The Exit Ramp and Synergy strikes again
The Last Exit. c. 2004 ToeKneeStanger
synergy Strikes Again.
Seattle 1993 translated in 2004
Tonight I am dreaming about the Exit Ramp coffeehouse in Seattle. I played music there in 85, and agan in 93-94 twice. Best damn club for live songwriters to test their songs. Sometimes I fantasize about who may have been in the crowd or on the stage the nights I performed there. Did I smoke a joint, in my younger years, with a soon to be famous , and now dead singer-songwriter I never knew as a friend? Did I look into the face of a lead singer girl that has since already come and gone? Was that you who went stone cold white when I opened my eyes on "Wall up my heart"? Was that you?
I'll never forget the night I walked back to the main street, guitar in hand searching for the bus stop, feeling upside down trying to sneak a toke, feeling the gitters that always show up after I lay my guts out on the stage.
I felt like a too early sage, but I needed the shift I knew I'd back away from. I already had. My intention was to sing a song with full meaning. I'd practised the ones I knew I would sing. But the reason for singing them seemed so important. I'd had a dream about it. It was a sobering dream, like a mission and 3 days before, the "mission" ws re-inforced by an eerie incident that match current thinking. A hypothesis regarding the reality of dark city streets, how alone and unsafe they can feel. I ws shuddering my psyche close to that zone to see deep into that crack of light that may reveal some understanding, ilumine my soul. My heart sort of snapped when I guessed the fear that comes with a mile after midnight and no other route to take. I was thinking on these things, 3 days before.
I already knew this was going to be my week to step out. There was a party, and folks I barely knew... some poor directions and the ride to and back. Late is late when it's northwest forest on the edge of Seattle, and a long winding bendy road turned me around, and I was going back now the other way. I could feel it before the lights hit her.
Energy to the side of a long distance curve in the road, sparks of life then fear of the unknown, and then I saw her, from brights to normal there was a reflex... subtle, hidden but unmistakable fear. I knew it wasn't me. It was the only car on a dark silent road. I grieved for her reaction. What I had imagined WAS true. Women walk a similaredge to the one I was walking in Seattle in those days. I knew few people. I was a stranger in that town. I was barely there, staying at my friend's house... working on his landscaping project for his wife... folkdancing, venturing out into the city, visiting the San Juan islands.... trying to shake of a certain shock I was experiencing from the reality of life in the 21st Century. I began to sense what women must feel all of their days. sometimes, a sheer unmistakable reality of not feeling protected. And it hit me, hurt me deep in my heart... just as deep as the way I saw my headlights "shocking" that girl who was feeling frightened in the city darkness. Right there in front of me I saw it was true. These feelings are shared. We must all feel this way from time to time; exposed betrayed, unprotected. That was my time for studying myself. I was feeling that way too.
Somehow the very idea of performing my songs had to include a measure of reaching out and touching the truth of another heart in relation to these kinds of feelings.... somehow, it just wasn't enough to show up and play a song to get somewhere. Myt performance had to honor the here and now that was then... (maybe even a littel of the here and now of now....). Busing from Bellingham to the club scene was easy... but hard to watch the transicent world fading at my feet.... ouch to that too, but the people from university... they all joyous and free sounding buffered me on the ride, and easy to watch the pretty girls and smiling fun....
Backstage, in the parking lot with the rest of the waiting performers, we traded drum tabacco and a little more here and there... harmless fun. Nothing heavy. Trust me. good people, nothing heavy. then I heard my name. It was my turn. A few pats on the back , the crowd chatter had re-risen in the hall, At the Last Exit, they manage the crowd to quiet for all performers and like a tea kettle that pressurizes with heat, the chatter starts back between acts.
We set the mikes, check them, and one last wink to the sound guy MC then I close my eyes andfeel the room while I tune into the song while I play. Every so gradually, a slight hint of true deep attention emerges then builds. Unmistakable. Right in front of me. then I start telling my story about the car, the headlights, the lonely girl shuddering with fear on that lonely bend of 3 nights before. It was perfect intro for the song I knew I was going to sing.
Wallop my heart (wall up my heart) c84 T. Stanger
"I wonder if she were here now
Would she give me away?
Or would she threaten to leave me,
Like she did yesterday?
then come back and cry
Like earlier this eve?
She's doing a good job
... of making me see
how I,
Chase the love away
Tear the world apart
throw it all away
Wall Up my heart
I'd opened my eyes to see this beautiful angel being woman girl friend I will never meet or know, full eye contact, tears in her eyes direct into my heart we burned each others sins away.
