Sebastian

Yesterday our cat began tipping over.  His back legs did not have the strength to help turn him toward his feed bowl and water.  He would stand for a bit and then slowly lay on the floor.  This cat has been a gift from the FUR PEOPLE GODS.  

He does not use a litter box.  Kitty litter damn near kills me as well as pet dander.  Sebastian goes outdoors to use the potty.  He is a most unusual cat because he does not meeeee oooowww and squeak like most cats.  He has a very strong baritone voice and makes all kinds of garbled sounds like foreign words.  This house has two levels.  He never steps down to the rooms on the ground level.  Of late he has been walking down the stairs and at night sleeping on the bed with us.  He needed to be near humans that loved him... 

We knew he was ill when we offered to care for him.  He radiated a certain energy that I could not reject.  HE NEEDED US!  

(one the most influential people in my life told my that the worst thing in life is to NOT TO BE NEEDED!)  I believe her with all my heart.

Well, dear old Sebastian needed us.  We needed Sebastian.  He loved affection as well as his privacy.

(kinda reminds me of myself?)

Yesterday morning I washed his food and water bowls.  He was growling at the back door wanting OUT SIDE, telling me he had to REALLY PEE.  

Fine, he hit the green grass and I noticed the strawberry patch was glowing with buckets of ripe red berries!  I told Sebastian to soak in the morning light and I began harvesting the gorgeous berries.

When I glanced over my shoulder to where the cat was,  VACANCY!  GONE!  THAT DAMN CAT HAD EVAPORATED OFF THE EARTH!  I literally nearly dropped the bucket of berries!

Our dear neighbor Clare was walking her dog Minn's on the upper bench.  I told her what had occurred.  She went searching in one direction I went another all the time whispering Sebastian where are?  Come out, come out, where ever in hell you are... or else I will  kill you!"  

People that follow my blog have read the story about Michael's mother Anne disappearing one morning while I was taking a shower!  That was NOT a good day!

Our neighbor Ann called Clare and told her Sebastian was not able to walk and was on her property.

Clare rescued the cat.  She delivered him to his home with us and he gobbled a cup of wet cat food and a bowl of water!   Michael found the comfy blanket Dennis and Gail had purchased him in November.  We made a warm nest for him in the lounge.  He cuddled into a blissful sleep.

Last night I rubbed his head, shoulders and bony spine until I retired round 11:PM  Michael stayed up reading and sitting with Sebastian.

This morning was a "replay" of two years ago...  I wake up, walk to the upper level of the house into the kitchen.  Push the "ON" button of the coffee maker.  Notice a note written in Clinger's hand.

"Good morning,

Sebastian died at 12:15 AM.  His journey is over at last.  We will bury him after breakfast... love, Michael."

WTF?????  I raced to the lounge, nothing of the cat remains.  I walk outside, nothing...  I decide to sit quietly and wait for the details.  Michael comes upstairs tells me:

Sebastian was resting then raised his head and coughed as if to release a fur ball.  He then laid his head down and stopped breathing.  I then did something I did when mother passed away:  I opened all the windows.  I gathered Sebastian up in my arms with his blanket.  Took him to the garage and cut the blanket to fit his body.  Pinned it with safety pins so it would not fall to pieces.  I will dig a grave beside the apricot tree amid the Columbine and we will bury him.  He will protect the property and all that dwell here.

The night Anne died Michael's mother, I closed the restaurant, walked home.  Always went to her bedside and checked on her.  I always spent time rubbing her hands and arms.  They were so small and delicate.  She would smile and lay back at peace.  When she was finally soundly asleep I would  get ready for bed.  Oct. 23rd I did this very thing and the next morning I walked into the bathroom in order to prepare for work at 6:30 -  7 AM.  There was  a note from Clinger laying on the counter:

"Mother died at 12:15 this morning.  This long, long journey is over.  Love Michael."  I literally ran into her room.  She was laid out on the bed like a queen.  PERFECT HAIR, MAKE UP, DRESSED IN VELVET PLUM COLORED CLOTHING...

Michael told me that when he found his mother had died the first thing he did was open all the windows in her room.  He did the same thing when Sebastian died!  He washed and dressed her and did the same for Sebastian.

Today we buried this dear FUR PERSON near the apricot tree.  We covered his body with rose petals and rose blossoms.  Laid the new Xmas toys he was given on top of his corpse.  I have been to near death the past year.  I am learning a very intense and serious lesson:  DEATH IS A BLESSED PART OF LIVING AND THE TWO ARE INSEPARABLE.  I have had to accept some very ugly truths in my life and I have not denied their reality.  I accept everything life presents me with except for ONE TRUTH stupidity.  

Sebastian had a life he lived according to HIS DICTATES.  I know far too many people who's lives are guided by the media, politics, religion, guru's, and DOGMA!  They live in FEAR and HATE of every possible thing!  

The most amazing journey you can ever take is being ALL ALONE and WITH NOTHING BUT YOURSELF as a GUIDE.  One either goes insane or learns who and what they are as compared to what OTHERS think and WANT to MAKE them INTO BEING!  No one person is born with hate or bigotry.  THEY LEARN IT!   Most humans can and will not live the truth.  Truth involves only YOU!  

Pets on the other hand unless they are so abused beyond imagination, they follow their hearts.  They know, sense, and react to emotions and vibrations.  Dogs love Beethoven.  Cats love New Age type music.  I had a cat that would simply become another cat if I played piano... my own improvisations!  Wheee Enough.   Could write a book about music, light and animals!

Mystical Mentors in Our Lives

When I was a Performance Piano Major at the University of Utah, I know my Face Book states I studied music at WSC in Ogden Utah which I did.  In 1965 they had an amazing faculty.  Years later I attended the University of Utah.

My piano teacher at the time I was a student at the UofU was Lowell Farr.  He introduced me to so many pieces in the piano literature beyond the standard works I learned from Childhood.  Schubert, Hayden, lots of Bach and Beethoven then the love of my life:  Claude A. Debussy.  Lowell claimed the Preludes Book 1 and 11 by Debussy were as sacred as Bach's Preludes and Fugues Books 1 and 11.  He showed me so many amazing intricate mathematical equations and phrases within the lines and spaces Debussy sat upon the canvas of a musical manuscript!

Plato said, "music penetrates to the center of the soul and gains possession of it in the most energetic fashion"

Isaac the Syrian:  "He who has SEEN HIMSELF is greater than the one who has seen ANGLES!"

I love the Syrian's quote.  Anyone that practices music night and day endure freighting experiences of SEEING WHO THEY ARE!  They discover all of their weakest parts, plus their STRONGEST and most durable parts.  Next comes the FEARS!  the forever ANGST when performing in front of anything.  It can be a live audience, a microphone, playing knowing someone in the next room is listening...  the worst situation for me years ago:  a lapse of memory!  the most terrifying feeling in the world.  I had an amazing ability to capture musical pieces and hold them firmly inside my musical mind!  There have been times when something did not CONNECT and I was floundering like a fish out of water... these are times one thanks GOD for musical theory.  "OMG!  I am in the key of E flat.  The melody is within my reach..."  you grasp and improvise like magic to recover when in the hell you "snapped".

The daily practice of music teaches you how to FORGIVE and MOVE ON and leave your mistakes by the wayside!

When I practice and read Debussy I see myself in a different light.

Music, with It's powerful ability to deduce, contains a delicate element of the INVISIBLE WORLD!

It penetrates one's being through "suggestion".  It is not a fable that in antiquity music was considered a gift from the gods and that ancients played music fervently.

Like a woman's perfume, music is a very powerful element.  Most masculine musicians will shun and try not to surrender their beliefs in science, technology and ability to REASON when it comes to the chemical that overcomes a musician when feeling complete EMOTION!

Remember David and his Lyre and Harp?  His flute and gift for dance?  The Songs of Solomon?  In my childhood I converted to a RELIGION not many people would regard as divine and pure.  I felt and knew the TRUTH within MUSIC.

I have never and still do not understand how the OLD TESTAMENT AND THE NEW TESTAMENT OF THE BIBLES BELONG TOGETHER??????  I have read the Bible 13 times from cover to cover not skipping a word.  The God of murder, blood sacrifice, concubines, etc. in the Old Testament then the LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU IN THE N.T.  Most all wars are have deep religious origins!  

Give me Chopin, Beethoven, Rachmanninoff, even CCWR, Beatles, Oscar Peterson and list is endless.  Debussy and yes ALL GENRES of sound.

I will forever need to live near mountains and waters.  The sea is never too far away from any river.  A river is a living vessel of living water.

Legato, rubato, are curves like a snake's slow incandescent undulations within green grass.  The snake and river are strong, winding and full of rebellious life flowing into something hidden...

I live across from the Snake River.  I watch this river move like a beacon through my past 30 years.

I have witnessed this river in drought.  Extremely LOW water levels and at intense HIGH levels.  I have cried when my eyes watch darts of light dance on this water at sunset.  I have seen rocks, fish, soil and plant life that only live near the music of rivers.

