Carolina Chocolate Drops

I know I posted this on the "class" blog a few months ago, but, I love these folks.

"Dublin Blues"

I'm really taken with Texas Country Rock.
I think it's the honesty I feel in the lyrics. Maybe it's another acquired taste... like martinis.

"Crying", Roy Orbison & K.D. Lang

Great song. These two enhance it with one of the best — if not the best —duet treatments of a popular song I've ever heard. When I put this up on the Class of ' 58 blog, I had many positive comments. Movie out takes in the video are from "Hiding Out" a 1987 film with Jon Cryer and Annabeth Gish. Frivolous, but not a bad '80s genre film.

Judgmental

Tonight Will Be Fine

Teddy Thompson sings a Leonard Cohen song. And he does it very well, in my opinion.

"Tonight Will Be Fine"

"Embed" denied by YouTube contributor

The 50th.

One Fine Reunion - written 10/17/08

THE MHS, CLASS OF '58, 50th REUNION
Held at the Silver Star Casino, Choctaw, MS
October 13th and 14th 2008

AFTER ACTION REPORT

My observations and impressions, etc.

Having no past reunion frame of reference, I entered the room set aside for our ‘50th gathering not knowing what to expect. What a great thing I saw! The warm camaraderie that I saw infused into the conversations was remarkable. For me, there were several epiphanic moments to savor.

Of course, we looked like seniors. Why shouldn’t we? Except for some years, why should we be any different than the last time we were together as “seniors” in 1958. Even with some wrinkles, it seemed to me, almost a noon time redux of the goings on in our MHS Student Activities Building at the start of our senior school year. I saw hugs of recognition, smiles of friendships unavoidably placed on hold (this time for half a century), hands grasping one another’s — not shaken as introductions, but extended each to each in genuine, tactile reconnections.

Those who write, even poorly, often find themselves hiding in plain sight behind thoughts and words. I am frequently more observer than participant in larger gatherings. Since my Teenage Canteen days, I have always enjoyed watching more than engaging. Shyness? Maybe so. This reunion was certainly well worth my watching. This, our 50th, will be such an interesting, indelible bookmark to our lives going forward. It is something we can quietly reflect upon. Yes, we now have ourselves another "Reverie".

Maybe there were more, but I saw only one person continually giving me a “stay away from me” glare. On any given night, I used to get more than one such glare at the Teenage Canteen. Who knows, maybe her glare was a 50 + year old imagined slight from back during our old Teenage Canteen days. Oh, I was aware of only one obvious “well, I’ll get this out of the way early and greet him, but you come rescue me when I look over.” At times, that happened in the Student Activities Building, too.

So yes, it has been 50 + years since then, but, from this first time attendee, I ask you, “are we really any different now?” Not to this observer. I see a paralleling. Hell, even my old high school girlfriend still looked “simply stunning”.

Let me sum up my observations, with a favorite old, often used quote:

“The past is never dead. In fact, it's not even past.” - William Faulkner

Some plaudits. And there are many.

Of course, we owe so much to the reunion staff for their dedicated hard work to make this one really special. Their efforts paid off handsomely.

To the band which Denman Powers and his coterie cobbled together for our entertainment. They worked hard in a short period of time with only limited practice opportunities to crown our Tuesday night. To Louis McDonald for giving his almost youthful voice to many of those songs that helped define the halcyon days at OUR Meridian High School. And, of course, to George Cummings who traveled down from New Jersey to add a richness to the music. Ms. Hortense Harvey would be proud of his contribution and so are we, the old aficionados of her weekend “Picking and Grinning” sessions where George got his start. And to Will Hudson, the venerable Reunion Master of Ceremonies. Y'all made Tuesday night special.

And let us not forget the hours of toil and trouble that Ouida Tomlinson and Jinny Walz invested in the blog. It’s true, I had to look at many name tags but the postings of the auto-bios were a great resource. I could almost always associate the name on the tag with the posted information about that person’s interesting and varied life.( With regard to my meandering, mostly silly, postings there on the blog, I was just foolin’ with ya. If I offended you, I am truly sorry. I was simply trying to keep it interesting.)

The Heisterkamps, Mary Jane and Ron forsook most of their Tuesday night's fun to provide us with a video document of the entertainment. Thanks to you both.

