Linda Stitt's Words and Music Salon

I was especially glad on Saturday to get finished with the food bank early because I planned to go to Linda Stitt’s Words and Music Salon early that afternoon and it was nice to be able to go home for a while without having to rush off. I had about an hour and a half to relax, have a coffee and eat something before leaving.

A few days before that I had bought a couple of cans of coconut milk at Freshco because I wanted to see if it would work as a coffee creamer. When I tried it on Saturday it worked fine, so now I don’t have to stop drinking coffee when I temporarily go off dairy.

On my way up Brock Avenue I saw a couple walking south that were wearing matching white knitted woollen caps with long, dangling braided ties. I was thinking that couples that wear matching clothes probably stay together longer because, “Who else would be with them?”

Linda’s salon lost it’s home a couple of months ago when the Italian restaurant at Bay Street and St Joseph where she’s been holding it for years went out of business. She’d found a temporary place around the corner for February, but for the first Saturday in March it was to be in the Smiling Buddha at 961 College Street West. This is a very convenient location for me because it only takes ten minutes for me to get there on my bike. I rode past the place on the first try because I’d forgotten the exact address, and then dismounted at Dovercourt to walk back. Even while walking and looking at each place to the end of the block I ended up missing it again. I got back on the velo and rode east once more and finally found it.

As I was locking my vehicle to a stand directly in front of the bar. Linda Stitt came to the door and saw me, then came out to say hello. “Hi Linda! What are you doing here?” I was teasing that I just happened to be there and didn’t know what was going on. She answered, “I’m here for my salon, which you’ll be reading at soon!” She was referring to my guest reading that will be taking place on June 3^rd. I went inside and found the only fully empty table.

Linda came over to chat and so I asked her whether or not the Smiling Buddha was the new permanent home for her salon. I explained that I would have started promoting my gig back in February if she hadn’t lost her venue. I didn’t want to tell be people, “I hope you can come to my show on June 3^rd, though I don’t know where it is.” Linda is into eastern philosophy so her first answer was, “Nothing is ever for certain!” I agreed but dug in with a more specific question: “In terms of probability then, is this the new home?” She said that it probably is.

The set-up of the Words and Music Salon has two guest storytellers, one guest musician, one guest poet, a featured poet and a featured musician. The musical side of things is organized by Lucky Mike, who I know from when he used to host the Yellow Door open stage at 6 St Joseph.

The guest poet for this month was Mary Milne. When she arrived and was passing my table I called her name. She looked around but didn’t see me so I called again. When she recognized me she asked if she could join me.

The event was kicked off by Lucky Mike with an original called, “When Did The Stars Fall From the Sky?” It was a musically typical country song with lyrics about the singer finding out that his partner has fallen out of love with him and he is the last to know. It uses conventional metaphors for the disaster of a break-up such as the stars falling and the mountains crumbling and the punch line is that if all this had really happened he would have seen it on TV.

One verse into the song Tom Hamilton arrived carrying his violin case but still bundled up for the cold day outside. He walked on stage and up to the second microphone in time to sing along with the chorus. After that was finished he got out his violin, had his coat pulled from his shoulders and halfway off his arms when the next chorus came around and finally had the thing removed in time for his solo.

The first invited guest of the afternoon was storyteller, Pat Bissett. She told us about Samuel de Champlain’s indentured servant Étienne Brûlé. Pat said that he made friends with the Innu, but I think she got them mixed up with the Hurons. He never got scurvy because he ate the native foods rather than the salt pork that the other white men were eating. Champlain arranged for Brûlé to go and live among the Hurons to serve as an unofficial ambassador from France and during his stay he became a full member of the nation. In exchange, Chief Iroquet requested that Champlain take Savignon, a young Huron, who traveled to France with Champlain and then back again with him back to New France.

Champlain sent Savignon and two others on a canoe trip to send a message but on the way back the boat overturned in rough rapids. Savignon was the only survivor but according to Pat, Champlain thought that he had drowned.
            Pat said that Champlain went back to France and broke his leg. All I can find is that he got shot with arrows in his knee and leg in a battle with the Onandaga.

