tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-42596500718751069202024-03-04T23:09:22.279-06:00Confluence CityPoetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.comBlogger795125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-52237798046988833302015-04-14T21:52:00.002-05:002015-04-15T10:51:12.940-05:00I think of Anne Tkach<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2RvltWC5n-8WTR35ofllLnY13LyLnVOklf8eOTwdVoykSbQuMC_0LspgbmKBajuhpV5N6yZTqp9H0_zWPAvkqaJ3MIKxWnYP8DOs7auHfx5_WkhYPxsplOIAdHqltxdWltUfqOq0ifRw/s1600/Anne.Tkach.Dana.Smith.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2RvltWC5n-8WTR35ofllLnY13LyLnVOklf8eOTwdVoykSbQuMC_0LspgbmKBajuhpV5N6yZTqp9H0_zWPAvkqaJ3MIKxWnYP8DOs7auHfx5_WkhYPxsplOIAdHqltxdWltUfqOq0ifRw/s1600/Anne.Tkach.Dana.Smith.jpg" height="320" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne Tkach<br />
By Dana Smith</td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
<strong><span style="font-size: large;">I think of Anne Tkach</span></strong><br />
<br />
<br />
I have a favorite Anne Tkach memory.<br />
<br />
The setting: Fred Frictions’s kitchen, adjacent to Frederick’s Music Lounge in its heyday. The time: somewhere in the middle of the afterparty that never ended while Fred Jr. was running the Lounge. We were drinking, smoking, and passing the guitar, natually. I know Roy Kasten was there, because we locked eyes in joyous amazement when the simple chords Anne was strumming turned into a song that Roy wrote with Michael Friedman, “Everything You Love Will Be Carried Away.”<br />
<br />
Joy and amazement: not uncommon experiences, when Anne Tkach was playing music.<br />
<br />
The specialness of this particular musical experience requires a little explanation, since most people, unfortunately, don’t know who Michael Friedman is or the kinds of songs he writes.<br />
<br />
Roy and I went to graduate school in literature at Washington University with Michael. He was an obsessive fan of poetry and songwriting who suddenly started writing songs, frequently with Roy’s assistance on guitar. The typical Michael Friedman song is very long, intensely personal, allusive in complex ways, and for those reasons difficult to learn and to sing.<br />
<br />
There was a time when Roy and I were the only fans of Michael’s songs. Anne and other musicians began to hear his songs through the Guitar Circle, a song-swap that we started at Michael’s instigation when he still lived in St. Louis and wanted to encourage his little brother, who was passing through town at a tough time, to focus on his own songwriting.<br />
<br />
Through the Guitar Circle, some of Michael’s favorite musicians and songwriters – Anne, Fred, Bob Reuter, Mark Stephens, Sunyatta, Adam Reichman, John Wendland – became fans of his songwriting. Roy drew upon this incredibly deep pool of talent when he produced two records for Michael, “Stories I Have Stolen” and “Cool of the Coming Dark.” Anne played bass on three songs on “Cool of the Coming Dark,” including “Everything You Love Will Be Carried Away.”<br />
<br />
She played those bass lines as tastfully as can be imagined, though they were anything but hard for her (or anyone) to learn. Like many of the best singer-songwriters, Michael and Roy go in for the three-chord, two-part songs. But learning a Michael Friedman lyric poses a real challenge for anyone. “Everything You Love” has five long stanzas with absolutely no predictable rhymes or familiar lines, unless you happen to have read every book and heard every record in Michael’s extensive collections.<br />
<br />
As Anne broke into the first verse – it’s about Bob Dylan accepting an Oscar on TV, though typically for a Michael Friedman lyric, Dylan is only alluded to, never named – sitting around Fred’s kitchen table, I could see that Roy had no idea she had been learning their song on anything other than bass. It is, needless to say, the highest tribute a musician can pay to a songwriter, to learn one of their songs. Anne was a musician we admired as much as any musician in town, on Earth. It was an unforgettable tribute.<br />
<br />
Anne eventually recorded her version of their song with her band Rough Shop on their record “Far Past the Outskirts,” which I only heard after I learned that Anne had died in a house fire. Anne played in a lot of bands, a lot of really great bands, and they released a lot of records, a lot of really great records. When I started sorting through my collection for records Anne played on, to deal with my grief, I found about 10, and I’m sure that’s less than half of her recorded output. Even these 10 records – with the bands Nadine, Bad Folk, Peck of Dirt, Michael Friedman, Ransom Note, Rough Shop and Magic City – would make for a musical career that would make anyone proud.<br />
<br />
And that is even with a career, with a life, cut tragically short, when Anne was at the height of her creative powers as a musician and just starting to emerge fully as a songwriter and a singer. I am in awe at her accomplishment, and unspeakably saddened at her sudden loss.<br />
<br />
I have a few more personal thoughts about Anne.<br />
<br />
She was an incredibly supportive friend. Anne must have attended every event our arts organization Poetry Scores produced. I have many memories of her strolling into an event – in recent years, accompanied by the love of her life, Adam Hesed – and making an effort to connect with everyone before she moved onto the next friend’s gig. Our events are collaborative, so she could have been supporting any of a dozen friends, or all of us. Hundreds of St. Louis artists would say that Anne was there for them, again and again.<br />
<br />
I must say she also handles a band break-up as skillfully as I can imagine that being done. She briefly played in a version of my band, Three Fried Men, after Robert Goetz invited her in on drums (another instrument she mastered). As dozens of musicians would tell you, she was a pleasure to play with, learning songs without apparent effort, knowing what to play without being told, having fun in the process. Robert and I had a falling out after only a few band rehearsals, unfortunately, and I lost Anne in the split. I don’t remember how she told me she’d rather play music with Robert than with me – my memory sparing my ego, perhaps – but I do remember it left no bad taste whatsoever. My friendship with Anne continued without a hickup.<br />
<br />
I am very relieved to say Robert and I later patched things up, and he was the next person, after Roy, whom I called when I heard that Anne was gone. I needed to speak to someone with whom I had shared, however briefly, the experience of playing music with the one and only, the irreplaceable and unforgettable, the immortal Anne Tkach.<br />
<br />
Anne’s friends have been seeing a lot of each other since she died. A series of events in the local music and arts scene became tributes to Anne – wakes, in a way – in the week and weekend after we lost her. The way we lost her, in a house fire apparently sparked by a lightning strike, left us all numb and perplexed. The fact that she was sleeping in that house to care for her ill father only made the loss more deeply unjust and inexplicable. We have all been talking about that.<br />
<br />
I was talking about that with Robin Allen, a fellow musician, at Dana Smith’s art show on Friday. Dana is also a musician whose band Cloister gigged with Anne’s bands. Everybody at the art show was grieving. I talked to Robin about how the whole lightning storm thing was making it harder for me to grasp her death and come to terms with it.<br />
<br />
“In a way,” Robin said, “the way she died, it’s like we all got struck by lightning.”<br />
<br />
We were also talking about that the night before, the night of the day we all heard the tragic news. We were drinking and waking Anne at Ryder’s, the bar owned by the love of her life, Adam. The same violent storm system that apparently killed Anne was still blowing through St. Louis. I was sitting near the front door with Robert Goetz, Gina Alvarez and Kevin Belford. <br />
<br />
The storm kept blowing the door of the tavern open, and then closed again. Since the door was also being opened and closed by people coming into the tavern, it was a little weird whenever the door opened and closed, but nothing came into the tavern but a little bit of the storm.<br />
<br />
I decided that Anne was a part of the storm now, and that Anne kept coming into the tavern, connecting with her friends, and then moving onto another friend’s gig. Whenever a lightning storm comes to St. Louis now, I will think of Anne coming to see us. Whenever I hear her music or see lightning in the St. Louis sky, I will think of Anne Tkach.<br />
<br />
<em>– Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWKTuMOMjCDnRguZvfEZMHUs0VI5Kvr-DXq7V5udldI2D7FMvj6QurAK8gmHXFKxiChOsb1GK2X84Uyf6raF3nd0QtQ7kTYIxpcEPFh6dOnhjNS5DPC04HoD61Drrdk1z5-7xOrMHWcY/s1600/Anne.Tkach.storm.Belford.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmWKTuMOMjCDnRguZvfEZMHUs0VI5Kvr-DXq7V5udldI2D7FMvj6QurAK8gmHXFKxiChOsb1GK2X84Uyf6raF3nd0QtQ7kTYIxpcEPFh6dOnhjNS5DPC04HoD61Drrdk1z5-7xOrMHWcY/s1600/Anne.Tkach.storm.Belford.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Storm outside Ryder's tavern<br />
night of Anne's wake<br />
Photo by Kevin Belford</td></tr>
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<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
Painting of Anne from <a href="http://danarichardsmith.blogspot.com/">Dana's blog</a>.<br />
<br />
Anne Tkach fronts Rough Shop performing <a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/3FTbuF0kRykATCuwFfEfPb">"Everything You Love Will Be Carried Away"</a> by Michael Friedman and Roy Kasten<br />
<br />
Thomas Crone remembers Anne in <a href="http://www.stlmag.com/arts/performing-arts/remembering-anne-tkach/">St. Louis Magazine</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-87076071329881030392014-07-04T16:00:00.003-05:002014-07-04T16:01:09.378-05:00Bootblogging #24: Three by The Modifiers<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisk7zjOJKd7hgZcGoFxAXZBfuj1WpBTi94gCv3CdHSuf5mNtg5r8vRu4lltyl52FCvWM8Hz_291RO_koadh1UJpVnauiok0cbYl03j81XyCO-svrSUGYgpT60SMIBDnGY_Jz5dXuoiEjw/s1600/perro.modifiers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisk7zjOJKd7hgZcGoFxAXZBfuj1WpBTi94gCv3CdHSuf5mNtg5r8vRu4lltyl52FCvWM8Hz_291RO_koadh1UJpVnauiok0cbYl03j81XyCO-svrSUGYgpT60SMIBDnGY_Jz5dXuoiEjw/s1600/perro.modifiers.jpg" height="320" width="180" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris Perry of The Modifiers<br />
</td></tr>
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<br />
We made a record for Pops Farrar and used to offer it for sale on the internet. We'd fulfill a few orders a year, always from an Uncle Tupelo or Son Volt diehard who wanted to hear a record by Jay Farrar's father. One guy stood out. <br />
<br />
I don't recall exactly how we got buddied up with this guy, Chris Perry of Boston, or why it happened so fast. But right off the bat, we were mailing precious photographs to each other and plotting road trips. <br />
<br />
After our first trip to party with Perro (as we call him) at home in Boston, Joe Esser said, "This feels like a sock I have worn a zillion times." Perro and his spouse Esme have been deep in my heart ever since.<br />
<br />
So, thanks, Pops -- again.<br />
<br />
The first time I met Pops, I told him I wanted to come over to his house and record him singing and playing accordion and concertina. He said, "Why, Chris, don't just talk about it -- <em>do</em> it!" I did it.<br />
<br />
Perro is very much like that. Near the end of Pops' life, he was among my closest friends. I often offered to share Pops with people, because it was essential to Pops' nature to share, but not everyone who would have benefitted took me up on the offer. Perro <em>did</em> it.<br />
<br />
He and his buddy Mark drove to Belleville from Boston, stayed at Pops' spread and went native in what Pops called "the Belleville rainforest." I am sure that Pops remembered Perro until the very end.<br />
<br />
Chris Perry does not push his band on you. But he leads a band, The Modifiers. I like his band.<br />
<br />
<strong>free mp3s</strong><br />
<br />
<a href="https://app.box.com/s/aci1ukpw7lbdowtak3rp">"I like her (band)"</a><br />
(Chris Perry)<br />
The Modifiers<br />
<br />
<a href="https://app.box.com/s/pbj11iw9zm1z94443bdj">"Anonymous"</a><br />
(Chris Perry)<br />
The Modifiers<br />
(c) Chris Perry<br />
<br />
<a href="https://app.box.com/s/08ka6hncvdi40q2hew87">"Rootless"</a><br />
(Chris Perry)<br />
The Modifiers<br />
<br />
Songs (c) Chris Perry<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IWL-7Odl-3s4OyCtoU9Mi4tnZT9q5QPzmooQ6h7mxxjepkPnHjIT2419One8u7sFjdsy0_QvwuQv9Ra0g-TegJryYtE7b3d5AurtCInagXPnVFrOeczA598ddpewQdfBR0HUbvtKlqw/s1600/Perro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6IWL-7Odl-3s4OyCtoU9Mi4tnZT9q5QPzmooQ6h7mxxjepkPnHjIT2419One8u7sFjdsy0_QvwuQv9Ra0g-TegJryYtE7b3d5AurtCInagXPnVFrOeczA598ddpewQdfBR0HUbvtKlqw/s1600/Perro.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Perro</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<strong>More in this series</strong><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-1-three-by-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #1: Three by The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-2-three-elegies-for-local.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #2: Three elegies for local musicians</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-3-michael-shannon-friedman.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #3: Michael Shannon Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-4-three-more-by-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #4: Three more by The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #5: Chuck Reinhart's guitar circle hits</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-6-silly-side-of-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #6: The silly side of The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-7-songs-for-divorcing-god.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #7: Songs for "Divorcing God"</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-8-more-songs-for-divorcing.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #8: More songs for "Divorcing God</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-9-adam-long-presents-imps.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #9: Adam Long presents The Imps!</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-10-more-michael-shannon.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #10: More Michael Shannon Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-11-adversary-workers.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #11: The Adversary Workers</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-12-may-day-orchestra.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #12: The May Day Orchestra</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-13-solo-career-live-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #13: Solo Career live in Santa Monica</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-14-four-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #14: Four from The Funhouse (Seattle punk</span></a>)<br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-15-four-more-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #15: Four more from The Funhouse (Seattle punk rock)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-16-i-will-be-your.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #16: I will be your volunteer! (for Bob Slate)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-17-yet-more-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #17: Yet more The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootblogging-18-four-by-russell-hoke.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #18: Four by Russell Hoke</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/04/bootblogging-19-krakersy-is-crackers-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #19: Krakersy (is Crackers in Polish)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-20-four-by-grandpas-ghost.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #20- Four by Grandpa's Ghost</span></a> <br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-21-eight-by-jaime-gartelos.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #21: Eight by Jaime Gartelos</span></a> <br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2011/08/bootblogging-22-five-by-bob-reuter.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #22: Five by Bob Reuter</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.confluencecity.blogspot.com/2013/06/bootblogging-23-six-by-lydias-trumpet.html">Bootblogging #23: Six by Lydia's Trumpet</a>Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-92089048593664915972014-03-09T14:49:00.003-05:002014-03-11T08:27:56.859-05:00My pawnshop guitar and some fellows from The Cure<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJY_ZAGZztL2GW5DSVthCN7uk14kWWkUW6aB4rtTQXWfFSalZz0RQUX_H9uI9e_zEmqgQ2-bhs01fJKwDQ90CQwV7a84DUYiBoSVuBiVnDDWhgqsr_aPlNoAbgrRG6PrGOYOcbdOoZSwg/s1600/laurence.meghan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJY_ZAGZztL2GW5DSVthCN7uk14kWWkUW6aB4rtTQXWfFSalZz0RQUX_H9uI9e_zEmqgQ2-bhs01fJKwDQ90CQwV7a84DUYiBoSVuBiVnDDWhgqsr_aPlNoAbgrRG6PrGOYOcbdOoZSwg/s1600/laurence.meghan.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lol Tolhurst and Meghan Gohil</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Little story about a pawnshop guitar, an Alvarez acoustic.<br />
<br />
I picked it up at the pawn shop on South Grand in St. Louis for $75. I got a lot of songs out of that guitar, and then passed it along. My buddy Meghan Gohil was starting <a href="http://hollywoodrecordingstudio.com/index/">Hollywood Recording Studio</a>, and studio guys love to have guitar options.<br />
<br />
