The Unforced Life

Some Words I Made Up

2012-01-23T03:17:00.000-08:00

Feel free to start using them.

Pre-bound (noun): What you’re on when you start a relationship before the one you’re in is over. Sentence: Dude, I was still dating Susan when I met Cindy so I was totally on the pre-bound.

Sporn (noun or verb): Spam that is also porn. Sentence: Because Bob preferred sporn to plain old spam, its lifespan in his “in” box was slightly longer than usual.

Bloggy (adjective): In the mood to blog. Sentence: Wendy got all bloggy and headed for her computer as soon as she closed the door and began to think about what had to have been the worst blind date of her life.

Shakespeare (verb): To make up your own word. Sentence: Dude, I totally Shakespeared this blog post.

Pre-loaded (adjective): When you show up a bar already drunk. Sentence: Jim usually came in pre-loaded so bartenders had a hard time figuring out when to cut him off.

Spankst (noun): Inner conflict about whether or not to get kinky. Sentence: Lennie was filled with spankst as he realized that no amount of will power was going to stop him from reaching for the fly swatter.

You're Welcome.

Injuries And Practice Errors

2012-01-14T01:19:00.000-08:00

And How They Relate To Each Other

Generally, when it comes to T’ai-Chi, it's been my experience that the kind of injuries I incur tell me where the mistakes in my practice are. From there I know much better how to address them. This can be applied to any practice. I apply it mostly to T’ai-Chi, but I also apply it to things like playing guitar, writing, biking, performing, even doing the dishes. The injuries I’m talking about don’t have to be major, they can be as minor as a sore knee or muscle, but the type of injury can point the way to practice errors and how best to correct them.

Joint problems typically point to what I call "Bone Level" issues, usually bad alignment. So if I do a T’ai-Chi form, play music, go on a hike, write, or go dancing and the result is a sore knee or neck, I know I need to work on my posture and alignment, especially in those areas. I know I’m on the right track if I adjust my posture and the joint soreness noticeably eases up.

Muscle problems like tears, tendonitis, strains, etc. point to what I call "Muscle Level" issues, typically using too much or too little strength. If I engage in any of the activities listed above and it’s my muscles or tendons that are sore, I may still check my posture because that’s still important, but my main focus will be on how much strength or muscular force I’m using to get the job done. Even if I’m looking at posture, I’ll be looking at it as it directly effects muscle use. Sometimes I find a connection between my muscle pains or injuries and my posture, but for me it’s almost always that I’m using too much or too little force in a given movement, whether it be a T’ai-Chi punch or washing a plate.

Energy problems like hyper-activity, fatigue, indigestion, depression, etc. point to what I call "Energy Level" issues, typically underlying emotional imbalances or lack of attention to overall energetic awareness. If I find myself depressed in my practice, that is, I feel some depression and my thoughts are often moving towards this particular practice and I feel a connection there, I will not be focused so much on posture and muscle use because there are no strains in those areas. Instead, because I will be suspecting some kind of strain at the energy level, the neural network of the nervous system and the brain, the basic highways of information in the body, I will be focused on doing Energy Level work. Things like opening and suspending my joints, connecting my movements to my breathing, feeling into the totality of my bodily being, gently opening blocks or tight spaces in my body, looking for emotional difficulties or conflicts, and generally connecting into a larger more inclusive sense of my physical self. This would also apply to feeling extra tired after a practice session. Or feeling unnecessarily wound up. Or having a bout of indigestion, which, in a very direct way, involves the energetic process of turning food into energy. Even if I was correcting posture or doing some muscle level work, I would be doing it in the context of how I could improve nerve flow, breathing, and the free flow of my emotions and intent.

Spiritual problems like egomania, self obsession, lack of regard for others point to what I call "Spirit Level" issues, mostly failure to surrender into Life and get over myself. To me things are spiritual if they relate to my relationship with existence, with the whole of Nature. The deeper I look into Nature the more in awe I am of the vastness and beauty of it and the more grateful I am just to be alive and conscious. I feel a part of everything and identify more with the everything than the part. If I develop some abilities, skills or prowess in one of my practices and start to attach my sense of self to the status these abilities bring me or to some exaggerated sense of entitlement or specialness, if it’s all about “me” and “my powers”, especially when it includes a disregard for other people who are mainly seen as “obstacles” in my path, then I know I’ve lost touch with my connection to “the everything” and am about to lose more than that. As I see it, at this point there is nothing to “work” on. The “I” that would be working is the problem in this realm. I’ve found that the best I can do in situations like this is just direct my attention where possible to the bigger picture, always the bigger picture, even it’s just the ever so slightly bigger picture. I have to return to my relationship to the everything and any movement in that direction reduces my self-importance and brings me closer to a kind of spiritual balance between the part and the everything.

I think it’s important to reiterate that I’m talking about injuries here or changes in the body noticed while practicing. I’m not talking about diseases or chronic conditions. That would be another discussion. I’m saying that the kind of injury or negative change I notice in my life gives me vital information about the mistakes I’m making in my practices and how I might correct them.

So my recipe for a good and healthy practice whether it’s washing the dishes or learning martial arts is to start with Bone Level Work. Learn the basics and align your bones. You can always tweak this, but getting a basic underpinning here is crucial. Skip this level and you will likely hurt your joints.   

Then proceed to Muscle Level Work. Learn how much strength to use in each movement, not too much or too little. Also smooth out the bumps in the road, relax and focus on flow. And again you can always keep working on this, but having an understanding of the appropriate use of strength is crucial. Skip this level and you will likely hurt your muscles.   

Then on to Energy Level Work. Learn to tie it all together, connect to your intent and breath, move as one whole being, integrate the principles beyond thinking. Again, you can always work on this, but being able to connect your good bone alignment and your strong and appropriate muscle strength with your nervous system's network of intent is crucial. Skip this level and your energy will be misspent and either dissipate you or get stuck inside you.

  The final piece of my little map is Spirit Level Work. Surrendering into the whole of Life so it's not just "your" intent, but Life's intent that moves you. In my experience this comes of its own accord if I attend to the other levels. You can't force surrender, you can only be open to it. You can always look into this mirror of self-importance versus Life-importance but skipping it will lead to an exaggerated sense of power and "Me" and "Mine". Go too far and become too "one" with everything and your life here on Earth will start to unravel. Then it's back to Bone Level.   

These levels are artificial and don't actually exist. All is one after all. But using them as lenses to guide my own development has been helpful in breaking things down as well as preventing and understanding injuries. I go into more detail with each level, including training tips in my book "T'ai-Chi For Geniuses~A Practice Companion For The Genius In Everyone" but this, along with trusting your own "inner genius", is the essential message.

Which Medicine...

2012-01-05T02:05:00.000-08:00

For Which Condition?

The way I look at it, anything can be medicinal or helpful, even radiation, if the right dosage is used for the right condition. When it comes to self-medicating, whether it’s with cannabis, chocolate, caffeine, alcohol, intellectualizing, aspirin, heroin, antacids, television, spiritual practices, jogging, martial arts or other self-induced endorphins, this gets tricky. On the one hand no one knows me better than I do, and on the other hand, we all hide things from ourselves. My blind spots can result in over or under-dosing, or treating the wrong condition with the wrong medicine.

It's a balancing act that can have harsh consequences...and I'm not just talking about the highly addictive trouble drugs... many people die while jogging and thousands of people die each year as a consequence of using aspirin.

Any time I medicate myself I am at risk...

But any time I let doctors or gurus or alternative medical professionals medicate me, I’m still self-medicating, I’m just doing so with the advice of others. And I am still at risk...there are financial and other positives and negatives no matter what I do.

If I expand my definition of “medication” beyond substances, to include any activity that changes my experience and mood, I see that I am making treatment, dose, and cost-benefit choices almost constantly, trying to find the right dose of the right “medicine” to treat the right “condition”.

Sometimes it’s easy to figure out and sometimes it’s not.

In time though, Nature offers clear and brutally honest feedback. Walt Whitman maintained that every exaggeration has its revenge in human physiology and I tend to agree. But what’s the difference between an “exaggeration” and the “correct dose of the right medicine for the right condition”? To find out I have to live and learn.

Sometimes I apply the wrong medicine, sometimes the wrong dose, sometimes both. Sometimes I get it just right…or at least I think I do.

Take cannabis for example. Over the years, this is what I’ve learned about it. With the right dose, it can be a great way to enjoy music or a movie, kick back after work, appreciate Nature, or open my mind to creative inspiration. With the wrong dose it can dull me or make me uncomfortably sensitive to all of these things. It is also, I think, the wrong medicine for dealing with uncomfortable feelings, particularly fear and anger related to addressing basic life issues like making a living, establishing intimate relationships, living independently, and finding one’s place in the world. It is a temporary postponement at best and a long numb detour at worst. I’m sure we’ve all met people who use cannabis as a way of not dealing with some of these basic life issues. And to be clear here, I’m not saying that cannabis has anything to do with avoiding feelings or issues. I’m saying that if I’m using cannabis to avoid my feelings or issues, it won’t do the job. It's the wrong medicine, I’ll need more and more of it, and it will be more and more injurious to my physical health and vitality. For me, the best medicine for dealing with feelings is feeling them, and the best medicine for dealing with issues is dealing with them directly.

So again, which medicine is a good fit and what’s the right dose? It’s an ongoing question…

This can be applied to anything I do. Take martial arts…I have to weigh these questions whenever I decide how much to train, how hard, how long and with what goal in mind. If any of these things are "off" for very long...injury surely follows and usually with a boatful of painful lessons attached. But it's my call. I have to prioritize in life whether I want to or not. I have to decide how much of which medicines to apply to which of my conditions, including the human one.

Sometimes it's worth it to take some damage to one part of my life in order to enjoy another more fully. I’ve certainly lost a girlfriend or two along the way due to my commitment to T’ai-Chi. My health has certainly suffered at times due to my commitment to Music and staying up late communing with my muse.

My teacher’s teacher Tchoung Ta-Tchen loved to tell stories about students whose spouses had made the ultimatum: T’ai-Chi or me! and the student had chosen T’ai-Chi. He would just grin ear to ear when he got to the part where the student had chosen T’ai-Chi over a relationship. At the time, it seemed very clear that the point of the story wasn’t that he thought marriage and home weren’t important, he was a traditional Chinese man for whom these things were extremely important, the point was that any spouse who would attempt to stop such an obviously beneficial practice is not someone you should be with. He was saying basically, you need more T’ai-Chi and a less controlling spouse, which is in essence recommending one medication over another, both of which have side-effects. I have chosen T’ai-Chi over a relationship a time or two, waiting for someone with whom this choice would not be an issue. And, since I found her, there have been times when I have adjusted my training or teaching schedule to make our marriage work better. I have also changed my dose of some other medications too, in order to improve the quality of my home or work life.

I think we all have to make calls like this all the time. I just like to make them consciously, and, if possible, with some thought. I try to be as objective as I can. I try to keep an open mind. I like to treat life like an ongoing experiment, seeing which “medications”, in the larger sense that I am using the word, match which of my “conditions”.

I have found over the course of my life that one sure sign that I’m using the wrong medicine is that I’m using more and more of it. I know this should seem obvious, but if I’m attached to the effects of some medicine or another, and I don’t want to look at the truth of what I’m doing, I can just not look at it. So now, no matter what I’m doing, I try to stay conscious of this. Am I increasing my dosage over time? What are the effects on the rest of my life? Is this really working? Life is an experiment, but how much am I filtering the evidence I’m getting? Is this the right medication? Is this the right dosage? How much is too much? How little is not enough? These are the big questions no matter what medicine I’m looking at…

Fear And Anger...

2011-12-29T18:04:00.000-08:00

What Are They Good For?

Some people and some teachers, including “Yoda” from “Star Wars” have a very negative view of fear and anger. Yoda says at one point, “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.” I've never felt this way about fear or anger.

First let’s consider fear.

I think fear is a natural healthy response to danger. Holding on to fear after the danger has passed is another story, as is closing your heart and mind because of fear.

But fear itself, to me, is just a biological response that protects us from harm. If I jump out of an alley and scream right next to a person walking by, their reaction will be similar no matter who they are: Eyes widen, shoulders lift, hands come up to protect the torso and face, voice yells to alert others, muscles charge getting ready to run or fight.

There are people who have trained these responses out of their systems but I think a person without fear is foolish, as is a person who lives in fear all the time. I would say the same about anger too. Without it, a person is bereft of a powerful gift, but living in it all the time is Hell on Earth.

I don't think any of our biological responses are bad or "the problem". I think it's what we choose to do with them that gets us into trouble. I think a lot of New Age thinking throws the baby out with the bath and you have people walking around trying to be "peaceful warriors" or quiesced monks, and instead end up being a bunch of passive aggressive energy-less wimps. Suppressing emotions takes a lot of energy. Feeling them may be painful, but they do pass through. Not feeling them only stretches out the process because they will work their way through one way or another.

To be fully human, to me, is to feel all of our emotions, and then, like weather systems, when they've had their time, to let them pass through. But unlike a lot of New Agers, I don't think you can "let them go" without feeling them first. Otherwise, what are you letting go of?

I wish Yoda had said "Holding on to fear leads to anger; holding on to anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering."

And as far as I can tell: No dark? No light.

But don't get me wrong I love Yoda. Even if I don't agree with this aspect of his teaching.

Fear seems to be hard wired into our brains and for good reason. There's an Japanese art called "Kiai-Jitsu" that's based on animal sounds. There are apparently a handful of primal animal fears, each associated with a particular animal that we all have coded in our primitive brains. There's the wolf/dog, the bear, the snake and a few others. Practitioners of this art try to size up which of these animals their opponent is the most afraid of. Apparently we all lean towards having one of these animals that are particularly scary for us.

Just as the opponent attacks, the Aiki-Jitsu practitioner will make one of these sounds, usually accompanied by an appropriate movement of some kind. If he's sized up his opponent properly, the sound and motion will create an overwhelming wave of fear, sometimes accompanied by a hallucination of the actual animal! People literally "see" the bear, dog, snake or whatever and practically shit in their pants.

I trained with a master of this technique briefly in Seattle. I never got a chance to "see" one of the animals, but several people there had and swore by it, including people who I really trusted to not be bullshitting. He did say at one point that there were some sounds that were designed to make the opponent rise or drop their center of gravity. He asked me to attack him. As I did, he made this crazy almost pterodactyl like bird squawk, and suddenly my pelvis was about two feet behind my chest, my balance was all but gone, and his next technique found no opposition because I had no connection to my center. I also became quite flushed and I'm not much of a blusher at all. Freaky stuff.

I also like to differentiate between fear and panic. Fear is a much more useful and helpful mode of being than panic and that is why, I think, we all feel more fear that outright panic over the course of our lifetimes.

