BINGO DREAM BAND: News

I love New York.
I just got back from playing with victoria williams out there. we played at ground zero in front of the new building 7 of the WTC. it was pretty intense being able to look off-stage into the pit where the twin towers used to be. if not only because there are still so many unanswered questions. the biggest questions to me are all regarding empirical evidence and mathematics..the official story just doesn't add up. anyway. everywhere i went in new york, i seemed to become engaged in conversation with strangers. great people, great ideas, what a cool and friendly place. we stayed with the Hill family in brooklyn and that was awesome they are super cool and creative people.
it's good to be back in the desert. i played paintball yesterday and had a blast..now i'm back to work mixing the BDB live album. hope you all are doing well.

the tour was really fun and exhausting. i mean that in the best way possible. we had a great time and hit some psychic slip-streams that i didn't know existed. i think we got a really good live album out of those shows. i've only heard the bootlegs so far, but plan to load up tracks and start mixing the official release this weekend.
i had to cancel some shows in order to get back home and work on some projects that need attention. be on the lookout for a new album from megan palmer soon. it's almost finished. also, i'm going to be working with ray woods over the next couple of weeks to get his album underway. it is a really exciting project. last but not least is the bingo dream band live album that will be released through mcmenamin's and hopefully other outlets.
things are good. got a new guitar, a new marshall, and a new tattoo. living the good life and enjoying it immensely. hope the same is true for you.
blessed be.
93
bing

Much of America's understanding of the early relationship between the
Indian and the European is conveyed through the story of Thanksgiving.
Proclaimed a holiday in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln, this fairy tale of a
feast was allowed to exist in the American imagination pretty much
untouched until 1970, the 350th anniversary of the landing of the
Pilgrims. That is when Frank B. James, president of the Federated
Eastern Indian League, prepared a speech for a Plymouth banquet that
exposed the Pilgrims for having committed, among other crimes, the
robbery of the graves of the Wampanoags. He wrote:

We welcomed you, the white man, with open arms, little knowing that it
was the beginning of the end; that before 50 years were to pass, the
Wampanoag would no longer be a free people.

But white Massachusetts officials told him he could not deliver such a
speech and offered to write him another. Instead, James declined to
speak, and on Thanksgiving Day hundreds of Indians from around the
country came to protest. It was the first National Day of Mourning, a
day to mark the losses Native Americans suffered as the early settlers
prospered. This true story of "Thanksgiving" is what whites did not want
Mr. James to tell.

What Really Happened in Plymouth in 1621?

According to a single-paragraph account in the writings of one Pilgrim,
a harvest feast did take place in Plymouth in 1621, probably in
mid-October, but the Indians who attended were not even invited. Though
it later became known as "Thanksgiving," the Pilgrims never called it
that. And amidst the imagery of a picnic of interracial harmony is some
of the most terrifying bloodshed in New World history.

The Pilgrim crop had failed miserably that year, but the agricultural
expertise of the Indians had produced twenty acres of corn, without
which the Pilgrims would have surely perished. The Indians often brought
food to the Pilgrims, who came from England ridiculously unprepared to
survive and hence relied almost exclusively on handouts from the overly
generous Indians-thus making the Pilgrims the western hemisphere's first
class of welfare recipients. The Pilgrims invited the Indian sachem
Massasoit to their feast, and it was Massasoit, engaging in the tribal
tradition of equal sharing, who then invited ninety or more of his
Indian brothers and sisters-to the annoyance of the 50 or so ungrateful
Europeans. No turkey, cranberry sauce or pumpkin pie was served; they
likely ate duck or geese and the venison from the 5 deer brought by
Massasoit. In fact, most, if not all, of the food was most likely
brought and prepared by the Indians, whose 10,000-year familiarity with
the cuisine of the region had kept the whites alive up to that point.

The Pilgrims wore no black hats or buckled shoes-these were the silly
inventions of artists hundreds of years since that time. These
lower-class Englishmen wore brightly colored clothing, with one of their
church leaders recording among his possessions "1 paire of greene
drawers." Contrary to the fabricated lore of storytellers generations
since, no Pilgrims prayed at the meal, and the supposed good cheer and
fellowship must have dissipated quickly once the Pilgrims brandished
their weaponry in a primitive display of intimidation. What's more, the
Pilgrims consumed a good deal of home brew. In fact, each Pilgrim drank
at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to
water. This daily inebriation led their governor, William Bradford, to
comment on his people's "notorious sin," which included their
"drunkenness and uncleanliness" and rampant "sodomy"...