Now one of his steady studio gigs is recording <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levinhurst">Levinhurst</a>, a project led by Meghan's good friend <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lol_Tolhurst">Lol Tolhurst</a>. Lol was a founding member of The Cure, and Levinhurst is Lol's project with his wife, the equally talented Cindy Levinson. Really great stuff. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dempsey">Michael Dempsey</a>, a friend of Lol's (and a fellow founding member of The Cure), joined Levinhurst recently to record an e.p. at Hollywood Recording Studio. Michael took a picture of my old pawnshop guitar.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN-rhq7X74JXdqdW-5DEohbgAVT-jOByQnePW3TT_hHod_nybB5Qu7O9DK1F3iHGbJed5r6t-1Y55kLRU_TiOuZjSfJAVM5lNNuKCLuYYpqXyF1WP-mT0778MPGNEtYDhPPkDln0we2os/s1600/guitar.michael.dempsey.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN-rhq7X74JXdqdW-5DEohbgAVT-jOByQnePW3TT_hHod_nybB5Qu7O9DK1F3iHGbJed5r6t-1Y55kLRU_TiOuZjSfJAVM5lNNuKCLuYYpqXyF1WP-mT0778MPGNEtYDhPPkDln0we2os/s1600/guitar.michael.dempsey.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My pawnshop guitar at Hollywood Recording Studio<br />
Photo by Michael Dempsey</td></tr>
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"If you'll note, the high E string is removed," Meghan pointed out. "Michael asked me to take this off for the recording sessions, so he essentially played it as a five-string guitar. Most five-string players, like Keith Richards and Pete Townshend, typically remove the low E string."<br />
<br />
Michael played my old pawnshop Alvarez on their record. Here he is working out a song with Cindy on it.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvbG0l9keD86R9HUEyB-YVr2BVLqeAFDw5XAJzGXbz_XLN2U-xNZJxSEO-6DjvoNdGY4oWW-1QNTutNotZrdMadqLsxwKVkKOqqAb870CfvVVzt4eZM-uuwgsBxA0C1fVBplVUTHFM5Vg/s1600/michael.dempsey.cindy.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvbG0l9keD86R9HUEyB-YVr2BVLqeAFDw5XAJzGXbz_XLN2U-xNZJxSEO-6DjvoNdGY4oWW-1QNTutNotZrdMadqLsxwKVkKOqqAb870CfvVVzt4eZM-uuwgsBxA0C1fVBplVUTHFM5Vg/s1600/michael.dempsey.cindy.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Michael Dempsey chording my old pawnshop guitar<br />
as he and Cindy Levinson work out a Levinhurst song.<br />
Photo by Meghan Gohil<br />
Hollywood Recording Studio<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
"You can see three amps in the picture," Meghan notes: "the one on the bottom right is an old Sears Silvertone (my first guitar amp, bought out of the catalog for $79)."<br />
<br />
The record these folks made with my old pawnshop guitar and Meghan's out-of-the-catalog amp is really terrific! I'd call it shimmering hypno pop. In the first of the three songs on the e.p., "Somewhere Something," the acoustic guitar establishes the arrangement and the texture of the mix. My old acoustic guitar, in Michael Dempsey's hands, is in very good voice. Check out their e.p. on iTunes.<br />
<br />
"<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/somewhere-nothing-is-everything/id811471031">Somewhere, Nothing is Everything</a>"<br />
<strong>Levinhurst</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
This week and next week, Meghan tells me, they're going to be broadcasting songs from the new e.p. on a show called "<a href="http://www.indie1031.com/">The Lopsided World of Jonathan L</a>," an internet radio show that plays on stations based in Athens, Berlin, L.A. and Phoenix. (More on that also at <a href="http://jonathanlradio.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0072c6;">http://jonathanlradio.blogspot.com/</span></a>.)<br />
<br />
I asked Meghan for a video of The Cure back in the day where Lol and Michael are featured. The official video for "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89-WRXJyvJE">10:15 Saturday Night</a>" has good looks at Lol on drums and Michael on bass, as well as of course Robert Smith on vocals/guitar. What a very great band The Cure was when Lol and Michael backed up the very young Robert Smith. <br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/89-WRXJyvJE" width="420"></iframe><br />
<br />
<br />
Lol starts <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89-WRXJyvJE">"10:15 Saturday Night,"</a> with his simple stick on cymbal, and Michael closes it with an intense, unadorned solo bass figure. I really like the thought that the musician's hands that finished off this absolutely perfect piece of post-punk rock by The Cure have now voiced chords on my old pawnshop Alvarez.<br />
<div>
<br />
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWE59XkYYY8CLIyRTrL5cg_TSDvO88_xn7CI70EPihXjjuW9vqxAqJGY0Miv2g0K-9IzBM6bd7fd5rTC-oziMyTRQzRa5l86SRcFJbzJib_KGlXUFTK2pU5IiagFdAa-EtvX98JIWW48A/s1600/michael.amp.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWE59XkYYY8CLIyRTrL5cg_TSDvO88_xn7CI70EPihXjjuW9vqxAqJGY0Miv2g0K-9IzBM6bd7fd5rTC-oziMyTRQzRa5l86SRcFJbzJib_KGlXUFTK2pU5IiagFdAa-EtvX98JIWW48A/s1600/michael.amp.png" height="320" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The back of Meghan's $79 Sears amp<br />
Hollywood Recording Studio<br />
Photo by Michael Dempsey</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-53199279290606071532014-02-23T16:32:00.000-06:002014-02-23T16:33:40.831-06:00Songs from Home: "After the Money from Mama was Gone" by Bob Reuter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXLzAyic57zRnyH0RdKTRH6nHoHWZZ7BIE7LN5mey3IDzEW5c8pI5HAvxtGvU1_XpDaLLr5frPbeBogm29R5hCTtUU_G8atghbsMS3sC6M0LA0UOnhLz1MbNkSeLexSCT0z059fGpj4Q/s1600/bob.reuter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgXLzAyic57zRnyH0RdKTRH6nHoHWZZ7BIE7LN5mey3IDzEW5c8pI5HAvxtGvU1_XpDaLLr5frPbeBogm29R5hCTtUU_G8atghbsMS3sC6M0LA0UOnhLz1MbNkSeLexSCT0z059fGpj4Q/s1600/bob.reuter.jpg" height="308" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Under the band name Three Fried Men, we have been recording songs by St. Louis songwriters of our generation. Next up: "After the Money from Mama was Gone" by the late <a href="http://kdhx.org/about/news/bob-reuter-1951-2013">Bob Reuter</a>, with Fred Friction on lead vocal.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<strong>Free mp3</strong><br />
<br />
<strong><a href="https://app.box.com/s/5pgppgw7b1hh8hrh5fxd">"After the Money from Mama was Gone"</a></strong><br />
<em>(Bob Reuter)</em><br />
<strong>Three Fried Men with Fred Friction</strong><br />
<br />
Fred Friction: vocals<br />
Nick Barbieri: drums, rhythm acoustic guitar<br />
Mark Buckheit: lap steel guitar<br />
David Melson: bass, acoustic guitar<br />
<br />
Recorded by Nick Barbieri and David Melson in St. Louis, MO<br />
Mixed by Meghan Gohil at <a href="http://hollywoodrecordingstudio.com/index/">Hollywood Recording Studio</a> in Los Angeles, CA<br />
Mastered by Elijah "LIJ" Shaw at the <a href="http://www.thetoyboxstudio.com/">Toy Box Studio</a> in East Nashville, TN<br />
Produced by Chris King for Confluence City <br />
<br />
<strong>NOTE: NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR ALL AGES</strong>. <br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
"After the Money from Mama was Gone" was recorded by Bob Reuter and his band Kamikaze Cowboy on their record <em><a href="http://bobreuter.bandcamp.com/album/kamikaze-cowboy-down-in-america">Down in America</a></em> (2000), produced by Michael Martin at the Broom Factory in St. Louis. A lot of us think that's one of the best records ever made in St. Louis by anybody, so follow <a href="http://bobreuter.bandcamp.com/album/kamikaze-cowboy-down-in-america">that there link</a> to the Kamikaze Bandcamp page.<br />
<br />
Bob Reuter's songwriting speaks for itself more eloquently than anyone else could, but in this song I especially savor how Bob dwelled on local detail and picked out place names from his north St. Louis city and county environment, like Bruce Springsteen bravely putting the Jersey shore towns and interstates on the map of American music. <br />
<br />
Bob sings, <br />
<br />
<em>And the bad kids down there on Hall Street, </em><br />
<em>burning up engines and wine, </em><br />
<em>burning like sunstroke, drifting like cowpokes, </em><br />
<em>bursting in flames up off of the line</em><br />
<br />
and a St. Louis drag racing landmark has been burned forever into public memory. Bob always stayed a sure step ahead of his critics - it was no surprise, when <a href="http://www.kdhx.org/">KDHX</a> gave him his own radio show, to discover that he knew everything about American music - and I submit that Bob knew exactly what he was doing right here within the tradition of American story songs, and that is what the cowpokes are doing in the imagery (in addition to supplying a gorgeous internal rhyme): that's Bob tipping the Kamikaze Cowboy hat and whistling across the smoking tip of his gun.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8totn8fxfXSksHJzd5YrzqC9JO0MK0ufNWWioiFH_KMhyBffurAhEapuNNvC8DlDpYWDCQUSJNjdcsLT99B1x3ApeGIXT-xolX7zjOO5m9sSdUHIaotmCXZyKkStMcvyh7ET4cDzWbVs/s1600/fred.friction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8totn8fxfXSksHJzd5YrzqC9JO0MK0ufNWWioiFH_KMhyBffurAhEapuNNvC8DlDpYWDCQUSJNjdcsLT99B1x3ApeGIXT-xolX7zjOO5m9sSdUHIaotmCXZyKkStMcvyh7ET4cDzWbVs/s1600/fred.friction.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fred Friction<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I love to work with <a href="http://towergrooverecords.com/band/fred-friction/">Fred Friction</a> as a vocalist, have done so for many years, and thought of him first when I got the itch to record this song. When I called Fred about the idea, he pretty much shouted, "Yes! That has always been one of my favorite of Bob's songs!" Nick Barbieri recorded Fred's vocal in one single take -- this is the kind of song Fred exhales; it's part of him, it is him. When I shared the final mix and master of this recording with Mike Martin, who recorded Bob's original version on <em>Down in America</em>, Mike agreed that Fred was perfect for this song. <br />
<br />
We offer the tribute in Bob's memory.<br />
<br />
<em>The song was composed and (c) Bob Reuter and is the property of his estate: </em><a data-type="description-link" href="http://www.cowboyangel.org/" target="_blank"><em>http://www.cowboyangel.org/</em></a><em>. This cover version is intended for free sharing and non-commercial use with full composition credit and (c) reserved by Bob Reuter and estate. Production-quality audio is available for community radio or local compilations, upon request.</em><br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<strong>Previously on <em>Songs from Home</em></strong><br />
<a href="http://www.confluencecity.blogspot.com/2014/01/songs-from-home-midgets-by-chuck.html">"Midget's" by Chuck Reinhart</a><br />
<a href="http://threefriedmen.bandcamp.com/track/had-to-end-sometime"><span style="color: #5588aa;">"Had to End Sometime" by Bob Reuter</span></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8totn8fxfXSksHJzd5YrzqC9JO0MK0ufNWWioiFH_KMhyBffurAhEapuNNvC8DlDpYWDCQUSJNjdcsLT99B1x3ApeGIXT-xolX7zjOO5m9sSdUHIaotmCXZyKkStMcvyh7ET4cDzWbVs/s1600/fred.friction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a> </div>
Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-53693851855052580012014-01-19T16:50:00.000-06:002014-01-22T01:28:23.611-06:00Songs from Home: "Midget's" by Chuck Reinhart<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOGspv52EJQzb-YsBtWsYZWcwLwe8XsQBz_lBcQF4mB_zgI48PikDtaK73Er9ohsL8x6kulXOoAw8y_idXFfoSYoewzbGPq_3afQp9T528LIhNACayJH9bmoLFimQaihbYYFYWMlaUHQ/s1600/chuck.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOGspv52EJQzb-YsBtWsYZWcwLwe8XsQBz_lBcQF4mB_zgI48PikDtaK73Er9ohsL8x6kulXOoAw8y_idXFfoSYoewzbGPq_3afQp9T528LIhNACayJH9bmoLFimQaihbYYFYWMlaUHQ/s1600/chuck.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>Chuck Reinhart </em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">(at Poetry Scores costume review party, in soldier garb)</span></em></div>
<div align="center">
</div>
Three Fried Men is recording songs by St. Louis songwriters that have been stuck in my head for half of my life. First we did "<a href="http://threefriedmen.bandcamp.com/track/had-to-end-sometime">Had to End Sometime"</a> by the late Bob Reuter. Next up: "Midget's" by Chuck Reinhart.<br />
<br />
I know the song from <a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html">the Guitar Circle</a>, a sort of hootenanny in the round (without the jamming) that flourished in St. Louis in the late '90s and early oughts, centered around Michael Friedman and Roy Kasten. This song really gets under my skin. I actually wept at one Guitar Circle over the line "Is there any reason to update what your heart holds dear?" which strikes me as the perfectly innocent question to ask about growing up and older.<br />
<br />
We are posting this performance with Chuck's permission. I very hesitantly asked him if he wanted to tell any of the actual stories behind the song, assuming there are any. I assume there are because the song sounds so much like my own life. I almost don't want to know what Chuck's actual stories are, though, for fear that learning more about the song would diminish the spell it casts on me.<br />
<br />
Chuck is not much of an e-mailer, doesn't seem to have a social media presence. I'm not waiting for his answer about the stories behind the song - it could be a long wait - though I will add his story here if I get anything.<br />
<br />
I don't know much about the composer. Chuck and I have been at many Guitar Circles together, but that was all about listening to songs. He acted (extremely effectively) in a Poetry Scores movie, <em><a href="http://www.cinemastlouis.org/go-south-animal-index-fable-los-alamos-0">Go South for Animal Index</a></em>, but those shoots were all hectic business. Kind of the same way I feel about "Midget's," Chuck has a quiet mystery about him I've liked keeping intact. He strikes me as the kind of square-jawed, taciturn, decent, sincere man who belongs in an earlier era of cinema. Though a gal pal gave him a ride to the <em>Go South</em> premiere and found him very pleasantly forthcoming.<br />
<br />
I think this comment from Chuck sets his tone. I'd emailed him our recording of "Midget's" to ask for his permission to post it for free sharing, and he responded, "Thanks for taking time out of your one and only life to give my song your attention."<br />
<em></em><br />
<em>-- Chris King</em><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<strong>FREE SONG</strong><br />
<br />
<strong>"</strong><a href="https://app.box.com/s/7e0jxbzhgxluzsaz3rkb"><strong>Midget's</strong></a><strong>"</strong><br />
(Chuck Reinhart)<br />
<br />
Performed by Three Fried Men<br />
Nick Barbieri: vocals, drums, guitar, keyboard<br />
Mark Buckheit: lap steel, guitar<br />
David Melson: bass, guitars, organ<br />
<br />
Produced by Chris King for Confluence City <br />
Recorded by Nick Barbieri and David Melson in St. Louis, MO<br />
Mixed by Meghan Gohil at Hollywood Recording Studio in Los Angeles, CA<br />
Mastered by Elijah "LIJ" Shaw at the Toy Box in East Nashville, TN<br />
<br />
(c) Chuck Reinhart<br />
<br />
Feel free to <a href="https://app.box.com/s/7e0jxbzhgxluzsaz3rkb">download this performance</a> from our Box account and freely share or post it with credit. The composition belongs to Chuck Reinhart. We could probably find him for you.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
You can hear <a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html">Chuck Reinhart's own performance of "Midget's"</a> in Confluence City's Bootblogging series.<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<strong>Previously on <em>Songs from Home</em></strong><br />
<br />
<a href="http://threefriedmen.bandcamp.com/track/had-to-end-sometime">"Had to End Sometime" by Bob Reuter</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1qbKjV18fnyoxoPCNK_AXybVHQJdb1NtzTSg8ahkmL1QKnvubfBh3QoJzTv8ApBPYxlnqllXf9ksVEDbL46bPrQfeQdDO5rfUxCuSg4blGR5OiFl18qTYLMim9sIQSaL-PfUEH0OYX0/s1600/thom.chuck.joyce.shave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga1qbKjV18fnyoxoPCNK_AXybVHQJdb1NtzTSg8ahkmL1QKnvubfBh3QoJzTv8ApBPYxlnqllXf9ksVEDbL46bPrQfeQdDO5rfUxCuSg4blGR5OiFl18qTYLMim9sIQSaL-PfUEH0OYX0/s1600/thom.chuck.joyce.shave.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Chuck Reinhart (center) </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">as a Los Alamos sentinel at the zombie barber shave </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(featuring Thom Fletcher and Joyce Pillow); </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">location still from the Poetry Scores movie <em></em></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Go South for Animal Index</span></em></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-80960850006538099472013-11-13T08:44:00.002-06:002013-11-13T09:10:35.759-06:00Hanging out with Orhan Veli, Kurt Vonnegut and Defne<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVqfqRIvrWuCtdUxs3M0MqrkWJhYRb11-WqIhtQ8jH2EOoHu6WAVO8t4Ds6JESPGdyhbNH9Ld9v6pRelHhcLiYP5y_AUVDEjwc09yCWEjWCHLSd6jRYq_Di6a6VdgyPhCTfEOD88Qj0Q/s1600/orhan.veli.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikVqfqRIvrWuCtdUxs3M0MqrkWJhYRb11-WqIhtQ8jH2EOoHu6WAVO8t4Ds6JESPGdyhbNH9Ld9v6pRelHhcLiYP5y_AUVDEjwc09yCWEjWCHLSd6jRYq_Di6a6VdgyPhCTfEOD88Qj0Q/s320/orhan.veli.jpg" width="224" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orhan Veli<br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg968X2gBpT6gSZfaYSz7aQcZVj1Pmr_HnGddGhx9FSXdm1c6Sus4-u7jiKpOqPuM4fqU5Oz-dXc6nz_WKOILTm6laaSv9O71mAcvXBnMVLIRkRCu4InoMGWliy8djYRPGNlIhQxc5jz2s/s1600/kurt-vonnegut.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg968X2gBpT6gSZfaYSz7aQcZVj1Pmr_HnGddGhx9FSXdm1c6Sus4-u7jiKpOqPuM4fqU5Oz-dXc6nz_WKOILTm6laaSv9O71mAcvXBnMVLIRkRCu4InoMGWliy8djYRPGNlIhQxc5jz2s/s320/kurt-vonnegut.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kurt Vonnegut</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br />
I have been invited to the <a href="http://www.vonnegutlibrary.org/">Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library</a> to participate in the launch party of Issue No. 2 of its new(ish) literary journal <em>So It Goes</em>. The call was for funny work, befitting a namesake library for a hilarious writer, and the editor took from me a funny poem about poverty by the modern Turkish poet Orhan Veli, translated into English by Defne Halman and myself. I am hoping I can drag my family to Indianapolis so I can play esteemed Turkish co-translator for a day.<br />
<br />
This invitation reminded me I had never properly celebrated all of the work Defne and I had in the inaugural issue of <em>So It Goes</em>, themed after war and armistice, befitting a namesake library for a writer of war and peace. So here it goes.<br />
<br />
The editors published not one, not two, not three, not four, but <em>five </em>Orhan Veli poems that the Turkish actress Defne Halman and I translated in New York City punk rock dives thirteen years ago. The main editor, J.T. Whitehead, told me the five poems happened to fit his five mental divisions for all the work they published in that volume. So it goes. And here are those five poems.<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>GONE TO WAR</strong><br />