Fear alerts you to danger. As I wrote above, the eyes open wider, the shoulders lift in anticipation of protecting or attacking, and the breath draws in which readies the body for withstanding an attack, (if you're hit while your lungs are inflated, exhaling will naturally help diffuse the energy of the blow), while at the same time readying the body for attacking because we tend to get the most power when out of a strike when we exhale. In general, it's biological function is to alert you to danger and to prepare you to fight or run.

Panic is different, everything goes into a complete frantic state of activity, but not with any clear focus or control. It's kind of a flight or fight seizure or traffic jam with all signals blaring at once. Judgment goes completely out the window and blind emotion takes over. I can see how this might come in handy in a truly desperate life or death struggle when it looks like defeat is imminent. For instance, when being attacked by an animal that's seriously out to get you, or when drowning, or really anytime when death is a serious threat.

It seems to me that people's transition from fear to panic has to do with their perception of danger. When someone else is panicking and I'm not, I think it's because they think or feel that what's going on is more of a real danger than I do. I'm not talking about right and wrong here, just the degree of perceived danger.

I don't even think you should panic if your house is in flames. Panicking is never a good idea. If you can do it, take a breath, assess your situation, and take the best action you can in the best way you can take it.

When panicking is truly useful or life-saving, it's a last ditch biological freak-out, and it's not a "good idea". It's not an idea at all. You don't think about panicking before you do it. If you do it, you do it. That's why I said it's never a good idea.

But, if you can help it, if you can notice your own personal panic escalator, and as you feel yourself going up it, if you can then look around and assess what's going on rationally, or even intuitively, it's possible that by giving your body an accurate assessment of the real danger level to you right now, that that alone can put the brakes on panicking. Maybe not, but I think it's worth a shot. It's also really helpful, through any awareness based physical training, to become more aware of the connection between breathing and muscle tension, and in general to be familiar with preparing your body for physical action and then acting. All these things can help keep you from panicking in situations when it isn't warranted.

And now let’s consider anger.

Anger too gets a bad rap, but as I see it, every single thing that's hard wired into us as human beings, no matter what it is, has value, can't be banished, and if it could, it would not be a good thing. If it's in our DNA, it's got value or it would have vanished long ago.

Anger lets me know when my boundaries have been, or are about to be violated. It helps me gather and focus energy to fight or run from danger. A human being without the ability to get angry is pretty useless in my book, certainly unhealthy. Actually, I don't think such a human exists.

The problem as I see it is holding on to anger, not the anger itself. Anger itself is like weather. It will pass. But if we hold on to it and extend its life past the period of time when it's useful, then we get into trouble. It the same with fear, sadness, resentment, all the so called "negative" emotions. Let them in, accept their benefits and let them go and all will be well. Fight them, control them with force, suppress them, disrespect them, medicalize them, de-spiritualize them, hold on to them, and well....you get the world we have right now.

As I see it, it's not the feeling itself that's the problem, it's how we handle it.

I think the key for me is that when someone has made me angry, it's a fact. I am angry. To try and short cut to "letting it go" without acknowledging or feeling the anger itself just buries it, but I don't think it's gone. We've all had experiences where our anger at something is way out of proportion. I think this is a sign that a bunch of undelivered anger was buried inside waiting for an avenue to express itself. And I'm sure we've all known passive aggressive types who claim they're not mad and then set fire to your couch "by accident".

But reacting with blind rage and acting on impulse without any connection to myself is equally ineffective. We all know raging people who never seem to get it out of their systems. If I feel in control of my actions and have a clear feeling of "I" am angry, and toward who, and for what reason, then I know I'm on solid ground. But if I feel completely overwhelmed by anger and there is no sense of being in control, no sense of "I", and the anger just IS me, or HAS me, then I'm in trouble. At these moments, the old adage to "count to 10" is amazingly effective, even if it has to be repeated a few times.

What works best for me is to first of all, just feel and accept that I am angry. No actions yet, just feeling it. Once the initial wave has peaked, the next step is to see if I can let it go. If so, great. If not, then I have to choose the best way to express it. I might have to tell someone who's wronged me that they've done so. But they might be dead or unapproachable or dangerous, so I might just have to beat the bed or write a song or vent to a sympathetic friend. But one way or another that energy needs to move. I try to move it in ways that do as little damage to me or anyone else as possible.

I like any method really, as long as the initial anger moves through rather than gets buried. If a person who’s angering me is a beaten down person who doesn't really deserve more anger, or an innocent person with no intent to harm me, he can still piss me off. If seeing his situation helps me let it go, great, but if not, suppressing my feelings only makes them worse. Another thing that really works for me after feeling what I'm feeling is to recognize that Life deals out, by far, much better revenge than I ever could. All I have to do is nothing. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord!"

Hollywood Legends?

2011-12-25T00:16:00.000-08:00

I Think Not...

OK, So I'm in the Dollar Store with my wife picking up some wrapping paper and a few Christmas odds and ends...and I see this rack of various kinds of trading cards. They have baseball cards, football cards, NASCAR cards and some other, mostly off-brand-y looking Dollar Store type stuff. So I see this one kind that has James Dean's picture on the package and "Trading Cards from Hollywood's Biggest Legends". (See picture above)

Now my wife and I have this Christmas Eve tradition with some good friends where we have dinner together at one of the restaurants in our downtown Plaza and exchange friendly usually slightly weird Goodwill bought type presents. It occurs to me that I have these little plastic card holders at home to which I had attached magnet strips. This enables you to make a fridge magnet out of any trading card. I used to make them out of Charlie's Angels cards or Star Wars cards when I was into buying and selling vintage junk...uh...I mean "Collectibles".

So I thought it would be fun to buy a few packs of these cards and some of the magnet holders and we could open them and trade them so we'd each have a card/magnet with the celebrity Hollywood legend of our choice. I'm thinking we'd be saying stuff like, "I'll trade you James Dean for Marilyn Monroe." or "I'll give you Clark Gable for Marlon Brando." So I bought 6 packs and brought them with all the other gifts.

Once we opened them though, we were surprised to find that most of us had never heard of most of the names and considered none of them to be very "legendary". Here is a list of all the "Hollywood Legends" we got in 6 packs. Oddly, there were no duplicates. It ended up being good for a laugh, just not the kind I intended! I'll include their major claim to fame, at least what the back of the card said...

Paul Le Mat (American Graffiti)

John Hurt (Alien, Elephant Man)

Elise Avellan (Grindhouse, Machete)

Barbara Morgan (Astronaut)

Piper Laurie (The Hustler, Carrie)

Peter Tork (The Monkees)

Patty Duke (The Patty Duke Show, Miracle Worker)

Pamela Anderson (Playboy)

Ric Flair (Wrestler)

Tommy Chong (Cheech & Chong...OK this dude is a legend...)

Sofia Milos (CSI: Miami)

Anson Williams ("Potsie" on Happy Days)

Katie Hoff (Olympic Swimmer)

Linda Hamilton (The Terminator)

Noel Neill ("Lois Lane"/50's TV Show)

David Ladd (Acting: The Proud Rebel, Producing: The Serpent & The Rainbow)

Pasha Lychnikoff (Mostly played Russian soldiers in movie and on TV)

Robert Vaughn (The Young Philadelphians and others credits that strangely didn't include "The Magnificent Seven" or "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.")

Michael Madsen (Reservoir Dogs, Kill Bill)

Tony Todd (Platoon, Candyman)

Erika Eleniak (Baywatch, Playboy)

Kenny Baker (C-3P0 in all 6 Star Wars movies, also Ewok in Return Of The Jedi)

Edd Byrnes ("Kookie" on 77 Sunset Strip)

Walt Cunningham (Astronaut)

John Schneider (The Dukes Of Hazzard '79-'85)

Gloria Stewart (The elderly lady in "Titanic")

John Buccigross (ESPN Announcer)

Rhonda Fleming (Spellbound, Gunfight At The OK Corral)

Heidi Androl (Finalist on "The Apprentice", TV Host)

Joey Lawrence (Gimme A Break! '83-'87, Blossom)

I'm not sure what you'd call this particular group of people but "Hollywood Legends" doesn't come to mind...

Top Ten Ways To Tell...

2011-12-19T01:00:00.000-08:00

If Your Friends Have Stopped Using Drugs.

1. Better Grades and Work Performance.

Often times when people stop using drugs they become obsessed with things like grades and achievements. This is because, suddenly lacking the simple pleasure of “being” they now have to resort to the complicated pleasure of “doing” in order to feel good about themselves. So watch for sudden improvements in grades or work performance. This is probably the number one red flag.

2. Changes In Attitude.

Look for changes in your friend’s usual attitude. Where they once were easy going and chill, now they may look all bummed out and serious. Where they were once up for any random act of destruction, now they may bring up things like “legal consequences”. They may take a sudden interest in your life outside of partying and having fun. They may suddenly seem more “polite” and “considerate”. They may suddenly feel the need to clean their entire apartment and reorganize everything in it. A newspaper left on the kitchen table with items in the “Help Wanted” section circled is another red flag.

3. New Friends.

Watch who they hang out with. If they’re suddenly palling around with people they used to refer to as “total dorks”, your friends might have stopped taking drugs. If you see them whispering with their new friends in the corner of a party while pointing at you…that’s another red flag.

4. Old Hobbies.

The sudden return to lame hobbies and interests long abandoned is another sign that your friend is no longer using. Dusting off a stamp collection, badminton set or piece of exercise equipment is a dead giveaway.

5. Less Moody.

Watch for a lack of moodiness. No highs means no lows and makes Jack a dull boy who really should fire one up now and then.

6. Paying Off Debts.

When a guy’s going around paying off debts and hasn’t asked you to borrow rent money in a few months, it’s often a sign he’s laying off the good stuff.

7. No Shades.

You’re looking at your friend and you notice something different…oh yeah, he’s not wearing sunglasses. You can actually see his eyes. In fact he might feel the need to maintain eye contact with you for uncomfortably long periods of time, usually with a very earnest look in his eyes, which by the way will not be bloodshot at all.

8. Better Smell.

You might notice a lack of certain smells, like over-applied perfumes or colognes, patchouli oil, gum and other masking agents. Simple rule, if they smell great, they’re going straight.

9. Lack Of Partying.

A person who doesn’t do drugs may stay home a lot more than when they were using. If you call your friend from a party or club at 1am and he or she “doesn’t feel like” joining you because they were “sleeping”…they might be on the wagon.

10. Smug Superiority.

If you’re friend is not doing drugs, he will feel the need to reject his previous drug use because deep down he fears he’ll never make it and needs to bolster his feelings of being in control, at least for the moment, of his own desire to tie one on. Often this will take the form of rejecting of you and your drug use, no matter how casual it may be. If you notice an upswing in smug superiority, with its attendant “in your face” brand of self-esteem, your friend may have crossed over to the “light side”.

11. Bonus tip: They're dead.

The main thing is not to panic. Many people experiment with not using drugs and in time get over it. Tell them you’re concerned and if they want to talk, you’re there for them. Often that’s enough. They might not take you up on it right away, but soon enough, they’ll be back.

Acting Or Listening?

2011-12-14T12:23:00.000-08:00

What'll It Be?

‎"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."

~Indira Gandhi

I would add that you can't read Braille with one either...or play the guitar...or anything that requires listening and sensitivity. Acting and listening are always somewhat odds with each other. If you're totally listening (yin), it's hard to act. This is why you tend to stop dancing at a loud party when someone's telling you something you want to pay attention to. If you're totally acting (yang) it's hard to listen. This is why you tell people to shut up when you're writing something important.

When I act, I know my listening is suffering. When I listen, I know my acting is suffering. The tricky thing is, we never know whether the next moment will demand more action or more listening. If you're always totally listening you're a long way from acting. If you're always acting you're a long way from listening. Either "stance" is a liability if life demands the other option.

Therefore, the only stance that's worth cultivating as a characteristic way of being is neutral, or ready. Half listening, half ready to act. This is also called T'ai-Chi. I call it "unforced balance". If I can rest there, I'm ready to go either way. In theory anyway, if life demands action, I can act. But as soon as the action is over, I return as soon as I can to neutral, since I don't know if the next moment will demand more action or switching to listening. If I have to listen, I listen, but as soon as the listening is over, I return to neutral because I don't know if the next moment will demand more listening or switching to action.

I think of this neutral T'ai-Chi state as being like a dimmer switch on a kind of spring. It's set to the middle between the polarities of listening and acting. If I turn the switch in either direction, it goes there. But the second I let it go, it springs back towards the middle again. In practice of course this is difficult because I can get stuck on one end of the spectrum or the other. But I do my best to cultivate that middle state as my resting place.

The Unforced Music

2011-12-14T12:15:00.000-08:00

New Blog

Just for grins, I created a new blog last night. It's called "The Unforced Music". If you go to the link below and then click on the easy to find "flipcard" link at the top of the page, you'll see all of my album covers. Click on any cover and it will flip over and you'll see the title of that album. Click on that and you'll get a little comment about the album, the song titles and a link to listen to or download the songs free or with a donation. There are several viewing options but I really like "Flipcard" the best.

Why Do I Write?

2011-12-09T23:28:00.000-08:00

Because I Have To...

“I think wanting to write is a fundamental sign of disease and  discomfort. I don’t think people who are comfortable want to write.”

~  Kay Redfield Jamison

The first conscious creative impulse I can remember was to put the truth, at least as I experienced it, into words. The second was to sing those words. The third was to have them heard. Being liked and making money at it were a distant fourth and fifth. I write (songs, blogs, books, emails, fb posts) because I have to in order to feel like myself. To me, finding the right words and/or music to match my thoughts and feelings is a great pleasure that sometimes involves a painful struggle. I don't feel like it's something I have much of a choice about. I'll stop writing when I stop feeling compelled to write. If it's a disease, then we're all diseased. We all have impulses and things we can't say “no” to. To me it's more of a condition than a disease. I don't think any human being is "comfortable", not for long anyway. I think the human condition is to be restless, caught between the polarities of our existence. (lustful/loving, competitive/cooperative, generous/greedy, violent/peaceful, rational/emotional, altruistic/self-interested, one/separate, masculine/feminine, etc.) I think we all numb ourselves somewhat to this fundamental discomfort. For some maybe writing is how they do it. For me it's how I deal with it. It helps me accept the un-resolvable dynamic tension of being alive and conscious. Words and music can never capture the truth, but I still love to try, and sometimes they get soooo close...

I Really Can't Stay...

2011-12-09T09:27:00.000-08:00

But Baby It's Cold Outside...

