Sparks from the Fire

Pete

Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part series.  If you desire the full meal, you might want to start with the appetizer first – Part 1.

I grew up in the suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.  The St. Louis football team, the Cardinals, was awful and the St. Louis basketball team, the Hawks, was decent, but the Boston Celtics of Bill Russell and Bob Cousy won it all back then just about every year.

St. Louis was definitely a baseball town with the St. Louis Cardinals led by Stan The Man Musial and company.  Our family lived and died baseball and the Cardinals, and when the baseball season was over, we simply holed up and waited for spring training to start again.

My dad, Lyman, being an ex-Canadian and growing up in hockey country would take us to games, but never really understood the game.  I remember games at old Sportsman’s Park before Busch Stadium with the huge metal columns that would always seem to be in the way of part of the playing field.  I would pray to have a seat where I could at least have a clear view of my hero, Stan The Man, as he played first base or sometimes left field.

Dad would often sit backwards in his seat and spend the 2-3 hours watching the audience.  The fans and their classic behavior interested him more than the game.  He was a dedicated people watcher.

My dad was also an older dad.  I was born when he was already 45 years old and so his sports playing days were long since past, and anyway, baseball just wasn’t his game.  Neither was basketball for that matter.  He was an accountant and spent most of his time in the office.  His only real relaxation was watching Johnny Carson every night – something he never missed.

He was supportive of our sports endeavors, but often aloof.  I used to think he was just disinterested, but now I’ve come to understand that he just did not understand those queer American sports.  He was even somewhat disgusted with the way hockey had turned so violent and seemed to emphasize the fighting over the game itself just to bring up TV ratings.

So it came to no surprise to either my older brother, Jim, and me that at our Father and Son Boy Scout picnic baseball game, Lyman decided to sit out, not play, and simply watch.  So Jim, 5 years older than me, took Dad’s place on the opposing Father’s team and played against my team – the Sons.

This was neither a surprise nor a problem for me.  It was simply normal.  Dad did not participate in our sports.  He had been a professional hockey player with the Chicago Black Hawks in his own youth and his father had actually owned the Kenora Thistles up in Canada which actually won the Stanley Cup (hockey’s equivalent to the Super Bowl) in 1907, but that was such another lifetime that it really didn’t mean much to this 12-year old boy.

Back to baseball:

The Fathers and Sons game was a close game.  In fact, we were tied 3-3 in the last inning of a seven-inning game.  It was getting late and no one wanted to go into extra innings and the fathers were up last. (more…)

I am responsible.  Each of you is responsible.  Not just Adam Lanza, but we as a people are responsible.

Those who war are responsible.  Those who greed are responsible, for greed makes war.  Those who ignore are responsible.  We as a human race must take action and raise our collective consciousness up past the point where this act is impossible.

So far we have known better than to start nuclear war.  If we know better on this issue, we can know better than to ever have a repeat of Newtown, CT.  How many school shootings do we have to bear before we as a people get it?

It’s not a matter of putting more locks on the school doors; it’s a matter of raising consciousness.

But I start with myself.  So what am I going to do about it?  “It” — the most shocking act of my lifetime.  What have I done to be a part of this?  What can I do going forward to heal my grief, your grief, the grief of a nation – the shame of mankind?

I can live better, that’s what.  I can speak up and not stand for this!  We talk about gun control.  Gun Control!  We must abolish them altogether.  As a race, forget they ever existed!  Melt them down into plowshares.  They have no purpose.  Limit them to the “sport” of killing animals?  Bah!  Get another hobby.

But it’s so much more than just guns; it’s a great mistake of the human consciousness.  If we can’t overcome these notions of killing each other then we as a human race deserve to be wiped out one day.  And if that happens then we as a human race will have done it to ourselves.

Newtown, CT must be our call to action – the action of consciousness.  What do we carry each moment in consciousness?  What are we conscious of?

Raise consciousness.  I need to do whatever I can in my life, to do my part, to live more and more in the purity of thought.  To enforce a higher consciousness wherever and whenever I can.  To take a mighty stand, in whatever way possible, for the goodness and purity of thought.  And I/we must start today, right now.

Not just pray for the grieving.  That is not enough.  We must raise the consciousness of the world – through prayer, through good deeds, through sacrifice, through our thinking.

For we are all responsible.

Last night I made a house call to one of my student’s apartment.  I had to travel there by subway around 8:00 in the evening.  While sitting in the subway in a car about one third full, I noticed a Spanish gentleman literally falling down drunk standing in the doorway holding on to the pole with both hands, but trying mightily to remain erect.

He then began to talk to two African-American women sitting beneath him – one a pretty and sweet looking woman in her 30s sitting with probably her mother.  Because he was so drunk he began falling all over them.  They were obviously bothered by this and were leaning the other way so as to not be touched by this man.

One learns to pretty much to mind one’s own business in the NY subways – the dangers being obvious, but this continued intermittently for several minutes.  People were watching, but nobody was moving to help.

