Goodbye New York - Hello Athens, Greece

I've been making an effort to add entries to this blog for the past few days, and now, just as I'm getting into the habit, I'm going to go missing in action again.

Today I leave New York City for Athens, Greece.

New York has been a wonderful experience. Every day has been a new adventure in this amazing city. There have been new and incredible things to discover around every corner, on every subway line (above and below ground), and in some of the most unexpected places.

On Wednesday, for instance, I was heading into Grand Central Terminal and walked into the foyer of a building right next to the Terminal (but whose exact name and location I did not make a note of). On both sides of the main entrance where two massive paintings by the artist Julian Schnabel -- both 22 feet square!

I managed to snap a photograph of one of the paintings but was stopped by the consierge from taking any more. I wandered further into the building, and to my continuing amazement saw two other paintings by the same artist up on the mezzanine floor. So up I went to take a closer look. These were smaller being only 15 feet square. Imagine my surprise to see a further two 15 foot square paintings, again by Schnabel further along the mezzanine level.

This is a perfect example of what I mean by every day being a new adventure in New York. I had just stumbled upon not one, but six huge paintings by this one artist, inside this building, and god knows how many other pieces might have been scattered around the building.

You can actually catch a glimpse of these paintings in this YouTube video. They appear at about the 30 second mark.



I'm going to miss New York like crazy, but I will definately return in the next year or so.

The next leg of my extended vacation is going to take me to the tiny island of Ikaria in the Aegean.


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To say this part of my journey is going to be as different from New York City as anything you could imagine, is a complete understatement.

But as much as I am going to miss New York, I am also looking forward to my stay in Greece. So stay tuned for further updates as my travels continue.

See you online -- down the line.

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Iris DeMent on YouTube

I've talked about Iris DeMent on this blog before, and I make no apologies for doing so.

After attending her performance in Lake Placid on May 2, 2008, I took another look at YouTube to see what Iris DeMent material was there. I was delighted to see a lot more songs than had been available the last time I looked.

So I've put together the best of the videos and you can see them all here via this player. I hope you enjoy the music of Iris DeMent, and the music of some of the other performers she appears with on these clips - especially the songs with John Prine.

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The Bitter End Jam Band

~ The Bitter End, at 147, Bleecker Street is one of those classic Greenwich Village venues that has been around since 1961. So many famous and infamous musicians have performed at the Bitter End, that it would take a couple of pages just to list them all.

However, since we’re talking about it, how about Woody Allen, Peter Allen, Mose Allison, America, Tori Amos, Joan Armatrading, Joan Baez, Jackson Browne, Harry Chapin, Tracy Chapman, Judy Collins, Shawn Colvin, Chick Corea, Jim Croce, David Crosby, Billy Crystal, Miles Davis, John Denver, Bo Diddley, Bob Dylan, Jose Feliciano, Steve Forbert, Steve Goodman, Stephane Grappelli, Arlo Guthrie, Bill Haley, Tim Hardin, John Hartford, Richie Havens, Gil Scott Heron, Norah Jones, Billy Joel, Kris Kristofferson, Patti La Belle, Jay Leno, Neil Young and many thousands more.

I went to The Bitter End on my first weekend in New York City, and was blown away by the All Star Jam Band that played that Sunday night (the jam band performs from 10pm until late, on the second and fourth Sunday of every month).

I was determined to return to The Bitter End at least once more before I left New York to catch the jam, and this I did on the night of Sunday, May 11, 2008. There seem to be at least three core members of the jam band – Mark Greenberg (drums), Dave Fields (lead guitar), and the brilliant Brett Bass (bass). On this night Brian Charette was playing keyboards.

I took my video camera along to record some footage, since I think these guys are too good not to share with the rest of the world. Unfortunately, despite trying for a couple of days, I can’t seem to upload the file to this Blogger site so that you can view it. Hopefully, I will be successful in the next day or so. I can't upload it to my YouTube page either because it exceeds their 10 minute limit on video length.

Sigh... sometimes you wonder if it is worth all the stress and mucking around. Given what I said in my last post about sitting in front of the computer... here I am doing just that, and it is a beautiful day in New York City today.

Anyway, make a note to visit the Bitter End during your stay in New York, and if you can catch the Jam session on the second and fourth Sunday of each month - do so, you won't regret it.

Visit The Bitter End Jam website...

And since you are online anyway, why not check out their MySpace page…

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Last Days In New York

~ I'm counting down the days I have left in New York, and the United States for that matter.

It is now eight weeks since I landed at JFK International and started my long awaited visit. It has been a great learning experience for me, and I have discovered so much about myself and the country I am in, that it will take quite some time for me to digest and absorb all my experiences.

