This is an Increasing Problem That's Damaging Communities

Inside the suspicious rise of gay hate crimes in Portland

Suspicious = Fake.  Go Fund Me pages lend themselves to grifters looking for easy money.

Lenten Wave #26

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." -- Albert Einstein

Lenten Wave #25

"See how the Father attracts. He delights in teaching, and not in imposing necessity on men." —St. Augustine

I Have a Survival Tip

Elite Colleges Constantly Tell Low-Income Students That They Do Not Belong: Unwritten rules underlie all of elite-university life—and students who don’t come from a wealthy background have a hard time navigating them.

As a low-income veteran of the Ivy League, there is one way to alter the system to your advantage:  Get higher grades than the elites.  That involves no bribes and no loss of self-esteem.

The Coracle's Saturday Literary Corner

Albert Camus: Unfashionable Anti-Totalitarian

Archaeological News

Secrets of horrific battle with Cleopatra that gave birth to Roman Empire revealed by ancient monument

Is Marijuana Now Legal in Illinois?

Jussie Smollett’s Attorney: Nigerian Brothers May Have Been Wearing Whiteface During Attack

This is one of the "high-priced" attorneys?  By the way, the word "privilege" means "private laws".  When you have money and influence, and friends in high places, you get the private laws.

The rest of us?  Well, to paraphrase Richard Pryor, we get justice.  When all is said and done, that's what's left: Just us.

Lenten Wave #24

"I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation."  - John Wesley

Patti Smith

To me, punk rock is the freedom to create, freedom to be successful, freedom to not be successful, freedom to be who you are. It's freedom.

I despair of contemporary popular music.  I find it grossly artificial.  If I were of a harsher nature I would also note that it is prosaic, witless, phony, over-produced, derivative, and ugly. Fortunately, I'm not of a harsher nature.

Because I make guitars and basses, I find myself often in the company of young musicians.  These men and women are of no interest to music producers or recording companies as they often aren't all that telegenic or vapid looking.  They just happen to be spectacular musicians and composers with stellar stage presence.  In other words, ehh. 

Which is why I love live music in small clubs; the places that used be so smoky [before the hideous busy-body blue noses in government decided we were too dim to make decisions for ourselves] that, in my playing days, green stripes would be left along my fingertips from the accumulated cigarette residue clinging to the metal strings of my bass.  Those were the places where real music was viscerally rendered and immediate with the musicians and the crowd reaching a gestalt of emotion, encouraging one another to heights of lyricism...yeah, that's how it works.  In those quiet moments between sets or after a gig, by way of encouragement, I like to tell the younger musicians what it was like in the 1970's in Cleveland and New York, when the unlikeliest rock star ever was the toast of the New Wave scene.

I imagine anyone who has ever lived in New York City has felt that their era in the city was one of unmatched creativity in the music and arts communities. In my day, New Wave music was claiming the stages in the nightclubs, including groups such as The Ramones, Blondie, The B-52's, and The Smiths [not to mention the groups for which I played: The Zen Maniacs, The 98 Decibel Freaks, and Head Full of Zombie], who would influence music in the decades to follow.

In the verbal arts, "performance poetry" came to the fore.  A clear descendant of the Beat Poetry of the 1950's that was performed in nightclubs while backed by a jazz combo, the 1970's and 80's version found its home on the same stages as the New Wave groups, often opening for the musical acts.  It was inevitable that New Wave music and performance poetry would collide into one, glorious presentation. When that happened, it was spectacularly rendered in the person of Patti Smith.

Smith was an unlikely artist to be on any recording company's A & R roster, even in those days.  She was not conventionally attractive, her demeanor was sullen, her style extremely "artsy", her stage costume a man's white t-shirt or dress shirt matched with over-sized tuxedo pants, and her lyrics angry and obtuse.  She was, in a word, great.

Patti Smith was born in Chicago in 1947 and moved to Philadelphia and then north New Jersey.  Upon graduation from high school, she worked for a time in a factory, birthed an out-of-wedlock child whom she surrendered for adoption, and eventually moved to New York City to work in a bookstore.  It was there that she met and began a relationship with the provocative photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. As one would expect of two intense artists living in squalor at the Chelsea Hotel, their relationship was tumultuous; just as naturally, it produced tremendous creativity from the two of them.

Smith was, without question, the most interdisciplinary of the artists produced by this age.  She wrote articles for the venerable music magazine, Creem, acted in and co-wrote plays with the playwright/actor Sam Shepherd, performed with a guitar on the streets and in the subways, and was a member of the St. Mark's Poetry Project.  It was with that latter organization that she crystallized her reputation as the "Godmother of Punk".

While not its originator, Smith became the most evocative character in the movement, mainly as she had a stage presence that captured the post-Vietnam period's spiritual ennui and confusion [what then-President Jimmy Carter would call "malaise"].  As I have heard said of certain stage and movie stars, one could not take eyes off of her.  Even with a personality and appearance that repelled many of the recording execs [I'm trying to imagine how she would be regarded in the current, Taylor Swift-ed music world], Clive Davis of Arista Records gave her a contract.  The resulting album, Horses, with its cover photo by Mapplethorpe, would take the indie rock world by storm.