Savignon told his people about Europe. He described horses as moose without antlers. When asked if he would go back he explained that he could never live in a place where children outside of the king’s palace were starving.

Champlain came back with priests and found Brûlé again. The young man had learned several languages. He did not want to return to France because there he would be a peasant while with the Huron he was free. She said he was tortured to death but I don’t think she mentioned that he was eaten.

Pat then sang a song she’d written that basically recounted the story that she’d just spoken.

Linda had a hard time getting up onto the stage to introduce the featured poet, Terry Watada. Then she had difficulty reading his bio under the red spotlights, so someone came up to shine a flashlight on the text for her as she told us about Terry Having won the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Getting down from the stage was also a struggle for her. Someone had to help her each way.

Terry, while putting his aluminum cane aside, explained, “I don’t really need this. I just use it to get a free seat on the TTC.” He told us that this was his third appearance at Linda’s salon.

His first poem was called “Dazzling Blue” – “When I awoke from the depths of ageless sleep I tasted sweetness, light and salt … my arms rose and my hands held the air until the overflow washed over me … My being shivered …”

His second poem was entitled “Deep Purple” but he explained it was not about the colour or the band but rather the song – “Where the deep purple falls … Thick music, warm and familiar … Long ago girls, I only see them in my sleep … But I awake in candlelight shadows … We will always meet here in my Deep Purple dreams.”

His third poem was about his friend Mike who passed away not long ago at the age of fifty – “As we drive through the night, Mike is cool, gripping the steering wheel … The cigarette burns brightly … Distant vistas are blind … Suns rise and set and meld into one hot brightness … No passing signs … Music plays on the radio: Meatloaf: Paradise by the Dashboard Light … Mythical Mike and the blind vistas … We will become part of the myth.”

Terry told us that his brother passed away in 2012. He explained that, “We got along, we didn’t get along … He always clung to the memory of being in Alberta … Internment … I can see him standing amongst the wheat … He must be eight, maybe younger … His body is thin due to a lack of nutrition … The sea of wheat, like the Pacific Ocean.”

He told us that his publisher would be angry if he didn’t read something from his book. The poem was based on a Japanese game where people get together in a room where the only light is provided by the lit candles that each person is holding. One by one each person has to tell a ghost story and then blow out their candle. After the last light goes out a ghost is supposed to appear.

The poem was called “Chinese Lamp” – “Laura Nyro sang her siren song … The colours and smells of Singapore … Mystery women … Intoxicating smoke … A 1930s noir poster … So soon, too young, gone too soon … Grandchildren calling “Ba chong!” … Darkness weaving the coat of daylight … And when I die, and when I’m gone.”

He recounted to us that when his mother died their Chinese lamp went out and never worked again.

His next poem was “Ghost Sleep” – “My eyes are brittle … West coast mountain forest … I see his competent open mouthed smile … He is dragging the wind behind him … The dream dissolves into drizzle.”

Terry said that there is a rich tradition of poetry in his family. Both his grandfather and father wrote poetry and each passed books down to him. He confessed though that he unfortunately did not speak Japanese but he did manage to get the books translated.

Terry shared with us that he used to be a musician before he gave it up when his hands stopped working. He bragged that he’d shared the stage with Willie Dixon and still remembers what he said to him: “I think you better tune up boy!”

His next poem was called “The Blues” – “Well I got a woman way over town, and so begins the Blues … Used to play sax for Ray Charles … Don’t drink from no bottle I didn’t open myself … Now you take then Raylettes, sweet as honey and easy to look at … Ray’s blind genius … I miss him … shit, he never drank Pepsi. He just did it for the money.

Terry told us that his next poem was for his wife of twenty-seven years. It had the title, “Love 27” – “Quiet music … a sad, distinct melody … She is music to me as we lie in bed in silence … Then I grasp her hand and she squeezes back, even in sleep …”

For the most part, I found the stories behind and around Terry Watada’s poetry to be more interesting than the poems themselves.

I was surprised that the crowd that Linda’s salon gathers is pretty grey on the top. I guessed the average age of the audience to be over sixty.

