FILMS THE LEGEND.

Johnny Legend ( ...that is) live at the CACTUS CLUB, San Jose, Nov. 16th, 2k1

"the end is not the end
...until it's the end,
...and even then, it just might turn out to be, ..."the Leg end: maybe even the LEGEND"

A meeting 10 years in the making. Johnny Legend, The famous cult filmmaker/Rockabilly sensation and Toe Knee, The Famous Cable Access TV show host, finally met each other at the Cactus Club in San Jose, one rainy Friday night November 16th, 2k1. "Synergy meets the time machine inside your own mind, with Several hands in the chain actually shaking each other's hands, through mutiple time portals and a very few unknown others ... meanwhile, the vast bridges of travel in Space-time were crossed. ... and this proves it" -Toe Knee Nov 18th, 2k1

Friday, November 16th, 2001.... at the Cactus Club, 11:45 PM For an infinite minute, I felt like I was seeing myself inside my own future, right there in front of me, ... amazing... Johnny Legend ... so this was the Legend... IS this guy really real? While I filmed the Legend, Johnny Legend, that is... I tried to piece together all the bridges, crossed, burned, rebuilt then crossed again ... to make the moment I was "breathing inside of" come to pass. Since about 1990, I had heard my friend Lon Osgood's stories about Johnny. His eyes lit up talking about him... Then he would tell me I needed to see one of his shows, that I would benefit ... that I might see a kindred spirit, if I ever crossed paths with Johnny... It was ll to easy to dismiss tales told over a joint, or one too many beers ... but somewhere in Lon's expression there would be this shift ... this sort of a surprised look, and it would turn in his mind ... he would laugh to himself ... and he would get this crazy expression ... with a sparkle and a little mischievousness, all in the space of a second or two... I couldn't write it off. It stuck in my mind... I think I remember Lon saying something like, "He's the guy you probably will never meet, but already have ... in another time, on another planet... You don't realize that you and he are sharing some sort of weird space-time in the universe..." It seemed like a sort of impossibility, to me, to him, and probably even to Johnny when he reads this ... cause we all know that Johnny Legend is in a league of his own. No comparison to any other performer equates. You have to see the Legend to know what I mean. Now, I sound like Lon... So, you see, for years I walked around thinking, who is this guy Johnny Legend? You know, even before I had met Lon, without knowing it, and almost through a time portal, I had shaken Johnny's hand. It was one of those peculiar time shift kinds of things. From 3000 miles away, and ten years apart... a sort of communication link. It was like that six degrees of separation concept, except it was 2 degrees ... actually just one degree, from two different angles. It seemed like, in a different time frame, in a different era... I knew Johnny as a neighborhood friend ... you'll see what I mean, Read on, or write me off... It will all make sense, soon... The Cosmic Fox. It was the early fall of 1980...maybe 81... No, I think it WAS 1980. Maharishi International University. The "Cosmic Fox" from the MIU class of 82, Vicki Mack, was becoming my good friend, in those days... Was playing harmonica in the stairwells, where I met Karl Franzen, who I still play music with... Well, Vicki Grace was one of the few beautiful women on that campus, with whom I could just be my "eccentric artist self." I had come to MIU from Cincinnati, where I had just graduated from the Art Academy. I saw the trauma of living and I needed something deeper ... so I started TM and became a yogi without even realizing it... My dorm door was covered with recent drawings, mostly sparked by abduction memories or meditation experiences. And my room was a well known phenomenon. Folks were amazed about the loft spaces I built, and the stuff i had packed in there ... it was part studio (art) part studio (music) headquarters (band ... friends). And it was also launch pad for many a clandestine "outing" after the rest of the campus was asleep. With my security keys, I used to open the Library band room basement ... and the rest of the building was fully empty ... so we would jam till three AM. Met Doug Lipper, staff locksmith there too ... and my room was also a launch pad for adventure. Taking the tunnels to the kitchen, up through the floor ... making a pizza ... or the tunnels under the sidewalk near the Trustee's Gym... Band uniforms from the old college... Parsons College ... somebody stole mine... Mostly harmless fun ... no damage creation. Probably more than anything, too many hormones and not sleepy. Meditation Land was swimming in the deep end, so to speak and swimming hard. Some of the times, I felt like I was on another planet. It's just what happens when you dive deep into the restful state that meditation can be, if it is done right. I was changing so fast ... and so was everybody else... Naturally the artist's eyes roamed to the objects of