Thurs., May 27.2010. 7 am. We're off to Woodstock for the weekend. I think this is our 31st year up there. Yesterday we checked out the amazing Iris Gardens in Montclair. I see Fleet week has begun...so cool. Lotsa good music happening around, I'll miss some good sounds here this weekend, but usually we get some great artists up in the mountains as well. I didn't go see Neil Young in Albany last week..the tix were $150 so I bypassed that one. I need a bit of a break from the routine right now. Been doing alot of rehearsals and concerts, and more to come in the next 2 weeks, so I'm happy to get a bit of a break. Just finished the book about Bob Dylan and his girlfriend from the early 60s in Greenwich Village, Suze. Called "Freewheelin' Time". Very good history, mentions lotsas artists, musicians, poets, etc. from that era, which I remember with awe. Similarly I spent time recently with Patti Smith's book about her time with Robert Mapplethorpe as piss poor artists in the Village then Chelsea. I had a chance to hang with that scene, I had high school friends inviting me to play bass at the Washington Square Park Arch etc. on Sundays. We were doing the folk music out here, and the Sane Nuclear Policy meetings etc. but I somehow chickened out and instead went to college, got a degree, got married, opened a business and played music in the Borscht belt and the city. That's ok, the best thing that ever happened to me was meeting Carol. She and I talked about it yesterday because she wanted to go to Douglas or Rutgers and had that happened we would not have met. Soo..it's a good thing it all worked out this way. So my Woodstock place is my little artists refuge, and CB and I are more comfortable as it is now then had we been struggling other ways. BUT...I still love reading about the artists, musicians, poets of the times. Both Suze and Patti Smith spent time with Rimbaud. I have to check that out. Last week I spent time with Dick Kniss who was there in the Village then with all these folks...Mingus, Peter Yarrow and PPM, Albert Grossman, Bob Dylan etc. I'll see him tomorrow and find out if he knew Suze. That Freewheelin' album cover is also the book cover..it's a classic and she refers (pardon the expression..reefers??) to it. Gotta go. Enjoy the start of Summer. Celebrate your good health. Find peace. I just wish Memorial Day could be free from another war. It seems we never have total Peace. JIMBO
