Mighty Meet You
In Utmost Surprise

-Unknown Nigerian prophet upon first hearing the Banana Convention and fashioning a very generous offer…

The Banana Convention has defied all odds by shaking off its bubblegum image to become one of the most intriguing rock hard bands in mid-Michigan. Never mind the pretense of the un-hip, these cats are evolving anti-bourgeois bohemian warriors that create music that transcends three chords and 2/4 beat.

Led by ringmaster Monte Nothelfer, the BC sound is now enveloped by Shar Molina’s soul-stirring vocals and Ray Torres iconic guitar work. You have to believe your eyes and ears. This band will take a hold of you and squeeze all the juice outta the juke joint and leave you beggin’ for more. The motion in their music rocks you into cozy daisy chain of good vibes and hot lovin’ that you can’t resist…don’t even try.

The Banana Convention is touring the region are readying an outdoor Summer Fest A Go-Go scheduled for 2pm at White’s Bar on June 21st. The show is a 12-hour marathon of the best original music in mid-Michigan featuring a diverse set of artists including Gust, The Cartridge Family, Debbie & the Formfitters, Appearance & Reality, Holy Gun, The Honky Tonk Zeros, Frokus, Smiley Face, the Mongrels and the unbelievable Bazooka Jones – featuring Viagra and Bullethead Jones, the most alluring and talented rock couple since Jack and Meg White did the hokey pokey and left Robert Bradley on the dance floor with his whole self in at the Eastern Market.

The Banana Convention open and close the show and will feature songs from their new EP Freeze Dried Eclectic Singles. It marks detour around the predictable and features some unexpected treasures such as the thunderous metal rocker She Makes It Easy (sung so well by resident genius Chris Howard) and the white lightning, machine gun heat of Fabrication well as quiet introspection of Shar Molina’s The Great Divide where she channels Janis Ian through Alanis Morrisette in a most delightful way.

The Grand Illusion is an all-out group effort that sends out a relentless rockin’ kiss-off to all the pop star pretensions from the Mick Jagger School of androgynous stage poses and spastic dance steps. They honed and fretted and toyed with the song for about 8 months and their live performance will no doubt offer a unique arrangement with fresh thematic variations.

Resident guitar genius Ray Torres switched gears when he wrote Eugene and has been playing it for several years with a number of different bands. The BC version is absolutely astonishing, a beautiful ballad with elusive lyrics that hint at an underlying message of redemption.

Ooo La La was written back in 2003 and is one of my personal favorites. It possesses a cool B 52’s vibe with great energy and an upbeat caterwauling instrumental backdrop that recalls the best of the early sixties girl groups. It wins me over every time.

Molina wrote Crush as a joke but it’s more than just a sugary pop confection ’cos it dives straight into the hot excitement of all that boy/girl stuff when the promise of love is new and mysterious.

Monte Nothelfer, the grand wizard of ID, indulges his interest in Speilberg science fiction with Hans Solo, a rockin’ tour-de-force that is an absolute gas and a hoot of the highest degree.

This is a document of a band becoming itself, bidding farewell to the past and embracing the future while celebrating and accepting all of its triumphs and occasional sorrows.

Don’t miss their heat when BC unleashes the best music in mid-Michigan at the Summer Fest A Go-Go June 21st, in the year of our cultural renaissance.

Peace
Bo White

5/31/08

A Girl Named Sandoz
The Life & Times of Albert Hoffman

“We do not see things as they are
We see them as we are”
- an old Talmudic saying

Swiss Chemist Albert Hoffman, best known as the scientist who synthesized lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), died of a heart attack in the village of Berg im Leimental, Switzerland on April 29th, 2008 at the ripe old age of 102.
His quantum leap breakthrough discovery of LSD-25 in 1938 may have been just a lucky accident especially as it was accomplished in a modest starched shirt environment that focused strictly on research. The goal of Hoffman’s scientific study at Sandoz Company’s laboratory in Basel, Switzerland was to obtain a respiratory and circulatory stimulant (an analeptic) by investigating the chemical and pharmacological properties of ergot. LSD was the 25th in a series of ergot derivatives that Dr. Hoffman prepared – thus LSD-25 was created. Preliminary studies on its effects on animals proved inconclusive so it was set aside for five years as Hoffman pursued other projects.

Louis Pasteur once said that luck is granted only to those who are prepared. Dr. Hoffman was the right person at the right time - perhaps he was the only person who could have influenced the events that led to popularity and the myth of LSD. One might say he had some pretty good-sized cojones.

He earned concluded his chemistry studies at the University of Zurich in 1929 and chose Sandoz over other offers because it allowed him to work on “natural products” as opposed to working in the field of synthetic chemistry. He possessed a bold inquiring mind that was well suited to medical investigation. Dr. Hoffman was charged to isolate active principles in known medicinal plants to produce “pure’ specimens of these potentially life altering substances. This was particularly tedious work when the active principles are unstable or the potency is subject to great variation. In pure form these active principle scan be manufactured as a stable pharmaceutical preparation, quantifiable by weight and sold by a prescribed dosage. So the discovery of acid was not an accident at all. It was planned research. The “accident” occurred on April 16th, 1943 when decided to give LSD-25 another inspection. While re-synthesizing the substance, he accidentally absorbed a quantity through his fingertips and discovered its transforming effects, “a remarkable but not unpleasant state of intoxication…characterized by an intense stimulation of imagination and an altered state of awareness of the world.” The very first acid trip! Three days later Dr. Hoffman intentionally ingested 250 micrograms of LSD-25 thinking such a small dosage would have only a marginal effect. This is what he discovered as he bicycled home accompanied by a laboratory assistant:
“I had great difficulty speaking coherently. My field vision swayed before me and objects appeared distorted like images in curved mirrors. I had the impression of being unable to move from the spot, although my assistant told me afterwards we had cycled at a good pace.”
He reported feeling lost in the twisted corridors of inner space and feared that he was losing his mind: “Occasionally I felt as if I were out of my body…I thought I had died. My ego was suspended somewhere in space and I saw my body lying dead on the sofa.”
Hoffman proved courageous… and resilient enough to endure the effects of this “bad trip” and as the ordeal wore on, his “psychic” condition improved dramatically and he was able to calm and observe the psychedelic effects on his five senses. He reported a fitful night of sleep but awoke the next day feeling fine.

Dr Hoffman sensed that his discovery could be an important tool for studying the mind but he had no idea that LSD would become such a transformative socio-cultural linchpin across the planet from the sixties to the current day.

There were several brave “psychedelic pioneers” that advanced the cause of internal freedom, the freedom to expand and contract one’s own consciousness, whether naturally through prayer, meditation and yoga or through chemicals such as mescaline, peyote or LSD.

Captain Alfred Hubbard, known as the Johnny Appleseeed of LSD, may have been the most unlikely advocate. He was a former member of the OSS in WWII and a political conservative the despised the long-haired hippies. But he is widely recognized as the first person to recognize the potential for LSD to be a liberating and transcendent drug. He preached the LSD gospel to most everyone he met – a true missionary zeal that few could match.

It was Hubbard who contacted another obscure but strategic person in the saga of LSD, Dr. Humphrey Osmond, a British psychiatrist who was using LSD and mescaline at Weyburn Hospital in Saskatchewan, Canada. Dr. Osmond was researching the use of these substances on people experiencing mental illness and psychosis and he gained a modicum of fame by demonstrating the structural similarity between mescaline and adrenaline molecules suggesting that schizophrenia may be a form of self-intoxication caused by the body making its own hallucinogenic compounds. Osmond objected to the typical LSD psychomimetic research design that viewed the LSD experience as similar to psychosis. Dr. Osmond noted in his work with alcoholism that many of his patients reported the LSD sessions as insightful and rewarding and that LSD did not elicit psychosis. Osmond did not accep the “biased” lexicon (e.g., hallucination) typically used in scientific journals to describe LSD experiences. He corresponded with his friend and colleague Aldous Huxley who agreed that they must find another, more accurate word to describe the effects of mind-altering drugs. Huxley proposed the term, phanerothyme (meaning spirit or soul).

He sent the following couplet to Osmond:
To make this trivial world sublime
Take half a gramme of phanerothyme

Osmond replied:
To fathom hell or soar angelic
Just take a pinch of psychedelic

The word psychedelic was born and it was introduced to the psychiatric community in 1957. In a few short years it gained an almost universal expression in the counterculture movement in America and influenced artists, doctors, psychiatrists, academics, musicians, posts and artists across the globe.

In August 1961, Hoffman met with author Aldous Huxley for the first time. He was familiar with Huxley’s early groundbreaking work A Brave New World and found that Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell provided him with a deeper insight into his own “visionary” experiences. They became friendly and in the following year, Huxley released his last book, a novel entitled Island. The story is set on a utopian island in which a natural and magical medicine “moksha” played a significant role in the life of the island people. Moksha is Sanskrit for release and liberation. Huxley sent Dr. Hoffman a copy of Island with this inscription:
“To Dr. Albert Hoffman, the original discoverer of moksha medicine, from Aldous Huxley”
Aldous Huxley died on November 22nd, 1963 (the day of President Kennedy’s assassination) from throat cancer. Per Huxley’s request his wife Laura injected him with 100 mmg of LSD – his moksha medicine - and he peacefully let go of his life in perfect harmony with death.

