PoHymn: A Rustling in the Stagnant … August 2nd, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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And The Word Became Music

And the word became music

And dwelt among us

We beheld the glory of the story

Harmony came our way

We received it not

But as many as received melody, God gave the power to sing

And the song went forth

We heard the joy of heaven

And the tears of hell

We lifted our voice

With expressive choice

The hum of our hope

The accord of the chord

The rhythm of joy

We may never agree

On all that we see

But the ballad of life

Cuts through all the strife

And for a glorious measure

We blend a musical treasure

For the Word became music

And when it did

We had a shot

 

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G-Poppers … February 5th, 2016

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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On any given Sunday, G-Pop has the honor of sitting and sharing in front of an audience that mingles Republicans and Democrats indiscriminately.

Matter of fact, the Sunday morning church service may be the last location in our great country where conservatives and liberals have to sit side-by-side and crack open a common hymn book and sing harmoniously.

One of G-Pop’s sons suggested that such an environment demands too much compromise to be of use in the “kingdom of truth.”

Not so.

In the realm of reconciliation and the pursuit of being a peacemaker, there are only two enemies, and only one true danger.

Separating these two enemies is the job of every good-thinking man and woman. The two enemies are arrogance and ignorance:

• Arrogance contends, “I am smarter than you.”
• And ignorance insists, “I am better than you.

Every tragedy which has befallen our species has occurred when the statesmen and spiritual leaders of our time became too busy with politics and religion, allowing arrogance and ignorance to coalesce.

As long as we keep them separated, we can address the insecurities they possess individually.

Case in point:

Racism is the merging of arrogance and ignorance–people who think they’re smarter than other people, who also have decreed that they’re better.

It happened with the Nazis–the arrogance of Germanic tribes who thought they were smarter led to the conclusion that they were better–a Super Race.

It is what festers in the Middle East.

And it is what causes us–a supposedly enlightened people–to still be struggling over issues of color, sexuality and gender, far beyond the time of reasonability.

G-Pop teaches a simple message.

He tells people clearly, “If I am smarter than you in some areas, you are certainly smarter than me in others.”

And … no one is better than anyone else.

 

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G-Poppers … October 30th, 2015

 Jonathots Daily Blog

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G-Pop wants his children to be aware:

“Don’t be overwhelmed with the underwhelming.”

There’s so much in our society that is loud and proud that sometimes it’s difficult to discern the portions of behavior that are valuable, and the truths that are worthy of being upheld.

There are two great dangers in this journey we call human life:

1. Being convinced that what you’re hearing the most is real.
2. Being jaded because what you’re hearing the most is insane.

In both cases you put yourself out of the game, becoming either a pawn of the craziness or too cynical to believe in better things.

So what’s the answer?

G-Pop suggests to his children that they stop listening to the noise, and instead, listen for the harmony.

There are ideas that have lasted for thousands of years and have endured the ridiculous to bring the sublime.

G-Pop has a simple test he places on every notion that tries to crowd into his mind:

A. Does it make us laugh?

It’s possible to have laughter that’s based on prejudice and sarcasm, but eventually when we laugh we do learn to chuckle at ourselves and our own inconsistencies. People change more quickly through a giggle than they ever do through a sermon.

B. Does it make us feel?

For you see, the danger is not being inundated with information and painful reports which cause us to close off our hearts so as not to feel the pain anymore, but rather, to limit what comes inside and make sure that we can feel for those around us.

Don’t listen to a report on CNN telling you that 328 people died in an earthquake in Afghanistan. Put yourself under the rubble and you’ll feel the impact.

C. Does it make us better?

Simply watching a movie about depravity is not the pathway to understanding reality. Reality is useless if it doesn’t challenge us to go the second mile and supersede our jungle instinct to find our Garden of Eden.

If you’re listening for the noise, you can’t hear the harmony–and that harmony is a three-part anthem:

• History sings its truth
• Present life adds its part
• And our story chimes in to create a chorus of joy.
  

 

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Populie: Mars and Venus…. May 21, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog

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“Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.”

I never read the book so I shall not comment on its content, but this concept has been a deterrent to finding commonality in the human race.

It generates a POPULIE: men and women just naturally don’t get along very well.

Politics loves this because it gives them an additional demographic and contingency to try to either attack or appease.

Entertainment favors this particular assertion because it gives them fodder for plotlines which are only resolved with a closing decision that “men and women just don’t get along.”

Religion lines up to join in the segregation between the sexes, affirming antiquated scriptures that have done very little to promote harmony in the human family.

Here’s the problem: the process by which we try to distinguish our uniqueness is also the declining mentality that always spirals down to destruction. It begins with:

1. We’re all different.
2. Since we’re different, we need our clump.
3. Our clump is better than their clump. Their clump sucks.
4. Let’s hurt them.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about Nazi Germany, slavery or men and women. It’s the same problem.

Once Adolph Hitler was able to convince the German people that the average family in Berlin was different from the Jews, it was an easy step to suggest that the Jews should clump together and the German people should have their own area.