Tuesday night, I trundled back to my room thinking of what I should have said — but didn't. Others were also drifting out. I can usually tell it’s about over when the ladies start dancing with each other. When I finally got back to #3057, I started writing some stuff. Wanna read part of a reunion poem? Oh, come on. It’s just a fragment. I don't even know where it came from. Maybe it, too, stuck to my shoe as I was leaving the men's room at the Atlanta Airport. I timed it. It takes about 15 seconds.

The Reconnecting

Did we ever walk together long?
We walked apart much longer.
Are we the same, unsaid,
Or more different than you imagined?

Are you amazed I still stand,
Here and in this room,
So brazen to show my lined, scarred face,
So bold to live and speak aloud?

Can you recognize yourself
In my camouflaged words?
Do I wait for you or run from you?
Dare you define the pull?

The one that brings us here?
It brings us back again and again.

DNJ
----
I really enjoyed watching all of you at our 50th .

Great job fellow classmates! When does the planning for the 55th start?

My Other Mission In Meridian

A CALL TO DUTY — written October 23, 2008

I enjoyed the reunion very much, but there were other reasons for me to return to the place of my birth. I "needed" to see Meridian and its environs after having been away so long. So, in the dead time during the days I availed myself. On Monday, I convinced my little invisible friend, Norbert, to climb in my car and ride shotgun as I explored many of the places I used to frequent.

When I re-visit somewhere I've been away from a long time, yards always seem smaller, city blocks shorter, houses different colored and all the changes which are barely perceptible, over time, to those who live there, usually strike me as quite dramatic. I learned, looking for Lonnie's, site of countless beer purchases, that Poplar Springs Drive somewhere past 40th Street becomes a boulevard named for Hartley (I think I've got this right). For most of the afternoon, I was Lewis, Norbert, Clark (Sacagawea bailed on me a while ago) and we had a good time exploring... digging up bones as it were. Thomas Wolfe was wrong... at least in this case. "Hometown, though we are both, you and me, a little old and tired looking, I found out I still harbor fond memories of you."

During the day on Tuesday, I got the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do since the feature in the link below (hope it opens for you) was published... two and a half years ago.

After reading the story, I contacted its author, Anne Hull, to tell her I was a Meridian expat and I was completely taken by her piece. We spent a few e-mails together, then she gave me the e-mail address of a central figure in her story and I have been in occasional contact with this person, Diane Johnson, a single parent, raising two boys in Chunky. Anne Hull, to my mind, is the best features writer I've ever read. I tell her this... often. Others think she's great, too. She won the Pulitzer Prize ("Pullet Surprise" in south Georgia) this year for her insightful work.

"Get on with it, David!" OK.

So affected was I with their story, I knew I simply "had" to meet Diane and her little family. I asked for and got the opportunity to have a long lunch with Diane at a place near her office, a new-ish looking deli, McAlister's(sp?). It was her choice. Meeting us there was her son, Blake, and Blake's girlfriend, Caitlin. Younger son, little Sam, had to stay in elementary school.

I'm so glad I got finally got together with the Johnsons. They were terrific. I enjoyed every minute of it. Son, Blake's now a sophomore over at West Alabama, as is his MHS graduate girlfriend. I want to help them somehow — as soon as they get over being too proud to accept my help. Blake has to work his way through college and it's hard to believe, but he is working in Bay Springs and going to school at the same time — doing both during the week.

Anyway, this will probably bore some of you. It already has bored at least one of you that I know about. But, if you have learned anything about me over the last several months, you know I don't care. If only one of you enjoys the link below, it's worth it to me.

Please click on the second link below the article — there's a poignant slide show with accompanying audio. If nothing else you will get to read one of the best storytellers around. Anne is wonderful. If you think so, too, e-mail me and I'll forward your comment to her.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040801269.html?referrer=emailarticle

Click on here for the slide show:
Go here for Photos/slide show.

As they say in NASCAR: "Keep Your Shiney Side Up." Stay well.

David James

Snapshots of Blues in the Southeast

Brief Bio of photographer, George Mitchell

George Mitchell was born in Coral Gables, Florida in 1944. He was raised in Atlanta, Georgia and in 1958 discovered by accident the two radio stations in Atlanta that played black music, WAOK, and WERD, the first black-owned station in the US. Mitchell was drawn to black music, and as a teenager listened intently to Samuel B. Charters’ anthology The Country Blues. He also went to blues and R&B shows and saw Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, and the Staple Singers with his grandmother in tow; they were the only white people at that performance. George's obsession with photographing and recording country blues players in the Southeast has allowed their tradition to survive.George Mitchell resides in Atlanta with his wife Cathy.

