Rare Recording Made Possible...

Can't wait to head to the beach but have school and work, going finally to get cool, some Scelsi clarinet that I greatly enjoy... I like a lot solo instruments, but vocals are generally what people like. It wasn't that long ago that one couldn't find recording of 20th century composers, on the net. I was lucky I lived in a near a library that had these very used up classical recordings and that helped greatly. I started working at fourteen in the classical department of a music store so I was exposed to a great deal. My parents bought me an encyclopedia but they kept giving me more of them for you know how bulky that can be.I raced back and forth spending hours with new discoveries. I have only heard two Webern works and here is one i never heard, Webern Symphony Op. 21, a very quiet nice music. The more they add the more is filled with wonder of all the great arts available to us. They will never play this music on the radio here, made more for very popular easy listening classical.

There is nothing ahead by Rumi

Lovers think they are looking for each other,

but there is only one search.

Wandering this world is wandering that,

both inside one transparent sky.

In here there is no dogma and no heresy.

the miracle of Jesus is himself,

not what he said or did about the future.

Forget the future.

I would worship someone who could do that.

On the way you may what to look back, or not,

but if you say, there is nothing ahead,

there will be nothing there.

Stretch your arms,

and take hold of the cloth of  your clothes with both hands.

The cure for pain is in the pain.

Good and bad are mixed.

If you don’t have both you don’t have us.

When one of us gets lost,

he must be inside of us.

There is no place like that anywhere in the world.

Rumi

trans by Coleman Barks from Big Red Book

End of the Day

Beautiful morning that was all deep grey the whole day. They were playing this Bax viola sonata. There has been no sign of the sun for a few days and not much rain. The meal has been eaten and cleaned as usual. Aurora I been hearing much her piano playing from upstairs she has a lovely sound. It is a mesmerizing sound that fits well with the evening. One sometimes hear her in the morning. I don't know how she does it being twice as old as I am. She retired from teaching piano in Chicago, IL, where my uncle worked, and owned a store. She remembers how my uncle loved Mahler and the old 78 that he had, and threw them out to the thrift stores(never seen anything like them). He was in the Korean war in the Navy and his buddies were killed in the ship. It is another night of listening to Aurora play those beautiful melodies from her upstairs room.

Vuela a me dolce hogar

Todo el placer y el horror de la vida tienen un significado para aprender. Cuando yo era joven, fui al hotel que trabajó mi padre y no me gusta ir allí. Mi casa estaba limpia, ya sabes cómo pueden ser los hoteles? Pero me acuerdo de la diversión que tuvimos durante un enorme paso del huracán... Luego otra vez había olas violentas contra las paredes y como niños de once años estúpidos nos golpeó olas y terminó en aguas profundas peligrosas. Había seis de nosotros riendo de distancia... a través de las olas. Más tarde lo que recuerdo como un adolescentes que trabajan sólo por las propinas pero terminé viendo geishas en la televisión, había muchas habitaciones libres.  Entonces yo estaba fuera por el océano justo en el balcón con vistas a las aguas. Sonó el teléfono de la terraza del patio, me quité en la noche oscura, el coche mágico amarillo vuela a mí me dulce hogar....

Key Biscayne with Fountain Pen

There is nothing that I love more, besides playing music or visiting natural reserves and the sea of course, than writing with my fountain pens. In this instance I bring my cheap collection of plastics Lamys that I bough at the art store. I use to paint and draw and mostly I loved doing watercolours. There was a period of my life that I wasn't doing music, though that is hard to believe, and I had plenty of time in college doing my essays and art. I lived in a very colourful nature filled area -- that has disappeared. And even further back it was even more incredible but people have little idea of what they lost to silly overcrowding. I bring my pens with books and write for hours and walk the surf. If I go with someone I usually don't bring those things, so there is a good thing to being alone and being with company too. I love Key Biscayne that is very near. I use to work in that area too, but it definitely was better back then. I never brought an instrument though I have thought of bring a ukulele all my instruments are expensive and haven't fixed the less expensive ones. What I come back home is great poetry and one can look at it, rewrite it, but it is always fun like a moment photograph of that experience. (The picture was a few weeks ago when I was last there.) 

Happened a Decade Ago...

