Author's Note:

A few years back while working on my 1997 solo LP, friend and co-producer Steve "An Inch Equals A Thousand Miles" Silverstein—with the stated goal of making my life more interesting—presents me a pack of index cards that've become as enduring a fixture atop my console piano as has the pendulous Maelzel Metronome and the trim Boss Chromatic guitar tuner. Since that day I haven't wanted for direction. Nor will I likely forevermore—not with some 150 hand-written suggestions of what to do with myself; applied methods, particular actions, metaphysical notions, etc., ... ready to be dealt whenever I'm stuck creatively or feel need of fresh bent.

"Hey, so say one finds himself in a rut, he simply cuts the stack and turns up another improbable recommendation!" I exclaim, doing exactly that— demonstrating on the very day of Steve's benefaction to a company of present musicians not only how quickly I've caught on to the general concept behind his largess but how easy it'll be for any of us to pull the plums that'll settle future production debates like the one that's stopped "Inch" in its tracks (of course the pun's intended). As Silverstein himself marvels at the seemliness of his gift, I flash the card at the engineer:"FACED WITH A CHOICE, DO BOTH". And the recording moves on.

Anyhow. Skip to the now. With a full morning's writing at my back, specifically the at-long-last-completed Chapter 11, an overwhelming urge for gratuitous activity drives my attentions from the finished work—still squirmin' & steamin' from the holy water spray of its final blessing—to the good ol' 88's. Now seeing's how I don't really so much play "the ivories"as fuck around (though "the ebonies" have on a good day led me to imagine that I sound like McCoy Tyner [on a bad day, Keith Jarrett]), the piano—as my intended destination—suggests two options: I'm either about to (1) fire-up the "Boss", tune the Telecaster, then kick back for an afternoon's distraction; or (2) guided by prompts plucked from THE DECK*, I might opt to reorganize the entire just-finished chapter!


* THE DECK feels comfortable in my hand. Hell, why wouldn't it? I've been a long-time "shuffler" through the back-alley philosophies and trash-can techniques of the likes of John Cage (Indeterminacy and Chance Operations), and Brion Gysin/William S. Burroughs (Cut and Splice), so, conceptually, the methodology behind this apparatus is no "stranger". I feel its lineage even before Silvestein acknowledges that the idea for the deck descends from Brian Eno. Derivative? Yeah, sure, for me and Eno; but that makes Steve's gift no less welcome. For while I wouldn't hesitate to fish it outta a dumpster, I'd've never taken time to construct such a perfect device for myself!