Protest-news -free Saturday for me

 #PrincessBeatrice was married on Friday and wore the same tiara that her grandmother Queen Elizabeth wore on her own wedding day in 1947. No photographs of Beatrice's dad Prince Andrew and  no new recording of the Sex Pistols, God Save the queen.

I found an old interview online of the late Jim Carroll labeling his writing as 'Burroughesque", a recorder or conduit of stories. For the most part, Ol Bill Burroughs was better at removing himself from the scenes he was writing about.

I 'm about a third of the way through Hakan Nesser's, Stranglers Honeymoon. It's been great catching up on fictional, Swedish detectives.

It was great to hear Teardrops, by Womack &Womack.

July 21, 2020

I guess the salamander's slimy coating is why the word is used in titles for TV shows and movies.The Golden Salamander is an ok flick from 1951 about  Tunisia, and the French and British interests there. I can see why #AnoukAimee , the French actress, was all the rage

Salamander is the title of a Belgium cop series that aired from 2012-18

July 25, 2020

While watching The Bootlegger, a 2016 documentary about Henry(Killie) Wagle (1886-1929) of Colchester , IL, the  voice of a radio news reader had a flat, midwestern sound  that reminded me a bit of author William Burroughs(1914-1997), a writer who was born in St Louis, MO which is about three hours from Colchester.

July 30, 2020

After a few trials #christineConnor  was found guilty in Belfast of the attempted murder of police officers who she lured  to areas with bogus 999 calls.  Also, she posed online as a blonde Swedish model called Sanne Anderson to recruit helpers to carry out her plans. Detective fiction writers will be 

using some of this material in future novels.

August 1, 2020

The Space X astronauts are hoping to land in the Gulf of Mexico today in the  first splashdown return for US astronauts in 45 years.

I started reading The Summer of Kim Novak by Hakan Nesser and came across a new acronym TPW for an old expression, The Perfect Woman.

Aug 6, 2020

 Saniniu Laizer, who has been in the mining business in northern Tanzania for more than 15 years, hit it big after selling three rough Tanzanite stones for $5.4m.

Aug 9 

I 'd never considered rubbish as a verb  and saw it was used in the past tense in Belfast Telegraph article yesterday. #SinnFein rubbished claims that Gerry Adams was an MI5 informant.

Aug 16, 2020

 While watching  a documentary on corruption in Bulgaria, which referenced the after-effects of Soviet occupation and battles with the Ottoman Empire, I got to wondering about well known folks from Bulgaria. Some historians believe #Spartacus was a part of the Thracian tribes (Bessi, Maedi or Getae), the ancient ancestors of today’s Bulgarians, who lived in what is present day Sandanski in southwest Bulgaria. 

Aug 31, 2020

  The Vanishing of Sidney Hall(2017) provided plot answers, but you had to watch  the entire movie as the chronology of events, at times felt random.  Hall, played by Logan Lerman, is a  best selling author of modern suburban angst, who is not treated with kid gloves  by the the movie's director, Shawn Christensen. I was hoping they were going to delve deeper into censorship demands and results.

Sept 7

Clicked  on U-Turn (1997) , a movie starring Sean Penn, Nick Nolte and J-Lo, yesterday and was pulled in by how bad it was. Penn and JLo are a mismatch. Nolte improves as the movie bounces along. Jon Voight as the Blind man   bordered on a complete goof.

Hey, Oliver Stone is the Director , which explains why  it's lacking direction.

Sept 13

 The Courier had some interesting  scenes and Gary Oldman was decent, but the countless ways in which Olga Kurylenko's, a Ukrainian-born actress, character managed to survive made this thriller into a farce. 

Sept 26

Curiosity about threats to the Roman Empire led me to this name.  #Boudicca , the warrior queen, an uprising against the Roman Empire,after the death of her husband Prasutagus ,who ruled East Anglian people of the Iceni. The Romans prevailed and she committed suicide in 61 AD.

oCT 18

I watched a 1986 flick, In Defense of the Realm, and have become nearly immune to  a prevalent theme of British kids who were Communists in college, then shift slightly to center as Labor Party politician, and are later framed for spying for Russia or East Germany. As if Philby were an aberration.

