the rix mix

X-Ray Burns & I, live WFMU  broadcast from Asbury  Park of the Glen Jones Progamme with X-Ray Burns, a few years ago. . They broadcast a series of annual shows from the space age Howard Johnson's next to Convention Hall. For most of their broadcasts, the crowd they drew were pretty much the only people on the boardwalk on a sunny Summer Sunday afternoon, unless some event was at Convention Hall. The beaches were nearly deserted. One year there was a wedding, the next Patti Scialfi was rehearsing at the Paramount for a tour, Springsteen was there with his Corvette, I chatted with him  briefly as he was standing outside the theater but had left my camera back at my HoJo table. During those last two summers, the Asbury boardwalk was finally  reawakening, completely transforming itself in few years.  The Hojos is now a restaurant & nightclub. But who can say if Glen & X-Ray helped prevent its demolition?

These were were family events  with children & dogs in attendance.

Labels: Mahalo, photograph, WFMU

Labels: growing up, New Jersey, photograph, postcard

Labels: Atlantic City, boardwalks, jersey shore, photograph, postcard, weather

Labels: jersey shore, Mahalo, obituary, photograph, postcard, sandy hook

All the years I've lived in this neighborhood, I'd never done more than wave at & say "Hello Father' to the old  Russian Orthodox priest around the corner. He  pastors a beautiful golden dome church filled with wonderful icons, but a church that doesn't see much action except on major holidays. I've sat quietly for a few minutes  several times in a back pew when he had the doors open on weekday afternoons, so he knows I appreciate his church.  The priest resides across the street in an apartment above the social center. On warm evenings he sits out front on a folding chair. He used to plant &  tend flowers in large planters, but now he has to get around  slowly, bent over on a walker. Takes him five minutes to cross the street & more than that to go from one end of his church sanctuary to the other.

Last week I saw him wrestling a garbage can to curbside. I took it from him. It wasn't heavy - recyclables. I pointed at his walker & joked, "You should put a seat & a motor on that."

 He replied - the first words I ever heard from him, "Ah, then I'd be sittin' on my tukus all day."

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, photograph, religion

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, photograph, weather

Couldn't resist linking to this classy, attractive couple attending the Elizabeth NJ High School prom. Photo was in the middle of a gallery of 50.

BTW, I do not like the trend toward jacketless tuxes. When you wear only a vest, you look like you should be carrying around trays of appetizers. 

Once, miraculously, a tux rental store actually did the alterations they said would do. Before attending the wedding I asked my date if I resembled the little man on top of the wedding cake. She said I did. I said, "Then I'm perfect."

Labels: culture, education, Elizabeth NJ, Mahalo, photograph

For me, it somehow captures the essence of urban fauna, the creepy animals half-glimpsed at night crawling out of garbage cans & fleeing into the weeds by  polluted creeks. WTF was that?

"Anatomy is destiny," comments X Ray Burns, either quoting Freud or referring to a short song by the death metal band Exhumed.

Labels: nature, photograph

Labels: photograph

Playing with Howlin' Wolf for two decades, Hubert Sumlin was a creator of a library of fundamental electric guitar blues riffs. Any guitarists knowing their stuff learn  from Hubert  Sumlin.

On his own after Wolf died,  Hubert became one of the most admired & beloved guitarists in the world. Just the other day he was named 43rd on the Rolling Stone list of the 100 Best Guitarists, but of course Keith Richards,  Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page & most of the other living rock guitarists ahead of him on the list would gladly have stepped aside to let him move up. Keith was especially fond of him.

This photo was taken  on the shabby Asbury Park boardwalk five or six years ago, in front of the space age Howard Johnson's,  a hot summer afternoon, before the boardwalk's  more recent renaissance. WFMU radio host Glen Jones, who knew Hubert,  encountered him at the bluesman's  Saturday night Stone Pony gig & invited him to drop by for a live broadcast the following afternoon. Hubert showed up with his guitar, a funky old amp was somehow procured for him, & the master musician provided a  loose, entertaining set.  As you can see, he  didn't  "dress down" for the occasion.

Labels: Asbury Park, jersey shore, music, obituary, photograph, WFMU

My dad authored a book,
The Company of Military Historians, Military uniforms in America: the first thirty years, index to the plates, published in 1979. 80 pages. Since the Company of Military Historians publishes collections of prints of soldiers from all sides in the Revolutionary & Civil Wars, drawn as historically accurate as possible in their uniforms, ordinance, & field gear, dad's book may have been a companion to the art folios.  I've never seen it. It must have been in his library, probably with a collection of CMH folios,  & should be in my sister's hands now that dad's second wife  passed away. It's a family treasure, for my niece & nephews.

Labels: growing up, photograph

Taken today.
Word balloon from the Dalai Lama: "Blah blah world peace blah blah."
Thought balloon from the President: Image of Barack playing golf with a ciggie dangling from his lips.

