quote:

Originally posted by Ben:
My eyes just went misty, holding back teardrops at thiry-some thousand feet over the ocean, not for the first time, while watching a movie... on a plane... this is ridiculous... that or the director, cast, and crew accomplished their mission...

Or I want to fall in love. Not neccesarily the romantic love. Romantic love is nice, and it seems as if every five years it really gets me... I tend to fall in love with moments, with ideas, with watching people. I suppose that's where art comes in... in the case of film-making, a summary of moments strung together to dance on a screen and make us associate, feel, maybe even fantasize, or become nostalgic through another situation close or far away. Art happens in real life moments, but I didn't become misty watching conversations on the tube yesterday in London... there were beautiful moments.... but when the beautiful moments are strung together, or laid out upon a canvas, or put into a song, they're compressed somehow to make us draw upon our own circumstances to FEEL.

One year, I read Hemingway like it was a habit. Most people that really know me would question, and rightly so, why on earth I could be so addicted to such a dry author. But that was just it. I think nothing like Hemingway... yet, his simple, minimalist language took my mind to a place where it would otherwise not go. Another author could probably take me to the same bullfight in Spain, but Hemingway gave me a different experience... one of carefully chosen words. This is why I think he's a great lyricist's author. You want to say so much in a song, and most often, especially nowadays in a "pop" song, you have a limited pallette, usually two verses, a chorus, and a bridge at most. The chorus is like a thesis statement, the verses are hypothesis, and the bridge sometimes gives the songs character a multi-dimensional point of view. Yet, as much as I would like to go on and on in prose, or talking to a friend about it at the local pub, that's just the beauty of it. These simple, simple words. Only saying what needs to be said. These common every day words jumbled together in one collage.... and it's not always an autobiography. That's why artists need these moments, whether taken from life, or other art. When you can't live, read, listen, observe. Bruce Springsteen put it quite well... he talked about his life not being all that interesting... why would he write about himself when he tours around the world, plays a show, and goes home every night? He writes about the people that we KNOW.... and that is communication in art.

Sacrafice. I've learned a lot in the past few years. What's beautiful to one individual may not raise an eyebrow to his or her neighbor. Sometimes it seems like art, which really is a form of communicating, communicating emotions, can be kept introverted....

(Wait, plane is about to land. Landed. Customs. Baggage claim. Ride home. Say hi to the dudes. Dinner. Rehearsal. Sleep. Wake. Office hour. Scales. Bach. Errands...)

I'm back.... my fingers are crawling at half speed over the keypad after being outside. Getting colder, but the sky has disguised itself well today with some sunshine. Where did I leave off? Rambling about art=communication with it's internal sacrifice to produce external results. Hmmmm... I've lost count of how many songs have been submitted for this next record. I suppose there is a reason for that. Those that have invested in this must filter it's product. I believe that you may not hear some of the most beautiful songs that have been submitted, BUT they may not have any relevance to the masses. There is a reason for these less modernly formulated songs to get axed. I suppose we didn't sign a dotted line to make pretty things that we really like, it's to make ideas that many people like... or at least try to... and I suppose that's why I was in London trying to wrestle three hooks to the ground in the studio, while stepping out to the other side of an imaginary stage, imaginary car stereo system, getting into my "people" mindset and ears, not my "arty guy" mindset and ears. Communicate. My hero's in the sixties did it before turning into timeless creative giants. Focus.

Finally wrote a song about Boston for the first time in six years. I was talking to a friend who works in the film industry in Los Angeles last night. She attended college at Emerson, while I was at Berklee, then moved to pursue her career. She has, whether she knows it or I know it, revitalized my creative battery more than once. She like me, struggles with the everlasting battle of what we think is beautiful art vs. commercialized art. Maybe it's greediness, that we want to only make something that we love, whether anyone else does or not.... who knows. That's besides the point. Anyways, I was talking about what a romantic town Boston turns out to be. I always thought of Boston as a very non-sexy place, in it's brick forest... yet it's character is easy to write about. She said she missed that character... I often find myself complaining about these everlasting grey skies, yet it brings something real out of me. I told her that those grey skies and cold winds must whack me on the back until I spit out some melodies and lyrics about it. And somehow, I had to be across the ocean to write about it. Nostalgia. Maybe I did it. I associated those melodies and lyrics with something that I know and feel. Maybe I got on the other side of the fence for a moment... in the meantime, I'm going to rehearsal before this weather makes me nostalgic for a warm place that I've only visited....

BR