Oct 25

Inherit the Viper is a solid movie about small town Appalachia drug dealing of pharmaceutical opioids, and how the Conley siblings sort out their differences. #MargaritaLevieva , the leader of the Conley drug crew, nabbed my attention. I was surprised by the ending in this flick not filled with stereotypes.

nov 8

A sports channel was running clips of the 2015 KC/NYM World Series , and I could not recall the name of the Mets Manager.  #terrycollins  was the Mets MGR from 2011-17. He "retired" from managing and moved into the Mets front office. #NedYost was the Royals MGR in that World Series.

Nov 15

#CoreyConners of Listowel, Ont., shot the lowest round by a Canadian at the Masters, a seven-under 65 in Round 2. The previous record was 68.

Nov 19

I've been captivated lately by episodes of #Decoy, a 1958 American TV series about a NYC policewoman starring #BeverlyGarland , who later played the stepmom in My Three Sons. Some of the stories aren't too hokey and  the film footage of NYC in 1958 is great.

Nov 23, 2020

Garland's character, Casey Jones, in Decoy threatened an aggressive informant with arrest for mashing. That a new term to me so I went searching and found : Enrico Caruso, the great opera singer, was arrested at the Central Park Zoo in 1906 after pressing himself up against a woman and  was fined $10 in court for mashing.

Jan 17, 2021

Jeju Shinhwa World, one of the largest resorts on Jeju Island, reported to police that over 14 billion  Won notes, the equivalent to $13 million dollars, had gone missing from the Landing Casino. It was in smaller denomination notes so it wouldn't have been an easy move. A female employee from Malaysia who had been in charge of the cash but hasn't returned to work after leaving for a vacation at the end of December, is the top suspect.

Jan 23, 2021

Some dates won't leave my cranium. I went to a Catholic elementary school that had an affiliation with Pallottine nuns. Saint Vincent #Pallotti died January 22, 1850  at the age of 54.

Feb 2, 2021

I started reading Pirates of the Chesapeake Bay last weekend and  learned that thieves ruled the day in that area in the 1600s. Great Britain was slow to react, while MD and VA argued over territorial rights ,and the  thieves would head south to the Carolinas when they felt threatened.

March 13, 2021

Narcosubs, semisubmersibles that float mostly below the waterline, have been used in to transport cocaine from Columbia to Central America.  In February Spanish police discovered a narco-sub in Malaga on Spain’s Costa del Sol that was most likely intended to transport cocaine ashore from a larger vessel.

March 21, 2021

I watched a few episodes of West of Liberty, a spy  TV mini-series filled with  Russian mobsters, CIA pricks, Arab terrorists, and Stasi vets, yesterday, and the character Lucien Gell, obviously based on Julian Assange,  was portrayed as a man with many masters. It was entertaining and  had enough  diversity to piss  off anyone viewing it through  the lenses of his or her favorite political agenda.

april 25, 2021

I watched a few episodes of Aber Bergen, a Norwegian  TV Series (2016–2018) about lawyers, yesterday and was a bit surprised that nearly all the cultural references were to famous American entertainers.

may 8, 2021

I checked out this tune after reading a WSJ review on Van Morrison latest album“Latest Record Project: Volume 1”  that mentions 

only a song      a  number with a harmonic structure similar to his tune “Wild Night"

June 19, 2021

When I needed  foreign language  credits in college I saw a chance to get them  by taking a course taught in German and English on the Weimar Republic. Four years of German classes in high school, in what I later learned was High German, helped a little and opened my eyes wider to an era in which Brecht and the Mann brothers were thriving in literature, the Bauhaus was influencing Architecture, while Hitler was battling Hindenburg for political power. Below are some  political ads in Berlin in 1932.  

July 5, 2021

#kremilinletter , a #johnhuston flick from 1970,   entertained me this weekend. I was a bit mesmerized by #BibiAnderson , and needed a scorecard sometimes to keep track of the plot twists and how often Richard Boone used the word nephew. The opening ten minutes included  #GeorgeSanders  as a drag queen so you knew  this was going to be a little different.

July 26, 2021

I found this tidbit while reading  some June 2021 news. When a 49-year-old Greek man was arrested on June 28, 2021 and  asked why he stole the Picasso painting, the Mondrian, in 2012 from the  Athens Pinacotheca, he said he grabbed the first paintings he encountered. However, this painting was so "hot" he was unable to find a buyer willing to take the risk.