beauty. And they were everywhere... I first saw Vicki Grace in the dining hall. Penetrating eyes, deep-sourced poignant looks. I couldn't decipher her mystery ... there were swirls of auric wonder all around her ... she knocked me out ... seeing her for the first time turned me into tomato juice ... and I was willing to accept any parameters she would need to feel honored, ... anything, in order to share space-time with her. I was beyond surprised that she would see value in spending time with me at all ... she accepted my invitations to go for walks ... and eventually she was posing for me in my room ... several times.... God, I wished I had asked her to pose nude ... jeez, I wish I could time travel at will, right now and get her permission and live those hours over again...... That will forever haunt me... ANDY KAUFMAN Anyway, skipping forward a year or so, Vicki's sister began dating Andy Kaufman. So, Andy eventually came to MIU to do a meditation course ... and that is where I met Andy. AND Somewhere, inside that same time frame, Johnny Legend's sister met Andy in a completely different part of the country... 1980 - 83 was era when Andy Kaufman was a very sought after commodity, and being a very shy person, he sought refuge in his trusted friends. It says an awful lot about a person, that Andy trusted them during these challenging times. He was hanging around Johnny Legend and his family... ... Having hosted Saturday Night Live 9 times ... several record breaking TV specials in the works ... Some major breakthroughs were occurring in such fast succession with Andy in those days, that it must have challenged his fragile, sensitive being... Time was speeding up. Soon, as every comedian knows, Andy was finally challenging all the conventions of comedy in such a way as to have even his closest friends and family left guessing. Life became his paintbox, the improvised moment, his brush... Even his parents were confused, on occasions, about whether Andy was "yanking their chain..." Was he play-acting or was he "for real"? No one actually thought Andy was REALLY DYING of a brain tumor ... at first they thought it was JUST another of Andy's off-color stunts, but he would eventually actually die. To the utter disbelief of his dearest friends, family, and fans... Died of a brain tumor, and the world of comedy has noticed the gap, ever since... There hasn't been another comedian like him ... none with that range of style, and genius... That person, the avante guarde comedian Andy Kaufman, what a shy guy he was! Vicki grace meets Andy meets Toe Knee when he was Tony. I met him in the TV room at MIU student lounge, through Vicki Grace Mack, subject of my own song Vicki Grace... Andy Kaufman was visiting Fairfield Iowa for a TM Advanced meditation course, and while there, he was spending time with Vicki. There I was shaking the TV star and Avante Guarde genius comedian's hand. Andy Kaufman's hand. Last year, the movie "Walking on the Moon" was released; with consultant, Johnny Legend's sister, Linda. Are you noticing the "synergistic waves" yet? Is this getting to be too hard for you to believe? "Beyond coincidence" Here's a clue about how "beyond Co-incidence" this cosmically overlapped journey truly is... My first professionally recorded song was produced by Lon Osgood, who starred in Johnny Legend's first movie... ("Puke, the Saliva Demon" 1971) California... Johnny Legend produced the Andy Kaufman movie, "My Breakfast with Blassie." While I was working my band "Tony Dream Makers," in 1983, Iowa City... Johnny Legend was working with Andy Kaufman... In my band, my lead guitarist's name was, ...you guessed it, Andy Kaufman, same spelling, except he was "the guitarist" Andy Kaufman. (you can hear his brilliant guitar lead on my record "new Artist of the Year; 1960 American Dream part one". the tune is called "Life in the city" written about my years of living as an artist in the ghettos of Cincinnati in 1978 to 80. I wrote the song, while I knew Vicki at MIU...Played it's best versions with Andy Kaufman, Todd Hoffman, Tom Martin ... with Wog the driver and the Band Van. We went out in a Rocket V8, I still have the emblem from the hood ... pasted to my present guitar ... took that Skylark Station wagon to a hundred and five one night, all of us, with gear full to the roof behind us ... barreling down the dark Iowa roads at a hundred and five. Wild wide eyed, half crazed, it was a night for celebration. We had just played our most successful gig.... That night, I had decided I had to "turned up the juice" as a lead singer. We needed to break open some territory. I had to see what I could do, needed to deliver the music in a way beyond what I had done thus far. We needed a breakthrough, real bad ... needed one really bad.... So, I had to get over my fears of the audience. I decided I was going to "lay it all on the line," and I did. From the stage, I added one more thing to that passion, besides going past it... I added EYE CONTACT. We had Roy the sound guy running the board and full lights. The place was packed with bikers