Sunday, August 16, 2009

Summer's Almost Over

Dear Les Paul,


Thank you for wanting to improve upon the sound of your guitar and putting pickups on a 4 x 4”; and thank you for rejecting the rejection of the skeptics who thought you were a little off-kiltered in the noggin. I cannot say that I like to have your namesake model and all of its weight hanging from my neck, but I sure do appreciate what it’s done in the grand scheme of all things sonic.


Thank you for the Octopus. It took a great thinker to imagine the idea and consider the possibilities of synchronizing tape machines to one another. From the bottom of my heart I will be thanking you forever for this thing we call sound on sound.


I regret having never put my ears in the same room as you and your guitar. This would have been a rather easy thing to accomplish, what with you performing weekly in a city only a short way away. I guess I kept putting it off, but I know there are probably a hundred Monday nights, any of which I could have made that short trip, that I spent doing much less exciting and entertaining things. For that I apologize to you, but in reality I surely should be apologizing to myself.

xoxo

_____________________________________________________________________________________


Charles Bukowski wrote: “you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life”. Les Paul may have succumbed to the former, but seemingly increased the frequency of the later as well. We should make a pact to follow that lead. Let us pinky swear upon it. It may be somewhat morbid, but the next time you find yourself with your legs bent at the knees and the incandescent glow of the small screen illuminating your eyes ask yourself if it’s enlightening your mind or warming your heart. If you were to fall asleep for the last time tonight what things would you rather have done in place of the many things that you seem to think you “did”?


A building bank account might look good on paper or when you’re thinking “toward the future”, but what if that future never comes? You can’t pay-off the reaper in dollars and cents. We would all be better suited if we spent less time focused on the “responsibilities” of life and dedicate more to smiling, laughing, and elevating our souls into the clouds. If you have a chance to do something special, exciting, new, or any little thing that would make you smile, jump at the chance, take it and relish in every moment of it, breath it deeply into your lungs and let your blood carry it to every cell in your body. Escape the humdrum and live your life, you might not get another chance.


In closing, let us also reflect on the words of another celebrated American writer, Mr John Hughes: “Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”


PS: As usual, a very many great things are in the works within the NotRock tribe. Some are private, some are secret, but some are ready to be shared.


Insouciant is playing a show this Saturday night.

If you hadn’t planned on attending, this has changed your mind, yes?


John Fisher has put the prologue to his upcoming feature film The Fallout Chronicles on the interweb so that you can watch it. I watched it and it drummed up all sorts of excitement for me, I reckon’ it’ll do the same for you as well.


Also, if you are a netflix kind of kid, put this and this on your list, ok?

1 comment:

clark! said...

so, this is clark / stew. i'm a crappy friend and probably haven't spoken to you in about 3 years or so. anyway, i was rocking out pretty hard to the last letterbox ep the other night, and decided to come on over to this site on a wave a nostalgia. i was pleasently suprised to see your film site. it looks like it is going to be hecka awesome. just thought you would like to know.

p.s. how are you? what on earth is everyone up to? my wife and i had a baby. i plan on raising her to be the most awesome human ever. so watch out for that.