August 1, 2021

When I saw the names, Fritz Lang and Bert(Bertolt) Brecht associated with this 1943 Hollywood movie ,Hangmen Also Die!, I thought I was in for a treat , and it had some decent moments, but it felt a bit stunted and gave the feeling of a play put on film. It was loosely based on the aftermath of the assassination of  Reinhard Heydrich, the SS Chief of the Reich Security Main Office, by the Czech resistance in 1942. 

Walter Brennan as Professor Stephen Novotny was a revelation.

Aug 21, ,2021

On August, 21, 1970 my parents gave me the Steppenwolf Live album for my eleventh birthday, which was a big deal since my budget allowed for an occasional 45 rpm purchase.

Sept 19, 2021

Dorothy Tapper Goldman, plans to use proceeds from the upcoming sale of one of 11 surviving copies of the first edition USA Constitution for her foundation, which funds grants intended to help improve the understanding of democracy. Sotheby's Auction House estimates it will sell for between $15M and $20M dollars.

oct 26, 2021

Morton & Eden Ltd hopes to get 300 thousand dollars for a rare coin that was minted in colonial Boston in 1652 and was recently found in the UK inside a candy tin. The mint responsible for producing North America’s first silver coinage was shut down by King Charles II in 1682 because he considered the operation treasonous.

Nov 27, 2021

I found a thick book titled The War Chronicles, for five bucks at B&N a few weeks ago, and it has refreshed my brain on war stories that occurred during BC. The author does the reader a favor by adding a note to ancient city names, this is modern day ___ in ___. 

Dec 11, 2021

I checked out "My Man Godfrey", a 1936 screwball comedy, yesterday for the fourth or fifth time in my life because I wanted some laughs, and Carole Lombard certainly provided them. It's filled with noble poor/ stupid rich cheap shots, but also has some great one- liners.

Then I checked out Demimonde, a 2015 Hungarian film about a courtesan, her housekeeper/ long -time associate, and a recently hired maid, living in Budapest of 1910s. The interplay among the three women was intriguing and, at times, I kept thinking of Emile Zola's book Nana.

Dec 25, 2021

Erroll Garner (1921-1977), a jazz pianist, on never learning to read music, “Hell, man, nobody can hear you read.” 

Don't confuse him with Erle Gardner(1889-1970), the author of the Perry Mason series.

Jan 22, 2022

I like the taste of milk chocolate and of dark chocolate M&Ms and could care less about the M or whatever image is on the candy. However, to be more inclusive Mars will switch the footwear from boots to sneakers on the green M&M. Am I showing my age(62) or do most folks stare at a piece of candy for a long time before consuming it?

Jan 27, 2022

Netherlands unveiled the Ijmuiden lock which will allow large, modern cargo ships to reach the port of Amsterdam without having to wait for a favorable water level. 

Feb 16, 2022

Eleven years ago, Borders, a 40-year-old retail book superstore chain that began as a used book shop in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at one point had 650 locations and 19,500 employees, filed for bankruptcy. I used to go to the Towson, MD store often.

May 5, 2022

Midges, non-biting flies which are found near lakes and smaller bodies of water, are blanketing Chicago. 

May 13, 2022

Three musical instruments including a 1758 violin were stolen from a town home in the South Loop Wednesday morning while a family of musicians was sleeping.

May 15, 2022

MingHuan Xu, a resident of the South Loop in Chicago and a professional violinist and director of the string program at Roosevelt University, said an antique violin, made in 1758 by Nicolò Gagliano, was stolen from her house.

According to surveillance cameras in her neighbor’s garage, the thief entered her house after being able to open Xu’s closed car and clicking the garage button inside the car.

July 3, 2022

I watch Bowery at Midnight with Bela Lugosi,  but Wanda McKay snared my attention. Man, she appeared in a zillion things.  

July 23, 2022

Surfskating, a version of skateboarding that uses a more flexible front-end wheel assembly to enable deeply carved turns akin to surfing, is all the rage in Chinese cities since the spring, particularly among women. 

