Fox in the Grass

Fox in the Grass

In Clear Creek it is quiet.
Each step along the path
scatters a dozen leaping grasshoppers
into the air.
I didn't know they came
in such a variety of colors either.

An osprey swooped over
the tall grasses
that cover our back field
the other day.
Usually they sail high up
and then dive into the reservoir
after fish.

Shortly after the grass came to rest,
a small fox walked up the stone pathway,
up from the water's edge.
She snapped at grasshoppers
as she strolled,
peered into the shade under some big rocks,
and then pee'd near our porch steps
by a tree.

David and I were reading
about fairy tales by the window
at the time.
I wondered if I should step outside
and shape-shift
and jump off the porch
to run down mouses with her.

A little later I saw her leaping
clear out of the tall grasses,
like a kind of grass dolphin,
chasing after some animal,
I suppose.
Ah, NATURE!

Susan Gilmour September 2008

Idaho

Idaho

Idaho is a mind-place apart,
mountain-sky frontiers.
Meaning is grasped much easier
in this slow-paced,
bird-song space
of pasture and willow.

An hour of reading sticks
but an afternoon
of computer play
is a mysterious lost time.
This ain't a poem,
but it could be.

David Gilmour September 2008

If

Adapted from Rudyard Kipling's "IF"

If

If you can keep your head
while all about you
people are losing theirs
and blaming you;
if you can trust yourself,
when everybody else doubts you,
and make allowances for their doubting too.

If you can wait,
and not get tired of waiting,
and when lied about,
stand tall.
Don't deal in lies
and when hated
don't give in to hating back,
don't need to look so good,
don't need to talk too wise.

If you can dream,
and not make dreams your master;
if you can think,
and not make intellect your game;
if your can meet
with triumph and disaster,
and treat those two imposters
just the same.

If you can force your heart
and nerve and sinew
to serve you,
after all of them are gone,
and so hold on,
when there's nothing in you,
nothing but the will
that's telling you to hold on!
Hold on!

If you can bear to hear
the truth you've spoken,
twisted and misconstrued,
by some smug fool,
or watch your life's work
torn apart and broken down,
and still stoop to build again
with worn out tools.

If you can draw a crowd,
and keep your virtue,
or walk with Kings
and keep the common touch,
if neither enemies nor loving friends
can hurt you;
if everybody counts with you,
but none too much.

If you can fill the journey
of a minute
with sixty seconds worth
of wonder and delight,
then
the Earth is yours,
and Everything that's in it;
but more than that
I know
you'll be alright,
you'll be alright.

Cause you got the light.
You've got the insight.
You've got the fight.
You've got the insight.

Joni Mitchell 2007

Shine

Shine

Oh let your little light shine,
let your little light shine,
shine on Wall Street and Vegas.
Place your bets.
Shine on the fishermen
with nothing in their nets;
shine on rising oceans
and evaporating seas;
shine on the Frankenstein technologies;
shine on science
with its tunnel vision;
shine on fertile farmland
buried under subdivisions.

Let your little light shine,
let your little light shine;
shine on the dazzling darkness
that restores us in deep sleep;
shine on whatever we throw away
and what we keep.

Shine on Reverand Pearson
who threw away
the vain old God,
kept Dickens and Rembrandt and Beethoven,
and fresh-plowed sod;
shine on the good earth, good air, good water
and a safe place
for kids to play;
shine on bombs exploding
half a mile away.

Let your little light shine;
shine on world-wide traffic jams,
honking day and night;
shine on another asshole
passing on the right!
Shine on the red-light runners
busy talking on their cell phones;
shine on the Catholic Church
and the prisons that it owns;
shine on all the churchs;
they all love less and less;
shine on a hopeful girl
in a dreamy dress.

Let your little light shine;
shine on good humor;
shine on good will;
shine on lousy leadership
licensed to kill;
shine on dying soldiers
in patriotic pain;
shine on mass destruction
in some God's name;
shine on the pioneers,
those seekers of mental health,
craving simplicity,
they traveled around
past themselves...
May all their little lights shine!

Joni Mitchell 2007

Strong and Wrong

Strong and Wrong

Strong and wrong you win--
only because
that's the way it's always been.
Men love war!
That's what history's for.
History...
a mass-murder mystery...
his story.

Strong and wrong
you lose everything
without the heart
you need
to hear a robin sing.
Where have all the songbirds gone?
Gone!
All I hear are crows in flight
singing might is right,
might is right!!

Oh, the dawn of man comes slow,
thousands of years,
and here we are...
still worshiping
our own ego.

Strong and wrong,
what is God's will?
Onward Christian soldiers..
Or thou shall not kill..

Men love war!
Is that what God is for?
Just a rabbit's foot?
Just a lucky paw
for shock and awe?
Shock and awe!

Joni Mitchell 2007

Night Of The Iguana

The Night of the Iguana

The tour bus came yesterday,
the drifter's a mess today;
it's a dump of a destiny
but it's got a view...

Now the kid in the see-through blouse
is moving in hard on his holy vows...
since the preacher's not dead,
dead drunk will have to do!

Night of the iguana,
the jasmine is mercilessly sweet;
night of the iguana,
can you hear the castanets?
The widow is dancing
down on the beach.

The starlight is steaming,
he'd like to be dreaming,
his senses are screaming
not to be denied...

But if the spell of the night should win,
he could lose his bus
for the same sweet sin
that took his church from him--
then how will he survive?

Night of the iguana,
the jasmine is mercilessly sweet.
Night of the iguana,
can you hear the castanets?
It's the widow and her lover-boys
down on the beach.

The night is so fragerent,
these women so flagrant,
they could make him a vagrant
with the flick of a shawl.

The devil is sweet sixteen,
the widow's good looking
but she gets mean;
he's burning like Augustine
with no help from God at all.

Joni Mitchell 2007

Bad Dreams

Bad Dreams

The cats are in the flower bed,
a red hawk rides the sky;
I guess I should be happy
just to be alive....
but we have poisoned everything
and oblivious to it all,
the cell phone zombies babble
through the shopping malls,
while condors fall from Indian skies,
whales beach and die in sand...
bad dreams are good
in the great plan.

You cannot be trusted.
Did you even know you're lying?
It's dangerous to kid yourself.
You go deaf and dumb and blind.

You take such entitlement.
You give bad attitude.
You have no grace,
no empathy,
no gratitude.

You have no sense of consequence;
oh my head is in my hands...
bad dreams are good
in the great plan.

