S.K. Waller's Blog, page 9

My Kingdom For the Truth

Today, the remains of Richard III are at last receiving their rightful due and are lying in state at Leicester Cathedral after being hidden under a parking lot for 527 years and undergoing strenuous testing the past three years.

Born on 2 October, 1452, Richard III was King of England from 1483 until his death on 22 August, 1485 at the age of 32. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, where he was killed by a blow to the head, was the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, and marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

To be to the point, I believe he has been given a bum rap in history, incited largely by Shakespeare's portrayal in his play, Richard III, written over a hundred years after the fact. I'm not blaming the Immortal Bard, however. How else could he paint this king, this "son of York"? I don't imagine that as a Tudor, Elizabeth I would have been too keen on him being championed. Besides, Shakespeare wrote a theater piece, and theater pieces are very good at either vilifying or glorifying people who can't speak up for themselves to set the record straight. It is not my intent to do likewise. I didn't know the man, nor did I live under his reign. Did he covet the Crown? Of course he did. Did he do whatever he needed to do  to get it? Perhaps. Did he fight to keep it? Of course. But all of this could also be said about virtually every other human being born only one or two degrees from a throne. History is written by the winners. Some people are remembered as heroes and some as antiheroes, it all depends on who holds the pen and who's deciding the spin.

"There is no clear evidence that Richard was guilty or innocent of his so-called 'crimes', but historians, whether detractors or sympathisers, must work with the information derived from the sources and endeavour to present a balanced view of this controversial figure." - Wendy E.A. Moorhen (Richard III Society)

Lord Chancellor Sir Francis Bacon, a contemporary, wrote of Richard that he was, "A good lawmaker for the ease and solace of the common people." He enacted anti-corruption and trade protection laws that benefited the common populace, and we all know how well that goes over with the upper 1%. There is nothing new under the sun, and politics never change. They never have. Whatever, I'm not going to debate (either pro or con) all that Richard III has been accused of. People far more educated on his life have already done that . I will go into his appearance, though.

Niclas von Popplau, a knight who met Richard in 1484, wrote in his travel diary: "King Richard is… a high-born prince, three fingers taller than I, but a bit slimmer and not as thickset as I am, and much more lightly built; he has quite slender arms and thighs, and also a great heart."


VS
William Shakespeare, in his play, Richard III, in 1592: "...A poisonous hunch-backed toad."

But, as I say, can we take words from a theater piece as scripture? Even Shakespeare's? What is clear is that the descriptions of Richard grow more and more unfavorable as the years pass. The Countess of Desmond, who danced with the prince, wrote, "He was the handsomest man in the room except his brother Edward, and was very well made," while Polyfor Vergil, an Italian cleric commissioned by Henry VII wrote in 1534, "He was lyttle of stature, deformyd of body, thone showlder being higher than thother, a short and sowre cowntenance, which semyd to savor of mischief and utter evydently craft and deceyt."

When you're commissioned by a living king to write about a dead, enemy king, and you wish to escape the Tower, you tend to give him what he wants to read.

The latest findings, gathered from three years of DNA testing, reveal that Richard had blue eyes and blond hair, nothing like the dark-haired, steely dark-eyed man portrayed in posthumous portraits. He was not a "hunchback," but he did have idiopathic adolescent-onset scoliosis, which probably did not show from beneath his clothing. Yes, his remains show a severely curved spine, but remember that it is photographed on a flat surface and we do not have the benefit of seeing it as it appeared in a normal upright position, supported by what would be strongly developed back muscles. I know something about this particular kind of scoliosis because my eldest son has it, and it is not physically evident to those who are not aware of it. If Richard had been as severely handicapped as has been portrayed, I believe he could not have been the formidable opponent he was on the battlefield, wielding a heavy sword, or supporting armor on his body.

Putting all of this aside, it excites me that Richard III came back to us during my lifetime, that his history has mingled with ours, and that we are the generation who will perhaps give him his final peace at last.

“Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York;And all the clouds that lour'd upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried.” - William Shakespeare, Richard III

The Acceptance

Back in 2008 or something like that, I wrote an entry about how blogging was about to undergo a radical change with the advent of social media. Well, time has proved me correct. Although many people read my blog (usually brought in by an update notice in Facebook and Twitter), precious few leave comments here. Instead, they leave their comments in those media sites.  I actually like this change, because my presences "over there" are protected and, personally, more liberating. I've been thinking lately that making the comments members only might be a good thing, so that's what I'm doing.

Am I simply buying into the social media monster? Possibly, but I'm too busy with my life to think that's an actual problem. It's only the internet, after all, not the life I live here in the real world with my family and friends, and my work.


Psst...
The internet is an illusion; nothing but smoke and mirrors.
It's the end of an era for me. Besides shaking the internet's Siren Song, I'm done with the trolls whose only purpose is to be unkind and hateful. But, mostly, no one seems to want to comment here anymore and I'm tired of fighting the current. I'm 63 for fucksake and life's too short to be concerned about all these immaterial ones and zeros.

Many of you are already members so you can leave comments without any problem. For the rest, just request membership by using the email form on the Contact page.

Onward.

Getting Things in Hand

It's been such a long time since I played a guitar every day of my life, my calluses have gotten a bit soft on me. They're still there, but they've been sleeping. This past week, I've rather called Reveille on them, however, and they're proudly rising to the occasion.

I'm not a believer in "Play until your fingers bleed!" In fact, unless you're onstage and it occurs from an especially robust session, it's pointless. When I was younger and first learning guitar, my grandmother, who was a musician and knew about these things. told me to soak my fingertips in vinegar before and after playing. It really worked, and I developed a healthy, durable set of calluses that can still be called on after 50 years. These days I'm giving Eric Clapton's advice a try by soaking them in rubbing alcohol instead of vinegar. So far, so good. It in fact seems to work more quickly than vinegar. I also think that the fact that I'm switching between 6-string and 12-string guitar is helpful, because doing so covers the entire fingertip pad; it may be a little more painful, but not as painful as playing a 6-string, exclusively.

Working on getting both my playing and singing chops back into shape is proving to be a real joy. It's just my memory where lyrics are concerned that's the challenge. My hands know what to do (good old muscle memory never fails!) so I don't give that a second thought. Remembering the words of 36 songs, however, is proving to be harder, not to mention that all of my music was lost back in 2001 and I'm having to dredge up my own song lyrics. Most of them have resurfaced, and those that just won't, I'm simply rewriting. What's the harm? Who's to know? They're my songs.

I have five months until my house concert (I've penciled in the date as October 9th), and there's plenty of time to get everything in hand, so to speak, calluses and lyrics, so I'm not worried in the least. Meanwhile, all of this is completely silencing the old stage fright beast, and that was the biggest challenge of all.

In-Home and Homegrown

Years ago, from 1983-85, I was a member of a southern California group of folk musicians, patrons, and lovers of folk music that met for in-home concerts, camp-outs, and workshops. Nearly every weekend I was in someone's living room listening to a songwriter or folk group, and meeting them close-up. Even back then (or perhaps especially back then, during the heat of the Eighties) I found the experience enriching. Soon, I was performing at house concerts, too. After years of playing duets with bar blenders, and cocktail waitresses shouting out drink orders, I really took to the respect an artist feels when the audience is actually listening, not whooping and whistling. I'm afraid that if I were a well-known songwriter and was met with that crap, I'd leave off playing and say, "Look, you came here to hear me. I came here to play for you. Now, sit down and be quiet." I'm sure that wouldn't gain me any fans, but at least I'd have had my say. But you never know. Some major acts are demanding their audiences put their cell phones away during their concerts.

House concerts are great because they draw a listening audience—everyone is there for the express purpose of hearing the song. If you've never experienced live music in a true listening situation, then you need to.

"All of these things, we believe, set us apart from the usual large concert and bar experience, where sometimes the music winds up being secondary to the party atmosphere and worse yet, relegated to background music." - Scott Aycock, House Concerts Unlimited

I've decided to host my own house concert this year, here at Bookends Cottage. I miss performing, despite the crippling stage fright that started to appear around 1990 and grew to such epic proportions that I couldn't even sing for my family unless I was three sheets to the wind. Of course, that only exacerbated the problem, because I can't perform at peak with even so much as one drink in me. Invariably, I'd wake up the next morning, remember how shitty I sounded, and tell myself my performing days are over. Well, my days as an unabashed wino are gone, and I'm really itching to perform again.