I have loved the city and the little amount of country side I've had an opportunity to see. I am determined to return at some point, in the not too distant future. Life's too short, folks, for sitting around and wasting it. Next time I will 'bite the bullet' and hire a car or campervan, and hit the road to explore other parts of this great land.
In the meantime, I will take the time to learn some Spanish, so that my return will be that much more informed and enjoyable. If I intend, as I do, to land in Los Angeles, and spend the bulk of my next trip in the southern parts of the US, I figure a little Spanish will go a long way.

I know there are huge gaps in this blog, where weeks have gone by without an entry. It's a matter of priority, folks.

Do you really expect me to sit around in front of a computer, writing and updating this blog, when I could be out and about exploring one of the greatest cities in the world? There's no contest really - as you'd expect, the city of New York wins every time.

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Cypress Hills National Cemetery

There is something intensely solemn and sobering about seeing so many headstones laid out in uniform row upon row of white marble, as they are here at the Cypress Hills National Cemetery run by the Veterans Administration of the United States.

NOTE: I should point out, that those buried here are servicemen and women who survived the initial conflicts they were involved in, but who have subsequently passed on.

I've walked through this site (located diagonally opposite the 12 Towns YMCA), on several occasions, but it was during my last visit on Thursday, May 8, 2008, that I took a series of images, and wrote my own little poem, Tread Gently, in tribute to the men and women buried here.

You can see a folio of images via my Facebook profile here...

Within the site, two large bronze plaques each contain one stanza from a seven stanza poem called, THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD, written by the American poet, Theodore O'Hara (1820-1867). Here is the full poem.

THE BIVOUAC OF THE DEAD
The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On Fame's eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread;
And Glory guards, with solemn round,
The bivouac of the dead.

No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
No troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind.

No vision of the morrow's strife
the warrior's dream alarms;
No braying horn nor screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.

Their shivered swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed;
Their haughty banner, trailed with dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow;
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,
Are free from anguish now.

'Twas in that hour his stern command
Called to many a martyr's grave;
The flower of his beloved land,
The nation's flag to save.

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Lake Placid, New York

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

My Econo Lodge accommodations are luxurious compared to what I’ve had for the past six weeks. A room with a view containing two double beds, a television with an endless number of channels to select from, coffee maker, bathroom and shower facilities, free WiFi internet access, plus continental breakfast as well. Luxury! Pure luxury! (Spoken with mock regional English accent.)

Lake Placid is right in the heart of New York State’s snow country. It reminds me of the small towns in the NSW and Victorian high country, like Thredbo and Falls Creek. Went for a lo-o-ong walk late in the evening into the Lake Placid village to explore the neighbourhood, as is my habit (I’m about a kilometer and a half out of the main village). After dinner I headed back to the hotel and in the dark and took a wrong turn and headed down an unlit road into the freezing Adirondack night. I thought, This doesn’t look or feel right, and after walking a couple of hundred metres in the dark with only the stars above to light my way, I turned back and quickly found the right road back to the hotel. I didn’t fancy being lost in almost zero degree temperatures in the Adirondacks that’s for sure.

Down the end of the main street there is a little park with seats and benches, and lawn running down at a fairly steep angle to the lake’s edge. There is also a small sound shell where four local musicians were performing old folk and country standards in the vein of Peter, Paul & Mary. Later I was sitting in the park having lunch in the late afternoon sun, and watching the world go by. Little kids were running around, and I it occurred to me how easy it would be for one of them to be running down the small hill with such momentum, that they would be able to stop themselves from falling into the lake, which was not fenced off at all. I kept wanting to say to several of them, “Stay away from the water”. And the phrase kept returning to my head, over and over. Before too long, I had started writing this song.

Don’t Go Down To The Water

© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

Chorus

Don’t go down to the water,

Stay away from the well.

Keep your eyes off the Taylor boy,

Or we’ll all be goin’ to… Well…

Nobody listens to Papa,

They’re always chidin’ at Ma.

Sittin’ there chewin’ t’bacca,

Nursin’ that ol’ liquor jar.

So she went down to the water,

Took a drink at the well.

Makin’ eyes at the Taylor boy,

An’ the rest – I don’t have to tell.

On another occasion, when I was coming back from a walk, a church in the main street began playing some melodies on the church bells. It lasted for almost 10 minutes, and was quite lovely. I asked a woman who was out walking her dog, if the bells played each day at 5pm, and she said yes, and they also play at midday, and she thought at 6pm.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Woke up early this morning at around 5.30am and for some reason thought to pull the curtains across to see what sort of day it was going to be. Dawn was breaking over the mountains and it looked like it was going to be beautiful clear sky day. I went back to bed, but again, one phrase kept repeating in my head, and I had to get up and write it down: Dawn breaks over the Adirondack Mountains… Over the next hour or so, as I tried to go back to sleep, I added more lines to the song.

Dawn breaks over the Adirondack mountains,

With sky as clear, as I have ever seen.

