Thoughts on POV courtesy of NBA Finals

I got into the Lyft on my way to pick up my car, after a new fuel pump was installed. The driver was playing a Phoenix sports radio station where the gabbers were gushing over the Phoenix Suns' win in Game 2 of the NBA Finals. Since the team had won the first two games on its home court, things looked good for the team that had never been an NBA champion. 

I figured this was an easy entry to a fun conversation with the driver. 

"Are they talking about the game last night?" I asked him. 

"Yeah, they are," he said. 

After some back and forth, I did one of those let's find a good omen that augurs a win for the home team observations: "You know, the Diamondbacks brought a World Series win to Phoenix right after 9/11. Maybe the Suns will bring a win after this COVID-19 hell." I wasn't expecting his response. 

"Well, if that's what it takes for them to win, then I hope Phoenix teams never win again," he said. 

That took me aback. After all, I wasn't serious. It was the kind of harmless, semi-superstitious speculation that sports fans make all the time, as though saying these things will have some effect on the outcome. His comment made me think about the death and destruction that the terrorist attack and the pandemic had brought. We, meaning the Phoenix fan base, could sure use a lift after these horrific events, but so could everybody else. A Phoenix win had no meaning in all the NBA cities that were't Phoenix, right?

Turns out the driver was from Los Angeles, so he wasn't invested in Phoenix sports. I'm glad he wasn't because I never would have thought outside that silly box without his challenge. You can't assume that someone you've just met shares your interests, and the significant patterns you think you see are most often just the product of your point of view Not wrong exactly, but not universal mostly. 

Now that the Suns have lost, the pattern I suggested never came to be. Win or lose, it's the drama of the contest that matters and gives us respite from the real troubles of the real, troubled world. 

Copyright © 2021, Salvatore Caputo

Le Club Bon Bon

In "Shadow Kingdom," Bob Dylan and band rule the mythical Club Bon Bon in Marseilles. 

I have watched  Bob Dylan's streaming "Shadow Kingdom" performance a couple of times and plan to watch it at least a couple of more before the streaming "ticket" expires on July 25 (as Veeps.com, the provider, announced today). 

It's one of the better performances I've seen from Mr. D and he's in relatively good voice, with a lot of hand gestures and emotion showing in his face - something that either doesn't happen much on stage or we sit too distant to see that stuff in a live concert. Beyond the questions Rolling Stone's Andy Greene asks about the show, I want to point out that this film portrays an alternate reality where the music business isn't the way it is. A performing artist of Dylan's reputation really can't go out and play a little blues club with a postage stamp dance floor, but in this shadow kingdom, it happens, and people dance, smoke and drink to it, all in black and white as though this Dylan guy was just a working the clubs in a Steinbeck novel or a noir detective story or maybe on the outskirts of town before the giant gila monster attacks the teenagers in their hot rods. The visual representations of Dylan's music have been residents of Noirville for a long time, going back at least to "Time Out of Mind" and probably back to "Oh, Mercy!" 

The time warp involved here is interesting. This is subtitled "The Early Songs of Bob Dylan." Well, yes, this 2021 and so it's been 32 years since "Oh, Mercy!" was released. That album includes the most recent of the songs included in this video, "What Was It You Wanted?" However, to me, the EARLY songs of Bob Dylan might include anything from his first three albums or before. It's hard to think of "Queen Jane Approximately" (from "Highway 61 Revisited"), just for instance, as an early song of Dylan's, since it came after his electrification, when he actually charted singles such as "Like a Rolling Stone," the hit from that same album. That being said, I recognize that this is a personal perspective. To my children and granddaughter, anything before they were born was pretty early, I'm sure. 

On losing a soul

I have lost my soul. I don't know where it went.

Before I go on, it might be a good idea to define what I mean by soul. It's a word that comes from religion, but I personally am not talking about a dogma or set of canonized beliefs here. I like the Italian word "anima" because it pretty much wears its meaning in the open. It's the animating principle. Without it, you're a doorstop, a statue, a rock. Stock-still as the universe churns.

So there you have it.

I don't know when I lost my animating principle. I think it ebbed away, so I didn't notice it until it was gone. I keep hoping that when I call out, it will respond and come back.

How does it feel to lose my soul?

Not very good to tell the truth.

According to the timestamp, I wrote the words above back on Dec. 28, 2019. Little did I know what was coming. What had happened just a few weeks before was an attack of sciatica that made it almost impossible to get out of bed and walk. At this point looking back and not journaling about what's going on in my head, I can't tell you what was so soul-sucking. I'm glad it's over. 

One thing is for certain, the COVID-19 years have forced a focus on what's most real. Ambition, etc., all the usual markers of success are a poor substitute for living. That's not to deny the place of ambition and action in life, but reflection and connection with family, friends and people in general - something many of us have starved ourselves of over the past year or so - is top of the list of activities, and when you've lost your soul, you've forgotten that. That's my story, anyway. 

Copyright © 2021, Salvatore Caputo

Won't you please listen to my songs? Not too subtle, right?

It's been more than three years since I posted here. I was on a quest to keep available pieces I had posted on my CompuServe page many many moons ago. I never finished that task. Let's see if I can complete a different one.

I have moved recordings of my music (see "Scaputones Music Launch") to a SoundCloud account. It should be easier to use for anyone who wants to listen. I haven't posted anything in a while there, but I'm hoping to rev up those engines in 2020.

The stuff that's up there includes my senior recital at Livingston College, Piscataway, N.J., in 1975. The recital included three "covers" -- "Please, Please Me," "Shelter from the Storm" and "Bima Kurda" -- and the rest of it is stuff I wrote. When SoundCloud's setup page asked what style of music this was, I answered classical rock. But the music includes a traditional Gamelan piece from Indonesia, a reading from Franz Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" backed by a soundscape of overdubbed sine waves. We had only one microphone recording this, so when the electric guitars start going, they drowned out the horn section pretty much, but you get the intensity of the evening if you listen.

Besides the senior recital, I've got a"Winter Wonderland" that I recorded in my apartment on Fairmount Avenue, shortly after moving to Phoenix, probably the winter of 1981. I played my 1958-vintage Gibson electric as an "acoustic" guitar on one track and then dubbed the lead part with a microphone in front of my old Santo amp. The vocals followed, then keyboard bass, and finally a plastic Amway box served as the percussion.

There's a track of my father singing "Surdate," which is Neapolitan dialect for soldier, in Italian it's soldato. I'm prejudiced, of course, but I think my father had a beautiful voice and this Neapolitan song that he sang, probably on Christmas 1968, shows it off well. The song is about a soldier far from home. His lieutenant asks him why he's playing a guitar and singing, and he tells the lieutenant that he's Neapolitan and if he doesn't sing, he dies. The lieutenant confesses that he, too, is from Napoli, and the recruit asks the lieutenant to sing along. The story loses a little in translation, but it's emotional for those two characters.

The other stuff includes an interview on KUPD in Phoenix from 1983 and features two originals, "Twist of the Arm" and "The Tighter - The Looser." These were put together in the same way as the "Winter Wonderland" track, in my apartment with lots of overdubs on Fostex eight-track reel-to-reel recorder.

I'm hoping I can put up new stuff soon, but time rushes by and the laundry has to get done, so so-called nonessential things get put off. I have no one to blame but myself.

Copyright 2019 Salvatore Caputo