So here I am relearning some of my old songs, learning my new ones, and brushing upon some favorite covers, and I'm finding that the planning process of this is having a calming effect on my stage fright. Well, that's how it works, isn't it? The better one knows one's material, the more confident one is. Who knows what this might lead to? I'm already planning to record an album this year, so maybe I'll get on the house concert circuit again. But sh! I'm not ready to start thinking beyond this one performance just yet.

Birth of the Blues

One of the items on my 70 by 70 list is to stay at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club for a weekend. Located at 0 Blues Alley in Clarksdale, Mississippi, the club celebrates the birthplace of the Delta Blues. With people like John Lee Hooker and Willie Brown as its native-borns, Clarksdale has a vibrant history, and the club is located beside the Delta Blues Museum.

Upstairs, the Delta Cotton Company has several rooms that are decorated in a retro style. If I stayed there, I'd choose the Good Midling room, not because it's the most expensive (none of the rooms are particularly expensive, actually), but because I like the colors and the fact that it overlooks the front of the building. The club itself naturally has live Blues Wednesday-Saturday nights, a full bar, and a great menu. I think it has great vibes, too!

Of course, right now is not a good time to us to go, what with the Mississippi KKK having issued a call-to-arms against people like Nettl and myself, but someday, maybe. Mr.Freeman certainly wouldn't mind, so I doubt his establish would either. It's just those men in hoods that's kind of off putting.

Our First Real Snow

It was a good, low key weekend. I'm actually sort of enjoying the bi-polar personality the weather has taken on this winter. Saturday was like a spring day; it was in the 70's and the sun shone in a crystal blue sky. When we woke up on Sunday morning, however, there were several inches of snow on the ground and more coming down. I actually like snow, but that's probably because I no longer have to scrape the car windows or commute to a job 20 miles away. Snow's easy to like when you can spend the morning in a warm bed.

None of that for us, though. We'd already made plans to go to Brooklyn's for brunch. That was a very good idea. Strong coffee warmed us as we ordered their famous fried chicken and waffles. I have to tell you, I'd never tried this dish before even though I knew it would be good. Brooklyn's doesn't do anything ordinary, though. This dish was lightly dressed with a cranberry balsamic syrup, candied cranberries, and pralines.

So I move into a new week. With the recent web job completed, I'm free to get back to my book, although I never really left off working on it. The difference is, now I can dedicate all of my time to it. It's coming along nicely.

The photo is of Lowrider, who, when she came to the end of her little brick path, she looked at me like as if she expected me to shovel the snow for her.

Something New

I opened a photoblog/nature journal. It's brand new, so there's not much there, but I remember when this place was new. Please be so kind as to pay a visit, comment, Follow, and do that voodoo that you do so well.

If you want to.

The Chaos Factor

There's an awful lot of talk on the web about manifesting our heart's desire, of turning our dreams into reality. This is a subject I've been interested in since about 1977. Back then, it was called creative visualization, and I spent a lot of time practicing it. For nearly as long as I could remember, my dream was to be a rock star. Not a celebrity so much, but a standard of comparison among those I believed to be my peers. For me, fame was about gaining the friendship and respect of others in the business. I ate, drank and breathed this dream without having ever heard of following your bliss, manifestation, The Secret, or any of that. To me, it was about daring to dream, then working my ass off to make it come true. I was a hopeless dreamer, yes, but I also was an indefatigable worker, performing at every opportunity, and creating opportunities for myself where none existed. I was my own business manager/booking agent for many years, and I came awfully close to succeeding any number of times.

When I heard people who'd made it say, "If you really believe, it'll happen," I believed them. Thirty years later, broke, hungry, burned out and disappointed, I gave up that dream. It's easy for those whose dreams have come true to say that anyone can achieve their heart's desire, but for every one of them I suspect there are thousands who have not and will not make it, no matter how much they dream and how hard they work.

