Sparks from the Fire

Note: It’s been a month since my last post.  That’s my first pause of its kind in nearly five years of writing this blog.  Sometimes ya’ just got to refuel, I guess.  I didn’t plan it; it just happened, but I’m back.  Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Poem by Peter Link

You can’t sell imagination in jars.
So what?
It’s already ours.

You can’t buy it in a box
Or learn it in the school of hard knocks

You won’t find it in the attic
Or in any way limited to just the aristocratic
Nor is it in any way idiosyncratic
It’s just a blessing to us all

Call it a gift from God
A flight of fancy
The quixotic muse of the heart
The mythic invention of wishful thinking
A fantastical work of art

An ingenious moment of genius
The conceive of make-believe
The romance that burns between yus
The extravagant dream we weave

Michaelangelo, the sculptor
Really got it right
He looked beyond the eyes
Beyond what the eyes could see
He saw the angel in the marble
And carved until he set her free.

Imagination was the key
And the door opened wide
To the treasures of the mind
That lie inside

Imagination!
Mind’s eye to the world of make-believe
The most wondrous of inventions
Designed to make the world believe
What we perceive

Imagination!
The rising of the curtain
On creative mind
The visionary’s chance
To define the undefined
And leave the world of physicality behind

Imagination …
The chance to stand in God’s shoes
And schmooze with the Muse
And fabricate a world
Out of nothing

I was channel surfing the other night on the tube and I came across a rock concert on AXS TV, my new favorite channel on TV’s great wasteland.  It was an AC/DC concert.  For those of you unfamiliar with AC/DC, they are a high voltage rock ‘n’ roll band that has been consistently selling-out concert tours for over 40 years now with global sales totaling more than 200 million albums.

I was surprised to see an audience full of young people following this group because the group looks “old.”  The rock and roll, drug induced, no sleep lifestyle unfortunately does not produce baby faces and ever-young images.

The kids in the audience were having a ball though, and I was glad to see that groups like the Stones, Metallica and AC/DC were still happinin’ and appreciated.  After all, these are the guys that had a large hand in creating rock and roll to begin with.

The stage was replete with today’s necessary light show, fireworks and other pyrotechnic effects, and number after number went by projecting basically the same theme over and over – Hell, fire and brimstone, the devil and all things dark and spitting from the center of the earth.

Probably the typical message of many bands preaching to teenagers revolting from too much parentally enforced Sunday School.

As I watched, enjoying the power of the music, I began to tire of the same theme over and over.  They had given out little red devil’s horns for everyone in the audience to wear and even some of the musicians in the band wore them  — actually rather dopey and goofy looking …

I began to wonder, “What is this really all about?”  Devil worship?  Revolution from the good old straight and narrow?  Even worse, some sort of pagan ritual played out on a Saturday night?

The band, and especially the lead singer, screamed constantly the same message and the stage effects backed it all up, but then I began to look deeper at the whole scene.  The audience was simply having fun.  They were smiling, joyful, singing along, all standing throughout — they in their little red devil horns were one of the happiest groups of 20,000 I’d seen in a long time. (more…)

Several nights ago I woke up with a cramp in my calf.  As I lay there trying to relax both leg and mind, I knew that the pressures of my recent days had brought me to this point of dysfunction.

Finally, being unsuccessful in letting the thoughts go and the cramp worsening, I got up, put my robe on, and left the bedroom so as not to disturb my sleeping wife.

I began to first hobble groggily, then walk through the living room, kitchen, hallway, circling through my apartment praying and stretching as the pain and tension subsided.  I walked for about 10 minutes until my mind cleared and the pain went away.

On what was to be my last lap I suddenly stopped in the middle of the living room rug as I contemplated both mental condition and body and this thought came searing through my brain: We are the inventions of a far greater mind. 

I began to think once again about what a wondrous invention my body is and how it has really very little to do with me.  I didn’t create it, I don’t understand it, I don’t really maintain it, it even appears, at times, to be self healing, etc., etc. – thoughts I’ve had all to often of late.

I walked on …

I began to imagine a man sitting somewhere in another dimension, an alien from outer space perhaps, ;o) certainly a mind far greater than my own feeble flutterings, perhaps working on a hobby like a person might build a ship in a bottle.

