The (New & Improved) HYENA KITCHEN

       H ey there Kats and Kittens, it’s been minute since there was a new New Music Friday, I know, and I apologize.   Things have been crazy - yes, too crazy to whip out a nod to the great stuff I’ve been listening to and there’s great stuff out there. So here’s an abridged New Music Monday. A quick list of goodies to go treat yourself to.   John Doe ’s latest Fables in a Foreign Land (Fat Possum Records); the long awaited session from Mavis Staples & Levon Helm Carry Me Home (Anti); Trombone Shorty ’s mix of everything - Lifted (Blue Note Records); the return of Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder , their first together since 1965 - Get On Board (Perro Verde Records); and Lyle Lovett ’s first in ten years 12 th of June (Cycle Holdings) - named for the birthday of his twins - will all get you through (when mixed with a healthy dose of my usual eclectic rabbit hole fallings - Al Kooper, the Mad Lads (Stax), and early Jack Ingram). Get right. Mind the grand divide and be happy.           

                                                                                      (photo by Eolo Perfido) It is sad. This sorrow we all feel at the moment, though we can’t put a finger on the source of the sadness. We were given a great gift. A pandemic. We were afforded an opportunity to see what our lives would be in the great without.   To take a long hard look at what was important, and we failed. Those of us who saw this as an evolution are sad - and those who saw it as a grand imposition, those who needed it the most, are left angry and anxious. It is sad. We had the chance to find less, yet we find a world of billionaires flying to space, while others leverage and borrow against what have to buy more feeding only their ego.   Supply chain woes when half that absent supply is simply unneeded and value of imaginary money, imaginary art, and imaginary fame exist like a child’s imaginary friend.   And speaking of imaginary friends, the separation of Church and State was (C

The road is long, the words are scattered before us a carpeted path that is (sadly) not understood by many of those who walk beside us. there are many words to be spoken even though they won't be heard, understood, or heeded. for they can't see what lies at their feet, nor can they see the many words they have yet to cross - they seldom see the end of the road, much less the direction the words point. why write if there is no point? When the road is long?