Debussy said:  MUSIC IS THE EXPRESSION OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE WATERS, THE PLAY OF CURVES DESCRIBED BY CHANGING BREEZES.

The haunting words are play of curves changing the breezes!  Deja vu often comes to me in my every moment of breathing and observing nature.

Debussy belonged to some very strange and esoteric groups of thinkers and artists.  I like this fact!  He was NOT controlled by dogmas.   His music forever reveals to me who and what I am.  What secret gift beyond imagination!

Hands

I never look at a person's face or eyes...

I LOOK AT THEIR HANDS.  The hands tell me everything I want or need to know!

Hands breathe, they see, they sense things beyond imagination.

The first hand I ever touched was my mothers hands.  My mother did not have beautiful hands.  She had hands that could do many things. Working hands!

As a very little boy when my mother's hands gently massaged my head and chest... I was HEALED!  Her hands held me in crowds of people.  Her hands fed me food made with her hands... her hands could do magic things when I was a little boy!

I love my hands.  At 68 they tell many stories about my life.  They display bleached spots where I have been burned from cooking on a grill to a bonfire.
Scares from cuts I have endured with chef knives, broken bottles, opening cans that slipped against the tin can...   I have marks from dogs that have gouged me, cats that have scratched me, and some unexplainable scares from??????

My hands have touched the most beautiful things possible!  They have held onto cliffs too high for me to explain.  They have never ever failed me.  They have been my source of making music!!!

OH MY HANDS!  I do not just love you because I am a chef and pianist.  Fingers are only conduits for internal energy.  When one plays piano you use your entire body!  Back, shoulders, arms but the hands need these sacred parts in order to perform all they are capable of making possible.

Hands are one of the many blessings a body has within itself to manifest so many joys and sensuous comforts beyond the expression of words.

There are nights I lift my hands toward the moon (luna) and receive energy and light.  Moonlight is silver sunlight is gold dust... for some unexplainable reason I LOVE THE MOON AND STARS!

One must always discover the parts of the body, mind, other people try so desperately to write about as well as explain all the reasons and reason for having bodies and life on earth.  NO ONE CAN TELL YOU  THE ANSWER!

I have known friends that only look upon people's beautify or ugliness!  Others that only sense something through another one's speaking voice.  Some simply "FEEL" that certain something that vibrates negative or positive...

I learned a most important lesson regarding my own self:  FEEL and TOUCH and SMELL, and HEAR and then LOOK!  What have I always looked at?  hands!

Hands FEEL they touch and they hear as well as can look and smell many things the conscious man cannot experienceI

Love your hands.  They are a mirror of who and what you are.

They speak in a language beyond the stars and heaven.  They are your BLUEPRINT,
NO FINGERPRINT IS THE SAME,  your fingers can reveal all things about you including your spiritual life!

I love to kneed bread dough.  WHY?

I love the feel of piano keys.  WHY?

I love to touch leaves, the petals of flowers, vegetables, fruits, flesh, hair, and rock, sand and water!  I love the touch of silk, wool, cotton, meat, the list is endless...

Hands of time and time of Hands....  hands are sacred gifts!

MY HOUSE SALAD DRESSING RECIPE

Brenthoven's Restaurant has been around for many years.  One can go on line and read reviews etc.  I do not go there!  I am a very superstitious man!  Therefore I avoid the reviews and likes or dislikes!

Over the many years friends have asked for my House Salad Dressing recipe.  I am finally willing to give it out on my blog.

I know many cooks that hoard recipes as if the recipe were something made out of gold and silver!  They refuse to share a recipe with anyone.  I do have one dear chef friend and she will share a recipe IF and only IF you exchange one of your valued recipes for her cherished gem!

Cakes, Breads, Muffins, Cookies are all made from flour.  Yes, Gluten Free need Potato flour, Soy flour, Rice flour... but they begin with FLOUR!

I LOVE MAKING SOUPS!
All soups begin with a BASS NOTE.  (the word soup base is not a stupid word!)  One uses the stock of Beef, Chicken, Pork, Vegetables, Elk, Venison, fruit, and at times what ever is at hand!.

From the Bass note you add a TENOR VOICE!  That can be the MEAT, substance of the desired ingredient within the blend of soup.  Chicken, Beef etc. plus you can add vegetables and other herbs.

Tenor leads to ALTO.  She sings right under the Prima Donna Soprano!  The Alto can be certain herbs, seasonings, wine, fruit juice, fats, sugars, salt, pepper.  The list is endless.  She hold up the magic note of any soup!

ENTER THE SOPRANO!  THE PRIMA DONNA OF ALL NOTES.  Here is the magic.  I will not reveal my touch of the magic wand however, this is the touch that makes the pallet weep for joy!  This one touch brings everything into one harmonic melody of love and peace.

I cannot recall IF I wrote a blog about my closing of the season?  I made 43 GALLONS of PUMPKIN SOUP for customers.  They buy it in gallons then break it down into small amounts and freeze it.   On cold winter nights they can heat it up in a sauce pan or a crock pot.

Salad Dressings are created in the same spirit.  ALWAYS remember ALL RECIPES ARE ALTERATIONS ON ANOTHER RECIPE!

I stole my house dressing from a nice guy I met years ago at the original Nordic Inn.  Dirk Beesley.
He found it in San Francisco years ago.

The dressing is a very old "HIPPIE" dressing.  The story goes that one day someone was making poppy seed dressing and low and be hold there was not any more poppy seeds!  Thus they used Celery Seeds.  Magic.

I love cucumbers and tomatoes most of all with butter leaf and red leaf lettuces... the most tender flesh one can ever put in their mouth.  I posted the recipe on my FB for such a salad.  I said that I prefer my own dressing to the other dressings.  THEREFORE I AM WRITING THIS BLOG!

NOW FINALLY LAIDES AND ALL GOOD MEN THAT COOK:  HERE IS MY RECIPE FOR THE DRESSING.

YOU WILL NEED:

A BLENDER
HONEY 1 cup
RED WINE VINEGAR 1 cup
VEGETABLE OIL (3 cups. 2 to start with 1 to finish)
SALT 1 tsp
PEPPER1 tsp
DRY MUSTARD 1tsp
CELERY SEED OR POPPY SEEDS1 tsp

1... in a blender put 2 cup oil. red wine vinegar then add a cup of HONEY.  DO NOT PUT THE HONEY IN THE BLENDER FIRST!  It will not break down.  It must float in the vinegar  and honey.

2...Add one teaspoon of Salt, Pepper, Dry MUSTARD, and Celery Seeds.

3...Place the lid on blinder and PULSE it a few times, then let it RIP!  STOP AND ADD ONE CUP OF VEGETABLE OIL!!!  then remain blending.
The result should be a pinkish thick dressing.  Pour it into something you can SHAKE up as the dressing will separate after a few hours...

Dispose of the dressing after  two weeks.  It is still useable but, I think things should be made fresh and kept new as possible.

I am working on a cookbook.  If I live long enough I will accomplish about 1,000 things I still want to create in my life!

At my age I do not understand how some of my friends are so bored???  they awake, hit the golf course... la, la, la, the same ole, same ole, MIND YOU,  I am a very LAZY man and can never get all the things I want to achieve finalized!

I still have music I must learn and a bout 1000 books I must read and even though my body is aging... I want to visit so many places on my home planet earth.  I have a list of things beyond imagination.

Narek Hakhnazaryan CELLIST EXTRODINAIRE

For the first time in all my many years attending the NZSO concerts at Town Hall in the city of Dunedin, I was able to attend the LAST concert of the Orchestra's winter season.  For 22 years I have been able to attend the OPENING CONCERT in April because the seasons are upside down here at the bottom of the planet.  Fall time is around Easter and then winter in July, August etc. The winter season in the Northern hemisphere begins November and December...  2014 is the first time I have ever been in New Zealand in November thus I was able to attend the final concert for the season.

I have composed blogs about the many concerts I have attended over years.  From NYC, Europe, and Down Under.  I love Symphony Orchestra Music!
To hear a Symphony "tuning" is magic to my life!
All the dissonance melting into a perfect pitch.  It makes me think that just IF?  all of mankind with  it's religions, politics, prejudices, confusion could come together as ONE perfect Vibe...  but then we come to question:  WHO WILL BE THE PRINCIPAL VIOLINIST THE OBOE and FLUTE player THAT SETS THE TONE for bringing us all into ONE KEY.  ONE NOTE...?

Being a pianist I am blessed to have a cosmic palate of color and sound at my finger tips when ever the urge comes over me to place my hands upon the keyboard and allow my fingers to improvise.  Let them wander into all kinds of IDEAS.  Enter the music's world hidden deep within the secret places of my mind.  Of course I love recreating sound from the monumental musical creations the great composers have given us.  There are times when my fumbling mind 'cleanses' itself of some ugly debris floating around inside the brain by something as simple as muddling my way through a Bach Fugue!

Last night I had the amazing privilege of watching and hearing a young man perform on a wonderful instrument, the cello.  To me the Cello is like a human voice.  I have a priceless DVD of Rostropovich and Richter performing together at the Royal Albert Hall in London years ago!  I have all the recordings of YoYo Ma.

