The final song that I used in my videos was Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues.” There are two versions of it. This is the slower version and strikes me as more haunting, although the two versions are similar. The song tells the story of the singer going down to the crossroads and trying to catch a ride. But no one stops, “Didn’t nobody seem to know me.” And he’s praying to God that he gets a ride before nightfall.

It seems like a spiritual: when humans let you down, you can always turn to God. But the thing about such songs is that they never have a happy ending. Indeed, they have no ending at all. This is because they are all about faith. God will reward the faithful. I don’t much see it myself. To me, we live in a world of callousness and loneliness with nothing but our own thoughts to keep us company.

When I think seriously about the human condition, I’m very disturbed. We are, in our consciousness, completely cut off from other people. We are, in fact, totally alone. But we are so used to the idea that there are others around to interact with that the clear view of reality it terrifying. We are all down at the crossroads trying to flag a ride. But it isn’t that they don’t know us; they don’t even know we exist because they are all so lost in their own lonely delusions.

As for the music on “Cross Road Blues,” well, it’s amazing. I’m still struck with just how modern it sounds. It probably helps that just about every rock musician has recorded the song. But there’s something more than that. There’s a reason that Robert Johnson stands out compared to other musicians of that period in the Mississippi delta. It’s hard to believe it’s just one man and a guitar performing.

Probably the most bizarre choice for my video music is Black Flag’s song “Six Pack.” They are (I guess they are back together) quite an interesting band. It was really the Greg Ginn show. He’s a genius. Everyone today thinks of it as Henry Rollins’ band. But they went through many singers before Rollins. And certainly Rollins always saw it was Ginn’s band. And in those early heady days before their first album, they released a few EPs, including Six Pack.

I had never heard it, but I was over at The Last Record Store, going through their $5 or 3 for $10 bin and found this micro-CD with a total of three songs and five and half minutes of music — closer to a single, to be honest. But I was glad I bought it; it packs a punch.

The lead vocalist on Six Pack is Dez Cadena — later a wondering singer and guitarist, most notably with Misfits during the Bush years. He is apparently the third singer that Black Flag had. Henry Rollins took over from him, but Cadena didn’t leave the band; he just switched to rhythm guitar on what is almost certainly their greatest album, Damaged. There is, interestingly, another version of “Six Pack” with Rollins doing lead vocals on that album. It’s similar, but I actually prefer this Cadena cut — not because of the vocals but the purity of the performance.

The subject matter is classic. It’s kind of the punk version of the Merle Haggard (RIP) classic, “I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink.” It’s just a guy ranting about how he doesn’t need his ex-girlfriend because he has a six-pack and $35 dollars to his name. I can’t help but think that Greg Ginn was writing from experience.

The following video has the entire EP. “Six Pack” is first, followed by “I’ve Heard It Before” and “American Waste.”

Today is a little sad, because the sound quality is so bad. But what are you going to do? The song is “Last Kind Words” — the Geeshie Wiley classic. I’ve featured the song before, performed by Christine Pizzuti. She’s one of these people that always make me impressed with humanity — someone producing great art in a bedroom and sending it out to the world for free.

But today’s version is by Eric & Suzy Thompson. They are kind of legends in the roots music and bluegrass community. They’ve played with everyone but almost no one knows who they are. But I’ve seen them live once, and I own their album Dream Shadows. It has their version of “Last Kind Words.” In fact, I’m pretty certain that it was Suzy Thompson who introduced me to Geeshie Wiley in the first place. But I’ve used about 5 seconds of the introduction to the song to fade out my videos. See, for example, Luigi Galvani’s Experiment Done by Mr. Rzykruski in Frankenweenie.

Despite the poor sound quality, this performance is the same as the studio version. They are just that good. That’s something I think that everyone learns as they gain expertise in something — be it music or woodworking or writing: your greatest work early on is much inferior to your worst work later on. It isn’t a question of inspiration. When you get really good at something, the inspiration is built into your performance from years of hard work. (This is not to say that you can’t also be a total hack.)

Anyway, here is the song. It’s a beautiful version of it.

