I’m A Freaking Secret Agent Man

The quiet week between Christmas and New Years. Free time. Time out of time. It’s a good time for when your heart is busted up and you’re blown out and sad. Think it all over. Take a long look at life. Life out of life. It’s always been my favorite week of the year. No school as a kid. Quiet time to keep to one’s self. Time out of time. My family always slowed down for the week. Say goodbye to the year at it’s passing. Gear up for the new year as it comes. I have a lot I have to say goodbye to. I have a lot that I want to accomplish this year coming. Quiet time. Time out of time. Focus back. Focus forward.

It’s raining and warm on Whidbey Island. I think about Portland but it seems worlds away. I’ll wander home in a few days. Casey asked me to play a few songs new year’s eve. Looking forward to that. ‘Till then the water is surging out in the dark. Rain drips from the roof. Splatter rain and salt water. Time out of time. Got some healing to do. And some figuring to figure.

-2-

So, really it’s all a little hard to believe. But I’m a freaking secret agent man. I’ve gone deep under cover. Way deep. I’m a mole, a double agent, I carry three passports and a watch that isn’t set to local time. But I’m there. Way deep under cover in the world of….Donovan. Yes it’s true. I’m a freaking spy listening in from the room next door. I’m a spy and I’m on a mission.

Donovan has been in orbit as of late. He must live on a planet whose elliptical path takes it far away for years at a time only to return him ‘round again popping up in newspaper clippings, concert halls, radio spots, bookshops, and turn tables. This is how it has been, for better or for worse, with Donovan over the past 6 or 7 months. After his show in Portland I did, rather to my befuddlement, sign up for the message board at everlastingsea.com “The ultimate Donovan online fan community”. I wanted to follow his tour, check out the set lists, and I was also curious about what just what kind of people would actually be passing their time posting messages on a Donovan message board. I suppose it was much the same curiosity as when an ambulance passes with it's lights on and you fight off the faint urge to follow. So at any rate I joined up and read what there was to read and I must tell you, the folks over at everlastingsea.com (“The ultimate Donovan online fan community”) are some cranky people! They mostly all seem to know each other, type endless replies to replies, rely on an endless supply of those silly yellow smiley faces to use instead of puncuation. But here's the kicker. They don't really seem to like Donovan all that much. They hate Donovan’s band, they hate Donovan’s office staff, they hate his website, they hate the fact that he doesn’t send emails back (he's busy yo), they by and large don't think much of the set lists, man it’s a wonder the Everlasting Sea folks are even interested in the guy at all. Cranky indeed! And oh yes, they don’t like me either.

I was tossed out of the “ultimate Donovan online fan community” for asking a question that I figured I already knew the answer to. The big buzz on the boards are folks giving it large to a woman in California who put together a stage show featuring nothing but Donovan songs. Great Songs of the Sky it’s called. It's meant to be a tribute but it looks a wee bit scary. Scary in the way that high school productions of Hair have by now become terrifying events. Why not stage a production of Hair (or Great Songs of the Sky for that matter) and let the kids acting wear whatever they wore to the Green Day show. What's all this dressing up as hippies and looking horrible. Time for an update otherwise performances like these will come to loose all their important credibity! They'll become relics of a by-gone time. And that would be sad. Check it out at www.myspace.com/greatsongsofthesky. A stage show of Donovan songs I have no problem with no matter the condition it comes out in. Trouble for me begins with recording the performance and pressing a CD of the show and then selling it for twenty-five clams without getting the copyrite permission first. I asked this woman back on the message boards, I remarked actually, that it must have been some job getting all of the copyrights (“Did you get the rights to all of Donovan's songs that you used on the project? Tracking all of them down must have been a chore. Good grief! “) to wich she replied “Rights? You mean - I need rights? Good grief indeed”. But I knew she wasn’t stupid. So I asked again and received the warm hearted reply “I don't make it habit of discussing my personal/business/financial transactions with strangers. Think whatever you want.” So I did and I do and about two days later my password and name didn’t work anymore.

And I was gone just like that in a great message board purge of bad vibe-ness. Dissipeared on a Black Sunday for dopes and malcontents. Non-believers in the cause of The Great Songs of the Sky will be tossed! Shamed!

But I'm clever. Cunning even. And I'm back.

I’m still in. Lurking under a different name. A new password. A changed identity. A different look. You don't notice me. Then you like me when you first meet me. And then you forget me as soon as I am gone. That’s my trump card. That’s how I get you. You freaky Donovan snots. I’m still in. I’ve gone silent and deep. Watching. Reading. Waiting.

Go to Myspace or that Everlasting Sea forum and tell that woman from California that she’s stealing from Donovan and really ought to get permission to SELL two CD's worth of his songs. That, and you can also mention that her tribute show looks frightening (mean, I know, but what can you say). You’ll get kicked out too. Then we can join our own club and thumb our noses at the people over on the other side.

As for me......I've gone deep. Lurking on 'round the edges and in the shadows. Standing in the sweet smoke of hobo fires on the outskirts. I'm a freaking secret agent man.