I really like the song "Baby It's Cold Outside". To me, is just a simple boy/girl mutual seduction and not in the least bit creepy. She can clearly leave anytime she wants to, but she wants to stay, but she doesn't want to be too "forward", so she acts like she has to go. He acts like her considerations are real and gently counters them. It's a friendly song. It's in the movie "Elf" for Christ's sake. But over and over I hear this modern "date rape" and "creepy" take on this song and I think it's really too bad. This song is from a different time and applying a modern black and white, "everything that's not stated explicitly between men and women is somehow not consensual", seems wrong to me. He's not slipping her a "roofie", he's giving her a toddy. The song was written in 1944 by Frank Loesser. According to Wikipedia, he wrote it as a duet and premiered the song with his wife, Lynn Garland, at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party. So I like it and I would sing it if I knew how to play it and had someone to do the female part.

Mountains To Climb

2011-11-24T02:10:00.000-08:00

My First iMovie Project

This is another of my very favorite videos, my first using iMovie. I created the movie and then uploaded it to youtube. Once it was there I decided to add a title card using their video editing feature. Youtube created a new version with the title and left the other one too. So I made the new version with the title "public" and kept the older version "private". But I never checked the new version until later when I realized that the sound was all slushy and mushy. I checked the earlier no title version and it sounded great. So I switched them. I lost over 100 views but I don't care. I just want what's up on my channel to sound as good as it can sound.

I've written my wife Samarra over 50 songs and this is one of our favorites. I decided to set it to some of my favorite pictures of her. I hope you enjoy it.

My Dreams...

2011-11-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Chased Me

I was biking home from teaching and this site literally stopped me in my bike tracks. I know it's just a tarp in the wind but I found it incredibly beautiful. I came home, edited out most of the cars driving by and added this song which I think is a good match.

I love the fact that I can see something beautiful, take a video of it, come home, add music, post it on the worldwide web and in a matter of hours anyone in the world with a computer can see it.

I find this video spellbinding. I could watch this sort of thing all day...

Times Change...

2011-11-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Or Do They?

A martial arts friend posted this quote on facebook.

He said it was written in the 16th Century.

"Nowadays, people are shallow and their resolution is not in earnest. They dislike the strenuous and love the easy from the time they are young. When they see something vaguely clever, they want to learn it right away; but if taught in the manner of the old ways, they think it's not worth learning. Nowadays, the way is revealed by the instructor, the deepest principles are taught even to beginners, the end result is set right out front, and the student is led along by the hand." -- The Demons Sermon on Martial Arts

This was my response:

I think maybe the reason why these kind of statements applied then, as they do now, is that there are always waves of interest in any given art. When the wave is low and there is not much interest, only the most dedicated students find their teachers. When the wave is high, the masses jump in and teachers are everywhere.

This may be hard to believe, but when I first moved to Seattle in 1984, Andrew T. Dale was one of just a handful of people teaching, and the only person teaching, T'ai-Chi during the daytime, at least that I could find and I looked around quite a bit.

All of us who found Andy during that period, when T'ai-Chi was not nearly as widespread as it is now, were dedicated enough to find him and that was not easy. There was no question that we would and did practice and really put energy into learning the art. We had a small but sincerely focused group. Andy didn't need to "lead us by the hand" although he certainly did at times. Mostly he pointed the way and said "work on this". He didn't crack the whip, but he didn't cater to anyone's laziness either.

Now, many years later, there are loads of people teaching T'ai-Chi, it's everywhere, and a large percentage of those people only practice in class and need a lot of "hand leading". On the negative side, most of these people will never learn the subtleties of the art or put its principles deeply to work. On the positive side most of them will get at least some T'ai-Chi and physical self-awareness in their lives and many will get real benefits that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

So the people who jump on these things early and are really dedicated will always sigh when they see the masses jump on the bandwagon late and have to be led around by the hand. I think as time goes by this cycle repeats itself again and again, as any art gains and loses favor. Whenever popular interest is low, only the dedicated practice it and the quality is high, whenever popular interest is high, the masses practice it and while the overall quality is not as high, it is "wider" and reaches more people. I've been though one relatively low and now am in the middle of a relatively high interest in T'ai-Chi. I roll with it because I love teaching people wherever they happen to be on the dedication scale, but I can see how someone who was more innovative and highly skilled would be more bummed about the state of affairs during times of popularity when people in general are more casual in their approach to the arts.

There are also booms and busts economically over time. During harder times people are tougher, during fat times people are softer. Again, if you grow up tough, you bemoan the softies. I think everyone's right here. The softies really are softer and weaker, less physically skilled people. And the toughies really are living in the past, complaining about something that can't be changed, and a bunch of grumpy old farts.

Sometimes it's hard to find the right teacher because hardly anyone is teaching what you want to learn. Sometimes it's hard to find the right teacher because too many people are teaching, or claiming to teach what you want to learn. But no matter how muddy or empty the water is, true students will find their teachers and learn their arts. Always have, always will. ;~)

New Album...

2011-11-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

Have A Wonderful Miserable Life.

I've just completed another album of songs. Only my second this year...I'm slowing down a bit. It's called "Have A Wonderful Miserable Life" and features 13 new songs and 2 older ones re-recorded. As usual, it's available for downloading free or with a donation at my site: www.GeneBurnett.com

Donations are strictly optional. I'm always happy to get a tip in my digital tip jar but it's by no means necessary. Feel free to share anything you download with anyone you think might like my music. All I ask is that you let them know about my site and that they can make a donation if they feel like doing so. (All of my songs are also available on iTunes and CD Baby where they might be easier and faster to download, but they'll cost you a buck.)

Once again, I'm proud and happy with my work on this latest project. Here are the song titles, along with a lyric sample from each song. I'm also linking each song title to that individual song, in case you want to listen to just that song. Please find the "Musical Recordings" page on my site to listen to or download the entire album.

1. Have A Wonderful Miserable Life

This song is another one about the mixed blessing that is life...

God says to Adam--Stay away from this tree

Unless you'd care to fathom--What it's like to be like me

Adam broke the rules--God gave us all the blues

And as he closed the garden gates--He told us what to to

Have a wonderful miserable life--Have a wonderful miserable life

Tell your stories--Sing your songs--Before long you'll be gone

Have a wonderful miserable life

2. The Fight Out Of Me

A song about surrender and love...

You have broken my will to change you

Along with my need to be free

With your beautiful curves

And your delicate nerves

You have taken the fight out of me

3. Free Slave

A song about the mixed blessing that is human nature...

I'm passionately rational--Determined to relax

Formally casual--Rigidly lax

I'm a garden I'm a jungle--I'm a beauty I'm a beast

I'm a touchdown I'm a fumble--A warrior for peace

I'm a free slave--I'm a free slave--I'm a free slave

I am free

I'm a free slave--I'm a free slave--I'm a free slave

I am free

4. One Joint At A Time

A song with multiple meanings...mostly about being in a happily touring band.

If you come in--We'll get you high

If you can spin--You can fly

We've been on tour since the birth of time

We're taking this world--One joint at a time

5. It Wasn't The Wine

A song about holding people responsible for their actions.

I told you before

One more chance and no more

And now you're back

Crying at my door

You say you didn't mean

The things you said

It was just a case

Of the wine going to your head

But it wasn't the wine talkin'

It wasn't the wine walkin'

It wasn't the wine rockin'

And sleeping with my so called friends

It wasn't the wine lyin'

It wasn't the wine tryin'

To break every rule

That you couldn't bend

It wasn't the wine

6. Hearing It Like It Was

This is a song I wrote back in 1996 or so...A country-ish plea for reconciliation. I wrote it in a weird tuning that's too much trouble to attempt during most of my shows, so I decided to work out and record a version in standard tuning that would be easier to play.

Every word you say is crystal clear

All these things you want that you can not find here

You have closed your heart and made up your mind

All you came to say really is goodbye

And I shake my head and ask you not to go

Have you heard a word I've said

You ask I answer I don't know

'Cause I may not be a fool

But I'm doing what a fool does

You keep telling it like it is

I keep hearing it like it was

7. Honey-Glazed Iguana

A song about some of the people I want to be...

I wanna be Mick Jagger in 1972

Strut around like a rooster--Fuck anything that moves

I want to rock--I want to roll--I want to sing the blues

I wanna be Mick Jagger in 1972

I wanna be Keith Richards and play whatever I wanna

Even if I have to look like a honey-glazed iguana

He's the master of the riff--He ain't no prima donna

I wanna be Keith Richards and play whatever I wanna

8. Pretty City Deer

I live in a town with literally hundreds of deer who roam around fearlessly with impunity. Some people hate them, some people tolerate them, and some people love them. When I play this song in public, I ask people to sing along with the bridge. If they're "pro-deer" they hold their hands up to their heads like antlers while they sing. If they're "anti-deer" they pantomime shooting the deer while they sing along. All in fun though. Everyone's usually laughing...

You chased off all the wolves and the mountain lions

Thanks! But if you shoot at us--You'll have to pay a fine

We walk right down the sidewalk--We have lost our feer

Get out of our way--We're pretty little city deer

We're pretty city deer--You know who we are

Your gardens and your parks--Are our salad bars

We're pretty city deer--We don't have to hide

You cannot harm a hair--On our pretty city deer backsides

Bridge:

Neener--Neener--Neener

9. Something Funky

This is a song about something that happens to everybody sooner or later. You open your fridge looking for something to eat and something don't smell right in there...

Maybe it's some broccoli that went bad

Maybe it's that fish that we never had

It smells like something underneath a bridge

There's something funky--In the fridge

Something funky--In the fridge

We can smell it--We can't see it

As soon as we I.D. it

It's out of here--Whatever it is

There's something funky--In the fridge

10. Soft On Drugs

This is a song not everyone will agree with me about. I don't think any drugs should be illegal. I think people should be able to decide for themselves what they want to do with their lives, as long as they don't interfere with the ability of others to do the same thing. We already have laws against driving while intoxicated, child abuse, burglary, robbery, etc... I say legalize possession and prosecute the real crimes, the kind that violate the rights of others. I also expand my definition of "drugs" quite a bit in this song. Again, this song my not be for everyone, but I wanted to get it off my chest.

I'm soft on drugs--'Cause life is hard enough

I'm soft on drugs--'Cause there are some that I love

I'm soft on drugs--'Cause everyone's on something that they can't get off

I'm soft on drugs

Alcohol cigarettes and TV

Politics and sugar and caffeine

Weed and meth and heroine too

Psychedelics and singing the blues

I'm soft on drugs

Pain killers time filler and guns

Pharmaceutical mind chillers getting work done

Romance novels porn and sports

God and coke and foreign ports

I'm soft on drugs

Don't mess with my high--I won't mess with yours

Don't mess with my high

Don't mess with my high--I won't mess with yours

Don't mess with my high

11. When I Fuck This Up

This song is from the point of view of someone who sees failure in relationship as inevitable...

I looked at you--And fell in love

You felt it too--Open and shut

I told myself--This will be rough

And I'm gonna be sad--When I fuck this up

I know why it's called a crush

You hit me like a pickup truck

I am good--But not enough

And I'm gonna be sad--When I fuck this up

12. You Know

This song is another one about personal responsibility and knowing when enough is enough...

If you get to hammered

You will lose your glamour

Get thrown in the slammer

Do don't get too hammered

Just get hammered enough

If you get too baked

You will turn into a flake

Make some dumb mistakes

So don't get too baked

Just get baked enough

You know

When enough is enough

You know

If you don't brush it off

You know

When enough is enough

13. Come To My Senses

Another love song for my wife Samarra. This makes over 50 or so...

Come to my senses--Let me adore you

Before something happens that takes you away

Come to my senses--Let me absorb you

So I can say I took you in all the way

Life is so fragile--Even more so than we think

Death is so agile and patient and it never blinks

14. If There Was A Wall

This is another older song that I decided to re-record because the original version was in a weird tuning that was too awkward to get into in the middle of a show. It's about PTSD, the high rate of suicide among vets, particularly Vietnam vets, and the true cost of war. It was inspired by my friendship with local poet T-Poe Varnado.

He finally lost his war--Turned his back and closed the door

Built a wall around his core--'Til he couldn't find it anymore

He tried to medicate--But the memories just stayed

Vietnam never went away--Back in the world living everyday

He got out his old gun--He said, "My fighting days are done."

"I had hope, now I have none. I don't want to see another sun."

Too many good young men--Died trying to save that land

But so many more than them--Died at their own hands

If there was a wall--With the names of them all

It would be longer than the wall in Washington D.C.

If there was a wall--With the names of them all

That would be a wall--We all should see

If there was a wall...

15. Make Something Beautiful

This song is about the impermanence of everything and the power of creativity...

Well the monks sit around in a circle

And pour colored sand on the ground

They make a beautiful picture

Than they scatter that sand all around

And the point of this demonstration

As far as I can see

Is that everything comes to nothing

So be here while you can be

And make something beautiful

And then let it go

Make something beautiful

Even if no one ever knows

Thanks for your support!

Vintage Baritone Ukulele

2011-11-10T22:29:00.000-08:00

I Just Got One...

I just bought a vintage mahogany Harmony baritone ukulele on eBay for less than $100, including shipping. It looks to be the same model as the one in this picture but I can’t say for sure. I’m taking a chance of course, since I don't know what it sounds like. But the price was too good to pass up. I think one reason I got it so cheap is that the owner spelled it "ukelele" in the eBay listing and a lot of people who were searching for this kind of thing and spelled it correctly never saw it. I can't wait to get it and see what I can do with it.

What got me started was I was hanging out with some friends at the Occupy Chase protest in Ashland and a passing friend taught me how to play Jump You Fuckers on a concert uke and then we videoed it and put it up on youtube and it's got like 1600 views in a few weeks. It was fun, I liked the way it sounded and it was a nice introduction to the instrument. I'm not really much of a musician so I'm not planning on working any wonders on the uke beyond some nice grooves or moments. And I'm not interested in the ukulele "craze" really. I just liked the sound and portability of my first encounter with one and wanted to explore further.

I started putting the word out that I was interested in finding a decent ukulele and within a day or so two of my friends offered to lend me their vintage mahogany ukes, but I declined. I don’t like to borrow instruments I have no chance of buying. I don’t want to get attached to something I have to give back. But one friend did have a vintage Martin mahogany uke that she was willing to sell me, but it was a soprano which is very small, tiny really. I’m borrowing it right now, but I’ll probably pass on it.

I am still going to get a decent concert size uke (one step bigger than a soprano) and maybe a tenor as well. The baritone I just bought is the largest size, from what I understand. I think the usual tuning is just like the highest four strings on a guitar, but they can also be tuned like a tenor uke or like a tenor guitar, which is what I’m leaning toward. I’ll have to see what it sounds like first.

I’m looking forward to getting to know my way around the basic chords of whatever size uke I happen to be playing and then letting my ear lead me to the kind of sounds I feel like making. I have no clear idea what direction I want to go with this instrument, I’m just drawn to it and I’m going with it.

