A wonderful day today... I guess I say that now, though it took me hours to really get in gear after driving back from Santa Barbara after Wednesday's gig and digging into my pint of Butter Pecan Häagen-Dazs at 2 a.m. It was strange trip, kind of floating without a plan to two gigs in one night and dubious sound equipment in both houses. But met great people. And hopefully turned a few people on. It was great to hear Teresa again.

So I just got in from seeing my friend Jarreth in Brecht's Drums in the Night at The Actors' Gang theater here in the neighborhood. He wrote it when he was 20 so I guess it's no wonder that I was just about to riff on how Brecht always brings me back to the passion of transformative art that was every day when I was 20, wandering around Europe with a guitar, a tape recorder and a few paperbacks. What's even funnier is that this morning I heard from my former fiancee who now lives in Berlin and a friend whom I met and gave my paperback of the Razor's Edge during those travels. Other favorites from that trip were the Stranger, Down and Out in Paris and London, Autobiography of Malcolm X, and I think it was War All the Time, by Charles Bukowski. Not too much romance in that bunch, yet it is a very easy period for me to romanticize. I guess that's what I really like about the language and ideas in Brecht's plays. They're not romantic in any safe way, yet they're passionate, outrageous, and dry. But this is a late night blog and I'm no expert... What I really liked about this one was the idea of sex, love, and the clash of circumstance. In such complexity there's no chance for romance if romance is the cherry on top of a sundae. If you romanticize dissonance you might be alright (not that I want to sound like Joni's, Richard--I'm a far cry from that). But he just brings out the ideas that make you struggle and force decisions beyond idealism. Anyway...late night creeping in. But there's something in his language that inspires active thoughtfulness.

And that's pretty much the opposite of what went down Tuesday night. I feel like the language of W's speeches try to inspire numb abdication of opinion. I got caught up in a game after it, looking at the words used in his State of the Union speeches on the New York Times. Check out the difference in his use of the words Kill, War, and Terror, versus Love, Peace and Protect. It's kind of striking.

OK now it's bedtime. Hope to see you tonight.

So the funny thing is, again I feel like I should write about something. The State of the Union, this time. Maybe I will. And maybe I'm a musician, so folks just want to be entertained and hear about the chord I discovered today. I don't think I discovered one today, but I did have a lot of fun making a little arrangement yesterday of The Best Is Yet To Come. And I didn't watch the State of the Union. I went to see the Clippers beat Milwaukee. (And apparently got called a good looking man on Fox Sports...which is kind of weird. My friends Dawn and Bruce are season ticket holders near the basket, so they get on a lot. Tonight I was Dawn's date and Clippers broadcaster, Mike Smith took note.)

Ah, but sports, that's what I wanted to talk about before the work day got too crazy. It was just amazing to read this morning that two black coaches are facing each other in the Super Bowl and it will be the first time a team coached by an African American will win. Then the stats. 6 Black coaches in a sport with a majority of Black players, though there were only two a few years ago. 12 in the NBA. 2 Black managers in Baseball. It's just odd. I mean, I often find myself admitting that things are better, that race is less of a barrier than it was especially when weighed against class. But this is incontrovertible evidence that in fields where the majority of the players (literally and figuratively) are non-white, the ultimate positions of power are occupied by the ancestors or inheritors of the race privilege that's been a part of this country. And of course I use the word inheritors, because we all know that not all whites are descendants of slave owners and not all blacks are descendants of slaves. (And race is such a bogus construct anyway.) But we also know that if you're seen with a gorgeous woman on your arm, you'll get a lot more attention from the room. And your parents always warned you about hanging out with the wrong crowd can get you in trouble. So guilt or praise by association is a fact of life. (Check out this film, A Girl Like Me, on the reelworks.org teen film project site.)

THEN, we've got Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton as the people many of us think can lead us out of our national mess! That's what Dawn and I were talking about on the way to the game. And that's, to paraphrase my friend Derrick, is a miracle.

So that sort of brings us back to the State of the Union. I have it TiVo'ed. So I'll check it out. I liked hearing "Madam Speaker."

And Dawn brought up how pundits were saying Barack doesn't necessarily have the "black vote", which brings us back to propriety. Why should he necessarily? (Her point and my concurrence.)

And why should I feel the need to talk about the State of the Union Address because I've written some topical songs? I once had this lyric, "inaction is a vice, propriety's a crutch." It wasn't a political song. But it fits.

That's it for tonight. Hope to see you in Santa Barbara tonight or Culver City on Friday.

