The Awakening and The Path, by Robert Taylor

by Kathryn Mann

In his incredible work of art, "The Awakening and The Path," Robert Taylor, a Native American painter, captures on canvas the journey of life. The scene depicts the full span of a life rather than a particular moment or point in time (note the overturned hourglass on the right, indicating the suspension of time). The protagonist, who is on the path of life, gazes forward stoically, not knowing what lies ahead of him. He carries with him various tools that may help him overcome obstacles (the doctor's bag and other instruments).

Butterflies throughout the scene dazzle us with their marvelous display of fragile beauty. The monarch butterfly is a symbol of transformation. It goes through three distinct stages in its life, caterpillar, pupae, and ultimately the beautiful winged creature depicted in this painting. The miraculous physical changes undergone in the life of a monarch remind us that we can make radical changes within ourselves, such as adopting a new habit that helps us become a better or healthier person.

The Gila monster glaring menacingly from the right is the danger we may encounter along the way. The kingfisher that stands guard against him represents our teachers, guides, and supportive spirits who protect us from harm. None of us knows when the Gila monster may try to hurt us. Some challenges come early in life, some late, and each with varying degrees of support from others. However, if we retain the strength and integrity of the man depicted in this painting, we can continue to grow and emerge from each transformative experience a little wiser and better prepared for the next stage of our journey.

In these times of economic turmoil and personal uncertainty, it is particularly important to take a bird's eye view our life as a whole, evaluating what is important and focusing on that which is within our control. If we approach this journey with a sense of wonder and adventure, and embrace the challenges we face with determination, we will continue to learn and grow, moving, step by step, a little closer to our personal potential, much like a monarch butterfly that reaches its full potential of perfection and beauty.

I’ve been in the business side of the music industry for almost forty years, and have received thousands of demo recordings by aspiring artists. Only a handful, had any merit, and all but one of those acts went on to have successful careers. The following is a brilliant essay by the leader of the one group I was sure was destined for stardom that did not make it (yet). It is about the song that first drew my attention to them, and the peculiarities of being an especially creative artist in the music business.

Charly Mann

Through the wonders of the Internet, Charly found me recently to tell me one his favorite songs was "World Eat Dog," a song I hastily wrote for a film never released that my band at the time, 4 Who Dared threw together in a local studio. As with any artist, songwriters are often confused at how their audience perceives their work. This song is particularly curious to me, as I consider it to be as disposable as it is unmemorable to me. It was one of the few pieces I've ever written with a specific and externally defined purpose in mind. In this case, the song was part of a two-song submission for the soundtrack of a movie about ambition and insecurity in the context of Hollywood. Although the filmmakers loved it and its accompanying submission "California," the film, "Pitch," not surprisingly met the fate of many films by aspiring filmmakers - no doubt sitting in someone's attic as a sad testimony to the very subject matter it sought to depict.

The song reflected a brief fascination with 12/8 time signatures. In layman's terms, that a song with 4 major beats per measure, each of which is subdivided into three minor beats. Every other chord in the verses is "pushed," meaning they tend to anticipate the beat by a half count, giving the song a sense of impending urgency. The chorus was intended to offer a light relief to the relentless motion of the verses. It's sung in a falsetto, to further distance its mood from the verses, then the chorus transitions back into the verse groove with a keyboard line that devolves into triplets.

The lyrics (and song title, for that matter) are obviously constructed on turning common hackneyed phrases of hope and encouragement inside out. This was an attempt to show the breakdown of conventional wisdom as it can apply to a ruthless world of cutthroat ambition and backstabbing. The chorus lyrics continue this theme, and then speak of the puppet masters who make decisions.

The song was recorded in a kind of rambling fashion, alternating verses and choruses ad nauseum, then spliced together into a coherent form. The band wasn't sure what was going on with the song until the final product was displayed. It was recorded a year or two after the bulk of the "Kids With Dynamite" album was tracked, so it has a different vibe from the rest of the album which has, for lack of a better term, an angry optimism.

