Music has been moving me

I've been away for a while. There is a lot going on in Marshall, Texas, these days in both the city and its tourism effort. I'm really appreciating how near I am to all the different aspects of the city, from its night life to its business and industry improvements. It's growing clear to me that these really are different times for this town.

The enthusiasm I have found surrounding some of the venues seems to be suffering along with the heat but there are some real bright spots to keep it hot and hopping. Music in downtown has really had my attention. I've been going to the outdoor performances more and more, watching how the crowd changes. I love meeting all the people out there and getting to hang out with some of the musicians.

All of them are so cool. I was really glad to see Danny Haggar playing out at Summer Wonder. I've known him pretty much since I started trying to live here and go out and about around Caddo Lake and Uncertain. I like that touristy-not-touristy feel that little town has.

This is the Internet, so you will be scrolling down and not jumping there like in newspaper. I've added the descriptions in above the photos for this reason. These are also in no particular order.


I used to sing karaoke with Danny sometimes, and that was a blast.

He told me he played music with his son, Dustin, who is singing in the center.

Just got through listening to Pony Bubp playing an unexpected concert at Under The Texas Sun. Excellent music by Pony as always, and I actually felt honored to pass the tip jar around on his behalf. He has a great sound and lots of dedication. I look forward to seeing him out again.

Larry Tallant plays from his heart and sounds good at it. I appreciate the way he comes out as often as he can and supports all the other musicians. He's also one of the funniest dudes out there.

John Fox sings and plays guitar for the Good Time Rounders with Nick Brumley on drums, Eric Gardner on bass, Pap Watson on guitar and Sam Kilpatrick also on electric guitar. They perform around the East Texas region and into Shreveport, and some of them are known to sit in with other bands from time to time.

These guys play at Telegraph Stage every week on Thursday nights and used to have a regular night out in front of OS2 pub. Here, they're playing the stage for Second Saturday in May.

I absolutely love the way the street fills up for the monthly festival put on by his Illustriousness Bo Ellis, who should be praised and bowed to with utmost respect and servitude. No, seriously, he needs volunteers, can always use funding and deserves all the credit one can muster to acknowledge. 

I believe these are from the June set. I think the wayfinding banners are fantastic for photography. Nobody will be able to come downtown and have a great time on film without also telling the wide world that they were in Marshall, Texas. There was a way finding banner in most of these photos.

 There's no need for a wayfinding banner with the courthouse in view. I love the courthouse. I've called it "stupid" a few times but only because I think it's better if people view the courthouse than view artwork of the courthouse while in view of the actual courthouse. I think it would be cool if some historic trial were reenacted there and it could become famous for something other than its beauty.

How family is this one with the baby carriage? I love that family feel. It might be nice to have a little more for kids to do while they're there during the cooler months. I thought it might be neat to see a sandbox on a trailer or something where we could just pull it up and let them dig around in it and maybe hide little prizes for them to find and build castles.

The Monday night jams over in front of Under The Texas Sun are a light in my week. I've only been to three or four of them, but they are a neat hangout for the beginning of my week.

This is Billy Pool, and too cool. (if you know I got a name wrong, please advise... it's been a few weeks since I took this.

Eddie Reno plays the fiddle in front of Under The Texas Sun

Rickey Maxey, a truly compassionate biologist and a great guitar player who gives a lot of soul.

Nick Brumley, local rising star and multi-talented musician. Love his attitude and hattiude in this picture.

OK... well enough with the photos. I've loved being out there and taking them. Time to move along to something else for the day. Hope this doesn't take forever to load.

Peace,
Terri

Looking at you, looking at me

It's amazing how most people never notice their own reflections in other peoples eyes when they speak to one another. They don't know how to listen to each other, reach the solutions on the first try and keep right on going.

Real listening happens in the heart, and that's just how you get to the heart of any matter. Can you look me in the eye and share your mission?

Mostly, people are so focused on their own visions and purposes that they never heard yours. Maybe, as you explained, they imagined how yours fit with theirs. Maybe they imagined how yours fit beside theirs, but probably they didn't absorb a word you said and went right on having their self-centered thoughts. 

