Candide (2:42)

(Please ignore this cheesy video. Just listen to the song and read.)

Whack!

Imagine if you woke up this morning and your entire world was cartoon. Everything was real and in its place, but in an animated state. What style is your world going to be? Would everything look like the Bugs Bunny cartoons? The early black and white Mickey Mouse railroad? Or modern Japanese Hentai? Does it really matter? “This is awesome!”

“Law, law, law, loddie.” bmp bmp

“Law, law, law, loddie.” bmp bmp

Imagine this song playing ubiquitously. You dance everywhere you go.

“Yeah, yeah, ye--, ye--, ye--, yeah.”

There is no time for coffee or breakfast on a morning like this. You want to get as much out of your drawn world as possible before it transforms its way back to a concrete state. So what is the first thing you do? Go marching through the city of course.

Everything from delivery trucks to bicycles and pigeons to poodles is in a warped tour. Fito’s rolling tempo and The Mole’s jumping bass keep time. You begin to take giant cartoonish strides with both hands in your pockets like Cab Calloway as Koko the Clown from the Betty Boop shorts.

“Hey! Shoobie doobie and a boop-bop-boodle am baum.”

(Roll with me here)

“Hey! Shoobie doobie and a boop-bop-boodle am baum.”

A bearded man on the corner begins to blow into a harmonica twice the size of him. When he inhales, his torso inflates like a hot air balloon. He sweeps over the different reed openings on the personified harp. Both the fire hydrant and street lamp take on human personality and bounce in their grounded positions. Black quarter and eighth notes begin to float upwards from harmonica to the sky.

You stop for a minute to take it in. You pull your left hand from your pocket and snap your fingers along with the hustler. The music is fast, but you are shuffling at your own rhythm, lucid and fluid.

A barber steps out of his shop and begins to play bass notes on an exaggerated comb. He plucks them one by one creating that jazz scale synonymous with the day’s soundtrack. He stops, and points to the little shoe shine boy working on the businessman’s banker-leather. The shiner equipment turns into a mock drum kit so he can solo. The little boy plays skins on his brushes, polish tins, and tip-money jar that have since come to life.

Back and forth the barber and shoe shine go. It is a friendly dual to see who can out play the other. The embodied comb and polish join the competition in fun. Pretty soon the dual turns to collaboration.

Leaning out the window of a third storey brown stone is someone you recognize, regardless of your new illustrative environment. With Parisian hat and exaggerated sunglasses, the pianist stretches his arms onto the overhanging laundry line turning the drying garments into keys. “Is that Dr. John?” Hell yeah it is.

Now entirely out the window, the cartoon Dr. John bounces and tightropes his way across the laundered clothes like an agile monkey, kicking at each one to make a new sound. Barber, shiner, and the doctor send musical notes into the atmosphere while the buildings squat and rise to the beat of their sound.

“Law, law, law, loddie.”

“Time to move on,” you tell yourself. You round the corner and come across two deliverymen loading bread onto a truck.

“Yeah, yeah, ye--, ye--, ye--, yeah,” sings the one.

“Yeah, yeah, ye--, ye--, ye--, yeah,” answers the other.

The baker steps out of the bakery with a basket of croissants and turnovers and pastries.

“Hey! Shoobie doobie and a boop-bop-boodle am baum,” he announces as he scatters breads around the neighborhood. Each one finds the clutch of a dancing neighbor.

“Hey! Shoobie doobie and a boop-bop-boodle am baum.”

With the toss of the last croissant, you enter the bakery and everything becomes real. The music plays its crescendo finalé. You get your coffee and sit down to a silent bakery.

A black schoolgirl walks by the window and sings softly under her breath, “Hey, shoobie doobie and a boop-bop-boodle am baum.”

John's bur. Ill in noise. (1:34)

Songs don’t have to be long to be great. In fact, if an artist can express his deepest emotions in a minute thirty-four, it is probably a result of genius and talent rather than surrender. Billy S. did say, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Puttin' your cards in the table isn't a drawn out thing.

