UNCLE JOHN'S NOTES

Ain´t no time to hate

Barely time to wait

Postponed

On March 19, 2000, taking refuge in place on the last day of winter, I noticed that the bedroom alarm clock reads 12:00 midnight. Then the time suddenly goes dark, yet there is electricity.

Clocks in this house behave strangely. The kitchen clock changes the time by itself, and is always accurate for daylight saving time.

The alarm clock is dead. I go online and request a new alarm clock. It arrives by delivery and comes with two alarms and has a ten minute snooze button. I set the alarms.

The next morning I get up early in the dark with the sound of birds, louder than usual this morning and a beautiful song. I love that I woke up before the alarm and it took me a while to look at the clock and then realize that birds are the alarm. After a few days of trying to get up with the birds, I discover that there are other alarms in the program and chose one that would wake me up, and I set the alarms and went to sleep. I woke up to a loud alarm and press the repeat button for a ten minute break. When it rang again, I hit the stop button. Or did I press the repeat button, because the alarm sounds again? Again I press stop, then the repeat button, over and over, but it didn't stop. I also hit stop on the other alarm. Finally, I pull the plug out of the wall.
 And it kept ringing. I find the volume button and lower it completely, but it is still ringing. Aha, there is a battery. I find the hatch, open it, and three empty spaces for the AAA batteries that aren't there. I can't turn it off and decide to throw it away. At that point I look up on the shelf in front of me and see my phone and remember that I put my alarm on there too and sure enough that was the ringing and I turn it off. How could the watch and phone have the same alarm tone?

Then I remember the kitchen clock.Click for video

DREAMS

You say you can't remember your dreams
Because they take place in another world
Where I can remember my hunger
How she fed me with her love
In another dream she is a mother to me
And then I'm with my brother
In another night and a different scene

Every morning she is naked
Born in a new world to wear clothes
How can you see your dreams
when your eyes are closed
We are all the same here it seems
But what about your ears and nose?
Can you hear in your dreams?
Can you smell and feel your toes?
Our dreams are in our mind
What about our soul
Our dreams are from the subconscious
And it feeds on our emotional
Mind with internal vision

In my mind´s eye I seek my hands
In my dream I touch my navel
And fly with birds in the breeze
Being on stage with the band
And in the yard with the kids in the trees
I saw and felt and found my hands
In another world, clean new air
in pearl perfect weather and so is your hair

Dreams
Of another world
In our time
Not to be behind
Good to teach in both worlds
To be kind
Be free
Can you understand me?
Or I can send you a picture to show you what I see

SPRING
The air is clean today
As if we were in the field
Spring blooms brings changes
Notice the flowers like the bees
The flow of birds in the trees
Fresh breeze

Here we are in a jungle
Near the edge of the night
The flow of spring rivers
In you it guides us like a light
Change instantly
Maintain a state of mind
Be free
Like a mountaintop to the sky
With children in her heart
Where she feels love
Arrives
Like heaven above
Observing the sea
I see a blooming flower
Sun inside
She is spring for me

Spring has arrived
When songs of joy are sung
He is a forecaster
Cool communicator
She is an innovator
But her dreams are not well known
Find the time to tune into your mind when you're alone
She is queen on the phone

Inside my mind is a photograph of you
When I look into your eyes
I see the Lord in you
Comfort and truth
Values ​​and courage
A sweet inspiration
When my muse comes to mind
All the love I find
The spirit is expressing
Peace and blessing

TIME

The sun rises and the season opens
Time is surrounded by the chorus of words unspoken
Time is relative
Relational
Ready
Past present future continuity
Father time unfolds eternity
Securing our destiny
Spiritually golden
No expectation
To enjoy everything we have

The birds in the sky speak to me
They ask about the clouds and change in scenery
They tell me about a tree that talks
And to visit bees
Bring honey back home please

There was a butterfly on the tree
And a boy climbing there
Caterpillars falling into cubes
Children playing everywhere

We want to be vigilant
Smart heart
Keep your hand over your heart
Keep your mind on your love
Keep your eyes on the road mom
Family singing harmony

The darkness has shone
What it's like to be alone
Living near the unknown
Making us discover when we seek
To try to live with yourself for a week
Or two or three or more
People are afraid of the unknown
I can not explain it
I do not get it
Don't get it!
Look ahead with determination
Optimism
Time heals

