02-10-2012: Potpourri of Piquant Piffle

Blatant Commercialism Dept. : Joe Dynan, son of artist Phil Dynan (an old running mate of Dave Monthie and myself) has his first downloadable song available on the Web for $1. I know he'd be thrilled if some of us Tuneweekers bought a copy. Joe first displayed his music talent to us at one of our former annual Geezerpaloozas at least 10 years ago when he was about 11 years old IIRC. He's got a great voice and songwriting talent, and it's a great song. Enjoy!

http://www.joedynan.com/music.htm
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A rare combo of modern rock band and cartoon character is occurring with Popeye (one of my favorite comic strips) and Wilco (one of my favorite bands):

http://popeye.com/

More on this at Wilco's site:

http://www.wilcospinach.com/

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Some fine playing in an unusual combo here: resonator guitar and didgeridoo!:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3gBLOXyu9s&feature=uploademail

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Denis Franklin wrote to the San Francisco Folk Music Club e-mail list:Heard this guy (Dr. Paul Mealor) on NPR.  He was asked to arrange Ubi Caritas for Kate and William's wedding:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQE4ryqdvMg
At the same time he was asked to write a song for a chorus composed of British military wives. For the lyrics he used  "letters and poems sent between the men on the front line and their wives / partners."  This one hit the top of the pop charts. Listen to it without shedding a tear if you can.  ( I certainly couldn't.):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hR6O7VxKaQ

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Here's a one-hour video of the great jazz drummer Max Roach with his quartet in Berlin in 1990 (for those who didn't already  watch it when I posted it to Facebook):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4XQOZ-jbrYU#!

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Worthy Flute Thing: This Kickstarter project, a documentary on the beloved Irish flute-maker Patrick Olwell, is worth backing, IMHO. I have no financial interest, just love Irish flute!:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1550984442/the-keymaster-patrick-olwell

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OK,  autoharp. Lots of new developments in the world of autoharp of late. Here's a small batch of recent stuff:

Hal Weeks with the old Grateful Dead tune Althea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=aMoEqpNu-Nk

Cathy Britell and William Limbach, Down In The Valley:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oomm1zBLLaw

Same duo, Harper's Blessing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3t6cUsz-8

And audio of Cathy on Somewhere Over The Rainbow:

http://autoharps.home.comcast.net/~autoharps/OTRsample.mp3

Audio, Don McLean's Vincent:

http://autoharps.home.comcast.net/~autoharps/Vincentsample.mp3

Darryl Minsky does Hide Your Love Away:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBMBs_whjrI&feature=youtu.be

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Good news this week for traveling musos, Congress OKs uniform FAA standard for instruments as carry-ons when flying:

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Congress-says-instruments-allowed-as-airplane-carry-ons-.html?soid=1101807703206&aid=mrCc1XxRfzU

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Gone But Not Forgot:

Snuffy Smith, noted banjoist and banjo repairman, 66:

http://bluegrasstoday.com/37247/snuffy-smith-passes/

Boatin' Up Sandy played by Jimmy Triplett on a banjo fitted with one of Smith's  very popular bridges:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhLHjEVrKyQ

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Keep on Musicking!

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Tuneweek, 02-04-2012: Jim Ocean, Space Age Bard/4-String Banjo/RIP Don Cornelius

Shameless Self-Promo: I'll be playing and singing at Pinole Farmers Market this morning (Saturday, Feb. 4) from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Drop by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood!

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Science songs? Yes, Jim Ocean is not only a music promoter par excellence in the East Bay, but a singer/songwriter who's been called a Space Age Bard:

http://www.jimoceanmusic.com/fr_home.cfm

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Let's once again give obscure four-string banjo players their due. Five-string Scruggs-style banjo as heard in bluegrass is now the dominant style, but four-string banjos played (and play) big roles in traditional jazz ... and some are stretching their roles way beyond that. 

First, go here and scroll down the page to Four-string Banjos for definitions and a history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo

As for music, let's start with this, and you can check the links to the right for more vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5URYW0-_uk&feature=related_

Here's Mario De Pietro, a popular mandolinist of note who also solos on tenor banjo in this 1930 clip with Jean Melville on piano:

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/mario-de-pietro/query/banjo

Prof. Douglas Frazer and the Genuine Jug Band:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ2jeHkvFUs

More here:

http://thegenuinejugband.com/music.html

A feature on percussionist Tony McBride's washboard setup:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKFfM4ATxuw&feature=youtu.be

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Heavy metal (resophonic) mandolin blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWG3lJrHdXg&feature=digest_thu

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Stolen Stuff Alert from Chris Hirsch: My good friends in the band Trout Fishing In America had their van stolen with all of their instruments and CDs, videos, etc., inside.  This happened in Houston, TX on 1-29-12.  I put together this simple web page showing the instruments so we can all send it out to our friends.  Please do this.  The more that know about this, the better chance of nabbing these damn thieves and maybe getting their stuff back:

http://www.chrishirsch.com/stolen2.htm

Some samples of their quite funny and quite good music:

http://www.troutmusic.com/

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Gone But Not Forgot:

Don Cornelius, Soul Train creator, 75:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/02/arts/music/don-cornelius-soul-train-creator-is-dead-at-75.html?ref=obituaries

Camilla Williams, barrier-breaking opera soprano, 92:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/arts/music/camilla-williams-opera-singer-dies-at-92.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Clare Fischer, arranger and keyboardist, 83:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/arts/music/clare-fischer-arranger-and-keyboardist-is-dead-at-83.html?ref=obituaries

Paavo Berglund, Finnish conductor, 82:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/arts/music/paavo-berglund-finnish-conductor-dies-at-82.html?ref=obituaries

Patricia Neway, opera soprano and Tony winner, 92:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/arts/music/patricia-neway-operatic-soprano-who-won-a-tony-dies-at-92.html?ref=obituaries

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Keep on Musicking!

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Tuneweek, 01-28-2012: Ukes Galore

Shameless Self Promotion: My band Awed Ducks will play a featured 30-minute set at around 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29, at Panama Red Coffeehouse at the Vallejo Ferry Terminal, 289 Mare Island Way, Vallejo, CA (poster above with full bill).

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Let's close the first month of the New Year with a quick survey of the world of ukulele. UkeToob has a selection of recent vids.

No ukulele mention would be complete without including Jake Shimabukuro, who's probably done more than anyone recently to lift the jumping flea to new heights of musical respectability. He's best known for his version of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps, but here he does his own tune, Let's Dance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZxrlDU1RyE 

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Ledward Kaapana is primarily known as a slack-key guitarist, but also sparkles on uke:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZNSm7N-tjc

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I especially like James Hill and Gerald Ross:

http://uketoob.com/ 

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Here's Ross's version of Poinciana, in case you missed it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWd9AsI6aBg

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And Hill's Ode to A Frozen Boot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jrr1Y7PIcA

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And let's also take The A Train with a U-Bass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnKy8Sygz80&feature=uploademail

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Aaron Keim, False Hearted Lover, from his two-chord songbook, vol 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGCV6znh2FA&feature=player_embedded

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Outstanding music by the David Wax Museum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-_oUY7t3yQ&feature=g-u&context=G288db75FUAAAAAAAHAA

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And always remember: Happiness Is A Warm Gun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUXGDgu-dCM&feature=uploademail

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Marcy Marxer and Cathy Fink's new Ukulele playlist:

http://www.youtube.com/user/CommunityMusic#g/c/BAB367F0A4FE6874

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Gianni and Sarah, I'll Drink to That:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrYntgFr-s0&feature=player_embedded#!

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Don't know who Roxypuzzlepatch is, but I like her cover of the Grateful Dead's Tennessee Jed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNaUg_Mwz1M&feature=share 

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Postscripts on Etta James and Johnny Otis: 

A rerun of a 1990s Terry Gross interview with Etta was featured on Friday's Fresh Air:

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/27/138985700/etta-james-the-1994-fresh-air-interview 

And Joel Selvin wrote a nice piece in the San Francisco Chronicle on Johnny:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/23/DDGK1MS7CL.DTL 

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Gone But Not Forgot:

Dick Kniss, bassist for Peter, Paul & Mary and John Denver co-writer, 74:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/arts/music/dick-kniss-bassist-for-peter-paul-and-mary-is-dead-at-74.html?ref=obituaries

Larry Butler, Kenny Rogers's producer, 69:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/arts/music/larry-butler-producer-for-kenny-rogers-dies-at-69.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries 

John Levy, bassist and talent manager, 99:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/arts/music/john-levy-bassist-and-talent-manager-dies-at-99.html?ref=obituaries 

Gerre Hancock, church organist, 77:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/arts/music/gerre-hancock-st-thomas-church-organist-dies-at-77.html?ref=obituaries 

Winston Riley, Jamaican music producer, 68:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/arts/music/winston-riley-jamaican-music-producer-is-dead-at-68.html?ref=obituaries 

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Keep on Musicking!

