tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2009://15 2009-01-06T19:26:10Z words and music by john l. Movable Type 3.33 tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2009://15.7277 2009-01-06T19:25:17Z 2009-01-06T19:26:10Z

Back on the subliminal track, thanks again to LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Confirmation :: Ornithology Verse :: and Chapter Authorize :: Allow Blog :: Party Thirty :: and a Hippie Heir :: Apparent What are you doing? :: Dave? Complaint...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: Confirmation :: Ornithology Verse :: and Chapter Authorize :: Allow Blog :: Party Thirty :: and a Hippie Heir :: Apparent What are you doing? :: Dave? Complaint :: Grievance Leave :: French Tune :: a Fish]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2009://15.7276 2009-01-02T17:05:59Z 2009-01-03T00:20:47Z

The initial description of a new technique for slap or pop bass - clawhammer funk.

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html horizontally so it can perform an upstroke for additional speed and effect. When he combines this with left guitarist technique for hammer-ons and pull-offs, the end result is dazzling speed. The second was Jaco Pastorius' use of chording and false harmonics. When exploring different chord shapes and voices around the neck, I sounded the chords out using arpeggios played with my thumb, index, middle (and sometimes ring) fingers - not an unusual approach when one is playing acoustic fingerstyle guitar - or banjo. Particularly claw hammer style banjo. The innovation is the claw hammer approach. I admit I was troubled with the "double-thumb" technique of Victor's. Why not just use a thumb-pick, as you would on a banjo, instead of resting (and in a sense, limiting the range of motion of) your thumb. I've always avoided techniques that involved resting the hand in anyway on the strings or nearby props (like the old Precision thumb rests). And my thumb slap technique was deeply rooted in the vertical style. But to use the thumb and first fingers in combination, and move the thumb for a second combination stroke with subsequent index and ring finger "plucks"? Keeping an underlying rhythm going consisting of sounded notes and/or muted string unsounded notes while the hand floats above the strings (and along the neck)? That, my friends, is "claw hammer funk" bass. I'm still working out the details and some of the mechanics. But the end result should be (provided that you have sufficient hand strength) a bass style that provides both thumb and finger pop and slap, with a fluidity and dexterity akin to Earl Scruggs banjo technique. And there you have it.]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2009://15.7275 2009-01-02T16:10:11Z 2009-01-02T16:47:01Z

What still remains when words have run their course, and soundless, lay exuberant and spent beyond the realm of sound? What is the source that waits between each breath, self-evident for just the briefest moment, as the lull when one...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 02 JAN 2009]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7274 2008-12-16T15:25:48Z 2008-12-16T15:36:50Z

If you would write the soundtrack to your life, the background noise for every single hour - those shining moments when you're at your best, as well as when you're sad and dour - what music and what songs would...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 16 DEC 2008]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7273 2008-12-13T07:01:30Z 2008-12-13T07:02:16Z

Arise, new day, your way much like the last, one footstep forward further from the past; and in your wake leave only settling dust that would try to preserve because it must, or else subside to shadows that soon fade...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 12 DEC 2008]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7272 2008-12-05T00:30:58Z 2008-12-05T00:32:05Z

Cheap hotel, out on the turnpike between come and gone; far too late for sleeping, far too early to be getting on. Who can tell? Sometimes the line between what's right and wrong fades into nothing like an old fashioned...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html Cheap hotel, out on the turnpike between come and gone; far too late for sleeping, far too early to be getting on. Who can tell? Sometimes the line between what's right and wrong fades into nothing like an old fashioned country song. You and me? It's hard to figure out the bottom line; too much time together, not enough of it was very fine. Some say love heals every wound, and some say love is blind; When it's gone, it doesn't leave too much behind. What we had is over, and it really doesn't matter whose to blame. Really makes no difference, win or lose, you end with nothing just the same. Cheap hotel, out on the turnpike just a mile or so; far enough to say I'm leaving, close enough to nowhere else to go. tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7271 2008-11-19T16:40:06Z 2008-11-19T17:25:00Z

