I was sent an email by a friend after last weekend’s gallery talk in which he gave some advice on improving future virtual talks. Most were very helpful and are under serious consideration if the need arises to do another such event in the future. However, it was a suggestion at the end of his email that came with an attached video that made my day and made me laugh very hard.
You see, in the run-up to the gallery talk, I had jokingly stated that I was practicing an acrobatic entrance complete with backflips and two twists with a stuck landing at the end. He said that he was disappointed that this part of the talk had not came about and suggested that if I had any song & dance skills or any other variety show talents, that I put them on display at the next talk.
He was, of course, kidding.
Gosh, I hope he was kidding.
The idea of me doing anything like that in front of a crowd of people made me laugh. It takes everything I have to simply stand stiffly up in front of people and move my lips so that words form.
But I laughed even harder when I watched the video he had enclosed.
It’s a performance of a song called Wow!! from a 1950’s group called The Goofers. It’s from a 1957 movie titled Bop Girl Goes Calypso, also known simply as Bop Girl, which I understand has become a sort of cult classic. I am not going to describe their act here. You can witness it for yourself.
But, sadly, I doubt that you will see any of their act migrate into my talks. Though it might be worth one try.
I didn’t know anything about The Goofers and there’s not a ton of info out there about them. Before setting out on their own, they were part of the band of tone of the greatest live performers, Louis Prima, in his prime years when he was performing with Keely Smith. If you have ever seen clips of Louis Prima, showman extraordinaire, you will understand where they got their ability to produce that wow!! factor.
Take a look for yourself. And next year, the whole gallery talk will be done on a trapeze.
Or a pogo stick. The Goofers also performed on pogo sticks but I can’t locate video of that.
I have heard the big music And I’ll never be the same
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I was looking for a song to play this morning and I thought about a favorite track from an album, A Pagan Place, from back in the 1980’s from the Irish group The Waterboys. I was surprised to discover that in the nearly 12 years I’ve been doing this blog that the song hasn’t somehow surfaced.
The song is The Big Music and it’s about hearing a song or piece of music that just opens you up. Shakes up your whole world and changes how you see everything in it. Maybe even alters your whole life path.
It’s a song that really speaks to me. Growing up in the country at a time before digital broadcasts, satellite television and streaming services, we had two TV channels so reading and listening to music filled the void for a kid who was eager to learn about the world.
We had a big box of singles from the late 50’s and early 60’s that had by a cousin and somehow ended up with us. It had tons of good stuff including early rock from Elvis, lots of surf music from the likes of Jan and Dean and the Surfaris, goofy novelty songs and lots of pop chart hits that feel pretty dated today, such as Heart from Kenny Chandler, a song I listened to hundreds of time back then.
Plus, my sister was an avid music fan so there were always plenty of early Beatles, Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan singles on the record player. That first ringing chord of A Hard Day’s Night still thrills me in the same visceral way that I remember feeling as a kid.
Through those formative years, there were plenty of songs that hit me hard and opened up the world for me in small ways. Too many to list, actually. But I don’t know that I can mark one song that was that single defining moment. The Big Music for me.
Well, maybe it was from the first time I saw Springsteen back in 1977. The show and sound was unlike any other rock show I had seen up to that point. I wrote about that show in one of my favorite blog entries and mentioned his performance of It’s My Life,a song that was originally recorded by The Animals. That song and performance changed a lot of things with repercussions that echo through my whole life.
When I think about it, I doubt that I would be writing this today without that song at that moment.
So, I guess that would be my Big Music moment. Do you have a Big Music moment or one big song that just does it for you?
Here’s the song, The Big Music, from The Waterboys. Have a good Sunday.
In the dark times / Will there also be singing? / Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times.
–Bertolt Brecht
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Didn’t really want to say much today. I did enough of that on Saturday, enough that I couldn’t imagine anyone would want to hear much more from more for a while. But I thought I would share the post below from over 10 years back about the song Pirate Jenny from The Threepenny Opera. I heard it early this morning and it reminded me of the story I told on Saturday about pretending to be a pirate in the woods alone. Maybe the draw in wanting to be a marauding pirate was much the same as it was for Jenny– a desire from a powerless person for control and power of some sort.
