The Prophet... Rocks!

The Boss was in Oakland last night, and he's there again tonight (but then you knew that if you visited here yesterday).

The show - a two hour and twenty minute extravanganza - was simply astonishing. Astonishing in a somewhat unexpected way. The show - as it seems, from viewing the set lists of the tour, is the case everywhere - is an interesting juxtaposition of some of Bruce's oldest and best tunes and a heavy selection of songs from the new album, Magic. What happens in this context is a broad spectrum experience of what Bruce, at heart has always been about, and how that perspective plays at this time in our personal and collective history.

Starting the show with the clarion call, "Is there anybody ALIVE out there!?" Bruce ripped down through the set starting with Radio Nowhere, the new single, followed by a bone rattling, mind-altering three song line up of "The Ties That Bind," "Lonesome Day," and "Gypsy Biker" - a rock and roll look at what holds people together, and what, in this time of war and malfeasance, tears them apart. As the conslusion of this initial foray into what would be a two hour long musical look at what is wrong - and what is right - about our country right now, Gypsy Biker is an amazing song. The story of a group of people preparing for the return of their friend and brother, it's not until the end of the song that you realize that Gypsy Biker's coming home dead.

Late in the song, there's this lyric:

"The favored march up over the hill
In some fools parade
Shoutin' victory for the righteous
But there ain't much here but graves"

It pretty much describes the perspective that Bruce is taking on the whole scene. Even the title song from the new album, Magic, is explained as a song "not about magic, but about tricks... and their consequences."

Along the way, there's plenty of the real deal... heart stopping, ear clearing, joy inspiring, screaming rock and roll that serves to emphasize the fact that the ugliness and despair is NOT THE WHOLE STORY.

This is Bruce in the sixth year of the Dubya Occupation. He's brought the truth, again, but he's done it with strength and thought, and senstivity, and rock and roll.

The raging funamentalists who are running the Republican agenda right now might try paying attention to some of the hard stories in that Bible they are so proud of declaring to be infallible.

When the Prophet speaks... or in this case ROCKS... one would do well to listen.

Magic Pushing 60

Tonight's the night! Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band play the Oakland Coliseum tonight and I am going to see Bruce and the best rock and roll band anywhere for the first time since I saw them at the end of The Rising tour at San Francisco's Pac Bell Park in 2004.

Last spring, I had the great good fortune of seeing Bruce introduce the Seeger Sessions band and absolutely tear up the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, bringing 30,000+ battle scarred people to their feet to raise their hands in the air and cry out to the city around them "Rise Up!"

It was at that show that Bruce introduced a song that he had written specifically for New Orleans, an adaptation of a song written first during the Great Depression, but adapted for the times by Springsteen, How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?

Tonight in Oakland he's back with Clarence, Little Steven, Patti and the gang... all in support of the amazing new album Magic, an album that does for these war times what The Rising did for our collective psychological struggle with the aftermath of September 11. In this album he looks backwards and forward, reflects on the good things in life (and in our country) and considers from several different angles the ways we have lost our better selves (and a good number of our good people) to the obscene Imperial March of George II.

And that's what Bruce is best at... Somehow he can make you look at what really sucks about life, the world, and the times, without losing yourself, and without losing the goodness of the world and the beauty of people at the same time. He even celebrates those good things while refusing to turn away from the difficult. And he does it all with a kick ass rock and roll band that ranks with the best players anywhere.

At the same time... with his creativity, energy, and drive he does a damn good job of revealing an excellent model for moving into one's seventh decade on the planet.

So... well... I'm excited!

I am just damn ready to share that Magic!

Maniacs Unite!

In one of those early morning synchronistic experiences that the internet is particularly good at generating, this morning I moved from reading headlines at the NYTimes, to clicking on an ad for a book by Greg Mortenson about building schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to a link to the Epilepsy Foundation (where Greg will be speaking in San Francisco next week) to an article about Ironman Triathlete Mark Ashby.

It was this last link that brought me up short, turned me around and slammed me right into the wall of my life.

I have epilepsy.

Most people who know me and read this blog regularly are aware of that, though few people realize the way it affects my life. In the 32 years since I had my first seizure I have been on dilantin to control them with only a few seizures over that time "breaking through," and most of the time that due to the fact that I have (for various legitimate and non-legitimate reasons) gone off my medication. For the most part, epilepsy is not a regular, visible, easily identifiable part of who I am. At the same time, as I learn more and more about the condition I have lived with for over thirty years, I am discovering that it has defined in some way nearly every area of my life.

My specific condition is known as Temporal Lobe Epilepsy and features three specific types of seizures, all of which I have experienced at some time or another. Something that I have only discovered since my last seizure (now nearly a year ago) is the fact tht the "milder seizures" that I experience from time to time are really the experience of my particular brand of the disease. The big full blown shake, rattle and roll type of seizures (SGTCS) that I have had approximately 6 times in 30 years occur when the electrical firings of the Temporal Lobe seizures spread to the rest of the brain... at least that's how I understand it. These have only occured when I have been off medication. The others actually happen on a pretty regular basis and I am only just now discovering that everything from my deep attachment to religious experience, to a long standing bi-polar condition (now mostly over... I hope), to some very strange semi-mystical visions, my argumentative nature, big blow up rages and a significant lack of stable self-control, and even my deep and constant need to write, all have at least some connection to this condition. There's even a theoretical term for the whole package, Geschwind syndrome.