Of course, once we’re clumped, we need to promote our brand. To do so, we have to detract from anything that isn’t us. So you can see, after a while, all Adolph had to do to support his decision to annihilate the Jews was to prove that the Jewish clump was completely unnecessary, if not dangerous.

The same thing was true with slavery. The white plantation owners needed workers but they couldn’t afford them. So some people with big boats convinced the Southerners that the folks in Africa were different–primitive. Perhaps even unintelligent. So it made sense to clump all the white people together and all the black people together since there was a cultural barricade. Once the clumping was permitted, it became necessary to punish those who were not in our clump by creating the “big house” and the slave quarters. And of course, once you have that clump living in squalor, like pigs, it’s all right to hurt them.

There is only one criterion for spirituality. It is not baptism, communion, faith, scriptures or tithing. It is simply this: how do I treat people?

Do I insist there are differences–to make me look multicultural? Or am I in pursuit of similarities, to make us all become human?

As long as we insist that men and women are in an exhausting struggle of misunderstanding which only occasionally is penetrated by sexual relations, we will be ignorant cave people, scratching our asses and grunting in the darkness.

Truth doesn’t always make immediate sense. It’s because the sense of the day is rarely the truth.

Escape the Populie. Don’t criticize Islam, Africa, China and other cultures for how they treat women, when our country has turned equality into a joke.

This is the cutting edge issue of our day. Until we treat men and women as equals who are intended to work together, racial harmony, cultural acceptance and spiritual toleration will merely be a myth.

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After an appearance earlier this year in Surprise, Arizona, Janet and I were blessed to receive a “surprise” ourselves. Click on the beautiful Arizona picture above to share it with us!

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Untotaled: Stepping 8–Hanging On (October 14th, 1965)… March 29, 2014

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(Transcript)

The Fletchers were really nice folks.

They opened up their home after school for the kids to hang out and goof off. I think they did it because their son was a little bit backwards, and they tried to push him forwards with a sideways approach of encouraging kids his age to occupy his space.

The Fletchers had a piano. I played a little bit. Having mastered two years of lessons via the Thompson Book, I had enough acumen on the keyboard to pound out many a song–especially since the rock and roll of the day was usually three chords.

I had two close friends–Mike and Bob. Mike played snare drum and Bob sang (like any thirteen-year-old who lives in a town of fifteen hundred people sings.)

Mike, Bob and I had a master plan. We were interested in three girls–Renee, Dovita and Linda. We decided to invite them to the Fletcher home so that Mike could play his drum, I could play piano and Bob could sing the current radio hit–Hang On Sloopy.

The girls were adequately enticed by our invitation and joined us. I found the key of F and began to enthusiastically simulate the repetitive pattern of the hit song. Mike joined in, both sticks in hand, beating on his single snare. Bob screeched and squalled, imitating the angst of the lead singer of the McCoys, much to the glee and swooning of the young lasses.

We finished our first pass on the tune, ready to begin again, when it suddenly became obvious that all three of the young ladies were attracted to Bob, and Mike and I had been relegated to a backstage position as roadies packing up the cases.

Then I realized a very important truth:

• Mike wore glasses and was as scrawny as a scarecrow.
• I wore glasses and was plump as a pig.
• Bob was perfect and cute as a button factory.

So we played the song again, but it was obvious that Mike and I were mere backups–tools to be used for Bob’s romantic adventures.

We provided the harmony and beat. He got the chicks.

Both Mike and I learned that day why the rhythm gives you the blues. 

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She Sang To Me … August 4, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

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 The show was done.

I made my way from the stage to my book table. I am of a mind to believe that the audience has been so kind to grant me an hour of its attention–I certainly can give them a moment or two of my ears.

I learn so much by listening to those who pass in front of me. Even those who never stop at my table to speak teach me that it’s not my job to reach the whole world, just those who can hear my pitch.

But tonight, when I finished in Suttons Bay, a lovely woman came to my side and told me she had written a song. She didn’t know what to do with it. I asked her if it had ever been performed. Once, at the church, she offered.

She then asked me if I would like to hear it. Assuming she had a CD copy of the performance, I said yes. Then all of a sudden, she burst into song. Well, burst is too strong a word. She gently eased her way into sharing her beautiful melody.

• I was enthralled.
• I was blessed.
• I was intrigued.
• I was a little embarrassed by the fact that I had anticipated something quite different.

But mostly, I was attune.

She sang three verses, including a key change she had inserted into her arrangement. As she performed the tune a capella, in front of me, my producer brain began to insert strings, guitars and harmonics into what I was hearing. Before too long, I had an entire orchestration running through my head as I listened to her continue her composition.

All at once she stopped singing and said, “I don’t know what to do with it.”

I gave her a few guidelines on getting a lead sheet made and a recording, but what I didn’t tell her was that the music business is so filled with favoritism and preoccupation with popularity that it is rare that anything new is allowed to wedge its way into the scene.

As she walked away, I took a second to try to remember the melody–to hum it in my spirit.

I thought about how wonderful it is to believe in heaven. Not for the streets of gold, gates of pearl, or angelic choirs, but rather, to finally arrive at a place where all the inspirational classics that never were able to be promoted and heard will be sung, extolled and produce praise.

