She got out and started walking up tenth street past the housing projects.She knew that Claude was up there.Up there somewhere. He was most likely playing guitar in his shabby shit room;creatively battling his marathon insomnia.Her soul breathed,expanded as she got closer to her destination.She kept walking unwilling to deal with her lostness or to try to articulate it to anyone,even herself.

The manhole cover clanked loudly;the reverberation echoed all the way to London,to Bristol and back to the street that she now walked on.She pulled her ear muffs tighter to her head.A pimply faced teenager sat picking and itching on a nearby fire hydrant ;she looked away and walked on.

In her head, the sounds of “Missa Luba” a Catholic mass sung by African tribesman incessantly snaked thru her skull.Considerations about international politics were giving her severe intestinal cramps.She cringed at the thought that by some completely unpredictable aberrational freak of nature her appendix had grown back and ruptured.Her appendix had been removed when Jimmy Carter was in the White House.

On going, she ruminated about prior missed signals more than she knew that she should.Them always portentous,her always oblivious.Riding the NYC subway,an unseasonably warm December night in 1980,she felt/heard a tremendous THUD above her head.She was perplexed,but soon dismissed it.Ended up, that it had been the sound of John Lennon’s body crashing to the pavement in front of the Dakota.Years later Albert Goldman crawled around in a sloppy,putrid sewer searching for faint echoes of that same thud,but it was gone.

That was just the beginning of a decade that was nothing to write home about.Unless you wanted to write to tell the old folks at home to head for the hills or the potato cellar (whichever had more appeal).And they were not about to do that.Oh no ! They wanted to stay put;maybe even take a step or two backwards,whatever it took.They wanted to see morning in America, not be in mourning in their America.

So on she tramped and tramped.All those grimy high-rises;how they seemed to hem her in and restrict her mental acuity.The bricks,The mortar.The martyrs that the bricks hemmed in and punished.For what? For being free spirits? For seeking higher ground? A better way? Gawd, this mental discursiveness was weighing so heavy on her.But as always, she was expected, no needed to, soldier on.Her own personal metaphysics were supposed to be the cleaver that would cut through all the crap. That would somehow ,some way part the humongous Red Sea of distrust,acrimony  and greed that enveloped so goddamned many people. And a lot of those people were people that she used to rely on.

“Okay.Okay, Princess chill out.I’m gonna answer your question.In fact,eventually I’ll answer any question that anybody can come up with.”

This kept the Dada Princess content only for a micro-mini second;and then she barked,”Com’n is there two “Y’s” or only one,when you spell pterodactyl?”

“Here is the real deal”,Billie began her soliloquy.”Both Braque and Ruiz did something astoundingly ambitious to even attempt to do what they did and to do it at that time.I guess that in some ways one could say that the time was right,but even so,to assimilate and to distill the general universal ethos and then to not only portray,but also to delineate the innate multidimensionality of human nature-or call it human habit- on a canvas…well that,that blows my mind.It’s incredible.”

Billie continued,”To me,to observe how they incorporated what was then the recent concepts of Freud and friends into their representations of private psychological and physiological tenets that they held is, in the terminology of Lord Buckley, a real gasser! Doncha’ agree?”

The Dada Princess paused silently and gazed off out the back window of the tavern.She seemed to be lost in some kind of secret revere that only her turd slurping pal might be privy to.After what seemed like an eon had passed,she raised her beer mug and tried to speak.

“They were…pretty much…completely out of the cage of self…out of that lumbering,constricting,restraining impediment…and out of the blue too…and out of the world,out of the attachment to hue,”the Dada Princess exhaled deeply and somewhere a twig snapped in Old Yellowstone;but ain’t nobody done heard that there twig snap ‘ceptin’ Tokay the Hare and he was too busy laying up his heavenly nuts to give all that crap any mind at all.

To this latest exclamation Billie Klubb was compelled to respond.”Hue is something else ain’t it.What with all that value and graduation and so on.”

Then there was the sound of lips smacking off in the cavernous barroom.”If ‘un ya take in the concept of a mathematical component then ya can really get drawn in.Drawn in not only in a sensory way,like when you look at the sunrise, but in a cerebral, intellectual way too”,Billie elaborated.