The Pilgrims of Plymouth, The Original Scalpers

Contrary to popular mythology the Pilgrims were no friends to the local
Indians. They were engaged in a ruthless war of extermination against
their hosts, even as they falsely posed as friends. Just days before the
alleged Thanksgiving love-fest, a company of Pilgrims led by Myles
Standish actively sought to chop off the head of a local chief. They
deliberately caused a rivalry between two friendly Indians, pitting one
against the other in an attempt to obtain "better intelligence and make
them both more diligent." An 11-foot-high wall was erected around the
entire settlement for the purpose of keeping the Indians out.

Any Indian who came within the vicinity of the Pilgrim settlement was
subject to robbery, enslavement, or even murder. The Pilgrims further
advertised their evil intentions and white racial hostility, when they
mounted five cannons on a hill around their settlement, constructed a
platform for artillery, and then organized their soldiers into four
companies-all in preparation for the military destruction of their
friends the Indians.

Pilgrim Myles Standish eventually got his bloody prize. He went to the
Indians, pretended to be a trader, then beheaded an Indian man named
Wituwamat. He brought the head to Plymouth, where it was displayed on a
wooden spike for many years, according to Gary B. Nash, "as a symbol of
white power." Standish had the Indian man's young brother hanged from
the rafters for good measure. From that time on, the whites were known
to the Indians of Massachusetts by the name "Wotowquenange," which in
their tongue meant cutthroats and stabbers.

Who Were the "Savages"?

The myth of the fierce, ruthless Indian savage lusting after the blood
of innocent Europeans must be vigorously dispelled at this point. In
actuality, the historical record shows that the very opposite was true.

Once the European settlements stabilized, the whites turned on their
hosts in a brutal way. The once amicable relationship was breeched again
and again by the whites, who lusted over the riches of Indian land. A
combination of the Pilgrims' demonization of the Indians, the concocted
mythology of Eurocentric historians, and standard Hollywood propaganda
has served to paint the gentle Indian as a tomahawk-swinging savage
endlessly on the warpath, lusting for the blood of the God-fearing
whites.

But the Pilgrims' own testimony obliterates that fallacy. The Indians
engaged each other in military contests from time to time, but the
causes of "war," the methods, and the resulting damage differed
profoundly from the European variety:

• Indian "wars" were largely symbolic and were about honor, not about
territory or extermination.

• "Wars" were fought as domestic correction for a specific act and were
ended when correction was achieved. Such action might better be
described as internal policing. The conquest or destruction of whole
territories was a European concept.

• Indian "wars" were often engaged in by family groups, not by whole
tribal groups, and would involve only the family members.

• A lengthy negotiation was engaged in between the aggrieved parties
before escalation to physical confrontation would be sanctioned.
Surprise attacks were unknown to the Indians.

• It was regarded as evidence of bravery for a man to go into "battle"
carrying no weapon that would do any harm at a distance-not even bows
and arrows. The bravest act in war in some Indian cultures was to touch
their adversary and escape before he could do physical harm.

• The targeting of non-combatants like women, children, and the elderly
was never contemplated. Indians expressed shock and repugnance when the
Europeans told, and then showed, them that they considered women and
children fair game in their style of warfare.

• A major Indian "war" might end with less than a dozen casualties on
both sides. Often, when the arrows had been expended the "war" would be
halted. The European practice of wiping out whole nations in bloody
massacres was incomprehensible to the Indian.

According to one scholar, "The most notable feature of Indian warfare
was its relative innocuity." European observers of Indian wars often
expressed surprise at how little harm they actually inflicted. "Their
wars are far less bloody and devouring than the cruel wars of Europe,"
commented settler Roger Williams in 1643. Even Puritan warmonger and
professional soldier Capt. John Mason scoffed at Indian warfare:
"[Their] feeble manner...did hardly deserve the name of fighting."
Fellow warmonger John Underhill spoke of the Narragansetts, after having
spent a day "burning and spoiling" their country: "no Indians would come
near us, but run from us, as the deer from the dogs." He concluded that
the Indians might fight seven years and not kill seven men. Their
fighting style, he wrote, "is more for pastime, than to conquer and
subdue enemies."