Before that altering apple,
we were one with everything,
no sense of self and other,
no self-consciousness.
But now we have to grapple
with our man-made world backfiring
keeping one eye on
my brother's deadly selfishness.

And everyone's a victim!
Nobody's hands are clean.
There's so very little left
of wild Eden Earth
so near the jaws of our machines.
We live in these electric scabs,
these lesions once were lakes.

No one knows how to shoulder the blame
or learn from past mistakes...
So who will come to save the day?
Mighty Mouse?
Superman?
Bad dreams are good in the great plan.

Joni Mitchell 2007

Hana

Hana

Hana steps out of a storm
into a stranger's warm, but
hard-up kitchen.
She sees what must be done.
So she takes off her coat,
rolls up her sleeves
and starts pitchin' in.

Hana has a special knack
for getting people back
on the right track,
'cause she knows,
they all matter;
so she doesn't argue or flatter,
she doesn't fight the slights--
she takes it on the chin
like a champ.

Hana says when life's a drag,
don't cave in,
don't put up a white flag--
raise up
a white banner
in this manner--
straighten your back,
dig in your heels
and get a good grip on your grief!

Hana says,"Don't get me wrong,
this is no simple Sunday song,
where God or Jesus comes along
and they save 'ya."
You've got to be braver than that--
you tackle the beast alone,
with all its tenacious teeth!
Light the lamp.

Joni Mitchell

If I Had A Heart

If I Had A Heart

Holy war
Genocide
Suicide
Hate and cruelty...
How can this be holy?
If I had a heart I'd cry.

These ancient tales...
The good go to Heaven
and the wicked ones burn in hell...
Ring the funeral bells!
If I had a heart I'd cry.

There's just too many people now,
too little land;
much too much desire,
you feel so feeble now--
it's so out of hand.
Big bombs and barbed wire,
we've set our lovely sky,
our lovely sky
on fire!

There's just too many people now
and too little land,
too much rage and desire,
it makes you feel so feeble now,
it's so out of hand--
big bombs and barbed wire...
can't you see
our destiny?
We are making this earth
our funeral pyre!

Holy Earth,
how can we heal you?
We cover you like a blight....
strange birds of appetite....
If I had a heart I'd cry.
If I had a heart I'd cry.
If I had a heart I'd cry.

Joni Mitchell

This Place

This Place

Sparkle on the ocean
Eagle at the top of a tree,
Those crazy crows are always
making a commotion,
this land is home to me.

I was talking to my neighbor.
He said, "When I get to Heaven,
if it's not like this,
I'll just hop a cloud
and I'm coming right back down here,
back to this heavenly bliss."

You see those lovely hills--
they won't be there long.
They're gonna tear 'em down
and sell them to California.
Here comes the toxic spills,
miners poking all around.
When this place looks like a moonscape,
don't say I didn't warn ya...

Money, money, money...
money makes the trees come down.
It makes mountains into molehills;
big money kicks the whole wide world around.

Black bear in the orchard,
at night he's in my garbage cans,
he's getting so bold
no one wants to shoot him.
He's got a right to roam this land.

I feel like Geronimo.
I used to as trusting as Cochise,
but the white eyes lies--
he's out of whack with nature,
and look how far his weapons reach!

Spirit of the water,
give us all the courage
and the grace,
to make genius of this tragedy
unfolding--
the genius to save this place.

Joni Mitchell

One Week Last Summer

One Week Last Summer

I stepped outside
of my little house
and stood barefoot
on a rock.

The Pacific Ocean rolled
towards me.
Across the bay
a family of seals sprawled
on the kelp
uncovered by the low tide.
A blue heron honked
overhead.

All around the house
the wild roses were blooming.
The air smelled sweet and salty
and loud with crows and bees.
My house was clean.
I had food in the fridge
for a week.
I sat outside
'til the sun went down.

That night the piano beckoned
for the first time in ten years.
My fingers found these patterns
which express what words could not.
This song poured out
while a brown bear rummaged
through my garbage cans.
The song has seven verses
constructed for the days
of that happy week.
On Thursday
the bear arrives.

Joni Mitchell

My Own Idaho

My Own Idaho

Idaho high-land
is blond wheat-dry
and light has taken
the tree's summer verant foilage
and turned it
into ethereal ochre.

Everywhere aspen bells
ring in the breeze;
beautiful still
blue skies,
and brilliant warm sun.

David Gilmour September 2008
From his cozy cabin in the mountains above Boise.

Mudra Mornings

Painting and Poetry by Rick Mobbs
Linebreaks by Glenn Buttkus

Mudra Mornings

In the beginning,
when we were still made of mud,
and pieces of ourselves
were always falling off,
it was necessary to live
close to water.

Running water was best.
Still water makes smelly mud,
and we would be too easily stalked
if we were to leave smelly droppings
as we walked to and fro
across the earth.

Red mud was the best of all,
because it was the oldest,
ground from the most ancient stone
to the finest dust
and therefore an aid to memory;
for we were an old people,
the oldest people,
and too easily did we forget
our origins.

We saw that often,
especially upon the veldt
but also far to the arid,
mudless north.

Straggling remnants
of once vital families
and strong tribes,
mud slatherings fallen away,
soft skin the color of sand,
dry grass, dark water, shadow,
or sunset clouds;
peppered with bug bites
and burned by the sun--
and worst of all,
no memory of who they were,
where they came from,
how they came to be,
and no idea of where they were going.

Sad people with vacant eyes,
lost in the bewilderness,
but lessons to us all.

Rick Mobbs September 2008

Gently Rising

Gently Rising

The view across this archipelago
just after dawn,
courtesy of my seat on Kenmore Airlines
last week.

You get a lot
for your flying dollars here:
not just a lap belt,
but a second,
full harness belt
to sling across your chest
should you have any doubts
as to how the flight will turn out.

I think I may have used it
the very first time I flew this route,
not wanting to tempt fate.
Now, almost 30 flights later,
my formerly white knuckles
have long since returned
to their natural calm pink.

Rather than mull over
what a sudden water landing
might feel like
(uh, very cold, in a 52 degree ocean),
I mull over the impossible power
of glaciers grinding
across this area
15,000 years ago,
and how the serendipity
of gravity
created such grace.

Still half asleep
when I pointed my camera
into the little plexiglass window,
I was enamored of the softness
of the smoky pastel tableau.

As always,
I had to remind myself why
I was leaving for a few days.
And as always,
I immediately thought ahead
to the beauty of this palette,
seen later in the afternoon
with the plane’s nose pointed north,
not south.

