Boogie Chillen': A Blues Parable

Once there was a  boy who lived in the Mississippi delta south.  His daddy was a music playin man.  But his momma liked to run around.
Before the boy was conceived, there were plans for them to head up  north to Detroit.  But instead his woman left the music man for a devil named Jim Crow.

That was back in the day when white folks in power couldn't take untamed "black folks".  And so, they made bad laws.  Laws like curfews (imposed only on African Americans).  Laws that allowed white folks to "pick up" African Americans for "loitering", simply if they weren't working, or if they were merely walking down the road.     

After just a few days the woman got pregnant and the blues they made was a bastard son.  A real unruly boy from the devil seed of Jim Crow.  But just like a heartless devil, Jim put em out.  And with no where to turn she returned back to the music man and he took the both of em back in.

It's a bitter pill, what that devil'l make you swallow.  But his daddy loved the blues.  He loved that blues made from the devils seed like his own.  And so he moved em all up north stoppin off in Chicago and then up to Detroit.  

It was there that his daddy took a job playin at a nightclub.  A nightclub on Hastings street called the Henry Swing club.  And when the music man played, all the towns people would start to boogie.  

Born on the 6th day of the week, they called that boy the blues.  And on the 7th day his Daddy spoke.  And he said "let that boy boogie-woogie, cause it's in him, and it got to come out". 

Boogie Chillen' !!


-(inspired by the lyrics of "Boogie Chillen'", by John Lee Hooker).

what its like to be in the crap

I was walking down the hallway the other night, and the crazy patients........ (psychiatric).......  were yelling out crazy things from their rooms.

(* and by crazy, I mean literally crazy.  Psychotic.  Seeing things.  Hearing things...... thinking you're the FBI............. or the devil). 

And I was carrying the last adult diaper in the hospital towards my patients room.  As I got closer to the smell, I thought to myself wishfully, "I'd rather be writing a blog about the blues".  And so, here it is.

The Blues is like hospital work in that it's all about what it's like to be in the crap.   
At risk of sounding too "smart-ass", (like one of those Star Trek dudes that wear the costumes and speak Klingon) I've been studying Blues music recently and I discovered that the Blues is played on a positive (major) scale with an occasional stretched (minor) note (referred to as a blue note).  I think it's ironic that the technical aspects of the music tell the story of a relatively sunny life (major scale) being corrupted by the occasional stormy monday of a blue note, because that's real life.

POINT:  generally, Life is good, but sometimes it sucks.         

I've never listened to blues music until just a few years ago.  That said, I'm a white dude that grew up in the redneck suburbs of Houston Texas, listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.  I Played in a couple of "hair bands" (karma?) in the eighties (See pic of me now, above "about me" segment on the right of the screen).  And as a child my mother played me the classics like Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley.  But, I think if you were to hunt the roots of all that music, you would eventually find the blues.   And the thing about the blues is that it's relatable.  Somewhere, sometime there were more innocent days, and then somewhere something happened and everything broke loose.  (sound familiar?).      

So here I am now, walking towards a funky room, carrying the very last disposable thing separating me and all the crap.  And all the way down the hall I'm listening to the crazies yelling at me.  And suddenly I find myself wondering where all this crap came from, and how it all got started.  And of course I wanna know if anyone has ordered the freakin diapers yet, and I'd like to know if anybody knows when the CRAP they're coming in?!!