Tacoma: A Message from Daniel Blue ( 8. October 2009, 09:18 by Derek Young) ~ I Tried Hard To Believe You
Once upon a time, before he was writing for Exit133, the Weekly Volcano, and there was a band called Motopony, we featured a video of Daniel Blue giving a message to Tacoma. Today, more than two years later, he has released a new video for Tacoma. It was shot by Crews Video and features Daniel with Grace Sullivan from Goldfinch. It isn’t quite as upbeat.
Tacoma:
I ain’t trying to leave you
In fact I’m trying to stay
But everything that you do
Feels like, you’re pushing me away
I tried hard to believe you
But you’d nothing true to say
How can I continue
To pretend
That living
For tomorrow
Is ever going to be today
Love it or leave
You cant have both
You say to me
I’m like a ghost
I can’t let go
My wont holds on
Ain’t nobody knows
How well I come
Home
Tacoma
Tacoma
Tacoma
My home
I ain’t trying to leave you
In fact I’m trying to stay
But everything that you do
Feels like, you’re pushing me away
I tried hard to believe you
But you’d nothing true to say
How can I continue
To pretend
That living
For tomorrow
Is ever going to be today
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I would like to see a version with banjos and stove pipe hats.
1 | Posted by RR Anderson | Oct 8, 09:41 AM
The topic of whether Daniel is happy in Tacoma and whether he will stay or go is endlessly fascinating.
2 | Posted by dolly varden | Oct 8, 09:58 AM
Thank god for Daniel Blue. I predict in the future that rhythm and blues will be refereed to as rhythm and Daniel Blues.
4 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Oct 8, 01:47 PM
This kind of talent can’t be contained by Tacoma. It needs to be in Seattle or possibly Los Angeles. Tacoma, you are driving Daniel Blue away and you don’t even seem to care. Is there nothing that can be done? Where is the Art’s Commission in this, surely they see that without Daniel Blue Tacoma will FAIL. I am certain the offers from Seattle and LA are already coming in. It is bad enough to lose Russell, but to lose Daniel Blue is a blow that Tacoma will not recover from in our lifetimes, let alone our grand children’s lifetimes.
5 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Oct 8, 07:57 PM
Crenshaw, please tell me you’re joking. Your comments are absolutely ridiculous. Your need for some sort of figure to prostrate yourself to has blinded your value judgments and reached a fever pitch bordering on comical. How can you put this person on such a pedestal? There are plenty of amazing artists everywhere who go unnoticed simply because they don’t pour their time into networking, they don’t spend their every waking hour shoving themselves into the collective face. The catch is, you have to seek them out: you have to do a little work to find the quiet gems. If you’re incapable of that, you therefore only see the screaming networkers. You have just as much power to create beauty as anyone else: including Daniel Blue. There is no one single human being who can doom an entire city of potential creators with their absence. To believe such is not an appreciation of art, beauty or even Daniel Blue, but simply a misguided laziness and faithlessness in yourself and those around you who have less “tacoma fame”. Why would he need to move to LA? Most of the worlds greatest art is not created on a grand stage, and if creation (and not fame) is one’s goal then the city where you create should have nothing to do with it. This isn’t a comment on Daniel Blue specifically, I have no idea if he spends his time networking (nor do I care), I’m just saying there are plenty of amazing artists around every corner who go unnoticed through the laziness of those who ultimately have no curiosity or love of creativity. Its a good thing DB is creating and he is talented, but he is by no means the only one, the best (there is No such thing as best), or the salvation of anything. To wait for him to redeem or save anything is nothing but laziness: it is not a true appreciation of his talent, it is a vampiric distortion.
7 | Posted by Realist | Oct 9, 12:39 PM
Realist, you obviously have no grasp of reality whatsoever. Just as the Fisher King of Arthurian Legend is injured, his kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren wasteland… SO TO is it with DANIEL BLUE—A bohemian fellow whose life in inexplicably linked to the fate of our city. Didn’t you see the DANIEL BLUE farmers market banners? You sir, need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. This city has no time for wimpy ‘creatives’ who struggle in the shadows undiscovered; we have a whole table full of city council persons performing that duty admirably.
Look, I’m not making excuses. There are things you can contribute to better Tacoma. I like to keep spare guitar strings in my messenger bag. Next time you see DANIEL BLUE hand them over. He needs all the guitar strings he can get. If you watch the video there are only 3 strings on his guitar. No wonder we suffer so.
8 | Posted by RR Anderson | Oct 9, 01:25 PM
Haven’t met the man. Don’t have the technology to view the video. But I have received the written word and read about the eyewitness accounts of the revelation of his presence in Tacoma.
Thanks for posting that poetry or song lyrics, or whatever. I wish you all could see the tears streaming down my cheeks right now. I can’t fake that kind of emotion. I guess I never really appreciated Tacoma until I saw it through the eyes of Mr. Blue.
How come Tacoma is pushing him away? Well that’s what it feels like to him.
How can he continue to pretend that living
for tomorrow is ever going to be today? Well? How?
He’s trying to stay. He’s really trying.
Every time he tries to tell us, the words just come out wrong. So he has to say he loves us in a song.
Peace. Out.
9 | Posted by Mofo from the Hood | Oct 9, 02:29 PM
“Daniel Blue is moving back to Bonney Lake?”
OHHHHHHHHH SNAP!
