The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Remembering the Coffee Thief

by // Leave a Comment

Medford, Oregon, 2015 — In memory, an entire lost continent can repose, with sometime awakening to peek through eternal mists. And so many things can remain the same, in memory.

Once and again upon such a time, on a particular this morning, toward the end of breakfast, Susan said, “Oh, look at that,” pointing far to my left.

While I’m oogling out the window, seeing nothing unusual, she’s stealing the last sips of my coffee.

Ha! I’d let it go cold. Serves her right.

The rewards of crime are cold.

Introduction to Poetry

by // Leave a Comment

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

— Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate

 

LaMont Johnson, the Answering Service, and Improvising Music

by // 6 Comments

[This micro-story is adapted with permission from the Appendix in “Easy Touch-Style Improvisation,” a method book for playing two-handed touchstyle bass, by Traktor Topaz and Henri DuPont.)

Los Angeles, January 29, 1969: There was this jazz piano-player named LaMont Johnson, who was a roommate in our large house on Western Avenue. He lived from October 1941 until October 1999, but back then 30 years earlier, at that time he was very much alive. He bristled with energy.

He was very, very good as a piano player, ranging from funk to jazz and it all rocked. He had played and done recordings with Woody Shaw toward the end of bebop, and with Ornette Coleman, George Benson, and other luminaries of jazz.

I mention him because I had decided to learn how to play music. I wanted to learn how to improvise like he did, making up new songs on the fly. That’s what drove me. I wanted to be learn how to improvise.

And so it was that I asked him a simple question —

What are the good notes?

What are the notes to play?

Now, although he could play the “good” notes, [Read more…]

Charlie’s Big Adventure

by // 2 Comments

Medford, Oregon, April 25, 2016: I guess he’s been getting restless. I’ve been lousy about taking them for walks, and running around the back yard has probably grown passe.

Of course, Daisy is getting old. She’s creaky, slow, and her back legs erratic. But Charlie, though almost as old, still has a lot of Get Up And Go. And the fact that Daisy is now mostly Got Up and Went gives him no pause. He’s a busy guy.

Today started out normal, like any day, and since I wanted to get soup for lunch at Great Harvest, I herded the dogs into the garage/backyard, and sure enough, the soup was swell.

When I arrived back home and parked in the driveway, behind me cars began stopping in the street, a line of them in each direction. And that was because Daisy was wandering around on Siskiyou Boulevard. [Read more…]

So Long – Prince

by // Leave a Comment

Minneapolis, April 21, 2016:  Prince is gone.

I remember the first time, around 1980, in a record store just off Geary on Arguello, in a bin I saw this strange, skinny, prissy-looking latin guy on the cover of the self-named album, “Prince.”

Who would have thought that, all these years later, yesterday for no reason the songs “Purple Rain” and “Rasberry Beret” were spinning around and around in my head all day long, and I kept visualizing a scene from his film, as he pulls away on an oversized motorcycle, looking such a tiny tough guy.

And today, Google had a google-doodle. It was purple, and pressing the play button I saw streaks of rain.

And now, I miss him.

His Royal Badness
His Royal Badness

 

Good Vibrations

by // Leave a Comment

Dallas, Texas, 1966 — I was living in Dallas when the Beach Boys released their song “Good Vibrations.” Here’s a video of them performing the song …

And I have a little story.

As it happens, when this song was just about to come out, I was living in a rather Deco white apartment building at Lemmon and Oak Lawn in Dallas. I was also, for the first time, reading Lord of the Rings, and I had almost reached the end of the third book — spoiler alert — where Frodo and Gollum will struggle above the chasm of Mount Doom in Mordor.

As you will recall, Gollum called the One Ring his “precious,” and as he and Frodo struggle, Gollum suddenly bites off Frodo’s finger with the ring, and dancing and holding it up and exclaiming “My precious! My precious!” Gollum slips and falls to his death into the chasm, which also destroys the One Ring.

By an amazing co-incidence, as I sat alone in my small apartment that afternoon, at the very moment that I was reading this scene, on the radio I heard, for the very first time, the song “Good Vibrations,” and at the very moment that I read of Gollum falling into the chasm, in the song, I heard (for the first time) the song’s lyrics, and they were singing … “Good … good … good … good-bye precious … Good … good … good … good-bye precious.”

The hair stood up on the back of my neck.

And to this day, whenever I hear this song, they are singing “Good … good … good … good-bye precious”

As you listen to the video, I’ll bet that you can also, if you want to, hear them singing “goodbye precious.” See what you think.

For myself, I think these little coincidences are God’s jokes, and I’m glad to know that God has a sense of humor. And it is my hope that He/She will perhaps forgive some of my stupider moments, for this reason.

One can always hope. Right?

 
 

reviews

[wprevpro_usetemplate tid=”1″]