With it's blending of original verse with rock standards or free-style jamming [something hip-hop composers would copy in subsequent decades] Horses would rise to #47 on the Billboard charts and, eventually, be ranked #44 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  Subsequent albums would follow and from that point forward Smith would be a sought-after performer/composer as the New York sound was refined.  She would co-write "Because the Night" with Bruce Springsteen and be offered, and refuse, the position of lead singer with Blue Oyster Cult.

Other albums would follow; Smith would marry and have children.  She would suffer loss as close friends would die; she would be severely injured in a fall from a stage.  She would withdraw from public life and then, at the urging of her friend, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, make a triumphant return.  Even now, as Punk and New Wave are mostly subjects in musicology classes, at the age of 67 she is still in demand as a poet and performer.

In 2005, Smith was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture.  At the award ceremony she delivered an impromptu lecture on the influence of Rimbaud on her poetry that was so well-received that her award was upgraded on the spot.  The next year, she was named to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [in Cleveland!] and, the year after that, was the final performer at the venerable East Village club CBGB on the occasion of its closing.  Her 3 and 1/2 hour concert covered most of her greatest hits interspersed with her poetry.  At 1 a.m., she sang her song "Elegie", read a list of the deceased among the Punk/New Wave world, and brought a portion of musical history to a literal close.

All of her music is still available in a variety of formats; her poetry still in print.  Most prominent among her written work is her memoir Just Kids, which won the National Book Award for Non-Fiction in 2010.

At Christmas, she will be performing in Rome at the special request of her most prominent fan, Pope Francis.

Originally published on Friday, December 12, 2014

Lenten Wave #23

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” ~William Faulkner

Thursday's Place: The Oxford Bar

The Oxford Bar

Edinburgh, Scotland

It's barely a place at all.  Yet, hidden behind a small door on an elegant and ancient street is a quintessential representation of Scottish nature.  Yes, it's still in operation and, no, they don't serve haggis.

I lived in Edinburgh when I was a teenager and learned many things, some of which have remained useful.  How to conjugate in Latin, for example [Who knew in those days how much of my adult working life would be untangling Latin phrasing?], the off-sides rule in soccer, and how to order a beer in a public house.  If the latter one shocks you, other portions of my life would put you in a coma.

You see, in those days a fifteen-year-old from the States looked like a twenty-something from The Borders and I was never challenged.  Since even movie theaters had bars in them, my cousins and I would enliven our viewings of "Dirty Harry", "The Cowboys", and other fare designed to display America's blood-lust to foreign audiences with "a pint of lager" or "a half-pint of Tartan Special".  It was wonderfully civilized.

As was life in Edinburgh.  In my weekend outfit of tweed jacket, corduroy pants, and turtleneck jumper [my sartorial tastes haven't changed much in the intervening years] we would appreciate the scene in the city's New Town section.  The combination of traditional architecture and Sixties/Seventies pop culture collided uneasily in some spots, but a day out was always an education.

A standard Edinburgh scene, circa 1972

In the midst of all of that mod newness were dull, stodgy places in the active part of the city that we avoided, as they seemed to be only for the middle-aged guys in their gray suits who were wearing ties from their schools or regiments.  Little did I realize that one of those venerable doors permitted entry into a storied gathering place of Midlothian history.  It would take, of all things, a series of mystery novels to reveal its splendor.

The Oxford Bar on Young Street dates from 1811 [that's why it's in Edinburgh's New Town section; the old town is older still] and is the preferred hangout of fictional Edinburgh detective, John Rebus.  Like his character, the bar is unpretentious.  In fact, what I really appreciate about it these days is that it doesn't promote its relationship with the novels [and a handful of TV shows].  There are no t-shirts, hats, or mugs adorned with Rebus' name or likeness to be found.  There may be some photo on the wall of the show's cast, but it's small and so out of the way that, as I note, I'm not really sure where it is.  Given that the bar is small and usually quiet means it's the direct opposite of that grotty place in Boston that decided it was a bar from a popular sitcom and turned itself into a tour bus stop.

In fact, the biggest criticism I've overheard is that it's an "old man's pub and there are too many of those in Edinburgh".  Well, not if you're an old man.  It has a fireplace, inexpensive beer that is equally unpretentious [none of that "craft beer" nonsense] and a steady pour of blended Scotch.  The bartender will not overwhelm you with his greeting.  He may not greet you at all other than to grunt.  The patrons, as long as you're not a glee-eyed, glaked Yank, will leave you to your own devices to read the paper or a book.  If you wish, a convivial conversation may be had, but that's not required.  Just don't initiate it and certainly don't mention Rebus.

I have found it advantageous to wear my Royal High School tie, however.  The black-and-white "old boys" version, not the silly, newer, "co-educational" one.  That actually opens a lot of doors in Edinburgh.

It's interesting, isn't it, that the things that repel us in youth are those we seek in our older years?

Even when the author of the Rebus novels appears, which is regularly as he lives in the neighborhood, he's treated so normally that if you don't know what he looks like, you would be none the wiser as to his presence.

He's the one looking at us.  No, don't look back at him; just don't.

