Silhouetted sailboats and clean new breezes

Summer comes.

Kick off your shoes; it isn't a time for journeys. Rein in the wanderlust and let home and hearth carry you. Listen to tales spun on the front porch and let the fresh evening breezes wash over you; watch the sunsets and silhouetted sailboats out at sea. Listen to young voices; lie back and take your ease.

The residual chill in the air will thaw soon. The leaves will be on the trees. The shade of a noble, mushroom-like rain tree, now a beautiful leaf-denuded sculpture, will soon seem like a gift from heaven above, heavy with leaf, flower and fruit. The first fragrant summer fruit will soon be here; the voices of barbets and koels will accentuate the heat of the day. Magpie-robins will sing their sweetest of songs.


It is the time to sail; to be on the deep blue; let the wind carry your sails while you lie back and take in the vast expanse in heaven above. Think of how limitless it all really is.



There is all the time in the world; all the space in the world. That's how limitless it all is. Summer is a time for new beginnings.


You have not handed me over to the enemy, but have set my feet in a spacious place.
- Psalms 31:8

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The songs I've included here are some that are indelibly associated in my mind with summer:

"Summer Breeze" (Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze, 1972). I heard this in the summer of 1987, when I finished my schooling. Seals and Crofts are a band always associated in my mind with winter and its chills, but "Summer Breeze" is a glorious exception.

"Sailing" (Christopher Cross, Christopher Cross, 1979) I heard the Christopher Cross album in June 1987. I later learned that the album had netted him 4 Grammy Awards (after which Christopher Cross promptly disappeared from the charts forever), and the song that took the album to No. 1 was "Sailing". I especially like the idyllic, azure-tinted piano solo (how typical).

"Cool Change" (Little River Band, First Under the Wire, 1979) I heard this in the summer of 1990. It's not exactly a personal favourite but it's piano-driven:) AND it has all those lovely dolphins; and the mention of albatrosses and whales, not to mention that shamelessly self-indulgent and playing-to-the-gallery sax solo.

None of the songs are acute personal favourites and they don't always rise above a certain level musically, but they're nonetheless important for the seasons of the past they evoke:)

Looking for signposts

We live in a world that resigns anything that happened a second ago (and everything earlier) to the "History" bin.

The human History bin is filled with a number of failed experiments, aborted ideas, scraps of yellowed paper and mutated ventures. Dust-caked, sand-blown and windswept rubble from ages gone by, from fallen empires and ancient pyres. A mighty throng of the slain - all victims of empire, conquest, conflict, extermination, annihilation, also lie there.

The human History bin also contains the glories of our more lucid moments as a race - the times we got it right. Relentless battles (not all of them victorious) against disease, warriors fighting justly against the enemy, the laying down of lives for others - the highest friendships ever known. Love conquering all odds.

Time and again, someone rummages through the History bin, searching. Hoping to find something everyone missed - and typically, hoping to use it myopically and selfishly, as a lever to determine our todays, and more so, our tomorrows.

Mostly, however, we are a race of what I call FBNOs - Fly-By-Night Operators. We neither know nor care what's in the History bin; our todays are always more important than our tomorrows. Some care about Today, Tomorrow and then, if there's time and inclination, Yesterday - in that order. Most care about Today and Tomorrow, and think Yesterday is dead. Some of us care only about Today. All of us, essentially, are in Today. Tomorrow is not a certainty, while Yesterday, though a certainty, is a past and defanged certainty which has no bearing on Today.

Mostly, of course, on a personal level, and in a certain sense, it's always good to consign Yesterday to a trash basket. Every day is a new day, and each day's choices determine our future. It's best not to let Yesterday colour our todays so that our tomorrows become hopeless - let failure not be final, but a stepping stone to success. But even that, is a two-edged thing - Yesterday, in one sense, propels one Today, to one's Tomorrow.

On a personal level. But what about us as a race? Have our yesterdays anything to do with our todays? And what can we do about our tomorrows, today? Has History any bearing on the current age? And can the current age prepare us for the future?

Are there any 'signposts' in our world today?

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He stood on a hill about fifty-five miles north of the City.