August 1, 2022

While watching The Adventures of Tartu. a WW2 pro Allies film, I was dozing off when a line something like "the High Command shouldn't fraternize with the Czech girls," woke me up. Then I focused on Valerie Hobson (1917–1998) who played the role of Maruschuka Lanova in the flick.

August 14, 2022

I was watching Port of New York, a 1949 film that features great shots of NYC and the screen debut of Yul Brynner. The cops are tracking an opium smuggler in Penn Station, and I hear the ETD announcement for several east coast cities including Baltimore, which the station employee pronounces Bal-tee more.  I spent the next five minutes trying to recall if I've heard it pronounced that way in my nearly 63 years on the planet.

Sept, 11, 2022

I hit pause on football games to watch Beautiful Kate, an interesting movie about sibling incest in the Outback,AU produced by Rachel Ward. Bryan Brown, Ward's husband, played the father of the family. 

Story bounced around but the familial difficulties were not candy-coated.

Dec 17, 2022

While watching The Birthday Cake(2021) last night, I was guessing if Val Kilmer's speech problems, due to a tracheotomy, were built into the plot? Definitely wise to use sub -titles. Movie felt half-real , half mob spoof.

Dec 31, 2022

Another discovery of #BeverlyGarland before she played the stepmom on My Three Sons. This time she was beguiling thief in a 1960 episode of Tales of Wells Fargo.

Patti- Smith - Just Kids

I think it was Johnny (Rotten) Lydon then of the Sex Pistols who referred to Patti Smith and her band as those hippies when they toured England  at the height of the punk scene in the mid to late 1970's. After reading about 60 pages of her book Just Kids (Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe), I can see  the 1960's flower child influences, but I also see the  bluecollar -working class  grittiness that she had in common with English punk rockers.

I'm  aware of how Mapplethorpe's art  and it's connection to NEA funding caused  such a ruckus, but I knew little about him and his art.

The transition from songwriting and poetry to writing a biography doesn't always go smoothly for Patti, but I suspect  the writing will improve as I read further.

Jim Carroll definitely used Mapplethorpe as a reference when creating the composite character Billy Wolfram in his final book Petting Zoo.

Please  click to follow me at Google and leave your comments there. thx

Jan 15, 2013: .Some famous folks  are light on  details about their familes. The focus remains on their public persona . While I'm not  that curious about their private lives, a few more details could give a fuller picture.

Mar 4, 2013: The writing picked up and I'm sure if she wanted to she could pen another book or two about famous artists she hung out with at the Chelsea Hotel. She glossed over how she co-wrote Because the night with Springsteen. Apparently, they shared the same producer, Jimmy Iovine , at the time.

May 20, 2013

  Here's a tune from Jim Carroll about Patti Smith fall from a Tampa stage in 1977. Crow

July 31, 2013

 It didn't occur to me until yesterday while reading an item  on  the band Blondie's possible retirement until yesterday that Debbie Harry's (Blondie)  was closer to  Patti's age 67 than my age 54.

Dec 2, 2013

 Amusing line from Patti:

 My sunglasses are like my guitar.

7/15/14

Immigration ain't a new problem.  Patti's tune addressed it almost 40 years ago.  Obviously she's taking one of many views:  citizen ship

Stateless, they got shame.Cast adrift from the citizen ship, lifeline denied, exiled this castaway.

8/16/14

Continuing with the Jersey/NYC theme.   Jim Carroll  city drops into the night

 It's when the sky over Jersey That sky starts to drain from view

11/16/14

I'm bemused that Patti is playing the Vatican Xmas FestivalSpirituality has shown throiugh in many of Patti's  tunes, but this is still the same lass who sang rock & roll nigger, with N-word  referring to artists Jackson Pollack, Jimi H) of various skin tones as outcasts.  I  recall trying to explain to a party-mate (also a Catholic boy) in the late 70's that she had a type of reverence, not hatred, for for Jimi Hendrix. She has been a  populist for some time campaigning for Nader and singing tunes like WTO blues. I get  that  she and the Pope have some similar geo-political goals.

1/24/15

Dear Patti Smith, please bang on the Pope's ear  about his recent comments : "you can not insult the faith of others". You've carved out a career expressing freely.

