A Come-on From the Horse on Seventh Avenue

During the Vachel Lindsay Architectural Tour, we were walking north on Seventh when we all saw a woman leading a big horse from a recently-parked trailer, I wondered to my friend Ed Gehlbach and his good wife how interesting it was that Paul Simon had mentioned “the horse on Seventh Avenue” in his fine tune The Boxer, and here we were witnessing the same thing. At least it was fun to imagine we were. Mr. Ed (the Gehlbach) replied he believed Simon was writing about something else.

Ed was right of course. Simon was talking Seventh Avenue, and we were on Seventh Street.

My “experiment” continues with excellent results. Last night during the 10p gnews (the “g” is silent) I finally gave in and consumed the last four slices of bread in the house, spread (Texan-spin)-liberally with Hellman’s mayonnaise and raspberry jam. It was an elegant repast. The iced tea was as wine.

Yesterday when contemplating Monday, I decided to end my semi-fast semi-soon this afternoon because since I had committed to taking a package to the post office as promised to an e-correspondent, I’d swing by County Market on the flip-flop. This yester-plan came to me about 2:30 today I scrubbed the mail run and delayed the food run until Fresh Air with Terri Gross who had promised an interview with Seymour Hirsch, an extraordinary writer for The New Yorker. The interview was so good, I’m going to listen to the repeat tonight at 7. It’s that good. Mayhaps later I will read his article. It didn’t GRAB my attention when the mag came in Saturday’s mail, but only because I didn’t notice Hirsch’s name which is PLATINUM in print!

I shall dine between Marketplace and the repeat in a few minutes.

For the past three days, I’ve been busting my buns working on my web sites, deleting more aviation pictures and a few arts pages that no longer as essential as when I was doing the CIVAG site. What do I mean by busting mon buns? I mean coming into the office today about 7:30, not leaving except to refill coffee and tea until 4p and coming back to work after half an hour suppertime until 8:00. I really need to get this work done, and I’ve almost concluded I’m going to have to buy more memory for the web pages.

As the new pages of new pictures get posted I will update you here.

Thanks for dropping by.

Live long and “don’t let the bed bugs bite” (<— frequent closing phone conversation wish implanted permanently in my brain by a woman I remember publicly as M.A.P. Heck of a good woman; just not good enough to put up with me for more than three years.)

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Eating Makes Me Hungry

I can painlessly transcend sub-nominal circumstances as I did when I declared the planned Saturday of eating other peoples’ food “an experiment,” and ended the day without feeling the world hates me. I had paid a few bills last week, and had to stretch what was left in the account to July 1. (In my kitchen, I had less than half a loaf of bread. half a jar of mayonnaise; coffee and iced tea mix to last me well into the new month.) If esteemed upstairs resident did not pay rent until the second or third, I’d have to stretch it even further. That’s why food availability dictated my social calendar for the weekend. Thursday, I decided that if I could be a mite more social and nourish my body, the result from my socializing would serve two purposes: surprising some folks I haven’t seen since I discontinued my Central Illinois Visual Artists Galleries web enterprise that I’m not a past-tensed entity and consuming what would likely be a light “lunch” but a better “dinner.”

That’s why I attended the Vachel Lindsay Home’s annual neighborhood walking architectural tour starting at 9 Saturday. Light refreshments had been promised at the end. That element was the clincher, but I also wanted to make good my previous week’s promise to the director that I would attend the event with camera in tow. Jennie Battles had hinted she might want me to share some of my memorized Vachel poetry and songs at a House event on July 5. So, really, it was a combination motivation. At the end of it all, along with excellent conversations, handing out some of my new Vachel Pages web site cards and taking some deccent pictures for my VP web site, I had enjoyed my seven or eight cookies and two cups of Jennie’s fabulous Constant Comment iced tea aaaaaaaaaaand departed the home with the happy news that I am invited to share my poetry and song thing at the site next Saturday. There’s no pay involved (it’s a state insitution and budgeting has been cut back; NOT a big deal since I would gladly share at the Vachel house as my gift to that place) but I am invited to lunch early in the afternoon.

After spending every minute between that fine tour processing the pictures I took, working on my web pages and tossing several cups of Folgers instant down the hatch, I stopped only long enough to change clothes and head over to Springfield Art Association’s reception for their new gallery exhibition. It was the first time I had visited the place since shutting down CIVAG and the first time most of them had seen me without facial hair (notwithstanding those growing out of my ear lobes). All in all, it was a very happy event that included warm greetings from director Angie Dunfee, friendly encounters with artists Gloria and Jerry Josserand, and a fast posed photo shoot of Tony Leone, owner of Pasfield House.

The finger food and wine are the best of any gallery reception I’ve attended and I guiltlessly consumed all I wanted. I wasn’t piggy about it; put only twice as much on my saucers (three or four rounds) as most of the others, took some pictures for my blog and future applications, and departed for the big blues and jazz fest downtown where I had volunteered to help. My camera went along, of course.

We missed a major downpour by Divine beneficence. Walking from my car to the big doin’s I expected to be drenched by what seemed major precip before I arrived. The skies didn’t dump on us. After helping take tickets about half an hour, I spent the next three and a half at the been truck and had a great time. I also found time to get away for a few minutes at a time to take some pictures of some of the bands. The whole evening was a breeze with excellent people and fine music, especially a group from Memphis whose name I will share when I find it somewhere. .I was having so much fun I didn’t think to take home a program.

Throughout the night, I had consumed all the beer I desired in the course of “testing” newly tapped kegs, but I had eaten nothing. No time and no dollars. As the event shut down a little after midnight, I was walking by the food vendors next to the beer wagon when someone shouted “Anyone want some leftovers?” I GRATEFULLY took home two bratwursts and kraut and two hamburgers, all I could hold with two hands without seeming like a third-class beggar. The beer I had consumed (not a LOT) might as well have been water based on the nil impairment encounterd driving home. It’s not risking lying to myself to believe I had worked it all out of my system.

On arriving home in the piquant coolness of the near south side at 12:30 am, not having any alcohol of any kind in the house for more than a week, considered myself LUCKY to down two glasses of Lipton Instant while almost inhaling the burgers and brats while watching the second half of DaVinci’s Inquest. It was an incredibly satisfying conclusion to a day uncommonly productively spent and amply rewarding.

Today, I could have gone to the grocery store for more provisions, but I’m counting my past-midnight repast fair and ample nourishment for the day. All day, I’ve been at this computer processing pictures from yesterday and working on my web sites, trying to reduce aviation photo content to make more room for arts-related pictures. I know that if I eat even two pieces of toast and margarine, with raspberry jam of course, I’ll only become hungrier and eat the rest of the bread tonight. Instead, I’m cutting myself off the coffee so I can get to sleep at a decent hour (‘Round Midnight as Thelonius Monk might say) and IF I reward myself with food, it will be close to bed time. My “experiment.” has been successful. When I’m having fun or working productively, food for me is incidental anyway. If only I could spend more time engaged in productive activity, this froggy countenance I call my baaaaahdy might be in better form. So might my life.

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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Is Barack Obama an elitist? I think no.

Here’s why. Consider his slogan — “Change We can Believe In.”

Is that the mantra of an Eastern intelligensia-type? Heck no! If he was one of those, instead of being one of the people, by the people and for the people, if he was a lingual effetist, his slogan would be . . . .

Change in which we can believe.

Live a great many years properly.

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I Shook Gene Autry’s Hand!

I’ve just logged about an hour over at Umbrage Universal, mon other blog, and hours before that updating my Brotherhood of Jobs web site, and that workout prompts this romp in semi-flashback. . .

You wouldn’t believe who I just met out at the airport! GENE AUTRY! Dad and I went out to the airport to watch the airplanes like we do many Sundays when the weather’s so nice. I love to watch them take off and land, the drama that doesn’t end for me until the airplane is almost out of sight after leaving, going who knows where. When they come in, that long descent, becoming more than a distant dot just above the horizon, growing bigger so that I usually can tell a Cessna from Stinson before Dad and really getting interested with the distant silhouette tells me it’s a big airplane, a DC-3 or a C-119 delivering cargo to the Air National Guard unit . . . . that is so nifty, especially when they taxi by and I can smell the aviation gasoline and their hot engine and feel the breeze from their propellers . . . . . is there anything better at 11:30 on a sunny Sunday than this? Not in MY book! Well maybe, come to think of it. Dad and I usually go into the terminal restaurant and he buys me a hamburger, some sizzly french fries and a Coke, and we sit at a booth by the window where we can see the planes come and go. Those aromas mix with the fragrance of the hot vynl upholstery and a touch of cigarette & sometimes cigar perfume and life is the best. If I could, I’d stick one of those Phillies Cheroots into my nose so I could savor the sweetness, but Dad would have a fit. And as long as he’s buying, I can live without it.

