SouthEast Lights Journal

Random Musical Memories

Back from the mini-vaca well rested and spoiled after being able to do whatever we wanted to do, whenever we wanted to do it. It's fantastic not living a life that revolves around a work schedule that requires getting up with the sun on most days and then trying to catch up for getting 5 hours of sleep a night on days off. With the weather so nice and a lot to do outside, it's much harder setting time aside to write this journal in the sultry Southern summer than it is in the depressing depths of winter. I'm going to end the month as I started it, with the topic of music, and write a little bit about what it has meant to me throughout my life.

The Dining Rooms - Numero Deux

Ian Pooley - Stoney Ridge Terrace

The two music videos above are representative of the style of music I usually listen to now. I believe the current term for this genre is chill, chill-out, or lounge music. I couldn't care less for the nomenclature involved, it's a magnificent form of music I discovered via Pandora back in 2005. How I got to that point after being born the same year that rock and roll was created has been an enlightening journey and I'll illuminate the high points I've experienced along the way.

The first rock and roll song I can remember hearing was Del Shannon's Runaway. I don't know why it stuck in my mind but it has. Other than the sense of smell, I don't think anything can put you in the Wayback Machine faster than music. I think some people have a tendency to associate a certain song with a specific time in their lives, so it triggers very vivid memories. At least it does with me.

I'm going to do my very best to avoid the typical Baby Boomer bullshit but it's really hard to argue there was any better time for music than the period from 1955 to 1975 or so. If you were a kid in the early 60's, chances are you had "transistor" radio to listen to AM stations. Everyone had heard of the Beatles, The Stones, etc. because of their TV appearances but radio was the real key to discovering new music from groups who were not so popular.

That's how a white boy in a mostly segregated Southern city first discovered the Motown Sound. To this day, listening to Dancing In The Street by Martha and the Vandellas instantly transports me back to the bedroom I shared with my older brother on Chichester Ave., singing along with Martha at the top of my lungs. The old man and step-mother were into Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra; my oldest brother loved Elvis and thought rock and roll died when The Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan; another one was into Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash, while the other one listened to anything everyone else did. The transistor radio exposed me to music I never, ever would have heard. Listening to Martha and the Vandellas, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, The Temptations and similar groups sounded like nothing I'd ever heard before, or since.

War - All Day Music

Moody Blues - Story In Your Eyes

For the teenagers of my generation where I grew up, getting your drivers license was a fucking passport to freedom. No longer confined to the area around your house that you could get to on a Stingray, a car meant not walking or taking the bus to school, going where you wanted to go - when you wanted to go, in addition to going out on dates. Going "parking" in Cherokee Park was the first step in getting laid and that meant you had to have decent car radio. Later on it became a car stereo with additional speakers in the back, in addition to a 4-track tape deck, that became an 8-track tape, that became a cassette tape.

Tapes were a hell of a lot easier to share/borrow than LP's, so that became another way to discover music. All I've got to do is hear All Day Music by War and I'm instantly transported back to when I'm rolling down Eastern Parkway with my girlfriend in the Mustang, windows down, wind blowing our long hair ( yes kiddies, g-g-grandpa had hair back then) listening to her twin sisters 8-track. Tapes gave us the freedom to listen to the music we wanted to listen to, instead of the radio.

Thinking about that yanks me back to 1973 and being in love for the first time. In a shotgun shack just down the street from St. Joseph's Infirmary on a cold winter's night, my girlfriend and I do some blotter, the first time she'd ever done LSD. Turned up the gas heater in the fireplace to the max to stay warm and started to see the most amazing things emanate from the fire. She's looking back and forth between me and the fire asking, "Did you just see that??!!... I can't believe I've never seen fire like this before!!!". We lock eyes as the Moody Blues song Story In Your Eyes cascades out from the speaker. As we hear "...and the sound we make together, is the music to the story in your eyes, it's been shining down upon you now, I realize…" we become lost in each other's eyes. For the first time in my life, I connect with another human being who I know actually loves me and I allow myself to love her right back.

Words cannot describe that feeling.

Think I'll pause here, because this is getting long and probably boring for you all but I'll return to subject of music later on. It's such an important part of my life as it helps to explain how I am, what I was and who I will be.