8/13/15

Patti  Smith will collaborate with John Logan, creator of Penny Dreadful on a limited Showtime series based on Just Kids . Characters based on Mapplethrope and Patti will be the leads but I wonder if they find a cameo role for the Jim Carroll character.

7/3/16

 Debbie Harry hosted a tea party at a London hotel in 1980. The conversations between and among these chick musicians- Chrissie Hynde , Siouxsie,  Viv Albertine (Slits). Pauline Black (The Selecter), and Poly Styrene ( X-Ray Spex)- was probably noteworthy.

5/28/17

#pattismith performed some public readings of #jonesbo 's Blood on Snow in 2015 , and Jo  slipped in a mention of #justkids in his latest #harryHole book, #TheThirst. 

8/13/17

#protests are the news cycle soup de jour today. I've been to a few over the years including reaching  an area near the Pentagon in a protest over US involvement in El Salvador (circa 1981). My takeaway was DC traffic sucks on Sundays, too. Quite a few folks including #jimcarroll have mentioned that attending  the Vietnam war protests was an easy way to  get laid. Yes, I know everyone is so serious and their concerns  rule the day.

10/13/18

#pattismith keeps getting ink  and its more apparent that #johnnyrotten nailed it when he said this about The Patti Smith Group during their visit to England in the late 70s: who are these F'n hippies. BTW,  I like Patti and Johnny.

april 11 2020   

“I sat up all night listening to it(Patti Smith – Horses) on a very tiny stereo, and I couldn’t stop."Quote from Morrissey who bumped into future bandmate, Johnny Marr, at an August, 1978 Patti Smith concert at the Manchester Apollo. 

oct 24, 2020

Patti Smith and Jimi Hendrix  each released "Hey Joe" as a first single. I discovered this while doing a crossword puzzle after answering a few of the surrounding clues. Smith added her own lyrics to the tune penned by #Tim Rose  and her tune was mostly about Patty Hearst.

Nov 12, 2022

Patti Smith sang “You Light Up My Life” with composer Joe Brooks on 1979 on the show Kids Are People Too. Years later in 2009 Brooks was indicted on 91 counts of rape  However, Brooks committed suicide on May 22, 2011, before he could be tried. I wonder if anyone interviewed Debby Boone about any of this?

Vetting at Jim Carroll's Zoo

I went back and reviewed some thoughts I forced out (May 11, 2011) immediately after finishing Petting Zoo by Jim Carroll. I may re-read it and add or subtract  opinions.

 

Michael Jackson's compound ? No

 Allusions or references to his teenage years getting blown for dollars in  male  public bathrooms. However, the main characters, Billy Wolfram , 38 year-old  painter /sculptor who had sex once in his life and that occurred during his last year on earth.. Interesting use of moving ahead then back to the recent past. Sometimes it felt like he banged on the same points, too often which reminded me of Mailer's final book.  The Castle in the Forest which was his version of Hitler's childhood. Does getting old mean one has to analyze a point to nullity (borrowing a Henry Miller line here)? Here's how  I jumped to a Nazi reference: I looked up wolfram or tungsten and found it was an essential material for armament production that Spain secretly traded with Nazi Germany during WW2.

I started thinking about the  a line from Tragically Hip song  38 years old: "38 years old , never kissed a girl."

The Catholic claws left permanent marks on the  basketball poet and the raven watched from his sill as he  slipped to the floor and died.

Kerouac and Carroll died clinging to Catholicism while fully aware of  human follies.

Gotta believe in something, many say.

I read a few tweeter-like reviews in which folks were looking for more stories about  1960-style drug deals, gay bathroom sex , and other  fast-paced action from the Basketball Diaries. Many folks (including me) were stunned he lived almost 60 years (1949-2009).

One passage from Petting Zoo that caught my attention was the character Billy Wolfram feeling  a sense of comfort watching 1950's TV re-runs while fully aware of how unrealistic they were.

11/21/12

 I  recall seeing Jim C chat about his poetry and literary friends in the basement below a jazz bar in Baltimore in the late 1980's.  As a friend and I were hurrying to be on time, my foot made contact with a scurrying rat on W. Preston St 

3/20/13

 After reading Patti Smith's Just Kids , I sensed that Mapplethorpe's artistic fervor was inserted into the character Billy Wolfram. Just a guess. wonder if JC ever considered writing an essay on the changes in basketball since his playing days in the early to mid 1960's.