Perhaps the most iconoclastic figure in Albert Hoffman’s acid dream is Dr. Timothy Leary. Dr Leary was a noted clinical psychologist who helped create the theory of Transactional Analysis in which the relationship between doctor and patient was forever changed (at least in some circles of psychotherapy). His notion of equality in the treatment relationship altered the conceptualization of engaging in therapy and how change occurs in treatment. Although the medical model of psychotherapy was decades away from embracing evidenced based practices, Leary’s elegant formulations brought him a considerable notoriety before he began his psychedelic studies at Harvard in the sixties. Richard Nixon once called him the most dangerous man in America, all for espousing the internal freedom to expand and contract one’s consciousness. Leary called it the 5th Freedom – the right to get high and he encouraged us to tune in, turn on and drop out. After losing his position at Harvard for supplying LSD to his students, Leary continued his psychedelic studies at Millbrook Estate. He became a darling of the counter culture and mingled freely with the young rock-gods from John Lennon to the Grateful Dead. However, Leary’s carelessness caught up with him and he and he spent several years eluding the law before a brief incarceration.

LSD was first introduced to the United States in 1949 and was the darling of the scientific community as well as the political elite and the wealthy. It was used effectively with hard-to-treat psychiatric conditions such as sexual aberrations, alcoholism and psychosis. It was embraced by the CIA and the military as a possible torture and mind control agent (MK-ULTRA). By 1965, the medical use of LSD fell in disrepute despite evidence to the contrary. By 1966, Sandoz laboratory discontinued its marketing of LSD due to the sudden dearth of research devoted to its use. In 1970 the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs placed LSD in a Schedule I category denoting it as a drug of abuse that has no medical value. It seems that this would be the end of the story but…

The number of young people using LSD today is about the same as it was in the sixties and seventies. In a study conducted by the Michigan Institute for Social Research, 13.6 percent of all high school seniors graduating in 1997 had tried LSD and 49.6 percent tried marijuana. A 2006 Substance Abuse Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) study revealed that 23 million Americans aged 12 and older experimented with LSD. There has been little interpretive analysis of this data though some theories suggest the link between music, drugs and the natural alienation of youth. Seems too easy, too simple minded. There is no mention in current literature of LSD use as a “serious medicine” though there is some discourse that allows that LSD is illegal simply because it threatens the dominant culture, a culture of fear and control.

Albert Hoffman would no doubt see his “problem child” in another light. Perhaps he would ask a question with no answer.

What more can a person gain in life
Than that God-Nature reveals itself to him?
- Goethe

Peace
Bo White

5/7/08

OBAMA
Time Has Come Today

In order to make progress possible, blacks have to give up on the past.
Tomorrow is their only option
- Debra J. Dickerson, THe End Of Blackness

I haven’t been this fired up about a presidential election since 1972 when Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern stood behind his running mate Thomas Eagleton one thousand percent ...1000%? Is there such a thing? I thought one hundred percent was the whole, the total of anything, so 1000% is like an uber-sum? Perhaps – but not for Eagleton – the disclosure about his secret experience with depression in the sixties electro-shocked the political movers and shakers and caused his removal from the Democratic ballot. It seems peculiar that something as common as depression, over 17 million Americans experience it each year, would be such a deal breaker. McGovern’s blatant weak-kneed caving-in to the party elders (known as super delegates today) served as a dark lesson to any who would dare enter the public arena with something to hide and no way of hiding it. And it made McGovern look a little bit…ah, indecisive. But it was even more complicated than tagging a stigma to undermine an indecisive political whip; McGovern suffered another sucker punch, a knockout blow, when journalist Robert Novak quoted the loose-lipped and seemingly still depressed Eagleton as saying, “The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion and legalization of pot. Once Middle-America, in particular Catholic America finds this out, he’s dead.”

Eagleton’s blasphemous label stuck and McGovern became known as the candidate of amnesty, abortion and acid when in fact he was a former divinity student, college professor and a World War II combat veteran, an honest and upright man, a man of integrity. Perhaps it was a lapse in decency and an uncommon nudge in time that created the conditions for one man to derail McGovern’s train wreck candidacy.

However, McGovern soldiered on with a new vice presidential candidate, Kennedy shill, Sargeant Shriver but lost to Richard Nixon by a 60.7% to 37.5% margin, winning only one state, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia. My energetic unstoppable participation in McGovern’s campaign went for naught and it sure took the wind out of my sails. I was a broken and busted down political neophyte, too young to know I’d been had; and too cloudy to appreciate the lesson.
I never again devoted myself to a presidential campaign – until now.

Although the Democratic Primary campaign has been at best disappointing, at worst an excuse for dirty claptrap politics, it still reveals the hope and opportunity offered by Barack Obama’s candidacy. Color matters at least until we understand how our differences reflect our common humanity. We are one in the same - only different Racism has been a national disgrace since our founding and our entrenched institutionalized prejudice may be a convenient ruse to disguise over-arching class divisions whereby the rich get richer at the expense of the poor and middle class. The brutally honest polemic of Debra Dickerson casts a wary eye on any attempts to whitewash state sanctioned shibboleths regarding the legacy of Jim Crow and “its active pulsating evil.” She understands deeply the precarious balance within the structural inequalities in America and how class and race can confuse the real issues regarding power.

Dickerson writes, “Black autonomy is not white’s to bestow-it is blacks to exercise.“ She boldly looks at the role of powerful blacks in business and government and takes issue with the misguided post-movement leadership who claim nothing has changed. Change has made the presidential race of 2008 possible.
Time has come today!

Anyone who has read Obama’s autobiography Dreams From My Father can attest to his elegant dignity, his sensitive intellect and the sacred stories he reveals. He is a global man who has witnessed the racial caste system operating in Kenya and in Jakarta as well as in Hawaii and Chicago. He is born of intellectual parents, an almost mythically heroic Kenyan father and an intellectual and principled mother from Kansas. Obama spent most of his life searching for his father, a hunger most of us have in some form, even if our distant father is nearby. We sons cry for our fathers – we are forever hungry for him. Barack Obama deeply understands this primal wound. His parents separated when he was two and divorced when he was four. He could only imagine his father through the stories of others. Barack was just a school boy when his father died tragically in an automobile accident. Before he began his educational career at Harvard Law School, Obama visited Kenya the homeland of his ancestors. He sat before the grave of his father and wept until his tears were all spent and calmness overtook him and he felt a dawning of awareness to the true nature of his identity - the black life, the white life and all of his experiences as an American that led him back to Kenya. And he realized that the pain he felt was his father’s pain, his questions were his brother’s questions and that their struggle was his birthright – a noble inheritance.

A More Perfect Union, Obama’s now famous treatise about racism in America was an elegant rebuttal to the political pundits’ uproar over Reverend Wright’s angry comments about race and injustice. Obama skillfully condemned Reverend Wrights most divisive and inflammatory remarks. He was also able to give the remarks a proper context based in the reality of black experience, a perfect dialectic composed of multiple truths. This speech was historic in the breadth of the truth it revealed and the middle path it embraced. It revealed Barack Obama as a man that reaches beyond reason to achieve a modicum of wisdom. This is the man we need to be our leader.

In Dreams From My Father Obama recalls a conversation with Dr. Martha Collier, the principal of Carver Elementary in the south side of Chicago. They had walked down the hall together and observed a “wobbly line” of five and six year-olds.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?”Dr. Collier said.
“They really are”
“The change comes later. In about five years, although it seems like its coming sooner all the time.”
“What change is that?”
“When their eyes stop laughing. Their throat still makes the sound but if you look at their eyes, you can see they’ve shut off something inside.”

A conversation between Obama and a lifelong resident of the south side by the name of Johnny illustrates what we are facing in Saginaw and all over the country.
“I ain’t never see it this bad, Barack. I mean things were tough when I was coming up but there were limits. We’d get high and get into fights. But out in public, at home, if an adult saw you getting loud or wild, they would say something. And most of us would listen, you know what I’m saying? Now with drugs, the guns – all that’s disappeared. Bottom line - you got 12 year-olds making their own damn rules.”

For our children –
Time Has Come Today!

There is a direct intellectual and spiritual lineage from Gandhi to Martin Luther King to Bayard Rustin to John F. Kennedy to Jesse Jackson and finally to Barack Obama. This is not just an issue about black and white or rich and poor. It is about salvaging and strengthening our democracy. In a recent article by Georgie Anne Geyer, Dick Cheney displayed an arrogance and disregard for the American public and apparently all of humanity. “The American people are against your policies”, he was told. He turned toward the accuser and demanded, “SO?”
It was a clear statement of an anti-democratic perspective
Time Has Come Today!

This may be our last best chance to revisit and restore the vision of Kennedy’s Camelot. I hope it is not too late.
Barack Obama may be our last best hope

Time Has Come Today
Young Hearts Can Go their way
Can't pull it off another day
They say we don't listen anyway
Time Has Come today

The rules have changed today (HEY)
I have no place to stay (HEY)
I'm thinking about the subway (HEY)
My love has flown away (HEY)
My tears have come and gone (HEY)
Oh my Lord, I have to roam (HEY)
I have no home (HEY)
I have no home (HEY)

Now the time has come (TIME)
There's no place to Run (TIME)
I might get burned up by the sun (TIME)
But I had my fun (TIME)
I've been loved and put aside(TIME)
I've been crushed by the tumbling tide (TIME)
And my soul has been psychedelicized (TIME)

Now the time has come (TIME)
There are things to realize (TIME)
Time has come today (TIME)
Time Has Come Today (TIME)
- The Chambers Brothers

Peace
Bo White

4/12/08

John Sinclair
Sweet Man of Peace
Live @ White’s
4/4/08

It’s hard to believe that John Sinclair is 66 years old, in relatively good health and aging gracefully. He is thinner now and appears centered and mindful and exudes a sense of acceptance - amazing after all those years of notorious substance abuse and social protest. Nowadays his schedule is heavy on personal appearances yet less hurried-up and demanding than those heady times in the sixties. This gig is just one of several before he returns to his expatriated home in Amsterdam later this month. Before the show I approached John as he sat quietly, getting into the zone for his performance. He looked tired, reflecting back to me my own tired mind. He told me of his love for Amsterdam and its freedoms, “The police don’t carry guns and nobody cares if you get high.”