NAREK HAKHNAZARYAN'S PERFORMANCE CAUSED ME TO NEARLY LEAP OUT OF MY SEAT AND STAND DURING HIS PERFORMANCE WITH THE SYMPHONY!

He performed Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme.  Mind you, I am not a lover of this particular work however, I could not believe what my eyes and ears were hearing and my heart was feeling!

Narek was applauded with the clapping of hands in unison as well as pounding feet!  He came back for many curtain calls and finally played a most amazing encore.  Nothing from the standard repitore he performed an Armenian Lament!!!  A lament is sorrow, sadness, longing.  (the most viewed piece  of my recordings on youtube is The Laments of the Maiden and the Nightingale.)

Narek was born in Yerevan, Armenia.  Therefore he chose a Armenian melody for his encore and developed it's wailing of sorrow and tears into something beyond imagination.
HE USED HIS OWN VOICE in a haunting duet of the main melody.  He drew magic from his instrument which were celestial.
His glissandos stretched to the limit of one's heart strings!  Some of the variations sounded like a Jimmy Hendrix crazy jazz improvisation.  His body movements matched the music perfectly.  Narek is one of the great cellists of the times.  (thank the heavens he is only 25 years old!  Long may he live and keep giving his music to this planet.)

A friend I attended the concert with commented after the encore,  "I think this young man SLEEPS with his cello.  He loves his instrument that expresses all he feels.  He has found his voice."

I have always envied guitar players, violinists, cellists and other instruments people can carry   everywhere they wander...  I simply do not have the strength to lift a grand piano into my pickup and drive up the canyon, find a quiet place by the river and make music.

I love the way Christopher Parkening can walk on a stage carrying his guitar by it's neck, seat himself in a chair and then ever so tenderly and with love place the girl of his instrument on his thigh, caress it close to his solar plexus, heart and lungs.

The piano is my first and will be my last love affair.  It is shaped like a sacred harp.
David of the Old Testament played the harp, flute and could dance.  The harp is the instrument of ANGELS so I was once told.  Who's  to know?

If you are ever presented with the gift of having this young cellist grace your area do purchase a ticket and hear and see something gorgeous.  I am so happy I was able to be in Town Hall last night and saturate my being with such music!

The ultimate joy of NO TIME FRAMES!!

From Memorial Day weekend until the end of September I awaken every day round 6 AM.  I fall asleep between 11:30 PM and midnight.

I open my restaurant for breakfast at 8:00 AM.  I try to be inside the kitchen by 7:00 AM depending on my prep work.  I do most of my prep for the day and night from making soup, to plum sauce in the early morning.
Breakfast can be insane or not much of anything, depending on the time of year and how many rooms have been rented.
Lunch begins at 11:30 AM until 1:30 PM.  THERE IS A VERY SERIOUS REASON FOR MY CLOSING FROM 1:30 PM until 6:00 PM.
I become terribly exhausted and have to lay down.  Yep, I am a wimp and need to rest.  If I don't things can become scattered from HELL TO BREAKFAST...

I have never been a person that bounds out of bed at first light, smiling from ear to ear, full of energy and eagerness to begin a new and wonderful day.

As a little boy in grade school I struggled simply getting myself to the corner of the street, in the early morning where the yellow school bus collected a group of students waiting for the ride to school.  At times I would fall asleep during class.
Many days I walked from school home.  I loved being outside.  The open sky, sounds, things growing in fields of sugar beets, alfalfa, corn, beans the list was endless.  Most of all I loved looking west toward the Great Salt Lake and Antelope Island.

I do not simply fall asleep like other people.  I have dear friends and family I have shared hotel rooms with on trips abroad and I am amazed how they can simply brush their teeth, wash the face, put on the night clothes, crawl into bed and within minutes they are SOUND, I MEAN SOUND ASLEEP!!

I will still be laying in my bed reading, staring at the ceiling, listening to music, watching a movie... and then the "sandman" gently sprinkles stardust on my eye lids and I drift off.  I DREAM A LOT!
I dream in COLOR and SOUND.  I FEEL AND SENSE every dynamic in a dream.  I can sense smells, cold, hot, wet, dry, pain, ecstasy, as well as boredom in a dream state of mind.  It is a form of synesthsia.   (where one can see color when they hear sound, taste words etc..... look it up)

I arrived in NZ on Dec. the 5th 2014!!!  today marks 20 days I have been living with  no routine or time zone as far as work, obligations, dead lines...  I am still a human being I do have Dr. Appointments, Dentist, appointments and I practice piano, walk, day dream and read buckets of books.  HOWEVER!  I am not worried about when I sleep and when I awake!

Every night I dream.  My dreams waken me and not all of them are pleasant dreams.  They can involve events, people, places and situations I have experienced but, they are usually altered in some interesting way.

I once years ago kept a dream journal... I will admit it did not tell me anything amazing however, it did tell me how DIFFERENT the dream state can be  about a certain person or event compared to  the actual situation I'd recall in reality?  OR IS THE DREAM REALITY REAL and  REALITY AS WE KNOW IT A DREAM???

Who really cares?  I love being able to sleep when I am tired and be awake when I am awake!

Last night I went to bed a 10:30 PM and woke up round 3:00 AM.  I got out of bed... opened my I PAD to the book I am reading, nibbled on some cheese and olives... finally my eyes began to droop and I descended to the bedroom.  Crawled into my warm bed and floated into wild dreams!

I did awaken at 6:00 AM looked at the sunrise, started my morning coffee and studied my musical score of Debussy's Reflections on the Water... (music is kind of like blue prints of beautiful things one cannot put into words or colors.  I seem to find more meaning within a musical written score than sometimes hearing the sounds!  The horizontal and Vertical energy of music in written form.  I made two soft boiled eggs on toast, drank the coffee and around 8:00 AM went back to bed till 9:00 AM!

I was considered years ago as having serious mental disorders.  Thank GOD or who EVER they may be, they were and still are enlightened doctors...

20 years ago I was diagnosed with NARCOLEPSY.  There is a medication which is extremely expensive but OH MY GOD it works.  I only take it when I am working and when I drive for long hours.  I once drove off the freeway in Utah and was booked for DRUNKEN DRIVING!  No alcohol was in my blood......... they said I was on something else?  NOT.  I paid a $300.00 fine for something NO ONE seemed to understand or know about.

My Doctor in the 70's put me on Dexedrine.  OMG, I would go back on them this moment.  I have never ever accomplished so many things.  I WAS A WIRED UP GENIUS.  Talk about an issue.  Five years later I went through all the withdrawals of the drug alone... me and Judy Garland?

I have no idea why I chose to write about this?  Maybe some one that reads this blog has a similar problem but, IF you can live to 68 years as I have, and have a fantastic neurologist you may simply have a better life.

I have got to get up to my kitchen here in NZ and create dinner.  I have a neighbor coming in for dinner at 7:00 PM.  God only knows I do drink wine when I cook and sometimes I even remember to put some in the food!!!

The eve of turning 68 years old...

On November 14th 1946 northern Utah was experiencing a serious blizzard.  Temps had dropped far below the point of zero.  Many roads were hidden under deep snow.  I was still living inside the safe and loving warmth of my mother's body.  Suddenly I wanted to be BORN!

My very young father drove my very young mother into the city of Ogden, Utah to the Dee Memorial Hospital.  They were having a FIRST experience in their lives and so was I!!!  The gift and blessing of a new life.  Their lives would never be the same.  They would become PARENTS.  I would become the first born son.  A drama unfolded that no one in this dimension would believe possible.

In October of this year I was in NYC taking the LIRR to Huntington NY on Long Island.  Two young black women were sitting across the isle from me.

Trains haunt me.  Ever since I was a baby I awoke and went to sleep hearing train whistles and then the rumble and throbbing accents of train cars rolling along rails.  There was the Union Pacific, the Southern Pacific, the D&RG trains... they all converged in Ogden.   The Ogden train station was a huge station...  it was at the west bottom of a very famous street in the western United States:  25th Street.  Because of my life with trains I love to take trains when I am in the east.

I have intense hearing.  When I was drafted in High School the Viet Nam war was a big issue.  I drove my 55 Fairlane Ford to Fort Douglas in SLC.  Had all the tests... tons of young men walking around in tidy whites and chilled inside those strange brick building...  At one point I was pulled out of the line and sent to an office where three officers were seated around a mental desk.  I thought something was terribly wrong.  The very and I mean very cocky little man asked me if I could hear  any sound when he turned a dial on a box that resembled a radio which did radiate a high pitched bleep type irritating pulses.

I answered YES.  He then sneered and asked IF I could HEAR ANOTHER SOUND...  which I could hear.  It was a buzzing sound mixed with some kind of static.  My answer was YES.  They  then put head phones on my ears.  I had great head phones at home.  I could listen to symphonies late at night and not bother my sleeping family with the music...  I waited for the what ever they were going to set off inside my head.  A very Erie foreign type language whispered mystically  and reached high and low tones...  they removed the head set and asked me what I heard.  I tried to explain it the best I could.  I was then taken to a different room and told to stay there until another officer interviewed me.