I don’t know.
But here’s the post and at the bottom are two versions of the song, one a classic theatric version from Anne Kerry Ford and then a version from Nick Cave in collaboration with punk vocalist Shilpa Ray. There are tons of great versions out there, as there always are for great songs, and I almost threw in Nina Simone’s strong live interpretation of it. Hope you find one that works for you.
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Bea Arthur as the original Lucy Brown
It’s one of those cases of one thing reminding you of something else. I heard Bobby Darin’s swinging version of Mack the Knife yesterday and there’s a line that ends with and Lucy Brown. One of those parts of a song that your mind is somehow attuned to and always hears whenever the song is played.
Anyway, it immediately reminded me of seeing Bea Arthur, of Maude and Golden Girls fame, a number of years back in a one-woman show on Broadway of personal stories and song. Going in, I knew only a little of her career outside the TV roles so I didn’t have high expectations. I was pleasantly surprised by a great show.
I didn’t know much of her Broadway career and didn’t know she originated the role of Lucy Brown in the original Broadway version of The Threepenny Opera back in the ’50’s. She told several great tales about the show and then did a stirring version of theThe Pirate Jenny.
I’m embarassed to say that I didn’t know much at that time about The Threepenny Opera or Brecht or Kurt Weill. Had never heard the song Pirate Jenny and it’s story of a cleaning woman who daydreams of rising from her life of powerless drudgery to become a powerful and cruel pirate. Great song with great imagery and Bea Arthur’s version was wonderful. Angry. You could feel her desire for retribution for every time she was wronged by those who simply overlooked her and took her for granted. It was a very powerful song and one that became and remains a personal favorite.
Anyway, here’s a very good version of The Pirate Jenny from singer Anne Kerry Ford:
From his own words and actions, we now know with a pretty high degree of certainty why the current thing that is leaving a stain on the walls and carpets of our white house wants to sabotage and destroy our United StatesPostal Service. It has little to do with the smokescreen of the profitability of the USPS and almost everything to do with the suppression of voting via the mail, which has taken on greater importance during the current pandemic. He has demonstrated that he will do anything and everything to protect himself at this point including the destruction of a vital part of our national infrastructure that has been around since 1775 when Benjamin Franklin was our first Postmaster General.
And it’s all simply because he knows that if more people vote, his odds of staying in (and staining) the office go dramatically down. In fact, the only chance he and his cronies have to remain in power is if they can force people to have to vote in person then reduce the number of of voting locations, shorten the hours of voting and purge voter rolls to keep the numbers as low as possible.
Create roadblocks to voting, in other words.
Despite his warnings of vast voter fraud, I have yet to hear a cogent argument why mail in voting should not be expanded especially in a time of pandemic. I have not seen an iota of evidence that voter fraud via the mail is a real problem. In fact, most arguments point to it being more reliable and less prone to manipulation when administered with proper precautions.
And if you think about it, voter fraud via the mail or even in person voting is so much less efficient that voting machine fraud, where a simple software tweak can alter the vote totals of each machine, that it would be a ridiculous risk for the return.
The USPS is often maligned but they are still a wonder of efficiency in my eyes. Throw a letter in an envelope, jot down an address and add a stamp and stick it in the box at the end of the driveway. A person picks it up and a day or two later it is delivered anywhere in this country for 55 cents. The people who complain about this are the same people who bitch that gas doesn’t cost thirty cents a gallon anymore. To me, accessing the infrastructure that can do such a thing for less than buck is perhaps the best bargain around.
The infrastructure to do this is incredible, a force of 600,000 employees ( this includes a huge number of veterans) who have been the lifeline for many for most of the time we have been a nation. Some say that most of our messaging can be done via the web now or through private carriers such as UPS or FedEx. Of course, there is a profit necessary in order to accomplish it with private companies. FedEx would certainly never be able to deliver a letter for 55 cents and deliver to every household across the nation on a daily basis. If any private company could do what the USPS does and turn a profit they would have attempted to do so by now.
