Scratchin...

Scratchin'
TAP FOR THE TUNE!

Scratchin'

By Alfred Lehmberg 

Does the reader know what an "Outsider Artist" is? This is not pretentiousness... I'm too old for pretension. 

An Outsider Artist works "outside" formal institutions, has no traditional training, creates from a deeply personal... idiosyncratic vision, often ignores or is unaware of mainstream artistic trends, and produces content that feels... different... raw, original, or unfiltered. After a fashion (in a few of these "fashions," actually), I am that outsider.

The guitar, for example. I can’t play it in any conventional sense. I tried—Gawd knows I tried—though perhaps this mythic instrument and I may have negotiated an uneasy détente, of needs. The guitar agreed to tolerate me, perhaps? I certainly agreed to stop pretending I could play it like everyone else. That much will become obvious to the listener, in any case. 

In truth, the guitar often ends up playing me in some manner, or we arrive at an uneasy cooperation worked out over hoary time? The listener can judge the success of that "arrangement," themselves. Decidedly, it was not an easy cooperation.

I tried hard to play the way everybody else was doing it… but right‑hand picking escaped me, and the left hand wouldn’t chord the way it was supposed to. I suspected my left‑handedness. 

So, play "left‑handed" like Hendrix, reader? Well, that seemed to this person like something happening in an alternate universe where people could learn chords "backwards" when they couldn’t chord them "forwards" in the first place!  Most would chalk that up to a simple lack of talent… I did. Still, I wanted to play. I aspired to play. 

...That may be right up there with needing to play...

I noodled for decades, tried for leading expressions of individual notes… putting my fingers down where they could go comfortably and moving that comfortable placement up and down the fret board… but trying for original sounds that were pleasing… to me. I don't know what the chords are, I only try to remember where the fingers went when I'd chance on an expression or progression pleasing to me. That chance musical discovery is a "peak" experience, in accordance with Maslow, making the endorphins run like a bubbling torrent! Ecstasy!

Remains... a strum is what I have going... a loping strum with a palsied if percussive thumb strike... Conventional picking has ever eluded me... my hand turns into a clumsy Golem’s claw, still. Nails snag strings... or? I'll miss them altogether!

...Onward to snatch some victory from defeat's depressing jaws? That's up to the listener.

Remains. I wanted to make the music that was inside me… with a guitar. I needed that music to be as original as I could make it, even as my wholly instrumental tunes would be inspired, if not derivative, by the likes of Carol King, Tim Buckley,  Joni Mitchell, and Tom Petty et al… I wanted my music to go where THEY go. ...Music that flowed compellingly and then landed conclusively, right? A musical story told to be understood and believed?! 

Aspirations are nothing if they are not lofty. So say the bards...

I don’t do any covers of other songs because I am incapable of remotely performing them as they have been performed. Any attempt would be, and has been, just risible. That said, it all started to come together for me musically after I’d seen “Close Encounters of the 3^rd Kind”! I began by trying to find that ethereal five-note sequence, defining the film, on my fret board.

Noodling around on the neck provided ultimately that it was a D chord, notes struck 212…4, 3… You can almost hear that musical phrase just reading it. That progression of the D chord, somehow discovered in a manner not recalled (Joni Mitchell?), was facilitated by slack-tuning the sixth string to a D... and there it was, all right there in the harmonics of the D-tuned 6th string, itself! "212…4,3" and the best harmonics of "6…5," in answer! I was off! "D" was where my music was!

Then the "peak" experience magic happened for me! Many years ago, I heard about not tuning to 440 Hz… as I had been doing previously, but using 432 Hz, instead! The tone was now palpable! Now, I could feel the lowered frequency of those chords in my GUT, and it was like something startlingly new was opening up in my mind!

I don’t perform, per se, but I record—little fragments minutes long, rough and earnest, the way they arrive. You hear the ones with the least amount of errors in them...

These bits and pieces, if finished songs aspiring to that “flow” and “landing” aforementioned, are on Facebook and YouTube. They are amateur and unpolished but have a sincerity of originality pleasing to this content creator, a content creator not being able to play a guitar… …but wanting to, needing to... so… finding his way. 

…Some people like it. Some of it IS risible… but if I may? Much of it is not. Have a listen... ...and then restore John Ford! Read on.

Remaining... Lacks

.

.

.

I look into our starry sky... 

its length and breadth and depth untried, 

and question—to perchance achieve—

what these "things" ARE to soar and cleave!

.

They are there, there IS no question... 

dismissing any protestation 

that I'm quite mad or just mistaking...  

Or worse: that I've been lying... faking.

.

Oh, I see them. No great feat! 

I've proved them to myself, at least! 

Should I respect what one might think... 

who ISN'T looking? ...Specious finks!

.

...Sucking on our wounded sphere

—"mere parasites who breed in fear"—

"specious finks" who make "pronouncements..." 

These spout denials and denouncements!  

They'd proclaim their "dead-lock nut," 

to prove in fact their minds are shut, 

that they are sans ...imagination... 

and must court their own damnation!

.

Keeping council with their "favorites," 

pretending they're alone (the flavor!), 

they would turn their eyes away 

from that which haunts our skies today!  

Oh, they're fearful. No mistake. 

They're throwing on their drags and brakes! 

See, new ideas threaten those 

who keep their process... undisclosed.

.

They're "braking" to arrange "distraction," 

provide for our INSANE inaction, 

but keeps the subject tongue-in-cheek 

so they can sully errant leaks. 

...Remaining is the ink and stone—

which they discount with heads of bone!

.

