TomFlannery.com

Have a lyric but no melody. I hope to have this resolved by the end of the day. One is not much good without the other, unless you are a poet or Yanni. I am neither, thank God.

Poetry to me is like paintings. Art-wise, I can’t tell the difference between what hangs in the ritzy museums and what hangs in the average hotel room. And reading a book of good poems and reading a book of bad poems seems a very similar experience. In fact, I avoid reading any poems whatsoever, especially the ones that don’t rhyme. If you’re going to write poems that don’t rhyme, you may as well just write obtuse prose and market it to college professors. They eat that shit up. And if you’re going to write poems that rhyme, why not add a melody and a screaming guitar? It sure is a lot more fun. And you’ll get more girls.

On the subject of not understanding, I could go on forever. But I’ll end with jazz. I’m tone deaf when it comes to jazz. I’m sure there’s such a thing as good jazz and very bad jazz, but…..and I know this is heresy and all that, but to me the lounge dudes at the Holiday Inn and Miles Davis all sound sorta the same. Out of tune, out of time, and totally stoned on something.

I also don’t understand why “Wednesday” is spelled the way it is. No wonder everybody is speaking Spanish these days. English doesn’t make any sense.

In a bit…

–tf

Trying to get comfortable so I can focus. Mind is wandering at the moment. Books of all sorts are piled high on my desk….waiting to be read or in some cases, re-read. Lyrics are sprawled all over nearby legal pads, also demanding attention. My guitar sits in it’s stand, smirking as usual. My Ipod now contains over 6000 songs, and in the wee wee hours I try to digest almost all of them. And all the while assorted deadlines loom, some self-imposed to be sure, but for me these are the worst kind. I’ll blow off anybody but myself. This is some sort of disorder that hasn’t been named yet. I wish there was a pill for it, but, alas, you need to name something before you can create a pill for it. The day I heard that my annoying propensity for bouncing my legs up and down is actually considered an official medical condition and not just the muscular ravings of an over-caffeinated insomniac, I found hope for all my assorted maladies. So who knows? Is the 21st century great or what?

Still and all, I’m amazed by the brain’s capacity to absorb all I throw at it. Maybe “absorb” isn’t the right word. That of course suggests it’s not entering in one hole and sneaking out another. Perhaps “accept” is more fitting. When acceptance stops, madness starts. That’s my theory anyway.

And so, back to my books and my legal pads and my guitars. But first a quick check to ensure the doors are locked…

In a bit..

–tf

Good show last night. Great crowd. George Graham from WVIA-FM acted as the emcee. Everybody did a few new songs. I ended the  night with “I’ll Do Right by You” and completely forgot the melody as soon as I started playing the intro. So I was forced to make one up on the spot. Needless to say, it wasn’t as good as the original, but nobody seemed to notice, which may or may not be a good thing. I’m not too sure.

My kids were at the show, so I had to censor all the songs. I didn’t realize I dropped so many f-bombs in my verses. So much for 16 years of catholic schooling. If my Mom was there I would have gotten grounded.

Opened with a new song called “Strip it all Away” and asked George Wesley to jam along with me on it. George doesn’t need much prompting, and was soon soaring, playing things I could only dream about. It’s good to have friends in such exalted places….even though George is so good he makes other guitar players gently or not too gently weep in frustration. Like me for instance.

But, we all do what we do and that’s all we can do. And when it doubt, we can just play louder, or claim every time we make a mistake that we’re playing jazz.

In a bit…

–tf

Packed up and ready to go. Rehearsed for 10 minutes at 9am this morning. A marathon session for me. Am now ready, willing, and able to completely wing it. I hope nobody shows up carrying assault rifles. You know, monkey see monkey do and all that.

In a bit…

–tf

For the 8th year in the row I’ll be part of the Singer-Songwriter’s in the round series at the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock tomorrow night. It’s always a good time, and every year the crowds get bigger. I don’t do many live shows anymore but this is one invite I never turn down. Plus they give me all the free diet coke I can drink in those monster 32 oz cups. To me that’s major league incentive.

