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.

Connie

           

            On the hot Sunday evening of June 19^th, while riding west along Bloor Street I noticed that there was still some kind of festival going on at Christie Pits, as there had been the day before. It turns out that it’s the Inti Raymi summer solstice festival, put on by Toronto’s Latin community.

            When I got to Avenue Road I found that Bloor was closed to traffic from Avenue Road to Bay Street as part of the Yorkville Exotic Car show. I had to walk my bike to Bay before I could ride again. So much for seeing how much of Leaside I could explore if I give myself 47 minutes to ride there.

            It’s definitely harder work riding up Yonge to St Clair than it is going out to he Danforth. There’s a lot less competition from other cyclists though.

            I rode along Sutherland from Bayview to Midland. The grid I’m exploring is shaped more like a spider web than the normal rectangular arrangements. Every eastbound street takes a sharp turn after the angled section of Midland and runs north parallel to Midland’s northbound end.

            I watched the first episode of Hawaiian Eye. I remember seeing some of them when I was a kid but didn’t remember much other than that it was sort of a Hawaiian rip off of 77 Sunset Strip. There was nothing outstanding about the first show. What struck me as extremely unrealistic was that this private detective agency would have so much influence on the police, so much so that beat cops would treat the guys like they were their superiors. The show had 60s cutie Connie Stevens as a nightclub singer who sang as if she were enclosed in an echo chamber.

Wild West Batman

           

            Since I first got Windows 7 a couple of years ago, my computer, upon restarting sometimes, changes the display size for everything but Microsoft Word periodically back and forth between a larger format and a smaller one. I suspect that it’s the result of changes made by Windows updates. I prefer the smaller format and the one good outcome that came from Windows 10 hijacking my computer a few weeks ago was that it seemed to fix everything into the smaller format. When I got up on Saturday though, I found that everything had restarted due to an update and it was back in the large format. Grrrr!

On Saturday I took advantage of a very warm day to do my laundry in the bathtub and to hang it out on the deck. There was a little less room on the railing though because my neighbour had had the same idea and hung his comforter out to dry. I have one spare sheet that I washed recently because my stinky cat, Jonquil had been lying on it near the laundry basket. I got the smell off but it was still covered with cat hair. I tried washing it again this time but the hair remains. I think the only thing that might get it off is the rotation of a Laundromat dryer. It’s not that important because it’s just an extra sheet, so I guess it can wait until fall.

When I went for my bike ride, some SUV made a right turn without signalling after the light changed and could have clipped me if I hadn’t been aware.

I went to Yonge Street, rode north to St Clair, east to Englewood, north to Moore and then east into Leaside. Once I was past Bayview I started exploring the streets south of Moore and later Southvale. There was a big complex of identical, small apartment buildings that looked more like they were part of a community college campus. I cycled to Millwood and then back the way I came.

I listened to David Bowie’s second album, “David Bowie” and then part of his third, “Space Oddity”. The quality of the songwriting and the production improved with each of these albums. Space Oddity was the first of his songs that had electric guitar in a rock arrangement. From the second album, I particularly liked “We Are Hungry Men” and from “Space Oddity” besides the title song, I liked “Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly”.

            I finished watching the first season of Have Gun – Will Travel. I won’t bother downloading the second season but I enjoyed the character of Paladin. He’s sort of like a wild west Batman in the sense that there doesn’t seem to be much that he doesn’t know how to do. On two occasions he acted as a lawyer, he has an impossible amount of knowledge, he’s the president of an exclusive club in San Francisco, and the list goes on. Somehow he has gotten rich as a soldier of fortune, but in the episodes in which good people hire him, he hardly ever takes their money.

Don't Be An Asshole

           

            Another Friday of no students coming to my yoga class at PARC. If this happens next week I am turning in my fob. I am for the most part hoping that will be the outcome. There is writing I could get done on Fridays rather than wasting my time sweeping the floor for no one.

            On my way home from PARC, I was passing between a parked truck and traffic, and didn’t feel confident to pedal through the narrow passageway, so I scooted myself along with my right foot. A twenty-something cyclist riding a trick bike behind me called out, “You don’t know how to ride!” Once we were both through, I turned and told him not to be rude. He told me to get out of the way. I said, “Don’t be an asshole! You’ll find it will help you get along with people better!” “Okay” he responded indifferently.

            That evening I rode through very hot air out to the end of Donlands and then crossed the bridge over the Don Valley to where it turns into Millwood Road. I wanted to explore the next street that went west and that was Redway Road. It turned out to be the very long driveway of a Loblaws in the middle of nowhere with “all lanes open”.

            I rode north to Southvale and headed west. I didn’t explore any side streets along the way, but was rather marking my next route, since it wouldn’t make sense to get there via the Danforth. Southvale turned into Moore before it crossed Bayview. I followed Moore to the end and went down to St Clair. It’s nice on a hot day to shoot down the hill from St Clair along Yonge Street and to feel the breeze in my face.

            At Bloor and Bay, the woman with the titanic voice and the artificial flowers in her hair was scatting to beat the band, only without a band. She’s a very good singer.

