Stories That Are Hard To Swallow

           

            Monday, June 20^th was a breezy, sultry evening with black clouds bleeding in the sunset light.

            When I arrived at the Tranzac, Ben Bootsma was standing outside trying to decide whether or not to stay.

            When I went inside to put my name on the list there was a trio in the overly air conditioned Southern Cross room playing meditative jazz music and all the tables were full, so I went back outside to tune up. Ben was still there and we chatted for a while.

            He asked me what I’ve been doing and I talked about my adaptations of French songs and about how many phrases, metaphors and plays on words can’t be directly translated and so I have to come up with my own. For instance, one of Serge Gainsbourg’s lines would be directly translated as, “I want to play the daughter of the air, leave my cap in the locker room.” The daughter of the air is a character from a French fairy tale that I’ve never heard told in English. She was kidnapped by the Earth but she escaped by flying away. In an English version of the song, no one would have understood the reference, so I wrote, “I want to break this cage and fly, just leave my monkey suit behind”, which not only refers to the ticket puncher’s uniform, but also his body, which ties in with later references in the song to death.

            I offered the opinion that Serge Gainsbourg was a better songwriter than Bob Dylan, but probably not better than Leonard Cohen. Ben said that I’m the only man he’s ever met that thinks that Leonard Cohen is a better songwriter than Bob Dylan, though he’s talked to several women that would agree.

            Sara Greene was the host this time around and she got the open stage rolling at about a quarter after the official start time of 22:00. Ben stuck around specifically because Sarah wanted him to play piano for her during her two songs.

            From Sarah’s first song – “In the night time the feeling’s right … guilty in the morning light … You were only mine in the night time … and if you’re gone before I’m gone, I’ll say he’s the one for whom I wrote this song.”

            From her second song, which she has played many times before – “ … It’s funny how our hair turns grey cause we are children anyway … My lover’s smile is like the sky, it opens up and don’t ask why …”

            Since Ben was already at the piano, Sarah asked him to do something of his own. He was reluctant because he had not signed up. She coaxed the audience to encourage him to play, and so he did.

            From one of Ben Bootsma’s newer songs – “On the most lonely night … the reasons that were common sense and the memory of your confidence … Your holy walls are closing in … How could you know that the people you chose are the same as the ones you let down …” The melody had a Tom Waitsian feel.

            The first official open stage performer of the night was Stavros, who brought with him an out of the ordinary violin that was not only of a slightly different shape than usual but it also had frets like a guitar. He said that it’s a violin for guitar players. He also brought his looping pedal. He said he would be doing two instrumentals: the first one “Celty” and the second “Arabicy”.

            Stavros began strumming the violin like a ukulele for a while, and then he snapped his foot down on the loop pedal and picked up a bow to play the violin on top of the repeated strumming.

            For his second song he played the violin like a lead guitar, then began to strum again. It was a much more rhythmic piece. Again he used the pedal, bowed over the strumming, then snapped the pedal to turn it off and finished with just the bow on the violin.

            After Stavros came Steven Lewis, with help on slide guitar from Robert Labell. I noticed that Robert was using his video camera to record this performance as well.

            Steven told us that his first song was an old original called “509” – “ … Always moving, that train … past the foothills where the prairies lay … 509 whistle’s wailing … big black smoke is rolling steady … That’s Alberta up ahead.

            Steven’s second song was called “Beautiful Day” – “ … On a warm summer’s night the sleepy moon slips away, pulling night into day …”

            Next was Robert Labell, who began with his mandolin. He told us that he got the idea for his first piece from listening to Ry Cooder’s adaptation of Johnny Cash’s song “Hey Porter” as a blues song.

            When Robert met Ry Cooder at his Massey Hall concert, he told him about certain records of his that were cherished parts of his collection but he was embarrassed to find out that Ry Cooder had never released those recordings and that Robert was in possession of bootlegs.