On at least one of my videos, I used the first three words from the American Music Club song “Ladies and Gentlemen.” It’s off the album Love Songs for Patriots, which is perhaps the least known album in the band’s canon. That’s because the band broke up in 1994, after the commercial failure of San Franisco — an album I’m quite fond of but was generally seen as a disappointment. And they did nothing for almost a decade, and then got back together for this new album. What is so remarkable about it is that nothing had really changed.

I have a theory about success in pop music: it has to come early. If American Music Club was going to hit, it was going to be with “Firefly” off California. The problem is that while the writing only gets better, it also gets more adult. Now Mark Eitzel was never writing bubble gum, but at least “Firefly” had a a youthful yearning that appeals to kids, “You’re so pretty baby; you’re the prettiest thing I know; you’re so pretty baby; where did you go?” Of course, Eitzel was already pushing 30 when he wrote that; he was in his mid-40s by the time of “Ladies and Gentlemen.”

The music is typical of American Music Club: a deeply layered punk that feels like it is only in the assured hands of this band that it doesn’t explode. The lyrics are a call for all of us (ladies and gentlemen) to be ourselves. Given that Eitzel is gay and he lived in San Francisco in the 1980s and 1990s, it is easy enough to see the song in that context. But I don’t think it needs any context, “If you can’t live with the truth, go ahead, try and live with a lie.” To me, that’s the story of life — the story of growing up.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time…

As we continue on with songs that I’ve used fragments of in my videos, we come to Louis Armstrong’s version of “What a Wonderful World.” When I was younger, I loved the song. Now it kind of makes me sad. I do love his voice and there are times that I quite agree with the lyrics of the song. The world is wonderful in many ways and we need to remember that and be grateful.

Just the same, I don’t like the fact that even for people my age, Louis Armstrong is only “What a Wonderful World” and “Hello, Dolly!” Armstrong was, in fact, one of the most important figures in the development of jazz. I understand: that New Orleans jazz music can sound dated. But try to listen to it fresh. It sounds amazingly modern. And when they go crazy, you hear counterpoint that you won’t hear on Top 40 radio.

Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five

I want to highlight Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five. The band consisted of Kid Ory on trombone, Johnny Dodds on clarinet, Johnny St Cyr on guitar/banjo, Lil Hardin Armstrong (Louis Armstong’s wife at the time) on piano. All of them are legends in their own right. One thing that comes across really well in all those Hot Five recordings is that it is a collaboration. Sure, Louis Armstrong is the star, but they are making music together that is incredibly pleasing, and so much more interesting than most popular music that came before.

There’s a curious structure to the arrangements too. The piano and the banjo work as a team, but interestingly, mostly it is the banjo that holds things down. Lil Armstrong gets to play a lot around what St Cyr is doing. Similarly, the horn players act as a unit. It’s lovely to listen to. Here’s Lil Armstrong’s song “Droppin’ Shucks.”

Today, we listen to Joey Ramone’s version of “What A Wonderful World.” The reason is because I’m thinking of trying to make some videos. I had been working on this thing called “Good, Bad, and Uglies.” But it got overly complex. The big issue is that I can write the material, but I can’t really act it — at least not without a lot of work that I don’t have time for. In addition, I have a strong tendency to make little projects turn big. For example, the first screenplay I ever wrote was supposed to be a little 2 minute joke, but within a month it was two hours long. So my video dreams all got set aside.

But last night I was Skyping with my boss and we mentioned the GIF image format and I went on a tear. I noted that everyone pronounced it with a “ga” and not a “ja.” But then GIF inventor Steve Wilhite came out and said that he always pronounced it “jif.” Well, that made absolutely no sense, because GIF is an acronym for Graphics Interchange Format, and unless Wilhite pronounces “graphics” as “jraphics,” he’s a complete loon. (Note: “giraffics” would be a wonderful word for images of giraffes.)