and women. Folks were dancing. All was going well. Somebody found somebody in a van out back ... returned from a break too late, but even that couldn't stop us... a couple struck up the beat and soon the whole band was back into place. I guess I went to far, I believed I was a star, and something strange started happening. Two women who I was "Heavily eye contacting" on the right side of the club got into a hysterical brawl, and shit ... they wouldn't stop. Lights went on, boyfriends got into it... I found out later, they were fighting over me! Holy shit... I was freaked...... we were rolling so hard, I just went too far, obviously... Looking back, that was the end of the Dream Makers. I lost my nerve. Maybe this is where Johnny Legend averted our own collision, until now. I mean, where I turned back is obviously where Johnny went forward. He goes way beyond eye contact, let me tell you that! In any case, that's a story about the band called the Tony Dream Makers. So, before I met Andy Kaufman the guitarist, I met Andy Kaufman the TV star. And before I met Johnny Legend, I met them both, and Lon Osgood ... If you are a mathematician, you could calculate the different probability quotients around the chances that a person in Ohio, would travel to a place in Iowa ... meet a TV star named Andy Kaufman ... then meet a person from California who grew up with a person who will film Andy Kaufman ... then throw in the possibility that that one person from Ohio, now living i Iowa (same phonetics, different order) would later put an ad in the paper and be working with a guy who's REAL name was also Andy Kaufman...., and consider the fact that Andy Kaufman the guitarist was a master guitarist, not just a guitarist, but a master of the guitar ... how much possibility do you see for Co-incidence in all this? TIME TRAVEL Now, time travel forward, and realize that I have now met, and filmed The Legend himself. That's right Johnny Legend. And, in some ways, it looks like me, had I continued beyond that "Eye Contact" session... I might eventually have met Johnny on a stage in Europe, say 5 years earlier ... like, maybe in 95... If this were a TV script, they would toss it out as preposterous... Nobody would believe it. It's these sorts of views into real life experiences, which can cause a person to wonder about the chance occurrence of things ... doesn't it lend itself towards believing in alternate realities...maybe even time travel? Or, put it this way, is there a chance that the person we are today, is also existing in other time/space realities? and if so, let's say we behave as if we are the one from the future, or simultaneously any other space/time ... could this modify, or affect the future from this viewpoint..., If possible, then maybe such level of action could also affect THIS present moment.... and maybe, maybe, maybe, perhaps there could be a chance that we are altering our past as well??? We all met each other through other people, from 3000 miles and 10 years apart..., while symbolically all the names, faces lined up ... but through a sort of hall of mirrors... What would happen if you finally tried to bring all these people into the same room, all at once? Well, one thing is for sure, at least one person from the group has departed this space time... Andy Kaufman the TV Star Comedian ... but I am pretty sure Andy Kaufman the guitar player in Iowa City is still alive. Common Ground We all had one thing in common. Dedication to the creative moment and pursuing that as our spiritual path. I know that I myself have always wanted to explore "the creative moment" as a Taoist practice. I was determined to be open to it's infinity, wanting to open it as a field of consciousness, to expand it, and finally to ride it like a wave. It just so happens that all the people in this mixture had a similar desire for unfoldment... Knowing this is true..., maybe we had actually succeeded? It is not widely known that Andy Kaufman was a seeker for deeper truth... TM meditation was just one of the many ways he was continuing his search ... expanding his boundaries, so to speak. He was a TM practitioner, and visiting MIU university put him in proximity with me... 1980. I had taken a job on staff (permanent volunteer) in order to "help save the world" along with the many folks who had come to that small town in Iowa, they came from all around the world... Everytime there was a world conflict, Maharishi Mahesh yogi was putting out the call ... requesting folks to take some time out of their lives and combine in mass meditation.. Being on staff, I had the opportunity of preparing rooms for visitors ... keeping the campus running smoothly... In 1980 the golden domes were being built, the first of a series of large "flying halls" where advanced meditations with all the people present could occur. Scientific study showed that certain numbers of people meditating at the same time created what they called the "N squared effect," the theory was that 2 people meditating at once could have the effect of 4 and so on... the proposed idea was to