On most days this President might look forward to a philosophical chat with the Dalai Lama, but today I doubt it, not after the week he  had.

Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, photograph, religion

The shrink took me first yesterday. I'm  accustomed to waiting 30-45 minutes past my appt time, but I gotta get there on time anyway. From there I walked to the main library, then through downtown, stopping in Payless to look at sneakers, & at that point  a buck-fifty for a bus to my corner seemed like a good investment.  Nothing interested me on the new book shelves at the library. One Civil War history book could have but it was too large & the print too small & light. I recently had a disappointing  experience attempting to read the huge first volume of Mark Twain's autobiography.

I am reading Keith Richards' autobiography, Life.  Skipped his childhood, picked it up at the formation of The Rolling Stones, & probably close the book at "Start Me Up."  Keith is unapologetic about his massive consumption of drugs. Why should he apologize?  He doesn't recommend it, or consider himself a criminal for doing drugs. There were periods when they worked for him & periods when he regrets doing them. Heroin didn't destroy or nearly destroy a generation of American jazz musicians, but rather the criminalization of those musicians, or a personal self-destructiveness that was hardly dependent on smack when booze was legal & it was easy to get a doctor to prescribe addictive pharmaceuticals. What should have been sax great Art Pepper's best years were largely wasted either in jail or desperately  existing at the fringes of society in a never-ending search for his next fix & the money to pay for it. If he had just been given his daily dose he would have gone on gigging as usual.

Keith tells most of the stories we want to hear (& have heard before), but he's at his best talking about music. Several times already he mentioned his surprise & delight that the musicians he idolized freely shared their "secrets" - their signature licks, riffs, tunings.   It reminded me of a baseball All-Star game a few years back; before the game the peerless Yankee reliever, Mariano Rivera, was shown in the outfield  surrounded by admiring younger pitchers, Mo obviously demonstrating to them the various grips  he  used  to throw a "cutter, "  a pitch that has shattered a thousand bats.  Knowing how Mariano does it doesn't make you Mariano. Same goes for all the blues & country greats Keith has met & played with over his long career.  The Stones have always been a what you see is what you get band.  They said years ago, "It's only rock & roll," & meant it, & a lot of people still thought it was more. They haven't disguised their bullshit moments.  Bullshit is one function of the blues.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, music, photograph, what I'm reading

My friend, Gina, took this photo of the red fox she often sees in her backyard three blocks from here. It's a large animal. The birds, squirrels, raccoons & feral cats don't like it. The red fox is listed among the world's 100 most invasive species. Which means, because it's here & is a social animal, we may be seeing more of them.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, nature, photograph

1983 chapbook published by Dave Cope, Grandville MI. The title poem metamorphosed into "Boardwalk" (although the central structure of the piece was retained) &  finished a few years later after some "further research on the Wildwood boardwalk." Few if any of the other poems stayed in my folio, as the collection convinced me that the kind of "open field"  poem I was pursuing - which wandered far from the left margin & was dependent on the typewriter - didn't suit the simpler style that increasingly attracted & worked for me & that I knew editors preferred.

Photo is Seaside Heights boardwalk, around midnight,  early in the season. We'd spent most of the evening in the arcades.

Labels: photograph, poem

This city getting some of the heaviest snowfall again in the New York area. Bands of snow coming in off the ocean, the center of the storm just south of here. It'll end in a couple of hours. It is heavy, wet snow, great for snowballs, bad for shoveling.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, photograph, weather

Opportunity to use some photos from Point Pleasant Beach & Sandy Hook.

Labels: jersey shore, music, photograph, video

@#$^&* bank. At  this point you have the options of  backtracking, wading, or stepping into busy street narrowed by plow piles to barely one lane.

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, photograph, weather

Snow. A well-formed nor-eastern spins counterclockwise  like a hurricane. The center is  off the coast of Jersey now. If I'm reading the radar snow bands correctly, there's more snow - a lot more snow - falling about ten miles west of here, & it's been happening for some time. In storms like this, local snow amounts can vary six plus  inches over matter of a few miles.  It's blizzard conditions or close to them on my street, but they come & go with wind gusts.  There's some traffic, & I hear kids outside up the block. Well over a foot. Wouldn't be surprised if  there's two feet by the time it stops.

...UNION COUNTY...
   ELIZABETH             26.5  1205 AM 12/27  TRAINED SPOTTER
   FANWOOD               26.0   100 AM 12/27  PUBLIC
   ROSELLE PARK          21.0  1230 AM 12/27  PUBLIC
   ROSELLE               19.4  1226 AM 12/27  TRAINED SPOTTER

Labels: Elizabeth NJ, New Jersey politics, photograph, weather

A small birthday party at WFMU ca 1997,  probably for DJ Fabio.  l-r: station manager & DJ Ken , DJ Donna, music director & DJ Brian, me, DJ Clay, DJ Bryce.

(I recognize my tee. A friend had a contract to print them for Target & gave away all the flubs.)

Labels: photograph, WFMU