7/28/13

 I wonder what words  are on Jim's tomb:  It's too late

11/24/13

Above tune entered my skull when I read some foolish lass wanted to marry Jailbird Manson

12/20/13

From Carroll's song Jody: 

Jody, are you still hanging with that latin? With rabbit fur inside his wheels? With his Gilbert Roland piece, And his glove department deals

1/19/13

JC's blue collar roots came through on it's 7/28/13 linked tune:

they're so decadent til their daddy's money from home is all spent 

2/16/14

I watched part of the Basketball Diaries movie again and it gets lamer each time. De Caprio as Jim C -poor casting choice

7/6/14

Listening to  Robert Palmer sneakin sally this morning and a line from Jim Carroll came to mind

Its when the sneak thieves are checkin, They're checkin the alleys for unlocked doors

11/17/14

I doubt if Patti Smith will cover Jim's Catholic Boy at the 2014 Vatican Xmas Festival

"redeemed through pain not through joy"

3/28/15

Dynel Catrece Lane  attacked a pregnant woman and cut the baby from her womb.
Chuck Manson's crew stabbbed and shot a pregnant Sharon Tate in 1969.
In a 1970's tune, Leaving it up to you,  John Cale's  sarcasm  got to the point:

I know we could all feel safe like Sharon Tate

6/20/15

I was leafing through The Petting Zoo and this line from Billy nabbed my attention.

"These graffiti artists main concern is maintainng a contrived attitude, which only limits their parameters, restricting both their art and themselves." 

This could be said about many vocations.

8/2/15

JC would've been 66 yesterday so I revisited the Catholic Boy tune linked on 11/17/14

5/30/16

paraphrasing a Jim Carroll line "they were all going to the Vietnam protests to get laid"

9/10/16

When #JimCarroll slid off a chair and died on 9/11/09 folks said to me "he lived that long." Despite many years of "stick them needles in your arm" (from Lynyrd Skynrd tune) he made it to 60. #paregoric baby #catholicboy

11/5/16

NYC will hosting both  #hillary and #trump post-election gatherings on Nov 7, and I doubt if this #jimcarroll tune about Manhattan will be played. city drops into the night

4/15/17

I suspect some folks view #jimcarroll, a minor poet and or lyricist, but I woke up with his line from the song Day and Night: "Remember when . . . I watched her on the stairway
She was drinkin' wine..." chanting through my cranium.
Some young singer should cover this tune.

5/4/18

Re-reading some #jimcarroll quotes and wondering has a contrived attitude become more essential than actions and words.

8/31/18

Lines from #jimcarroll s " city drops into the night" reverberate

I'm just a constant warning to take the other direction, Mister, I am your connection

6/28/19

 I don't recall meeting a gal like this one in #JimCarroll 's tune Three Sisters:  "But she just wants to lay in bed all night /Reading Raymond Chandler"

11/30/19

 It would have been interesting if #Tarantino had included songs from #Johncale and #jimcarroll in his latest movie which references #sharontate  .   "It's too late to fall in love with sharon tate" from Carroll ,and "we could all feel safe like sharon tate" from Cale

6/27/20

Since Antifa wants to cancel almost everything, maybe their next chant will borrow a possibly, humorous line from the late Jim Carroll's tune Wicked Gravity.

9/11/21

 re-listening to a "I want a world without gravity" and went to the dictionary:  parvenu- one that has recently risen to an unaccustomed position of wealth or power and has not yet gained the prestige associated with it.

10/23/21

#jimCarroll (1949-2009) In the late 1980s, I recall hearing a variety of opinions on him from "he's still alive" to "he's strictly a minor poet." From time to time I skim through his works and appreciate some solid lines however, the question I would have asked him if I'd 'bumped' into him after seeing him talk at a basement club over thirty years ago: Did you cross paths with Lew Alcindor(Jabbar)(1947-) on the NYC basketball courts in the early 1960s.

Jan 26, 2023

I thought of Jim Carrol's lyric "it's too late to fall in love with Sharon Tate" when I saw this today: Sharon Tate would have celebrated her 80th birthday on Jan. 24, 2023. And that in 2013 some woman wanted to marry Jailbird Charley Manson whose cult members murdered Tate.

