I’m now in my 16th year of retirement. Still, like a lot of retired people, I stay very busy, working as a volunteer naturalist in Sabino Canyon, where we teach children about nature, leading nature walks and hikes on the many trails in Sabino Canyon. When I’m not volunteering, I spend my time doing creative things, usually after morning conditioning activities.
Over the years, I have created an extensive iTunes library of music and recorded poetry and psychology. This morning while walking in the neighborhood, I had my iTunes library on shuffle, and two of my non-music recordings of authors came on; Charles Bukowski, “Something for the Touts, the Nuns, the Grocery Clerks and You” and Alan Watts lecture titled “Insides and Outsides.” It was spiritual.
Alan Watts — Insides and Outsides (audio)
Charles Bukowski Video
We have everything, and we have nothing Some do it well enough for a while and then give way Fame gets them or disgust or age or lack of proper diet or ink across the eyes or children in college Or new cars or broken backs while skiing in Switzerland Or new politics or new wives Or just natural change and decay — The man you knew yesterday hooking for ten rounds or drinking for three days and three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now just something under a sheet or a cross, or a stone, or under an easy delusion Or packing a bible or a golf bag or a briefcase How they go, how they go! All the ones you thought would never go Days like this, like your day today Maybe the rain on the window trying to get through to you What do you see today? What is it? Where are you? The best days are sometimes the first, sometimes the middle, and even sometimes the last. The vacant lots are not bad Churches in Europe on postcards are not bad? People in wax museums frozen into their best sterility are not bad? Horrible, but not bad? The cannons, think of the cannon And toast for breakfast and coffee hot enough to know your tongue is still there Three geraniums outside a window, trying to be red and trying to be pink and trying to be geraniums No wonder sometimes the women cry No wonder the mules don’t wanna go up the hill. One more good day, a little bit of it
Enough and not enough Arcs and pilgrims, oranges, gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of tissue paper In the most decent sometimes sun There is the softsmoke feeling from urns And the canned sound of old battleplanes And if you go inside and run your finger along the window ledge, you’ll find dirt, maybe even earth And if you look out the window, there will be the day And as you get older you’ll keep looking, keep looking Sucking your tongue in a little Ah, ah, no, no, maybe
It’s the Holiday Season and what better time for Joe and Ricki Mensching to hold an open house for their train room, which takes up the space of their three-car garage. Ricki had asked me if I would take some photos, five are in this posting. Click here to see all 25 photos.
I also took five video clips, which I edited into a short movie of the Train Room Open House.
— kenne
Mensching’s Train Room Open House — Images & Video By kenne
Poetry and Music Soluting The Common Man.
Julian Tuwim’s poem nails it.
In my younger days,
I worked with many a Harlan Clancy —
Tom Russell writes and sings
about in the album “Folk Hotel,”
referencing Aaron Copland’s anthem,
“Fanfare for the Common Man.”
In those early days,
the winters could be harsh,
and having spent many
a Christmas in the cold north,
I end this trilogy to The Common Man
with Merle Haggard,
“If We Make It Through December.”
— kenne
The Common Man
When plastered billboards scream with slogans
‘fight for your country, go to battle’
When media’s print assaults your senses,
‘Support our leaders’ shrieks and rattles…
And fools who don’t know any better
Believe the old, eternal lie
That we must march and shoot and kill
Murder, and burn, and bomb, and grill…
When press begins the battle-cry
That nation needs to unify
And for your country you must die…
Dear brainwashed friend, my neighbor dear
Brother from this, or other nation
Know that the cries of anger, fear,
Are nothing but manipulation
by fat-cats, kings who covet riches,
And feed off your sweat and blood – the leeches!
When call to arms engulfs the land
It means that somewhere oil was found,
Shooting ‘blackgold’ from underground!
It means they found a sneaky way
To make more money, grab more gold
But this is not what you are told!
Don’t spill your blood for bucks or oil
Break, burn your rifle, shout: ‘NO DEAL!’
Let the rich scoundrels, kings, and bankers
Send their own children to get killed!
May your loud voice be amplified
By roar of other common men
The battle-weary of all nations:
WE WON’T BE CONNED TO WAR AGAIN!
— Julian Tuwim
Tim Russell writes, Harlan Clancy
“. . . out there in the middle of Ohio,
a place you’ll never likely go . . .