She’s all that I think of.

And who has more soul than Tom Waits? In less than two minutes he encapsulates everything it feels to have your heart broken, and the discomfort of wondering where she is; what heart she is breaking. He knows where she is from, but where has she gone?

She grew up on a farm there.

Tattooed in his heart, and now a dangling appendage--static and dead to the rest of his vacant spirit--Waits struggles with the notion of amputation. What does it mean to ‘abandon love?’

And yet all he can do is sit at a piano with the rest of the broken-hearted, stroking a ninety-second melody on subdued keys, and remind himself of where she is from.

He can’t live without her. He was her only boy.

He knows where she is from. He has been there many times. What was once an unnoticed pastel fleck on a map of the Midwest is now an associative. It symbolizes death of an abstract, severance of an imagined euphoria. He is well outside McHenry now. But he is nowhere near

Johnsburg, Illinois.

You can sense the strain in the singer’s voice. A wrong key is hit. He musters up the strength to mutter the name of her hometown. Wrong notes signify his defeat. He wants the song to keep playing itself; he wants the melody to run on forever. But he knows it can’t. Like everything else close to his heart, this song is

over.

Grew Vision: The Art (4:06)

We’re going to dance.

Your mind is going to dance.

(that’s right)

Were going to dance, and have some fun.

It’s 1990 and you just backed out of your laneway on a quiet Sunday morning to go for a drive. Twist on the radio knob and you catch this bass line you have never heard before.

Dig.

“Is this disco?” you ask yourself. “Disco on a Sunday morning?”

It sounds like a party that you want to be at. Timpani bongos get your feet tapping on the gas pedal. You notice some background conversation of dancers as they prepare for their assault on a dance floor in your brain. You turn left at the stoplight to get in the right state of mind. You’re starting to groove.

I couldn’t ask for another. I,I,I,I..

No I couldn’t ask for another.

“Who is that singing?” you say to yourself. “That voice--it’s so familiar.” The groove by now has entered your morning brain space like the odor of baked cookies from a memory when you were five. Sing it baby.

You reach down to turn up the stereo and take a right at the bakery. As you begin to shake your shoulders in the driver’s seat you remind yourself that there is this park on the edge of town you and your club-pals used to go to at seven in the morning after a serious night of raving. You wonder if it is still the place to be. You recall playing The Pet Shop Boys, Joy Division, Kraftwerk and wearing glow-in-the-dark bracelets. You remember what it was like to dance for nine hours straight. You were feeling old when you got up this morning, but not anymore. Lady Miss Kier has just brought you back to life.

Groove is in the heart.

Waiting for the red light to turn green, you spot a twenty-something out for an early morning walk with her tiny poodle. She is dressed in a one piece spandex outfit that fits so tightly around her body you think it could have been painted on. It’s bold diamond shapes of green, red, and yellow jump out at you like flowers on a clown’s balloon trousers. But she's not to be laughed at.

Cow-bell solo.

Now in both ears.

Watch out.

Her strawberry-blonde hair is slicked back tight and held in place by a thick black headband that makes her forehead appear bigger than it is. She notices you looking at her and stops. In a daring smile, she raises her arms above her head like she is about to take flight. Taunting you to get out of your car, she bends her knees and shakes her ass to the rhythm of your stereo. You want to dance with her. It’s as if you remember her. I’ve been told; she can’t be sold.

She’s not vicious, or malicious. Just de-lovely, and delicious.

Watching her on the corner, you think to yourself that there is no way she could be dancing for another.

And then she pauses. Her groove is exchanged for swank. Rap interlude:

This new mix will define the fresh decade. This is Brooklyn in 1990. Rapping and spinning; dancing and grooving. The beats, the electricity, the groove; it’s all flowing. It’s funk and it’s disco. It’s rap and it’s electric. Four teens stumble along the sidewalk drunk and disheveled. You remember what it was like to watch the sunrise for the first time. You recall getting high and dancing for nine hours straight. Your mind flashes back to a time when you owned music that no one else had heard before. That innocence is something you wish you could get back to. Drugged up and drunk, sweating on the carpet, laughing with good friends without judgment. What ever happened to moral-free evaluation?

