Fallon/Young/Smith

A Meaningful Life

Bob Dylan Union Palace 20091117

I think that I have seen Him five times. And this show was solidly #2! #1 being in the early 80"s when Tom Petty and the HB's was his band and they opened for the Dead. Despite the heat ant the bad tab of acid, the show was amazing.

Last night, Dylan showed up at times Colonel Custer, mainly because of his flat brimmed hat and blue slacks with red stripes, and other times as Maurice Cheverolet, again the flat brimmed head cocked crooning in this Vaudville venue. He spent a lot of songs dancing behind the mic clutching his harmonica and green bullet harmonica mic.

His song selection was mainly up tempo from the modern catalog. He played some of my contemporary favorites...Tweedly Dee - Tweedly Dumb, Cold Irons Bound and Thunder On The Mountain ( "I wonder where in the world Alicia Keyes could be..".). One mid tempo song from Love and Theft called Po Boy which was never very memorable, may now be my new favorite.

His voice is strong. His pitch is dead on. Sure it's gravely, but to my ear, it's still enviable. His counter melody, though, could use some variation. But overall, Dylan danced like a cat content with the victory of conquest of a mouse... half eaten and the other half batting around boastfully. The audience lucky to be a spectator.

Set List

Cat's In The Well

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
John Brown

Summer Days

Po' Boy

Cold Irons Bound

If You Ever Go To Houston

Highway 61 Revisited

Ain't Talkin'

Thunder On The Mountain

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Like A Rolling Stone

Jolene

All Along The Watchtower

Betye Saar

Until The Day Is Done

Check other live outdoor versions of all your favorites at
http://www.blogotheque.net/takeawayshows

Poor poor pitiful me

Well I met a girl in West Hollywood
And I ain't namin' names
Well, she really worked me over good
She was just like Jesse James

She really worked me over good
She was a credit to her gender
She put me through some changes, Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender

Tabernacle

They got steeples, saints and holy water. I never noticed the ark which contains the sacrament. I am impressed with this lock box of wafers and wine. RIP Jimmy Oneill.

Farnsworth, the district health officer, was a man so grudging in what he asked of life that every win was a loss; yet he was not without certain plodding persistence of effort and effectiveness in his limited area.



Cities of the Red Night, William S. Burroughs

I cannot decide if it is the way the sentences are constructed or it is hearing Burroughs lilting tough guy delivery in my head or the portrait of self deprecation, but I am hooked.

The first chapter is jam packed with drugs, drunken clergy, exotic disease , rough terrain and our hero Farnsworth. Farnsworth is on a mission which finds him roughed up on a raft near his destination at the end of the first chapter. The writing is brillant a real page turner. Then as  I suspected the chapter ends in a rough sodomy. Shit. Check please.

I mean everyone knows Burroughs is a homo. That fact would not have any bearing in my interest, but homosexual sex shows up in a story I cannot continue. Intellectually, I know it is shallow. Think about how much great literature I am missing. I would feel much better with a censored edition.

CigaGratte

Costello, Helm, Thompson, Toussaint and Nick Lowe on on stage

Producer,"Do you want to see Elvis Costello, Levon Helm, Richard Thompson, Alan Toussaint and Nick Lowe playing TOGETHER?" Asked the aptly connected folk rock producer and co-worker.

Me,"Where,when and how much?

Producer,"Apollo Theater (10 subway stops way), tonight, free!"

Me, "Are you freakin' kidding me", I respond.

Producer, "just take this piece a paper to the will call window, be in line before 7:45 and don't dress like a schmuck."

Me, "fine, Are you going?

Producer, "umm well yeah but I've got to go into a special entrance."

Me, "I see"

Kicking the gong around

It was down in Chinatown,
All the cokies laid around,
Some were high and some were mighty low;
There were millions on the floor
When a knock came on the door,
And there stood old Smoky Joe.

He was sweatin', cold and pale,
He was lookin' for his frail,
He was broke and all his junk ran out;
Nobody made a sound,
As he stood and looked around,
And then you hear old Smoky shout:

Saying, "Tell me where is Minnie?
My poor Minnie!
Has she been here,
Kicking the gong around?"

"If you don't know Minnie,
She's tall and skinny,
She gets her pleasure
Kicking the gong around!"

[Scat chorus]

"Just tell her Smoky Joe
Was here and had to go."
And as he departed,
The curtains parted,
And there stood Minnie
Kicking the gong around!

SAAB totaled

Firefighter, allegedly DUI, totals the SAAB sedan at 2am Sunday morning.