Odds and Ends Before Some Time Off

Getting ready for a mini-vacation where we get to sleep in and see what it's going to be like in retirement. Even though that's a couple years away, as Sting wrote, "It may seem a million miles away, but it gets a little closer every day." Unfortunately, it can't come fast enough, as my wife is as burned out of her profession as a person can be. The only reason she's still working is because of health insurance and in a couple years when we qualify for Medicare, she will be able to, as Snagglepuss used to say, "Exit, stage right."

I haven't been able to post any photos for the last several months, as the Nikon 4300 is having technical issues that hopefully will be corrected soon. That's a shame because I could have used it to document issues I've had this year with botrytis, commonly known as bud rot or gray mold. The first SouthEast Lights grow this year has been quite problematic because of this, due to high humidity conditions in the basement tent. No matter how much air circulation you provide, if the 675 CFM of air is already at 85% relative humidity, not much evaporation will take place. It certainly doesn't help that the colas were as big as my wrist. I've probably lost half of the colas because as soon as I saw any signs, I clipped the entire bud. Excision is the only treatment.

This was never a problem when I was doing things in the closet because I could utilize a window air conditioner during times of high humidity/temp. I'm still learning as I go along with the basement tent, so next year I will invest in a dehumidifier. The advantage of the tent is even with the loss of a bunch of prime buds, it's so large compared to the closet that I'll still have enough to last us until the next harvest. I harvested the last plants yesterday and luckily I have clones of the best one. It was one of three plants that had no trouble at all with bud rot and was the pheno I've been looking for. I've also started 15 plants from seed that I'm hoping will produce a dominant male, as I want to fertilize one of the clones to see if I can gain a bit more height now that I'm utilizing a tent.

I almost never know what I'm going to write about until I sit down in front of the monitor. I've been avoiding politics as much as possible but with the recent movement in Oklahoma on medical cannabis, I'm going to have to write about it at some point in the future. A fucking Okie From Muskogee will soon be able to purchase medical cannabis. That is truly a monumental event in legalization efforts.

I guess the people of Oklahoma now understand what Pure Prairie League sang to Merle Haggard back in '75, "You're better with a joint than with a drink, I think."

Can Music Save Your Mortal Soul?

The title of this journal entry comes from the song American Pie by Don Mclean, which was released in '71. I was 16 years old and sitting in my '65 Mustang after working as a cook at Davidson's Cafeteria, smoking a joint with co-workers, when I heard this song. I remember like it was yesterday… the stanky, humid smell of the dumpster I parked next to, the giggling and laughing of the busboy and waitress who couldn't believe the "meshmacon" was so good, but most important, trying to figure out what those fucking lyrics meant.

The lyrical content of a song is just as important as the musical instruments and vocal talent of the singer. Music communicates with both the conscious and the subconscious, vocal lyrics with the conscious and the sounds musical instruments make with the subconscious. Together, they create an emotional feeling like no other art form. Music can, in fact, save your mortal soul, at least it did for me.

Music has been a constant and primary influence throughout my life, even though I could never sing or play an instrument. From the first time I tried cannabis and heard White Rabbit, I developed a way to hear each individual instrument as they came together to create the sound of a song. I could differentiate between the bass, guitar, and drum sounds as they merged with vocals to create the songs that I was listening to.

photo of old SouthEast Lights flower

Even though our kids inherited an appreciation of music, like us, none of them play an instrument. But now we have a grandson who not only plays in his school band, he also has a real passion and talent for drums, even though he has to play trombone in the band. He stuck with it, learned to read music and most importantly, he didn't quit just because he couldn't play his favorite instrument. I have a feeling he will be a creative, performing arts type because at the age of 13, he told me he loved dancing, singing and performing.

My wife and I wanted to do everything we could to encourage his passion, so we got him a set of Ludwig drums. I had him watch a YouTube video of the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and, what I consider the best live drum solo ever recorded, Santana at Woodstock doing Soul Sacrifice. Maybe one day he will have a part in saving rock and roll from fading away, as it is today. One of the best advantages of being a grandparent is being able to do things for them that you couldn't do for your kids, like my grandparents did for me.