Oh baby
I love the way you are
You love God and children too
When everything is new
Love is the way you do the things you do
Love only gets better
When you are in the love of Jesus
Like a stream flowing in the desert
A lighthouse in the fog
Comes on the wings of wisdom
As a messenger from God

GRATEFUL DEAD IN INTERSTELLAR SPACE

Interstarnet.com

Uncle John meets

Bob Weir & Phil Lesh 

UNCLE JOHN'S BAND

Remembering with grief and gratitude

Robert Hunter

by Uncle John

I have many fond memories of Robert Hunter and great gratitude for his treasure chest of lyrics. The Grateful Dead band member, I remember the poet, playful, trumpeter, vocalist, songwriter, musician, artist, father, lover, joker, scholar, hermit and invisible man.

We are poets on the crossroads of life. We are both crossing Haight Street from opposite sides at the same time and there is no traffic in the road, and I have a rose and he stops to smell the rose and Robert Hunter calls me by name.

The first time I meet Robert Hunter backstage, he puts out his hand and says to me,

¨Shake the hand

That shook the hand…¨

Monday night, September 23, Robert Hunter´s spirit left his body on Earth. I am at the library that evening listening to Berkeley poet laureate Rafael Jesus Gonzalez talk about the sounds of poetry, that poems are meant for more than the pages they are written on. They belong in songs, or uttered, spoken, tasting the words, and sharing in a way we can all understand. He talks about taking an instrumental song and putting words to it, as Robert Hunter can.

I recall when Hunter stops me at the Shady Grove one night to share with me his flash about dying. ¨Phil Lesh´dad was dying and Phil brought me a tape of music. When I listened to that music the words fell from my mind to the page in one uninterrupted flow.¨ The song is ¨Box Of Rain¨, the last song the Grateful Dead played before Jerry Garcia past away.

When I asked Robert Hunter what song he got feedback from the fans and he replied, ¨Jack Straw, we got more mail about that song than any other. Especially  the line, "We can share the women, we can share the wine".

Robert Hunter and his band Comfort is the opening act for the Jerry Garcia Band at the Keystone in Palo Alto. After the Garcia Band set, about thirty people crowd into a small room backstage. Robert Hunter turns to Jerry Garcia and says, "Hey man, you sounded great tonight!" "You sounded really good yourself" Garcia says back at him. "Did you hear 'Roses'? and Robert Hunter breaks into the song before Jerry can answer. "....She had ribbons, ribbons, ribbons in her long brown hair..." He repeats his question to Garcia and continues the song a capella..."I don't know, maybe it was the roses, All I know is I could not leave her there....." Donna Jean sang this song on stage with Hunter and his band tonight, a very special moment, and Hunter's voice rings through the room with sweet clarity.

One night I capture Hunter in a small hallway and I have an acoustic guitar in my hand and ask if I can play a song for him. He says yes, ¨if you whisper it in my ear¨

I lean up close to his ear and sing in a whispering voice a song I wrote:

¨Well I tried to catch your words that seem

To keep on talking to

The man willing to listen

Found the song was really you

I picked up the cards and came on down

To where the sources be

I saw your heart shining through their faces

And heard you mirroring me¨

It is the night the Grateful Dead song composers Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia play together for the first time. It is pouring rain in Berkeley. Robert Hunter surprises us with an old spiritual Christmas standard ¨It Came Upon A Midnight Clear¨.

Hours after this show, after midnight, the sky clears under a full moon. I am driving with my wife and Kim McCarthy down this narrow alley in Berkeley and we encounter a car with its hood up. I stop and get out, and the girl driving the car says she needs a jump start. ¨Sorry,¨ I say, ¨but I don´t have any cables¨. Suddenly, a man steps out of the shadows holding battery cables. It´s Robert Hunter! ¨Here, take a hit off of him,¨ he says to the girl as he hands her the cables.

He turns and asks me, ¨Got any booze?¨

*

Tribute to the sun and the sea
Tribute to the sand and the wind
Talking about you and me
Getting back together again
And again and again

Ten years to make them sailors
Twenty to bring them home
And all the time in between
Where they belong

Burning a trail to your door
You don't have ever have to worry no more no more no more enough no more
Let all your burdens fly on by
And come with me up on high
Like a star shining bright
In the night
With the light
 

Hoist a flag boy atop your ship
We'll take a trip beyond the Mississipp
With all that time
Invested in you
Like a dream coming through
Coming true
Awakening you
Arousing you
Awakening you

Tribute to the sun and the sea
Tribute to the sand and the wind
Talking about you and me
Getting back together again
And again and again

"they Love Each Other

Lord, You can see it's true"

TRUMPETS OF THE OCEAN

Lyrics by Robert Hunter

The day the constitution became a metaphor
I was laying tile on my lady's kitchen floor
A lot of troubled thoughts ran through my mind
But I kept laying tile in the same straight line

Where were you the eleventh of November?
I was in the bathtub sleeping off a bender
A double shot of hell and freedom in a blender
How can I forget what I really can't remember?

