as the French “la vie en rose.”

 

What people look like on the street in São Paolo, Brazil.     (Photo: Elise Piliwale)

 

Nat King Cole was such a great piano player. He was as fleet, fast, furious and fun as anyone who ever played the instrument. I still can’t believe how good he was.

 

Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des Unglücklichen. (Wittgenstein)

The world of the happy is other than the world of the unhappy.     (Photo: Max Clarke)

 

LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH’ENTRATE.     (Dante)

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

 

Beginning improvisors, here is the    Secret Of Life:

Arpeggios with a judicious addition of chromaticism, scale motion and blue notes.     (Milan Melvin and Mimi Fariña, 1968)

 

The great object of music is to touch the heart, and this end can never be obtained by mere noise, drumming and arpeggios. Karl Philipp Emmanuel Bach.

 

One of the most ancient and reverential gestures that accompanied prayer was the spreading of arms and hands heavenward. In time, the arms were pulled in, folded across the breast, wrists intersecting above the heart. Each of these gestures possesses an intrinsic logic and obviousness of intent.

The folding of hands, in the now familar image of prayer, is mentioned nowhere in the Bible.

 

This prayer gesture didn’t appear in the Christian church until the ninth century. Subsequently, sculptors and artists incorporated it into scenes that predated its origin… which, it turns out, has nothing to do with religion or worship, and owes much to subjugation and servitude.

 

The folding of hands in prayer, as we know it, originated from the holding out of hands to be handcuffed. The joined hands became a standard, widely practiced gesture long before it was appropriated and formalized by the Catholic Church.

 

Before waving a white flag signaling surrender, a captured Roman could avert immediate slaughter by affecting the shackled hands posture.

 

He’s tough, sir, tough is Slick Aguilar, and devlish sly !

 

That’s her name there written out in hieroglyphics. Kleopatra.

 

The arpeggios are like the big road map and the chromaticism and blue notes are like little detailed roads to the next town, the next chord.

 

Elise Piliwale, if she were one of those fancy women at the Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada.

 

Main thing is… learn the arpeggios of all keys in all positions and inversions. Major, minor, augmented, diminished and, especially, half diminished chords.

 

Knowing the “melody” is also important, even if it is only your own melody.

 

Christy is beautiful, inside and out.

 

Big Boobster and the Holding Company, Maury Baker, Sophia Ramos, Peter Albin, Ben Nieves.

 

I am trying to get one of these people, if not both, to come sing with us soon.

 

Melody and arpeggios… of course they are both vital. it’s like line and color in painting.

 

I’m Charley’s aunt frrom Brazil where the nuts come from. In fact, Brazil was named frm the nut and not the other way round.

 

I still haven’t done a satisfactory portrait of Ben Nieves, but this one is growing on me.

 

To Alechim without whose never-failing sympathy and encouragement this blog would have been finished in half the time.

 

A long way is nothing. It’s how you take the first step that counts.

(Jim Wall, PhD Percussion, Doctor Drums)

 

Learn all these arpeggios in all these positions and modes and save years of time.

 

On the other hand, I suppose it could take a lifetime to learn all these arpeggios in all these positions.

 

It certainly has taken me a lifetime.

 

Of course, i didn’t realize for a long while that learning arpeggios should have been my goal.

 

When I began, I played in a linear style. Melody was the only thing. Melody and paraphrase of that melody.

 

So I played “horizontally.” Up and down the neck from first position on a string all the way up to as high as I could go, 20th fret and beyond.

 

After going through the Berklee methods for guitar, I slowly, dimly began to realize the importance of arpeggios.

 

Then, in the 1980s, 1990s, i began in earnest to learn the arpeggios everywhere on the guitar neck… and on the piano, saxophone and voice also.

 

The arpeggios give a schematic of where we are in the music. We don’t have to play them, but feeling them is good, because they are the outline of the chord. The skeleton. The map.

 

It is important to feel music horizontally and vertically at the same time.

 

This means being able to play melodically step by step and chordally by leaps and bounds. Melody lines and arpeggios.

 

There are many new tricks, mostly in the right hand, that I will probably never learn, but which are important for someone to learn now because most serious players use them at present.