            Just after walking my bike across Bay Street to head south, I saw a very hot middle-aged woman walking in a tight knee-length dress of see-through white lace. I actually considered taking a ride around the block to get another look, but I decided it was too late and she might already have gone in somewhere with the couple that accompanied her.

            I’ve recently downloaded the complete studio discography of David Bowie. I listened to his first album, “1966” and it’s interesting because it has a very 60s sound while at the same time being distinctly Bowie, with songs like “I Dig Everything”.

Attacked by an Evil Traffic Cone

           

            When I set out for my bike ride on the Thursday evening of June 16th, I started noticing that my brakes were squeaking. I assume that means that my brake pads are getting down to the metal. Get one repair done and the need for another pops up! I’m tempted to say that it happens every time but that’s really not true. I’m usually good for quite a while after getting something fixed. I’ll have to wait till next week when I have a little money from work.

            At Bay and Bloor there was a counter tenor busking.

            I had stopped at the light at Castlefrank behind another cyclist of about my age. Beside him was a guy on a classic motorcycle that was lined along the edges with large chrome studs. The cyclist said, “Nice bike!” The biker asked, “Wanna race? It’s a fair race! Two wheels against two wheels!” The cyclist answered, “Maybe if you give me a century head start!”

            I finished exploring all the streets west of Donlands and south of the bridge.

            On the way home along Queen, as I was weaving around the road construction cones, my second right finger was attacked by one of them and started to bleed.

            I finished listening to most of the Marc Bolan discography, plus the six episodes of his short-lived 1977 television show. The show apparently was scheduled to shoot another season but Bolan died before that could happen. Other than the fact that he showcased a handful of really good bands, including his pal, David Bowie, it was a horrible show. It was not live, yet every song was followed by the same canned applause and the same clip of a cartoon audience applauding. Bolan and T-Rex got to play four songs in every half hour show, which is gross overexposure for the host. A song at the beginning and at the end would have been all right. His performances involved way too much posing and they rarely showed his hands during the lead guitar instrumentals. He also often featured the same recent releases on different shows, which was another case of overkill, considering his body of work. There was a dance troupe called Heart Throb, consisting of four very cute young women that were well synchronized but not fantastic dancers.

            Of all the acts featured in the first show, I was most impressed with The Jam, playing “All Around the World”. They were very high energy and one could really see the influence of the The Who.

            Nothing really impressed me about show number two, but the third one had a new group called “The Boomtown Rats”. I had only seen the video for “I Don’t Like Mondays” but I had never actually seen them performing a song. “Looking After Number One” was really dynamic, but there was a stupid split screen that showed Heart Throb doing their little dance to the song.

            The sixth show had the only really good introduction to a band. It showed Bolan standing and dressed all in pink satin while holding and smelling a flower. He said, “Here’s a new group called Generation X that has a lead singer named Billy Idol who is supposed to be as pretty as me. We’ll see.” Generation X did “Your Generation”.

            The last song was David Bowie singing “Heroes” and that was followed by Bowie playing guitar and jamming with Bolan and T-Rex. Just as they were about to sing, Bolan tripped over a microphone cord and the finals shot of the series is of David Bowie laughing.

Karl Marx's Retirement Party

           

            On the evening of Wednesday, June 15^th, there were a few dribbles of rain coming down as I made my way east along College Street. I turned right on Huron for the first time in three years of riding to fat Albert’s at the Steelworkers Hall. In all that time I’d thought that Cecil was a one-way street going west, so I’d always approached it from its east end at Beverley. I hadn’t noticed until I was on my way home the week before that Cecil becomes a two-way street a block west of Beverley. So all that time I’d been taking the wrong way around.

            Michael Harrington was at Fat Albert’s when I arrived. He was waiting for his friend and collaborator, John Reid. I chatted with him for a while and he quoted for me a saying that he came up with about the underestimation of tasks. I asked him to repeat it as I wrote it down, but he asked me not to put it on the internet.

            People are so worried about something they’ve created being stolen. In all my years online I’ve only experienced that once, when I noticed that someone had started an open stage in Portland and called it “The Orgasmic Alphabet Orgy”, which was the name that I gave to my weekly event. It is very unlikely that someone would have come up with such a name by coincidence, so it must have been stolen. I even called the bar where it was being held once a month and asked them to tell the person they couldn’t use the name. Anyway, it didn’t seem to last, since the year 2000 is the only time that listings for the event appeared.

            I noted that at 19:20 there were still not very many people in the room and only ten performers on the list, as the coffee maker made the mournful sound of a windstorm from its place on the floor beside the outlet. Mary was looking for a volunteer to go and buy Styrofoam cups for the coffee when blonde woman who was there for the first time told her that she had some at home that she could donate and that she lived nearby.

            To the right of the stage, in the corner, was a bench with a wooden seat and a wrought iron frame that I’d never seen there before. I was willing to accept the possibility that it had always been there and I just hadn’t noticed it, but that was doubtful.

            Later I was vindicated when Mary noticed it too. There was a sign on the backrest with several labour slogans in list form, and Mary read them out loud.

            “Stand up and fight back”

            “Power of the people”

            “One day longer, one day stronger”

            “Kill a worker, go to jail”

            “Solidarity forever”

            Glen Gary, who was listening to Mary while setting up the sound, declared, “Sounds like Communism!”