Hard And Soft

2011-11-06T01:15:00.000-07:00

Finding The Balance

As I see it, the key to having real and deep firmness in your being is to have real and deep softness as well; and the key to having real and deep softness in your being is to have real and deep firmness. One without the other isn't very real and isn't very deep.

Firmness and softness are inter-related in that one without the other tends to be superficial and not very substantial. For example bullies tend to be superficially tough, but not nearly as tough as people who also can be soft. And hippies tend to be superficially soft, but not nearly as soft as people who can also be firm.

It's another way of talking about Yin and Yang, which according to traditional Chinese thought, don't really exist in any healthy way without each other. The Tao Te Tching says: Know the Yang but keep to the Yin. That first part is what so many hippies and New Agers would rather avoid...

Another example: “Beating swords into plowshares” is powerful, because you know the sword but decide not to use it. Never knowing swords in the first place and then beating them into plowshares is weaker, because you are being "peaceful" but you have no choice.

This interrelatedness of opposites can be applied to many of the seeming contradictions in human nature.

I think trying to deny, banish, or "transcend" one half of the many splits in ourselves is a recipe for trouble. Firm/Soft, Civilized/Animal, Violent/Peaceful, Competitive/Cooperative, Loving/Lustful, Greedy/Generous, Self-Interested/Altruistic, One/Separate...these are all hard-wired and valuable aspects of human nature. For me, balance is the key to life, not purification. And the key to balance is to first accept these dual aspects of our nature.

But that won’t do away with being out of balance. I don't think we can banish being out of balance from our lives. Balance can't be clung to or it ceases to be. You have to accept imbalance in order to have balance, which is actually a verb not a noun. It is always in motion, always a vibration between lost and found and lost and found and lost and found.

And so, sometimes I have the key and sometimes I am keyless. Sometimes I feel balanced and sometimes I don’t. I do my best to accept that and try not to cling to either state. Sometimes a little purification is not a bad thing. The need to attempt purification is human too.

But what seems so wasteful, selfish, and pointless to me is people's life long strivings to overcome, eliminate, deny, or "transcend" things that are built into our natures as human beings. This seems futile to me and the cause of so much violence and suffering in the world, turning people against their own bodies and selves, fueling murderous insecurity, and countless "holy" wars.

As I see it, true balance means true acceptance of who we are and living in the dynamic tension between our opposite qualities. I see this as an endless work in progress. I may never reach any kind of permanent state of balance but orienting in that direction seems like the best route to peace, joy, kindness, and the life I'm interested in living. Hard and soft, not hard or soft.

My Editing Process

2011-11-02T16:34:00.000-07:00

"Peace Of Mind" Becomes "My Unforced Life"

My Friend and T’ai-Chi student John Soares has a great blog called “ProductiveWriters.com” where he recently posted an article called “Should You Edit As You Write?” In the piece he discussed the pros and cons of editing as you go, versus editing later and many other writers commented sharing how they handle this issue.

My comment was:

“For me it depends on what kind of writing I’m doing. If I’m feeling inspired and on a roll, I don’t even bother with paragraph breaks, misspellings or even quotation marks. I just shoot from the hip until the wave has passed. If I’m working something out and developing an idea or line of thought, I’ll be more thoughtful and edit some as I go. But generally, I write first from a creative, free-spirited, uncensored place and then go over it afterwards to clean it up.

This is true of everything I write, whether it be songs, blog posts, emails or website comments. I often go through several drafts before I consider it “done”.

For instance, I might want to turn several facebook posts on a given subject into a blog post. I will have saved these posts in a folder in my computer. One night I’ll open them all up and put them in a rough working order in a Word document. Later I’ll go over it and clean up redundancies, people’s names I might have mentioned and language more suited to facebook than my blog. I might still go over the entire piece once or twice more, looking to see how it works and flows as a whole before I decide it’s ready to post.

Other times, I’ll get an idea, do a quick rough draft, go over it once or twice to smooth it out and then go ahead and post it. So the process can take weeks or it can take minutes. But then I’m not a professional. I can see that if I was, I’d have to decide not only which style pleased me most, but which style got the job done best with the amount of energy I could give it.”

Recently, I submitted an article to our local paper for a column about all aspects of “Inner Peace”. I also posted it here with the title “Peace Of Mind”. I got an email back from the editor of this column saying my submission was 750 words long and if I could edit it down to 700 words or less she would publish it.

So I set about “editing” it but I ended up doing a pretty substantial re-write that took about 4 hours! I guess it was just one of those cases where I wanted to get it as close to exactly right as I could get it. I just kept going over it and over it until nothing bugged me. That 700 word limit was exasperating at times but ultimately I think the re-write is better. Here it is with a new title:

My Unforced Life

Peace of mind does not exist in my world. In my experience, minds are not peaceful. I have experienced that it's possible to become more peaceful of mind, I am relatively sure of that. But I've never experienced, nor have I felt that anyone else was experiencing pure peace of mind.

Only two things have actually brought some measure of peace to my life. One has been accepting that parts of me are not peaceful, never have been, and probably never will be. The other has been doing what feels most deeply right to me.

By admitting to myself that in addition to their opposites, I am also competitive, aggressive, lustful, angry, scared, selfish, greedy, violent, and warlike, I invite these parts of myself to be full-fledged members of my internal family or parliament. They don't have to become outlaws and demons to be fought with. When I accept and allow them to have some expression, these so-called “darker” parts of myself begin to relax. I don't fight them, I just temper them. They don't fight me, they just make themselves known. Rather than fighting to be “good”, I focus on unforced balance and accepting myself as I am. And less fighting in my mind means more peace in my mind.

I find this to be true again and again. I have more peace in my mind when I accept the war in my mind. Certainly more than I do when I try to be peaceful. Trying to be peaceful seems like a contradiction in terms to me, like being determined to relax, or trying to lift a chair I’m sitting in.

I call myself a “freestyle” Taoist because rather than the 1200+ volumes that comprise the orthodox Taoist canon, I focus instead on 4 words: Flow more—Force less. This is the heart of my life, both as T'ai-Chi teacher and singer/songwriter. I've spent over 25 years studying how to "flow more—force less" in countless training exercises within the T'ai-Chi system. I've spent even longer working on reducing excess effort as a singer, writer, and performer. And yet I still force things all the time.

What’s important to me in life is not so much what I hit as what I aim for. My target is what I call "the unforced life”, the life that I don't have to force myself to live, where each action is done with just the right amount of energy needed to achieve its ends. I've studied this on a daily basis for decades and still, what progress I've made has been slow, with many small steps.

Living in the dynamic tension between my various opposites has not been easy, but I vastly prefer it to trying to banish or eliminate parts of myself that seem hard-wired into me by Nature. When I accept myself as I am, my shoulders relax and sink, martial techniques become more effective, my hands find the right sound on my guitar, my voice opens a bit, I find the words I’m looking for, I connect better with my friends, I breathe easier, and once again, a small measure of peace emerges.

My unforced life comes gradually, by accepting whatever is happening inside of me. Not liking it necessarily, but accepting it, accepting that it's happening. Things are always changing and conflict seems inevitable, but when I accept what's going on in me, I’m less conflicted.

With less preoccupying conflict in my life, it’s easier to identify what feels most deeply right to me and easier to act on it. I've learned to trust this "most deeply right" feeling completely. I trust that it will lead me, directly or indirectly, to the right life, the unforced life that includes both the “light” and “dark” aspects of my nature. As I get better at identifying and acting on this inner "right" feeling, my lessons are not as painful, I flow more and force less, I have more satisfying and enjoyable experiences of myself and the world around me, and yes, even a bit more peace of mind.

Gene Burnett is a T’ai-Chi teacher and singer/songwriter living and working in Ashland. www.GeneBurnett.com

Doubt

2011-11-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

I Put Nothing Beyond It

I don't want to resolve doubt. I like doubt. It keeps my mind open. I even like doubting things I don't actually doubt. What I don't want is paralyzing doubt. Doubt is like a spice to me. You don't want to make a meal of it, but a meal without it is kind of dull...

But unreasonable doubt is, well, unreasonable. When it comes to whether or not I am writing in English right now, I would say that I have no doubt that English is being written. None at all really, which, while it makes me suspicious, doesn't change my mind.

What I would doubt a little, and really just a little, is that the "I" in "I am writing in English." is who's really doing the writing. Or whether that "I" is real or not. Or whether "you" the reader are real or not. Or whether the physical reality in which I write and you read is real. About all of these things I have some doubt. Not enough to change my behavior significantly, but enough to keep me alert to the possibility that things might not be what they seem.

Since there's an "I" in anything I perceive, I have to include some doubt about that "I" in almost everything. Just some though. I exaggerate that doubt a bit to make a point.

I feel like the essential "me" is naked and at best a bit uncomfortable with that, so part of me is always putting on the "clothes" of certainty to make me feel better, but another part of me would rather just get used to being naked and is constantly undressing. One part keeps solving the mystery and the other part keeps reviving it. In between is where the action is for me, living in the tension stripping and dressing.

If pressed to be absolutely as accurate as possible I would say I'm not certain of anything, not even that last statement. But in everyday life, I accept the necessary compromise and say, Yes, I'm sure, when what I really mean is that I'm virtually sure. And virtually means almost but not.

I have to say things that aren't strictly true, but are virtually true. Keeping this in mind keeps me from being too certain. It keeps doubt alive. And I like doubt. Doubt to me is a wonderful thing that keeps life from getting stale and keeps me from mistaking words for the things they describe.

I think there’s always something "wrong" with any statement. Not in the logical sense, but in the sense that there is always room for doubt or an alternative point of view. Every truth starts with some assumptions. Examine those and you will find room for "error" or inaccuracy. As I say in my song “You Are Wrong”, even "1 + 1 = 2" assumes that there is such thing as "one" or "two" of anything, that separate things exist, that boundaries exist, that adding things together exists, and that two things can be "equal". You may very well make all these assumptions, I do all the time in everyday life, but you don't have to. You could also assume that "1 + 1 =2" is an error ridden convenience that makes lots of things work better.

Lyrics or Music

2011-10-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

Which Comes First?

Sometimes people ask me about my writing process and one question I get quite a bit is “which comes first, the lyrics or the music”. My answer has changed over the years.

Here’s the long answer:

I used to write music and lyrics together, more or less line by line, but for the past several years, it's almost always been lyrics first, or at least most of the lyrics first. Partly this is because I write at night and my wife is a light sleeper and partly just how my process has evolved.

I usually have some rhythm or basic tune in my head while I'm writing the lyrics, but that can change when I pull out the guitar, which I do when I'm either done with the lyrics or at an impasse where I feel the momentum of playing the guitar might suggest a way through.

The process usually goes something like this:

I carry small squares of scratch paper with me at all times. I’ll get some kind of inspiration, maybe it’s an idea for a song, maybe just a line or two, or an interesting phrase, which I of course write down.

I then go over these pieces of paper later and see if they still feel promising. I then see if I can add anything, another line or a rhyme, anything to help it along. I add further verses or ideas on more pieces of paper and clip them together with similar material. I usually have many of these little bundles going at any particular time.

When I go to write, I just pull out my stack of clipped together works in progress and see if any of them grab me, starting at the top of the stack. If so, I see what I can add, if not, I go to the next one. Once I’ve got what I think is enough for a complete song, I’ll pull out the guitar and see what feels right to go with what I’ve written.

When it’s starting to really take shape, I then write the lyrics to the song in a notebook and from there I type them into my computer. It somehow helps me to remember the lyrics when I first write them by hand in the notebook first. I’m not sure why.

At that point I start to play the song in public, usually at an Open Mike but not always. Sometimes I debut a song at an actual gig, but I prefer Open Mikes. As I play the song out the first several times, it usually changes a bit. The tempo might slow down or pick up or the lyrics might change here and there to better fit the phrasing and timing as the song gets broken in. Before too long the song sort of “gels” into its more or less final version which I then record when I start my next album.

Sometimes I go to write and I’m just not into it. I feel like doing something productive though, so I’ll pull out all my idea bundles and good lines and stuff and sort through them all. I’ll usually divide them into categories like, strong prospects that are at or getting close to the place where working on them with guitar might be in order, ideas that need more work but are still promising, interesting lines and un-fleshed out ideas, stuff I’m not excited about but think maybe I’ll be more into down the line a bit, and stuff I’m just not into at all which I usually throw away. The rest I separate into piles that I can dive into when I’m in that particular mood.

The next time I go to write, I can grab the pile that’s almost done and, if it’s getting late, polish or add to the lyrics, or if it’s not, get out my guitar and see what happens. Or I can grab the pile of half-finished prospects and see if any of them inspire me to move them along a bit further. Or I can look over my barely fleshed out ideas and see if any of them inspires me to dig in and develop them more. Or I can dive into the pile of ideas that left me cold the last time I looked and see if anything has changed.

This is a more organized approach than when I was younger when I mostly worked on songs that emotionally demanded to be written. A lot of my emotionally driven songs are out of my system now and I find I’m more interested in ideas, releasing a charge for myself, word-play and capturing certain states of mind and body. I’m not trying to write good or pleasing songs really. That’s secondary. The main thing for me is to write a satisfying song, a song I feel better for having written.

My current approach serves my goals very well. In the world and in my thoughts, I listen for sounds, ideas, phrases and combinations of words that release a charge for me, that is to say, give me this large or small “yes” feeling. I don’t need to know why or what it’s about. All I need to know is that there’s a release of charge. I trust that if that’s the case the meaning behind that release will come in its own time. I just see if I can add to the initial phrase or idea in a way that also releases a charge or amplifies a previous one. As I build my lyrics, sometimes I have no idea what the song is really about, but as I go, it becomes more and more clear and then voila, I suddenly know. Other times I know what I want to say, I just have to find the right words, rhymes and rhythms to best make it happen. I feel kind of like I’m trolling in the world of my unconscious mind, relying on my sense of what feels most deeply right, collecting and connecting bits and pieces of inspiration and then patching them together into songs that express what I feel and think as my life unfolds.

Here’s the short answer: Usually it’s lyrics first, then music.

Detours...

2011-10-28T09:40:00.001-07:00

Embrace The Adventure.

If you’ve studied any art consistently over a period of many years, whether it’s songwriting and T’ai-Chi I have, calligraphy or painting or dance, you know about detours in your practice. Detours are where you can’t go to the place you want to go in your art without taking a more circuitous path than the one you wanted to take.

The most obvious example would be injuries. You’re ready to go in a new direction or even just continue in the one you’re going, but you injure some part of your body that demands you take a detour. Suddenly you have to paint with your left hand, or half as often as you’d like, or with only certain brush strokes, or only at a certain speed.

Another example would be when you want to take a step forward that requires a step back. For instance jumping higher might involve a return to basic postural alignment.