Selfish motivations are perfect if you are only trying to please yourself. After that, you have to consider that everyone has to get something out of it if they are expected to participate. 

Some people, rare people, will generously give anything for the simple pleasure of giving. Most, want something in return -- whether it's joy, entertainment, social interaction, a profit, sometimes love or friendship. It's easy to tell who works for the money and who works for reasons you can't package.

Why is it that some people find it more fulfilling to whine about what other people have than to figure out how to get it on their own? 

It's a great big sandbox world out there, people. There's room enough for everyone to actually build their own dream castles, enough resources for everyone to find something with which to create them. People really are just waiting at the gates to see what gets all mixed in.

There are enough people not doing anything these days that if you really want to do the leg work, you can find them and bring them to your aid. Better yet, find someone whose passion is to recruit them for you. There is enough money and attention wasted on things empty, unsatisfying, and meaningless that it doesn't take much to gain an audience for worthy things. Plenty of people have nothing better to do.

That said, just make it experiential and worthy of notice. Easy. Here's where you go back to the heart. Stir them.

After that, just make sure that plenty of people see it and that their experience with it is pleasant. Easy. It's the age of the Internet, after all. 

Forget all the bickering, the whining, the coveting of others' resources, the criticism of their vision. They and no one else will hear you talking about your projects after zoning out while you whined so well. Negative campaigning does no good unless you can use real proof, and your opinion does not count as proof.

Don't expect anyone else to care about your project as much as you.

Don't be an elitist. Be inclusive. Act like your neighbors are your neighbors. Even if they are from another planet, they will only hang around so long as they want. 

Until there is more

I keep hoping that whatever I have, whatever there is, will be enough until there is more. It's like growing pains and realizing there's no use in complaining, like having a desire in sight because I'm also the creator of a very real vision which I move toward with all my might. It's as real as anything you've ever touched or tasted, heard or felt; it's a sense that everyone can have what they want. 

My public life follows me home like a shadow, reminding me that no matter which way I turn myself toward the light it will be upon me. Sometimes I look it full on and know that it's me. Sometimes it's out of sight and out of mind, no matter how pervasive it may be in attempting to burn my eyes -- a full emotional replicate alive in my heart. 

And I feel it growing, building, and somehow the same as always -- this town of Marshall. There's a movement going on, and it's happening in so many directions at once that few people can comprehend its scope on such a persistent basis. Such reflections from my eyes are your media -- from my mind and heart, and hands -- showing it back as clearly as possible. Is there any wonder that virtues are found more fully explained than shortcomings -- crucially acknowledged, never cruelly.

And I keep hoping that whatever there is creating this movement will be enough until there is more. I want to climb after all of it, marching after the pieces of the puzzle until the point where the effort has all been for the best. So I fly out in every direction, knowing that each tiny piece is important, that every person's sacrifices count.

Somehow we're moving outward and upward, making the stability we'll need to sustain the community spirit that drives it. Believing in the whole thing, all at once, and being called upon to acknowledge and share the stories of so many different elements playing all out at once -- is maddeningly endearing. Then, I'm at a loss on the point in pushing and shoving toward someone else's hard-gained rewards when they could use their very own persistence, resourcefulness and imagination for the gains they seek. 

Still and daily I become engendered to this magnificent event of momentum that I imagine a community choir, build some buzz for it and make contacts with leaders to get it going. Why not? And as for community pride, everyone has history -- let's celebrate the topic of history itself with lectures and events in a history festival. Let me share my vision with you. Then, let's build it together. 

Coming here, I didn't know I was going to like it. I didn't even like myself back then like I have learned to love my life here in this place. It's something I'm still learning as I pass myself from one doorway to another in hopes of doing one more right thing to prove my part played well. Phone up and phone down, emails, meetings, meetings, meetings... and there's no substitute to living it. I wouldn't trade living it. It makes me pity the ones scraping their expectations against the grit of second hand details, even from me.

I'm living it, not just living with it.

