original song – An Occasional Story or Magazine

Back on track(s)

Two songs that I wrote many moons ago, but still like to play. I added a piano track on each.

Moontides Over the Water is a bit of a heavy one, kind of pseudo-philosophical. All the same I think it’s one of my best.

Good and Evil side by side

Fill up all the lanes on the superhighway

You drive your truck as fast you can

Into the night ’til you make it home

It’s moontides

Over the waters

Police siren in the night

Wakes you up and you throw off the blanket

Baby stirs so gently in her sleep

Says to you Baby what’s the matter?

I said it’s moontides…

Now, I got a woman and she’s good as gold

Together we’re gonna walk that highway

It don’t matter if it’s rain or cold

Outside a cloud blows across the moon

moontides…….

Talkin in the here and now

Talkin in the everpresent

We just keep on walkin somehow

Into the night ’til we make it home

And it’s moontides over the waters moontides over the waters

She Looks and Tells Me is a melodramatic country western song.

She Looks and Tells Me

She looks and tells me that we shouldn’t get started

It can’t work out and she don’t want to cry

I’d only leave her broken-hearted

And there would be no reason why

I said Baby come into my arms and trust me

Baby every thing you say is true

But if we love each other then something must be right

Baby I just want to stay here with you

That’s the way the whole thing started

Called you on the phone, or was it you called me?

I said lady I’ll be coming over after work

I did not hear you disagree

You said baby come into my arms and trust me

Baby everything we say is true

And if we love each other then something must be right

And baby I want to stay here with you

Couple of weeks the thing had lost it’s sting

i found myself standing by the door

Baby standing there looking in my eyes

She said baby I know you’re not coming back no more

I said baby come into my arms and trust me

Baby everything we said was true

It didn’t quite work out, I’m sorry about that

I just wanted to stay here with you

Stairway to Grand Avenue

A lesson untold

To all its traces

A world unfolded

To all it’s foundations

We sailed the copper sea

we played out our destiny

and we walked together in the sand

you were my woman

and I was your man

walk on

we walk on

The letters came a tumbling from the sky

but the people turned away

they did not wonder why

and the letters cast their shadows on the land

you were my woman and I was your man

We walk on

walk on

We sail the copper sea…..

The Copper Sea

I wrote this song a few years ago and still like to play it. Exactly what a copper sea would look like is hard to say. I guess it’s a poetic image. Homer’s wine colored sea must’ve come to mind.

The Copper Sea

You Came Along is a song I wrote this past year – not a folk song but a stab at an old-time, Broadway number. It blatantly steals a chord change from Duke Ellington’s A Train (the augmented fifth on the ninth before it melts into the minor – one of Ellington’s favorite tricks. Playing in C, it’s the D aug 5th into the dminor 7th) Anyhoo, here’s the song.

It even has an intro: I thought I had come to the end of the line, I could see that final curtain But when I stepped down from that train, nothing was for certain There was no one around as I stepped off of the train I turned up my collar, and it was starting to rain…..and then You came along Like a breeze! You came along You came along for me! How do I know? How can I be sure? I only know what I’m living for since You came along……

More Blues

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Here’s another blues I’ve been working on. I like to think that I’m breaking new ground with new blues progressions. Which is silly, because here’s nothing ever new about the blues. As for the lyrics, I’ve noticed of late that I often use the same phrases again and again. It’s a matter of some concern. It’s a matter of some concern. This repeating myself. It’s a matter of some concern. It’s a matter of some…..

The great Irving Berlin reportedly said that he only had one melody that he used over and over. Naturally, I can’t confirm whether he really said that, as I never spoke with the man myself. Berlin himself seemed to be ignoring the amazing wealth and rich variety of songs he himself composed. He also (reportedly) played in only one key, which is also hard to believe. However at my level of talent it is quite believable that all my songs could be the same one. Certain lyrics keep popping up in all my songs – like movable type, or bad pennies.
Undeterred, I’ve been working on this one recently. A very simple (At its best simplicity is elegant. At its worst, just simple) blues. I added a second track of harmonica. The Low Down Blues

I woke up this morning with the low down blues

Nothin to win

And nothin to lose

Hey, I got the low down blues

There been some things that are troublin my mind

But this loneliness……

I just can’t seem to leave thes blues behind

Hey, I got the low down blues

Hey, them low down blues

Hey I got the low down blues

And they be troublin on my mind

Blues

The Blues

The Blues. The 12 -bar blues. I wrote a new blues song! Of course there’s nothing ever new about the blues, but it’s fun to work on it. I used two tracks, which is also fun. And now that I do the math, that’s to say count, I’d have to call it an 8-bar blues. But after the third or fourth bar I lose count. It’s called Gonna Sing Away The Blues

Staggering right along (after a couple more bars) the second song here is definitely not a new blues. It’s one ot the oldest! Easy Rider, also called CC Rider, which is no relation to the CC IND local or to the A Train for that matter (pardon the New York mass transportation references). Easy Rider is played here with the sparse use of just two chords – which is how Leadbelly did it. Leadbelly is the great master of the blues so I would check him out if you’ve never heard him. Meanwhile you can click on Bumba doing Easy Rider on two tracks (sorry, no train)

Take Five

Five is my favorite number. Sounds funny, a bit nerdy. You know, to have favorite numbers. But it’s true. I confess a certain affection for all the numbers. After all, they’re all “sacred expressions of the transcendent”. But the five is truly special. Its symmetry is perhaps the richest of all.