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Tuneweek, 01-21-2012: RIP Etta James, Johnny Otis

A week of two major losses for the music world: Etta James and Johnny Otis. They were major figures in my teen-age years. I began listening to Otis's band and radio show in Los Angeles around 1954 or '55, right when the two were connecting professionally and recorded together, and when Etta had the R&B hit Roll With Me Henry. Those were formative years musically. Otis's and KFOX disc jockey colleague Hunter Hancock's shows provided a door into the then still separate world of rhythm and blues, where most artists were African American, and into Chuck Berry's rock and roll before such artists began to commonly be played on mainstream stations. Radio (AM radio, not FM!) was king in those days, and a hit single could jump start a major career, or simply a regional hit, since there was no Internet then. 

No one knew it in 1954 but the arrival of rock and roll in mainstream radio meant the rapid fade of bland white pop singers like Georgia Gibbs who covered Roll With Me Henry (removing the word "roll," which was considered too suggestive in those distant, dark ages). By 1957 and '58 artists like Berry began crossing over into mainstream radio.

Etta James died Friday at age 73. Here are two obituaries, one from the New York Times, one from Associated Press via the San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/arts/music/etta-james-singer-dies-at-73.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/01/20/national/a083558S31.DTL&ao=2
Her son Donto describes her passing:http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Entertainment/20120121/etta-james-death-son-20120121/

Music:

Roll With Me Henry (1955):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htpx3opKfKw

At Last (an early version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsSS9VcMidA 

I'd Rather Go Blind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YApNirMC9gM

Something's Got A Hold On Me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzibSiJv8hc

I Just Want To Make Love to You:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUgvVAFFzN8

Otis, a fine bandleader and hitmaker in his own right (e.g., Willie and The Hand Jive), died Tuesday at age 90. He had a Saturday morning show on KPFA-FM for some time and was also an artist and club owner in Sebastopol, CA.
The Los Angeles Tines obituary:http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-johnny-otis-20120119,0,2183487.story
The New York Times obituary:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/arts/music/johnny-otis-musician-dies-at-90.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries
An appreciation by Dave Alvin (of the Blasters):http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/01/johnny-otis-obituary-dave-alvin-appreciation.html
Music:

Harlem Noctune in 1945 was Johnny's first big hit. It was the theme song for another KFOX show, Sleepy Stein's jazz slot that started at 10 p.m. after Hunter Hancock's show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bYPnfXXUp4

Here's Hand Jive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEeeGMpM_Nk
With Marci Lee, Telephone Baby:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0w5YWXVW-A&feature=fvst 

With son Shuggie Otis and Roy Buchanan on guitar for Sweet Home Chicago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al89UR2l3oI
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Also Gone But Not Forgot:

Harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt, 83:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/arts/music/gustav-leonhardt-harpsichordist-dies-at-83.html?ref=obituaries

Jimmy Castor, master of many genres, 71:http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/arts/music/jimmy-castor-musician-who-mastered-many-genres-dies-at-71.html?ref=obituaries
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Shameless Self Promotion: I'll be one of around 15 performers at an open mic Upstairs at First Street Cafe, 440 First Street, Benicia, CA, tonight. The show starts at 7, and each performer gets 15 minutes. I'm on second, if all goes as planned. Thanks to Debbie Kuhl Wendt for organizing and emceeing these! Excellent talent and no cover charge. Hope to see you there. 

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That's all for this week, keep on musicking!

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Tuneweek, 01-14-2012: Pickin' 'n' Grinnin'

A few live shows worth seeing in our area:  

Bill Evans, banjo virtuoso, will perform at 7:30 tonight in a benefit for the Contra Costa Food Bank at the 2nd Saturday Concert Series, 260 Walnut Avenue, Walnut Creek, CA. Tickets are $12 at the door. On Feb. 11 Jim Nunally and Dix Bruce will perform in the series. Samples of his music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wxbk3u_GeQE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xd_ERBZI_U

Martinez's own Hopeful Romantics play at 8 p.m. tonight Upstairs at the First Street Cafe, 440 First Street, Benicia, CA, at 8 p.m. No cover charge and a great Americana band! Samples of their music:

http://www.reverbnation.com/thehopefulromantics

T-Shirt Tuxedo, with our younger grandson, Norris Turnnidge, plays at a 6 to 10 p.m. rock show at Devil's Lounge, next door to Toot's Tavern, 627 2nd Avenue, Crockett, CA. Tickets are $5. Also playing will be Back Door Bang and Only for Tomorrow.

Sample of T-Shirt Tuxedo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coDHdoR6QgY

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The Blues Foundation's nominees for the 33rd Blues Music Awards:

http://bluesrevue.com/2011/12/33rd-blues-music-awards-12-13-12/#

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And this very instructive vid on white spirituals and black spirituals:

http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1312

Today's featured artist, one of the most astounding flatpickers on the planet, David Grier, here talking about playing and playing Beaumont Rag:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjRTMSivgu4&feature=related

Be sure to check out the links down the right side of the page, including the other artists!

Hot band, with David ... Old Dangerfield:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYCPhFUWBEg&feature=youtu.be

More David Grier, with Luke Munday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOJWhgfv9pU&feature=g-all

Roy Curry, David Grier, Clay Hess and Justin Carbone at the IBMA guitar workshop 2008 in Nashville:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IjRTMSivgu4

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Not too shabby pickin' here by Ricky Skaggs and Albert Lee:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ZjHWBVUk

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Another fine flatpicker, Robert Bowlin:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrQeWcMi4x8&feature=endscreen&NR=1

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And from Betsy Rome on the flatpicking guitar e-mail list:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Bob Harris, besides being a great
recording engineer, he was Vassar Clements' playing partner for the last
years of Vassar's life. Bob gets great tone, clarity & speed out of a
guitar. Here he is at Grey Fox masters guitar workshop in 2010, "New
Camptown Races" with Josh Williams and Tony Watt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DnSUwsIpXgug
Here he is with Vassar, in Bob's studio. Guitar enters around 1:50:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DKbqcqC8_7n8
Also, in the holiday spirit, here's a video he wrote with his wife, singerLucy Clark, "Jersey Bada Bing Christmas", a hilarious send-up, New Jersey-style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DNQaf3MVL9Ls
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Here's Bryan Kimsey's vid of a Martin guitar "before" he modifies it ... I'll try to remember to post the follow-up "after" vid when he posts it after completing the work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTW5Mex3Msg&feature=youtu.be

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Last but not least, this article by David Thom in Bluegrass Today on fiddler/mandolinist Ed Neff, with a video link:

http://bluegrasstoday.com/35384/california-pickers-ed-neff/

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Two new live music venues will be opening in Marin County. First, Sweetwater Music Hall:

http://millvalley.patch.com/articles/sweetwater-music-hall-set-to-open-this-month

And, Terrapin Crossroads:

http://sananselmofairfax.patch.com/articles/terrapin-crossroads-moves-into-closing-seafood-peddler

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GONE BUT NOT FORGOT:

Tom Ardolino, NRBQ drummer, 56:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/arts/music/tom-ardolino-56-longtime-drummer-for-nrbq-dies.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Alex Weissenberg, fire-and-ice pianist, 82:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/arts/music/alexis-weissenberg-pianist-of-fire-and-ice-dies-at-82.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&ref=obituaries&adxnnlx=1326470616-HyHd86/1Q03k2yZD1RJw4A

Ruth Fernandez, Puerto Rico singer and senator, 92:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/arts/music/ruth-fernandez-singer-and-senator-in-puerto-rico-dies-at-92.html?ref=obituaries

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That's all for this week, keep on Musicking (and GO NINERS!),

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Tuneweek, 01-07-2012: Temporary Adios to Crooked Still

Learned this week that one of our favorite bands, Crooked Still, is taking the rest of 2012 off to allow members a chance to pursue other interests (and, I imagine, recover from playing together constantly for the past 10 years). Here's hoping they regroup in 2013, and here's one of our favorite songs by them (with links to more down the right side of this page):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB1ZGels-dY 

Their Web page:

www.crookedstill.com

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Happy Birthday (Friday) to Earl Scruggs, generally considered the deviser of Scruggs three-finger banjo playing that helped make bluegrass bluegrass, had his 80th birthday Friday. Herewith a fantastic version of Scruggs on Foggy Mountain Breakdown, a tune he wrote, played here with Steve Martin, Marty Stuart, Jerry Douglas, Vince Gill, and other luminaries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icMTVV5Lwaw

More Scruggs:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=earl+scruggs&oq=earl+scruggs&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=c&gs_upl=481648l483567l0l485721l12l12l0l5l5l0l195l1105l0.7l7l0

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Shameless Self-Promo: I'll be playing and singing from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at Pinole (CA) Farmers Market, Pear and Fernandez streets in Pinole. Drop by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood!

