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“sign.comets” is in the final stage of production in the warehouse. An on sight inspestion of the project will be given by Shannon and Scott in Minneapolis in the next few days and we may possibly have a disc in hand. Howie will be arriving home from his journey to Ghana upon the new year, and HOWIEANDSCOTT will then be fully operational. Shows and dates will are TBA and will be posted. On a side note we would like to pay tribute to our friends and one of our favorite bands BLACKLIGHT SUNSHINE as they are playing thier last show, as we currently know them, Dec. 27th. The music and shows have been nothing, but ROCK! and as for everyone else Happy New Year! It is excitng to puncuate this year with all of these paths winding to their destination, but as it “feels like an end”… “it’s only the beginning!” -s!

HYMN FOR OUR TECHNOLOGICAL MANIFEST DESTINY

Are there guardian angels writing down our every twist and touch?
Right along a person’s conscience, guarding one against his crutch?
Wright believed in guiding spirits, pushing life towards intellect
While I am between the pages, holding you upon your back, but

You can paint whatever pictures you want to
Now that you’re on your own

Your heavy breathing only now begins to change us through the knee
As we alter change itself from blood to electricity
Listen close but never know its only data, only numbers,
Only time when you and I decide between the torch or tinder…
We find each other

You can paint whatever pictures you want to
Now that you’re on your own

This we do with all intentions to
Raise the standards of our brothers
Suffer west under free discretion
Silicon and quantum flags

SNOW IN THE EAST

And when I go to Africa
Skip the mild midwestern summer
Learning from our distant brothers
Let you watch the kids in Kansas or
Run around the bonster’s in Columbus

And when I talk about my dad
Thinking what you’ve said before
Makes me with I knew him more and he knew me
I could never tell him that it’s snowing in the East
He could never complement me right
But I can see it’s not his fault, it’s mine

Out the window, on the street, looks like
Snowing in the East

Can you mourn a man you never knew?
Even when I see a living footprint,
An echo only real,
If I sit back and look at you
And when it comes to moving on
The oft-repeated sympathy song
I’ll sing for us a different line
About your love and loss and mine and
Run along with you across the land
You asked if you could show your father’s hands…

AFTER-HRS WAR

This letter said “you’re on, you’re on”
The lone poet vs. MSNBC
On war in terms of Hiroshima

This could be the falling-out, I’m sure
The atom bomb of metaphor
Ashen shadows, open doors,
Shattered windows, after-hours war

What truth or sanity can stand in face of
Words spoken from the prophet’s mouth? The media’s wealth?

This could be the falling-out, I’m sure
The atom bomb of metaphor
Ashen shadows, open doors,
Shattered windows, after-hours war

LULLABY

Morning to night
We’ll take it easy
We’ll let each other on top of it all

Just go to sleep
Dream your rock’n’roll dreams
I know you pray, keep God on your lips night and day

Mourning tonight

You will be safe
Next to you, I’m wide awake
Nothing on earth will drag me from being next to your heart while you’re sleeping

Morning/mourning to night/tonight/tonite

WAS I IN BON JOVI FOR A SECOND?

Heavy rhythm, pedal to the floor (and I’ll show you what)
Denim jacket running out the door (and I’ll show you what)
Every night the music calls my name (I’ll show you what)
Flashing lights on the stage and in my brain
The band’s a rock machine
As long as the road is calling, talking dirty to me

Was I in Bon Jovi for a second there?
Was I in Guns’n’Roses for a second there?
Was I in Poison for a second there?

So I’ve been out playing rock for so long
And after the show loving every thing that comes along
While you’ve had late nights and quiet phone lines
Empty rooms and no news of what’s happening this time

Was I in Bon Jovi for a second there?
Was I in Guns’n’Roses for a second there?
Was I in Poison for a second there?

Lay me down, for awhile and
Let me tell you a story my green-eyed child
About a boy and a rock’n’roll band
Long blond hair stuffed into tight leather pants
The road is long, but we have each other now
And there’s no need for missing anymore…

And I love you

I hear the crowd, and they call my name
The multitude so loud we’re left in pain
I can’t tell just where I’ve been
From ’82 til now escapes me
And there’s just one question in my mind
If you could answer me now
I know it’s hard babe, I know it’s hard, but
If we can –
If we could ever stand it,
Now is the moment
Now is the time, so
Was I in Bon Jovi for a second?

Brook: Do you feel that music is a good way to express political feelings or statements?

howie: Absolutely. Music is a good way to express everything! But we humans are all political creatures – an artist’s politics are always in their music, whether they are explicit or implicit. Sometimes by saying nothing, you say something. A song is a great way to ask a question or point out something in a medium that can potentially reach many people, and help them see a new point of view or encourage them to hold their position, and know why they hold it. I express myself politically in the music I write – sometimes very clearly, sometimes in vague or disguised language.

