Baggage. . .

Six AM
The buses aren't nearly as crowded
As the night before
Someone said there was
Music and laughter
Behind all the shutters and doors
What was all of it for

Who needs friends
There's barely a minute for breathing
Everyone here works so hard
There's no party
When I reach my doorstep
I struggle to pull out my key
Where's the meaning for me

You see but you're unaware
There's life on the other side

But there's no bridge to cross
I'm looking through the fog
For some way out of here
I've baggage here to toss

Bless my soul
I've read about you in the paper
I've seen your picture somewhere
When you speak it's in volumes and volumes
I can't hear a word that you say
Funny it happens that way
I've been told that envy's the thing I've been feeling
For your kind of work and your play
But to tell you the truth
That it's only a wish
For a new kind of day
When worry and fear melt away

Could be
That a day will come
When you just might understand

But there's no bridge to cross
I'm looking through the fog
For some way out of here
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to
I've baggage here to toss


Baggage
(instrumental)
©2013 Raymond M. Jozwiak
from '2014'




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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
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Unbe-f*&#ing-lievable . . .

 

 I'm not one of those folks who lives in or harbors a burning desire to return to the past. As a matter of fact, my high school years (with several exceptions- having an awesome 10th grade biology teacher, my best friend Joe, a Public Speaking teacher that I think truly 'understood' me, a journalism teacher who appreciated my rebellious nature, and being 'assigned' to sit between two of the school's most popular girls in English class by Miss Simon [they were actually very nice, funny and genuine] my high school years were pretty much typical.  And they were also abbreviated as I waived my senior year and entered college one year early (earning my HS Diploma after passing college-level English) leaving me with only two actual high-school years attended.  In those days, 'junior' high encompassed grades 7, 8 and 9 while high school consisted of grades 10, 11 and 12.  Very different now.

But my most memorable years were those immediately after high school, for it was at that time that I saw the 'real' world, actually pursued a future course of my choosing and met some of the greatest and most memorable personalities, several with whom I have recently been able to reunite. In fact, we have been meeting on a regular basis, much to my pleasure and (I hope) to theirs as well.

Who'd a thought it???   Forty years since I first met them and when we get together, it's like I haven't seen them since last week.  It's magical and I am most fortunate not only to have had them as friends initially, but to have been able to rekindle that friendship at this older and wiser stage in our my life.

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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)

'2014' available April 8, 2014 at http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak
Pre-order your copy of "2014" at the iTunes Store NOW

My latest solo release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Friends . . .

NO, not the television show. . .


Many have sung of the great value of friends. I now realize how differently I value friends from a more mature perspective than I did as a child but I'm not really sure I can say with accuracy that I valued them any less as a child.  I only valued them differently without the wisdom these many years have bestowed upon me.

Of course, as you well know, this has everything to do with music. Many websites list their 'top friendship songs' which vary but contain many common titles.  So here's a list, based upon several sites but compiled by me of some of them:

You've Got To Have Friends by Buzzy Linhart and Mark 'Moogy' Klingman
You've Got A Friend In Me by Randy Newman
You've Got A Friends by Carole King
A Little Help From My Friends by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
Stand By Me by Ben E. King
Lean On Me by Bill Withers
You're My Best Friend by John Deacon (Queen)
Waiting On A Friend by Mick Jagger

Well.  I gotta' run.  Gonna meet some friends. . .

What do you think?
Tell me at
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OHO's "Ocean City Ditty," the CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD)

'2014' available April 8, 2014 at http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/RayJozwiak
Pre-order your copy of "2014" at the iTunes Store NOW

My latest solo release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser:  http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak3)

Also, be sure to visit:
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Waxing. . .

. . . not so poetically but ever so sincerely, about friends. . .

I think a lot.  Sometimes I think I think too much.  I suspect though that I'm not that much different than most people in that respect; at least not that much different than most thinking people.

Lately I've been thinking about the importance of friends.  At this point in my life, not only do I sincerely place a very high value on the good friends I have made in the recent past, I have also resumed contact with several good friends from the not-too-recent past, thanks to technology (i.e., the internet).  The satisfaction and pleasure of expressing myself musically with Oho cannot adequately be described in words.   Likewise, the reunion and periodic gatherings with my old radio friends from a wonderful, developmental time in my youth brings a contentment like no other.  And only in the last several days, still additional reconnecting with more friends, more geographically dispersed, reminds me of just how rich my life has been in my short two score and sixteen years.

To friends, CHEERS!

What do you think?
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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

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Work . . .

. . . and other things. . .



I've always believed that if you put in the work, the results will come.
 -Michael Jordan

Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
-Thomas A. Edison

A man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
-Winston Churchill

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.
-Albert Camus

To climb steep hills requires a slow pace at first.
-William Shakespeare

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.
-Lucretius

If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.
-Malcolm X

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
-Epictetus

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
-Henry David Thoreau

           
                and my personal favorite. . .