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Gone But Not Forgot:

Fred Milano, original member of Dion and The Belmonts, 72:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/arts/music/fred-milano-of-dion-and-the-belmonts-dies-at-72.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Barbara Lea, cabaret singer, 82:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/02/arts/music/barbara-lea-interpreter-of-american-popular-songs-dies.html?ref=obituaries

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That's all for this week, keep on musicking!

Bob Loomis

In Loving Memory of Shannon Christine Loomis, 1967-2010

Ukulele Bob's 2011/2012 Music Newsletter

2011 was a fulfilling and wonderful year musically for yours truly. Not only have I been playing more than ever, but I am also seeing musical friends’ endeavors pay new dividends for them (and sometimes thus for me), and that’s icing on the cake. In 2011, I:

1. Started playing farmers markets in central Contra Costa County. These are perfect gigs – low-pressure, good chances to try new approaches without fear and generally during the day. My next two are Tuesday, Jan. 3 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kaiser Medical Center, Walnut Creek, CA, and Saturday, Jan. 7, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pinole Farmers Market, Fernandez and Pear, Pinole, CA.
2. Played more open mics, at Armando’s in Martinez, First Street Café in Benicia, and Panama Red Coffeehouse in Vallejo. Thanks to Debbie Kuhl Wendt, Finding Fable and Kevin Radley for making these happen! My next will be at First Street Cafe, 440 First St., Benicia, CA, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 7.
3. Played a lot with Awed Ducks. We continue to practice regularly and during the past year played open mics, the Give A Dam Martinez Beaver Festival, and the Berkeley Old Time Music Convention Band Contest. We’re getting good audience response. We have a 30-minute featured slot at the Panama Red Coffeehouse at the Ferry Terminal in Vallejo at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 29. Thanks to Ducks Jim Brunelle, John Gallagher and Peter Sproul for  this Big Fun! 
4. Continued to play fairly regularly with my “new” Berkeley music mates Dale Zola and Bill Devore, in BBZ. We love getting together and hope to play our first open mic in 2012. Thanks to Dale and Bill for this new music outlet! 
5. Played flute and tinwhistle in an irish ballads session with Barry Melton, Kevin Fagan and Jay Johnson at Lefty O’Doul’s in San Francisco, Looks like we’ll do another in January. Thanks, guys, and thanks, Lee Housekeeper! 

 2012 goals: 

1. Celebrate Bev’s and my 50th wedding anniversary in June. Thanks to her for all her patience with my music pursuits (and other quirks)! 
2. Get my long-delayed first album of original songs done. 
3. Publish a short book of collected poems. 
4. Attend the Wintergrass Festival in Bellevue, WA, in February for what I believe is the 12th out of the past 13 years. 

If you're on Facebook, check my page (Robert Loomis) for news of music activity and for my weekly Tuneweek column. Here are two links to some of the music I've made:

http://www.myspace.com/307057832

http://www.youtube.com/user/ukebob?feature=guide

I hope to put up some new material during 2012, so stay tuned! Have a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!

October Post: Grampy Update

Missed September due to busyness and laziness, so here's an update on yrs truly:

Played two farmers markets last week, Martinez on Thursday and Pinole on Saturday, had a great time at both. But -- here's the mea culpa -- didn't take along my autoharp, although I had played it quite a bit at my last prior farmers market in Concord. Reason: laziness. The night before the Martinez one I thought about taking it but realized I'd have to tune it ... and was sleepy, so ...

Then it was so easy just playing the guitar and ukulele at the Martinez market that I said the heck with it and just took along the guitar and electric uke again to Pinole. Traveling light, and all that. I wonder if anyone else here suffers from multiple-instrument disorder? If I could play my ideal gig, I'd have EVERYTHING available: Guitar, autoharp, uke, banjos, harmonicas, flutes, Native American flutes, pennywhistles, percussion ... but until I have roadies, it just ain't gonna happen.

I am using only my Crate Taxi portable amp at my gigs now, as it has a mic input and an instrument input and sounds darned good. I'd much rather use my Crate Acoustic 125D amp, but most farmers marts have no power access and it isn't battery-powered. It has two instrument inputs and one input for either vocals or instruments, so with two instruments, I can have everything plugged and ready to go thru one amp. It sounds GREAT! The only problem is that it is way heavy and my old bod' is beginning to object to lifting heavy objects. Would love to have one of those Bose systems, but unless I won the lottery last night, that just ain't happenin'!

I recommend farmers markets to anyone who is ready to play out, and who wants a low-pressure gig. I'm finding these a great way to become comfortable performing and to work on my chops. My guitar solos are (slowly) improving by necessity and I feel free enough at these not to worry about mistakes.

Winter is approaching (or what we Northern Californians call winter) and I have no more farmers marts scheduled unless they call me to fill in for someone. So I'm going to go to work on some other music projects that have been on the back burner for too long. Among them: I hope to post some more vids to YouTune and at least get a good start on my oft-delayed CD. It would be great to have a CD to sell at the farmers marts.

Oh, and gotta break out the yuletunes and get ready for busking and for our annual You'll Yule Sing party.

In the meantime, this week's fun includes rehearsing a couple of flute duets with a friend: Mozart's Ariette and an Allegro by Haydn. At the same party on Saturday where we will play these, I'll read a couple of poems that are part of a book I hope to self-publish by the end of the year, Homage to Schwitters. A friend who is a collagist, Susan Jokelson, is providing collages to go with the poems.

Had a wonderful road trip north a couple weeks back for the Second Annual Great Northwest Ham 'n' Jam 'n' Clam Session at Alan and Bobbi Campbell's in Ashland, OR. Wonderful hosts, two days of great jamming with fantastic musos and Bev got to visit her cousin Maryann in Grants Pass. Bev and I then took two days of R&R at a fine B&B, Turtle Rocks Inn in Trinidad, CA. Much needed and beautiful with the famous CA clear and crisp autumn coastal weather. 

OK, enough. A great month to all!

Music-Go-Round

Last night was culmination of four days and nights of music fun the likes of which I hadn't had since going to the California Worldfest a couple of years back:

Thursday: Went to Winters with old pal Kevin Fagan for his recording session at a studio run by Sam and Lori Hawk (who have their own fine group, Finding Fable). It was my first up-close and personal look at what can be done with a click track and a digital studio. Quite amazing! They had Kevin record his song for the evening 10 times, picked out the best track and dropped in fixes from the other tracks as needed, e.g., a consonant that was poorly enunciated, etc. I laid down several diatonic harmonica tracks that Sam is working into a single, harmonic track for the solo break. Awesome, but it revealed how little I've been playing diatonic harmonica the past couple of years. However, simply apply digital patch techniques and you'd never know how many fluffs there were!

Friday: My first practice with Barry Melton and the Fishwraps, a Celtic-American quartet (for lack of a better term). We're playing Celtic tunes, including Rosin The Beau, Leaving of Liverpool, Jug of Punch, Dicey Riley, etc. Best of all, it's a rare chance for me to play flute, whistle and tremolo harmonica, something I do almost none of in my other music groups. Best of all Barry (of Country Joe & The Fish in the '60s-'70s) complimented my playing! Nice to be praised by a pro! Others in the group include Kevin Fagan and Jay Johnson, they of the sweet Irish tenor voices (Kevin also plays guitar). Barry M. also sings and plays guitar. So far my voice is not a factor, which is kind of a relief after all the other singing I do. Nice to just be a sideman!