I don't know if ya'll have seen this, but it disturbs me a little (and so I feel it essential sharing ... LOL). There's a web-based ad (I saw it on MySpace --- I know, I know for shame, for...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html I don't know if ya'll have seen this, but it disturbs me a little (and so I feel it essential sharing ... LOL). There's a web-based ad (I saw it on MySpace --- I know, I know for shame, for shame) for some kind of online/continuing education that begins with the question "Are you interested in a career in..." and then shows the same fresh scrubbed blonde who has obviously been paid (because she is smiling) to be photo-shopped into various "uniforms" ... Criminal Justice -- she looks a bit like Heather Locklear from TJ Hooker here Education -- she looks prim and proper, and is holding an apple Business - she's wearing a nice blue suit Health Care - dressed in scrubs with a stethoscope around her neck Something Else - just an outline of this poor girl, with no specific picture, and Liberal Arts - she's smiling and holding a MICROPHONE Sadly, and maybe it's because she's a young, beautiful blonde, there's no options for Science (or maybe nobody looks good with a pocket protector, microscope or calculator). But that's not my biggest beef. As you may have guessed, my main problem is with the Liberal Arts choice. Since WHEN did Liberal Arts mean Entertainment? Like American Idol? Or do they mean, in a twisted sort of Amerikka way that Liberal somehow implies fluff, without substance, just some kind of anti-technology, anti-intellectual, anti-real work sort of existence? Last time I looked, Liberal Arts included History, Archaeology, Language, Art, Music and a myriad of so-called "soft sciences" like Psychology, Anthropology, Philosophy? Isn't everything that isn't Biology, Chemistry or Physics derivative, or somehow lumped under the business of Business a Liberal Art? Isn't liberal arts really about THINKING in coordination with some kind of doing, and not about bandying about with a microphone and TALKING (or singing)? If you judge it based on these kinds of advertisements, apparently not. What is wrong with this picture? What is wrong with people? What is wrong with education? tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7270 2008-11-03T17:12:26Z 2008-11-03T17:40:40Z

I've never met a President, I doubt I ever will; In recent years, the only likely one for that was Bill. They never seem to be much like the people that I know: they have more money, that's for sure,...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 03 NOV 2008]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7269 2008-11-02T10:17:58Z 2008-11-02T10:18:26Z

Again, courtesy of LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: In love ::with Be my guest ::at your service Number one ::fan Swallowed whole ::bolted 50 percent ::solution Made in ::some other place Supplement ::add-on Right for ::now Endless ::wire Ceramic ::tile...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings: In love ::with Be my guest ::at your service Number one ::fan Swallowed whole ::bolted 50 percent ::solution Made in ::some other place Supplement ::add-on Right for ::now Endless ::wire Ceramic ::tile]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7268 2008-11-02T04:52:09Z 2008-11-02T05:03:51Z

When surety retreats to shadows, tenuous and mewling like a frightened child that in the creeping dark sees monsters and in a fetal shivering ball refuses what assurance reason offers - in that time between the second hand's slow grinding...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 01 NOV 2008 ]]> tag:www.radicaldruid.com,2008://15.7266 2008-10-07T15:42:01Z 2008-10-07T15:45:53Z

NarcissusWorks: The Ghost Anthology: No, it's not a real poetry collection. No, I didn't write the one line poem attributed to me. No, I didn't give my permission for, or seek, inclusion in this farcical volume. But think about it....

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html NarcissusWorks: The Ghost Anthology: No, it's not a real poetry collection. No, I didn't write the one line poem attributed to me. No, I didn't give my permission for, or seek, inclusion in this farcical volume. But think about it. If you ARE a living poet and you WERE somehow included, it's probably one of the few, if not the ONLY time in your life that you will be included as a "poet" along with the likes of Rainier Maria Rilke, Walt Whitman, Jack Keroauc or even Ron Silliman. This freak act of iambic penterrorism, or whatever you want to call it, has by the simple fact of random collection given you, me and everyone else on its table of contents a kind of legitimacy -- the same kind of legitimacy that we now share with 98% of historical figures, that we are referenced in print by yet another source. In this world of screen names, false accounts, spoofed IP addresses, and other ridiculously easy ways to remain anonymous while spouting damn near anything from a virtual soapbox, maybe that's as "REAL" as it's ever going to get. And as a parting thought ... think of the MILLIONS of folks who post what they call poetry on their websites, on poetry bulletin boards, anywhere they can get access, that their friends and readership laud with attaboys, right ons and "oh how deeps" ... folks who remind of watching American Idol audition outtakes (if they were for poets, instead) who WEREN'T included on this voluminous list. Why us, instead of them? Perhaps because some of us in this anthology actually ARE poets.]]> tag:www.litzenberg.net,2008://15.7265 2008-09-21T16:03:14Z 2008-09-21T16:03:39Z