The guest musician was Anna Gutmanis. She sat down at the keyboard and she was there with a harmonica player and a singer, who I think she said was Karen Donaldson. Tom Hamilton also joined them on stage. She introduced her first song as being about women who are stuck in generational sandwiches. I was glad that she said that, because I found her lyrics difficult to hear. She has a soulful voice but she doesn’t enunciate her words very distinctly and she doesn’t have a lot of vocal range. Maybe if she stopped with the affectation of singing in a US accent she’s be able to deliver her lyrics more clearly.

From her next song I could make out –“Just when I’m afraid to stay you make my eyes so sharp”. Her compositions are musically notable and one can definitely see the influence of Soul music in her writing. I can’t fairly say much about her lyrics because I couldn’t hear them.

The feature musician was Michael Katz, who it was announced was making his first public appearance after a series of mishaps. From his bio Linda read that he’s been playing clubs in Toronto since the 1960s. This was apparently his third time at the salon but he recounted his first invitation when someone called to tell him, “We’d like you to play at the Words and Music Salon.” His response was, “Okay. What the hell is that?”

He announced that it would be Linda Stitt’s birthday on Monday, March 6^th.

Michael related a story about a trip to San Francisco with his friend Stan. They visited the City Lights Bookstore and found Lawrence Ferlinghetti playing chess on the second floor. He said, “Then I never saw Stan again until the last time I was here.”

Michael confessed that he does not write his own songs.

The first one he did, with the help of Tom Hamilton, of course, was a Bob Carpenter and Shirley Gibson composition. I couldn’t make out most of the lyrics and couldn’t find this song online. But based on the reference to ships I assume the Bob Carpenter mentioned was the critically acclaimed but virtually unknown Canadian songwriter of that name who died of brain cancer. – “I’d like to take a sailing ship … I’ve never seen the shore … Take it all back cause you’re off the track …”

Michael namedropped some people that he’s opened for over the years, such as Tim Hardin, Phil Ochs and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee.

His next song was Tim Hardin’s “If I Were A Carpenter”.

He followed that with a light slide version of Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads”, with the improvised lyrics, “Goin down to Rosedale, with my brother by my side”.

Michael assured us, “I’m not gonna take up too much more of your time. There’s a whole lot of poetry going on. I was married to a poet once and that was enough. She’s published and I recognize myself in some of her poems so I don’t read them.”

He mentioned again, Stanley Featherman, “There’s no putz like an old putz! He passed in April. He never had anything bad to say about anybody, except for producers.” He said that this was a joke that Stan told: “Two producers are walking down the street and they see a gorgeous young woman. The first one says to the other, ‘I sure would like to screw her!’ The second one asks, “Out of what?’”

Mama D was sitting at the front table and Michael told her that he remembers her from 40years ago with a different name. He said that he and a friend once drove a long way to hear her play.

His next song was “The Weight” by Robbie Robertson. The audience loved this old stuff. They were swaying, nodding and singing along. For myself, it’s one of those songs, like almost everything by the Beatles and Bob Marley, that I’ve heard a hundred times too many. During the choruses, the woman at the table in front of mine, at the end of the third and highest harmonized repetition of the word “and” she would slowly and dramatically raise her hand up with the rising of the scale as if she was conducting the music.

Michael insisted jokingly, “I’ll only do one encore! Don’t beg!” He then assured us that he doesn’t like to be overtly political, but he’d “The Bourgeois Blues” by Leadbelly – “ … Home of the brave, land of the free, I don’t wanna be mistreated by no bourgeoisie … Well me and my wife we were standin upstairs, we heard the white man say I don’t want no niggers up there … Well them white folks in Washington they know how to call a coloured man a nigger just to see him bow …”

Michael’s last song was Jesse Fuller’s “San Francisco Bay Blues”. It’s the one with the refrain, “Walkin with my baby by the San Francisco Bay”. Everybody was clapping along.

Michael was very impressed with Tom Hamilton’s violin playing. He said that they’d never played together before but that it sure didn’t sound like it.