Saturday day: First, an old friend's annual Tiki Joes party in Petaluma. This gathers together the families and an extended family of folks that first began hanging out together in the '60s. The hostess is a second-generation member of one of those families, and altogether there were four generations of that now large original contingent present at the party. Among these are a large number of pro and semi-pro musicians, so several groups played, including Patchwork, the Detroit Disciples and my own Awed Ducks. Or at least three of the four Ducks. All played well and it is always a highlight of each year to catch up on what's going on in the lives of old friends. And the food!!! BBQ, vegan, you name it. There are always new first-timers attending and it's fun to see them a bit stunned by the caring, loving atmosphere and all the great music. One highlight: 4th Generation Baby Ernie Renne, age 3.5, in his Mom Tara Renner's arms singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with huge unabashed enjoyment. The talent carries on!

Saturday, late evening: Awed Ducks (three of us) played a three-song set at an open mic at First Street Cafe's Upstairs in Benicia, CA. This is consistently the best open mic I've been to. Each act gets 15 minutes and there is a drawing for a 30-minute featured slot at the next session. We were the closers this week and were really well received, even without our Dobro/banjo player. The audience sang along on the chorus to Rubber Dolly and on the "That's right!" responses in Women Are Smarter. And they dimmed the house lights and raised candles and sang along with the choruses when our harmonica player, Peter Sproul, sang I Shall Be Released. I was on guitar and vocals and Jim Brunelle was on bass guitar and vocals. Great fun and so wonderful to be well received!

Sunday: Got to just listen and enjoy as I took my wife Beverly to the first installment of her upcoming birthday gifts, a show by the Be Good Tanyas at The Independent in San Francisco. She was a bit weary after our activity Saturday and did some grumbling about me "forcing" her to go out again, but I knew she would enjoy it once she was there. The Tanyas are one of her favorites, a great Americana/New Old-Timey group from Vancouver, B.C., and hardly ever play in the Bay Area (this may change with the crowds they drew Saturday and Sunday nights at the club), so I jumped at the chance to get Sunday night tickets despite the busyness of the preceding days. We arrived early enough to get seats (a rare commodity at this open dance floor-style club) after a great supper at Herbivore, a nearby vegan restaurant. The show was fantastic, I'm pretty sure we were the oldest folks there, and afterwards, Bev thanked me for getting her out to see the show. Here are some samples of the Be Good Tanyas for those interested:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=be+good+tanyas&aq=3&oq=be+good+

Happy Webtrails, Bob Loomis

July Post (Late Again)

Nothing to report here for July in the way of creativity, been very busy with music pursuits and other pursuits.

June Post: Bottoms Up!

Been Italy traveling for three weeks, so a bit late again this month. Sorting old files on my laptop I found this, and since we're busy catching up on home chores, it'll do:


We’re going
to get
To the bottom
of this!


We’re going
to get
To the bottom
of this!


We’re going
to get
To the bottom
of this!

Bob Loomis
© 2004

May Post: The crows are alarmed

The crows are alarmed at our cat Stumpy. She sits on the picnic table blinking as if to say “Who are these large, black birds that are so disagreeable? Why are they picking on us? We would never attack birds that large.” Stumpy is the smallest, most aggressive cat of our five. The others stay out of sight. “It’s karma for your depredations,” I say, referring to her role as the Goddess of Doom to lizards. She looks away, pretending not to understand.

hey crows,
why all that May Day over
one small cat?
Shut up
so I can practice flute!


(c) Bob Loomis (with thanks to Linda Papanicolaou for help editing)
05-31-2011

April's Post: These paintings by dead poets

Again not much in the way of new writing this past month, so I'll post one of the poems from a work entitled Homage to Schwitters, an example of word collage writing. I and collagist Susan Jokelson are putting together a book of these, with one collage paired with each poem. Hope you enjoy this Beat-flavored work:

These paintings by dead poets of resurrected love … graceful lonely versifiers searching for antique hay in fields of unknown soldiers … bottled-up mourners laughing mightily at jokes on us … urge vote for blind politicians leading blind puppets … fill days with heartfelt gestures calling for independence for all suburban pets … cite unmistakable upsurges in efforts to attack imaginary states … say it’s all in many ways a measure of broad bandwidth sounded on tarnished trumpets applauded by amateur strumpets … we keep marching … hope for one honest sacrificial lamb chop … pound out rhythm on Native American drums … bury meat hooks in pectoral flesh … fly outward round Maypole … hope resultant warriors equal to eternal task … pray god help us please at least look good … so we can strut like cocksure dandies … so we can end loneliness with dances of redemption …

© Bob Loomis
01-06-10 / 01-23-10

March Entry: The Old Singer

Not much in the way of poetic inspiration this month ... but I'll offer this small token:

Stumbling in midtune
the old singer turns miscue
into joke ...
frets about it afterward
talking with the band ...

(c) Bob Loomis, 2011

February Post (Late Again)

We're on the road on our annual trip to visit friends near Olympia, attend the Wintergrass Festival in Bellevue, WA, and do a week of R&R in Cannon Beach, OR, so of course I forgot to post for February before the month was up. Herewith a better-late-than-never poem:

Now sweet young things
look right through me
on rapid transit --
where's the stop
for the Fountain of Youth?

(c) Bob Loomis, 02-02-2011

January Post: Whatever Happens, Happens

I wrote this in reply to a poem by Jennifer Simon on The Well (kind of a thinking person's Facebook). You can view the whole thread, if you are a Well subscriber, by going to the topic More Work: Poems by Conference Members in the Poetry conference and starting with entry 573. Here's my part of what was a roundabout discussion in poetry:

Whatever Happens, Happens

Ah, yes, that was our band's motto
& as The Geezers we more or less continued it
even after band co-founder and
major mainspring Mike Robertson
died, claimed by some sort of cancer
wrapped around his lower trachea
in a way that prevented treatment.

We watched him waste away,
he who already had beaten throat cancer
several years before
and had at last found his new mate,
and I sometimes think
of the oddness of our motto
in light of that latest whatever.
None of us wanted to accept it,
especially him.

But the music plays on,
we dance the dance
and pay and/or play the piper
each in his own way,
still hoping, even as the road sign
"Dotage Ahead" becomes legible,
that no matter what,
we can put off that last whatever
forever.

(c) 2011, Bob Loomis

December's Posting ... A Bit Late

Even with the most painful loss of our daughter Shannon and resulting emotional and material upheavals, 2010 has been a year that included many blessings. We’ve been able to help our two grandsons cope with their tragic loss. I’ve gotten to take some memorable trips with Beverly and friends and look forward to our annual trip to the Wintergrass Festival at the end of February. I’ve been able to begin playing mandolin again, so far without the left-hand tendon problems of the past. I’ve written a few new songs, and had some success and good feedback at West Coast Songwriters competitions and other open mics. I look forward to 2011. May it be a year of good health and happy, creative experiences for everyone.

Christmas Day --
rain by buckets
on bare trees

(c) Bob Loomis, December 2010

Thanks for the Future

I sort old photos
and memories,
our oldest grandson fills out
his college app ...
his younger brother
practices for his band's
appearance at the high school.
Life plays and dances
to its own rhythms.
We watch
and sometimes play and dance, too,
glad to have had the chance.
We thank the Great Spirit
for this perfect day.
Let us walk in beauty
all the way.

Halloween Haiku (October Post)

Halloween
memories haunted
by our daughter

tears but no fears
this Halloween ... grim reaper
called way early

Halloween
her orange and black wall hanging
suits the night

day of dead saints
we remember
how she loved Halloween

Here and there
around the house, her gifts
bequeath her love

(c) Bob Loomis, 10-31-2010
Concord CA USA

Late Again! The September Post

Just since this morning
the laundry basket
lined with autumn leaves ...

Bob Loomis
09-30-2010

Running Again, Sort Of

Note: I'm a bit late with my August post, but here it is.

I am running again, running from grief, running from sorrow. running not as I did when I was 40 and running 10-mile workouts at 8 minutes per mile, but jogging short intervals, a tenth of a mile in between walking intervals: 200 left-foot walking steps to warm up, then alternating 100 jogging and 100 walking steps out the trail a mile and then back in with 200 walking steps at the end to cool down.

