On Saturday I checked the University of Toronto student website and found that my Continental Philosophy mark had been posted. I was satisfied to see that I’d received a B for the course. By my calculations I think that that means I got 66% on the exam and that my ass was saved by going to and participating in all of the tutorials, which were worth 25% of our mark. Since I only missed one tutorial out of ten, I assume that, at most I lost 2.5%, which would give me a quarter of 90% to add to my overall mark. So I’ve earned my one and a half credits for another year. In a month or so I’ll have to start thinking about what courses to enrol in for September.
That evening I took
my guitar to 6 St. Joseph Street and arrived at almost exactly 19:30. The host,
my old friend Tom Smarda, was there already there, as were quite a few others.
In addition to hosting the Yellow Door open stage once a month at 6 St. Joseph,
Tom runs a music workshop there on Monday afternoons, which basically takes the
form of a song sharing circle. As I was unpacking my guitar, one of the
organizers for the centre came to ask Tom if he would change his workshop to
Tuesdays because they wanted to minimize activities at the house on Mondays.
Tom told her he’d have to think about it.
Cad arrived and Tom
asked him if he wanted to sign up for the open stage. Cad said that he couldn’t
sign anything without his lawyer present and that his lawyer was out of town.
Cad has been taking
classes at the Eckankar Centre in Yorkville. He declared that, thanks to them,
he’ll be able to know when he dies that his soul will go to heaven. Cad says
that he is more conscious since he’s been going there. Judging from the bigotry
he spouts, I haven’t noticed.
Tom started the
open stage just after 20:00. He allotted fifteen minutes to each name on the
list, and he took the first slot. He began with a song called “Go Thunder Go”,
which he’d written for his young friend Yukon’s hockey team. He said that for
the five years that Yukon was on the team, Tom had been a rink rat, cheering
them on. During that time he’d written the song- “ … shoot the puck up the ice,
score another goal … The scoreboard has another point, we’re really happy here
…” Janice, whom I’ve heard read poetry at Shab-e She’r, played lead guitar – “
… this is great, the fans can’t wait for you to take another shot … now the
game is over and Thunder has to go. This team has just begun to show their
skills and sportsmanship, but mostly to have fun …”
Tom’s second song
was about the exploitation of water – “Petroleum refinery needs the water …
with jobs you can buy bottled water … But we’re thirsty … The meat industry
needs the water … with jobs you can buy bottled water … Why destroy water …”
There were lots of shakers, a set of bongos, a small drum and a tambourine
available for people to play along, and lots of people were doing just that.
One very slim Mexican guy though, wearing a Mexican straw cowboy hat was the
most exuberant and animated participant. Sometimes he went out of control and
at odd moments shouted enthusiastic praise for the song being played, but it
never threw Tom off. He would just find parts of his song for the guy to
participate – “ … un-recycled plastic bottles … When you’re out of water you’re
out of luck, having to get it from the back of a pickup truck …”
Tom’s last song was
“Good For The Earth” – “If it’s good for us it’s good for the Earth, and if
it’s bad for us then it’s bad for the Earth, if it’s bad for the Earth then
it’s bad for us and if it’s good for the Earth then it’s good for us …” The
joyful straw-hatted man was playing the tambourine and a shaker at the same
time, a woman named Carole played her flute, the guy on the other side of my
table blew on his harmonica, while Tom’s girlfriend Judy tapped on the little drum.
Some were able to keep time and some weren’t, but the energy was certainly
high.
The next performers
were Janice and Carole, who chose to play from their table near the entrance,
at the opposite end of the room from the usual performance area where the
straw-hatted man sat beaming and flashing the peace sign.
Janice stood with her guitar and sang
Gary Bonner and Alan Gordon’s song, “Happy Together”, which had been a big hit
for The Turtles in 1967. Carole’s flute playing was pretty good. Tom played the
bongos.
