Dan's Weblog

This Blog is Basically Inactive

danreedmiller — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 08:12:53 +0000

Maybe I’ll write more in it again. Certainly there’s a lot I could write about.

get into the shade

danreedmiller — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:06:55 +0000

because full sun on a hot day is bad for you.

Heading Out

danreedmiller — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 16:06:31 +0000

I’m heading out on a big hike, Rogue River Trail (40 miles) then sections of the Oregon and California coastal trails. Will take close to a month altogether. I will not have access to internet for most of it so do not plan to post updates.
But more at some point, as the world does its thing.
Love y’all!
Dan
Danny
Daniel

Old Notebooks

danreedmiller — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 05:35:39 +0000

In another fit of sorting possessions, I’ve been going through my old journal notebooks. I have a big container full of them, some stuff from waay back (1980′s) and then a continuous (and often haphazard) series of them from about 1990 to the present. It is fascinating personal archaeology. The main thing that stands out is how little I seem to change, at least from what I write. My philosophical musings and personal angstings from 15 and more years ago are remarkably the same as entries in my most recent journals. I tend to forget what I wrote, but go over similiar territory in later entries. Some of it is quite prescient about things that would later come about in my life, and in the world too. For example this entry from July 23, 2000, when I was living by myself in a 2 bedroom apartment in Reno, working for a high-flying company:
“The ideal house should be a shack. A tiny but well-built cottage. And this size house could be so desirable that large houses don’t even sell anymore except to uncool outcast fat cats. Or are used by larger groups of people.”

So you see part of the genesis of what emerged full blown in my deciding in 2006 to build and live in a cob hut.
And a foreseeing of what is now emerging as a real trend in not only mini-house popularity (they are all OVER the media these days) but a new conventional wisdom in appropriate and desirable house size. All it took was a comprehensive economic collapse. It’s not just the collapse though, it is that *everything* had gotten so ridiculous and bloated and untenable. Disgust sets in at a certain point, even among the grotesque.

Going further back to December 1994, this rumination on housing that presages my eventual involvement in cohousing and community in Portland:
“The separate-unit apartment or single-family house is the physical living arrangement programmed into all of us by our culture. Unfortunately it also leads to and contributes to isolation when it is not coupled with a strong community/neighborhood bond. That’s a problem: we’ve shucked the traditional community but kept the physical housing pattern that went with it. Today there are many new models of intentional community, like cohousing and communal households. In the future these will no doubt become very common. People yearn for communal ties, shared purpose, people to live with. Sheer economics will also be a driving factor.”

I often wrote of what has always to me seemed the impending collapse of the world-as-we-know-it. I never put a precise date on it, just knew it was inevitable at least within our lifetime. This cheery perception/prognostication from November 1997:
” ‘America’ is over. Long live America. America is splintering. It has been slowly cracking at the seams for 50 years and it will be rent asunder on many and diverse fault lines in the next quarter century.”

I’m afraid I’ll stand by that, and all that it implies, but I wasn’t all doomy, continuing:
“I love America. America is the greatest. I hate America. America embodies all that is wrong and wretched in the human spirit. But the shards of the broken America are also like the seeds of a ripened grain, which will fall back into the rich soil and sprout anew.”

Sacred Music

danreedmiller — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:18:53 +0000

I just got back from seeing Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson performing together at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Omigod. They were so amazing. Honestly it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to. They are both creaky and old, and that was part of what made it so great, aside from the towering genius of their songwriting. Those voices are expressing a *lifetime*. You can’t get that from a young performer. You can’t get anything approaching that from probably any singer under the age of 45 or so. And Merle is a helluva lead acoustic guitar picker when he wants to be too. There was youth up there too, his 16 year old son played the telecaster, and quite beautifully.

No one opened for them, but if they had wanted someone, a good choice would have been Paula Sinclair. She’s a Portlander originally from Kentucky who just released a new CD called Steady Girl. I’m biased because I know her, but it is fabulous. It is real country, and her voice has the kind of experience in it that I’m talking about. Overall you might say her singing and songwriting falls somewhere on a continuum between Loretta Lynn and Lucinda Williams, but entirely new too. She played her CD release show last Saturday at Lola’s Room with a full band which was great because it really lets her cut loose and rock out. She’s great solo too, which is how she performs most often, but hopefully she can get a regular band together to tour. It’s no simple thing having a full band when you are an otherwise solo artist, from what I’ve witnessed. Can be a bit like herding cats.

