HOW TO FLY WITH A HEAVY HEART – repost

Quoting from Son House

Yes, it’s the same post from this morning. Sorry to confuse you, but the original post had so many errors (some weren’t even my fault), I wanted to repost the corrected version.

Here I am on YouTube, speaking (with a little a capello intro tribute to Son House) at All Saints Episcopal Church, Austin, TX, during Lent, their Autobiographies of Redemption series.  Jesse Sublett at Front Porch session March 28, 2014, “How to Fly with a Heavy Heart.”

(You can also view Stephen Kinney’s flattering introduction here.)

The experts believe that flight evolved as a means of escape from predators. Creatures who were already built for running swiftly developed to the point that they could actually escape from the tyranny of gravity for longer and longer periods, which adds new dimension to the term “flight,” as in leaving one’s problems — creatures who want to hurt, imprison or otherwise negatively impact one’s existence. The first creatures who actually became airborne were really odd looking, and so were the first flying machines developed by man. By the way, an ancestor of mine from the Hill Country, Jacob Broadbeck, is claimed to have built one of the first powered aircraft (although calling it that might be a stretch, even if the wildest claims of its success were true), which he tested either in San Antonio or near Luckenbach in September 1865, just after the end of the treasonous rebellion of the Southern States known as the Civil War–40 years before the first successful flight by the Wright brothers. The Handbook of Texas has a pretty good entry on Broadbeck. Like many German immigrants, Broadbeck was a sour looking fellow, at least in the images I’ve seen, such as this one below, and you have to wonder, did his expression change any when/if his invention “lifted the surly bonds of earth?”

Jacob Broadbeck, a great, great uncle of mine who may have been the first inventor of powered flight

Well, anyway, I spoke about my experiences, growing up Johnson City, which was a mean little town in the sixties, but LBJ was from there, and he was and still is my hero… and becoming a musician, falling in love, experiencing the murder of my first love, Dianne Roberts, by a serial killer in 1976, and dealing with that some 25 years later, when I was struggling, with the help of my beautiful and superhumanly strong wife, Lois Richwine, to overcome the odds of 4 percent chance of survival with throat cancer, starting in 1997. Well, look, it may sound depressing, but there was a lot of laughter, and I think it was the first time that I, Jesse Sublett —surrealistic blues singer, punk rocker, visual artist, crime writer, radical leftist liberal bird lover — have EVER filled the pews of a Christian church! Might be the last time, too. I dunno. I really appreciate being invited by Stephen Kinney, with some urging from congregation member John Burnett… They treated me well. Nice people. And the video was shot by Chris Green. Love the lighting! My face looks like the map of a forbidden continent!

UPCOMING GIGS / EVENTS: May 1, Tertulia at Continental Club Gallery, 7:30 PM… May 12, Noir at the Bar with Jesse Sublett + Ace Atkins, Opal Divine Penn Field 7 PM… June 19, 7 PM Austin book party for Broke, Not Broken: Homer Maxey’s Texas Bank War, by Broadus A. Spivey & Jesse Sublett, at BookPeople… More details to come on the above. [For latest developments, check my FaceBook page. There will be FB events created for most of these gigs.]

FYI, much of what I spoke about to the church gathering was covered in my memoir, Never the Same Again, published in 2004. You can order it by contacting me, or from BookPeople in Austin (they always have it), and you can read all about my other books, including my most recent noir novella, Grave Digger Blues, on the Jesse’s Book Page.

While on the topic of flight, I’ve been studying grackles a lot lately, trying to draw or paint them. They are such weird, funky creatures. I’ll keep trying — if only to redeem myself from the clumsiness of my early attempts.

[image error]

Courting Grackle

Me & Lois at the Legendary White Swan