Cloud Surfing

This afternoon I spoke to the Rotary Club in Oakland. My connection to the Grateful Dead was the hook, and my theme was “My Improvised Life.” I recorded it on my iPhone, if you’d care to hear it. It’s about 27 minutes.

Thanks to C.J. Hirschfield (executive director of Children’s Fairyland) for inviting me!

I’ve been sick in bed with a nasty intestinal thing, accompanied by a high fever. When I was a kid, I had high fevers, and they were always accompanied by really great hallucinations. I had a very intense dream the morning the fever hit, and this time I was able to write most of it down before it evaporated.

Rita and I were driving in Charleston SC, and lost. Arrived at an intersection where streets came together strangely, and there was a restaurant so we went inside to look at a map and get our bearings. There was a chef there who I recognized – a tall man who I’d met at Jon Carroll’s. I asked his name, and he told me but it was garbled. We talked for a while and then he disappeared back into the kitchen in mid-conversation.

There were a lot of people eating at big long tables, huge piles of golden fried chicken which was referred to as “the baked dinner.”

I kept waiting for the chef to came back out. Other chefs walked by on their way out of the kitchen.

A man walked in, and as I was thinking, “Isn’t that Elvin Bishop?” Then Michael Bloomfield walked in, accompanied by a couple of other guys. One of his companions recognized me and introduced me to Bloomfield, who was very big and had very big hands; when he shook my hand he only took a couple of my fingers. Nice man, tho.

“I guess we ought to eat here,” I said to Rita.

Still waiting for the chef to return.

I looked into another room and there was Blair Jackson, talking to a man I don’t know. I walked over and sat at his table. Blair said he was there for the wedding of (mumble), and I said, “Ah, so there will be a lot of us around.” The man sitting with Blair pulled a large television set in front of his face, and then the TV screen showed an amateur rocket launch of sorts that appeared to be the lifting of a large, rectangular concrete object a few feet into the air in a cloud of black smoke.

Feel free to post your interpretations!

Digital audio art using speech and/or music as raw materials
MUTILAUDIO is an appropriative art form, using existing recordings as source materials. The tradition goes back centuries in various media, but the technological advances of the modern age have opened vast new realms. I started creating these works in 1985, using analog tape in various formats; since December 1992 I’ve been using a Sonic Solutions digital audio workstation, which has greatly expanded the creative possibilities.
There’s a collection of pieces on this page – enjoy!
And here’s an article I wrote for Wired about John Oswald, who calls his amazing audio art plunderphonics: The Man Who Stole Michael Jackson’s Face.

“I hate George Bush more than the vacuum cleaner.”

My friend Kay found this clock whose digits are composed of images from flickr.
I have photos on flickr, too.