 

If you look up my friend Joel Hoekstra, you will find a gifted teacher who will show you more in his videos and writings than you can probably learn in a lifetime.

(Mick Taylor, Sam Andrew)

 

Joel is not only a teacher, he plays in real life, plays as well as anyone, better than anyone really. See for yourself.

 

I heard a recording tonight of Joel Hoekstra, Blake Thompson and me in a room in Arizona going over Summertime for the show Love, Janis. The musicianship in that room was astonishing. I am tempted to release that recording, but it would only interest guitar players and other musical people. It’s not going to be on the Top Ten real soon, but it is a fascinating document.

 

The chronicler of daily nonsense in Zug, Switzerland.

 

Music is a tongue that utters no mean nor sarcastic words.     Photo: Don Aters.

 

This is the Foul Fiend Flibbertigibbet.

 

Sophia Ramos and I in Las Vegas.

 

Conscience, an inner voice that warns us that someone is looking, even if it’s only ourselves.     Photo: Max Clarke

 

Cogito, ergo sum.

 

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant… You may talk in this manner; it is a mode of talking in society: but don’t THINK foolishly.    Samuel Johnson.

 

Cant (Latin cantus, song)

Phraseology taken up and used for fashion’s sake, and not as a genuine expression of sentiment.

Insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness or piety, the jargon peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, e.g.,  The cant of the music industry.

 

You usually hear cant when people aren’t really thinking. Their mind slips into neutral and they begin parroting common, trendy thoughts. Politicians do this a lot. You hear accepted notions fly by like banners of banality.

 

Marin County Cant, early 21st Century:

(Full Disclosure, I am a vegetarian from Marin County.)

MARIN CANT

I’m radiating total acceptance now, so, I love you, man, no, I really love you.

It’s all good. Don’t blame me for that Astral Projection. My Mars was conjuncting Jupiter.

What color is my aura? Red? Holy Atlantis, it was green just yesterday !

I wish my chakra were red. I’m channeling BaBa Lu and psychometrisized on my spiritual journey. I’m on the path, closer to the godess, bro.

There are other realities, like, like tantric sex which will lead us to manifesting abundance. It’s a Higher Consciousness, so consult the Tarot and use your Third Eye. That’s my special mantra.

 

We’re going to Okinawa, Japan. We’ll see you next week.

(I think Kat Feaver snapped this.)

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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Auburn, California, and Virginia City, Nevada

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11 August 2011

 

 

 

Kat Tail Language:

If your cat’s tail curls in the shape of an S, the cat is happy.

If it’s standing straight up, it says “Hello, what’s new?”

If the tail is off to one side, it’s playtime.

If the tail is down to the ground or twitching, kitty is in a bad mood.

 

Holly Howard took a lot of these shots.

 

I saw Charles Brown, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt and Chris Isaak here at a party one night. Charles Brown, from Oakland, California, was the most interesting one. He influenced Ray Charles. Ray’s first records sounded like Nat King Cole or Charles Brown.

 

 

With Kyle Rowland, Kat Patterson and Jimmy Cleary. Three very talented people. Kyle who is 18 plays superlative blues harp. He and Jimmy, already a skilled quitar player at age 14, sat in with us on I Need A Man To Love, and they sounded so good. Kat is Donna and Michael’s daughter and she is a gifted dancer.

(Kyle Rowland, Jimmy Cleary)

 

The Greeks had no word for sugar. When Nearchus, admiral in service of Alexander the Great, sailed down the Indus to explore the East Indies in 325 BC, he described sugar as a “kind of honey” growing in canes or reeds.

 

 

Samantha Leoni took this photograph.

 

 

The Minnesota Andrews:

Anika Forland, Edie Andrew, Hakan Hall, Jason Andrew, Alyssa Amundson, Harley Amundson, Bryan Anker.

 

 

Take twice the money and half the clothes with you when you travel.

 

 

 

Jimmy Cleary doing some great guitar work.

 

Carmine Appice, Greg Errico and Don Wehr. It was the Seventies. Can you tell?

 

Jimmy, Kat and Kyle.

 

Jimi Hendrix, Chet Helms, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding.

 

 

A number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3. For example, 324 is 3 + 2 + 4 = 9. Thus, 324 is divisible by 3.