We both shared our worries about the deterioration of civil liberties and personal freedom in the United States and the false patriotism that erupted in the aftermath of 9-11 tragedy. Fear prevails over confidence and reason. Where are we headed?

Could there possibly be other enlightened societies out there like Amsterdam. In 1628 Rene Decartes described Amsterdam as if it were today:

What other place in the world could you choose where all of life’s comforts and all novelties that one could want could be so easy to obtain as here and we could enjoy such a feeling of freedom?
- From the film Twenty To Life: The Life and Times of John Sinclair

A packed hours greeted John enthusiastically, some brought CDs to sign, others with books of poetry. One of my good buddies brought a copy of first MC5 album. He asked John to sign the censored inner cover that left out John’s diatribe about revolution and F***** in the streets and he wrote,
Where’s the liner notes?

Local poet/playwright Marc Beaudin opened the show and later sat mesmerized by Sinclair’s majestic yet humble presence. It was a night when the aspects were right - Aries was rising. Mars ruled and good vibrations reigned over us all as we shared a communal appreciation of blues, jazz and poetry and their organic link to peace and love.

Muddy Waters was born on April 4th, 1913 in Rolling Fork Mississippi and John wished him a loving Birthday tribute with two extended pieces; Louisiana Blues and Country Boy (also dedicated to his long-time guitarist and collaborator Jeff Baby Grand).

John’s dramatic reading of Louisiana Blues had a tinge of irony and just a shade of irreverence that seemed as self-directed as it was targeted to the natural inclination of his hero. A brief excerpt will give you an idea of the truth that lay behind the words:

I’m going down to Louisiana
Baby, behind the sun
I’m Goin’ down Louisiana
Honey, behind the sun
Well, you know I found out
My troubles just begun
-Muddy Waters

This is Muddy Waters speaking:
It’s a con job
on people’s heads,
you know,
gettin’ the fools
And these mojo doctors

Was drivin’ big cars
owned big homes
Cuz the peoples were brainwashed.
My grandmother & father
their mother and father,
was so brainwashed

they thought people could
point their finger at you
& make frogs and snakes
jump out of you
or make you bark
like a dog.

John’s poem Country Boy reveals how McKinley Morganfield became Muddy Waters. It seems that McKinley was in late infancy when he took to crawling around and playing in the mud like most kids do. At an early age we all seem to have a natural affinity to all that is wet and dirty...we are truly anchored to mother earth. But to the dismay and amusement of his folks young McKinley took it a baby step further and began eating it...joyfully, like he couldn’t get enough of it. Ah, a fond childhood memory - a natural curiosity, eating the inedible. Muddy gained his name and a butt-spankin’ at the same time.
Hallelujah!

Happy Birthday Muddy

John proved to me more AND less than his legend promises. He is no longer that sassy panther that stalked the urban jungle of Detroit or the socialist one-for-all and all-for-one communal trans-love god, rockin’ with the 5 and soul struttin’ with Mitch Ryder’s Detroit. No, that was in another lifetime. Now John is the blues scholar, a spoken word genius chronicling an almost forgotten yet heroic history of American roots music and its street savvy and knowing creators.

They ain’t nobody’s fool and this ain’t homogenized dreck for the masses. Curious it is that blues fans nowadays are primarily white or in my case off-white.

John’s Cross Road Blues gives us the skinny on a dark legend, left home at 16 with an older woman, sold his soul to the devil, died of poisoning at the hands of a jealous husband. But Robert “Tommy” Johnson left enough clues to convince us all about his revisionist stature as a blues icon.

The King Biscuit Flour commercial was a hoot…delivered by KFFA announcer Sonny Payne:

Pass the biscuits,
Cause it’s King Biscuit Time!
Light as air! White as snow!

Yes folks that’s
King Biscuit Flour, the perfect flour
For all your baking needs.

Mmm, makes me wanna scarf down some of that southern cornbread goodness…but not too much, you KNOW what it can do to that sweet cantilevered booty of yours.

The final piece “my buddy” was excerpted out of John’s evolving masterpiece opus Fattening Frogs For Snakes. It was conceptualized as a text to be set to music and it has evolved for over twenty years through a painstaking Herculean process writing and performing. This is John’s tribute to his friend Henry Normile who was murdered in Detroit in 1979 outside of his jazz club, Cobb’s Corner. Years after his death, Normile came to John in a vision and inspired this poem in which perfectly gorgeous angels are administering to his every earthly need on a bed of clouds - cocaine, pussy, and lobster, in that order.

John’s “historical” poems are a form of alternate rebellion as he tells us about an almost forgotten history of black culture and music, the genius artistry of black musicians that was the co-opted, pre-empted and homogenized by white mainstream culture. This is a history that isn’t taught in classrooms, though it should be – for the sake of preserving an honorable heritage, a noble identity.

It ain’t fair, John Sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Won’t you care for John Sinclair?
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me
- John Lennon

And so it is…

3/3/08

Mike Smith
The Voice of the Dave Clark Five
Rest In Peace

Mike Smith, lead singer and keyboard player for the Dave Clark Five died of pneumonia on the night of February 28th. The death is attributed to complications from a severe spinal cord injury Smith suffered after falling from a fence at his home in Spain in 2003. The injury left him a tetraplegic (paralyzed below the ribcage with limited use of his upper body. Smith had been in recovery since the accident and was only just released from the hospital in December 2007.
On February 27th, Smith was admitted to Stoke Mandeville Hospital just outside London with a chest infection. His wife Charlie was at his side when Mike passed away peacefully… after exchanging “I love you” with her.
Mike Smith was 64 years old.
He was only 12 days away from his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on March 10th in Cleveland.

In case you’ve forgotten, the DC5 was running neck-to-neck with the Beatles in 1964 as one of the premier bands of the British Invasion. They scored 16 Top 30 hits from 1964 to 1967 and an incredible 13 albums in the charts during the same period and worldwide sales estimated to be 100 million records and appeared on Ed Sullivan 18 times! The DC5 were second only to the Beatles in popularity until the Rolling Stones sped past them on the heals of their stone classic (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

But it never mattered to me. I purchased every one of them LP’s with my grimy little mitts as well as many of their 45’s – classic Mike Smith/Dave Clark penned tunes such as Glad All Over, Because, Try Too Hard, Can’t You See that She’s Mine. Back in ’66 I bought DC5’s Try Too Hard Lp. I signed it in black pen, “DAVE CLARK” and gave it to my best buddy Jay Congleton who was moving to Pennsylvania. I told him it was an authentic autograph. He didn’t care but I felt this was the perfect way to honor our friendship, gifting a deceit. Hell, Jay loved the DC5 - their hit single from 1965, Catch Us If You Can was our theme song on North Junior’s football team. We were running backs and unfortunately got caught quite often. Never saw him again. But I purchased another copy of the Try Too Hard LP - just for the title track and cheesy cover of a white HMT Jaguar (shameless commercialism) with our heroes onboard, smiling and waving - the rest of the songs were just filler except for maybe Somebody Find me a New Love or I Know. All told, I purchased 64 DC5 albums and a dozen 45's. Not bad, except when you compare it with the 500 Beatles plus records, box sets and bootlegs that I have in my collection. I had my priorities.

Yet the DC5 legacy was never fully developed by Clark nor appreciated by the general public. I've purchased all the American Epic LPs (including the 1st Lp sans instruments and no mention of Bits & Pieces on the front cover - quite rare!). I have all the Canadian LPs on Capital with better covers and different mixes and song listings - thank the very astute Paul White who produced the DC5 catalog and issued the releases. Compare his superlative work with Dave Dexter Jr., the international Capital Records A & R executive assigned to develop English bands, who initially passed on the Beatles until forced by his boss Alan Livingston to accept and release I Want To Hold Your Hand. He passed on the DC5 citing that neither band had commercial potential in America. So the DC5 ended up with Columbia Records in America but signed with Capital Records in Canada thus preserving a Canadian catalog of Beat music that was both well produced and respected. In America, the Beatles were the victims of Dave Dexter's dexterization, a process of pruning tracks from LPs for future releases and fiddling with the sound (more reverb and equalization).The DC5 were spared that ordeal though the sound of their music suffered from the re-processed stereo releases - Buy Mono. I've got both versions as well as a double DC5 compilation of all Clark/Smith compositions in TRUE stereo - very cool. Yes, the DC5 were funky and soulful - keys and sax with a powerful thumping beat that was like a slug to the chest and drum rolls that sounded more like a machine gun than static on the television. It was that big beat that worked us into a frenzy. DC5 music wasn’t so much sexy as it was sensuous and sweaty; it was athletic manly music.

I never had a chance to see the DC5 live though I've accessed several fan sites that give testimony to the power of the DC5's live performances. I heard through the collectors’ grapevine that several of their shows were recorded and that Dave Clark, who controlled the rights, was sitting on this DC5 Holy Grail, waiting for the right time or the most profitable opportunity to release rarities, alternate versions and live material. A box set, maybe?