B: Have you written any material that does just that (express political feelings or statements)?

h: Yes. One song from howie&scott’s first album, called “Mightier Than The Sword,” is a very strong statement in favor of words over war, diplomacy over violence, from a very personal to an international level. When we play it, I occasionally improvise new lyrics to fit a particular situation that is on my mind or my audience’s mind. My newer work is not as explicitly political, but the core outlook is definitely still present. I did write a new song before the war with Iraq, but we haven’t performed it because I haven’t taught Scott how it goes. Its more lyrically subtle, but still a criticism of President Bush. I compare his approach to foreign policy to Texas high school football – hilarious mayhem ensues!

B: How do you feel about nationally known artists who have released political songs?

h: More power to them! If an artist has a platform from which to speak, they are free to speak about what they choose. Now, nobody is obligated to listen to, play, or buy their music – so there might be a business risk – but who knows? It could pay off too. There’s also a little thing called artistic integrity. I create what I create – only when something is finished do I ask what I should do with it. Should I publish the song, or perform it, or keep it for myself & my friends? Each artist has to answer.

B: What about censorship that some politically active artists have faced due to their political expressions?

h: Its too bad, but as far as I know its legal. I don’t think its “censorship” in the proper sense, that government is keeping these artists from releasing their political messages. Its more of a self-censorship of the population, which is really even more dangerous – a few people who operate big media outlets (Clear Channel radio, MTV, etc) make decisions about what kinds of messages all Americans will hear – and these few have their own interests to promote that are not necessarily the interests of you or me.

B: How has the war affected you as an artist?

h: The war doesn’t affect my art directly – the war affects me, and then I create art. The war has made me distrust the current administration, it has made me feel like I need to stand up for oppressed people, stand up for right and good and sanity in this world that our policies are turning crazy. And they are OUR policies now, stolen election or not – if we don’t like them, we need to elect people who will change the path we are on. All of this stuff is part of my reaction to the war – it changes who I am – and I (being the person to creates my art) write songs that reflect this. I write songs that hopefully encourage other people to think and reflect for themselves, and introduce them to a progressive way of thinking about the world. I try to be enlightening and encouraging and loving in my songs, whether I’m talking about a dream I had or want to have or the nightmare the troops and citizens alike are experiencing in Iraq right now. Its not pleasant stuff, and that’s present, but I think there’s a way out too and I think we can be good and faithful people and I try to always come back to that.

Near and Far

STAIRCASE All I ever wanted was to keep you from tripping / And all I ever wanted was to let us be living / Living in the air, never coming near to landing / Staying
with a friend, feelings of the end notwithstanding / Falling down, I’m falling / Mentally I stumble to the top of the staircase / Physically I crumble; suddenly, the world’s
gone M.I.A. / Spirit isn’t there; left a marker where I’ll find it / Following in time, when the stars align I can shine it / and I’m falling down the staircase

CORNERSTONE / WELL And I wanted just to lead up the stairs / We all saw it; the rock when before it wasn’t there / The socialist feeling of common fare / The case
you’ve been pleading is peripheral air / And in my corner lay the stone / What/who is the figure you follow, you man of the people? / And where are the closetis for all
your tomorrows? A rain-letting steeple / And all of the things you’ve been saying in all their precision / Are quieter than commanding reminders it isn’t because it isn’t /
And in my corner lay the stone the path that leads to you alone while on the earth a body dwells the deeper waters of me well and rise to rinse my friends and foes they
touch me too and I suppose the Cross was borne as t’were a throne and in my corner lay the stone

FOURBEE And I will not quietly walk away / The things we learn are for today and for tomorrow and then the next day / When I came into your room, you ran up to my
knees / Pulled me down onto the floor, and then you read to me / You know I’m grateful you let me in your home / Who is unable? / When I turn around and see you, we
better choose some place to go / And I will not quietly walk away / Together, learning every da}y / And all the books you read, we wrote them on the wall, try a hundred
more / And all the things I learned from you that even up the score / You know I’m grateful; this room once was my home too / Who is unable? / Even though I see you
now, someday soon you’ll be walking out that door / And when we go outside and squint our eyes, you tell me you’re my friend and I can hold your hand / Walking out the
door is not the end

YOU HAVE THE GO-AHEAD Left and right, minds collide, tell me that you’re going to make it / I’ll wait but only an hour / Hurling through the vertigo, on your back
but you won’t break just yet / And I have been waiting for so long, I have been waiting for so long would you meet me at the nexus of it all?

