Lost song, "You caught me pt 2" has a request

I got this letter, thought I would share it...

Hello Father/Creator,
My name is "You caught Me (pt 2)." I was a song that was mistakenly written for the Rocktopus. I didn't really fit in, so that's why I was never played live or given a proper name. Really, my name is "You Caught Me pt 2?" Does that mean I'm like a junior? "You Caught Me" is the senior? Does "Mr. You Caught Me Sr." insist I call him "Sir?" Would he be very disappointed in me for not generating enough interest in the band at practice to even learn how to play me? Also, guess what!? Parentheses in a song title suck dude. That's lame. Make up your mind and let me help.
I have 3 simple request.

One, that you give me a new name. A name that gives me character. Maybe like "Little Pinch" or "Skip a Wishing Stone." But I like "Little Pinch" better.

Two, that you re-write the lyrics. Though I'm aware of your inspiration, I feel like the lyrics you gave me are a terrible injustice. Do you even realize what you are saying? Are you aware that there are a few parts that you simply mumble in rhyme?
I have a better idea of the lyrics.
They should be the following
and until you find a proper band to play me with, play me like this.

last night i had a dream of a girl I wish I knew - ooh oooh ooh
it seemed she's been here all along
her hair light red like the rarest thread -
bandanna bound around her head
and the words she said, seemed like a song-
it won't be long
if i can ever wake up from this dream
if the truth could be what it seems
all i need is just a little pinch
then i'll know if i left this world and been in heaven since

it's a 1 hop 2 hop 3 hop 4
toes in the sand of the eastern shore
skip a wishing stone, for what? I cannot say

i don't care what they say, i could never be untrue - ooh ooh ooh
my heart to only you- it belongs
walk me home, tuck me to bed
help me remember what i said
when i wake in the morning
to sing you a song

it won't be long
If i can wake up from this dream
if the truth could really be what it seems
all i need is just a little pinch
then i'll know if i left this world and been in heaven since

Thank you, and for my third request, I would like to request you play this song by Gary Glitter.

Thank You. Sincerely,
"Little Pinch" aka (You Caught Me pt 2)

Heavenly Body Medley

About a year, year and a half ago I was asked by a friend if one of my bands would play last minute for a benefit for the children's hospital. I gladly obliged. What is worse than an opportunity missed? Nothing, I might sigh to myself on this loneliest of cold winter evenings.

I was cleaning my room tonight, listening to sad music and felt heavy with the blues when I found this old set list from that evening. I completely forgot about that. I didn't want to trouble any bands at the last minute, I wanted to take that opportunity to try something new. I literally had a few hours of notice. So I complied a giant medley. A medley of ballads, all in the classic ballad form in the key of C. So it goes, C -Am -F -G. That's how so many songs are written, maybe 10,000.

I found songs that only referenced heavenly bodies (like "moon" or "stars' or "sun" or "earth" or "world") either in title or in lyric and wrote all of them down I could and I skipped my dinner rehearsing them. That night, I played one big song. I didn't really know anybody there, but I remember people coming up to me and shaking my hand, telling me that it was great and "it takes balls" to play solo. (which I can only respond that I love playing music for anyone, anytime for any reason and it is purely a matter of love -not ball size, but thank you)

Here is my set list verbatim as I wrote it and found it tonight:

BLue MOOn INTRO

OUT of this WORld

Starry Eyes

Teenager in Love

This Magic (moment)

Too Much in Love

If I OH I

Earth ANgel

Blue Moon

Stand by ME

HappyNeSS (is a warm gun)

Maybe

OOH Darlin

Handy (man)

Out of this (world) OUTTRO

BLUE Moon (outtro)

Lost song 1, "Blind Flower Girl" and Book Club

In the television show LOST, there is an episode where the main antagonist Ben becomes jealous of his comrades when they have a book club meeting with out him. I took an emotional response to that scene. I have always wanted to be a member of a book club too. If my friends were having a book club meeting with out me, I would be very jealous and sad. I happen to care a great deal about what I read, and I feel that I can offer some different opinions at a book club. If I hosted a book for say February, and the party was at my house, I would get some red wine and play a Venture's record or 3 on a low setting. I would make a bunch of Thai food for my guest as we all shared our ideas about the book. I'm trying to be less opinionated, and more keen on listening so I would soak in everyone's ideas before I shared what my take is. And every month at book club, I would write a song based on the book and share it as my response. February's book would be "The Last Days of Pompeii" a novel written by the baron Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1834. The characters remind me of me. There is Glaucus, a Greek native in Rome, outcast, and proud of his heritage. His friends rebel rouse and chase women, but he longs for the sweetest Ione, a girl he loves from first sight. He battles a nemesis Arbaces, a mystic schooled in the arts of Egyptian magic and a cunning foe. There is a girl introduced in chapter 2, called the blind flower girl. She picks flowers from the meadows and gardens and brings them to the city to sell them to noble folk. She sings a song, it's called the Blind Flower Girl Song, but you can't hear it because you are reading of course. The song inspired me, and I wrote a song based on that. It takes pieces from the novel and I added my own lyrics so that I can relate to it. It's easy for me to write songs about flowers. Maybe I was a bumble bee in a past life. Today I am a flower in love with some Sun and all her glory.