            Mary responded, “Well, I don’t know about that!”

            “It’s okay” Glen assured her, “I’m a Communist!” Then he added, “Actually, Marx is making a bit of a comeback right now, as his prediction about capitalism putting wealth into the hands of the few is more true now than ever!”

            I suggested that it’s a good thing that Marx is making a comeback, since he must be getting pretty old and so if his books are generating more income now he’ll be able to put away something for his retirement.

            I said that the middle class is an invention of the rich in order to serve as a buffer zone to stop the poor from burning down their mansions. Glen agreed that there is some truth to that.

            Glen asked for someone to lend him a guitar with a pick-up. Someone did so. I told him I think pick-ups make guitars sound like crap. He agreed that pick-ups used to be shitty, but they’re better now.

            The open stage started just a few minutes late with about thirteen people in the room. The first performer was Charles Winder.

            Charles’s first flamenco piece had quite a lot of string bending, which was a nice effect. His first one was shorter than usual.

            The second composition had even more note bending and more complexity than the first, but it was fairly long. Glen tried to get his attention by showing him the clock on his phone. When that didn’t work he switched the spotlight off and back on, but I don’t think that Charles noticed. The song ended soon after that anyway.

            After Charles was Dawn, who sang in her mousy voice a very slow version of Jim Weatherly’s “Neither One of Us Wants to Say Goodbye” – “ … Every time I find the nerve to say I’m leaving, those old memories just get in the way … There can be no way this can have a happy ending so we just go on hurting and pretending …”

            Dawn’s second song was a cover of Sandy Denny’s “Who Knows Where the Time Goes?” – “Across the evening sky, all the birds are leaving. But how can they know it’s time for them to go? Before the winter fire I will still be dreaming. I do not count the time, for who knows where the time goes … Sad deserted shore, all your fickle friends are leaving … but I will still be here, I have no thought of leaving …”

            Next was Brian Rosen, with a couple of sea songs.

            The first was “Flowers of Bermuda” by Stan Rogers – “ … He could smell the flowers of Bermuda in the gale when he died on the North Rock shoal … But when the crew was all assembled and the gig prepared for sea, twas seen there were but eighteen places to be manned, nineteen mortal souls were we … The captain, drowned was tangled in the mizzen chains, smiling bravely beneath the sea …”

            Brian is obviously a big fan of the Stan Rogers, as his second offering, “Barrett’s Privateers”, was also authored by the late songwriter – “Oh the year was 1778, how I wish I was in Sherbrooke now … the scummiest vessel I’d ever seen, god damn them all! I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold, we’d fire no guns, shed no tears. Now I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier, the last of Barrett’s privateers … The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight … When a bloody great Yankee hove in sight with our cracked four pounders we made to fight … but with one fat ball the Yank stove us in … Barrett was smashed like a bowl of eggs and the Main Trunk carried off both me legs …”

            Then it was Glen Hornblast’s turn. He said that it was good to hear “Barrett’s Privateers” and added, “I had a summer job like that once.”

            With Tom Hamilton on violin, Glen sang one of his many love songs – “Cherie, you know I tried, but you can’t outrun a heartache … Like footprints in the sand, nothing lasts forever … Now dry your tears Cherie, our love had burned out long ago … Like dewdrops on a rose, nothing lasts forever …”

            Glen commented, “Tom has kind of brightened up our lives to have him back again!”

            Tom argued though, “I’m the winner here!”

            Glen’s second song was a soft and much jazzier number than his usual, more folk oriented material _ “ … Your wave crashes over me … and still you’re a mystery …”

            I followed Glen. When I stood up from my front row seat, and then turned around to play and sing, I was surprised at how many more people had come in since we started.

            I began with “Strip Tease”, my English adaptation of the Serge Gainsbourg song of the same name – “ … If it’s for you I do this strip tease I think you really need to tell me if you are, just between us, a bit voyeur, a little thug?  But all of these are just chimeras from my mouth to my lower areas, because no one, not even you, will get to touch the parts they view …”

            My second choice was to sing my own “The Next State of Grace” – “ … I’m dug down so deep in the trench of my heart I can’t seem to climb back out again, and my voice is so distant it can hardly be heard by the women who pass in the rain. Oh when oh when will I ever learn? I can’t drive a girl home with wheels that won’t turn. I’m buried with pride when I try to save face. Guess I’ll sit here and wait for the next state of grace …”

            My set went over pretty well this time and people actually listened to both of my songs.

            Michael Harrington was next. He mounted the stage with just a tambourine and said, “They call me Tambourine Man. I don’t care what they call me as long as they get my name right on the paycheque. Things are good!” Then Michael shook his tambourine for about a minute and then he was done.

            It was getting close to being time for the feature performer, but they decided to let Bob Allen play first. With the help of Tom on violin and Glen Gary on piano, Bob sang Bob McDill’s “If Hollywood Don’t Need You” – “ … If you see Burt Reynolds, won’t you shake his hand for me and tell him that I’ve seen all of his movies … I hope you made the big time, I hope your dreams come true, but if Hollywood don’t need you, honey, I still do …”

            Bob’s second song was Don Gibson’s “Oh Lonesome Me”.

