mountains, lakes, world music & pete seeger.

when my boy dubbles was in aotearoa in december, he and i spent a couple of nights down at the moke lake campground on the outskirts of queenstown. it's a great place to pitch a tent, quiet, peaceful and a short twenty minute drive from the center of the city.

the morning we left moke lake, i went to offer the campground hosts our two half used bottles of butane as we were going to catch a flight in some time back on up to auckland.  i ended up chatting with the bear, who was spending the summer with his missus in the bus up top. blasting out the bear's bus (he told me peeps call him the bear, grinning and smiling and chuckled, "can you tell why?") was some old school folk music, "feeling those rythyms," i remarked to the bear.  he smiled and excitedly told me he had picked up an on-sale cd of woodie guthrie on his way to moke lake a number of weeks prior... he and i started chatting about folk music, dropping names and just rapping 'bout that time in the history of american folk music.

that day pete seeger was on the tip of my tongue.  "you know this cat, banjo player, lived in new york, by the hudson river, mad famous..." and for some reason i couldn't recall pete and seeger together...  it was one of those moments where a name you know escapes you. it happens to me often...

it was time to  catch our flight, i still hadn't come up with seeger's name and i turned to the bear and said something to the effect, "i'm not going to be able to sleep tonight, well if I remember his name i'll..."

"just send me a card man. the bear. moke lake campground. outside queenstown. might work..."

"i will actually," i replied. "i may even be back in a hot sec if i remember."

dubbles and i left and drove along the long dirt road that leads to moke lake.  dubbles, damns, what's that singer's name, i kept asking, but neither of us could come up with pete seeger...  five minutes after leaving moke lake, beside a field of cows, i remembered...

"pete seeger kid!! pete seeger!!!"  i stopped the ride and flipped a 5 point turn and whipped it back to moke lake.  the bear was out, somewhere working the campground and we had a flight to catch. i grabbed some scrap paper and wrote, "pete seeger. live at carnegie hall." then grabbed a rock and put the paper on that white table behind the bear's motorbike.

when i was in primary school we sang a lot of pete seeger tracks. often and always.  those were the jams my school, bank street, was about.  betsy, our music teacher, would get her guitar and we would get into pete seeger tracks, forget maths, forget writer's workshop, forget movement, forget science, pete seeger was what was up back then.  in fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he even came for a visit during my time at bank street, though i don't recall if he did...

in college in minnesota, my boy zachariah put me back onto pete seeger, one day handing me a double disc, pete seeger live at carnegie hall. it was magnificent and i think i even purchased it, way before the computer was part of my daily and it never got burned, so alas, here in new zealand, i just have one pete seeger album with me, i think that xavier might have given me that recently...

pete seeger lived most his life beside the hudson river, just like i have.  and that spiritual connection, to the river i love more than any other on this planet is strong.

the river as life, a metaphor so true to time - howard thurman, langston hughes, pete seeger, myself and so many others life is like a river rings true. along its banks, take a handful of soil and there is its history...

pete seeger was just a beautiful human being. after he passed on earlier this week at 94 years young, i scoured the web for footage of his testimony in front of the senate, when they called him in to rat out "communists" and blow the spot up on his peeps. seeger refused. he refused to take the 5th. he thought the whole charade disrespected him as a person, the united states as a country and the 5th amendment as even a possibility. he was a person with true morals and stood strong. he was convicted to serve a year in jail for contempt. eventually that was waived, but his testimony is strength to all of us who confront those moments in our life that test our character under duress, stress, tension.  if we stay true to who we are then we are good. seeger knew who he was. he is inspirational....

here is the transcript of that testimony: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/01/28/pete_seeger_huac_transcript_full_text_of_anti_communist_hearing_courtesy.html?wpisrc=burger_bar

ah yes, so there's the bear. there's his summertime crib. and there is xavier who beautifully came to grace my radio show with his presence this week. that's him harvesting banana leaves to make tamales on christmas day. what a blessing it is to have him and carolyna in my life. and there is a sign for a volcanic hazard, from a hike dubbles and i did in the center of the north island... did i mention that this week's across 110th street gets the magma bubbling...

across 110th will be on hiatus for three weeks and back in late february with a lot of goodness to shake to and bake too...

until then just n joy...

love and health to all...