Occasionally, I see wildlife: Many coyotes over the years, recently one carrying a ground squirrel in his mouth and loping leisurely along, scarcely glancing my way as he slipped into the woods. I see many hawks, usually redtails, and never tire of them. Cottontails, red squirrels, peregrines, quail, lizards, and the other day we saw the most beautiful rattler we’ve ever seen, iridescent. He must have just shed his old skin. I almost stepped on him but leaped four feet to the side in midstride when I heard his dry whirrrrrr! For that brief instant his presence restored the alacrity of youth! We faced each other then he turned and slid into the tall grass, tail still whirring, waving farewell as we thanked him for the warning.

The hills are dry and yellow-brown as September’s song commences. I still think of Shannon but already sadness is … well, not receding, but now arrives accompanied by resignation each time it hits. What is, is and cannot be changed. As Dodo Miller always said and sang, “Life goes on.” She was correct, of course.

So I run again, recalling how I ran in younger days, when I ran to escape responsibility, to flee the pressures of job, of the fathering and husbanding I really didn’t know how to do. I am now I hope a much better grandfather than I was a father. Either way, I run out, but always return, wondering how many more years I’ll be granted this gift.

The gift of running has been passed along, apparently. Cameron, our eldest grandson, has joined the ranks of runners, perhaps also running from his grief, but also because he wants to. He’s gone out for the high school's new cross-country team. That makes me happy: to see another in my line lace up the shoes and fire up the endorphins. May he find as much joy in it as I did and do still in my somewhat feeble way.

Sometimes I dream of running. I am jogging along some familiar street and my stride becomes longer and longer and stronger and stronger until each step is an almost flying and I am bounding past the other runners, and taking even longer strides that are now almost flying! Then, just as I begin to soar away into the sky, I wake up, back to earth again.

Life goes on. The earth repeats her cycles, making necessary adjustments, recovering from disasters, ignoring the sorrows and joys of humans, but also providing comfort in her wild beauty and the possibility of fulfillment. Shannon’s run has ended. Ours goes on. May we meet at the finish.

Song for Shannon

On June 20, 2010, our lovely daughter Shannon Christine Loomis, 43, took her own life. It was a tragic end to an eight-year struggle with bipolar disorder. Her obituary, with a link to a guestbook, is here:
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/contracostatimes/obituary.aspx?n=shannon-christine-loomis&pid=143894026

I am working on a poem in her memory, a short section of which is this month's post:

I

After her death,
Her cat waits at the front door
meowing.
We sit staring,
Still expecting to hear
Her footsteps on the stairs.

Among her papers
The eulogy she wrote
For her cat, Godzilla.
He sat on the tub’s edge
During her darkest times
Keeping her alive.

This cool morning breeze
She will no longer feel.
Summer and the other seasons
Roll on without her,
Now we must do the same
Though it breaks our hearts.

Our daughter, gone.
We hold in our hearts
The memories
Of her best times,
The love she shared
So willingly with others
In their need,
The gift she had
For nurturing friends
And children.

The morning breeze
stirs the red oak leaves
whispering her name.
She cannot answer.

Song 48 for Beverly Loomis

On the occasion of our 48th wedding anniversary:
By Bob Loomis

We had no intention
Of lasting this long.
Back then life was simple:
Some laughter, some song.

But now here we are
After 48 years,
No known end in sight
But the one we fear.

Yes, we still laugh,
We still love and sing
Though lately our dance
Has somewhat less spring.

We still smile a lot
And love the old songs
Of life’s music track
As we journey along.

There’s not much to say
After I love you’s said
But we know we’d start over
If we could carry the sled

Up the hill for one more run
Down the slippery slope
(We know that won’t happen
But we can hope).

So just take my hand
And sit in the back yard
And know it’s been worth it
No matter how hard.

Look into my eyes
And share this one truth:
In love we’ve been lucky,
Thank the gods & forsooth!

-- For Beverly with love,
(c)06-20-2010

May Poem: Till Strips of Cactus

Work continues on Homage to Kurt Schwitters, so this month I'm posting another poem from that work in progress:

Till strips of cactus cover muted sobbing of coroners’ deputies with medicinal spines … till lost faces give love to celluloid mummies … till end of thyme & rhyme … till Everest crumbles atop Dutch apple pie … till solons act to empower idealistic surgeons … till collectors of tardy, tawdry minutae find hollow logs for shelter … till woman with obsolete grocery cart finds discarded hamburger wrapped in 14k gold foil … till we recover all lost words in found forgotten manuscripts written with Lindy ballpoint pens in ancient tongues … till Moses lets Red Sea depart … till Sahara goes green again … till Mommy tells last of red-hot Daddies to cavort with fire engines & beer-belly bailiffs … till final triumph of Reason heralds New Age of gropeless sex … till bank bandits stop wearing pantyhose masks … till remains of the day are laid to rest in temporary vault of night … till we run out of elliptical romances whispered only in purple undersea grottoes … till music goes round and round and comes out here … till Kerouac blesses consensual iambic pentameter in Latinate murmurings … till then, my friend, till then & then some …

© Bob Loomis
01-22-2010

April Poem Posting: The Top 500 Poets List

The Top 500 Poets list
awaits mouse or muse,
not sure which …
Is my mouse
my muse?
Does my mouse
in da house
inspire me
or does my spouse?
Does my mouse
in da house
make my poems click?
And then there are
the Classic Poets
all waiting
at the corner of
Hubris and Pride …
or is it the corner
of Rhyme and Meter?
Or Words and Wisdom?
Or simply a tiny back alley
in the guidebook
of literary history?
Rhetorical questions
posed on a rainy Tuesday
when neither mouse
nor muse seem interested
in doing much
more than this.

(c) Bob Loomis
04-30-2010

March Pome 2010

This month's poem is a hay(na)ku, a three-line verse form in which 1, 2 and 3 words are used in succeeding lines. Google the term and you'll find Web sites on the topic. The poem:

Wind,
Light from
The east and

Foliage
On the oaks
Has overnight become

Thick
Enough to
Block the view

From
Second story
Resort condo window

But
Not the
Roar of motorcycles

On
Their spring
Gold country runs

Nor
Happy cries
Of children playing

In
The dry
Wash below the

Balcony:
“Mom! I
Caught a lizard!”

We
Sip coffee
Above it all

Remembering
The time
Just last year

When
We stayed
Here with the

Kids
And grandkids
For Geezerpalooza Eleven

Our
Annual music
And potluck gathering

Revived
After a
Three-year hiatus.

Now
The condo
Seems somewhat empty

Without
The company
Of our descendants.

But
It’s nice
To have some

Time
Alone together
Too, nice to

Be
Here while
It’s quieter than

It
Was in
Late summer 2009.

Nice
To be
Here, be alive

Together
After all
These many years

Though
In retrospect
It hardly seems

Long
Enough even
After four decades.

We
Give thanks
For being allowed

To
See another
Spring in Twain’s

Celebrated
Jumping Frog
Mother Lode country …

Treasure
Indeed beyond
Measure and not

Hidden
After all!

(c) Bob Loomis
03-29-2010

February Poem: Untitled

We're off to WA and Wintergrass on Saturday and have a busy prep week ahead, so I'll make this poem inspired by some of Ron Padgett's work my February entry here:

Untitled
© Bob Loomis, 02-05-2010

I sit in the new
Many-windowed bump-out

Having morning
Coffee and

Watching the red oak tree
Slowly and proudly strut

Across the
back yard

So slowly
It appears not

To be moving
At all

But with such
Stateliness

That I know
It must be traveling

At least
25,000 mph!

Then the neighbor
Lets out his three

Big dumb
German shepherds

And they
Begin to fill

Their day’s
Barking quota:

BARK! BARK! BARK!
BARK! BARK! BARK!
BARK! BARK! BARK!

And so on
And on

And on
And on.

And I try
To learn from

The tree,
Which pays

No attention
To the noise

And in fact
Appears not to

Hear the dogs
At all.

Yes, I think,
Sipping my coffee,

I will be
Like the tree.

I will not
Go next door

With a
Large-caliber rifle

And put a final
End to the barking.

I just wish
The dogs

Would bark
More like our tree.

Happy New Year, Etc.

Last year around this time I decided to try to write a poem a day, no matter what. Like most of my resolves, this one soon dissolved. Nonetheless, I'll post one of my January 2009 efforts and one piece of word collage work done this month as my first 2010 blog entry:

Frost on the cars,
Sun rising over it all –
Diamond sutra!

