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April, 2014:

Cleaning the Beach

Sand...and water

Sand…and water

I spent this morning helping pick up trash along Ocean Beach in San Francisco. Except they don’t call it “picking up trash” anymore; they call it “habitat restoration.” Maybe it helped them get a grant; I don’t know. All I know is that it’s an occasion for me to combine two of my favorite pastimes, walking along a beach and helping out the Earth.

It’s kind of ironic that we spend 364 days a year messing up the place and one day a year cleaning up after ourselves. Whatever happened to always leaving a place cleaner than we found it? We are so disconnected from the Circle of Life…

One of the other things I get to do while out walking the beach is let my mind wander and play in the surroundings. Ocean Beach is a fairly large expanse of sand – acres and acres, most of it above the high tide line. It’s got dunes, older, established ones and newer ones just beginning to emerge from beneath people’s footprints. And out amidst all that sand, my mind starts to wander to places from fiction, like Arrakis and Tattooine. Which leads to some very strange thoughts:

“The Jundland wastes are not to be traveled lightly…”

“Wow…someone wearing the same shoes as me must have come through here already today. Looks like they carved their name into the same type of tree as me. Wait – they have the same name I do! What are the odds of that?”

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In addition to the various stairways down to the sand, there’s one ramp. It doesn’t look like the park vehicles have been using it, and I have to wonder if it was put in just so folks in wheelchairs could make it down to the sand, where their wheels would get stuck and they could be sacrificed to Shai-Hulud.

(Meanwhile, another part of my brain envisions wheelchairs with big balloon tires that float on the sand, sort of like dune buggies for the mobility-challenged.)

I picked up about a bucket’s worth of old bags, wrappers, bottle caps, and a whole lot of cigarette butts. I don’t know what they make cigarette filters out of, but it’ll outlast the cockroaches.

It was an interesting juxtaposition of opposites: sand and water, sun/sky and clouds, beach and cold weather – it barely cracked 60 there, and it’s not even summertime yet. (Mark Twain was definitely right, assuming he ever did actually say that.)

I didn’t just do this alone; I was in the company of some of the folks from the Latitude 38 Parrothead Club. After a couple of hours of reducing the amount of human detritus out in the sand, we settled in for a fine lunch and conversation, “partying with a purpose.”

Here are a couple more pictures from my day. Enjoy!

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And one picture from downstairs at the Beach Chalet, showing a Krakenesque stairway ornament I liked:

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What did you do this weekend?

Cheers,

Loren

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Springtime Songs

It’s an absolutely gorgeous day here in the Bay Area. So I decided to spend some time inside recording “living room” quality demos of a couple of songs I’ve written in the last little while. A couple of them came out well enough to share.

You may notice that I’ve been experimenting with some contemporary musical styles. I think it’s important to keep adapting to what the rest of the world is listening to, as long as I can still express what I’m trying to say. And in some ways, contemporary Americana/folk is starting to circle back around to and incorporate musical motifs that I was playing with a while ago, while still taking them forward.

Wonderland

I’m always looking for new ways to describe my way of choosing to enjoy the best parts of what’s around me, creating that “Paradise state of mind” that I like to sing about and surround myself with. I’m not the first person to tag that type of world and life “Wonderland,” and I probably won’t be the last. But I think that “living life in Wonderland” is a good description of how I try to approach each day from a sense of wonder.

I couldn’t do a song with that title justice if I didn’t pay at least some tribute to Lewis Carroll. So I did. Hope you like it:

Wonderland – Loren Davidson (living room demo)

Apple Pie

I’ve experienced both of the extremes I describe in this song – the ups *and* the downs. And there have been times when someone’s loving attention really has made a difference in dragging me out of the downs. That’s pretty much what I’m trying to say here. As for *how* I say it…I think I’ve managed to tap into some of the spirit of what some contemporary bands and artists are doing musically. Let me know how it tastes.

Apple Pie – Loren Davidson – (living room demo)

Cheers,

Loren

My Schedule: http://www.lorendavidson.com/schedule.html

Never miss an announcement (and get free downloads!) – subscribe here: http://www.lorendavidson.com/index.html

Own your favorite Loren Davidson music, a “Worst Day Sailing Beats the Best Day Working” T-shirt, or get a bunch of “5:00 Anywhere” stickers: http://lorendavidson.com/blog/store/products/

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