He'd been doing this for years - digging up ancient sites. And this one - it had been the 'city on the hill' that marauding conquerors lusted after, century after century. It was an artery, a feed-pipe - the life-blood of many an empire and trade-route had coursed through it through the ages. Riders carried cargo of all kinds, armies encamped, potentates met, accords were struck. Soldiers fell in battle, kings received death-wounds, conquerors planted banners, unfurled standards. It had been the site of the earliest recorded battle, in the fifteenth BC. About three thousand or so years later, another battle here ended 400 years of Ottoman rule.

They'd uncovered an ancient 'church' here over the last few days. Everyone wanted to claim it was the oldest Christian Church - from the third or fourth AD. A beautiful mosaic with the Icthyus at its centre. Everyone wanted to believe that it had indeed been a church. However, Christians were not known to build churches (as recognizable stone edifices) till the fifth AD. So this must have been only a meeting place.

(Source : National Geographic News)

But he wasn't thinking what everyone thought - he had been strangely disturbed over the past few months. He'd taken on this assignment to be closer to a place he had strangely felt drawn to these past few years - this all-important patch of ground that all nations seemed to think was so all-important. And everything he was seeing here brought more than a flutter - an impending, ominous dread. Where was he standing? He couldn't suppress these dread thoughts.

Something had drawn him, some strange sense of destiny. He had always wondered, for all the digging he'd done in his life, whether History really had something relevant to say about today and tomorrow. He was looking, he realized, for clues.....to solve something that was whirling about in his head. He was looking for signposts - to point him in the direction he needed to go.

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After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Charchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him.
But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not.
Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded.
His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

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(Source : ABR)

History revealed that Josiah, king of Judah, was wounded here, in 609 BC, in a battle of his own choosing, with Pharaoh Necho of Egypt. He had later died of his wounds when he was brought back to Jerusalem. Barely twenty years later, in 586 BC, Judah ceased to be a nation. It was an interesting age of history; Pharoah Necho, having subdued Josiah, then met his defeat at Carchemish in 605 BC. Egypt was then trying to assert control over the Jordan valley and then-known Babylon; Carchemish changed the power equations in that part of the world quite unalterably in favour of the emerging Babylonian kingdom - the most iridiscent empire of the ancient world. The later kings of Judah (Josiah's successors) vainly allied themselves with Egypt against Babylon - a disastrous decision for which the nation of Judah paid with its nationhood.

Why was King Josiah struck down in his prime? And why did he choose to fight at Megiddo? What has this to do with me anyway, he thought. It's lore..... just something I dug up. And I'm always digging up things; that's what I do. I discover History, I don't interpret it.

Let Yesterday be Yesterday.....true or not. But his heart wouldn't let him let it go....... somehow, he felt within himself, it isn't over. This place isn't over yet.

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And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.
For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.
And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

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Prophecy. It wasn't his comfort zone. Still, his mind raced, not letting him put it down.

'Why should I know this?' he thought. Of course, I could always choose to dig up an Inca mummy or carve out more Nazca lines. But why do I feel so thrilled about coming here, finding this....... Then he realised, calmly, what had led him here - the disturbances within his soul that would not quieten; that would not let him put history down as no longer relevant for today. He had dug up an invisible cord that stretched from the beginning of time - to the end of the age; and he had to decide what to do with it. Like it or not, his destiny was tied up with the destiny of a people and a place chosen, apparently, by the Almighty. Not only his; everyone that ever lived as well. All people would have to know what he knew now, and make the choice.

In days to come, armies will again march here, he mused. This hill overlooking the Jezreel valley. This place where a righteous king was felled at an evil moment by the evil powers of the age. Not very far from Elijah's pitched battle with the prophets of Baal. This place will again be a gathering place for the sounds of battle. And what a battle it will be!!! Earth's most important one, perhaps; the true battle between good and evil. A conclusive battle, unlike all other battles that raged on earth. A battle, it seems, to end all battles. A battle where everyone has to choose a side - there will be no fence-sitters here!!!! Those who rationalise will be on the evil side, actually....the side they've actually picked all their lives when they rationalised the choice.

He had come to that point in his destiny - where he had to choose. He could no longer pretend that there were no opposing sides in this world - and that rationalising the choice would invalidate it. Today was the day of choosing....for an eternal Tomorrow, in the light of Yesterday.