            For his second number, Robert switched to guitar and did another song based on a Ry Cooder adaptation, this time in country blues format, of Chuck Berry’s “Thirteen Question Method”, which outlines Berry’s system for having fun on a date, though I noticed that there are only twelve items on the list not all of them are in question form. Chuck Berry wrote some great lyrics but this wasn’t his finest hour – “ … Question number 1: Let’s have some fun … 2: What to do? … 3: Will you dine and dance with me? … 4: Out the door? … 5: I want you to know jive … 6: How long to get fixed? … 7: Should I pick you up at a quarter to eleven? … 8: Is it a date? … 9: Where to dine? … 10: Can we get in? … 11: It’ll be just like heaven… 12: When we’re by ourselves …”

            I looked up the original song later on and found it to be a fun and funky little number.

            I checked the time when Robert was done, and saw that the first three open stage performers took up the first hour of the open stage.

            Then Robert Labell stayed on stage to help out John P. with his set. When John sat down in front of the microphone he took off his glasses and set them down near his feet. Sarah, a bespectacled person herself, was concerned, and reminded John to be careful not to step on his lenses.

            From John’s first song, which was kind of an acoustic rock and roll number – “I know I look like I’m very much alive, but I died, get a shovel out and bury me now … I know I look like I’m kind of a ghost … you are a parasite and I am the host …”

            From John’s second piece, a sixties style folk song – “ … I finally got to New York on a freighter from Peru … I’ve been searching high, I’ve been searching low, there are so many ways your life can go … I finally got out of Boston, made my way to Portland, Maine … I’ve been all over this old world, it’s a way of getting lost …”

            I followed John, starting by saying that I was going to do a song about a musical instrument that I’d never heard played at the Tranzac and wondered if anyone could guess what that was. Some people named some obscure instruments. I hinted that it would probably show up more at open stages in Quebec and so Eric Sedore jokingly called out, “The French horn!” Finally it was Stavros who guessed that I was talking about the accordion. He added that he’d played the accordion at an open stage a few nights before.

            I sang, “Accordion”, which is my translation of a Serge Gainsbourg song – “God knows life is vicious for any street musician whose wife and companion is an accordion. Who helps him to get by, sits with him when he’s high? Not you, me or anyone but his accordion! In accord with the chords, all tune in and turn on, then afford what you horde to the accordion …” I fumbled a bit with some of the chords, but it seemed to go over well. Stavros said, “Hmmm!” when I was done. Eric asked if it was a translation and John asked if the plays on words were my own, which they were.

            My second choice was my own song, “Love In Remission” – “The pouring rain makes the grey walls glisten, the drops on the barbs of the wire make a bijoux charm. She’s all in black, except for her ammunition, that’s wrapped softly round her in a quiet shade of alarm …”

            Sarah told the next performer that she had a new name for his act: “The Story of Isaac”, referring of course to the Leonard Cohen song.

            From Isaac Bonk’s first song – “Oh Henry James was a banker, he built his towers high … One day when Henry dies, he will be judged … he descends upon the grimy steps to hell …This story’s just to tell you that wealth aint all it seems …”

            From Isaac’s second song – “Here’s a story about a boy who died far too young … Thomas was born a miner’s son and he was fed almost every day but his mother on her deathbed lay … Thomas would play with the neighbour girls, they would run and shout and twirl … Then came a letter closing the mine … His father cried for a month or so, for he knew their food was low. They wouldn’t make it through the snow … When winter came the food was gone and poor Thomas died … Before he left for that dusty road, he buried Thomas with the neighbour girl … He buried his son, just ten years old...”

            After introducing Eric Sedore, Sarah announced that Eric had just done his first gig. It was a house concert at the home of Cassandra Rutherford, who used to manage The Tranzac. The concert was in Barrie. I called out that I lost my virginity in Barrie, which got a laugh. A big guy with a white beard across the room said, “We can’t top that!”

            Eric decided to do a couple of covers this time.