(c) Bob Loomis
01-03-2009
Concord, 39 degrees, 8:15 a.m.

---

Happy New Year Collage

Happy New Year from dilapidated back hoes digging wiggy wainscoting … gentle drizzle raining kindness on beds of phlox … Ima Sumac singing “Poison Ivy” to nude, gasping matrons in enemy-of-the-state-of-the-art prison cell jodhpurs … forgotten Charles Manson admiring jihadeen bombers … BBQ’d bare black rock awaiting picnic-table diners … man spewing venom dressed in holy raiment … lovers leaping into marriage eyes wide with hope … newborn children asking forgiveness for joblessness … young people enlisting in armies to earn death benefits … old English lit professor snorting lines of verse off mirror of eternity … pulses quickening at Verdant Boulevard & Green Street … wisdom planted in center dividers out of reach of long arms of the lawless … exaggerated silence after last night’s riotous cacophony … shredded confetti remains of improvised party explosive devices scattered all around … another calendar year heralded by childish bedlam … stealthy bulldozers clear onramps to virgin freeways … Pope blesses everyone, blesses plastic statuettes of himself on dashboards of obsolete roadsters … acolytes entice foxy ladies to surrender furs for new papal capes … roving gamblers throw switches on new AC/DC solar energy stations … set purple curtains afire each night in ghostly opera houses … put frankincense & myrrh back in yule decoration box in chronological order while choirs clangorously sing new ironclad resolutions … disembodied spirits wish everyone a corporeal new year in shape-note tones … tax attorneys advise gathering rosebuds while ye may … experts warn of thorns lurking in fine stems …

© Bob Loomis
01-06-2010

Word Collage/Homage to Bob Kaufman

For my last post of the year, I’ve collected one old piece of writing and one new one. The first I dedicate to Dorothy (Dodo) Miller, who died last month at age 92. She was a true friend and source of light and good spirits. Her grand smile and always lovely greeting remains fixed in my memory.

This first piece was a word collage that I wrote somewhere around 1970, by taking books randomly off a shelf and opening and choosing random phrases from them, one after another. I had in mind the work of Kurt Schwitters, whose collages I’d seen at the old San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the cut-up writings of William S. Burroughs along with the cubist period of modern art. I’ll let you decide whether it works:

Collage 1

That morning’s ice, no more than a brittle film, had cracked and was floating on an updraft of politics … summer hot air as it were … slowly melting like open admiration over the countenance of Wright Diehl, the man who a dozen times in the past had explained events as the outcome of character or intentions, the personal defeat of this or that statesman … or the boom of water in the rising gorge.

Now he sat stringing himself out endlessly into the hazy noonday sunshine … Nearby Moira Mayheekana, gifted with sound, obstinate, practical common sense, swayed mischievously in the evanescent wind, sand and stars … standing out against the edge of day while their son Form shrieked joyfully in his winding sheet.

At nightfall … with the hoarse clamor of a dreamboat steamboat barking out at sea guiding myriads of tiny flames across the ocean … came an odor of parrots, cockatoos and art dealers wafting across the hours to his ears with memories of a curious sense of relief.

“That fellow I knocked down was her brother,” he recalled absently, presently gazing at the subject. “Mine, too.”

He laughed then, a golden necklace of laughter links from his throat cast out into the gracious evening breeze like blown kisses, lusty in the true style of the old court.

“Till we have faces! Till we have faces!” he called, stooping to pick up a fallen sparrow at his feet … amazed to find it was only his shoe that had come off.

(c) Bob Loomis
---

This second piece is one I improv’d yesterday at the dentist’s office & completed this morning after earlier rereading some of Bob Kaufman’s Cranial Guitar. I dedicate it to his memory:

Homage to Bob Kaufman

used to actually SEE you pass on the street, usually Grant Avenue or in the Coffee Gallery drinking beer … listening to Young Rabbits by the Jazz Crusaders on the jukebox … drinking a beer or two … in sainted serape & tilted hat … not talking in those days … not declaiming the Abomunist Manifesto … eyes silent, too, & dark … waiting for wars to end … for legal state murders to end … waiting for God to admit his malfeasance, admit mistaken identity … give refunds on all unsatisfactorily answered prayers … return all to sinlessness …

waiting for top intellectual guns to stop misfiring … stop contracting out services to the highest bidders … waiting for everyone to learn via TV how to be gourmet chefs … cook up something grand & epiphanal … holy wafers to surpass all holy wafers … a more erudite poetry spun like fine webs of music from saxophones of jazz deities … Howard Hesseman behind the bar waiting wryly for his career to take off … thinking he’d use you in TV series … you’d be the weird guy down the street babbling sermons & host of late-night jazz show no one listens to … together you’d make avante-garde movies in between walks up & down Columbus Avenue & Broadway and upper Grant & all North Beach … & the universe ...

& back to tiny flat and wife & son & happy marriage of mind and soul … a marital heaven … or hell … or both … sinuosities of fleshy connections … check coordinates please, get location …

lunch break over, back to work, everybody has a job that’s disappeared from the Blueknighted States … everybody’s work gone to Asia … all Asia seeking bliss in factory production & export business … nobody left here with money to buy anything … except Big Boys … & god bless the child that’s got his own …

Bob Kaufman same initials as Burger King … BK the burgeria did not exist back in the day … Tic Toc Burgers up on Columbus … good place to score a bite to eat in wee hours … no worries then about cow methane & global warming … chow down in ignorant bliss ... or go get good glass of port at San Remo bar … long-gone now, all … replaced by Burger King et all … flipping gaseous patties … try the 99-cent value meal! ... as cheap & filling as Tic Toc … righteous manna from pole-axed cattle …

BK the poet unknown to me then ... mysterious cat in hat & serap' … I in callow marshmallow youth … now tops my Beatnik Hall of Fame list … spouted verse extemporaneously, then suddenly shut up … vow of silence till ‘Nam war’s end … now silent forever except in libraries … schools? … memories … books still available City Lights … maybe even Amazon dot com … maybe even China? … perhaps reincarnated as capitalistic purchaser of politicians? … lobbyist for Big Bucks & chemically fed beeves? … no! never! … no soul or stomach for sale here … no fast-food poesies … no drive-thru poetry … no metered verbal value meal … no cheap shots …

just two dark eyes brooding over glutenless breakfast ricecake muffin … humming modal songs from beyond … ghost-walking North Beach streets in search of boho hearts ... finding trendy wifi bars, cafes … adios, mofo! … keep stroking Cranial Guitar … keep serenading generations to come …

© Bob Loomis, 12-11-2009

Happy Holidays to all!

NOVEMBER NOTEBOOK GLEANINGS

I see I've almost let November slip past without a monthly post, so here 'tis:

Just this morning
it started -- brown and red leaves
drifting down
and the sun hiding out
behind distant hills.

Big full moon
up before dark
eager to be seen.

Put out
at his usual time
the neighbor's dog yips loneliness.

Quiet morning--
the autumn time change
has spread a hush
over everything.

Why now
after all these years
does her face
still appear in a dream
to haunt me?
Memory's so tricky.
Who knows if
that version's even close?

I scribble on,
still searching
for the key
to the door
of the wordmusic room.

Autumn leaves
relax out of the wind
in the wicker deck chair.

Our band Awed Ducks played its first coffeehouse gig in almost two
years on a recent Friday. Almost no one showed up, but I did find
these poems in it:

Cold evening --
three coffeehouse musicians
serenade rows of empty chairs.

Coffeehouse trio
almost as numerous
as their audience.
Outside, warm yellow
streetlights
belie winter's chill.

First night of winter
almost no one
in the trendy
plaza cafes.
At the outdoor tables
one guy sits smoking.

A small audience.
Afterwards, the manager
is gently evasive
about future gigs.

Almost no one there
but one guy
about our age
stays through
the entire show,
applauding each song.



(c) Bob Loomis, 11-27-2009

Halloween Treat

Against autumn’s golds And browns,
A sudden, almost
Psychedelic
Purple-blue:
One jaybird on the trail.

Plop, plop! …
Plop … plop … plop!
From this one old oak
An acorn shower!
Browsing on the Summer-sere hillside,
The first turkeys
Since spring.

Time-change weekend,
We’ll regain an hour.
Start it with
A cup of coffee.
Too dark at 7 a.m.
To view the
Lovely garden.
Not even a single Neighbor up
This early on Saturday.