From somewhere behind the frontal lobe, LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings brings you my take on: Heist ::Lift Hack ::Break Dane ::Great Stings ::Smacks Monkey ::Man Junkie ::Strung Out Pumped ::Up Brass ::Monkey Fight! ::the Power Vouch ::Safe...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html LunaNina.com | Unconscious Mutterings brings you my take on: Heist ::Lift Hack ::Break Dane ::Great Stings ::Smacks Monkey ::Man Junkie ::Strung Out Pumped ::Up Brass ::Monkey Fight! ::the Power Vouch ::Safe]]> tag:www.litzenberg.net,2008://15.7264 2008-09-16T02:03:53Z 2008-09-16T02:04:38Z

Should you and I want to discuss the ins and outs of our belief (how one way suits and others don't), let's keep it to the point, and brief, and leave those things like faith behind. For faith and reason...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html 15 SEP 2008]]> tag:www.litzenberg.net,2008://15.7263 2008-09-13T16:47:06Z 2008-09-13T16:52:14Z

Watching the news about Hurricane Ike and watching the water rise on the front door step, looking through some things I wrote immediately before and after Hurricane Katrina, I came across this piece that makes me think of the both...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html No Shaman Left to Heal Our Tribe for Jim Morrison Come, dig the grave, but not too deep; the eighties were a shallow time. We spent a decade just to learn how to maintain appearance's sake and delve with questions, off-the-cuff, in cocktail conversation bluffs. Come, dig the grave, the shovel's mouth will gouge the earth enough to serve as depth-gauge for the swollen corpse; besides, the scavengers we bred in boredom need not work too hard to find in us their daily bread. Come, dig the grave; it's only death that by necessity is born and like a cancer spreads throughout the tender tissue we have formed to shield us from the sunlight's glare and make believe there's nothing there. Come, work the soil and lay the sod; the garden must be fed anew lest what fruit has escaped the rod be left to rot by morning's dew. What harvest plenty still remains is just enough to clog the drains. Come, dig the grave, but not too deep, lest toil and sweat destroy our youth. Let future generations weep that they've no gravestone for the truth. Besides, it's almost happy hour --- we should arrive by our own power. 03 OCT 2005]]> tag:www.litzenberg.net,2008://15.7262 2008-09-09T16:38:52Z 2008-09-09T16:48:18Z

OK, so here it is. The current list of songs by other people that I might throw into a set. Ain’t No Sunshine Almost Cut My Hair Baby What Do You Want Me To Do Back Door Man Bartender’s Blues...

JRL http://www.radicaldruid.com/movabletype/aboutme.html OK, so here it is. The current list of songs by other people that I might throw into a set. Ain’t No Sunshine Almost Cut My Hair Baby What Do You Want Me To Do Back Door Man Bartender’s Blues Blue Christmas Born in Chicago Brown-Eyed Girl Call Me the Breeze Casey Jones Cheap Thrills Cocaine Crazy Crying Time Dead Flowers Dock of the Bay Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right Drift Away Everyday I Have the Blues Feel So Bad Feelin’ Alright Flip, Flop & Fly Folsom Prison Blues For What It’s Worth Funny How Time Slips Away Got My Mojo Working Guilty Help Me Make It Through the Night Hey Good Lookin’ Hoochie Cootchie Man I Don’t Need No Doctor I Shall Be Released I'm a Man It Takes a Lot of Laugh, a Train to Cry Jambalaya Just My Imagination Kansas City Knocking on Heaven’s Door Lawdy Miss Clawdy Like a Rolling Stone Little Red Rooster Lodi Louise Love Me With a Feeling Many Rivers to Cross Margaritaville Matchbox Matilda Mercedes Benz Mess of the Blues Mother Earth Blues Never Been to Spain Next Time You See Me No Expectations One Way Out Paint It Black Polk Salad Annie Red House Rock Me Baby Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms Route 66 Santa Bring My Baby Back to Me Santa Claus is Back in Town See You Later Alligator She Thinks I Still Care Sin City Sitting on Top of the World Slow Down Smoke Smoke Smoke (That Cigarette) Steamroller Blues Stormy Monday Susie Q Sweet Jane T for Texas Take This Job and Shove It Tell It Like It Is Tennessee/Kentucky Waltz Texas The Jealous Kind The Pusher The Thrill is Gone The Weight They All Asked for You / Iko Iko Things That I Used to Do Today I Started Loving You Again Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down Tore Up Try a Little Tenderness Unchain My Heart Waiting on My Man What’s Goin’ On? Whiskey Heaven Whiskey Under the Bridge Who is he and what is he to you? Wonderful Tonight You are So Beautiful You Never Called Me By My Name