As tough and as frustrating as it can be to take a detour, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself that while detours are not always pleasant, they do get me where I want to go and often much the better for having taken them.

Maybe it’s surrendering my usual control of my direction…surrendering to what’s actually happening and not on what I want to make happen…maybe it’s something about focusing on the moment and task at hand…something about slowing down and paying more attention…something about being on a bit of an adventure rather than on a well laid out track….I’m not sure what it is exactly, but something about detours, I find very valuable and helpful to my overall practice.

Sometimes I don’t even know where the detour is or how to get to it. I just know I can’t go on the way I’m going. Sometimes I have to send feelers down 10 different alleys…10 different song ideas or movement possibilities before the best or most open way becomes apparent. I don’t see any point in sitting at the road block or detour sign complaining…I try to think and act like water when it meets an obstacle…It’s time to find another way. Even if I can’t move or see a thing…I keep looking…and soon enough, the detour appears.

And besides, there’s always infinite room for improvement anyway. How far I get is not as important to me as what I learn and enjoy along the way. Detours are just another opportunity to extract value from life. I may curse them at first, but then I usually just pick up my stuff and continue on my way.

"90 Percent Of Life Is...

2011-10-24T15:29:00.000-07:00

Just Showing Up."

I treat all gigs the same, no matter what they look like. You never know who's listening. It might be a weird little podcast with two viewers, both of whom are the host's cousins....and one of them might book people on a major stage or be looking for music for a movie. You just never know.

I focus on the work at hand, which is the one thing I have a little control over. I've seen bands give half-hearted performances because "no one" showed up, and I always think, Gee, I hope you guys have day jobs…

I once played a benefit show at a friend of mine’s kid’s school. I was playing in a room with a bake sale going on, coffee, kids running around, games and face painting in the halls…I had anywhere from no one to 6 or 7 people listening at any one time. This was the kind of gig a lot of musicians wouldn't even take, but I didn’t care. It was a chance to play and I showed up to see what might happen. I played my best, had some fun, made a few bucks in tips and, as I was packing up to leave, the sound guy, whose kids happened to go to that school, came over to tell me that he booked the Main Stage at our premiere venue here in the Rogue Valley and that we should talk about me playing there sometime. (!) I had auditioned for him for two hours without even knowing it. Two years later this connection led to the best and biggest show of my entire musical career.

I think Woody Allen said it first, that 90% of life is just showing up and I totally concur. A character in the Dilbert comic strip put it this way: Success is attendance plus luck. Thomas Edison supposedly said: The harder I work, the luckier I get. The way I see it, opportunities to connect with people who will like what I do are shooting around all the time, kind of like bullets. The more I show up, the better my chances of being “hit” by one of these bullets. It may not be the best tactic for someone who’s young, ambitious, impatient with perhaps a limited shelf life, but for someone like me who’s older, not so ambitious, very patient and not even on the shelf, “showing up” has been working great.

And by showing up, I don't mean doing the bare minimum and dragging your ass to things. I mean being out in the world doing what you do in the places where what you do is being done. If you're a musician, that means playing music wherever and whenever you can, in places where people might hear you. If you're an actor, that means auditioning and being in the places where people who might be looking for actors are looking. If you're looking for work that means having a resumé and applying for jobs, maybe even volunteering somewhere until one comes through.

Showing up means making connections, being seen, being around when someone needs what you offer or is offering what you need. I can't tell you how many private lessons I got from my T'ai-Chi teacher over the 13 years I trained with him, simply because the weather was bad or whatever, and I was the only one who showed up for class.

My Ambition

2011-10-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

photo by Ezra Marcos ( http://www.ezramarcos.com/ )

Is To Continue...

I searched the definition of "ambitious" and "ambition" this morning and here are some of the results:

“Possessing, or controlled by, ambition; greatly or inordinately desirous of power, honor, office, superiority, or distinction.

Strongly desirous; -- followed by of or the infinitive; as, ambitious to be or to do something.

Springing from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition; showy; aspiring; as, an ambitious style.”

“An earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment.

The object, state, or result desired or sought after.

Desire for work or activity; energy.”

“Having ambition, eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, etc.

Strongly desirous; eager.

Requiring exceptional effort, ability, etc.”

“Having a strong desire for success or achievement; wanting power, money, etc.

Necessitating extraordinary effort or ability.

Having a great desire (for something or to do something).”

At least by these definitions, I don't consider myself very ambitious.

I know I work hard and I'm organized and the things I do are also done by ambitious people, but I don't feel driven towards any particular goal or to achieve any particular level of success of fame. Just doing it is reward enough. I don't feel like I'm reaching for anything either. Just putting my stuff out there and seeing what comes back.

For instance, this year was my best year ever musically, but I have no expectations that next year will be anything like it. I don't find myself at all hopeful. I'm not despairing either, but definitely not hopeful. I don't have the sense that next year will build on this year, or should. I'll just continue to do what I'm doing and see what comes back. If anything, I usually expect that things will get worse and I'm genuinely surprised if they don't.

A lot of people have a hard time accepting this about me. They think that if they were doing what I'm doing, they'd be ambitious, so therefore I must be. But unless it's pretty damn unconscious, I just don't feel it. I'm not indifferent to people liking what I do. I love when people like what I do. But I'm not hungry for it and I don't need for it to happen and it's not my goal to be liked. My goal is to make music and teach T'ai-Chi and see what happens when I do that.

That's my ambition, to continue doing that. In a sense, OK, that means I'm ambitious. But it's not in the everyday sense of how the word is used, or in the way it's defined above. I used to be very ambitious. I wanted to be famous, liked, rich, James Taylor, etc. I was pretty miserable and competitive and pretty bitter when it didn't happen. But since I let all that go sometime in the mid 00’s, I've never had more fun doing music and never been less attached to what comes of it.

I never ask, Will this opportunity further my career? I usually ask, Does this opportunity feel right? or, Will this opportunity be fun? When I opened for America this Summer, people were asking me, "What if America wants you to tour with them?" My answer was, "That is highly unlikely and I almost certainly would not be interested, unless it was for a very short 3 or 5 gig leg. I hate traveling and the life that produces the music I love is this one, not that one."

Anyway, I know this all sounds defensive and who knows? it might be, but it's also in the interest of accuracy and clarity, both with myself and with others that I say it.

If I was more ambitious, always thinking about how each gig, benefit or open mike appearance would affect my career, if I was always strategizing about things like not over-saturating a given market, or getting the maximum bang out of every expenditure of musical energy, or steering my career in a definite pre-planned direction, my life would be very different.

I’m not sure exactly how different or in what ways but I think it would be along these lines:

I might have more and better gigs, or perhaps fewer but better gigs.

I might make more money, get more attention and have more people like me and my music.

I might get to hang out with other more successful people, both socially and artistically.

But…

I might miss all the little casual fun no-ego jam sessions among like minded, in-it-for-the-pleasure of making music, kindred spirits. I’d either not be there in the first place because I was “above” such things, or I’d be there but not really present enough to enjoy myself.

I might miss actually hearing and appreciating the music of my peers which can be really hard to do when I feel in direct competition with them or focused on my own aspirations.

I might miss the kinds of connections with everyday people that a climbing musician might not want to be seen hanging out with.

I might feel more distant from the people who like my music. I might hold them more at arms length for all kinds of reasons.

I might miss being able to tune into my body, feel how it really feels and take care of it. When my attention is acutely tuned to things going on outside of me, things that are changing, “important” and competitively charged, I have a hard time connecting to my own body and attending to its needs. Hanging out at a community musical event with no feeling of self-consciousness about my image, or position or status, I find I can really feel my own body as well as what’s going on around me. I can tune into its needs, its tensions and releases in a way that I just can’t when I’m all excited and strategizing and looking for openings. When I would do that stuff before, I often would have no idea what was really going on in my body until the main events of the evening were over. Only when I got home might I notice an upset stomach or a headache or tight shoulders or a sore muscle area.

I might also miss the pleasure of just liking people without fear of losing anything in the process. When I was strategizing a lot I kept liking certain people in check because it wouldn’t look good in some way or because I was just afraid to let myself. I’m not sure what it was about exactly but there was just this vague fear of liking people too much. It just felt like I would lose something if I did.

In short, while I might be more successful and better at manipulating people and situations to my benefit, and while I might enjoy more of the pleasures of being successful at music, it might be at the cost of the some of the pleasures that come from making music itself. And for me, that trade-off, or the at least the prospect of this trade-off as I see it, are not worth it. And perhaps more importantly, I just don’t have the heart for the ambitious and strategizing life-style. I feel so much better since I let it go.

If you’re young and ambitious and feel like strategizing in this way, I’d say go for it. You might be a talentless, narcissistic buffoon...or you might be a genius destined for greatness, but either way, get it out of your system, or make it big, and the sooner the better. If you’re feeling like “up there” is where you need to be, go for it. It might be your destiny to be famous and excellent and you owe it to your talent and yourself to give it a try. But once it’s clear that strategizing won’t get you any higher or you’re simply not young anymore, I say, Fuck it and just play to play. Let all those considerations go, just make music, take whatever comes back, and enjoy yourself.

Listen To His Words...

2011-10-20T00:05:00.000-07:00

But Watch His Weapons.

Listen to your opponent's words, they might be worth listening to...but watch his body, particularly his weapons. No matter what he (or she) says, if his weapons are getting closer to you, watch those weapons. Easier said than done sometimes, but I find this useful to remember in all kinds of conflicts that are not overtly physical or violent. I listen to what my opponent or potential opponent says, but I watch his weapons, whatever they may be. No matter what he (or she) says, if those weapons are getting closer to me, or to a position where they can do me damage, it's time to act, or, at the very least time to watch more closely. So if someone's talking peace but amassing their tanks on your border...or asking for a light and getting their elbows bent and fists coiled...or talking compromise while hiring a high priced lawyer...or smiling while their hand is reaching for a bottle...keep watching and be prepared for an attack. It might not come, but if doesn't hurt to be ready.

Important Gigs?

2011-10-17T23:57:00.001-07:00

I Don't Have Any.

When it comes to my music, I'm not consciously pushing, building or climbing anything. I don’t really have goals other than following my muse and meeting whatever comes next. So for me there are no “important” gigs anymore, just pleasurable or less pleasurable ones. My pleasure is based first on whether I liked my playing, secondly on whether anyone else did.

I'm not planning or strategizing or headed anywhere special. I practice, I make my sound, I keep showing up, and I see what happens. I've been doing it for many years and I'll keep on doing it as long as I can, regardless of whether the shows are large or small, bars or stages, packed or empty. It's not my career, it's my life. As they say in Hollywood action movies: It's what I do.

People who like what I do seem to have a hard time adjusting to or believing or getting where I'm coming from with my music. They seem to apply their own standards, usually linked to the way it was when they were coming of age musically.

I think my latest and most satisfying attitude towards music probably started as a defense mechanism that I grew into and then began to sincerely experience. With the world increasingly music-saturated, and me getting older and more and more musically "irrelevant", at least as far as the music business was concerned, and me getting sick of where that business was going anyway, it was pretty draining riding the roller coaster of good gigs and bad gigs, high hopes and disappointments, and the never ending dithering about whether and why I should even bother. It was a real relief to jettison all those concerns and just focus on what was the most pleasurable, which was the writing, recording and performing, the work itself. I just focused on that and not so much on how it was received or what I was getting back. Then I hit on the idea of going even further and giving my music away free on my site and seeing what freely came back, via my digital tip jar, good comments, youtube subscribers, etc.

What started as trying to find a way to improve the quality of my time, ended up freeing a lot of energy previously bound up in status hunger. Freeing up this energy allowed me to put it into my creative life. That life began to grow and become a greater and greater pleasure and finally I really didn't care so much about my status or success level, I just wanted to do what I enjoyed doing and see if anyone else liked it too. I stopped feeling entitled to anyone's attention and just played to play. Oddly enough, when I started doing this, I started getting more attention. But it's still a secondary concern. I honestly feel as though my musical "career" is over. And since I'm retired, I'm doing whatever the Hell I want. If I want to do 6 albums in one year that's what I do. I'm a true amateur, in the sense that I am guided much more by love than money.

I think there is a natural tendency to project one's own feelings and priorities on others. But people are not the same and do not experience life the same way. Some artists need a stage, some don't. Some are attached to fame and fortune, some are not. Some need to be worshipped, some do not. I think that generalities generally express more about the generalizer than about what is being generalized about.

My original statement here was not a concept or opinion or philosophy, about me or anyone else. What I wrote is just the way it is for me: I don't experience gigs as being "important" because I'm not building anything or climbing anything, I'm not "going anywhere". If I was, gigs would either help that climb or hinder that climb and would therefore be important or not. All gigs are of about the same importance for me. My goal is to make my sound and play well and see what comes back freely when I do that. I've lived over 54 years with precious little fame and fortune. If it was important to me, I would have quit or become pretty damn bitter by now, but neither has happened.

I really like living this way. I get to focus on my work. I don't have the feeling that I'm pushing or forcing anything. Naturally, some of what I get back is more pleasurable and some less so. But I spend much less time hoping and despairing than I used to, I think because I’m not pinning so much on the outcome of any particular show or opportunity. Sometimes I’m a bit more encouraged or discouraged by a particular show but I don’t linger on the ups or the downs very much. I go right back to work either way.

Annoying?

2011-10-15T10:43:00.000-07:00

You Bet.

A friend of mine recently called Mark Zuckerberg “annoying”. He's more than annoying to me. I think he's a dick. Not content to be rich and powerful, he's always looking for more and more money, and more and more power. I think his underlying hostility cannot help but fuck with people. Following people's internet activity after they log off facebook? And not anonymously? Providing a useful and habit forming service and then, once people are "hooked", changing and manipulating the service so that the more people are invested in it, the more committed they are to going a long with the next change and the next and the next?

Facebook changes benefit facebook and only marginally you and me. People get used to or hooked on this site. They literally need it, and so become apologists for whatever facebook does, always downplaying facebook's dark side. But facebook is basically mining and selling data. Maybe it's just to advertisers...but maybe it's to the police, or the military, or insurance companies, or...? Would you honestly put it past them to not do any of these things?

Most services like facebook are simply too large to be for the greater good. Some sites are very cool. They provide a real service to people and the people behind the site make money, but not in the billions. In order to make something as big as facebook you HAVE to be in league with some pretty dark forces. Saints generally don't end up billionaires. I realize that this is true of many of the companies that run things on the net, but I do think diversification gives the individual a small measure of control and flexibility in the face of these fuckers. I don't recommend putting all of your social networking or socializing into one basket, especially one created by a dick who never stops looking for something to fuck with.