Love,

J

Some time last year I finally discovered Guster. I don't know what was wrong with me. I'd hear the name and just never investigated. I've hardly listened to the radio for years until recently and then what I'm really digging are the "Tunes of the Day" podcasts from KCRW and KEXP. Anyway I just fell out into my own world of loving Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell and creating my own stuff. Yeah, that's an exaggeration... But this One Man Wrecking Machine song just grabbed me one day. Maybe it reminded me of the John Hughes movies from my youth. And then I guess it's a bit High Fidelity, too, in that it's a passionate man living with innocent ideas and a plethora of options. A guy with clear desires but so much fear that he offers up in response to opportunity a simple "whatever?" Ultimate slacker. Yeah, that's my generation, accompanied by a soundtrack of the Smiths and the Replacements. (Though you couldn't really call the Smiths a slacker band, but somehow in their restlessness and search for perfection there's a certain element of never really being able to choose which version of the song to release. Inability to choose and the boundless opportunities of talent and resource seem to be the defining character of those old Gen-X kids. )

Anyway, I know I'm way too late to be commenting on Generation X. It's passe. But that's where I came from. And tonight I was with a crew from my high school. The beautiful thing is that I didn't feel like that One Man Wrecking Machine. I've definitely felt many times that I've wandered through life in a careless manner or a conscious manner that wreaks havoc to create growth. Maybe it's my naive perversion of Nietzsche whom I've never read. But I'm older now ...though one of the gang pointed out that I was kind of a younger guy, two years behind the rest of the group, so let me have my angst!... But, ha! That's the point: every time I'm confronted with the past, walking in with the memories of never feeling really accepted as a kid, I find that I did alright then and now. And as we sat in the Jacuzzi, where we all had stories from our Irvine youth, I felt like we were menders. It just felt good. Maybe it's the Big Chill? Who the hell knows? But I'm just really enjoying my life.

So...the show was OK tonight. I actually got to connect and reconnect with more people from my recent and distant past. I always have a difficult time doing the 2 song thing...maybe I've got to write my own Stairway to Heaven, so I can bring the the whole range in for one of those shows. Ha! But anyway I had fun even though I was so cold onstage that I missed a couple bits. And I've had a good month, so I'm happy to be loose and experimental.

Anyway that's it. Hope to see people out at Synergy next Friday, or in Santa Barbara on Wednesday. Check www.jasonluckett.com/dates for more info.

Good night.

- J

Believe it or not, I usually start out with a plan before I type. Supposed to talk about freedom tonight, perhaps? Maybe so. My friend has a blog called brain vomit. All of a sudden I feel like Brian Fellows. Isn't that what a blog is supposed to be...filled with all sorts of obscure references? Or have I just revealed that I've watched too much Saturday Night Live and have friends that I only speak to online? "Writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg...."

Ah, OK, I don't really write to girls in Luxembourg (though I did have this sweet affair with a beautiful girl from Mexico City in my awkward early teens...) and the beautiful woman with whom I like to spend time, just called and signed off our conversation with "OK, Mr. Freedom" and I know I didn't mention any of my blogging exploits. A good sign. And a good sign to turn on the TV right after and see DIANA ROSS!! singing on David Letterman. Her hair is much bigger than mine despite what my friend Suzanne says. And yes, freedom, she's done it. I always think of her as a bit nutty...kind of in the Jacksons sort of way. And, yes, she's a diva. But I was really digging her tonight...imagining this skinny girl from Detroit and where she's gone. To hear her talk about her kids success, then see her perform so regally sexy on the same stage she knew back then on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Yeah, I rip off that melody from the Supremes' version of Ain't No Mountain High Enough for my little sing along in Stir It Up. And though I love Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell's version probably more, it's the Supremes' version that brings back that feeling of people stirring up the world with love and peace and freedom. There's always something spiritual that happens to me when I hear that version. (Marvin and Tammi just make me want to reach for another high...)

And there it is, that segue to freedom.

How was your MLK day?

You all know how screwy it is these days to make it as an independent musician. So I'm designing websites to (a) give freedom to my music, or (b) pay the bills. Anyway that morning I was working to hit this deadline and stressed but wanted to bring something to the MLK gathering that afternoon. So I put on a mix of stuff from Napster. The first bit was the Reverend Doctor explaining the origins and meaning of "We Shall Overcome" then ending it with a "rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. And this will be a great America: we will be the participants in making it so." The next was from the one that ends "Keep climbing. If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving!" Then there was Pete Seeger talking about the kids Martin was talking about in Alabama.

Freedom is in connection. What makes freedom seem so palpable in these recordings and words are that people are sharing their stories of struggle and hope. Really sharing and really listening. Not with the cynical tone of "I've heard different facts or figures about the numbers of casualties...and death is bad" of George W. Bush. But these folks are talking about how people take the struggle--and I have to say if we haven't all made it as one humanity, there is still a struggle--they take the struggle and create a buoyant hope.

