homage

tonight i pay homage.

to two people really.

it seems like a bit convoluted, plus i have been at the pub, so please bear with me.

it can be amazing when your worlds collide: like when your work friends meet your band friends, or just two different sets of friends meet... and then they frickin hit it off like you'd never have imagined! (maybe even get married.... um, and then of course split several years later. oh well.) it can expand your world view; shatter preconceived notions; help you to grow. it can leave you wanting more.

well, my worlds smashed hard tonight and i am loving it. i'll try to explain...

the first person i pay homage to tonight is my sister, shari. she felt that my reference to "freaks and hairies, dykes and fairies" (12 sept) could too easily be taken negatively, for instance a put down of homosexual men and/or women as 'odd,' and that moreover some of our gay friends and family might be offended. as they say in this country, fair dues. (i think in the US they'd say 'fair enough.')

anyone who knows me knows that obviously that was not the intended meaning. (maddening the frustration one can feel with the ease with which words can be discontextualized). those words are lyrics from a classic rock song. but, try as i might, wracking my brain, i could not for the damn life kicking around in me REMEMBER WHO WROTE THOSE LYRICS!?!?!

as soon as i got shari's email i knew i had to respond. she prevailed on me to remove the potentially offending words.

i knew i couldn't. they were a record. you don't make a record, press it, sell it, and then go into everyone's home and erase the drum track. (well, of course, except for those instructional tapes with the one instrument removed) i mean, could dan rather fly like superman and visit every single home and pull out his fuzzily authored/sourced story from every American's ears? nope. they're out there. i wrote 'em. done deal.

but i also knew i had to do something. it plagued me... WHO WROTE THOSE LYRICS?? i could hear, feel them... they would roll smoothly through my head as i biked to work.... but the lyrics that followed them, those precious gems that would reveal to my memory the remainder of the song, though right there, at the tip of my tongue, they would simply not come. then it occurred to me: i needed help.

so, i delegated.

i wrote to the Living God of All Things Music, the second person i bow to tonight: Alan Kennedy. i met him the first week "at uni" (college), watching the band set up in the dorm's courtyard, and we were fast friends from then.

hi alan,

my sister suggested i might offend people by saying, in my blog, "dykes
and fairies" ... in the phrase "freaks and hairies, dykes and fairies".

but i assume you know, that was not meant to be slanderous in any way, but
was in fact a reference to a song that uses those words as lyrics.

i have searched for a bit some of the song lyric websites, but none seem
to have a good search functionality... so i am at a loss.

do you know what song that lyric is from?
or do you know a good song lyric database?

i thought it was either CSN or maybe jimi hendrix??

many thanks!

- joel

Totally.
That's the psychedelic classic "I'd Love to Change the World" by Ten Years After (1971), a British
blues-rock band led by guitar virtuoso Alvin Lee.

Lyrics are here:

http://ten-years-after-lyrics.wonderlyrics.com/I'D-LOVE-TO-CHANGE-THE-WORLD.html

in the back of my mind all day today was that sort of feeling like you get before chanukah or xmas, when you know deep down that you might be about to get a gorgeous gift. as i rode home tonight, i knew i wanted to write, and i knew i had to address shari's concerns in some way. but i knew i couldn't remove the post. then it hit me: write about it directly. once i saw alan's reply, i knew that would be possible.

i went to the URL to confirm Alan's lead, and voila! there they were, in the first line. as i read the words, i began to weep. my worlds were colliding hard...

i work for an organization dedicated to fighting poverty. and injustice. that's what i do for a living. it's amazing. but it's hard. it's big. it's long-term. it's complicated. it's, as you may say, fairly ambitious. but i am passionate about it. and i am passionate about music. and i am dedicated to tolerance, and to loving everyone. and i am glad for the diversity of sexual preferences in this world. helps keep life spicy, no?

shari, thanks for giving me something solid to write about tonight, and for caring enough to say something, and for standing up for your beliefs. speaking out is hard, and i applaud you. and alan, thanks for being such a friend, and fount of musical knowledge and joy. you both are inspirational.


last night i played bongos at an open mike night at the Flowing Well, a pub in a nearby village. favorite jam of the night was 'babylon' by david gray - a fabulous groove for bongos. no time for sit-down dinner: PB&J, glass of milk, 2 pints of guinness (at pub). dinner tonight was out with friends/colleagues, at a thai/chinese place called of all things "Red Star" (there is a dive bar in my hometown, Framingham, called the Red Star... which proves wherever you go there you are). one of our party was a young woman from Northampton (GB), who was getting ready to graduate with a combo degree in youth social work and applied theology. i'd never heard of 'applied' theology, though thought wasn't that what you sort of strived for in life anyway, to be a bodhisattva, share the love. how very interesting to get a degree in it.