Twisting the Orange at the Yellow Door

           

            Saturday, June 11^th was a very hot day, even in the evening as I headed up Brock Avenue on my way downtown for the Yellow Door Open Stage and Café.

At Dundas there was a Portuguese street festival going on.

On Bloor Street, in Koreatown, a woman was sitting on the sidewalk in a doorway and on her knee was a teddy bear with which she seemed to be having a heart to heart conversation.

When I arrived at 6 St Joseph, the host of the Yellow Door open stage, my old friend, Tom Smarda was standing outside enjoying some fresh air. We chatted for a while and then headed inside.

One of the few people already in the back room was a guy named Michael who turned out to be from Moncton, New Brunswick. When I told him that I was from near Woodstock, he had a lot of praise for that general area, especially a little further north and east where the Tobique River runs. He said he would like to live there.

Tom told me that this would be the last Yellow Door until the fall, because 6 St Joseph was shutting down all their programs because of lack of staff during the summer, which means also lack of security. Because they provide a lot of free food and services, they attract a lot of troubled people, a few of which cause trouble. A lot of desperate addicts have come in and walked off with electronic equipment. Tom said that people hanging around the outside of the building have tried to start fires, so the centre can’t function safely with minimal staff during the summer months.

Tom started the open stage at 20:05, with his own fifteen minute set.

From his first song – “Oh won’t you please sing something normal, something that we can relate to … like raccoons, datdada and trees datdada and birds datdada … And if I was the prime minister, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d take away all of your money and I wouldn’t give none to you … And if I was the president, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d blow up this whole planet and I’d blame it all on you … And if I was normal, I’ll tell you what I’d do. I’d sing something normal but you know it wouldn’t be true … and birds datdada and aardvarks datdada and snakes and wildebeests and ostriches and lemurs …”

From Tom’s second song – “A crow sat perched up in a tree, cawing to me … I can fly everywhere, I can see what there is to see … Falling upward to our planet … understanding you can’t buy in a store … While they send a probe to Mars looking for evidence of life, how many species go extinct here on Earth?”

His third song was “Nuclear Blues” – “They got these big, fat atoms … so big and highly unstable … Radiation from mining for reactors is just as deadly as nuclear bombs … Declare nuclear industry illegal and then start anew … They want people to keep paying monthly electrical bills … If hi-tech is the solution, once the solar panels are up, energy is free and so are you.”

As Tom began his final song, I noticed that we had a pretty small group in the room this time around – “ … the forest affords many different varieties of trees … Some trees need dry soil … some need lots of sunshine … Likewise many people have different dispositions and callings … Some still do have to walk everywhere and carry everything on their backs … It takes time to communicate and bring our different perspectives together into harmony … Some are mechanically minded and keep the wheels of transport turning so we don’t have to walk everywhere … We are all visionaries and planners … It takes time to bring our visions together as one …”

I was after Tom.
            I started with “Person”, which is my English adaptation of Serge Gainsbourg’s “Personne” – “ … I could never love someone like I have loved you, my ampoule of poison, yes you were expensive for my head that is true, but you are pardoned. I have never owed and I don’t think that I’ll ever owe debts to one person, there’s no one that I could have gotten along with better though, except for no one.”

I followed this with my song, “The Next State of Grace” – “Well I’m sitting here cooking in the stew of the street, I’m the part that won’t ever get stirred, but as I am boiling I drink my own broth and bend noodles to the shape of these words: Oh when, oh when will I ever learn, I can’t get to heaven with wheels that don’t turn, I’ve got no ambition and that’s a disgrace, guess I’ll sit here and wait for the next state of grace …”

My last song was “One Hundred Hookers”. I told everyone the story of how it was based on the first line from a poem written over twenty years ago by Cad Gold Jr. He had written, “I’ve got 100 hookers in love with me …” As soon as I saw that line I knew I had to turn it into a Frank Sinatraesque swing tune. For some of the lyrics I drew from various aspects of what Cad has said over the years about his relationships with prostitutes, and the rest I made up entirely – “ … I’ve got a hundred hookers all under my skin, you’re either nuts or just a putz if you tell me that’s a sin, they turn their tricks for me cause they get their kicks from me … and their names are Betty, Sonya, Tina, Maria, Rosa, Julie, Benjamina, Susie, Tootsie, Sugar, Cherry and eighty-nine girls named Gina all in love in love in love in love with me …”

Then came the duo of Janice and Carole, with Janice on guitar and vocals and Carole on flute.