OK, in an effort to find all these quotes online, I've stayed up way past my bedtime...so a little MLK for you...

"There's a little song that we sing in our movement down in the south, I don't know if you've heard it. It has become the theme song: "We shall overcome." . . . Though I join hands so often with students and others behind jail bars singing it, we shall overcome. Sometimes we'd have tears in our eyes when we join together to sing it, but we still decided to sing it: We shall overcome. Before this victory is won, some will have to get thrown in jail some more, but we shall overcome. Don't worry about us, before the victory is won, some of us will lose jobs, but we shall overcome. Before the victory is won, even some of us will have to face physical death. Physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from a permanent psychological death, then nothing shall more redemptive. We shall overcome. Before the victory is won, some will be misunderstood and called bad names and dismissed as rabble rousers and agitators, but we shall overcome.

"And I tell you why: we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. We shall overcome because Carlisle is right: No lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right: Truth crushed to earth will rise again. We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right: Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the thrown, yet that scaffold sways the future and behind the dim unknown standeth God within the shadows keeping watch above his own. We shall overcome because the Bible is right: You shall reap what you sow. We shall overcome. Deep in my heart I do believe we shall overcome.

"And with this faith we will go out and adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark chambers of pessimism. And we will be able to rise from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope. And this will be a great America: we will be the participants in making it so."

Yeah, the past two weekends I was down in the land of my youth. I'm not sure I'm not getting too personal in these blogs, but I haven't been journaling much lately so it's good for me. I helps to keep the words flowing. And if it helps get people interested in the music, then that's really what I want. Anyway, back to OC. Right before New Year's I went to a party at my friend Linda's. I know her from UCLA, but we're the same generation and grew up just couple miles from each other. I sang at her wedding a few years ago. Anyway, it takes a good friend with two toddlers and a cooking husband to get me down there! But it was another magical day of friends that feel like family. And it pretty much confounded the image of the OC that I carry around and the media probably encourages. I mean, I grew up with a bunch of accented voices coming 'round for parties, men dancing with men, women with women, leftist thinkers, and, yes, a lot of people who owned boats and ostentatious automobiles...(Yeah, I know it's pretentious for a suburban boy to toss out ostentatious though most of my heroes have had strong associations with pretense...) I guess I had stronger love/hate relationship with the latter, but the past couple weekends were a realization of how beautiful it is there. I thought often why couldn't the rest of the world be as clean an enchanted as the Coast Highway drive from Balboa to Laguna.

Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

This quote was on the wall of my mother's friend, M's family room. (So now do I have to leave the names out?)

My mother is in town from New Hampshire which is why I made the second trip. Mom and I met M and J at the Crab Cooker in Newport around the corner from where my high school classical guitar ensemble recorded a tape. All these places look so much the same. I think the CC's menu hasn't changed in 50 years. And the drive down was like a tour of my beach hangouts. 32nd Street in junior high, Perry's Pizza and the Spaghetti Factory (sorry Bro-in-Law), the alley where the Clues shot their single's cover, the day I was busted for minor in possession of beer (which I threw in the car when I saw the cops coming, to make matters worse!), 17th Street in high school and ending up at the Wedge where I remember walking on the Jetty one of the only times I was ever really drunk in the daytime when I was probably 15.

It's strange to think that I have quite a few drinking stories from when I was way too young. I'm glad I made it out. Though I guess it's not too hard to make it out of a land of privilege even if you think you are the only one who has to wear the faux designer duds.

I guess that's what I wanted to talk about really. Not the faux duds, but the ease of motion. J & M are this wonderful new couple 77 and 82 and have been dating 6 months. They adore each other like teenagers with all the quirks and reassurances of infatuation and discovery. They're the kind of people that make you feel like you could definitely be in love in your elder years, that you can move through life with discovery, even unintentionally, if you keep your soul open.

After hanging on the beach for a while and another meal out, we ended up at the Balboa Beach Club in this room full of old 60s-ish dancers and an incredible jazz quartet doing standards. I was in my Wrangler (faux Levis?) and I felt right at home. I guess it's just where I grew up with these old wealthy folks having a good time. I do wonder if they felt as home with me, a younger long haired brown guy. But then confessing my love for Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood made a woman come up to me after my performance at the more bohemian World Stage and tell me that made her feel at home. So the truth is you never know who or where your homeys are. I'm just so thankful that I walk with a spirit that is comfortable in many rooms. And I feel like being able to talk about them all opens me up even more and maybe smashes the old partitions.

Though speaking of other rooms, The World Stage has been incredible the past few weeks. You all should check it out. An I should stop typing. I'm beat. (And, yes, I started writing around 11 on Thursday and now it's just past midnight. So I wasn't officially late again!)

