Moments
Out-of-order there will be some in what follows.
(that’s a joke)
Whew, what a month. October was filled with significant anniversaries, remembrances, and included that thing I don’t really give much thought to…my birthday. But this birthday was different, certainly happy, a lot of fun but also bittersweet. It’s all down there, but first come tidbits about Where I was When, An Essay, Open Tabs, The Political Part (noted as such so you can skip right over it, as some people prefer), a measles update (it prickles me greatly that there has to be such a thing), and An Announcement.
A quick reminder that email apps often strip the photos out of Story and Picture's articles, but you can always see them on the site.
Where I was When
October remembrances started early in the month, so early they began with part one on September 30th 1977, the date of a significant remembrance that I have shared with readers previously, about Steve Perry’s first show in San Francisco with Journey (https://story-and-pictures.ghost.io/how-im-going-to-roil-some-journey-internet-fans-about-the-first-steve-perry-performance-with-journey/). I include it in the October remembrances because I followed it on October 15th with a story that expanded on how a last minute decision to drive across country and hang with the band altered the rest of my life.
On October 5th 2005 Steve Jobs uploaded to that ephemeral hard drive in the clouds. If Steve, Then Steph, my in-depth piece about Jobs’ longtime, trusted producer and the shows that introduced the world to technologies we now can’t/won’t/don’t live without is available on Amazon
Technically, the Michael Jackson 1984 Bad Tour remembrance spans September to early December 1987, but I usually include it in October. because, why not (and because I missed it in September).
October 25th is the remembrance of Herbie Herbert’s passing, and of Juan Villanueva, Herbie’s spiritual brother and tether to the other world, who died suddenly only a few days later. Crushing. This piece also includes a guest remembrance by roadie brother John ‘Hawkeye’ Griswold about Jimmy Buffet’s passing, which I missed pointing to in September.
The October 9th remembrance, the already weighty date of our community burning down, which I wrote about in Real Simple magazine now also includes the passing of my dad.
An Essay
Yeah, had a birthday. I have a couple of semi-traditions, usually involving the Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy, but that’s the extent of the whole birthday shebang. Or whimper is more accurate, I suppose.
But this one was different. My sister came and stayed with us the week before and it was a great time. While here she had a special, Chicago-centric gift delivered to me: Portillos Italian beef, frozen, all packaged nicely, special instructions. Oh…man…
I never did get a picture of the food.
So it was like an early birthday week, kinda. Did some things, drove around, yada yada, and she had to go home the day before the actual birthday. Really was nice; there’s a little thing about the visit coming up.
Next day, I’m out in the field with the dog, seventy blissfully unoccupied acres, skies of varying, splotchy soft gray-blueish, open fleece vest air temp. Across the field, a long wall of trees at the edge of the woods. A moment and a place without traffic noise, shouts, leaf blowers, phone conversations, or heavy equipment backup beepers.
It was another gift. And very Zen, for me. I had looked over to the other side of the field at that moment and been whacked upside the head by the visual space. I went from being caught up in twenty-first century thoughts and frets to…simply being, one of those centering moments. Truly.
I didn’t take the picture until after several minutes of doing nothing but looking around.
That feeling from such a nice moment isn’t supposed to last (well, not for us mere mortals, but we are encouraged to keep reaching for that meditative place where that kind of moment can become every moment. But I digress). Buddhist author Jack Kornfield wrote a book about it, that transition from the moment of bliss to ‘well, better take a picture and get goin.’ It’s title is as Zen as it gets: After Ecstasy, the Laundry.
We can have the bliss, we just can’t keep the bliss, because life incudes things like you gotta go throw a load into the washer. Or take out the trash. Or…you get the idea. Find some bliss, let it seep into you, and then know you gotta do some life things.
That advice pops up in all the wellness and take care of your own damn self columns, especially now. ‘Go’ take a moment somewhere, doesn’t matter really where, just some place where you can simply be for a few minutes. If you can’t go somewhere, then be ready to pick up on the opportunity when it appears, and just be.
