JOE DOLCE NEWSLETTER
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Friday September 18th, 2009
Fingers Crossed
‘The movie begins with the ominous words "This is a true story,"
which is almost always a warning that it would have been better if it hadn't been.’
ROGER EBERT
Hi folks,
The truth hurts. The truth will set you free. The Truth was the name of the broadsheet that made Rupert Murdoch’s name in Australia, featuring the infamous very true Page Three topless nude. (That really hurt.) The most well-known communist newspaper, the official organ of Soviet Russia, was called Pravda: (ie The Truth.) But rather than set you free, the Pravda was more likely to set you in a gulag. Sadly, noble Truth, along with God, Love and Evil are probably the four most maligned words in the human language having so many meanings, sub-meanings and counter-meanings attached to them as to render them practically useless for accurate communication. Each of them are like Sacred Statues with white marble iris-less eyes blanked out.
The next time someone asks you if you are telling the truth - ask them according which theory: the Correspondence theory of truth, the Coherence theory of truth, the Constructivist theory of truth, the Consensus theory of truth, the Pragmatic theory of truth, the Pluralist theory of truth, the Deflationary theory of truth, the Redundancy theory of truth, the Model theory of truth, the Proof theory of truth or the Semantic theory of truth? (And don’t forget the recent ‘eh duh’ theory of truth.)
Aletheia (ἀλήθεια) is the Greek word for truth. Aletheia is distinct from the more well-known conceptions of truth as a statement which accurately describes a state of affairs. Heidegger focused on the elucidation of a meaning of truth that is pre-Socratic. Aetheia is the truth that first appears when something is seen or revealed. It is to take out of hiddenness to uncover. It is not something that is connected with that which appears. Allowing something to appear is then the first act of truth; for example, one must give attention to something before it can be a candidate for any further understanding. In layman’s terms, ‘I caught you,’ must precede ‘I caught you, you bastard.’
Perhaps LYING needs less of a formal education.
I like what Christopher Walken’s evil big boss character said in the movie, Rundown, when the hero complained to him that Walken had broken his side of their deal: Walken’s character replied, ‘Fortunately . . . I had my fingers crossed.’ I think that should be an accepted legal defense in divorce court.
But to cross one's fingers is also used to wish for good luck!
‘This dates back to when crossed fingers were used as a gesture to ward off witches and others considered to be or possess evil spirits. It is also seen as bad luck to cross your fingers on both hands. Some believe that the gesture originates from pre-Christian times and, in many early European cultures, two people were required to use their index fingers to form the sign, one to make a wish and the other to support it. It was believed that the cross was a symbol of unity and that benign spirits dwelt at its intersecting point—to wish on a cross was a figurative way of securing the wish at the intersection until it came true. Over the years, the custom was modified so one person could make a wish on his/her own.’ wikipedia
Alas, there are also a myriad of different types of LIES. There is the Fabrication, Bold-faced lie, Lying by omission, Lie-to-children, White lie, Noble lie, Emergency lie, Perjury, Bluffing, Misleading/Dissembling, Exaggeration, Jocose lies, Contextual lies, Puffery, Lying in Trade and Lie by Obsolete Signage, amongst others.
St. Augustine, in his Taxonomy of Lies, divided lies into eight categories, listed in order of descending severity:
1. Lies in religious teaching.
2. Lies that harm others and help no one.
3. Lies that harm others and help someone.
4. Lies told for the pleasure of lying.
5. Lies told to "please others in smooth discourse."
6. Lies that harm no one and that help someone.
7. Lies that harm no one and that save someone's life.
8. Lies that harm no one and that save someone's "purity."
(See wikipedia for more detail on each of these categories:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#Augustine.27s_taxonomy_of_lies
For me, the absolute, irrevocable, blind-faith, please-do-not-argue-with-me-cause-you-are-wrong, take-it-to-the-bank, cast-in-cement TRUTH, the Alpha and Omega, the Final Frontier, the Last Picture Show of TRUTH, the one you can bury with me in my coffin, that great truth that I have FOUND AT LAST! - the Can-I-Have-An-Amen, the once-I-was-blind-but-now-I-can-see Truth, the Thank You, Jeeeeeezus kind of truth!! - is the one that ANDRE GIDE was referring to when he said:
‘Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.’
Also known as, the Eh Duh! Theory of Truth.
FAVOURITE LETTERS OF THE WEEK
Joe,
RE: MR Q
Damn. He offered me only $5! Little Billy L.
Hi Joe,
Just a note to let you know I always enjoy reading your newsletter … going as far back as St. Mary’s I always appreciated the fact that you went to the beat of a different drum than the rest of us … you seem to be living the dream … as they say, keep on keeping on … take care and peace … Tom Hurley
(Note: Thanks Tom. You know, folks, I love hearing from my old Harvey High schoolmates from Painesville, Ohio. Home of the Red Raiders. Home of Lake Erie College for Girls. Home of Mr. Q. Going to the beat of a different drum is good, unless you’re playing in a band, of course, in which case it makes it hard for the people to dance to. Most of the time the drum I was going to was strapped to one of those little wind-up metal mechanical monkeys. Boom boom!)