And then I mentioned “Linux,” which was always pronounced with a hard I. But then Linus Torvalds came out with a sound file with his Finnish accent and everyone thought, “Oh! It should be pronounced with a soft I!” But that wasn’t even true because the way he actually said it was “leenux.” Does anyone call it that? No! Should anyone call it that? Yes! People who speak Finnish should say it like that. But everyone in the English speaking world pronounces his first name “Linus” just like the Peanuts character. And that means that “Linux” should be pronounced with a hard I. But we don’t do that because people are just stupid.

I said all that in about 20 seconds. And I thought: I could just set up a camera and rant into it for hours on end about everything that I think is wrong in the universe. And then I could cut out little 20 second clips when I’m particularly “on.” Anyway, I generally started all the “Good, Bad, and Uglies” with Joey Ramone’s version of “What a Wonderful World” and then ended with the Louis Armstrong version. You can see what I mean in my video, These Are Not Very Bright Guys. Anyway, here’s the whole song:

I like to end these weeks with a live performance. But I find that there really isn’t anything for Mason Jennings. There is, however, this astounding performance that he did with storyteller Kevin Kling. Kling really is amazing. I suspect I’ve heard him before. He’s really quite amazing. And the two of them make a great team.

I don’t have much to say. This is the kind of entertainment that I enjoy. I would pay to go and see these guys. Most live entertainment bugs me. I’ve watched as theater has gotten bigger and bigger and more and more like film. But my favorite things when I was a kid were things like Will Rogers’ USA and Mark Twain Tonight — one man shows. I find it far easier to get absorbed in someone telling me a story than I do in having the story rendered to me. And in movies, most of the time so much is going on you can’t catch it all anyway.

This is nice because it presents a great storyteller and a great songwriter. When I’m at a rock concert, I’m almost always overwhelmed with how fake it is. The pretense overwhelms everything else. I guess I’m supposed to think that the performers are cool and so I am too because I can see it. But what I feel is alone — like I’m surrounded by lost and confused people who are pretending to have a good time. I know that says much about me and nothing about them. I have no real idea what they are thinking and feeling. But that’s how the experience feels to me.

On the other hand, this concert with Mason Jennings and Kevin Kling is something that I connect with. It speaks to my life and I find moments of truth in it. I highly recommend watching it all.

Mason Jennings’ next album was Boneclouds. It is more “pop” than his earlier albums. But that isn’t to take anything away from it. I want to focus on one song, “If You Ain’t Got Love.” The title makes it sound like just another love song. But it is actually written to the singer’s child who is born with a heart problem and may die.

In the song, the child survives. But maybe that is just an imagining. The point of the song is that love is something that transcends life and death. But also in the song is a theme that runs through all of Jennings’ work: that all we have is the present and we must grab onto it. That’s probably why I think later when the child jumps in the lake, it isn’t real. I imagine the singer in the hospital, loving that baby for what may be only minutes. But since love is eternal, it doesn’t end with the death.

I suspect most people will hear the song rather differently — and more positively — than I do. Regardless of how you see it, “If You Ain’t Got Love” is heartbreakingly beautiful.

Today, we reach Mason Jennings’ fourth album, Use Your Voice. It’s a nice album. But I don’t think it is as strong as the earlier albums. Thom Jurek at All Music appears to disagree with me. I haven’t read his review, but I saw he gave the album four and a half stars. If you know All Music at all, you know that four and a half stars is what they give to albums that they think are masterpieces, but which are not universally acknowledged as masterpieces. So The Beatles’ Rubber Soul gets five stars, but American Music Club’s United Kingdom only gets four and half stars. It’s strange, but I’ve noticed it again and again. It isn’t an accident.

Anyway, I can see giving Use Your Voice four and a half stars because it is a very pleasant album. But mostly I just want Mason Jennings to get over that woman who dumped him. There’s just far too much of that. However, one of those songs, “Fourteen Pictures,” is transcendent. These are great lyrics:

You don’t need the rest of the song with lyrics that evocative.

There’s also a flat out love song in “Empire Builder” that even makes me think that love may be a real thing. And then he does “Keepin It Real” just to remind me what a fraud love and love songs are, even if I do like the guitar solo.

