J. S. Oppenheim — All Together

I confess to exhaustion.

You know when that hot Tuesday night music gig bumps to an even hotter Monday night gig that bumps away to Monday Night Football, that some things may not work, not because they won’t, but, perhaps because one doesn’t want them too.

I’ve had about a year of one-night weekly stands before a mic sitting on a bar stool or standing to consider whether I wanted now, with less capital than when I started, to put a sound system fit to a Mustang (Bose “L” series — about $2,000 would do) into the trunk and go a-bothering a lot of bar and restaurant owners.

Well, 57, just about, with leukemia (also  two MA’s plus an international life online via Facebook and other blogs) seems something different than 17, 27, or 37 (by 47, so things had turned out, I’d been seven years in the country-western dance culture of central Maryland: I guess back then I’d rather have danced with or held a girl than a guitar, although I cheated and there was a five-month interlude involving a restaurant, a deck, a square and roaring fire pit, and a fair share of Bob Dylan and John Denver).

In any case, the live music work’s out of the way for a while.

With proven (and loved) pro-level skill in music, nothing’s all that over.

Invitations to jams and parties remain open, and I’ll go as other things fall into place.

Music remains a social engine, one of two as I continue with the synagogue (and there I sing in the choir) and am looking around for a nice Jewish girl.

Also, one of the church music directors in town wants to record, and as I’ve held on to enough of my own lyrics and tunes over the years, I’ll be able to start with that as soon as he’s ready.

The main thing here is the music domain seems back in its place.

And for once, I’m totally okay with that.

I may even indulge going to the Georgia Boy on Monday night just slide on to a red leather bar stool, sip bourbon, and watch the game like anyone else.

* * * * *

The “Mum” was last year’s planting.

I’m behind with the fall garden this year, but chalk that off to hours spent chatyping on Facebook and deepening involvement with the Islamic Small Wars, conflict and psychology, Pakistani progressives, and such.

One may glean from the preceding paragraph alone what has happened with Peter Pan’s long run with boyhood and the magical arts.

Three Black Eyed Susan photographed on Ektachrome with a Mamiya 645 AF and scanned at 3200-dpi, a beautiful way to work with photography but, alas, perhaps more appropriate to a less frantic — want it now, get it now, do it now, post it now — age.

Along with the expansive interests and accompanying intellectual enrichment, I’ve the faint glimmer of age spots coming out on my forehead.

I also like to put on a sport coat — not the community’s bar going standard for any given Saturday afternoon — to dine at The Black Eyed Susan North, a fabulous restaurant about a mile or two from my door (I’d link, but I’m not happy with the restaurant’s immediate web presence, main page or Facebook, so I’ll let the reader web search if he wants: it’s the kitchen that’s terrific).

Here’s a glimpse with the lowering sun hitting the bottles.

A lowering winter sun lights the bar at the Black Eyed Susan North restaurant, Hagerstown, Maryland.

My own bar, grill, library, studio, theater have aged too, delightfully so.

My Space has long been My Office, or the same has been a long time coming — all those books, about 2,000 of them, in boxes in basements or picked up at thrifts over the past six years; then there’s the computer I built five years ago (it’s in use here) — all the things one acquires and puts into permanent place; etc.  I’m not going to fight it anymore: I have really got the mansion (as an old bachelor engaged in the study of conflict, language, psychology, and, I suppose, spirituality, I should call it the Old Manse) in the country stuffed into a cabin in the wood compressed into an apartment on the eastern edge of western Maryland.

I’ve only to retreat offline — most of all away from the quasi-professional cultural, political, and social entanglements I’ve created on Facebook — to make good use of the situation and get on to these other things.

* * * * *

Straw Girl’s my “Wilson”!

I’ve been thinking about bragging up editorial and research services for contracting.

I’ve been thinking also about returning to creative writing.

The model wanted has been always involved searching for compensated work — I really would like to see (and expect to see) contracts as a writer — balanced by lucrative adventures involving art making, specifically composing with music, photography, or (creative) writing.

God knows I’ve trained well!

And so may all dream on or get on with dreams.