I stood up and walked down the car to the doorway where the man was now bothering the ladies again and heard the drunk blubber, “Aw c’mon Shweetie, I thought you was my frien’?”  The younger one and closest to him responded, “OK, we’re friends, Mister, but you have to stay at arm’s length.”

At that she held out her arm and held him gently away as he staggered and tried to keep from falling across their laps.

I watched his hands.  I just wanted to make sure he was not carrying any kind of weapon. (more…)

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…)

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…)

A Younger Peter Link

I have to blame my father.  He got me started on the drums at the age of 6.  It was my passion as a youth and I never had to be told to go practice.  So I grew up inside the rhythm.  A solid start.

And then there was Jack Eyerly, my first real mentor and our chorus director at Principia Upper School.  He grabbed me up and taught me, stimulated me, believed in me.  And he pushed me, though he never had to push hard.  He mostly helped me see that I could do it – that I had real talent.

And then there was Sanford Meisner, my acting teacher, my life teacher, the man who taught me how to be a creator, how to get inside the character, how to stimulate the emotions, how to concretize the moments, how to hook on to the muse.  He was the best teacher I ever had – besides life.

And finally I was thrust out into the world – age 23, green, naïve, … extremely lucky.

I wrote, with a partner, named C.C. Courtney, an Off-Broadway musical called Salvation.  He wrote book and lyrics and I wrote the music.  We both starred in the show.  It was in the heyday of Off-Broadway when the real action was in the small theaters and Broadway was stale and confused.  Hair was pretty much the only thing happenin’ and the rock musical was very unrealized.  Salvation was an 8-character rock musical that was what one might call “anti-religious”.  Anti organized religion really.

The show was meant to be revolutionary, to slap the audience in the face following in the footsteps of Hair.  It did, and the audience and the critics loved it.  Looking back, it was definitely sophomoric and not a piece that I’m proud of.  But it was Off-Broadway’s biggest hit and ran for 2 years and played in 11 different countries.  Out of the show came a song that was a million-selling hit and #1 on the Billboard Pop charts in the summer of 1970.  It’s ridiculously long title broke all the rules, but also gathered a strange kind of attention – If You Let Me Make Love To You Then Why Can’t I Touch You?

It gave me my start.  It set me up immediately as a NY composer for the theater.  Suddenly I was a Broadway composer and I probably had not seen more than 10 musicals in my life.  I thought, “Boy, this is easy!  Write some songs, be a star, make lots of money.”

Then came the fall.  With my same partner I wrote another musical called Earl Of Ruston.  My partner and I disagreed throughout the experience and actually broke up before opening night, this time on Broadway.  I hated the show and walked away from it.  He was the star and the director, the book writer and the lyricist and held the power this time.  I wanted no part of what I thought was a mess.  The critics agreed.  It flopped and ran for just 4 performances.

My career looked to be short lived. (more…)

Snoopy, the famous dog, of Peanuts renown and brilliant creation of Charles M. Schulz, was famous, among many reasons, in particular for his writer’s block.  Who hasn’t giggled understandingly at the quizzical look on Snoopy’s face wondering what to write after his famous opening line “It was a dark and stormy night …” as he set out upon the writing of his novel perched upon his doghouse roof with his miniature typewriter?

We laugh because we so understand the moment.  It’s a moment that has happened to each of us as we set upon a creative task.  It is a problem of great renown for writers and creators the world over.  For most it’s very real and very much a mystery.  “Why, when I so want to create, does nothing come?  Where is the muse?  On vacation?  How do I get started?

Well, I’m here to tell ya’ that if you’ve suffered from this before, your problems are now over because writer’s block is simply not real.  It’s nothing more than a misunderstanding of the creative process.

A dear friend wrote me just the other day seeking help on just such a thing only he called it “writer’s cramp”.  No matter what you call it, cramp, block or just creative anxiety, it’s all the same big nothing.

Wikipedia states, “Writer’s block is a condition, primarily associated with writing as a profession, in which an author loses the ability to produce new work. The condition varies widely in intensity. It can be trivial, a temporary difficulty in dealing with the task at hand. At the other extreme, some “blocked” writers have been unable to work for years on end, and some have even abandoned their careers. Throughout history writer’s block has been a documented problem.^[1] Professionals who have struggled with the affliction include author F. Scott Fitzgerald^[2] and pop culture cartoonist Charles M. Schulz.^[3]It can manifest as the affected writer viewing their work as inferior or unsuitable, when in fact it could be the opposite. “

Writer’s Block

Interesting that Charles M. Schulz is one of the famous sufferers.

Causes: Again from Wiki, “Writer’s block may have many or several causes. Some are essentially creative problems that originate within an author’s work itself. A writer may run out of inspiration. The writer may be greatly distracted and feel he or she may have something that needs to be done beforehand. A project may be fundamentally misconceived, or beyond the author’s experience or ability.”

I say, “Bah!” (more…)