Her face (yer face?) is still frozen in my consciousness,
...the most beautiful,
natural girl I have always seen inside of all /every woman I have ever known. Right there you stood sheer that. All that, nothing but that. Not even words shared were necessary, or could ever happen. the dream come true. We were that, for infinity inside those moemnt, and then I closed my eyes again and felt you with my voice, sang it all and only for you.
when I opened my eyes at the end, you and I were all that was left in the room. I showed you I knew you and you showed me the same, and I packed up, shook the MCs hand, then (as graceful as possible) tried to piece myself back together outside as I walked the blocks up the hill, away from you, away from the last exit, away from me?
Now, that's a question I am still answering with my whole life on the line, as usual. TO THAT GIRL: somehow, I was redeemed in your own shadow, I watched you glow. I hate to look back, because I get to realize that a conversation was easy and even a few laughs and a toast with coffee away... Would I ever have smelled your smell? Would you have been my muse sending my art around the world and back, would we be living in Vancouver, then Paris, New York and somewhere high on a hill by now? Have I yet turned that corner?
I can't brush these near miss memories off me... ouch. and so you see, I couldn't seem to find a hole to crawl into, that night. Out of courage or stupidity or youthful ignorance, I left in a walk of strngth towards the next set.
"Have we walked past a destiny we'll never know, never believe we could still earn... heart to mind, heart to mind. Will it matter, or won't it ever ... will we or won't we ever learn, that what we think about most of what we are, means absolutely squat... and hardly noticeable in the average passerby. What we each see, is for us and what we see inside of what's for us, well that's what we see. There are no demands, but too many lost causes just because they weren't tried, then practised then re-tried enough".
That's about all I was thinking about, and for me that's still a bit of how I find the memory still in my gut... fetal position, in a tragic semi-peaceful sleep. Ready to be awakened again, not too long ago free and off the leash, now just searching for a need to make a speech.... yeah, that's how I felt ... shot, ...shot in the gut searching for a hole to crawl into where I could lick the wounds I knew.... but already knowing that I felt infinity with you.
There was no denial.
By now, we have each told this story in full and in part, apart, in our separate views... Yet the goal of hearts connected, the epitome of us all, we had that deeper and truer than many ever dream to feel. I was changed there. Forever.
"We'd shared more than just one breath....
At the Last Exit.
We shared the dreams that were unlimited because they include just that, in it's vastness, they become anything and still fresh today as the day we saw them rise out of our ashes".
I want you to have your dream of her. You don't need to knw she was beautiful natural and true. You don't need to see the orange gold around her, you don't need to feel deep smile's caress... If you see her, let her dream be your dream.
Somehow I made it, flushed like in a fever, tranced by here wishing eyes and knowing solemnity, I made it up to thge BLVD.
I roll around a corner and step into a storefront doorway, put my guitar down, find a martial arts stance, of sorts, puts me in a certain balance, I try to breathe.
Rolling around the corner in sync with my steps, and out of that storefront a Deep Black windowed SUV rushes reflected and in front, no markings, no lights, but deafening silent heavy metal and armour..... stops.... out jump 5 guys with 2 others from almost nowhere, all converging on the spot where I stood.
I don't know how I managed to keep breathing, stepping fluid to one side in a gracefull invisible blur. they were not there for me.... it all rushed past and behind me, around me, sorted itself out and I had only moved 6 inches , if that... barely to one side. Some guy arrested in front of me, guns drawn, a shove into the van a skipped beat, then, a tap on the door and screaching tires... all happened and gone in less than a minute... but, let's just say it was 2.
That was Seattle, the last time I played. The journey there, the journey back, was worth it...
Yeah, I was dreaming about the "Last Exit".
.... today.
....who was there.
....who was she?
....was it you?
..................................................
Open Mic leaders, listen up. Do yourselves the favor of studying state of the art open mikes around this country... places like the Purple Onion once was , or Arnold's Bar n Grill in Cincy....make a pilgrimage to the most excellent choice expereince of all; Seattle and play at the Last Exit Ramp.
And you mid-easterners, westerners, whatever, step into the limelight with Jay Knight at the Mill in Iowa City.
And you folks in austin, heck, you folks go play on six street 11:30 pm, and the crowd will throw dollars at your feet, if you're ready....
