Sparks from the Fire

How do you get time to slow down?  I’m having a lot of fun these days.  Our new site just went up this morning, we’re in the process of signing 10 new artists and 15 new CDs, the company is growing daily, I’m productive and happily married and it’s sum-sum-summertime!

I look at my life and think, “Hey, this is great.  Let the good times roll.”  And then sometimes I have these dreams where I’m back in college and I’m in my early twenties and, though I’m always a little lost, I’m young again.  I wake up startled to find that a whole lotta years have passed and the years seem to be moving even faster to some nebulous end.

I remember my dad saying that his weeks had become like days, his months like weeks and his years like months.  That was always a bit bizarre to me then, but I’m beginning to understand it now.  Time is, after all, just a perception.  Even Einstein said and proved that time isn’t real.

So if it’s not real then how do we make it up to our advantage?  “How do we slow it down and enjoy the now-ness of life more?” is probably the real question.

And there in the question probably lies the answer.  As always, Be Here Now.  The wise ones say that there is no time – only now.  I believe that, even understand it at times.  I try to live the concept, but don’t very often succeed.  Life just gets going too fast and I get caught up in the whirlwind of it all and then the time really rushes on.

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It is a time of gratitude.  So many of you have written in regarding the Siyahamba Project and Sparks From The Fire.  It’s all worth the long hours of writing when there’s so much feedback.

I’ve spent the weekend trying to answer the stacks of mail.  I’ve got several days to go.  In fact, I’d better get back to the task before me right now.

In the meantime I’m…

Grateful
Music and Lyrics by Peter Link

I wake up every morning
And I am grateful
I’m alive
And every time I count my blessings
I realize that I am here with You

And when each night
I turn the light down
And thank You for my life
Sometimes it is the only way
I know how to pray
I’m grateful for this day

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Yesterday was an amazing day.  The Siyahamba Project that I’ve been working on for the past 4 months and that has recently been performed at the Annual Meeting of the Christian Science Church in Boston was posted on YouTube.  I sat at my computer amazed at the outpouring of gratitude and affection coming from hundreds of people as their letters poured in from across the world for both my wife, Julia Wade, and myself.

Norm

Many people worked together to make this project become the success that it is, but one man was its leader – and very few know about his work because he took no credit.  He is the Producer of the Annual Meeting for the Church and the Executive Producer and visionary of the Siyahamba Project.

I have known Norm Bleichman for over 4 decades now and am blessed to call him my good friend.  We were roommates in college and shared many of the same interests in music, sports and show biz in general.  We also had a popular college campus radio show back then called The Blinkman Show where Norm and I with a cast of total morons would perform send-ups of Superman and Batman comics complete with musical underscoring.

We laughed a lot.  We discovered the Beatles together.  We MC’d many of the campus shows as a stand-up comedy act – he the funny guy, me the straight man.  I say with complete sincerity that Norm Bleichman is the funniest guy I’ve ever known.  He has kept me laughing throughout a lifetime and that’s a lot to say for a friend.

After college he went off to fight for our country in the Viet Nam war while I became a draft dodger.  After the war, he came home to work at his dad’s plastic factory while I came to NYC and started a successful show biz career.  I’ve always said that one of the best things I’ve ever done was to help convince Norm that he could be funny on a national scale and get him to finally quit plastics and go to work as a successful comedy writer in Hollywood.  Doing this, he kept millions of people laughing for many years.

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(If you missed the other installments of this article, simply visit Siyahamba -1st Installment and Siyahamba – Sao Paolo-Installment 2)

We drove slowly through the streets of Masiphumelele, a South African township, ever so slowly and carefully. Its residents filled the narrow streets, men hanging out in bunches on the street corners, women bustling to and fro seeming to be doing all the work, and children, as usual, playing their fast and furious street games excitedly and joyfully.

The poverty was everywhere like I knew it would be. The homes were, in fact, nothing more than corrugated cardboard lean-tos with occasional tin roofs, if they were lucky.  The electricity, I could see, was hand connected to each “home” by a naked wire that ran up to a main cable stretched overhead.

Many homes had no front doors to speak of and so I could just look right into the semi-privacy of darkened living rooms. An occasional out-of-place pink stucco house would bless a street, but more often a ruin or two, too dilapidated for anybody to live in, sat empty and rotting.

(Watch the video we made… Siyahamba Project on YouTube)

Initially known as Site 5, the township was renamed Masiphumelele by its residents, which is a Xhosa word meaning “We will succeed”. In 1990, about 8000 residents lived in the area, mostly in shacks, but by 2005, it had grown to 26,000 people.

I needed to see this place. It was an experience I had to have. I was both fascinated and deeply saddened to see our brothers and sisters living in these conditions.

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(If you missed the other installments of this article, simply visit Siyahamba -1st Installment and Siyahamba – Cape Town-Installment 3)

Letter To Norm Bleichman, Executive Producer written from Sao Paulo, Brazil
April 26, 2009

Hey Norm,

Well that was one of the most beautiful and touching days of my life. What special people the church people are! Well, God certainly pulled out all the stops on these folks. Just beautiful. I curse the language barrier, but somehow we all cut through it.

(Watch the video we made… Siyahamba Project on YouTube)

Flavio Colombini, our Brazilian videographer, has been a total pro throughout the entire experience – always on time, always helpful and always concerned about the project and my welfare. He found me this terrific girl – Daniella Volker – who has followed me around, driven me to and fro and been my personal guide for the weekend. She was my translator today at the session and just did a great job. I was able to keep ‘em laughing even through an interpreter. A good team.

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(If you are looking the other installments of this article, simply visit Siyahamba -Sao Paulo Installment 2 and Siyahamba – Cape Town-Installment 3)

I’ve worked on a thousand musical projects in my lifetime. Some didn’t turn out so well – the result of myriad reasons. Most, gratefully, went well and we achieved what we set out to do. I’m always grateful for the high quality of professionals that I’ve had the opportunity to work with. They always make success possible.

Occasionally the outcome actually surpasses the dream. Yesterday I had such an experience.

Several months ago I was asked to produce a fascinating event for the annual meeting of a major international church. The concept, developed by executive producer, Norm Bleichman and me, was to go around the world and record various churches singing the beautiful South African hymn, “Siyahamba”.

(Watch the video we made… Siyahamba Project on YouTube)

Each location would sing a different verse or chorus and each would be sung to a track recorded in the style of music related to the culture.  The music would then be assembled with video and performed at the church’s annual meeting with the “whole world” singing together in one grand finale.

Siyahamb’ ekukhanyen kwenkhos

Translated from the original Zulu, it means, “We are marching in the light of God.”

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