The album was released on a private label which was utterly novice to the intricacies of distribution and promotion, as well as unable to understand the market niche of the band (post-new wave smart-ass power pop?). We had envisioned the song "Urine Trouble," a satirical rant on the politics of drug testing, to be the novelty hit of the album, given the right juice and a bit of good luck, but the juice was as wrong as the luck was bad. The song "Don't Give Up," featured a theme of encouragement to the gay community, ravaged in the late 80s by the scourge of AIDS. Thanks to our North Carolina roots, this song caught the notice of several fundamentalist church groups who heard it on the radio and sought to condemn the devil worshippers who would dare wish something other than an early and painful death to homosexuals. We tried hard to further foment this sentiment by sending provocative letters to the churches and inviting them to our shows, thus creating a publicity firestorm (we hoped) which we could leverage, but sadly these churches' outrage was not matched by a vigorous work ethic, so they moved on to their next act of spineless condemnation rather than engage in a fruitless (for them) campaign to retain 19th century prejudices.

I'm glad the song caught Charly's attention, but I admit I am dumbfounded as why my own assessment of songs is often completely divorced from the public's. I continue to write, record and perform songs in my private studio overlooking the Eno River in North Carolina. I have long since given up any adolescent dreams of making music the centerpiece of my life. Instead I have found the rewards of family and public sector technology work far exceed the illusory rewards of success in the world's arguably most dysfunctional industry - music. Free to pursue any lyrical content regardless of its market merit, I freely write songs like "My Pet Tapeworm," "The Asshole Trap" and "Crank Up the Booty Machine" for the amusement of any like-minded nutcases and myself.

I guess that's why I'm not Burt Bacharach!

-Todd Jones
Lives in his dream house in tick-infested woods overlooking a river
http://www.toddejones.com/jukebox.html

by Charly Mann

The Cremation Sam McGee is a great poem about loyalty and friendship that ends on a humorous note, written by Robert Service in 1907. It is set in the Yukon Territory of Alaska during the Alaskan gold rush. It has been popular for over a hundred years, and helped make its author wealthy and famous. Kirt Kempter put the poem to music in the early 1990's, creating the definitive rendition of this epic.

There really was a man named Sam McGee whom Service knew, but he was never cremated and was not from Tennessee. He died in 1940 at the age 73.

Listen to the song and read along with the lyrics. You will note how often the term "Strange Things" is used in the song. Kirt is a magnificent composer and lyricist, and his greatest composition, by coincidence, is entitled Strange Things, which you can also listen to here.

Mr. Kempter is also a PhD geologist, a highly regarded nature photographer, tour guide for the Smithsonian, and gourmet cook. Check out his tour schedule at: http://www.smithsonianjourneys.org/study_leaders/kirtkempter/

The Cremation of Sam McGee

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee,
Where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam
'Round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold
Seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way
That he'd "sooner live in hell".

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way
Over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold
It stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze
Till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one
To whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight
In our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead
Were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he,
"I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you
Won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no;
Then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursed cold, and it's got right hold
Till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread
Of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
You'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed,
So I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn;
But God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day
Of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all
That was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
And I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid,
Because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say:
"You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
To cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid,
And the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb,
In my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight,
While the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows --
O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay
Seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent
And the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad,
But I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing,
And it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge,
And a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice
It was called the "Alice May".
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit,
And I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry,
"Is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor,
And I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around,
And I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared --
Such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal,
And I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like
To hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled,
And the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled
Down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak
Went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow
I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about
Ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said:
"I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; . . .
Then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm,
In the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile,
And he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear
You'll let in the cold and storm --
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee,
It's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

by Charly Mann

I can think of about two dozen really great things about life. One is playing with a dog. Besides being great companions dogs are unusually loyal, loving, and good-natured. One always comes away more relaxed after a dog comes over to say hello and ask for a pet. They rarely complain, point out our failings, or threaten to abandon us.

by Charly Mann

The average red-tailed hawk lives twenty years in the wild. Its eyesight is eight times more powerful than a human’s. Like the song Oklahoma says these birds do "make lazy circles in the sky." They soar very high, and use their great vision to spot rodents, rabbits and snakes below.

