indefatigablog

I met Bradley Bergey in Seattle where we worked together for two years at the Children’s Institute for Learning Differences on Mercer Island.

Around the same time, we each moved from Seattle to different parts of the world : I moved to Alaska and he moved to Mexico City. Over the next 4-5 years, we visited each other regular and I had the good fortune of watching him evolve from a naturally gifted painter into a focused and even more talented artist.

To boot, he’s an amazing educator, the kind of teacher I’m jealous his students get to have. World-traveled, intuitive, imaginative, playful and wise beyond his years - he’s a bona fide compliment to the practice.

Recently, Bergey was featured in Art and Letter, a monthly webzine focused on Architecture, Art and Design.

You can read the interview in its entirety here, if you likey.

He’s our pal and we’re very proud of him : )

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c

If you’re not hip to Black Cab Sessions, you are in for a treat!

…if you touch me, well i just think i’ll scream
cuz it’s been so long, since someone challenged me.
and made me think… about the way things are…
made me think…about the way they could be.
i believe it- why? oh my…
ooh my lord…ooh my lord…i don’t even know why…but…

oh! this feeling it is wonderful! don’t you ever turn it off!
oh! this feeling it is wonderful! don’t you ever turn it off!

feelings…why? oh my: human needs. heartbeats.
i can see it…all. by the way you smile.
i’m smiling too! i see myself in you.
i am with it! ooh man i am wired!
ooh my lord! ooh my lord- yeah…now i really know why!

oh! this feeling it is wonderful! don’t you ever turn it off!
oh! this feeling it is wonderful! don’t you ever turn it off!

Now that I’ve dived earnestly back into playing music every day, I’m looking for a few good tunes to learn.

Pollee immediately suggested this jewel and not only is it a great song but very simple and thus gratifying because a fella can play it almost immediately :

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c

Until today, I was not perfectly clear on the words to the iconic tune by Men At Work, let alone the subversiveness of them :

Traveling in a fried-out combie
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie
I met a strange lady, she made me nervous
She took me in and gave me breakfast
And she said,

“Do you come from a land down under?
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.”

Buying bread from a man in Brussels
He was six foot four and full of muscles
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
He just smiled and gave me a vegemite sandwich
And he said,

“I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.”

Lying in a den in Bombay
With a slack jaw, and not much to say
I said to the man, “Are you trying to tempt me
Because I come from the land of plenty?”
And he said,

“Oh! Do you come from a land down under? (oh yeah yeah)
Where women glow and men plunder?
Can’t you hear, can’t you hear the thunder?
You better run, you better take cover.”

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c

Surely, there are many people who strongly disagreed with his views. More conservative folks especially would rather he hadn’t reached the levels of success he did. He made a career out of stirring the pot and providing balance to the hard right and its overwhelming amount of political correctness and closed-mindedness about the world.

Known as the guy who took black humor to new heights, George Carlin also left a footprint on the media world, having ridiculed television for the seven dirty words you can’t hear.

In minutes, he could make us all question what we’ve just always been told.

That’s scary for a lot of folks.

For others, it’s just good exercise :

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c