More Moments – Let’s talk about Springsteen — the Work and the Boss — and Deliver Me from Nowhere
Part one — the notebook
The new Springsteen biopic is here, as is its advertising campaign, which includes the movie’s trailers. I watched the movie yesterday. Good film, not what some people might think. I liked it. For me, there’s that teeny connection I have from my time back then, but I was surprised to find, from the movie, that the movie’s storyline makes a connection to the Born in the USA tour.
Throughout the film is the thing I’d seen in one of two different trailers: a quick shot of Springsteen writing in a spiral notebook, the kind almost all of us had in school (and that I hope is still in use more than not). I knew what was happening in that trailer’s brief moment, since reinforced having watched the movie, because I once ‘witnessed’ it.
Knowing the process of how something otherwise not often seen gets done can be psychologically uplifting and an assurance that you, too, can ‘do it.’ Even when, especially when, you see that it’s not magic, it’s the work. There are those who may see that work and be intimidated by it, overwhelmed by it, or it clarifies for them that it is not the thing they want to do.
Or is the only thing they want to do.
It’s amazingly effective when you see someone doing that work who you might otherwise have thought, man, it just comes so easy for them. I once watched a video segment during a tribute to comedian George Carlin, wherein comedian and Daily Show host Jon Stewart recounted how early in his career he was on the bill at an event with Carlin, a little nervous backstage, and looked over to see Carlin studying notes on index cards, working through them, over and over. Stewart said that clarified things for him, that a master like Carlin never stopped doing the work, because work made the master.
I knew that from my own experience, in a few different ways, one way that includes seeing Springsteen doing the work.
A million years ago, during my time as a concert camera operator, our video production team did the live, large screen video from July through September for Springsteen’s 1984 Born in the USA tour. It was my first direct exposure to his legendary live performances that would go on for hours, and during that tour — the first time I’d seen the band live — I went from general interest fan to impressed.
When our leg of the tour was over I came away with some cool, remembered moments —as happened throughout my time on the road — including one that had directly affected my still-evolving writing career. It was brief, a core moment no longer than a collective few minutes
Springsteen did a stretch of 10 shows in New Jersey’s Brendan Byrne Arena, the Meadowlands, a 20,000 seat indoor venue. My camera position was house camera, generally located on a riser in the center, floor level, often close to the mixing board. We setup our cameras during sound check, a time when a band may do anything from simple ‘one, two…one two’ mic level checks, to working on songs, and all sorts of other performance related issues. Since witnessing my first ‘professional’ sound check in 1976 — Journey, in a northwestern Illinois suburb’s quonset hut-shaped ice arena used as a music venue in the summer — I relished witnessing soundcheck, a privilege and special opportunity, especially for a musician, to watch and listen as a band does the work that underlies performance.
As I secured a huge 30-to-1lens to my camera (think of going from a long shot picture from the middle of the crowd to really close close-ups of the performers), I glanced up and saw Springsteen leave the stage and walk along the side of the venue to the back. I don’t know if it’s practical or necessary for him to do that in this day and age, especially with the size of venues he plays now and the level of technology used, but back then Springsteen would always have the band play as he walked around the venue to hear how it sounded.
A minute or two later Springsteen walked up the center aisle between a sea of unoccupied chairs, returning to the stage. My platform was about fifty feet to the side of the aisle, and as he went by he glanced over to me. Kinda hard not to look at someone when you’re the only two people in the middle of a vast empty arena floor at that moment.
Then he changed direction and walked toward me, smiled and stuck out his hand. We shook and he said, in that slightly gravelly way, “Thanks for your work,” to which I responded, smiling back, “Thanks for the shows.” He continued on toward the stage, and I thought welp, there goes a nice guy.
Soundcheck went on for a bit, a couple of songs played, adjustments made, and then it got a little loosey goosey, the kind of it’s over thing, with crew and band still milling around on stage. And sitting on a riser between downstage and Max Weinberg’s drum riser upstage sat Springsteen, by himself, writing in a spiral notebook. Every so often he’d look up, with a placid expression of someone thinking, internally listening to or seeing something, then looks down and continues writing. One or two crew members crossed through an invisible zone around The Boss as they worked, and he would glance up and toss them a polite smile, the kind of polite I see you but I’m in the middle of something look. No one bothered him or spoke to him. It was the crew and the band, and they new what was happening.
