Believe it or not, I turn 64 on 3/29 (today) so I am considering the 3/30 show my “birthday show”, whether the band likes it or not, and for my birthday I want to make memories, doing what I love with those I love. 😊
If you are free, swing by for some classic jams with some spring frivolity and camaraderie!
You can reserve tables at Coomber’s if you are so inclined, call (760) 231-8022 for more info…
More gigs later in the month with both
Drivin the Bus and Strange Crew– (Phil’s birthday bash) and deets to follow.
No Speciesism-
Crows Perform Yet Another Skill Once Thought Distinctively Human Crows are some of the smartest creatures in the animal kingdom. They are capable of making rule-guided decisions and of creating and using tools. They also appear to show an innate sense of what numbers are. Researchers now report that these clever birds are able to understand recursion—the process of embedding structures in other, similar structures—which was long thought to be a uniquely human ability.
These mega-smart crows are cleaning cigarette butts off city streets — and saving millions of dollars in the process: Cigarette butts alone make up a whopping 62% of all street litter in Sweden. You’ve heard of cleanup crews, but what about … cleanup crows? As part of a new anti-litter initiative, the Swedish city of Södertälje is using some fine-feathered friends to help clean cigarette butts off of its streets. The startup behind the mass crow-bilization is called Corvid Cleaning, in honor of the crow family’s scientific name, Corvidae.
We finally know why live music makes us so emotional: Hearing live music tugs at our heartstrings more than a recording, probably because it increases activity in an emotion-processing region in our brain
Filmmaker Bao Nguyen on His Triumphant ‘The Greatest Night in Pop’ We asked, “The Greatest Night in Pop” director Bao Nguyen everything you would want to know about “We are the World.”
Classical musicians got stuck in traffic with their instruments, and there was only one thing to do: A blocked motorway becomes a concert hall, as a classical violinist and musician friends take out their instruments to help entertain stationary drivers.
Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to try a digital detox, so I will catch you on the flip side.
Meanwhile do know you are enough, beware of compassion fatigue, enjoy the poem and humor, and consider unsubscribing from everything that doesn’t feed your soul.
Joy is non-negotiable!
Love,
Neville
“Enough” by Andrea Gibson:
Last night I painted a purple tree on my bedroom wall
I woke up this morning in a pile of leaves
The color of a million different faces
Thinking of that hand
That planted the seed
Of the family tree
That grew us all
And how each one of us
Will one day fall back to the ground
This morning
I was listening to my heart pound
Knowing with every single beat
That a thousand other hearts
Were falling asleep forever
On a day they never thought they would
And I know there are tribes of aborigines
That decide how and when they’ll die
After a hundred years or so
They walk into the desert alone
Offer up their breath
And within two minutes
Soar into a death
As beautiful as their life
And I was thinking I
Will probably never be enlightened enough
To decide how I want to die
So this morning
I decided how I want to live
What I want to give
What kind of song I want to sing
Now I’m no longer
Looking at my days like they’re a cup
Calling them half empty or half full
When they’ve always been enough
They’ll always be enough
To fill me up
If I stop thinking so much
And start drinking them up
Until I get so drunk and high on my days
I’ll be walking up to strangers and saying things like
“Hey, I know Jesus was born in a manger
But I woke at dawn today
To watch the earth’s horizon
Give birth to true rising sun of God
And I can’t stop singing hallelujah”
Can you believe we’re here?
Can you believe there are gods somewhere praying to us?
I want to be that nut on a bus
Who’s really a prophet
Telling everybody
“Smoking is bad
Stop it
You might be an opera singer some day
And how are you gonna hit the high notes?”
I wanna live like those high notes
That rise from the throats of old ladies
When they see little babies
Riding in shopping carts
I wanna start somebody’s heart like that
Taking ninety years back
So you’ll have sworn
You weren’t born
Until you saw me
Planting roses
In all the sidewalk cracks
So when you trip
You’ll fall in love
With someone you thought you hated
And now look at what that love has created
Look
There’s a sky
On her faded blue jeans
With a flock of birds
About to fly to my words
And my next line’s
Gonna rhyme with her eyes
And she’ll wink
And I’ll think I’m as beautiful as him
I wanna live my life
Like it’s a little league game
I don’t care if I win
Just wanna watch some little girl
Get her very first hit
Watch her father cheer so hard
He spills his beer
And decides to quit
I wanna split some woman’s
Tired eyes open
Wake her with her own sunrise
So she knows
There’s reason to be hoping
She’ll say
“There are stingers in my heart
But I’m sure that I’m a queen”
And that night
She’ll vow to swarm
Until every angry car horn
Is reborn a song
Of let there be light
Every angry war cry reborn
A song of let there be life
I wanna build the timid teenage boy
A microphone that will
Echo his rhymes
The same way
They echo in his shower
When he’s home alone
I wanna write poems
In the tone
Of your mother’s eyes
When she whispered your name
For the very first time
Poems that will make you go home
Pick up the phone
And call her
While I call mine to say
“You know those lines
On the kitchen wall
Where I grew
Taller and taller and taller
Put a couple more there won’t you?
Cause I’m growing up here”
No longer looking at my days
Like they’re a cup
Calling them enough
From now on
They’ll be overflowing
Since now I’m knowing
It’s up to me
To fill them up
The big idea: is compassion fatigue real? Can we really maintain our levels of empathy in the face of an increasingly brutal news cycle?
Unsubcribe from everything to start controlling the tech in your life:
Does the number of unread messages in your inbox leave you lightheaded? Do your thumbs ache from tiny-keyboard typing? Have you forgotten what your real-life friends look like without an Instagram filter? It’s time for an intervention: