Little Grill Open Mic: June 28, 2007

So what if I had to tell Tom Weaver where the band Three Dog Night got its name from, it doesn't take anything away from his musicianship. He was truly rockin' out on 'I've Never Been to Spain'.

It was actually a Three Chris Night at The Little Grill Thursday as we had Chris "The Renaissance Man" Lythgoe do an original blues song (with Alex Albrecht on guitar). Best I can do for a title would be "Struck by Holy Lightning".

Chris 'Excalibur' (not really his last name but the brand of his guitar?) strummed his three-song set, including 'Ventura Highway' by America, and 'Driving With My Knee' (by Peter Mayer?).

Chris Howdyshell, venerable M.C. for the Little Grill open mic each week, sang an original love song on the aforementioned Excalibur. Even though I asked him the title later, the best I can do now is to quote from the lyrics: "I'm not afraid to love you, if you're not afraid to live."

Other standouts for the evening included Billy Brett of Buck Gooter fame playing the electric guitar that hangs on the wall above the Little Grill stage with a wadded up newspaper, then switching to the mouth harp. The reverb added by Mr. Howdyshell in the sound booth only added to the mystery.

I commended Steve-o on his heartfelt poetry. He's been writing for a year, but had never read it aloud to anyone. Excellent stuff about love that made you believe. A star is born.

I sneaked in between this hail storm of talent with my first one-sentence poem: 'God Speaks to Me Through the Free Book Rack'. Some controversy apparently exists as to whether a sentence can in fact be a poem, but I looked at the title/concept and realized that it was.

Proof of the essential point of the poem was the very used book (from 1966) I held in my hand, The Complete Poems and Selected Letters and Prose of Hart Crane, from which I read Chaplinesque, it being my intention to donate the book to The Grill when I've perused it fully.

I then did a sonnet called 'The Worst Nine Words in the English Language' which somehow seemed fitting for the evening's events. I rounded my set out with It Could Be'. I wrote the last two in aught six, it just took me this long to get them up at my site.

Also notable Thursday night was the re-emergence of Noah, this time accompanied by 'The Girl With the Purple Hair'. He also did some one-sentence poems, filling me in on the history of the genre.

Little Grill: June 21, 2007

The regular Thursday night open mic at the Little Grill in Harrisonburg, Virginia easily met the crowd's anticipation.

Actually you had to make it to the end to catch the good stuff. "The American Gentleman", a troupe of comedians, were a special treat (though one looked more like a gentlelady to me). Then a poet whose name I don't recall did a sort of five-in-one slam thing that was commendable.

Brandon got up there with his baritone ukulele and did three exceptional pieces. I was particularly impressed with 'My Happy Folk Song', an original as far as I can tell. He says he likes to do songs you'd never expect to hear on the uke.

I came on long before this slew of talent and donated two books to the back shelves. Another collection of verse and Non Campus Mentis by Anders Henriksson, after reading a short section of it just to scare everyone.

Since I've been complaining so much lately about the plight of English poets (so few words rhyme with 'love'!) I proclaimed my new language: Latin. They had 16 million ways of conjugating the verb, besides using it as a main example of conjugation (any Latin scholar will tell you), so I figure I'm home. I'll have 3.7 trillion new rhyming options open to me if I just write my love poems in Latin (especially considering word order in a sentence is entirely up to the user).

I then read 'Hold the World Together' (2002) and 'Up a Tree' (2002), two of my 'Beat' poems. My third slot I ceded to the next poet who got up there.

Little Grill: June 14, 2007

To what turned out to be a pretty big crowd, biggest we've seen at the open mic for a while, I read a few of my new poems with one older one.

I started off with one I'd just written at the diner counter in back: 'Rome Was Not Built in a Day'. I think I then did 'This Third Thing' (2004) because I'd bellyached one night about the difficulty of being a poet in English--so few words rhyme with 'love'. I think I got everyone of them in that poem save for 'shove'. Point made, I hope.

Assuming I remember correctly, I then did 'It Felt Like Love' then 'I'll Show You a Communist'.

In honor of Father's Day coming up I then did 'Diplomatic Relations With Hell', apologizing first for showing them why I became a poet. You can have a good father and become a poet, I admitted, but the quicker route . .

I rounded things out with my favorite of the night: 'I Know What It Was'.

'The Renaissance Man' Chris Somebody-or-Other showed and read from some of his published poetry. Alex Albrecht, as usual, was in fine form with his white-boy blues (which sound an awful lot like Delta blues). Somebody brought family from Philly and New Jersey for his bit (just can't remember his name for the moment).

Russ told some more of his humorous stories. And I remember the 'Michael, Joseph, and Joshua' trio well for obvious reasons. 'Joseph' is my middle name. Turns out Chris' brother's name is 'Michael', the guy sitting right next to me at the counter was 'Michael', and the guy paying at the register was also 'Michael'. We discovered that as Chris Howdyshell, venerable M.C. of the night's proceedings, referred to me by name from the mic and our parting guest responded.

All-in-all a fun night at the Grill.

'Storms Never Last'

They should never let these two sing love songs. And they really shouldn't oughta sung 'Storms Never Last' quite that purty.

I mighta crashed into an adolescent bear coming up over the mountain. I mighta hit a fire hydrant in the city.

Storms never last do they baby
Bad times all pass with the wind
Your hand in mine stills the thunder
And you make the sun want to shine.

My Century Calendar

In my second attempt at revising the calendar, I make a more simple stab.

Among the issues with the present-day calendar I've sought to address: Marking the lunar phases and solar phases; month names relevant to today; weekday names that mean what they say instead of having to be translated from an antiquated language, enhanced celestial awareness; need more built-in holiday time; the first year of the calendar is in dispute and based on the life of a religious figure not everyone believes in or follows.

Adopt the Zodiac Calendar

As we already have a highly celestial-oriented calendar in the Zodiac, I adopt that. This has little or nothing to do--depending on someone's level of interest--in astrology and its supposed impact on human behavior and destiny. But . . it would be nice not to have TWO calendars in operation (you know you check the zodiac dates all the time) and to have our birth dates coordinated directly to sun signs.

Change Month Names

Month names now mean a polyglot of things, all relayed to us through impenetrable language. Ancient gods and goddesses--January=Janus, Mars=Mars, May=Maia, June=Juno--but could you tell, and do you care? How about a Roman festival--February=februa, the Roman festival of purification. Is this important in your life? Could you get the meaning from the name? We have one month whose name is of uncertain origin: April.

Roman ordinal numbers make up four months--September=7th, October=8th, November=9th, December=10th--which was all the months they had at the time. Two Roman emperors named a month for themselves: July=Julius Caesar, August=Augustus Caesar. Are Roman emperors so important to us now that they should still be naming our months?

By using zodiacal constellation names in the proposed 'Century Calendar' this polyglot of etymology is replaced with meaningful celestial formation everyone (should already) know.

This also deals directly with a major issue with the current month configuration: lack of direct coordination with the solar cycle, i.e., solstices and equinoxes.

December 22=CAPRICORN 1
January 20=AQUARIUS 1
February 19=PISCES 1
March 21=ARIES 1
April 20=TAURUS 1
May 21=GEMINI 1
June 21=CANCER 1
July 23=LEO 1
August 23=VIRGO 1
September 23=LIBRA 1
October 23=SCORPIO 1
November 22=SAGITTARIUS 1

Change Weekday Names

Weekdays now come from the names of Anglo-Saxon deities. Sunday is easy enough, so to for Monday, but the rest? Could you tell what God Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were named for? Do you care?

Let's change all that by naming them clearly in English what we could get from their names in the Romance languages (if we spoke them):

Sunday='SUN DAY'
Monday='MOON DAY'
Tuesday='MARS DAY'
Wednesday='MERCURY DAY'
Thursday='JUPITER DAY'
Friday='VENUS DAY'
Saturday='SATURN DAY'

Add More Holidays

Spacer weekend days would be added to make Moon Day fall on every half moon and full moon, meaning alternating seven- and eight-day weeks. The spacer day would be called a PHASE DAY.