Aug 12, 2023

"sky over Jersey-that sky starts to drain from view" Jim Carroll. Gets me thinking about NYC!

Feb 9, 2024

"The voices, He hears the voices" lyrics come to mind listening to Biden sputter.

Skin pops

 Chafed , I remonstrate aloud to a Lit Prof in 1980 about the classic allusions that required footnotes in most of T S Eliot's poetry, and now I'm offering poems with references to more recent writers.

I offer brief pre-notes:

In the late 90's , I awoke  thinking that Jim Carroll,  NYC Catholic boy, hoopster, & junkie poet had died and wrote down some lines which I edit from time to time. He died 9/11/09.

Jim Carroll’s passing Chelstea

Syringe

              Between board and rim

Gimmick

             Between sermon and hymn

Trespass

              Into extreme unction

Slide

            Chair to floor

Death

            Foreseen in final work

Minutes

             Twenty from Chelsea to Inwood

______________________________________________
I took  a class on America in the 1950's  in 1981 and was turned on to Jack Kerouac (nicknamed Memory Babe before the booze took over). My feelings for his works go up and down and  have never reached the apex they did when I was in my early 20's. Hey jack, sorry,  but I have edited.

 

    beaten Kerouac

   Memory Babe lost Mary

but never Mommy.

crawling in bars grumbling to die

Lucien carved Kam

Jack went on the lam

Married for bail

Got out of jail

 never said I do to Mardou

 Neal zooms cars

the Gerard appeal

proxy brothers and Florida bars

It wasn’t Tokay to beat it

After the surge of the road

And the brief Harlem Howl

Town or city, slum or slum

too drunk for whores 

sat or I won’t 

“too white” hick who found his way to Pic

                                                   And stumbled off the hippie bus for good

Neal, flat across the tracks              

Billy, heroin or boys shag

Allan, where are the fellas

Jack, TV slurs and slacks

Liver finally blows in Fla

Laid low in Unwell, Mass

_________________________________________________
I was watching  Patti Smith cover a Bob Dylan tune "Changing of the Guard" and inked some lines. Tom Verlaine  borrowed the last name from a French poet. 

Patti strands Verlaine 

Sweatin gray hair sticks 

receiving  Benediction inside of society

standing barefoot

on the 25^th floor

Privilege earned and lust

Knees to the sun for fiends

“free’ money for

the citizen ship

Was that a crow pissing in the river

Or horses in the hall?

Poets on the mend

Behind torn curtains
_________________________



I offer a snippy ditty for Hunter S Thompson. My opinion of HST wanes as I learn more about him.

No free rides on a Harley

Hell’s boys felt your smear

Others, your loathing and fear

Pointing a pen or a gun

Against everyone

Then yourself

______________________

Soiree time in the early 20th century

 

T Spoons

Eliot's strings, rings, and things

fine, fine

where’s the wine

Sir, sir

No nectar

Only tea

I see, I see

Earnest- he, he

Chose not to be

More tea?

Let’s sugar

F Scott snaps, dines

Ivy flaps on plate

Ice chutes

Rips roots


Wright outside

Was Richard right
a little uptight
cells to sells
Paris swells
blurb. verve
Roxie, MS curve
moxie, not verve

Goofin on Neal
dust bowl to Denver
go, go, go nights
speed thru red lights
trains, chicks , talks, kicks
pool hall tea sticks
trippin Kesey
slappin back Kerouac
stole time  so easy
across tracks, grateful, dead

Too
stick stuck right shoe
wet leaves tumble
flags flap rumble
sky peeks purple blue




Lex Market Xmas season 1987
hooker stiff walks sore
chuckles to corner store
smokes til bike kid
drops the alley lid

black chicks, purple hair
old guys, just stare
we goof, gab, guzzle
taking in the puzzle

2015
bring in the year
bang on my ear
he died she died
I ran i cried

Row home Alley

not his window
not his wife
teen calls out
need a shirt
gotta go
i'm up next

ignore him
pitch the ball

Goofin
ISIL
ISIS
missile
crisis

Ouch, Ginsberg
“I see the lame minds of a generation ruined by
badness, grieving hysterical, spoiled
texting themselves through the clean streets at noon
whining for an instant fix,