AIG is just an easy scapegoat

danreedmiller — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:24:30 +0000

that about says it for me. People just want to be righteous, and find someone to blame. All of us, including each and every one of us outside of maybe the old order Amish (and probably even them), are the cause of what is going on. Righteous indignation is easy and I wouldn’t expect anything else. I live in it too. But gawd what a spectacle. Maybe it can be amusing, but sooner or later it will be dangerous.

Welcome to the Banquet

danreedmiller — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 07:40:56 +0000

This song also goes back to 2002, sort of a prequel to “Starving Time” (see post of Feb.27) Not sure which one I wrote first, actually, I’ll have to check my old notebooks.

Welcome to the Banquet
the table’s piled high
with the dreams of all the children in their cages

They’re having a special sale today,
five dances for a dollar
with the girls in fancy dresses and ribbons in their hair

And the stalls are overflowing
with treasures for the slaves:
they’re richer than the masters in their palaces and graves

A thousand shining trinkets,
necklaces and jewels
made by the sons and daughters of the ones who broke the rules

the Rules of the party
the Rules of the show
the spectacle of the conquerers, the ones who think they know

They think the know the secret,
they think they solved it all,
they built the road to salvation and a thousand shopping malls

Welcome to the banquet, the table’s piled high

And the dogs are running crazy
hunting for the pearls
that the warden throws by handfuls on the ground

yes Welcome to the Banquet,
the Feast is finally here:
eat well my friends, and drain your cups,
for the starving time is near

How about another?

danreedmiller — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 00:57:23 +0000

Most of my writing these days is along the lines of contemplative journaling, and although there may be nuggets in it that could see the light of day in some format or context, this is not it. So I’ll offer the lyrics of another of my songs. I think that’s what I’ll do for awhile in lieu of overt political observations. I will note that it is supposed to snow tonight, which isn’t entirely out of the ordinary for March in lowland Cascadia, but does it seem like about the 20th distinct time it has snowed this winter in Portland.

This one is “A Funny Thing Happened”, from June 2007.

A Funny thing happened on my way back home
last night.
I ran into a man selling flowers made of silver,
clay and copper, frankincense and myrrh.

I bought a bouquet of shining silver,
one of red, and one of black.
One because I love you,
One because I need you,
One for how you smiled when you broke my back.

A funny thing happened on my way to your house
Today.
I ran into a crowd, gathered ’round a preacher
who said that Armageddon has already come and gone.
I dropped the flowers as she led us to the river,
Altogether
we waded in.

It was warm like blood,
the blood of the Dragon.
Now I know
I’m born again (and again and again)

I left the flowers there in the garden
next to the river where we all lay down

I will not give them,
you will not get them
but there’s a million more like them
for the taking on the ground.

A funny thing happened on my way back home
Last night

the starving time

danreedmiller — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:43:32 +0000

Here’s the lyrics of a song i wrote in 2002. The literal reading of this song is starting to happen all over the globe these days. Of course the song may not only be about physical hunger. But the leanness of these nearly unprecedented times that we are crashing into is a reality that shows itself as both a challenge and a gift in both our material and spiritual lives, because the two are inextricable.

The Starving Time

Today begins the starving time
Thank God,
I was starting to get a little bit flabby

Today begins the starving time
Thank God,
There’s only so many flavors Ben and Jerry’s can invent

Today begins the starving time
the feast is over and the host is dead
there’s no dessert, get in line for bread

Today begins the starving time
tighten your belt a notch or five,
your expectations just took a dive
from fat and happy
to happy to survive

Today begins the starving time,
the swords are drawn and the guns are ready
to guard what’s left
of the circus of plenty,
and the priests are sitting with bowls in hand
by the stations of the cross, waiting for the band
to play the anthem of the Hungry Ghost
in his black limousine, tossing them toast

And the crowds are swarming behind the walls
built from the ruins of the shopping malls
And the crowds are boiling now into the streets
drunk on the glory of nothing to eat
because the starving time is here

Today begins the starving time:
the feast is over and the cupboard is bare,
if there’s anything left, its been hidden with care
from the tigers waking from their lairs

Today begins the starving time,
and everything we thought we knew
is over

danreedmiller — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:19:35 +0000

I feel like there is nothing I can say to the world at large that isn’t already being said by many other people. And God knows there’s way too much blather of all kinds in the infosphere. But I’ll still say things from time to time here anyway.