Sometimes I feel like one of the characters on Heros, in possesion of some special world-saving power; sometimes I feel like a member of the cast of Freaks, darkly struggling through a nightmare world of oddity and malaise.

Sometimes it's just plain hard.

Often, I don't want to be who I am, do what I do, or think like I think. A LOT of the time I don't want to take my meds because of the way it feels like dilantin dulls my senses and disrupts my thinking. And thirty years of the drug has wreaked havoc on my teeth and gums.

Through all of this... the most effective thing I have experienced for bringing myself around and maintaining some semblance of stability and order, both mentally and physically, is when I was training for and running marathons.

That's where the story of Mark Ashby comes in.

Marks' discipline (both physically and with his attention to his condition) is an example to me of a way I not only need to live, but a way I would like to live. I have spent much of the last 30 years trying to pretend like I don't have this problem. The fact is I do, but a person like Mark shows what's possible regardless of my condition.

In the article about Mark, there's a quote from Steve Prefontaine... "Most people run a race to see who is fastest, I run a race to see who has the most guts." Mark himself puts it this way, "I think human beings are capable of doing far more than what we would or could ever imagine, and a good portion of us don't challenge ourselves as much as we should – physically and mentally. I'm of the opinion that you should never say 'no' to anything unless you try, and if you have the spirit to try, you should have the power to succeed."

This is the motivation for living I find as I start this day this morning.

I see it in Mark Ashby's training and competition in the Ironman.

I see it in my "step-son" Caleb, who I watched grow into a tall, strong, deep competitor who will be competing in the Xterra championship this month in Maui.

I see it in the dedicated and joyous training and vibrant life-affirming race that Jennifer ran two weeks ago at Lake Berryessa.

I see it as hope, as discipline, as challenge and as life.

And it's time for me to get back on the road.

She's My Maniac!

On Saturday I made the 90 minute drive from Petaluma up through Napa's fall spotted vineyards to beautiful Lake Berryessa (a place in the Bay Area I had never been in my entire 30 years of residency in the area) to watch Jen kick butt in her first ever Triathlon, the Tri Girl Tri. Last year Jen's best friend, Mel (on the left in the picture below) raced the race and Jen went to cheer her on. While she was there, she caught the bug.

Over the last year Jennifer joined the YMCA, took their boot camp fitness classes, started swimming, running and biking, bought a bike to take out on the roads and even adjusted her diet (including giving up alcohol for a month) as she walked the walk (or more accurately swam the swim, road the ride, and ran the run) of training for a demanding event like a triathlon. Then come Friday, she and her cohorts headed for the hills, camping out on the lake the night before, going to bed early in the evening and rising with the sun on race day.

All I had to do was get my butt out of bed and drive up to the lake, and frankly THAT was a daunting task (I got lost twice). Jen and her friends Mel and Kaylynn (seen below) were up and in the water at 9:00 am. What's more... they were SMILING about it! Jen was smiling all the way... or at least she was smiling whenever she came into public view. I'm thinking that she probably wasn't smiling at about mile 10 on the bike when, as she described it herself, she had "Maniac" playing in her head as she kept her legs peddling as fast as they would go 1-2-1-2-1-2...

Jen not only met her goal times, but exceeded them in each leg of the event. She completed the entire race in two hours, twenty one minutes and fortyfive point six seconds, and she did it in fine form.

For me, the whole event, and everything that goes into it, is another one of those moments when I look at the world in amazement and say with Jack Nicholson, "Look what people can do." Just being in the environment and watching my daughter, her friends, and all the other women taking on the challenge was enough to inspire me, and move me to take action for myself. Everything about the atmosphere is a feeling that I crave. The energy, the supporters, the announcers... the endorphins. The gestalt of a fitness event is something that charges me up and makes me want to be better in my own life.

This year's Tri Girl Tri was followed on Sunday by the first all men's Tri at the same event. At the end of her event, while she was STILL smiling, I told Jen that I wanted to do the race next year and that she has to come and do it too. This is the strategy she used on Mel this year... I guess we'll see if it works on her.

Either way... I'm proud of you Jen.. you and your maniac friends.

Annie Lennox Sings!

I've been a fan of the angel voice of Annie Lennox since I first heard her rip through the wash of Dave Stewart's guitar in the Eurhythmics and their take no prisoners attack on musical mediocrity sucked me in and wouldn't let go. I gained a whole new way of looking at my "call to ministry" when Annie belted out her instructions regarding a certainMissionary Man.

In the time since that time she seems to just keep moving forward, leaping higher, digging deeper; getting broader, stronger, more interesting and more amazing with each album.

Her new album - Songs of Mass Destruction - which came out today, is probably the only entertainment material in the universe that could, in my mind, upstage the release today of The Boss's new album, Magic.

And with one song - "Womankind" - she reasserts the great big thing I most love about everything she does. In what she sings, says and becomes - with the entire personna that she creates - Annie shows me just why, and just how much, I really love the reality that is WOMAN.

In addition... the album features an incredible "Choir of 23" joining an astonishing choir of women from South Africa on the song SING! a truly mesmerizing musical call to arms for the struggle to stop the continuing spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa. To accompany the song, there is a website where you can get information on what's going on with this deeply important mission.

This is where art and life meet in the middle of the pavement... the place where the passion that rises when voices are raised is put to use to change the way of the world.

Sing My Sister Sing! Let Your Voice Be Heard!