Pulling up to a Stuckey's in Senatobia, Miss., in 1967, Mitchell was looking for well-known bluesman Fred McDowell, who had recorded extensively and toured Europe. He asked the attendant pumping gas where to find McDowell. "You're looking at him," the attendant said. GEORGE MITCHELL

William Grant, seen here at his home in Pittsview, Ala., was adept as a solo harmonica player, alternating singing and harp-playing with great agility. GEORGE MITCHELL

Some of the music? OK. Hang on!:

Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Little Walter — "My Babe"

Authentic Southern Blues Singers' Photos

More Snapshots of Blues in the South

By George Mitchell

So, now you wanna sing da Blues?

Subject: How To Become a Blues Musician — as it was told to me.

1. Most Blues always begin, "Woke up this mornin'..."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes... sort of: "Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like a bulldog and she weigh 500 pound."

4. The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch - ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting's wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom's
b. Gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be a old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied
No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. nasty black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple or Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot.

You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus a fruit, Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)

For example:
Blind Lime Jefferson,
Jakeleg Lemon Johnson or
Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

20. I don't care how tragic your life — if you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues.

21. People with the Blues eat barbecue, corn bread, beans, and their last meal.

22. Good blues instruments: guitar, slide trombone, saxophone, trumpet, and harmonica.

23. Bad blues instruments: everything else, especially the oboe, French horn, and viola.

24. You got the blues if you have lumbago or a bad back. You don't have the blues if you have mental disorder ending in "syndrome."

25. Black Jack is a good blues game. Keno is not a good blues game.

26. Blues jobs include working on the railroad, picking cotton,musician, or just got fired.

27. Blues animals include the junkyard dog and mule (not donkey).

28. Epitaph on a blues musician's tombstone: "I didn't wake up this morning"

Used Prose Poem

Seeking A Story Without Words

He wants to tell her a story. One in which the silence is necessary to make audible the bare whistle of her breath as she sleeps. Or rather than sound, or even the absence of sound, the story might at first be no more than her faint clover scent, remembered still from the last time they touched, coupled with memory’s measure of that time they spent.

There may not even be a beginning. He wants to tell her a story without a beginning, or maybe one that is a succession of beginnings and a story without endings too.

What chance did words have beside the distraction of her body? He wants to go where language couldn’t take him, wants to listen to her breath break speechless from the parenthesis of her chest to wordlessly trace her skin like a slow flow, spreading between her nape and her breasts. What is that stretch of her body called? He is looking for a place where her body is yet undiscovered and unclaimed and unnamed.

Fiction, which may be defined as “the lie that tells a deeper truth,” is at once too paradoxical and yet not mysterious enough for this.

The lie he is looking for is one that permits them to keep going. This does not require the suspension of disbelief, but the suspension of common sense that his continued loving her requires. So, thus, his silent narrative will be forever complete... or forever incomplete.

He wants to tell her a story without telling that story with words.

2007

Rake

By Townes Van Zandt — One of my favorites. TVZ's music sort of speaks to life "en el otro lado."

"Well, many of the songs, they aren't sad, they're hopeless."
—Townes Van Zandt, after being asked why he only wrote sad songs.

About Townes Van Zandt

And, if you're really interested

Another Side of Bruce Springsteen

w/ The Seeger Sessions Band

"If I Should Fall Behind" w/ wife, Patty Scialfa



"Oh, Mary Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn"

Three By Leonard Cohen

A favorite poet, singer, song writer. Maybe an acquired taste?
"I'm Your Man"




Poem — a word song, actually.
"A Thousand kisses deep".


"The Letters"

Farm Sounds

Ugh! Another of his Jokes.

A woman meets a man in a bar.

They talk; they connect; they end up leaving together. They get back to his place and
as he shows her around his apartment, she notices that one wall of his bedroom is
completely filled with soft, sweet, cuddly teddy bears.

There are three shelves in the bedroom, with hundreds and hundreds of
cute, cuddly teddy bears carefully placed in rows, covering the entire wall! It was
obvious that he had taken quite some time to lovingly arrange them, and she was
immediately touched by the amount of thought he had put into organizing the display.
There were small bears all along the bottom shelf, medium-sized bears covering the length
of the middle shelf, and huge, enormous bears running all the way along the top shelf.