Sill Label 4

current sea shifts
rubel fee drifts
just hit to play
then must delay

Ry Goodbye , too hip
borrowed a Ford
to see ol Gord
as his poetic brain
slips down the drain
maybe a Leafs cup
before time is up

what he was seen

with the Queen

Knot O2
 sarin dip ity
 ass mad strikes today
 makes Syrians pay
 yellow vomit in your city
 knived nerves fray

Trash way
who's that squattin
between the two shadows
staining the breezeway walls
panties up, she's done
she calls
I ain't shittin
here
Would Bawdy Le care
or sneer

Wife and kids
Sun's up, empty whisky jar,
queried on my family
Gabe, can't you see
 that's my car

sept 9, 2016 log

Fighting distractions in another attempt to capture the sights and sounds of Baltimore mid 1980's with a major focus on Fells Point, SoBo, Sowebo, and Midtown.   I change the characters, but versions of this memory dull but don't fade: "On my way along Charles St to Howeirds Bar and Middle Eastern music draws me into the UD Café and the sight of a Turkish waitress  swinging her hips and tongue-rolling a cherry stem  while serving Greek food."......

oct 8 log

..........What the hell, I swallow the dime of tan hash, order a double cheeseburger , and enjoy the chill of the AC.

dec 2 log

working on yet another 1980's Bmore story "a priest with an effeminate voice is presiding over a rehearsal wedding and my dad looks at me and says you were right. I finger point for him to face the altar. As soon as practice is over, he says "I remember those stories you told me about priests and altar boys, and I nod while thinking, (a hell of a time for you to acknowledge Balzac’s tales) then laughing at how he shrugged off my recollections a few months ago and how he’s interpreting them now.

 april 22, 2018

Testalls
balls in a sack
pack the bearing
no caring
rack em up
swing em
fisted,gifted lifted
no sharing

June 13, 2018

Scribbling some notes for future use. An old drinking buddy of mine used to tell of the thrill of getting one dance with  #hedylamarr at a USO function raising money for World War 2 bonds. At the time I doubt if he knew that the #austrian -born starlet co-authored a patent on radio waves.  Some ideas in that patent were later incorporated into blue tooth technology. After WW2, my buddy became a plumber and occasionally wore a T-shirt with the words, your shit is my bread and butter."

july 21, 2018

still working on my Baltimore 1980's downtown stories: "Stumble  a block to Howweirds deli side for a sausage and egg sandwich and  fountain soda around 10AM, and Bunky pulls up a chair and chats me up about my daytime appearance throwing off the clocks in this hood. I'm slow on the uptake while he slides me a folded up magazine item and relates how he found Big Dale face down dead in an apartment building he owns.

May 30, 2020

Old time expressions: sneak thieves are checkin the alleys for unlocked doors from Jim Carroll's "city drops into the night". 

 Chinchorro Bank, was known as "Sleep-robbing reef" because of the dangers it posed to seafarers.

Nov 30, 2021

Since my college days, I've had a like/dislike thing for T S Eliot, and I found this while reading a book review on the great poet. T S Eliot's first wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, would occasionally show up at his poetry readings carrying a sign that stated “I Am The Wife He Abandoned.”

August 6, 2022

It's alleged that Stallone named his character Rambo after the French poet Rimbaud. Maybe he was thinking of these lines “In the morning I had a look so lost, a face so dead, that perhaps those whom I met did not see me."

Bad Blood”― Arthur Rimbaud, A Season in Hell  

Jan 29, 2023 : RIP Tom Verlaine

May 7, 2023: Listening to Days by Television with Tom V on lead guitar and singing.

sept, 9,2023: short story notes:  your car is halfway on my sister’s lawn.

May 2, 2024: from my notes on Change from a dream: In my 20s I made brief ventures into the local music scene reciting my lyrics. The first day I could get the Lancettes together, the bassist played surf music while the guitarist ventured into Led Zep, and the drummer Lance thought he was playing behind Captain Beefheart. That brief session felt like an eternity, but a few days later we did a fun, free gig on a Sunday afternoon bill in a room in the UMBC Fine Arts building.