            Then the feature, Harpin’ Norm Lucien took the stage and did a sound check.

            He began with an instrumental composition on the harmonica, which he dedicated to the victims of the shooting in Orlando. He said that the original name for the piece was “Quiver”, but he was changing it this time to “Never Again”. It was not your conventional Blues harmonica playing. He was able to achieve some interesting sounds using in and out breath and his vibrating hand.

            Norm told us that he’d been looking for Fat Albert’s for the last four years, even though he’s only been playing for five. I think he was kidding though about how long he’s been playing.

            His first song was called “All You See Is The Sparkle In Her Eyes” – “ … People on the beach shake and bake … Miles and miles of clear blue skies, but all I see is the sparkle in her eyes …” Norm invites the audience to sing along and even suggests that they come up on stage to sing into the microphones. People do sing along, but no one joins him on stage.

            He sat down for his next song, though he said that he usually stands. He told us that the song was a collaboration with Glen Hornblast. Glen sent him a title and some of the words. The passed it back and forth and both of them wrote tunes for it. He went with his own melody but he still considers it co-written by Glen Hornblast.

            The song was entitled “Anything For Love” – “There’s something following me …”

            For Norm’s third song he invited Tom Hamilton to the stage, saying he and Tom have played together on many occasions.

            The story behind the song is that he was travelling in Lithuania, where he met the members of a human rights group that wanted him to write a song for a program with the name, “Children Deserve Better”. He said that if people go to childrendeservebetter.org and give a donation of twenty dollars or more they can download the song, “How Much Love” – “ … This aint no negotiation, this is the heartbeat of creation …” Tom sang on the chorus and while he took a violin solo, Norm walked over and played guitar beside him. While Norm played harmonica the audience sang along on the chorus.

            Norm’s last song was, he said, a newer one, and I think he said that the title was “Reach The Moon” – “Take the calm and it draws you in … We find love in the strangest places … Dancing to this silent tune …” He got the audience to take part in a call and response.

            Harpin’ Norm Lucien has a strong stage presence and an ability to draw an audience into his performance. His songs are fairly standard modern folk songs with a slightly sweet musical aftertaste, though I doubt if anyone was humming his tunes on the way home. His lyrics, though sincere, have no new or clever turns of phrase to catch the attention. Both ironically and coincidentally, it was his harmonica instrumental at the very beginning that was the innovative highlight of “harpin” Norm’s show.

            As Norm was leaving the stage and the open stage was about to restart, the blonde woman who’d donated the Styrofoam cups to Fat Albert’s approached me to say she had to go but wanted to compliment the lyrics for my second song. “Excellent!” she declared, “Really enjoyed it!” People sure do like that one song of mine.

            First up on the second half of the open stage was Bridget.

            From her first song – “Whispering wind … dreaming dreams beside quiet streams … I feel the rush of the river, I feel the voice of my deliverer … calling to me, come out and be free, fall into me … “ Tom stood up and played along near the end.

            When Bridget finished her song, Glen Gary called out, “Bravo! Wow!”

            She told us that her next song was one that she never gets right.

From “You’re Beautiful” – “The silence is the better part of the ocean swells in your heart …” Ruth Jenkins got up and played along on the harmonica. “ … Wisdom calls out your name …”

After Bridget was John Stroud who sang “The Ultimate Folk Song”, which was made up of pieces of several recognizable songs. He didn’t say whether he put the songs together for this himself or whether someone else did – “Busted flat in Baton Rouge, West Virginia, with a dollar in my hand … I’m sleepy, take me home where the deer and the antelope play …”

To introduce his second offering, John told us that he’d recently seen the national Geographic photo of the universe, with the Earth as a tiny speck, so it inspired him to learn Eric Idle and John du Prez’s “Galaxy Song”, from the film, “Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life” – “ … Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving, revolving at 900 miles an hour. It’s orbiting at 19 miles a second, so it’s reckoned, the sun that is the source of all our power. Now the sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see are travelling at a million miles a day in the outer spiral arm at 40,000 miles an hour of a galaxy we call the Milky Way. Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light years thick but out by us it’s just three thousand light years wide. We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point. We go round every two hundred million years and our galaxy itself is one of millions and billions in this amazing and expanding universe. The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding in all of the directions it can whiz. As fast as it can go, the speed of light you know, twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is. So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure how amazingly unlikely is your birth and pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space because there’s bugger all down here on Earth” and John added, “ … for instance, Trump!”

It was announced that we were now down to one song each because of time constraints.

Next was Isaac Bonk, and when Mary introduced him she said, “I’ll mug him later for his shirt!” It was purple with red neon sleeves.

Tom joined him on stage.