<br />
Blonde boy gone to war!<br />
Come back as beautiful as you are<br />
The smell of sea on your lips<br />
Salt on your eyelashes<br />
Blonde boy gone to war!<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>– By Orhan Veli<br />Translated from the Turkish by Defne Halman and Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong> FOR THIS COUNTRY</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
What didn't we do for this country!<br />
Some of us died<br />
Some gave speeches<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>– By Orhan Veli<br />Translated from the Turkish by Defne Halman and Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>LIKE US</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
I wonder<br />
When a tank dreams<br />
Does it have desires<br />
And what does an airplane think<br />
When it's on its own?<br />
<br />
Do gas masks enjoy<br />
Singing songs in unison<br />
In the moonlight?<br />
<br />
And don't rifles even have as much compassion<br />
As us humans?<br />
<br />
<br />
<em> – By Orhan Veli<br />Translated from the Turkish by Defne Halman and Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>CARNATION</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
You're right<br />
Probably the death of 10,000 people in Warsaw<br />
Is not as nice<br />
As the art of exaggeration<br />
And a military regiment<br />
Isn't like a carnation<br />
"Coming from a lover's lips"<br />
<br />
<br />
<em> – By Orhan Veli<br />Translated from the Turkish by Defne Halman and Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
*<br />
<br />
<strong>GANGSTER<br />(Hitler Will Surrender Himself to Literature)</strong><br />
<br />
I wrote poems all these years<br />
What did I find?<br />
I'll be a bandit from now on<br />
<br />
Let those guys who waylay you<br />
On mountain roads know<br />
There's no more work for them<br />
<br />
I'm eating their lunch now<br />
Let them know<br />
There's a vacancy<br />
<br />
In the literary trade<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>– By Orhan Veli<br />Translated from the Turkish by Defne Halman and Chris King</em><br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
Looking only at the authors published on pages adjacent to one of these poems, this placed Orhan Veli and our voices immediately beside Marge Piercy, Robert Bly and Vonnegut himself. That was cool.<br />
<br />
I also was humbled and honored to have one of my own poems published in the inaugural edition of this literary journal connected to the great, hilarious, compassionate Kurt Vonnegut.<br />
<br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
<br />
<strong>WHORE’S HONOR</strong><br />
<br />
<br />
I beg your pardon, but how<br />
can you honor the soldier and not the whore,<br />
sailors and not streetwalkers, <br />
the brave men fallen dead in battle and not<br />
the courageous women whose<br />
dirty duty and detail it is to blow<br />
off soldiers’ heads and offer<br />
to sailors the only port that feels like home?<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>– By Chris King</em><br />
<em></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<br />
***<br />
<br />
That's also my Veteran's Day poem, by the way -- soon to be translated into Russian by Kanat Omar. who is taking back to Kazakhstan one of my author copies of Issue No. 1.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpW6YuRbDMuvXqGHYuT-3UtecM8TUwe02iaiHlm9W8TXeFk9eG1gxgFuOg1fYP8FZaEIkZ9IrOM6zwIYuFKauTU91r6pWYOdBAb578gEWAl8NpWnfTv5-5lmh-KMq2z3rxwb297e1Jwkw/s1600/so.it.goes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpW6YuRbDMuvXqGHYuT-3UtecM8TUwe02iaiHlm9W8TXeFk9eG1gxgFuOg1fYP8FZaEIkZ9IrOM6zwIYuFKauTU91r6pWYOdBAb578gEWAl8NpWnfTv5-5lmh-KMq2z3rxwb297e1Jwkw/s320/so.it.goes.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<em>So It Goes</em> and Kurt Vonnegut's own books may be purchased at <a href="https://app.etapestry.com/cart/KurtVonnegutMemorialLibrary/default/category.php?ref=5017.0.3352616">the online gift shop for the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCxUD6XRMjZqMDzZ2YsMbM-cGezlOrKKrDFX3NyR8dZdR4nhHBlw2klubtSUz4MvcqnlP5u9l2KZRpehaA_cgaf3bWQgWHXyzHZrwrVnL9Id2zC6hepBHk7q4wvf3VpoTlW7mRhvZbls/s1600/defne.protest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCCxUD6XRMjZqMDzZ2YsMbM-cGezlOrKKrDFX3NyR8dZdR4nhHBlw2klubtSUz4MvcqnlP5u9l2KZRpehaA_cgaf3bWQgWHXyzHZrwrVnL9Id2zC6hepBHk7q4wvf3VpoTlW7mRhvZbls/s320/defne.protest.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
My co-translator Defne Halman, still doing the punk rock protest thing, in <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/15/turkey-historic-emek-theatre-final-curtain">The Guardian</a>.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-74929292095716704302013-06-29T11:09:00.000-05:002013-06-29T11:23:22.469-05:00Bootblogging #23: Six by Lydia's Trumpet<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8tA8yrhV-9Mf65iO1S8-2AzYvLled31Y24R1D5OWQVjrYfHRZDGjVFJE4CdcWNTM5sXc0hauNec0SqupZ3NgYEW65yiLhoMvYE1J9ohuHzhA2BpoFW-roF-vj1qzKiuwklE-1whTMdIs/s250/catalpa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8tA8yrhV-9Mf65iO1S8-2AzYvLled31Y24R1D5OWQVjrYfHRZDGjVFJE4CdcWNTM5sXc0hauNec0SqupZ3NgYEW65yiLhoMvYE1J9ohuHzhA2BpoFW-roF-vj1qzKiuwklE-1whTMdIs/s250/catalpa.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
This morning <a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/03/randall-roberts-makes-good-at-la-times.html">Randall Roberts</a> was musing that he wanted to share some music by Lydia's Trumpet, one of St. Louis' lost chamber pop bands, before anyone thought to name that quirky, at times precious, genre. Randall is one of our local music scenesters done good - he writes about music for the<em> Los Angeles Times</em> - so I wanted to hook him up.<br />
<br />
Lydia's Trumpet - led by songwriter and chord strummer Ray Kirsch - was quirky, at times precious, clever but never smarmy, and at times unapologetically rhapsodic. Ray was not afraid to reach for the huge themes and statements, like interstellar distances, the origin and applications of petroleum, and wanting to make it with your girlfriend's mom.<br />
<br />
Ray was very warm and likeable as a person, and he made friends with the best rock and pop musicians in the St. Louis scene of the late '80s and early '90s, who all played together in <a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-17-yet-more-lettuce-heads.html">The Lettuceheads</a>. <br />
<br />
His friends did that ace rock musician thing where they all played secondary or tertiary instruments to back Ray up, so Lettucehead frontman Mike Burgett was Lydia's Trumpet's nervy drummer, and the best piano and keys player in town, ever (Carl Pandolfi), played bass. I seem to hear Jon Ferber singing, but can't picture him playing an instrument behind Ray.<br />
<br />
Tim McAvin, not a Lettucehead, played his typical instrument (then) of electric guitar, but he had this magical way of standing there on stage absolutely puzzled by what he was playing or singing - because they all sang, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip, drip dripping away around Ray. I remember Carl talking about Ray's songs being like a child's drawings, both erratic and beautifully simple, with an innocence the accomplished musicians who played them tried very carefully to protect.<br />
<br />
To my knowledge, Lydia's Trumpet made a cassette, <em>Catalpa</em>, a CD, <em>Marmalade</em>, and a 7 inch on Faye Records, <em>Copernicus</em>. I've kept up with most of these guys, and Burgett at some point made me a CD of the <em>Catalpa</em> songs that now survive in my collection only on a compilation I made of <em>Catalpa</em> and my favorite songs from <em>Marmalade</em>. My copy of <em>Copernicus</em> seems not to have survived one of my bouts of between-homelessness as a traveling rock musician.<br />
<br />
The last time I saw Ray, I was going over some co-translations of Turkish poetry I was working on at the time, and after milking me for information about the project - he left the conversation equipped to write a chamber pop story song about Orhan Veli and Istanbul - he told me, "You're always doing something that seems hard to do." Then he left St. Louis to learn how to draw maps in Minneapolis. I've not heard of him for many years.<br />
<br />
These are my six favorite songs from <em>Catalpa.</em><br />
<br />
<strong>mp3s</strong><br />
<br />
from <em>Catalpa</em><br />
Lydia's Trumpet<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/8rl2lszi3k147kyjty4o">"Rocket to Mars"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/qvcnr1oeo70sjrkb1a19">"93 Million"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/hc5lqxqsknru9v2gzr9t">"Iowa"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/euis9jgaw771xwhd3gox">"Dripping"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/hmr6ejaualihw64mkfvx">"The Girl with Indefinite Hair"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.box.com/s/35zhpzzt3vq31pqlgw2x">"Half"</a><br />
(Ray Kirsch)<br />
<br />
The song titles are all best guesses, since I am working from my own naked mix CD, and I'll be happy to make corrections. <br />
<br />
The songs belong to Ray and the performances to the band, so please enjoy and share them freely but make no commercial use of them. I do not let Blogger sell ads for this blog.<br />
<br />
<strong>More in this series</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-1-three-by-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #1: Three by The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-2-three-elegies-for-local.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #2: Three elegies for local musicians</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-3-michael-shannon-friedman.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #3: Michael Shannon Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-4-three-more-by-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #4: Three more by The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #5: Chuck Reinhart's guitar circle hits</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-6-silly-side-of-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #6: The silly side of The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-7-songs-for-divorcing-god.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #7: Songs for "Divorcing God"</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-8-more-songs-for-divorcing.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #8: More songs for "Divorcing God</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-9-adam-long-presents-imps.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #9: Adam Long presents The Imps!</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-10-more-michael-shannon.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #10: More Michael Shannon Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-11-adversary-workers.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #11: The Adversary Workers</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-12-may-day-orchestra.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #12: The May Day Orchestra</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-13-solo-career-live-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #13: Solo Career live in Santa Monica</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-14-four-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #14: Four from The Funhouse (Seattle punk</span></a>)<br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-15-four-more-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #15: Four more from The Funhouse (Seattle punk rock)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-16-i-will-be-your.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #16: I will be your volunteer! (for Bob Slate)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-17-yet-more-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #17: Yet more The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootblogging-18-four-by-russell-hoke.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #18: Four by Russell Hoke</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/04/bootblogging-19-krakersy-is-crackers-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #19: Krakersy (is Crackers in Polish)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-20-four-by-grandpas-ghost.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #20- Four by Grandpa's Ghost</span></a> <br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-21-eight-by-jaime-gartelos.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #21: Eight by Jaime Gartelos</span></a> <br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2011/08/bootblogging-22-five-by-bob-reuter.html">Bootblogging #22: Five by Bob Reuter</a><br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-86028412031627062742013-04-20T20:05:00.001-05:002013-04-20T20:05:25.341-05:00Journey through journalism & terror with Jihad<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVV93b8Liimgvev97TIPZCEEeVJC15x3hwy9uVj9BJaqVHUCdI443UPoAbL0N0y0ZROJp-bRMpXK3wjkilkcf-P-Upra40sYqGWwmtUEzc6H62v-fp8TjROE-CA883sksHJYb2cPtV6Ls/s1600/white.hat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVV93b8Liimgvev97TIPZCEEeVJC15x3hwy9uVj9BJaqVHUCdI443UPoAbL0N0y0ZROJp-bRMpXK3wjkilkcf-P-Upra40sYqGWwmtUEzc6H62v-fp8TjROE-CA883sksHJYb2cPtV6Ls/s320/white.hat.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I walked out of the office on Monday afternoon to blow a hole in my stomach with a bag of jalapeno potato chips, and when I got back to work the television set was on and everyone was watching a public emergency. Bombs had been set off at the finish line to the Boston Marathon.<br />
<br />
I work in journalism -- local community journalism in St. Louis -- so this was not my problem, professionally speaking, and I have a lot of problems to solve every week as managing editor of a <a href="http://www.stlamerican.com/">high-performing newspaper</a> owned by a high-expectation publisher. So I went back to work and tried hard not too think too hard about what was happening in Boston.<br />
<br />
It didn't work. I kept paying attention to the bad news. And I was really sick that night. I was sick from eating jalapeno potato chips, sick from the Boston Marathon getting bombed, sick from people getting killed and maimed at a positive public event in a beautiful city. And I was sick from everybody I know saying the same two or three things over and over and over and over and over and over and over on the social media I follow, on and off, all day, out of habit and professional necessity.<br />
<br />
I was sick that this happened in Boston. I left home in Granite City, Illinois in 1984 at age 18 for U.S. Navy bootcamp in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and after bootcamp I reported to the <a href="http://www.bu.edu/navyrotc/">NROTC Unit</a> at Boston University. Boston was my first town that was not my hometown, the first town that felt completely mine. I still love it fiercely and mentally compare it to every place I visit. I tend to talk more about other places, the way we'll talk more about our interesting friends than we do about the siblings we come to take for granted, but that is <em>my </em>city that got bombed.<br />
<br />
With our small staff charging through the usual assortment of challenges, we put out another newspaper on Thursday. It was full, as usual, of positive local community news -- personally my favorite kind of journalism, though I have reported for a major metro daily (<em>The New York Times</em>) and reviewed books for a gloomy radical weekly (<em><a href="http://www.thenation.com/">The Nation</a></em>). I have come to the conclusion that bad news will find people, or they will go looking for it fearfully, but what people need served to them is good positive news.<br />
<br />
I tried hard not to think too hard about what was going on in Boston. The bad news always finds me without any effort on my part. But Boston is my city, so in fact I kept poring over national news sources when I wasn't working on the next week's paper, or mentoring a journalist who came to St. Louis for a few days to study how I manage a weekly newspaper, or going to my band rehearsal, or taking care of family errands. <br />
<br />
I got up in the middle of the night on Thursday, which is to say very early Friday morning. There was no good reason for me to be awake. I usually sleep soundly through to the morning (unless I have eaten a bag of jalapeno potato chips, but that was Monday). I drifted to my laptop in the dark and looked for bad news in Boston. I quickly saw the shit had hit the fan in Watertown.<br />
<br />
The journalist's instinct of finding the most direct source kicked in, so soon I was following a Reddit post where someone was reporting on the local police scanner and on a number of Twitter users who happened to live in the neighborhood where the shit was hitting the fan. From Reddit I found links to <a href="http://tunein.com/radio/Boston-Police-Fire-and-EMS-Scanner-s146109/">the Boston police scanner</a> and Twitter reporters, and very quickly I left behind the traditional bad news media. The professional reporters seemed to be waiting for official announcements at Arsenal Mall, whereas I was getting raw reports from the front.<br />
<br />
Alongside those raw reports, I was also getting bug-eyed speculation. None of the bug-eyed speculation was any more far-fetched than the official report that would emerge later in the early morning. In my sleep deprivation I came to believe one preposterous theory about the identity of the younger bomber. And while my experience as a journalist (who has made every possible mistake as a reporter) kept me from posting my new received opinion publicly, I did wake up my spouse and told her the news I thought she would be hearing in the morning.<br />
<br />
When I woke back up, I was reminded why people follow the bad news. It's so full of surprises. The culprits were not the kid the Reddit crowd had focused on but a 19 year-old-wrestler from Cambridge and his 20-something big brother, a Golden Gloves boxer, both from Chechnya by way of Kyrgyzstan. None of us saw that one coming. The nerds on Reddit weren't going there. Most of the cops talking logistics on the Boston scanner probably couldn't find Chechnya or Kyrgyzstan on a map.<br />