All this describes a people for whom war is a deeply regrettable last
resort. An agrarian people, the American Indians had devised a
civilization that provided dozens of options all designed to avoid
conflict--the very opposite of Europeans, for whom all-out war, a
ferocious bloodlust, and systematic genocide are their apparent life
force. Thomas Jefferson--who himself advocated the physical
extermination of the American Indian--said of Europe, "They [Europeans]
are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the
destruction of labor, property and lives of their people."

Puritan Holocaust

By the mid 1630s, a new group of 700 even holier Europeans calling
themselves Puritans had arrived on 11 ships and settled in Boston-which
only served to accelerate the brutality against the Indians.

In one incident around 1637, a force of whites trapped some seven
hundred Pequot Indians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, near
the mouth of the Mystic River. Englishman John Mason attacked the Indian
camp with "fire, sword, blunderbuss, and tomahawk." Only a handful
escaped and few prisoners were taken-to the apparent delight of the
Europeans:

To see them frying in the fire, and the streams of their blood
quenching the same, and the stench was horrible; but the victory seemed
a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God.

This event marked the first actual Thanksgiving. In just 10 years
12,000 whites had invaded New England, and as their numbers grew they
pressed for all-out extermination of the Indian. Euro-diseases had
reduced the population of the Massachusett nation from over 24,000 to
less than 750; meanwhile, the number of European settlers in
Massachusetts rose to more than 20,000 by 1646.

By 1675, the Massachusetts Englishmen were in a full-scale war with the
great Indian chief of the Wampanoags, Metacomet. Renamed "King Philip"
by the white man, Metacomet watched the steady erosion of the lifestyle
and culture of his people as European-imposed laws and values engulfed
them.

In 1671, the white man had ordered Metacomet to come to Plymouth to
enforce upon him a new treaty, which included the humiliating rule that
he could no longer sell his own land without prior approval from whites.
They also demanded that he turn in his community's firearms. Marked for
extermination by the merciless power of a distant king and his ruthless
subjects, Metacomet retaliated in 1675 with raids on several isolated
frontier towns. Eventually, the Indians attacked 52 of the 90 New
England towns, destroying 13 of them. The Englishmen ultimately
regrouped, and after much bloodletting defeated the great Indian nation,
just half a century after their arrival on Massachusetts soil. Historian
Douglas Edward Leach describes the bitter end:

The ruthless executions, the cruel sentences...were all aimed at the
same goal-unchallengeable white supremacy in southern New England. That
the program succeeded is convincingly demonstrated by the almost
complete docility of the local native ever since.

When Captain Benjamin Church tracked down and murdered Metacomet in
1676, his body was quartered and parts were "left for the wolves." The
great Indian chief's hands were cut off and sent to Boston and his head
went to Plymouth, where it was set upon a pole on the real first "day of
public Thanksgiving for the beginning of revenge upon the enemy."
Metacomet's nine-year-old son was destined for execution because, the
whites reasoned, the offspring of the devil must pay for the sins of
their father. The child was instead shipped to the Caribbean to spend
his life in slavery.

As the Holocaust continued, several official Thanksgiving Days were
proclaimed. Governor Joseph Dudley declared in 1704 a "General
Thanksgiving"-not in celebration of the brotherhood of man-but for

[God's] infinite Goodness to extend His Favors...In defeating and
disappointing...the Expeditions of the Enemy [Indians] against us, And
the good Success given us against them, by delivering so many of them
into our hands...