The melody for Isaac’s song was almost identical to “House of the Rising Sun” – “Well Henry James is a banker … takes great pride in every penny that he’s earned … Poor babies dying now and Henry won’t even share … Greed and pride will send him to hell’s honest shore … His tombstone decaying and the grass above him brown …”

Paul Nash followed Isaac with a song called “The Collector” which he said was in a movie of the same name. I don’t know if it was in the movie, but the song was written by Sonny Curtis and inspired the a novel of the same name by John Fowles, about a serial kidnapper – “I am a collector of beautiful things, I capture and keep them and pin down their wings … She begs to be free, with no one to help her, she’ll learn to care, depending on me …”

Then we had some poetry from Naomi, with background music of violin and piano from Tom and Glen. She announced that she would be performing with Bill Bissett soon at the AGO.

Her first poem was called “Paradigm”- “Ventriloquist … paradigm … cast out starlight … excavate the rain … rancid equilibrium … emulate the doves … tangled rhyme …”

From her second poem – “I knew you in a dream … your soul mutates as I want to dispel … a distant star where soft dandelion seeds fall … under the influence of a black hole … the anguish of blue casts a permanent shadow … where we as one merged … tingle and sing … like shadows whisper …”

When Paul Shakespeare was introduced, Tom, joining him on stage began singing the line, “Shakespeare he’s in the attic with his pointed shoes and his bells …” from Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again”. Ruth also stepped up.

From Paul’s cover of “Magnolia Wind” by Shawn Camp and Guy Clark, which he sang while emulating a US southern accent – “I’d rather sleep in a box like a bum on the street than on a fine feather bed without your cold feet … I’d rather not walk through the garden again if I can’t catch your scent on a magnolia wind …”

Next came Joanne Crabtree, who sang with a very strong voice the traditional gospel song “Take Me In Your Lifeboat” – “ … What of the inner with blood on his hands, far from redemption and far from dry land …” She had an interestingly designed guitar with the hole in the corner rather than the centre.

After Joanne was Carole Farcash and Paul Nash, singing “All I Have to Do Is Dream” by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.

It was a surprise when Glen Gary came on stage for his set without a guitar. He didn’t even sing this time, but rather recited from memory “A Ballad of the Fleet” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Glen had wanted Tom to play while he spoke the poem, but Mama D decided that she wanted to join in on the piano, so Glen threw up his hands and declared, “Gotta go with the flow!” Tom had to follow Mama’s lead as Glen said – “ … Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day, till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven … and they blessed him in their pain that they were not left to Spain, to the thumbscrew and the stake for the glory of the lord … They came aboard us and they fought us hand to hand, for a dozen times they came with their pikes and musketeers and a dozen times we shook them off as a dog shakes his ears when he leaps from the water to the land …” It was a very long poem and so very impressive that Glen had committed it to memory.

Then it was Mama D’s set, but she was introduced as “D.M, because that’s how she signed herself onto the list. From her song – “ … The history book is a weapon, not a tool … Starry night in a Central American town … In the paper there’s a captain killed in action … But they were children …Victims in the holy land … only children …”

Following Mama D was Randy, who was wearing a Chyna t-shirt.  He always has to have his tape recorder miked so he can sing along, karaoke style, with a song that he’s chosen. Glen told him to make it quick. The recording he played was of Kelly Clarkson singing “Piece By Piece”, which was written by her and Greg Kurstin – “ … Piece by piece he collected me … He filled the holes that you burned in me at six years old … I fell far from the tree …”

The final performer, with help from Tom and Glen, was Ruth Jenkins, singing “In My Solitude” by Duke Ellington, Eddie DeLange and Irving Mills – “ … You haunt me with dreadful ease …”

            I rode past Mary as she walked towards Spadina on Cecil Street. I asked, “Don’t you drive anymore?” She called back, “I haven’t driven for years!” I think that I remember her having had a Volvo that she’d named “Magda”.

Reading the Ingredients

           

            When I arrived at the food bank on Wednesday, June 15^th, there was a garbage truck in front of the driveway, emptying the food bank’s bins that had been rolled out to the curb. At one point the driver was holding a golf club, and at first I thought that it was something he’d just found, but when I saw him climb up the back of the truck to dislodge something, I realized that he must carry it around in the truck just for that purpose. Someone passing by said to him, “Good day for golfing!”

            The woman who stood two people ahead of me in the bright white and red Canada baseball cap was doing some knitting as she stood chatting with the woman with the mid-sized poodle.

            The man with the sore back who can’t speak English stepped in behind me and asked me a one-word question that sounded like “Lost?” I assume he meant, “Is this the line-up?” When I repeated “Lost”? he told me, “No speak English!” I asked what language he spoke and he told me it was Polish. When I looked it up later, none of the Polish words for line-up sound anything like the word that he’d used.

            Surprisingly and pleasantly, there weren’t as many people smoking in the line-up as usual. But when I came back at 12:30, the smokers were so evenly distributed that I couldn’t find a smoke-free part of the driveway.

            For some reason this week they let in more than five people at a time and so it was crowded and hectic in the waiting area. I had to sit sideways to keep my feet from getting run over by some people’s two-wheeled shopping carts.

            I got the nervous shopping helper for the first time in a while.
            On the top shelf there was a choice between a jar of pickled tomatoes, a package of lemonade mix and a can of olive oil spray. I was interested in the lemonade but I made sure I read the ingredients this time. The lemonade mix contained stevia extract, which is a sugar substitute, all of which give me a headache, so I took more of the olive oil.