NEXUS And I’ll wait for you an hour or a day; an hour for today / Light bends, its true, twisting through the sky like a zephyr to your eye / Sparks fly / AroÇund you /
Who am I to blame? Too dangerously sane / Take time, renew the choices that you’ve made allow you to escape the weight unscathed / I’m far away hidden here in space
dreaming of the places we’ll see in time when I will become yours; you always have been mine / This sphere will stay / A light you’ve never seen is showing us the way /
We’ll meet and be o.k. if you could meet me at the nexus of it all / Go ahead, you can meet me at the nexus staring through the center of it all / Go ahead, you can meet
me at the nexus / This is just a call / Go ahead if I see you there at all it wouldn’t take too long / Go ahead, if I see you there at all I can’t expect to fall

THE BROKEN ANGER Kickstand, the broken anger / I can’t stand the broken anger / My friends, dressed in danger / My friends, won’t you please explain it? / With all
the losing tries I can’t stand the broken anger / Sometimwes you go outside to win / Kickstand, the burning magnet / I cannot stand the burning magnet / Negative and
positive / Wrapped up and dressed in plastic / Finish this, the plastic wrapping gives outer sense to affluence / Kickst–, the b–ken an–r

PLACE WHERE SOMETHING FELL We stayed upon the outside alone / The Place Where Something Fell long ago / In the beginning / and I will proxy as your shadow in
the sun / and I step lightly off the edges while you run / Looking at the outside I know / You’re on the inside, why did you go against me? / Dig until I find it; the Stone
/ You’ll never find it, it’s just an ancient story / Put my hands into the earth and pray / Can you see him? See him is he o.k.? / The touch surprises me… / Brighter
than sunshine, what have we wrought this day? / Drag me up the side, burnt and cold / Follow my map out to the world / And you will never `cease to be a father, I will
never cease to be a son / The love that places other higher than your own self

OUTSIDE THE CRATER We stayed to the outside the story made us blind but left my eyes to see just what you are to me

YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER AND I’M NOT JOKING This morning I found you out in love / I found you earmarked for love / With sonar I sound you out in
love / Best chance to turn to starboard / I would fulfill your marker / I’ll go without you, I’ll go without you / More risk of more unhappiness / Pick up and dry you off
again, once more for us once more for us / dododododododo / With sonar we sound each other / cause everybody knows / The weight of the world you held is gone,
anxiety’s casting spell is gone / You’re free to choose your own path / Through action, redefine life once more for us once more for us / this morning I found ´you out in
love / cause everybody knows, in love
I’M SO IN LOVE (AND NEVER THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD BE YOU) I’m so in love with you and all the things you are to me / It was after 10 o’clock and I was
walking down the street / But when I saw you in the park, looking lonely after dark I knew it had to be true / You had been my friend before, but I was feeling something
more for you / You know, this may seem a little strange but I’m speaking through a haze of your love / You have seeped into my mind and words are hard to find, but
when the world has got you down you don’t need to make a sound, I’ll comfort you / Even though you may not know who I am or where I go, I’ll sing for you

CONSTELLATIONS You see the evidence, the sun is over / Venus will come soon and with it is the orangish-golden moon / But never mind the sky we’ll hike oustide /
Put on your coat it’s cold, the air will do its best to keep us young / And I should have known looking at the stars at night reflects the different facets of a soul / In the
constellations millions of years older but still keep me from growing colder / The constellations gazing at the darkness-stars, looking for something in your heart / ‘Con’
is for the instant connotation / Connect the dots with lines to make pictures in the sky / ‘Stellar’ means the sky, the stars, and all that’s in the heavens above with love /
And ‘ation’ is the stationary written upon by ancient men handed down through nations until our current configuration of constellations / And I’m looking for something in
your heart

UNDER MY PROTECTION Never look back, you’re under my protection / You are free to discover that I will send you on / Never look back / It’s your bridge and I will
follow / I give the vessel, it’s yours to command / Yours to command / You’re a stick man / Stepping forward, you’re under my protection / Keep your eyes out, your ears
out, and never let the candle touch the ground, keep your wits about you, and in the darkness-danger if you fear you know my name / And if you reach a bridge, I will
holler across the chasm, saying Come And Join Us / Come and join us / And if you are abused (come and join us) If you are tired, if you are sick or weak, if you are in
need of refuge then come and join us

I think these were typed for the near and far CD package.  -h, 2011

SPECTRUM

Nine thousand four hundred and ten
Obscure channels on your television set
I have obscure channels on my radar vision, yet
I’m not the gun
Would you be the one to Say that you think?
Take a drink;
See what has become of me and
What’s become of this world

The choices avaliable to me
Visibly slip back into the sea
You’ll stand by, by my side
And twiddle thumbs, watch as my spectrum corrodes

