The Harleys of 2009


Well, we knew it was coming. The metrics (Honda and Yamaha) got traded in this spring for Harley Davidsons. We acquired two softtails, a Heritage and a Deluxe. This has opened up a completely different world to us which has been our obsession for most of this summer, 2009.

The new power and range and comfort of the bigger bikes has made riding a real pleasure. Addeed to that has been the sudden acceptance into new circles of big bikers. Those secret hand waves along the highway pay off. Yes, there is definitely a different respect for those who seriously ride. The Harley mystique is alive and well. Women, too, are getting into the culture big time. It has been entertaining for me, if not irreverent, to watch how people posture and walk around looking at each others bikes and making all the appropriate comments and grunts. A kind of aloofness seems to be prerequisite to "getting to know you." Dogs come to mind.. :)

The wearing of leather also changes the role one plays in society. Leather has its own associations with toughness and endurance. Fact is it is your only protection against the environment of the rider, substituting for the hard shell of automobiles. So it is a necessity but as mentioned comes with a whole lot of social baggage. The styles with zippers and snaps and covered with badges and patches can present quite an intimidating image. How surprising to find that many of these scary tough characters who might cause you to role up you windows in traffic turn out to be incredibly polite and considerate persons.

So we get the new bikes and range far and wide and meet new people who invite you to go further and meet more people and pretty soon your whole circle seems to be bikers and your old friends are looking at you with a sort of, "What happened?" look and they are definitely not going to to there with you. It has been interesting to sit down with people who would never have given you the time of day and find them open to you. The motorcycle, like a puppy. opens new doors and seems to invite contact between like minded people.


Like minded? That's pretty broad. There are vast subcultures within the subculture. From solo and family riders to social groups. From a ride around the hills to big charity rides and rallies, finding our place has not been easy. Adhering to certain values of safety and health and seeking others who share the same concerns is a prime directive. We found a local Honey Farms mega gas station and Dunky Ds that provides some outdoor tables and every evening we descend upon the place with a cluster of other bikers. Sometimes we take off from there on small excursions but most often we sit around talking and waiting to see who else will show up. Because of the size and location of the complex, a steady stream of travelers come off the highway and often join in the conversation with their own stories of high adventure. Have met some great folks.

I love riding. I have put on almost 7000 miles since I got the Harley in early May. It's now early September. What I had thought would be an economical way to get around with triple the gas mileage of my van turned out to get ridden three times as much. You do the math.

I am at a place, now, where I want to define my own role in all of this and determine just how I want to integrate the bike into my creative life. A great deal of time has been spent on this new diversion and not much else has been accomplished. It's time to evaluate this new obsession. Get back to my arts. I have already found the I can just barely squeeze my openback-banjo case into the stock saddlebags that came with the Heritage Softail. Like a cork into a bottle. Twice now I have packed it off to a jam or gig. At present I am trying to organize some sort of art pack for the bike so I can use the bike as a low profile way to get out and do plein aire drawing and painting.

Fall is upon us. Western Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire have some of the best riding available anywhere. Our favorite excursion is to go from hilltown to hilltown, stopping in at the little country stores or pubs that serve each community.

Happy riding

2008-2009

Yup, a couple of rice burners for the sake of MPG. We sure hate having to put them up for the winter, We will see what options offer themselves in the spring.

Meanwhile the ski slopes are seeing a lot of me this year, Wachusett is nearby and we have a small group willing to make the run several times a week.

Had a great trip out to San Francisco in the summer for the Jug Band Festival. There is some stuff on YouTube for the Kapakahi Jug Band from that festival.

Into the Autumn of 07

What a summer. Full of music and travels. From Tennessee to Vermont. Plenty of banjo and parties.

But mostly a sense of getting my life back; of having the energy to get going again.
Really had to cut back and drop all the computer activity, or should I say inactivity. I really think there is something to the theory of needing to burn off the adrenalin that computer anxiety can send coursing through your system, whether from game playing or virtual socializing. Enough is enough.

So as of spring it was back to the woods. Back to the arts. back to creatively expressing myself and doing it in a physical context.

This fall I have returned to contra dancing. Something I did extensively in the past but had drifted away from since the creation of a family and raising of a young daughter. I remember dancing with her in a sling until she became too heavy. Then there was a time when she was 7 or so and she wanted to dance but because of her small size, men would pick her up during a swing. This just wouldn't do and she no longer wished to go. Well now she is close to 14 and can hold her own on the dance floor. It is the finest aerobic exercise I can think of.

Nothing stops the plunker.



Neither rain nor storm nor falling snow. One meditates and melts a circle in the drift. Fear not, the day was warm but when the boughs let go there was still a running for cover.

"I traced her little footprints in the snow."

A Band Reunion

There are all sorts of reunions in our lives. School reunions are probably the most commonly thought about but re connecting with old friends and places and communities also create reunion circumstances. I have the opportunity to look at the feelings as one such time approaches.

Playing in a band creates a unique bond between members. I'm not so much thinking of the professional band where members are thrown together in an extended family situation over a long period of time (like forever) but more the casual band where members gather for the sole purpose of a gig or two and return to their avocations. On the one hand we are all different people with our own lives and often great dissimilarities. Yet we find common ground and gather on occasion to share in that unique sphere of musical expression. For some reason, diverse peoples will share a common response or at least a common attraction to a type and style of music. The common attraction might be intuitive or historic, based on positive experiences in the past associated with a style and rhythm. Maybe it’s all just an innate ability to play in a certain style.