It seemed I have some kind of amazing hearing ability where  I could decipher decibels of sound in ways most people are not aware of.  Because of this "gift"  I was of value to the army.

Back to the train ride to Long Island.  I heard every word of these two young woman's conversation.
The one heavy set girl was crying and yammering on about her boyfriend and her other boyfriend and the things she needed in her life to make her happy...

I was stunned and amazed at the comment her friend said:  "GIRL! LIFE IS NOT ABOUT HAVING THINGS TO ENJOY LIFE IT'S ABOUT ENJOYING LIFE WITH THE THINGS YOU ALREADY HAVE!  YOU SHUT UP AND TELL ME ALL ABOUT THE THINGS YOU ALREADY HAVE THAT ARE PRECIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL IN YOUR LIFE!

Whooooeee!!!    If I had been much younger I would have said AMEN SISTA to that beautiful black girl.  She was spot on.

I have had a most stressful and honestly terrible year.  Loosing my mother and father within 6 months of each other was not a joy for me.  I honestly fell totally apart when my dad crossed over!  He had been my ROCK.

He knew all of my weakest parts.  He also knew my hidden secrets.
He loved me unconditionally as did my mother however, a son respects his mother in a different way. A son tries to save her from pain and disappointment.  My dad could handle everything I did and all the things I achieved and my mistakes.  As sons we follow the ALPHA MALE IMAGE.  My dad was my alpha male.

My 68th Birthday is November 15th.  My parent's wedding anniversary is November 16th...  they were inseparable for nearly 70 years.  That is one hell of a long time to endure the endless company of one person.  I thank my lucky stars for my choosing them for my parents this time around and I'm sure they were willing to accept and learn the lessons they had to learn from being the passage for my existence.

I am so thankful to be able to ENJOY my life at the present moment with what I have inside and outside of who I am.  I hope to compose a new birthday song for myself.  One of gratitude and most of all the miracle that I have honestly survived to see my 68th.

I have posted many photos of where I live in NZ.  I have posted many photos of where I live in WY.
I must always be where there are mountains, water and open sky.  They radiate a certain energy I thrive on and I belong to mountains and rivers. Mountains and rivers haunt me!

My one wish for every person is: the confirmation that you must become what you are!  You must face the inevitable within yourself.  After all, it is the only thing that can save you.  Many prophets, sages etc.  say they know... they know nothing more than I or you do.  I know that THEY don't know and they know they DON'T know... life is a beautiful mystery ... a dream ...   Happy birthday to all my Scorpios.

Brent Johnston Piano Rags performance

Blasts from the Past...???

In 1982 I helped write a musical review titled A SONG FOR YOU...  Sam Collett Jr. was my agent and he was a master mind at organizing and compiling musicians that were able to work together in performance or in settings of solo performance...

Much work and endless time went into this musical creation, A SONG FOR YOU.

Wolverine Canyon, was a band from Firth Idaho.  Young men that could MAKE and INSTILL their own original music as well as country standards.  They won the country western competition in Nashville plus had very popular 45 recording on juke boxes through out WY. ID, Dakotas, Utah... I at the time also had a 45 on juke boxes.
One side played "Evergreen" by Barbara Streisend and the flip side was "Help Me Make it through the Night", by Sammie Smith.
Claudia Nicholas had toured with the USO.  She did two trips to Viet Nam, the Meditarainiam  and Eroupe with me.  She has a voice much like Petula Clrake's.   (Don't Sleep in the Subway Darling, Don't Sleep in the Falling Rain...)    To this very day Claudia and I are dear friends.  Collett died and Wolverine Canyon Band fell apart... (always the break down of an ensemble)  Kind of like marriages.

So many other people have GONE due to simply living life's destiny.   I'm still here!

I watched the video with anxious anticipation...  I was 35-36 when this was filmed.  I had forgotten so many details that went into this show.  I had a seamstress that made all of my performance costumes...  she was a keen woman regarding trends and fashion.  She could do exactly what my Grandma Keller could do.  Look at a piece of clothing and with a pencil reproduce it into a pattern and create it.

I was my own musical arranger.  I had been the arranger and musical director for one of the earths most precious voices... Ricky Tanner.  If you have never heard this boy's voice do a google search for Ricky Tanner.

I had a mother that knew how to sell a performance.    When I won my first competion my mother had drilled me how and when to smile, when to make an entrance... when to bow.  She knew the best side of my face, the way light effects shadow and light...  she taught me to NEVER, EVER think I had failed.
If I made a mistake she only forgave it and always told me:  "You will never know the RIGHT NOTES till you hit the wrong notes.

In 1980 I suffered serious loss in my life.  Mabel Lythgoe was my landlady and died.  I met her in a serious rain storm... 620 28th Street, Ogden Utah became a crashing house for musicians, lost souls and most of all she was my secretary, accountant, passage into so many secret mysteries.  

My Grandma Johnston passed away... she was with me from the day I was born.  She believed in me.  She never, ever did anything untoward me except drowned me in unconditional love.  The stories that woman told me are magic.  She could see the invisible world... the list is endless...  1982 gave me hope and courage to reach into my future.

Transitions are painful yet so amazingly full of energy and hope.

I made many mistakes in my youth according to religion, philosophy, everything society frames as normal and perfect.  I have learned a very important fact the last 25 years:  THERE IS NOTHING CALLED PERFECTION...  I will write a blog about that one day.  NO ONE AND NOTHING IS PERFECT... everything keeps changing... evolving... vibrating, expanding, and most of all becoming beautiful and right.

I'm off to the Dorothy Brown Cinema... It is a great place in Arrowtown.  Go on line and look it up.

I am finally in my beloved NZ.  I am at peace and feeling so much better PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY.   To be released from all the media and brain trips in THE USA.

I love the country I live in but, I fear the media is a breeder of hate and fear!

 WE ARE ALL MUSIC THAT IS PLAYED BY OUR DESTINY.  EVERYONE HAS A 'KEY' WHETHER THEY KNOW HOW TO DECIPHER IT OR NOT; IN ANY CASE WE CAN BE HAPPY ONLY WHEN OUR BEING IS IN HARMONY WITH THE NOTE THAT EXPRESSES IT.

Now that I have figured out how to post a blog once again thank you to my engineer and star seed child... I can write again.

You were and still are a wonderful mother...

Life has many adventures and paths we must walk alone... there are times another person helps us along the way but, it seems we learn the lessons only we as individual humanbeings can learn by being alone and enduring all the elements that may turn to sunshine or thunderstorms...

The past year from May 2013 to May 2014 has been a long and exhausting journey.  A very dear friend of mine years ago was going through a dreadful separation from her partner of 18 years.  He simply did not want to be with her any longer... within months her father passed away in Florida.  We were sitting at table three inside my restaurant sipping wine and she made the most profound statement I have ever heard and will never forget:  "Brent, I can replace a LOVER, however, I CANNOT REPLACE A FATHER!"  She comes from a family exactly like mine:  two boys and three daughters.
She went to Florida, inherited her father's little pick up with a shell on the back of the truck bed and she drove it back to WY!!!  She absolutely reinvented her life...  traveling, working, adventures no one would ever imagine...  Interesting fact:  I inherited my fathers 1989 Ford Ranger Pick Up truck last summer.  It flipped over to 31000 miles as I drove into Coke ville WY!    It has NO power steering, it is a standard shift, a radio that only plays AM radio...  it runs beautifully.  I named it ENNIS.  Go figure.

My mother was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in July.  She has out lived most people with such a curse.  My angelic siblings did more than I can ever imagine to move both my parents into a safe a wonderful care center...  My mother crossed over into a wonderful peace and joy on April 15th.  I was trying to get my Taxes mailed at the post office which stands beside the Legacy Assisted Living Center as she was dying withing those walls...    I made it there in time...  I put the back of my right hand on her neck...  I felt the last heart beat she made within my hands.  She always said my hands were made for more than making music...  God knows, she has been right.  I have made food, bread, art, music... the keys of a piano were always the most beautiful feeling my hands have ever felt except my mother's hands that could ease all pain and her simple touch on my forehead when I was sick could erase my asthema and make me calm.

My angelic siblings moved mom and dad into the Legacy while I was in NZ.  I cut my holiday short when they told me via the telephone things were not so good.  I flew home to Utah asap...  I had a fantastic holiday in the fact I spent Christmas, New Years and a wonderful time in the Golden Bay with my dearest friend Rutha.  The greatest blessing was Michael and I were able to be alone after so many years of his mother's health issues and other situations...

The precious hours I spent alone with my mother were beyond imagination.  She told me things I never ever knew... she was the beginning of my life and she taught me how to die.  She only wanted all of us to not argue but, love one another and she wanted us to forgive as she had.  She taught me too many lessons beyond writing about.