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Rummage in the human History bin if you like. See what you come up with. Is History really a true thing of the past? Is History truly only History or is it tied up with Tomorrow? And where are you, at present, with all this?

Volunteers and destinarians, yo-yo graphs and still small voices

What would you do to protect something, someone, some place...that you chose?

Did you choose at random? Was your choice merely a whim? arbitrary? without reason? How far would you go with your choice? Is your choice irrevocable? Is your choice.....holy?

Would you SET APART someone, something, or some place that you chose?

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Destiny.

It's a strange word. It's becoming archaic, in this world of numbers, extrapolations, statistics, "informed guessing", forecasting. There's no such thing as destiny, we would be told; this is a world of the "deserving". If you work hard enough, or if you do enough or know enough, then you deserve a place. You determine your own "destiny". Otherwise, there's no destiny. None, apart from what you create for yourself.

And strangely enough, no one knows how things happen. Everyone thinks they could have predicted it....but no one actually did. World events are really incomprehensible, unpredictable, and seemingly "random". Forget world events, even personal events, ups, downs, sorrows, joys.....seem random and unpredictable. A function of "drawing lots".

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Destiny is a two-edged thing. There are delusional 'destinarians' and true 'destinarians'. The delusional destinarians assume a self-appointed, self-determined 'destiny'. That is, they choose themselves over all else; they believe in their 'destiny' alone.

True destinarians know who chose them. They know that they are not deserving, but were still chosen. They claim that 'deserves' has nothing to do with being chosen....they believe in being called, not being proud, self-proclaimed volunteers. They are unsung; even though destiny sits heavy on their shoulders, they live it out single-mindedly without calling attention to themselves.

True destinarians know that mere outward heroism will not cut it - it must be heroism in truth. The truest heroism in the world has gone unnoticed.

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Who am I, really? What am I here for? Is there some meaning to it all, or is it just randomness and mere probability?

Odds are, if you have no sense of destiny or eternity, you may not think these questions are important or worth thinking about.

I know of one who chooses only once. And never revokes His choice. I shudder to think what I might have been, had I not been chosen. Because, this one never changes His mind. Choices are made for eternity and no one can stop or alter the choice. In every age, this one passes by, calling. And choosing.

The ones that hear, never forget the call. The ones that never hear, the call still rings out. But once called, there is never any laying off. The calls are mysterious, seemingly undeserved, seemingly impossible, hard to believe.....sometimes downright crazy, on existing evidence. And the called are a strange lot - a motley crew of all possible kinds of men, not all good or righteous.

And the 'deserving' look on.....try to volunteer, try to be chosen. And this one usually does not choose from the volunteers. Volunteers are too self-important.....

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Does destiny sit heavily on your brow?

Or are you drifting, living in a world of numbers and achievement, of transitory happiness and the noise of a 'carefree, happy crowd'?

There are calls ringing out; so many workers are needed for this day and age.....the work is eternal, with a reach beyond the grave; there is a crying need for signposts, banners and pointers-to-the-way. For those who care for the spirit of man and not only for the body and the soul.

Too heavy a responsibility? Too intangible? Too obscure? Pass on, friend.....the call is not for you. Perhaps you heard only an electronic blip......the numbers will continue to whirl anyway and the yo-yo graphs are calling. Rationalise, rationalise! All things being equal, that was a 'Momentary Lapse of Reason'.

Would you be called? Mankind needs you. Come on in.....let your destiny take its course. In your mouth, the words of life form even now. You must speak them. Ears, eyes and hearts......will open like flowers. Your destiny is not merely your own......it is from one who called you and commissioned you.

The Smokescreen

A collision on the highway.

He wondered why he hadn't seen anyone coming.

Come to think of it, lately, he hadn't been able to see too many things before they hit him. It began to worry him.

Then he met someone who told him that there was no way he could have seen things before they hit him. The person said, nothing is really what it seems to be - some problems with our eyes. There's also a veil, he said........

