Born the year of the water ox a fish out of water in every tributary and ocean
still I swim filled to the gill with all I need
Been trying to find a way to sum up, though I hate to engage in that kind of math. The injury I allow myself comes from allowing myself to get too attached to the job. I knew, down deep, it wouldn’t last. There wasn’t enough to sustain it, and the thing toppled like all castles built on sand or so goes the old parable, and I have discovered, much to my surprise, that I still have a sense of dignity. I end up making my way through the world in the exact same way. And so I do.
I wonder what they’ll call penny matches when pennies have fallen out of the common vernacular. Will it be one of those terms that hangs on for a few generations until some “word histories” TikTok (or whatever will replace TikTok, when the base age of its users gets too old to be considered relevant by marketeers) does a bit on it, including both “penny wise, pound foolish” (which may already be archaic according to internet time) and “Pennywise the Clown” which, of course, has nothing to do with pennies; but maybe it will cause a resurgence in the interest of scary clowns and Stephen King novels, and someone will find The Stand and realize that scary stories can come true.
There will be t-shirts dedicated to The Trashcan Man. He will be the symbol of our age.
li fe be li fe be wh ere th ere he re is is is li fe li fe be be
that sweet spot it never lasts that long like dust preserved in amber the story’s only ever partially told like cigarette butts in an old beer bottle the memory’s discarded when it’s too old and nothing’s left of the sweet spot when the stage lights go cold
[Chorus for an unwritten song about the stage (RIP) at Charlie’s II, Mount Carroll IL]
I found out from my friend Dave Cuckler that the stage at Charlie’s II has been taken down. The bar is still there, of course, at least for the time being. Bars and stages all have a time and place in which they exist; although I don’t frequent bars anymore, I do like that they’re around and there are bars I miss. I miss Freddie’s in downtown Louisville; it was the last true dive bar in a city that’s more interested in tourist bucks than in local creature comforts. Freddie’s was a time capsule and when it closed whole decades were erased. History is an odd thing. It’s always happening, always unfolding, but when they eye remembering and the arms accumumating the artifacts is gone when the repository is scrubbed clean — in the case of Freddie’s for a chiropractor — the history is gone. What’s left is conjecture and myth.
In the case of the stage at Charlie’s II in Mount Carroll, Illinois, the stage was pulled out to make room for pool tables. The bar is still there, which means people will still talk about the music played there. There are pictures and sound clips, digitized in social media amber. But it bears pointing out the thing that killed the stage was it’s life.
When I lived there I was amazed at the amount of musical talent in the town. I started an open mic for poetry and music at Brick Street Coffee (also gone, RIP Lou) and the music spilled over. It was glorious. The stage started to attract musicians from the region. Then the music industry turned its eye and saw musicians playing standards along with their own songs. Standards the industry wasn’t getting paid for.
There’s a larger story here, but I don’t know that it’s mine to tell. A story about how corporate greed kills the songs people have been singing for decades. Songs and the singing of songs is one of the ways memory is passed on. But, like the agribusiness corporations that patented the corn seed… one of the oldest seeds in the history of people that’s responsible in part for our proliferation … the money behind the music industry kills small venues they have no interest in sustaining.
Like I said, there’s a larger story here. And a few years ago, I would have chased it. But now, I just want to remember the stage, the place, and the time. I don’t mind writing the chorus. But someone else needs to write the song.