So we’re walking out of the restaurant, and there are some people in the parking lot, like a group or a small entourage. In the middle is Gene Autry — GENE AUTRY! Pop didn’t tell me about this, but he must have known because usually he doesn’t bring his camera when we come to the airport!

So we walk over, and all the grownups are nodding and smiling, especially Mr. Autry who bends down and shakes my hand when one of the men introduces him to Dad and Dad introduces him to me! What a neat guy! I think the first song I memorized the words to was his recording of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer! Not really a cowboy song, but a fun song for sure. I’ve seen him in the movies too, mostly downtown at the Orpheum. I’m really glad Dad took a picture! Maybe he’ll have it blown up to an 8 x 10 or something. Maybe I’ll learn how to play his songs on a guitar when I grow up. Man, what a treat!

Live long . . . . . and proper.

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Life at the Edge of the World

It’s about 83 outside the showroom of the stoner joint where I’m working this summer — or maybe for the rest of my misbegotten life. Inside, it’s a breezy 81, thanks in part to the five ceiling fans in motion; surprisingly comfortable. From this computer, looking into the room, I resemble a “Kilroy was here” illustration: if a giant scythe swept into me at counter-top level, I’d loose the top of my head from just below the bridge of my nose. Worse, there’d be no one here to close the joint at 5. The walls are lined with 12 x 12 inch x 1/2 inch thick samples of granite, marble and onyx. Jewelry has vastly less allure to me than the colors and patterns polished into these natural “stones.”

To my left is a ceiling-to-shin picture window facing west. A few single-story metal-clad buildings across the road that used to be part of Route 66 afford me a generous view of the sky, a kinetic canvas of cloud, blues and greys. When the rains come in, I have a view that unfolds before my eyes like a movie produced and directed by Mother Nature. I’d have to pay a lot for an office with this view. But I don’t need the view when I’m writing for dollars, and that’s good because my home office faces my driveway and neighbors’ kitchen. Here the employer pays me. It’s a good deal, tolerable even when the temperatures are in the 90s.

I’m sitting at the edge of the world most legal citizens know as Springfield, Illinois, and most of the rest know as “No lo comprendo. Los Estados Unidos; nada mas.” The four-lane street just 20 feet from the front door on the city’s far north east side carries a major share of trucks and vans entering and eminating from the new retail area which has blossomed big time less than a mile south. Those going south will eventually connect to some of the largest hotels, a stone’s throw from the power plant, and a quick turn to Lake Springfield. Those going north will quickly encounter Sherman, Illinois, maybe two miles away and a swift merge into Interstate 55 just north of there. It is a moody thoroughfare, bursting with traffic irregularly all day and sometimes so berefeft of steel on wheels you could read a chapter from War and Peace sitting in a lawn chair in the southbound lanes. It’s so close to I-55 that ambulances are frequent. This morning about 10, one blew by sirens screaming and lights flashing at probably 60 instead of the usual 45. Three minutes later another ambulance followed. Conclusion: serious carnage between Sherman and the highway. Just a guess. I hope they were crews in training, but i know better. This is not a noisy place. Only the noise from tires on concrete — little more than hissing — intrudes. Two feet from my left hand, my radio is tuned to WUIS public radio and All Things Considered. Life is unhurried behind the counter here on the edge of the world.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Live long . . . . . . . . and proper.

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Secret Asian Man – Arts Comin’ Upins

They’ve given you a number and taken away your name.

The rosster crows on his kness because he doesn’t know how to wark.

I digress.

Mark your calendar for June 28. Early risers will want to take in Springfield Art Association’s reception for “The Many Faces of Abe – The Jime and Carole Shay Collection.” Their excellent gallery is located at the Edwards Place Historic Home, the oldest home in Springfield on its original foundation, at 700 N. Fourth Street from 5:30 through 7:30 pm. They’re good people there, and the event will be the perfect warm-up to segueway into

The Blues & Jazz Fest on the downtown mall which runs from about 5:30 to 12:30 if I remember correctly. This event charges admission but it’s a heck of a bargain. All sorts of talent will be there, and it’s a terrific venue to boot. The event will see major PR in local media, so check your local Lisztings.

Meanwhale, back on the raunch — make that ranch — I’m totally bummed by George Carlin’s untimely demise. Fresh Air shared an excellent retrospective on WUIS Monday. Charlie Rose on WSEC gave him a token ta-ta. The excerpt from Carlin’s 1996 interview was less than 15 minutes. They should have given him much more than that. George was the “Willie Nelson of American comedy before Willie reinvented himself as GC did. There was not a sharper mind on stage. Rose reported he had recorded 22 comedy albums. 22! Though I admired the guy, I don’t have ONE of them. I’d like to suggest that if he dressed more like Shelly Berman or even Mort Sahl, I’d have bought at least a few, but that’s not true. I don’t have any Martin or Sahl  albums either.

In the fine Fresh Air interview replay George considered his future given the fact he had survived three heart attacks at the time it was recorded. He said whatever might significant illness might come to him, he hoped he’d be able to write, to communicate his thoughts. He said he’d hate to live without that ability. Maybe we should be grateful that he did not have to live with that incapacity. I will miss just knowing he’s with us.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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Doing the Funky Check-In

So who the fring-frang is Funky Wingerbean anyway? I met him as the high school nerd who grew into the young married who was an aspiring writer and lived above an Italian restaurant. There was a head portrait of a fellow who could be the guy who might greet you as you enter Wal-Mart (btw did you know that “wal” in German is “whale?”) and the Sunday color strip — again displacihng Frank and Ernest — packs all the punch of a Sam Levinson anecdote (this reference will separate true humor historian/devotees from the rest) told to Jack Parr in 1963. This will be my last “Funky report.” The strip is so oatmeal and Citrucel it no longer holds its once-moderate allure for me despite the excellent drawing and panel conposition.  Sayonarra Funk-meister.

On the positive side, Doonesbury Flashback has been replaced by Doonesbury with the appearance of Sunday’s fine go round confirming Garry Trudeau has returned to the present. It’s a “must read” for political whankers like myself, so smoke it if you can get it. Opus scored a three-base hit today: nice effort, but not a keeper for the collection.

What did Meet the Press with Brian WIlliams and This week with George the Greek have in common today? They showed essentially the same map graphic that illustrated formerly Bush-carried states that now lean Obama, and they showed the Barack-meister’s new tv ad. Both shows were better than usual, and they’re usually very good. Kudos to MTP for interviewing Lindsay Graham and Joe Biden in a civil discourse. Graham oozes all that reeks of $43s crowd, but he’s a decent speaker. Biden is the cream of the cream in my political refrigerator.

A fellow at a party I attended last night made an excellent case for Jim Webb for VP and Biden for Secretary of State. It sounds like a winning combination to me. You TOO?

Live long . . . .   and proper.

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Four Hours in Richburb Place

I signed on with my summer employer to work in the office, but I also fill in when he needs a substitute hand in the field. If you can imagine a bloke togged in semi-dress slacks, shined Florsheims and a shirt that would not look out of place at Magna Bank attached to a guy with a clean-shaven face working with stone artisans in knee-length denim, Adidas and tee shirts as we put finishing touches on a new home in a place I call Richburb, you begin to appreciate the nutty discontinuity of the scene.

Richburb is a place most of the owners of these new-build homes will never see at !:30 on a Friday afternoon because they’re busy at the office, or in the courtroom or hospital. If you think driving down a typical Central  City neighborhood avenue with an occasional car sharing curbs with plumbers; oickups; aopliance store delivery trucks and locksmiths’ vans is a mite cluttery, you sould see Richburb Place on Friday afternoon. Along a new street probably paved five years ago, probably 1/3 of the homes are completed and a like number of homes are being finished, and the rest of the lots reveal homes where construction has apparently stopped (maybe the banks forecolsed) or where the empty lots are untouched except for a few ruts in grass blazed by heavy equipment. Where construction is underway, the street curbs are a circus wagon panoply of colorful trucks and business logos of companies you would recognize from the Yellow Pages. Every vehicle is spotless. This is Richburb Place; not Central City. None of them park in driveways. If there’s wind, one sees clay dust blowing into neighbors’ yards like smoke from a smouldering brush fire. My business in this place is to assist two twenty-something gentlemen install natural stone in a “house away from the house.” The home and pool, completed this spring, overlook an extensively tiled, expansive patio which is “capped” at the far end by a structure that will function as a kitchen and bathroom/shower facility for entertaining family and guests starting in early July. When you see how far the house is from the patio and the steps leading to the entrance — about as many as the steps leading to the entrance to the Michael J. Howlett Building entrance from Second Street just south of the Capitol — you understand why this second structure was a necessary adjunct to the elegant tableau.