<br />
The other shocker was that the younger bomber -- known on Reddit the night before as "White Hat," after the color of the ballcap he was wearing backwards when he bombed Boston -- had escaped. When I went to sleep, according to the raw reports from the front, it seemed like a whole lot of armed and armored cops had the kid cornered with his bigger and older accomplice dead. How the hell did he get away? <br />
<br />
Though I certainly was not rooting for this kid, far from it, I had to admire his pluck and luck in the dark of the night. He was a cold-blooded killer and a coward of a covert bomber, but he also outran a mob of the much better armed and longer arm of the law. America has traditions of respect for the outlaw and the vigilante. However little he deserved our respect, White Hat seemed to have escaped into those traditions.<br />
<br />
I was thinking about these things as I picked up the young journalist who came to St. Louis to study my moves. His name happens to be Jihad Hassan Muhammad. I know, it comes across as a bit much in this age of terror with the evil Other being a Moslem jihadist, but that's the man's chosen name. Jihad is a very devout convert to Islam, and he holds very dear to his heart the devout Muslim principal of <em>jihad</em>, of spiritual struggle with the forces of darkness within us, and the Prophet Muhammad was the Messenger of the faith that saved his soul.<br />
<br />
That day, Friday, I made sure Jihad learned from other people at our paper with more to teach him, our publisher Donald M. Suggs and web editor Kenya Vaughn. After all, I had only been teaching him Suggs' model of community journalism, and as a good journalist he needed to hear from the direct source in Suggs himself. And while I manage the challenging operations of a still-thriving print platform, Kenya deals with what people are really reading in the increasingly online real world.<br />
<br />
I still had lots of copy to chop and photos to track down if we were to keep moving toward our next deadline, but I kept an eye on Boston. The bad news reports were starting to sound like a not very believable movie. Boston was basically under martial law so that authorities could find one 19-year-old-kid who had escaped on foot. I'm not sure I could have suggested a better idea, given the stakes, but still I was ashamed for our country. Our freedom seemed so fragile. A teenager with a crockpot bomb can paralyze an entire city and put it under temporary martial law.<br />
<br />
I bid goodbye to Jihad, whose fiancee was coming to visit, then went to the <a href="http://www.mohistory.org/">Missouri History Museum</a> to participate in a fiction reading. When I arrived at the museum, I told one of the other readers, my friend Virvus Jones, that I had not been able to promote our event all week. It just didn't seem important enough, with everything else that was going on. He agreed. He said it had been hard to tear himself away from news coverage to come do the reading.<br />
<br />
"Now they got him trapped in his boat," Virvus said.<br />
<br />
What?<br />
<br />
This was the first I had heard about the teenage terrorist crawling into someone's drydocked boat in the back yard and being discovered there. Virvus had seen the bad news more recently than I had. I more or less raced through our reading without paying much attention to any of it, and then rushed home to read up on the bad news. That's when I learned about the authorities admitting defeat and lifting martial law with a public pronouncement, which freed some yacht club guy in Watertown to step outside for a cigarette. Then he saw the tarp ripped on his pleasure craft, peeked inside and saw the bloody kid hiding there.<br />
<br />
This struck me as another gruesome American irony, like the bad man being a kid in a white hat and an entire city going under martial law because of one teenager who escaped on foot. The Boston bombers, if they have identified the right people, are immigrants, and for most of our history immigrants came here on boats. Of course, all of this nightmare was going down in the cradle of the American Revolution, in the old New England founded by settlers who came by sea on ships. And now this little immigrant crock pot bomber was coming to the end of his journey in a boat in a backyard in Watertown.<br />
<br />
The American Dream has turned into a really crummy nightmare -- a nightmare in which I wake from sleep in the middle of the night and sit up all morning listening to a police scanner in Boston, when I am supposed to be gathering and distributing good news in St. Louis.<br />
<br />
<br />
Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-80980731641854415762013-04-16T06:12:00.002-05:002013-04-16T06:15:27.433-05:00SCHMOOZE LUNCH MEMO, Midtown Manhattan, Mid-November 2001<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDmmL4DG_oswRHTS9o4dKsYLq3blhs2cIIAp3c1LKCYWpDfCExMNNPqOcRmpoEu3bN6pBsVAU2ygGgjHRwV5vGcntteVIB1ivYVBY6xR0MWf-GFpvLdL8jOnlLV3175hnBB8v94V_8s8/s1600/memo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNDmmL4DG_oswRHTS9o4dKsYLq3blhs2cIIAp3c1LKCYWpDfCExMNNPqOcRmpoEu3bN6pBsVAU2ygGgjHRwV5vGcntteVIB1ivYVBY6xR0MWf-GFpvLdL8jOnlLV3175hnBB8v94V_8s8/s320/memo.jpg" width="303" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<em>I was living in New York on September 11, 2001, and still two months later when I attended a schmooze lunch in Midtown Manhattan. It was a time when the grisliest speculation about terrorism and death was mixed up at all times with everything else. I tried to capture this feeling in a disoriented little poem. It's going to be like this in Boston for awhile. Very sorry about that.</em><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">SCHMOOZE LUNCH MEMO<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Midtown Manhattan<o:p></o:p></span></i></b><br />
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Mid-November 2001<o:p></o:p></span></i></b><br />
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The rusty hair, the big bait,<br />
it’s the only Rembrandt still for sale, you know,<br />
kudos on your ad deal, your<br />
people are <em>so smart</em>! professional bug blue<br />
eyes, fidgety, fancy room,<br />
shortcomings of my Haitian tailor, relief<br />
from tattoos, sequined choker<br />
<br />
of motorcycle mama shredding extra<br />
bread into her vagrant pursed<br />
lips and declining cleavage in a thermal<br />
shirt – Amsterdam! only Old<br />
Master! cell phone talk, table to table,<br />
talking up his talk – no match<br />
for the latest from the price-fixing trial – did you <br />
feel sorry for him? I did, <br />
until I <em>saw </em>him, father kindness, the kind<br />
you can’t tell from predation<br />
until he doesn’t try to take you home – I<br />
<br />
think a lot of the bodies<br />
are pulverized; I think some of them are parts. <br />
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<em>-- Chris King</em><br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-6948915899214348212013-04-14T13:14:00.001-05:002013-04-14T17:08:13.193-05:00Henry Miller hated, hated, hated St. Louis: 'a foul, stinking corpse'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-n1Nzu6ixsA7xT-GAO56xQNlUIUkgerhUKxC7rDNE_BL_Il1cbNnsGkXWzYnnCIGQBKZSmEztPzi3HZ3h09yOQLnGjfDR2jTIRyK1uI79wnXyExZ_xM43qFnSsoO82d0Fn6PA2cPaJY8/s1600/durer.melancholia-1514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-n1Nzu6ixsA7xT-GAO56xQNlUIUkgerhUKxC7rDNE_BL_Il1cbNnsGkXWzYnnCIGQBKZSmEztPzi3HZ3h09yOQLnGjfDR2jTIRyK1uI79wnXyExZ_xM43qFnSsoO82d0Fn6PA2cPaJY8/s320/durer.melancholia-1514.jpg" width="247" /></a></div>
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For whatever reason, I have been slow to read most of the American counter-cultural classics. I only got started on Henry Miller's <em>Tropic of Cancer</em> (1934) this winter when my friend <a href="http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-fundamental-realities-of-st-louis.html">Lola van Ella scored it for interactive burlesque</a>, giving me homework to do.<br />
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I've not been able to finish that book (there's more in <em>Tropic of Cancer</em> about being famished in Paris than anything sexy), but it did make me pull down from my shelf a later and lesser-known work by Henry Miller, <em>The Air-Conditioned Nightmare</em> (1945). I've had a battered Panther Books paperback in my collection for many years without even flirting with reading it.<br />
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Yesterday I had four young girls in my care on roller skates at a roller rink, which freed me to sit up in what might generously be called the lobby and do some pleasure reading. And I came across some fascinating stuff in <em>The Air-Conditioned Nightmare. </em>The book is basically a venomous anti-American travelogue, Steinbeck's <em>Travels with Charley</em> except where the sidekick is not a dog but a fellow jaded expatriate who fled Paris as Hitler's war was hitting there. Miller and his road buddy miss Paris and France so hard they'd almost rather be back there ducking air raids than driving from state to state on American highways that make Miller see blood red.<br />
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He hates just about everything and every place about his native country, but saves special scathing scorn for my city, St. Louis, Missouri, which he sees for the first time in the early 1940s. Henry Miller writes of "the tomb of St. Louis which is called a city, but which is a foul, stinking corpse rising up from the plains like an advertisement of Albrecht Durer's 'Melancholia'."<br />
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The St. Louis of my experience (1985 to present, with interruptions) is very beloved by architects and architectural aficionados (or, as I like to call them when trying to be a rascal, the building huggers). So it really shocked me that Henry Miller found our city to be an architectural monstrosity:<br />
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".. this great American city creates the impression that architecture itself has gone mad. The true morbidity of the American soul finds its outlet here. Its hideousness is not only appalling but suffocating. The houses seem to have been decorated with rust, blood, tears, sweat, bile, rheum, and elephant dung."<br />
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This makes me want to get out my copy of Bill Streeter's St. Louis documentary <em><a href="http://www.stlbrickfilm.com/">Brick by Chance and Fortune</a></em> to see if he uncovered this quote. If not, maybe it can be included in a second edition, because that sure sounds like an evil-eyed description of our beloved brick houses.<br />
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I'll also have to thank Lola for scoring this sourpuss' classic novel for interactive burlesque: for summoning Henry Miller's spirit back to a place he couldn't leave fast enough: "One can imagine the life which goes on there - something a la Theodore Dreiser at his worst. Nothing can terrify me more than the thought of being doomed to spend the rest of my days in such a place."<br />
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Love you back, <a href="http://www.henrymiller.org/henry-miller/">Henry Miller</a>!<br />
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<strong><em>Post-Script.</em></strong><br />
<br />
There is hope, if Lola conjured Henry Miller's spirit to her interactive burlesque score of <em>Tropic of Cancer</em>, that the author would have taken a more charitable view of St. Louis in 2013, roughly seventy years after his first and presumably only visit to our river city. For in <em>The Air-Conditioned Nightmare</em> Miller begrudgingly praises another Mississippi River city, New Orleans. N'arlins evokes his beloved Paris, of course, but there is more to it: "here at last on this bleak continent," Miller writes of New Orleans, "the sensual pleasures assume the importance which they deserve." Certainly, the same can be said of St. Louis any time Lola is running the show!<br />
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***<br />
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The image is Albrecht Durer's 'Melancholia'.<br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-66242987368943006832013-04-02T20:22:00.001-05:002013-04-02T20:42:36.201-05:00T.D. El-Amin, Virvus Jones, Chris King read from novels at History Museum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SaCeco38l8O1BchVQ0qvLnsFt_1u9r4aS8nS1MB8U6saOI7_xN3GzgM421ecBLSOM8noCalfTS_CToB6yz2opoeNlqWhdQ1UBldWhHk3nfOVC-WYimC5c7vE9jNbks23yD7kBwz_NQw/s1600/Mia.Farone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SaCeco38l8O1BchVQ0qvLnsFt_1u9r4aS8nS1MB8U6saOI7_xN3GzgM421ecBLSOM8noCalfTS_CToB6yz2opoeNlqWhdQ1UBldWhHk3nfOVC-WYimC5c7vE9jNbks23yD7kBwz_NQw/s320/Mia.Farone.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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Three St. Louis novelists (all better known for other things) will read excerpts from their work 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 19 in the Lee Auditorium at the <a href="http://www.mohistory.org/">Missouri History Museum</a>: <strong>T.D. El-Amin, Virvus Jones</strong> and <strong>Chris King</strong>.<br />
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The reading is free and open to the public and should last a little over an hour. It will be followed by an afterparty at <a href="http://www.theroyale.com/">The Royale</a> public house, 3132 S. Kingshighway.<br />
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<strong>TD El-Amin</strong> will read from his newly published novel, <em>Mia Farone: Lost and Turned Out</em>. A daughter of Italian and African-American parents, the heroine is uprooted from her native Tivoli to the streets of St. Louis, where she falls in with a hustler ten years her senior. The novel tastefully expresses intimacy and sexuality while tactfully combining suspense and intrigue. El-Amin will sell and sign copies of his novel at the reading and afterparty.<br />
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<strong>Virvus Jones</strong> will read from his unpublished novel <em>The Stalking Horse</em>. This autobiographical novel follows a streetwise young black man from North St. Louis as he outgrows his parochial environment and begins to ask questions of the wider world as the Civil Rights Movement explodes around him. It veers in style from the folkloric intimacy of Zora Neale Hurston to the hard, plain speaking of Richard Wright.<br />
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<strong>Chris King</strong> will read from his unpublished novel <em>Big, Black & Good</em>. His novel follows the disintegration of a reality TV show about an obese black rapper named Big Carb. The show's casting call is for a rapper who is "big, black and good," but the young man from North St. Louis who wins the competitive audition turns out to be a little better -- at heart -- than his blaxploitative coproducers bargained for.<br />
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<strong><a href="http://www.tdelamin.com/">TD El-Amin</a></strong> is a former host of the radio program <em>Touching Base with TD</em> and former Missouri state representative. A U.S. Navy veteran, he joined the service in the late 1980s expecting that the world travel would widen his perspective as a writer. <em>Mia Farone: Lost and Turned Out </em>is his first book.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxgwn65whNrG-8Raa0uq_eWbAcUgl-46KcPqDGdwLVbmTX7V-LnpW842x_GJFe6Xmp5kDqpidyq3GY0hqJreNbR66lZIEhlbmEEM35zccewxuLLwBzOzWnvCU67CvPcuzW10fHzUzUMQY/s1600/virvus.jones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxgwn65whNrG-8Raa0uq_eWbAcUgl-46KcPqDGdwLVbmTX7V-LnpW842x_GJFe6Xmp5kDqpidyq3GY0hqJreNbR66lZIEhlbmEEM35zccewxuLLwBzOzWnvCU67CvPcuzW10fHzUzUMQY/s320/virvus.jones.jpg" width="259" /></a></div>
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<strong>Virvus Jones</strong> most recently managed the successful campaign of his daughter Tishaura O. Jones for St. Louis Treasurer. He is a former Comptroller, Assessor and Alderman of St. Louis. He was cofounder of the Political EYE column in <em>The St. Louis American</em>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbg1QBOqtkUGmaf-qJvdTil1xzL50_TUObNtGqrNaPbkJ4yfPVQd71JYMxyHV_lfthwmX3nqeQIY57UwiZlvW87WZEnCiD6v_GyeCGOoy6mgj3YwSiY3K_P2WSGlawe41Hlfo2_dKqgu8/s1600/me.fayetteville.2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbg1QBOqtkUGmaf-qJvdTil1xzL50_TUObNtGqrNaPbkJ4yfPVQd71JYMxyHV_lfthwmX3nqeQIY57UwiZlvW87WZEnCiD6v_GyeCGOoy6mgj3YwSiY3K_P2WSGlawe41Hlfo2_dKqgu8/s320/me.fayetteville.2012.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<strong>Chris King</strong> is a producer, filmmaker, musician and journalist. He is creative director of <a href="http://www.poetryscores.blogspot.com/">Poetry Scores</a>, which translates poetry into other media, and managing editor of <em>The St. Louis American</em>. His most recent book is a chapbook of poetry, Shape of a Man (Intagliata Imprints, 2012).<br />
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<em>For more information, email Chris King at </em><a href="mailto:brodog@hotmail.com"><em>brodog@hotmail.com</em></a><em>.</em><br />
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Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-46630988549547544382013-03-30T02:33:00.001-05:002013-03-30T02:37:31.394-05:00It's hard to think of rest, Theo, it's hard to think of peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7x5V3dvDxIrJ2DAlqBsExU7BcwqApHyl-LK4YsO_qYsSdHutNq1it546yP53slO6eWQTIEsG16DTN4hePUqFSfViSBhLFbaxLxjzKH9b8ibQ7KSve_kRRQ7Rfxu7LbV-5M-gSDvmTubw/s1600/theo_beer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7x5V3dvDxIrJ2DAlqBsExU7BcwqApHyl-LK4YsO_qYsSdHutNq1it546yP53slO6eWQTIEsG16DTN4hePUqFSfViSBhLFbaxLxjzKH9b8ibQ7KSve_kRRQ7Rfxu7LbV-5M-gSDvmTubw/s320/theo_beer.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Poster from a rock & roll safehouse, </span></em></div>
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<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Louisville, Kentucky, </span></em><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">ca. 1991 (detail) by Rhonda Roberts</span></em></div>
