The Timekeeper's Waltz: Amsterdam

The Timekeeper's Waltz: Amsterdam: "This is a sad song. I guess this is about misguided efforts. Trying to be the protector when all you do is remove choices. Music, as Berli..."

The Timekeeper's Waltz: The Reprise

The Timekeeper's Waltz: The Reprise: "Properly titled ' In the Garden of the Long Pig-Reprise' (but that didn't exactly roll off the tongue) this is the second encounter between ..."

The Timekeeper's Waltz: Penitentiary

The Timekeeper's Waltz: Penitentiary: "So I was out in Southern California a little over a year ago when I decided to take a trip out into the bay, to and old hotel that supposedl..."

The Timekeeper's Waltz: The Son of Jacob Mallet

The Timekeeper's Waltz: The Son of Jacob Mallet: "This one is the epitomy of our economic scene in the first decade of the 21st. OK, I get it, we are in transit. The calculus of change and w..."

The Timekeeper's Waltz: Criminal Cool

The Timekeeper's Waltz: Criminal Cool: "So we work through our days, save and try an make it, and the Frank Lorenzos, Bernie Madoffs, Michael Milkens come play on our weaker sides ..."

The Reprise

Properly titled " In the Garden of the Long Pig-Reprise" (but that didn't exactly roll off the tongue) this is the second encounter between the new world and the old. Our eco tourists, invite our Amazon tour guide back to our jungle for a little visit. It's tongue-in-cheek of course. Self deprecating in my own light hearted (read: dark) way. It's the only way I could describe this city. It's my home, I love it, and as far as I am concerned it represents the center of the known universe. Our historic subtext finally catches up with the present (there can only be one "now") and it's intended to be a celebration of humanity. Because that's what New York is. Nowhere on the planet do so many totally different types of people get along so well.
I'll never forget when I first moved here from London, how easy and safe the place felt, after the unpredictable violence and general angst of England. 
How totally at home I felt for the first time in my life. Different was good. Different was normal.
Because here, everybody's different. The arrowhead of humanity pointing at tomorrow.

The Reprise, from "Beautiful Accident" by The Third International
can be heard on:
http://www.jango.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/
http://www.itunes.com/

Penitentiary

So I was out in Southern California a little over a year ago when I decided to take a trip out into the bay, to and old hotel that supposedly made the best mojitos on the planet. It was fun putting the claim to the test.
The Hotel Del Coronado is a vacuous place. A flagship of surrealism. It could only exist in California.
It's easy to see the ghosts of Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe drift through the cavernous halls as they act out "Some Like it Hot", or imagine Frank Baum penning "The Wizard of Oz" in one of its suites.
Yah, the mojitos were kickin' in.
I got to thinking about the effort that we put into entertaining ourselves. Escaping from reality. And we constantly reinvent it. And a key feature of entertainment is that it is fungible. It wears out. We get fed up with it, no matter how good it is. It may take 500 years...Shakespeare for instance, or 5 seconds....Katy Perry. But sooner or later we are sick of it.
I was having a conversation later that evening when my friend remarked "Yeah the gods will be watching us" and it made me wonder.....What if they are? What if they created us for their entertainment? (Back to the bit about it being fungible...) What if they get BORED with us? What happens? Do we still get to play in the sandbox or is it lights out Charlie? It made for an interesting interlude but of course presented no real worry given my lack of concern for such things. My rabid atheism prevailed. Phew!
A product of the "Free" generation. Self determination, the sanctity of individualism teamed up to put us right up there with the big guy, and if we could conceive of Him, were we not Him? Maybe it was the fact that we gained the power to nuke ourselves into oblivion that made us feel omnipotent? I'm not quite sure what it was that let the gooney bird out of the woodshed;  affluence, rock 'n roll, space travel, heart transplants, LSD, the internet?    
I don't know. But now he's out he 's not going back. This freedom thing is addictive. And it's all about me. Right?
The only problem is the more freedom we have to entertain ourselves, the more we do it.
And the more we do it, the faster we do it. And our attention span diminishes accordingly.
Of course they'll tell you that you couldn't live without the speed of this information flow........
And you'll believe 'em.

Penitentiary (from Beautiful Accident) You can hear it on:
http://www.jango.com/
http://www.reverbnation.com/
http://www.itunes.com/
and a bunch of other places too.