She found it strange for an obviously masculine guy to have such a
large collection of Teddy Bears,She is quite impressed by his sensitive side, but doesn't
mention this to him. They share a bottle of wine and continue talking and, after awhile,
she finds herself thinking, "Oh my God! Maybe, this guy
could be the one! Maybe he could be the future father of my children?"
She turns to him and kisses him lightly on the lips. He responds warmly. They continue
to kiss, the passion builds, and he romantically lifts her in his arms and carries her into
his bedroom where they rip off each others clothes and make hot, steamy love.
She is so overwhelmed that she responds with more passion,
more creativity, and more heat than she has ever known.

After an intense, explosive night of raw passion with this sensitive guy, they are lying
there together in the afterglow. The woman rolls over, gently strokes his chest and asks
coyly, "Well, how was it?"

The guy gently smiles at her, strokes her cheek, looks deeply into her eyes, and says:

"Help yourself to any prize from the middle shelf."

Sarah Silverman humor

 My favorite Sarah Silverman jokes:
 

"I drank and smoked during pregnancy and then I read the pamphlet and called my mom and said, 'Don't bother to knit the sleeves.' "

"I never got attention from guys, and then the old story, I got the braces off ... my legs."

"My friend said, 'You have to read this book; it's a page turner. I said, '”Well, I know how books work."

“My friend was told by her doctor that she was morbidly obese ... as if she doesn't have enough on her plate.”

"Women reach their sexual peak after 35 years ... men after four minutes."

"I've always wanted to own a maternity shop. I'd call it:” We're Fucked!"

Used Poem VI

    Requiem for a Mind

Hands trembling hold the chair
Across her forehead knots of hair
Concealed her dying brain within,
Each tiny cell a requiem.

The vigorous spark of life no more.
Each dendron slack, still, a silent door;
Behind the curve of cranial bone
Knowledge lies without a home

The mind that once directed one,
Decisive action planned and done,
Now thrashes in ragged disarray
To dull her glance with sad dismay.

This central power, this wondrous map
Of buzzing chemistry and magnetic zap
Will die and so, too, end all her confusion.
Her life gone, so then that mind’s occlusion.

DNJ

Used Poem V

Foster Woman             

Her needful body’s chain of custody 
Was often passed around.
And she sometimes called herself 
The Isle of Man. 

Her magic, bold and Circean eyes   
Promised a warm harbor.
She bid the Manships berth
To offload generous seed.

Not one of these off-loaded vessels
Stayed beyond a night.    
She only paused at each
To accept proffered bounty.

She said she only found
The life she needed.
She said she never found
The life she wanted. 

DNJ                     

Used Poem IV

Two Different Worlds

The boy was sure of something,
She was just the one.
The girl was sure of nothing,
Her life had just begun.

For him, he'd found his partner,
There was never any doubt.
For her, he was fine for now,
But there was more to learn about.

He thought it was a perfect start,
Something bound to surely grow.
She thought it may be but a pause,
But had no words to tell him so.

DNJ

Used Poem III

Silence Is The Perfect Answer

For days, she painted blue.
She painted until she was drunk with blue,
Until lines grew thick, like Picasso’s blue—
Not bones, but the shadows of bones
In desert's harsh light. 

She was painting in the place of making
And unmaking. Everything spilled 
Open, tugging loose, breaking the dry river
Stones until their geode hearts bled, not red,
But with the cerulean she chose to use. 

She heard the hawk cry thief, thief, 
Marking the air. In the silence after, 
She could almost trace the sound
Back to the beginning, to blue lines, 
Liquid with light, She named them. 

The Canyon. The Sediment. The Layers of Rock. 
Then she dropped the hawk’s feather from high 
Above and waited for the echo when it touched 
The canyon floor. She waited forever and forever 
And forever. No echo ever came.

DNJ

Used Poem

Sometimes In Late Evening

When the quiet is the rule, I can
sense
some sounds inside me. Always the
feral
voice of a woman. A woman wild, not
tamed.

Loving her was easy. What is it, I
wonder,
that we had before but have no more?
Why
is it we were one before and are no
more?

It seemed perfect to be alive back
then.
In time, it might be scant memory’s
trace.
But always in quiet, the voice will be
hers.

DNJ