Finally at this point of the discourse the Barroom Baboon was up on his feet looking for more.And sure enough when he stumbled over to the tavern television they were broadcasting an old James Bond movie with Roger Moore starring in it. Eye need not tell you dear viewer how pleased as punch the Barroom Baboon was to be totally satiated  now twice in the space of just one hour.

Butt alas, our dearest Dada Princess, THAT was another story for another time…

He saw her by accident walking on the sidewalk outside the restaurant where she used to work.It was the night after Thanksgiving.She had come back into town to visit her parents and cover obligatory holiday reunions with other relatives.This short stop over allowed her to spend New Year’s Eve where she wanted to,back at school in Minnesota.

Complete surprise for both of them.They had not seen each other in more than two years.Both of them looked very different than they had ever seen each other look.She wore a wide brimmed Amish type hat held on by a black silk ribbon tied under her chin;but he glimpsed her close cropped hair.Her thick,dark black hair was even shorter that the “severe Joan of Arc” look that he remembered her wearing.A mistake? Did her stylist over do it? With her black fur collar up all he really saw was what he most cherished-her always glorious Botticelli face.

She was with some long time mutual friends of theirs and some obscure male companion.They all chatted and reminisced a bit then disbursed.Everybody exited the scene except him and her.Just the two of them left standing in the frozen parking lot.He would drive her home.

They talked of her solo drive a few months ago out west to college from her midwest home.And he told her of his current writing projects and endevours.She asked if he stilled lived at the same place.Her face brightened with personal remembrances of warm nights and sunlit afternoons there.

It was so good.She was better than perfect.There was a glow then,there in the car.The long absent camaraderie.Honest motion.Real communication.Unlike the one other time that they had met since their break up;their words and amiability flowed easily.It was a delicious  drive.

After they stopped in front of the house where she was staying;the main thrill and surprise came.She said that yes she had received all those unacknowledged letters that he had sent;and that she even reread them sometimes.She mentioned that she had posted some near her toaster shelf for days to dig certain lines like,”…in a dream or in a drunk,it all still matters”.

He was taken aback.He replied that it would be a real delight if she would write him back.She said that this,being here with him was a delight in itself.

He was enraptured.He reached into his glove compartment for a pen to wrtie her his new address.As he opened the car’s glove box something happened.Everything from the private depository of his soul tumbled out.Every gift,every scribbled poem or written impression or expression that he would ever put on paper about or dedicated to her;all the artifacts of his affection now or ever;ribbons yet to be tied;rings of gold;photos of them together not yet taken;presents for anniversaries to come.Some kind of physical manifestation of his most personal thoughts about her.Every sketch,every impression,everything past,present,or even future that he had created or was to create in response to her,tumbled out of that tiny personalized compartment into her lap and piled up.Past her waist,covering her stomach,accumulating above her solar plexus,finally rising,rising and engulfing her breast and then her heart.

A panicked second passed.Then feeling a combination of in credulousness with some,slight vague sense of relief;he scooped up the miraculous pile off her lap and began shoving it al back into the glove box as fast as he could.He somehow stuffed it all back from whence it came.

What could he possibly follow that with? She had seen everything.Nothing to hide.Nothing to camouflage or divulge.No real point in explanation or elaboration.He saw amazement,trepidation,affection,but mostly bewilderment in her eyes.

Calling on long dormant reserves of gallantry and charm,he took her hand and kissed it.Then he told her goodnight and goodbye.

As he drove away the moon rose over the rooftop of a nearby steel foundry.The foundry manufactured blue steel.The cold blue steel of artillery and ammunition.

Their first few months together they ate a lot of corn & carrot ends.In awhile in order to make ends meet,he began to moonlight.His night time job was as a stand- in for a small theater production of “The Devil in Miss Jones”.He was ecstatic.For days he walked around whistling “Georgia”.The chick though was completely nonplussed.

One morning he awoke to find a note attached to his pillow.The note read in part,”…do not remove under penalty of law”.Taking a cue from the address on the note,he tracked his miffed ms. to a mattress factory in Guntown,Mississippi.

The reconciliation however, was not to be.The piqued chick was nowhere to be found.Available evidence suggested that she had split with her new egg man to marts unknown.Leaving one aspiring thespian aghast.

The only obvious difference between the two containers was in the manner in which the water flowed from the barrels.The two barrels set side by side.the barrel that was approached from the left side gave forth a steady even flow of water.The barrel on the right gave forth only  a trickle when the tap was opened.