Really, is there anything more Scots than that?

The Weather May Have Something to Do with It

Why the Cayman Islands Are so Prosperous (and Harmonious)

Needlehooks

The American order is complex — it is much more sophisticated than “democracy,” which assumes that nothing stands between the individual and the national state except aggregation, that might (defined as 50 percent + 1) makes right. The American order is based on the idea that the United States consists of many different kinds of people in many different kinds of communities, and that each of these has interests that are legitimate even when they conflict with the equally legitimate interests of other communities. The densely populous urban mode of life is not the only mode of life, and the people of the urban areas are not entitled by their greater numbers to dominate their fellow citizens in the less populous rural areas.

The basic units of the United States are, as the name suggests, the several states. The states created the federal government, not the other way around. The states are not administrative subdivisions of the federal government, which is their instrument, not their master. In this, the United States is fundamentally different from countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan, which have unitary national governments under which provincial distinctions are largely irrelevant.

A Pungent Observation

While I am inundated with hot takes about the nature of privilege in the United States, mostly from un-original and unimaginative clergy and academics, it should be apparent to anyone with even a loose knowledge of contemporary events that, from the university system to the legal system, real privilege is made possible with money.  So powerful is wealth that it transcends the supposed privilege of race and gender.

While I had figured this out some time ago [my father was the county treasurer of the Democratic Party for many years and I had occasion to overhear his lamentation about the perversions to public service created through greed and graft], I wish I had taken it to heart more than I did.  I certainly would not have settled for working in professional areas that are notoriously low paying.

Make money, kids.  Make a lot of it, as much as you can.  Not only will it protect you, but you can pervert both good judgment and justice with it, if necessary.

Lenten Wave #22

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” —T. E. Lawrence

I've Seen This in a Movie; It Doesn't End Well

Scientists Grew a Mini-Brain in a Dish, And It Connected to a Spinal Cord by Itself

As I Have Said for Years

Scientific American: Atheism Is Inconsistent with the Scientific Method, Prize-Winning Physicist Says

Lenten Wave #21

"Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe."
- Saint Augustine

An Eminent Public Intellectual Meets the Anglican Communion

Cambridge University Rescinds my Fellowship

Gibberish uttered by moral cowards?  Yes, that's the common language of my professional world.

But I think that it is deeply unfortunate that the authorities at the Divinity school in Cambridge decided that kowtowing to an ill-informed, ignorant and ideologically-addled mob trumped participating in an extensive online experiment in mass Christian and psychological education. Given the continued decline of church attendance, the rise in atheistic or agnostic sentiment, the increasing irrelevance of theological education and the collapse in interest in such matters among young people, wiser and more profound decisions might have been made. 

You see, it matters whether people around the world understand these ancient stories. It deeply matters. We are becoming unmoored, because we no longer share the structure these stories undergird. This is psychologically destabilizing. It’s producing a pathological and desperate nihilism that is increasingly common and, at the same time, a pronounced proclivity for the ideological certainty that mimics but cannot replace true religious belief. Both consequences are bound to be, as the evidence certainly indicates, divisive and truly dangerous. 

I think the Faculty of Divinity made a serious error of judgement in rescinding their offer to me (and I’m speaking about those unnamed persons who made that specific decision). I think they handled publicizing the rescindment in a manner that could hardly have been more narcissistic, self-congratulatory and devious.
I believe that the parties in question don’t give a damn about the perilous decline of Christianity, and I presume in any case that they regard that faith, in their propaganda-addled souls, as the ultimate manifestation of the oppressive Western patriarchy, despite their hypothetical allegiance to their own discipline. 

I think that it is no bloody wonder that the faith is declining (and with it, the values of the West, as it fragments) with cowards and mountebanks of the sort who manifested themselves today at the helm. 

I wish them the continued decline in relevance over the next few decades that they deeply and profoundly and diligently work toward and deserve.

Science Meets Marvel Comics

Scientists devise method for levitating, propelling objects with light

Lenten Wave #20

“The world is thy ship, not thy home.” –St. Therese of Lisieux

The Reason for Traumatizing a Whole Generation of Elementary School Students is Now Rendered Moot

Polar Bear Populations Booming

Lenten Wave #19

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

Everything

What does Britain's government have against Christianity and Christians?

I'll Say, They Used to Pay Half of my Property Tax

Conn. made the right call keeping Millstone nuclear power plant open

Lenten Wave #18

"I wasn't looking for satisfation from sponsorships, waves, or recognition in surfing anymore. My satisfaction comes from knowing God." - Jen Belshaw, Pro Woman surfer

Ernie Anderson

"I don't know if anyone realized at the time that they were about to hand Ernie a $4 million toy."

I realize that I can be fairly esoteric with some of my Friday choices, but this post may be found by readers to be the apex. It draws together so many disparate elements, from TV meteorology to Flash Gordon serials to really, really, bad monster movies to forbidden jazz music to exploding model cars to crime statistics to Peyton Place to Great Lakes pollution..., really I think I just shorted my brain.