Going away
is filled with the promise
of invigoration
from the outside world.
Coming home
is filled with that
from within.

Alex Shapiro September 2008
Linebreaks by Glenn Buttkus

Equus Aethereus

Painting by Rick Mobbs


Equus Aethereus

Osti-uma was a traveler,
a dimensional rider
of the cosmic winds,
spiritual slider
through divers portals gently,
like a blond breeze,
warm and golden;
remaining always the watcher,
the witness,
a particle of God’s occipital mass,
directed in this plane
on us, and them—
seeing everything, but
tasked sometimes to be
the comforter, the muse, the guide;
even supplying maternal marrow
when she happened upon
those husks hollowed out,
those empty shells abandoned
but still breathing,
in dire need of rescue,
or resuscitation.

Her beautiful green skin gleamed
smoothly, like a verdant pearl,
for she surely must be
Nature’s offspring,
one of the emerald daughters, who
with her sisters glided
through rocks, buildings, mountains,
hearts and minds;
sent lovingly to observe,
like the Angels of old,
like the dolphins of the deep,
to see it all,
to catalog it all,
and to report
it all.

One day in what would later
be called New Mexico,
on a high desert plateau,
fenced securely with cliffs
and red rock towers
poking fingerlings
into the perfect blueness,
where the wild mustang herds
ran like galloping thunder,
I discovered an ostracon,
perhaps an Anasazi shard of pottery
with part of an inscription which read,
“Osti-uma and Ada-teria were seen…”

Ancient words in aboriginal script,
recording a primal event,
a golden moment
when Osti-uma allowed herself
and her daughter to be visualized,
as they watched one of the first
equine families,
wild and unbroken,
free and unbridled
grazing shoulder to shoulder
a thousand fold,
mantling the sparse desert landscape.

The native was a cliff dweller
and corn farmer,
and his tribe never attempted
to capture, tame, or ride
the snorting stamping steads;
but mid-winter
when the corn baskets were low
and hunger stalked the pueblo,
they did hunt them,
bringing them down
with stone-tipped arrows and spears,
after which they
blessed them,
thanked them,
and ate them.

Osti-uma observed this ritual
and when the horse’s blood was shed
her vibrant thick robes,
usually striped in lush earth colors,
flashed ten kinds of red,
like a spectral barber pole.


She knew
that hunting was barbaric but
necessary for sustenance and survival;
not so with war.
When warriors slayed each other
her beautiful robes
would be drenched fully ocherous
for days, for months, years, eons—
as they are today;
as are my own.

Glenn A. Buttkus September 2008.

Ayn Rand Said

This author was born in 1905 and died in 1982

A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
Ayn Rand

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Ayn Rand

A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving.
Ayn Rand

A government is the most dangerous threat to man's rights: it holds a legal monopoly on the use of physical force against legally disarmed victims.
Ayn Rand

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.
Ayn Rand

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death.
Ayn Rand

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves - or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth.
Ayn Rand

Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Ayn Rand

Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.
Ayn Rand

Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives.
Ayn Rand

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics - a rational ethics - as a precondition of rebirth.
Ayn Rand

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.
Ayn Rand

Evil requires the sanction of the victim.
Ayn Rand

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.
Ayn Rand

From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man - the function of his reasoning mind.
Ayn Rand

God... a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man's power to conceive.
Ayn Rand

Government "help" to business is just as disastrous as government persecution... the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off.
Ayn Rand

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand

I don't build in order to have clients. I have clients in order to build.
Ayn Rand

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Ayn Rand

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.
Ayn Rand

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
Ayn Rand

Individual rights are the means of subordinating society to moral law.
Ayn Rand

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.
Ayn Rand

Just as man can't exist without his body, so no rights can exist without the right to translate one's rights into reality, to think, to work and keep the results, which means: the right of property.
Ayn Rand

Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another.
Ayn Rand

Man's unique reward, however, is that while animals survive by adjusting themselves to their background, man survives by adjusting his background to himself.
Ayn Rand

Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason.
Ayn Rand

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.
Ayn Rand

Money is the barometer of a society's virtue.
Ayn Rand

Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth, the man who would make his fortune no matter where he started.
Ayn Rand

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it - walk.
Ayn Rand

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone.
Ayn Rand

Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter.
Ayn Rand

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?
Ayn Rand

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.
Ayn Rand

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.
Ayn Rand

The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.
Ayn Rand

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Ayn Rand

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
Ayn Rand

The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me.
Ayn Rand

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.
Ayn Rand

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
Ayn Rand

The worst guilt is to accept an unearned guilt.
Ayn Rand

There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.
Ayn Rand

There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions to an individual, but permitted to a mob.
Ayn Rand

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
Ayn Rand

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.
Ayn Rand

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.
Ayn Rand

To say "I love you" one must first be able to say the "I."
Ayn Rand

Upper classes are a nation's past; the middle class is its future.
Ayn Rand

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Ayn Rand

Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.
Ayn Rand

When I die, I hope to go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that is.
Ayn Rand

When man learns to understand and control his own behavior as well as he is learning to understand and control the behavior of crop plants and domestic animals, he may be justified in believing that he has become civilized.
Ayn Rand

Harold Ramis Speaks

A psychologist said to me, there are only two important questions you have to ask yourself. What do you really feel? And, what do you really want? If you can answer those two, you probably can leave your neuroses behind you.
Harold Ramis

Acting is all about big hair and funny props... All the great actors knew it. Olivier knew it, Brando knew it.
Harold Ramis

As much as we'd like to believe that our work is great and that we're infallible, we're not. Hollywood movies are made for the audience. These are not small European art films we're making.
Harold Ramis

Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
Harold Ramis

First and foremost, you have to make the movie for yourself. And that's not to say, to hell with everyone else, but what else have you got to go on but your own taste and judgment?
Harold Ramis

How one handles success or failure is determined by their early childhood.
Harold Ramis

I always claim that the writer has done 90 percent of the director's work.
Harold Ramis

I believe things happen that can't be explained, but so many people seem intent on explaining them. Everyone has an answer for them. Either aliens or things from the spirit world.
Harold Ramis

I feel a big obligation to the audience, almost in a moral sense, to say something useful. If I'm going to spend a year of my life on these things, I want something that I feel that strongly about.
Harold Ramis

I had a lot of fun working with John Candy. We had a pretty good rapport.
Harold Ramis

I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
Harold Ramis

I never work just to work. It's some combination of laziness and self-respect.
Harold Ramis