 

 

With Cory Marcus in Auburn, California.

 

In Mostar, Bosnia.

 

In the nineteenth century, the British Navy attempted to dispel the superstition that Friday was an unlucky day to embark on a ship. The keel of a new ship was laid on a Friday; she was named HMS Friday, commanded by a Captain Friday; and finally went to sea on a Friday. Neither the ship nor her crew was ever heard of again.

 

 

John Bryne Cooke took this photo of Janis playing the autoharp in London.

 

A review from Vicenza, Italia.

 

Elise Piliwale in Fairfax, California.

 

 

The only way to get the best of an argument is not to have it in the first place.

 

 

Ann Rinehart taught me oil painting, and she went to high school with Myra Friedman who wrote Buried Alive In The Blues. AND she taught Margaret Gurley painting, so we have a lot of connections.

 

With Meliha Nametak-Long in Mostar, Bosnia.

 

This horse bit my finger, just a little bit, a love nip.

 

With Elma Schuster and a set list.

 

We live on a hectare of land (2 1/2 acres) in this small lovely house. Our neighbors are foxes, bobcats and deer.

 

 

Kim Nomad.

 

Stefanie Keys and Sam Clemens.

 

Janis Joplin, Michael McClure and Bobby Neuworth, the three people who wrote Mercedes Benz.

 

 

Elise’s father Lui Piliwale. Saipan.

 

John Cipollina just about the time that I played saxophone in a band with him in Marin County, California, 1961.

 

Laura Joplin, Sam Andrew, Michael Joplin.

 

Zwanda has modeled for me for years. One day she is going to have an art show featuring paintings of her by many different artists.

 

Alsatians in Texas. The Mann family. Myrtle and Albert Mann were my mother’s parents.

 

Elise Piliwale’s photograph of the lonely chair.

 

One of the funniest men ever. Les Paul. Good guitar player too.

 

Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, Nevada.

 

Amazing how in such a short time we are related to everyone. This is the Mann family in Europe.

 

Shelley Champine at Aroma Café.

 

Michael Joplin doing his Mel Gibson impersonation.

 

It is rumored that sucking on a copper penny will cause a Breathalyzer to read zero.

 

Elise Piliwale documents this overturned chair.

 

Kathi McDonald, Sam Andrew, Seattle.

 

Michel Bastian, Sam Andrew, James Gurley at The Fillmore Auditorium.

 

A horse with a dull coat needs more corn in its diet.

 

In 1281, the Mongol army of Kublai Khan tried to invade Japan, but they were ravaged by a hurricane (typhoon) that destroyed their entire fleet. in Japanese this typhoon is called “the divine wind,” kami kaze.

 

Automobile, Virginia City.

 

Hasta luego.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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TULSA, MOSTAR, ROME, RAVENNA, VICENZA, TABERNELLE VAL DI PESA, CITTA DELLA PIEVE, TRASIMENO, ABRUZZO, AQUILA

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5 August 2011

 

Tulsa, Oklahoma

 

Michael Eisenberg playing Helter Skelter.

 

Cathy Richardson and Peter Albin.

 

Mary Bridget Davies, Slick Aguilar, Ben Nieves.

 

Not a very Italian name, but it was near the Rome airport in Fiumicino.

 

Ben Nieves marching toward Spain in the Mediterranean.

 

Beautiful land still being Balkanized.

 

With my friend Bojan in Mostar, Bosnia.

 

Ben Nieves looming over Dubrovnik.

 

Mary Bridget Davies and Rick who came to get us at the Dubrovnik airport.

 

New and not so new.

 

Ben Nieves and Eso who drove us from Dubrovnik on the coast to Mostar a little inland.

 

When we arrived in Mostar, Bosnia, there was Stephen Long whom I haven’t seen since the 1990s, when I knew him in Seattle. I met him through Craig Arrowood.  Stephen married a Bosnian woman and they have a beautiful family and life in Mostar.

 

The Muslims advanced in Europe almost to Vienna and they reigned over this land for centuries.

 

Ben Nieves practicing in the Bristol Hotel lobby, waiting to go to sound check.

