What's Goin' On?

I guess I owe it to all my dear friends here at NSS to explain what’s been going on with me since March. It’s a mighty grim tale & I’ll probably start ranting before I finish, so here’s some sweet Dub music to soothe the edges. From the early days of M. Lloyd Barnes Bulwackies great work recorded at the original Wackie’s House of Music on White Plains Road, NYC in 1979.

Bullwackies All Stars - Black World Dub, Hardwax Records 1040LP, 1979.

all decryption codes in comments

Side A -

Recording Connection
Skylarking
Troubled Land
Morning Star
United Rock

Side B -

Black World
Simple Little Woman
Tribute to Studio One
Shining Star
Rain from that Cloud

__________________________________________________________

So here goes...

It all began on the morning of March 17th.

I’m not really one to make future plans, chosing mainly to live in the Here & Now, but I was so caught up in my plans for the up-coming week-end. I was going to start my planting the following two days. Much earlier than usually, but I was going to attempt something I had never tried before this year. A life-long friend & fellow grower had been extolling the virtues of early planting as a sure fire way of sexing one’s plants, an early identification system for boys & girls. If I could weed out the boys before I even got very far into the season & only kept the girls, I could save myself a great deal of needless work & expense.

So I’m sitting in our breakfast nook having a fresh baked croissant & a cup of Tieguanyin before I head off to work when the phone jangles. I grab it so as not to awaken the distaff duo sleeping in the adjoining bedrooms (Black Dahlia & Lao respectively).  It’s our landlord calling to let me know that the owner of our house is putting it on the market this very day. We have sixty days to vacate the premises.

I just kinda crumble back into my seat. WTF! I just drop the handset back into the cradle. I’m incapable of movement or thought for quite some time. So much for this years crop...that’s my first thought, as my mind was already awash with the plans for the next two days. Then it all sweeps over me like an avalanche...I was just finishing a major five month project enclosing the rear patio into a catio for Ralf, Lao’s cat...now in full recovery from having her left rear leg amputated. As a former outdoor cat, now needing much more territory than our house afforded her...we made her a new world...this was our WORLD...we had no plans to move...what about all the detritus we had accumulated over the years???how were we going to afford to move??? Sixty days.

Fuck. Hold up. I just can’t do this. I’m finally coming out the other end & this feels like just so much bullshit bitchin’ right now.

I could explain about digitizing all my music & then selling off my record collection. About how the very next day...yeah, the very day after I copied the last CD & parted ways with all things jewel case bound, that my external hard drive (8T) crashed & burned. 

About the -4.5/-4.8 rental market here in Sacramento...yeah, there are between 4.5% to 4.8% more people looking for rentals than are available to rent.

About the fact that what five years ago rented for $850 now rents for $1300+.

About how mid-move, my pick up truck blew a head gasket & threw a rod.

About how on the day before we were finally moving to Oak Knoll, our latest abode, my coon-hound Hungry Chuck Biscuits (brother for the last eighteen years) died in my arms...

I could explain, but I won’t.

I’ll leave you with this (+ one more musical delight):

from T. Lobsang Rampa - The Cave of the Ancients, Corgi Books 1963
     Over us the stars wheeled on their course, endless, eternal. Smiling, the Lama Mingyar Dondrop reached in his robe and brought forth a box of matches, treasure brought all the way from far-off India. Slowly he extracted one match and held it up. “I will show you Creation, Lobsang!” he said gaily. Deliberately he drew the match head across the igniting surface of the box, and as it flared into life, he held up the blazing sliver. Then he blew it out! “Creation, and dissolution,” he said, “The flaring match head emitted thousands of particles each exploding away from its fellows. Each was a separate world, the whole was a Universe.   the Universe died when the flame was Extinguished. Can you say that there was no life on those worlds?” I looked dubiously at him, not knowing what to say. “ If they were worlds, Lobsang, and had life upon them, to that Life the worlds would have lasted for millions of years. Are we just a stricken match? Are we living here, with our joys and sorrows - mostly sorrows! - thinking that this is a world without end? Think about it, and we will talk some more tomorrow.” He rose to his feet and was gone from my sight.


from Rob Garza, half of Thievery Corporation. A bit rougher & tougher than TC.  Let me just say that "Cherubim Sing" saved my life.

Dust Galaxy - Dust Galaxy, Eighteenth Street Lounge Music ESL 124, 2007.

Sun in Your Head
Limitless
Mother of Illusion
It’s All Yours
River of Ever Changing Forms
Sons of Washington
Cherubim Sing
Overhead
Down
Come Hear the Trumpets
Crying to the Night

What he sez,
NØ