The golden proportion phi, rooted in fivefold symmetry, is a phenomenon of great beauty and importance to all living things. Phi — the square root of five minus one/divided by two — or 1.618…..is the golden proportion, the proportion most pleasing to the eye. Plants grow using the phi proportion. The DNA molecule is arranged according to five or tenfold symmetry. Seeds are most efficiently packed into a flower using phi. And phi is based on the five.

The pentagram with its pentagon inscribed – which circumscribes another smaller pentagram – which in turn generates another little pentagon – then another pentagram, and so on ad infinitum – will also expand in the same proportions ad infinitum (and if you add all those infinitums together you get an awful lot of infinitums).

The diagonals of the pentagram intersect in phi proportions: the big piece is to the little piece as the entire piece is to the big piece. It’s the “golden mean”. Artists like Leonardo have used it for ages. Phi’s aestheticly pleasing proportions are apparently wired into us. Our senses are naturally attuned to it, and we find it’s proportion of 5 to 8 or thereabouts a simple way to compose a painting or a building or nearly anything. The Parthenon is so constructed. The Great Pyramid too. The application of the phi principle is fundamental to Cheop’s pyramid; it’s dimensions are laid out in accordance to the golden mean. It’s an ancient piece of knowledge. Expressed algebraically phi is represented as AB/AC= (AB+AC)/AB — which reduces to the square root of five minus one/divided by two. Phi squared equals phi plus one. The mathematical wonders of phi never cease.

The five pointed star is a universal and elegant symbol of course. Although neither the star nor the pentagon tesselate cleanly like the square or the triangle or hexagon, figures based on phi angles nonetheless create patterns like these – Penrose tilings – a tesselation discovered by the physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose – which is a lucky coincidence because it would have been weird if someone called Moskowitz discovered it and named it Penrose tiling (Sorry ’bout that one).

I’ve included a song I wrote that starts off with the fifth. I wrote the song many years ago back in the Bronx, but still enjoy playing it. It tells a bittersweet story, a love story of course. The song is in D, but it starts off in A, the fifth of D. Now, how the musical fifth ties in with what I’ve been talking about is beyond me, but this song is the first one I thought of. I have a weakness for songs that start off in the fifth. Not to mention my weakness for the number five. OK, I won’t mention it (oops I just did).

A Better World To Be

The notion of a better world to be is a universal one, an archetype, a part of our collective unconscious. As for myself, I’m not figuring on too much angel cake after my death. My grandfather said that “when you die, it’s six feet under and that’s it”. He told me these blunt words when he was on his deathbed. He said “the heaven and hell stuff is a lot of bullshit”.

Blaise Pascal, in his famous Pascal’s wager, made an argument for belief in God and the afterlife based on the heavily weighted negative consequences of a wrong bet (ie, If you don’t believe in God and an afterlife and then, oops, there is one, well it’s fire and brimstone for you, Jackson). So, with apologies to Blaise Pascal, I’m holding off on all bets. I figure to play it by ear.

Interestingly, the Old Testament makes no mention of any afterlife and you would think think that some of those old-timers might have been privy to some of the inside info. Myself, I am sometimes aware of the spirit that is in all things and of which I am a part. This admittedly occasional experience would seem to transcend time and is quite sufficient for me. Meanwhile, I think it prudent to keep on playing that country music.

I wrote this song about a Better World To Be years ago, back in the Bronx, when belief in a life after death, a better world to be, was still in play for me. It’s a song that goes together with my Sweet Dreams and Happiness song (which appears on my CD Up in the Bronx and Down in LA, and which is available together with the Up in the Bronx book). Click if you want to hear the two songs played together, back to back.
Meanwhile, keep on playing that country music!

Here’s a little excerpt from the novel. In chapter III, our hero Jack Isaacson returns home from a walk in the rain and sings this song.

Hey! There's Up in the Bronx on the shelves at the Los Angeles Public library — Hey! There’s Up in the Bronx on the shelves at the Los Angeles Public library

When Jack returned home, he changed to some dry clothes, and picked up his twangy, Harmony steel-stringed guitar, his prized possession, his only prized possession. A tune was in his head. Chords. A rock & roll progression. The kind that goes from G to E minor, and then to C and to D, and then finally back to G. But this one just sat there alternating between the G and E minor for a long time. And the rhythm took over. Back and forth from the tonal to its friend in minor:
“Sweet dreams and happiness.
Baby, don’t you fall.
Go home, pick up what’s left.
I’ll meet you in the hall.”
“All I need’s, my baby when I call,” said the refrain in C.
Jack felt very pleased about the tune and the lyrics. But somehow, he thought, it wasn’t fair to that poor baby – who’s needed and called upon like that. Is that all I need? he asked himself. Would that be right? Would that set everything straight?