You crank up the stereo once again.

Baby, just sing about the groove.

Groove is in the heart.

You drive by the wanderlust and her dog determined to get to the park now. You have forgotten what it is like to feel music rather than just hearing it. Turn right at the end of your town’s main drag and you see a large barn that you don’t ever remember being there. There are piles of cars parked out front and you can hear the drone of multiple voices screaming and shouting over a loud amplifier. As if some greater force is guiding the steering wheel, you turn into the long laneway towards the barn. The music and voices grow louder in your ears. And then--

Pop.

Snap your fingers.

One-two-three…

“Break it down brass section: I’m walkin’ into this dance party,” you tell yourself. The scene is nothing like you have ever witnessed before. Hundreds of kids wearing outrageous costumes; dancing without a care in the world. You’re dressed too plainly but no one seems to mind. Smiles welcome you. You develop a swagger you didn’t know you had. Introduction through body movement. One young man leans into you and winks:

“Groove--is in your heart.”

There comes her voice again. For a moment you debate looking for its source. And that’s when you realize--it’s not an external song at all, it’s internal. The song you heard is in your head. As you rave on you remember the car stereo hasn’t worked for months. You can’t stop dancing. You look all around the barn and you can’t find a DJ or amp or tables or speakers anywhere. This song won’t stop playing and you can’t stop grooving. No one can. But there is no music in the room. It’s inside of you; it’s inside everyone else.

The bass line fades. You can’t wait to hear what your mind is going to play next. The young man laughs, “C’mon y’all. Y’all look crazy, man.”

You agree. And you love it.

You Don't Mind Babe (Lo' Cup; Then Under) 5:38

This is The Beatles in five chapters.

Chapter 1:

A great movie has just ended. It’s that part of the film where the final shot fades to black and the credits start to roll on the screen. Audience members shuffle in the darkness to find their belongings and not kick over the last few ounces of coke-water left in oversize wax cups at the base of their seats. Lights undim and a line begins to form in the aisle as whispers move to speak. You should be annoyed, but you’re not. The fact that this is the routine every time you see a film has led you to expect such nuance. You remain motionless reading the actors billed fortieth and greater on the list. You wonder who they are.

You don’t know their name. How could you begin to look up their number?

“What is this music,” you think? “Who is this?” You know it sounds like The Beatles. Your music knowledge has put you that far. You think you could recognize the voices of John and Paul just about anywhere. But you wonder: “How come I have never heard this song?”

“It has to be The Beatles,” you say to yourself. You are amazed that you haven’t heard it before. As you join the back of the whispering chord of shuffling bodies ahead of you, so much of you wants to return to your seat and wait for the final credits where directors reveal the music in the film. You need to be confident in your attachment between song and group. With every inch you gain towards the up-ramp exit you look back over your shoulder hoping the credits have already gone through Key Grip, Best Boy, and the Vancouver catering crew.

Chapter 2:

You step out into the alley and spot a motley crew of swing jazz players on the midnight street.

An Asian man in Huckleberry Finn corduroys plucks at a standing bass. A rolly-mustachioed hipster in a bowler hat picks his way through a banjo. A humble acoustic hides on a milk crate in the shadows of a newspaper dispenser. A young lady in men’s trousers with suspenders and a white collar blows staccato into a French horn.

Noticing two homeless people high on meth dancing to your left, you think: “How surreal.” One is a tall black man in his sixties and the other--a white woman in her thirties. Possessed with both neurotoxins from the crank and the sounds of bluegrass jazz, the dancing duo swings off the sidewalk and into the taxi-crowded street eliciting a droning of car-honk.

You close in on the college quartet thumbing your way through pockets for loose change. A guitar case is propped open collecting coins like a shopping-mall fountain. The crowd is small, but the players are in it for themselves. You realize an eerie similarity to the song in the film.