In 1968 Smith did an interview with the New Musical Express. Here's a brief excerpt: NME: Why has the DC5 taken such a hammering from the musical critics in the last 5 years and why is it that some journalsts seem to take a delight in taking them apart?
Smith: "Yes I suppose Herman's Hermits and ourselves are at the top of the knockers charts. It's probably because our attitude has always been: why cut a record that is not likely to sell? And maybe we try to hard to be nice to people."

NME: Whereas Dave Clark has always been regarded as the front man for the DC5 (the business brain), you have been tagged as the "musician". In view of this why had you not felt the need to play more progressive music?
Smith:"Well first of all, what is a musician? I've studied piano since I was five and I probably know more about music than Dave, but that does not make me a Brian Auger. I regard myself as a session organist- that is, I know what is going on in the studio and the techniques involved in producing a record. We've never produced anything that has not involved a hundred percent effort.

" Though the Dc5 broke up in 1970, Mike Smith returned to the states in 2003 and toured briefly as Mike Smith’s Rock Engine. The set list included classic DC5 hits including Do You Love Me, Catch Us If You Can, Come Home, Can’t You See That She’s Mine, You Got What It Takes, Having A Wild Weekend, Nineteen Days, I Like It Like That, Over & Over, Try Too Hard, Because, Bits & Pieces, Glad All Over, and the powerhouse wall of sound masterpiece – Any Way You Want It - the most explosive 1:59 minutes ever committed to disc (and it was recorded in 1965!).I missed the show but I vowed to travel to either coast or any parts in between to see Mike Smith's Rock Engine when he returned next year. The tour was scheduled. But it never happened. The accident occurred in September 2003. Mike was working at his home and fell from a stretch of fence.
After the accident, several friends and admirers gave Mike needed support. Several of his peers (and long time fans) contributed time, love and resources to help with Mike’s recovery including Little Steven Van Zandt, Bruce Springsteen, and Peter Noone (Herman’s Hermits). Late Show bandleader Paul Shaffer organized a benefit concert in New York in August 2005 with several of Smith’s close friends including Peter & Gordon and The Zombies.

Little Steven Van Zandt, long a fan of the DC5 had been quietly campaigning for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame for several years. He explained why: “Well, for me the British Invasion was the “Big Bang” of rock and roll. It’s where everything important happened in rock and roll, and I think the success of the British Invasion of ’64 and ’65 has influenced everything that has come since. The Dave Clark Five was as big as the Beatles for six months or so, but I realize [popularity isn’t a big factor with the Rock and Roll Hall of fame voters. The Dave Clark Five made the best records that anyone can possibly make. From Glad All Over on down they simply made the greatest produced records of anybody. Their singer Mike Smith was one of the greatest singers ever.”

“If Somebody Loves You – you’re the luckiest man in the world.
If somebody needs you – well, what else would you want?
‘Cos lovers come and go and I think you know just what I mean.
But real love…you know the difference right away.”
- Mike Smith from the title track to the DC5’s final album “If Somebody Loves You”

To Mike & Charlie Smith
Love & Peace Forever
Bo White

1/21/08

Chess legend Bobby Fischer died on January 17th, just four days ago. The following is my attempt to understand this former cultural icon and tortured genius...

A Grindable Ending
The Unhappy Death of Bobby Fischer

In the aftermath of 9/11 attacks, Bobby Fischer declared on Philippine radio, “This is wonderful news. I want to see the U.S. wiped out.”

On the event of his death at age 64 on January 17th, 2008, I wondered what on earth happened to Fischer that would fill him up with such sorrow and hate.

This is my search for Bobby Fischer

It’s as if a lost manuscript by Camus was secreted to Bobby Fischer, and it became the blueprint of his troubled life. In it the author conceived a brilliant but tortured existence that found no solace in wealth, fame, spirituality, or love. Perhaps the original template for his love and humanity cracked at a very early age leaving him bitter and engulfed in an existential quagmire of mistrust, shame and self-hatred.

Bobby Fischer defeated Russian superstar Boris Spassky in 1972 to become the first and only American to win the official World Chess Championship. He was, for a time, one of America’s greatest cultural heroes, along the lines of Arthur Ashe, Elvis and Babe Ruth. But his controversial behavior and mean-spirited remarks led to his inescapable decline.

Typically, the United States Chess Federation was willing to forgive many of Fischer’s public rantings, after all, he was single handedly responsible for the popularity of the modern chess era. But his support gradually eroded as members of the organization grew tired of his odd behavior and inexplicably bitter public comments. On October 28th 2001, the Federation unanimously sanctioned Fischer and denounced him for his loathsome and brutish 9/11 remarks. Fischer’s fall from grace was precipitous and complete. His brilliance gave way to madness - his life unraveled and the phoenix never recovered.

But why should this matter to anyone? And who is Bobby Fischer, anyway?

Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1943 to Regina Wende, a naturalized American citizen of German Jewish descent, later a teacher, a registered nurse and physician and Han-Gerhardt Fischer a German bio-physicist. The couple divorced in 1945 when Bobby was two years old. At the age of six, Bobby learned how to play chess from instructions found in a chess set that his sister had purchased at a candy store below their Brooklyn apartment. He played chess on his own for over a year before joining the Brooklyn Chess Club and was taught by its president, Carmine Nigro. Young Bobby was hooked and he began an ascent to greatness driven by a series of mentors including chess journalist Hermann Helms and Grandmaster Arnold Denker. Denker would take him to hockey games at Madison Square Garden to watch the New York Rangers. They became lifelong friends – filling a void left by an absent father and a busy and emotionally unavailable mother.

By 1956, Fischer won the United States Junior Chess Championship – and he never looked back. In 1957, in quick succession, Fischer defended his title of Junior Chess Champ, won the U.S. Open in Cleveland and the New Jersey Open Championship. In 1958 he won the invitational U.S. Chess Championship in New York and by doing so, earned the title of International Master, at age 14, the youngest U.S. champion in history. By the early sixties his reputation and status as master chess player was firmly established. And yet in 1962, Bobby revealed that he had “personal problems”. In retrospect it is perfectly understandable that Bobby would experience trouble with fame and notoriety. Given that he dropped out of school at age 16, Bobby was inexperienced with the ways of the world, smart but undereducated. He was starting to travel in wide circles and would dine with the educated and elite – he could never compete. Instead he would take out a hand held electronic chess board and occupy himself as others discussed more worldly topics. He was at an intellectual and spiritual impasse that he could never overcome. After embracing and rejecting Nietzche’s nihilism, Bobby gained inspiration from the teachings of Herbert W. Armstrong and his son Garner Ted Armstrong. He began tithing to their denomination, the Worldwide Church of God. They predicted imminent apocalypse but the apocalypse never happened and by 1972 the church was reeling from allegations of sexual misbehavior involving Garner Ted Armstrong. Fischer denounced and left the Church… though for several years he had lived a lavish lifestyle through the Armstrong’s largesse (spending part of Fischer’s endowment on Fischer).

1972 was a pivotal year for Fischer, he left the clutches of the worldwide Church of God and he became a World Chess Champion.
The match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in Reyjavik Iceland was televised by PBS and the drama as captured (at least partially) for all to see. Fischer had reached the peak of his powers and this would be the most publicly scrutinized match ever, marketed as the “match of the century”. It was became a metaphor for the battle between the United States and the Soviet Union for world dominance. In effect Spassky and Fischer were pawns of the cold war. For a sport that is notoriously dull to the unenlightened (me), this was riveting drama on a field of 64 squares under hot lights and strategically placed microphones. It seemed that the entire world was watching. Fischer was certainly in his prime but his youthful boldness (the bum-of-the-month boasting) gave way to anxiety and an emerging paranoia. He almost quit before the match ever began. But he finally agreed after a series of escalating demands that drove the prize money to an unprecedented amount of $250,000. Fischer was also guaranteed a mighty slice of film and television revenues. The wait was worth it as Fischer’s performance was both elegant and despicable, consisting in unequal parts of high drama, psychological warfare and political intrigue. He even played brilliant chess.
Shelby Lyman filmed the program – created it, really – and it became the highest rated PBS show ever. I remember watching portions of the show and feeling bored by the game itself and sometimes fascinated by this oddball Fischer. Fischer started out slowly, losing to Spassky in the first game and refused to play the second game unless all cameras were removed. Fischer stuck to his guns and forfeited the game. But Spassky did not want to win by default so he agreed to Fischer’s demands. This principled decision reflects the values of an honorable man but it led to Spassky’s downfall. It’s curious because Spassky could have left after those first two games and declared himself the victor. Instead, Fischer came roaring back and won the crown handily. The Russians cried foul, accusing Fischer of using a concealed device that would interfere with Spassky’s brain signals. The auditorium was swept for suspicious electronic signals and chairs and light bulbs were dismantled. A Soviet chemist collected air from the stage and sealed it in a plastic bag – who’s paranoid?

Bobby Fischer returned to the United States as a hero. In a televised ceremony New York Mayor John Lindsey sang his praises and gave Bobby the key to the city. Shelby Lyman recalls, “Here’s Bobby in his great moment of triumph. He’s resplendent in this beautiful suit. The world is his – he’s young, handsome, women adore him, there’s all this money if he wants it. And he later said to a reporter, “The creeps are beginning to gather.” He was referring to press, lawyers, agents – anyone he thought was out to take advantage of him.”