Just two years later one could reap a £50 reward in Massachusetts for
the scalp of an Indian-demonstrating that the practice of scalping was a
European tradition. According to one scholar, "Hunting redskins
became...a popular sport in New England, especially since prisoners were
worth good money..."

new york didn't happen..published news seems to have all the details of the day.
i'm just here right now to offer observation on some day to day experiences that i've had.
"things i forgot to write about" should be the title of my next book. or " i thought of something really good, but i can't remember what it was..."
in any case, here i am . blogging because i can't imagine a publishing deal and also because my head is swimming from a long weekend.
a month or more ago, bush flew out to 29 palms to meet with the families of the marines who had been trained and stationed there that had been killed since the iraq war started this last time.
i went to church considering singing 'masters of war' or 'your flag decal wont get you into heaven anymore'. when i got there, the table next to the stage had a big family sitting around it: A grandmother, some sisters with their husbands and a brother. The one that was missing was being represented by a photograph in dress blues of a lost son that was worn by his mother in the same place that a mother's day corsage should go.
i talked to them. i didn't know why they were there, so i asked and learned.
i want to thank that wonderful family again for trying to explain what had brought them to the desert and eventually up to the out-of-the-way bar that night.
they had just felt like driving after the ceremony and happened upon a saloon that looked comfortable.
i sang 'hard times' for them, the stephan foster tune, instead of either of the other songs i was thinking of doing. they liked it. i had never felt words fall out of my mouth like dead leaves wanting to catch fire before.
there is a guilt or something like it in wanting to communicate peace to chaos. i think it stems from the fact that it's impossible to hide under a blanket and not eventually suffocate.
everybody has known loss. everybody has felt grief. and yet when we are most hurting we either cry and beg for it to just stop or we find numb comfort by seeing our selves as statues whose histories have already been written.
still we try in the face of an overwhelming unspoken charge to "get over it" to gently touch a gnashing wound with some homeopathic remedy.
we all cried.
then we sang and danced and drank. the mist remained and made rainbows in our joy. it is dew that never burns away even in the cleanest warmest sunlight.
the goodbyes were dear. the grandmother kissed me and said i was a good boy.
i can't look at the whole thing the same way anymore.
i see those kids in the tanks and humvees on their way to the c-130s down below. Convoys of them lining the highway like cowboy stormtroopers trying to find a way through madness into a college or trade school.
there are a lot more unreported war-related troop deaths that occur when they get home;
sometimes after three tours completely wracked they drink and speed and fight and die against a wall that was built inside of them in brainwashing camp and anchored in the polluted maytag of war.
how can we talk about it? how can folks tell these stories? what is it that makes us want to pull our punches and become invisible?
i don't know, but i'm going to fight it. it is just a mask, really. courage.
courage is good. and good takes courage.
we aren't really so unique as individuals.

peace.

just got the ticket to go and play with Vic on her east coast trips.
might be that i tag along down to New Orleans as well afterward.
hm.
jazzfest?
sounds good to me.
this is the first day where it has been HOT like the kind of hot that it really gets to be out here in the mojave.
i like it.
alot.

Joshua Tree, California.
it has been snowing all day since last night and now everything is covered in a blanket of white.
with the brightness of the moonlight it is almost like daylight out here. cold, too. but we're getting by. we had aparty last night and played all night long in the kitchen. good times. the shop is open for original artwork if anyone has a need for any, feel free to make contact.
i'm going to stop writing for now and get my hands warm.
hope everybody is doing good.

