Feel Me Don't You

Yes, I’m still alive. My apologies for the gap in posts and overall online absence. As I stated in a recent text, “I’ve just been dealing with a lot of shit lately.” The cause? “Life, death, love, anger, the pursuit of happiness… or the lack thereof” One of the donors to the dead air is simply a fried power supply on the server. Thank you, Sean, for getting that back up and operational with no apparent lingering effects.

So many things have been swirling around the cerebellum and I don’t want to delve into them and drag you fine folks through the mental mire. A very generic update will have to suffice for now. I arrived in Illinois late Wednesday night and will be here until Sunday when I will head back home with my brother in tow as it were. My schedule at the moment is pretty scattered as I hang out with the family and friends of the family – the regular cavalcade of characters now extending to my Aunt Paula, cousin Stacy, cousin Wosie (Rosie’s new nickname thanks to little Breanna), and a seemingly endless revolving door of others that I either a) haven’t seen in ages or b) have never met.

As much as I’m enjoying being around my family, tonight I will be missing my first Tantrum show and that really saddens me. Why? Tonight’s monologist is local filmmaker and musician Tony Ladesich. The opportunities for musical games and scenes will be the greater than we’ve had since our TBA shows and it’s something I’ve wanted to add to a Tantrum show for quite some time. Please go see the show and support the group even though you won’t be able to see yours truly? Thanks, I owe you one.

Other than that, there will be some more flash fiction forthcoming. So, that’s something to look forward to or avoid as you feel.

The year is 2006 in the month of August. Unbeknownst to either individual, a gateway gestates between two strangers – myself and a young man named Andy McKee who hails from my regional backyard in Topeka, Kansas. Sensate information flows between like psychic IP packets. Faculties form lilting landscapes of acoustical architecture.

Basking on a Hawaiian beach, I am splayed like some carrion’s care package while thousands of miles away fingers tap frets in a musical marriage of harp and guitar. I am soon awash, waves luxuriantly lapping, in water as warm and welcoming as a prenatal paradise. Boundaries are bridged over the clefs of bass and treble. Each footstep of note and scale follows its melodic road map traversing through time and space to the past, present, and future.

If now is the winter of our discontent, a solace is attained – this moment, forever frozen.

(/nod DougieOh)

This video seems vaguely familiar (perhaps owing to the percussive nature reminiscent of Tommy Emmanuel), so if I’ve posted it before, please accept my apologies. Regardless, it’s too good not to share again if you enjoy alternative guitar styles. The artist is Erik Mongrain, check him out.