Joni has to pee

I am waiting to change from the F to C train at Jay street. Despite my tardiness for  work, I am quite content sipping my large Mudd coffee and listening to a Joni Mitchell song on my Blackberry. Twenty minutes go by and I notice a hippie cougar with a flannel shirt and gray down vest, the first I've seen this season.  I am amused at the coincidence of the song and the cougar.

It's all quite pleasant until I notice a very expensive looking hard  black suitcase with wheels by her side. She then abandons the luggage and a voice inside my head says, if you see something say something. Could this hippie cougar really be some off the grid terrorist? With alacrity, I step ten paces away from the beauty product bomb in Joni's suitcase.

Now Joni is making her way to the trash can in the middle of the platform. Is she reaching for the remote which will trigger the explosion? No, it's a 32 oz. paper cup with a Pepsi logo. I am overcome with relief. She isn't a terrorist at all -she's a crazy homeless person. Phewww.

But wait, now Joni is unbuttoning her jeans. With great concentration, she  furtively jams the cup between her legs. Joni has to pee. I am empathetic having had a spastic colon condition when I first came to NYC. It would always kick in on the subway where bathrooms did not exist. I wonder. Is this physically possible. Can a woman, in the best circumstances, pee in a cup standing? I do not have Our Bodies, Ourselves handy.

Luckily, the train arrives and I hop on. As the A train pulls away from the station, I watch the dark blue cloud as is expands on Joni's jeans.

A Fan's Notes

"She was matchlessly vapid.


"Other Drunken Novels

Red Book

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=red%20book&st=cseA must......................

Grey Gardens

Lange and Barrymore get real close.

Beginning of the End

In July of 2004, Mason had just completed a physical therapy appointment at St. Clair County Hospital. He had worked real hard that day and was able to stand with the support of the therapist for around :50 seconds.

He returned to his wheel chair and was assisted to the ground floor by one of the PT office girls. Mason always had an endearing charm with support staff. He had spent his career selling "on the road". He could sell dirt to an someone afflicted with OCD. The way to sale began in the front office. If you could charm the girls up front, they would let you through to the man who could sign the sales contract.

In the early days, dad's products were more tangible. Anyone can understand the allure of a sports car, a chemical that could effortlessly clean your house or a cemetary plot. Try selling the abstract... ESP's extended service policies or credit life insurance. The definition of which I am still only 85% clear on. Mason would traverse every two road highway in Alabama and find merchants to sign the sales contract. Every town no matter how small has not only a post office and gas station, but also a credit furniture store and buy here/ pay here used car lot. Mason kept them stocked with the ancillary. They ranged from the advanced like the silent radio a led device with attached keyboard to the gyp special. My favorite was the Sales Memory Kit. It was a Poloroid and 3x5 filing box with cards which had blanks to fill in. Name, address, number and hobbys.

Nancy pushed Dad out to overhang and helped him transfer from the wheel chair to the driver seat. They nervously worked together But this time Dad could not shift his weight. It was hot and the humidity was high. Dad worked real hard that day but never had he had this much trouble getting into the car. They managed though and Mason drove himself home. The transfer from the car and then to the wheel chair and then to his bed took every ounce of energy he could muster.

He slept for a day and a half.

When he awoke his mobility had diminished. Previously, Mason could easily tranfer from the bed to the wheel chair to the toliet to the wheel chair to the navy blue recliner. Now, the slope of the transfer board between the bed and the wheel chair
presented him with a ten minute battle.

Clay's Capers Childbirth Pt 1.

The white plastic stick displays +.

We are excited and like a few other things in life it's a brick wall. If you are a parent you are this side, if you are not a parent your on that side. Helen Keller's teacher Anne Sullivan could nevermake you understand.

Agatha and I begin the journey with joyful tears. The next day the whole process begins.

1) Choose a OBGYN...wait a minute Agatha wants a mid-wife to deliver the baby.

Clay firmly declares, "umm. I am not to sure umm that I am comfortable with that umm idea...dear"
Agatha, "well there is a terrefic program at LICH hospital. Urban Baby highly recommends it. I have talked to 12 mothers since we learned about this last night whao all had incredible experiences. I am making an appointment.

The following week...we nervously meet outside the hospital to meet the mid-wives. Our appointment is with Debbie Pasties. A sixty year old ex-hippie with brassy curly hair well past her shoulders reminds me of "mother" ,night bird dj from FM, Eileen Brennan. Her most notable role was the crass sargent in Private Benjamin.

We sit down across from her. She is artificially warm. She is kind and thorough when answeing Agatha's questions. With me quick and annoyed.

Later that evening as Agatha foreshadows the events of the birth with Madame Pasties. I express my concern. What if there is a medical emergency. I was hung up with the question of what malady would cause her to turn over the delivery to a doctor.

