I am back in SF with my Brainport. I'm sure it will improve my health, but what about my riffage?

If you've been to this blog before, you know all about the Brainport, but to briefly recap, it's a device that trains the brain to use the taste center for balance. For a detailed description on how the Brainport works, please go here.

I’ve had balance and vertigo issues ever since a 2006 fall drove a bit of bone into my cerebellum, and the Brainport is the ONLY thing I've tried that seems to help. But might it have other benefits, too? Specifically, might the Brainport aid my riff development? I think so, and here's why:

To use the Brainport, I have to stand stock still with my eyes closed for 20 minutes a session -- twice a day. Now, 20 minutes might not seem like a very long time, but trust me, it’s an eternity. What to do during this period? Meditate. Yeah, sounds easy, but it's not, especially if you're like me and blessed with a mind that is about as able to focus as a lab rat's during experiments to determine the drug interactions between LSD and speed.

Anyway, after several failed attempts at meditating while first trying a Brainport-like device in Madison, Wisconsin, I finally pleaded for help. "What should I do?" I asked Yuri dejectedly. (Yuri is the chief scientist behind further Brainport development at the University of Wisconsin.) Yuri told me to think of something I really enjoy. He also suggested that I visualize my dizziness as a giant wheel. Hmmm... after giving the matter some thought, I managed to combine these two notions into a vision of myself on-stage playing Rolling Stones songs. There I was, Strat is hand, crowd gazing up rapturously and, to my right, my friend Toby belting out slightly altered lyrics (he likes to insert thoughts on Depends™, proctology, Oakland and Republicans). And the giant wheel? It became a stage prop blowing a rock and roll breeze across the festivities. In other words, Yuri's idea worked like a charm.

But getting back to riffage...

I’m pretty sure all this intense mental focus on music will help me with my own efforts to craft a hook or two. Part of it, of course, is that I find the songwriting process itself to be somewhat meditative. In fact, I read once that one of the reasons Keith Richards, the Human Riff, was so creative from about 1967 to the early 70s was that his heroin use allowed him to go into a trance like state, during which he could happily play the same progression again and again for hours or even days, all the while making little changes until the perfect riff bloomed. One of the best examples of a song that benefited from the meditative effects of heroin is Gimme Shelter, or at least that’s what I remember reading. Anyway, I’m not exactly interested in trying heroin, but I think my new found meditative method could yield good results if I modify my visualization topic slightly. I need to go from visualizing myself stepping on stage and performing Rolling Stones songs, to simply “playing” my guitar and searching for interesting riffs. I’ve written songs this way before -- using visualization -- but never consistently. Curious to see how it works out. And since I’m going to be doing my Brainport treatment twice a day from now until I’m well, that means I'll be doing sixty songwriting sessions a month. I’d better get at least one riff a week or I suck!

Stay tuned.

The writing curse.

I read a post recently about writing, and it really made me think. First, it reminded me of my favorite quote about writers, which was told to me by Clark Morgan (a friend and killer copywriter) that goes like this: "writers are people for whom writing is hard." How true. If you don't really care about writing, it's easy. Who needs grammar, flow, metaphor? But if you are a writer, writing is hard. You feel compelled to stare at that blank page and it stares back at you and, well, sooner or later you have to pee or something, and that page, being paper or an LCD screen, just sits there and says, "Yeah, whatever, you go pee or something, I'll wait."

Then the post reminded me of the time I tried to walk away from writing, or at least songwriting. It was probably in 1989 or '90, and I was in a band with my friend Toby, and I just decided I didn't have the talent, so I quit the band and headed off into advertising. Was this the right decision? I'll never fully now, but what I do know is this: if you like to write, which means you like to write from the heart, you are about as able to walk away from writing as a mammal is from air; it's just not going to work out for very long. 

I held out for nearly 15 years, sort of. Along the way, I dabbled in writing every now and then, attempting a song here and short story there, but I never committed to finishing anything, which was my out. Of course, I was also never entirely free of the writing curse, for it is a curse, and my accident was just the thing to weaken me, so that the writing demon could reassert his curse in my psyche. But I'm okay with it. In fact, I'm glad for it. Because for all the agony writing creates, doing without it is even more agonizing. For those 15 years I set writing aside, I thought about it constantly, but never acted. And as I wrote my ad headlines, I felt hollow and cheap; it was like sex without love, but it didn't even feel very good.

So demon though it may be, the desire to write is a part of who I am and I need to embrace it (and maybe kick it in the shin a few times).

Greetings from Vancouver.

I arrived in Vancouver yesterday to a stunning evening of blue-to-orange skies, soft breezes and warm sea air. I was glad I brought some decent walking shoes. For shortly after I dumped my bags at my hotel and took care of a few things, I was off. The time was roughly 6:30, and I didn't sit down to dinner until nearly 8:30. Is Vancouver the most beautiful city in the world? It may well be. The water surrounded setting and bold architecture create a contrast that is both slightly jarring and yet harmonious. I love it.

And my dinner? Amazing. Every bit as good as any self respecting SF establishment and consisting of a warm spinach salad with bacon and goat cheese, followed by ling cod, and crowned with something involving ice cream, thus good. It was all washed down with a few glasses of pinot gris from some local grapes. And the price? Well, that's the tragic part. Thanks to the ever spending ways of the Dubya, the US dollar has fallen by roughly half against the Canadian dollar in the past ten years, so the price was, well, kinda high for one soul. Afterwards, I headed back up to my room -- the restaurant I sampled is in the hotel -- and snoozed with dreams of a non-dizzy brain.

As I write this, the time is roughly 8:20 AM, and soon I will be showered and coffeed and ready to be taxid to Wicab's offices to pick up my Brainport, the device that should help me get better faster. I can't wait!

PS - Last night a posted a somewhat lousy post and it has been removed.

Off to Vancouver to get my Brainport!

Larkin Gayl live at the Great American Music Hall on August 22.

The Great American Music Hall is the only San Francisco venue I have ever played at that is not a bar. Rather, it's a full on VENUE, with history and vibe for days. I predict it will elevate Larkin Gayl to an even more sublime level than is her typical state. The show is on a Friday night, tickets are only $20 and she's on first, meaning you can see Larkin and then cruise over to the former Backflip and get properly drunk, should you so desire, by 10:30 PM at the latest. Providing my brain cooperates, I will be at this show, ad you should be too. In fact, I personally believe that if you skip this show, you will wake up sometime later in 2008, possibly 2009, and say to yourself, "My life has been a waste." To buy tickets, go to www.larkingayl.com. Hope to see you there!