I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don't believe in anything. I'd seen mediums and readers.
Harold Ramis

I'd like to think I'd never do a gratuitous fart joke.
Harold Ramis

I'm not a believer in the pratfall. I don't think it's funny just to have someone fall down.
Harold Ramis

I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.
Harold Ramis

If Chevy Chase had not been an actor, he might have been a very popular guy in advertising or whatever field he would have gone into, because of his charisma.
Harold Ramis

It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.
Harold Ramis

Multiplicity was a movie that tested really well. People seeing the movie really liked it, but then the studio couldn't market it. We opened on a weekend with nine other films.
Harold Ramis

My characters aren't losers. They're rebels. They win by their refusal to play by everyone else's rules.
Harold Ramis

My first few films were institutional comedies, and you're on pretty safe ground when you're dealing with an institution that vast numbers of people have experienced: college, summer camp, the military, the country club.
Harold Ramis

My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly.
Harold Ramis

No matter what I have to say, I'm still trying to say it in comedic form.
Harold Ramis

Nothing reinforces a professional relationship more than enjoying success with someone.
Harold Ramis

That's one of the great things about DVD: In addition to reaching people who didn't catch the movie in theaters, you get to have this interaction of sorts.
Harold Ramis

The cutting room is where you discover the optimal length of the movie.
Harold Ramis

The first comedy screenplay that I wrote was Animal House and I always thought I could and should be a director but no one was about to give me that opportunity on Animal House.
Harold Ramis

There's a personal story of my own that I will write at some point, and it's a film that I will happily make. It could very well be the next thing I do, unless someone shows me something great.
Harold Ramis

We all wish we could be in more than one place at the same time. People with families feel guilty all the time-if we spend too much time with our family, we feel we're not working hard enough.
Harold Ramis

We are all several different people. There are different aspects of our nature that are competing.
Harold Ramis

We were tremendously encouraged by the testing of Analyze That. Audiences loved it. They were telling us that they liked it as much as the original. We recorded the laughs in the theater.
Harold Ramis

Whenever a critic mentions the salary of an actor, I'm thinking, He's not talking about the movie.
Harold Ramis

With both Caddyshack and Vacation, it's not like the subjects were serious enough that they engaged my interest for another round. I love the characters, and the actors were great, but I didn't see the need to make another Vacation movie.
Harold Ramis

You can't not have feelings about country clubs, whichever side you're on.
Harold Ramis

You just make sure you don't screw it up. It's going to work as long as you don't mess it up. Hopefully you have plenty of those moments in a big comedy.
Harold Ramis

Sun Ra Said

This musician was born in 1914 and died in 1994

A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people.
Sun Ra

A world is in danger, this planet is in great danger!
Sun Ra

All these other nations seem to appreciate what I'm doing and they want me to play the furthest out things.
Sun Ra

And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets.
Sun Ra

Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.
Sun Ra

But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn't be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music's got these bars and measures you know.
Sun Ra

I am a musician, but I'm another type of musician.
Sun Ra

I see people as they really are from a pure point of view.
Sun Ra

I use music as a medium to talk to people.
Sun Ra

I'm not a minister, I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a politician, I'm in another category.
Sun Ra

I'm playing dark history. It's beyond black. I'm dealing with the dark things of the cosmos.
Sun Ra

It's such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street.
Sun Ra

Music is a language, you see, a universal language.
Sun Ra

Not too many people in America know about me, but all of Europe knows about me.
Sun Ra

People have set that up as a standard, not to recognize a prophet in his own country.
Sun Ra

The world is in such a bad condition that if they don't find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated.
Sun Ra

Today's symphonic music is sponsored by the upper structures of society.
Sun Ra

What I'm dealing with is so vast and great that it can't be called the truth. It's above the truth.
Sun Ra

You Wreck Me

You Wreck Me

Tonight we ride,
right or wrong
Tonight we sail,
on a radio song
Rescue me,
should I go down
If I stay too long in trouble town

Now and again I get the feeling
Well if I don't win,
I'm a gonna break even
Rescue me,
should I go wrong
If I dig too deep,
if I stay too long

I'll be the boy
in the corduroy pants
You be the girl
at the high school dance
Run with me,
wherever I go
Just play dumb,
whatever you know

Oh, yeah, you wreck me, baby
You break me in two
But you move me, honey
Yes, you do

Tom Petty

You Don't Know How It Feels

You Don't Know How It Feels

Let me run with you tonight
I'll take you on a moonlight ride
There's someone I used to see
But she don't give a damn for me

But let me get to the point,
let's roll another joint
And turn the radio loud,
I'm too alone to be proud
You don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels to be me

People come, people go
Some grow young,
some grow cold
I woke up in between
A memory and a dream

My old man was born to rock
He's still tryin' to beat the clock
Think of me what you will
I've got a little space to fill

So let's get to the point,
let's roll another joint
And let's head on down the road
There's somewhere I got to go
And you don't know how it feels
You don't know how it feels
No, you don't know how it feels to be me


Tom Petty

Southern Accents

Southern Accents

There's a southern accent,
where I come from
The young 'uns call it country
The yankees call it dump
I got my own way of talkin'
But everything is done,
with a southern accent
Where I come from

Now that drunk tank in Atlanta's
Just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando
If them orange groves don't freeze
I got my own way of workin'
But everything is run,
with a southern accent
Where I come from

For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there,
with me

There's a dream I keep having
Where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window
And says a prayer for me

I got my own way of prayin'
But everyone's begun
With a southern accent
Where I come from

I got my own way of livin'
But everything gets done
With a southern accent
Where I come from

Tom Petty

Honey Bee

Honey Bee

Come on now,
give me some sugar
Give me some sugar,
little honey bee
Don't be afraid,
not gonna hurt you
I wouldn't hurt
my little honey bee

Don't say a word,
'bout what we're doin'
Don't say nothin' little honey bee
Don't tell your momma,
don't tell your sister
Don't tell your boyfriend,
little honey bee

She like to call me king bee
She like to buzz 'round my tree
O call her honey bee
I'm a man in a trace
I'm a boy in short pants
When I see my honey bee
And I've got something to say

Look here now,
peace in the valley
Peace in the valley
with my honey bee
Don't say a word,
'bout what we're doin'
Don't say nothin' little honey bee

She give me her monkey hand
And a Rambler sedan
I'm the king of Milwaukee
Her juju beads are so nice
She kissed my third cousin twice
I'm the king of Pomona
And I've got something to say