create "coherence" in the world population, so that people would not lose their centers and blow another nation to kingdom come. It was the "N squared effect" that brought Andy Kaufman to MIU...and Vicki, well, she was one of the most alluring females I had ever met. I had asked her to pose for some photographs, so that I could eventually paint her. She agreed, and we got to be good friends. This, of course, required me to let go of having her as a girlfriend. She seemed to be dedicated to creating heartbreak ... she had the beauty that could get her anything ... and for awhile there, she was using it. Andy Kaufman was a similar type of friendship (for her) as the one she had with me. She had this deep soul and actually favored the spiritual connections over physical ... but seemed to rarely choose them on her own... Vicki Grace Mack was a member of one of the first MIU first classes to get the TM sides techniques... These were a series of formulas designed to expand the consciousness and heart values of the practitioner. One of the formulas actually was said to produce levitation when perfected... So there I was filming Vicki Grace out on the lawn of MIU ... with my super 8 camera and she was doing the "Flying technique" in public...... The levitation technique. It was strictly against the rules to do this kind of thing in plain view, much more taboo to film it ... but she insisted, and so, artist that I was, I was filming her ... she had it all going ... and what energy..., what beauty and what freedom we had in those days! 20 years ago... Everybody thought Vicki and I were "doing it." I admit, I tried ... but she had gotten through to me that felt her deeper, like a brother, and that she didn't want to destroy it. I guess it was one of those rare situations where the higher good actually gets comfortable, not painful ... we trusted, enjoyed and even fulfilled the basic beauty of love, but without the consummation part... It was a strange sort of introduction into the Awesome healing power of the Goddess... And here is where Johnny Legend and I also intersected. Our worshipfull attitude towards the variety of beauty to be found inside the Female Human. Later, Andy got connected with Johnny Legend's sister ... and this is the other intersection of Johnny Legend and I... the third was to occur when I met Lon Osgood who arrived in Fairfield Iowa in 1982. Lon had grown up knowing Johnny Legend and his family. They had played music together, still do... So, are you getting the picture? My friend Lon Osgood came into Fairfield Iowa, and did the first professional recordings of my songs, and simultaneously with my singer/songwriter friend Joel Arant, with whom I had an Acoustic Duo ("the Original Makers"). Why is this important? Lon, was in Johnny Legend's first movie "Puke, the Saliva Demon." Later on, Johnny Legend produced "my Breakfast with Blassie" starring, you guess it, Andy Kaufman. Andy passed on from a brain tumor. ( I am not sure about the exact timeline, but I think it was early 1984) "My Breakfast with Blassie," was Andy Kaufman's last film, ...fact. You know what, there are even some fans out there that claim Andy Kaufman will rise again. check this out: Church of Andy Kaufman. Back to Johnny. Nobody is gonna believe this, nor is it going to make any difference, but I will explain a little more; Lon has told me for years that Johnny is a performer I need to see. And, I know it sound like blowing a lot of hot air, but Lon says my style of risk taking on stage is similar to what Johnny does live... It's rather peculiar or realize that finally all the schedules lined up ... and there I was Nov. 16th, out in front of the Cactus Club, filming Johnny Legend for my cable access show. Up close, and neither of us exploded... You see, just like Johnny, I had been making movies since I was a teenager. Just like Tarantino, Sean Penn, Robert Rodriguez, From Dusk Till Dawn. Estevez and just about all of them ... we'd all been doing it since we were kids... And just like He and Lon and the neighborhood kids... I was using my friends as actors in my own movies ... for some reason, I was predicting that films would sell music, so I had a leaning towards music videos, long before the VHS was invented... And if you just look at the way we each of us have worked on our films, you realize that we are all EQUAL in INTENT, though some of us have gotten bigger breaks (so far) than others. It's all still the same level of commitment ... which is the easiest route towards how I explain why we each crossed paths so many times, from so many angles... I was playing music in Austin, and advertising my art shows there at the University of Texas, Austin ... while Rodriquez was a cartoonist, and making his foundation to create El Mariachi... I sometimes think I may have bumped into him on the street ... wouldn't surprise me to find out that I did... I definitely came across the same ideas that Rodriquez put across in his book, "Rebel without a Crew" ... Of course, Some of us are better known than others, but you dear readers (web site