For them to compete with the USPS, the prices would have to go up drastically. Any increase in the price of doing such would be a de facto tax on you, the US citizen.
Some of this is from a post written earlier this year when the white house stain first began to attack the USPS in earnest. I am pretty passionate about the post office and am one of those people who have always loved the idea of mail. In fact, it has played a part in several of my paintings, including the piece at the top, No Mail, which hangs in my studio.
The mail has always been an important part of my life, a first life line to the outside world when I was child living in the relative isolation of our rural home. I have friends that I still write to overseas that I befriended through the mail. While we now email more, the hand written letters and notes that I still receive mean so much more to me than an electronic message read on a screen. The fact that the sender wrote it, put it in the envelope and addressed it then a different person picked it up and inserted it into this incredible system to get to me makes it a small miracle. Well, at least, a wonder.
The USPS can easily be saved. Of course, the forces that be and their wealthy friends see it as a cash cow to be exploited or a vehicle for suppressing the vote. Whether we let that happen is up to us. Call– or better yet, write– your representatives in congress and tell them to keep their hands off the post office.
So, for this Sunday Morning Music I thought we should have some mail related song. There are a lot of great choices. There’s Fats Waller‘s classic I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter which has been covered by almost every major vocalist or PleaseMr. Postman from either the Marvelettes or the Beatles. Or Johny Cash’s Tear Stained Letter. Take a Letter Maria from RB Greaves. Elvis and Return to Sender.
But today I am going with the Box Tops and their song The Letter from 1967. It features the late great Alex Chilton on vocals and is always a great tune to get your blood moving. This song would have sucked if it said she wrote me an email…
The film Jojo Rabbit premiered on HBO over the weekend, which made me very happy. It hits a lot of sweet spots for me.
A great cast and a script filled with a beguiling mix of dark satire and tragic poignancy. Strong visuals. Big laughs and plenty of tears. Ridiculous (but still scary) Nazis.
Hitler eating a unicorn.
Yeah, you read that right.
There’s even some poetry from Rainer Maria Rilke as the film ends, a snippet from his poem Go to the Limits of Your Longing, which is shown at the top. Words that seem applicable to this time, for sure.
It also uses its soundtrack brilliantly. It begins with the Beatles singing their German version of I Want to Hold Your Hand over archival clips of Hitler’s adoring fans at huge nationalistic rallies that are chilling in their magnitude and fervor. Images from the infamous Nuremberg rally always puts a knot in my stomach. The film ends with the German performance from David Bowie of his always rousing Heroes.
Filmmaker Taika Waititi also makes brilliant use of the song Everybody’s Gotta Live. It’s a song from 1972 from a band of that era, Love, that is very underappreciated. Led by the late Arthur Lee, it was an interesting group, a multiracial group that dabbled in folk rock and psychedelia a la the Byrds. Their 1967 release, Forever Changes, is on the Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Rock Albumsand was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry in 2011.
Even so, I am sure most of us haven’t heard much of their work. But it shines in Jojo Rabbit and is certainly worth examining further.
Here’s a video with the lyrics and images from the film just to give you taste. If you get a chance to see the film, I recommend it highly. But be forewarned, that it is art and, as such, is a subjective thing. What I love may not move you at all.
Take a look and give a listen then have a good day. We all deserve one.
I enjoyed the time spent not writing the blog this week. It allowed me to readjust things a bit, put some things back into my personal rotation that I had let slip in recent times. It was time to examine things and think a bit without feeling the need to send it out into the world. Read a bit. Listen to some music that I had slipped by me.
There will be time in days ahead to talk about such things. Today, I am back briefly just to introduce this week’s Sunday morning music. It’s a song from the last album from Leonard Cohen just before his death in 2016 at the age of 82.
It’s titled You Want It Darker.
With its ominous bass line and its focus on our mortality mixed with Old Testament imagery and a , it seems fitting for these times.