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Anyone who has ever lived dangerously and loved deeply at the same time has friends whose death would come as no surprise. Theo was always one of those people in my life. I met her more than twenty years ago when we were both what I would now call kids, and even then I wouldn't have been surprised if she had turned up dead. I would have been horrified and disgusted, angry and profoundly sad, but not surprised. Theo was courageous, candid, often fearless, and she loved with a wild abandon many things that are very dangerous, even deadly: booze, narcotics, band guys, sex with band guys, a good dare.<br />
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Theo has died at age 44. I am horrified and disgusted, angry and profoundly sad, but not surprised. It always seemed like she could go away from us at any time. When social media threw old friends and lovers into each other's arms a few years ago, and Theo and I found one another online, I'll admit that I was pleasantly surprised to find her still alive. I probably would have been <em>less</em> surprised if I had found one of the other girls from the Louisville scene of the early 1990s alive instead and she had told me Theo was no longer with us.<br />
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I totally loved Theo. Theo was one of my great teachers. I ran away from graduate school in literature to play rock & roll on the road in 1991 and ran smack dab into Theo and all of her creepy and fabulous friends in Louisville, Kentucky. It's a long story that only matters, at this point, to a few hundred people. We lived the rock & roll dream, playing our music in bars, going home with strangers, waking up in the middle of house parties that turned into unexpected adventures in strange cities. We took each other on the road, from town to town. We evolved shared vocabularies with a widening circle of friends who stayed in touch through original rock & roll music traveling from town to town in battered vans. Media was much less social back then, so it was left to socially gifted people like Theo to connect people and to keep us that way.<br />
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We all did a lot of things back then that we probably aught not to have done. But we did them anyway. The problem is these things can be very fun to do when you are young and discovering yourself and have no one else to care for but yourself. Most of the people I know from those days slowed way down and, at some point, began to take care of people other than themselves who needed them to stay alive. So we have stayed alive. I am told that Theo never slowed down very much and, from what I could tell, she seemed to remain her only (considerable) caretaking problem until the end. <br />
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I want to be 25 again, and for Theo to be 23. I want to do it all over again and once again to learn from Theo about rock &roll and all those exciting and dangerous things that travel with rock & roll. Because I want to go back there so badly, despite all of the nourishing and thrilling things in my life today, I forgive Theo for never slowing down or completely growing up. If it didn't kill you, it was one hell of a way to live. The rock & roll party all night (and into the next day) journey that Theo took us on was an ecstatic experience. Everyone truly alive that I have ever known was looking for some equivalent of that ecstatic experience. Theo was an expert at creating and freely sharing ecstatic experience. It was, and is, so worth living for.<br />
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We owe you, Theodora Collins. We miss you, Theo. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemFhbwykj3ftd-8Jl3szKBRCGu6KLy3y96hh6FLTHgN_1sCst4x5OTv-ApJiVJ-e00G0M2BI3z3YRDpZ0EzQ1np9e3IsIhH7AXDDcjlmzoAK6oMN_BKIo0LtL8bmVX1A8p5hB_VzXp1c/s1600/theo_beer2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiemFhbwykj3ftd-8Jl3szKBRCGu6KLy3y96hh6FLTHgN_1sCst4x5OTv-ApJiVJ-e00G0M2BI3z3YRDpZ0EzQ1np9e3IsIhH7AXDDcjlmzoAK6oMN_BKIo0LtL8bmVX1A8p5hB_VzXp1c/s320/theo_beer2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-71171518405194206282013-03-18T12:42:00.000-05:002013-03-18T12:42:03.846-05:00War Baby and the Great American Father<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBCecUXL8k9HjscTx4PG4PqbnSSXvdZqsyUN4oEPdRWW3kin4QXIlmdvdC0KNfdjuA-o0m-gaoyukORqP-9N4WNu_HslYLwWmG1A-aVQQm8Iw0J08Ibi1hhHh_vGP6I1p-Z_PUnp1GaM/s1600/saddam.statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggBCecUXL8k9HjscTx4PG4PqbnSSXvdZqsyUN4oEPdRWW3kin4QXIlmdvdC0KNfdjuA-o0m-gaoyukORqP-9N4WNu_HslYLwWmG1A-aVQQm8Iw0J08Ibi1hhHh_vGP6I1p-Z_PUnp1GaM/s320/saddam.statue.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo from <a href="http://thinksquad.net/2010/07/25/">Thinksquad</a>.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong><em>War Baby and the Great American Father<o:p></o:p></em></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Labor & Delivery Journal<o:p></o:p></span></em></strong></div>
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By Chris King<br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It was so late there was nothing on TV, except the war. So we
were watching the war, and my wife Karley was having contractions, coming closer and
closer together. When she was down to one contraction every five minutes, it
was delivery room time, according to doctor’s orders. It was dawn in Baghdad
and the cable news stations were reporting the latest rumor that Saddam Hussein
had been bombed to death when we shut off the television set and got on the
road.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">It had snowed all day – freakishly, because it was April in
New York. The day had just barely turned to April 8th as we drove through the
Midtown Tunnel into Manhattan. The roads had emptied of traffic in the middle
of the night, so I had less of that horrific feeling that a terrorist would
detonate a bomb while my pregnant wife and I were driving under the East River.
An empty tunnel on a snowy night just didn’t deliver much bang for the buck, if
killing infidels was part of the plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As Karley writhed in pain in a hospital bed, it was
beginning to look like April 8th would be the birthday of our first child. My
wife does not like someone hovering over her, especially when she is in pain, so
I took a seat nearby and prepared to read a book I had brought along to the
hospital. It was a new, scholarly selection of <em><a href="http://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu/">The Journals of Lewis and Clark</a></em>,
the report commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to document the westward
expedition that explored the newly purchased Louisiana Territory in the early
days of the 19th century. With April 8th on my brain, I paged through the dated
journal entries, looking to see how the captains and their men had fared on
April 8th, our first baby’s birthday-to-be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I turned, by chance, to April 8th, 1805. Meriwether Lewis kept
the journal that day. The scholarly selection of the journals I had brought
with me made no attempt to clean up or modernize the language in the captains’
field reporting, so it reads kind of raw. Captain Lewis noted, “I walked on
shore, and visited the black Cat, took leave of him after smoking a pipe as is
their custom, and then proceded on slowly by land about four miles where I
wated the arrival of the party, at 12 Oclock they came up and informed me that
one of the small canoes was behind in distress. Capt Clark returned fou[n]d she
had filled with water and all her loading wet. we lost half a bag of bisquit,
and about thirty pounds of powder by this accedent; the powder we regard as a
serious loss [...]”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sounds like a pretty crummy day: a canoe full of precious, soaking-wet
stuff, of spoiled food and ruined ammunition. At least, confiding his thoughts
to his journal, rather than to (say) a journalist embedded with the Corps of
Discovery, Captain Lewis didn’t feel compelled to add, “But we are still on
pace, according to plan” – the sort of platitude appearing daily in American
newspapers carrying reports of journalists embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are rightly remembered as
brave explorers, hardy travelers, historic precursors of anyone who ever went
overland on a major Western vacation. But they were also captains of a United
States military expedition, and 19th century American history is an unbroken
story of regime change in Indian country, aided by primitive biological warfare
– blankets contaminated by smallpox and measles, handed out freely to tribes
with no resistance to those wasting diseases. I couldn’t help but think of the
U.S. military of today, openly embarked on violent regime change to oust a
latter-day, more highly technological biological warrior in Saddam Hussein. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Unlike the U.S. military leaders moving through Iraq, who
didn’t have much time to stop and smell the desert wildflowers, Lewis and Clark
were their own embedded journalists. As part of their commission, they were field
reporters of geography, plants, animals, and Indians. On April 8th, 1805, the
Corps of Discovery was just breaking winter camp at Fort Mandan in what is now
North Dakota. After grousing about those thirty pounds of ruined gunpowder,
Lewis worked up his winter birding notes:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“The only birds I observed during the winter at Fort Mandan
was the Missouri Magpie, a bird of the Corvus genus, the raven in immence
numbers, the small woodpecker or sapsucker as they are sometimes called
<and> the beautifull eagle, or calumet bird, so called from the
cicumstance of the natives decorating their pipestems with it’s plumage and the
Prairie Hen or grouse.”<o:p></o:p></and></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I typed these notes into my handheld gizmo as Karley
slumbered, numbed and knocked out by an anesthetic. I was struck by this hasty
catalog of birds, how the “beautifull” golden eagle appears wedged in between
an unknown woodpecker called the sapsucker and the common grouse. Lewis recognizes
the golden eagle’s beauty, he knows its native name (the “calumet bird,” named
for a ceremonial pipe), and he has seen and even smoked from pipes bedecked
with its “plumage,” which mark them as profoundly holy items. In fact, that was
his morning business on that day, April 8th, 1805: he smoked a sacred pipe with
a Mandan named Black Cat. Yet all this beauty and holiness is presented as just
another logistic. It gets lost in a list between a sapsucker and a grouse.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When the hospital medical staff was hitting Karley up with
the epidural anesthetic, I prayed. I was itching to be helpful, and it was the
best I could do. Sinking an epidural is a harrowing procedure, involving a
needle injecting into the spinal column – one false move and she could get a
wicked headache, or worse. If she sat still, though, her wracking labor pains
would soon go away. “Tree of life and light,” I prayed, over and over again, in
the manner of a mantra, “Tree of life and light, please ease her passage.” It is
a fragment of a prayer that I developed one burning hot July at a Sun Dance
ceremony in Lakota country. I arrived at the reservation as a creature of
logistics, a mere ride home for one of the Sun Dancers, and I left there praying,
powerfully swept up in that old-time religion. I drove home from the
reservation smelling of sage and tobacco smoked from a holy pipe adorned with
eagle plumage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Plumage.” I was getting sick of that word, or one of its
cognates. I didn’t have much stomach for watching war on television, but I did follow
<em>The New York Times’</em> coverage of the war in Iraq. Embedded journalists don’t
have much more time to rework and freshen their prose than Meriwether Lewis did
when keeping his field journal in uncertain Indian country, but they do have
editors working in the relative safety and comfort of New York City, and I
wished their editors would flip off the imagery switch on “plumes.” Iraq was on
fire, bombs rained down by the hour, and every one of those damned fires and
bombs seemed to be sending “plumes” of smoke into the desert sky. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With the epidural anesthetic in her system, Karley was
enjoying her first peace in twenty-four hours. Before the needle, contractions had
doubled her up like kicks in the gut; now, she had to ask the nurse to consult
a machine to tell her when she last had one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I hadn’t slept, and I didn't want to sleep. Coffee seemed to
be the answer. I made the trek down from the 8th floor, Labor & Delivery,
to the cafeteria, where I was overjoyed to find hot, strong coffee. It was
labeled “French roast,” which brought to mind a new linguistic idiocy – the
movement to rebrand “French fries” in the U.S. as “Freedom fries,” because the
French government had not opted to join the United States in its pursuit of
violent regime change in Iraq. I wondered if one day they would be serving
“Freedom roast” coffee in this country too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><a href="http://www.med.nyu.edu/patients-visitors/our-hospitals/tisch-hospital">Tisch Hospital</a>, operated by New York University, is a
prestigious teaching hospital. The place makes you feel like you are getting the
most elite health care on the planet. Our private delivery room was enormous.
It was bigger than the tiny apartment Karley and I first shared in Queens,
which was barely big enough for her alone when I came bumbling along, calling
her on a payphone from an Indian reservation in Nebraska. I was taking a break
from a brutal religious ceremony, calling everyone I hoped to see at my next
stop, in New York City – including that French African woman I had met on the
plane.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The elevators and hallways of the hospital were bustling
with young, energetic residents and medical students. At age 36, I was having a
new feeling when I saw people like them. It was the same feeling I had when I
watched professional soldiers on TV. I was just old enough to legitimately feel
like matters of life and death – even my own life and death, even the life and
death of my wife and unborn child – were left in the hands of kids who didn’t
know anything about life or death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We had a window room for labor and delivery, facing north
into the teeth of the Arctic front that had brought us snow in April. The icy
wind cutting into the cracks of the windows had the faint sound of a baby’s
squall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Another cup of French roast coffee. “Could you hit ‘8’ for
me?” I said in the elevator, on my way back up, and a beefy security guard
smiled. “Having babies,” he said, warmly. Even hardened hospital workers
brightened when they came across an anxious man bound for the 8th floor, Labor
& Delivery, as I learned during the six months we lived in this hospital during
the nightmare phase of Karley’s pregnancy. She went a month without eating
anything, was fed paste intravenously through a tube: we were a persistent
worry on one floor in the hospital reserved for life, not sickness, damage, and
death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">A nurse came in who had tended to Karley in the sickbed
days. Karley’s blood pressure had spiked, which put her at risk of seizure
during labor, so they were adding magnesium to her I.V. to reduce that risk.
The magnesium would slow her contractions, so they were starting her on pitocin
to counteract that effect and keep her labor moving on schedule. Not for the
first time in this pregnancy, I thought of war. I couldn’t possibly count all
of the machines tracking and assisting Karley’s progress in delivering this
child. Yet many people, in many places, would deliver a baby today with no help
other than a pair of hands to catch the infant on the other end. Just as the
American military advancing across the desert looked almost ludicrously tricked
out with gear and weaponry compared to the Iraqis, who seemed to be wearing nothing
but sandals and rags.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">With labor on slow idle, and Karley out of pain, I had time
to think about other things. Like, who was this Black Cat character? The Mandan
guy Meriwether Lewis smoked a sacred pipe with on April 8th, 1805? That was the
highlight of Lewis’ day on the date that will be our baby’s birthday, and I
have always felt a kinship with Meriwether Lewis, the explorer with the
enchanting name and the more personally touching journal entries. Meriwether Lewis
always struck me as the moody soul of the expedition, with William Clark its
stolid reality principle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I paged back in the journals, looking for when Black Cat first
entered the scene. The captains first encountered him in late October, 1804. He
was chief of a Mandan village on the Missouri River that Clark spelled
phonetically as <em>Roop tar-hee</em>. By mid-November, Black Cat was consulting
earnestly with the captains, sharing the minutes (so to speak) of his tribe’s
war councils and listening to Clark’s advice for his people “to remain at
peace.” Pacifists will love many such moments in the journals, though it’s a
mistake to see them as evidence of a less than hawkish approach to “the Indian
problem.” The captains counseled peace because they were not trying to divide
the tribes to occupy their land (that would be a later phase of westward
expansion). Rather, they were business agents, trying to keep liquid the flow
of goods, with the U.S. now installed as their new supplier. Here is Clark’s
advice to Black Cat, with motive included: “we advised them to remain at peace
& that they might depend upon Getting Supplies through the Channel of the
Missouri.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The Corps’ competitive commercial edge is laid bare later
that November, when Black Cat paid another visit to the captains. After
receiving “a fiew presents of Curioes Handkerchiefs arms bans & paint with
a twist of Tobaco,” the chief got a frank sales pitch. (Of course, this comes
from the journal kept by Clark, the square, dull suit.) Apparently, a “British
Trader Mr. Le rock” had been “Giveing Meadils & Flags” to the Mandans.