This doesn’t seem to be an over-the-top or extreme form of paranoid thinking – it’s even reasonable to suggest that all those hangers-on were not altogether concerned about Bobby’s best interests - but it does signal the emergence of a quality of thought that would lead to a loosening of associations and a plunge into the murky waters of mental illness. And it would ultimately contribute to Fischer’s unhappy death. In his later years, Fischer enjoyed a near anonymity that was both chosen and necessary. By most accounts, Fischer’s mental health had gradually eroded and given way to a fixed and patterned paranoia and a curious anti-Semitism that betrayed his birthright, his mother being Jewish. In his later years from 1999 to 2005 Fischer’s primary means of communicating with the public was through sometimes bizarre radio interviews from the Philippines, Iceland, Cambodia, and Russia. He made as many as 33 radio broadcasts across the world. Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Fischer spoke with Pablo Mercado on Philippine radio. Fischer railed against U.S. foreign policy …“that nobody cares that the U.S. and Israel have slaughtered Palestinians for years”. Informed that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been attacked, he asserted, “This is wonderful news. What goes around comes around even for the United States.” Fischer called for President Bush’s death. And expressed hope that a coup de’ etat would topple the U.S government.

For over 15 years, Fischer was on the lam from U.S. authorities on charges of tax evasion (Fischer himself insisted that he had not paid any taxes since 1976), embargo-breaking (he played a chess tournament in Yugoslavia) and inciting violence against a U.S. President.

Despite his ill health and his fugitive status, Fischer eluded agents of the U.S. government and lived out his life as a free man and a troubled genius - a man who had an end game of a rook and a bishop versus a rook and a knight with many pawns in between.

Peace,
Bo White

12/31/07

I've just revisited No Country For Old Men. Here's the results...

No Country For Old Men

I didn’t like this movie at all. Its gruesome blood lust and senseless, stupid violence, nihilism and fade to black ending had my head turning, seat squirming and one eye shut. On the most superficial level, the movie speaks to the fringe violence of 1980’s Drug War America set on the southwest border of Texas and Mexico. But it seems to transcend time and place to predict a more brutal future - and the future is now. We are a nation that experiences violence daily, we are frightened and demoralized, up to 65% of us have experienced traumatizing events - but how many of us have recovered? And yet… we older folks yearn for those idealized bygone days 20 some years ago when our violent spirit was less transparent and more hidden. As I continued to think and feel about this movie, it became clear to me filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen fashioned an allegorical tale that runs deeper than individual violent acts and speaks to the modern American Zeitgeist.

The movie is based on Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel of the same name released in 2005. I’ve read the book and watched the movie and I must profess that I prefer the film - it’s the Coen’s ability to breathe life and death into that stark, brooding western landscape like a modern Peckinpah (and just as violent) and to forgo the novel’s need to tie-up the loose ends.

By now you’ve probably read enough about the film to appreciate the basic plot line and chracter development. Llewlyn Moss (Josh Brolin), a welder and Vietnam vet, stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad, Everyone is dead save for one poor dying soul, the heroin is still in the flatbed and the last man standing is propped up against a tree, dead as a doornail, holding over 2 million in drug money in his satchel. Moss takes the money and hightails back to his trailer. The chase has begun.
Anton Chigurh (Javier Barden) is an assassin hired to kill Moss and recover the money. Chigurh is a force of “unstoppable evil” that comes alive when he kills, holds a convoluted but identifiable murderous code of values, and has a bizarre Beatles haircut. He is a killing machine with an unusual weapon, a stun gun powered by the pneumatic click of an air tank, typically used to kill cattle, only Chigurh uses it to murder human beings.
The movie’s conscience and voice of reason is supplied by the soon-to-be retired Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones). His homespun voiceover narrative provides the moral foundation to the film’s themes of fate and free-will and dumb luck. Can we protect ourselves from such evil? Or are we simply delaying the inevitable, our own self-extinction?
In a pivotal point in the film, a deputy scans a bloody death scene and says, “It’s a mess ain’t it?” The Sheriff’ sardonic reply, “If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here”, colors the scene with a dark humor and a sense of impending doom that envelopes the rest of the movie. Sheriff Bell identifies our longing for barely remembered values
in a soliloquy of quiet anger and sadness, “It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin’ Sir and Ma’am the end is pretty much in sight”. This is a sheer primordial vision of our fading moral decency and the ascendance of our most malevolent instincts. We have become the violence.

There are two vital scenes in which teenage males are confronted with a moral choice trading their shirts for money, and keeping quiet about it. It exposes how quickly our young are indoctrinated by greed instead of altruism. The rot has already set-in…it starts so early now – our last days are upon us.

The final monologue gives meaning to everything that went before. Sheriff Bell talks about a recurring dream, a dream about fathers and sons… “it was like we was both backing older times and I was on horseback goin through the mountains of a night. Goin through this pass in the mountains. It was cold and there was snow on the ground and he rode past me and kept goin. Never said nothing. He just rode on past and he had this blanket wrapped around him and he had his head down and when he rode past I seen he was carryin fire in a horn the way people used to do and I could see the horn from the light inside of it. About the color of the moon. And in the dream I knew that he was goin on ahead and that he was fixin to make a fire somewhere in all that dark and all that cold and I knew whenever I got there he would be there. And then I woke up.”

But where is our father now, when we are scared and we really need him? I hate this movie. It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

Peace,
Bo White

12/25/07

Here's a little film review...I'm not sure if it's finished; not sure I wanna finish it...

No Country For Old Men

I didn’t like this movie at all. Its gruesome blood lust and senseless, stupid violence, nihilism and fade to black ending had my head turning, seat squirming and one eye shut. On the most superficial level, the movie speaks to the ever increasing violence across America today at our schools, shopping malls and in the streets. It seems that we are a nation of traumatized and desensitized people who have lost our moral compass. And yet we older folks yearn for those idealized bygone days when our violent spirit was less transparent and more hidden. As I continued to think and feel about this movie, it seems to me that the Coen Brothers fashioned an allegorical tale about America that runs deeper than individual violent acts and speaks to a collective modern Zeitgeist.

The movie’s conscience, the voice of reason is in the character of Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) and his homespun vernacular is the voice for our moral longing.
I an early pivotal point in the movie, a deputy scans a bloody death scene and says, “It’s a mess ain’t it?” The Sheriff’s sardonic reply, “If it ain’t, it’ll do till the mess gets here”, colors the scene with a dark humor and a sense of impending evil that pervades the rest of the movie. Sheriff Bell’s foundational soliloquy, “Once yes sir and yes ma’am is forgotten it’s all downhill”, is about our fading values – we’ve lost our basic love and respect for each other. We’ve become the violence; it is a legacy we bequeath to our children.
There are two vital scenes in which young males (tweens and teens) are confronted with a moral choice trading their shirts for money, and keeping quiet about it. It exposes how quickly our young are indoctrinated by greed instead of altruism.
The final monologue gives meaning to everything that went before. The Sheriff Bell talks about a recurring dream…
He’s riding a horse in the forest, its cold and he doesn’t know where he is, his father rides past…he knows father will find a place up ahead that is safe, he’ll have a fire lit. Everything will be ok.

But where is father now, when we really need him?

I hate this movie. It’s the best movie I’ve seen this year.

Peace
Bo White

12/8/07

Here's a CD Review of one of my new favorite groups...

Bazooka Jones
Gots What It Takes; Knows How To Use It

Bazooka Jones is one of the most exciting bands on today’s scene. Their brand of hook-laden rock and roll thunder and Gore-Gore-Girl group retro is a refreshing return to music that can get you revved-up and thinking that life can be fun after all.
At center stage is a foxy beautiful singer with the non de plume of Viagra. Well, I’d swallow that pill any day, stiff neck and all. She flat out sings her ass off, completely free and uninhibited, like the love shack child of Reg Presley and Kate Pierson. She possesses a marvelous range that allows her to sing like Chrissie Hynde over the power chords, hiccup like Holly or whisper sweet and Lolita-like before the music kicks-in

Hey…OK … I gotta admit - I jones for Viagra but this band is more than the sum of its parts. Each player contributes significantly to the overall sound, feel, look and vibe of Bazooka Jones. Sure, they look a bit oddly drecked out and surreal but that only adds to the fun and helps obscure a sometimes deeper message about commitment, love and the primacy of relationship. It could put off a fan base that comes of age plugged in, turned around and seeking a quick fix.

The guitarist - Mr. Bullethead Jones - is fantastic, slamming out power chords like a skinny Van Halen riffing as if his life depended on it. He crafts stinging solos that hit that E-string with a vengeance yet never neglects the bass line, giving his sound a sonic depth that Kenny Olson would give his left nut for. His power and plunder virtuosity recalls the ascendance of our early guitar heroes before the big hair and trickle-down lies of the eighties would ramp up the discord and change our country forever.
This is much more fun.

The drummer Billy Love is an absolute powerhouse Bonham-eyed monster of a time keeper. He pounds them skins like Johnny Wadd giving it to Misty Dawn for about the umpteenth time and ol’ Misty getting’ off on the last thrust just as much as the first stroke. Love’s beat packs more wallop than a Chuck Morris roundhouse kick and wipes out any doubt that this band came to town to rock yer socks off.
Bazooka Jones is an appealing bizarre-looking, genre jumping testosterone fueled band led by a beautiful and mighty she-girl and they have more balls than Denny Laine coming on to Lovely Linda with the old man sleeping it off in the next room. In other words, they rock.