Janice and Carole’s second choice was the
traditional folk song, “Scarborough Fair”. Janice asked Tom to play along on
the guitar, so he offered the bongos to anyone else, but someone protested that
there are no drums in Scarborough Fair. I questioned the plausibility that in
an entire fair there wouldn’t be at least one drum. Tom added some sonic
embroidery while Janice played the rhythm guitar and sang the chorus several
times.
Their final song was Leonard Lipton and
Peter Yarrow’s “Puff the Magic Dragon”.
After Janice and Carole, Tom introduced
me, but I told him that Grant was actually next on the list.
Grant is a weathered, hunched-over poet
who sways from side to side when he recites his work. The last time I’d heard
him read he had gone by the name of “The Crow”. Grant stood at the back of the
room, which usually serves as the stage, but he said he didn’t want anyone
behind him while he was performing, so he asked a couple of people, including
the guy with the straw hat, to move.
Grant told us that he was going to begin
by rolling back to 1976 with “The Inmate’s Last Song” – “I’m lying on a slab of
stone … I found a jagged part and I hacked a vein deep in my heart … The inmate
died with teardrops in his eyes.”
Then, from three and a half years ago,
“The Crow” – “It was four p.m. …On the west side you had your preachers trying
to save us all … Along he came, your friend, the Crow … he smoked his salad
spliffs … I be the Crow, you see.”
His next poem had been written two months
before – “ … the evolution of addiction … I’m jonesing like a mother … so blame
the rock.”
Then he sang acapella “Old City
Sidewalks, Nickels and Dimes”, the song I’d heard him do last time and which he
said was his signature song – “ … I couldn’t find any true peace of mind … from
shelter to shelter, from Danforth to Queen …”
Then it was my turn.
I started with “Hang Up A Ham and A
Fiddle In Your Window”, which is my translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Un
Violon, Un Jambon”. I noticed that Tom started to play along but stopped. I
wonder if it was because he’s vegan and didn’t want to accompany a song that
makes reference to ham in a positive light. Then again, he just might have
wanted to listen to the lyrics, as when I sang, “ …don’t worry if you are
always discarded, you’ve got lots of reasons to laugh…” at that point Tom said
“Ha ha ha!” From the rest of the verse – “ … my friend if you can’t have the
only one that you love, love the only one that you have …”
My second song was my own “Paranoiac
Utopia” – “A painful shedding of skin today as Parkdale’s paranoiac armour has
been circumcised, only later to be reattached with the brain tissue solder of
airplane glue …” I screwed up some of the chords but the audience seemed to
appreciate it, especially Tom.
My last song was one that Tom used to
play when he was in my band more than twenty years ago. I had told him that I’d
planned on playing “Instructions for Electroshock Therapy” that night when I’d
talked to him a few weeks earlier. Since then he’d messaged me to get a
confirmation that I was going to play it because he wanted to bring his
electric guitar to back me. Later though he’d messaged me he couldn’t bring the
electric after all. Anyway, I played the song with Tom’s accompaniment and it
went over well – “ … Undress the patient and then lay them down just like a
sacrifice, to avoid any bruises let no metal touch the skin, that’s my advice,
now take a razor and shave the hair around the temples, then rub electrode
jelly, put some on the electrodes and we’re soon prepared for shock therapy …”
When I sat down, Cad said, “Who needs
real shock therapy when you’ve got that song?”
Following me was Glen, who always sings
along with his portable CD player, but he didn’t know how to set it up. As Tom
tried to help him, Cad told me how impressed he’d been by The Crow. He went to
try to talk to him but he had already gone.
Tom couldn’t get Glen’s CD player
working. He asked him how he listens to it at home and he said he uses
headphones. Finally it was decided that Glen would listen to the song through
his headphones while singing it to us. The song was “Hotline Bling” by Drake,
Paul Jefferies and Timmy Thomas. Because of Glen’s condition, which I think is
a form of Parkinson’s, his voice is wavering and low in volume, and so most of
the lyrics he sang were not discernible, other than the phrase, “Call me on my
cellphone.”