Here it is..."BLIND FLOWER GIRL"

Here are the lyrics:

Buy my flowers, oh buy, I pray
The blind girl comes from a far-
If the Earth be as fair as I hear them say,
These flowers her children are-

In the meadows, their voices hush,
They sleep under twinkling stars

In the morning sun their faces blush,
a love they can not hide.
(not if they tried)

Do they weep?
Do they weep?
Do the essence of her Mother they keep?
Do they weep?
For they weep with dew.
....for you

oh buy, oh buy"

You'll have to pardon my terrible vocals. This I feel is a very difficult song to sing, and that was the first time time I really sang it. I probably should have practiced it before I recorded it. Obviously, it needs some addition expertise in arrangement.

Maybe this song will be on a Midwest Beat album someday. I can hear it having a 3 part harmony and all kinds of jingles and jangles. Low, here is how it will stay for now.

Lost Songs Found

I have a terrible habit of half writing a song, then leaving it to wither forever. I'll write a hook and a verse and then just lose interest and leave it uncompleted. I do that a lot in my life and that is probably why I feel like a loser right now. I'm trying to change that. Throughout this weekend until Tuesday, I am going to my vault and completing several songs.

I have a little tape player deal-y thing, and when I get an idea for a song, I just hit record and let her rip. It's like a scrap book journal of songs. Sometimes I go to a friends and sit with them and come up with an idea on the spot and record it. So I'm going through all these song ideas and trying to put stuff together in effort to write about 5 or 6 songs in 4 days. That's how I wrote almost every Rocktopus song I (i mean "he") plays. I had a show, nothing to play, so I wrote 6 songs and learned how to play a drum at the same time in 4 days and the rest is history.

In the spirit of the show LOST season 6 premier on Tuesday night on ABC, I am going to write almost all of the lost songs about LOST, or at least, inspired by LOST and personalized to my experience.
But first, there is a song I half wrote on the spot 8 months ago called "Blind Flower Girl" that I would like to re-visit.
Here is the basic idea of the song, remember, it was written on the spot. recorded and percussion by Chopper Chioda

The next blog will have a more refined and thought out version.

Drunk, Really High, AND on Mushrooms

If I was a monk, I would still play guitar and sing in the Elephant Walk. That would be my prayer, my mantra. That is my chant. That is my higher mind moving my body for me, my super-consciousness expression of soul. When I play AND sing simultaneously, I am not there. Where do I go? Who moves the fingers along the guitar? Who guides my voice? Who makes me smile and who makes my eyes move about? There is a force but it can't be named. It's name is the Elephant Walk, but the eternal Elephant Walk can't be named. I have learned through practice of my songs and meditation in my waking moments to un-ask the questions, to un-learn the songs, and to un-be a member of a band. But in all my practice, I have briefly reached enlightenment, and there are no words to categorize those moments. They existed for a blink of a busy hornet's wink, and once the sting registers in your brain, it is gone. It travels on to the next chord, the next flexing of the vocals, fleeting like the iridescent tubes floating in your eye.
If you try to categorize the work, it vanishes. If you write a song a song about somebody, and practice it and practice it, then play it for them in a dripping basement that electrocutes your lips when you sing to them- you are not really there yet. I learned that, and I can't quite describe what it is like to really be THERE, but when you are there, you realize that you are really not. And all that work spent on perfection was good, but never good enough if you can't let go and get away from your body and fingers and songs and just let go. When you ask yourself "Who is playing my guitar right now? How can I do that?" You have left it and are no longer there. You have returned to a moment that no longer exist. When you make eye contact and remember your hard work and practice for this very moment, you have left and are no longer there. But when you clear your mind, and the beating of the drums moves and shakes and takes your mind far away, and a smile comes to your face and the guitar plays itself and your mind gets carried away in the high voltage currents of song, then you are there. That's when you are there, when you are really not. But then again, once you are THERE, the place without a name, at one with the Tao, the force, you are really not there at all.
I'll move on to this next topic later, but I know that there is help from the spirit realm to achieve it. And that is why Shaman sing and dance for them.