Michael Katz is a good, albeit conventional guitarist and he has a strong stage presence with an ability to build a rapport with his audience. Although he’s not an outstanding singer, he hits all the notes. Most of his repertoire is obscure enough to be interesting.

Linda struggled to the stage again and read a poem called “Evolution or Extinction” – “When all is lost / good / Let it go / and then turn to the transcendental / Some annihilation / We won’t even mention fires and floods and earthquakes / Some are apprehensive / It’s time to join hearts / and transcend”.

Lucky Mike, with the help of Tom Hamilton on fiddle and Gene Hughes on mandolin, did a set of Irish music. Mike informed us that in 1847, during the potato famine, eleven of his ancestors came to Canada and five of them died on the way. One of them became a successful farmer and justice of the peace in northern Ontario.

He started with “Farewell to Nova Scotia” – “The sun is setting in the west, the birds are singing on every tree / All nature seems inclined to rest but still there is no rest for me // Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea bound coast / Let your mountains dark and dreary be / For while I’m far away on the briny ocean tossed will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me?” Tom also sang high harmonies.

Mike admitted that the next one was Scottish and then they did “Wild Mountain Thyme”.

He said the next one was called “The Mermaid”. Mike bantered to us that when sailors saw mermaids that it meant they were going to drown. He added though that no one that saw a mermaid ever returned to relate that they had. Tom offered that they did see lots of manatees though. I said to Mary, “But no womanatees”.

“ … Our captain he spied a mermaid so fair with a comb and a glass in her hand … Then up spoke the cook of our gallant ship and a dirty little rat was he / He said I care much more for my pots and pans than I do for the bottom of the sea …”

Mike informed us that during the potato famine there was lots of food but none for the Irish. Relating to that theme he sang Pete St. John’s “The Fields of Athenry” – “By a lonely prison wall I heard a young girl calling, ‘Michael, they are taking you away, for you stole Trevelyn’s corn so the young might see the morn. Now a prison ship is waiting in the bay … Against the famine and the crown I rebelled, they ran me down, now you must raise our child with dignity …”

They finished their set with one of the North American versions of the Scottish folk song, “Highland Laddie” – “Were you ever in Miramichi … There you tie fast to a tree … Were you ever in Quebec … stowing timber on the deck … Were you ever in Aberdeen … Prettiest girl you’ve ever seen …”

At this point there was a fifteen-minute break. Mary started expressing to me how distressing the news from the United States is these days. She declared, “They’ve really got to get rid of the Electoral College down there!” I offered the view, “But they won’t. Nothing ever changes in the United States.” I stated that since George H. W. Bush, no conservative has won the popular vote in a US election. Then I related something clever that I’d read on Twitter earlier that day. Someone tweeted: “Donald Trump is the stupid man’s idea of a smart man, the poor man’s idea of a rich man and the weak man’s idea of a strong man”.

After the break, Linda tried to introduce Mary Milne, but she couldn’t read her bio, so she asked Mary to come up and read it herself.

Mary only has one book of poems and rather than choosing which ones to read she asked the audience to call out page numbers. She called it “poetic roulette”.

Her first poem was “Thank Love” – “Casting smooth, clear eyed glances … Young woman is an ideal … They leave their dreams … constructing them out of their lilting songs …”

From “Sandcastles” – “I build a house of memories with dreams … images in empty mirrors … riots of colour … the past leaving little room for the underdeveloped.”

Mary informed us that she has three cats. Some people cheered with a sense of affinity. Then Mary said, “But I’m really a dog person” which got acknowledgements from entirely different members of the audience. Her poem was “Felinity” – “Francis the cat, carefully grooming his suit … Nothing that his magnetic yellow eyes missed … Mentally luring all the nice little mice … Occasional little flicks of ears and tail … Sitting in the window, batting at the flies … The late night howl of sadomasochistic courtship … Life in the cat lane.”

From “Wind Song” – “ Brushing caresses across our skin … Torch songs through tree tops.”

From “Night Winds” – “ … lapping at trees in the moonlight … Drying up the rain … Urging everything to dance.”