            On the next shelf down were three items: Triscuits, Bugles and a box of gum candy. I didn’t know it was gum candy at first and was looking at the box when she nervously directed me to choose only between the other two. I’ve had enough Triscuits for a while, so I went for the Bugles.

            Below that was a choice between granola bars, some kind of candy and the above gum candy. I took the granola bars.

            On the next set of shelves there was still lots of pasta, rice and tomato sauce, but I still don’t need any of that.

            The next set of shelves just had a few cans of vegetables, but I find that canned vegetables taste very little like the fresh versions. There was a lone can of peas though and, in terms of flavour, canning doesn’t have as much of a negative effect on peas and beans, so I took the peas.

            The set of shelves that usually has the protein didn’t have any beans at all, but there were a few cans of tuna, and I got two of them.

            There was finally something other than breakfast candy in the cereal section where I got a box of Shreddies.

            Sue wasn’t handling the refrigerated food this time, but was now one of the shopping helpers for the main shelves. The woman replacing her had two single serve containers of Oikos raspberry and chocolate yogourt. The flavoured yogourt at the food bank is often artificially sweetened, so once again, I checked, and yay, it was okay! In that section there was also a plastic bag containing five small eggs and a package of frozen sliced Black Forest ham.

            From the bread section I just took a bag of six whole-wheat English muffins.

            From the vegetable lady I got a little bit of everything she had, including a head of leaf lettuce, three stewing tomatoes, three apples, three potatoes, one big onion and two English cucumbers, which she thought were zucchini.

Exploring the Milky Way

           

            On the night of Monday, June 13^th, I packed up my guitar and got my bike ready to go to the Tranzac open stage. I checked the back tire and to my relief it was still firm. I rode up Brock and my back tire was still wobbling like it had been the day before. I went under the railroad bridge but as I started climbing the hill to Dundas, the wheel felt even worse. I stopped at the next corner and discovered that I had another flat tire. Since I didn’t have another tube, there was nothing to do but walk home and cancel my plans for the Tranzac. Fortunately it was only about a ten-minute walk. I got some writing done instead.

            My goal had been to not take out any overdrafts on my bank account during the lean times this year because it just costs more money in the long run. As far as food goes I can manage, but because I need my vehicle to be functional at all times, I had to plan to take it to Bike Pirates on the Tuesday evening of June 14^th, and since I didn’t have the money to buy a new tube from them, I walked to the Bank of Montreal at King and Dufferin that afternoon to take out twenty dollars. Walking gives one a different perspective than biking. I took streets that are different from those I would take while cycling to the bank.

On the way back I walked up Gwynne Avenue and when I saw the alley called the Milky Way, decided to go home by that route and to check out the graffiti. The alley murals of the Milky Way are fairly conventional, but when looking at their interaction with both the design of them and the decay of the backs of the very old Queen Street storefronts, made for some very interesting viewing. I pulled out my camera several times as I walked and took some shots of what I thought was most interesting.

As I was crossing Elm Grove, I noticed a unique decoration above the gated courtyard of a small, fancied up two-story apartment building. I walked up the street to get a closer look and saw that it was a netting made from hundreds of different colours, designs and types of interwoven fabric. I stood looking at it from outside the gate as a man who obviously either lived there or owned the place, came out. He looked at me and was about to leave, but hesitated a moment until he said, “May I ask what you find so interesting?” I pointed out the quilt-like web and he said, “Oh that’s something somebody did and it took them a long time.” I told him, “I think it’s very interesting!” He just nodded and would only acknowledge that it had been “time consuming.” I asked if I could take some pictures of it and he said it was okay, so he left and I went into the courtyard. I took some shots from below and then climbed one of the two fire escapes to snap a few from above as well.

I walked back down to continue my journey through the Milky Way. At the end of the alley, behind the library was a broken basement window framed by graffiti. I sat down in the middle of the alley and leaned forward to take some pictures of myself reflected in the broken glass. I had to get up a couple of times to let cars get through. I got off a couple of shots, but not as many as I wanted to because my battery needed recharging.

I went home and took about a one hour siesta and then I brought my velo to Bike Pirates. I counted five people ahead of me as we stood on the sidewalk, but one of them must have left because when Dennis came out to write everyone’s names down, I was the only one that claimed number five. Dennis said that there would be one volunteer for every two stands, and since he was the only one there at that time, he would let in the first three. I didn’t quite get the math of his decision, since one-stand holds two bikes.

The late afternoon sun had pried most of the shadows out of the buildings on the north side of Queen till they almost covered the sidewalk. There was strip of warm light left that in front of the shop was mostly obscured by the shade of the trees, but I found a little clearing to stand in while waiting.

After about five minutes, Dennis called my name and I went inside to put my bike on a stand.

The simple problem was the flat back tire, but the big one was the wobble of the same. At first I thought I needed a different rim. After searching amongst their available second hand rims, I found one the same size as mine but when I put it on the trueing wheel it was so wobbly that I was told it would take too long to true it. Another volunteer came along who seemed younger than the rest and smelled like he’d been drinking, but he seemed fairly competent nonetheless. He wanted to have a look at my original rim and told me that it wasn’t very much out of true. He suggested that the wobble might be the result of my needing new ball bearings in the axle, so I took it apart, cleaned everything out and greased it, and then I put in new ball bearings.

