Into The Liquid Program Notes
CHAPTER I: Youth Years (Amityville, New York - Coney Island)
Born on Long Island, I remember visiting Coney Island as one of the few times my family did something together. I remember eating hot dogs and riding the Ferris wheel vividly.
(Spokane, Washington - Puget Sound)
Living on an Air Force base with my spouse-abusing alcoholic father was a bit traumatic, and when I had a chance to get away from the base, I jumped at it. A four-hour trip to the Seattle Worlds Fair and the surrounding Puget Sound beach in 1962 was the highlight of my alone time growing up.
(Biloxi, Mississippi - Gulf of Mexico)
In 1964, my Father and Mother divorced after several years of incompatibility.
In the short time I lived there, I would find a fishing rod and go out on my bicycle for 4 miles to throw a line into the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t remember catching anything, but the alone time was precious.
CHAPTER II: Teen Years (Sunset Beach, Hawaii - Pacific Ocean)
After moving to Hawaii with my father, I began finding my artistic voice, initially creating rock songs (to be like Hendrix) with my guitar while sitting on Sunset Beach in Haleiwa. This isolation truly evolved into music being my principal means of expression.
(Cam Ran Bay, Vietnam - Black China Sea)
As a combat soldier in Vietnam, I took 30 days off from fighting to form a musical group and play for wounded soldiers in hospitals and for those who were isolated at firebases on the front lines. A particular memory from these performances was the juxtaposition of those in the hospital beds at Cam Ran Bay suffering from the trauma of combat and the beautiful blue waves of the South China Sea just outside their windows. I realized that sometimes, what seems beautiful could be a facade to the realities of life.
I remember watching out the window of the plane on my DEROS to home, and that sea disappeared into the distance. I was finally flying home to what I later realized was a new and different reality than I expected. I now look at who we are as a society and the world around us through a juxtaposition prism I remember from that moment in Cam Ran Bay, Vietnam, in 1970.
CHAPTER III. ADULT YEARS A Veterans’ Lament (Chicago, Illinois - Lake Michigan)
On September 11th, 2001, I was in Vietnam for a performance of my Symphony For The Sons of Nam by the Ho Chi Minh Symphony Orchestra. While waiting in a Saigon Hotel, the TV displayed the destruction of the World Trade Centers. I immediately called home and made plans to return to Carol and Becky.
Once back in Chicago, I took a stroll along the Lake, as water has always soothed my soul, and contemplated where we were heading as a country.
In 2003, we began a new aggressive conflict that sent our young men and women into battle. As with Vietnam, those young souls fortunate to return home had wounds and trauma that we can never truly comprehend.
As a veteran, I have an unbreakable bond with all those who served. We have all contributed to the life that we live today.
I am deeply sad for my fellow veterans who did not return from the battlefield. I wrote this last chapter in memoriam as I looked out at Lake Michigan and realized how lucky I was to have returned from war while so many of my brothers and sisters-in-arms made the ultimate sacrifice.
I truly mourn those lives lost in service to our way of life.