So, where to begin?  For those younger than I there was a time, over fifty years ago, when local television was still wonderfully amateurish with the late evenings dominated by re-runs of rarely seen movies.  Sometimes these movies would have a host who would play some lottery-type game during the commercial breaks or offer a brief news or farm report.  At the end of the broadcast day, there would be a prayer offered by a local clergyman and then a patriotic short featuring a stirring rendition of the National Anthem with scenes of fighter jets and warships at full cry.

[Two or three times in the mid-'80's I offered the "sign-off" prayer on a TV station in Erie, Pennsylvania.  While it was recorded on Thursday afternoons, it would appear at 3 or 4 in the morning when the station had exhausted its supply of ancient films.  While no longer done, it is one of my fond memories from my early years of ordained ministry.]

One of the most charming ideas developed during these days was the notion of a late-night horror movie host.  Well, actually hostess, as in 1954 KABC-TV in Los Angeles experimented with having a rather attractive young actress, billed as "Vampira" and dolled up in appropriate make-up, host the Saturday evening viewing of a monster/horror/science-fiction movie of the week.  During commercial breaks, she would engage in light banter, jocular observations of the LA scene, and sardonic commentary on the films.  While novel and innovative, The Vampira Show only lasted one year.

[If this seems familiar, LA television would again try the concept in the early 1980's with a better actress, named "Elvira", who had a more prominently featured decolletage.  She would become the most famous "horror host" in TV history.]

Still, what didn't work in LA turned out to work rather well in Philadelphia ["Zacherley"], Indianapolis ["Selwin"], New Orleans ["Morgus the Magnificent"], and Chicago ["Marvin"].  The trend was admirably aided when Universal Films released for television their considerable vault of horror movies, from the sublime [Frankenstein, The Mummy, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man] to the...well, less-than-sublime [The Mad Ghoul, Weird Woman, The Frozen Ghost, and Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy].  Suddenly, there was a bounty of material and, in response, the "horror host" movement covered the nation from coast-to-coast.

Cleveland, the perpetual underdog in all things athletic, political, and corporate, was not to be outdone. In 1963, WJW-TV, the CBS outlet, hired a jack-of-all-trades to create a persona to host their Friday night Shock Theater.  Ernie Anderson was an announcer, disk jockey, commercial pitchman, weatherman, and failed talk show host.  He would also perform in nightclubs as part of a comedy duo with Tim Conway, who would later find fame as a member of Carol Burnett's television ensemble and in a variety of movie and TV roles.  Anderson and Conway were mostly famous in Cleveland for their wonderfully loopy, ad-libbed commercials for a local bakery.  The ratings for their ads were often higher than those of the shows the bakery helped to fund.

So, since he was under contract to them anyway as an announcer and weatherman, WJW invited Anderson to make a little more income in live Friday night TV.  Thus, Shock Theater was born and, with it, its new host, a sloppy, goofy, fright wig-wearing, beatnik by the name of...Ghoulardi.  We were never the same afterwards.

WJW probably should have done some due diligence with their hire, however,   If so, they would have learned that Anderson was a notorious free thinker, not something really prized in local TV in those days, and a fan of both the edgy TV innovator Ernie Kovacs and the organ driven jazz music of Cleveland's demi-monde.  As quoted above, Anderson's assistant, a young TV director named Chuck Shadowski, who would one day inherit the mantle of movie host, realized before the station management that they now all lived in the world according to Ghoulardi.

So, after the new Shock Theater theme song, the Rivington's "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" [come back at 5pm for that], from a blacked out set, under-lit and smoking a cigarette while using the exaggerated gestures of a genuinely disturbed individual, Ghoulardi made his debut on January 13, 1963.  By the end of his run just three short years later, Ghoulardi [no one called it Shock Theater after the first few episodes] would become the most popular show in the Cleveland market and, according to the police departments in the area, the reason that crime statistics dropped instead of rose every Friday night.  For his younger viewers, such as this writer, the show would be re-run on Saturday afternoons.

A few things one could always count on with Ghoulardi:

1.  The movie would be terrible, although I did have some favorites like The Giant Behemoth and Invasion of the Saucer Men.

2.  The terribleness would be aided vastly by Ghoulardi superimposing himself onto the screen to caper about with the monsters, monster-hunters, or victims.  This also included overdubbing the dialogue with absurd dialect from other sources or with verses from obscure pop or blues songs.

3.  A lovingly crafted model car would be submitted by a young viewer to be displayed on the air and then summarily blown to bits by Ghoulardi using a common firecracker.

4.  The weekly episode of Parma Place [a parody of Peyton Place, a prime-time soap opera of the era; Parma was the part of Cleveland with the highest population of Poles and Polish-Americans] would be offered during the middle portion of the movie, bringing viewers up to date with the life of a Lake Erie muckraker [literally, a guy who raked the muck off the top of the lake water].

5.  So called "black music" [really, just early soul music and Cleveland-style jazz] would be played, the stuff that was not heard on any radio station in the city in those days.  Otherwise, polka music, mostly by Frankie Yankovic and the Yanks, would fill the bumpers between movie and commercials.

6.  Before the movie, an episode from the lost serial Flash Gordon, starring Buster Crabbe, would be shown.  That was always my favorite part.