Dear Joe
re: mowers
My darling brother just 'lent' me his circa 1950 something Victor - why?
because it's light and I can lift it in and out of the car easily! However it
has no muffler, the blades are cactus, height adjuster is rusted onto one
setting etc etc. You know what thought it looks fabulous and it's a real goer. love, surajo
Hey Joe,
Thanks as always for a weird and wonderful newsletter. I don't get the Starship Melbourne reference but I liked it anyway. Re. the Karen Carpenter joke, I heard a slightly different version:
‘Amateur guitarist rock wanna-ba arrives in heaven to see all the other dead musicians, and is incredibly excited to learn that there's a jam session every night. When the appointed time arrives, the band starts playing and it's just amazing....until this very pretty blonde walks up to the microphone and starts singing. As soon as she opens her mouth, everyone cringes. She's worse than awful, like a cat being strangled, and the new guy asks one of the old hands "Who's that?!!" The other guy rolls his eyes knowingly, then says: "Shhh, she's God's girlfriend".
Cheers, Justine Stewart
Hi Joe,
Thanks for the inside info on yur tunes from the old days - Here’s a good question i forgot to ask: in [your song] Athens County, who was, or is, "(sweet) Maria" ??!! JON MARCH
(Note: Jon, Maria was no one really. The name had a lot of resonance in those days: marijuana, Virgin Mary, the Wind Cries Mary by Hendrix, Dylan’s ‘Queen Mary, she’s my friend . . .’, the name of the heroine in West Side Story. It just seemed like a good image. Interesting to note that my last album was titled 'The Wind Cries Mary,' with an acoustic version of Jimi’s classic, which comes full circle back to that name again after forty years!)
Dear Joe,
Re: Cpl. Michael Scholl Scam Letter
Not only was this a real marine but a marine that was killed in action... I don't think people realize this. Dana Selvey
“Lincoln High School graduate Lance Cpl. Michael Scholl, 21, was killed in Iraq on Tuesday.
He is the son of Debora and Jack Chandler of Lincoln and Steven and Donna Scholl of Friend.
Michael Scholl lived in Burwell and Crete when he was young but grew up in Lincoln’s Air Park neighborhood, Debora Chandler said. He graduated from Lincoln High in 2002 and was fulfilling a longtime goal by being a Marine.
And he was a new father.
His wife, Melissa, gave birth to Addison Rose on Oct. 11. They are living in Vancouver, Wash.
The young Marine never got to see or hold his daughter, but he did talk and sing “You Are My Sunshine” to the baby while she was still in the womb, his mother said.
“It’s the same song I sang to him and his brothers,” Chandler said Thursday night.
He also recorded himself telling stories for Addison, just in case.
Scholl was riding an armor-outfitted vehicle in Haditha, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device exploded and wounded him and other soldiers serving a seven-month tour northwest of Baghdad.
This was Scholl’s second tour of duty in the Middle East.
Scholl became a Marine in 2003. He had been denied enlistment at first because he was diagnosed with a kidney condition as a toddler, but he overcame several hurdles to obtain a medical waiver, Chandler said.
Scholl met his wife when he was stationed in Hawaii, his mother said, and theirs was a real love story.
He saw Melissa in Hawaii, who was on vacation with her grandfather, who had a military background.
“My son was a big flirt, I guess,” his mother said, laughing. “(And) he really impressed her grandfather.”
The two stayed in touch by e-mail and soon were spending hours on the phone.
By the time Melissa flew to Nebraska in May 2005, they knew he would soon be sent to Afghanistan. They were wed at the County-City Building in Lincoln.
Scholl was in Afghanistan from summer 2005 to January 2006, and within a month of his return, he and Melissa were expecting a baby.
“They were hoping he could be there when the baby was born,” his mother said. “There were things he could have done not to go.”
He had knee surgery before he left for Iraq, and still, he went.
Scholl’s company commander told his family the young soldier had saved his life, and other’s lives, during a battle in October.
Scholl was a machine gunner, part of a tough unit the commander called “his hammer,” his “knock-out punch” and his “rescue unit,” Chandler said.
She still can’t believe her son is gone, but she knew his role in the unit put him at risk.
“When things got bad, they would call them in,” she said.
He had talked about being a Marine since he was a child. And he believed the U.S. military should be in Iraq.
“He said it’s what helps him get up in the morning, the things he would see over there,” Chandler said.
Scholl went through a troubled time when his older brother, Trenton, died in 2000, his mother said. But he turned it around and graduated from high school at 17.