For my self, this common thread has been in the genre of Jug Band music. It's not that that it’s the only sort of music I like. In fact, it's not even my favorite music for normal listening but for reasons unknown, it is the music that came most easily to my guitar and banjo playing. I have always fallen in amongst people who shared an interest in this music. When called upon to contribute a tune, it would be along the old ragtime or early jazz style, altered to fit my abilities of course.

At some point in my history a group of musicians with the time to gather regularly gravitated together out in Honolulu. While some folks sat in and moved on, a core group formed out of those who always seemed to be there. Maybe they stuck together because of their residential permanence in the area or maybe it was their personal need to create a common shared expression. Music is always better and more exciting when you have others to bounce off of.

This group eventually became known as the Kapakahi Jug Band. Many casual gigs were played over the years in a wide variety of venues. It was never clear just how seriously various members took themselves in this but it got serious enough to keep records and to organize a sort of schedule. The monies involved were minimal but through a period there in the late 70s things could get hectic.


In 1981 the band decided to cut a vinyl album. It was self produced and sold hand to hand at gigs. It did help define a membership roster for the band and gave us a way of thinking about ourselves as an entity but by 1983 a general dispersal of this membership put the band back into the casual category of changing membership as new folks would fill in the voids.

Surprise of surprises, 20 some odd years later, the album gets reproduced on CD by a company in Japan called Buffalo Records. This project pulled the members from the eighties together again (bless that internet) and caused us all to look back and reflect upon what had been. It was great to see how a membership still identified with itself and could take itself seriously again raising all sorts of concerns and issues over this new release. A new bond was forming.

Well here we are in 2006 and as a result of all this excitement and reflection we are all cascading into Honolulu for a reunion this year. Not that this is the first time that we thought it would be good to get together again but almost with a life of its own, the band has committed to a time and place and made itself available.

August! What will happen in August? Can these people, whose expressions and musical development which has continued to evolve down new avenues since 1983, return to those thrilling days of yesteryear? ...to those memories frozen in time? I know for myself, that I no longer sing certain songs the same way or even in the same key yet I have a feeling that like riding a bicycle we will lapse easily into what once was.

Reunions are like that. Just as an adult who tells a story of their childhood will lapse into the jargon and manner of speech that was prevalent in the original setting of the story being told, we fall back into the time stamped upon our memories.

That said, it’s time to wash away any expectations and go forward into this as a new adventure. This reunion is a vast blank canvas, full of potential.

Like Bart once said during a partial gathering in 1999,
"It's just like old times, only we all know who we're going home with tonight."

The Album

The Kapakahi Jug Band

Loss

How do we loose what we have never had? This year of 2006 has taken a strange toll on the emotional health of my family. On the surface of it all one would say that nothing so unexpected has occurred but through the eyes of my 12 year old daughter, the foundations of her life have been rocked. In January her grandmother who had been fumbling into dementia seemed to give up and begin to die. She was gone on Valentines day under a full moon. There was no great bond between them but the realization of impermanence struck home in the mind of a pre teen. She began to notice and think about the many deaths that stalk us on TV and in movies and literature.

In late march we all came down with a bout of flu. My wife was struck a bit harder than the rest of us and after a fainting episode, seemed to go into an imbalance that needed medical and emotional attention. The fainting spell and its consequences also placed a lasting fear of loss into the young ones mind.

Then again, the very friend portrayed in the image below playing saw left us very suddenly, taken by a stroke. My daughter did not remember meeting him some 7 years ago but she was well enough aware of the toll his death took on those of us who did know him.

So death has been flying about us and at a time when a young mind is trying to put it all in perspective. My family does not mask the reality of death with beliefs and theories but leaves it open and exposed to be what it is. There is evidence of truth all around us. Every flower that blooms and fades, every thing that forms and dissolves is evidence enough.

Yet it is a hard time for this young girl. The simple cutting of a tree can bring tears. But it is a time that will pass and hopefully leave a strength of character and an understanding of ones place in the greater flow of life.

Banjo Man

My how time flys. There was a time when playing music nearly supported me. Weekly gigs and all. Like so many good things those times passed and I let the ball roll for a while.

In the 80s I moved from Hawaii to New England. I found a very different attitude toward music here. There was a strong sense of the right and wrong way to play certain songs. A sort of ingrown tradition. I did make an effort to find some where to plug in with my self taught style but over the course of 10 years I slowly faded out of performing and eventually stopped playing altogether. Picking up the guitar or banjo became an infrequent ocurance. The tunes seemed old and rut bound. I couldn't break out and I had lost the incentive.

This summer (2005) I was asked if I would be willing to put a few Shakesearian lyrics to the banjo for a production of "As You Like It" that was being set in the "summer of love." Because my daughter was to be in the production I agreed to give it a shot and found myself putting in quite a bit of practice and rehearsel time. The production went well but more than that, I was left with a new inertia and a new willingness to let new things happen in terms of sensativities.

I have been putting in a lot of time ever since the play in early September. New tunes and new approaches to playing some of my own standards have reawaken some of the excitement I used to get from playing. Even thinking of working up a set or two and going public again.

Playing Griselda on the old Vega Ranger