Euro tourists never make it there . . .
the America of the shit jobs, farms,
remote ranches, wrecking yards,
inner-city brothels, shooting galleries,
used car lots, and back street bars that
still have Narco corridos, or Otis Redding,
or George Jones on the jukebox.”
When we arrived in Copacabana near the Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana
we could hear a brass band playing in the Basilica’s plaza.
Clearly, on this sunny Saturday morning, a ceremony of some sort was taking place.
Once we were inside the plaza there were women and men of all ages
in very colorful customs dancing to the music.
The dance is a traditional dance in Bolivia called La Morenada.
Anthropologists say the dance is a satire, inspired by the suffering of black slaves
who were brought to Bolivia to work in the Andean silver mines.
La Morenada is easily recognizable in a procession because it has various characteristics:
There are many rattles and drums, groups of women are dressed
in polleras (multilayered skirts) with bowler hats,
while men wear costumes that supposedly represent barrels
and wear silver or black masks (Morenada means ‘black’).
The origin of La Morenada stems from Lake Titicaca,
based on 200/300-year-old cave paintings found there, depicting these dances.
With the smoke and with the fire, many people muffled and silent on a street, on a corner, in the high city, pondering the future in search of the past — in the subtle entrails, night lightning in the probing eye, thoughts go to agony
At a February of 2009 fundraiser
for Diunna Greenleaf, Mean Gene Kelton
was one of several musicians playing for the cause.
In addition to being a great musician,
Mean Gene is a master storyteller
in the oral tradition of what I refer to as
“Rural Mississippi Backporch” style — I love it!
In this video, Mean Gene shares a Dallas Texas gig experience
he and his band had traveled with Diunna, before going into
playing, “I Play the Blues for a Livin’.”
When I think “Red Hot Blues,” I think Stevie Ray Vaughn. We were able to see him at The Woodlands Pavilion in the summer of 1990, less than a month before he died in a helicopter crash in southern Wisconsin in route to Chicago. Stevie was the “Prince of the Blues.”
Archie Bell, Ken and Mary Harris (May 20, 2017) Image by kenne
Video by kenne
Hi everybody I’m Archie Bell of the Drells, from Houston, Texas We don’t only sing But we dance just as good as we walk In Houston, we just started a new dance Called the Tighten Up This is the music we tighten up with
First tighten up on the drums Come on now, drummer I want you to tighten it up for me now, oh, yeah Tighten up on that bass now Tighten it up, ha, ha, yeah Now let that guitar fall in Oh, yeah . . . (click here for all the lyrics)
They called it a project, a Blues Project, but really,
it was a party — a party for
family and friends to share
happy times, talk about living life, and a love for good old blues music.
Once this party began there would be no stopping it, even when forced undercover
of rain, friends laugh and
talk about déjà vu the evening had become.
Just sitting on the front porch doing that front porch thing telling stories now embellished by all the good times dancing and singing the night away in the woods off Old Houston Road.
The Blues Project may be over so listen if the night will lead you to the music, the stories told and smile a smile one more time for each Project was just a rehearsal for what our tomorrows will bring.
— kenne
Kenneth Harris shares the story of how Ken & Mary’s Blues Project came about. (May 20, 2017)
Self-portrait (Photo-Artistry)
Mensching’s Train Room Open House — Images & Video By kenne
“The Common Man” — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Michael is pointing to where most of the hotels and restaurants are on the Isla del Sol.
Lake Titicaca has 41 islands, some of which are densely populated.
Lunch on a deck overlooking Lake Titicaca.
Lunch On The Isla del Sol
Lunch On The Isla del Sol
View of Lake Titicaca — Images by kenne
Basilica of Our Lady of Copacabana 
Once we were inside the plaza there were women and men of all ages
The dance is a traditional dance in Bolivia called La Morenada.
Traveling down the Beni River with a few jungle stops before returning to Rurrenabaque.
The bridge at Rurrenabaque, Bolivia — Images by kenne
Balsa Wood Rafting On the Tuichi River, Madidi National Forest — Images and Video by kenne
Not knowing the purpose of the sidewalk celebration, 
Red Hot Blues — Computer Art by kenne
Archie Bell, Ken and Mary Harris (May 20, 2017) Image by kenne
Computer Painting by kenne