I don't hate fb by the way. And I don’t hate Zuckerberg. He’s obeying his nature and so am I. I just don't trust him or facebook and I'm finding it less useful by the day. It’s his toy and no one forced me to use and like it. He's free to do whatever he wants to with it. Just as I'm free to move on, which I will be doing at some point in the near future.

Meanwhile, I am spreading my internet presence between my website, my youtube channel, my Flickr page, my email list, and this blog. I’m also gradually replacing my facebook content with detours to these sites. Should anyone decide to start a non-profit open source social media network that is simple, useful and doesn’t change constantly, I’m ready to jump ship anytime.

Love Or Money?

2011-10-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

Or Something In Between...

I would say the very blessed among us get to make a solid living doing what we love most and essentially "being ourselves".

Then there are those of us who make a marginal living doing what we love, keeping a roof over our heads, but always somewhat worried about money.

There are those who make a living at something related to what they love, where they make more money but are a step or two removed from their true passion, like a musician who teaches or manages a music store.

And then there are people with pleasant enough day jobs who enjoy but don't love their work, and who use their spare time to do what they love most.

And there are people who hate their jobs and still don't make enough money to relax and who don't even know what they love.

And those who hate their jobs but make a lot of money at them and so at least don't have to worry about finances.

And a million shades in between.

Being one of those people who've chosen to live a creative life, very close to my heart, but who barely makes a living, I can understand why people are willing to work at jobs they either don't love or even hate, in order to make enough money to live materially the way they want or need to. It's a rational choice that makes sense to me, especially as I get older, with no health insurance or major cushion to fall back on in an emergency.

I know some people would call it "selling out", meaning they've abandoned their creative potential for money, but I don't judge it that way. We all need to pay the bills. We all need to choose what we need versus what we want. We all need to choose how much of our time and energy are going to go into our work. And we need to choose what kind of work that will be. When I see someone in a job they don't seem to like much, but are making plenty of money at, about the worst I'll say is, “Boy the money's nice, but I wouldn't trade lives with them.”

I’ve made my choice and I’m too far down that road to turn back now.

Here are some of my "secrets" to living a creative life close to my heart, without a "day job":

1. Keep expenses down

2. See "needs" as "preferences"

3. Don't have kids (see 1.)

4. Establish more than one creative outlet that also produces income. I am a T'ai-Chi teacher, but I've also written a couple of books (self published), and I'm a singer/songwriter.

5. Don't have a car. (see 1.)

6. Did I mention keeping expenses down?

Peace Of Mind

2011-10-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

Watercolor by Samarra Burnett

And What Works For Me.

Peace of mind does not exist in my world. In my experience, minds are not peaceful. I have experienced that it's possible for myself and others to become more peaceful of mind, I am relatively sure of that. (Pun intended.) But I've never experienced, nor have I felt that anyone else was experiencing, any kind of pure peace of mind.

Only two things have actually brought some measure of peace to my mind. One has been accepting the parts of me that are not peaceful, never have been, and probably never will be. And the other has been doing what feels most deeply right to me.

By admitting to myself that I was competitive, aggressive, lustful, angry, violent and warlike, I invited these parts of myself to be full fledged members of the family or parliament in my head. They didn't have to become outlaws and "demons" to be fought with, and ultimately defeated by. When accepted and allowed to have their say, these so-called “darker” parts of myself began to relax somewhat. I didn't fight them, I just tempered them. And they didn't fight me, they just made themselves known. The lack of fighting between me and my darker side resulted in, obviously, less fighting. And less fighting in my mind meant more peace in my mind.

I call myself a Freestyle Taoist because rather than the 1200+ volumes that comprise the orthodox Taoist canon, I focus instead on 4 words: Flow more~Force less. This is the heart of my life, both as T'ai-Chi teacher and as a singer/songwriter. But how do I actually do this without fighting myself? I've spent over 25 years studying and learning how to "flow more~force less" in countless training exercises within the T'ai-Chi system. I've spent even longer working on reducing wasted effort as a singer, writer, and performer. And yet I still force things all the time.

What’s important to me in life is not so much what I hit as what I’m aiming for. And what I’m aiming for is what I call "the unforced life”, the life that I don't have to force myself to live, a life without excessive use of force, where each action is done with the just the right amount of energy needed to achieve its ends. I've studied this on a daily basis for decades and still, what progress I've made has been slow and steady, with many, many very small steps.

Each one of these steps involved letting go of some little skirmish going on inside myself, a skirmish that felt like a life and death struggle to whatever parts of me were fighting. One by one, each little battle would reach a place where surrender was the only option, and that battle would be over. My shoulder muscles would relax and sink. A martial technique would soften and become more effective. My hands would find the sound I wanted to make on my guitar. My voice would open a bit. I’d find the words I was looking for. And once again, a small measure of peace emerged.

I don't know any way to do this other than gradually, by accepting whatever is happening inside and outside of me. Not liking it necessarily, but accepting it, accepting that it's happening. Things are always changing and conflict seems an inevitable part human nature, but when I've accepted what's going on, in and around me, at least I’m not adding to the conflicts.

With less preoccupying conflict in my life, it’s easier to identify what feels most deeply right to me and easier to act on it. I've learned to trust this "most deeply right" feeling completely. I know it will lead me to something ultimately beneficial, either directly, or indirectly through painful lessons. As I've gotten better at listening to and identifying this inner "right" feeling, there have been less and less painful lessons, more flow and less force, more directly satisfying experiences of my self and the world around me, and yes, even a bit more peace of mind.

Four Kinds Of Horses

2011-09-28T08:49:00.000-07:00

Which One Are You?

Here’s a quote from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “The Marrow of Zen” by Shunryu Suzuki.

“In our scriptures (Samyuktagama Sutra, volume 33), it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run!

When we hear this story, almost all of us want to be the best horse. If it is impossible to be the best one, we want to be the second best. This is, I think, the usual understanding of this story, and of Zen. You may think that when you sit in zazen you will find out whether you are one of the best horses or one of the worst ones. Here, however, there is a misunderstanding of Zen. If you think the aim of Zen practice is to train you to become one of the best horses, you will have a big problem. This is not the right understanding. If you practice Zen in the right way it does not matter whether you are the best horse or the worst one. When you consider the mercy of Buddha, how do you think Buddha will feel about the four kinds of horses? He will have more sympathy for the worst one than for the best one.

When you are determined to practice zazen with the great mind of Buddha, you will find the worst horse is the most valuable one. In your very imperfections you will find the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind. Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen, the actual feeling of Zen, the marrow of Zen. But those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find more meaning in it. So I think that sometimes the best horse may be the worst horse, and the worst horse can be the best one.”

From the first time I read this book over 20 years ago, this is the one story I always remember. I think it's a great metaphor and way of thinking. Horses are a lot like our own bodies and we "ride" them from above similarly. They're smart but very kinesthetic, they're sensitive, capable, resistant to control, stubborn, clumsy, graceful, and most of all they have a similar mix of being both wild and civilized. I often tell my T’ai-Chi students to try treating their bodies during training as though they were horses. Will you get the best result from their horse/body by beating it? By bribing it? By fooling it? Or by treating it with an overall respect and a spirit of cooperation that might include, at times, all of the above? I'm sure this metaphor is sturdy and has figured in all kinds of teachings, otherwise it would have been edited out over time...I wonder with more and more people very rarely even seeing a horse if it will continue to be a living metaphor as time goes on...

With regard to lessons in general, I started out as the fourth horse...now I think I'm somewhere between a three and a two.

Bye Bye Facebook

2011-09-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

It Was Fun While It Lasted...

What if you had a tool, like a hammer or a guitar that you used every day, but which started to change into a different, more frustratingly hard to use tool, randomly, frequently and unpredictably. That’s what facebook has become for me, and I’ve finally just become fed up with it. I’m not raging or freaking out here, just tired of watching something I really loved get worse and worse and worse…at least for my purposes.

So...

I’m going to be phasing out social media over the next few weeks. I deleted my fledgling google+ account and I’m going to be scaling way back on facebook. It’s not so much because of what’s it’s done to my life, or facebook’s privacy policies, or how much time I spend on it. It’s because of the endless changes and the way facebook institutes them. I know change is inevitable and I have plenty of it in my life. But to me facebook is not life. Facebook is a tool. And I don’t like tools that keep changing and require time and energy to keep up with their basic use. Sites like youtube and eBay have changed too, but always slowly and always in small and useful ways. Not so with facebook.

For instance several months back facebook instituted a change whereby instead of clicking on “Share” to post a comment on a post, all you had to do was click “enter”, which was supposed to make things easier. Well maybe it did for the largely illiterate two word comment posters, but for those of us who liked to post more thoughtful multi-paragraph comments, it was a huge pain in the butt. Every time you hit the enter key to separate paragraphs, the comment was instantly posted. You can get around this by hitting the shift and enter key together, in which case you get what you used to get by just hitting the enter key: a new paragraph.

But this is different from every site on the internet as well as Microsoft Word. So you have to pay extra attention, on facebook only, to not reflexively hit the enter key for a new paragraph. You can do so as usual with every other place you type. You can also hit the little “X” next to the posted comment within a few seconds and you’ll be back in edit mode. The trouble with this is that everyone on that thread will still get a notification that you’ve posted a comment, and an email if they’ve opted to receive emails when someone comments on a post they’re following. I’ve received many, many partial posts via email while people struggle with this most basic of functions. And all for what? To make posting a comment just a tiny, tiny bit easier. It’s been months and I still accidentally hit that enter key and post incomplete comments.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the “new facebook”, which no one requested and which “improves” something no one was complaining about, is yet another pile of useless changes and looks to me to be just awful.

If someone wants to create a facebook like site for people over 50 where all you can do is post comments, pictures and links and never changes. I’ll be the first to sign-up. Call it fartbook. I’m there.

But as it is now, I'm already moving my pictures to my new Flickr page and posting much less on facebook. I think I'm going to maintain a very low profile there. Basically, I'm going to strip my profile down to the essentials, participate in this martial arts group which I'm really enjoying, I'm going to create a few musical "events", I'll continue to accept friend requests and I'll occasionally post something along the lines of: "Hey friends, I don't use fb much anymore. If you're interested in me, check out my blog, website, Flicker page, or youtube channel. Or just send your email address to mail@geneburnett.com" And then I'll provide links to those.

This feels really good folks, very empowering. I’ve felt helpless in the face of one dumb, frustrating and top down change after another. I feel like I’m breaking up with an abusive lover whose redeeming qualities have been steadily diminishing.

I'm A Folk Artist

2011-09-22T01:49:00.000-07:00

I'll Take What I Can Get.

As I see it, folk music has always existed outside the mainstream economies of the world, certainly outside the monied elites of history. Don't get me wrong, I love Mozart and The Beatles, but I'm not anything like them. While all those royal patrons were deciding which wigged genius to back, ordinary people were playing music in pubs and markets for whatever the people would toss their way, or were just playing for fun around camp fires and front porches.

That's the tradition I come from. Even though I was raised by academics in semi-suburbia, I was raised with folk music and in the folk music ethic. When I was young, I abandoned that ethic and tried to fit into the pop music world which was very different. It never felt right and no matter how hard I tried, I always felt terrible in that world.

Only in the last 5 years or so have I returned to my folk roots and have done what I would never even have considered doing when I was trying to be a pop star: playing anywhere that feels half way right for whatever pay is available, including just tips, and mostly letting people decide how much they want to pay for my music. I don't make nearly enough at music to do it for a living but I've never enjoyed making music more than I do these days and it's never felt more right.

I'm not "going anywhere" and I know it. I'm 54, I hate traveling, I only know a few chords, I'm incredibly limited musically and I'm kind of a head case lyrically. I know what I do has value, but I'm a doubles hitter not a home run hitter.

I'm grateful for whatever comes back when I play. Hell, I'm grateful for the chance to do it at all. I'll take what comes to me, but my expectations are very low. Most of the good stuff that's happened in the last couple of years has really surprised me. I certainly don't expect it to continue. Just before I got a gig opening for America at our local Britt Festival, which I thought was a major long-shot, I was telling my wife Samarra how grateful and happy I was just to be considered good enough to be in the running for an opening slot at Britt.

People who like or love what I do think I'm either being way too hard on myself, or suspect me of false modesty, but I have to tell you, I play hours and hours and hours of music to people who are barely listening at all. They're hearing me and sometimes tip well just because they like the vibe they're getting but they're not really understanding the song itself or what I'm trying to say. I've played much of last FIVE YEARS to pretty luke warm response overall, so it's hard to get too worked up over myself.

I didn't mind playing semi-background music for 2 hours in a coffeehouse for $20 and tips the morning after I played for 1500 people and made hundreds of dollars. I was happy to have the gig because that's really my bread and butter musically. That's what's mostly available for my kind of music around here and I'll take it. I consider myself a folk artist not a fine artist. I'm proud of what I am, but that's because I'm being true to my nature. I don't judge people who are different kinds of artists. My favorite band is Steely Dan, hardly what you'd call a "folk duo".

I don't consider playing for tips the same as playing for free. I'm happy to play almost anywhere, for free, for tips or for pay. I can't really relate to most of what's been happening to the industry lately. I am not in the pop music business and certainly not in the mainstream pop music industry. There are so many currents of money, marketing, history, politics, manipulation and God knows what else affecting that world. It makes my head spin.

I'm so so glad I'm not young and trying to make a living at pop music, much less trying to become a pop star. The young artists in my tradition are building fan bases by constantly traveling and playing wherever they can for whoever will listen. They are connecting directly to people on a daily basis, they are developing connections with people who feed and house them as they go too. They are living in cars and don't expect to graduate to limos any time soon. They're not courting the industry because the industry isn't interested in them or in art for art's sake. I can't imagine genuine folk music being as popular nationwide as it was briefly in the 1960's. So once again there isn't much money in it, which has been the case for the bulk of human history.

Simple music with a few chords for people who call themselves "folks", music that tells stories about people's lives is not the stuff of pop music star dreams, but it it the stuff of my dreams. I love just casting my net and seeing what comes back. Mostly it's not much but when I can connect to a few people who really listen and like what I'm doing...well that makes it all worthwhile.

For artists like me, the digital revolution is a Godsend. My music will always be a minority taste, but worldwide that minority is not insignificant. For a guy like me to record a video in the local cemetery, post it on youtube, have a guy in Holland that I've never met make a better video out of it that gets over 139,000 views is nothing short of a miracle. For most of my life, getting that many people to hear one of my songs was virtually impossible. My original video is up to 20,000+ views and that amazes me too. This revolution might well be hurting pop music artists and recording companies. It may well have negative effects on the development of popular music. I don't know. But I don't make popular music. I make folk music, so for me, as I say, it's been a Godsend. It's like I'm suddenly in a much larger living room or front porch.

Gear-less

2011-09-19T14:25:00.000-07:00

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Sound Gear!