I am just a layman, I haven't commited to the great work of dogma like a monk or to a sacred ceremony like a shaman. But I know it's there. And I know how to get to it. And I know that there is nothing like it. And I know there is no scripture about playing guitar and singing and using the essence of your soul's worth to project it to people- free of attachment, but that is my dharma. That is my method of work and if I was a monk I would play guitar and sing in the Elephant Walk.

What's more thrifty than a free house?

In the spirit of Dr. King, I also have a dream. That one day I can find a way to transport a free house if given the opportunity. And what would look better next to my free house than a free garage. In my dream, I would never have to do dishes again, I would line my walls with wallpaper and, instruments, and instruments, and instruments, and trophies of all and every glory.
Of course,it is just a dream. Some things are real and some will never be. But maybe someday, I'll live in a world where I can haul every free thing I want, and any neighbor who needs a microwave plate, can find someone who has a microwave plate that they want to give away for free.

Down on the farm with Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut said something along the lines of "anytime anyone makes something of worth, they do it to really impress an audience of one." I like Kurt Vonnegut. I get him. He and I are both from Indiana, hate it, love it, go back there, hate it, and come home inspired. I understand his sense of humor and his out look on life. Though that statement may not be true, I most certainly agree with it.
He writes novels and I write songs. I might say that if I don't draw my inspiration from the singular person to impress (in Vonnegut's case, his brother) then I simply draw inspiration to impress them. Though it is a silly and clumsy attempt in the grand scheme of impressing someone, it is heartfelt with my soul indeed. Though it may be in vain, though I may never admit it, I would say, yes, everything that I do that I would consider a work of worth is to impress an audience of one, no doubt. I'm like a farmer who just wants to see his crop grow for the joy of farming; and why not? I don't need any vegetables. Here, they are for you.
I would like to think that I have become pretty dang clever at sneaking in this motive of no-return, no-gain, in all my songs. But my one of my resolutions this year is to somehow continue to harness the power of motivation of selfless gain, yet challenge the belief that everything of worth is to impress one person. Can it be done? Or has Kurt Vonnegut already put this to the test and failed?
I wrote a song tonight about a completely different topic, but the first thing that popped into my head was, "I wonder if (audience of one) would ever like it?" If I can't break free, then I suppose it is a good thing to be silently motivated to create things of more valuable worth. But I can't conclude that until I put it to the test.
I got a candle and incense burning by my statue of Buddha right now. He seems pretty happy and comfortable to have let go of all that stuff we call living... but I'm not suffering when I create art. I don't need money or kisses or fame or flowers or even praise. I just happy to watch my vegetables grow. And if you like them too well that also makes me happy.

Freestyle Songs about LOST pt 1

I've been re-watching LOST season 5 lately. I had a few beers one night and shit this one out.

Danielle Rousseau Blues

Back by Poplar Demand

I got this Poplar Tree that I've been growing in my house for about 3 years now. It's over 3 feet tall and doing pretty well. My friend and soul sister Steph gave it to me a while back, and it has been in good hands since. I have been waiting for the perfect moment and plot of land to plant this Poplar tree to the Earth where it belongs, but I want to continue to nurture it with a motherly hesitation of letting go. I often think that maybe someday after I'm gone, this tree can give some sort of my spirit to those who wish to take a rest under it.
One of my favorite Christmas presents this year was a Stag horn Fern that Lydia gave me to replace the sorrow of my old favorite plant dying.
I'm a plant guy, I love taking care of house plants. I know this might sound silly, but I might notice some telepathic qualities to plants. Maybe I am more sensitive to them, but I really can feel a plant, and I think a house plant that becomes close to it's owner can sense and react to them as well. Strangely, when an x-girl friend gave me a plant, it died the day we separated. This has happened on several occasions.
There is a tree outside my house, and on some nights when I have profound dreams, this tree will appear in my dream. Incredibly, every single time it has, my car will be covered with it's leaves or buds or branches in the morning. Every single time. Like it is dreaming with me.
I'm also a flower guy, and every time I puck a flower, I say a thankful prayer to the plant.
There is no doubt in my mind that the Earth is changing and graduating the conscious fields it remains in now. With the arrival of 2012, I look forward to seeing how this impacts the consciousness of plants and trees.
I would like to expand upon this later about my favorite trees including Love Mom, but I don't have the time. Tonight is Poker night. Lately I have been playing at a top level, but losing to a slightly better hand; coming in second or third place for several weeks now. Tonight, I'll remain strong in my mind like the mighty oak, and loose with my bluffing like a dandelion seed, rooted in integrity like a Mangrove tree, and lucky as a Maple seed dropped out of a squirrel's mouth into fertile ground.

Today I received a text message from a number I do not know quoting a lyric to a previous entry's song. I suppose now I have to handle this blog as if it were being read and start updating it more frequently. Thanks you reader you.