If you would close your eyes for a year, or
Maybe® three to be on the safe side,
Then open them again; all the colored things you’d
Missed would leave you surprised
Now, imagine if our world taught us to do this at the
Age of twenty-five, then
Forgot to send a reminder note, or
Say it was an April Fool’s joke, and we
Stayed that way for life

If we aren’t careful what we take away from ourselves
A sea of gray-on-gray will assault our optical senses

JUST AROUND THE CORNER

Mine eyes burn with the fire of
Blue and green ROOMS of humans
Hating and wanting
With LOVE in their HEARTS
Of gold and metal DRIVE
Me towards a place to change
HISTORY can’t affect what I WANT
To see in the FUTURE can’t change
The way I see the WORLD

„Lets me know
How small I really feel ABOUT
People who knew you

Just around the corner…

MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD

Do you laugh at the futility of words?
Sent from across and through the world;
Little pieces of black and white,
Dancing on a page

Every shooting star we see is a
Planet tumbling once and for all
Into the sun and burning up
One day, as days are these
A distant child will see the Earth’s bright streak9 and
Wonder at what this means
The line in the sky and the gleam in her eye will say
Mightier Than The Sword

I heard third-hand that a friend who makes
The moon smile and the stars to shake laughing
Remembered us planning…
I thought she had forgotten
And the light stings on fragile eyes when the
Locked-away regions of my being are pried
Open on Tuesday with a shove and a slide, I’ll say
Mightier Than The Sword

Open our arms
Feel with our eyes
To love one another and never to die
Our shackles will crumble
A new generation
Feeling our power
Taking our stations
Against tyrrany and oppressive evil
Making our stand
Asking for confidence
Carry us forward
Our time is here
Because we are
Mightier Than The Sword!
Our hands are
Our feet are
Our words are
Our lives are…
Mightier than the sword

DISPASSIONATE ONE

Dispassionate one
Where have you gone?
Always would run
Under a yellow sky
Never happened, no it
Could not be that you were queen
Now you find that
In the streets we disagree

Come alive, come undone
The painting’s mine, and I
Always have so far to go

Dispassionate one
What have we done?
Swimming through the ocean
Climb the salty motion there, and
Through your hair
Thought of poison ivy,
Leave it to the spicy air – never care
Complete with toys and applesH
Dapple lightly in a double-dare

Come alive, come undone
Wonder why, the artist has to know
Come alive, come undone
The painting’s mine and I
Always have so far to go

NEBULA

The cold outside
Threatens to invade
My silvered lungs
Any of
Numerous clouds of gas or dust
In interSTELLAR SPACE

Take me in
Wrap my tired body,
Wrought from over-exposure,
In your fog
In your nebula

Envelop, enclose
The sound of it grows
Nearer to falling
Your nebula,
Calling

LONG TRAIN RUNNIN’

Dripping, breathing
No word can lift the
Afghan of the rain
In the dark lights of the
Station
Suns of the street and
Smells of the 1920’s

Its a long train runnin’

The towns we pass
Look like candles under
Glass that’s been broken
Sleep is all around
So try not to breathe too loud
Or touch my hand

Its just a long train runnin’

The time has come
The choice is ours
To make or regret all our dreams of
What we wanted this to be…

CLOUD 9

The first few seconds wandering
Watch the city lights turn on
From my peak to a castle in the sky
After I went and lay down
In the middle of the road and shouted
What did you do?

Going to Johannesburg
Then the moons of Jupiter
The far side of the moon is calling sister
Insight inside the ripples of
Acknowledgement of substantial
Existence more than pain poured from
One vessel to the next

The soundtrack changing, sometimes we
Would look into each other’s smile and
Ask why are we here?
Close encounters became years
Revolution in a bowl and
Propaganda takes your soul
What is my disguise?
The paintings on the underside
Of your eyes

I wrote these up to accompany the copyright submission for BSFFF. -h, 2011

Big Me New Way Home Learn To Fly A320 Everlong Plush Slide What I Got Banditos Superman Thank You Brown-Eyed Girl You’re a God Everything You Want This Lonely Place If Take A Picture America Beginnings If You Could Only See Waitin’ for a Superman Saga Begins Heaven Beside You Basketcase / She Rooster Shimmer I can hear you Breathing Greyhound Girl Elderly Woman… Nothingman

Tripping Billies Rapunzel One Sweet World Nancies Crash Into Me Don’t Drink the Water #41 Ants Marching Long Black Veil Minarets Stay Seek Up Recently / Lie In Warehouse Typical Two Step Lover Jimi Thing Crush Too Much Granny Watchtower Say Goodbye What Would You Say? True Reflections Halloween #36

This list of tunes is what we would have pulled the bulk of our sets from around the summer of 2000. -h, 2011