Black Cat was ordered by Clark “to impress it on the minds of their nations
that those Simbells were not to be recved by any from them, without they wished
incur the displieasure of their Great American Father.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">In February of 1805, the Corps of Discovery was still camped
with the Mandans when Lewis first took note of Black Cat. True to form, Meriwether
meditated on the human being – “this man possesses more integrity, firmness,
inteligence and perspicuety of mind than any indian I have met with in this
quarter” – before getting down to business: “and I think with a little
management he may be made a usefull agent in furthering the views of our
government.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Later that month, Black Cat’s son spent the night in the
captains’ camp. I like to think that this Mandan man of intelligence and
perspicuity had figured out that the future, for better or for worse, lie in
the hands of these Americans, and he wanted his son to study them up close, to
see the future for himself. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I worked up these notes on my portable email gizmo at a small
table in our Labor & Delivery room, with frequent glances at Karley’s blood
pressure and the baby’s heart monitor. My medical interventions, such that they
were, consisted of telling Karley to roll onto her side when the baby’s heart
rate dropped, which was something I had heard the head nurse tell her to do,
and it did seem to do the trick. Not that the hospital staff needed much help
getting babies born today. The low pressure system that brings storms also
seems to drop babies out of pregnant women, and the ward was swamped with women
moving swiftly through labor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">When I found my way back to April 8th, 1805 in the journals,
I learned that, browsing for the birthday of our baby, I happened to meet Black
Cat just as Meriwether Lewis was saying good-bye to him. That sacred pipe they
had shared was actually a going-away smoke, one for the road. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our final glimpse of Black Cat comes during the Corps’
return journey a year and a half later, when they were high-tailing it back to
St. Louis. That’s my hometown, and the ultimate secret of my fascination with
Meriwether Lewis, since the Corps of Discovery set forth from St. Louis and the
town is steeped in history of the expedition. When the Corps touched down again
in Mandan country, briefly, in the spirit of a follow-up call to a new
potential client, Black Cat was one of several chiefs who expressed interest in
voyaging with them to Washington. In the end, though, he bowed to flinty
realism. His people had been lost in the hell of war while the Corps of
Discovery tramped its way to the west coast and back. Their primary enemy, the
Sioux, “were on the river below and would Certainly kill him if he attempted to
go down,” Clark noted, and though Clark promised that the captains “would not
Suffer those indians to hurt any of our red Children who Should think proper to
accompany us,” Black Cat wasn’t buying any of it. He stayed put. Perhaps he had
his doubts about the Great American Father’s ability, or even desire, to
protect “his little red children” when Great American Father was doing his own
business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Karley had so many tubes sticking out of her she took on the
appearance of a machine. The nurses carefully checked her fluids and her
pressures, like skilled mechanics anxious about the machine’s ability to
perform in the clutch. The analogy showed its limits, however, as the head
nurse bent down to admire the sharp curves of Karley’s cheekbones and the dark almonds
of her eyes, and expressed hope (this American father hoping right along with
her) that faithful copies of those features were inching from her womb toward
the future. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Because I didn’t want to dwell morbidly on Karley’s high
blood pressure, I kept thinking about that British trader in Mandan country,
and how Clark had warned the Indians against doing business with him lest they
anger their Great American Father. It sounded so familiar. I paged back to late
November, 1804, and found a passage in Clark’s journal where he actually
confronted the competition, the trader Mr. La Rock, who was in-country at the
same time as the Corps of Discovery. Clark noted of La Rock that “we informed
him what we had herd of his intentions of makeing Chiefs &c. and forbid him
to give meadels or flags to the Indians.” Wait a minute. Making chiefs? Sure
enough, paging back farther, there was Clark gathering intelligence about the
various local leaders, and there he was handing out medals, bestowing his
vision of rank among the Mandans. So his message to Mr. La Rock was: run along,
now, we’ve already decided who are the chiefs and who are the Indians around
here – and they are our captive market. That speech hasn’t changed much in 200
years. Now the Great American Father is picking himself some new chiefs to help
him topple the old chief in Iraq, where he’s trying to hold an oil market
captive. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">April 8th didn’t mean anything to me before today. But April
7th did, and not only because that was the date our baby had been predicted to
appear. It is also the date on which my father was born, though I didn’t know
that until I told my mother the due date of her grandchild. And that’s because
I never really knew my dad, who <a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/07/death-of-stranger.html">wasn’t such a great American father</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But I couldn’t help noticing that April 7th, my father’s
birthday, was a much better day for Meriwether Lewis in 1805 than April 8th was.
In fact, Lewis wrote a very famous passage on April 7th, 1805, one that shines
with all the eloquence he brought to the journals:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“We were now about to penetrate a country at least two
thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden;
the good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine,
and these little vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to
subsist or defend ourselves. entertaining as I do, the most confident hope of
succeading in a voyage which had formed a da[r]ling project of mine for the
last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the
most happy of my life.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">His very next journal entry was his farewell to Black Cat on
April 8th, a day of soggy biscuits and ruined gunpowder, the first day of the
rest of his life, a life that ended violently, in apparent suicide: pulling the
trigger on a gun aimed at his own head.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">*<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I worried about having a war baby. What would I say? “I
remember the day you were born. Your countrymen were applauding the 21st century’s
first colonial war. We were taking over a distant stretch of desert because
there is oil buried there.” But then, I was a war baby, born in 1966 in the
throes of Vietnam, and I don’t remember any of its images, though they must
have flashed many times across my infant face. Karley’s home country, Togo, was
torn by military coups in the years of her earliest childhood. It’s probably
true that we are all war babies, thrust with agony to she who nurtured us into
a world of chaos and violence.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The doctor said the baby’s head was a little lower now, a
little further from warmth and comfort, a little closer to the future. Already
with a plastic stick the doctor slit the baby’s bubble of fluid, its first
supportive ocean now a bloody stain in a dirty hospital hamper. The opening
that would let this life into the light was a little wider, now, since the last
time anybody checked with rubber-gloved fingers. Karley, drugged, whistled with
a tiny snore. April was weird and cold and white outside the window. A baby’s
heart was knocking, knocking, knocking on our door.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> *</span></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></o:p> </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPhhQqdKnpk65Cw-s76LwwE-1OlV8FWftBrNz7ef_SvKQUd4d4u3d87gy7e9taxGiB2hNM4gP8K1YVJY16UT0zQh6j5cWF5j8WBQ1mD9lAOlmsn4IgIuHDvZyrTzieAQAk_MNvbqH6k8/s1600/doll.baby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAPhhQqdKnpk65Cw-s76LwwE-1OlV8FWftBrNz7ef_SvKQUd4d4u3d87gy7e9taxGiB2hNM4gP8K1YVJY16UT0zQh6j5cWF5j8WBQ1mD9lAOlmsn4IgIuHDvZyrTzieAQAk_MNvbqH6k8/s320/doll.baby.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p></o:p> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em>Leyla Fern King at birth</em></div>
Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-88361321443977610822013-02-02T12:19:00.000-06:002013-02-02T12:19:12.372-06:00Kind Artists stretch out in group show at Mad Art<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDhyphenhyphenTyxanQND-6D9OGsTJRB9QYbkWrb4oZO6v5GxZgkXIV4mZ3Uza5lb5z_mN3Gbl0FOkc-n4rLVbJDkSptHsQ-Kr6-65VgXPjOvGFu0PMMcJWfTUhX4eAqx7HXWqqXw0fwEMgbjKK1w/s1600/jay.babcock.men.sitting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUDhyphenhyphenTyxanQND-6D9OGsTJRB9QYbkWrb4oZO6v5GxZgkXIV4mZ3Uza5lb5z_mN3Gbl0FOkc-n4rLVbJDkSptHsQ-Kr6-65VgXPjOvGFu0PMMcJWfTUhX4eAqx7HXWqqXw0fwEMgbjKK1w/s320/jay.babcock.men.sitting.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
The Kind Artists opened a group show at <a href="http://www.madart.com/">Mad Art</a> last night. I follow most of these artists pretty closely in social media, so sort of thought I knew where they all are. That's not a bad thing about social media, getting to share your friends' artistic process very casually.<br />
<br />
So I knew Jay Alan Babcock has been doing repetitive, detailed drawings and paintings based on school Yearbook photos from a more socially conformist era. That didn't make his work any less exciting to see in person and to scale, since a couple of these paintings are just enormous. I found myself transported mentally to some offbeat public space, like a gym at a monied private school or a cafeteria at Google corporate, where someone had the sense to invest in one of these giant pieces and leave it standing there in front of people all the time.<br />
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I have seen Deb Douglas' work in person fairly recently (for an overcommitted parent like me) so knew what to expect from her, but enjoyed seeing a long line of these pleasing mixed-media pieces she is doing that mix archival images with her own drawings and then titled in ways that often introduce a conceptual component. I was personally gratified to see her showing again my favorite in this line of hers, <a href="http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/2012/10/jay-alan-babcock-and-deb-douglass-have.html">"We have no quinces,"</a> which Deb did for the Poetry Scores invitational to Embirikos. That piece is the first sight when you enter the show, so I felt a part of this kindly community.<br />
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I also get out of the house to see Jeremy Rabus shows better than most, and he engages with his process fairly openly in social media, so I wasn't surprised by his part of the show either, but was again delighted to see it played out to scale. He had what must have been dozens of small, oddly shaped, brightly colored paintings arranged in a scattered way on half of Mad Art's long western wall. I thought of Guided By Voices and all of their endless, brilliant two-minute songs, all of them somehow different than the others -- and beautiful -- no matter how many you hear. Jeremy's little paintings were like that.<br />
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With Timothy Meehan, I was less sure what to expect. What I see from Tim's work at a glance on social media is all over the map, and I don't think I have seen a good grouping of his art in person before last night. I just loved his work in this group show. These blunt paintings had compositional elements from some of my favorite printmakers -- Melina Rodrigo kept coming to mind. His titles tried a variety of conceptual approaches to what seemed to my eye a very connected body of work with primitive, natural, earthen patterns and tones. If I had $400 to spend on art and a wall to hang something on, I was a Meehan buyer last night.<br />
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I didn't know what to expect from Amy Bautz either. I have known her for years and collaborated with her for the first time when we were both what I would now call "kids," but we haven't been as closely connected in recent years and, from what I have observed, she seems to change things up a lot as an artist. In this show she has intricate, eccentric drawings of natural forms, though when she happens to be drawing a natural form that hangs suspended from a plastic clip, the plastic clip gets the same electric, kooky, adoring attention from her.<br />
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The scale of Mad Art, I appreciated last night, is great for a small group show, because everyone really gets to stretch out. In their own ways, each of these artists stretched out in this ample space and aggressively demonstrated what they were up to. That's exciting of itself, but there is the added dimension that they are pointedly doing this as a group with a brand, as it were, that suggests kindred spirits who are kindly disposed. That suits me, and the St. Louis creative community, just fine.<br />
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They even went so far as to pose for a really handsome portrait, in matching suits and obviously made-up for the camera. They treat themselves as the early Beatles. And why not? Why should musicians be the only artists who get that unique kick that comes from being in a band?<br />
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*<br /><br /><em>Imaged, poached from Jay Alan Babcock's online photos, is I think one of the pieces in this show.</em><br />
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Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-66779933037780295472013-01-31T22:57:00.003-06:002013-01-31T22:57:32.011-06:00Lola talked me into seeing the new big show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9R4jhuv-9v8I4fc_24urFj0umSflVv9D-oYkjP8lKMIU5x1bsP0bhs92PGP5YrrvH2FniqkqyEdtnWN-re_FAtIeS-OcK9g2Lh07m9wtV6N7F2dB5jZF49TpKNSqoDN6gAwMW38l1Dc/s1600/dewey.sitting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje9R4jhuv-9v8I4fc_24urFj0umSflVv9D-oYkjP8lKMIU5x1bsP0bhs92PGP5YrrvH2FniqkqyEdtnWN-re_FAtIeS-OcK9g2Lh07m9wtV6N7F2dB5jZF49TpKNSqoDN6gAwMW38l1Dc/s320/dewey.sitting.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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I seized a rare night out recently to reconnect with some buddies from the burlesque scene. My friends Lola and Kyla, and their friends who became my friends, skyrocketed not long after we started hanging out and now there is just no keeping up with them (especially if you're a parent with a day job).<br />
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Hanging out with them on Cherokee Stree the other night, Lola gave an eloquent pitch for why my road dog John Parker and I needed to see the elevation of their act in <a href="http://kokenartfactory.com/">the Naughti Gras 6 show</a>, where they have been allowed to completely reconceive the Koken space for their sexy (and hilarious) theatrics.<br />
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I'll admit I'm the guy who was there in the early days but then didn't keep up as the showmanship developed and then exploded, and Lola was giving me the business about this, going so far as to jab me in the chest as she made her points and to address me by my first <em>and</em> my last names. <br />
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I was kind of being put on notice. I was expected to see the new big show!<br />
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Then she added a personal persuasive note by pointing out a key role in the new production for Dewy de Cimalle. "I know she's your favorite," Lola said.<br />
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So that was that. Talked me into it. Put aside some time. We're going to go see the new big show!<br />
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<em>Speaking of Dewy de Cimalle, the above image of Dewy is by Carrie Meyer of Insomniac Studio. A beautiful canvas print of this naughty librarian portrait is available at </em><a href="http://www.stlcurioshoppe.com/"><em>St. Louis Curio Shoppe</em></a><em>.</em><br />
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Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-1796125283631081942013-01-21T12:25:00.002-06:002013-01-21T12:25:40.869-06:00Tower Groove opens singles club with Old Lights / Demonlover<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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On Friday night I went to the inaugural release party for the new Tower Groove Records singles club. By paying up front for a year of once-monthly releases, you get twelve new vinyl 7" records, each a split single between two local bands, for a bargain basement $5 per record.</div>
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I'm taking the trouble to post this hoping I can drum up some subscriptions for these guys. You can do that over <a href="http://towergrooverecords.com/merch/">on the Tower Groove website</a>. I operate my hobbies on a cash economy basis, so I had lunch at Mangia and handed Jason Hutto $60 in cold cash for my subscription. Tower Groove printed up some carbons, so I even walked with a receipt which I have kept as a sort of badge or ersatz membership card.</div>
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At the record release party on Friday at Off Broadway, they had my name at the table, sure enough, so I collected on my first Tower Groove 7". This one pairs Old Lights, a personal local favorite, with Demonlover, a feisty, unpredictable trio.</div>
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The <a href="http://oldlightsmusic.com/">Old Lights</a> song, "Blocking out the Sun," was written by bassist and co-frontman Kit Hamon, who sings like a power pop angel. It's hook-laden rock & roll in the legacy of <em>Revolver</em>, with that tuneful two-electric-guitar sound that never gets old. Beth Bombara's keyboards add an additional melody line and tasteful punctuation. The song itself is of that enviable sort where every part of it would work as a hook ... and it has four or five parts, four or five legitimate hooks, with dynamic, surging changes between them. The closest equivalent from my era of the St. Louis scene (the late '80s, early '90s) would be The Lettuceheads led by Carl Pandolfi.</div>
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Demonlover's song, "MC5 U in My Dreams," reminds me of my favorite Butthole Surfers records, like <em>Locust Abortion Technician</em> or <em>Cream Corn</em>. It opens with this abrasive but catchy punk song that turns into a meandering noise improvisation. I don't mean noise like hideous loud, I mean noise like Sad Lewis or Eric Hall, where the character of the sounds is what is being played. I liked these guys enough to look them up and read <a href="http://kdhx.org/blog/2012/10/02/were-a-fun-sort-of-mess-an-interview-with-demonlover/">on the KDHX blog</a> where they fretted that the instruments they are writing on will be audible at a live gig. I can see why, listening to the noise part of this song -- chimes, keys, sousaphone, glockenspiel, and vocals sung as from a warbling victrola.</div>
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The live show on Friday was full of surprises. I had never seen Old Lights, though I have one LP, <em>Every Night Begins the Same</em>, and their contribution to the Tower Groove double record, "We Laid Down." I was interested to see that both of their Tower Groove songs thus far are written and fronted by Kit Hamon, because the other front man, David Beeman, has such absorbing frontman charisma. He was dressed like a grunge rocker, flannel and jeans, but had his jeans cuffed like a rockabilly dude and wore the indoors ski cap of the 21st century hipster. Then an instrumental break hits, and suddenly he's is pogoing and swishing his guitar around the stage like a Mod -- or like a man who is very secure in his masculinity. This guy is a true new hybrid of the rock band frontman. Best of all, he is unpretentious and likeable in doing so. "Come in," he said to the people standing half-way back on the dance floor. "Come in." And we came in closer to the stage.</div>
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Demonlover also has a peculiar and fascinating frontman in Andy, as he is credited on the 7", though I gather from Dana Smith his last name is Lashier. When Andy isn't plunking around and making noise, he is a left-handed bass player who sings in two mics, one of them wildly inflected and distorted. He is one of those guys who has a very personal relationship with his instrument and the process of performing -- he's so possessed, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He is also flat-out goofy. He sort of jogs in place in these battered black workboots when he is stuck there in front of one of his mics for any stretch of time. I only regret to report that Andy seemed to have forgotten his belt or prefers not to be thus restrained, and as the gig wore on he took on a new southside rocker variant of saggin', which is not the sort of unique frontmen hybrid we want to promote here at Confluence City. Andy is backed by Rage, as per the 7", who seemed to be the short-haired incarnation of JJ Hamon, who can do no wrong on any instrument, ever.</div>
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Image is of my new Old Lights / Demon lover 7" on the portable record player my buddy Jocko gave me. No excuses for not listening to vinyl when you can still buy these guys for $20, though Tower Groove records also come up digital download codes.</div>
