Stevie’s Memories:
One story that happened many times. Is when i would spent the night at his house when he lived on Amherst in Brentwood near me as I was driving up in my white thunderbird. He would greet me at the door with a video Camera and say a word like Candle and ask me to recite and make up a spontaneous poem about a Candle and i did it and he would film it. They are probably in some box somewhere if they exist any more at all and we had great fun…I love him and miss him dearly. He was a sweet talented at times tormented soul with a light side and a dark side.He was very human.
Rainbows
Rainbows…. We were at Dennis house on Sunset at the old Will Rogers house he rented 14400. We were together in the yard. It was a sunny beautiful day the warm sun was falling on my shoulders and neck. The words came t me Rainbows shining on my shoulder..sunshine lighting up my day and then the image of the earth opens up its arms to me and i said it to Dennis out loud who in a Zen moment on the spot as he did with almost all my poems thoughts and words got an immediate electric inspired melody for instantaneous like spontaneous combustion.
We knew that we had tapped into some brilliance here you could say from God from the muse from Divine inspiration.
That is how is was with Dennis when we wrote together.We did not talk about melodies and lyrics we lived the aliveness and the joy of it and the songs came out. It was poetry magic exhilaration and inspiration all the way. It was like Little Bird and Be Still
a moment when the Universe came rushing in … in flood tides of warmth and streams of sunlight.
I still try to write today lie that from inspiration from the flow from the abundance. Dennis and i both knew it was Magic.That day we never talked of an album or Pacific Ocean Blue or of product.It was just a create day a gift from God..at least that is what it felt like and that day lives with me all these years. Rainbows when I am sad when i feel down. Colors in the sadness that make it bearable. I think Steven Stills was around the house that day I wrote it or came over later.here were many other songs we started there on Sunset that to this day have never come out and we were always alone just the two of us except for the day Stills was there. There was a peacock running in Dennis yard and the only other place i ever saw a peacock was in the yard of P.F.Sloan. That is a memory of Rainbow since its conception..
It was just something that sprung up out of me and Dennis put life to the words that goes on forever…
Mark Mawston’s Story
Back in the mid 90’s I moved into a large mansion house in London ’s Clapham area. The buzz in the house that summer was that a pretty girl was about to move in. The owner of the house said she was a convent girl but as that same person used several different names in several “business interests” I took the news with a pinch of salt. The girl did move in and most of the guys were keen to make her feel welcome although I didn’t’ see her a great deal in those first couple of weeks. That changed when there was a knock on my door one evening and the new tenant said that she’d heard what I was playing and really liked it, especially the album a had on which was on constant rotation. I said it was Pacific Ocean Blue by Dennis Wilson and the song that she commented on was Rainbows. She asked if she could borrow it and I said why not swing by later and listen to it. She came round about 8pm and the next time I looked at my watch it was 4 a.m. Her name was Emma Collins but now it’s Mawston as we later married. In her role as Head Of Fabric Design at Liberty of London, Emma recently dedicated a fabric design to the writer of that song Stephen J Kalinich, whom we both now thankfully call a friend as well as an inspiration.
Check out Stephens new UK website www.stephenjohnkalinich.co.uk
©L K Thayer
Mark Mawston
Photographer
July 09’
SOMETIMES A BUTTERFLY WILL FALL
Sometimes a butterfly will fall
Sadness descends and rises
in us
whenever we let our guard down
it comes creeping in
Original thinking is a myth
a deception
at best we can rearrange what is
and we call it creativity
it is just a reshuffling
in a new way
of what is
and man becomes vain
because he is a hustler
and a reshuffled idea
Moments pass
one dissolves into the next
and we move towards extinction
The alarm will ring
and we will not be there
to answer it
and thousands of years will pass
billions
and what was this one
that sat in front of
what was once a computer
and recorded these feeble thoughts
there is no glory in death
that is the mortal illusion
we do not want to face the fact
that this is our only shot
Easily emerging out of life is difficult
we cling so ungracefully to life
because part of us feels
this is a one act play
and our part
is almost finished
How terribly sad
to fall into the nothing numb
not even able to cry
tenderness evades us
we tremble
on the edge of the world
where the storms rage
and the waters rush.
Inspiration is dry today
it is a false hope thrown at us
a rope in the nothingness.
©.2010
Stephen John Kalinich
All Rights Reserved
Here is a lovely song by the group ‘Popgems’ lyrics by Stevie
‘Chris Allen Films’ are making a film about Stevie, click here for a great trailer!