11 | Posted by signalhill | Oct 12, 10:51 AM
good god. i’m with #2. endlessly fascinating. and excellent use of 3 strings. all those other ones get in the way.
i think mr. blue needs to strike out on his own and see what’s out there. “Ooh baby, it’s a wild world…”
12 | Posted by tom waits | Oct 12, 02:48 PM
I think daniel blue could be Tacoma’s Buffy Sainte-Marie
13 | Posted by RR Anderson | Oct 12, 02:50 PM
What would Dublin be without Joyce’s Ulysses? And fair New York without that one guy who rode trains and slept with hookers in Dos Passos’s Manhattan Transfer? And I ask you (with thin heart beating thinner blood through still thinner veins beneath translucent skin) what would San Juan be without Paul Kemp from the imitable Rum Diary (by Johnny Depp)?
Have you thought about it for a while? Well then let’s move on to some other cities.
What would the fair shire of SoCal be without Billy Joe Armstrong? For that matter, would we care to visit The Shire if that wily little kiwi had not first opened our hearts to it with his magic arts?
You see, a city is not merely the people who inhabit it. In order to really be worth a darn, a city must produce an individual who becomes too transcendent for it. In transcending and leaving the city, much like Jesus ascended to heaven (saying, “Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the father, the son, and the etcetera) and totally gave Planet Earth some real hipster cred in doing so.
I have no disrespect for Mr. Blue. I have no doubt I’d probably like him. I just couldn’t resist the urge to chime in teasingly. The handwringing seems a little overwrought. Things are going to change.
We’re in a historic recession. I’m pleased that places like Puget Sound Pizza and Red Hot and Rosewood Cafe have survived and thrived here in spite of it. I see this as evidence that there are people in Tacoma I’d like to meet.
14 | Posted by captiveyak | Oct 12, 09:35 PM
Southern California would be just like it is without Billy Joe Armstrong. He’s from Oakland.
15 | Posted by joeski | Oct 13, 10:11 AM
Well, Daniel Blue may be from Bonney Lake but we don’t hold that against him. It would be true, however, that our loss would be their gain. I would see Bonney Lake becoming the Santa Cruz of the northwest should they be so fortunate to get Daniel back. Bonney Lake would thrive, Tacoma would be cut down like the Luzon tree.
16 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Oct 13, 10:40 AM
Some of the best comments from some of my favorite commenters.
You know, if Kris Brannon (the Tacoma comedian guy-with-the-Sonics-sign) got right on making a cardboard sign, we might be able to stop the move to Bonney. Lake.
17 | Posted by offbroadway | Oct 14, 12:02 AM
What can we do to keep Daniel Blue? Maybe PSP can name a pizza after him. Maybe Fidel the Barber will come up with the Daniel Blue do and will feature his 8×10 on his wall of fame. Maybe the International Daniel Blue District? Can we get the Tempest to create a new cocktail in his honor? I can not bear the thought that Daniel Blue may leave us for good. Say it isn’t so. Daniel speaks for Tacoma and now that voice may be silent in Tacoma. All you people that have done Daniel Blue wrong should be ashamed of yourselves. He gave us his heart (253) and he got mockery and ridicule in return. It could very well be that we do not deserve Daniel Blue.
18 | Posted by crenshaw sepulveda | Oct 14, 12:36 AM
Crenshaw. really?
I think Tacoma’s well aware that its pushing Daniel Blue away. He’s just not leaving as fast as some of us would like him too.
19 | Posted by Yeeeeeeeeah. | Oct 14, 12:46 AM
Bloggers! Citizens! Can’t you see? We are fighting in vain, teammate vs. teammate! How do we all get what we want?
Hear ye! The video antics have little to do with whether Tacoma needs Mr. Blue. The question has always been whether Mr. Blue needs Tacoma. Desire for fame trumps desire to create! Ability to persuade trumps artistic skill! And that is where we, electronic citizens of fair 253, come in.
Hear ye! In Los Angeles, who will post these blog comments? Who?! There will be nobody there to care! Mr. Blue’s creative attempts will go wholly unnoticed, and be dismissed as decently moving and slightly embarrassing. With our help (rise, bloggers of Tacoma!) we can bolster his name enough to aid him in attracting the attention of those with resources. Resources they can spend on him! Without our help (oh, Lord, no!!) he may be forced to sacrifice his artistic vision and learn to actually play the guitar. Or worse yet, (weeping! gnashing!) he may be forced to get a job. But if we rise, RISE!, he can continue his current lifestyle in a new location!
And, hear ye!!!! The icing on the cake, dear bloggers, dear friends!? If we collectively blog well enough, if we fill the blog-o-sphere with enough cynical, hipster-luring, smirk-inducing, intelligent (sorry crenshaw, your services do not apply) blogs that draw enough attention to his “character”, he might, once established in his new place, never, ever, feel the need to return.
20 | Posted by citizen blogger | Oct 14, 10:13 PM
He gave us his heart (253)
I’ve been trying to doodle a 3-6-0 heart, and it just plain ain’t working.
21 | Posted by offbroadway | Oct 15, 12:07 AM
I’m remembering a great thing he did that was videotaped about the time I started reading 133, 1 1/2 – 2 years ago. I believe it was in a nightclub, tried to find it, but know not what to search for given all the columns.
23 | Posted by Douglas Tooley | Oct 20, 10:45 AM
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