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Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-20803791972984821372012-12-25T21:38:00.001-06:002012-12-25T21:40:16.738-06:00Crone's candidacy as media person of the year<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I grew up in the St. Louis media writing for <em>The Riverfront Times</em> when Ray Hartmann owned the paper. That <em>RFT</em> always ran a media column that I thought did a good job of stirring up the proverbial and reminding us what we were talking about and how we were talking about it.<br />
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If St. Louis still had a good media column and it was handing out media persons of the year awards, <a href="http://thomascroneclips.wordpress.com/">Thomas Crone</a> would merit an award for something. Crone had a Zelig-like ubiquity in 2012, he was everywhere doing everything, and it was some of his best stuff.<br />
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I won't pretend to have kept up with all of it, but there was a <a href="https://www.stlbeacon.org/#!/list/AND[TAG[second_set]]">Second Set</a> series on <em>The Beacon</em> where Crone got nostalgic in public, but he had so much to say and said it so well that his nostalgia was well worth sharing. He also seemed to be always blogging about good things for our mutual friend Stefene Russell who keeps the gate on the <em>St. Louis Magazine</em> arts blogs.<br />
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I thought he did his best work of all -- in 2012 and to date -- on his own project <a href="http://www.halforderfriedrice.com/">Half Order Fried Rice</a>, a multimedia mockumentary project. Crone invented a series of fake lists where St. Louis placed, as the city always does place in real life on assorted national lists of cities with (for example) the best drinking water, most violent crime and worst racial segregation.<br />
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A Half Order Fried Rice episode comes with a brainiac prose piece by Crone, some seriously witty and insightful post-modern banter, that eventually introduces a piece of improvised sketch comedy. Like the rest of us amateur directors in St. Louis, Crone casts his friends as amateur actors, to uneven but frequently totally hilarious effect.<br />
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In Half Order Fried Rice, however, Crone developed a problem that is new for him (but painfully familiar to me). He had so much going on that it was difficult to figure out at a glance what was going on and who should take the time to experience it. <br />
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I volunteered production advice to him, as an old friend and creative partner. I thought he should keep the brilliant title "Half Order Fried Rice" for his production company, such that it is, and retitle this web series "St. Louis: City of Lists." I thought that series title would really draw in the sizable regional audience that would appreciate what he was doing. <br />
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Alas, as usually happens when I or anyone else volunteers unsolicited production advice to anyone else, Crone kept right on doing what he was doing the way he was doing it.<br />
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I acted in a couple of episodes of Half Order Fried Rice and especially enjoyed acting in and then watching the <a href="http://www.halforderfriedrice.com/?p=349">Mumblecore episode</a>. I thought Crone got some pretty good improvised sketch comedy out of Kevin Arndt, Amy Broadway and me playing a Mumblecore moviemaking unit.<br />
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In what was a very good year for the Crone, he also gave me probably my single most satisfying experience as a working amateur artist in St. Louis in 2012: acting in this Half Order Fried Rice episode, on the same day the great improv actor George Malich went in for his second, and final, brain surgery, in a hospital about a mile from where we were shooting on the Hill.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Photo is of Crone as Capt. Buster Jangles in the </span><a href="http://www.poetryscores.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Poetry Scores</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;"> movie I directed, <em>Go South for Animal Index</em> (which will premiere June 16, 2013 in Istanbul). Yes, Crone was all over the media map as an actor as well.</span><br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-42295400402027134142012-11-05T18:59:00.004-06:002012-11-05T19:01:18.638-06:00Bootblogging #24: One by Fire Dog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am really excited about this new song from St. Louis rock band <a href="http://www.seefiredogroll.com/">Fire Dog</a>, "Prelude," featuring The Rats & People Motion Picture Orchestra, which appears on the new Fire Dog record <em>May These Changes</em> that the band is releasing tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov. 6, with a 7:30 post-election show at Sheldon Concert Hall, 3648 Washington Ave.<br />
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<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F66287474"></param>
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<embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F66287474" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <a href="http://soundcloud.com/poetry-scores/prelude-by-fire-dog">"Prelude" by Fire Dog</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/poetry-scores">Poetry Scores</a>
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I heard "Prelude" on a five-song sampler of the new record, leaked to me by a friend of the band. The other songs are totally different -- they have lyrics and vocals and are more standard local rock band song fare, though really good stuff in that vein. (Except for "M.A.N.," which is white rap and space soul, and not so good stuff in that vein.)<br />
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My link to the band is Rebecca S. Rivas, the supremely gifted staff reporter and video producer I was fortunate to recommend to my employer, <em>The St. Louis American</em>, for employment. Rivas, who is the spouse of Fire Dog frontman Mark Pagano, has produced a video to the song "Transformer" from the new record.<br />
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I appreciate Rivas for turning me onto the new Fire Dog record. It took a little courage for her to do so, since Fire Dog is one of the running jokes in our newsroom. I have been in some bands with stupid band names, so I aught to know, but I find it hard to take the band's name seriously. As a result, when I ask about her husband's band, I ask about Water Emu, Earth Sloth, Air Hyena, or Fire Aardvark, but never, God help me, Fire Dog.<br />
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I am sure much more about that there new record and that there record release show is to be had on that there <a href="http://www.seefiredogroll.com/">Fire Dog website</a>.<br />
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Image borrowed from <a href="http://www.bringfido.com/photo/view/646/">Bring Fido</a>.<br />
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<strong>More in this series</strong><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-1-three-by-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #1: Three by The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-2-three-elegies-for-local.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #2: Three elegies for local
musicians</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-3-michael-shannon-friedman.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #3: Michael Shannon
Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-4-three-more-by-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #4: Three more by The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #5: Chuck Reinhart's guitar circle
hits</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-6-silly-side-of-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #6: The silly side of The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-7-songs-for-divorcing-god.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #7: Songs for "Divorcing
God"</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-8-more-songs-for-divorcing.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #8: More songs for "Divorcing
God</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-9-adam-long-presents-imps.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #9: Adam Long presents The
Imps!</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-10-more-michael-shannon.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #10: More Michael Shannon
Friedman</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-11-adversary-workers.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #11: The Adversary Workers</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-12-may-day-orchestra.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #12: The May Day Orchestra</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-13-solo-career-live-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #13: Solo Career live in Santa
Monica</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-14-four-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #14: Four from The Funhouse (Seattle
punk</span></a>)<br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-15-four-more-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #15: Four more from The Funhouse (Seattle
punk rock)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-16-i-will-be-your.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #16: I will be your volunteer! (for Bob
Slate)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-17-yet-more-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #17: Yet more The Lettuce Heads</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootblogging-18-four-by-russell-hoke.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #18: Four by Russell Hoke</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/04/bootblogging-19-krakersy-is-crackers-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #19: Krakersy (is Crackers in
Polish)</span></a><br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-20-four-by-grandpas-ghost.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #20- Four by Grandpa's Ghost</span></a>
<br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-21-eight-by-jaime-gartelos.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #21: Eight by Jaime Gartelos</span></a>
<br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2011/08/bootblogging-22-five-by-bob-reuter.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging
#22: Five by Bob Reuter</span></a><br />
<a href="http://www.confluencecity.blogspot.com/2012/07/bootblogging-23-three-by-heebie-jeebies.html">Bootblogging #23: Three by the Heebie Jeebies</a>Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-24375479673813479762012-10-04T09:21:00.000-05:002012-11-02T18:24:06.011-05:00Eleanor Roosevelt reunion weekend Dec. 7-8<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h0CZqnaXSyV7HcA-6bBVZobkdFC0oFVttilkO4SGcjDeULRFaw7Kg6gJE8haBwCPMV6FSO-VR9RNRdLFK7447zp8-l3ugBTP2EGhNtfB1nNiMZlM4m-XHBV-BqdIRevqm1CylbrIOng/s1600/ER.tux.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_h0CZqnaXSyV7HcA-6bBVZobkdFC0oFVttilkO4SGcjDeULRFaw7Kg6gJE8haBwCPMV6FSO-VR9RNRdLFK7447zp8-l3ugBTP2EGhNtfB1nNiMZlM4m-XHBV-BqdIRevqm1CylbrIOng/s320/ER.tux.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The 1990s St. Louis folk rock band Eleanor Roosevelt
will have a reunion weekend and release a new record, <i>Water Bread & Beer</i>,
with gigs on both sides of the river, December 7-8.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The record release party proper will be a house
concert Friday, December 7 in Olivette with Fred Friction opening. The $10
admission includes a copy of the new CD <i>Water Bread & Beer</i>. Doors
are at 7 p.m. and the music starts at 8 p.m.; bring your own drinks. </span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Seating is limited. For reservations and directions, contact
David Melson via email: <a href="mailto:melsond@gmail.com">melsond@gmail.com</a>.</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span></b><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Then Eleanor Roosevelt performs 10 p.m. Saturday,
December 8 at Jacobsmeyers, a musician-owned brewpub-to-be in Granite City,
with the Heebie Jeebies and Dana Michael Anderson. This show is free. Jacobsmeyers Tavern
(618-876-8219) is located at 2401 Edwards Street in Granite City, Illinois,
within sight of the scenic working steel mills. Eleanor Roosevelt will start
right at 10 p.m., Heebie Jeebies at 11 p.m. with Dana following at midnight and going as long as it
feels good.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The band Eleanor Roosevelt evolved from Enormous
Richard, which along with Uncle Tupelo, Chicken Truck and others pioneered St.
Louis’ alternative country scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Enormous
Richard toured the country with a manic, goofy stage show; when the band began
to focus more on songwriting and less on stage antics, they changed band names
to reflect that, keeping the “E.R.” acronym.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As Eleanor Roosevelt, the band had it widest
national exposure on recordings, with songs on early volumes of Bloodshot
Records’ <i>Hellbent </i>series and East Side Digital’s <i>Lyrics by Ernest
Noyes Brookings</i>. The band also relesed a 7”, <i>Head in a Hummingbird’s
Nest</i>, on Faye Records and scored a feature film, Dan Mirvish’s <i>Omaha:
The Movie</i>. “Head in a Hummingbird’s Nest” later appeared on Snow Globe
Record’s compilation of lost bands from the ‘90s, <i>Tiny Idols</i>. The band
recorded two albums of material in the 1990s before effectively disbanding,
though they would not self-release them until the new century: <i>Walker with
his head down</i> (recorded 1993, released 2007) and <i>Crumbling in the rain</i>
(recorded 1995, released 2005). </span><br />
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria;"></span><br />
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: Cambria; font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: small;">Both Eleanor Roosevelt records <i>Walker with his head down</i> and <em>Crumbling in the rain </em>are available at the major digital download sites; as is <em>Why It's Enormous Richard's Almanac</em>, a reissue of the original E.R.'s debut 1990 tape.</span> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The band’s next evolutions would be from Eleanor
Roosevelt to Three Fried Men and finally to Poetry Scores, a non-profit arts
organization that translates poetry into other media and has bases of operation
in St. Louis, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Hilo, Hawaii. The new Eleanor Roosevelt
record, <i>Water Bread & Beer</i>, was recorded in many American states in
the late 1990s while the musicians in the band were on the road recording poets
and setting poetry to music, which resulted in the first Poetry Scores project<i>,
Crossing America</i> by Leo Connellan (2003).</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><i><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Water Bread & Beer</span></i><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> does include several song settings of borrowed
texts: a poem by Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca, a Jewish children’s song
to summon rain from Morocco, a Peruvian worker’s chant and a fragment from the
Amos Tutuola novel <i>My Life in the Bush of Ghosts</i>. But for most of the
record, the band returned to its roots of working with the lyrics of front man
Chris King, who sings about falling in love with a girl in a wheelchair,
finding himself surrounded by “strangers and dangers,” walking the mean streets
of James Brown Boulevard and nourishing himself with the traditional African
cold remedy of pepper soup and local honey.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The band: Joe Esser (bass), Matt Fuller (drums,
guitar, banjo), Chris King (vocals, guitar), David Melson (bass), John Minkoff
(guitars) and Elijah “Lij” Shaw (banjo, fiddle, guitars), with guests including
Geoffrey Seitz on fiddle and Pat Sansone (now of Wilco) on keyboards.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 16.2pt;">
<span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"></span><span style="color: #2a2a2a; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Tahoma; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><em>Eleanor
Roosevelt blog: <a href="http://www.eleanor-roosevelt.blogspot.com/">www.eleanor-roosevelt.blogspot.com</a>. Or email brodog@hotmail.com.<o:p></o:p></em></span></div>
Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-76235359875673297632012-07-22T10:19:00.002-05:002012-07-22T10:23:25.859-05:00A portrait of two dancers: Beatle Bob and Jay-Jay<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcFE6B_kzT68ib139uDud8nJtRfLmfEu_vC76W5Sv2EZRmXEDp5afAlECXC4otGinEYDNP_O4wChsgHp7iOBGkbgjFWTSBeyi64Rq2NyqVjl_oCB8i7iUD6mJ2DIXBDA6mebF2IIjkPM/s1600/beatle.bob.er.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcFE6B_kzT68ib139uDud8nJtRfLmfEu_vC76W5Sv2EZRmXEDp5afAlECXC4otGinEYDNP_O4wChsgHp7iOBGkbgjFWTSBeyi64Rq2NyqVjl_oCB8i7iUD6mJ2DIXBDA6mebF2IIjkPM/s320/beatle.bob.er.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Beatle Bob anointing Enormous Richard at our first reunion show at CBGB.</span></em></div>
<br />
<br />
Last night I went to a local rock band reunion concert at Off Broadway, where<a href="http://www.confluencecity.blogspot.com/2012/07/bootblogging-23-three-by-heebie-jeebies.html"> the Heebie Jeebies</a> played for the first time in 18 years and the Boorays for the third time since then. My band Enormous Richard came up at the same time as these bands, played many gigs together in the early days of Cicero's Basement, so this promised to be a nostalgia trip.<br />
<br />
It really wasn't. I was never transportated back to better days gone by. I just got absorbed into the present moment of two truly great rock bands brilliantly executing inventive and tasteful arrangements of vivid, interesting material. They totally rocked! <br />
<br />
They didn't even look bad doing it, as we middle-aged rockers tend to do, since the two front men are aging well. Kip Loui of the Heebie Jeebies looks ageless, sporting a goatee as if to prove he is old enough to whisker. Mark Stephens of the Boorays is a little older than most of us from that vintage of the scene, and looked a little older, cooler and wiser back then. Now he looks like a nicely cleaned up version of that exact guy, wearing newer used thrift store clothes -- still cooler and wiser than us, but now also, somehow, younger.<br />
<br />
I know quite a bit about most of the people in these bands and did the inevitable memory lane tripping, but the music was actually better than I remembered it. The songs were better than I remembered and the execution was much better. Surprisingly for a reunion show, living in the present was more interesting than living in the past.<br />
<br />
It helped that throughout both sets I was witness to something I must have seen before, but never when I fully grasped what I was seeing and what it meant: I saw Jay-Jay work the same local rock dance floor as Beatle Bob.<br />
<br />
It's hard to summarize these characters without losing newcomers, but Beatle Bob was starting to emerge on the scene when our bands were doing gigs in the late '80s and early '90s. With his Beatles mop and suit, Bob did zippy dance moves right in front of the band and showered the anointed band with fanboy enthusiasm delivered by a professional. Bob built this schtick into a brand, now a national brand, they tell me.<br />
<br />
Jay-Jay came up on local dance floors later, when Beatle Bob was already more famous than any of the local bands he anointed. Jay-Jay had no appreciable costume or signature haircut, much less schtick overall. That said, Jay-Jay could command a dance floor, call attention to himself with repetitive, mannered dance strokes, and radiate passionate fanboyism at the band like he and they were the only things in the room; on the Earth.<br />
<br />
Jay-Jay was the amateur, Beatle Bob was the pro, but everyone understood that an understudy had emerged.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgncAnsZCXSi8MVhPq5RzBv4zUxQfAkepaFp0jYMNsTFcSD4PCGXiTgj6oZY6PwR9wAdlUOkSKJtZiwMHqkjWViHHm16dMzdzNIRs4d2sFZMh0hJzEHyLtUB43ZFnuyM0TvhbX_aoesUXM/s1600/mejay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgncAnsZCXSi8MVhPq5RzBv4zUxQfAkepaFp0jYMNsTFcSD4PCGXiTgj6oZY6PwR9wAdlUOkSKJtZiwMHqkjWViHHm16dMzdzNIRs4d2sFZMh0hJzEHyLtUB43ZFnuyM0TvhbX_aoesUXM/s320/mejay.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Me and Jay-Jay a few years ago when he bought my drawing, no doubt. of some local rocker.</span></em></div>
<br />
<br />
Last night I got to stand for more than an hour and watch the two of them, Beatle Bob and Jay-Jay, work the same local room, the same dance floor, the same great local bands from their heyday. <br />
<br />
Beatle Bob picked a corner early in the Heebie Jeebies set - right up against stage right, at Alex Mutrux's feet - and did his thing there. He came out of his dance groove briefly to introduce the Boorays, but then leapt right back into that stage right corner and stayed tucked tightly in the peculiar, slashing mannerisms of his dance. Bob's solipsism is more total than ever now. A man who did a repetitive dance has become a repetitive dance with a man inside there somewhere.<br />
<br />
Jay-Jay, on the other hand, would saunter to the edge of the dance floor like an ordinary show-goer, get moved by the band, or not, get more into it, or not. The difference between Jay-Jay and the average show-goer is when he did get more into the band, he got <em>a lot</em> more into the band. Next thing you know, his passionate fanboy dancing is the biggest show in the room; on the Earth.<br />