The last performer before half time was
Ernest Hung, who sang and played three covers.
The first was John Prine’s “Dear Abby”,
with help from Tom on the harmonica – “ … Bewildered, Bewildered, you have no
complaint, you are what you are and you ain what you aint, so listen up buster
and listen up good, stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood …”
Then he sang Kerry Livgren’s “Dust In the
Wind” – “ … don’t hang on, nothing
lasts forever but the earth and sky…”
Ernest’s final cover was Bruce Cockburn’s
“Going to the Country” – “ … Farm house, silver roof, flashing by, tractor
trailer truck says goodbye with a sigh … get it when I get there is what I’ll
do, if I get enough I’ll give some to you …”
There was a fifteen-minute break, during
which Cad told me more about his classes at Eckinkar and his newfound
spirituality. He said that he went to hear a rabbi speak on reincarnation. I
didn’t think that Jews believed in past lives, but Cad claimed that the Kabala
talks about reincarnation. I looked it up later, and yes, it is a type of
reincarnation, but not one through which the whole consciousnesses of
individuals survive in another body. As far as I can tell, the Kabala seems to
be saying that a person’s soul could be made from the parts of several
previously existing souls.
I questioned the proven existence of a
soul or someone’s consciousness surviving this life. Cad said, “You don’t have
to have any brains to have a soul.” Despite his straight line being one of the
most comically flammable ones I’d ever hear, I didn’t respond. He means anyway
that even a rock has a soul.
Cad was talking about homosexuality being
an offence in the eyes of “god”. I asked him how he knows that angels don’t
come and stick their dicks in his mouth while he’s sleeping. He insisted that
angels don’t have dicks. I argued that the archangels are supposed to be male.
Returning to Eckankar, Cad says that he
learned that we work out our bad karma in our dreams, such as if one dreams of
having a car accident. I expressed the opinion that being able to do that in
one’s sleep is very convenient.
After the break, the first performer was
Terrel, who played two original songs on the piano.
The first was called “She Never Grows
Old”. He told us that he wrote it eighteen years ago and dedicated it to the
daughter he has not seen in that much time – “ Everything she did went between
right and wrong …”
Terrel’s second had the title, “Paybacks
Are A Bitch My Dear”. It was very difficult to make out his lyrics. The piano
is a loud instrument and it drowns out the voice. On top of that, anyone
playing the piano in that room has their back to the audience. When I first
started coming to the Yellow Door a few years ago there were some microphones
and an amplifier. Tom said people ripped the equipment off and it hasn’t been
replaced. It would be pretty easy to steal things from 6 St Joseph. Earlier
that night I saw someone about to pick up Tom’s guitar, and when Tom walked up
he explained that he’d thought it was his own, even though he hadn’t come with
a guitar.
After Terrel was Jim, who was sitting
across the table from me, and stayed there for his performance. He had two
recorders and a harmonica, with which he played various instrumental covers.
The first, played on harmonica was George
Gershwin’s “Summertime”.
Then on his larger recorder he played
Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “The Girl From Ipanema”.
Returning to the harmonica, Jim played a
song, the title of which he said he didn’t know. I told Jim that if you don’t
know the name of a song before you play it, you’re a slut. He didn’t really
appreciate what I’d said, perhaps because I didn’t explain the analogy that had
occurred to me while he’d been playing. I thought that playing a song is like
making love to someone and so if you don’t know the song’s name when you play
it, that makes you a slut. Carole recognized the tune and told Jim that he’d
been playing, “Wonderland By Night” by Bert Kaempfert.
Another selection was “Satin Doll”, which
he said was by Count Basie. Of course I wouldn’t know this without looking it
up, but it was actually written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.
Jim’s final instrumental was “Smile”.
When Jim was done, Carole said to everybody, “Do you know who wrote that?