Each breath is frozen, and flows out like a fountain,

And I’m as happy as, I have ever been.

© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

I keep thinking I don’t want this run of songs to stop, which I’m worried will happen if I go back to New York. Went out this afternoon for a long slow amble around Mirror Lake. A sign indicated that the distance around the lake is 2.7 miles. I was a great day for the walk, and it was nice to view the village from the other side of the lake.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Out in the village again this morning. Looking at the snow on the mountains. Feeling the frost in the air. Thinking this would have been mighty hard country to tame and build a life in for yourself and your family many years ago. Remembering the novel, Big Sky, and thinking about mountain men, and trappers, and fur traders, and Indian killers, and wolves and coyote roaming the high country in search of food, and how hard men were needed in hard times to open up the country, and create the New World – not matter what the cost to life and limb. And so another song was born. Here is a little video from my YouTube page that might be of interest...

Flashback: March 17, 2008

Dateline: Monday March 17, 2008
London, England (Heathrow airport)

Sitting in the terminal building waiting for boarding of flight AA105 to JFK International in New York City. I’ve decided that nowhere can you get a decent cup of coffee in London. No-one quite knows how to make a great cappuccino and the ones that you do buy never seem to be full cups. You always seem to get a cup that is only two thirds to three quarters full.

Got to Heathrow in good time. Uneventful flight to New York. Watched All The Presidents Men and some British film with Billie Piper in it.

Getting through US Customs and Border Protection was no problem, except that it took so long – close to an hour. Each index finger was scanned and a photo of my face was also taken, and added to their huge database of foreign visitors.

By the time I got through Customs and to the baggage carousel to pick my luggage up, it was sitting on the floor with a bunch of others that had simply been off-loaded by (presumably) baggage handlers, and left there for anyone to pick up and walk away with. At least it hadn’t been destroyed in a controlled explosion by paranoid, security conscious staff!

It took another half hour before I could finally get a cab to the YMCA. I waited, not because there were no taxis, but because the queue was so long. Welcome to New York. I told the taxi driver where I wanted to go, and he seemed to be making good progress getting there by the quickest, most direct route – until he got lost in a warren of narrow, traffic laden streets close to my destination. The driver knew the general location of Greenpoint, the Brooklyn suburb the YMCA is located in, but that was all. He kept stopping to ask the locals where the actual YMCA was, but most of them had no idea themselves.

Thankfully, I had printed out a Google map of the area surrounding the YMCA, with just enough information on it for me to help the driver find the building. Once we were on Manhattan Avenue, the main road we needed to be on, and heading in the right direction, I was able to guide him to Meserole Avenue, the street the ‘Y’ was on. If I hadn’t printed that page out, we might still be driving around looking for the place!

I thought it quite ironic that having just arrived in New York for the first time, it was I who actually found the way for the taxi driver.

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Three Days - Three Songs

Wednesday, April 30, 2008
After six and a half weeks in London and New York, it was time to get out and see some country: Trees and meadows, lakes and rivers, mountain peaks and open skies – that sort of thing.

So today I boarded a Greyhound bus and came to Lake Placid in upstate New York. As the journey progressed I began to make notes of the things that caught my attention: buildings, trees, the names of the towns we passed through, that type of thing. I was doing this as an 'Aide-mémoire'*.

Between Albany (the state capital), and Lake Placid, completely unexpectedly, I began to write a song. The words just oozed out of my subconscious onto the notepad, and before I knew it, I had my first completed song on this vacation.

Looks Pretty Good To Me

© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

I left New York City far behind,

I had lakes, and woods, and peace in mind.

So Lake Placid sure sounded mighty fine,

And it looks pretty good to me.

I headed into the Adirondacks,

With its weatherboard homes and its lakeside shacks.

A ragged Old Glory waving out the back,

And it looks pretty good to me.

Chorus

And it looks like America,

As far as the eye can see.

It looks like America,

And it looks pretty good to me.

And it felt pretty good to be finally writing again, let me tell you. I’ve had lots of ideas and nibbles for other songs and snippets over the past six weeks or so, but this is the one. The first one. Strange what a little trip in the country will do to a man.

But there was more to come.

Friday, May 2, 2008
At 7.15am today, I woke up out of a dream with the melody for this song going through my head. As I lay in bed repeating the melody over and over so I wouldn’t forget it, the words began to materialize spontaneously, and I began to write them down. Within a couple of hours, the first draft was complete, and I was beginning to feel delighted with my decision to leave New York for a few days.

Filled With Peace
© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

See the sun over Mirror Lake,
All is peaceful...
Here I am, this is no mistake,
Fills me with peace...

Down the valley a snow goose calls,
All is peaceful...
Bathed in mist as the water falls,
Fills me with peace...

Chorus
Who could have told me?
Let nature enfold me;
Nurture and hold me,
And fill me with peace.

