I Was Born For The Stage

I might finally be over my fear of singing and thinking my voice is awful.

Here’s the funny back story of that last song. Michael Stipe, one of a handful of my favorite rock singers, used to love to do a bad Elvis impression. I thought, “What if I tried a Michael Stipe impression of him singing Elvis Style.

My wife and a few others said, no joke, it’s not terrible singing. I really do want to sing I’ve been deathly afraid of it …..

I was born for the stage
I was born to sing
Countless fans adore me
For my uncertain gift

My heart is on fire
I'm alight with desire
To paint the town red
Everyone is my friend

My adoring fans
Call me Saint
Its my singing
And the sounds that I paint

Inner Space Age Rendezvous

I had a rendezvous 
With myself
I took old me
Off the shelf

Old me was young
Let's not split hairs
It really doesn't matter
How we got here

As I was saying
I'm writing new songs
Having the time of my life
Don't get me wrong

I might be old
But that won't stop me
I feel just like a kid
So happy and free

The Puppet Portraitist

I stumbled on a pretty cool new idea – use a small Lumix LX-5 digital camera but take pictures through the two old Twin Lens Reflex cameras I have. I might even devise some sort of bellows.

The Puppet Portraitist
Has an important job
Take pictures of Dummies,
Politicians and other such Slobs

The Puppet Portraitist
Has too much work
Snooty entitled Puppets
And other Selfish Jerks

The Puppet Portraitist
Changed his rules
From now on only good puppets
He won't suffer fools

Three is The Golden Mean

In photography
The rule of thirds
Usually works
Sometimes absurd

When writing
Make three points
Is your strong suit
Sometimes disjoint

When building
The thing that's strong
Is the triangle
Sometimes its wrong

Chorus

Its not always perfect
But most times its right
Three is The Golden Mean
It shines really bright

I’m going back over my best compositions – Music, Photography, Assemblage and Writing and the “Rule of Thirds” does usually work. There are exceptions – I can think of a couple photographers who purposely broke this rule and made great compositions, but for me its a great thing to try to remember in 2022.

I would argue that less is more – that if you break the rule – then use less than three strong parts in your composition.

There are two poets who practiced the (very) long form poetry – William Carlos Williams (Patterson) and various Jack Kerouac long poems. Every time I’ve tried to read these long form poems I stop after the first good part because I find they always run out of gas.

I love Shakespeare’s comment “Brevity is the soul of wit” and I try to follow that advice.