Charlie Chaplin!” I said that he actually didn’t write it but rather adapted
it. Jim declared affirmatively, “Oh, he wrote it!” I argued that he hadn’t and
that it was inspired by Puccini’s “Tosca”. Jim was not very well disposed
towards me because of my earlier comment, so he shook his head in disgust. The
fact is that if most people were asked to sing that song, the melodic part
they’d most easily remember, which makes up the first half of each verse, is
lifted right out of Puccini’s “Tosca”.
The last person on the list was a guy
whose name I didn’t catch and whose signature on the sheet I couldn’t make out.
He had been there before the open stage started talking about a movie that was
going to use his song and pay him $50,000 for it. The song was an original
gospel number called “I Didn’t Hear Nobody Pray”. It was a jumpy number that
had Tom and lots of other people jamming along. When it was done, he mentioned
again that the song has made him $50,000 and possibly 5% of the film. I don’t
think that he’s received any money yet; I’m sceptical of him getting any money
at all, and certainly not 5% of the film. Anything’s possible, but most things
aren’t likely.
He sang another self-written though
derivative gospel song about going down to the river to pray and washing his
sins away. He was wearing a t-shirt with the words “God is love” on it.
He declared that he was in a gospel mood
and so for his last selection he sang the traditional song, “May the Circle Be
Unbroken”. An enthusiastic circle of people were standing and playing along.
While up until a couple of years ago, the
Yellow Door open stage ran sometimes until after midnight on the second
Saturday of every month, the new policy at the centre is to be done by 23:00.
With the list finished and still half an hour left, Tom invited me to get up
and do another song.
I sang “Bad Girls and Naughty Boys”, my
translation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Villaine Filles, Mauvais Garcons”- “ … There
is no one else alive but you who can make me glow. If your parents found a way
to wipe your mind, I would teach you all the things that you already know …”
When I was finished, Tom thought that it had been a pretty short song, so he
asked me to do another.
I did “Judy” another translation – “ … if
I tire of the fight, my love on that fateful night, Judy, before that night is
through, I’ll kill you.”
Tom then led a jam with the song, “This
Little Light of Mine” by Avis Christiansen and Harry Loes. Terrel was playing
along on the piano, Ernest and Janice on guitar, Jim on harmonica, Carole on
flute and someone playing the bongos.
When that was finished, someone new came
forward to play some songs. His name was Gary, and he was a small, older man
with advanced osteoporosis. Cad said that he recognized him from the subway,
where he plays guitar. He borrowed a guitar and then told us that he hoped he
hadn’t interrupted verses thirty-seven and thirty-eight of that last song.
He said that since someone had asked him
to play something, he’d play “Something” by George Harrison. When that was done
he quipped, “Now that I’ve got your attention I’ll do an original.” But first
of all he turned to our enthusiastic straw-hatted friend and asked him not to
play the tambourine, at least for the first couple of verses.
The song was called “In My Mind” and he
played it well. It’s about being far away from the one you care about and
wanting to be back with them.
Gary finished with a song by one of his
favourite songwriters of all time: Jackson Browne. The song was “Fountain of
Sorrow” – “ … I was taken by a photograph of you … While the future’s there for
anyone to change … it seems it would be easier sometimes to change the past …”
Tom finished the night with a song for
everyone to sing and play along. I watched his fingers and followed along on my
guitar. The song sounded like a traditional gospel song and was called “Peace
Like A River”, with repetitions of having peace like a river, love like an
ocean and other nice things that are like other natural things “in my
soul”.
As Cad and I were leaving we saw Gary
exiting with a walker. I held the door while someone else helped him down the
stairs.
Cad and I walked down Yonge to College,
talking about how much the street at its southern end has or hasn’t changed. We
remembered when there was a body rub studio or two or three on every block.
As I rode home through the chilly night, I
passed many heroic women dressed to kill in short skirts and dresses, braving
the cold to fulfill their role in the mating dance at the mating dance clubs
along Queen West.
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