A little sentimental perhaps, but it is a song with a melody that reflects my state of mind: relaxed, happy to be here in Lake Placid, and especially happy to be alive and on vacation in America.

It’s amazing what happens when you stop racing around, and let the brain unwind and the body relax. Sometimes you have to give your body and soul the time and space to stop thinking, planning, organizing, and running – so that it is able to slow down and feedback through the unconscious, thoughts, ideas, and songs you never knew where there. But I still wasn’t done.

Saturday, May 3, 2008
I went for a walk into the centre of Lake Placid this afternoon. Down the end of the main street there is a little park with seats and benches, and lawn running down at a fairly steep angle to the edge of Mirror Lake. There is also a small sound shell where four local musicians were performing some old folk and country standards. They played and sang without amplification, and it seemed to me they were performing just because it was a lovely afternoon and they felt like doing so.

I was sitting in the park having lunch in the late afternoon sun, and watching the world go by. Little kids were running around, and I it occurred to me how easy it would be for one of them to be running down the small hill with such momentum, that they would be unable to stop themselves from falling into the lake, which was not fenced off at all.

I kept wanting to say to several of them, “Stay away from the water”. And the phrase kept returning to my head, over and over. Before too long, I had started writing this song.

Don’t Go Down To The Water
© 2008. Jim Lesses. All Rights Reserved.

Chorus
Don’t go down to the water,
Stay away from the well.
Keep your eyes off the Taylor boy,
Or we’ll all be goin’ to… Well…

Nobody listens to Papa,
They’re always chidin’ at Ma.
Sittin’ there chewin’ t’bacca,
Nursin’ that ol’ liquor jar.

So she went down to the water,
Took a drink at the well.
Makin’ eyes at the Taylor boy,
An’ the rest – I don’t have to tell.

Again, within a few hours, I had completed my first draft of the song. Since the incidents and ideas that triggered the song, were entirely different from those that triggered the first two, the mood and sentiments expressed in the song were also quite different.

Each song is distinct in its own way, but I am sure that if I had not embarked on this little side trip to Lake Placid, I would never have written any of them.

Maybe the lesson here is, that if you are stuck in a rut, or suffering writer’s block, you need to change the environment you are living in, even if only for a few days.

* 'Aide-mémoire'. The term is used to refer to notes, or memoranda, that are taken in order to jog one's memory later.

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I'm Back Again

I don't know why I do this to myself. I start out with the best intentions, but somewhere along the line I get sidetracked with life and living, and things like this blog, just get left by the wayside.

Anyway, I'm alive and well, and in America as I write this. So much has happened since my last entry, that I don't know how or when I'm going to be able to keep this blog up-to-date, but while I'm here, now, let me at least tell you about last night.

Iris DeMent in Lake Placid
Right now I am writing this from Lake Placid in upstate New York, in the Adirondack mountains. Yesterday I woke up to light SNOW falling from the sky. Unfortunately, it has already melted away, although the high peaks have still got snow on them. I came here to see one of my favourite American female singer-songwriters, Iris DeMent, who performed at the Lake Placid Center For The Arts last night.

I've written about Iris DeMent before on this blog.

Iris DeMent was great, although the experience of seeing her for the first time was not as wonderful as I’d hoped. The problem was not with her, but with the quality of the sound. Iris has a high pitched voice, and I thought the mixing made her voice sound way too harsh. If I hadn’t been familiar with her voice and songs, I think I would have been even more disappointed.

She started with a thirty minute set on piano, which took me completely by surprised, although it shouldn’t have, since there is quite a lot of piano on her albums. I just don’t think I had made the connection that she was the pianist. I’d assumed she was a guitarist, and that someone else was playing piano. She is an excellent piano player, by the way.

It was interesting to observe her act, from the point of view of showmanship and stage presence. She is not tall, slightly overweight, and no-one would ever call her a flashy dresser. She is very shy and reserved on stage. Her introductions are spare, with little attempts at humor – mostly at her own expense. She makes very little attempt to lighten the mood of her songs. They are what they are – pure, heartfelt, intensely personal, and full of insight and meaning. However, if you are looking for a fun filled good time, with lots of light fluffy songs, Iris DeMent is not the performer you want to see.

She moved from piano to do another 30 minutes or so on guitar, before moving back to the piano to finish her concert. Of course, she was called back for an encore of two songs. She finished with the intensely personal and beautiful My Life, on piano, and received a well deserved standing ovation as she left the stage.

I bought a copy of her ‘gospel’ CD, Lifeline, and left for the long walk back to the hotel, grateful that I had at least had this opportunity to see her once.

By the way, there are more and more Iris DeMent videos turning up on YouTube. It was while looking through these today, that I see she also made an appearance in the movie Songcatcher singing Pretty Saro. her performance was also included on the trailer for the film.

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