Party Plans

I decided that for my 50th birthday later this year what I really, really want is to invite all my musician friends and have a big jam session.  If you found this post you most likely received an invitation telling you where and when.  It's only June and I am starting this page (which will be updated frequently) to let everyone know that they should bring their instruments and voices, practice whatever songs on the list that they feel comfortable with, and jump up on stage with us.

Now when I say "bring your instruments" I mean just the instrument -- we will have plenty of mics and amps, as well as a drum trap kit and a keyboard.  Out-of-towners, if you need lodging please let us know asap.  We have some rooms reserved at the Budget Host in Cameron but we will be putting a few folks up in various other places. 

My dream of all dreams is to play as a finale the second side of "Beatles -- Abbey Road".  I think we can pull it off.

Click here for an evolving list of songs (Excel format).
Click here for a folder with songs tabs, etc.

We're going to be jamming for a good four hours, so suggestions and requests are welcome.  In the meantime here is something to whet your appetite.  

Rock on!

Caseman

Three hundred words on death

From medieval times comes the concept of the “wheel of fortune”, which carries with it the concept of a capricious “Fate” who spins the wheel and determines our lot. Also related to that image is the concept of a cycle, in which souls go up and down, from birth to the apex of life, then back down again to the dust. Implied in this great revolving circle is an infinite repetition, with no beginning or end; a cosmic merry-go-round that we all get on, ride for a while, and eventually get off. This cycle is the natural mindset realized and accepted in medieval times and bequeathed to us: a vertical, up-and-down, cycle of existence. 

Nowhere in that mindset is the concept of “progress”. The seasons cycle, people live and die, and nothing ever improves. It is only with the Enlightenment that Western Man starts to think about maybe making society better for the next generation. Medieval society never harbored such illusions, so they celebrated the sun’s cyclical process and life itself, and death was not a gateway to an eternal existence, but a re-sowing and a continuation of the cycle. If a human life seemed cheap and expendable to the medieval, it is because it was inevitable and did not matter: a person’s death was simply his arrival at the next station on the wheel and a gateway to more life. 

By the time the Enlightenment arrived Christianity had already been around for a thousand years, yet it is interesting to note, even in Christian countries, how the natural, primal mentality persisted in superseding the doctrinal, to the point that, in order to remain viable, Christianity was forced to adopt the natural festivals as their own. Saturnalia, the re-birth of the sun, has always been and will forever be a time to renew mankind’s hope. And the spring equinox, in its post-winter bluebonnet-blooming glory, a time to remind us that without death, there is no life.