Good night for me, hello to you.

- J
Culver City, CA

Ah yeah. But only because I've been working my tail off getting the new song on occasion business happening. You can check it out here. I'll be sending an e-mail soon. I've also got a couple other things brewing.

More in a day or two.

- J

Last night was wonderful. I sat down for most of it, not 'cause I was tired, but because I felt no wall. We were all just in the room together.

I've had a couple conversations recently about moments or settings when all of a sudden you realize you're in America. It's like these moments when "Madison Avenue" (or some street in Santa Monica...?) couldn't have created a more perfect picture of diversity. It's not like those political conventions you see where you can tell the seats are arranged. It's like the ObamaNation. All of a sudden you try to repaint the picture in your head of a perfect night and then you realize what an amazing palette is required. I just feel that. We had generations/colors/orientations digging the stories of the songs, sharing moments of misunderstanding with an openness, a respect, and just fun. A little boy requested one of the darker songs on my latest album and it felt alright. If a kid can request and receive some of the feelings that I sometimes shy away from in performance for "lightness' sake," I guess I don't need to do that. I can go on my journey with you. I mean if I can get up on stage and sing about stuff, you know it's probably gonna be o.k. (I haven't had too many onstage emotional breakdowns in my life!) So, yeah... I'm gonna keep embracing the emotional diversity of what's happening as I see it as if it doesn't need a single remark. But then when you try to repaint the story later, maybe that amazingly diverse palette required will inspire a rich retelling of the joyful night.

Thanks to all that were there.

- J

Family's in town. Crazed. Hope to write tomorrow. It's going to be a great one tonight, though! Hope to see you.

Love,

JL

Resolution: Blog every Tuesday and Thursday...plus whenever I'm really worked up!

Actually I've made quite a few resolutions for this year, or more accurately goals. I guess a lot of us live in the moment to such a degree that we...yeah that cliche: "can't see the forest for the trees." I always love it when I actually understand a cliche. 2006 was a year of incredible trees! I traced these trees with awe, tears, sensual joy, naive excitement, despair, an ecstatic optimism. Yo! I got to stand in the same spot as Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong, etc. singing along with Kenny Burrell! I had a song lyric put in an anthology alongside incredible poets from a really important cultural scene! I put out an album. I toured up the coast. I lost 3 dear friends. I fell in love, tiptoed and tripped. I wrote prose and was published. I flew to Nashville to support a film I scored and linked up with wonderful people. I played a gig there, too. I started this little business writing songs for people as gifts that has really inspired me. I designed a few websites.

Yes, the trees. They were magnificent and though I can't say I'm completely lost, I do need to add a little more structure to all this work. So I'll put some of it out publicly a couple times a week, let you know what's up and ask for a little help sometimes. A main goal that should interest most of you who check out this site often is to play monthly shows in my seven local regions, San Diego, Orange County, Long Beach, South Bay, Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara. So please shoot me an e-mail to suggest a venue. More ideas later.

For the more typical blog stuff...this was hard to write. I mean I'm conflicted. Like I said, '06 was an incredible year for me and I'm personally so optimistic about the coming year. And I guess I'm optimistic for change in the world generally. But the world's been ugly a lot recently. Wishing happiness feels almost trite when we've reached troop deaths of 3000 in Iraq, when a murderer was murdered and people are upset by the timing and the way he was murdered, when hundreds of thousands are dying/being killed and displaced in parts of the world the "lone superpower" has scant interest in offering valuable assistance (if what's 'valuable' can ever really be defined), and a film like Borat passes for serious social commentary (give me Michael Moore's bleeding heart pathos any day...I appreciate Borat's limited expose, but it really lacked heart for me).

Comment on the parenthetical... Yes! HEART. That's what I wish. A Heart New Year. I wish a year full of intimate connection to your individual heart and a connection to the heart of humanity. Do unto others as you would have them do to you in your most generous moment of self-love. (Wow, I just had a funny thought... I've been watching the Sundance Channel's One Punk Under God about Jim Bakker's son. I was also a "Born Again" evangelical Christian for a short time at age 13. So what just struck me in that do unto others idea is the idea that if we're born into sin, if we're all sinners, how do we really want to be treated? Do sinners suffer the wrath of God? Do sinners receive the forgiveness of Jesus or are they spewed from His mouth? Unconditional love, tough love, grace, what do those words mean?) For me that sort of self love and its generosity is really the only mode. (Now I'm thinking of the tune Nature Boy.)

So wishing you and me the love that inspires us to be agents of love that will surpass the violence and conflict in the world. Simple.

Love,

Jason
1/3/06 (a day late for the Tuesday post...)