He was writing what might or might not become a song, or songs.
Most anyone who saw the scene probably would understand what was happening. It’s not as if I or anyone else would be surprised that The Boss writes songs, and most likely other things, in a spiral notebook. Even as I began to devote serious time to design, to write, to make ideas real, I understood nothing is accomplished without the unseen work, the hidden scaffolding of sweat, commitment, doubt, and confidence that becomes a song, a portrait, or a book. Creative tools for a particular art form vary, obviously, but witnessing a successful working artist doing the work in such an economical, everyday manner — writing in a spiral notebook — makes things…real.
NOTE: my early understanding of practice and its importance came from my dad, who from my earliest memory through adulthood, was a bagpiper. He practiced several days a week on his chanter (think bagpipes pared down to one pipe, no bag, and lower volume). He was a working class guy with a wife and kid, which could hamper one’s ability to get in a daily groove, certainly. And before any of you throw the normal, jokey shade my way, yes, just like in every art and musical form, there are good pipers and not so good. And there are pipes that are tuned correctly and not so correctly, and yes, I can tell the difference.
But I digress.
It was seeing an artist of stature doing the same work that I did, that we all do, that made the difference. Just the knowing of it. Not a bounded leather, gold leaf kind of notebook. A spiral notebook, a pen, and a few moments to jot down a dream so it would have a chance to become a reality. A moment to remember, that the Boss is one of us, and we can be our own Boss if we do the work.
Part two — someone else does the work, too
Over the years, and in this zine, I have often referenced and certainly recounted many a story about something happening during soundcheck. I know it is, always has been, an environment of which many are aware but few, relative to the general music appreciating population, ever experience.
Throughout my time on the road, I retained a sense of awe, nuanced by age and circumstances, that allowed me to work and still be occasionally gobsmacked when witnessing something unique, special, or extraordinary. I was lucky, because I experienced all of those, some huge, some tiny, and all personally meaningful.
It was an outdoor venue, pretty sure in Saratoga. I was onstage, stage left. probably running video cable. Sound check was over. Guitarist Nils Lofgren, a stellar player who came into the band while Little Stevie was away and stayed when he came back, put his guitar on its stand, sat at Roy Brittan’s grand piano — also stage left and only a few feet away from me — and began to play. (FYI, here's a link to a magazine interview with Nils, which includes a tidbit of info that I didn't know back then, and which certainly explains that he was more than familiar with 'the work': "I had ten years of classical piano and accordion training from the age of six, so I had a musical background, and never would have become a rock guitarist if it weren’t for that training.")
The man can play. It was good, and I hung there for a bit, absorbing it. An E Street roadie passed behind me, but stopped to listen for a few bars, then leaned over to me and said, “We call the end of soundcheck the Nils Lofgren show,” grinned and moved on.
I hung for a few more minutes, watching someone do the work. Not even creating with his usual guitar brush and aural strokes, instead using something other than his primary instrument to work, putting very nice sounds together. Another artist doing the work.
Because it’s not necessarily the work that directly creates the art; the work is the artists’ stage; as the work improves, so does the show.
The Political Stuff (please do move on if you’ve already had more enough of this for your day, I sure do understand)
From Heather Cox Richardson, Substack, a stellar legal and court system system journalist:
Today, Steady State, a group made up of more than 340 former U.S. intelligence officers from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the State Department, and other intelligence agencies, released a report assessing the state of American democracy. Applying the tools of their craft to the U.S., they assess that the nation is “on a trajectory toward competitive authoritarianism: a system in which elections, courts, and other democratic institutions persist in form but are systematically manipulated to entrench executive control.”
From Meidas+ (on Substack), Oct 2nd: (this news org is giving Right Wing media fits)
"… Trump basically admitted today that Project 2025 was the blueprint for his admin all along: “I have a meeting today with Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent. I can’t believe the Radical Left Democrats gave me this unprecedented opportunity.”
… Trump’s post on July 24, 2024, when Project 2025 was wildly unpopular in the polls and hurting his campaign: “I have nothing to do with, and know nothing about, Project 2025. The fact that I do is merely disinformation put out by Radical Left Democrat Thugs. Don’t believe them!”