 

With Lejla and her son. Lejla sounds like “Leila,” but she told me that in Australia people called her Ledgela.

 

This mosque was atop a hill and there were paintings for sale.

 

Mary Bridget Davies on the Dalmatian Coast. That shirt is very appropriate for this place.

 

The people in Bosnia looked very familiar to us.

 

Bosnia is part of what used to be Yugoslavia.

 

Imagine that in San Francisco the Chinese threw the AngloSaxons out of the City and into Marin County and the AngloSaxons began firing artillery into the City from the heights of Marin, as the Chinese began to war on the Mexicans and African Americans. This is essentially what happened in Mostar, Bosnia.

 

After centuries of peaceful coexistence, Muslims, Croatians, Serbians, Catholics, Christian Orthodox peoples all began to war on each other. The entire region went insane in the 1990s.

 

In 1992-1993, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia which began bombing Mostar. Everyone entered the war sooner or later. Croatians fought Serbians fought Muslims.

 

Today there are a lot of graves in Mostar with markers like these.

 

Many beautiful buildings were destroyed and there are bulletholes everywhere.

 

This high school was built after the madness and insanity had ebbed.

 

Now there is peaceful coexistence again. In our audience were members of all these groups who warred on each other a short time ago. So strange.

 

On 26 July, we gave a little lecture and talked with some interesting people  here at The Pavarotti Center

 

The way the Romans think of themselves: Senatus PopulusQue Romanum. The Senate and People of Rome.

 

Roman ceiling.

 

Silvio Berlusconi, the Bunga Bunga man.

 

This was the first bridge in Rome that Mary, Ben and I crossed, named for the Risorgimento, the unification of Italy in the 19th century.

 

In la piazza di San Pietro.

 

Yea, be at peace ye multitudes for verily we have arrived.

 

Cleveland meets Rome.

 

Such a peaceful religion.

 

Make the jump to Binacci.

 

You’re out on the street looking good.

 

Petrus Maccaranius, 1817.

 

Pope Sixtus built the Sistine Chapel. “Sistine” is the adjective for Sixtus.

 

Catharine means “pure.”

 

Julius Caesar slept here.

 

I like the movement in this sculpture.

 

Il Tevere, the Tiber.

 

Now you know we just had to have one photograph of the Spanish Steps.

 

Ben was thinking about buying this underwear.

 

Augustus Caesar brought this Egyptian obelisk to Rome.

 

And three photographs of the Coloseum.

 

Ravenna almost became the capital of Italy because it was on the Adriatic and thus nearer to Byzantium, the new center of the Empire. There is still a Byzantine feel to the city.

 

Reflecting on the ancient city of Ravenna.

 

In an alley.

 

Before the concert.

 

I love you. I am sincere, you know it. I love you little piggy mine.

 

Two wild and crazy guys. Three?

 

Valeria. Her band didn’t get to play.

 

Antea Salmaso and her Cheap Thrills sneakers.

 

The dance of the four seasons. This is the floor of a villa found when excavations began for the building of an underground garage.

 

Ravenna is a good city for walking.

 

The Byzantine influence.

 

Rainy weather in July.

 

Sails of the port.

 

Arianna Antinori in Brendola. She sang three songs with us, so much fun, so good. The little grove where we played in Brendola felt like Hawaii, warm, lush, fragrant.

 

Brendola is near to Vicenza, Arianna’s hometown, although she is originally from Rome. I asked this fellow if he knew what his T shirt meant.

 

Agriturismo. Agritourism. We stayed in this farmhouse feeling building while we were in Vicenza. it reminded me of places we stay in Germany.

 

My friend Cesare. We did an interview that was like a good conversation.

 

Lots of flowers in this beautiful place.

 

Mary is still a real Catholic.

 

We drove to Toscana, Tuscany, the land that took its name from  the Etruscans, a soft, beautiful, green land. The Green Heart of Italy.

 

This is Tabernelle Val di Pesa where we stayed at the Hotel Chianti.

 

A little south and a little west of Toscana, Abruzzo.

 

Città della Pieve in Latin is Civitas Plebis, City of the People.

 

Ariana and Antea at our hotel in Città della Pieve. This is near Lake Trasimeno.

