Showing posts with label John Prine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Prine. Show all posts

Monday, August 15, 2016

The difference of 10 years and heroes


I'm currently in downtown Seattle with my oldest and dear friend Bill DeVoe in his law office thinking of inspiration for a quick Monday Monday Music blog. I've got on my John Prine concert t-shirt from last October, so maybe that's my sign and should just go with it.

John Prine played in San Diego with his hero, Kris Kristofferson at the Civic Theater and it was great to see the two play together. Prine was so happy that his mentor and friend were together on the same stage as he shared his admiration towards Kristofferson and the influence he's had in his life.

I got to thinking of heroes and the difference of age between the hero and the one looking up to them. With Kristofferson (80) and Prine (69) it is just a bit more than 10 years. This got me thinking about all my musical heroes from the 1960's and 70's. Bill and I were born in 1955 at the tail end of the baby boom that started after World War II in 1945. It's amazing to see how many rock 'n' roll greats were born in the 1940's and became stars to us all born in the 1950's. If you look at this current picture of Prine and Kristofferson, and didn't know them, you would think that they were closer in age.  I think about being 15 and the long list of rock heroes that were in their early, mid and late twenties and the difference of age and stature was just so enormous at the time. I really don't have much of point here, other than the importance of having mentors and heroes with that 10+ year gap to look up to, learn from and dream of your possibilities for the future.
I'll leave you with this one from October, 31, 2015.





Monday, July 25, 2016

Transcendental Good Morning

On my trail run, songs inevitably start playing in my head that often begin the spark of a blog idea as I jog in the dirt alongside the brush and Eucalyptus trees. From suburban sidewalks and street traffic, I arrive at a greenbelt trail head that starts my hour routine of movement and solitary thought. I've come to cherish this time and call it, my moving meditation.

I almost always run in the morning with a Good Day Sunshine start to my day. On some days, if I get an early start, I will see no one on the trail. On other days, I will encounter my regular group of strangers that have a similar walking, running or biking route to me and I see all the time.  This is a public access community trail and I also see a lot of new strangers as well. What I find fascinating (enough to write a blog about), is the spectrum of social skills when I encounter people especially in the close proximity of this winding trail. In fact, I believe there is a Murphy's Law of trail running, as it seems you're most likely to encounter an oncoming person (usually with their dog) at the narrowest parts of the path.

So, using my greeting skills, I initiate a hardy, "Good morning", "Hello", "Hi" (at least 90% of the time). To my regular trail pedestrians, I sometimes throw in a "Howdy" or something like, "Hey, isn't this just a great day!" I would say that people respond back, roughly 80% of the time. So one day, I decided to add a couple of visual prompts to my greeting by also waving "hi" coupled with a big smile. Over time, this has raised the percentage of non responses to now most people giving a verbal response or at least, a parroting hand wave back.

This past week was typical. I said to a couple of regulars I see every week on their daily walk, "Stay cool" (as temperatures are getting in the 90's here), this was followed by.....crickets. Then, about a mile up the trail, a woman initiates, "Good Morning" with a wave and big smile. I happily respond back, but the smile stays on my face for several more seconds as we pass. She has that morning sunshine beaming in her and she beamed it right at me, simply wonderful.

 You see, we're having fun being on this trail, enjoying life with some of the best weather on earth (in San Diego). But often and I mean often, I encounter disengaged, grumpy, too busy to look away from their phone people, or the classic straight ahead stare of avoidance with the oncoming me in their path.

Now I'm not going to ever be remembered as starting world peace here, but I think it's important to express a positive attitude when encountering strangers, even if the result is- it makes only me feel positive in that moment. But just maybe in my dirt travels, I snapped a few people out of their funk. Maybe someone is taking a walk to get out of a funk and suddenly a welcoming Mr. Sun just runs by. I know, no big deal. But in our current times where intolerance is making an overt cultural comeback, we need to employ the power of kindness and respect to one another. The power of "Good morning" is the power of the sun as the two dance together in a simple exchange to connect with people on the human highway.

On three occasions on the trail, I've stopped one of my regular strangers and introduced myself. When we now see each other, we stop and talk for a couple minutes just to ask each other, "How ya been?" I now have three people who have moved up from the regular stranger category to the, "Good Morning Tony", "Good Morning Martin" and "Good Morning John" acquaintance status.

The first video below is a Ted Talk by Ali Ghambara. I meet Ali through my buddy Bill DeVoe on Cherry St. (outside of Ali's coffeehouse) in downtown Seattle on one fine morning this past spring. He greeted us with an enthusiastic, "Good morning" and we all had a brief street conversation together. I still remember his body language and hand shake expressing that it was good to meet and connect, he meant it.

Hope you can take the time to listen to Ali's talk and then listen to my Transcendental Good Morning Playlist, it is guaranteed to start your Monday off on a positive note.





Monday, March 09, 2015

Always with the negative waves, Moriarty (Updated)

Like most people, I feed off positive words, energy and action. We humans are social creatures who tend to huddle with folks we like. We like them because they give us a sense of being, they share their humanity with us and it helps us grow, together we are happy. But in our quest of riding that train of happiness, there are always unkind and flat out mean people to disrupt our trip. For me, this past week has been full of disruption. I've was having wonderful breakthroughs in getting a new business off the ground, but it was coupled with a surrounding negative vibe that was throwing me off my game. As I proceeded through my week, I couldn't help but think of the movie, Kelly's Heroes and feeling like the character Oddball. Here is a great compilation clip from YouTube that just sums it up.


So to combat these negatives waves I turned to John Prine to give me inspiration. He is a genius at getting to the core of our souls through his words and music and I needed his help. He just laid out the problem for me with his song, Some Humans Ain't Human. Please stop reading and listen to this.



After that, I started listening to some of his more upbeat and humorous songs including, It's a Big Old Goofy World. The world's a funny place, let's go through life with a sense of humor and respect and just enjoy the ride.