Short Takes

For the record, I heard the first peeper Thursday night. And it was a solitary peeper, sounding where some small parcel of wetlands had thawed. Finally. But it sounded strong and persistent as if there was a chorus of a thousand accompanying it. A true outlaw breaking through the grip of winter. Tonight I heard several more. It’s a movement I tell you. Before you know it, there’ll be thousands of the creatures stirring up the night and bringing on the greening.

Creeley. The more I read him the more I saw his genius. The music. Sometimes a rhyming fool. In a strange bizarro way, he’s the Dickinson of the 20th century.

Mr. Wallace thinks I succumbed to peer pressure. He may be right. I’ve fought my logical brain all my life in order to be the very minor poet that I am. I should have been a mathematician, except I couldn’t stand the thought. Still, I always find myself leaning towards the logical. And listing feeds into that side of my brain. But, I have to admit, I understand these poems better than before. But is that a good thing?

Waylon Jennings is CMT’s number one Dirty Dozen Outlaw. Probably true. But I would have moved Steve Earle from the five-spot to at least one and one-half. Now that man is an effing poet.

We’re 25% through the year and my recent obsession with pop music refuses to let go. Got to love the iPod. So here’s the top three albums to-date for 2005:
-Josh Rouse: "Nashville" (every time I play this it grows on me more. Infectious.)
-M. Ward: "Transistor Radio" (Hi Fi sucked me in to his lofi kind of music)
-Andrew Bird: "The Magnificent Production of Eggs" (if just for the title)
Are the mid-noughties seeing a renaissance of the singer-songwriter? Like the mid-seventies? Or have I not been paying attention the past thirty years?

I downloaded Red Rooster’s “Dose” tonight. It’s an interesting concept. A double album. One album of alt-country versions of 10 songs. The other, a more traditional version of the same ten songs.

So I consider myself an outlaw too. A passive-aggressive zen hermit kind of outlaw. The other kind has been co-opted by big media. Or publication frenzy, including all the political sucking-up that goes with it. The Dirty Dozen indeed.

I've been doing the Thoreau blog for almlost 9 months now. I love it, but I think I'll stop after a full year is completed in July.

I have an authority problem. Of all kinds.

UPDATE: Great Frontline on Marketing. Take this name to the bank, because 50% of the Fortune 100 are: Rapaille. His theory centers on the reptilian brain, and, as the Rolling Stones said before he did, you get what you need. And he's in the forefront of figuring that one out. We are the manipulated. Ain't too proud to believe that. Think I'll major in marketing. Know thy enemy.