Referencing the 'agreement' the current administration wants from several prominent universities, MIT’s president didn’t mince words: “Fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone. The best science can’t thrive in institutions that have abandoned merit, free inquiry, and the pursuit of truth.”
A Measles Update
Sometimes a single quote from someone who knows what they're talking about needs no lead-in, like this one: “Our whole continent may lose elimination status." Walter Ornstein, an emeritus professor at Emory University and former director of the United States Immunization Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Open Tabs
This one's for older news nerds, like me, and something many causal users don't know about – the wayback machine. In this case the story is about newspapers, but a few of you youngsters might not know from whence the 'wayback machine' comes (hint: think moose and squirrel). FYI, thought this could stand alone, that’s why it’s not in The Political Stuff.
The future is closerthanthis, and now people can see it because they have their own bionic...
Oh man, here's more future now, but this one is, um, well, all I can think of is..."I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that..." (2001 A Space Odyssey)
Sometimes it helps to have a big, hairy, poisonous friend. No, really.
Wanna getaway? Have a look around first.
An Essay
I loved having her here.
Lot of laughs, more than one surprise, more in common than differences, and memories slightly wrong by me, slightly wrong by her.
I loved having her here.
The distance is substantial, so we don’t get to hang much like this.
We’re older, so the hang is different, the things talked about have evolved, changed, as have we.
The Portillo’s surprise was genius and thoughtful. And delicious.
We did the required “Where is There Karaoke?” research, found one that didn’t really exist, did one where the atmosphere was a hoot but the singers not so much, and a third that had decent singers and became a party.
Then came October 9th, and we went to Marin, the coast, to give dad our own sendoff.
I had not been able to attend his Florida memorial service and had asked my sister to consider coming out and we would do our own memorial, and damned if she didn't make it happen.
First, she mailed dad here. A small container of ashes. I really hoped to release them to the elements atop Hawk Hill in the Marin Headlands, where I'd spent over 22 years as a volunteer hawk watcher with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory. For many of those years I also volunteered to give Hawk Talks, Saturdays and Sundays, mid-September to mid-October, during the migration's peak. The Hawk Talk lasts an hour, followed by (when the banding crews were lucky) an hour about the banding program that culminated in the release of a newly banded raptor.
I wanted to say goodbye on Hawk Hill because in the small handful of times he visited us West Coasters, he once came up to the Hill for one of my hawk talks, and that had meant a lot. He'd confessed afterward that as I explained how it worked on our way up, he'd thought, how the heck can you talk about hawks for an hour? It pleased the heck out of him that he enjoyed it.
But...the Hill is currently closed to the public for restoration work, so we went with the second choice, the ocean. He's from a little town on Ireland's coast, in the far north and only a few miles from the Northern Ireland border. There was, though, some irony in the choice, and we chuckled about it: he hated being cold (the currents we have bring the water down from Alaska); he was a competent but not enthusiastic swimmer (even though as a Royal Marine Commando his gig was to float in the water off the coast and draw – yep, 'draw' – the coast line and landmarks), and was an advanced sailor (but if he wasn't steering he tended towards motion sickness).
We stood together, said a few things, then opened the container, poured him onto the edge of the water and watched him recede into the Pacific Ocean. Except some of him stayed on the beach. So another wave came up, took a little more of him and, finally, with one more, he was out there completely.
Apparently he needed to adapt to the cold before taking the plunge.
I loved having her here, and I loved having her there for that moment.
It was great. Probably won't make me keep in touch more. My family will share with you that while they accept that I am a professional communicator, I'm also a shitty keep-in-touch communicator.
But now I'll see my dad a lot more.
Finally, this
It's been ten years yesterday, November 1st, since the release of Move To Fire, my book about a boy paralyzed in an accidental shooting and the attorney who ten years later secured a $24 million product liability/product defect judgment against the gunmaker a decade later. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, and best selling author Seth Godin provided a poignant blurb for the cover.
I'll be announcing something special in a couple of weeks to mark this occasion.
Talk about a long, strange trip...hoo boy...
To new subscribers and readers, welcome! Go visit the Story and Pictures site to access past stories. And for everyone, find your moments to just be; stay safe; and be well.
MWH