As I Sat On The Bus Story (#24): A Solution to Writer’s Block and a Song

Send in your stories, photos, poems, songs and other interesting thoughts that start with – or somewhere imply “As I Sat On The Bus”. Just get on the bus and you’ll start writing. Send it in via the Comments section

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People ask about writer’s block: the difficulty in writing consistently, in producing words. It’s not easy to write! Some writers barricade themselves up in a garret, or lock themselves in their rooms, forcing themselves to write at least 50 thousand words a week. Something like that. Some crazy target.

Other writers write for these blogs. They write every day. They come up with something each and every day for the blog. 200 blog words a day. Something. Anything. For a while they’re really into it. But after a year or two they usually grow weary. They ask themselves why the heck they’re writing on this blog thing for anywaze. What for? All the same, the blogging often becomes a bit of an obsession for them. A daily obligation. Bumba, for instance, even began his blog with a plan of “every day another story”- or something stupid like that. That’s what he titled his blog. If you don’t believe me, you can scroll up and check the Header. It says Every Day Another Story. You know, he just figured he’d have a new story every day. He also figured that he could get contributions from other authors as well. What’s more he hoped to present several of his own books that were already written. His intentions were noble. You have to grant him that. But then he winds up using various shortcuts. He posts every other day. Or he just posts some songs that he recorded on the guitar the day before and calls that a post.

Such is Bumba’s answer to writer’s block. What the?

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As I sat on the bus I waited for the inspiration to come. I knew that if I rode the bus I would soon find the muse. It would just come to me. The bus is my muse. I would overcome the current bout of writer’s block. The writer’s block thing would simply dissolve into the mumblings and rumblings of the #20 bus as it rattled its way down Wilshire Blvd.

After passing the LACMA Museum I noticed some new buildings going up at La Brea. Further down there was a shiny new car dealership. Then a series of strip malls. Places to eat. Crossing Highland, the bus entered into a more gentrified stretch of Wilshire. No more commercial stores. Some corporate offices. Some nicely landscaped condos. The drove by the fabled Fremont Estates.

The ride down Wilshire, arguably Los Angeles’ greatest boulevard, might make a swell idea for a story, a saga perhaps, a grand quasi-literary tour of L.A., I thought. Hmmmm.

……..Naah, better to just present a song

If you ever go to Houston

Tell them all I said hello.

One More Time — A Non-Inspirational Message and A Song

People have accused me of being cynical. They say that I’m a cynical SOB. For instance, they say things like: “Bumba, you are so cynical”, or “Bumba, you are one cynical SOB.” Hints like that. To these people I usually answer: “I don’t believe you, I’m a cynic.” Ha, Ha. That being said (and don’t you just cringe when someone says “with that being said”?) this Bumbastories blog has made it an official policy to not engage in “inspirational messages”. No way. No inspiration here, and no rest for the weary. You will find no Pollyannas camped out on this site. No Disneyesque memories to be found lurking in the margins, no power of positive thinking tidbits in any of the categories, nor any quasi-religious, shimmering sunset sorts of photographs in the header or on the horizon. Sorry folks, but no false hopes will be foist upon you here on Bumbastories. So this song title is as “inspirational” as it gets, the message being to keep on trying. That’s it: a simple blues riff I wrote a long time ago, which I still enjoy playing (I even added a rhythm track) and which I hope you enjoy too.

I may slip but I don’t fall

I may stagger but I don’t crawl

And when I get to the end of the line

I turn around and do it one more time

One more time

After all these times

You might think I’m tired

But I’m gonna give it a shot one more time

Some non-inspirational thoughts about the One More Time song:

1. Listen. I may be down. I may have failed. But I’m going to try one more time.

2. My name is Sisyphus. And guess what? I’m gonna push that rock up that hill one more time..

3. OK the 1% have taken over the government and the media and people are dumbed out and they’re going to befoul the entire planet, and they’re …Well, we, we the people, we’re just going to have to fight the good fight. One more time.

4. Hey baby. That was great. What? You want to do it again? What? You mean what? What? Well, all right. One more time.

Hey baby take my hand

I know you’re lookin for a lover man

Come on baby don’t be shy

I’m gonna love you through the night

One more time

You can’t keep a good man down

You may try, you may think you win

But let me tell you in the end my friend

He’s coming around

One more time

After all these times

You might think I’m lyin’

But I’m here again

One more time

P.S. If you’re still seeking inspirational messages see Bumba’s Inspirational Message posted without apology.