You spot a Puerto Rican toddler holding his Abuela’s hand. You can see it in his eyes that this is the first time he has ever experienced panhandling. Realizing the immigrants don’t have enough money to be tossing into the street, you approach the niño and squat to eye-level. Placing two singles into his hand you point at the open case. Abuela nods to her grandson in confirmation. The bambino shyly steps forward and snowflakes the money from his hand. He runs back to his Abuela with joy and pride. You have already walked on.

Chapter 3:

You enter a hotel you have never been in before. The lobby is buzzing with social class and you feel like you have stepped back in time.

“Good Evening and welcome to Slaggers. Featuring Dennis O’Bell.”

A piano takes centre stage while Tom Collins’ clink and young ladies smoke cigarettes from long, thin holders.

“Let’s hear it for Dennis. Ha-hey.”

“Good evening,” he dares, and waits for attention.

“You know my name.” There’s a light applause, you included. “Well then look up my number.”

Frozen in your tracks, you pan the room in search for Gatzby. There is a grand bandstand in front of a velvet red curtain at the rear of the lobby barroom. A rotating stage centers the tuxedoed soloist. “Is this Dennis O’Bell?” you wonder.

The pianist is swanky. “Slick,” you say aloud under your breath. You think you recognize him to be a young Paul McCartney, but he is too distant to tell, and the crowd is too thick in between. They chop by you like blank faces on a moving train obscuring a good look at Dennis O’Bell. “Have I heard this song before?” you think. “I mean; other than tonight? I must have. But what is it?”

Piano chords three-beat to a pause. “Ohh. You know, you know, you know my name.”

Dennis O’Bell is losing his edge of cool and entering a carefree dominion. The bandleader/announcer is standing to the far left, really grooving. “Man—that look’s like a young John Lennon.” Everything’s got you thinking in quiz form.

He is singing along off mic, making faces that resemble a walrus. Having no consciousness of being watched by society’s finest, he lowers his chin into his neck and dips his eyebrows in search of new voices he didn’t know were there. The bandleader is goofy, a comedian more than a conductor. Dennis O’Bell smiles at him, dipping his chin to a raised right shoulder without breaking stride on the piano. The two of them are working in harmony like it was meant to be. The off mic bandleader barks like a dog. The music begins to fade.

“Ah, let’s hear it. Go on Dennis. Let’s hear it for Dennis O’Bell!”

Chapter 4:

The piano rotates away from centre stage and two monkeys in German trousers with suspenders appear on tricycles. The bandstand transforms into a circus ring. Dennis O’Bell and the Walrus trolley from stage-left to stage-right and back again on a handcar pump you recognize from old Three Stooges and Charlie Chaplin skits. Dressed in blackface, they bob and roll across the stage. They are both acting silly for silliness sake.

The Walrus repeats every phrase Dennis O’Bell makes, mocking a parrot.

“Is this the same song?” you ask yourself as the charade continues. You can see it in the Walrus’s eyes that he can’t hold the skit any longer. His face cracks to laughter. They look you right in the eye.

“What’s up with you?” They laugh. “You know my name.” Freeze.

“That’s right.” Freeze again.

“Yeah.”

Chapter 5:

A piano solo leads in a high school musical like the soundtrack to Charlie Brown’s Christmas. A young kid who has just learned how to play the skins taps the high hat and stomps the kick drum.

The stage scrambles as young actors find their mark. The clowns and monkeys wave goodbye. The Walrus is blubbering. Thirty kids dressed up as ocean creature swim about the stage in a simple choreographed dance. The red curtain is raised to reveal a hand-painted blue setting that was done by Maxwell’s third grade class. An out-of-place hammer floats in the water.

Dennis O’Bell re-enters the stage for his final bow. He is back in his tuxedo now, but his blackface makeup has yet to be removed. The Walrus convulses around him making strange, gruntled noises. Miss Rigby, the seventh grade math teacher, plays proudly on her upright piano.

“How did I get here?” you ask. But you are not surprised at the oddity of your situation. It’s just been one of those nights. Dennis O’Bell grunts like a boxer.