He worked at McDonald’s near the airport and a convenience store. He studied briefly at Southeast Community College in Milford, and he loved fast cars.
Scholl was active in a Lincoln car club, Camaros Inc., where he met Erich Kaiser.
“He was just one of those kids,” Kaiser said. “He brought a whole new kind of life to our club.”
Kaiser said Scholl e-mailed him twice a week from the Middle East.
“I always thought, nothing will happen to him, because I only know just this one person in Iraq, and there are thousands of soldiers over there. There’s no way it could happen to him.”
The Scholl and Chandler family phones have been ringing all week.
“He had an ornery, mischievous sense of humor,” his mother said. “I’m sure there’s more stories out there than I even know.”
A memorial service will be Monday at 2 p.m. at Holy Savior Lutheran Church, 10th and Superior streets.
“He had so many friends, so many adopted moms,” his mother said. “We are all so proud of him.”
(Note: For the original scam letter, see the following newsletter about two-thirds the way down:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dwomen/files/nlAug282009/)
The Disappearing Car Door
Radical changes in car door design.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAtkoje4-eM
(thanks to Domenica Leone)
What I’m Reading This Week
The Bee Hut - poems by Dorothy Porter. I did a video interview with Dorothy recently– the last one before she passed away from cancer – and we talked about the influence that CP Cavafy had had on both of our work. I sang her my song-setting of Cavafy’s, Return. She read a poem of her own that had been influenced by his work and also read her favourite Cafavy poem. I haven’t edited this footage yet but I plan to do so over the next months and hopefully we can get some excerpts up on youTube. The Bee Hut is a collection of poems that she wrote in the last five years of her life – bits and pieces – free from the verse-novel structure that made her name. And there are some excellent poems here. Although I liked Akhenaten very much, I really prefer her stand-alone poetry to her verse novels. To me, the verse-novel is a problematic form that forces poetry into a straight-jacket where it cannot fly properly. The main weakness of the verse-novel is that is proposes a series of stand-alone poems that also work, as a whole, in narrative – but the reality is that most of the poems in these things do not stand alone. They are made up of mostly B-grade poems with the sprinkling of some really good poetic ideas here and there that unfortunately need the context of the narrative for them to really make sense. Although Dorothy Porter is celebrated for some of her other more well-known works, Akhenaten succeeds for me because it is really not a verse novel at all, but a long narrative poem in the manner of Coleridge, but without the rhymes.
Marcella Cucina – Italian cookbook by Marcella Hazan. I saw this sitting on the table at my daughter-in-law’s Danni’s house and started thumbing through it. I’ve read a lot of Italian cookbooks, but this one grabbed me by the throat and wouldn’t let go. Recipe after recipe that I had never seen before. The book is actually more of an advanced cooking class in Italian food and imagination rather than a collection of recipes. This woman is a master with her own unique philosophy about cooking. It took me quite awhile to locate my own copy but I finally found one on abebooks.com. I plan to be spending much time learning from this chef and the best recipes that I absorb into my own life I will pass on in the newsletter. For instance, she refuses to make risotto with chicken stock! Or wine! She claims the quality of chickens is so low that it degrades the dish! She prefers, not stock, but beef broth made by slow-cooking a brisket for four hours with a handful of sofritto vegetables, removing the brisket for a separate meal, and straining and degreasing the broth. THAT is her base for risotto. I’ve tried that already and it is truly brilliant. Of course, I will never abandon chicken soup. Marcella obviously wasn’t a jew. Chicken soup soothes the flu-blown soul!
What I’m Watching This Week
GI JANE – with Demi Moore and Viggo Mortensen. Directed by Ridley Scott. One of my favourite films by one of my favourite filmmakers. I don’t care what the press says about GI Jane – it is an awesome film. And an empowering film for women. My partner Lin agrees. And it gets better on repeat viewing. Demi Moore has never been better and Viggo Mortensen is his usual fine self as the DH Lawrence-reciting Sergant Major of the Seal training facility that is encountering its first female candidate. Mortensen, in real life, as well as being a compelling actor, is also a writer, painter and performance artist.
STRIPPER – with Demi Moore, Burt Reynolds, Robert Patrick and Armand Assante. Directed by Andrew Bergman. Erin Grant loses custody of her child to her deadbeat ex-husband after losing her job. To make the money she needs to appeal the verdict, she takes a job at ''The Eager Beaver'', a local strip bar. She unwittingly gets caught up in the fetishes, fantasies, and felonies of various patrons. This is the third time I’ve watched this film over the past few years – usually, when I’m having a mini-film festival of some actor I like and I want to go back and watch other films they were in. In this case, it wasn’t Demi, but Robert Patrick, who plays Demi’s lowlife ex. (Patrick is also in the following film, Fire in the Sky.) Although I like the film and it is definitely special to watch Demi Moore strip, the movie still doesn’t really work, primarily because it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a serious drama or a comedy. Demi plays it serious – too serious – which is why the more professional strippers in the film, who have street-wise humour and tongue-in-cheek playfulness, compliment the nutty charactarisations of Burt Reynold and Patrick much better. Someone please give Demi Moore a whack with the funny stick. Did it all go in the intellectual property settlement with Bruce Willis? Although she was brave to play such a show-it-all character, a more comic beauty, such as Jamie Lee Curtis would have pulled this film together better. Of course, it really is the director, Andrew Bergman’s fault. He should have foreseen all this during casting and preproduction.
