How an old sofa almost killed live music

Three guys sitting on an old sofa on an album cover and me in Mill Valley in 1968. I saw that picture and felt at home. The record wasn't astounding but there were acoustic guitars and harmonies and that damn picture. The picture was home. A place where pickers came by and played the stuff till all hours. But it wasn't happening in San Francisco in 68. Now the Rowan Brothers would be around but only paying at some small joint at Tam Junction. I kept looking for the stuff, but it was not happening. Dan Hicks? Maybe. But every where I went looking it failed me. I went to the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park to hear The Dead. I will swear to any God you know, I thought they were tuning up for 8-10 minutes before I caught on that it was a jam. Jerry was tuning his low E string way down and the tuning it way up. Experimental as all get out! I must report that the combo was snatching gayly colored balloons from various spots on the stage and sucking the "air" out. Nitrous Oxide was the deal. So you get a band who is not very good and get them all high on laughing gas and turn them loose on a jam. It was a free show. Then comes the famous Jefferson Airplane and they flew right away. Finally, CS&N OK! No it was not. They could not sing live! They tried to sing Suite Judy Blue-Eyes. A long and complex song. It was cold blooded murder. I wanted to go home-home but instead I had to go to Berkeley and work. Driving home that night, I passed The Red Lion in San Rafael and saw a sign saying "Bluegrass". I was about ready to kill the next poser I came across, so I loaded up my gun and walked into the bar and just about run over Little Donna Stoneman! Damn if the whole outfit wasn't there excepting Pop (dead) and Scotty (drinking in Baltimore) But very few patrons, so I called some people who came by and liked it. I felt the better for it too and went back
each night of their gig. I had to leave and go back down Virginia. I drove x-country with my sister in a VA bus and that CS&N followed me all the way. I wanted to holler "I seen these guys a bunch and they cannot do it live" Finally, I was back where I could see and hear bands who could deliver it live and CS&N hired Neil Young a wacky Canadian who could write but fit right in to the new acoustic-electric thing because he could not deliver live. Turned out these guys were total holicks and dopers but people were still going nuts wanting to hear them live no matter that they really sucked and took months to get the vocals down on record that single album bands like the Grass Menagerie could work out life in 5 minutes flat.
What I am getting at folks is bluegrass is music for real people. People who understand the beauty of the clear clean harmony and feel the meshing of the musical gears. The people who play it do not have to be sexy or hip. There are some fairly outright out laws in the game and there have been more in the past.

Today, look at that and King Wilkie, they just gave up posing as a BG band and there are more than a few others who could change their stripes. Then look at someone like Lynwood or Phil
RaymondE or Tom G. You have four different men right there but don't think they would leave the music. I am saying right here Bluegrass in it's true original form is good because the people who made it believed in a simple policy and that was doing the music the way it came. Now I am not saying the new groups can't be good, it is just important perform and record honestly and not fall into the pop scene where naked emperors and empresses strut around in the smug security that the foolish patrons will never have the courage to say "That Sucks" Take your lip synched over hyped shows to vegas.

Now as far as acoustic-rock The Eagles and Emmylou and Graham with a bit of Clarence White put things right, but LA and Nashville have always dealt in the past and they shut SF down while the Grateful Dead hung on to become quiet multi millionairesThree guys sitting on an old sofa on an album cover and me in Mill Valley in 1968. I saw that picture and felt at home. The record wasn't astounding but there were acoustic guitars and harmonies and that damn picture. The picture was home. A place where pickers came by and played the stuff till all hours. But it wasn't happening in San Francisco in 68. Now the Rowan Brothers would be around but only paying at some small joint at Tam Junction. I kept looking for the stuff, but it was not happening. Dan Hicks? Maybe. But every where I went looking it failed me. I went to the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park to hear The Dead. I will swear to any God you know, I thought they were tuning up for 8-10 minutes before I caught on that it was a jam. Jerry was tuning his low E string way down and the tuning it way up. Experimental as all get out! I must report that the combo was snatching gayly colored balloons from various spots on the stage and sucking the "air" out. Nitrous Oxide was the deal. So you get a band who is not very good and get them all high on laughing gas and turn them loose on a jam. It was a free show. Then comes the famous Jefferson Airplane and they flew right away. Finally, CS&N OK! No it was not. They could not sing live! They tried to sing Suite Judy Blue-Eyes. A long and complex song. It was cold blooded murder. I wanted to go home-home but instead I had to go to Berkeley and work. Driving home that night, I passed The Red Lion in San Rafael and saw a sign saying "Bluegrass". I was about ready to kill the next poser I came across, so I loaded up my gun and walked into the bar and just about run over Little Donna Stoneman! Damn if the whole outfit wasn't there excepting Pop (dead) and Scotty (drinking in Baltimore) But very few patrons, so I called some people who came by and liked it. I felt the better for it too and went back
each night of their gig. I had to leave and go back down Virginia. I drove x-country with my sister in a VA bus and that CS&N followed me all the way. I wanted to holler "I seen these guys a bunch and they cannot do it live" Finally, I was back where I could see and hear bands who could deliver it live and CS&N hired Neil Young a wacky Canadian who could write but fit right in to the new acoustic-electric thing because he could not deliver live. Turned out these guys were total holicks and dopers but people were still going nuts wanting to hear them live no matter that they really sucked and took months to get the vocals down on record that single album bands like the Grass Menagerie could work out life in 5 minutes flat.
What I am getting at folks is bluegrass is music for real people. People who understand the beauty of the clear clean harmony and feel the meshing of the musical gears. The people who play it do not have to be sexy or hip. There are some fairly outright out laws in the game and there have been more in the past.