All the books that were rejected out of hand by careless publishers will be on the shelves, available to the redeemed souls, to become redeemed again.

All the unrequited lovers will find their satisfaction.

All the dreamers will taste the sweetness of their unachieved aspirations.

It will be a place of fulfillment. It will be a land where we will not be intimidated to hear someone burst into song because they have been inspired.

She sang to me…and it was very special.

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Slyly … August 27, 2012

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Stepping into my motel room a little weary and delirious from an exciting weekend of being around precious humans from Riverdale and New Hudson, I decided to unwind a few minutes before collapsing in totality by watching some television. Does anybody else notice that the accumulation of channels seems to be proportional with the diminishing of possibilities? But I eventually landed on some special about the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960’s–all the rock stars that appeared on his program. I didn’t watch very long, but I did view an appearance, from back in 1969, of Sly and the Family Stone.

Promotional photo of Sly & the Family Stone for Rolling Stone, 1970 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I always enjoyed that band. Their songs–Everyday People, Dance to the Music, and Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself, were not only joyous, uniting us, but extraordinarily musical. As I watched, Sly jumped up from his organ and ran into the audience at the Ed Sullivan Theater and tried to get the stodgy white folks dressed up for a night of “going to town” to dance with him. There were no takers. Their faces mingled shock with attempts to curl their lips up into grins, to appear at least a little hip. Sly didn’t care. He kept dancing. He kept rocking. And he ended up thanking the audience for “letting him be himself” while taking a bow.It struck me as funny and alarming at the same time–because the people in the Ed Sullivan show watching the performers believed that they were America and these rockers were a cultural transition–an anomaly which would soon pass, and that we would return to a corporate sanity.

Are you ready for this? They were wrong.

It got me thinking. There are three things I avoid doing. When I was younger I did them because I felt I was some sort of crusader for a cause–against the “wooly bear monsters” of the world. I now realize that you can’t have a sword fight with the wind.

1. I don’t try to satisfy the dissatisfied. There are people who arrive with faces already in place and they have no intention of ever altering that countenance. They have already “decided.” Of what they have decided I am not sure, but when you tell them to “be of good cheer,” what they do is sneer. Any time spent chipping away at such stone will only break your chisel … or create a very ugly sculpture.

2. I learned that you can’t change the arrogant. Once folks decide they’re better than anyone else, they will fight you, argue with you and actually be willing to die for their own form of prejudice. We keep wanting to have dialogues in this country about things like racism, poverty and spirituality. That would require that the people indulging in the conversations would be willing to forfeit their present cemented views for more fluid possibilities. Can I give you a clue? It’s not going to happen. What happens is that the people sitting in the Ed Sullivan Theater, who think it’s foolish to dance to the music, just die. If you’re smart, you’ve been having conversations with their children, with the aspiration of creating a better generation. In other words, “Grandma and Grandpa, you are welcome to come along with us. Just don’t bring your bigotry.”

3. I get away from folks who hope things get worse. I occasionally go to churches where they are having Sunday School classes on Revelation, the Book of Daniel and the end of the world. This is a hopeless situation. There is no way you can offer a savior to the world if you’re secretly hoping that they don’t accept him so he can ride in on a white horse and chop off their heads. People who believe that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket spend all their days and nights weaving handbaskets. It’s fruitless.

You might cynically say, “Then who is left?” Well, let me borrow from Sly and the Family Stone. There ARE people who have not given up on the idea of human beings. Here is some fresh information. At the top of that list is God. I like to have my name put on a list where God is at the peak of the signatures.

As Sly said in the song, Dance to the Music, “You gotta find the rhythm.” If you want to make a difference, you’ve got to understand that no matter what you see, no matter what you hear and no matter what you think, people will be free. You can lock them up for years in the Soviet Union, you can try to use religion to prohibit liberty, you can blow up all the heathen nations in the name of Allah–you will end up being the fool. The rhythm of earth demands that people will be free.

Also as Sly and the Family Stone said in Everyday People, you gotta join the harmony. “NoOne is better than anyone else.” I don’t care if you agree; I don’t care if you have found some clever exception to the principle. Your particular cunning is not going to outfox the spirit of God which is no respecter of persons.

And finally, borrowing from Sly and the Family Stone’s song, Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself, each one of us should go out and write our own melody. Since we know that people will be free and that NoOne is better than anyone else, go out and find a reason every day to believe. I am sick to death of the religionists who tout a mere Ten Commandments and the atheists who contend they are geniuses by removing faith from their everyday walks. It is my job to find a reason to believe–and in so doing, write my melody line to go with the harmony of life and the rhythm of the universe.

So to quickly review, do yourself a big favor and stop trying to satisfy the dissatisfied, change the arrogant or hang around folks who are waiting for the end of the world. Instead:

• Find the rhythm. People will be free.
• Learn the harmony. NoOne is better than anyone else.
• And write your melody. Everyday find a new reason to believe.

This is the kind of idealism in the heart of a human being that makes God smile.

Ed Sullivan will always be known for being a kind of stuffy guy who let rock and roll have its day. He won’t be remembered for booking the guy with the spinning plates. So … stop spinning plates.

Get out there and rock your world.

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