“Heavy, heavy,” the Walrus groans.

Spotlights shine onto a xylophone and trumpet that have come onto the stage. It is the same band from the alley. They strut and circle Dennis and The Walrus who are pumping interlocked fingers on both sides of their chins. The dancers push back leaving the band and its actors to bow.

You can’t help but dance. You shyly sway your hips and move your arms.

The curtain drops.

Eye One Too (3:03)

Notice I have now embedded the YouTube video right into the blog. I guess I am getting smarter. Click play and begin reading. Remember--don't stop reading once you start. You can always go back and do it again. Enjoy!

Dylan just poured snare into my coffee.

Saturday morning diner in Hell’s Kitchen and the blonde in the booth ahead of me keeps looking over. Her eyes conspire against her boyfriend’s who is flirting with his omelet. Beads of sugar rain onto the table as if searching for a necklace they were never a part of. I wonder how many nights make up a “later.”

The guilty undertaker sighs.

The lonesome organ grinder cries.

The silver saxophones say I—

Should refuse you.

But I don’t. Instead I take on the persona of all three. Counting death around me in exchange for hope. Seated alone surrounded by a staircase of keys and puddles of pedals that soak my feet. I hear blown tenor notes that I know are against better judgment. But there is harmony in discord too.

He doesn’t just want her. He wants her “so bad.” But he knows he can’t have her, and he’s forced to sing his petition to the lonely hustler on the street rather than the muse of his lyrics.

There will be no savior to the politician either. There will be no interruption. The only thing left to do is get drunk with his audience of degenerates. Yet he can’t even do this. His cup is broken, forcing the wounded wanderer to face the streets under the bleak and honest cloud of sobriety. Like Coleridge’s ancient mariner his song is ignored by the one who needs to hear it most. The up-tempo of the tune set to illustrate the street of ignorance around him rather than the weariness of his fight. Harmonica swings at the end of each chorus reminding us of the masochistic pleasure of rejection.

Honey, I want you.

The fathers of the streets are gone now. I am left alone to seek out the regular alleys for the broken angels. All I find are message-less glass bottles and cigarette butts smoked down to the filter. Daddy’s girl-daughters continue to put me down and I try not to think about it.

What is there left to do but turn back to chance? The ‘Queen of Spades,’ lady luck herself--a metaphor for putting the chips back onto the table and raising the stakes. Not to be afraid to look another “her” in the eye, even if she is the black mamba. She’s always been good to me. She sees right through me. Her and her three sisters. And no matter where I’d like to be, we both know it doesn’t matter.

Not a whole lot of choices left for our young poet. Shuffling toeless chucks through the filthy gutters, it’s either listen to the wail of the sax or be seated around the table of sharks. They’re all holding full houses, ladies over jacks, and he knows that. And yet he still musters the gusto to blow on his harp to the falling escalator of down-beat organ notes and peccadillo guitar plucks.

Everyone else in the world is dancing. Why not our singer?

Was I good to you? Was I?

Unsure of himself, he is humiliated to seek approval from her. Even though you lied. The whole time taking me for a ride. And now not even time is on my side. I march on to the beating of a silent drum invisible to the world, but what is even of more consequence is that I am invisible to reflection. A sinister cloak wrapped around my shoulders conceals me from the eyes of hope. From the ears of discord. From the vagabonds of jeopardy. From the sirens of chance. From the players of thievery. And from the arrows of Phoebus.

Sweep on harmonica. Sweep on.

Mar Thee Craw (2:43)

This song starts like you forgot something, but you just aren’t sure what it is.

Bam. Bam.

Don’t worry; it will roll back to you, right after this saxophone punch:

Hit.

We’ve added some snare drum to keep the spirit of travel alive and the piano roll is like a walk, reminding you of the primitive need to wander. Just listen to how those ivory keys keep turning over on themselves like the paddle wheel of an early steamer floating on down the ole Mississipp.’ You’re now aboard this river expedition; only you don’t know where it’s headed.