This mind or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘being’ decides, in its spare time, to occupy his giant brain by building a universe and placing in the middle of that universe a fascinating little ball of matter called Planet Earth.

Then being bored with this universe thing, he (or she) decides to populate it with little beings – all different, with these fascinating micro bodies that are splendid inventions of technology …

You get the idea. (more…)

I’m going to ask each of you to do something personal, something that will cost you, something that you would do selflessly for us, but something that I can almost guarantee will enhance your life on one level or another.  Ready?  Here goes …

Click here and go purchase Julia Wade’s new CD, Silk Road.  If you like, go listen to the samples first, but please don’t stop there – that’s not really fair to either Julia or me.  The samples are meant to be teasers.  Be teased, then buy it.

It’s a CD that we are so very proud of and have worked our tails off completing for this Holiday season.  It is absolutely some of our best work as a team, and actually everything we do – Watchfire Music, Link Recording Studios, Classes that we teach, The Watchfire Music Listening Room productions (I could go on and on) – is centered around the release of new music in CD form.

It’s why we do all the rest, including our very successful WFM Digital Sheet Music division.  We live to produce recorded music.  I know you know that and just want to take this most special moment to re-enforce the purpose of our lives.

What’s the album about?  It’s about a journey that we’re on down an ancient/modern path/highway.

Where are we going?  Forward – into new and previously unexplored territory.

Will it be a totally new Julia?  Yes and no.  It’s an evolution.  It’s a widening of the highway.  It’s an exploration of new ideas while at the same time hammering the old into new shapes and sizes.

As you who read this blog regularly know, I tend to write long.  This time I’m going to keep it short so that you might take that time to go check out and support us in this precious endeavor.

Thanks for reading.  Thanks for following.  Thanks for listening.

We’re now in the final throes of recording and mixing Julia Wade’s new CD, Silk Road – Inspirational Journeys Across Planet Earth.  Some of the material of this new work was actually started nearly two years ago and then the project was tabled when we developed her Solos CD as a farewell gift to the Christian Science community when she finished her tenure as Soloist in Boston.

But we knew we had something really interesting going in Silk Road and we couldn’t wait to get beck to it.

The CD is due to hit the streets in early December and will be our major impetus throughout the holiday season.  She has just two more vocals to complete, all the orchestrations are completed and by the end of this next week I’ll be half way through the mixing.

It’s simply a most special project.  You’ll say, “Aren’t they all?” and I must answer, “Of course, but this one’s, for both of us, particularly transforming.”

Silk Road marks Julia’s arrival at the threshold of a new evolution in her music.  Her departure from her past carries forth her commitment to inspire through song not only on a sacred level, but also with an in depth look at the issues of our world at large and the individual human condition.

So it’s an album of songs that will continue to inspire her growing fan base with fresh new looks at spiritual reach through songs like Thinking Made It So and Julie Gold’s When He Walks With Me, but it also ventures into new territory dealing with the issues of our world today.

For the first time she now tries her hand at lyric writing and scores instantly with her own thoughts on What Peace Looks Like from the perspective of three children of the world from Uganda, the Sudan, and the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica.  The title song, Silk Road, promises a comparison of the ancient Silk Roads spanning China, Tibet and Europe with the modern day impact of the Internet.

And then there are the songs of love … (more…)

Jim — Age 3

Note: The following is Part 4 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family. 

Flash back now to when Jim was born:

Mom and Dad expected a girl.  A girl didn’t arrive.  Instead, the boy.  They had no name in mind.  Dad’s name was Lyman Link.  I’ve always loved the name Lyman Link, possibly because I’ve always loved my dad.  But I would never name my son, “Lyman”.  It’s probably just too old-fashioned.  But, as it turned out, that’s just what they did.  Lyman Charles Link.  And Jim was Lyman for a couple of years.  Trouble was, once Jim began to talk he couldn’t say “Lyman” and it always came out “Imie” with a long “I” which sounded way too much like Hymie to my dad.  So around the age of 3, Mom and Dad decided to give him my dad’s step-father’s name, “James”.