A veil. A few things we're allowed to see; most things, we're not. Our eyes are open, but unseeing. We hear things, but cannot listen. We touch things, but we're unfeeling. We know things, but cannot understand them. We can go to the ends of the world, and not move an inch towards our purpose. We can make this a small planet, and still have to go round the world to reach another's heart. We can.....gain the whole world and still lose our souls. Funny....he remembered that from somewhere, someone. What did it mean, though ?

The smokescreen gets stronger........

Argus - II

The warrior always fought on the side of right. He knew there was no cause so redoubtable as to be a double shield, as the good cause. If you're not fighting the battle of good and evil, you're no warrior. In any age. And the warrior remembered Stamford Bridge, and then Hastings. He had been a housecarl, valiantly dying with his beloved king Harold.

And then, Bannockburn. The memories spiraled. Each time, he had HAD to choose. And he chose the right and swore his fealty with blood. Lewes, Evesham, Towton, Barnet and Tewkesbury, even in those days rife with treason - even Bosworth. Then, much later, Marston Moor, Naseby, then Dunbar, Worcester. And finally, at Glenfinnan, and then to Culloden field. You always rally on the side of right.

A final battle, for the greatest king alone, remains.....and the warrior waits. For the final arbitration of good and evil. Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside........ avoiding the choice and rationalising is the smokescreen of doom for this age. Behind that veil lurks the end of the world, waiting to catch us in uncomfortable stealth and then to wreak annihilation. The warrior knows that all life's important choices are for good or evil; we choose one or the other even though we might not know it.

The warrior waits....he knows the King will come.

The warrior knew the ways of this land. It was not a land of mere actuality, but of surrealism and myst. The visage of today, the veil of tomorrow. No one place was like it had seemed yesterday; and yet the warrior knew it in all weathers - the colours, the aspects, the guises, the days of cunning sun, of chill rain and frosty snow.

Shipwrecks and splinter at Land's End. The devilry of Lydford Gorge. Sunshine through the Durdle Door and lazy, benign, sunny Lulworth Cove. The pure, serene, angelic Seven Sisters at Beachy Head. Obscure, dark granite crags at Roche. Chalk cliffs at Dover, white and clean. Unending flatness of the Fens at Lincolnshire.


The incredible beauty of the woods at the Forest of Dean. Sunshine over the Black Mountains. Over the Brecon Beacons, into the savagery of other-worldly Snowdonia. 'The veil of rain drawn straight across the face of Cader Idris.' The vastness and variety of the Pembrokeshire coast. Bala Lake. Mythic falls at Pistyll Rheadr and the rushing swirl at Devil's Bridge.


Across the sea, the wild beauty of Wicklow. Lunar rocks and the sinister chill at Dunloe Gap. Ancient, grey, frosted-out Connor Pass, heavenly Killarney. The poignant yet frightening black spires of the Skelligs, looking over to distant America. Moon-like landscape north of Spiddal. Neatly stacked horizontal shelves of cliff-rocks at Moher. Sun-gilded mountains at Connemara. Weird limestone ways over the Burren. The land of the stranger and the wanderer at Donegal. The scree-strewn perfection of Errigal. The 'chair of the giants' on the Antrim Coast.


Back on the mainland.....limestone artistry. A natural amphitheatre at Malham Cove and the horrible gash at Gordale. The pomp and circumstance of falling water at High Force. Green-and-white splendour at Winnats Pass. Smugglers at Flamborough Head. Timeless eternity at Lindisfarne. Taste of Scotland over Northumberland and the Cheviots. The limestone artistry in Yorkshire - Norber Moor and Pen-y-Ghent. Each erratic boulder set lovingly on its own socle. Savage beauty in the valley at Henhole, the inventive mischief of a brook tumbling over a frosted valley.


Over into the heaven-on-earth splendour of the jewel-lakes in Cumbria, nestling among savage, knife-edged mountain ridges, and the exquisite myst of Honister Pass. Helvellyn, Striding Edge. Scafell and Skiddaw. And in between, the jewels of Derwentwater and Buttermere. Daffodils on the shore of Ullswater. Green-and-gray chill mornings, through the trees at Raven Crag, over ribbon-like, silent, still Thirlmere. A storm at Bassenthwaite. Black clouds at hemmed-in Wastwater.

And then, the surreal wonders of Scotland. A land where you are never sure of today, where tomorrow is always new and yesterday....well, if you hadn't been there yesterday, you could only write about it.

