A quick, unfocused post tonight.
I had a conversation about our true selves,
the aspirations of artists and money-makers,
the children in our schools,
and the dead among us.
I met some early thirty-somethings,
artists, teachers, listeners —
Jamie, Jason, Bryson (known as Bill),
this post is for you.
It takes three decades to learn about your choices,
where they put you,
how that works.
100 years ago kids went to work at fifteen,
fixing on careers years earlier,
staring at their lot in life.
We of the Technological Age,
wondering in the wanderlust of block parties and book clubs,
floundering but funny,
well-fueled:
Empty, aren’t we?
Not really, no.
The dead still inspire the living.
Even my late friend,
even Christopher Tucker,
dead before 40,
never made it big,
even he speaks and points the way.
After the Industrial Revolution we trained children to work in factories.
That infrastructure is now dead,
but it’s still what we teach.
Some people have a genius for making money.
Some people write it all down.
I just wander and watch.
As I said, this is quick and unfocused.
I just wanted to document some of the themes that ran through my evening here in Baltimore, where I met some local musicians, remembered the dead (find rest, Gram Parsons), and pondered vocations and the inherent political baggage that each one brings.
Not that it pertains to anything in particular, but I will leave you with two songs by Baltimore artists that came up in conversation.
Once or twice a week, I pass through the “Miracle on 34th Street” – the boundless bombast of garish lights that floods the one block between my house and my favorite watering hole, Rocket to Venus. They sell hot sausages there, three for $5. There are Christmas trees made of hubcaps, and one made of old vinyl records. there’s a Natty Boh logo in lights. There are gawkers galore. Tonight we wish you “Season’s Greetings” from Baltimore, USA, with hopes of more substantial tidings to come. To usher in these greetings, we have a stellar track from Baltimore’s finest, Beach House, and one from Baltimore’s most obscure group, the Catbirds.