And here in Frisco hit Jungle copy in Palo Alto, see my paintings in the background and watch the next new wage , cause it's stacking up there, but for the open mike of your dreams , I must admit you want Hotel Utah, or twist Fritz's arm at the Conneticut Yankee where String Cheese Incident was launched, and where Roy watches and waits for the next Sierra Nevada Music Festival break-out band will be to roar into our futures...
... over in Mill Valley taste the Sweetwater, world famous like Antoine's in Texas...
... but hey, why not all of us venture south to New Orleans and step out into the French Quarter right on the street, play till they chase us to a sidestreet, then buy some beaded necklaces with our tips...
Is that enough advertisement for you?
................................
Synergy strikes again.
I was thinking, dreaming of these things today, and I decided to reach towards an old video tape that jumped out of a box towards me a few days ago. My copy of the movie "Hype" , about the Grunge scene in Seattle. Earlier today, I had been surfing the internet looking for my friend charlie Laurel, with whom I'd recorded a couple albums , over the years... 3, in fact, co-produced. In any case, he even helped me work out a version of the song I had sung in Seattle years ago... But the reason I bring up my web surfing expereinces of this day is because I just had a light go on in my head, of some sort. and I have figured out a new way to embrace surfing for old friends. Somehow, through a series of odd disconnected linking from site to site to site to site, I eneded up on Eric Muhs site in Seattle. Invisiblemoose.org
I have my whole future ART /Music portfolio pictures, handbills from concerts, of roadtrips friends and SEATTLE spread out all over the Center room. (A place I hope to turn into a shitkicking open mic and performance space). the Big Hat and Boot from Seattle is on the table. I pick up the photo twice, notice I did, and understand theres a rolling wave of synnergistice truth at my heels.
Saturday night live sucks tonight, so I push that tape I found into the slot.... low and behold, I see that I am seeing those hats and boots and the same Eric Muhs appearing on showbills along with the other wavers of Grunge of not so long ago.... back when I was there.... I remembered the trek to Eric's ouse, the knock I knocked at the door of door of the art center where he worked and the house where he lived. It never really happened...we weren't in sync , that day... besides, I wondered... was I really destned for here?
Thinking back, did I walk to a separate future when I walkd to the bus stop that day????
www.ARTintoLIFE.com
http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*
-ToeKneeStanger c.2k4 T.K.S.
synergy Strikes Again.
Seattle 1993 translated in 2004
Tonight I am dreaming about the Exit Ramp coffeehouse in Seattle. I played music there in 85, and agan in 93-94 twice. Best damn club for live songwriters to test their songs. Sometimes I fantasize about who may have been in the crowd or on the stage the nights I performed there. Did I smoke a joint, in my younger years, with a soon to be famous , and now dead singer-songwriter I never knew as a friend? Did I look into the face of a lead singer girl that has since already come and gone? Was that you who went stone cold white when I opened my eyes on "Wall up my heart"? Was that you?
I'll never forget the night I walked back to the main street, guitar in hand searching for the bus stop, feeling upside down trying to sneak a toke, feeling the gitters that always show up after I lay my guts out on the stage.
I felt like a too early sage, but I needed the shift I knew I'd back away from. I already had. My intention was to sing a song with full meaning. I'd practised the ones I knew I would sing. But the reason for singing them seemed so important. I'd had a dream about it. It was a sobering dream, like a mission and 3 days before, the "mission" ws re-inforced by an eerie incident that match current thinking. A hypothesis regarding the reality of dark city streets, how alone and unsafe they can feel. I ws shuddering my psyche close to that zone to see deep into that crack of light that may reveal some understanding, ilumine my soul. My heart sort of snapped when I guessed the fear that comes with a mile after midnight and no other route to take. I was thinking on these things, 3 days before.
I already knew this was going to be my week to step out. There was a party, and folks I barely knew... some poor directions and the ride to and back. Late is late when it's northwest forest on the edge of Seattle, and a long winding bendy road turned me around, and I was going back now the other way. I could feel it before the lights hit her.
Energy to the side of a long distance curve in the road, sparks of life then fear of the unknown, and then I saw her, from brights to normal there was a reflex... subtle, hidden but unmistakable fear. I knew it wasn't me. It was the only car on a dark silent road. I grieved for her reaction. What I had imagined WAS true. Women walk a similaredge to the one I was walking in Seattle in those days. I knew few people. I was a stranger in that town. I was barely there, staying at my friend's house... working on his landscaping project for his wife... folkdancing, venturing out into the city, visiting the San Juan islands.... trying to shake of a certain shock I was experiencing from the reality of life in the 21st Century. I began to sense what women must feel all of their days. sometimes, a sheer unmistakable reality of not feeling protected. And it hit me, hurt me deep in my heart... just as deep as the way I saw my headlights "shocking" that girl who was feeling frightened in the city darkness. Right there in front of me I saw it was true. These feelings are shared. We must all feel this way from time to time; exposed betrayed, unprotected. That was my time for studying myself. I was feeling that way too.