Strip of paper
Used as bookmark
In tanka collection
Bears one printed word:
“Untitled.”

So desperate
For a poem
This morning
That I use
Anything that
Comes to hand!
But nothing good
Comes to mind.

Suddenly I think
Of Dutch poet
Anselm Hollo –
Without discussing
The quality of his work
(Which is very
Good, IMHO),
What a great name
For a poet!

Stacks
Of vacant thoughts
This Halloween morn.
No mask needed now
I come costumed
As Old Man.
OK, then!
TRICK OR TREAT!

Hated Halloween
As a kid.
Never had the money
For a decent
Costume
And no one
In my family
Passed along the gift
Of invention.

Even that one year
When I got that
Great rubber skull mask
I hated how hot
It was to wear
And how it
Made my glasses
Steamy. No
Chill of grave there!

I was always glad
When we were done
Trick-or-treating.
Didn’t like candy
All that much
Except for
The bittersweet,
Dark chocolate.

(Don’t tell
My grandsons
About all this –
They love Halloween
And I never
Wanted to spoil
Anyone’s fun.)

Thinking on it,
I always hated
Mysteries and
Scary movies.
Something in me
Made (makes?) life
Itself mysterious &
Scary enough –
I need no further
TERROR.

Must have been
A combination of
My gentle genetic bent
And my mother’s
Constant paranoia
(In her defense,
It was fed
By her generation’s
Pre-sulfa-drug,
Great Depression
Era) about
Almost everything.
She always
Kept the shades drawn
Even on the most
Beautiful days,
And would caution all
To be on the
Lookout for
“Bad Guys”
(The chief of whom,
In her mind,
Was my father).

The click … click … click
Of the battery-powered
Clock on the mantel
Sounds almost like
The old key-wound clocks of childhood.

Nothing to be done
After all this
Time
But write it
All down
In ersatz verse,
A lovely way
To help pass the
Remaining days,
Or, more accurately,
The mornings.

Used to love to write
Late at night
When dark thoughts
Crowded in,
Or weed-fueled
Silliness.
Now, my mind
Works best
(& none too
Quickly at that!)
In morning’s natural
Sunshine mode.

Even the friendliest
Cat looks wary
& disturbed
If addressed
While eating.

I’m writing with
My new harmonica pen
That was one of two
That were gifts
Along with
My Harrison Harmonicas
Company coffee cup
For buying
One of their
Custom instruments.
I canceled my order
And got a refund
But they’d already
Sent the rewards
For ordering, so
Just told me to keep
The cup. They
Didn’t mention pens.
They gave me
The refund and
I didn’t find
The pens till
I was about
To use the box
To mail something else.
Ah, life’s
Unexpected blessings!

Now how to pay
My monstrous
Credit-card debt?
The refund
From the harp purchase
Won’t do it.

Must sell
EVERYTHING!
Get out of debt!
Or win the lottery
(Almost typed
“loitery …”
I’ve already
Mastered that)

Fat chance!

Saturday, October 31, 2009:
(c) Robert Loomis

CONCRETE SEASONS, A Collection of Urban Tanka

Decades ago, a number of my haiku were published in journals such as Modern Haiku and Dragonfly. As time passed, I wrote fewer and fewer poems and stopped submitting them for publication. Since retiring in 2001, I've slowly returned to poetry. This brief book, Concrete Seasons, A Collection of Urban Tanka, is the first result, completed in 2005. With a few revisions and deletions, I have collected them in August 2009 for this blog.

Like haiku, tanka is a Japanese poetry form. I originally was inspired to try it by the books and quarterlies of Jane and Werner Reichhold's Aha Press and since then have pursued it via the Web and publications such as Ribbons, Modern English Tanka and translations such as those by Kenneth Rexroth and Jane Hirshfield.

Traditional tanka generally were love poems. Modern tanka take many different directions. Concrete Seasons is basically my personal poetry recycling project. I took a number of old urban haiku I had written and found unsatisfactory and reshaped them, usually by combining two or more, into the tanka form. In Japanese traditional tanka that form is five lines of 5-7-5-7-7 syllables. Modern tanka in English are more fluid, but the five-line protocol is usually followed. Because of the humorous content, some of these might be classified as kyoka rather than tanka.

Since these were originally haiku, they are more seasonally based than tanka might normally be. I have divided them into spring, summer, autumn and winter sections.

I hope the reader enjoys them. I dedicate this book to my wife Beverly, whose birthday it is today.

(c) Bob Loomis, Concord, CA, USA, 08-31-2009

---

SPRING

This morning's rainbow
ends at the shopping center bank
but the only gold
available to us there
is our own earnings.


Two sparrows
hunt for tidbits
near the laundromat door.
Inside, a young couple
nag at each other.


The first warm day
but the bus driver
has the heater on.
Our ride becomes
a mobile sauna.


Another spring --
in the office planters
weeds sprout,
pigeons strut and coo
on the window ledges.


The light turns green
and a single blackbird
strolls across.
Two teenagers
hurry toward the mini-mart.


Even where traffic
spews exhaust all day
purple lupin flourishes.
Drivers speed past,
intent on their destinations.


In Monday morning's
sea of sidewalk faces
just one smiles back
highlighted by the sun
above the skyscrapers.


Nothing to throw
so he yells "HEY YOU!"
but the squalling tomcats
remain oblivious,
backs arched, eyes locked.


SUMMER

Late dinner out --
the youngest child
slumps, eyelids drooping,
too tired now to complain
of being hungry.


Crouching,
but not flying
from the traffic --
a city pigeon
hunts for scraps.


Bobbing carefree
in the freeway fast lane:
an orange balloon.
An aluminum ladder
clatters off a speeding truck.


At the toddler's squall,
the street mime flees
in whitefaced alarm.
Lunchtime diners
relish the drama.


Behind the front seat
the remains of last night's fun:
empty beer cans.
The car is heavy
with the odor of regret.


The slain woman's houseplants
draw admiring comments
from one detective.
Even her housedress
has a flower pattern.


Headlights at high noon --
a funeral procession
stuck in traffic.
On a bus stop bench
a young couple smooches.


Late summer sunset --
in the parking lot
children play ball.
BART train riders stare,
recalling such days.


Her truck overheated
she stops at the hillcrest
to pick wild berries
while commute traffic
creeps past.


AUTUMN

His happy pooch
crosses the finish line
ahead of the road runner.
Both hurry
to the water fountain.


Early autumn night
too hot for covers,
too cold without them.
She gets up
to change nightgowns.


Autumn's gusts
quickly fashion
new hairdos!
A child's homework
blows along the street.


Autumn night:
the rustling tree leaves
flicker the neighbor's light.
Somewhere nearby
a window slams shut.


Bamboo windchimes
clatter in the storm.
The wind even tries
to snatch the wool watchcap
off my head!


Blue eyes wide
baby reaches
for the windchimes,
then pauses to look at Mommy
for reassurance.


Batiks billow
and paintings topple
at the fall crafts fair.
Even Mother Nature
is a critic!


Taking off
in close formation
at the airport:
a flock of ducks
heading south.


WINTER

The first chilly night --
the children come in early
from their street games.
On the stove
the kettle whistles.


A brown rain hat
skitters down the street
faster than the traffic,
not even pausing
for the red light.


A shopping cart
abandoned
in a vacant lot,
one empty plastic bag
in the basket.


Even at noon
every park bench empty.
This gray day
the pigeons also
look forlorn.


Midwinter wind
but two street ladies
wear miniskirts.
Hunched forward, they walk fast
hugging themselves.


On the wet street
spots of oil and grease
take on rainbow hues.
Freeway traffic
floats on fine spray.


Black ants
enjoying the day
after Thanksgiving
dining luxuriously
on leftovers.

ON THE PEAKS WITH GARY SNYDER

I have been reading the Desolation Blues section of Jack Kerouac's Book of Blues. I was inspired to it by Poets on the Peaks, an excellent book by John Suiter, whose text is augmented by his excellent photos.

Suiter recounts the experiences of beat poets Kerouac, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen and others on fire lookouts and examines how their time in isolation on the peaks of the Cascades affected them and their writing. It resonates for me especially because of the summer I spent at age 15 on Poison Rock Lookout in Mendocino National Forest and because the Beat poets were my gateway into poetry some years later as an adult.