Of course,each day as thirsty travelers came to the location of the twin barrels,the barrel on the left was mostly frequented primarily.Hardly anyone wanted to bother with the container which gave forth only a trickle.

One night deep in darkness,two vagabonds of greedy disposition approached the barrels.They had traveled many miles together;and now bickered and berated each other.

After sampling the refreshment of the water barrels,still agitated with each other,the vagabonds decided to part ways.Before parting though,in their greed and malice ,the two travelers made plans to sever the water containers from their pedestals and to carry them along on their desert trek.

They began to argue violently about who would get the barrel with the free flowing faucet.Alas,the more beastly of the two raised his staff and struck his enraged ex-comrade.

Having knocked the other vagabond unconscious,the predatory vagabond,with much effort hoisted the free flowing barrel onto his mule.He then commenced traveling.

As the solitary thief traveled through the arid land he drank often from the stolen water barrel without a thought about how rapidly that he was depleting its contents.After having traveled only a few more days, the barrel was empty and the thieving vagabond was without water.

Meanwhile,the vagabond who had been left behind regained consciousness and resumed his journey.As he traveled,he was forced to partake sparingly from his trickling water barrel.He traveled at a steady pace drinking only enough to sustain him.

Only a few miles from the original location of the barrels,the once victimized vagabond came upon the fallen parched body of his once fellow traveler.After ransacking the clothing and luggage of the corpse,the surviving nomad drank sparingly as the sprout provided,from the still half full barrel and then resumed his trip.

The Setting:

The Characters:

Richard M. Nixon:37th President of the United States.He is attired in his customary dark business suit with a white shirt and black tie.He is nervously pacing the carpet in front of his large desk which bears the Presidential Seal.He is almost hunched over,skulking.His eyes dart furtively around the room.He is wearing that familiar Nixonian frown;and he speaks in an almost growl.

Little Old Asian Man:Obviously a peasant.He wears the baggy,loose fitting clothes of a rice picker.In sandals,with his scraggly,thin white hair;he is mostly nondescript except for the bright,penetrating twinkle that emanates from the eyes of his ancient,wrinkled face.

Miles Davis:African-American jazz musician and innovator extraordinaire.He is dressed in a dark,blue crushed leather jump suit and light turquoise fedora.Wearing his rose tinted,wrap around sunglasses,he embodies the concept of “cool”.He stands off to the  left of Nixon’s desk.His knees are slightly bent,almost in a crouching position.He seems totally absorbed in blowing his trumpet.He plays a very soft,very soulful rendition of “Time After Time”.He seems almost impervious to the other people in the room.

(Clutching at his collar,raving,addressing no one in particular…)

Nixon: Why’s it so damn stuffy in here?!Let’s open some windows.Haldeman!Ehrlichman!Where the hell are they?!Let’s get some fresh air in here…

Little Old Asian Man:(comments to Nixon in a matter of fact tone)You never seemed to mind hot air before.

Nixon:(stopping dead in his tracks)What are you doing in here?!I know who you are.

Little Old Asian Man:I am not Ho Chi Minh if that’s what you think.I don’t think that you know who I am.In fact you do not even know who you are.

Nixon:(defensively) Whadda ya mean,I don’t know who I am?I’m Richard Milhous Nixon Commander-in-Chief of the mightiest nation on earth!

Little Old Asian Man:Is it possible that you got so stuck on that one aspect of your so called personality that you forgot about all the other potential Richard Nixons?

Nixon:(accusatorially) What are you talking about?There’s only one Richard Nixon-and that’s me!Commander-in-Chief of the mightiest nation on earth!Whadda ya trying to say-that I’m one of those schizoid characters?

Little Old Asian Man:(calmly)Not at all.I am only saying that you have gotten so stuck in your identity as the authoritarian Richard Nixon that all the other many dimensions of Richard Nixon never get to see the light of day.

Nixon:Wait just a minute! You don’t know what you are talking about.I have to be an authority figure.I have to be presidential.

(Miles Davis ceases his soft,nearly inaudible playing.He takes his trumpet from his lips.Not really addressing anyone;he speaks almost to himself,low but distinctly.)

Davis:Improvise.You come back to the main melody,but you go out there.You improvise.

Little Old Asian Man:Did you hear him,Mister President?

Nixon:Yes,I heard him.