I had a summer job in Wichita once when i was in high school. i worked for the city parks maintenance crew. It was an okay job, i guess. it consisted, mainly, of showing up at sunrise, getting hauled out to one of the parks, let off with a big ass walking lawnmower, mowing around trees, along fences and in ditches..basically anywhere that the tractors couldn't go. then our boss would pick us back up and take us back to the garage where we would maintenance our machines.
i was the only person on the crew that didn't speak spanish. i was also the youngest one.
one afternoon, we were working one of the parks - we kept a rotation going- and i was getting through a ditch just before lunch. i hit a nest of mud-dobbers..wasps. I ran, but i got stung a bunch. it was friday, which meant 'trash day' which meant working until lunch and then parking it under a tree and drinking beer. (don't tell anyone, as i'm pretty sure it's illegal to give beer to minors on the clock.)
so the boss shows up just as i'm vomiting, ready to pass out (from the wasp stings..the beer hadn't arrived yet.).
i sat in the front seat sipping budweiser with salt in it, wondering if i was allergic and going to die. the rest of the crew had had experience with that kind of thing before, so they thought i was going to be okay. it was pretty psychedelic. anyway, my boss told me about how one time he thought he had got stung by a bee, but actually had been shot in the face.
he went to see wilson pickett at the cotillion balroom with some pals. they were, according to him, pretty fuckerd up and were having a good time. all of the sudden, a vato from a rival gang pulls out a zipgun. now, a zipgun, if you don't know, is a one-use plastic thing that will hold a 22 shell and fire it with a rubber band. it doesn't have a barrel and therefore isn't very accurate. the guy pointed and shot and it went in to his cheek, bounced off the cheekbone and exited in front of his ear. he said he didn't feel it at the time, but upon walking home, realized that he was swollen, very sore and bleeding.
i was amazed. i went out and got best of wilson pickett the next day and drove around in my fbi-looking fairmont all the rest of the summer listening to it. it's really amazing stuff.
fast forward to tonight. we did 'midnight hour' at pappy hour. it was awesome..no horn section, but we got by. i'm glad wilson pickett made all that great music, no matter how many times i've had to hear mustang sally get brutalized. and i'm also glad that i've never been shot in the face.
r.i.p. mister pickett.
signed,
a fan

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."©ˆ



I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."©˜

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:



My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!



And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.



                And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

                Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

                Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of
                Pennsylvania.

                Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

                Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

                But not only that:

                Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

                Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

                Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.



From every mountainside, let freedom ring.



And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Hay Hay hay.
i woke up and found myself in Portland again, in the familiar warm drizzling rain. so good to see the folks.
going to be picking up late Tuesdays after jackstraw at the thirst.
also going to be sitting in with lewi longmire band on thursdays at happy hour.
i will be in portland until the 4th.
playing every freak show i can.
bless you all and love shine its light on you.

what an amazing time.

thank you to the states of Washington, Oregon and California.
thank you for your amazing views, and amazing people.
I really had a great time. Happy to be home.
Lots of music in Pioneertown today. Peace and quiet on the horizon. Love and gratitude,
bingo

of
sadness and sorrow
and
who needs tomorrow
of
depression and the rifle
and
cries that are stifled
the farther we go the less i seem to know
till it's all just a blur
of cludy memories and uncertain future combined on the floor
with your brains and your blood and the phone calls you didn't return

from burning it down and destroying the town
and getting too happy too fast
to seeing too late the lock on the gate that wasn't realized until it was passed.

forever and never and always and nothing
lost love and innocence and intimacy that builds a fence
to keep out what you couldn't let go
amid arms and both hands that have shadowed the lands with the force that you wished they could throw.

of
feeling so mean from being caught inbetween the gods and monsters you chose to create
they created you too, even though you never knew all this time
and you found out too late.

i'll see you again from time to time. you'll cross my mind along the old brick sidewalk there, inviting me in for marijuana and gin to talk about attempts made by others at changing the world.
and how they failed to do so.
at least outside of experiencing the metamorphoses of their own souls perhaps.

free beer and titties and stuck in this city and everybody else has done moved away.
some grew up, some never will. some have burned out just trying to stand still.
i hadn't seen you in so long, and i always felt like i was the one being left out.
you knew just as well as me
what it meant
to always be the strange one with funny things to say with so much irreverence
well
that changed yesterday.
i felt the shot from here.
something slipped out of my hand and broke on the floor
i cut my foot trying to get to the broom.
i sat on the floor and all the power went out for a few moments
it was the blackout that i was praying for - please god help me pass out.
all the booze is all gone and there's friends on the phone trying to conjure reason from the forces of nature
hoping to see that it wasn't them or me that was going down just as fast as TJ

everything falls apart. so do we. we aren't here for long. why is it that the saddest songs always seem the most real.
write one.
sing it over and over again
see if after a while it's your friend, helping let out what you want to hold in.
or if it's just a wall that gets buried by time with fresh tragedies that eventually can be mistaken for a road.

so good luck buddy.
i hope that you make it across the river.
i hope what you find there is sweeter and kinder than what you knew here,
you were a good man and you will be missed.