7.  Ghoulardi would riff on local news and topics, in doing so coining such terms as "Turn Blue", "Cool It with the Boom-Booms", and "You Purple Knif!" [Knif was "fink" spelled backwards, as the latter term was considered too vulgar to be said on TV in those days].  None of them really made sense, of course, which just added to their splendor when sharing them with elementary school classmates.

8.  He would say or do something that would get him in trouble with the censors, station management, or police.

Ghoulardi's popularity grew to the extent that he formed his own basketball team to raise money for charities by playing teachers from local schools [including my dad and his colleagues] and sported a line of milkshakes and sandwich sauces named for him at the local Big Boy restaurants.  It really was a remarkable three years.

All good things must come to an end, unfortunately.  Ernie Anderson came to the attention of the suits at ABC corporate headquarters in Los Angeles and he was lured away to the be the long-time narrator for the network's prime time shows ["Tonight on The Love Boat...."].  We really missed him, although his acolytes, guys named Big Chuck, Hoolihan, Little John, and The Ghoul would attempt to fill his role over the next twenty years with greater or lesser success.

His hold on Clevelanders of my generation is strong; even comedian Drew Carey would often be seen sporting a vintage Ghoulardi t-shirt on his eponymous sitcom.  [This writer owns two such shirts, by the way.]  Also, Ernie's son, Wes Anderson, would extend his father's unusual vision and become the director/writer of such films as The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Looking back, I miss how much fun unscripted television was and how entertaining a nimble, lively, and eclectic mind could be when matched with "the cool medium".  Also, it was because of Anderson that I first heard and learned to love the Cleveland jazz sound, not to mention the mad, square funkiness of...yes, polka music.

Anderson had a long career with ABC corporate and became a fixture among the B-listers of Hollywood.  He would die of lung cancer at the age of 73 in 1997.  A book about his three years dominating Cleveland television, Ghoulardi: Inside Cleveland TV's Wildest Ride, is still in print and popular; and each year Ohio's Ghoulardifest claims new fans during its weekend devoted to bad horror movies and just plain, American silliness.

Below are, in order, "Who Stole the Keeshka?*" by the Yanks, which was the theme song of Parma Place, and a selection of some smooth, Hammond B3 jazz in the Cleveland style.  The opening cadences of "Keeshka" still cause me to involuntarily smile.

and


*Keeshka is a type of Polish sausage.

Lenten Wave #17

...The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  - from Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Thursday's Place: The Mermaid Cafe

The Mermaid Cafe

Matala, Greece

For the hippies on the continent, there was no better place to hang-out and attempt to create a community of sorts.  It went the way of the hippies, of course.

The Mermaid Cafe no longer exists, except in the Joni Mitchell song, "Carey".  However, it is represented by a collection of rather similar tavernas in the seaside village of Matala on Crete which, in the 1960's, were popular hangouts for the counter-culture of the era.

While the hippies aped the vagabond life of no money and simple virtues, they tended to be from comfortable families with formal educations.  Obviously, the truly indigent of the era could not afford to fly to Athens, ferry over to Crete, and live a life of hedonistic leisure without some sort of wherewithal to accomplish it.  So, there was a sameness to the travelers of Crete as there was in the blandness of Ivy League dorms.

There were, though, some original characters.  One of whom caught the attention of the young Mitchell when she was traveling through Greece after a painful breakup with Graham Nash [he used to be in a band with David Crosby and Stephen Stills; sometimes Neil Young].

Most of the hippies who had traveled there slept in small caves carved into the cliff on one side of the beach. After we arrived, Penelope and I rented a cinder-block hut in a nearby poppy field and walked down to the beach. As we stood staring out, an explosion went off behind us. I turned around just in time to see this guy with a red beard blowing through the door of a cafe. He was wearing a white turban, white Nehru shirt and white cotton pants. I said to Penelope, ‘What an entrance—I have to meet this guy.’ … He was American and a cook at one of the cafes. Apparently, when he had lit the stove, it blew him out the door. That’s how Cary [Raditz] entered my life—ka-boom.

Certainly, the area was known for extreme behavior, even in its antique mythology.  After all, this is where Zeus, in the form of both a white bull and an eagle, was said to have serviced the goddess Europa.

The quiet tavernas learned that there was money to be made from the hippies, however outre their style of life, so they began to encourage, if not the cave-dwellers, then those who came from the U.S. and Canada and the U.K. to pretend to be hippies or at least stare at them.  Zoos make money, after all, so why not?

It didn't take too many years for the police and the Greek Orthodox Church to get tired of the cave-dwellers, though.  The more functional members of that community had already left the area for other hang-outs in the world or even for gainful employment.  That left just the acid casualties who had run out of money and clothes and were becoming a nuisance, so they were driven out by the early '70's, with the owner of the Mermaid Cafe arrested and tortured for...ready for this one?..an illegal kitchen addition.  He, too, would later seek employment in SoCal.

The caves would empty, the Mermaid close, and the other tavernas shift their marketing towards tourists instead of travelers, but the counter-culture ambiance of the area is still lively and it's as good a place as any in the world to hide from one's cares and responsibilities, at least temporarily.