Then because mine was worn down, I needed another second hand tire. I went downstairs and brought one back up that was the same size and with the same kind of treading. My young, drunk volunteer wasn’t around, so I showed the tire to a volunteer named Ted, who said that treads aren’t very good for street driving. So I went back down and brought up a semi-slick tire with treads on the sides. I found my volunteer and told him what Ted had told me. He dismissed it saying that, “Ted was just being Ted!” Ted heard him and came to say, “Look, I didn’t tell him he shouldn’t use treads, just that smooth is better!”

The oldest volunteer I’ve seen at Bike Pirates is a short, stout man with white hair and a white beard, who kind of looks like a cross between an elf and Santa Clause. He had been serving a woman at the front and after she left he walked over to my volunteer to declare, “She had really nice tits!” and then he walked away. My young volunteer was speechless for a moment and then called after him, “It’s not really the kind of place for that!”

            I got everything working and the wobble was gone. I gave them $15 and kept $5 for food. The woman behind the counter said she had drawn me at OCADU. I told her that I’ve run across quite a few people over the years that have seen me naked. I related a story about a girlfriend that I’d had who, when she found out from a friend of hers that she had drawn me at George Brown College, asked her, “How come I’ve never seen your boyfriend naked?”

Who Killed Plastiscene?

           

            On the Sunday morning of June 12^th I tried to change my flat back tire tube and to replace it with one that I’d saved from a previous flat because I wasn’t sure if there had really been a puncture. I had changed front tires at home in the past but never the back, because the way the chain hooks around the chain ring always confused me until I started going to Bike Pirates. I used a couple of plastic putty knives to remove the tire from the rim and I found that they work better than the plastic tools designed specifically for that task that they have at Bike Pirates. I was pretty proud of myself that I got everything back together. Throughout the day I kept reaching up to where my bike hangs from the ceiling to squeeze the tire and see if it was still inflated, and it was.

Since Sunday evening was going to be the last instalment of the Plastiscene Reading Series, I spent quite a bit of time during the day trying to prepare something special to read on the open stage. Since I started keeping a daily journal at the end of July 2013, and had included almost every night of Plastiscene in that journal, I decided to put together a file made up of all of my reviews of those monthly events. When that was done I had a hundred pages of Plastiscene reviews. My plan was to try to extract a moment from each night and to put together three minutes worth of three years of Plastiscene. I was still working on it when the usual time for me to leave came around. I worked for fifteen minutes longer but had to satisfy myself with one year of Plastiscene, which seemed appropriate because it covered the time just after the change of regime from Michael Fraser’s organization of the event up until Susie Berg and Rod Weatherbie’s take over.

When I headed for the Victory Café, I noticed that my back wheel was wobbling. I was pretty sure I’d put the will back on okay. I later checked but found no broken spokes. I wonder if riding for about a minute or less with a flat could have bent the frame.

There weren’t that many people on the second floor when I got to the Victory. I took a table at the front and got my poem out of my bag. I did some editing on the first few lines until I overheard Nicki Ward explain to one of the features the format for that evening. She mentioned something called “poets from a hat” as being the first half of the night, followed by a break and then the features. There was no mention of an open stage. I called to Nicki to ask and she confirmed that there would be no open stage for the last Plastiscene and that they already had their line-up set. That seemed wrong to me on all kinds of levels. What would have been a great way to close down Plastiscene would be to make it an all open stage night, so that everybody could join in rather than just a select few. When Nicki told me that, I just gave a sighing, “Okay”, packed up my stuff and left. It was a good thing that I hadn’t bothered to lug my guitar there for nothing.

I walked to my bike, but decided to call Cad to let him know that there was no open stage, just in case he was on his way there. He was home and hadn’t even known that the event was that night. Then he told me that there had been a shooting in Florida and that fifty people had been killed by “a Muslim”. Knowing Cad’s readiness to believe that anything bad that happens is caused by Muslims, I asked him if he was sure that it had been a Muslim that killed them. He put Goldie on the phone to confirm the religious orientation of the shooter, but just then I heard someone call my name. It was Rosalind Rundle, with her daughter. I had forgotten that she had planned on coming for the last Plastiscene in order to read some of her late father, Paul Valliere’s poetry as a tribute.

I told her that the open stage was not happening but that she could go up and talk to them anyway and to see if they’d let her read something. She went upstairs and I finished my conversation with Cad. He said that if I was staying he’d come down and meet me, but I told him I was leaving.

After ending the call though I decided to sit on the sidewalk for a few minutes just in case Rosalind came back out. It was pleasant and breezy in the evening sunlight. After about fifteen minutes, I got up and started to leave, but Rosalind came out and called to me. She said that at first they had been kind of blank about her request but Michael Fraser seems to have convinced them to let her read one poem. I sensed that she wanted me to be there when she did so, and she confirmed that was the case, so I changed my plans and joined her and her daughter at the back of the room.

