jazzykeb
01-05-2007, 07:38 AM
An update on Paul from his myspace page:
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
the more things change the more they stay the same
Current mood: quixotic
Category: Life
I spent New Year's Eve at my brother John's house. He lives in a neighborhood that we both spent a good deal of time living in over the last few decades and has his party every year, I know the people. They are my old friends as well.
There is a bonfire on the neutral ground across from his house and it is quite something at midnight. Fire works, flames, a sense of danger and somehow romance still in the air. I hadn't made his party much over the last sixteen years because my old job kept me busy most of the year and almost always at New Year's Eve, 3500 shows later it was nice to be with old friends. I got a lot of love that night from people who's lives I hadn't been very present in in a long time, seems like I was present in theirs more then I knew. It felt and feels like the universe is sending folks to let me know that they love me and are as excited for my new direction in life as I am. It was humbling to remember how much my songs have been able to keep playing my life for me while I've been gone.
How do you say thanks for believing in me when I didn't know what it was I believed in myself sometimes?
I play a show at dba in New Orleans on the 4th and of the thousands of shows and the tens of thousands of people I've had a chance to sing and play for i'm as excited by this show as any I've played.
It's where I see John Boutte create music and magic at his shows when I've been in town over the last several years. In fact John got me the gig by telling one of the owners that he would be a damn fool not to have me play there, after all those years at the old job folks still want to know what you can bring to the table. Fair enough, we'll find out together in two days,
After the show Shelly and I will be flying to Belize to live for a while. I need to get out of New Orleans for a while, the devastation of my home and neighborhood still fills me with sadness. My friends who live here carry sadness like an extra suit of skin, anger keeps them going some days.
Violent crimes and unpleasant vibes from folks I use to work with. I'm emotionally exhausted and looking forward to the peaceful life we' found down in San Pedro.We are keeping our land but don't know yet if our neighborhood is coming back, like so many other folks we wait.
In leaving for a while I hope to lose myself to find my way home. I'm leaving to recharge, to have some peace, to find direction like thousands of folks who lost everything in the flood.We are not giving up on life or New Orleans. instead I hope to find a new path to the waterfall.
I don't see myself as hero or a martyr, a saint or a sinner and I don't see the folks who are staying in New Orleans as either. We are survivors who are trying to make our way through a landscape the likes of which we could not have a imagined.
The heros are the ones who stayed and pulled people out of their flooded homes. Thosands of stories you will never hear of neighbor helping neighbor, strangers helping strangers. The ones who brought food and water, gutted homes. Give up time from there lives to help folks they will never meet.
The real martyrs are the ones shot and killed in the days after, beaten and forgotten. Homeless and hungry for a nation to watch on CNN for a while and then go back to American idol. The poorest musicians in town wanting to stick it out in a city that loves them but will not house them even in the Musicians Village being built. Where a young man like Dinneral Shavers who not only played drums for the Hot Eight Brass Band but was a high school music teacher passing on a tradition to a generation that can only hope to be welcomed by the new New Orleans, is gunned down in front of his family as violent crime continues and leadership lies waiting to blossum somewhere surely.
The road Home program has had eighty-nine thousand applications of which my wife and I are one. Of the billions that sit waiting to change peoples lives eigthy families have been approved while the govenor promises more and the mayor thanks the lame duck president who continues lamely.
There are heroes and martyrs but they are not the ones posting blogs, they are the ones about to go under for a third time and still reaching out to help each other.
We all talk about one day. One day my wife and I will live on an island, one day I'll be a singer songwriter, one day New Orleans will flood. One day came and it's time for me to stop wishing and start living, we'll begin in Belize.
I'm not brave, a saint or a sinner. Writing about being brave isn't the same thing as being brave although in Chris Rose's case it comes as close as it can. I just wanted to wish a Happy New year and a happy new you to anyone out there waiting for one day or who's one day, like mine, has arrived.
accentuate the positive,
Poppy
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
the more things change the more they stay the same
Current mood: quixotic
Category: Life
I spent New Year's Eve at my brother John's house. He lives in a neighborhood that we both spent a good deal of time living in over the last few decades and has his party every year, I know the people. They are my old friends as well.
There is a bonfire on the neutral ground across from his house and it is quite something at midnight. Fire works, flames, a sense of danger and somehow romance still in the air. I hadn't made his party much over the last sixteen years because my old job kept me busy most of the year and almost always at New Year's Eve, 3500 shows later it was nice to be with old friends. I got a lot of love that night from people who's lives I hadn't been very present in in a long time, seems like I was present in theirs more then I knew. It felt and feels like the universe is sending folks to let me know that they love me and are as excited for my new direction in life as I am. It was humbling to remember how much my songs have been able to keep playing my life for me while I've been gone.
How do you say thanks for believing in me when I didn't know what it was I believed in myself sometimes?
I play a show at dba in New Orleans on the 4th and of the thousands of shows and the tens of thousands of people I've had a chance to sing and play for i'm as excited by this show as any I've played.
It's where I see John Boutte create music and magic at his shows when I've been in town over the last several years. In fact John got me the gig by telling one of the owners that he would be a damn fool not to have me play there, after all those years at the old job folks still want to know what you can bring to the table. Fair enough, we'll find out together in two days,
After the show Shelly and I will be flying to Belize to live for a while. I need to get out of New Orleans for a while, the devastation of my home and neighborhood still fills me with sadness. My friends who live here carry sadness like an extra suit of skin, anger keeps them going some days.
Violent crimes and unpleasant vibes from folks I use to work with. I'm emotionally exhausted and looking forward to the peaceful life we' found down in San Pedro.We are keeping our land but don't know yet if our neighborhood is coming back, like so many other folks we wait.
In leaving for a while I hope to lose myself to find my way home. I'm leaving to recharge, to have some peace, to find direction like thousands of folks who lost everything in the flood.We are not giving up on life or New Orleans. instead I hope to find a new path to the waterfall.
I don't see myself as hero or a martyr, a saint or a sinner and I don't see the folks who are staying in New Orleans as either. We are survivors who are trying to make our way through a landscape the likes of which we could not have a imagined.
The heros are the ones who stayed and pulled people out of their flooded homes. Thosands of stories you will never hear of neighbor helping neighbor, strangers helping strangers. The ones who brought food and water, gutted homes. Give up time from there lives to help folks they will never meet.
The real martyrs are the ones shot and killed in the days after, beaten and forgotten. Homeless and hungry for a nation to watch on CNN for a while and then go back to American idol. The poorest musicians in town wanting to stick it out in a city that loves them but will not house them even in the Musicians Village being built. Where a young man like Dinneral Shavers who not only played drums for the Hot Eight Brass Band but was a high school music teacher passing on a tradition to a generation that can only hope to be welcomed by the new New Orleans, is gunned down in front of his family as violent crime continues and leadership lies waiting to blossum somewhere surely.
The road Home program has had eighty-nine thousand applications of which my wife and I are one. Of the billions that sit waiting to change peoples lives eigthy families have been approved while the govenor promises more and the mayor thanks the lame duck president who continues lamely.
There are heroes and martyrs but they are not the ones posting blogs, they are the ones about to go under for a third time and still reaching out to help each other.
We all talk about one day. One day my wife and I will live on an island, one day I'll be a singer songwriter, one day New Orleans will flood. One day came and it's time for me to stop wishing and start living, we'll begin in Belize.
I'm not brave, a saint or a sinner. Writing about being brave isn't the same thing as being brave although in Chris Rose's case it comes as close as it can. I just wanted to wish a Happy New year and a happy new you to anyone out there waiting for one day or who's one day, like mine, has arrived.
accentuate the positive,
Poppy