Tommy Update

Tommy is mending,

Getting Back to his old self,

He keeps watch over his faux weasel toy.

Beth Hart has a new album coming...

From YouTube

Preview....

bethhart.com

History

History

Comes in all forms,
Written, recorded, verbally relayed.
Some memories faded, gray,
Some clear and All are different
(Than someone else's recollection.)
These memories,
Some are mine,
Others are projections of stories I heard.

Music for Saturday

Link from YouTube

Alexis P Suter 

Friday Night Musik

Friday Night Musik

This week's selection was easy once I got a tweet from The Iridium, a NYC club.

So as I caught some rays in a sunny window,

I previewed the music of

Jarekus Singleton

He and his band are Great Bluesmen,

You have to get his music!

(No question, from my first listen,

I heard Stevie Ray Vaughn's influence.

And yet, something very new)

Jarekus Singleton link from YouTube

A link to his bio and info: the Iridium website:

http://theiridium.com/events/3655/jarekus-singleton-25/

Abraham Lincoln 150 years later

Abraham Lincoln

It was quiet on Tuesday this week,

A sad anniversary,

I heard yesterday about the anniversary,
A day late.
Here I was posting reruns of my Lincoln post
No question, Abraham Lincoln was

Larger Than Life.

An old post I did:

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln II

[*if there was a fictional or theoretically possible alternative path for Mr. Lincoln,

would it go something like this?]

Abe woke up in the hotel room, air cool and to his liking, with a freshness that

cleaned his mind.

Ah, for a moment, his sleep so delightfully deep, free from the awake world.

Waking can be stressful, and dreaming he felt a lightness, a rebirth so to speak.

The war was over.

Again and again, would every day left in his life start this way?

His shoulder pinched and he winced as a drop of blood came to the surface.

Another reminder of a miracle, that night, at the Ford Theater.

That night Elizabeth their waitress was bringing drinks and tripped over Abe's feet as the gun was raised

and the trigger was pulled. Abe fell forward and the bullet intended for his head glanced off his shoulder, ripping and tearing flesh and bone.

There had been some time elapse now and healing was marginally successful.

He reminded Mary of that often as she griped at his incapacitation.

He was alive, they were alive, and finally in Vermont as Mary had planned.

Their presidential suite at the Equinox was stunning, comfortable and worth settling into.

He may very well die here. Abe agreed to several speaking engagements in exchange

for permanent residency at the hotel. He and Mary left Illinois and Washington DC

for Vermont to escape all the rat races, the assassins, the political animals.

He sipped the local spring water and nudged Mary.

"It is time to vote."

She smiled and slowly mobilized.

December 18,1880.

Women had gained the right to vote.

Abe was 71, Mary 62.

They were feeling their age, but they proudly walked to the town hall

to vote in this historic election.

And yet there is a story perhaps farther fetched and still possible...

as Abe grew accustomed to local politics in Vermont, he started to notice

that while each voter was free to speak up, very few voters actually did speak up

and some did not vote at all.

As he wanted to level the playing field, he practised with

representing local people in their local town political fights.

Could you imagine how hard that was for local elected officials?

pretend monkton chronicles headlines Christmas 1880

Abe Lincoln is up against you...how dare he...he is representing that uppity town citizen

who used to be quiet...

Abe Lincoln came to the town meeting again last night...says that is not how

they do in Illinois..well maybe we should show him what we do to flatlanders...

Abe Lincoln thinks his wife should vote, well nah nah...

Abe Lincoln believe town meeting antiquated in 1880....

So he thinks if he won the Civil War he can tell us how to run a town meeting?

OK, it did not happen,

Abe was assassinated and never made it to Vermont.

Abe's only child to live to adulthood, a son, lived in Manchester and built a mansion, Hildene.

Now all of Abe Lincoln's descendants are gone.

What if events had turned ever so slightly?

Just speculating on another way it might have happened,

Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Great great grandfather died fighting at Shiloh for the Illinois regiment.

Mom would've remembered.

Some videos from YouTube

Get to Springfield if you can,

The celebrations have begun.

The 150th anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln

Travelogue for the Universe: revenue blues

Re Run of a poem I wrote in 2011
Just as relevant today.

Travelogue for the Universe: revenue blues: revenue blues some call it taxes, some cannot pay, some call it revenue, to hide what they say, some want to shirk them, others pay thei...

Zentangle Lesson 4

Zentangle Lesson 4

A little farther into the Zentangle

A great exercise...

Travelogue for the Universe: Bishop Hill, Illnois A National Historic Landmark ...

Travelogue for the Universe: Bishop Hill, Illnois A National Historic Landmark ...: A good video link about Bishop Hill, Illinois home of some of our ancestors who settled in the Utopian prairie village.

(Above is a reprinting of a post I did awhile ago.)

Below, a recent sketch I did,
Imagining the Swedish settlers
Walking into the Sun
To their new home.

Walking from Chicago to their new home
Bishop Hill, Illinois

Blues Excellence

Blues Excellence

The Blues 

Main St. Edwardsville, Illinois
The Blue Note
Painted by My Mom, Betsy Gerdt
Then a small town
20 miles east of St. Louis.

Bear with me, I have to start at the beginning...

As we reconnected with the music of Levon Helm,

We wondered "What are these Midnight Rambles?"

                         

Well the best way at the time was to get the DVD's

Of the rambles at LevonHelm.com

These are a great view of Levon's recording studio living room.

They were masterfully created and worth adding to your collection.

They also introduced us to some very talented musicians,

Good people

With an adoration of Levon

And People

And Music.

I particularly enjoyed the concert by

Alexis P Suter and her band.

They blew me away.

Every musician,

No holding back,

Full, forceful, gentle, kind.

Loving, Sadness, Living, suffering, 

Powerful, Honest, and Vulnerable.

The Blues

Blues Excellence

So I recently received a notice that Alexis P Suter has been

Nominated for the Prestigious Koko Taylor award

So well deserved.

All musicians must make their own way to Memphis.

I want to share my feelings that musicians make the world a better place

So please...

Please help Alexis get to Memphis May 7th, 2015

Send donations now to support Stellar Blues Music

The Alexis P Suter Band

Hipbone Records

Alexis put a paypal link at 
http://www.hipbonerecords.com/


Click the Hipbone Records Shop page. Thank you so much for your help!!

Their mailing address is:

Hipbone Records

PO Box 310158

Brooklyn, NY 11231

Here is a YouTube that begins to tell Alexis' Story

About Koko Taylor,

May She Rest in Peace

Great Woman Blues Singer.

Information

From her record label.

http://www.alligator.com/artists/Koko-Taylor/

Notes: this is the 3rd edition this morning.
Somehow the .jpg of the top hat
Kept fighting with me,
Finally emailed myself a copy
And the rest is magic.

Support these talen musicians.
Thank you.  Meg

Music Link for Saturday's, for "Always" By Ms. Alberta Hunter

What led me back to Ms. Alberta Hunter
Was a sketch I did about a woman making a late age comeback.
Ms. Hunter did that, naturally.
Link from YouTube.

Dress Rehearsal