Oh well, when in doubt – whistle. Whistling always makes a man feel better.

Four notes down the scale.

Repeat.

Now walk back up but with pep in your step.

Whistle again.

You should be feeling the rhythm by now. You should be feeling the good vibe and it should be obvious that you are on a steamer full of celebration. Everyone on board is excited and has waited a long time for this and what waits at the end of this riverboat fantasy is just the beginning, and not an ending at all.

“So where are we goin’?”

Allow Professor Longhair to tell you.

That’s right--it’s Huckleberry Finn the dyslexic version. New Orleans, the Mardi Gras, now that’s a party. And I’m not talking about the Mardi Gras that is today, full of college bro’ douchebags with their smart phones out to get as many titties on camera as possible, or drunken sorority sisters screaming high pitch shrieks, demanding the local bars play the Twilight soundtrack showing no respect for the tradition of American music. I’m talking about Mardi Gras when it was a carnival, and not a televised event.

Professor Longhair is from Bogalusa, Louisiana (yeah--say that again: Bo-GA-Lew-SA). He wrote this song in 1949 and used to feature it at the Caledonia Club in New Orleans. But that isn’t what you’re hearing now. Ten years later he revived it, adding a more rhythm and blues element making the one playing.

When you get to New Orleans somebody will show you the Zulu King.

Today, that King is Professor Longhair himself. He is the Captain of our riverboat, as well as the tour guide, piano player, and card shark at the five-stud table. He invites us on a journey with him as his special guests, forecasting what will become if we just have the nerve to roll on down the river with him, placing our faith in what he has to say about it. He promises with certainty what is going to happen, opting for the infinitive “will” rather than the unsure “may” as verb choice.

Sorry Professor. My bad. Go ahead and whistle for us:

(listen. and maybe dance in your chair a little bit. i’ll wait for you, don’t worry)

Has that whistling ended yet? No? Then stop reading for a second…

(Don’t you just love that a cappella whistling? Hittin’ them high notes like he does?)

Aright, c’mon back to me for the fade out.

Now do yourself a favor: Go back and play this song again from the start, it’s only two and a half minutes long. Only this time play it without reading this. Just replay the tune, turn it up, and get yourself in that Mardi Gras spirit.

I’ll see you in New Orleans.

Tie Tin Tup (3:17)

Gimme a funky bass line and a smirking laugh and I just know this is gonna be worth stickin’ 'round for. What’s he laughin’ at? It’s as if the he knows something we don’t. Well shit! I hope so! If he don’t, I don’t wanna stick around no-how.

Okay drums... C’mon in.

Guitar!—-Have at it. Chop it down now like an axe.

The Drells are gonna take it all away for a few minutes.

Hi everybody. I’m not Archie Bell. But I sure as hell wish I was. This is soul music from Houston – 1968. Don’t lose it now. This is more than a post. I don’t only write, but I dance just as good as I walk. In New York, we just started a new way of reading—-called the tighten’ up. These are the writings, we tighten up with.

Alright, that’s enough. No more foolin’. Let’s get serious.

Tighten up now.

Isn’t it time we all tighten up a little bit? Oil spills and missing teen-sailors. Europe’s bust and the world shifts its focus to a futbol tournament. Gaza strip is for sale and Sarah Palin’s got fake titties. Barack is being criticized all over and Wimbledon matches take three days to play. G20 is shuttin’ down Toronto and Apple’s selling a million new iPhones. Good gawd.

C’mon people. Tighten up. Ha ha.

Archie Bell—-he’s not just singin’; he’s preachin! He’s intructin’. He’s askin’ and at the same time he’s tellin’. Aww yeah.

Tighten up. We could all use a little tightenin’ up in our lives. Tighten up the way we dress, the way we carry ourselves. Tighten up the thoughts in our minds. Tighten up how we treat the people around us and tighten up our call-to-action. Archie Bell is pushin’ a message where the soul of a person never dies. Don’t be sloppy. You can do it now. Tighten up. It’s not that tough.