The trumpets of the ocean howl, let them roar
Let them wail, let them soar
Thunder in the belly of the whale never more

The day that Elvis died I was driving in my ride
A friend in a Ford waved me over to the side
Said "I just heard the news on the radio"
I said "are you sure?" she said "I don't know"

Walk a crooked mile, hell, you might as well walk ten
Meet your old self coming round the corner of a bend
Nothing new here, why should we pretend?
The trumpets of the ocean in a broken-hearted blend

The trumpets in the midnight, trumpets in the dawn
Trumpets of the queen's rook, trumpets of the pawn
Trumpets in the stratosphere, trumpets of the rock
The trumpets of the sky boat, sailing into dock

Trumpets of the backbone, trumpets in the air
Trumpets of the black lace ribbon in your hair
The trumpets in the undertow rock you off to sleep
We'll fall in love tomorrow, Juanita, don't you weep

The trumpets of the ocean howl, let them roar
Let them wail, let them soar
Thunder in the belly of the whale never more

All Rights Reserved

THE RIVER OF LIFE

To be concluded

Watchin' the river flow

 lookin' to see

 painting a picture

 still as can be

THE TREE OF LIFE

Playin' In The Band

continues

Ain't no time to hate, barely time to wait...

TREE OF LIFE

From the beginning,

This time

HOME.US.ORG

EXCERPTS from

LAST FLASH OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD

FIVE DAYS & A FEW FLASHBACKS

by Uncle John

"What I want to know

 Where does the time go?"

(Robert Hunter/Jerry Garcia)

"Lord, the band kept us so busy, we forgot about the time."

(John Perry Barlow/ Bob Weir)

This work is a contemporary narrative with a musical motif, narrated by the author with personal testimony, and dialogue with  artists, authors, musicians, dancers, singers, poets, songwriters, and stars. This journalistic  odyssey observes the world's most interesting band, whose brilliant creative performances, and individual intellectual insight, provide us with this ostentatious modern day literary account. On the road & at home with the Grateful Dead and their family of bands and musical company, this book records a distinctive recital of spiritual events, revealing a new orchestrated portrait, a sculptured arrangement of golden memories. There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert! It is a unique and unconventional experience.

Vision of the dance to make it rain - Part 1

 
Born in the hills of America
Raised in a desert cave
It wasn't until he was twenty-one years old
He met Jesus and was saved
He can move like a mountain lion
Smells like a bear for snakes
Sundance is so bold and strange
 As he is strong and brave
 
He has half a diamond per eye
And an eagle to guide his way
And he lived ten years inside the city
And he learned the roads of the city
He had a love for the game
A taste for whiskey
A weakness for pretty women
But he couldn't understand the cruelty
To lock up so many people inside prisons
He is a man who loves his freedom
 
He picked up a simple stone
And at night his would shine
Reflected on the city
Illuminated the road in the sky
They say he has ten thousand brothers
And all of them believing men
And ten thousand sisters
And many children
 
He has vision for a river of time
Who can stop the rain at will?
When you find him, he can make it rhyme
And get even better still
He walks inside the cities teaching ecology
He painted a rose for a masterpiece
And help the blind to see
 
He had a love for the game
A taste for whiskey
A weakness for pretty women
But he couldn't understand the cruelty
To lock up so many people inside prisons
He is a man who loves his freedom
 
Sundance is smart
And a man with many faces

But he´s the only one I know

Holding all four aces
Now some say he is a prophet
And some just one man
But I know him as a friend of Jesus
And a child of the desert sand
Asking
How can the most advanced
Civilization of all time
be so far behind
be so far behind?
 
Now Sundance is among you
Who helps the four-winged beast to fly?
Those who live to see
Half diamond for one eye
will have seen golden rain fall from the sky
Golden rain of the sky people
Sky roses
Golden rain from the sky
Roses from the sky!