One of the words used in the chorus of the song is Hineni, the Hebrew word meaning Here I am. It was the response from Moses to God speaking to him through the burning bush. It was the answer from Abraham to the voice of God who then instructed him to slay his son. And it was the response from Isaiah when he hears the voice of God ask, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” It is generally an indication of faith and total commitment without question while awaiting one’s appointed task.
Here, Cohen seems to be questioning God. He’s not asking the listener if they want it darker. Seeing the way the world has descended into darkness, he is grilling God, almost questioning whether this deepening darkness is somehow the desire of God. There’s an edge of anger when he asks and replies: You want it darker/ We kill the flame.
It’s a powerful song, one that haunted me this past week. It reminds me that we are in for some trying times in the months ahead and that we need to be fully prepared to endure whatever is thrown our way.
Ready to say, with total commitment, Hineni— Here I am.
“10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.”
― Susan Sontag
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I was going to talk about some current events– the Portland protest moms, the opening of baseball and its integration of protest within it, the return of the term Death Panels in some areas to determine who gets or doesn’t get covid-19 treatments, and so on, maybe even share comedian Sarah Cooper’s brilliant treatmentof the absurd Person*Woman*Man*Camera*TV episode– but I just can’t do it this morning.
Instead, I am thinking about the words above from author Susan Sontag and it has a ring of truth for me. Some are going to respond with cruelty in any situation– we all know someone like that, don’t we?— while some will always express a form of mercy and care. The rest of us hover somewhere in the middle, sometimes going back and forth toward the two extremes.
And so long as this stays in some sort of balance, that large groups of us don’t start moving toward the side of cruelty, it remains a tolerable situation. Livable.
I worry that the acceptance of cruelty and the rejection of mercy has become too easy a choice for too many. Too many react without empathy, without the thought of others’ struggles and without considering how their own demeaning of others ultimately demeans themselves.
I would like to say if I am not merciful that I at least lean toward the side of mercy. Maybe just being aware of these poles of reaction is a start toward a world with a bit more mercy.
As always, I don’t know.
And the world keeps turning…
Here’s a lovely piece of new music from composer Max Richter that is custom made for this discussion. It includes a thought provoking video that I conclude must have been produced before the pandemic. I think we all notice things like people riding subways without masks or people hugging a little more now.
Anyway, please take a few moments and give a listen. It might help a bit.
“One way or another, all the bridges between that time and this one have been burned. Time’s a reach, too, you know, just like the one that lies between the islands and the mainland, but the only ferry that can cross it is memory, and that’s like a ghost-ship – if you want it to disappear, after awhile it will.”
― Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne
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I call this piece, at 16″ by 40″ on canvas, Carried Across. Included in my current annual show at the West End Gallery, it’s a painting that brims with potential interpretations for me. The ferry between the living and the dead is the one that jumps out, of course.
But the one offered up above, taken from a Stephen King novel, probably meshes best with my personal view of this painting.
We are always losing people as age takes its toll. Apart from just the loss of that person and all that that entails, we also lose a bridge to their experiences and the memories they held of them. Personal histories, lesser known details and larger myths are often lost in the void as this bridge collapses.
That came to mind in a very personal way the other day as I was able to visit my father for the first time in four months.His nursing facility had instituted a process that allowed one family member to visit a resident under very strict guidelines and I was able to see him in an outdoor courtyard, under an open tent. The process has since been put on hold as a staff member tested positive for the virus.
But sitting there with him was difficult. He was in a large reclining wheelchair and his head was bandaged in a turban-like manner to cover the wound and infection on the side of his head. He was way gone from the fentanyl and morphine he is given to ease the pain, his eyes only fluttering open for milliseconds at any given time. The nurse tried to point me out but he wasn’t able to move his focus my way.
I sat there for a bit just watching him. His hands went to his head covering in a rhythmic way, running his fingers lightly over the cotton mesh that held it in place. At one point he removed his mask and, with eyes completely closed, held it out in front of him while neatly folding it up. He then tried to out it in his pocket under the blanket that covered him. He then checked his wristwatch which was completely covered by the protective arm coverings he wears to prevent him from picking at the sores on his arms. He did this, too, without opening his eyes but seemed to be satisfied and let his head drop back to the one side where fell naturally.
