Meetings with Musical Heroes
← Back to Writings Meetings with Musical Heroes — Mark N. Jones Throughout my lifetime of developing my musical skills, I’ve had the privilege to meet many of my musical idols. I wasn’t even really aware of how many I’d met until I was browsing through albums in a record store in Kent, Ohio where […]
On Work and Retirement
← Back to Writings On Work and Retirement — Mark N. Jones On or about January 1st, 2024, I pretty much ceased to be involved in running a business I’d been operating for the past 27 or 8 years. Prior to that, I’d started another business that I ran for about 17 years, and had […]
What Women Want
← Back to Writings What Women Want — Mark N. Jones I’ve never had an easy time meeting women and could never figure them out. I am extremely shy but I have made hundreds of efforts and over the course of my nearly 70 years, have lived with three women – relationships that didn’t end […]
My Mother Irons and My Father Steels
← Back to Writings My Mother Irons and My Father Steels: Confessions of a Scrap Metal Czar — Mark N. Jones Chapter 1 An Introduction to the Scrap Business It’s an old saying in the scrap business: “My mother irons and my father steels.” And in my case, it was pretty much true, with the […]
The End of the Arts
← Back to Writings The End of the Arts: The Finite Life of Culture — Mark N. Jones The pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno posited that the distance an object such as an arrow travels, can always be divided in half, thus it would never reach the tree it was shot at. Well, if you see an […]
Jews and The Blues
← Back to Writings Jews and The Blues — Mark N. Jones In the year of 1969, I was a budding high school blues musician and me and my other blues loving buddies ventured down Cedar Hill to Cleveland’s remarkable club LaCave at 105th and Euclid to see a band called the Chicago All Stars […]
The Wonders of Qigong
← Back to Writings The Wonders of Qigong — Mark N. Jones I have discovered that for me, a workout utilizing the Chinese internal arts of qigong, taijiquan, baguazhang and xingyiquan yields benefits that are largely unknown and unmatched by any other modalities I’ve experienced. Just considering the meditative aspect of qigong – standing, for […]
Visions of “Visions of Johanna”
← Back to Writings Visions of “Visions of Johanna” — Mark N. Jones “Your piece on Visions of Johanna is quite elegant.” — Stephan Pickering, author of “Bob Dylan Approximately” and “Bob Dylan: A Commemoration” Visions of Johanna, from the album “Blonde on Blonde,” represents, in my opinion, the apogee of Bob Dylan’s poetic achievement. […]