Today, look at that and King Wilkie, they just gave up posing as a BG band and there are more than a few others who could change their stripes. Then look at someone like Lynwood or Phil
RaymondE or Tom G. You have four different men right there but don't think they would leave the music. I am saying right here Bluegrass in it's true original form is good because the people who made it believed in a simple policy and that was doing the music the way it came. Now I am not saying the new groups can't be good, it is just important perform and record honestly and not fall into the pop scene where naked emperors and empresses strut around in the smug security that the foolish patrons will never have the courage to say "That Sucks" Take your lip synched over hyped shows to vegas.

Now as far as acoustic-rock The Eagles and Emmylou and Graham with a bit of Clarence White put things right, but LA and Nashville have always dealt in the past and they shut SF down while the Grateful Dead hung on to become quiet multi millionairesThree guys sitting on an old sofa on an album cover and me in Mill Valley in 1968. I saw that picture and felt at home. The record wasn't astounding but there were acoustic guitars and harmonies and that damn picture. The picture was home. A place where pickers came by and played the stuff till all hours. But it wasn't happening in San Francisco in 68. Now the Rowan Brothers would be around but only paying at some small joint at Tam Junction. I kept looking for the stuff, but it was not happening. Dan Hicks? Maybe. But every where I went looking it failed me. I went to the Polo Fields in Golden Gate Park to hear The Dead. I will swear to any God you know, I thought they were tuning up for 8-10 minutes before I caught on that it was a jam. Jerry was tuning his low E string way down and the tuning it way up. Experimental as all get out! I must report that the combo was snatching gayly colored balloons from various spots on the stage and sucking the "air" out. Nitrous Oxide was the deal. So you get a band who is not very good and get them all high on laughing gas and turn them loose on a jam. It was a free show. Then comes the famous Jefferson Airplane and they flew right away. Finally, CS&N OK! No it was not. They could not sing live! They tried to sing Suite Judy Blue-Eyes. A long and complex song. It was cold blooded murder. I wanted to go home-home but instead I had to go to Berkeley and work. Driving home that night, I passed The Red Lion in San Rafael and saw a sign saying "Bluegrass". I was about ready to kill the next poser I came across, so I loaded up my gun and walked into the bar and just about run over Little Donna Stoneman! Damn if the whole outfit wasn't there excepting Pop (dead) and Scotty (drinking in Baltimore) But very few patrons, so I called some people who came by and liked it. I felt the better for it too and went back
each night of their gig. I had to leave and go back down Virginia. I drove x-country with my sister in a VA bus and that CS&N followed me all the way. I wanted to holler "I seen these guys a bunch and they cannot do it live" Finally, I was back where I could see and hear bands who could deliver it live and CS&N hired Neil Young a wacky Canadian who could write but fit right in to the new acoustic-electric thing because he could not deliver live. Turned out these guys were total holicks and dopers but people were still going nuts wanting to hear them live no matter that they really sucked and took months to get the vocals down on record that single album bands like the Grass Menagerie could work out life in 5 minutes flat.
What I am getting at folks is bluegrass is music for real people. People who understand the beauty of the clear clean harmony and feel the meshing of the musical gears. The people who play it do not have to be sexy or hip. There are some fairly outright out laws in the game and there have been more in the past.

Today, look at that and King Wilkie, they just gave up posing as a BG band and there are more than a few others who could change their stripes. Then look at someone like Lynwood or Phil
RaymondE or Tom G. You have four different men right there but don't think they would leave the music. I am saying right here Bluegrass in it's true original form is good because the people who made it believed in a simple policy and that was doing the music the way it came. Now I am not saying the new groups can't be good, it is just important perform and record honestly and not fall into the pop scene where naked emperors and empresses strut around in the smug security that the foolish patrons will never have the courage to say "That Sucks" Take your lip synched over hyped shows to vegas.

