Head Blows

Head Blows

Well, fresh back from the land of plenty, where Republicans in Texas say they redrew voting maps (in a way that gives non-Caucasians less power in the vote even though they are vastly more numerous) not because they are racist, but because they are Republican. Seems there must be a difference.maybe most non-Caucasians prefer to vote democrat precisely because of such attitudes? Where Willy Nelson still wants people to roll him up and smoke him when he dies. Where 48 or so families own more than the rest of the Us put together. Where there is still great music. Where the fruits of US pioneering and embracing of modern technology results in the kind of plenty in stores we still only dream of. But where it is now obvious that the American Dream, at least as far as the capacity of ordinary public to climb to the top of the middle class and maybe go further, is more lived in Europe than the country of its birth.

How grounding ,satisfying, uplifting, and reaffirming is spending time with my son and grandson!

But the welcome in Germany was rudely interrupted by accident. We were driving along, Burbel - the German sound-mixer, and van driver,Clem Clempson, keyboard player Adrian Askew, and myself. We were on a motorway. In the inside lane. In our van. I was listening to the Art Tatum tracks loaded onto my IPad by my son Ali, when suddenly I became aware of something smashing into the middle of the van  - where I was on the inside seat and Clem on the outside-it came from the left  right next to Clem-from the second lane.
Burbel steered us away from the metal barrier on our right- I.e she pulled us left, but that put us Into the fast lanes of the motorway. Thunder was crashing. Rain pouring down. The rain was wiping away the snow already on the ground. The van skidded on the slick surface. We were now facing into the fast oncoming trucks and vans. Burbel, bless her heart, managed to manoever between the trucks whilst at the same time swinging the truck like a pendulum. We made the other side of the road, but the back of the van smashed into the barriers on the outside of the fast lane. Clem was thrown towards the centre of the van, - sustaining a wrenched neck and I was thrown forcibly against the metal runner beneath the roof, and received a blow to the head. I also wrenched my back and neck. The van was a write off. But we were ok. The gig went on.

Arthur Brown, 19/1/12 11:58