Tom Petty

Walls

Walls

Some days are diamonds
Some days are rocks
Some doors are open
Some roads are blocked
Sundowns are golden
Then fade away
And if I never do nothing
I'll get you back some day

Cause you got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can't hold out forever
Even walls fall down

And all around your island
There's a barricade
It keeps out the danger
It holds in the pain

Sometimes you're happy
Sometimes you cry
Half of me is ocean
Half of me is sky

And some things are over
Some things go on
And part of me you carry
Part of me is gone

Baby you got a heart so big
It could crush this town
And I can't hold out forever
Even walls fall down
They fall down

Tom Petty

Free Falling

Free Falling

She's a good girl,
loves her mama
Loves Jesus and America too

She's a good girl,
crazy 'bout Elvis
Loves horses
and her boyfriend too

It's a long day living in Reseda
There's a freeway runnin' through the yard
And I'm a bad boy cuz
I don't even miss her
I'm a bad boy for breakin' her heart

And I'm free,
free fallin'
Yeah I'm free, free fallin'

All the vampires walkin' through the valley
Move west down Ventura Boulevard
And all the bad boys
are standing in the shadows
All the good girls
are home with broken hearts

I wanna glide down over Mulholland
I wanna write her name in the sky
Gonna free fall out into nothin'
Gonna leave this world for a while

Tom Petty

Wildflowers

Wildflowers

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
Sail away, kill off the hours
You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, find you a lover
Go away somewhere bright and new
I have seen no other
Who compares with you

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong in a boat out at sea
You belong with your love on your arm
You belong somewhere you feel free

Run away, go find a lover
Run away, let your heart be your guide
You deserve the deepest of cover
You belong in that home by and by

You belong among the wildflowers
You belong somewhere close to me
Far away from your trouble and worry
You belong somewhere you feel free

Tom Petty

Rhino Skin

Rhino Skin

You need rhino skin
If you're gonna begin
To walk
Through this world

You need elephant balls
If you don't want to crawl
On your hands through this world

Oh my love if I reveal
Every secret I've concealed
How many thoughts would you steal
How much of my pain would you feel

You need eagles wings
To get over things
That make no sense
In this world

You need rhino skin
If you're gonna pretend
You're not hurt
by this world

If you listen long enough
You can hear my skin grow tough
Love is painful to the touch
Must be made of stronger stuff

You need rhino skin
To get to the end
Of the maze
Through this world

You need rhino skin
Or you're gonna give in
To the needles and the pins
The arrows of sin
The evils of men
You need rhino skin

Tom Petty

Mary Jane's Last Dance

Mary Jane's Last Dance

She grew up in an indiana town
had a good looking mama,
who never was around
but grew up tall
and she grew up right
with them Indiana boys
on an Indiana night

well she moved down here,
the age of 18
she blew the boys away,
was more than they had seen

I was introduced
and we both started groovin
she said I dig you baby
but I got to keep movin'
on (keep movin'on)

Last dance with mary jane
One more time to kill the pain
I feel summer creepin'in
and I'm tired of this town again

well I don't know,
but I've been told
you never slow down,
you never grow old
I'm tired of screwin'up,
tired of going down
tired of myself,
tired of this town
oh my my, oh hell yes
Honey put on that party dress
buy me a drink,
sing me a song
take me as I come,
'cause i can't stay long

There's pigeons down on market square
she's standing in her underwear
looking down from a hotel room
nightfall will be coming soon

oh my my, oh hell yes,
you got to put on that party dress
it was too cold to cry
when i woke up alone
I hit my number,
I walked to the road

Tom Petty

Into The Great Wide Open

Into The Great White Open

Eddie waited till he finished high school
He went to Hollywood, got a tattoo
He met a girl out there with a tattoo too
The future was wide open

They moved into a place they both could afford
He found a nightclub he could work at the door
She had a guitar and she taught him some chords
The sky was the limit

Into the great wide open,
Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open,
A rebel without a clue

The papers said Ed always played from the heart
He got an agent and a roadie named Bart
They made a record and it went in the charts
T he sky was the limit

His leather jacket had chains that would jingle
They both met movie stars, partied and mingled
Their A&R man said 'I don't hear a single'
The future was wide open

Into the great wide open,
Under them skies of blue
Out in the great wide open,
A rebel without a clue

Tom Petty

Ann Rice Says

Dickens is a very underrated writer at the moment. Everyone in his time admired him but I think right now he's not spoken of enough.
Anne Rice

Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.
Anne Rice

First-person narrators is the way I know how to write a book with the greatest power and chance of artistic success.
Anne Rice

I broke with my religion in college.
Anne Rice

I can't get very far away from Christianity, I can't get very far away from the angels and the saints. I work them in always, in some way.
Anne Rice

I can't keep up with Stephen King's output.
Anne Rice

I claim Dickens as a mentor. He's my teacher. He's one of my driving forces.
Anne Rice

I do not read the ancient languages, but I am beginning to study Greek.
Anne Rice

I do want to go another way - to write something completely different.
Anne Rice

I enjoy the Web site a lot and I like being able to talk to my readers. I've always had a very close relationship with them.
Anne Rice

I feel like an outsider, and I always will feel like one. I've always felt that I wasn't a member of any particular group.
Anne Rice

I gave up on the big screen. The Witching Hour was at Warner Bros. for 10 years and it just didn't work out.
Anne Rice

I know nothing of God or the Devil. I have never seen a vision nor learned a secret that would damn or save my soul.
Anne Rice

I love New Orleans physically. I love the trees and the balmy air and the beautiful days. I have a beautiful house here.
Anne Rice

I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.
Anne Rice

I read The Old Curiosity Shop before I began Blackwood Farm. I was amazed at the utter madness in that book.
Anne Rice

I thought The Shining was just absolutely wonderful. Stephen King reaches all kinds of people. In the beginning he was just dismissed out of hand, which was terrible.
Anne Rice

I want to love all the children of God - Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist - everyone. I want to love gay Christians and straight Christians.
Anne Rice

I was obsessed with religious questions, the basics: Why are we here? Why is the world so beautiful?
Anne Rice

I wish we had more visible Christian and Catholic leaders who talked about love.
Anne Rice

I'm always looking, and I'm always asking questions.
Anne Rice

I'm definitely more influenced by European writers than I am by American writers, there's no doubt about that.
Anne Rice

I'm fascinated by almost any mythology that I can get my hands on.
Anne Rice

I'm going to keep on dealing with the supernatural in a lot of ways.
Anne Rice

I'm usually working on my own mythology, my own realm of created characters. Stories in mythology inspire me, though I may not be conscious of it.
Anne Rice

