February-March 2023

“Chinese Strawberries” 

My first song written in China.  It originally had a darker tone.  Key of C major

The trees are speaking Mandarin

The strawberries catch my eye,

Laid so gently in velvet boxes

Against the darkening the sky

Somewhere on the other side of the Earth

In a parallel universe 

I'm getting used to being upside down

And talking in reverse

Yellow cranes on the Wen Yu river

Packs of little dogs at the dump 

Mystery meat in a wet market dumpling, 

Early morning sweepers sweeping streets

Somewhere on the other side of the Earth

In a parallel universe, 

I'm getting used to being upside down

And talking in reverse

Something in the cameras can read my lips

And process countless information

There's an app on my phone that knows me better

Than my closest relation

Somewhere on the other side of the Earth

In a parallel universe 

I'm getting used to being upside down

And talking in reverse

Steel factories are back in motion

The sun looks like a faint red blob

Swarms of people pouring into the city

And they all seem to know their job

Somewhere on the other side of the Earth

In a parallel universe

I'm getting used to being upside down

And talking in reverse

Old men fly their kites so high

Big dragons above the temple

Smoking cigarettes and letting out string

And setting a fine example

Somewhere on the other side of the Earth

In a parallel universe

I'm getting used to being upside down

And talking in reverse

And just when you thought you found some peace

There's a blown out speaker in the trees

Reminding you that you're not alone

In Chinese!

And the trees are speaking Mandarin

The strawberries catch my eye

Laid so gently in velvet boxes

Against the darkening sky

October 31st, Halloween 2024

“White Cave”

This was a 5 minute free form writing exercise I later turned into a Drums and Bass song

The air filters are blowing, creating 40 dB of constant white noise. I know this because I measured it with a sound meter app. We leave them on even when the air is clean outside because there are too many to turn off. Two in every room. The embassy provides them to employees in case the hazardous smog sneaks into their houses. I don't really mind the white noise, but I've noticed that I have more tinnitus, but it seems to be in the same key. The air filters also seem to lessen the odor of our old dog and my son's shoes which can be pungent. They also muffle the constant jackhammering and cement mixing just outside across the street where the Chinese have torn down a house to its bare foundations and brick skeleton. That's how the wealthy Chinese want them. Brand new from the ground up when they move in.  In my house everything is white except for the floors which seem to be some maple veneer glued to concrete. The ceilings are vaulted and have ornate corbels, but all white as if they were sprayed with a compressor. There are many windows, but the other houses are so close that they block out the sun for most of the day. There are 25 minutes of sunlight in the early morning, which I savor with my coffee. In the afternoon, there is an hour of light upstairs on the balcony, but it's out of reach unless I lay with my body half outside the door. I refer to this place we live in as the ‘White Cave’. I refer to myself as a cave cricket, and I have grown strange warts like a creature would in the darkness since I've been here. I comfort myself by thinking many great things have emerged from the darkness;  butterflies from a chrysalis, bears from deep slumbers in the wilderness, six million bats from a limestone cavern. 

December 4th, 2023

“Cocoon” 

A poem about healing from my accident

Half finished, half made

Cocoon in a dark place

Not ready for the light or flight 

Transforming in my own juices

My new voice cracking

My bones fusing

This metamorphosis will happen

It is inevitable. To ride the breeze

Effortlessly without burden

A prize for all the bitter leaves devoured

After this 3D printing 

After this Monarch recipe is followed

I will be the same inside. 

The same unrefined hack that somehow knows 

Where to plunge his spade (or find the nectar)

More surprised than anyone

By the abundance that springs from nothing

And the same old friends

Will flash their sweet faces before me

And I will pause in the garden to free them

And shake them from my heart

Whether I’m dreaming

Or jumping off a bridge

The same parade of regrets and triumphs

And reluctance to read instructions

The same attraction to the same elusive orchids 

The tiny ones you must kneel to see in the unpolluted spring

Every other decade if you are lucky

Opening only for the gentle rays of the sun 

Filtered through aspen stands

And the immortal songs 

That are impossible to grow tired of hearing 

Will play like crickets that hold the summer in place

Love is the only map to resolution

For the diminished 

State of this body

Beyond chords with no root

Beyond the tension of these times

The only salve that repairs division

The only osha, the only arnica

What will this world look like with my new eyes? 

How will it taste with my new mouthparts?

Sound with my inner ear tuned with solfège?

Feel with vulnerable wings fairy-dusted?

My soft new body shifts

In its old sleeping bag

Limbs blood fluid and wires

Learning new tricks everyday

Impatient to be a different creature

In a different life

Finally ending the song

Returning to the beginning 

The tonic, the root 

Returning to the one (I)

Voluptuous April! 

Riots of flowers, lilacs super blooming in the compound

Persian yellow roses arching into wild mustard pastels

There by the windrows of leaves and dirt berms, 

Under the cedars I startled them,

the young lovers

As the dog was catching up to me

Along the red path in the Wen Yu River Park

The same bird I never see

Chirping away steadily

As she pulled at her white blouse

Lifted up halfway

Brushing pine needles from her back

The young man parting his hair,  ready to chase her to the ends of the earth

Anywhere to finish what they had started

A raptor crying out somewhere between the golf course and the graves

Frogs croaking, “Orgy orgy orgy!”