I hate planning ahead, and I hate to rehearse. So that’s a bit problematic. Truth is, I won’t know what I’m going to play until I’m actually on the stage and start strumming the first chord. And even then sometimes not. I’m hoping to debut some of the new songs though. It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) they go over. And more interesting to see if I can remember how to play and sing them. Sometimes my mind wanders you see….especially when it’s jacked on quarts of caffeine.

Should be a cool night. It will not be dull, that’s for sure.

In a bit…

–tf

Spent 8 hours on the couch yesterday watching Tiger Woods get hit throat slit by some unknown guy named Yang, who seemed way too dumb to know he was supposed to be the main course at one of Tiger’s ritualistic Sunday dinners. Tiger played like a hack-worthy human instead of a bloodless cyborg, slapping the ball all over the state of Minnesota en-route to an ugly 75. The guy couldn’t make a putt if the hole were the size of a hula-hoop. Tiger seems weary and way older than his years all of a sudden, which I suppose is the sort of thing that happens when the greatest player the game has ever seen gets smoked in front of millions by a short little round guy named Yang who never picked up a club until he was an adult. By the time I was 19 I’d already done the sensible thing and quit golf.

Anyway, this doesn’t have much to do with anything, other than point out that I need precious little stimulation to procrastinate. I now have 2 weeks to complete a one act play about high school.

I hated high school pretty much, except for the snow days. It’s going to be hard making this palatable for school boards and PTAs and other such tight-asses. But I shall give it a go. Eventually. Maybe tomorrow.

In a bit…

–tf

Up real early today…so I was still a bit groggy when I turned the music on and mis-heard a lyric as “the jukebox knows…the jukebox knows….”

I’m still not sure what the actual lyric is, but I like what I heard better. So that’s my starting point for the day. Good song title ‘innit?

In a bit…

–tf

Nothing today. Brain dead. Some days you wake up and couldn’t get a decent note out of the guitar even if you had Les Paul’s fingers. Music comes when it wants to and not a moment before.

That being said, the “wait around until inspiration” bullshit is just that. Bullshit. You gotta get off your ass and try. Songs won’t write themselves.

So I try a little some days, and a lot on others. Sometimes the good stuff comes when I try a little, and the dreck when I try a lot. That’s why I love songwriting so much. If all it took was effort there’d be a avalanche of great songs out there. It takes more than effort. Being inclined to laziness, I like that. It sorta evens the playing field, or at least makes it a bit less bumpy.

In a bit…

–tf

Crushing news this  morning from Belfast.

A good friend of mine there just lost a child. It stopped me cold.

So I wrote this song….

Time For a Lullaby
by Tom Flannery
copyright 2009

It’s all I know how to do. It’s very rough. It wavers. It meanders. But it was everything in my head after I received the news.

Life ain’t fucking fair boys and girls. It hurts way too much sometimes. But we carry on. What else is there to do? I don’t think love conquers all. But it comes a helluva lot closer to doing so than anything else I can think of. So hug ’em if you’ve got ’em. Extra hard too. And if it rains today, you know why.

In a bit…

–tf

Just cut a song called “Hand to Mouth”. Kind of a 3 minute blast of venom against all things right-wing….inspired by my mother having a guest recently who insisted on watching Fox News the entire time he was there. By the end of the week I think Mom was ready to waterboard herself…..nightly doses of hyperventilating propagandists like O’Reilly and Hannity being enough to send even the most kindhearted of souls (Mom) into the abyss.

Anyway, the work commences. I still feel more songs coming, so I’m not going to stop writing until the well runs dry. Only then will I edit what I’ve demo’d down to the strongest ten and enter the studio. I hope to come out deaf.

And of course, in the interim, there’s a play I need to write in the next 3 weeks. In my spare time. It’s good to be busy. It keeps the fear away.

In a bit…

–tf