One shouldn't speak of the Mermaid and Matala without letting Joni sing of it:

The Moondog Coronation Ball

67 years ago today, the very first large rock and roll extravaganza was held.  Naturally, it was in Cleveland because, I mean c'mon.  Not only did the term "rock and roll" get coined through this event, but the police shut it down shortly after it began, thus creating the outlaw paradigm for rock music that exists to this day.

If you ever wonder why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland, here you go.

More about The Ball may be read here.

It would be good to read about Alan Freed, too, as he was the impresario behind it and the DJ who brought us the music and the experience.  The scene, if you will.

Bonus: Not only did I buy my first "real" record album at Record Rendezvous [it was Sgt. Pepper], but I graduated from high school in Cleveland Arena.

Lenten Wave #16

You visit the earth, and water it. You greatly enrich it.
The river of God is full of water. You provide them grain, for so you have ordained it.
You drench its furrows. You level its ridges.
You soften it with showers. You bless it with a crop. - Psalm 65:9-10

Archaeological News

Nile shipwreck discovery proves Herodotus right – after 2,469 years

Greek historian’s description of ‘baris’ vessel vindicated by archaeologists at sunken city of Thonis-Heraclion

Some Recent, and Obtuse, Jack Kerouac References

If you're a reporter journalist, when in doubt, Kerouac out.

Have to write an obit of a perfectly ordinary local musician?  Kerouac that thang:
Asa Brebner, at 65; guitarist/songwriter in Boston bands and alone

He was known for an astonishing range of music, from roots-rock and punk to R&B and gospel, along with an edgy, Jack Kerouac-meets-Charles Bukowski* wit that “did not suffer fools gladly,” said longtime bandmate John Pfister.

Have to write a review of a tedious one-woman show that is, for some reason, supported by your publisher?  It's Kerouac time:

Work is a four-letter word in Claudia Shear’s 'Blown Sideways Through Life'

Under Pam Wiley’s snappy direction, Carrie McQueen delivers a spirited, R-rated, syncopated and rapid-fire performance. Shear’s jazzy language owes a debt to Jack Kerouac and other beat writers.

Have to write...something...about this year's [so far] most peculiar contender for the Democratic nomination?  There is only one way to go, and that's Kerouac:

Ladies, we need to talk about Beto

Beto spent the better part of the winter musing on his Medium account about the vicissitudes of life like a discount Jack Kerouac, only to emerge from his period " adrift" to announce that he's in fact running for vice president.

Rubin: Beto O'Rourke: Savior or slacker?

"Jack Kerouac-style, he roams around, jobless (does he not need a job?) to find himself and figure out if he wants to lead the free world," Nia-Malika Henderson wrote at CNN in January, during what she called Beto O'Rourke's "excellent adventure." "This is a luxury no woman or even minority in politics could ever have.'"

Beto and the White House

There was hope among Democratic partisans that after Mr. O’Rourke ended his impersonation of Jack Kerouac he would challenge John Cornyn, the other Republican senator, next year. But he dreams bigger than that. Instead, as he revealed last week, he would try to turn an unimpressive three terms as an obscure congressman into a run for the presidency. Mr. O’Rourke’s rollout was accompanied by a profile in Vanity Fair, replete with an Annie Leibowitz photographic album.

 *I found myself wondering what was trying to be said about the deceased musician, as both Kerouac and Bukowski were notorious drunks.  It's not really a flattering comparison.

Lenten Wave #15

"The desert is beautiful," the little prince added. And that was true. I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs and gleams.... "What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well...." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900-1944), The Little Prince

Three Guesses Where

Huge fish found washed up along the Coorong near mouth of the Murray River

[Hat tip to Steve.]

Lenten Wave #14

“The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.” ― Hildegard of Bingen

A Pungent Observation

With the addition of Robert Francis O'Rourke [who calls himself "Beto" at the suggestion of his father so that he would have some intersectional cache], there are now seven candidates for the Democratic nomination who have a personal net worth of over $10 million dollars.

When they start pranging on about income equality and how they will "fight" for the common person, keep in mind that may be a bit of fabulism.

By the way, if the recent article about O'Rourke in Vanity Fair seems familiar, check out an article in Men's Vogue about John Edwards that was written in 2003.  The two articles are by the same author and are so similar that he might be able to sue himself for plagiarism.

Lenten Wave for Today

"I believe because it is absurd." —Tertullian

As Long as It's Just a Rumor

NASA Rumoured To Be About To Probe Deeper Than Ever Into Uranus

Lenten Wave #12

The Lorica of St. Patrick

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

A Common and Ignoble Practice, as is Writing an Unnecessary Textbook and Requiring Your Students to Order It

pic.twitter.com/8xJhHyNtwg

— Horst von Horstmann (@Kaboom1776) March 16, 2019

This Didn't Make the News; It Should Have

Small Business Job Creation Breaks 45-year Record

Endorsed

I’m not giving up my pickup—and neither should you

Mr. Berk states that, “I am not the vehicle police. I don't believe in a nanny state,” and I believe he truly feels that way. His article suggests that regular people like you and me should simply know better than to consume the same amount of fuel or resources as our social and economic betters, in much the same way that the help on “Downton Abbey” instinctively stands when an aristocrat enters the room. How dare some unwashed prole from Ohio or Montana have the effrontery to purchase a 420-horsepower truck. Why, my good man, that’s two-thirds of the twist a Bentley Bentayga can produce—and the Chevrolet is barely 20 percent more fuel-efficient. What’s next, I ask? Allowing manual laborers to own property? Giving Catholics the vote?