 

I went to a LOT of churches. That’s where the art is.

 

I watched these men practice soccer for a while marvelling at their ability to do anything in that August heat. Then I remembered that I played football on Okinawa, hotter by far than here. We used to practice in pads and helmets in August.

 

A lovely little hilltop city.

 

Aquila where the terremoto, the earthquake, was. Maurizio gave me a little tour of the city. This is our hotel. Amiternum could mean “eternal friend” or “eternal friendship.” Something like that.

 

Beautiful people in Italy, beautiful people everywhere.

 

Flying out of Rome…

 

… and spending three hours at JFK.

 

We had a lot of fun playing in Europe this time. Ben and I made some significant progress in inventing new arrangements and new styles of ensemble playing.

 

Arrivederci.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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It’s A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.

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14 November 2010

Steve Brown took this lovely photograph of Janis.

I could have met Stela Mandel at this engagement, but, no….

The very lively Cathy Richardson.

Marin: Lizards in the summer, Salamanders when it gets cooler.

Elise au naturel.

Janis at her house in Larkspur. She was once the pool champion of Avenue D.

If Tom Cruise lived in East Texas, he might look like this.

Basic human decency, rock and roll version.

Two and a half years old.

Elise when she was modeling. Sarasota, Florida. 1980s.

Mary Bridget Davies. Very intelligent, smart as can be. Funny. Strong.

Kate Russo and Peter Albin in Koh Samui, Thailand.

My sister Lillian and my father.

See? I told you she knew how to play flügelhorn.

Janis had an angular, jabbing kind of writing style. Sharp as she was.

Moondog, serious classical composer, author of All Is Loneliness.

Tom Finch and Tara Coyote. Glamorous and amorous.

Nick Gravenites, a very happy unidentified woman, and John Cipollina.

On the cover of the Rolling Stone, Italian style. Good photograph.

We learned Ball and Chain from this woman.

Elise took this dawn photograph of the Wörthersee in southern Austria.

Tim Braun and Woo Salazar in the Kansas City, Missouri, Love, Janis.

278 West 11th Street, NYC. I lived in the West Village for almost ten years.

McNear’s Beach, I think. Janis, Peter, Dave, Sam. Total madhouse.

One of the many appropriations of Robert Crumb’s great idea.

We played with Steve at The Shoreline Amphitheatre a couple of years ago.

Karen Lyberger, glassical scholar, Hawaii.

Merl Saunders, Barry Melton, Norton Buffalo, shot by Don Aters.

The Hummingbird that Janis first played Bobby McGee on. Beautiful guitar.

I remember these vehicles.

Joan, Karen, Elise, Hawaii.

This was quite a gig.

Big Brother in Kyoto. Tom Finch, Duffy Bishop. 1996?

Just another night backstage.

Shanghai Elise.

In this manicured England, we were at the Bein Inn. Not like a Be In.

The top of San Francisco. Fisherman’s Wharf. Aquatic Park. The Marina.

Aspects of Elise. 1980s.

Max Clarke, peripheralist, photographer extraordinaire.

Carla, Elise’s mother, and Edd came to Scotland when we played there.

Almost two.

Dave Getz, Hawaii.

Regensburg, Germany 2003.

Kathi McDonald and Bob Mosely.

The Pik Ass Playroom.

White Plains, New York.

With my brother Dan in Austin. 1980s.

I wonder how many times I’ve played Piece of My Heart?

Elise is singing.

Getting ready to go to Okinawa the first time.

Do I look proud to be with these people? Sophia Ramos and Ben Nieves.

Chad Quist, Lisa Mills, Todd Vinciguerra. This was a good band.

With Kathi McDonald. Seattle.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Two benefits

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2 October 2010

Two benefits this day, one in San Rafael for the school system, the other in Petaluma, California, for the “wrongly denied” quadriplegics and paraplegics and their families. We were very proud to have played for both eminently worthy causes.

We played a set in San Rafael at 6:00 in the evening, early so we could get up to Petaluma and play there later. Tommy Castro was our host for the evening at Andy’s Market out by the Loch Lomond yacht harbor.

Stefanie Keys did the singing for this one.

Dave Getz did the drumming.