In a sense, the high point of the album is “Ballad Of Paul And Sheila,” about Paul Wellstone and his wife Sheila’s death in a plane crash. It is a fitting tribute to a great statesman. You should really listen to it.

But the last three songs on the album are different and I wonder if this is the direction that he was headed in. They aren’t especially about anything. Or, most likely, they are so personal that I can’t understand them. But they speak to a man who is searching. And that’s when people create their greatest art. So off of Use Your Voice, I’ve decided to highlight “Drinking as Religion.”

After spending seven hours editing highly technical material and managing what feels like a million things, it’s hard to come back here and write about anything but myself. Or to just ramble about the state of the world. But I have these music and anniversary posts to do. I still kind of enjoy them. That’s especially true of the music posts when I’m doing someone like Mason Jennings.

The truth is that I can imagine meeting him in a bar. We both slump down across from each other on those wooden benches that the best bars have. And we wouldn’t even have to talk. He’s ten years younger than I am, but we’re both old enough to know the truth of life, which is a quiet acceptance of the way things are. We have no illusions that the universe can be any other way. We just drink our pints and leave. And we go out and continue on doing what we do. Because that is what we were born to do. There are pleasures, certainly. But mostly, there is regret. And the regret just gets bigger and bigger until we think it is more massive than our souls.

Mason Jennings’ fourth album was Simple Life. Yesterday, I had the thought that he sounded a lot like Nick Drake. Obviously I’m not talking about his voice or guitar style. But his outlook on life. That feeling is even more clear on this album. And what’s amazing is that he wasn’t even thirty when he made the album. But then, I’ve always been a slow learner.

Today, I’m featuring “Hospitals and Jails” off Simple Life — a song that tells the story of true love. But in a Jacques Brel twist, we learn in the last verse that she is gone and that he never managed to tell her that without her, he was damned to hospitals and jails. It’s a beautiful song.

In 2002, Mason Jennings released his third album, Century Spring. It sounds like he arrived in this album. He just sounds so confident. That isn’t to put down the previous albums, which I think are great. But it’s hard not to think that Mason Jennings’ life is going pretty well at this point. It all makes me think that I’m going to have to revisit this guy in much greater detail when I have more time. It’s always nice to follow an artist who grows, and that’s definitely the case of Jennings from his first album through to Century Spring. I’m curious what tomorrow will bring.

Today, we listen to “Living in the Moment.” I assume that it was meant to be the single from the album. It’s so sweet. It seems to reflect the kind of life that I want to have. I want to be the guy who tells everyone, “No! You’ve got it all wrong: this is the perfect life!” Of course, the thought of living in the moment with the friends I love sounds like something too far removed from reality. But it sounds like a lovely dream

But he is completely right that you can’t construct a meaningful life all by yourself. We are all social — even those who consider ourselves misanthropists.

Geez! I’ve spent half the day dealing with my publisher. I’ve written over a thousand words explaining in some detail just what is going on, but I’m not sure I will publish it. There’s one thing about this woman: she loves attention, which is not surprising because she literally has no friends. In my article I am quite explicit about who she is and what she’s done. But I just want her gone from my life. I get no joy out of fighting with her, but it’s clear she does, since anger is about the only thing that she has left in her life.

So let’s move on to Mason Jennings’s second album, Birds Flying Away. It is much more of a regular folk album than his first album. But I’m not going to spend time analyzing it. I’m too stressed out. So we are just going to listen to “Train Leaving Gray.” It is very relaxing. And it reminds me that there are people out in the world who try to make things better. And then there are rageaholics who take steroids to make them all that much more horrible.

Have you ever noticed that in dysfunctional families, there will be “good” children and “bad” children. The “good” children can’t do anything wrong. There is a set narrative for them. If one of them gets caught shoplifting, it is just because of that bad kid that they are hanging around. And the “bad” children can’t do anything right. If one of them graduates at the top of their class, it will result in at best a grudging “congratulations.” That’s where I’m at, but I’m not beaten down. And that just makes this woman all the more hostile.

But “Train Leaving Gray” is a beautiful song and a good reminder that there are nice things in the world.