Hunting for the Finer Things

This is how politicians think!

“We have to pass the health care bill so that you can find out what is in it.” That unfortunately is the sad state of affairs, not just with healthcare, but with virtually any bill passed by Congress.

The only people who know what is in these bills are the lobbyists who write them.

Just Damn!

For the past several months, I have been posting a Daily Tao. These writings are from the Tao-Te-Ching, or Huanchu Daoren. First of all, I felt that these writings gave me a little something to think about each day. Second, I thought you might get a little something to think about.

What you may not know is that I was a practicing Zen Buddhist for a time. I would go and meditate at a temple several times a week, as well as meditate at home. For the past couple of years, I find myself meditating at work. I’m never fully concentrating on the mindless job that I have. Many times in the evening, I’ll look up and think, “Damn, Where did all this finished work come from?” I didn’t realize that I had even been working. Not quite a daydream either, I was just being.

Anyway, I think that “The Daily Tao” Blog post is fucked out. Frankly, I’m tired of typing the quotes each day, and according to a few comments and emails, you’re tired of reading it. So anyway, I’m not going to do it anymore…for a while, at least not daily. Maybe if I was Tiger Woods…well…

Now instead of a daily anything, I’m going back to just leaving the Blog blank until I get around to posting.

Just Damn!

My good buddy and fellow musician Jimbo, just posted his fears and worries about an upcoming gig with his old band mates. Granted that the band hasn’t played some of their old tunes since 1966, music is still music and musicians have to come from a place from somewhere deep inside themselves to produce music especially in a performance setting.

Sometimes the universe operates in a synchronicity. No sooner than I had read Jim’s post, I found this email about another musician. A musician, who had to find that music from deep within himself. I hope this story helps to put things into perspective for Mr. Jim. It sure put things into perspective for me, and I don’t even have a gig coming up. Maybe this story will help you to focus as well…

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at LincolnCenter in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap – it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage – to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn’t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.
Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from the m that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said – not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone – “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.“

What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life – not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

So Jimbo, I guess you’re going to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.

Just Damn!

If ninety percent of what you say hits the mark, you will not necessarily be praised as exceptional; but if one statement misses the mark, you will be blamed by everyone for this mistake. If nine out of ten plans work, you will not necessarily be considered successful; but when one plan fails, you will be heaped with abuse. Therefore enlightened people prefer silence to impetuosity and ineptitude to cleverness.

~Huanchu Daoren

I’ve been busy working on a new project. After working for the man, I’ve decided to open my very own restaurant. Country cooking at it’s finest. Here’s a sample menu from The Swamp Shack…

Click the menu for more great menu items.

Just Damn!

This music video is pretty cool…the music…well not so much…

Just Damn!

One should not seek happiness, just nurture the spirit of joy as the basis of summoning happiness. One should not try to escape misfortune, just rid of viciousness as a means of avoiding misfortune.

~Huanchu Daoren

25

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and Earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten
thousand things.
I do not know its name
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.
Being great, it flows
I flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.
Therefore, “Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great.”
These are the four great powers of the
universe,
And the king is one of them.
Man follows Earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

Tao Te Ching

Here is a video presentation about the ten things you never knew about orgasms. It’s not exactly pr0n… unless you’re a pig.

Just Damn!