Invest in a feather duster - the possibilities are endless.
Anne Rice

It is tragic that many in America think of us - Christians - as being people who hate others.
Anne Rice

Memnoch the Devil happen to be my favorite of all The Vampire Chronicles.
Anne Rice

My own funeral, I'd like to be laid out in a coffin in my own house. I would like my coffin to be put in the double parlor, and I would like all the flowers to be white.
Anne Rice

Obsession led me to write. It's been that way with every book I've ever written. I become completely consumed by a theme, by characters, by a desire to meet a challenge.
Anne Rice

Obviously, a writer can't know everything about what she writes. It's impossible.
Anne Rice

People who cease to believe in God or goodness altogether still believe in the devil. I don't know why. No, I do indeed know why. Evil is always possible. And goodness is eternally difficult.
Anne Rice

Re-telling the Christian story is the essence of my vocation. That has been going on since the Evangelists in one form or another.
Anne Rice

Stephen King in many respects is a wonderful writer. He has made a contribution. People in the future will be able to pick up Stephen King's books and learn a lot about who we were by reading those books.
Anne Rice

That process by which you become a writer is a pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a violinist might training for an orchestra.
Anne Rice

The most difficult novel I have had to write in terms of just getting it done was The Vampire Lestat. It took a year to write.
Anne Rice

The only pain in pleasure is the pleasure of the pain.
Anne Rice

The thing should have plot and character, beginning, middle and end. Arouse pity and then have a catharsis. Those were the best principles I was ever taught.
Anne Rice

The vampires have always been metaphors for me. They've always been vehicles through which I can express things I have felt very, very deeply.
Anne Rice

The whole theme of Interview with the Vampire was Louis's quest for meaning in a godless world. He searched to find the oldest existing immortal simply to ask, What is the meaning of what we are?
Anne Rice

The world doesn't need any more mediocrity or hedged bets.
Anne Rice

There may be writing groups where people meet but it's occasional. You really do it all at your own computer or your own typewriter by yourself.
Anne Rice

To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner.
Anne Rice

To write something, you have to risk making a fool of yourself.
Anne Rice

Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ASK. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds.
Anne Rice

We have to become saints. We have to become like Christ. Anything less is simply not enough.
Anne Rice

We need to stop fighting Christian against Christian. I have no time for anything but trying to love other people. That is a full-time job.
Anne Rice

We're frightened of what makes us different.
Anne Rice

What I did was take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin Mary, and sought to make Him utterly believable, a vital breathing character.
Anne Rice

When I write something, every word of it is meant. I can't say it enough.
Anne Rice

When you make his sandwiches, put a sexy or loving note in his lunch box.
Anne Rice

Writers, as they gain success, feel like outsiders because writers don't come together in real groups.
Anne Rice

You can look at the New York Times Bestseller List and you can be pretty sure that the writers on that list don't know each other very well.
Anne Rice

You reach deep down and bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book, but you don't know everything about it. You can't.
Anne Rice

Tommy Rettig Said

This actor was born in 1941, and died in 1996.

A lot of my friends were fooling around with drugs then.
Tommy Rettig

Acid wasn't getting a whole lot of bad press at the time, and as I saw the whole bad-press thing happen, I became aware that the government had done a whole lie on all the other benign drugs as well. It became clear to me that the government wanted no real drug education.
Tommy Rettig

But anyway aside from alcohol and nicotine, LSD was the first drug l ever took.
Tommy Rettig

I had always turned it down-to me, smoking pot was absolutely the worst thing in the world. I thought of it as an addiction, and all my friends who smoked it, I felt they really needed help.
Tommy Rettig

I wanted to go to regular high school - it looked like a lot of fun.
Tommy Rettig

I wanted to have a normal childhood. Normal relationships.
Tommy Rettig

I was still thought of as a kid actor even though I was in my mid twenties.
Tommy Rettig

I was totally devastated for four years in the mid '60s when l tried to buck the tide.
Tommy Rettig

It was the worst period of my life. I had all this gigantic acceptance as a kid, and all of a sudden there was this monumental rejection.
Tommy Rettig

Marijuana. Boy, I thought that was just terrible. How could this great man do this to his life?
Tommy Rettig

My mom was a Democrat and I was scared to death that she was gonna blow it. First I was going to hell with Monroe, and now to Republican hell with Nixon.
Tommy Rettig

Once in a while there was some TV offer and I'd take it.
Tommy Rettig

So, in the last year, the whole cast sued for release from our contracts.
Tommy Rettig

The kids put you on a pedestal. I didn't like it.
Tommy Rettig

Then l learned to play guitar and l started writing songs and my mother formed for me a publishing business, so we started publishing and managing artists.
Tommy Rettig

There's a big difference between somebody who does acid on weekends and somebody who takes downers every day.
Tommy Rettig

Well, I went to school with Jan and Dean, Ryan O'Neal, some of the Beach Boys we all use to party together.
Tommy Rettig

Yeah, dog was this man's best friend, for sure.
Tommy Rettig

Yes, there was nothing else to do to get you high. I mean, there was, but white kids didn't hear about it.
Tommy Rettig

Della Reese Says

Each week, from a different point of view, you get another look at God, and that's exciting to me.
Della Reese

I also work with the spirituality of people.
Della Reese

I could not have made it this far had there not been angels along the way.
Della Reese

I don't have to take insulin because I have been able to make these changes and take this medication.
Della Reese

I don't see how I possibly could have come from where I entered the planet to where I am now if there had not been angels along the way.
Della Reese

I have a children's book already out and my autobiography.
Della Reese

I have been a Christian all my life, but it's impossible to be so deeply involved in these stories without it making you think again, and without it making you consciously aware of the people involved.
Della Reese

I have the background singers of Ray Charles, the background singers of Smokey Robinson, and the background singers of Barry White and I built a choir around that.
Della Reese

I like to sing very much.
Della Reese

I teach metaphysics and pastor a church.
Della Reese

It's the truth and people need to hear the truth.
Della Reese

My doctor explained that exercise and diet changes might help and that I also might need a medication.
Della Reese

My mother was a personal friend of God's. They had ongoing conversations.
Della Reese

Now I walk every where I can. I also ride a stationary bicycle for a total of 30 minutes. I do it three or more times a week now and I have lost 20 pounds.
Della Reese