            He started with Bruce Cockburn’s “Festival of Friends” – “An elegant song won’t hold up long when the palace falls and the parlour’s gone … Some of us live and some of us die, someday god’s going to tell us why … Black snake highway, sheet metal ballet …”

            His second cover was “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song” by Jeffrey Lewis – “Walking up 23^rd Street I was tired and alone. It was late; my housemate would be asleep when I got home. The sign ahead, glowing red, said ‘The Chelsea Hotel’ … Two guys, maybe Gay, wearing Reber type suits, and a girl wearing glasses who looked kind of cute … She was trying to describe a song I knew well: the Leonard Cohen song about the Chelsea Hotel … How the song was outrageous and that’s when I got uncharacteristically courageous … I turned and I faced her and I said, ‘Leonard Cohen?’ just like that … She looked at me with her spectacled eyes and said, ‘See? I told you!” to the two other guys … Usually women right off the bat don’t find me that great, but here we were laughing like we could really relate … The guys were more into each other, at least that’s how it seemed to me, so I heard the faint knocking of opportunity … Keep the sad truth in mind as I tell this to you that we only talked for a minute or two. I never got her name and she never got mine, but in those couple of minutes we had a pretty good time … That line about getting a blow job that Leonard sings, she said it made her want to do naughty things. Right about then I should have asked if she knew what the Chelsea charged if we got a room for two, but I didn’t and I know I’m a schmuck, don’t you doubt it. The only thing I did was write this stupid song about it … Life doesn’t work out the way it does in old songs. That’s why we write new ones, to say what really goes on … The next time you’re feeling kind of lonesome and blue, just think that someone somewhere might be singing about you … She could have been singing about me. Probably not, but it could be.”

            Eric had been the last name on the last, but while he was performing a couple more people signed up.

            The first was Trey, who began with an acapella cover of “You Know I’m No Good” by Amy Winehouse – “Meet you downstairs in the bar and hurt, your rolled up sleeves and your skull t-shirt. You say, ‘What did you do with him today?’ and sniff me out like Tanqueray … You tear me down like Roger Moore …” Trey vocally beat-boxed the instrumental break … you notice the little carpet burn, my stomach drops and my guts churn …”

            Trey’s second choice was “Aint No Sunshine” by Bill Withers. Trey is a very good singer but he’s a bit of a ham and goes a bit baroque on the notes.

            The final performer of the night was Ali, but he pronounced it like “alley” rather than “ahlee” and so I didn’t realize at first that he was saying a Muslim name. I asked if it was as in “alleyway” but Sarah quickly said, “No!” Finally I got it.

            Ali mentioned that he writes songs but that he was going to do a couple of covers. Stavros urged him to do some of his own.

            His first song was called “Blue Nights” – “No one else can help me with this pain … I’m not tired and I got nowhere to be …”

            His second composition was a reggae song, which he sang in a fake Jamaican accent – “You struck me just like lightning and I was quite concerned the way you burned …”

            Eric and Sarah were chatting after the open stage. I asked Eric if he knew who the woman was in Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel”. He said he’d heard that it was Janis Joplin. Sarah said she’d thought that was a myth. I told her that Cohen had said so in a live concert and later felt bad about name-dropping. The story he told was that he was wandering the halls of the Chelsea Hotel and he saw Janis Joplin looking lost. He asked her, “Are you looking for someone?” She said, “I’m looking for Kris Kristofferson”, to which Cohen responded, “You’re in luck!” Sarah asked, “So Cohen told her that he was Kristofferson?” I told her, that I was sure she knew what Kristofferson looked like already. Sarah seemed disappointed.

            I walked with Eric to Bathurst. We chatted on the corner for a while. He told me that, upon my recommendation, he’d watched the Wim Wenders film, Wings of Desire, but had found it kind of depressing. He also said that he’s been keeping a daily journal for the sake of improving his writing. He wants to write more stories. I recommended Kurt Vonnegut’s collection of stories, “Welcome to the Monkeyhouse” and also any stories by Donald Barthelme, but especially “The Balloon”, about a giant balloon that appears above New York City and how the New Yorkers interact with it.

            We both had to work the next morning, so we said goodnight.