<br />
It was fun to compare their big shows. <br />
<br />
Beatle Bob's signature dance goes dervish when it gets intense. It's a disjointed circling phenomenon that gets faster and a little wider in circumference, with more violent elbow pops and knee kicks. Jay-Jay goes vertical, straight up in the air toward the ceiling, with this human pogo stick quality that he innovated. The shortest man on any dance floor, Jay-Jay hits the heighest heights.<br />
<br />
Jay-Jay also digs much deeper down into the raw guts of the human heart than we have ever seen Beatle Bob journey in the dance. <br />
<br />
Last night there was one Heebie Jeebies transition, a thrilling jolt from familiar chorus to a new and unexpected melody, a suddenly bright bridge back to where we began, when Jay- Jay did the splits -- his short legs were split open as wide as he is ever going to get them -- then he plunged forward, face-first, and slapped the wooden dance floor with the palm of his hand for all he was worth.<br />
<br />
That was rock & roll.<br />
<br />
**<br />
<br />
<em>Sorry the pictures are of me and these dancers. It's all I have. Last night I did not want to be running around with a camera.</em><br />
<br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-1202584584502125932012-07-20T21:45:00.001-05:002012-07-20T21:45:37.448-05:00Bootblogging #23: Three by the Heebie Jeebies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHEdm9JhP25I3GMKSlcDr1YGdG3T3cGZy3URutfximFCO-hDtCUxk8mjJITT7L1l4vuNXGCUDcd9bF_zaoTyEs6Y4QjWeLiGQEx19lItTvOBaD6RggmEyvchzuE5KJ9JwdX-VqI11Dk-k/s1600/heebiejeebies.mitt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHEdm9JhP25I3GMKSlcDr1YGdG3T3cGZy3URutfximFCO-hDtCUxk8mjJITT7L1l4vuNXGCUDcd9bF_zaoTyEs6Y4QjWeLiGQEx19lItTvOBaD6RggmEyvchzuE5KJ9JwdX-VqI11Dk-k/s320/heebiejeebies.mitt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm excited to see the Heebie Jeebies reunion at Off Broadway on Saturday night, tripled up with the Karate Bikini CD release party and The Boorays re-re-reunion.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://offbroadwaystl.com/calendar/">Off Broadway website</a> is telling me doors open at 8 p.m., the music starts at 9 p.m., it only costs $5 if you are old enough to drink, and Kip Loui tells me half of the proceeds go to KDHX Community Media.<br />
<br />
Kip and I go way back. I once had and dearly miss what I believe was the first Heebie Jeebies recording on cassette. I asked Kip if I could bootblog a few tracks from the past, and he posted them on Sound Cloud for just that purpose. Why don't you give a listen while I natter on about the old days, below? <br />
<br />
Sorry Kip's face has to be so huge.<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F52335014&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F51072152&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="http://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F51069029&show_artwork=true" width="100%"></iframe>
<br />
<br />Come to think of it, there isn't much point to nattering on about the old days, is there? You have your own old days, which are more interesting to you than mine. Or, you are not yet old, in which case the chances are good you're not going to sit in rapt fascination reading yarns of yore on the blog of an aging local rocker.<br />
<br />But I always dug the Heebie Jeebies, the Boorays maybe even more, and Karate Bikini is the bee's knees as well. I plan to be attendance at this live musical performance.<br />
<br />
**<br />
Image <a href="http://skreened.com/irregularwear/mitt-romney-gives-me-the-heebie-jeebies-t-shirt">from Skreened</a>.<br />
**<br />
<br />
<strong>More in this series</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-1-three-by-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #1: Three by The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2008/12/bootblogging-2-three-elegies-for-local.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #2: Three elegies for local
musicians</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-3-michael-shannon-friedman.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #3: Michael Shannon
Friedman</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-4-three-more-by-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #4: Three more by The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-5-chuck-reinhardts-guitar.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #5: Chuck Reinhart's guitar circle
hits</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-6-silly-side-of-lettuce.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #6: The silly side of The Lettuce
Heads</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-7-songs-for-divorcing-god.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #7: Songs for "Divorcing
God"</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/01/bootblogging-8-more-songs-for-divorcing.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #8: More songs for "Divorcing
God</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-9-adam-long-presents-imps.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #9: Adam Long presents The
Imps!</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-10-more-michael-shannon.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #10: More Michael Shannon
Friedman</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/02/bootblogging-11-adversary-workers.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #11: The Adversary Workers</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-12-may-day-orchestra.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #12: The May Day Orchestra</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/03/bootblogging-13-solo-career-live-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #13: Solo Career live in Santa
Monica</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-14-four-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #14: Four from The Funhouse (Seattle
punk</span></a>)<br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/05/bootblogging-15-four-more-from-funhouse.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #15: Four more from The Funhouse (Seattle
punk rock)</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-16-i-will-be-your.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #16: I will be your volunteer! (for Bob
Slate)</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2009/09/bootblogging-17-yet-more-lettuce-heads.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #17: Yet more The Lettuce Heads</span></a><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/02/bootblogging-18-four-by-russell-hoke.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #18: Four by Russell Hoke</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/04/bootblogging-19-krakersy-is-crackers-in.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #19: Krakersy (is Crackers in
Polish)</span></a><br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-20-four-by-grandpas-ghost.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging #20- Four by Grandpa's Ghost</span></a>
<br /><a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2010/12/bootblogging-21-eight-by-jaime-gartelos.html"><span style="color: #5588aa;">Bootblogging
#21: Eight by Jaime Gartelos</span></a> <br />
<a href="http://confluencecity.blogspot.com/2011/08/bootblogging-22-five-by-bob-reuter.html">Bootblogging #22: Five by Bob Reuter</a><br />
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<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-89202349317470889792012-07-18T23:56:00.001-05:002012-07-18T23:56:34.319-05:00Readings at The Royale: Bombs & Monsters; July 25<br />
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Poetry Scores' "Readings at The Royale" series returns 7-9 p.m. next Wednesday, July 25 at <a href="http://www.theroyale.com/">The Royale</a> public house, 3132 South Kingshighway; Steven Fitzpatrick Smith, proprietor.<br /><br />
At no cost additional to drinks and eats, the public may experience, in this order:<br /><br /><strong>Poets</strong><br />Stefene Russell<br />Chris Chable<br />Chris Parr<br />Kristin Sharp<br />Uncle Bill Green<br /> <br /><strong>Songster</strong><br />Ann Hirschfeld<br /> <br /><strong>Fictionist</strong><br />Edward Scott Ibur<br /><br />The occasion: Poetry Scores is reissuing the artbook/CD of our poetry score to <em><a href="http://poetryscores.blogspot.com/2008/12/this-poem-by-stefene-russell-was-scored.html">Go South for Animal Index</a></em> by Stefene Russell, copublished with The Firecracker Press.<br />
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<em>Go South for Animal Index </em>is a poem about bombs and monsters, and this is a themed reading: poems, songs and stories about bombs and monsters.<br /><br />
Everybody gets about 17 minutes of face time, starting pretty promptly at 7ish. Chris King will emcee, giving elliptical one-line intros and sneaking in about three of his own short bombs and monsters poems throughout the evening.<br /> <br />Poetry Scores translates poetry into other media. Though a live reading of poetry is a translation of poetry into voice, our mission compels to go the extra mile of media. <br />
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We are curators of Noah Kirby's sculpture <em>With Solid Stance and Stable Sound</em>, which currently is installed in the back courtyard at The Royale. That's where we'll be performing. It is expected that one or more of the poets will translate a poem through the medium of Noah's sculpture.<br />
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The event is free and open to the public. Just come out back to the courtyard. The <em>Go South for Animal Index</em> reissue will be available for sale. Questions? <a href="mailto:brodog@hotmail.com">brodog@hotmail.com</a><br />
<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-78777249293287153832012-07-11T23:31:00.001-05:002012-07-11T23:31:37.600-05:00Poems published in Smithers (B.C.), Hackney (London) and Balmain (Australia)<br />
I'm not a poet, but I play one on Twitter. At least I follow a lot of publications on Twitter and sometimes follow prompts to submit poems. Mostly, you miss. Sometimes, you hit. I just landed three poems in a row in three different exotic places.<br />
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My poem "What you get is what you see" is in the book <em><a href="http://creekstonepress.com/index.php/publications/article/the_enpipe_line/">The Enpipe Line: 70,00+ kilometres of poetry written in resistance to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines proposal</a></em> published by Creekstone Press (Smithers BC Canada). <br />
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I'm enough of a Simpsons fan to really like the idea of being able to say I am "big in Smithers".<br />
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Actually, I am really little in Smithers, or at least in this book, with just one poem that runs 18 lines (haven't measured the metres) of our poetic pipeline. The 18 was deliberate -- the poem is written in the 7/11 form innovated by the St. Louis Quincy Troupe, which I tweaked a little. Troupe does lines alternating 7 and 11 syllables, and I added trying to do it in two stanzas with 7 and 11 (=18) lines.<br />
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The Enpipe Line was the brainchild of Christine Leclerc, a Vancouver-based author and activist, and she edited the book as part of an editorial collective that culled these 175 pages out of <a href="http://enpipeline.org/theenpipeline.pdf">the 70,000+ kilometres of poetry they published online</a>. I'd like to meet her one day and ask why they picked my poem, one of many I sent that were all added to the online pipeline. I'd guess because it's totally not about the tar sands or politics, and so provides a quirky interlude.<br />
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I also have the poem "Seekonk" in a issue <em>#5</em> of nifty little<a href="https://twitter.com/inczine/"> <em>inc. magazine</em></a> published out of Hackney, London. <br />
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Issue #5 of inc. is also known as<em> The Postcard Issue</em>, and there's a brilliant concept behind that. The editors Anya Pearson and Will Coldwell asked for short poems, with the idea of laying them out as postcards with partner illustrators working to each poem. Each poem gets art the size of a postcard to run on the opposite of the page, and facing the poem is the address line used for credits and a postage stamp also made by the companion artist. <em>The Postcard Issue</em> of <em>inc.</em> is just one of the coolest literary artifacts I've seen.<br />
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My poem is not one of the better pieces, but I love the crude art that MSTR Gringo did to my crude little poem. <br />
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Seekonk, if you don't know, is a hard little town in Massachusetts on the Rhode Island line. I come from Granite City, Illinois, where the hard white people are called "hoosiers". I went to Boston University on a Navy ROTC scholarship which is how I learned about "Massholes". All this came back to me when visiting the Providence, Rhode Island area as a travel writer; hence the poem.<br />
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"Seekonk" also is cast in Troupe's 7/11 form, though it has 14 lines, like a sonnet, because I couldn't get the poem to work in 7, 11 or 18 lines. Forms are made to be tampered with.<br />
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And here just the other day I got in the mail the July-August 2012 of <em><a href="http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/current">Quadrant</a></em>, an Australian magazine of ideas published out of Balmain,a suburb of Sydney in New South Wales. <br />
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I gather its politics trends toward the quadrants on the right of the spectrum, but the literary editor, the great poet <a href="http://www.lesmurray.org/">Les Murray</a>, is a friend and correspondent. When I send him the next letter, I throw some poems in the envelope and some see print in Australia.<br />
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This time, Les took "Sorrow of God," a serious poem I am very proud of. Like everything I am doing these days, it's cast in Troupe's 7/11 form, though I count 10 and not 11 lines, which makes me wonder how hard I tried to find an 11th line for this thing.<br />
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<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-39566702274628602802012-07-06T21:36:00.005-05:002012-07-06T21:36:51.244-05:00"Casualties of the State" & my Elly very partial payback<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Could you say no to this face? Not if you were me.<br />
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This face belongs to V. Elly Smith. Not long ago she asked me to act in two scenes in a movie she was shooting. I couldn't say no. So I played two scenes as a guy named "Chris King," the blowhard producer-talent on the podcast <em>Kingmakers</em>. <br />
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On Sunday evening, St. Louis will have the chance to see my two scenes and the rest of <em>Casualties of the State</em>, an FBI procedural set in Washington, D.C. but shot here. A work-in-progress cut of the movie screens 6:15 p.m. Sunday, July 8 at The Tivoli in the Loop. It's part of the <a href="http://cinemastlouis.org/st-louis-filmmakers-showcase">St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase</a> produced by Cinema St. Louis.<br />
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I haven't seen the movie we will see on Sunday, but I did see an earlier cut, which is how I ended up getting the acting assignment. The filmmakers really pressed the preview audience for feedback, and responding to some of my criticisms led them to create a new part. They then had the good sense to put to work the guy who created the work, me, to play the part.<br />
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My connection to the project is Elly. Anyone who ever worked with Elly would double over backwards to help her out. I directed a feature movie shoot for Poetry Scores that dragged on for two years, and Elly was with us for that whole long haul. She is super resourceful, talented, tireless and utterly a joy to work with.<br />
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In the St. Louis indie movie scene, you know, mostly we don't pay each other. So when I say I owe Elly, I mean I owe Elly. Big time. This doesn't even begin to settle the debt.<br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1546790/">Casualties of the State on imdb</a><br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R4Y4TE5cAw">Official trailer</a><br />
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<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4259650071875106920.post-51794786956400272422012-06-27T01:06:00.001-05:002012-06-27T06:51:46.708-05:00Translating rock music into poetry for Ted Ibur<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So<a href="http://www.confluencecity.blogspot.com/2012/06/steady-edward-ibur-releases-debut-novel.html"> like I was saying</a>, I told my old friend Edward Ibur that I would put together a band to play his book release party. He had the inspired idea of asking musician friends to play cover sets in between readings from his debut novel, <em>Teacher of the Year</em>. The novel is about a public school teacher and is saturated with popular music, so in essence Ted asked his friends to perform the sountrack to his novel.<br />
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It was some kind of crazy successful event. He packed out the Duck Room, a good venue for it. People in seats and at tables could follow the readings closely -- I saw some very attentive people following every word -- and the large group of musicians who used to play with Ted (and their fellow travelers) could stand around the edges and tell tales.<br />
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I was on the edges with the other musicians, an outstanding group of people like Jim Ibur, Brian Simpson, Darren O'Brien, Marc Chechik, Kip Loui, just listing people I talked to. The Iburs came from that high-achiever mid-County set that created some of our most accomplished and successful local bands. These were impressive people twenty years ago when we were first doing music, and they are impressive people now.<br />
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Musically, there were moments that just sucked my breath away. Just staggeringly great. The band Rebecca Ryan fronts with Sean Garcia and Brian Simpson -- just, wow. That performance would have played on any stage of any size in the world, from a corner of a Dublin pub to main stage Bonnaroo. Hats off to these outstanding musicians. Rebecca Ryan, especially. She has really seasoned as a singer and a frontwoman.<br />
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My band thing fell through, but I wasn't about to let Ted down. I have published two chapbooks of poetry and kind of like to do spoken word, so I told him and his brother Jim I'd do that instead; I'd cover the songs I'd signed up for as spoken word. <br />
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When I got to the event, I could feel the overwhelming reunion vibe in the room and how much people needed to speak to one another rather than be talked to from the stage. There were readings from the novel between sets, so I worried about adding another reading. I approached Jim, who was managing the stage. Should I go on?<br />
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"Oh, do your bit," Jim waved me off. "Do the rock singer thing. Eat the mic."<br />
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I did the rock singer thing I know so well. I ate the mic. <br />
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I explained to the people my predicament, vis a vis loving Ted Ibur and having promised him a band and not having a band. To come through for Ted anyway I had to resort to spoken word, I explained. Then I ate the mic and I read from the work of the American poet Lionel Richie ("Stuck on You"), the English poet Roger Waters (attempting a call-and-response on "Hey! Teachers! Leave those kids alone!") and the North London poet Cathal (Chas) Smith, who wrote the words about our house in the middle of our street for Madness.<br />
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What I didn't do, thank God, was carry on and on about Edward Ibur and me, but I had prepared something in my mind just in case it felt called for. What I wanted to say was how perfect it was that my Ted Ibur tribute involved translating pop and rock songs into poetry.<br />
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My main creative project today is the arts organization <a href="http://www.poetryscores.blogspot.com/">Poetry Scores</a>, which translates poetry into other media. I can trace its creative line straight back to Ted Ibur. Poetry Scores evolved from the field recording collective Hoobellatoo, which evolved from the folk rock band Eleanor Roosevelt, which evolved from the goofy country rock band Enormous Richard, which evolved from ... the arts organization Single Point of Light. Ted and me were mobbed up in Single Point of Light way back in like 1987-9. <br />
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How perfect, then, that in paying tribute to one of the guys at the beginning of my road to playing rock music and translating poetry into rock music (and other media), I would translate rock music into poetry.<br />
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<a href="http://edwardscottibur.com/">Teacher of the Year site</a><br />
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<br />Poetry Scoreshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15624640062686409332noreply@blogger.com0