This happened a decade ago. Glad that I learnt from it and never have to go back to it this kind of job ever! It gradually became worse so it wasn’t too bad at the beginning. I did delivery of a very expensive gourmet store. At the beginning it was people birthday parties and and it didn’t go higher than five hundred dollars and there was a tip. But then at the end-- that is why I left I delivered to Carnival Cruises owner where they lived in Doral and moved to Tahiti Beach a more exclusive place. I delivered to Bacardi the liquor business and to a computer store and the person house of Tiger Direct, all these places two dozen times. I delivered thousands of dollars, the higher the amount was the more they never would tip, not a thing. Discover Channel not so much. The one that was excellent was Sandals Resort they knew how to tip the amount one is supposed to get. I will never do business with the evil tip less bastards. The owners of the store knew correctly that we suppose to get tipped just like waiters or delivery pizza people. It usually was the more bigger the business the less they would tip. I met all the owners of those mentioned businesses. One could never make a living out of this so gladly I left, there were people living in their cars that worked there for they were from another state. The one’s that lived here lived six to a flat like if this was a Chinese clothing factory, but yes we were in the USA. Yet, there was very kindly old ladies when I delivered Christmas foods with my son (gladly he came with me on many trips) and a Greek gentleman (at the Hermitage) that knew the exact amount for an eight hundred party platters. Bless his soul, the house was full of women, none his wife, he said he would never marry, for he had a bad experience.  Carnival Cruises, Tiger Direct and Bacardi very bad…. yet the per cent of the good was like 1%!   

The Doctor's Office

11/4/13

The other day I brought someone to the doctor and quickly I met this lady who said, “it is amazing that you are reading from a book, I don’t see that any more, if anyone reads it from machines.”

                “I buy my books in Ebay or the thrift store, but the thrift store I don’t know what surprise I am going to get.”

                The lady brought up Lincoln Mall, maybe because she had her girlfriend beside her. 

                “I like going to Lincoln a lot,” didn’t tell her how much I like the rest around it even more.

                “I remember Lincoln in the 60’s.”

                Wow, I thought this lady is very old but she looks young, maybe because of her dyed hair.

                “I was in Lincoln in the 80’s but I don’t think there isn’t many stores of back then now, everything is new.”

                “No there are a few old stores like the one that sells ties.”

                Then she talked to me about Nat King Cole and the 40’s and I was freaked out that she could be that old. Her girlfriend said, don’t worry she is 57. All this time she was in an oxygen machine breathing in and out and the valve could be heard. I asked her what she had, did she smoke?”

                “No, I have Alpha l a rare disease.”

                “Do you get to the point that you can’t breathe at all?”

                “Yes, it gets very bad.”

                She for some reason brought up the Bolero(1928)of Ravel and said that was ancient music. I thought to myself silently that isn’t that old. I told her that I was into classical. She said that was great. She loved Brahms. Both went inside the doctor’s(gynaecologists)office.    

Small Music Stores

There were plenty of small music stores when I was in high school. It was difficult to get a saxophone in the school band, the music class didn’t have any. I lived in Miami Springs and there was a music store called Carroll Music and rented my first one. I think it was a Bundy, then when I got a job I bought an American made Buescher in mint condition from the 60’s, the person never played it and I was very lucky. Actually my first instrument as 12 yr. old was an acoustic guitar but I learnt to play sax and read music before it. Before sax I was a bass and alto clarinet player -- those they had in the band. I was very impressed my first appearance in middle school of the giant bari-saxes and I told the teacher what happened to them when they quickly left. He said they had graduated to senior high, but they owned their own bari-sax. The small music stores closed up, both owners died of cancer. Before that happened they moved where I lived too unknowingly, went there dozens of times. They had no children so they left the store property to the young man that was their employee, but he sold it to a developer of the mall when business got bad. In 2012 I bought a soprano sax in Feb. That was the how the year began. In 2000 exactly I bought my first electric guitar, then I bought a few, and got deeply into guitars too. It is very sad how conglomerates eat up all the small business. I work in a vegan cafe and in Feb. they are going to level it, destroy the whole mall, which has a 50's diner at the front to give way to the new conglomerate business that have taken over everything, unless you are lucky to live in the woods somewhere.