What are you doing on top of this mountain, Old Man?

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Becoming a less-interesting conversationalist, my son.

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I have a whole long essay for EOB in my head that I’ve been working on this week, about the subject of simplifying your inner life in order to become a more whole person. Because I’ve always been interested in knowing damn near everything, and I’ve come to the realization that I know less every year, even though I constantly struggle to learn more. It’s fractured me badly over the years, instead of leading me nearer to completeness, as I once believed it would.

Living inside the Internets as we do has made it worse, of course. I too often am unable to focus on what’s important, because it ALL feels important, and bits and bytes of data are so much more easily accessible than they’ve ever been. I am in a constant feedback loop of data acquisition.

You’re a many-layered and knowledgeable individual like that, too, and that’s why I cherish you. But it’s been a tough decade for us all, and being that smart and aware of everything in the world doesn’t seem to be such a benefit sometimes.

The essay was going to be lengthy and complex, with lots of chewy intellectual content to provoke your commentary. We could still talk about it a lot right now, and maybe even come to some great conclusions. Draw up an action plan. With diagrams and labels, and some pictures, even. Discuss the pros and cons, for there always are pros and cons. Vote on optimal courses of action, maybe.

But I think I’ll just go sit under this tree for awhile instead. We’ll get back to the complicated stuff later, when it’s necessary. If it ever is.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let go.

Green love.

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One evening several years back, Caroline and the Dude made me watch ‘Still Crazy’. I’d never even heard of it. Mad props to them both. I came away a big fan of the Seventies band ‘Strange Fruit’. The back-story is that there was constant craziness in the band in the old days, culminating in the band’s breaking up and the soon-thereafter death of their lead guitarist, Brian.

Here’s a delightful little making-of-the-movie featurette.

Decades later, the remaining members are cajoled into embarking on a comeback tour to prep for a show at a big festival. At first, it doesn’t go well at all, at all. Bill Nighy, as the frontman, Ray, finally hits his stride at this gig, though:

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Two-Headed Baby struggled with this song quite a bit. I like it a lot, but never could play it properly. I think I’d like to take another whack at it sometime, though. I’ll really learn the riff this time, guys, I swear it.

One of the conflicts in the band centered around the fact that the other band members wouldn’t ever let the bass player sing. I can relate to that.

He finally does get his moment in the spotlight in this next clip. Not to mention the surprise return of Brian, who *gasp* isn’t really dead.

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This really is a helluva movie, gang. It’s funny, sad, sweet, and smart. And we’re all old enough here to appreciate its theme of dreams lost and found.

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EDIT:  Incidentally, if you’d like to see the whole movie on-line, you can start here. Then use your skillz to figure out where to go next.

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