Now as far as acoustic-rock The Eagles and Emmylou and Graham with a bit of Clarence White put things right, but LA and Nashville have always dealt in the past and they shut SF down while the Grateful Dead hung on to become quiet multi millionaires

This aint right

Now I'll be the first to admit that the old porcupine has not been 100% of late and I did have that spell put me to the hospital. But then today I go to see that neurologist from Hindustan and she puts me on Alzheimer's medicine! Boy that really made my day. I got the early Alzheimer's starter kit which comes with a booklet showing people interacting with their care givers like this is not big event. I read the part about the early disease and it sort of fit. I do have a bit of forgetfulness like I burned up a pan of water on the stove the other day cause it slipped my mine I was going to make noodles. It was a good pan too. Oh well, I remember lots of stuff. I do worry that the personality is fading in my writing. I feel like I'm running down the page with blunt scissors and have lost the sharpness that I need in the depth of my prose. Here, I wrote a story about the mysterious BEKs, The Black Eyed Kids:





Re: Black Eyed Kids

Postby texino on Fri Aug 21, 2009 11:13 pm
I was visiting my Tia Loupe Texino-Ruiz in Baltimore and those kids come wanting some cheese. I told Tia Loupe to get the biggest pistol in the house and sit on the floor. Loupe is "white" but I am a Black man and the children had not seen me. I come round the side of the house stropping a cut throat razor. When I got close, I snapped the strop together like a gun shot, but those two boys played it cool. "We just need some government cheese Mr." one said. "Ask that lady to let us in brother man" (brother man?) I knew it was time for a diagnostic test. Taking a silver dime hung on a red string from around my neck I swung it toward the nearest kid it pointed rod straight at his eyes and began to hum. A spooky green light highlighted the angular bodies of the children as they gathered by Tia Loupe's front door their dark eyes tracking the dime as it slowly traced the figure for infinity with laser-like sharpness. There were several more than I had noticed and still more seemed to be sliding into the light "Aye Loupitta!" I yelled. "It's OK to open up." Tia Loupe fired her Glock 9mm with extended magazine, from a sitting position. "Bang-Bang-Bang" each shot removed bits of the old door and bigger pieces of the nouveau zombie kids. She was firing blind but I was directing the fire by way of the silver dime. The bullets were not killing the zombies per se just making it hard for them to slip away. I would have to finish them off myself. As I surveyed my killing field I noticed the black hate blinders had slipped from their eyes. Now they glowed an evil red and the ones with intact faces were hurling vile curses far away from the gentile voices they had used to try to gain entrance a scant few minutes before. As I stood in that pool of hell I was reminded of my earthly ties by the sounds of sirens approaching from every point. In a flash Produje un pequeño barrilete de nitrato de plata y de combustible diesel, and with a consuming fireball and a muffled blast, the street was swept clean. I had to split because Tomas Texino is a name not unknown to police in major port cities,. I knew Loupe would have things in order and a good alibi if needed. Those people understand zombies and I don't think you will be hearing many BEK stories from that town in the future.

Now the people who I was trying to entertain with that story had a lot more interest in BEKs than you probably have so they seemed to like it. Still when I talk about depth of prose I mean like, If you got killed by a bear, for instance, you'd want him to have a nice coat of fur and good sharp teeth, right? I mean a mangy jackass could kill you with a well placed kick, and I'm not saying that couldn't make a decent story. I'm just saying if you are dead and they stuffed the animal that did you, you would get more props for a big shiny 10' tall brown bear that you would a scrawny donkey. I really should not have used the donkey the construct that simile because getting killed by a donkey has a lot of plot potential while a bear just walk up and eat you. See my brains working here, but I'll just forget important stuff sometimes. I reckon it's difficult to pin down some of these diseases and maybe the doc is just giving me a month tryout of Alzheimer's medicine to see what it does. She increased my Parkinson's as well. Maye I'm a bit more frightened than I realize. I've worked with all kinds of sick people and I've seen the absent minded Alzheimer's patient and the shaky PD person, but I've also seen the stark terror that occurs when a person has no memory and is eternally lost to life-they simply do not know what it is. People at that stage are medicated rather severely, but woe be it to one who happens by when that medicine gives pause and sends the person into unending tunnel of panic. The brain is dying you see and it takes a good long time before it gets around to shutting down the rest of the machine we call the miracle of life.

