*Curse Of The Terminally Sighing People

Lately, there's been so much going on, going wrong, demanding me to suck it up and just be strong inside my orbit that it would be so easy to fling these great chunks of rage and hurl these bruise-colored blues soundly into the faces of people who are clearly unworthy of receiving them.

*Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe! Just Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe, Lin!*

The truth is:

I don’t wanna become one of THEM… one of those people… one of those woe-is-me people who constantly sigh. Those Chronically Sighing People, I call them… You know them: those people who speak in fluently blue tones, who brood and cry in terminally sighing moans. Those people who sing only sad and melancholy songs… those people who exist in sobbing fits of solitude whose only trick, kick or tic is a permanent facial grimace.




I don’t wanna become one of them. God, please don’t allow me to become one of those crying, hand-fixed-to-the-forehead, overly dramatic, habitually Sighing People!


I don’t wanna be one of those people who bitch and groan and feel alone, even in crowded rooms; nor a friendless soul who’ll only move to those slow sad drums of their own. I know some people don’t trust in different drummers for fear those drummers will fuck with the funk of their beat. But in the end, those feelings are so damned self-defeating.




So... I don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be one of people who drown in a pain… so deep… even strains of Coltrane (or Manilow) can’t release them from their Indigo Trains of Thought. I don’t need the tremulous coo of some woozy crooner to renew, redo, re-blue my Blues, when they’ve already been blown Blue enough.


I just don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be breast-fed by Nina Simone, mislead by Lady Day or led astray by Sade. I don’t wanna believe Joni Mitchell ever lied… even if that “Furry” cat died and really did 'play The Blues…' And though I love the Jazz and Blues idoms, I don’t want my Life to be a indigo-colored song that slides terminally from the reed of a dejected and sad-azz saxophone.





See, I don’t wanna be nor ever become one of Those People… those people who only speak and whine and brood and cry interminably. Don’t wanna be a member of that mind-numbing Cult of Terminally Sighing People…

So maybe today, maybe tonight, maybe if I try… I won’t be.




Instead, from the Beastly Jaws of Human Suffering, I'ma be the one who snatches the living HELL outta JOY!





One.

*repost

Reflections On The Life and Sound of Etta James

Loud and tender as a growling prayer, she was The Blues, embodied in fair skin and platinum hair.

She was a certified Blues traveler. The Blues were trapped inside the shoes she wore, and they wrapped themselves around her legs, her waistline, her vocal chords, and her Life, like indigo boa constrictors. She was so brilliantly bitter with a belly full of rage and those Blues were her Saving Grace; her calling card and her clarion call... But OH GOD! How she could release them from the trapdoor of her throat into the woozy skag and liquor filled night, sending them on a starry flight into our ears and our hearts!

Her life was hard, and so were some of her choices.

Her vocals were a cross, a mash-up between baptist church testimony and the sound of a broken heart; the stank of Saturday night's pool hall sin, and Sunday's wounded, skidmarked angel.

Such a soul-sangin' dame! She was the original Etta James. Yes. She was uniquely, bitter-sweetly Etta, damn it! And she will be missed.


Thank God for the music! That voice and those recordings will forever exist.




RIP, Jamesetta!

One.

The God Voice: For Coltrane, Dem Blues-Playas & Myself

Maybe
God
Sounds like
Satchmo
On a good day or
A bad night,
With a slight cold
In a wheezy
Scratch-throated
Cry of
The Blues.

Yeah...
Maybe Jazz
And Blues be
The Music of
A Woozy God, High
And addicted to this
Possibility in us,
And yet
Hip
To this slick
Grog of
Disappointment.

Maybe that
God Voice Cries
From the feet
And the spine
And the lungs
And the lips
And the heart
Of Slaves...
And maybe now
The players must cling
To horns like
Old Negroes
Clung tight to Spirituals
Or lapsed Catholics
Do to prayers and
Crucifixes.

Maybe the
God Voice
Is in our music, yo.

But, on a good day
In a bad way
Some sanctified players
Still come out to play...
And they reach down
Deep beneath

The lost years
The lost faith
The lost pride
The lost grooves
The lost eyes
The bad trips
The counterfeits
The heroin scabs
And infected chicks
To find magic
In that
Sweet and Mystic Riff.

And That God Voice
Kicks in
So deep,
So painful,
So real,
So necessary that
It clears the tears
From the blare
Of the
Horn...

And it makes
Its God Noise
So Real and
So strong...
So authentic
So calm
That it makes you
Believe in
Magic
Again.

Yeah...
Just maybe Jazz
And Blues be
The music of
A Woozy God,
So High,
So addicted to this
Possibility of
Us...
And yet,
Hip
To this slick grog
Of disappointment.



One.

*The Dreaded Curse of The Sighing People

Lately, there's been so much going on, going wrong, demanding me to suck it up and just be strong inside my orbit that it would be so easy to fling these great chunks of rage and hurl these bruise-colored blues soundly into the faces of people who are clearly unworthy of receiving them.

*Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe! Just Breeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeathe, Lin!*

The truth is:

I don’t wanna become one of THEM… one of those people… one of those people who sigh. Those Sighing People I call them… those people who speak in only blue tones, who brood and cry in terminally sighing moans. Those people who sing only sad and melancholy songs… those people who exist in sobbing fits of solitude, whose only trick, kick or tic is a permanent facial grimace.




I don’t wanna become one of them. God, please don’t allow me to become one of those crying, hand-fixed-to-the-forehead, overly dramtic, habitually Sighing People!


I don’t wanna be one of those people who feel alone, even in crowded rooms; nor a friendless soul who’ll only move to those slow sad drums of their own. I know some people don’t trust in different drummers for fear those drummers will fuck with the funk of their beat.




But I don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be one of people who drown in a pain… so deep… even strains of Coltrane (or Manilow) can’t release them from their Indigo Trains of Thought. I don’t need the tremulous coo of some woozy crooner to renew, redo, re-blue my Blues, when they’ve already been blown Blue enough.


I just don’t wanna become one of them.


I don’t wanna be breast-fed by Nina Simone, or mislead by Lady Day. I don’t wanna believe Joni Mitchell ever lied… even if that “Furry” cat really did 'play The Blues…' And though I love the Jazz and Blues idoms, I don’t want my Life to be a indigo-colored song that slides terminally from the reed of a dejected and sad-azz saxophone.





See, I don’t wanna be nor ever become one of Those People… those people who only speak and whine and brood and cry interminably. Don’t wanna be a member of that mind-numbing Cult of Terminally Sighing People…

So maybe today, maybe tonight, maybe if I try… I won’t be.




Instead, from the Beastly Jaws of Human Suffering, I'ma be the one who snatches the living HELL outta JOY!





One.

*repost