They usually weigh between 3 and 5 pounds. Females are nearly 1/3 larger than males. Their wingspan is 56 inches. They can carry almost half their body weight in flight. It is not unusual, for example, for one to lift a duck out of a pond.

Red-tailed hawks are great at reducing rat populations. Almost 90% of their diet is small rodents.

These birds are classified as raptors. This means they are part of the family of birds that eat meat, and use their feet, instead of their beak, to capture prey. Red-tailed hawks, like all raptors, have a sharp, hooked beak, and powerful feet with curved, sharp talons. Their talons are their main weapon for capturing and killing animals.

The Red-tailed hawk is very intelligent and is one of the easier raptors to tame. Throughout the United States and much of the world hawking or falconry is a popular sport in which trained hawks capture game. Red-tailed hawks actually train their falconers as much as their falconers train them.

The female (hen) Red-tailed Hawk is the most desirable in falconry because of its larger size, which allows it to take medium sized animals including ducks and pheasant. They are a very relaxed and friendly bird in captivity, and love to go hunting. They need to be played with (trained) or taken hunting every couple of weeks or they will revert to their wild state. They can fairly effortlessly be returned to the wild before breeding season.

photos by Kathryn Mann

by Charly Mann

We are in a deep recession that was caused by banks lending more than a trillion dollars to people who were very bad credit risks. This was caused partly by greed and exuberance by lending institutions, but the main culprit was the federal government which encouraged banks and mortgage companies to help more lower income Americans become home owners. As a result, in the last ten years home ownership rates have soared, from 60% to over 70%. Unfortunately, much of this increase came from people who could not afford the houses they purchased. When home prices started declining, and low teaser variable interest rates began to increase, many people stopped making their mortgage payments. Very quickly, this set off a domino effect in which banking and financial institutions became insolvent because they now had more debt than assets. This then caused tightening of credit, leading next to a fall in consumer spending, plunging car sales, and finally massive layoffs.

Today the United States is desperately trying to fix this economic crisis through a series of stimulus plans. The first, called the TARP, was implemented during the Bush Administration in 2008, and cost $500 billion. The second, valued at about $900 billion, will be enacted under President Obama. There are also plans for the government to help buy or subsidize payments on the bad assets that got us into this mess, which may cost up to one trillion dollars.

The problem is the United States cannot afford this 2.5 trillion dollar package. We already have $56 trillion in unfunded liabilities, including $31.1 trillion for Medicare, $7.6 trillion in drug benefits, and $6.3 trillion for Social Security. What's worse, our debts are mounting at a rate of $3 trillion a year. Every household in America is on the hook for an average of $516,348 to cover these expenses. At current interest rates, that means each family should be paying the government $31,000 a year for the next 75 years to pay their share of these obligations.

Our national debt is insane and unsustainable. The stimulus programs will only increase our debt. If we want to fix our economy we really need to put our economic house in order and drastically cut back our social spending. Unfortunately, we do not have the backbone to give up these entitlements and massive spending programs. An individual or company that took on such debt, with no viable way to pay it back, would be forced into bankruptcy. A nation does not go bankrupt though. Instead, it inflates its currency to pay off its debt. Argentina did this in the 1980s by inflating its currency at a rate of 1000%, meaning it would take $1,000 to equal the value of a dollar at the end of a year. If the United States inflates its currency at the same rate, within a year our $56 trillion debt would be whittled down to $56 billion in today's dollars. This would almost eliminate our debt and make everyone in the United States millionaires many times over. It would also mean mortgages and other debts could be paid off at a fraction of their original value. On the other hand, many people would be devastated by this kind of inflation. Those who had diligently saved for years would find their savings and IRAs nearly worthless. Also, the banks and investment companies that had made loans and mortgages would be wiped out since the money that would repay this debt would have little value. Finally our economic system would collapse until inflation could be brought down to levels under 3% again. This is because nobody lends money when there is hyperinflation. This means no one can buy houses or cars on credit, and credit cards would disappear. Everything would have to be paid for with inflated dollars, or a commodity like gold.