...Remaining is the anecdotal: 

weighty, plain and calmly totaled. 

Remaining is the photographic: 

ponderous and enigmatic. 

Remaining, there's the evidence 

that one perceives with no pretence—

no axe to "grind," no bill to "fill," 

but has a "brain" and knows the "drill"!

.

And, yes, sometimes it's our "science" friends

—those filled with same to length and brim—

prefering  "method" and "assessment" 

to live "proud" lives of glad detachment ...

Ask Rupert Sheldrake if this ain't so.

He's in position, so's to know.

.

"Light" shan't dance and caper FOR them, 

speaks a language MUCH too foreign, 

so, safe beyond their "instruments"

*it* charms and glitters... no pretense. 

.

Stanton Friedman makes his case, 

but most who "look" will risk "disgrace" ... 

...See, science is not BAD—or friendly—

science is a tool, comprende'? 

Though, it can—too fast—be used 

to further evil ends... abstruse!

.  

Consider scalpels spreading butter, 

or cleaving bolts with paper cutters.  

"All Science" dulls humanity 

provoking an abject insanity 

and we're the lesser for all that 

if "science" dictates "tit for tat."

...It must be leavened with a "conscience"!

See, science can't explain what's "conscious!"

.

Pure logic suits your staid computer...

But soul remains its trouble shooter!

Soul decrys atomic bombs...

or viruses in warfare qualms!

Soulless science dives right in

Enleavened by a conscience, then!

.

Still, good folks think these ...won't... conspire 

to make their short-term goals transpire, 

when survey says it's one in ten 

will do what they would DO, my friend!  

If their gain can be "attained" 

they'll do the worst—they won't abstain!

.

I've studied them, they know no bounds, 

to them "we" are as dumb as hounds; 

we're shackled to our rules and codes 

made ethics bound to bear their loads!

. 

We're mere "objects"—we're their CATTLE—

they keep us buying, taxed, and addled 

while they write their tickets free 

and freeload from our pockets, see?

.

What we lack's the "real deal" 

these psychos covet, grift, or steal!

.

What we lack's a base respect 

that we have lost for their neglect!

.

What's we lack's the "cop to truth"... 

pretended, lost, and in refute!

.

What's we lack's that money spent 

to educate our future, friends!

.

Still, we waffle and get lathered... 

endure elitist double standards—

puling prayers that just PRETEND 

to hold the high ground... we can't win!

.

Look around, begin to "see,"

 and sense some new reality! 

Stealthy wizards find new ways 

to fleece their flocks and make Y O U pay. 

They would trade your soul for power; 

holding court, they build your towers 

on these special "clouds" they'd claim 

would keep you "whole" or "safe" and "sane."

.

TV Preachers whine and pray 

from billion-dollar pulpits—crazed! 

They PRETEND their persecutions 

(spewing saccharine elocutions), 

all the while sowing hatreds 

they condone (...and to which we're fated!).

.

See the *moral* politician, 

whining goals or mad positions, 

wearing mantles of correctness 

he contrives (to cloak his excess)? 

He fronts the "un-elected," 

sells YOUR soul (you're unprotected!) 

...lives a life of privileged power—

cruisin' restrooms sans his trousers!

.

Still, the sky's alive with lights 

(which act most strangely in my sight), 

and these belie pontification, 

discredit all the obfuscation, 

and keep in me alive the ...need... 

to ask hard questions, watch, and bleed.

.

Finks pretend, "alleged weirdness... 

warrants "special proof's" coherence!" 

Claims that are "incredible" 

demand that "proof's" infallible (?) ... 

but then RETREAT becomes the norm! 

It's cloaks like these are used, or worn! 

The "proof's" horizon just recedes 

ahead of fear... we do not need!

.

No, I see them—that's a fact. 

They don't conform to aircraft, Jack! 

See, I'm a flyer too well versed 

for wishful thinking, last and first!

.

What I see will fly big circles, 

glitter like a flash bulb hurtled, 

then slowing to a crawl they'll glow... 

to bursts of speed—away they go! 

I'm there with my late Mother, friend, 

and I'll not lie, distort ... pretend... 

that they are there if not—you hear?

.

I'll watch the skies. You face your fear!

lehmberg2002@gmail.com

www.AlienView.net

Former Air Force "zoomie,"—one stunningly shallow nay-sayer and default klasskurtxian cur-curmudgeon—James McGaha, has "exposed himself," in the past, as the public face of an "on-the-run" CSIcopia. His current too-cautionary mewling—as regards an all but smashed Aristotelian crystal sphere of caustic cluelessness (or scientism, as brittle as it is dull)—has been heard on numerous Larry King Live shows.

• 
  

McGaha occupied the post previously held by Dr. [immaterial] Michael Shermer, an oilier, smoother, and more practiced representative of the dying CSIcopian meme.  Shermer abdicated his position when it became obvious that he could not make his "case" live to a public he wants to buy his skep-dick's (sic) books.

• 
  

Shermer is to McGaha what Pat Riley is to Bobby Knight. Though, IMO, Shermer is much more the regrettably craven sum'bitch because he's smoother, more lettered, and seemingly derives a lot of personal comfort from his practiced duplicity.

• 
  

Problem is: he can't make his case on this stuff to an audience getting a little more informed every day, and he risks his cottage industry of nay-saying literature, as I said above, to come on TV just to look like a fool—as McGaha seems only too willing to do... the zoomie gerbil! He figures to sell his own book, I presume. I'll lay odds it's published by Prometheus Press... waddaya-bet!

• 
  

That's enough.  Read on.

• 
  

Restore John Ford!