For Sale Sign on The Farm

This will be one of the stranger journal entries I’ve ever posted.

Our landlord has our house up for sale again and this time, he seems particularly serious about getting the house sold.

What can I tell you about the house where I live? Big, funky, over a hundred years old, definitely worse-for-wear, often the center of the social scene - been the site of a number of parties that will live in the annals of Manayunk/Roxborough (the section of Philadelphia where I live) lore for years to come and too many smaller, late-night reveries to keep track of.

Ben Arnold lives here as he has for the last, what 12? 14? - I don’t know how many years, but enough that even though I’ve been here almost five years, everybody still calls it Ben’s house, probably rightfully so.

Lots of music made here. Our music room - what used to be I’m sure at one time the main dining room - is populated with two pianos, drums, various amps, guitars, PA and recording gear. Other instruments spread out all over the house.

4 Way Street grew up and discovered who they were here. Ben’s had at least a half dozen different lineups operate out of this house (a bunch of them I was in) and I’ve played with various bands as well as worked on all my solo show ideas here. Not to mention Wally Smith bringing in Crosstown Traffic and the like while he lived here. Joseph Parson from 4WS lived here at one time as well - actually, at least a couple times. And Scooter from Stargazer Lily.

I recorded part of ‘Fidelity’ in this house, plus a lot of the material on my homemade records. Part of Ben’s next album was recorded here. The 4 Way Street album started off here on an incredibly brutal week of 100 degree plus temperatures in August, 2001. We needed to do vocals and in order to get isolation we built a tent in the music room and all got inside, stripped down to shorts and sang our vocal parts. After a few days the whole downstairs smelled like a locker room, but we and the house all survived.

We keep a guest room open not only for our friends, but for musicians traveling through the area who need a place to stay. A sort of karmic payback for all our time on the road calling on other’s hospitality.

My girlfriend lives here and has turned the third floor into an art studio. Her paintings are throughout the house as well as the paintings of friends who’ve come by and set up in the backyard and painted renderings of the old barn that sits on the property.

When I moved in, there was Smith - Ben’s cat. There was also a colony of feral cats roaming our backyard. We’ve eventually taken 7 others in, gotten them their shots, had ‘em fixed and let them come in and out through the hole in the basement wall on their own schedule to domesticate themselves. Our friend Barney we had to find a home for (which happened, amazingly enough, through this website - Thank You, Laura) the rest we’ve kept. The other night we had 5 cats in bed with us. I realize that makes me a crazy cat person, but I don’t care. I love watching them interact, seeing how they come to entering the house and being part of the non-wild side of things on their own terms, in their own time.

I guess what I’m saying is that on a lot of levels this is way more than just a house. Stuff gets created here. Not just because creative people live here but something about the space lends itself to creative things happening.

Today, people came to look at the place. They’re interested. The didn’t even come inside the house. They’re interested in the land. If they buy it, they’ll tear down the house and the barn and put up god knows what - some business, a parking lot, who knows. But this place will be dead.

I’m not stupid. I know it’s not MY house or OUR house, but it’s definitely something more to those of us who have lived and created here than to the owner of the house.

He has the paper with his name on it. We BELONG here.

I’ve been dabbling recently in controlling the universe. No, really. Just setting forth thoughts to try to create positive circumstances in the world around me. I don’t think I’m very good at it yet, but I’m giving it a good shot with the house. If we had our own way, it would probably be another year and a half before we’d be ready to move, so that’s what I’m trying to make happen. What the hell, it WILL happen, this is my imprint on the Universe.

In the words of the great philosopher Pat Benetar - WE BELONG.