I do not believe in organized religion... I HAVE LIVED TO SEE WHAT ALL OF THEM CAN DO!  Wars, cruel sexual stuff...  suicides... judgments that no human can or should ever make against each other.  I only wish God and Satan could settle this entire mess out of court?

When I was a young boy my Uncle Kent was learning to sing a song which was most popular in the 50's.  I BELIEVE:
I have forever loved the lyric from that song:

I Believe for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows,
I believe that some where in the darkest night a candle glows,
I believe for everyone that goes astray, someone will come to show the way,

I believe above the storm the smallest prayer will still be heard.
I believe that somewhere in the great somewhere he hears every word.

Every time I hear a new born baby cry, or touch a leaf, or see the sky, then I know why I believe.

Another song my mother taught me as a little boy and I learned to play it on the piano... THAT'S WHAT GOD MADE MOTHERS FOR:

To watch over you as a baby, to sing you to sleep with her song...
To try to be near you to comfort and cheer you to teach you the right from the wrong...
To do all she can to make you a man and over a million things more...
To sigh for you, cry for you, yes even die for you... that's what God made mothers for.  (My grandma Keller, My mother's mother lived every word of this song, even with her grandchildren...)

(Leo Wood the man that composed and wrote the lyrics to this song was born in San Francisco California on Sept. 2, 1882... died in NJ Aug. 2nd 1929.)

I do believe in numerology.... interesting the life this man lived and made an impression on my mothers musical and poetic mind...

My mother wrote Road Shows in the day.  She could write poetry, readings... lyrics to songs... her dear sister Phyllis also had the gift.  Between the two of them... we may have had a Broadway musical beyond belief.  My mother's brothers and sisters were her life.  She morned over everyone of their deaths and she loved her parents beyond imagination... she is with them again and I will be there also.
Her DNA and RNA live on in so many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I often look at photos of my Great Grandparents and I think:  YES!  I AM LIVING YOUR DREAMS...  My mother adored her baby sister, my aunt Maryann...  she told me so many tales about her loving Maryann and her sister Hellen... mother inherited a very seiver look when photographed... kinda like her mother... but her heart was made out of marshmellows and jell-O....  she lives inside all of us... my cousin Shirley was like one of my mother's own children.  She thrilled over everything Shirley did in school and beyond.  Mother could not imagine her life without Shirley or Maryann.

She is so happy with her sisters and they are making music and my grandpa and grandma are smiling with grins wide enough to catch flies.  I came from a family that did not know how to hate.  Lucky man, I AM!

Photos taken in March 2014

Queenstown Gardens:
Salmon dinner at Sans Souci Inn Golden bay:
Me on the beach in Golden bay:
Venison dinner at Sans Souci Inn:
The Cathedral in the Center of CHCH~  horrible earthquake 3 years ago...  

I will write about my ADVENTURE traveling to the top of the South Island.  Long bus rides and rides in cars but, total bliss.  My eyes were absorbing so much beauty and pastoral scenery.  
Sunsets and sunrises, clouds, stars, moon light.  Gorgeous food, time to SPACE OUT!  Wonderful wine, coffees and most of all the gift of meeting new people young and old from all over the planet!  

Time well spent with dear friends and getting in touch with another part of myself I sometimes 'forget' lives inside my mind and body...  More later.

Walk a Mile In My Shoes...

Yesterday I was walking along the lake shore... took the 33 steps on a stair case built from logs and gravel that leed one from the shoreline into the Queenstown Gardens...  my lungs always let me know when I have hit the number 33!  It's called WALKING UP NOT DOWN! (I am very good at walking down... a fact I am going to hell!)

After I made it to the top of the rung... I stopped to catch my breath and to the right of the stairs is a very ordinary rock.  Beside the rock were two shoes!  I had to take a photo.  It was as if the person had COMBUSTED like some people do and all that remains are their shoes or clothing!

Suddenly out of NO WHERE... (my mind lives in no where a lot at times.)  a very old song from the '70's dashed through my brain!  "Walk a Mile In My Shoes" by Joe South.  The lyrics to the chorus go something like:  Walk a mile in my shoes... Just walk a mile in my shoes... Before you abuse, criticize and accuse... then take a walk in my shoes...

I like shoes.  I have every kind of shoe.  Hiking boots, Cowboy Boots, Chef Shoes, Walking Shoes, Dress up shoes... shoes to wear with tuxedo...  Athletic shoes... Flip Flops, Sandals... This year the shoe I love is:  a Niki RED WALKING SHOE.  I found them at Kohl's in Clinton, UT.  They are a joy to walk in...

My mother was forever into cleanliness... she washed anything that would fit into a washer machine.  When I was a kid she always washed out KEDS and hung them out on the line to dry.  Later years she washed my gym shoes and if weather was bad in the winter... she propped them up beside the heater and they were dry for the next day.  YEP!  I WASH MY RED NICKI'S!  They love being clean and my feet love having clean shoes.

I would not want to walk a mile in another person's shoes.  We all have our own shoes that are made for the miles and miles we must walk  in this lifetime.  One blessing is:  THE PEOPLE WE MEET ALONG THE MILE AFTER MILE of such a JOURNEY!  The people we meet, fall in love with and at times out of love with...  the people and pets along the path are worth wearing one's shoes to pieces.

I must keep my shoes clean!

cars 'n stars?

A few days ago I was on my daily walk about.  I was standing beside this white sign post when this really strange old FORD car pulled up in front of the SMOKE SHOP...  Four young guys jumped out and asked IF I would keep an eye on their car because it was parked in a NO PARKING SPACE!  Not really thinking I said, "of course but, you've left it running.  How in hell long are you gonna be gone?"  "AH MATE!  We are simply going into the head shop to buy STUFF!"  They did shut the doors because the inside of the car was full of all kinds of STUFF!  Emty water bottles, old emty sacks of McDonald's long ago eaten meals, pillows, sleeping gear... it was a mess.  MY MIND FROZE!  I lived in many cars like this years ago!

My first car was a 1955 Fairlane Ford.  Blue.  My Uncle Melvin's car.  It was in MINT CONDITION.
My brother helped me purchase it.  We had that car until I was 19.  Then the white VOLX WAGON BUG...  nice little car.  Great on the petrol and fun to drive...  I then bought a flash Buick!  I could not afford the payments.  I sold it.    From the Buick I found a perfect Robin Egg Blue Volx Wagon Bug.  The kid that owned it was leaving on a Mormon Mission... this little ROBIN became my santuary, my chapel, my bedroom, my means to all life sources.  I drove it from LA to TX many times... I loved this wee thing.  It loved me.   Then one night in a blizzard a drunken Indian hit me on 25th St. in Ogden Ut.
Bye Bye the pretty egg hatched into insurance money!

I simply could not replace that car!!!  I used the UTA to go anywhere I wanted plus many friends that had cars and I did use my thumb many times to get to and from places I had to be...  Finally I purchased my aunts white Chevy with a Vynal top...  I turned this car into a storage shed.
In the 70's I would disappear from family and friends for months then show up at my parent's home.  My sisters would dig into this cavern of hidden mysteries and CLEAN IT BEYOND IMAGINATION...  I loved this car.  I had bumper stickers all over it:  DON'T SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER!  IF YOU THINK THIS CAR IS BAD YOU SHOULD SEE MY MOTHER'S.  QUESTION AUTHORITY!  MAKE LOVE NOT WAR!  HONK IF YOU FEEL HORNY...  OMG the things I attached to that car.  Then I found the sticker of all time:  BORN TO BE WILD!  

A friend of my mother's told her that the car looked like a transit Mexican Fruit Picker's car was parked in their drive way.  My mother was and still is very defensive of me but, she did ask IF possibly I could park it on the other side of their car port?

I finally purchased a Ford Pinto from my Brother.  The Golden Egg.  It was in mint condition when I bought it... the end of the first year???  I did have friends that kept it running.  I had that car when I moved to Alpine WY.  It was running on two cylinders... not very stable tires and a cracked windsheild.  I was THREATENED NOT TO TAKE IT TO WY!  One must realize during the 70's the lovely Chevy I had:  well, I was not allowed to park it at the Govenor's Mansion in SLC.  I was the Gov's Pianist.  The staff kindly asked me not to pull up to Velet Parking and present my keys... WTH?
Lucy Rampton, Govenor Ramptons wife would send a driver for me!  Hell, I wore a tuxedo, rather handsome young man INA UGLY CAR????

When I saw this painted Ford car I could only think of my past!  The words from a old Beatles song kept ringing through my head:  "Baby you can drive my car, YES I'm gonna be a STAR!, baby you can drive my car and maybe I'll LOVE YOU!"  Well only the moon and stars know about my love life inside and out of cars!!!

I have forever loved a certain line from a poem:  THE BEAUTY OF MEN NEVER DIES BUT DRIVES A BLUE CAR THROUGH THE STARS...

One thing I would have written differently on the back of the Ford's bumper Born To Offend:  BORN TO BE WILD!