Their debut CD is a nuclear-powered sonic landscape akin to Apollo 11 blasting off to the moon @ G-Force. The opening two tracks packed the most unexpected and powerful 1-2 wallop since Cheney shot his best corporate buddy in the ass back in naught-six. Pants Off opens the disc with a ferocious gut wrenching gale-force power that takes my breath away and gets me thinking about takin’ a cold shower. This steroid-enhanced chest-pounding slam-fest is a direct descendant of Stepping Stone, Paul Revere’s version, with Mark Lindsey puffed-up and growling like a wild banshee, only Viagra has him beat by a mile. She not only steps up the heat she sets the whole place on fire, Ooh Poo Pah Doo this!
She Wants Me continues the stab-in-the-chest primal ear shattering glory that any died-in-the-wool Kinks fan could appreciate. The sexual ambiguities in the lyrics are a total orgasmic turn-on… and great fun.
Love up has a fifties bee-hive girl group feel that could even get a rise outta Spector as he sits strapped-in and ready to take the juice. This is sing-a-long song with a great rhythmic vibe. I can envision the dance floor filled with “girls and boys makin’ tons of noise, shaking their bones to Bazooka Jones”. Hell…even I shake my groove thing to Love Up…and I thought I lost it a coupla months back at Walmart. Oh baby!! Swinging on the Moon is power pop ballad sung sweet and pure and it makes you believe in love, at least for the moment. The singer’s been around the piss pot a few times and isn’t sure she can find the handle. She does… but her grasp is loosening.
Goodbye Mr. Nice Guy is one of the best kiss-off songs I’ve ever heard. It’s filled with a wondrous dialectic with tongue firmly in cheek e.g., anytime is the right time to say goodbye or he likes to see her cum, she likes to see him go…AMEN sister girl! That rehearsed nicely nice boy is a bit creepy - wonder what’s beneath the mask - a future Bank of America executive?
The lone cover, a heavy version of Lee Hazlewood’s These Boots Were Made For Walking, flashes a memory of Nancy Sinatra dropping the microphone on Sullivan, bending over to reveal her lovely cantilevered and mini-skirted derrière– and at the very moment she mooned the screen - sales went up to a half million! Truth.
Bazooka Ride is the most blatant attempt to fashion bubblegum leer-ics in the best tradition of Kasentz and Katz but it also seems to tag some autobiographical material like pink guitars and whammy bars - the Legend of Bazooka Jones?
Girl on Fire is a break-up song – a song of liberation, freedom the shackles of a controlling relationship. And Life of the Party seems to fit nicely as its companion piece. It might be telling the story of Edie Sedgwick and her central role in the Warhol myth. But it could be about any person with ambition who confronts a dilemma and has to make a choice.
Drive-in Boy opens with a drum riff straight outta the Human Beinz’ Nobody But Me. This is a grievous tale of role reversal. The girl is treating the boy like boys treat girls. Damn sex objects - love Viagra’s panting pastiche that recalls Reg Presley’s lascivious moans on Strange Movies, a great Troggs song featured on Bowie’s ’73 Midnight Special TV show.
Perfect One is a rollicking ballad about love and commitment – when two become a couple…the perfect one. A song guaranteed to get your foot tappin’ and put a smile on your face.
BABYFOOLAROUND is a funky fun tribute to the Troggs with shades of Come Now (the MC5 powered-up version) and a glorious mid-song riff borrowed from Wild Thing - a great closer to one of the best CDs of 2006 (and 2007).

Bazooka Jones is currently recording their next elpee worth of tunes entitled Sweet Tooth Crud. Stay tuned! Check them out @ www.bazookajones.com or myspace.com/bazookajonesdetroit.

Peace,
Bo White

Celebrate the Peace Symbol’s Golden Anniversary
How Far Have We Come?

If there is to be Peace in the world, there must be peace in nations. If there is to be Peace in Nations, there must be Peace in cities. If there is to be Peace in cities, there must be Peace between neighbors. If there is to be Peace between neighbors, there must be Peace in the home. If there is to be Peace in the home, there must be Peace in the heart.
- Lao Tzu

Back in the late fifties I was a peripatetic jack-in-the-box school-kid ready to take on all comers. I was quite active and would keep going and going and going like a toy bunny hyped-up by an Energizer 9-Volt. But this was the time before the ADHD hysteria, when people recognized that boys will be boys. Still… I was a bit beyond that. I was also just a little too uptight to be a “normal” boy. I never quite put it together back then but I know now – after years of internal work and one huge psychic enema – it was all that propaganda that got my short hairs standing. I remember those crazy bomb drills, Bert the Turtle and all that “duck and cover” nonsense that gave me a not so-healthy appreciation of nuclear holocaust and a lifelong fear of a doomed and foreshortened future. It was the era of the fallout shelter, a government sponsored paranoia – remember “You Can Be Saved”? It was a pamphlet that warned us about the imminent threat of the dreaded commie hordes that would dare to “Nuke” the United States. Supposedly these godless bastards were just itching to bomb my little hometown and destroy everything rare, precious and beautiful about our way of life. A neighbor down the block showed me his shelter with a fully stocked two month supply of canned goods, beef jerky and water and he warned me that he wouldn’t be able to save my family…we’d be on our own.. I figured that I would have to conjure up some pretty impressive superhero powers to save the world in that post-apocalyptic nuclear landscape. But… superman died in 1959, it was in all the newspapers. How was I going to save the world without superman? At the time I really believed most everyone had a fall-out shelter… except for me. The truth was less impressive than I imagined, seems only about 100,000 bomb shelters were constructed in the height of the cold war during the fifties and sixties. Still, the message washed over my consciousness and filled me up with an almost free-floating fear, sometimes under our radar but always there. We heard it from official government reports, local compliance drills, newspapers and magazines, television and radio and in films such as On the Beach (1959) and Dr. Strangelove (1964) and Dylan protest songs like “With God on Our Side” or the Fugs’ iconoclastic ode to paradox “Kill For Peace”. The message was planted deeply and to this day I feel an underlying sense of foreboding - something is going to happen in my lifetime… and it’s not going to be good.

Maybe that’s what led to my early attempts at protest and political involvement. I demonstrated against the Vietnam War and took to the streets following Kent State in 1970. I thought that anti-war protest must be the only way out of this insanity. I read Bertrand Russell’s “Why I am Not a Christian” and learned about his role in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - for which he was imprisoned at age 89! I was astounded by Henry David Thoreau’s venerated work “Civil Disobedience” and began to understand his link to the rise of the American Peace Movement following World War I and his undeniable influence on Gandhi, Bayard Rustin and Martin Luther King. There was so much to learn about our complex geopolitical alliances as we teetered on the brink of self-destruction. The educated and the elite were making the decisions without regard to the voices of peace and reason.

There was so much to fear, mostly ourselves. How could we come to terms with our worst impulse toward self-annihilation as we dearly cling to our instinct to survive? We desperately needed something to hold onto and embrace as a symbol of our ethological instinct to survive…

Enter Gerald Holtom. He was a quiet un-assuming geekish sort of anti-hero who filled this existential void. Never heard of him? Me neither, I embarrassed to say. And yet, as the creator of the now famous and much maligned “Peace Symbol”, Holtom has been an inspiration to untold millions. He was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) to design a symbol for use at an Easter March to Canterbury Cathedral in protest to the research and development of atomic weapons.

In the winter of 1957/58 Holtom, a west-end London artist and WWII conscientious objector, had come upon his final design for a symbol of peace and though he agonized over his creation, he was 66.6 percent sure that it was “the one”. He explained his creative muse to Peace News editor Hugh Brock,
“I was in despair – deep despair. I drew myself; the representation of an individual in despair, with arms outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing with a line and put a circle around it.”
The two lines down were the British semaphore signal for N (nuclear) and the one line up for D (disarmament) – the Peace Symbol was born! Holtom later showed his sketches to a small group of Londoners that helped create the CND and it quickly gained acceptance as the symbol for Britain’s anti-nuclear movement. The Peace symbol was prominently displayed in the very first anti-nuclear march from London to Aldermaston, where nuclear weapons were and are still being manufactured, on Easter weekend 1958. Peggy Duff, a well-known peace activist, organized the march. Holtom was also involved in the preparations and made all the visual effects, banners and placards that would leave a compelling image in the public mind. He produced five hundred cardboard lollipops on sticks. Half were black on white and half were white on green. Just as the church’s liturgical colors change over Easter, so the colors of the lollipops would change – from winter to spring, from death to life. The first peace badges were made of fired white clay with the Peace Symbol painted black. They were disseminated with a note explaining that in the event of a nuclear war the peace badge would be one of the few human artifacts to survive.

The protestors, 10,000 strong, left Trafalgar Square in London to traverse the country on a torturous four day journey. By the time they reached the Atomic Weapons Establishment near Aldermaston their ranks had dwindled to about 2,000. American pacifist Bayard Rustin, a confidant of Martin Luther King, joined the march and later brought the symbol back to the states to be used in the nascent and growing civil rights movement. But it was Philip Altbech, a University of Chicago freshman and member of the Student Peace Union, who became a major player in advancing the popularity of Holtom’s creation. Altbech recalls:
“I was in the UK to speak for the national Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and was impressed by their symbol – the Peace Symbol…I put a few of the buttons and little flags in my pocket and brought them back to SPU headquarters in Chicago.”

After initial resistance the SPU printed 20,000 of the peace buttons, distributed them to their chapters and sold them at meetings. The Peace symbol was on its way to mass popularity. Holtom deliberately never copyrighted his creation, hoping that it would acquire universal significance as a symbol of peace and non-violent protest. In a very deep sense the Peace Symbol has now become a cultural archetype.