They started with “Lady Jane” by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Next they did “Puff the Magic Dragon” by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow – “ … Dragons live forever, but not so little boys, painted wings and giant strings gave way to other toys. One sad night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more, so Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar …” Tom was jamming along on his guitar, while Terrell played piano and I banged on the bongos. About halfway through the song, Carole stopped because she couldn’t hear herself play the flute. Janice complained that she always stops in the middle of the song and that it’s very irritating. She told her she could at least wait till the song is finished to complain.

The next song was “Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man” by Nanker Phelge, which is a pseudonym created by The Rolling Stones to indicate that the entire band contributed to the composition of the song – “Well I’m standing at a bus stop in downtown L.A., but I’d much rather be on a boardwalk on a boardwalk … I’m sitting here thinking just how sharp I am, I’m the under assistant west coast promo man … Well I promo groups when they come to town, well they laugh at my toupee, they’re sure to put me down … I’m a necessary talent behind every rock and roll band … I sure do earn my pay, sitting on the beach every day … I got a Corvette and a seersucker suit … Here comes the bus, uh oh, I thought I had a dime, where’s my dime, I know I have a dime somewhere …”

Their final song was another Jagger and Richard’s composition called “Spider and the Fly” – “Sittin, sinkin, drinkin, thinkin, wonderin what I’ll do when I get through tonight. Smokin, mopin, maybe just a hopin, that some little girl is gonna pass me by. I don’t wanna be alone but I love my girl at home, and I remember what she said. She said ‘My, my, my, don’t tell lies, keep fidelity in your head … and when you’re done you should go to bed. Don’t say hi like a spider to a fly. Jump right ahead and you’re dead … Sit up, fed up, low down, go round, down to the bar at the place I’m at, where I’m sittin, drinkin, makin superficial thinking about the rinsed out blonde on my left … She was common, flirty, she looked about thirty, I wanted to run away but I was on my own. She told me later she’s a machine operator. She said she liked the way I held the microphone. I said my, my, my, like a spider to a fly, jump right ahead in my web.”

The next performer was Grant, the poet who also has gone by the name of The Crow.

Grant started with a cover of a hymn by Tracy Dartt called “God on the Mountain” – “Life is easy when you’re up on the mountain … but things change when you’re down in the valley … god on the mountain is still god in the valley … god of the good times is still god in the bad times … god of the day is still god in the night …”

Then Grant recited a poem that he said he wrote a long time ago about a church that he was “plugged into”. It was called “God’s Only Sheep” – “Snow lay freshly fallen … the sun’s bright rays came through the clouds and gently touched the snow … Pews sat empty, gathering dust …”

His next poem, with the title, “Seaton House”, was one I’d heard him do before about a place where I slept when I was a teenager – “I live at Seaton House, they call it Satan House, the dorms they stretch so far, so long … Kill or be killed is the code down there and way down on George Street you’ll experience fear.”

Then Grant recited his signature piece, “Old City Sidewalks, Nickels and Dimes” – “ … I met Jesus a long time ago, but I thought this world had much more to show. Back in my younger days I left him behind for old city sidewalks, nickels and dimes … From shelter to shelter, from Danforth to Queen, some people wonder what’s up with this scene … I ran from a little town in ’73 to see what Toronto could offer to me.

Grant’s final offering was a poem entitled “George Street” – “I feed off George, George feeds off me … I’ve always been knifed, but I’ve faced all those blades …”

Tom called a break.

He told me about performing at the Open Tuning free music festival earlier that day. It was sponsored at least partly by Long and McQuade and took place at various venues. Tom played behind Bloor Street at the Kops Records garage.

During the break, Tom jammed on an instrumental version of House of the Rising Sun with Janice and Carole. I fiddled around with the bongos and tried to keep up.

The return to the open stage began with Terrell doing some of his own songs at the piano.