Cars express a lot about who and what we are.  I now drive a Toyota Truck.  And No other car except my dad's old ford pickup.  It is a 6 cylinder... 24 years old no power steering... standard gears... neat.  It turned 31000 miles when I drove it up to WY last summer... AMAZING!  I am updating it with new tires, a totem in the back, new everything... he sits in my garage in Alpine longing to be driven to the market and post office.  I named it Ennis.  He is a strong little beast.  SO IS THE TOYOTA.

I kind of miss the years I lived in tents, sleeping bags, little propane cook stoves, styrofoam coolers full of ice and all kinds of drinks and meats... veggies...  inside the CARS!  Coats, clothing, toiletries... life was really not so bad then.

I was on a very intense journey.  A MAJOR LEARNING ADVENTURE.  I think I learned some of the lessons.  I spent many nights on the hoods or roofs of the cars I've talked about gazing at the stars and moon... Venus and Mars... I even witnessed a few other things in the heavens.   I NOW Thank HEAVEN for those cars!  In my old age I drive CLEAN SAFE CARS?  Well, sometimes.  Ask my kitchen help how many times I backed poor Ennis onto rocks and hit a few hidden trailers and trucks!  I think I must USE my FEET MORE!  LEGS?  EYES?  Cars 'n Stars.

A dream come true...

Michael's sister Karyn has been visiting with us for about three weeks.
She has forever been a GROUNDING FORCE in my musical world.  Yesterday we went to dinner at a restaurant I really like. The Water Front.  After a wonderful meal we walked to the NEW SOFETEL HOTEL...  She stood in this amazing lobby beside a grand piano.  "Would just play one tune?  Please?"  well, of course I would.

This piano is a Steinway & Sons Vintage 1875 grand.  Ivory KEYS!  This piano loves me!  I fell in love with it.  I have experienced pianos that actually hate me!!!  Laugh but, unless you are a pianist you would not understand what I mean...

Steinway's have a "personality".  Each and every Steinway is different...  just like people!  I have discovered over the years that all pianos "CHOOSE YOU!"  If you are a "sensitive" you will know if a piano loves or actually hates you.  Pianos are made out of such amazingly natural and sacred elements...  WOOD!  The frame and shape of a grand piano... metal, wool, the sounding boards are always the reflection of every composer...

Not many years ago we were looking for a car wash and drove by a piano shop.  Stopped... I could have had any piano I wanted.  Some were beyond my price range but, credit ratings help one to purchase such "black whales" of the deep seas and waters of music...  I played every piano in the shop and I could not stop going back to a KAWAI baby grand... this piano could whisper.  It could SING, it could clip clop, it could make liquid vibrations, dry sounds beyond imagination... Bartok, Prokoffieff... sparkle like stardust... Debussy, Beethoven, Schumann and a confussing sound that I associate with only Brahams...  Jazz was magic... it had everything I ever dreamed of a piano being able to give me and was half the price of the concert grand... I paid cash for it.  It sits by my bedside in WY.  It is an extension of my very being...  I bless my piano every autumn when I depart from her.  COLD DOES NOT HARM A PIANO!  HEAT IS LIKE OPENING THE JAWS OF HELL ON A PIANO.

Acoustic pianos only work with the "laying on of hands" and the vibrations we caress upon it's keys...  Piano are ultra sensitive... they long to be "TOUCHED"  "PLAYED"... if and just IF a pianist has the right "touch" a piano will respond like a LOVER.  It will reach out to you...

Today and last night I experienced such a glorious blessing.  My piano teachers in NY both have Steinway's...  the one I love is in Huntington NY on Long Island.  Carol Montparker owns a wonderful Steinway...  this piano thrills me.  I have performed Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Granados, Bach and Grieg at performance classes inside Carol's home on this gorgeous piano.  I always CHOOSE and only ONE PIANO when I am in her home.  She owns two Steinways...  The older piano loves me!  Years ago when I first played for Carol I chose this piano.  She warned me to NOT HAMMER THE KEYBOARD!  PLEASE DO NOT HURT THE PIANO!  I was a pretty well built man then and had about 15" arms...  How can you harm something that REACHES OUT TO YOU and WANTS AND DESIRES YOUR TOUCH???

The blog before this is about a young man that was pounding the hell out of a wonderful grand piano!
Read it.  I stopped him from destroying something delicate and yet stronger than anything in the universe.  Pianos paint STORMS, WINDS, LASHINGS OF LIGHTENING and POUNDING WATERS, one has to know how to 'touch" the keys... the greatest thing they express:  EMOTIONS.

When I talk about a piano and it's secrets I am speaking about:  the way a pedal will stick slightly if you press more toward the left or right.  How a certain key will DELAY or respond differently.  How it can caress and whisper to you without loosing it's voice.  The VOICE!  The language of GOD.  Music is the language angels use to communicate...

The piano at the Sofetel will be my new love affair for the next two months!

Every year one needs a WORD to get through the year... my word this year is SYNCHRONICITY...  last year it was two words:  acceptance and forgiveness...  I keep finding all kinds of mysteries unfolding before and around me.  Today when I was playing the Steinway a young Asian woman came up to me and said:  I love that piece of music.  I asked her: WHY?  Her eyes lifted toward the sky and she whispered something I did not understand.  I asked her again WHY?  She smiled and said:  You of all people should and do know!  I touched her hands and bowed.  She was right.  It holds the unexplainable emotions and life we cannot describe in words...  I hope I meet her again.

Meet me at the Sofetel some afternoon between 1 PM and 3 PM.  If your not there in person you are there in my thoughts...  magic is real.

Climb every mountain, forge every stream... follow every....

Today, Sunday the 2nd of Feb.  Up at 7:30 AM  drove to Mt.  Cook... about 3 hours from QT.  What a day...  I spent Xmas in 1990 at the Hemaitage Lodge at MT. COOK in 1990...  24-25 years later here I am still in love with this magestic lady of the mountains...  The highest mountain in all of NZ.  Always covered in SNOW....  some of the greatest mountain climbers on earth have trained on this mountain.  I was here when the back side of the glacier fell off... talk about globel warming... one must get off their asses and travel a bit... you will see it, IF and I MEAN JUST IF  YOU CANNOT SEE IT IN THE USA...

Loved my day.  Mountains haunt me and they have ghosts that haunt me...  I forever in my lifetimes have to be near mountains...  and the oceans, the energy is amazing.  Hope this photo comes up alright.    I took this photo at about 2 PM this afternoon... There are some orbs in this photo...  SHE IS A GORGEOUS POWER this mountain peak... I live near the TETONS... go figure?

Trip to Dunedin...

Finally took a road trip.  Four hour drive of wonderful sights.  Miles of open farm land, thousands of sheep, cattle and deer farms.  I did not see one rabbit along the highway.  Usually we knock off a few huge bunnies driving at 100 Kilometers that is about 65 MPH in USA.  I always jump when I hear that THUD, THUMP, something that goes BUMP under the car...  rabbits are a humongous problem in NZ.

When I was a very young boy I raised rabbits.  We kept them in Rabbit pens and my father would often dress one out for Sunday dinner.  England and Europe refer to rabbit as HARE.  I happen to quite enjoy a "saddle of Hare" in some fine restaurants.  I remember people saying:  "Hell, they breed like rabbits!"  Well, rabbits do breed rapidly!  Possibly the bunnies KNEW we were in route to Dunedin!  They alerted the entire world!  BEWARE.

Everything went fine.  Arrived at our Land Lady's home 'round 5 PM.  I had promised to make the dinner.  Karen is a serious vegetarian.  I made a great, and I will brag a delicious mushroom casserole, garden green salad, all kinds of cheeses, breads, new boiled potatoes, a mixed fruit salad and wines.
Coffee or tea after dinner.  Fun evening.  I slept like a rock.  Awoke feeling great.  Saturday we were going into the city.  I wanted to have a few hours all to myself.

Walked to Begg's Music Store.  They still have music stores in NZ.  I purchased my beloved Technics piano in Christchurch nearly 20 years ago!  IT STILL PLAYS PERFECTLY.  I have never had any repair or maintenance performed on it.
I would take it back to America but there is a problem:  this piano uses 220 NOT 110 Voltage...
When I walked in the front door of the shop there was a boy playing a piano I've never heard the brand, something out of a Korea?

This kid was not at all a talented, or else had been very spoilt and miss guided as how to touch a keyboard!  I walked over to him, lightly tapped him on the head, however I wanted to slap him across the head damn hard.  Well, the sales person behind the desk came around and asked me why I stopped the brat from pounding the piano to pieces?  Like, this boy had talent???  Call up Simon Crowl,  better yet, HELL HAS TALENT!

I did apologize and told the young boy he was not playing the piano, he was HURTING the piano.  I told him to move aside and I would SHOW HIM HOW TO TOUCH THE KEYS ON A PIANO.  I had not a clue what I was going to do.  He stood by his strange mother glaring at me.  I smiled, placed my two old hands over the keys sweeping them treble to bass without touching a key.  Both hands settled on a G sharp below Middle C then dropped to the lowest C sharp.  The Fantasise Impromptu by Chopin saved the day...  I played a "cut down" version of the piece for time's sake...

