October 19, 1994: As a host Danny Marks was a putz

October 19, 1994 

            On Wednesday I posed at the Ontario College of Art from 9:00 to 16:00. I was going to check out the poetry slam but found out that it wasn’t any kind of contest and so I didn’t go. I went up to the Bloor Street United Church for the Fat Albert’s open stage in the basement. Tom Smarda, Steve Lowe and I performed my songs “Sixteen Tons of Dogma” and “The Next State of Grace”: 

The Next State of Grace 

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 find my 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 

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 don’t turn 

from the ditch of my pride where I try to save face 

Guess I’ll sit here and wait for the next state of grace 

So my mind hangs above this emotional wreck 

like a scavenger looking for parts 

and it lives in a mansion that’s built from the sweat 

of my tarpaper shack dwelling heart 

Oh when oh when will I ever learn? 

I’ll freeze here on Earth with a heart that won’t burn 

So I’m biding my time here as fate’s welfare case 

while I line up and wait for the next state of grace 

            Then Tom and I went up to the Black Rooster open stage on Bathurst south of Dupont and did four songs each. Mary Milne came with Sarah and read some poems, then Tom and I went down to Bloor and Brunswick for the open stage at Albert’s Hall where Steve had gone right after Fat Albert’s. It was bogus because it was hosted by Danny Marks who was a putz. He deliberately screwed up Mike Weedman’s name when he introduced him so I shouted out, “You’re an asshole!”