THIS Rhett Butler Will Never Die

well, i finally regained access to my BraveJournal blog, where i like to do my personal blogging. i've survived the holidays pretty much. spent them alone basically. very alone. very very. alone. uh, got my new camera. the months ahead are going to be lean, as i will too become... thank you all who have ever taken the time to read what i type here. i appreciate it. honestly i do. oh, i'm going to start a Flickr project on the first of the year. 365 days of a self portrait of being bipolar i'm going to call it...

Adrian Belew (born December 23, 1949 as Robert Steven Belew) is an American guitarist and vocalist (and sometimes drummer, pianist and bass player), perhaps best known for his work as a member of the progressive rock group King Crimson, which he first joined in 1981. He has also released a number of solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records, and has worked with many other musicians. He was nominated for a Grammy in 2005, for his single, "Beat Box Guitar", which was nominated for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. In addition, Belew is well-regarded for his contributions, particularly on guitar, to various other artists' recordings. In 1977, he performed with Frank Zappa, appearing in Zappa's 1979 concert film Baby Snakes, as well as Zappa's controversial album Sheik Yerbouti. In addition to playing lead guitar on David Bowie's 1979 album, Lodger, he also supported him on his Stage world tour in 1978 and the Sound + Vision world tour in 1990 as music...

It's the birthday of the singer, songwriter, and composer Frank Zappa , (books by this author) born in Baltimore, Maryland (1940). When he was 15, he read a magazine article that described the work of the avant-garde classical composer Edgar Varese as "the ugliest music in the world," and he decided he had to hear it. That turned him into a huge fan of 20th-century classical music. He later said, " I didn't have any kind of musical training, so it didn't make any difference to me if I was listening to Lightnin' Slim ... or Stravinsky. To me, it was all good music." Out of high school, Zappa supported himself as a greeting-card designer, window dresser, and encyclopedia salesman. At night, he played with various bar bands, and he began experimenting with playing atonal classical music on an electric guitar, backed by a rock-and-roll rhythm. He said his goal at the time was to make music that would cause people to run from the room the moment they hear...

this site gave me a lot of joy tonight. i actually laughed out loud looking at all these photos and fantasized a bit about what it must be like to have such a close relationship with one's son. really, really awesome works of art. http://jumpingboy.com

It's the birthday of Frank Sinatra , born in Hoboken, New Jersey (1915). His mother was a midwife and a saloon owner, and she encouraged him to have big dreams as a kid. He spent a lot of his childhood sitting on the Hoboken wharves, staring at New York City, imagining how he could make a name for himself. It was his uncle who introduced him to music, and bought him a ukulele. He liked to sit on the curb at night, under a lamppost, and strum. He also liked to sing along with the player piano in his parents' saloon, and occasionally one of the men in the bar would pick him up and sit him on the piano. One day, a customer gave him a nickel for a song he sang, and he decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life getting paid to sing. He got sidetracked for a little while when he got into the newspaper business, first working on a delivery truck and then as a copy boy. But one night he saw Bing Crosby sing in Jersey City, and that persuaded him to quit his day job and focus ...

TOM WAITS, BORN DECEMBER 7, 1949 (pretty auspicious birthday, eh?) It's the birthday of the singer, songwriter and actor Tom Waits , (books by this author) born in Pomona, California (1949). As a teenager, his parents moved around a lot, and instead of making friends, Waits became obsessed with music. He didn't listen to rock and roll like his classmates. He was more interested in older music: George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Frank Sinatra, Jerome Kern, Cab Calloway, and the old Nat "King" Cole Trio. He later said, "I ... slept right through the '60s. Never went through an identity crisis. Never had no Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall, never ate granola, never had any incense." Out of high school he worked odd jobs, as a fireman, a cab driver, a gas station attendant. He said, "[At one point] I worked in a restaurant ... [as] dishwasher, waiter, cook, plumber, janitor — everything. They called me Speed-O-Flash." He wasn't sure what he wante...

(more photos) December 3rd was young Krista's birthday. She would have turned 27 this year. I've been visiting her grave for about two years now. It is an impromptu shrine that her mother has crafted amongst the eternal crust of dead leaves that fall from the oaks, alders, and sycamores that umbrella the path side she lies next to. Small angels stand guard and wrought iron carved flowers are rooted; there was a whirligig here last year but the weather must have destroyed it. The angels and wrought iron endure. I came to visit her late Saturday night, bringing candles. I always bring candles. I used to also bring incense. I think they like incense. I used to suspect that it would awaken them a little more to my presence. I would sit longer with them when I burned incense as it would also take me to a deeper place of reverie. I'll start to do that again. Anyway, I brought a large votive for her of the "guardian angel" and three smaller votives that I sim...