The boy's mother had tears in her eyes.  I told her I was sorry about the way I ATTACKED HER DAMN KID, she said:  "Forget it.  That piece was my father's favorite piece of music!"  My father tried to learn it and he did attempt to play it many times but never had the "gift".   She then said:  my father would have been probably your age when he died last year.  I rose from the bench, put my arms around her and simply held her for a brief moment in time.

She and her son exited the store and the salesperson was glaring at me:  "Thanks a hell of a lot sir.  I was hoping to sell that piano to those people.  Because of you I lost the sell..."
I will not write the language I used to express my contempt for this man!  HE GOT THE MESSAGE as I carefully put my back pack on my back, picked up my parcels.  Suddenly he had a set back or something occurred because he smiled and said:  "I thought you would help me sell the piano, your a YANK!  You live by Capitalisim!  BUY, BUY, CONSUME..."  I simply blessed him inside a place I keep very sacred and secretive within my heart then, to use a phrase I hate as well as the Actor that said it:  I WILL BE BACK!!!!!!!

From the music drama I walked to the Dunedin Art Gallery.  I LOVE THIS PLACE.  Free admission.
Main exhibition:  Gregory Crewdson.  "IN A LONELY PLACE"... I thought OMG, I hope I took my anti-depressant this morning but, just incase?  I AM JOKING.  THIS MAN'S PHOTOGRAPHY ART HAUNTS ME!!!
I spent two hours between a huge gallery of art the museum owns, classics, NZ famous painters, then the huge rooms with Gregory's enormous art.  Every piece has a story and that story ONLY SPEAKS TO THE PERSON LOOKING AT IT!  I was exhausted after leaving the gallery.

There is a wonderful cafe beside the gallery called THE NOVA.  I sipped a strong coffee, munched on a scone, then walked to my favorite old, very old USED BOOK STORE on the Octagon.  IT IS NO LONGER THERE!  GONE!  The old deaf man that owned it died.  It is now a dress/frock shop!

Used book stores are like comfort food to my soul.  They haunt me because of the smells, the thin as paper pages of some books that have passages underlined, notes in the margins, dates when they were given to someone...  I can spend lifetimes inside such santuarys.  

I have always had a dream that oneday I would have a used book shop and tea room, very small tea room in an old Victorian house with three floors.  I would name it : THE GYPSY MOON.  Once I even went so far as to design a floor plan for the books, used sheet music, old magazines, a reading room... then a very small room where one could have great wine, teas, coffees, read, eat and drink on very OLD VINTAGE CHINA.
Anyone that can remember when:  I did only use old used china in my restaurant in Alpine years ago.  I and my family spent hours shopping at the  Desert Industries, The Salvation Army, Thrift shops...

The climax of the day for me was:  WE ALL WENT TO THE RIALTO CINIMA.  The place is right out American 50 years ago.  The biggest damn screen you have ever seen.  The movie was "THE BOOK THIEF"  GO SEE THIS MOVIE.    IT IS FANTASTIC.  It touches every person alive from young to very old... it is history, it is magic, it is reality, and most of all it is a story of overcoming evil and hate.  The acting is beyond what I imagined.

Before I shut this blog down... see Philomena.  More to write later.

Limitations

As I evolve within my human space suit, my brain chemicals, my DNA/RNA  I realize I do have to accept certain "LIMITATIONS"  I am a 67 year old male.  If anyone had told me I would live this long in the 70's I would have knocked them sideways and laughed them into the next century.

I was a BULLET PROOF MAN until I turned 60 years old.  I could fall off cliffs, catch all kinds of diseases, cry, hurt and I came out with flying colors.  At 62 I developed a serious cancer.  My body could not fight E Coli, the list is endless!  For over 30 years I lived in GYMS.  I TRAINED PEOPLE!  I destroyed the triceps on my left arm.  I had a knee replacement, the list is endless... I never, ever dreamed I would require glasses...  the sun created problems with my skin...  I have survived many things and worst of all distress, the loss of people I love that have crossed over to the other side.

SOMETIMES THERE IS NOTHING WORSE IN ONE'S LIFE THAN THE SENSATION OF CRASHING INTO A LIMITATION!!!

Today was a breakthrough.  I have been working for ages on Claude Debussy's Reflects dans l'eau... Reflections in the water.  For some unknown reason I could not get the 2nd and 3rd pages into my hands...  (I can play passages at Allegro and Presto tempos IF I DESIRE!)  The universe blessed me with amazing hands... ALAS!  NO!  These two pages refused to make love to my hands.

TODAY IT HAPPENED!  I crossed over from a limitation to a revelation.  Finally, water, images, sunlight, moonlight, water Lilly's, air, sky it all came together!  Only a musician would understand this magic.

Do not be alarmed by the score when I post it.  (the two pages...)  16th notes, 32nd notes, passages with crossover hands...  it worked.  I nearly fell off my piano stool.

BTW:  sorry about the last blog.  I do not know what the angels wanted but they took away part of my blog about my painting... (probably because they had a better plan... possibly they thought: by damn play these passages of water and light the right way. Paint a picture in sound, leave the oils alone for a bit.)  No doubt the world is pleased I quit playing in oil paints as well!

Debussy composed one the most famous melodies on earth... Clair de lune... (moonlight).
Limitations are LEARNING CURVES as well as blessings!  I do not like the feeling of being limited.  I really don't.  I always think I can soar with the stars... race with the moon... BUT one must realize that we have to accept humility.  Limitations teach us HOW TO BECOME HUMBLE and GRATEFUL beyond our imagination.

The Joy of Your Own Two Hands...

Today the techie guy I  hired showed up to show me things with my new phone.  How to sync it into my Mac.  (He has three Macs and loves them)  After he left I decided to take a walk... not such a brilliant idea because it was colder than hell and the winds and rain were terrible.  I did not care!  I needed a walk.  Fresh air, Sky, Visions of beauty.  I braced myself for the elements.  All went well, but I was cold.

Arrived back at the house round 1 PM.  Made a lunch then went to work on my computer.  Ended up flat on my back reading a great book... a very short nap!

For the first time in ages I pulled out my oils and canvases... simply had to.  I have made it plain as day this year I am following my synchronicity.  That is my new word for 2014.  SYNCHRONICITY.

Years ago I did quite a bit of painting... not like real artists do, but my own thing.  You will see a picture of what I call my "Hippiedom of peace and love!"  It hangs on my studio wall.  Well, today I created something I call:  "A Garden in Motion"...  it is not finished however, it will grace a wall upstairs.

Amazing what your hands can do.  My Grandma Keller could take anything and make a beautiful piece of art out of it.  She made me a hanging light and it was a clump of glass grapes with a light bulb inside it that made everything seem like magic.  She could take tin cans, cut them into shapes and make gorgeous wall hangings.  She was a great seamstress...  I watched her cut patterns out of old newspapers to sew dresses from.  Her hands were quite amazing.  If I was not feeling well she would rub my fore head and neck with her hands and I seemed to feel so peaceful and the pain had gone somewhere.

When I pulled all this stuff out to paint this afternoon I thought: oh hell, all the tubes will be dried up and crusty.  NOT SO!  My hands moved gently and the muse guided thePartita...  my hands needed a new movement.  Color and motion.  Some days they lead me into making bread... other times touching the earth and tending to my plants.  My hands have forever had a mind of their own.  They are two of my best friends.

strokes.  I forgave myself for not practicing piano today...  I am working on one hell of a difficult passage on the piano for me as I am learning a Bach

Blowin' in the wind...

I try to walk 2 possibly 3 or more miles every day.  All my life I have used the gift of "WALKING" to clear my emotions, cleanse my brain of confusing issues as well as walking has helped my physical body to keep "moving".  That tired saying:  USE IT OR LOOSE IT!   Well, walking like I do I could loose it by being hit by a bus!  tripping over my own feet, or better yet simply falling into a deep hole and never climbing out.

I have hiked all over the world.  Places where some people would never place their feet.
In my youth I did do some very insane hikes... but thanks to the "INVISIBLE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE OF ANGELS" I did not fall in to many dark holes!  I do have a propensity to stumble.  I don't always "WATCH" where my feet are going therefore I trip over my feet and I do not go down gently.

I CRASH.  Yes, screams, blood, limping... DRAMA.  I have to have audiences.  People running to help me.  "OMG!  are your teeth okay?  did you hurt your knees?  (yes)  OH you have blood running down your arm! (no shit)  Can we drive you someplace? (NO!)  People are good to me.

Today I struck out on my walk early.  The wind was blowing at a gusty tempo.  I secured my cap because I love my caps.  They are old... but each one has a meaning and the wind damn near lifted my "Bank of Alpine" cap off into the universe!
Walking into the wind is like walking against water.  Makes one strong.  My lungs were panting for a more gentle way to suck up oxygen.  My lips were dry as toast.  Eyes were in flames and I was not feeling so good.  I made it down to the QT Gardens, but once there I found a bench and yep, just like old people do I PLANTED MY BOTTOM and did not move.