visitors) should be able to relate to these range of revelations. I am sure you have seen the same workings of synergy in your own life. so, computers prove there are no more than 6 degrees of separation from any living person in this space ti me? Well, for the ones who matter, you may find it is far fewer degrees. In fact, if you follow your destiny with "balls/tits out," you might also discover that you can collapse space time realities... Johnny Legend has his 300 or so movies released, and other various artistic productions ... songs, performances and the stage show, in itself is performance art... It's his own style. It's him ... but nothing he did surprised me. It was like looking in the mirror, except one of those "trick mirrors" where the image converts to another image ... similar parts, different proportions. The guy has all the traits of eccentric artist ... except he is coherent. Doesn't sound crazy at all. At least I could UNDERSTAND what he was saying ... and he is a boundary breaker even in conversation ... but not offensively so. An example; Back stage, I was filming the whole group of people surrounding Johnny Legend ... and I was noticing that he was getting ready, and he had to "get into character" (as he says). So, being a performer, I was worried that we were invading his space... I knew we might be bothering him, ...but, being a filmmaker too, and having his full permission to do the documentary thing ... well, I had to keep filming away... Then Johnny said, "You folks are all free to do whatever you are doing, but I just want you to know ... you are NOT welcome...," everybody laughed. Then he said, "Did you hear what I said? You all are free to do whatever you are doing, but I just want you to know, YOU ARE NOT invited," everybody laughed again... I looked around, then I said, "You heard him ... let's give him the space to get into his character..." ... A guy in the room, turns to me ... then says, "Hey dude, speak for yourself, mind your own business..." to which Johnny stepped in, and said (to the other guy)... "Hey, he's never been here before...It's his first time... (referring to me)". The guy calmed down ... and I split. This kept happening, I got used to it. Johnny would say over the live p.a. microphone, that the guitar player "Just had to stand on top of speaker cabinets, a mile from the microphone and not sing the harmonies" to which the guitar player said "fuck you," or flipped the bird, and then they went on to the next song. Most folks did not know if it was a show, or was it the real thing. You have to wonder. This guy produced a movie that will have you scratching your head "my dinner with Blassie" starring Andy Kaufman and Blassie, the former king pro wrestler...You see them both using the moist towelettes, and talking about wrestling... Andy keeps being rude to the girls at the next table... It's hard to tell. What the HECK was really going on ... well, you just don't know if they are acting, or is was real, is it classic performance art ALA Andy Kaufman avante gurad high jinx movie...... Or was it a scene botched midway through by the real thing taking over???? If it was fictional, HOW much of the leg pulling in the movie was engineered by this guy I was filming, Johnny Legend? So, Now, you are getting the picture. But the connections/similarity doesn't stop there. for years, I have been wanting to sing a song like "Please give me something to remember you by", a song Johnny sang that cold, wet November 16th, 2001 evening. . when I heard Johnny's gut Wrenching wailing, grieving, tragic toned voice, hearing him sing that song ... weeping out his lyric, he was describing the state of heart/mind I have been in since Polly left me back in May. Couldn't have more described my wailing heart... Johnny had been dedicating his show to a woman the whole evening. He kept saying, "for those of you who know what I mean, this song is dedicated to _______ and for you who know what I mean, well, you know who I am referring to." It's up to Johnny to speak her name. I have to leave it blank ... let me just say, it's in the movie. I think I will call it "my 2 beers and 2 Jaggers with the Legend." Anyway, he sure was repeating that dedication the whole night. During those songs, he was kissing the women's navels and worshipping the goddesses in the room, too ... just like I have done on my best nights ... except that Johnny does this EVERY NIGHT ... this and MORE... Now I know why the premiere of Leonard Cohen's documentary was teamed with a Johnny Legend film when it opened in LA recently.... It made complete sense. I have heard Dylan do this. I have heard Richard Thompson do this, I have heard Johnny cash do this... Willie can do this ... the deep heart, passionate plea... I knew it existed... I had seen Leonard Cohen do it as powerfully with his understated, poignant voice. Now I was hearing it in a heart wrenching wail, the way it hits your heart if you let it... I felt that I had come close to such a release, but I just lose the notes, and the voice breaks to a crumble in silence... I