Here's a great video from one of my favorite youtube stars, "Danielle Ate The Sandwich". Please watch it on youtube and read her description of how she saved her own show from cancellation by performing outside a rained out venue. If you're used to playing without gear and playing well, you too can have shows like this. I love gear-less shows myself...both playing and listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w2mXKdrZDU&feature=channel_video_title

I was at The Oregon Country Fair a few years ago and it was pouring rain...the sound was out at this one stage...half the crowd gathered under the bit of shelter the stage afforded... the other half was in the rain...I wondered, "Who's this?"...I worked my way to wear I could see and hear...there was this young woman playing guitar and singing gearless, over not only the rain, the thunder, her own guitar, but two other musicians as well. That woman was Raina Rose and it was one of the best sets of live acoustic music I've ever heard. Here's one of her gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8bqFqgRU0

Later in that same rainy day my good friend Jim Page was playing on the same stage. No gear, just him. Again, crowd half in and half out of the rain. He then invited as many people as would fit on the stage itself to share what little dryness there was. Both on stage and off I could hear every word he sang. One time, ‎Jim was playing a show in Taiwan and when the promoters and the police began to fight over whether Jim could finish his set past the time when the sound level rules kicked in, he said, "Hey people. This is an acoustic instrument." and finished his set gear-less in front of the stage. Jim's been playing gearless at the Pike Place Market in Seattle for years so this was no big deal. Here's one of his gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yjbXsKDvaw

Just this past weekend a local fundraiser, Michelle McAfee and I were scheduled to play at 6. The sound system was not ready. We were on a tight schedule with lots of bands and a hard, end-of-the-night deadline. So we played gear-less in front of the stage and it went great. Here's one of my gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nAj5lxLbY4&feature=channel_video_title

All it takes is practice and some good technique. There are many performers who are lost without their gear, but the basic elements of music for thousands and thousands of years have been the human voice and acoustic instruments. I don't mind sound gear and in some venues it's a must, but I much prefer doing the old-fashioned way.

Time Out!

2011-09-18T09:34:00.001-07:00

Balancing On And Off Line Time

The only computer in my life is here at home. No cell, no laptop. When I leave the house, I leave the virtual world behind. I very much like it this way.

I like to balance the cyber and physical worlds. We are adapted to live in the physical world and are just beginning to live in the virtual world. I think people who spend more time on-line and looking at screens, than off-line and out in the physical world, are headed for serious health trouble. Of course we're all headed for serious health trouble sooner or later and everybody's gotta do what they gotta do, but I feel much better when I take extended breaks from virtuality. I’ve recently installed a free computer app that lets me schedule regular breaks when I’m online. Currently I have it set to that every 10 minutes, my screen goes opaque for 30 seconds for a “Time Out”. I use this break to check my posture, maybe get up and stretch, and focus my eyes on something other than the screen. It’s also easy to just skip the break if I’m on a roll or in a hurry. I highly recommend it. (Sorry PC users, it's for Mac only. If anyone knows of a PC version that's similar, please let me know.)

“Virtual means almost but not…”

~A line from a song I wrote called “Virtual”.

If land lines become obsolete someday and I have to get a cell phone, I won’t get a smart phone and I won’t carry a phone with me unless I need it for emergency preparedness, or for some specific reason. I see people all the time who are never off-line, never 100 % focused on their physical surroundings, always with their minds on their cyber identity. They walk down the street looking at their phones, they ride their bikes looking at their phones, they drive looking at their phones. I don’t envy any of them. Not their lives, their bodies, or the look in their eyes. They might still be good people, but I don’t want that life.

I love having extended breaks from my on-line self and world. The more time I spend on-line the more time I need away from it. The way I have it set up now, as soon as I leave my house, I’m off-line and engaged with the physical world. I love being on line too and all the communication, information, and entertainment options it offers, but none of it engages my body in a total way as much as walking does, or riding my bike, or practicing T’ai-Chi, or singing, or teaching, or talking to a friend in person.

I like it best when the virtual world is a like a shadow of the physical world and not the other way around.

Adele

2011-09-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

Please Sing "Fever".

I don’t know too much about Adele and I haven’t heard all of her music, but I just love her unforced delivery. Every song I’ve listened to so far has struck me as beautiful, unforced, emotional, simple, direct, truthful and authentic.

I love what she doesn’t do with a song. She obviously has the chops to go all “diva” on anything she sings, but unlike so many of today’s singers, she doesn’t over adorn or show off all her vocal pyrotechnics every chance she gets. This is because the most important thing to her is the SONG, not the singer. At least that’s how she seems to me. Her skills are submitted to the song, not the other way around. She seems to be looking for what the song needs, not what her ego needs. This is so refreshing to me. So many singers seem to see a song as simply a structure to lay vocal tricks and emotional gestures over. Almost all pop singing these days leaves me with this “false” feeling, like the only thing the singer wants from me is worship. Adele seems to have something in her heart that won’t sit still, that must be expressed or she will literally start to die inside. I feel like she’s sharing not just taking…

Here's a link to her singing "Make You Feel My Love" on Letterman.

And so, in this spirit I would like to send out a thought request to Adele to please cover the song, “Fever”. I know it’s been covered a million times but they’ve all been self-indulgent miscalculations in my opinion. I only like one version, the original version by Little Willie John.

So many singers that I hear doing “Fever” do not sound to me like they are singing with their own authentic voices. All their quirks and mannerisms, I've already heard ‘em elsewhere, and many, many times. Or they seem to think that the trick is to find a new quirk that no one else is doing, or they try to buy one with the latest technical vocal effect. But to me the key is to do less, not more. Drop the quirks and let your actual voice and feeling come out.

If you don't trust the song, why are you singing the song? You want to know how to sing a great song? Trust the song and just sing it. Only embellish when the emotion you feel for the song makes you do it. Most people are too afraid to sing “Fever” without tarting it up.

I love "Fever", at least as Little Willie John sings it. To me, it's just a simple, heartfelt, "You make me hot. I'm the one for you.", kinda tune. I don't think the song tries to be anything it's not and totally nails what it is does try to express. When I hear modern singers, usually women sing this song, it's like they're the strong one, the hero, and the star of the song. They kind of strut the thing. But this is not really what the song is about. To me this is a song about the power of the other person, not the singer. It's a song of feverish devotion, almost begging, not strutting. For this song to work for me, the singer has to sound like they're singing to someone they want and want bad. It usually sounds to me like they're singing it into a mirror.

So have at it Adele! I can’t think of another singer who could even approach Little Willie John’s version…

In The Business

2011-08-29T10:46:00.000-07:00

For Love

Making a living playing music over the long haul is difficult. You have to please a bunch of monkeys who are easily bored and always looking for something new. Meanwhile you are getting older and the music business is all about youth and fresh sounds. And young people generally want music that separates them from their parents, not music played by their parents.

I don't make a living from music. I never have and almost certainly never will. But if I did, I would be nervous as middle aged performer. If you can manage to connect in a big way to your generation while you are all still young, this can help you as time goes by, because some of them will still remember you and show up to shows when you are past your prime. But if you never hit it big and make your living off of relatively small shows or by playing in several bands or by playing covers or dance music, I would think that would be more nerve-wracking as time went on.

When I opened for America at Britt in June, their guitar tech told me that they generally draw about 1,200 people per show. And this was AMERICA, who's sold over 100,000,000 records. After the show, when they were signing CD's and talking with people (bonding with those all important fans) this one guy brought up a poster with the three of them playing for a packed Anaheim Stadium crowd of probably 65,000+. They love playing music and continue to do so, but I doubt there are many new fans at their shows these days. If you never hit it with your generation in a big way when you were young, it's even harder to make that money as you get older.

I'm glad I don't have to depend on music to pay my bills. I play music because I love playing music. It does supplement my main income as a T'ai-Chi teacher but I don't expect to be able to do it forever. It's rare enough for find people willing to listen to an older guy in his mid-50's playing my kind of music now, I can't imagine it getting any easier down the road. But I'll continue to play music as long as it feels right. When people lose interest totally in what I do, I'll miss being able to do it more than I'll miss the money. I'm in this for love.

Jokes That Matter...

2011-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

And Some Musings On Humor

There are some jokes that go beyond humor and into the world of poetry and deeper meaning...

For instance: Two gamblers meet on the street. One says to the other, "Man I sure hope I break even today. I can really use the money."

I'll leave you to ponder that one.

Here's another: How many women does it take to sing "Fever". Apparently, all of them.

Now here's what I find interesting about this joke and I hope you will bear with me. What I like about this joke is that it pokes obvious fun at the fact that a lot of women, from big stars to Open Mike first timers, have sung this song. I've probably heard it sung about 5 times more frequently than any other song sung by a woman. It's sort of like saying, How many guys does it take to play "Stairway To Heaven"? Apparently, all of them. Unfair in either case, but not so unfair that it isn't at least a little funny.

But, I like the next level of meaning which I think is poking more subtle fun at the fact that "Fever" is this sultry sexy song that is, more often than not, sung by sultry sexy wannabe's rather than the genuine article. This level of meaning pokes fun at what might be called "female narcissism" or, as they used to call it, "vanity". Certainly, there is some recognition, while laughing at this joke, of the image of a woman singer who's way too into herself and her sexiness, someone who's overdoing it in a red dress while singing the song...and this image is not taken as genuine. If it was taken as genuine, this part of the joke would not strike anyone as funny. What's funny is that this way of singing "Fever" has become predictably associated with a certain type of singer, again someone more wannabe than real deal. The real deal is not funny. It's the real deal. A really sexy woman, who's really into her sexiness, truly and genuinely, is not funny.

So to re-cap...First level of humor, at least that I see, is just making fun of the fact that a lot of women sing "Fever" in one musical arena or another.

The second level of humor is that this has become tiresome because so many women who sing "Fever" are more wannabe's than real deals in the "sultry sexy" department. This second level points to the all too human desire to be more than one actually is. Think of how many guys at any given moment want to be rock stars (and can play "Stairway To Heaven") and how many of them actually get to be rock stars over the next 5-10 years.

And now, here's a third level of meaning that's interesting to me and, I'm assuming, it's an entirely unintentional one. I don't think "Fever" can succeed as a sultry sexy woman, or man song, no matter who sings it. This is because "Fever" isn't about the singer. It's about the person the singer is singing to. Forget the added lyrics. Just listen to Little Willie John sing the original version. In my opinion, at least, that guy is singing about a woman, and not himself. It's about how she makes him feel and what she makes him want. He's not the sexy one. He's not the strong one. He's practically begging, and begging in the most charming soulful way he can to get what he wants. He's not faking it, he's doing it. At least to these ears.

So when a singer tries to take the role of "the sexy one" away from who the lyrics have clearly given that role to, it just doesn't work. And it never will. People can tart this song up and find a following but they can't keep this joke from working. And it only works if people keep failing to sing this song in alignment with its lyrics.

But who knows? Maybe all it will take is one singer, as I've suggested elsewhere, like Adele; someone who can restrain every impulse that doesn't get in a song's way; maybe one singer like that could steal "Fever" away from everyone who tried to take the sexy role away from that mysterious "other person" out there.

In any case, this joke, this little 13 word diversion, made me laugh and then think about why. True, a lot of these "Fever" related opinions have been forming in me for some time, but this joke brought them all to a head and suddenly I'm as clear as I've ever been about it.

I think this is because humor has a way of getting to the heart of the matter that other ways of communicating don't. It has a poetry-like way of connecting assumptions and shared experiences, through a cycle of tension, release and recognition, and attempting to do it with the minimum number of words.The less unnecessary words in a poem or comedy routine the better. When it works there is the spontaneous release of energy that we call laughter, and it's not easy to fake. Not as easy as a lot of people apparently think it is. Just look around and listen during a typical day and notice how much fake laughter you can hear. Genuine laughter, a true spontaneous release of energy, is not easy to fake. It can be done, I assume, but I think it takes some real skill.

I think one of the ways people build trust is by sharing humor. Maybe humor started as trust building behavior. I think this is because humor involves shared experiences and values and, most importantly, it is not easy to fake. I can tell you, "I'm tired of hearing women singing "Fever" too." and you might believe me or not. But if we laughed together over this joke, we would know right away that we were pretty likely to share a least some similar experiences and values. Enough perhaps to see what else we had in common. In any case, a small amount of understanding would have occurred.

If I share a laugh with you, what we both laugh at tells us each something about the other. And it's all condensed by the poetry of humor into a very small number of words. One way to look at shared laughter is to see it as a small amount of trust that can be created in a small amount of time. Like feelers, our jokes, whether crude or refined, help us look for company, people who are like us, people who share our outlook. They can, of course be used to attack the outlook of other people, but the target of those jokes is not the person being attacked. That's not who will laugh at that joke. The people who laugh at that joke will be people who agree with the joke teller's point of view. Humor might be the fastest way and most accurate way to find out how much another person shares your point of view.

But I digress...

One more joke: Mom says to her son, "And what do you want to be when you grow up?" And the little boy says, "I wanna be a rock star Mommy!" and she says, "You can't do both Sweetie..."

I think this joke is great because it reminds me of the conflict between whatever society defines as "growing up" at any given moment, and the kind of child-like state of mind that a creative life, particularly a rock musician's life requires. Wanna grow up? Don't be a rock star. Wanna be a rock star? Well then you can't grow up. I don't know if this is true literally, but it's true enough to be funny.

Facebook

2011-08-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Favorite Posts ~ Part Three

Here are more of my favorite facebook posts culled from my status updates and my comments on other people’s posts:

‎"Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather." 

Bill Hicks  (May he rest in peace or at least take a less fitful nap...)

Timothy Leery once said that senility was the best drug he'd ever had!

Old guy walks up to old woman at the nursing home, and half yells half says, Bet you can't guess how old I am! The old woman looks him over, reaches into his pants, feels around in there and then says, 87! He says, Holy Cow! How'd you know that? She says, Ya told me yesterday!

And now back to your regularly scheduled programing.

As far as I'm concerned, the later fire season starts the better. Working outside, I'm getting pretty used to this weather. And it's been a great bird year so far. The sun will come when it does.

Attention Ashlanders. It is now official. I will be learning "Muskrat Love" today in order to perform it tomorrow night at my "Songs About Animals" Themed Open Mike at The Wild Goose. If that's not incentive to come out for it, I don't know what is...

Best youtube comment today: “I remember this song. I heard it as I was coming out of my dad’s testicles.”   Posted on Barry White's "Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby".

Hey is that your mom in this porn video? Click on this bogus link to have your computer all fucked up!

I alway thought it would be cool to be fishmonger, but without the fish, you know? I wanted to mong something, just something less smelly, so I became a balancemonger and a songmonger. Good monging there.

I don't hit many home runs, but I hit a shit-load of doubles.