Rosalind showed me three of Paul’s poems and she asked me to help her choose which one to read. There was one that I thought was a better poem, but another, called “What Kind Are You?” that plays on the two meanings of the word “kind”, was more reflective of Paul’s philosophy and so I suggested that she go with that. I only got a little bit teary eyed when she went up to the stage and read it.

I had only planned on staying till after she’d read, but it seemed more appropriate to wait until the break so as not to disrupt the other readings with my exit.

The first official speaker of the night was the founder of the Plastiscene Reading Series, Michael Fraser. He said that he had asked to go first because he knew that he was going to get emotional, and he did. He started crying a bit when he thanked people for their support. He also named Paul and I, which was nice.

A few other people read, a couple of whom hardly ever came to Plastiscene over the five years it existed. As far as I could tell, the names of several Plastiscene poets had been placed in a hat and each person that spoke, upon getting down from the stage, drew the name of the next poet. I think that Nicky would have let me know if my name had been among them. Over the last five years I probably came to Plastiscene more than anyone else and performed on the open stage more often than anyone else. I had also featured there once and brought in a fair number of people that night to hear me. I think that if Michael had still been in charge of the Plastiscene for the last event. Perhaps familiarity bred contempt or perhaps Susie just doesn’t like me. At the beginning of her tenure as the curator and grant applier for Plastiscene, she had placed Plastiscene among the many venues that had publicly banned Greg Frankson from attending their events because of allegations of inappropriate sexual touching and speech by Frankson that several Ottawa women had come forward about. I disagreed with the ban and called for open communication and confrontation as an alternative. Susie and several others didn’t like her decision being challenged. Maybe that’s the reason that I wasn’t included or maybe they just think I’m a lousy poet.

A couple of poets, such as Kate Marshal Flaherty and Lisa Richter read poems and gave testimonials. Their presence on stage made more sense than some of the others. Lizzie Violet’s reading made sense as well because she had done a lot of media work for Plastiscene over the years. She read a piece that presented mock ads by sex trade workers in the back of Now Magazine and then speculations about what the real people behind the ads were like. Rosalind was worried that her daughter would pick up wrong ideas about sex from Lizzie’s poem, but she was zoned out of the readings as she sat drawing in her book. In my experience, sexual language has no negative effect on children whatsoever unless one either imposes it on them or else makes it extremely taboo. I think that references to sex tend to just roll off of pre-sexual children’s consciousnesses like water off of a duck’s back. It’s not something to worry about. I took my daughter out to poetry readings where she heard all kinds of language and sexual references at a very young age. I don’t think that it negatively affected her at all.

Other than Michael Fraser, the star reader from the first set was Plastiscene’s former host, Cathy Petch. She read a piece that she’d obviously very recently written about the shooting in Florida that I’d only just heard about. Cad hadn’t mentioned that it was a Gay dance club that had been attacked. She predicted that both sides in the US presidential race were going to exploit this tragedy for political gain.

When the break came around, I asked Rosalind if she would be sticking around. She said that she thought she might because she was really getting into the poetry. I asked her if she was going to be okay if I left and she told me she would, so I gave her a big hug and left.

Rosalind’s father really hated the direction that Plastiscene took after Michael Fraser gave it up. I hadn’t been there the last time he’d attended Plastiscene before he died, but I spoke to him over the phone about it later. He said that he’d signed up for the open stage, which allows each reader three minutes. But that time Nicki had said that the open stage performers could only read one poem. Paul told her that he had two short ones and together they would take about two minutes to read. Nicki had said, “Okay, but make it quick!” He read his poems but felt disappointed in the series because it didn’t feel as friendly anymore. Michael Fraser had been the feature that night and Paul stayed to hear him, but left right after that. He told me that he would only go to the next Plastiscene because I told him that I’d be going, but he really wanted to find something better, like the open stage that I used to run. Paul died before he’d had the chance to read his poetry at Plastiscene again.

But why did Plastiscene die? I think that there were several contributing factors. The earlier version of Plastiscene was generally more relaxed about most aspects

of the format.

In terms of hosting, while Nicki Ward is very intelligent and often funny, she doesn’t have the almost magical spontaneous wit of Cathy Petch. Cathy also had something unique to say after each poet, including the open stagers, stepped down from the stage. This made everyone feel like they were an important part of the event. Nicki only did that occasionally.

Michael Fraser passed the hat in order to pay the featured readers, whereas Susie Berg applied for various council grants. Of course, Susie was able to get a bigger paycheque for the readers, but I think there is something to be said for letting the audience take responsibility for payment. It makes them feel like they are part of things in a fuller way than just applauding. I think that under Susie, features got a cheque for $200, but I was glad to get the $35 or so that I got when I featured. Also, when one applies for government grants, one is accountable to certain rules of political correctness that the granters impose. I agree with Banoo Zan’s approach at the Shab-e She’r poetry night, which is that there be absolutely no censorship.

            The last Plastiscene regime was not as open stage friendly as the first. Nicki Ward chopped the open mic segment by half and gave equal time to both the open stage and the gimmicky “poems from a hat”. I seriously doubt that anyone ever came to Plastiscene just to read a poem from the hat, whereas many people did come specifically to share their own writing on the open mic. To give equal attention to two segments that were obviously not equal was a gross error in judgement.

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!”