Finally the winds abated.  I used my rescue puffer!  stood up and put one foot in front of the other with out looking down where my feet were going...  (not a wonder I cannot to this day dance!  I watch dancing with the stars and think possibly I could learn where my feet should go?
NO, my hands and fingers can fly over the key board like magic and I never look at them... I seem to have the same habit with my feet BUT I forget they are poor little lambs that have lost their way.)
I start down the path and by damn I trip!  Sliding on my arse I finally come to a stop.
There had to be at least 10 Asians walking UP the path.
They stopped and helped me get up... talking in a language I do not understand.  One older lady pointed her finger at me and rattled off something in Chinese.  I nodded and said YES!  She smiled and said, "YES!"

I made it into the center.  The sun was high and lots of things were happening at the fair.  All kinds of art, preserves for sale, woven scarfs, jewelery, clay pipes, and MASSAGES.

I am posting the photos.  There were massage tables set up in the Greenspan.  Girls and Guys were massaging people... you can see the sheets blowing in the wind.  My first thought was:  Hell, pay the price and get your back massaged and centered.  Then I thought NOT.

I have been with the same woman who performs the "LAYING ON OF HANDS" for years.  Sonja will erase my aches and pains from the fall...  I believe in the power of TOUCH.
HUGS.  EMBRACES.  PHYSICAL TOUCH LIKE HAND SHAKES, CUDDLES and HEADS TOUCHING.  We all share something very invisible.  It is called AIR.  OXYGEN.  You can't see it but every thing is breathing this element in and out and sharing it!  (BTW, I have a marvelous masseuse in Alpine... she is amazing.)

After my trip to the grocery and wine shop I started home.
A young man was standing on the sidewalk.  He had no shirt on, a back pack and a day pack and a bed roll strapped to his back.  His shoulders had to be screaming for relief.  I suppose he "felt" my vibes looking at him because he turned toward me and in a very Scandinavian accent said:  " Can you tell me where the bus station is?"

I said,
"There is no bus station.  There is a bus stop where they collect you and take you places..."  He had the most gorgeous smile you have ever seen.  (It has to be the milk, cheese and eggs in Sweden, Norway, makes these genes so damn perfect.)

He asked, "Where is the thing you call STOP?"  "Follow me, we are a block away."
He hoisted his pack and we walked side by side to the stand.  I told him that I used to carry a load on my back like he was packing and could not ever wait till I found a place to drop some of the needed stuff in a safe place and start carrying my day pack.  He agreed.

The tops of his shoulders were somewhat bruised.  He asked me how to avoid that and the rubbing against the straps that can cause one to bleed.  I told him.
(I LEARNED THE HARD WAY YEARS AGO!  I ALSO LEARNED IT WITH BLISTERED FEET IN EXPENSIVE HIKING BOOTS.)   YOU MUST USE REAL LAMB'S WOOL.  NOTHING FAKE OR SYNTHETIC.  IT HAS TO BE LAMB'S WOOL.  TUCK IT UNDER THE STAPES OR VELCRO IT AND YOU WILL NOT SUFFER.  Yes your back and shoulders will ache, but that is the TENSION not the skin rubbing away!

He tried to thank me in a broken language but I got the message and the most amazing thing he was carring was a guitar.  It was a 12 string.  Very Vintage. (what is with the young people finding all these instruments from the 60's?  REINCARNATION?)

I told him I was a musician.  I have wandered all over the world making music.  I play keyboard.  PIANO.  They are not easy to carry.  He laughed and said,  "I will tell my mother when I text her.  She wanted me to be a pianist!  I will tell her the instrument is to heavy to carry on my back!"  I told him not to say that.  The piano is a voice like no other instrument it just is a bit more complex than a dulcimer, violin, flute, clarinet....  He thanked me and lined up for the next bus.  He was heading for Wanaka.  (no doubt thinking it was a cheaper place to stay than QT)  It used to be a heavenly place but today it is flash restaurants, bars and discos...  A gorgeous lake and mountains, but not very INEXPENSIVE.

My blessing of Synchronicity seems to take me into all kinds of places.  If, I had not fallen the timing would have been off so that I would not have met this young man and guide him to the bus.

If I had not tripped the Chinese people would not have helped me learn a new realm of kindness and I may have missed the massage tables at the fair.    Keep tuned in.

An event that reminded me of my past...

There is a house below our place called the "Marianna".  It is a very old Kiwi style house.  Built probably in the late 60's.  It is owned by a family in Invercargill.  Over the years many people have used the house for summer holidays, skiing and get aways.  I remember when one couple always arrived for Xmas and they had two little girls.  Those girls have since become full grown powerful young women.  They use the house as a "PARTY HOUSE".

The past two years the girls have stayed in the house with lots of friends and enjoyed the property to the max during the Christmas Holidays.  This year I counted 14 young people.  They were between the ages of 19 - 24.  They also must have great access to lots of money or their parents credit cards.

They arrived in three cars.  Trunks loaded with suit cases, coolers full of food and buckets of booze and beer.  They moved in and began the party scene.  They were great.  Kept the music at a level that did not offend even though the verbal crap from their mouths was a bit harsh.  Who cares, they are young and full of hormones, not too many brains and most of wanted to get wasted.

The first night they drank from from 4:00 PM until 11:00 PM then called cabs.  Headed to the pubs down town.  Around 3:00 AM the taxis delivered them back to the house.  OMG... the conversations were most interesting.  I had crawled into my bed 'round 11 PM when they left the house.  I awoke when they came home only for a wee bit and then drifted back into slumber land.
I awoke at 6 AM.  Walked up stairs, hit the start button on the coffee maker.
First thing in the mornings I look out the big windows and take in the scenery of mountain, water and sky as the sun rises.
I noticed a body curled up on the side walk outside the Marianna house.  A young man apparently passed out and a couple of "to-go" plastic cups beside his head.  It was raining and rather cold.  My first thought was: OMG he is dead.  Well he was dead drunk.  I thought to myself  I could possibly make him a big mug of strong coffee and walk it down to him.  Then my power of reasoning kicked in and I thought NOT.

Minutes later he roused from the sidewalk and as he stood he staggered sideways, in circles and fell on the cement.  He then bumbled his way to the door of the house.  Knocking and pounding.  NO ONE WAS WAKE and I honestly think they had had a guts full of him.  He curled up on the bench on the outside porch.  He later awoke and begin calling on his cell phone.  Someone answered because he took off on a run down the street...

I was haunted by an event that occurred in my early 20's when I was living in Ogden Utah.  It was the holidays and I decided to walk from my house to the PLAYERS LOUNGE on Washington Blvd.
I drank a fifth of vodka and became extremely DRUNK.  I began walking back to my place in a white out blizzard... snow and so cold.  My feet were frozen.  I made it to my door only to discover I had lost the key!  SHIT!  I AM LOCKED OUT!!!
I staggered up the steps to my land lady's front door.  I knocked.  NO ANSWER!  She was sound asleep in her bedroom at the back of the house.  Snow was at least a foot deep.  I finally laid on the porch and slept in snow!  Finally about 7 AM I heard her in the house.  I knocked and she opened the door in her bath robe and a look of shock and awe on her face.  "What in hell are you doing Brent?"
I told her my story.  She told me to get my butt inside and she took my wet clothes replaced them with warm pajamas and then told me to lay on the sofa but NOT TO FALL ASLEEP.  She started bustling around singing.  She always sang old songs from the 30's...

Mabel had lived in San Fransisco when she was 15 until her mid 20's.  She could play any damn thing on a piano and could not read a note of music.  She knew all about DRINK.  She had some God Awful cures for hang overs and I KNEW IT.  "Now all you need honey is a big class of tomato juice, lots of Tabasco and a raw egg."  Oh, God, I shivered... "NO, Please, I will puke my guts out."  "That is the idea love."  "Can I have anything besides the acidic tomato juice?"  "Yes, black coffee and three Bufferine."  Bufferine was an aspirin with something that kept your stomach from bleeding... I drank the coffee, took the pills and snuggled into a pile of blankets and pillows.  Just as I was dozing off she came back with a little brown bottle and a spoon.  "Open up silly boy... swallow this and you'll be good as gold."  I thought to myself... what in hell can it be?  It tasted like liquorice... something I had tasted when I was sick as a child.  It was good old PAREGORIC!

Hours later I awoke wide awake feeling great!  "Thank you Mabel... what would I have done without you?  I promise I will never, ever do this again."  (I am famous for making deals with GOD!  like, God, if you get me through this one I promise I will be a good boy and never be bad again...)
I had a gig to play at the Elks Lodge that night.  GOOD MONEY.

I showered, shaved dressed and actually, yes, I walked to the Elks Lodge in the snow and played my 4 hours.  I also started drinking the damn Vodka...  ANGELS and possibly GOD guided me home via the help of friends.  I had a great time and once more forgot my deals with GOD.

I could not judge the young man on the sidewalk to harshly... I had been in his place at times!  ONE THING I DID HAVE:  I WAS LOVED AND PROTECTED.