We have survived…so far. But how far have we come? Our society is unhealthy – how can we live sanely in an insane world? We seem to at a crossroads created by the dialectic of our nation’s global ascendance and gradual decline.

There have been a few daring social critics that have spoken up through the years. Michael Harrington, author of The Other America, a book that influenced President Johnson’s War on Poverty, cautioned that under modern capitalism effective control over wealth, investment, credit, political power and social planning would be increasingly vested by unelected elites who would fashion notions of public good that would benefit only a precious few. And so it came to pass. Now we are living under the yolk of the patriot act and are immersed in a never ending war. Now, more than ever, we need to listen to our saints and prophets – Jesus, Gandhi, and Reverend Martin Luther King. It is curious that they all preached peace and equality yet they all died violently. Why are we so afraid of peace?

In mid-October 2007, John Sinclair, founder of the White Panther Party and manager of revolutionary rockers the MC5 chatted with me briefly about peace.

Bo: You aren’t typically associated with the Peace Movement
John: I’ve always been a part of the peace movement – but I was more of an organizer. The Nuclear Disarmament Campaign created the conditions for the peace movement during the Vietnam War….all of them – Thoreau, Bertrand Russell, Gandhi, King - were our heroes.
Bo: Why are our leaders so afraid of peace?
John: It threatens them. The Ban the Bomb movement all went to jail and left a void in leadership until Vietnam - nuclear disarmament spread the word of peace and created the conditions for the anti-war campaign during the Vietnam era. The cold war propaganda was intended to make you terrified. Now it’s a hot war - only Islamic terrorists have replaced the “ruskies”. The rulers don’t want peace – they would like to have a nuclear war because they are crazed, power-mad and greedy.
Bo: Is there hope for peace?
John: There is little hope. They are gonna fuck around until they blow it up
Bo: What can we do?
John: Live a life that encompasses your beliefs. Be a peaceful person – don’t go to war with anyone. In the end it is so simple to do the right thing. Listen, it’s up to you, nobody else will do it. Peace won’t happen by itself. I’d like to see the peace movement get bigger and bigger until it takes off. It requires commitment of people who care about peace no matter what their age.

Later in October, this writer had a long chat with Joni McCoy from the Home for Peace & Justice. She has observed the devastating effects of war and violence on her peace trips to Palestine and Iraq with the Michigan Peace teams. In the late seventies and early eighties, she participated in monthly vigils and non-violent actions (walking across the street) at Wurtsmith Air force base in Oscoda and was arrested for trespassing. In other words, she walks with integrity. At 68 years of age, Joni hasn’t lost a step and is committed now more than ever to advance the cause of peace.

Bo: Can you tell me about the Michigan Peace teams?
Joni: To give you an example of who they are do you remember the Christian Peacemakers teams. They were in Iraq a few months ago and a Canadian, a Brit and American were abducted and the American was killed. It’s that type of thing. The Michigan Peace team – we’ve been going to Palestine and Israel. It was on one of those trips in 2003 that a Catholic Priest and I went over to Iraq to see if we could field a team over there. And of course, it didn’t happen. What peace teams are… is we act as buffers…we go over there and act as buffer between the Israelis and Palestinians. We get people across the borders, ride in ambulances, stay in houses that are going to come down, and just whatever we can do to prevent the violence.
Bo: You have this wonderful history supporting peace - what would you recommend to people that have an interest?
Joni: Oh…come - join us. Come join us some Friday when we are out celebrating peace… meet with us and experience standing up and doing democracy - doing democracy. Join our Women in Black vigil…get on our email list, do some study. We have a film series – once a month at Zauel Library.
Bo: Do you have much support?
Joni: Well, let me give you an example one Friday night it was bitter, bitter cold, we’re on the corner of Bay and Tittabawassee, this one woman stops, gets out of her car and says I want to buy you some coffee and put forty bucks in my hand and boom she’s gone…then, shortly after she left, I turn around an there’s this guy with a couple of thermoses of hot coffee. He says, “I’m just a supporter”. Those things give us hope…it gives us strength to keep going. And then sometimes we might have somebody that stops and is real angry with us because their brother or daughter or someone is in Iraq…it doesn’t mean we don’t care about them - it gives us a chance to have a dialogue.

I’m several generations into my life and plenty has happened - only now it seems that the need for peace work is greater than ever. The never-ending war is a global phenomenon that despoils our nest and threatens our existence. It seems that globalization has become the measure of our hope and our despair. Perhaps our core task is to perceive our own darkness so that healing can proceed and we can feel again - love and serenity; healing and spiritual longing.

Where does that leave us? Back to where we started.

Celebrate the Peace Symbol!

There are 36 statewide affiliates of United for Peace & Justice. In Saginaw you can contact the Tri-City Action for Peace or Home for Peace & Justice by calling Joni McCoy @ (989) 792-9766 or emailing her @ homeforpax@aol.com.

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other – Mother Teresa

Peace & Love
Bo White

11/11/07

Any child old enough to laugh and experience pleasure,
can also experience grief and trauma.
Children need not understand what is happening to be terrorized.
Grief and trauma are what we experience, not what we know, understand or comprehend.
- Dr. William Steele

I’m not typically an alarmist but I’m worried about Saginaw. It’s not just a question about gangs and the role of law enforcement nor is it just about the disparity between the wealthy and the impoverished. Violence affects all of us regardless of race or class. It involves a deep sense that we are trying to live and survive in an insane world – where all the things we know and cherish have been disfigured…even our very identities. I wonder how we could be altered, so gradually…so insidiously without us even knowing. If we did know we would do something about it. Right?

I’ve been around the piss pot a few times and I’ve seen people struggle with dirt floor poverty while they committed themselves to loving their children and keeping them safe - a daunting task in our troubled community. Whole segments of our population are traumatized yet desensitized to the violence in their midst. Coalitions and Summits are duly formed and attended by a precious few. Faith-based organizations reach out with their hands open and peaceful to grasp only the wisp of an empty promise. Sometimes there is truth in numbers. Did you know that…

1400 children died of child abuse in 2004; 80% were under the age of 4.
43% of juvenile offenders have previously been referred to the Child Protective Services.
98% of incarcerated youth have experienced multiple traumatic events.
40% Drop Out rates are reported in 10% of our nation’s schools.

A horrific tale of trauma is wrapped around each of the above statistics. It is estimated that up to 65% of our population has experienced traumatizing events yet only 5% of us experience Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. This is due to a number of protective factors that envelope our children and keep them safe including a secure attachment, an easy temperament, a family that has money, means and housing, and a community that is safe and has programs (sports, dance, music, daycare and good schools) for kids and families. The effects of trauma on young children are insidious as the onset of symptoms is often delayed by weeks, months, even years. Trauma can alter the architecture of our brains so that we are prone to anxiety, impulsiveness, and aggression. Trauma can change something as intrinsically and biologically based as temperament. A young joyful child will no longer be happy and confident if trauma is left untreated. Traumatized children can appear oppositional, hyperactive and anti-social when, in truth, they are exhibiting a normal physiological response to threat - Freeze-Flight-and Fight. This is a bio-pyschological trap that keeps children in a perpetual state of arousal, numbing and re-experiencing. These natural biological responses can be misinterpreted by caregivers, teachers, social workers and others as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD or Bi-Polar Disorder. The long term consequences to unidentified trauma is absolutely devastating and can lead to school failure, mental health problems, anti-social behavior and substance abuse. Sometimes these kids are adjudicated and enter the Juvenile Justice system where they are further traumatized and invalidated. This solidifies a negative internal representation..."I'm no good". In this manner a state becomes a trait; the victim becomes a perpetrator. We need to treat traumatized children not punish them! We need to accurately identify trauma and its effects on young children and provide evidenced-based treatment that will guide them through recovery to an empowered voice. They can recover.

Peace
Bo White

10/26/07

Here's a new column of thoughts and other disorders. I call it...