The Silent Drum

I wrote about a young man who died. Today they had a service over at the big church. It was religious and it was musical. People told stories; Old people held it together while the younger folks broke down a little bit. I really don't know about the honesty there, but as grownups we have had to hurt people in more serious ways than the younger group, so maybe we pack our sorrows like a concealed weapon and go shoot them off in private. When the service concluded, the coffin was wheeled out. It no longer had it's white and gold drape; in stead it now law covered in the flag of the land. It is a good flag for happiness and a proud flag for a fight. I think most people in this country like it. At each end of the coffin stood a special soldier. A man and a woman dressed in the dress blues one rarely sees. Alex the boy who died had been a member of a famous Army unit, the ones who guard the unknown war dead at Arlington, VA and conduct burials in that famous place. Now with quiet precision they were doing it far away.
We stood in the street, suddenly 7 rifles spit the silence 3 times and a bugle played taps. The soldiers at the casket saluted and soon an elegant officer marched into the tableau.
Then to the sound of a silent drum the men and women went to work. They folded the flag to a perfect rhythm-beats and rests both. Once folded the woman took the perfect triangle and rotated it softly with her snow white gloves to the silent drum beat. She handed it to the officer, a perfect Black Man born with no smile but eyes of such deep compassion that when he handed the flag to Alex's mother it was as touching as a mother receiving her new born son. In a way, she was receiving her son because as she took the flag more perfect troops appeared and with not a nod or a wink, just the perfect beat of the silent drum the marched the casket into a waiting hearse and then simply disappeared, leaving the civilian funeral corps to handle the shell that was once someone I knew. A kid who's spirit will fly between that flag and the beat of the drum the dead can hear so well.

When a long time becomes a short life

A young man died yesterday. He drowned in the sea. That's all I know about that for now. I did however know this man all his life, A bit less than thirty years. That's a good number of years, but now in death it springs back upon it self and the young man is suddenly a boy who has not lived long enough at all. We as a specie are not designed to out live our children. When times are tough we do not turn them away or eat them so we can try again when spring comes. No we care and teach and if we do well enough, they will return in the coldest winter and calm the fears of dreadful loneliness that waits. I really can't say much more other than that I am more than sorry, more than sad and the rock solid understanding that things like this will happen with or without our attention does not help me one bit.

How Sweet it is

There, I remembered the title. I say that with some pride having been in hospital since we last spoke and am wondering if I have lost my channel with "the Great One" but wait! We are still standing in the Bowery while Gleason rocks back and forth like he needs to pee. It doesn't surprise me when he steps out of the light for a bit and returns seemingly lighter on his feet. Lots of talk about big men being light on their feet. This may be factual but it doesn't mean they will be light on yours, so take a tip from Texino and watch your dogs if you ever help a big drunk up the stairs. Speaking of the sauce that was what was getting to Jackie. He was doing his night club shows and then boozing it up all night at the hotel. Well the only thing I could think to do was suggest he head on out to the coast and get into the pictures. I got him a gig with Bogart and Lorre in "All through the Night" Old Peter Lorre was always good luck for a fat guy in the flickers.
Well things worked out for Jack. He got into TV and using some Busby Berkley routines with The June Taylor Dancers and the Honey Mooners skits, he did OK. Did a lot for Miami along the way as well. When you think of it, things turned out alright for a guy who got kicked out of The Stork Club and ran into some Ju Ju man taking a stroll in time.

pumps

Was I talking about soft shoes? Yeah it was the slap of white man shoes and a sound that touched my heart. Well, hell I can open my eyes even if it's just some kind of dream and so that's the deal and when the hand is called I'm staring at Jackie Gleason in a dinner jacket and those patent leather pumps that go with the getup. Jackie is done to the nines but somehow he's got that missed the bus look even though he probably cabbed it. Now I need to square something and that is the fact that people show up and tell me troubles. I can be just laying back in the bed or walking in Lower Manhattan, it doesn't matter, because of a sudden I will be faced with some Clark with a problem that only Texino can square. It's Voo Doo that I caught in my jungle youth. There can be no question at all. So I have to break the hold on the connection and ring everything into time corrected. Sounds complex but I just say "Hello Mr Gleason, how may I help you?" and he says "So you know me fella?" Now this is a quandary because formal attire is pretty timeless from the 30s on up, so I don't have a clue to the date and time I've strolled into. That's the trouble with leading a rich fantasy life one minute you are cooking along and the next your index finger's jammed in the parrot's beak of real life, your reflection lost in a jaundiced eye. WTF? "Er I read the papers" I tell Gleason and it seems to be enough information for a chance encounter.
Next: "How Sweet it is!" Will Texino be able to steer Gleason away from failure and into The Pictures? Tune in and see.