I don’t remember anyone ever calling him “James” either.  It was always “Jim”.  Occasionally “Jimmie” when younger.

Just thought I’d get this down for posterity’s sake.

Jim taught me how to ride a bike.  He taught me how to shoot a basketball.  He taught me how to drive a car and how to use a stick shift even though, in the process, I ground the gears of his Thunderbird to dust.  We played the chopsticks duet on the piano endlessly – he playing the bottom part while I improvised on top.  He taught me his three favorite pick-up lines when my mind turned to girls.  None of them ever worked, but they gave me the confidence to try. (more…)

Two bro’

Note: The following is Part 3 of a 4 part series written especially for my close family.  It is pretty personal stuff, but, in retrospect, eminently shareable with this readership family

When I had graduated from college, moved to New York City and had some early success in show business, I lived alone, a bachelor.  Every Christmas for 5-6 years I would go spend the holiday season with Jim and his family in St. Louis.  Mom and Dad lived there as well, but it was Jim’s house that I stayed in.  He had three of the sharpest kids I have ever laid eyes on – Cindy, Tina and a little red-headed ball-buster named Travis.  In those years I became the Jim to Travis’s Pete – except that I was about 25 years older than Travis rather than 5.

Jim, Travis, Tina, Pete, Cindy

We had a love/hate relationship that usually ended up with Travis going to his mom crying, but he too just could not turn from the opportunity to try to wallop Unca Pete.  Sometimes he would crawl up on the bed and wake me up with a slug to the nose or the closed eye.  Ouch!  Anyone who has ever raised a 5-year old knows that their punch can really hurt.  Sometimes I would hear him coming and just as he reared back to let one loose, I would wake up and scream “AAAAHHH” and scare him half to death so that he would run crying to Mom.

Those Christmases became the iconic Christmases for me because they were my way of hanging on to my own childhood and playing with those beautiful children that I had fallen so in love with.  Jim and I would stay up till 4 or 5 o’clock every Christmas Eve wrapping presents for the kids and often talking about our own childhood Christmases and the great times we had together as kids.  Whenever we would tell stories of when we were kids to his kids; they would gather around wide-eyed and fully concentrated, excited to hear about when we were like them.  These were their favorite stories and we had to tell them over and over.

Christmas Eve Preparation

For the next 30 years or so, Jim, the accountant, did my taxes for free each year and advised me how to take my proper deductions, organize my business life, steer clear of shady deals and stay on top of my roller coaster financial life in show biz.  One thing you can say about show biz:  It is not financially consistent.  I never had a real consistent  job until Watchfire Music.  I never knew where the next job was coming from, and yet I’m proud to say that I never had to work at any other job besides making music.  That one thing is a success story in itself in this business.  But it is an up and down life – like most entrepreneurs. (more…)

The Aladdin Hotel – Las Vegas – Yikes!

This is Part 9 of a multi-part series of posts.  I suggest that you start with Part 1 if you have the time and really want to appreciate the full effulgence.

Epilogue to Iphigenia:
One day, around five years later, I received a telephone call from Ralph Alswang, a prominent theater designer, who told me of a national contest for The Best Rock Opera being staged by the Aladdin Theater for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas.  They were just completing a new 7500-seat theater at the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas and the show winner of the contest would receive at least a year contract running nightly in Vegas,

I laughed at the thought of Iphigenia, a Euripidean classic and Greek tragedy to boot, in Vegas, but after he explained that if I won, it would make me a rich man for life since I was the sole owner of the piece and would receive 5% of the gross, I reconsidered the strange idea.  My lawyer felt that it would not be a bad move at all.  Lawyers well understand the dollar signs.

Ralph Alswang, having seen Iphigenia at The Public Theater, felt that I actually might have a pretty good chance of winning it if I were to submit.

To make a long story short, I took a couple of weeks and reworked a new draft of the piece with Ralph’s suggestion that Iphigenia become one performer (instead of 12) with a large 40 voice chorus of women around her.

We also renamed the piece, Masquerade.  To this day I have no idea what that title meant and what it had to do with Euripides’ play.

I was flown to Vegas, pitched and sang the idea to a bunch of Italian-type business-men in suits and won the contest. (more…)