Lately, I'm thinking a lot about this, because there's a house Lynette and I are aching to buy (you may have already found the link I tucked away on this page). What I'm wondering is how to balance my feelings of unexplainable optimism with the very real possibility that somebody else could buy it at any moment. On the one hand, I don't want to sabotage the miraculous accomplishment of this dream by dwelling on the odds, but I likewise don't want to be shattered if it does sell to someone else. Mostly, I just don't want to lose hope. Life without hope of something is unbearable for me.

I'm not a believer in fate, which sits on the other end of this see-saw. I don't believe we come here with our destiny set in cosmic concrete. I believe that somewhere in the middle is a fulcrum labeled The Luck Factor. Call it what you will: luck, serendipity,.. I prefer to call it The Chaos Factor.

"Que sera, sera,Whatever will be, will be..."
Whatever it is, it acts as the balance. While some people of little talent crave the ego stroke, the wealth and the power, and accomplish that almost immediately with only a minimum of work, other people of great talent, who want only to be able to help others and leave the world a better place, slave away for years before succeeding. For some people, it never, ever happens. Them's the breaks.

Of course, finding Nettl was one of these miraculous dreams come true, and that should be enough, I confess, my head hanging low. But before I leave this planet, I'd like to see the accomplishment of just one of my material dreams. It's not a lot to ask, and I'm willing to work my ass off. These days I have a simpler, less arbitrary dreams. To live a certain lifestyle, one that doesn't require fame or wealth. To live with nature in a modest house with the love of my life, and to check out knowing she and my eldest son are provided for. That's it.

And that's a far cry from my earlier dreams of Grammys and gold records, and standing ovations at Madison Square Garden.

He Turned Into a Lady

I dreamed I was at Bob Dylan's house in Malibu, where I occupied a large recliner chair in the living room. I'd been there all day and, although I was with him and a number of other people, listening to music, drinking wine and talking, he didn't acknowledge me. He didn't ignore me, I was just one of the guests, no one important.

He put different albums on the stereo—all vinyl discs—but none of the music really registered on me. It was good background music, the kind that people talk over in small gatherings like this one. It was Dylan's music, of course, and, although I liked most of it, none of it stood out to me as being anything new or any different from anything he'd released over the years. Mostly, I just enjoyed being there, looking out at the Pacific Ocean while listening to Dylan and his friends talking, laughing, and feeling relaxed and mellow.

This went on for what felt like all night. Finally, this morning, right before I woke up, he put on a copy of an album he was about to release, what we used to call an acetate. It was zydeco inspired, unique, all Dylan, and it was amazing. One song in particular possessed my attention, one in a minor key. I told everyone to be quiet and listen, that this was something special, and we listened.

Toward the end of the recording Dylan stood up to leave the room and he came over to where I sat, took my hand in his, and walked behind me around the chair. When I looked up at him again, he'd turned into a Lady, refined, elegant, generous. I kissed his (her) hand in gratitude and the exchange of feelings between us was so tender, I was deeply moved. I felt as if he/she had bestowed on a me a pure and significant blessing.

The music is still in my head, and that's blessing enough.

Mood of Solitude

I've always compared myself to a lone wildflower growing outside a rose bed. At least that's how I was raised.

Did I say raised? Well, that's not quite true. My parents, being bohemian sorts, kind of tossed the seed out there, then stood back and said, "Let's see how she does!" They supplied me with some support against the wind, but, generally speaking, I was left to my own devices. It was good for me. I learned to dig my roots in deep when things got rough, and I'm an old hand at turning my face to that one ray of sun when the storms set in.

Did I turn out alright? I think so. Other people I've known, who grew up in the rose bed, tended, pruned and dosed with various "fertilizers" were the ones who were most drawn to me.

I don't know what brought on this feeling of being alone, or set apart, this morning. After two weeks of feeling fully engaged, I woke up feeling  a bit outside of it all. It's not bad. It's where I create from, and the weather has turned back to winter after a week of unexpected spring. I also haven't slept well all week, but I'm used to that, too. I'm going to be alone quite a bit this weekend, so I welcome this mood of solitude — I'll spend my time working on my new book, and reading some of those on my list over there ----->

My mother had a saying she used whenever I did something she neither approved of or understood: "You're growing up like a weed!"

Perhaps, but a flowering one! And I wouldn't trade places with the most beautiful hybrid rose for all the world!

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Photo Credit: Christine at Homesteading in the Burbs