Little Old Asian Man:But did you really hear him?And while you are at it,why not open up that Third Eye of yours and see what he is talking about?

Nixon:(stammering) But…what’s he know? He’s just a dope taking,womanizing…

Little Old Asian Man:You are stuck again.This time in your judgmental mode.Not allowing the many potentialities of Miles Davis to emerge.

Davis:Dig what the ancient one’s saying,Dick.Lighten up.Think of it as Zen and the art of being presidential.

Little Old Asian Man:Or non-attachment.It takes practice though.As they say,”Walking on water wasn’t built in a day”.

Nixon:You guys are talking nutty.You’re spaced out.

Little Old Asian Man:Spaced in is more like it.I know that you have traveled widely,but have you ever explored your own inner space?

Nixon:Contemplating one’s navel is not very presidential.

Little Old Asian Man:So try contemplating no space.Nothingness.That might be your middle path into the realm of Infinite Possibilities.Why not try it?

Davis:Remember you can always come back to the main melody.

Nixon:So how do I find this middle path?

Little Old Asian Man:You do not have to go to China or even Japan.Just sit still and quiet your mind.

(Nixon has finally stopped his nervous pacing.He sits at his desk.Back straight.Eyes closed.He looks almost peaceful.)

Nixon: I’m not sure that I understand;but it does feel good.

Little Old Asian Man:Ah!At last.Now,just rest in the present.Be here now.

Nixon:(hesitantly with a bit of a grumble)Okay.Okay.If you say so…

Just back after his seventh European tour,peripatetic Dave MacKenzie took some time out to talk about some of the hills and valleys that he has encountered on the map of modern music making.Tunesmith MacKenzie spent his early years doing a variety of gigs in and around his hometown Saint Louis, Mo.In 1972 he moved to Chicago,then to Los Angeles in the Eighties and now makes his home base in Nashville,Tennessee.When asked about the life of a working musician in the Gateway City he responded,”Let’s face it, you can have a real nice career playing in St. Louis.I have lots of friends,people that I used to play in bands with,and they are happy as a clam being there.But if you want to do other stuff…you are not going to get work in commercials in St. Louis…too much…and it’s going to be a lot harder to get your songs recorded(by other artists).They’re making a few records in St. Louis but not that many. That’s why I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1980;I got a chance to have my songs recorded by David Soul (of Starsky and Hutch)“.Later MacKenzie got an opportunity to write songs for Soul’s music publishing company.

MacKenzie had begun to hone and diversify his skills years before while studying musical theory in St. Louis.Although Mississippi Delta slide guitar is his area of expertise,he emphasizes that that talent alone would not have been enough to establish his unique professional credentials.”If all that you are studying is Delta blues guitar,he states,”you’re not going to know how to cut frame to make television commercials.” He went on to explain,”When I perform I mostly play the blues stuff,because that’s what my particular markets wants to hear;but I write all kinds of songs.”

His Old,New Borrowed & Blue c.d. available now on MacKenzie’s own Hey Baby! label was originally released on a European label.When asked if there was a different level of appreciation for blues music in older cultures;he replied,”Hard core acoustic blues fans are the same in terms of their interests anywhere that you go.Their appreciation would have to bedifferent.English is not their first language and they don’t really share a lot of the experiences of the original country blues material,but I’ve met guys over there that really know how to play.”

MacKenzie went on to talk about a band from Holland that was making an album sung in their native tongue;”But it will have an American string band sound.”He expressed a strong enthusiasm for this kind of ecumenical blending.He suggested that maybe Americans have talent their own musical heritage for granted.”It’s not exotic for us,whereas in Europe there is a real reverence for blues and jazz.”As for the case of paradoxical musical sensibilities; i.e.young Blacks not cultivating their own musical heritage while middle class whites embrace it; MacKenzie brought up the marketing component.”There are a whole lot of young black guys paying the blues now-that’s a hopeful sign.They weren’t around when I was in my twenties and thirties-Guy Davis,Fruitland Jackson,Alvin Youngblood Hart.As far as the young black music fan,it’s a question of how their music is being marketed to them.They might not know about Duke Ellington.They don’t know about Louis Armstrong-the real bedrocks of African-American music…of American music for that matter.”