Somehow the very idea of performing my songs had to include a measure of reaching out and touching the truth of another heart in relation to these kinds of feelings.... somehow, it just wasn't enough to show up and play a song to get somewhere. Myt performance had to honor the here and now that was then... (maybe even a littel of the here and now of now....). Busing from Bellingham to the club scene was easy... but hard to watch the transicent world fading at my feet.... ouch to that too, but the people from university... they all joyous and free sounding buffered me on the ride, and easy to watch the pretty girls and smiling fun....
Backstage, in the parking lot with the rest of the waiting performers, we traded drum tabacco and a little more here and there... harmless fun. Nothing heavy. Trust me. good people, nothing heavy. then I heard my name. It was my turn. A few pats on the back , the crowd chatter had re-risen in the hall, At the Last Exit, they manage the crowd to quiet for all performers and like a tea kettle that pressurizes with heat, the chatter starts back between acts.
We set the mikes, check them, and one last wink to the sound guy MC then I close my eyes andfeel the room while I tune into the song while I play. Every so gradually, a slight hint of true deep attention emerges then builds. Unmistakable. Right in front of me. then I start telling my story about the car, the headlights, the lonely girl shuddering with fear on that lonely bend of 3 nights before. It was perfect intro for the song I knew I was going to sing.
Wallop my heart (wall up my heart) c84 T. Stanger
"I wonder if she were here now
Would she give me away?
Or would she threaten to leave me,
Like she did yesterday?
then come back and cry
Like earlier this eve?
She's doing a good job
... of making me see
how I,
Chase the love away
Tear the world apart
throw it all away
Wall Up my heart
I'd opened my eyes to see this beautiful angel being woman girl friend I will never meet or know, full eye contact, tears in her eyes direct into my heart we burned each others sins away.
Her face (yer face?) is still frozen in my consciousness,
...the most beautiful,
natural girl I have always seen inside of all /every woman I have ever known. Right there you stood sheer that. All that, nothing but that. Not even words shared were necessary, or could ever happen. the dream come true. We were that, for infinity inside those moemnt, and then I closed my eyes again and felt you with my voice, sang it all and only for you.
when I opened my eyes at the end, you and I were all that was left in the room. I showed you I knew you and you showed me the same, and I packed up, shook the MCs hand, then (as graceful as possible) tried to piece myself back together outside as I walked the blocks up the hill, away from you, away from the last exit, away from me?
Now, that's a question I am still answering with my whole life on the line, as usual. TO THAT GIRL: somehow, I was redeemed in your own shadow, I watched you glow. I hate to look back, because I get to realize that a conversation was easy and even a few laughs and a toast with coffee away... Would I ever have smelled your smell? Would you have been my muse sending my art around the world and back, would we be living in Vancouver, then Paris, New York and somewhere high on a hill by now? Have I yet turned that corner?
I can't brush these near miss memories off me... ouch. and so you see, I couldn't seem to find a hole to crawl into, that night. Out of courage or stupidity or youthful ignorance, I left in a walk of strngth towards the next set.
"Have we walked past a destiny we'll never know, never believe we could still earn... heart to mind, heart to mind. Will it matter, or won't it ever ... will we or won't we ever learn, that what we think about most of what we are, means absolutely squat... and hardly noticeable in the average passerby. What we each see, is for us and what we see inside of what's for us, well that's what we see. There are no demands, but too many lost causes just because they weren't tried, then practised then re-tried enough".
That's about all I was thinking about, and for me that's still a bit of how I find the memory still in my gut... fetal position, in a tragic semi-peaceful sleep. Ready to be awakened again, not too long ago free and off the leash, now just searching for a need to make a speech.... yeah, that's how I felt ... shot, ...shot in the gut searching for a hole to crawl into where I could lick the wounds I knew.... but already knowing that I felt infinity with you.
There was no denial.
By now, we have each told this story in full and in part, apart, in our separate views... Yet the goal of hearts connected, the epitome of us all, we had that deeper and truer than many ever dream to feel. I was changed there. Forever.