An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.
-Charles Horton Cooley

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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
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Friendship. . .

I have never 'unfriended' a person in my life.  Well, never intentionally anyway. . . until now.  And I've got to say it has been an emotional experience.  Why did I do it?  Quite simply the 'friend' in question was totally unwilling to be reasonable. More specifically, the 'friend' chose to continuously post personal testimonials for Rush Limbaugh, gushing about the vast amounts of knowledge that were imparted through his radio broadcasts.

Now we certainly all possess our own personal quirks, preferences, tastes, likes and dislikes, and that I can accept and live with.  Certainly my friends should be entitled to all these things and my perception (or acceptance of them) is most certainly totally irrelevant.

But no matter how much I agree or disagree with a friend on ANY matter, one  factor that determines just how good or desirable a friendship really is, is how one chooses to address (or not address) these matters.

Furthermore, in this digital day and age, it is quite inconceivable that anyone would accept, let alone forcefully evangelize armed with items which are at the very least shall we say, "suspect"? 

Maybe it's simply a matter of discretion.  Anyway, in the future, one quality for which I will heretofore assess any potential new friends, will most certainly be discretion.

What do you think?
Tell me at  
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My latest release, Black & White Then Back,
can be downloaded digitally at:

(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
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Friends? . . .

 (Excerpt from The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government http://us.macmillan.com/BookCustomPage_New.aspx?isbn=9780374531508)
 ". . . John Edwards, the Democratic party’s 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that “your future is our future” and said that the bond between the United States and Israel “will never be broken.” Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being “in a country I love with people I love” and, aware of Israel’s deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that “it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!” Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that “when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise,” while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that “Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory.” Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this “moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel . . . what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what’s right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism.” One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian “suffering” at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. . . "

(from http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12821-elites-will-make-gazans-of-us-all)
". . . Because it has the power to do so, Israel—as does the United States—flouts international law to keep a subject population in misery. The continued presence of Israeli occupation forces defies nearly a hundred U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for them to withdraw. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, established in June 2007, is a brutal form of collective punishment that violates Article 33 of the Fourth 1949 Geneva Convention, which set up rules for the "Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War." The blockade has turned Gaza into a sliver of hell, an Israeli-administered ghetto where thousands have died, including the 1,400 civilians killed in the Israeli incursion of 2008. With 95 percent of factories shut down, Palestinian industry has virtually ceased functioning. The remaining 5 percent operate at 25 to 50 percent capacity. Even the fishing industry is moribund. Israel refuses to let fishermen travel more than three miles from the coastline, and within the fishing zone boats frequently come under Israeli fire. The Israeli border patrols have seized 35 percent of the agricultural land in Gaza for a buffer zone. The collapsing infrastructure and Israeli seizure of aquifers mean that in many refugee camps, such as Khan Yunis, there is no running water. UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) estimates that 80 percent of all Gazans now rely on food aid. And the claim of Israeli self-defense belies the fact that it is Israel that maintains an illegal occupation and violates international law by carrying out collective punishment of Palestinians. It is Israel that chose to escalate the violence when during an incursion into Gaza earlier this month its forces fatally shot a 13-year-old boy. As the world breaks down, this becomes the new paradigm—modern warlords awash in terrifying technologies and weapons murdering whole peoples. . . "

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Close. . .

 . . . but no cigar

 
 

We complain the floor's uneven  When we simply don't know how to dance  In a sentimental treason  Each word is charged as every glance My foes approach and I start singing How do I defend against my friends?  The treasure buried where I fumbled  The ball into the tiger's den  Maddened fingers spar  With the laughing strings  I was very close but no cigar  We were on the corner with our cup The lad with light feet made the girl light up  Putting the pep back into the step  Where you would leap is now where I have leapt I'm an easy victim of nostalgia  I was making friends among the blind The filament was bright at high noon Radiating from the signs  Maddened fingers spar With the laughing strings It was very close but no cigar  Find the low denominator  With a hundred pairs of eyes  Leaning on an arm that failed us  Against the grain it's common life  I was choking on imagination  Still I know I get the gist   Sifting through a tired memory  In Paris turning with the twist

CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR
(from BRICOLAGE by Oho)
© Copyright-OHO Music (700261236407)
Record Label: OHO Music

Oho:  Jay Graboski, David Reeve and Ray Jozwiak
appears Tonight, October 19 at 9:00PM
at Bread & Circuses Bistro
27 E. Chesapeake Avenue
Towson, MD  21286
410-337-5282 http://bandcbistro.com/




What do YOU think?
http://www.rayjozwiak.com/guestbook.html

You can NOW download your
very own copy of Ray Jozwiak's
newest release:
AMBIENCE & WINE

Please visit
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