Use of zodiac months would keep the calendar keyed to the solstices and equinoxes, with two-week holidays centered around each solstice, Winter and Summer, and a one-week holiday around each equinox, Spring and Fall.

Restart the Years

As for the first year, something ominous, but highly meaningful to all: the beginning of the Atomic Age: 1945. So we are now in year 62.

(all of the above to be verified)

Rough Reckoning

In rough numbers, as yet unverified by bean counters, I've so far written and published at my site:

285 'Quatrains' on Life(49)/Lifestyle(69)/Love(78)/Place(18)/Wheels(14)/Truth(14)/Choose Life(14)/Sexus(12)/Mars(17).

95 'Sonnets' on Life(7)/Love(5)/Art(5)/Truth(12)/Choose Life(6)/Sexus(9)/Mars(53).

69 'Collection' poetry, mostly longer pieces, rhyming and with some form, metrical or otherwise. These are broken into Heavens(6)/Life(20)/Love(38)/Cat(5) categories.

62 'Short' poems on Life(23)/Logic(7)/Love(32).

43 'Beat' poems, with little or no rhyming, free-style forms. They fall into Life(12)/Rant(5)/Love(26) categories.

43 'Sentence' poems on Life(12)/Love(31).

27 'Word' poems on Life(10)/Love(17).

23 'Narrative' poems that tell a story (not short ones). They are broken into General(11)/Greek Mythology(7)/History(6) categories.

For a total of 647. I have another 50 or so that are listed under 'new', and another several dozen that are still in handwritten form (a batch that sat somewhere for a year or so). Another handful lie in notebooks I carry around to capture the ever-present Muse. Yet more are stashed in little "new" subdirectories here and there which I really haven't sorted out. With some trepidation, I'd say the ultimate total could end up as much as a hundred poems higher.

Further rough calculations suggest about a third of my poetry is on the subject of Love.

I'll race the verified numbers to you as soon as they're in.

'Buena Vista Social Club'

Not long after I arrived in Charlottesville 116 years ago, I encountered a bluegrass band that would change my life. I first heard two members of their musical collective on-stage at Michael's Bistro on University Avenue, just a couple of doors down from where I was staying at the time.

The impresario of this act, whose middle name was 'Michael'--and whose father's middle name was 'Michael'--soon after recommended to me the CD Buena Vista Social Club.

When I finally got around to buying the record, so repeatedly recommended by my musician friend, I went to Plan 9 with my friend Michael who lived down the hall from me at the Chancellor Apartments. (The astute will notice this is the fifth 'Michael' in the story.)

Plan 9 was then down the street a ways, past 14th Street, meaning it was actually on Main (14th Street being where it changes names).

Upon reappearing in the open air with our purchase, I wondered if we should head up 14th Street, maybe cross over the tracks and behind the buildings. Then, without any real reason, we strolled up University toward home only to run smack into said musician who was just then passing Chancellor Apartments with his friends Will and Craig(?).

We talked about the CD, how he listened to it more than bluegrass nowadays, he asked if I had a room upstairs there, and we parted rather clumsily.

I'd never seen him walking on the street before. That was only one of maybe three times I'd ever talked to him outside of a gig setting.

How strange it all seemed, the timing, the unlikely event itself. Having experienced a couple other coincidences with this fellow by this point, I had to catch my breath and try to figure out what it all could mean.

In the months and years since, the strains of Buena Vista Social Club have wafted through my life like a fugue. It seemed that each time my head was in a fog of some sort or another--'What quatrain can I write now to save myself?' or 'Why did I zig when I should have zagged?'--I'd walk into some cafe and it would be playing over the P.A. system.