I know that every birth is unique, but there must a list of maladies whether personal or as a professional standard that demand the attention of s doctor, no?
I decided the next day that I would set up an appointment with Sargent Pasties and ask her.



clay

Germ Warfare

How in the hell did this happen to Mason! In this fight, odds on favorite should have been a heart attack. His dad and uncle both dropped dead at 50 from a heart attack. Mason had quadruple bypass surgery at 42. Although he quit smoking, he hardly watched his diet, never exercised. How in the hell did Lou Gerig's disease find him.

Back in 1999, Mason was diagnosed with a popateal aneurism reached capacity. He did not act on the diagnosis. The cardiologist did not automatically admit him to surgery. Mason was told to take care of it soon. When the vessel's capacity was compomised, he was rushed to the hospital. He was offered two options by the attending cardiologist. Bypass surgery or new technique which involved laproscopically inserting a stint in the blocked artery. Dad made that decision on his own. Mason said, "Shoot the stint."
Here comes the irony...the attending cardiologist was not Dad's childhood friend Arnold Wildenstern, but Oscar Bizet. Bizet wasn't just another doctor in the practice. No, he was the son of Laverne Bizet. The woman Dad sought refuge from his fraudulent marraige to my Mom, Tallulah...their affair wiped out not only his own marriage, but also Lavern's.

Let's take a moment to look at this. Here in Oscar Bizet care is the man who wrecked his parents three decade marriage. Mason's down for the count and it's up to Oscar. Will the round end? Will Oscar call the fight? Will he employ the deadly winning combination, a serum that causes slow, painful, humiliating death?. Oscar is both the opponet and the referee.

Oscar had always been an oddity. He grew up in the neighboring trailer at Camelot Trailer Park and as Ralph Stanley used to say the walls were so thin that the two of us dreamnt the same dreams. He was a fiercly competitive teenager. When he lost anything, he would completely loose his shit and expel his rage to anyone who crossed his path. I had the unfortunate opportunity to be his doubles partner once, my athletic abilities were an embarassment to me and the good folks of Hill River. in fact, i was awarded "most spirited"(100% strike out average) in baseball, "most christ-like"( 0 points average per game) in church league basketball. And let's not forget loosing a early race car video arcade game to a blind friend of mine. At some point during the match he forced me to stand behind the base line and hold my racquet behind my back. Somehow even this minimal amount of presense caused us to loose. The tongue lashing that I recieved from him resides in the crowded pejorative memory chamber of my mind to this day.

kaintock

The Dixie Voice:Wending Its Way To The Top

Lawrence Creek. He's the editor. He and his family
were self proclaimed machas at my temple and in the community. His grandfather Frank Creek managed Camelot Trailer Park from a early model caramel colored Lincoln Continental. Residents literally sat in the back seat amongst discarded Krystal boxes and rags to sign their leases.

Frank tried to stop my dad from being bar mitzvahed at the
last minute...that was before my grandmother took Frank
Creek down a few notches. Suffice it to say,
Dad was on the bima on the designated time.

Larry, grandson of Frank, was picked on by everyone I knew. He was the classic smart alek-y kid with thick glasses that made you angry whenever he entered the room.
His reincarnation from book smart nebbish to
media mogul would occur years later in the promised
land.

At that time, he was probably in his late 20's and he
had started a jewish paper in Hill River that was
mostly political "zion this zion that" with the
prerequisite listing of social events like births, bar
mitzvahs and confirmations. There was a well established
society trade called The Shank Bone which was the
Dixie Voice's competition. The Voice had minimal
advertising while the The Shank Bone was chock full of ads
from every Hill River jewish owned business from metal scrap
yards to the prominet jewish attorneys and dentists.
It was all society. I was actually in it several times for various dances and party. There would be a blury black and white of me and my date...with the caption, Clay Kaintock escorts Bunny Ravitz to the "Showboat Formal etc. Dismal days
The Shank Bone was run by a family named Blitzen.

In the 90's, Larry went to Jerusalem trying to
promote his paper and he came across a noted Jews for
Jesus rabbi.The rabbi asked Larry if he
knew the Blitzens of Hill River. For the Creek family, this
was a biblical moment on par with parting of the red
sea.

It turns out that for two decades the Blitzens were
secretly practicing Jews for Jesus followers. I cannot
express how much scorn was generated in the
Hill River jewish community, especially from all the
merchants who had been paying for ads for years. I
mean drug dealing, interracial marriage, homosexuality
all paled to this offense.

Larry did not even have to write an article about it
in his paper. In a community like Hill River the tongue and
the telephone are a stronger media than papers, radio
and TV combined. The Shank Bone was kaddish that same
month.

In fact the Blitzens were literally forced out of
town. They had a daughter a year younger than me who
was divorced by her husband because of this deceit.

Clay