The sinister, chilling bog at Rannoch Moor, hemmed in by brooding mountains. Savage, unmerciful but unbelievably beautiful Glencoe, where the snows have still not thawed the memory of 1692. The Great Shepherd of Etive, formidable, venerable, lighting your way north. Ben Nevis, inviting and friendly but treacherous in climb. The bewitching, enchanting, story-book splendour of the glens - Etive, Nevis, Lyon. The vast reservoirs of the Scottish lochs - each a world within a world, ancient, unchanging and eternal in their serenity - Katrine, Tay, Leven, Rannoch; and the gem among gems, "like a flash of images from another world", Loch Lomond, with brooding Ben Lomond and the azurest of azure waters. Loch Ness, always the home of twisting, ancient legend and lore.

The ancient snowfields at Cairn Gorm, remnants of the great Caledonian forest; the home of all those venerable munros. Over to the west, dramatic, emotion-wrought, patriotic Glenfinnan, where the Stuart fires have never been extinguished. Trackless Knoydart, where no man has ever been - the remote Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis. The graceful beauty of the Five Sisters, and the evening sun at Plockton and Kintail, the eternal, mist-laden heights at Glenshiel, never to be revealed.

Eilean Donan, distilling the very spirit of Scotland nobly at the head of the lochs. Over to Wester Ross, the untamed beauty of Loch Assynt. Legendary and mystical Torridon. The flatness of Caithness in such a land - looking over the dramatic, hermit-like stacks at Duncansby and Yesnaby Castle. The soft sculpted sandstone cliff structures at Arbroath. The fiddlehead at Dunnottar, where gold was housed that encircled the brows of Scottish Kings.

Then, to the islands - megalithic Hoy, with that raging, proud old reprobate, the Old Man. Sculpted, musical Staffa where 'nature scoffs at art'. The inhospitable, horrible crags of the Cuillins at Skye, contrasting with graceful, fine-boned Kilt Rock where the waterfall meets the sea. Cloud-blanketed, wet, seeping fog and rain at Mull; stupendous cliffs at Gribun and the mute stones at Fionnphort, overlooking the sea. Sunsets that were more real than an artist's finest dream. Noble Aran, looking over to the trackless wastes of Knoydart on the mainland.

Yes, the warrior knew this land in all weathers; his steed had ridden all over it, from noble battle to noble battle. He knew leaf and stream, mountain and fen, glen, loch and ben, fall and cliff. It was a land that might have been distilled out of a bit of heaven, not always real but provoking imaginings that were every bit as vivid as the land itself. It lodged itself inside you; yet, you could never prove it existed. The images were always more real and tangible than the land beneath your feet.

Argus - I

The rocks had a lunar quality. They dotted hillsides that seemed to rise up on either side and disappear into the clouds. The rocks didn't seem quite as big as we actually found them to be.....

When I walked up to the crest of the hill, I saw a lunar sight. Ghostly green-covered hillsides, laden with craggy rocks that looked like huge, sharp edged crystals of a moon mineral. There was also a cairn to my right. It didn't seem real, except I was there. It didn't seem to me that anyone had been there before....so who had set up the cairn?

Mists continued to swirl.....

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It was cold, rainy and chill. His wounds needed tending. Armour always slows a warrior down; luckily, he had escaped the slaughter. There was nothing left to do except take to the hills. The upper corries of Torridon. No fit place for a wounded man; but he found a cave and some warmth.

Battles are supposed to change things, at least change some of the past. And sometimes you can get so weary of it all.

The next day Torridon was a blaze of sunshine. His wounds scarred, and he was on his way. He found a horse; rode south. Past Kintail, then into Knoydart. A trackless wilderness. No one would find him there and the hounds of vengeance would not find a track to lead them.

The sun stayed with him all day.......

In another age, marauding guitars would find the track and pick it up, just as the hoofs of his steed rutted the path now and raised its dust.

I've got to keep my memories aside,
I've got to try to live again.

And there's a time for waking up and feeling down,
It's when you have to pick your feet up from the ground.

Ride in the sunshine when you can............ there will be another day to change my history. The Cuillins always covered the horizon, black as night.