His first song was called “Any Woman of Mine” – “Any woman of mine has got to find time to be a one man woman … She’s got to never let go … Safety of a rubber glove …”

He told us that his next song had been recorded 18 years before by a Christian record company and that the record they made sold 300 copies. The only problem was that he’d paid them a few hundred dollars for them to record him and press the records and so he got back about 10% of what he’d put in. I told him that he had been the victim of a scam. The same thing exists sometimes in the publishing business and that one should never have to pay someone for something like that.

The song was entitled “Prayer Unanswered Yet” – “You can do anything … Anything is possible … anytime day or night …”

His third song was “Jesus Is” – “Jesus is the water of life … the cedars of Lebanon … the lily of the valley …”

Terrell said that he wrote all of these songs in 48 minutes each up in Eliot Lake when his mother was dying.

Terrell’s last song was about the daughter that he has yet to meet. She only recently tracked him down on Facebook and they have plans to get together – “Where are you, my beautiful lady who keeps my eyes open always to the sun …”

The final performer on the list was Michael, who did all covers of Bluegrass songs.

The first was called “Rude and Rambling Man” and which is known more widely as the British or Irish folk song, “The Newry Highwayman” – “ … To London city I paid my way to spend my money the gambler’s way. I hadn’t been there a week or so till I met me a wife and she troubled me so. To support that girl both nice and gay she drove me to rob the road highway. I robbed a train I will declare … I robbed it of 10,000 pounds … Now I’m condemned to the gallows tree … When I die don’t bury me at all, just pickle my bones in alcohol …”

The next song was “Kentucky Girl” by Charlie Moore – “ … Does that old moon shine on the bluegrass as bright as it did on the night you first kissed me …” I asked if when the Kentucky Girl grew up she became Neil Diamond’s “Kentucky Woman”.

Michael’s third offering was “Miner’s Refrain” by Gillian Welch – “In the black dust towns of east Tennessee … down in a deep, dark hole …”

Then he sang and played “Paul and Silas in Jail” – “Paul and Silas in jail all night long … That old jail it reeled and rocked all night long … Hebrew children in the burning fire all night long …”

Since the Yellow Door closes at 23:00, there was still time for more open stage, and so Tom said we would go through the list again.

We started the second round with a poem by Janice – “You are like the leaves that start out green … Sometimes we shake hands … When autumn winds advance as surely they must … the winds grow colder … we are redeemed … sailing dreamily upwards to rest in the lap of god.” Then she played the piece as a song on guitar.

Tom invited me to do another set.

I started with “A Snake That Dances”, which is my translation of Charles Baudelaire’s “Un Serpent Qui Dance” – “ … To watch you moving in close cadence, sweetly unrestrained, is like watching a snake that dances on the end of a cane …”

I sang my own “Love In Remission” – “ … There isn’t a cure for love in remission as it festers neath the bandages of our politesse. We wake up one day to see that love is a prison and we’ve been condemned to a sentence of happiness …”

My last song was “Strip Tease”, which is my translation of a Serge Gainsbourg song of the same name – “ … Now that I’ve finished with my strip tease, and you’re drunk on your ideal of me, here is your pound of Barbie flesh, with her package discarded …”

Then Michael did another song, which was “Night Flyer” by Johnny Mullins – “The window is open, so why don’t you fly? Could it be that you’ve lost all the yearning to try … So fly like an eagle and land like a dove …”

We finished the night with some jamming songs, that we all joined in on. I experimented with bongos on the first and the tambourine on the second.

We began with “This Little Light of Mine” by Avis Christiansen and Harry Loes – “ … I’m not gonna make it shine, I’m just gonna let it shine …”

The second song was the traditional song, “Peace Like A River” -  “I’ve got peace like a river … I’ve got love like an ocean … I’ve got joy like a fountain …”

We finished with the Mexican folk song, “La Bamba”. I tried to follow along on the guitar by watching either Tom or Janice’s chord changes. I was moderately successful. Carole stopped playing because she couldn’t hear herself over Terrell’s piano playing.

            As we were packing up, I had a discussion about poets. He scoffed a bit at the idea of poet laureates but I argued that I thing George Elliot Clarke, Canada’s current poet laureate is pretty good. But Tom said, “I like your stuff, because you take the orange and twist it!”