Okay. Time out. Look here. C’mon now. Now make it mellow.

Brass fall away from me...

Wait...

Now, come on back.

And while you are waiting for the horns to slide down a few levels, inhale in preparation for the next part of the verbal dance.

Tighten it up now. Everybody can do it now. We gonna tighten up.

Just listen to that drum and those guitar strings dicin’ through the speakers liked chopped onion; that bass shiftin’ its weight while it tries to decide which leg to stand on; them horns callin’ all so(u)ldiers to the dance floor like the military instruments they once were; that organ groovin’ its way out of church and into religion; two hands slappin’—-the most primitive of human instruments; and that voice, the Archie Drell’s summons-—both orderin’ and plea’n all in one. The man spends a whole song in a state of inspiration, beggin’ his players, beggin’ his band, beggin’ all of us to just forget everything for a while and tighten up.

Isn’t it time we all stopped being so sloppy and wasteful anyhow?

Awww yeah, just tighten it up now.

Laugh. Laugh more. Sock it to me. Tighten it up.

Doesn’t the old cliché go, “there is always room for improvement?” Well then, in the name of the cliché, the passé, the blasé, the reveillé, and the historé--Tighten Up!

Somewhere between Houston, 1968 and New York, 2010 we have forgotten how to tighten it up. Or is it that we are too tight? Perhaps we are tightenin’ up all the wrong knots. And you know when you do it too. This is the funny thing. When was the last time you danced with tight muscles? Steppin to the beat, but holding your arms tight to your body, your fists clenched for strength, your ass flexed for power, your stomach muscles and torso contracted for posture. Some say this is no way to dance. At times I would agree. But at others-—we need to listen to Archie. Tighten up. Straighten up. Posturize. Pull it all in and hold it there. Tighten up. Clap your hands. Play the air trumpet. Peck your neck to the bass. Tap your toes. But keep it tight. Keep what you will loose. Tighten up the rest.

When it needs to be mellow, inhale it.

When it needs to be loose, exhale it.

And when it needs tightenin’ up; hold your breath, and just ride the music until it fades into the ether of the soul.

Inhale The Basement Air (3:45)

What does it mean to be inspired these days? Perhaps the better question is: What does it take to become inspired these days? Are you inspired when you get out of bed in the morning? When you get to work? When you accomplish the same task you complete weekly, daily, hourly? How about when you achieve a more challenging goal? Maybe music can inspire you? Gawd, let’s hope so. If not, you’re already dead.

This isn’t a Nike commercial or an advertisement for Gatorade. You won’t see images of Michael Jordan hitting a jump-shot at the buzzer, Mohammed Ali training in a ring soaked in sweat, or Drew Brees winning the Superbowl. All you have here to inspire you is a symphony of sound and black words on a screen. But that’s enough.

Here we go.

Inspire – made up of two words: “in” meaning to enter; and “spire” a derivative of “spirit” which refers to the soul in most definitions but has a more literal Latin root of “breath.” Therefore, the exact etymological function of inspiration is “to breath life into something.”

And what has the power to do that? What thing out there, whether artificial or real, can breathe life into you and revive you from an otherwise mundane way of being? Is it music? Words? Images? People? Sport? Competition? Challenge? Victory?

Does it really matter?

We all need a little inspiration sometimes. Who cares where it comes from. Perhaps today it will come from reading this post or hearing this song, and tomorrow it will come from seeing a little kid share his candy with someone. Perhaps it is heard in the guitar sounds of Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning, and in the drumming of Justin Peroff. Maybe it lies in the reels of a film or bites of a Youtube vid. It doesn’t matter where the breath is born, just that you open the windows to your soul so that the breeze can come in. You can’t see it, but you can sense its existence. There is inspiration all around you, everyday. Don’t look for it, because it's not physically there. It’s invisible—-spire. Inhale it.