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The cairn told of someone, surely not in this age. As I ran my hands over the stone, I felt the comfort it might have given. When life was simpler. When this world was larger. Slower. When travel indeed meant to go somewhere and feel the distance. And then, when it meant stepping into another age - and stepping back would take an eternity.

There was a time when a rock guitar had grain and gravel, not to grind your teeth in the dust, but just enough to suggest depth. Steel on a cymbal felt like the clash of swords in battle. But when we sang, not of death and destruction, but of sadness, infinite and eternal longings. Of failure, but with hope waiting on the wings. We stopped to song our lives with care and music; and not to brutally pour out our anger any which way we knew. The song was always bigger than us. Sometime world.



I met a man who felt the same way,
That the world had passed him by.
Told me all his troubles,
That the world had made him cry.

Life had kept him waiting,
Regretting his pain inside.
Had to feel underrated,
And hated, besides.

Sometime world, pass me by again,
Carry you, carry me, away.

Sometime world. And the time when love, sunshine and the wind in my hair were of one picture. There is a meadow somewhere in Stonethwaite.......... I remember. The words were easier to write and the pictures clearer. Even murky teals and ashen greys were happier hues.



Her hair was golden brown
Blowin’ free like a cornfield
She was far away
I found it hard to reach her
She told me you can try
But it’s impossible to find her

Ride

"Ride" drummers.

There's this interesting film called The Wages of Fear (French, Le Salaire de la peur). These chaps who hire a few derelicts and nowhere-men to drive a consignment of nitroglycerine across The Andes. When I watched it as a boy at Plaza theatre in Bangalore, it scared the heck out of me - I really was paid the wages of fear.



It's a film filled with tremendous suspense, with fear being amplified to crazy heights. People say it's a sermon on the evils of capitalism........I don't care one way or another, I just like the suspense. Would like to watch it again. They don't make films like that anymore..........

Some drummers like the beautiful sound of wood drumstick tips hitting a steel cymbal...... driving the rhythm along. Maybe it's plastic tips......even better. That tinkle has a full, mature, metallic sound.

Every once in a while it's therapeutic and life-giving to think of the things that AREN'T "riding" the world. Songs like The Eagles' "You Never Cry Like a Lover" from the On The Border album. Written by John David Souther, it's a song filled with satisfying little moments - piano-driven, typical Souther-chord structure (and typically with Souther, an aimless, pointless, empty song done with great deliberation), a very potent minor chord-sequence bridge, with a beautiful, wailing, melodic lead guitar (this was before the days of Felder and Walsh). I like the fact that "You Never Cry Like a Lover" will never ever show up in The Best of Eagles or even any fan-greatest-hits-lists. You know, while we were looking at the parade, a gem passed by in the dust.



Not every drummer rides. And not every song needs a ride. It is somewhat of a particular pleasure:)

Like a rich vein of dark green, glistening hornblende in pegmatite.....or even in regular-grain granite. When geology was the muse, I searched in vain for hornblende....everyone else was after the galena (oh, how it glitters) or the garnets (how they sparkle!). No one wanted the hornblende because actually no one had ever heard of it except as inseperable from granite.


To this day, I have never actually seen a hornblende crystal........and I still hope. To me, it was always the nugget of life, darkly lovely, hidden away in a glittering bed of other minerals. Minerals, of course, are identified by the colour of the streak they leave behind when rubbed on a porcelain streak plate. If life was indeed just a mineral, it would have an obscure streak.

Listen to Ringo ride in "Let It Be" - that tinkle is such a pure, pure sound :)

In 1962, Sam Peckinpah made this beautiful film called Ride The High Country. This was before The Wild Bunch and he still hadn't latched on to the lucre of gore - this was a controlled, loving thing about two ageing gunmen, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (oh, how I love this film!!!!) Along the way, the West as it really was in an age gone by, is shown quite accurately.



One of the triumphs of the film is its seemingly incidental portrait of a Wild West gone by. Of course everyone now only remembers the bloodshed of The Wild Bunch.......I haven't even seen The Wild Bunch and I'm immensely glad. I only know Sam of Ride The High Country.

Ride drummers. Particular pleasures. Not by everyone, for everyone or of everyone........