People have known me for so long, I'm just Della to them.
Della Reese

So I all knew was you lost your limbs and you died from it. I was scared silly.
Della Reese

So whatever it is you want, need or desire or just like to have, you better try to get it now, 'cause this is the only time there is.
Della Reese

So, yes, I believe in angels, absolutely, I do.
Della Reese

Sometimes I think the choir gets a little ticked with me because I haven't sung in a long time and I can sing.
Della Reese

The exercise I do now is a mammoth change for me because I never did any exercise ever.
Della Reese

There are people much less fortunate than us, and I don't mean people hungry sleeping in the streets either.
Della Reese

They started to try and keep us off the air in the beginning.
Della Reese

Touching people is very rewarding to me.
Della Reese

We have made people in the industry and the people that see us aware that God loves them.
Della Reese

We want to be a place where, and when there's no place else, you can turn us on and know that He's there, He cares, and He's going to do something about it.
Della Reese

When you really believe in God, it gives you a courage, a confidence that enables you to meet the things coming.
Della Reese

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may be for us and it may not.
Della Reese

You see, I was born in the slums, that was before the ghetto. The ghetto was kind of refined; the slums was right there on the ground.
Della Reese

Oliver Reed Said

At the New York Athletic Club they serve amazing food. People go there, get healthy, and then eat themselves to death - which is, I suppose, the right way to do it.
Oliver Reed

Awe and respect are two different things.
Oliver Reed

But the trouble is that when you drink it, you invariably meet other people drinking it.
Oliver Reed

Even though people say Richard Harris and I have been having a great feud, it's not true.
Oliver Reed

I also use women as a sex object; maybe I'm kinky. However, I like to talk to them as well.
Oliver Reed

I believe my woman shouldn't work outside the home.
Oliver Reed

I do not live in the world of sobriety.
Oliver Reed

I do think a carpenter needs a good hammer to bang in the nail.
Oliver Reed

I don't like doing most things unless I can do them quite well.
Oliver Reed

I have made many serious statements - I just can't remember any of them. I guess they mustn't have been very important.
Oliver Reed

I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman on earth.
Oliver Reed

I like the effect drink has on me.
Oliver Reed

I like to give my inhibitions a bath now and then.
Oliver Reed

I might get drunk one day and fall in love or fall over a hooker outside, and I would have consummated a relationship that I couldn't necessarily believe in.
Oliver Reed

I wouldn't like to see a chick of mine taking her clothes off and kissing a fellow on screen. And my girls must get very hurt when they see me doing it.
Oliver Reed

I'm not a villain, I've never hurt anyone. I'm just a tawdry character who explodes now and again.
Oliver Reed

I'm not as thrilled with myself as I used to be.
Oliver Reed

I'm only drinking white wine because I'm on a diet and I don't eat.
Oliver Reed

I'm really a pacifist.
Oliver Reed

If the money's right, I'll do a film.
Oliver Reed

Raquel Welch is someone I can also live without. We've got some love scenes together and I am dreading them!
Oliver Reed

Then you get into it, especially if you start talking about football, fighting and Muhammad Ali. Then the ladies get very bored and start delivering ultimatums.
Oliver Reed

What's the point of staying sober?
Oliver Reed

When I come home and I'm tired from filming all day, I expect her to be there and make sure everything is cool for me. You know, like drawing my bath and helping me into bed.
Oliver Reed

You get so weak from eating pears that you fall down, and then they come and take you away on a stretcher.
Oliver Reed

Little Sister

"Little Sister"


Hey little sister
I heard you went to Mr. So and So,
knock, knock, knocking on his door again
last night, said you needed it bad
you know that ain't right

Cause so many times you have come to me
cry, crying
you're trying to stop,
you said it hurts so bad
But please don't let you
go back for more, yeah yeah

My little sister is a Zombie
in a body with no soul
a role she has learned to play
in a world today
where nothing else matters;
but it matters,
we gotta start feeding our souls--
have been lost to the millions with lots
who feed on addiction
selling pills and what's hot
and I wish I could save her
from all their delusions
all the confusion yeah yeah

of a nation that starves us
for salvation
but clothing is the closest approximation
to God
and He only knows that drugs are
all we know of love
yeah

Every day we starve
while we eat white bread
and beer instead of a handshake or hug
We spill the pills and sweep them
under the rug yeah yeah


Jewel

Daddy

"Daddy"

My bones are tired, Daddy
I don't get enough sleep,
I don't eat as good as I should, Daddy
What's that say about me?

Sometimes I sleep past noon, Daddy
Drink lots of black coffee
and I smoke like a chimney
Yes, I left
the refrigerator door half open, Daddy
What's that say about me?

Sometimes I want to rip out your throat, Daddy
For all those things
you said that were mean
Gonna make you just as vulnerable
as I was, Daddy
What's that say about me?

Sometimes I want to bash in your teeth, Daddy
Gonna use your tongue as a stamp
Gonna rip your heart out
the way you did mine, Daddy

Go ahead and psychoanalyze that
'Cause I'm your creation,
I'm your love, Daddy

Grew up to be and do
all those sick things you said I'd do
Well last night I saw
you sneak out your window with your white hood,
Daddy
What's that say about you?

I'm sloppy, what's that say about you?
I'm messy, what's that say about you?
My bones are tired, Daddy

Jewel

Painters

"Painters"


Eighty years,
an old lady now,
sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
they remind her of her lover,
how he left her
And of times long ago
when she used color carelessly,
painted his portrait
A thousand times -
or maybe just his smile -

And she and her canvas
would follow him wherever he would go
'Cause they were painters,
and they had painted themselves,
a lovely world

Oil streaked daisies
covered the living room wall
He put water colored roses in her hair
He said, "Love, I love you,
I want to give you the mountains,
the sunshine,
the sunset too"

I just want to give you
a world as beautiful
as you are to me
'Cause they were painters,
and they had painted themselves,
a lovely world

So they sat down
and made a drawing of their love,
they made it an art
to live by
They painted every passion
every home,
created every beautiful child

In the winter
they were weavers of warmth,
in the summer they were
carpenters of love
They thought blue prints
were too sad
so they made them yellow

Until one day the rain fell
as thick as black oil
And in her heart
she knew something was wrong

She went running through the orchard screaming
'No God, don't take him from me!'
But by the time she got there,
she feared he already had gone

She got to where he lay,
water colored roses in his hands for her
She threw them down screaming,
'Damn you man, don't leave me
With nothing left behind
but these cold paintings,
these cold portraits
to remind me!'