I chuckled lightly at that. But having him there in front of me, still alive but so very far away at the same time, reminded me of all the stories and memories that are lost to us now. The good and bad, the funny and the tragic, the day to day reminiscences– all gone and inaccessible. I have known this for some time as we have witnessed the progress of his dementia but there was a finality in that visit.
It was like I had made that crossing on that ferry and had returned with a still empty chair.
Over the years, I have often regretted the lost opportunities in seeking out the stories and memories that bind us to our preceding generations. This is made especially clear when I work on genealogy and come across episodes or people that I would love to know more about. How they really were, how they talked, the little foibles and details that made them human that can’t be captured in documents or news reports.
That is the stuff of memory.
Maybe that should be the subtitle for this piece– Carried Across ( The Stuff of Memory).
Okay, here’s a song to go along with this painting, an attachment I made yesterday when the song came up on my playlist. It’s The Passengerfrom the godfather of punk, Iggy Pop. It’s a great tune, one that seems to be a staple for every alt-rock singer that comes along to cover.
Iggy Pop is an interesting and often downplayed character in the annals of rock music. One of my favorite memories of him was his appearance in 1977 on the Dinah Shore show where he sat down with the always hospitable Dinah Shore, David Bowie and Rosemary Clooney to talk about cutting himself with a broken bottle as part of a performance. It came out years later that he and Dinah Shore– who had an extremely long list of relationships and hookups through the decades– were an item for a bit. But seeing him on a show singing Fun Time on the same show where Rosemary Clooney singsCome On-a My House is everything you could hope for on a 1970’s daytime talk show.
One more little factoid: The sons of comedian Soupy Sales were members of Iggy’s band at that time. Younger readers are probably asking who the hell is Soupy Sales. Ask your parents or grandparents before those bridges burn down.
Anyway, here’s The Passenger. Have a good day if you can.
Like much of this country, I am bracing for the heat we’re expecting today. I don’t have much to say this morning. Just want to veg out a bit. Read some things I haven’t been able to get to. Listen to some music I haven;t heard in a long time. Look at some photos.
You know, just avoid the sun and stay cool.
So, I am going to get at it. Here’s a little music for this steamy Sunday. It’s a song from Dwight Yoakam, someone whose songwriting and performance seldom disappoints. He holds a unique niche in American music, country but outside the popular genre. He did an acoustic album of his greatest hits all the way back in 2000 that’s a wonderful piece of work. Hearing the songs sung with only a stark guitar accompaniment really emphasizes the structure and strength of the compositions. This song, Throughout All Time, is from that CD. I am throwing in A thousand Miles From Nowhere from the same CD just for good measure.
I am including an image above from my West End show that I think fits nicely with this song. It’s one of my Baucis and Philemon pieces called Island of Bliss.
A clammy Saturday morning and my mind seems a bit foggy and tired. I’ve sat here for awhile now and I don’t feel like writing a damn thing. Don’t want to talk about anything. Don’t want to gripe about the goings on in the world or hear any more news this morning. Don’t want to talk about my work or myself, that’s for sure.
Just want to let my mind wander a bit.
Or not. Maybe just stare at the wall.
Or play some mindless scales on the guitar.
Anyway, here’s an old favorite of mine from Howlin’ Wind, the 1976 debut album from Graham Parker. Great album. This song is Don’t Ask Me Questions and has been a constant refrain in my head since that time whenever I come across those days where I am tired and don’t want to be bothered by questions and chit chat.
Let’s just say that it has received a lot of airtime in my head over those many years.
I am pairing it with a new piece at the top that’s part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery. Hey, I may not want to talk but a guy still has to eat. It’s called Play For Light, something I am hoping to accomplish this morning.
I was sent an email by a friend after last weekend’s gallery talk in which he gave some advice on improving future virtual talks. Most were very helpful and are under serious consideration if the need arises to do another such event in the future. However, it was a suggestion at the end of his email that came with an attached video that made my day and made me laugh very hard.
Redtree Times 