From “The Long Way Home” – “ … I think my Prozac just wore off …”

From “Touched” – “Madness makes it all bearable … So many of us are a few burgers short of a franchise.”

From “Decadence” – “My bed could not get enough of me today …”

From “Creating a Monster” – “Take a simple person and see magic in their dance … Take a simple case of like and turn it into obsession … Let a pleasant stranger become your hopes, your dreams, your monster.”

From “Interlude” – “All the dear soft moments … Completing each other’s sentences … The whole being greater than the parts.”

Mary’s last poem was called “Yet” – “Curves of sweet fullness … Maturity with all its lush richness … What one loses in intensity one gains in skill.”

The last feature of the afternoon was the storyteller, Adele Koehnke, who read two stories, the first of which was called “The Facecloth”-

“A long time ago on Harvey Avenue … Iris was married to Les, and Les worked for Hydro … They were happily married … Iris became friends with an Italian family next door …” The Italian lady was always giving Iris gifts of food, so one day Iris told her, “I'd like to make you something.” She asked her if there was anything they needed. “My husband Luigi, he need a new facecloth.” Iris asked her for the colours of the Italian flag. She answered, “It's red, green and white” but then she sneezed and Iris thought she said, “and brown”. On Christmas Eve she went over to bring her gift to the Italian family. She felt a little awkward at the door. She told Luigi's wife, “I made him the facecloth.” She called her husband and told him, “Iris made you something.” Iris pulled out the beautiful red, green, white and brown facecloth and said, “I did it in the Italian colours!” Luigi said, “That's not the Italian colours!” But his wife quickly said, “Your eyes are brown!”

Adele's second story was called “The Table Cloth” - “At Midland and Egg … Evelyn was getting married on Valentines Day.” Her grandmother started making her a tablecloth. “Every two inches she stitched a heart in different material … She had bad eyes …” When it was finished she brought it to her, along with a banking envelope containing a coupon for the cleaners for after the first time someone spills spaghetti sauce on the tablecloth. “They had to go up to Richmond Hill for the reception, but never mind.”  Just as everyone was about to leave the groom got down on one knee in front of grandma, telling her that he might be able to help her. “I'm a chief eye surgeon at Toronto General. I'd like to examine you.” A few days later he told her that he could give her 18% better in her left eye. So he did.

Adele told her stories well, but that last one wasn't a great story. Maybe if she'd described the grandmother screwing up the tablecloth because of her vision it would have been better.

Mike and Tom played us out, starting with “Come A Little Bit Closer” by Tommy Boyce. Bobby Hart and Wes Farrell - “In a little cafe just the other side of the border … I started walking her way, but she belonged to bad man Jose ... I dropped the drink from my hand and through the window I ran …”

Then Mike did one of his own compositions called, “After the Storm” - “ … The only time you feel happy is when someone else is feeling bad … How can anyone know anything about anything anyway … It's just across the border of chaos and order.

The penultimate song was the Irish folk song, “Whiskey In The Jar” – “As I was going over the Cork and Kerry Mountains / I saw Captain Farrell and his money he was counting / I first produced my pistol and then produced my rapier / I said stand over and deliver or the devil he may take ya … I took all of his money and it was a pretty penny / I took all of his money and I brought it home to Molly / She swore that she’d love me and never would she leave me / but the devil take that woman cause you know she tricked me easy … Being drunk and weary I went to Molly’s chamber / taking my money with me and I never knew the danger / At about six or maybe seven in walked Captain Farrell / I jumped up with my pistols and I shot him with both barrels … Well some men like the fishin and some men like the fowlin / and some men like to hear a cannon ball roarin /  Me I like sleeping in my Molly’s chamber / but here I am in prison and I wear a ball and chain there …”

Their last song was Calvin Carter and James Hudson’s doowop song, “Goodnight Sweetheart, It’s Time To Go” with very good high harmony by Tom Hamilton.

When I got home I removed my denture. That night at dinner I made the decision that the false tooth will only be used from now on for singing, speaking and appearing in public. When I eat at home I want to be comfortable.