An old spring that hasn't flowed in years, spilling into the creek

Peaches open house for the rare bees, impatient

Leaning against the wall like girls at the prom

Waiting for a boy brave enough to dance with them

Petals melting on the moist clay, 

Her kiss exploding on his face 

With enough power to change the rivers direction

He was not expecting her lips to be such a miracle in this wasteland 

Floating his entire life until then, now standing firmly in her garden,

Breathing clean air, a bee like a silver astronaut returning home to the flowers of earth, 

Somehow in the deafening roar of the mega-city,

A joy and promise for the world.

March 7, 2023

This past week feeling settled finally. 

Feeling a little bit more comfortable and my circle is expanding. Highlights were a long walk in bad air to a beautiful spot on the Wen Yu river and then a walk along a dump filled with packs of little wild mutts and then an indoor wet market with plants and flowers upstairs and vegetables downstairs and some bakeries and some potential for mystery meat… we all went. 

Later on the weekend we went on a tour with Beijing Hikers. A company out of Beijing that takes people to the Great Wall and other sights of interest in the area. Beijing Hikers took us to a "wilder" part of the great wall on Sunday and we had a traditional meal served on giant Lazy Susans on circular tables Chinese style. It was a Mao Zedong themed restaurant with flags everywhere pictures of armies and young Mao and middle-aged Mao and old Mao. The food was absolutely amazing especially the eggplant. I don't know what they do to it but I need to learn. It's all about the sauce here. 

As usual lots of weird dreams: trying to find Jack, losing the bug I want to show him, trying to find other animals, snakes and horses, being late at some event. Today I started recording a Chinese sounding theme I had running through my head when we walked the wall…

Feb 2, 2023

Strange dreams last night. Cats. A huge bloody rat – I had a gig with Bard somewhere. I finally started playing the gig and I was playing solo, except there was an old folks yoga class blasting the song on stereo I was about to play. I said something to the yoga class about "stopping my music so I could play". Suddenly I had a gig with Brett Davis instead. 

Lots of doubts about this decision to come to China. I am not sure if it will be good for the family? Can we survive?  is the question I keep asking. Will Niamh go back and live with her grandma? Will Jack become more and more reclusive? Will the school provide better education or will it just cause chaos and confusion and interruption? I am worried about Niamh partying too much with her friends. I am concerned about my mother and how she feels being left behind in Dixon. 

We took on a little puppy today, to foster him and help him find a home. I can already see improvement in the kids moods with the new dog. I think I will name him Pedro. I went to the embassy today and took the tour. Shannon was the guide. People on the tour were tired and not friendly. The group was warned by top security dude not to seek sexual assistance at obvious questionable massage parlors. He held up a pamphlet of one such parlor and shook it. I was wondering if I could see it? I got some help with my phone from a Chinese woman regarding WeChat app.

I got a new Embassy badge. I called my first DIDI ride. I am taking lessons in Mandarin once a week at River Garden with soccer moms. One woman asked me to build her a shoe rack after the first lesson.  I thought that was an odd request.
 

Dear Hermits, Misfits, Recluses, Music Lovers, Rebels, and Trouble Makers of all sorts,

It's fitting that I write to you now from a hotel in Queens, New York City. I arrived last night late in the evening at La Guardia International Airport with a dog I was told was, "Saved from the meat trucks in Beijing". They waved me through customs with hardly a look and a nod and I almost fell on the ground in tears of joy for being back in the States again for a lot of reasons. It was a short lived moment as I had a very thirsty, juicy, “finger licking good” retriever on my hands that had been crated for over 24 hours. I needed to get it outside. A few years ago back In Beijing China it was adopted by someone and now it finally was escaping with me back to the states.

A free pooch!

In China they actually do eat lots of things I don't eat: cartilage, chicken feet, giant salamanders, turtles, grubs, shark fins, birds nests, fish from polluted rivers, sea cucumbers, wet market delicacies. The larger perspective is that I am a traveler these days if you can call sitting in a chair getting a Berklee Online Degree staring at a computer in China a world “traveler". 

As you might not know I moved to China recently. Beijing has 22 Million people. Most of them driving scooters on this little road I have to cross with my dog to get to the Wenyu river park in the morning. My wife Laura had the crazy idea during the dysfunction of the covid pandemic to leave the States and do something cool while we’re "still able and young”. She applied as a medical provider to a government job in the State Department. This translates to spinning the wheel of fortune and being assigned at the absolute very last moment before you go mad with anxiety, to work at an Embassy in some foreign country. By the time they offered Laura the job, our kids Jack and Niamh were in High School. 

The decision to take the job was not as easy to make later as it would have been during lock down in Covid. We went back and forth for a long while on it. However in the end our taste for adventure got the best of us and we decided to go for it. This was a big gamble and we are not good gamblers. At first Laura looked like she was going to be assigned to Chad and Qatar and then later to our relief, Albania. Too good to be true, Albania would have been the perfect fit for the McCutcheon family. Touring musically. I almost bought ski passes for the Italian Alps! 

The short of it is, we ended up in Beijing. It's not a pretty place but it’s safe and you're not going to be shot in the face by your neighbor. When you are a newbie in the foreign service and an overachieving one at that, they send the rugged ones to the unsavory posts where they eat weird things.

Five Towns Inn, Queens NY