He said, 'Love I only leave,
but only a little,
try to understand
I put my soul in this life
we've created with these four hands

Love, I leave,
but only a little,
this world holds me still
My body may die now,
but these paintings are real'

So many seasons came
and so many seasons went
And many times she saw
her love's face watering the flowers
Talking to the trees
and singing to his children

And when the wind blew,
she knew he was listening
And how he seemed to laugh along,
and how he seemed to hold her when
she was crying

'Cause they were painters,
and they had painted themselves,
a lovely world


Jewel

Morning Song

"Morning Song"

Let the phone ring,
let's go back to sleep
Let the world spin outside our door,
you're the only one that I wanna see

Tell your boss you're sick, hurry,
get back in I'm getting cold
Get over here and warm my hands up, boy,
it's you they love to hold

And stop thinking about
what your sister said
Stop worrying about it,
the cat's already been fed
Come on darlin',
let's go back to bed

Put the phone machine on hold
Leave the dishes in the sink
Do not answer the door
It's you that I adore,
I'm gonna give you some more

We'll sit on the front porch,
the sun can warm my feet
You can drink your coffee with sugar and cream,
I'll drink my decaf herbal tea

Pretend we're perfect strangers
and that we never met
My how you remind me of a man
I used to sleep with,
that's a face I'd never forget

You can be Henry Miller
and I'll be Anais Nin
Except this time it'll be even better,
we'll stay together in the end


Jewel

Who Will Save Your Soul

"Who Will Save Your Soul"


People living their lives for you
on TV
They say they're better than you
and you agree

He says hold my calls for me
I must go
The boy says come here boys,
there ain't nothing for free

Another doctor's visit,
another lawyer's bill,
another cute cheap thrill

You know you love him
if you put him in your will, but ...
Who will save your soul
when it comes to the flowers now

Who will save your soul
after all the lies that you told, boy

Who will save your soul
if you won't save your own?

We try to hustle them,
try to bustle them,
try to cuss them
The cops want someone to bust
down on Orleans Avenue

Another day,
another dollar,
another war,
another tower

Went up where the homeless
had their homes
So we pray to
as many different gods
as there are flowers

But we call religion our friend
We're so worried about saving our souls
Afraid that God will take
His toll that we forget to begin but

Who will save your soul
when it comes to the flowers now
Who will save your soul
after all the lies that you told, boy
Who will save your soul
if you won't save your own?

Some are walking,
some are talking,
some are stalking their kill

You got social security,
but it don't pay your bills
There are addictions to feed
and there are mouths to pay
So you bargain with the Devil,
say you're OK for today

You say that you love them,
take their money and run
Say, it's been swell, sweetheart,
but it was just one of those things
Those flings,
those strings you've got to cut
So get out on the streets, girls,
and bust your butts

Who will save your soul
when it comes to the flowers now
Who will save your soul
after all the lies that you told, boy
Who will save your soul if you won't save your own?

Jewel

Do You

"Do You"

Do You
Hey you say,
you like the way
The cowboys tip their hats and say
"How's it going man?"

But you're never quite clear
If their glares are sincere
Or really only just second hand

To you it's all roses
It's a lavender haze
The man is a marvel
It's a shame about his brains

That's okay you say
He's got straight teeth
And it's good sex

You look to the sky
You look to the man
You claim innocence
And not to understand

Do you, do you
There's a big man
Wearing a white suit
And patten leather shoes

He wants to take his monkeys
To see the kids at the zoo
Cause the gypsy on the corner said
"Hey mister you can't lose"

And it's the first day at the track
You feel that heat on your back
We all want to find a way
to beat the system

Find some rhythm in the madness
Get down on your knees and pray
Say whatever you want, God
Just let me have my way

Well will you, will you
Come on all you merry men
Rally your cry
Dance with the devil
For tomorrow will surely, hey, hey

Blow the men down
You with all your cigarettes and cool stares
Filled with blank glares
And loaded regrets

Just like the girls today
With nothing to say
No more pigtails on pony rides
They're sophisticated
They sip on lattes
And have their eyes
On a bigger prize

We shake our fists and say
"Well Good Golly we're mad"
The God that kills children
With our very own hands
And claim innocence
And not to understand

Do we, do we
Come on all you merry men
Rally your cry
Dance with the devil
For tomorrow will surely, hey, hey
Blow the men down
We'll blow the men down
Hey


Jewel

Down So Long

"Down So Long"


Boop Boop Be Do Yeah!
The sun sets across the ocean
I'm a thousasnd miles from anywhere

A pocketbook and my heart
Both just got stolen
And that sun acts
like she don't even care

Wind blows cold
when you reach the top
It feels like someone's face
is stuck to the bottom of my shoe

I got a plastic Jesus
and a cordless telephone
Everybody but you
telling me what to do

Well I've been down so long
Oh it can't be longer still
And I've been down for so long
That the end must be drawing near

I looked to everybody but me
To answer my prayers
Til I saw an angel in the bathroom
Who said she saw nobody worth saving anywhere

And the blind man on the corner said
"It's Simple, like flipping a coin
Don't matter what side it lands on
It's somebody else's dime"

I take a trip
I catch a train
I catch a plane
Got a ticket in my hand
And then a fat man takes my money
And like cattle we all stand

We've been down so long
Oh it can't be longer still
We've been down so long
That the end must be
I know the end must be
Oh I know the end
Must be drawing near

Jewel

Innocence Maintained

"Innocence Maintained"


Ophelia drowned in the water
Crushed by her own weight
Hitler loved little blue eyed boys
And it drove him to hate

Birds always grow silent
before the night descends
'Cause nature has a funny way
of breaking what does not bend

A hero's torso built of steel
and Novocain
His heart a bitter beat
inside a bloodless frame

There was a hole inside his soul
a manicure could not fill
So he found himself a whore to love
while daisies choked in the window sill

We've made houses for hatred
It's time to make a place
Where people's souls
may be seen and made safe

Be careful with each other
These fragile flames
For innocence can't be lost
It just needs to be maintained

A small town in Ohio
Two boys are filled with violence
And darkness spreads it's legs
for hate and ignorance

We are given to God
to put our faith therein
But to be forgiven,
we must first believe in sin

I want to live bravely
and love without fear
I want always to feel
the wings of grace near

We all will be Christed
when we hear ourselves say
We are that to which we pray

We've made houses for hatred
It's time to make a place
Where people's souls may
be seen and made safe
Be careful with each other
These fragile flames
For innocence can't be lost
It just needs to be maintained


Jewel