Dare to rise with the sun I often say. Dare to do something different today, something unruly, something desired and desirable, an act to be made jealous of, a cry into thyself that has everyone around you twist his or her thoughts in puzzlement. The question posed, “Man, what got into her?” is the right one. New breath. New life. New spirit. New Being. Quit the pattern; abandon the routine, even if only for a moment. Music is therapy for the living dead; sound is its emotion.

I can’t inspire you, and neither can Broken Social Scene. We can only supply you with the oxygen. They blow it out of the speakers and I whisper it off the screen and into the air surrounding you. But then it’s beyond us. We leave it there, floating colorless and unseen. It’s a temptation, an invitation, a provocation, an invocation. But you have to inhale it; you have to be willing to suck it all up until your lungs can’t take it, and then draw in a little more. Drink in the spirited air like it was your last glass of wine. Suck back as if it was your final breath before diving deep into the sea of your desires. Hold that creative spirit in your lungs, letting it travel to all parts of your mind and body, and then don’t let it go.

Tempo change and back to the original four-note melody. Broken Social Scene reminding us what it feels like to live inside of a scream. Exhaling sounds that are available for the taking.

I can’t describe the music for you. I often try, but how does one even attempt to wordify sound? Listen to the song. Read the words. Become inspired yourself. This isn’t a force-feeding and I aint supplying no I.V. Drink what dare you.

Leave the rest untouched. Us inhuman ones want more; we are gluttons for inspiration inebriation.

Hear how powerful the symphony is. Remember what it was like to see live music for the first time, to dance uninhibited as a toddler, to giggle as a child, to be in love as a grade-schooler, to waiver drunkenly as a teen, to get high with your friends, to be a part of victory, to chase romance like a fool, to hold your newborn in the hospital, to hear the word “grandpa.”

Rave on.

Billy Blake: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” If you don’t want the ride, that’s fine. But then get off the fuckin’ highway. Stop suckin’ in my oxygen. Turn this music off. Go back to the safe haven of recycled air.

As for the rest of you, meet me in the basement. Kevin and I are takin’ turns with the Hookah; Brendan’s got his own pipe.

Breath in. Breath in. Breath in.

Soul Armistice (2:02)

Feel it. Feel it.

Sammy has something to say. So stop what you’re doin’. Let it all go.

How many of us fight it everyday? Fight traffic, fight people, fight emotions, and alarm clocks. Fight cravings over health choices. Fight with our kids, our parents, our wives, our siblings, and our friends. Fight bad news on the radio and not-news in the papers. Fight depression and the war.

Don’t Fight It. Don’t Fight It. Feel it.

We fight with the economy and with our draining bank accounts. We fight structure and conformity. We fight cubicles and office chairs. We fight keyboards and computer screens. And we fight against a blitzkrieg of emails.

We fight our weight and our height and our age. We fight our skin color and our language barrier. We fight the mirror in front of us, and the voice behind us. We fight the core of our souls and the invisibility of our spirits. We fight our sexual desires and primitive drives. We fight sustainability.

Oh, don’t be in pain, trying to restrain. Go ahead and move your hips.

And the whole time we are fighting it there is a large rumbling in our souls, like that tumba drum you don’t hear. But it’s there. Listen to it come in behind Sam Cooke’s voice—rhythmically pounding like an obsessive heartbeat, reminding us all of our primitive need to dance, to attract, to celebrate, (there it is) and to forget about life for a while. It dares us to tap into that part of our subconscious that is buried in our hips and toes, laying dormant, struggling for a breath of air only when the sound of a voice like Sam Cooke’s provokes it.

Whooaaa now. Don’t Sammy’s swingin’ music make you wanna flip?

Sammy washes it all away. Listen to him. First he reminds us of how simple everything can be. And then he dares us to rise with the sun and moon. Music evokes the spirit, and the spirit doesn’t think in reason or logic. There is no rationalizing with the abstract. Sam Cooke reaches into that part of us that knows deep down what we exist for, repetitively coercing each one of us to stop fighting and start listening. The rest is just details. Let it all go.

Don’t fight it. Don’t fight it. Feel it.

Feel it.

Roll on piano. Swing on.