Me and Jessie made it back home this past wednesday. Dragged a trailer with us for mister lewi longmire who will be staying with us intermittently. It was a good drive with fine weather.
Since that night it has been non-stop bliss reconnecting with friends and neighbors. The campout at Pappy and Harriet's was AWESOME. www.pappyandharriets.com
we will be playing there weekly starting up sometime soon.
anyway, the show was great - Ted Quinn and the TREE are absolutely fantastic, Honky Tonk Train looks like they want me and Jessie to play around with them..I love country music. Thanks so much to Bill and Jane. The Travis Kline Thriftstore All-stars were in fine form and inspiring as always. Bingoband had a fun set, although kinda short, but what the hell..so much cool vibe going around.
PORTLAND and the FREAKS.
god bless you. I had such a great time this summer. I can't even count all the blessings that have rained upon my pointy head from all you fine folks. it was truly a great time and i will remember it as long as i can. i'll be re-doing this website as soon as i can get around to it..stay tuned. lots of new pictures and FREE songs for downloading.
LOVE
93
bingo

Sure has been a crazy summer.
I spent most of it in Portland OR
playing with the FREAKS and with LEWI band and o' course the bingo dream band (tm)
so many great gigs. the strange thing about shows for me is, once they are over, I can't remember any details. I can remember if they were FUN or not, that's no problem. That vibe sticks around for a long time. I guess it's all a by-product of channelling angels, they probably remember every note.
I'm wrung. I been doing adrenal support tablets in order not to black out from exhaustion, and they seem to be working well.
All my time here is blessed, and i have been making sure not to take it for granted. there is so much work to do that my goofing off has taken a nose-dive and the deepest i seem to get into a conversation is being asked when i am leaving.
New Mexico is absolutely beautiful.
we had such a great time out there in MADRID. thanks to ANNA and her crew. the ball-park was awesome and the Mineshaft was awesomer, special thanks to Chris Lopez for coming out and rocking the drumset, and to Tony Mason for letting us follow him around to find the killer coffee.
We are looking for the right person to do some management/booking..but Pat Robertson isn't returning my calls.
i just love the media in this country.
hey wait, there goes kkkarl rove in the most treasonous scandal since...but let's cut to a commercial for a "reality show"
I got yr reality show right here.
anyway, I'm rambling...i just woke up and had some coffee and i haven't written in or changed this website in a while. i'll do it when i get home and can make some new graphics.
as always, if you'd like to donate to the cause, we can be reached by email.
I have just a few more shows here in oregon, and i'm not even going to list them until i get home and count how many gigs i had this summer. it felt like everyday but i'm sure it was only like five a week.
-and from the 'oh yeah' department:

Lots of love and chocolate cake.
stress-free and 93,
bing
P.S.
homesick for Jtree..hey kids, we'll be back soon.

Good morning.
It is a very full moon out there and the critters are running wild.
Seems like I have a desert tortois that has made its home under my old shed. What a cool neighbor!
I just picked up a scorpion from off the floor and took him outside.
I guess they've hatched again..got to find out where the nest is.
Music has been great fun. Friday night the Beatnik Cafe www.jtbeat.com had it's annual Bob Dylan birthday bash. Last night we had fun playing for the moon and stars in my yard. tonight I played up at Pappy and Harriet's with some of my neighbors. Thuursday Iwill be there again with the bingoband trading sets with Billy Stobo band. should be fun.
It is over a hundred degrees everyday now.
amazing how it changes things.
be well/
Love
bing

This past weekend was amazing. So many great pals came down to visit. we had a blast in the park and in the little tent city in the yard.
so much abundance.
Last night was fun, too. I played at Pappy and Harriet's Pioneertown Palace. Looks like I'm getting a thursday night there on 4/14
really looking forward to it.
playing with a band. yipee!
i'll keep the pertinents posted.
adios
bing

This is my first entry on the "new" website. I have the flu and it is my brother's birthday. It is springtime in the desert and there are little tiny flowers everywhere.
That seems to be the biggest news around here as far as i'm concerned. oh yeah, thre's this company that wants to put a golf course in Joshua Tree. It is really a bad idea considering that there isn't enough water to sustain what is already living here.
if you have a spare moment and love wildlife and the national parks, please visit
www.joshuatreecountryclub.com and fill out the questionnaire. From all the coyotes, bunnies, artists and other wildlife: Thanks

later,
bing