Installing natural stone is unhurried, precise effort where industrial-quality dimond-tipped cutting blade on a device that does to granite, marble and onyx what a carpenter’s trusty Black & Decker power saw does to wood. The stone artisan’s tool is a third larger than your workshop’s Dremel Tool. Though the stone has been cut to measurements on larger equipment back at the shop, the construction of several pieces to function as one on a bathroom sink top requires careful trimming. Most large pieces require two to lift them, but carrying primary elements of sink, counter and vanity tops from truck to destination usually requires four and sometimes six men.

On this day, I provided real help with the lifting and collateral tasks, but the real work was done by the others. The surprise came not during the installation but after it. Almost an hour was spent by the company owner, his number-one artisan and babbling blogmeister touching up the stone, removing slight blemishes that might distract the homeowners, touching up dull areas and incidental scratches here and there with a rotating polisher with several grades of wheels (like sandpaper), sealing and polishing it. I was afraid the homeowners were going to retire and move to Florida before we finished, and for the first time since I started working for this gentleman, I was anxious to get home. I hadn’t eaten a bite since last night’s dinner, and that may have been a factor.) Finally we departed, and everyone was happy.

The owner of the home is very “anonymous,” and if I described the scene in any more detail, they’d have to kill me. At any rate, the day was enjoyable for the most part, I had a delicious dinner and finished the Monday Burgundy; later totally enjoyed Charlie Rose’s excellent interview with Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. I’m looking forward to working when they need me again at the office, and when they need a substitute hand in the field, I will be happy to hit the trail.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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How I Avoided Spilling Iced Tea All Over My Car’s Front Seat Again

I haven’t taken my lunch with me when leaving home in the morning since I was in sixth grade at Blackhawk Elementary Schule in Springfield, Illinwa (Illinoi if you prefer; Illinoise if you prefer instead; an Illinois by any other name is still cornbread country style). My recent part time salvation-circumstance is prompting reconsideration of a modus operandi I’ve owned for almost 50 freaking yiz.

My first few days were a happy “rat-ta-tat” of things to do. Since food more than once a day is a non-issue most of the time for a bloke in my income (b)racquet, I did okay with water in what appear to be waxed, three-ounce-capacity-to-brim Dixie Cups from a water cooler dispenser.  There was a candy dish on the counter, and starting about noon, I’d savor three or four pieces of chocolate, and all was well in the tum-tum-tumerator. All I really missed from the comforts of ‘om’ (ooom, ooom, Hari Krishna, boo boop pa doop) were instant coffee (which I brought the third day) and iced tea (which I brought the fourth). Things went fine for me and my fresh iced tea, topped with a crust of ice cubes in a three-serving insulated jug) until a few days ago.

I was in a rush; measured stirred AND shook the requisite spoonfulls (as #43 might say) and spoonsfull (as many who are not babbling criminal war psychopaths might say) of mix and water and hurried to the “Blieu Goose” as I call mon DeSoto Meaculpa) (<– not its real name; not that it wouldn’t be a good one), When I arrived at work (WORK!!!) and reached for my trusty jug, it came too easily; noticeably lighter and giving ample evidence of why in the darker hue of the passenger-side carpet. When It had fallen over as I punched the brakes to avoid hitting an honest squirrel (at least he seemed so when I saw him) the contents had migrated through the poorly turned and loose lid, into the car. NOT a big deal; I would learn, and when I drank the last of the short shrift of tea later in the day, that cool (kewl if you’re younger than 40) water in 3 ounces-to-the-brim-capacity Dixie Cups was miiiiiighty tasty.

So today I was determined not to repeat the fluid faux pax of the earlier excursion. I measured the mix, stirred and shook it, and by GORRY, when I arrived at work (WORK!!!) there wasn’t a drop of wayfaring liquid in my car floor, or seat, as I reached for mon jug.

That’s because I had forgotten to take it with me.

Live long . . . . . . . . . and quaff like there hain’t no temerah.

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Poetry Fans, Mock Your Colanders for June 21

That’s when my former college instructor and Vachel Lindsay scholar extraordinare Dennis Camp will talk about the poet. The title of his presentation is “Vachel Lindsay Attempts to Educate Springfield on Racial Issues.” If you ever met the incredible Campmeister, you’d know why I recommend you attend his presentation at Vachel Lindsay Home State Historic Site, 603 S. Fifth Street in lyrical near-south Springfield starting at 2:30 pm. I’ll be there, and if you can passably attend, I hope you will be there too.

Live long  . . . . . . . love strong
With a poem in your heart you can’t go wrong.

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