"We'd shared more than just one breath....
At the Last Exit.
We shared the dreams that were unlimited because they include just that, in it's vastness, they become anything and still fresh today as the day we saw them rise out of our ashes".
I want you to have your dream of her. You don't need to knw she was beautiful natural and true. You don't need to see the orange gold around her, you don't need to feel deep smile's caress... If you see her, let her dream be your dream.
Somehow I made it, flushed like in a fever, tranced by here wishing eyes and knowing solemnity, I made it up to thge BLVD.
I roll around a corner and step into a storefront doorway, put my guitar down, find a martial arts stance, of sorts, puts me in a certain balance, I try to breathe.
Rolling around the corner in sync with my steps, and out of that storefront a Deep Black windowed SUV rushes reflected and in front, no markings, no lights, but deafening silent heavy metal and armour..... stops.... out jump 5 guys with 2 others from almost nowhere, all converging on the spot where I stood.
I don't know how I managed to keep breathing, stepping fluid to one side in a gracefull invisible blur. they were not there for me.... it all rushed past and behind me, around me, sorted itself out and I had only moved 6 inches , if that... barely to one side. Some guy arrested in front of me, guns drawn, a shove into the van a skipped beat, then, a tap on the door and screaching tires... all happened and gone in less than a minute... but, let's just say it was 2.
That was Seattle, the last time I played. The journey there, the journey back, was worth it...
Yeah, I was dreaming about the "Last Exit".
.... today.
....who was there.
....who was she?
....was it you?
..................................................
Open Mic leaders, listen up. Do yourselves the favor of studying state of the art open mikes around this country... places like the Purple Onion once was , or Arnold's Bar n Grill in Cincy....make a pilgrimage to the most excellent choice expereince of all; Seattle and play at the Last Exit Ramp.
And you mid-easterners, westerners, whatever, step into the limelight with Jay Knight at the Mill in Iowa City.
And you folks in austin, heck, you folks go play on six street 11:30 pm, and the crowd will throw dollars at your feet, if you're ready....
And here in Frisco hit Jungle copy in Palo Alto, see my paintings in the background and watch the next new wage , cause it's stacking up there, but for the open mike of your dreams , I must admit you want Hotel Utah, or twist Fritz's arm at the Conneticut Yankee where String Cheese Incident was launched, and where Roy watches and waits for the next Sierra Nevada Music Festival break-out band will be to roar into our futures...
... over in Mill Valley taste the Sweetwater, world famous like Antoine's in Texas...
... but hey, why not all of us venture south to New Orleans and step out into the French Quarter right on the street, play till they chase us to a sidestreet, then buy some beaded necklaces with our tips...
Is that enough advertisement for you?
................................
Synergy strikes again.
I was thinking, dreaming of these things today, and I decided to reach towards an old video tape that jumped out of a box towards me a few days ago. My copy of the movie "Hype" , about the Grunge scene in Seattle. Earlier today, I had been surfing the internet looking for my friend charlie Laurel, with whom I'd recorded a couple albums , over the years... 3, in fact, co-produced. In any case, he even helped me work out a version of the song I had sung in Seattle years ago... But the reason I bring up my web surfing expereinces of this day is because I just had a light go on in my head, of some sort. and I have figured out a new way to embrace surfing for old friends. Somehow, through a series of odd disconnected linking from site to site to site to site, I eneded up on Eric Muhs site in Seattle. Invisiblemoose.org
I have my whole future ART /Music portfolio pictures, handbills from concerts, of roadtrips friends and SEATTLE spread out all over the Center room. (A place I hope to turn into a shitkicking open mic and performance space). the Big Hat and Boot from Seattle is on the table. I pick up the photo twice, notice I did, and understand theres a rolling wave of synnergistice truth at my heels.
Saturday night live sucks tonight, so I push that tape I found into the slot.... low and behold, I see that I am seeing those hats and boots and the same Eric Muhs appearing on showbills along with the other wavers of Grunge of not so long ago.... back when I was there.... I remembered the trek to Eric's ouse, the knock I knocked at the door of door of the art center where he worked and the house where he lived. It never really happened...we weren't in sync , that day... besides, I wondered... was I really destned for here?
Thinking back, did I walk to a separate future when I walkd to the bus stop that day????
www.ARTintoLIFE.com
http://www.zazzle.com/toekneestanger*
-ToeKneeStanger c.2k4 T.K.S.
posted by Toe Knee at 2:55 AM
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