Bo’s Naked Truth
&
Dirty Lies

Stevie Wonder has an aura, yep…an aura, that’s when you have this field of energy that surrounds you, like a vague luminous glow that somehow denotes a spiritual or romantic essence. I had a girlfriend once that had one of those and let me tell you…it didn’t last too long, just long enough to get to know me then… whoosh, it was gone. I have that effect on people. I’m like romantic buzz kill. But on September 12th when I ventured forth to Meadowbrook Music Theatre to see Stevie Wonder for the first time, I was ready for his aura. I was ready to take it all in and be astounded by his loving genius, spiritual awareness and political activism. But when I arrived - in plenty of time, 1 hour before the 8pm show time -my spot on the hill, front & center & right smack in the middle, was already taken Those bastards, don’t they know that was my intended spot; that I don’t get out much and unlike them, I am a TRUE Stevie Wonder fan? Sheese, I even liked that god-awful turkey he did with McCartney - just because he did the Ebony part so well. THAT’S how big of a fan I am. Anyway, my son is accompanying me just to keep an eye on me so I don’t get lost or cause any trouble. I promised my wife that I’d behave. Pinky Swear. Anyway, we find a reasonable spot on the hill behind this foursome who, like us, are seated nicely on the ground with only a blanket to comfort their bottoms. They aren’t like those annoying people who seat themselves in a lawn chair (with a maximum 12 inch elevation) who unabashedly block the view of everyone seated behind them. I think them lawn chair drones are a plant ‘cos everyone starts to rush off to rent one…maybe it’s more comfortable than sitting on cold grass. Then, lo and behold, three more people join the foursome in front of me, all carrying lawn chairs. I rush off to rent one. As I stand in line, my mind wanders, why Stevie Wonder still goes by “Stevie”…hmm…he’s like close to retirement age. What about Steve or Steveland? So I get back to our blanket and I look around and notice a sea of white faces, where’s the black crowd? It’s a totally white bourgeois audience (including me) 30’s to middle-aged. As I start to listen to conversations , I notice they are all saying the same boring things…cottage up north blah, blah, blah, season tickets to U of M football, blah, blah blah – and they are saying “awesome” a lot. That really pisses me off, especially at a Stevie Wonder concert. Me, I’m freezing. It’s the coldest day of late summer and the degrees are dropping like flies as each nano-minute skips past and daylight recedes. Now I’m honked off. Stevie’s supposed to start at 8pm and he’s an hour late. This ain’t no Sly Stone concert…bring it on! I wanna climb up on that stage, charge the dressing room and yank Stevie onstage and kick his flabby black ass in front of all those silly white people. But I think it might seem racist or something so I push that thought aside, take a deep breath and ask my son, “Where are all he black people?” Now …people are turning around and pointing at me and whispering to each other…oops broke another promise, sorry. So the show begins with Stevie and his daughter Aisha (the baby immortalized in the song Isn’t She Lovely) take center stage. They perform a duet on Love’s In Need of Love Today – not bad. Too High, Visions, and Living For the City follows…love it! But then Stevie does a 20 minute Master Blaster (Jammin’) that was so self-indulgent and boring that I cracked a tooth. Throughout this pointless meandering jam, Stevie used a voice box effect giving it a cybernetic feel as he hypnotically intoned, “I Love Detroit because that’s where I was raised”…at least I think he said that. Maybe he was giving us a big cybernetic FU. But the song selection got better - though I felt the band was less than stellar. They seemed stiff, bland and perfunctory - lacking the dynamic interplay and split second timing typical of the best bands. Despite all my curmudgeonly hoo-ha and bitter-cold complaints, I must admit that Stevie’s next three songs, Higher Ground, Golden Lady and Ribbon in the Sky were magnificent. But, alas, I had to leave - I was three hours into extreme freeze-frame discomfort and still had to drive back to Saginaw. As I made my way off the hill, I accidentally stepped on someone’s blanket. She shouted out, “YOU STEPPED ON MY BLANKET”. I simply apologized, “I’m sorry”. Then I smiled. She was he only black person I talked with the entire night.

Oh, by the way, Stevie does indeed have an aura. I saw it clearly, shining brilliantly from the Campus of Oakland U. as I flew down I-75 North.

Peace,
Bo White

9/19/07

Check out my piece on Reefer Madness from our friends @ the 303 Collective. It's on the the Live Review page. Check the Special Events page for my review of a recent performance of the New Cars fronted by the Wizard of rock n' roll himself - Todd Rundgren.

Peace,
Bo White

9/3/07

Here's a piece I wrote for Review Magazine about our upcoming show with British Rock Icon Denny Laine...

Denny Laine

Denny Laine will performing a show @ White’s Bar this fall - the date will be announced in the near future. $15 tickets will be available at the time of announcement

Denny Laine is a seminal figure in the history of British Rock n’ Roll having rubbed elbows with just about every major figure of the “Invasion” of 1964 when the Beatles took over the charts and opened America’s doors to a host of British bands including the Dave Clark 5, the Animals, Searchers, Troggs, the Moody Blues and many others. Denny’s early fame resulted from his role in founding the Moody Blues with Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas and Graeme Edge. Denny had a large hand in crafting the Moodies’ original R&B sound and sang lead on their first hit the incredible Go Now. By 1966, Denny sought a new musical direction and formed Denny Laine & the Incredible String Band which inspired the formation of Electric Light Orchestra which had two of Denny’s ex-band mates from the Diplomats, Bev Bevan and Roy Wood (of the Move). In 1969/70 Denny was a singer and guitarist for a short lived supergroup, Ginger Baker’s Airforce.

But Denny is most fondly remembered in America as a founding member of Wings with Paul and Linda McCartney. Wings enjoyed massive worldwide success as both a recording and a touring band. Their live shows garnered glowing reviews and by the time their triple live lp Wings Over America was released in December 1976, it was apparent that Wings was more of a working band than just a McCartney vehicle. Laine’s role was pivotal as a songwriter (Time To Hide) and co-writer (Mull of Kintyre) as well as multi-instrumentalist (lead and rhythm guitarist, bass, keyboards). Wings most heralded album Band on the Run was the work of trio consisting of Paul and Linda McCartney and Denny Laine, Paul focused on bass and drums while Denny took the role of lead guitarist and they all sang. To this day Band on the Run is a glorious achievement. In the book White Bicycles, the author Joe Boyd writes, “Laine was one of the era’s great singers, immortalized by his vocal on the Moody Blues’ Go Now, and eventually successful singing harmony with McCartney in Wings, but he never got the recognition he deserved.
It’s about time

Since the breakup of Wings in 1980, Denny has released 12 solo albums and 10 compilation albums. He continues to tour extensively performing songs from his solo career along side such career nuggets as Go Now, Time to Hide and Band on the Run. On August 28th, Laine headlined the prestigious “Farewell Liverpool Concert” at the legendary Cavern Club in front of a packed and rapturous house. Performing many of his Wings songs, Denny’s tribute also celebrated the 800th birthday of the City of Liverpool. The prodigal son returned home where it all began for him with his first professional band Denny Laine & the Diplomats. And so it is - life goes around and comes full circle.

Peace,
Bo White

8/6/07

Check out the Review page for my piece on Sal Valentino's spectacular July 21st Performance and the skinny on the Banana Convention's rockin' new change-of-pace CD

In the meantime - here's some cool posters of upcoming 70th Anniversary events featuring...

Former guitarist/singer for the Moody Blues and Wings... Denny Laine

Former Wings Guitarist and renown finger-picker... Laurence Juber

Former manager for the MC5 and leader of the White Panther Party - the 60's Icon, Poet and Head...John Sinclair

Garage/Punk pioneers... Question Mark & the Mysterians

7/4/07

Sal Valentino - the VOICE of the Beau Brummels - is performing @ White's Bar Saturday July 21st - it's an outdoor show so c'mon down and bask in the warmth of our Michigan sun and listen to the most glorious music ever smiled at you. Sal will sing the hits - Laugh Laugh, Cry Just a Little, Don't Talk To Strangers, Tell Me Why as well as cuts from the Brummels' late sixties masterpieces Bradley's Barn and Triangle. This will be Sal's only Michigan appearance. Sooo...Don't miss the opportunity to see this legendary singer up close and personal. Check out my poster of the event

6/20/07

Our 70th Anniversary Party is all set for Saturday June 30th - 2pm to 2am.
$5 admission. 12 Bands will perform including:
Stamp'D
Banana Convention
the Mongrels
The Dappled Dandiprats
Debbie & the Formfitters
Red Shift
Dominaut
Dryvel
Death or Glory
Flashmob

We have some vittles - dogs & brats & tater salad - available for you and we will give out limited edition 70th Anniversary CDs with text and commentary from yours truly. I hope to see you there!

Check out the Review page for my piece on the Hall & Oates show at the glorious Dow Diamond.

PUT THESE DATES ON YOUR CALENDAR:
July 14th - Michigan Music Fest Featuring 2pm - 2am
$8 admission
Cash O' Riley
Frank Bang's Secret Stash
Big Willy
Jen Sygit
Diesel Down
and many others

June 21st - Sal Valentino lead singer of the Beau Brummels
Sal will sing all the hits plus cuts from the legendary LP's Bradley's Barn and Magic Hollow as well as more recent solo releases
Admission is $12

August 18th - Back to School Punk Fest starring Question Mark & the Mysterians
$8 admission. Band lineup will be announced in the near future.

Peace,
Bo White

5/29/07

Check out my take Alex Chilton's Live in London disc on my CD Review page...or die!

Peace - Bo White

5/10/07

Patsy Ruth White
May 10th, 1926 - June 6th, 2006

My Parents
There was a girl who loved a boy
A love that would last forever
Their passion burned like the phoenix
brilliant and sacred
forgiving
They soared together high and higher yet
where the clouds met the sky
And found a life
One day their flame gave out
only to be reborn
in my memory

I love you mom
Bo

4/22/07

Squeals & Grunts from the Cave

My life is like a rubber band that bends but doesn’t break - seems to be an archetypal pattern for me and my family that repeats itself generation after generation with some exceptions and a grateful reprieve now and again. Sometimes I think I’m just a tiny pebble that caused a ripple in our family’s pond - there have been other pebbles before me…but, then again… maybe I’m not a pebble at all - just a small crest of wave that rose up for a brief moment before hitting against the shoreline and washing back to sea barely remembered by the children of my children. As sure as I project my yearnings on a box of chocolates, I have learned from the unknown joys and sorrows of my ancestors. I could see it in Nana’s cold eyes and Little Grandpa’s silent internal musings. I could hear it in my mother’s voice as she told me the story about my grandmother Lela through two tattered old photos, before her beauty was spent. I sit in wonder…

My granddaughter, Hailey Rose is the light in my life. At age 2 ½, she’s got a lot going for her. She has a tremendous vocabulary and talks in full sentences. She plays joyously and absolutely adores her cousin – Gabey Baby, who, now at age 7, wants to be addressed as Gabriel, thank you very much – proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has good tast