I realize that not every one in town is going to be at the Maceo Parker show tonight at the Armory. Will the four people who aren't please come to our Open Mike at Tabu? 7:30 sign-up. 8pm show. 6 songs each. ;~)

I really hope this one works out. I just don't think I could stand a tabloid headline reading: Sir Paul Dis-Shevelled. (On Paul McCartney’s engagement to Nancy Shevell.)

I think "Freddie Got Fingered" is a masterpiece. And Pauly Shore was great in "Encino Man". In other news: I also have no shame.

I think that to get people's attention these days, their silent rapt attention, a performer has to be extraordinary. Every note, every word has to be amazing, one grand slam after another, and even then it's not a lock. Me, I'm a doubles hitter. The Edgar Martinez of Folk Music...I love doubles and I hit shit-loads of them, but not many home runs, and no grand slams yet. So I'm happy if anyone listens at all.

I'd rather live in my world than live without me in yours.

I'm looking forward to people complaining about the heat instead of the rain. It will be refreshing!

I'm not building or climbing anything, and my goals are more along the lines of "meeting whatever comes next", so for me there are no "important" gigs anymore, just pleasurable or less pleasurable ones. My pleasure is based first of all on whether I liked my playing, secondly on whether anyone else did.

I'm not climbing anything, strategizing, or headed anywhere special. I practice, I make my sound, I keep showing up, and I see what happens. I've been doing it for many years and I'll keep on doing it as long as I can, regardless of whether the shows are large or small, bars or stages, packed or empty. It's not my career, it's my life. As they say in Hollywood action movies: It's what I do.

I'm wondering...how much longer will it take before spellcheck stops red underlining "facebook" and it just becomes an actual word? Come on Spell Check, get with it. There are over half a billion users here...

I've noticed that most women have a mental list called "Things I want to fix or change about my partner". It might not be obvious at first, and they might deny it, but they've got that list...  Men have a list too...It's called "Shit I'd like to get done this weekend".

Idealism, without the sadness or melancholy that acknowledges the reality that actually is, the reality that the ideals oppose or seek to transcend, is not interesting to me. In fact I usually find it boring, naive, insulting or all of the above.

In general, I don't care so much how often people hit their targets as much as which targets they are aiming for. In my teaching and music and writing, one of the things I do is to encourage people to aim for targets like balance, art, beauty, grace, and more accurate use of language.

In the long run it doesn't matter what we do with our machines or our hearts for that matter. Everything has its time and then is gone. Individual people, species, planets, suns, galaxies, all here for a while and then gone. In the short run however, which is all there is..

Everything that comes to life gives up its life someday

To fold into another form and try another way

Galaxies—Wedding rings—Particles and waves

Everything that comes to life gives up its life someday

The Universe—This old guitar and everything it plays

Were always never what they were or will be anyway

What we are—Where we are—The mysteries outweigh

The Universe—This old guitar and everything it plays

Chorus

But it’s love—That pounds out all the dents

It’s love—That wears down every fence

It’s love—It just don’t make no sense

But it’s love—That makes it all make sense

I sell myself a bill of goods that I am here to stay

I tell myself the goods are good—The bads are far away

But I know there will come a time when I will have to pay

So I sell myself a bill of goods that I am here to stay

It’s like a dream where what I see is always changing shape

Anything I try to hold just evaporates

Full or empty—Every glass is heading for a break

It’s like a dream where what I see is always changing shape

Repeat Chorus

Everything that comes to life gives up its life someday

So take my hand and walk with me—Before we slip away

Galaxies—Wedding rings—Particles and waves

Everything that comes to life gives up its life someday

Repeat Chorus

In the movies, this is how they show that a parent is neglectful and uninvolved in their kid’s lives.   Parent: Shouldn't you be in school?   Child: It's Sunday (or Christmas, Easter, Summer, Midnight, etc..).   It's like a songwriter rhyming "fire" with "desire". Come on screenwriters. I'm sure you can do better than this. Just think about it for 5 minutes.

Jeeez, what self-respecting spammer would....oh...nevermind.

Just a reminder that on this day, July 23rd, 2011, the vast majority of human beings on Earth did not overdose on any drugs or addictive habits, and in fact handled their shit pretty well; did not commit a violent crime, get into a fistfight or steal anything; did not blow up any buildings, torture anyone, or betray any friends, and, in fact got along pretty well.

Just made this up: We all know that when you start a new relationship immediately after a break up, you're on the "re-bound". But when you start a new relationship before the break up, you're on the "pre-bound". I've got to work that into a song somehow...

Man, there is no word I hate more in the facebook world than "new". I mean coming from facebook, not my friends...Almost every "new" thing so far has been a huge pain in the butt. I still can't stand that "shift-enter" thing for commenting and it's been months...

Note to spammers and scammers. If you send me a friend request with a turkey buzzard head instead of a porn skank for a profile picture, I will accept it automatically. It would be refreshing actually. Starting the relationship with an acceptance of death and then seeing what life was there, rather than starting with the expectation of life and ending up seeing what death was there...

Mr. McCartney seems unable to reveal anything about himself in his music more nuanced or personal than this: He thinks having love is good and losing love is sad. Would I trade 10 or 20 IQ points for his gift for melody? Hmmmmmm...probably not, but I would think about it. His melodies are awesome.

Oh Christ. I mention Michael Bolton, negatively, and facebook instantly wants me to "like" him. Fat Chance. Actually, Fat Balding Horribly Awful Sounding Chance. Actually...I don't know if he's fat...it just worked better that way... ;~0

OK, I can understand lower case posts with bad spelling if you're texting it in while driving and lighting a joint but...did you know that when there's a dotted red line under a word you just typed in, it means that it's probably misspelled? Some misspellings escape spell check of course. If you don't know the difference between there, their and they're, you're out of luck.

One thing's for sure, I'm definitely not "new-fashioned".

Personally, I like the tension between opposing perspectives. I'm one of those "questions are better than answers" guys. Taoism, yin/yang, my opinions are a work in progress, we can't ever really know "The Truth"…that sort of thing.

Having an "I'm right. You're evil." point of view, seems like a recipe for only temporary security. Pretty soon any disagreement "out there" seems to re-enforce one's own doubts and so "they" must be stopped or converted to quell those doubts, and that battle never ends. The most politically committed people I know, the people who are very sure that they are right and other side is more or less "evil", are some of the most agitated, ill-at-ease, perpetually outraged, restless and unhappy people I know. I'd rather accept the un-going ambiguous nature of "truth", the relative helplessness of one person to change large currents of energy, and the ultimate insecurity of any fixed point of view, than just close the door on "them".

The upside for me of not having much money is that I don't have to learn about, care about, or get involved with "investing". I'm much more interested in and drawn to creating value and trading it for money (or other value) from my community. I like working and don't plan on stopping.

There are some things that only failure can teach.

When Chuck Norris tweaks his dick the entire internet crashes.

When it comes to flying and moving objects with the mind, it seems that the farther the person who can do this is from me, the higher they can fly and the heavier the objects they can move!

When it comes to results, positive or negative, I find it's not so much what I do that counts, it's what I keep doing.

“You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you. You are free to do as we tell you...”

Bill Hicks (RIP)

You can't shut Nature out. It's in you, on you, is you. ;~)

You care if you care, you don't if you don't. If you care, you know it, if you don't care, you know it. Forced caring isn't caring. What about, "Why should I go on living?" I like that question better.

You may not be looking at the world through rose colored glasses, but you are looking at the world through "you" colored glasses, at least I think you are. I don't trust or believe anyone who thinks their glasses are "clear", or their guru's glasses are "clear". We have our guesses, but I don't think anyone knows the "ultimate nature" of anything.

So, How'd It Go?

2011-07-09T18:57:00.001-07:00

How Was The "America Show"?

Just about everyone I know who wasn't there has asked me this question.

But first, a little background. The Britt Festival is our premiere music venue here in the Rogue Valley. Major national touring acts, beautiful outdoor setting, great sound system. On June 24th, 2011, I got to open for America on the Britt Pavilion Main Stage.

OK, so how did it go?

The answer is: It went really, really well. As well as I could have hoped for. I chose a set list that leaned towards my more clever and sweet side as America's fans are on the older side themselves these days, and they were always such a sweet band anyway. They also bring so much musicality that I thought something a bit more lyrically cerebral would contrast nicely and be a good set-up for the band.

I was nervous the night before and I'd had a couple of cokes at a friend's gig so I was kinda wired and couldn't sleep. So I just ran through my whole set in my mind, making sure the lyrics were all there and more or less what I wanted to say between songs...

Then the day came. I taught a partner work T'ai-Chi class which was nice. The physicality of it burned off a bit of the adrenaline. It was nice to get on the grounds 3 hours early and feel into the space...I hung out a bit with America's guitar tech and the sound people and then did my sound check. I plugged in and after playing about 10 seconds the sound guy on stage said, "How's that?". I said, "Dude, that's the best monitor mix I've ever had in my life!"

Then I hung out on the grounds, caught some of my friend Jeff Kloetzel's set on the smaller lead-in stage, checked in with Samarra, my friends and videographer, and just bopped around.

By then I was excited but really ready to go. I wasn't tight nervous or anything by then, just READY. I played my big Martin (1977 D-35S) which I just brought out of retirement recently. I had my 000-15 on stage in case I broke a string, but I didn't need it. And then I just went out and did it. Played a 9 song set with no glitches to a crowd of about 1500 people! To be honest, I get to play to concert type audiences, maybe a total of about an hour a year. Usually, I consider it kind of amazing if even a handful of people are listening at one time. So, this was a huge jump for me.

I had a good feeling about doing this show. I thought I could do it, but really, I wasn't sure, since I so rarely get to play for seated, listening, or even potentially listening, people. I've done my share of it over many, many years, but it was never even close to a regular thing in my life.

Well, now I know I can do it, which feels nice, even if I never get another chance like this. And due to my not being officially in the business, not being interested in traveling or the entertainment "industry", being 54, not being very current or fresh musically, there is a distinct possibility that this was, and will be, the best and biggest show of my life. I had a great time, the Britt sound system was awesome, everyone treated me really nicely and the crowd seemed to like what I did.

My set list, including links to mp3's of the songs:

Nothing's Impossible Now

Make Something Beautiful (new one, sorry no link yet)

At the break before America went up, there was a line of people waiting for me to sign CD's! Very fun. Never done that before. I brought 100 copies of "Clever~The Best Of Gene Burnett Volume One" and sold 66! Crazy! I did price them to move at $5, but still, 66 for me is a huge sale. It was a blast.

After my set, Michael "Woodsy" Woods, their long time electric guitarist, came up and told me he really liked my set and invited me to come up and "Na, Na, Na" with the band on their final encore "Horse With No Name"! So I got to do that too. Very cool. I will have that song in my head for the rest of my life.

Here's my facebook post about the night:

"Thanks everyone! I had a great time and did everything I hoped to do.

My priorities were 1. Play well (check) 2. Enjoy myself (check) 3. Be liked (check) and 4. Sell some CD's (check~66!) Thanks to everyone at Britt for taking a chance on me, to "America" for inviting me on stage to "Na, Na, Na" with them on "Horse With No Name" (!) and for being such a class act in general. A great night all around. I signed a whole bunch of CD's. Never done that before. I don't know how many people were there but it had to be between 1000-2000 people. Biggest crowd I've ever played for, by far. Now to get some rest. I'm back at The Downtowne Coffeehouse in Talent tomorrow, I mean today, Saturday morning, 10-Noon. ;~)"

And then the next day, I went to my regular coffeehouse gig and played my usual semi-background set. There were a few people who came because they'd seen me at Britt which was nice. I sold more CD's than usual and did better in tips so that was nice too. But I'm so over myself. I had a nice time playing the coffeehouse just like I always do. The Britt Show was just a really nice gig and it was great to play for a listening audience. But I felt not even a twinge of superiority towards any other local musicians, even ones I don't like. No status boost or whatever. It was just a very nice gig. I know that I can do this sort of thing and so do a lot of other people around here now. That's all it was. Now it's back to my regular life.

We did get to video the set and we got a CD from the sound board. I hope to get then synched up and posted on youtube before too long....Meanwhile, here's a picture of me and America just before or after the final bow. It still blows my mind. If I wasn't there, I'd swear it was CGI'd!

Nothing's impossible now...

God Bless...

2011-06-16T16:04:00.000-07:00

America!

I just got some great news! I'm going to be opening for "America" on the Main Stage at the Britt Festival! I wore out their first album back in high school! This is their 40th anniversary tour and should be a blast. The Britt Festival is the premiere music festival here in Southwest Oregon. It's in nearby Jacksonville. (I live in Ashland.) Beautiful outdoor setting, great sound system, great people to work with. I'm really excited about this show.

I'm also going to be opening for Bill Maher on August 26th, 2011, but not on the Main Stage. For that show I'll be on the new Table Rock City Stage which is a new stage they just built this year to showcase local talent before the Main Stage action starts.

The "America" show is Friday, August 24th, 2011. Get tickets here if you're within range of this venue: http://www.brittfest.org/performances My friend Jeff Kloetzel is playing that night on the Table Rock Stage, so come early if you can and catch his set.

Thanks for your support!

New Video

2011-06-12T17:55:00.000-07:00

Your Face

I wanted to let you know about the new video that I just put together with the help of my friend and videographer Doug Cochran. It was quite an undertaking and I'm very proud of it. It started innocently enough while I was watching a free animation show at Southern Oregon University that my friend Steven Meyerson was putting on. Suddenly, out of the blue, it occurred to me that my song "Your Face" would make a great video if it was accompanied by appropriate footage of dogs from youtube that matched the lyrics.

I was so inspired to do this that I immediately began the somewhat difficult process of finding the videos, figuring out which ones would work in which places, and then getting permission from each youtube member to use a portion of their work in mine. This took a little while as some of the youtube members had videos with tons of hits and evidently stopped paying attention to their youtube message boxes since they got many, many messages...one member informed me that it would cost me $1200 to use a clip from their video...one member worked in finance and didn't like my "Jump You Fuckers" song and so refused permission..and some just ignored my requests. But I found replacements for the ones I couldn't get permission to use and eventually lined everything up so Doug and I could assemble and edit it on one evenings work.

Have I mentioned that I am one scarily organized dude?

I tried to embed the video here but for some reason when I did the video ended up cropped off so about a third of it was not visible. So I'm just including the links here. I hope you like it and if you do, I hope you'll forward the link to any like minded people who you think will like it too.

The song is from my album "Without The Moon" and is, like all of my music, available for downloading free or with a donation at my site: www.GeneBurnett.com It's also available a little easier and faster at CD Baby and iTunes, but it'll cost you a buck.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf7kJsysh0s&feature=channel_video_title

Take care, be well and thanks for your support.