let it do so...but deep in myheart, I have always wanted to will it out there like Johnny was doing, Like James brown has done... Please, Please, Please, Please, Please ... give me something, Ķ to remember you by.... And the tears fall, the broken heart re-breaks and simultaneous to the tears, the joy for the depth of love shatters and redeems it all, even the breaking heart senses it's inevitable redemption in that wail... And the collapsed figure on the floor in front of me ... gripping the microphone like a lifeline, while I gripped my camera for the same reason ... the Legend himself was in pieces and re-gathering himself, just like James Brown when he sang that song "Please, Please, Please" ... just like I had done, over and over again on Polly's answering machine... ... I have told people for years that I wanted to produce the sounds that would raise the hair on the back of people's necks, the ones turned away, getting beers in the bar, the ones on their way outside for a smoke. the ones re-entering the room from a piss break ... the ones pissing ... the crunched ball of humanity I was filming, sobbing through his microphone was doing just that, 180%.... Do you get what I am saying here? "Jesus, Jesus Jesus, don't let me die all alone". While I am typing this, I am listening to Johnny Cash on repeat. I am doing this, like I have done for years, to re-connect with the Wailing heart inside me... I have a very few records that can did this deep and release these dark fears, desperate journeys and lost causes ... allowing the beautiful, sweet passionate memories to resurface. Bob Dylan does it for me with every song on his CD "out of Time" ... the same way Johnny Legend hit my heart with that heart wrenching wail last Saturday ... the beauty, strength, and sorrow revealed from the depths of a broken heart ... doorways to redemption... this record goes just as deep ... and so, i have flown off and into that "Deep End".... the same target we all need to hit in our lives ... the grace of it is so real, and so lasting ... and it's such a frantic, fearful, desperate journey top not feel it ... but then the surrender ... and being washed with the tears ... the heart is victorious through the total loss, it gets deepened... (and oh, I am sure we all, including you dear readers, love it and hate it ... ouch. the pain of being human ... ouch... ouch... ooouch...o) I find it waiting for me inside... i am right back to last Friday night ... the journey by bus, the risks and the glorious payoff of reaching these places again in my heart...places that were not meant to be locked away forever. Places Polly and I hit together, when we cried in each other's arms while making love. The wail of the soul ... needing the other ... the incredible disbelief when it seems gone forever ... the incredible wonder and miracle if it ever comes back... Johnny cash cannot sing about this without his own direct experience. How humbled he was, when June Carter saved his life and got him back on track. And how grateful he must be, these days for the mercy that represents ... we are not fully human unless we take all of these steps... All the role model men in my life admit to the power of women... You don't need to hear every individual, nor do you need to know all the details in each of the lives touched by such mercy ... the wail, the inflection in the voice, the tone. Tells it all. I am still working my way towards that same goal ... and I know now, before I am done, I need to make sure I hit that target... I need to find the same power inside it. And I realize my chosen title, "the Deep End" is sparkling with new meaning... I had no idea I would still have to grow into it.... Through surrendering... "The Deep End." It may seem like I keep referencing myself through these guys ... and that's exactly right ... cause that is the "realest truth" you could ever get from this... My male role models... I have been telling folks for years that I am working my way to the tears, live, real, on stage... And my heart hurts deep for missing, losing Polly so recently as seeing another child raised without a father in the home, and knowing it will be another responsibility that I haven't yet found a way to honor... ... and all I can think to myself, is "God, don't let me die all alone"... Today, I have to ask myself, if my requirement has always been to do the realest deepest truest thing in the within the moment, wouldn't it have to hurt exactly the way it does now? That is, if I say these emotions are a badge ... now that they are here, I should be singing LOUD and clear ... as clear as possible ... and what would that sound be? Tears... Tears... Tears...too... A bunch of howling dogs... Toe Knee and the two Johnny's, and just about everyone I know, has things to wail about these days. Some of us chose to feel these things all our lives... Once you allow it, in order to continue, your love depends, deepens ... and your tears exactly deepen to the same degree... The deeper you feel a gain, the deeper you grieve a loss... One has to include the other ... the more you risk in renewed trust, the more you can see the risks you are taking... Past experience won't keep you from receiving better, and better, unless you create a heart of steel. Which is why I have been trying to find a voice to sing that Joel Arant song with these same guts, tear, emotions... I can't believe I was so eager to break down on stage, like all these other people do... Look where this goal has got me... I'll be useless, if I get lost itself pity ... shit, it's do or die, do or die. Sink or swim. Here's a rule I guess I have learned, if you want to express it deep, then you have to learn it from first hand experience, otherwise, it won't be deep at all. I have to feel it deep NOW, I crave to feel it deep NOW ... there is redemption on the other side. And all those people out there who are in the same shoes... No, you can't sing off the Deep End like this without paying your dues... Yeah, this song I am listening to, is on repeat ... and it's everytime, ever more sweet. This song I am listening to on repeat is "Jesus, don't let me die all alone ... don't leave me here all alone... Oh Jesus..." Johnny Cash is singing his own future funeral dirge... Recorded when he already knew he had Parkinson's disease, a couple of years ago ... and just before he announced to the world that he was leaving the stage for good. It was the VERY last HIGHWAYMEN Tour, with Kristofferson, Waylen Jennings, and Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash. At shoreline theater, in Mountainview ... while I waited at the back gate... I waved to Johnny and June ... they were sitting in the front of their bus. All happy and smiling to be there... Later, when I shook his hand in the back stage area, he was the one who offered the greeting, the warm smile, and the words "good to see you again." I was there to interview Kristofferson, but meeting all those guys was a fulfillment of a dream, which I could never have predicted years ago. Again, it seemed like it was far more than co-incidental. Dancing with Joan BAEZ. A new friend who I had met throughout the healthfood store, where she shopped... It was her idea to have our first lunch... Another incredible amazing, yet natural, beyond Co-incidence occurrence... I couldn't help but notice the way Joan, Johnny, Kris, Willie ... all embraced me... I felt like an equal human. Their fame was not a limitation ... we had clear, true reflections in our eyes. I watched June Carter watch her husband's every step on stage..., like she was taking each one with him, like she was singing at his side ... her whole heart open to the beauty of that moment ... and I couldn't help but notice, ... and it seemed so deep and so truly special... i found out later, that it was truly special. they both knew that Johnny cash would have to accept the end of the trail, just like we all do...eventually. She was sending him, all her attention, all her power. I walked over and thanked her for the TV show they had while I was growing up, and I thanked her for being with Johnny, because I knew how he said that she had saved his life. Later, in that same season, I saw Johnny's last live concert in this area...at Stanford ... and now, I am hearing wailing voice of Johnny Cash on this "gonna break these chains" recording, "Jesus, I don't want to die alone ... my love wasn't true, now all I have is you... Jesus, oh Jesus, ĶI don't want to die all alone...." While I sit here listening to this song on repeat, I dream of Polly... I miss her like crazy... And, at the same time ... in the first verse of this recording, I can hear a sound like a door knock, a pounding door knock. In the recording of this song... Maybe it is the sound of a broom falling in the studio background. Obviously a live take... Everytime I hear that broom fall, it takes me by surprise on the repeat. While I am grieving the loss of Polly ... and I turn to the door ... it's like a sweet, cruel, joke. It keeps getting me hypnotized, then believing she has come back.... Wow.... No lie. This just happened again ... wow. ... I keep wanting to check to see who is knocking at my door... This is hand made, true passion the kind of really deep emotional passion, way over the top ... risking it all on that high wire, then even taking the worst of all falls ... then either surviving the singing of the song, or getting up at the finish and singing a new one. Just the getting back up, dusting themselves off part is the most heroic thing a human can do... .....then soaring somehow later ... all the great ones managed to do this ... way over the top beyond succeeding, into REDEMPTION LAND.... and this what i was hearing... ...it's inside Johnny Legend's singing too: "God forgive me, Baby i hurt you, please ... take me home..."