Lenten Wave #11

"Seek not to understand that you may believe, but to believe that you may understand." —St. Augustine

The Coracle's Saturday Literary Corner: Popes

Popes in fiction: What do they say about us?

Welcome to the NYC Subway System. When you think you have seen it all.... pic.twitter.com/zEZSLQLq1u

— NYC Scanner (@NYScanner) March 15, 2019

From the Anglican Church of New Zealand's Book of Common Prayer

God of the present moment,
God who in Jesus stills the storm and soothes the frantic heart;
bring hope and courage to our brothers and sisters as they wait in uncertainty.
Bring hope that you will make them the equal of whatever lies ahead.
Bring them courage to endure what cannot be avoided, for your will is health and wholeness;
you are God, and we need you.

Lenten Wave #10

"The idea that an individual can find God is terribly self-centered. It is like a wave thinking it can find the sea." - Sir John Templeton

Carol Kaye

“When you hear somebody with [audacity], that’s me.”

I'm often asked why I became a priest.  When I was younger, and testing the vocation, it was a question that was part of the process as the "powers that be" were always very, very concerned that someone would be ordained "for the wrong reason".  [Given how those men and women who were the guardians of faith in my early career have all but destroyed the church, I'd like to re-visit their standards.  Oh, well, they let me in.  Eventually.]  Later in my career, the question would be asked with a different emphasis, as in "Why did you become a priest?"  I confess that I've never had a particularly compelling response, especially as it's a question I intend in asking the Almighty should I one day be granted an audience, mainly because I don't know the answer.

But no one asks me why I play the bass, which is a pity since I actually know the answer so well that I can trace it to a specific date and occasion.  It was February 27, 1966 and I was on the floor of my parents' living room watching the Ed Sullivan Show with my grandmother when some famous singer's daughter came on and sang a brief, rather ordinary song that featured a terrific bass line in its chorus.

"What's that instrument, Grandma?"
"Ah, Robbie, I think that's the bass fiddle.  Pity we can't see the musicians for this silly girl."
[I should note that my grandmother, who was seventy at the time, was quite a fan of The Beatles.]

Well, she was right about the instrument, although it was an electric solid body bass rather than a bass fiddle, and she was right about not being able to see the musicians, as those who provided the backing for the famous singer's daughter was a group of legendary, albeit invisible, studio musicians known informally as The Wrecking Crew.

"The Crew" were much in demand during the 1960's and backed performers as diverse as The Monkees, Bing Crosby, The Mamas & the Papas, The 5th Dimension, John Denver, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, Neil Young, Nat King Cole, and many, many more.  As they only worked in the studio, they remained virtually unknown outside of the close community of musicians.  Only three of the forty-some who worked in this amorphous group ever developed successful solo careers: Leon Russell, Dr. John, and Glen Campbell.  To my knowledge, there was only one woman in The Wrecking Crew and that was Carol Kaye, the bassist who laid down that walking line that was the best thing about that mediocre song.

It wasn't just "Boots" that Kaye improved, though, as even a casual listener to the radio, or viewer of movies and television in the 1960's will have been exposed to her talent again and again.  In fact, even if the reader's knowledge of '60's pop music is nil, it is still likely that he or she has heard Kaye provide the bass line for the themes to the TV show Mission Impossible and other long-running shows like Mannix, MASH, Hogan's Heroes, Get Smart, Kojak, and, naturally, Hawaii Five-O.



TV work brought Kaye a steady income, but a bass can easily become lost in a brassy, busy TV score, or reduced, as in the Hogan's Heroes theme, to walking lines so routine and repetitive that they would numb the bassist's mind.  It was in the pop singles of the 1950's and 60's that Kaye's musicality provided the drive that defined what we think of when we recall the music of that era.  Remarkably, because of the role of studio musicians in those days, not only was her influence unnoticed, but her name and those of her colleagues tended to be left off of the songs' credits.

Kaye was the daughter of musician parents so, naturally, she grew up in poverty in Washington state. To help her family, she took up the guitar and started working as a busker and giving lessons.  This lead to work as a guitarist for a variety of bebop bands in the Los Angeles area at the time when the guitar was the least important instrument in the ensemble.  This brought her to the attention of Sam Cooke, who invited Kaye to be the guitarist in what would become her first popular recording.



When Leo Fender took pity on bassists, who often had to lug a massive instrument up and down narrow nightclub stairs and fit them into buses, cabs, and subway cars, and invented what was originally known as the highly portable, guitar-oriented Fender Electric Bass, many guitarists switched to the new instrument and decided to earn their living in those bottom notes.  Kaye was one of the first and it was on that instrument that she played in over 10,000 recording sessions.

