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.