“The same thing could be said for your average white boy in Nashville,Tennessee.He doesn’t know squat about Hank Williams.He’ll tell you a lot about Kid Rock,but he doesn’t know anything about Bill Monroe,unless his parents sit him down and tell him.”MacKenzie chuckled,”And that doesn’t usually happen.”He continued,”The argument from the big corporate entities is that there is no audience for that kind of music.If that were true,the music would have died off,but it hasn’t.The fact of the matter is that there is market that is not being served.”

When he himself performs,MacKenzie shares the bill with a wide spectrum of non-blues acts.He is therefore able to introduce his acoustic blues to audiences that are eager to broaden their musical horizons.”They ask me who else plays this kind of music.And they want to know where else they can hear this music.I find that the average person is remarkably open minded about the material.”

“They are the same people that go on a cruise and come back and want to hear Mexican music.They may not understand a word,but they like the sound.I think that everyone is pretty much like that.It’s a matter of what you are exposed to.That’s the thing about blues,bluegrass and even jazz.It doesn’t have that academic encrustation that maybe classical music might have.With those kinds of music folks just say,’I like the sound of that’”.

“When I was a kid,”the singer/songwriter continued,”you could turn on the radio and hear,at least on what was then called underground radio,maybe a lineup of Iron Butterfly,Lightin’ Hopkins and then maybe Miles Davis.I know people that that was there first exposure to artists like Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters- that doesn’t happen anymore.FM radio was a brand new thing thirty or so years ago.It was wide  open.They could play whatever the hell they wanted to.Now there is a lot of money on the table and most of these stations are owned by only a few corporations.”

“That’s what’s good about a station like KDHX in Saint Louis,Mo.-diversity!That kind of thing is getting rarer and rarer in most towns.

The universe which humans inhabit is acknowledged by the human sensory      system and by the human mind,however it is only within the realm of active mind that the universe achieves complete fruition.The five senses of human beings receive relatively immediate and seemingly constant impressions from the physicality of the world.These expressions of the property of matter also interact amidst the physical matter itself ;for example, in the motion of plants caused by sound waves.But it is only within the activity of the human mind,that is, the processing of incoming stimuli and the subsequent abstracting of that data that the full dynamic of existence is accomplished.

Within all matter,including the tiniest subatomic particle exists the potentiality for perception of that matter.This potentiality is part of its formal nature.Only when that formal nature is assimilated within the context of the human organism is its full essence realized and it is thereby actuated.For it is only within the process of mental activity that recognition ceases to be solely a passive phenomenon,but also takes on the further activity of formulation of sensory input and deliberation upon the impressions received.This continuous exchange and movement of energy creates an environment for a homeostasis of form which maintains the essence for material existence.

The input of physical stimuli upon the senses supply the human organism,aside from rare aberrations and hallucinations, the necessary co-ordinates with which the human brain can then decipher its environment and safely interact with the physical objects which are encountered.This interaction results in movement and therefore change within the agent and the receiver of the action.But the choice of just how and what interaction wil occur takes place as a product of mind action.

Within the capacity for abstraction which exists in the mind is the full actual role of the form of matter played out.Based upon the data which the brain receives compiled from the input of physical impressions of sight,sound,touch,taste and smell does the active mind therefore begin to examine and therefore act upon the potentialities of forms within the universe.These forms are defined and qualitated in a manner that cannot be duplicated in the processes of the sensory stimuli system.

Not only does the realm of abstraction which exists in the mind provide the environment for full actuation of the potentialities of form which exists in raw matter in the universe,but this realm is also the receiver and interpreter of other abstract knowledge shared within the realm of human discourse.This higher actuation can only take place within the activity of the human mind.This activity is fulfilled by the examination and evaluation of forms in regard to their validity existing in relation to physical impressions and other constructs of the active mind.

Just as a standard of validity is established within the physical environment by a qualitative measuring of the process of cause and effect,so also are certain criteria established by logic and intuition within the realm of active mind.The human mind functions as the medium within which full nature of form can be realized in a process that allows for infinite change and graduation.This realization at once represents a transformation within the form of the processing agent-the human mind.In this way does the active mind fulfill complete actuation.It is within this process of transformation and actuation that the human mind connects the necessary coordinates that present the occasion for self-contemplation,that is, the surveying of the species’ optimum position and role in the universe.

This reflexive mental activity further entails assimilation of contemplative knowledge into choice of action in the physical world.