... then spewing his guts out with the hypnotically intoned phrase , ..... "Please give me something, ... to remember you by" This is no messing around...... And he was not fooling either ... nah, he meant it ... my skin crawls... My heart skips a beat... I felt that exact way, while filming him "in a pile on the dance floor." From behind the camera, it causes me to film the same way he is singing...I focus feel like I am inside of what I am filming... ...and I miss Polly bad... It's all getting revealed, though I keep knowing that I already fully know it... I am hearing the invocation... , each time more precious and more brand new..."Please, Please, Please..." This is what you can hear in Leonard Cohen, that same hypnotic element, except in the Cohen Style. So understated, but so forceful. ... And so deeply expressed with WIDE MEANING..., all these years. Isn't this level of honesty the same that we have also been striving for, those of us awake to our lives...? For, from inside our own hearts, in our own performances ... on the field of life, we know these moments if we "go deep" in the game of life...And to really live deep, you got to keep on believing in the "Hail Mary pass" We watch the aging masters of what we are studying in our own lives. If we look close, we can see where we are headed...and it is beautiful. I was watching a master. Johnny legend. And by now, I have seen a few, and I am sure you will agree that I know what I mean, when I say this. Believe me, I have a thousand stories to back up this view ... all collected the hard way, the easy way, the deep way.... And, I can see now, that if we do our hearts justice, we will all end up in the very same place. Lon's encouragement came from the same place. This is real and this is true. Talking with Johnny before the show, he wasn't a bragger, he was a doer. He encouraged me to film all that I could film...so, you will have to see the movie, or go see Johnny Legend in person, while you still can. You may criticize me for not spending this whole time describing him in his performance. It is quite simply, beyond description ... and it changes everytime. I know that it does, not just because Johnny says so, but because he is about doing it REAL. From where he stands.. ...While I said good-bye, shook all the necessary hands, I could see that Johnny just is. I looked at all the folks around him, some old friends who wouldn't miss a show, others newcomers....they were all happy, they were all good people. Not snobby... Nobody acting the part of a star..., no obvious forms of star worship... Just people sharing time together... Just like all the others who are worth admiring ... he is on that same field, going deep... I kind of wondered (to myself) why he continues to confuse people with his 'off beat' p.r. Maybe he is doing something similar to what Andy Kaufman (the tender hearted) always did... Some symbolic challenges to turn back the ridiculers, to protect himself from rejection. Maybe, by creating "rites of passage" that people have to cross, he is raising the quality of his audience, and thereby giving himself permission to greet the new moments and be fully genuine in side them. Yeah, maybe this is why Johnny Legend challenges people with is campy horror flicks ... you know, I have never seen "puke the saliva Demon," but I bet it is actually a tour de force in tongue and cheek humor ... maybe Johnny is the unknown Ed Wood.. . Besides the raw, live, performance artist... And just like the avante guarde humor of Andy Kaufman, he keeps challenging people's limitations before they even arrive, he keeps "mixing up the ingredients, stirring the pot." In this way, he obviously weeds out only the strongest, most open audience... I guess this protects the folks who take life too seriously, from themselves ... and this is the ultimate dilemma. Experiencing Johnny Legend is a deep experience, but if you survive it, it lightens your load ... and because it wrangles with some of all our deepest shadows ... it might cause folks to run out the door early. but if they stay, they see the humor, and they see the sweetness, it's not hidden as much as they feared... ....and this must be the secret reason that causes folks to keep coming back. .......................... As I unchained my bicycle, I was thinking to myself "I can't f**kin' believe that I finally met the guy"... And as I rode down the dark San Jose streets, I was passing couples in deep passionate embrace ... they were kissing the night away ... somehow, I felt like I was part of it all again... I could see that beauty and feel renewed, not left out ... and I kept riding towards the bus that would take over an hour to arrive. While waiting I realized that this was the perfect time in my life to experience Johnny Legend... I could see the beauty, I could feel that we are all drinking from the same fountain... I knew I had my thirst quenched, and there was always a new day... ........................... Earlier that evening, when I introduced myself to him, I had handed him a FED ex envelope full of a range of my productions, CDs ... art prints. I told him it was my "calling card" and he knew what I meant. It was a range of material matching where he was traveling, and where he had been. He cradled that envelop like a baby, then walked it to his car to store it safely away...Same as I woulda done. Johnny Legend: He Is Legend