I'm a cheerleader for Hometown Computers. It's building. I see it. I dream it, and I'm in this dream hoping that whatever there is will be enough until there is more. How I could find a town, then a sweet and solid love relationship all in one swipe? It was the answer to a prayer I didn't know with any certainty that I was making.

When Charles Compton appeared, I saw him bravely attempting to shape his own dream from a passion for computers, and I was looking the movement full in the face with my vision for the rest staring me down through the filter of his dream. To say we have everything in the shop would be putting it mildly. Who can put a price tag on someone else's sacrifices?

The best kind of sacrifice is one made in love, whether it be for self or something greater. For the love their own interests Marshall has more going on in the arts, in music, in tourism, with the Birthplace of Boogie Woogie Project, in commerce, with industries, in busily building and creating things than I can keep up with whatever duty there is to see it all maintained. There's no removing the city from any part of these things, and boy wouldn't the political prerogatives be disappointed if they couldn't take some credit for it?

So, I see my visions growing into the movement of the other. I see them separately, like so many first names all around me, moving toward something great and at an achingly fast pace. The centrifugal force demands I stand on the side and do my best to reflect the whole thing, with so much honesty as I can muster. It sucks me in.

I tell myself I have a good compass, that my needle will be just as sharp as I need it be and it won't matter how fast the rest may spin. I set my own paths by this and can leave my own sense of direction at home like I can leave my shadow at the office. 

Marshall's movement is a study, but also an inspiration for me to jump right into believing such potential is not such a silly dream after all. Like the rest, I'm just hoping to have something sweet from seeds of my own sacrifices until whatever I have, whatever there is, will be enough until there is more.

I wonder

I never got into the rave scene even though I was in Dallas during the middle of 2000 until 2003. It never struck me to go. I was doing the poetry scene and hanging out with artists and felt pretty good about that kind of exposure. But more people speaking out for drugs all over and gatherings... like this one. This is the new channel, and it's happening out front.

 Rave moves from Las Angeles to Las Vegas venue

This story makes me wonder what's going to happen with then national spirit of youth is stirred to finally be more active as well as convincing. In the 60s and 70s, the movement of the babyboomers was by no mistake understood and known in Every home. The way communication has changed, nobody is seeing all the same stuff. If "melts in your mouth, not in your hand" came out today,  nobody would know what an M&M was -- much less that people ever ate things that didn't come in packages.

What happens when the back-building of peoples movements gains a stream and they choose to think in channels instead of be given channels. You can't have this much energy and not have it create a current to swirl things up. I've seen the "slow and steady wins the race" thing going on, but I wonder what happens when predictions of society are combined with this kind of youthful spirit.

Universal Heartbeat

"Universal Heartbeat"

I am --
And like the thunder
It shook them all,
But only some were
Awake enough to notice

Within their steeled hearts
Their weary souls
Cower and respond: Ignorance (wrapped in wonder)
And then softly: status quo

Dreams have been
Left for
Such sleeping star children
It plays them each
A melody of hope
Pulsing galactic
In their veins

It beats
I am, I will
I am, I do
I am, I am

Waking star children
Let their eyes drop ice-sickles
Across keyboard handshakes
Of cold, blue screen-reflections
And meet brothers and sisters
On wires, in mega-computers

They're anchored tightly
Into a necessity
Food, air, shelter, water... love
They become the machine
And bound to its devices
Respond they: status quo
Noting nothing, no

Unshielded realizations
Inside them all
It beats
It beats the call
I am, I am
Forever have I been

But they have forgotten
To be, to say
What it is they have forgotten
But then, there is the breathing
And the beat
I am, I am
Sounding slightly louder
Neighbor to neighbor

And casting off the cold
It beats -- on
--Quit pretending
--Start believing
In the universe
I am,
A whisper

Ear to breast
Leaking messages of
Activist souls
Into the wave of all communication
In battlement with: status quo

Slow and steady
Slow and steady
They get ready
I am,
I am

It beats,
And star children wake
And secret wisdoms wake
It beats some
Til they break

I am,
I AM

Awake --

Neighbors sleeping near
Suckled on their: status quo
Ask the wrong questions
Follow all the same directions
While searching for meaning
In a chapter
That's long been closed