While a complete list of Kaye's bass recordings may be found on the Internet, her favorite ten are "Boots" and "Summertime" linked to above, "Sloop John B" by the Beach Boys, Ray Charles' versions of "America the Beautiful" and "In the Heat of the Night", Glenn Campbell's "Wichita Lineman", Lou Rawls' "A Natural Man", Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" [yeah, I know], the Frank and Nancy Sinatra duet of "Something Stupid", and her fave, Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright".

So, a surf harmony classic, The Chairman of the Board, Barbra herself, the '60's favorite country twanger, and a gutter rocker.  That's quite a repertoire, isn't it?  It's also the mark of a true musician that whatever the croon, cocktail duet, soul ballad, or deconstructed 4/4 signature barn-burner, the person they had to have on bass was Carol Kaye and no one else.

I have to admit that my favorite of her's is the bass line on this one-hit wonder, and one that I still play along with in idle moments:




I'm also partial to her work on The Monkees' "I'm A Believer", but that's mainly because it was the first song I ever sang in public.



Carol Kaye still records from time to time, but mostly she manages to teach up-and-comers and give entertaining interviews about pop music's early days.  As she has written over a dozen instructional manuals with related CD's, her influence is still powerful and there is no bassist with whom I've played, spoken, or for whom I've made an instrument who has not given her due credit for encouraging their interest in the instrument and what it can do for music played in ensemble.  This is why she is now considered the #1 session player of her era.

Lenten Wave #9

"Being, for the religious person, is a gift, not a fact. It is through understanding this that we overcome our metaphysical loneliness" - Roger Scruton

Thursday's Place: The House of Swing

The House of Swing 

Mayfield Heights, Ohio

It was one of those hole-in-the-wall places that you can find in any city, although usually the discovery is accidental or coincidental.  Like the many, many other people who lived and worked on the east side of Cleveland, I had driven by the establishment many times and never noticed it.  It was, and I hope still is, in the most ordinary of buildings, shared with a beauty salon, a small bank branch, the office of some personal injury attorneys, and a McDonald's.  For a few years the sign out front was cracked and, if traveling east on Mayfield Road, unreadable.  It didn't really matter, though, as all of the aficionados knew where it was.

I learned of it from a colleague during my first year of teaching at a high school.  He lived not far from there and, one day when our faculty lounge conversation turned to jazz, invited me to hear his brother-in-law's band play there. 

"What's it called?", I asked.
"The House of Swing"
"Where is it?"
He smiled and said, "It's where jazz is king."

Lou Kallie was the owner/operator/bartender/disk jockey/master of ceremonies of the biggest of the small jazz clubs of the Mid-West.  In terms of floor space, I doubt that it made it much past 1000 square feet.  But, on live music Fridays and Saturdays, it would host as many people as it could hold [roughly two people for every square foot] and, for the young musicians of the area, it was the Cotton Club, Birdland, and the Aragon Ballroom all wrapped up as one.

 

Kallie was a jazz drummer who had worked with many of the small bands that toured the Midwest from Chicago to Cleveland, playing the ballrooms and small clubs in places like Detroit, Toledo, and Indianapolis. He once played with a big name orchestra. When tapping out the rhythm to "Tangerine" night after night got dull, he bought an old Irish bar, mostly to house his collection of jazz records and related accessories, installed a turntable, and opened the doors.

In addition to serving as the godfather of Cleveland-area jazz, Lou's most spectacular contribution was his record collection; in the late 70's it numbered somewhere around 15,000 volumes, all housed on shelving surrounding Lou's turntable in the center of what space was available between the storage area and the restrooms.  On the nights when there wasn't live music, Lou would sit from around from 5pm until 2am playing from his collection, looping together themes in the music selections that made sense only to him, and talking about jazz in all of its forms and styles to anyone who desired the conversation. 

There are two things for which I thank him.  First, he introduced me to the music of Art Pepper.  Second, he gave me the best advice ever about playing in a small club.

"When the power goes out, and it always does in those small places, just keep playing.  It'll come back on sooner or later and that way you won't have to drop any songs from your set." 

That latter bit of advice rescued me time and again during my playing days, and also served as the basis of a pretty good sermon.  Once, I think it saved me from being trampled in a small club fire.

Lou Kallie died suddenly in the mid-1990's at the age of 67.  His widow and son still run the House of Swing and still host live music and play Lou's record collection every night.  They probably feel they must, as Lou's ashes are sitting on a shelf behind the bar, as if making sure that everything is at it should be.

When my parents were still alive, and I'd make two or three annual visits to Cleveland, I would always stop by and make sure that The House was still there.  It was and, like a time capsule of syncopated rhythm, virtually unchanged.  It was still small, still cheap, still loaded with vinyl and turntables, and still impossibly hosted live music each and every week, all jammed into a space originally designed for inebriation and dark slouching.

After I moved to New York, and would play in more storied clubs, I invited a friend back to Cleveland with me and, naturally, had to take him to the Mecca of midwestern jazz about which I had spoken many times.  When we walked through the door and took the nearest stools, he looked around and said, "From what you described, I thought this would be a lot bigger."

It is, but only in imagination and inspiration.