This would always make me stop and wonder at the meaning, until I realized God was talking to me. He was telling me not only that I was in the right place, but that I'd taken all the right steps to get there; that I was 'on the right path'.

Fast forward to yesterday, my regular Saturday visit to Charlottesville. I actually had a premonition I might be in for something as I'd just gone through a rather remarkable series of synchronicities the night before in Harrisonburg.

I'd already been down on the pedestrian Mall, meeting with friends, etc., when I'd decided to grab a bite to eat on The Corner, a place I'd come to call 'Coincidence Corner' for all of the coincidences I'd experienced there.

I'd had a very enjoyable 'Italian Stallion' sub at Little John's deli which lies beneath Michael's Bistro and just a couple doors over from the Chancellor Apartments. Upon exiting who should I see but my friend Michael, the very one who'd helped me purchase that 'Buena Vista Social Club' CD all those years ago.

He's been in an alcoholic decline ever since, and is now indistinguishable from a bum, so I couldn't tell if he recognized me or simply wished to avoid my recognizing him. He was just entering Little John's, counting his change for a meal, it looked like to me.

Immediately next door to Little John's is the new location of Plan 9. I stepped in for a coffee so I could enjoy my New York Times.

What should be playing on the P.A. system? And not just one song, but the whole damned thing.

I guess I was just in the right place at the right time.

Little Grill: June 6, 2007

In honor of Walt Whitman's birthday the previous week--which neither I nor anyone else properly commemorated--I read 'O Captain! My Captain!', making the proper references to the film Dead Poets Society (1989) where it plays a prominent role in Robin Williams' efforts to inspire his private school students with poetry.

It seems highly likely that many today would not have heard of Mr. Whitman without modern-day reference in a film.

At the urging of M.C. Chris Howdyshell to do some of my 'stuff' (see how they beg me?) I then read 'Your Hug' and another 'sentence poem', 'Did You Know?'.

I'd come prepared to read my sonnet on Walt Whitman, seeing that it was indeed ready for a public airing, I just didn't feel the need in the moment to do so.

'A Picture of You'

Terry Turtle doing his thing at Little Grill Thursday night (conveniently forgotten by me in my previous post) read a number of fine and funny poems, mostly short ones.

I told him afterwards I wanted to keep one of them. It went something like . .

NOW THAT'S LONELY

Have you ever wanted to jump into a photograph
Just to be with someone
And the photograph says 'No!'
Now that's lonely.

It made me think about my poem 'A Picture of You'.

Little Grill: May 31, 2007

Somehow it missed me--until I pulled down the W-X-Y-Z volume of the 1962 World Book they have at the Grill--that May 31st was the birthday of Walt Whitman's in 1819. Had I remembered such I might have done the sonnet on him I penned about a year ago.

Even then I might not have read it. I must say, considering his message, and his times, he was indeed a courageous poet. People still don't admit to what he was actually saying.

I read instead my sonnet on Lord Byron. Though he was a much badder boy than Whitman, the poem I wrote about him wasn't quite so potentially incendiary.

I then read two short ones: Among the World's Great Poets and Brought Them to Their Doom, the last being a part of a series of short 'logic' poems (or so I call them).

Because a young poet had read what I call a 'sentence' poem the previous week, I'd offered to bring in one of mine. He said he really liked Being in Love With You. Reading it gave me the chance to make some edits--and enhance the format--which I greatly appreciate.

Chris giving me the "one more", I asked the audience if they'd like another love poem or a 'social message' poem. Opting for the latter, I gave them Then They Came for You, after changing only one word in mark-up.

His Eminence Charlie Clouse showed up again, but did not read. We had an extremely enjoyable musical performance by a Brian Somebody who will be performing his Segovia-like guitar at an Italian restaurant on E. Market in a week or two. (As you can see, specifics on such things aren't my strong point.)

My readings in the encyclopedia volume also introduced me to Arnold von Winkelried, 'legendary hero of Swiss history'. I never knew.

Read your encyclopedia, wherever you might find one. It will change you.