Kerouac's writing has always been a love/hate thing for me (and for many others). He is capable of some of the most poetic writing of his generation, yet spends much time wallowing in the dark side of life. This aspect seems to worsen as he ages and sinks into his alcohol addiction. Yet in his later writing, he was capable of producing Pic, a book that manages to reach outside his own self-absorption. I would say his best books are Tristessa and The Subterraneans. They are concise and poetic. Desolation Angels and Dharma Bums are also favorites and it was the first one I read, On The Road, that sent me north to San Francisco at age 22, searching for signs of beatnik life and intent upon wriing the Great American Novel. Of that effort only a bulky and verbose first few chapters survive in a trunk in our storage shed. I ultimately came to most relish shorter poetry forms, especially haiku. Kerouac has some wonderful haiku in his Book of Haikus. A sample:

Brighter than the night
my barn roof
of snow

Kerouac was superseded for me by, first, Whalen, whose Every Day Poems I thought was a masterpiece back when I was 25 or so. I would come home each night after work at the Vallejo Times-Herald and read and write in my small studio at the back of our house at 185 West J Street in Benicia, CA. I loved Whalen's humor and still do. Ultimately, though, his writing is so erudite and filled with classical references that he loses me much of the time. An excellent essay by poet Tom Clark on one of his books, Overtime, is here, with a sample of Whalen's work at the end:
http://jacketmagazine.com/07/whalen-clark.html

In the final analysis, Snyder is to me the best of the so-called Beat writers. He has continued to evolve and mature throughout his life and has been a leader in environmental awareness. His poetry to me is the best there is in our day and age, much akin to the great Chinese and Japanese poets and in its worldview to native peoples everywhere. A short sample:

How Poetry Comes to Me

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
-- Gary Snyder

Whalen died a roshi, a Zen Buddhist priest in San Francisco. Kerouac died of internal hemorrhaging after a beating by two men at a bar in Florida, having long since abandoned his pursuit of the dharma. Snyder lives on at his home near Nevada City, CA, still writing, still espousing and practicing green living. He of all of them seems to have retained that awareness that springs from spending time in the mountains, on the high peaks. He is able to communicate that awareness and knowledge with as much humanity and wisdom as any American poet I know.

Among his books, not necessarily in chronological order:
Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems
Mountains and Rivers Without End
Earth House Hold
Axe Handles
Turtle Island
No Nature
A Place in Space
Danger on Peaks

A good anthology of his work:
Left Out in The Rain, New Poems 1947-1985

An online selection of his work:
http://www.english.illinois.edu/Maps/poets/s_z/snyder/onlinepoems.htm

Many thanks for the great work, Gary Snyder.

Crowing, Not Eating Crow

Sorry but this morning I just have to crow about myself a little for a change instead of eating crow ... I competed in the West Coast Songwriters Association Songwriter Competition in Martinez last night and to my own very great surprise won the Best Performance Award!

I did I Hope It Never Ends (at Bev's suggestion) and Cowboy Blues, accompanying myself on autoharp. The judges really liked the sentiments of the first song and the humor of the second. They also said I established good rapport with the audience (the retired grampy's gift of gab, I guess).

It is very heartening to get even this relatively minor (in the great scheme of life and music) award at this late stage. Guess I haven't totally been wasting time with all my practicing.

By the way, I'm working on a CD and hope to post some MP3s soon at YouTube or on my MySpace site. And of course if any of you would like to learn and/or perform any of my songs, let me know. I only expect the standard royalties plus 10% of anything you earn musically from here on ...

Cheers, Grampy Bob Loomis
King of the Septuagenarian Troubadors
(Well, almost there anyway)

Old Age & Wisdom

TenaG sent the following along and with my 70th birthday coming on July 22, I thought I’d revise them to add my own personal wisdom (I’m just a whippersnapper compared with Regina). My added comments are in parentheses and are not always to be taken seriously, in case you didn’t already know me well enough to know that):

To Celebrate Growing Older: 45 lessons life taught me by Regina Brett, 90, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. (On a scale of poor-fair-good-very good-excellent.)

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step. (And always carry a parachute)

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. (Especially yourself)

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch. (my job’s history; my parents, too; but some of my friends are still kickin’ and might help out if they remember who I am)

5. Pay off your credit cards every month. (Or at least make a payment)

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. (Then use your brass knucks)

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone. (True of most things)

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it. (He – or she – won’t even notice one more whiner)

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck. (WAAAY Too late)

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile. (I’ve always favored oatmeal cookies or ginger snaps)

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present. (See No. 9)

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry. (If you can find them)

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about. (Amen!)

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it. (Uh-oh!)

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks. (That non-blinkin’ so-and-so!)

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind. (And the wheezing may even sound musical)

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful. (Suicide is illegal in most states)

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger. (Pass that joint!)

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else. (That’s what my spouse keeps telling me)

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer. (Viagra works!)

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special. (OK, but Bev may think it’s a little odd for me to start wearing her lingerie at this late date)

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow. (Wear Depends)

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple. (See No. 9)

24. The most important sex organ is the brain. (See No. 14)

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you. (So that’s why my complaints never get any results!)

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words 'In five years, will this matter?' (Then hope you make it for another five years)

27. Always choose life. (Until the last possible nanosecond)

28. Forgive everyone everything. (Can’t remember what the wrongs were anyway)

29. What other people think of you is none of your business. (But I’m still curious)

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time. (And hope Time does the same for you)

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. (Or not …)

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does. (I’ve been telling people that for decades)

33. Believe in miracles. (a million Deadheads can’t be wrong)

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do. (Thank God!)

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now. (Present!)

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young. (See No. 34)

37. Your children get only one childhood. (Until they are as old as me, that is; see No. 19)

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved. (That and, to your survivors, what’s in the will)

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere. (Amen!)

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back. (Not if I can just tiptoe out before they are reapportioned …)

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. (And then some … Old age seems to consist of a continual sorting and paring away)

42. The best is yet to come. (Every second …)

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. (Hmmmm … since retiring I’ve been known to wear the same sweatsuit several days running …)

44. Yield. (See No. 32)

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift." (Amen!)

46. Life is too short to waste good calories on bad food. Always eat well. (That reminds me: Time for breakfast!)

BOOK SORT

Book Sort

Today I opened two windows to air out the bedroom after its hermetic winter, and in negotiating the narrow space on my side of the bed to do that, I toppled two of the stacks of books and magazines on my side of the bed. That inspired a determination to eliminate this literary jumble. My wife has her own stacks on her side, I leave them to her to manage. I am focusing on my own stacks, these books and magazines all intermingled over the months, five stacks of them next to an already filled 3-foot-wide, four-shelf bookcase that I bought and assembled exactly to avert this kind of mess.

I plan to read all of them, of course … the books, that is … the magazines I have already glanced through and studied the indices for articles likely to be of particular interest. The magazines remaining here are ones that have articles in them that I plan to read. There are perhaps 20 New Yorkers, three Old-Time Heralds, too many issues of Poetry to count, several Acoustic Guitar editions and an Autoharp Quarterly or two … and so on.

You see, I get sidetracked so easily. One day I am reading how to restore the Northwest forests, the next a silly but well-written detective novel by a little-known Northwest writer who like myself is a former journalist. Well, at least there’s a commonality in that instance: both are set in the Northwest. Then there is Poets on The Peaks, which I keep returning to because it involves writers and an experience dear to my heart, the so-called Beats and the spending of summers on fire lookouts. Perhaps I need to read only books on or set in the Great Northwest. That would definitely thin the ranks.

Most recently added is a book loaned to me by an old friend. It attempts to unravel the mystery of why particular areas and cultures have seized dominance in the world’s evolutionary history even though other areas seemed to have all the same necessary ingredients for similar power. It is an engaging book, and was good reading while on vacation, but now that we are home and I am busy during the day, I find that reading it at bedtime results in a rapidly diminishing comprehension and a quick and effective drowsiness. It has sunk lower in its stack and now has three books ahead of it (I try to stack these in the order I plan to read them).

I am determined to sort these books and magazines and face up to eliminating the ones I know in my heart that I am not truly eager to read, or in fact have little or no interest in reading. I plan to keep only what I really want to read and give the rest away or sell them.

But wait! Here’s The Dragon Can’t Dance! I’ve been meaning to read this for ages! It had gotten buried in one of my stacks. I’ll just take a short break and read a bit of it before continuing this project …

Bob Loomis
06-06-2009
Concord CA