Callie Watts who sang so well with Frobeck the band who followed us in San Rafael. Very good band, reminded me a bit of Tower of Power, excellent players, good arrangements, strong vocals.

The people you meet backstage at these affairs. My, my.

Peter Albin at an earlier benefit. I’m so glad we are doing a lot of these. That’s Bonnie Hofkin in the background. I am a groupie for medical illustrators, Bonnie, Stela Mandela, Phoebe Glockner. I love them all.

This is Shannon who wants to do Love, Janis. Tom Finch and I had a lot of fun driving around, and he really played well on both of these gigs.

Save water, shower with a friend. Cathy Richardson working on Combination of the Two. Cathy needed a shower. She was hot, hot, hot in Petaluma. On fire.

Lots of Toms and Tommys. Tommy Smothers, Tom Constanten and Tom Finch.

A giantess who reminds me of Jennifer Garner, lovely. Darby Gould, singer with the Starship. Cathy Richardson looking all glamorous. She was really very cute this night.

Dario Da Rold. He is trying to teach me how to look Italian.

We played in Millerton, New York, last week. This is the green room. This magnificent edifice was built in 1888.

A Pit Bull and a Shih Tzu.

Tara Degl’Innocenti, who is also trying to teach me how to look Italian.

Look closely at this one.

Elise Piliwale in the middle of Maui. The road is named after her family who lived here since long before the Kamehamehas. Piliwale is the name of an ancient noble family of Hawaiians who spawned very beautiful women.

I stole this photo from Theresa Izzo, who stole it from someone, who stole it from someone, and so on and so on.

Thank you to Tommy Castro who does such good work for the San Rafael school system. Go, Tommy.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

__________________________________________________________

Dunsmuir and Leggett, California

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12 September 2010

Dunsmuir and Leggett, California

This is a photograph by Donna Patterson of Mount Shasta. She has her top blown off (the mount, not Donna) because she is one of the Sisters in the volcano belt. Some of her sisters are Mount Hood, Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens. I was on the road with Pearl Heart (don’t ask) somewhere near Vancouver, Washington, standing in my motel room, shaving with the door open, when I heard a loud boom. That was Mount Shasta’s sister, Mount Saint Helens blowing her top.

So, not to be theatrical or anything, but here we are in Dunsmuir practicing for the show, which will be on a baseball field, a baseball field that has felt the mighty step of Babe Ruth and heard the preppie cadences of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who said, “This Dunsmuir water is the finest that I have ever tasted.”

I’m not sure that Nat Cole was ever here in Dunsmuir, but Elise and I turned on the television and there he was in a film called Cat Ballou. Completely ridiculous. Mr. Cole, one of the greatest jazz pianists, and you know how he sings, was standing there in overalls with a banjo and singing country songs. So postmodern. Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin. Really out there.

We’re working on Ball & Chain here. Almost got it.

Me giving Tom Finch some pointers on how to play his solos.

Peter telling us what our Dachshund will do to us IN THE NIGHT.

The Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman. Stefanie Keys, ladies and gentlemen.

A force of nature. Encouraging, positive, alive, vibrant, OK a little goofy, and a joy to be with.

Some of the lovely Dunsmuirians. Ryan Marchand is the good looking one.

Kat Patterson doing an unforgettable rendition of He Who Smelt It, Dealt It. Please note extremely correct toe articulation.

We left Dunsmuir, which is very far north in California, drove down to the Colusa Clearlake exit, and took Highway 20 west to join Highway 101 north and drove to Leggett in Mendocino County. This was a marathon drive and Elise did it with skill, charm and aplomb. The Peg House has a sense of humor and so, ha, ha, they decided to put this mock up police car in front of their place. That’s to get everyone to slow down, see?, so that they might come in and spend some money. Ha, ha.

Tom Finch was truly playing some beautiful guitar on this trip, and Stefanie made me very proud. She is getting better every gig. She’s smart, she works, she’s happy…what a woman!

With Amélie and Chris. I’m trying to get Amélie to give up smoking, so this is a subliminal message.

Arianna Antinori, my irrepressible friend who is Roman but now lives in Vicenza, Italy, which is not that far from Belluno, the home of my dear friend, Dario Da Rold. Look how beautiful Arianna is. She will sing some songs with us when we play in Vicenza.

