I don’t write in a journal everyday, but I have accumulated many entries over the past 50+ years beginning in 1966. Some items evolved into longer works. Among the leftovers little pieces survived. I thought a collection of these with a piece culled from the same date in a past year would make an interesting yearbook. The consistencies and inconsistencies of mind, skipping back and forth across time, provide varied perspectives. It is difficult to remember the context of the past we’ve lived; we also make suppositions about times that predate ourselves.

The few alterations from original drafts were to improve clarity. The worst of my work is not included. There remains enough mediocrity and immaturity to make me feel humble and you feel smart. There are also moments of accidental insight and incidental humor.

Author Stephen Crane referred to his little pieces as pills…apparently they were small and somewhat hard to swallow, but good for you.


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Thursday, August 8, 2019

from the Dream Records


August 8, 1991  (I was 46)

from the Dream Records
         Before an upcoming performance of OLIVER at the Amador High Theater, an announcement is made saying the audience will be treated to a short set of solo work by drummer Mickey Hart.  Having attended the World Drum Festival in S.F. shortly before, I was elated.  The theater was open-air, covered with tent-like banners (more similar to the Disneyland Videopolis than the Amador Theater).  Hart performed both on trap drums and some more exotic ones.  I felt it was a fitting encore to the Drum Festival.  The audience dispersed quickly and Hart was standing alone in front of the stage.  I spoke to him and he seemed genuinely pleased when I mentioned his friends at the festival and how impressed I was with the event.  I spoke of Seiichi Tanaka, and momentarily mind-blocked, had to ask about the huge drum he played.  Hart reminded me that it was a Taiko drum.  I also told him I had seen a news spot where he had spoken before a congressional committee with Dr. Oliver Sacks on the benefits of music for the ailing and the aged.  He was a bit surprised that the news reached California.  I shook his hand and the dream ended. 
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