Shiho-san (Superfly) came and sang with us at Woodstock (Bethel, NY) and I just loved her. This is an interview/article with her in Japan Times.

Elise and I had such a good time on this trip. Lots of laughs, fun to see new things. I love this woman.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

5 September 2010 – À la Recherche du Temps Perdu

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À la Recherche du Temps Perdu



I painted Samantha Gorton and her sister Sarah, and already, of course, they have changed so much. Samantha did a drawing of me that I keep in my paintbox. Very good.

The last time we played on Hawaii. Elise’s ancestors were nobility there. They are always mentioned in early chronicles of the Islands.

December 1940. Headlines from the Brockton (Massachusetts) Enterprise, written on the wall, much as they are in China today. An earthquake? In Massachusetts? Italians should oust Mussolini? Prescient.

A film noir image, n’est-ce pas? Nothing like holding forth about yourself in a lecture hall. I can always see every skeptic in the audience saying, “Oh, please, give me a break.” It’s like Tom Brokaw saying “The Greatest Generation.” We all have to think that where we are is special, when, really, where everyone, is, shall be, was, has been is special, now and forever. That’s the real secret. And, by the way, all sentient beings are included in this also, not just human beings. Life is precious. La de Da.

Case in point. Apologies to my brother Dan, a Buddhist in Nashville, but here is Nam Hyo Ren Gei Kyo written out in very stylized Japanese kanji. This almost looks as if a Westerner had written it. Anyway, a good message.

Lee, Bill, Sam, early 60s. I talk to two Italians every day who teach me a lot about their language and culture. One of them is Frank Bertolli, who is a Big Game Hunter, as is my brother Lee. Frank has a very large room on his property, devoted to his trophies from every land. Dario, our friend, says that when Frank dies, he should be stuffed and mounted in this very room in the act of shooting these other stuffed mounts. I can’t wait to introduce Lee, my brother, to Frank, who is a very good and a very rich man. They will get along so well. Meanwhile, Dario and I will cower in the corner, saying, “Aren’t they so masterful and so powerful over their environment.” Or, we may be just enjoying some of the intricacies of Italian language and how it relates to English, one never knows, do one? I’m the tallest here in this photo, and now I’m the shortest of these brothers. Do you suppose that means anything? Have I taken a wrong turn into plant eating, when I could be chowing down on quadrupeds? Maybe it’s just age, yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket. This is a singing group actually. The Three Androids with their latest hit Oh, Baby, Won’t You Horse Around With Me?

What? You mean Oh, Baby, Won’t You Horse Around With Me? is not on this setlist. Oh, come on.

This is what the music for a dance in Oklahoma looked like in 1939. And this is what it was for so much of human history. My grandfather and uncle played on their porch around this same time, near Devine, Texas, and this is what it looked like to me, and the music was so beautiful, real, magical. I’ll never forget it.

This was such an interesting place to play. Halle. Formerly East Germany. When we checked into hotels here, I would look around the stale, pale olive rooms and try to imagine lives that had transpired there, not so long before. All of that misdirection, waste, idealism, hope, truly altruistic notions that had taken place in the Communist Era, all of that, so lost, misinterpreted, all those lives, lived in pursuit of that Ideal. I could just feel all the longing when I lodged in such a room. Overwhelming. Sad. I wanted to pull them all into now.

Bye, Bye, Baby.

RARE photograph with my mother. Handsome dad. South China Sea. Lillian, Dad, Dan, Bill, Mother, Lee. I learned to swim in this Sea about twelve years before this.

Glenn Herskovitz thinks that I play a “psychedelic” solo on this. OK. If that works for marketing, so be it. Sounds like a blues solo to me, but, eh?

Sister Lillian and my father, both beautiful, yes?

Jane Fonda, always interesting, courageous. I had a missing with Jane once. Always to be regretted. She is a national treasure.

I drew this hand in St. Petersburg, Florida, waiting for Wendy Rich to come and write songs with me.

Big Brother and the Holding Company are going to Dunsmuir and Legget, California, this week. Stefanie Keys and Tom Finch are coming with us.

Sam Andrew
Big Brother and the Holding Company