FIRE IN THE SKY- Directed By Robert Lieberman. With Robert Patrick and James Garner. Based on the true account of the alien abduction and probing of Travis Walton, from his book. This was the role that brought Robert Patrick to the attention of James Cameron for Terminator 2. The alien medical procedure that is recalled at the end of the film will linger with you for a long time. Truly alien and scary. Not nice ET aliens at all. However, according to the author, the director thought Walton’s ACTUAL account of this sequence was boring. (Apparently in the real life event, he got to drive the aliens’ spaceship!) So it was rewritten. In other words, it’s a true story – except for the false bits. Well, as film critic Roger Ebert humorously said, ‘Later we learn that the key participants [in real life] all passed lie detector tests. Hey, that's good enough for me.’
http://www.travis-walton.com/
What I’m Listening to This Week
‘Beyond Living’ – Alicia Bay Laurel. (Review to come next week.)
http://www.aliciabaylaurel.com
Sita Sings the Blues
This is sweeping the internet charts:
http://www.thirteen.org/sites/reel13/blog/watch-sita-sings-the-blues-online/347/
(thanks to Ramon Sender)
~ FAMOUS DOLCES OF THE WORLD ~
Red Dolce Death
Chill Out Martini
ingredients
500 gr Glass
100 gr Martini Rose
300 gr Coke drink (any)
50 gr Ice
preparation:
First put the Martini in the glass, on it add the Ice
and then the Coke Drink.
Stir it for a minute.
Serve it with a black chocolate.
JOE DOLCE SONGWRITING WORKSHOP ON DIGITALPILL.TV
I want to thank Leo Dale for producing and putting online my short songwriting workshop on his fine website, digitalpill.tv. This session talks a little about the significant difference between poetry and lyrics, how to recognize the difference between the two, how setting poetry to music and creating living singable songs from poetry are two separate creatures: plenty of the former, but not enough of the latter, with two short acoustic examples: Cocaine Lil and Fragment 64: Sappho.
I am also including in this newsletter a separate extended supplement: Songwriting Workshop No. 28, to accompany the video, that you can download in a .pdf file.
http://digitalpill.tv/Content/2009/09/songwriting-lyrics-and-poetry-joe-dolce/
SONGWRITING WORKSHOP 28
The Difference Between Poetry and Lyrics
‘Always be a poet, even in prose.’
Charles Baudelaire
The best way to start this one off is with something a bit pithy.
So here it is:
Bob Dylan is a lyricist, not a poet.
Leonard Cohen, on the other hand, is a poet, who also writes lyrics.
Don’t get me wrong – although Leonard Cohen, much like Dylan, has influenced me as much as anyone in modern times, I am no current fan of either of their present writing.
There once was a much younger poet named Leonard Cohen, who published two books of acclaimed verse - 7 years before he ever recorded a song! I am talking about the Leonard Cohen who wrote ‘The Spicebox of Earth,’ not the one who wrote the lukewarm and more recent ‘Book of Longing.’ I will have a lot more to say about the dilution of Cohen’s writing – and also the astounding effect he has had on my own poetic output – a paradox - but I will save that for a future newsletter. I just wanted to get your attention straight up so that we can have an interesting time from here on and not just another boring workshop experience!
So, let’s create a quick definition of what constitutes the primary difference between poetry and lyrics. (It’s personal, so don’t go woodpeckering this down. Just think about it.)
For me, the poem starts and finishes on the page. That is the litmus test. It works its magic - without hearing it read, without music, without percussion - without performance. Just sitting there naked on that piece of paper. Real poetry lives in that narrow white rectangle.
Ninety-nine percent of hip-hop, just about all of pop, and most of folk music requires music and performance to bring it to real life.
Sometimes lyrics can work on the page, however, and then they are usually referred to as light verse.
Here is an example of a lyrical verse that most likely began its life as a song – but the music has been lost and it only survives now as words, first collected in The American Songbag, by Carl Sandburg, in 1928, and then in The Oxford Book of Light Verse, edited by WH Auden, in 1938. I created a song from it and recorded it on my album, The Wind Cries Mary.
Cocaine Lil and Morphine Sue
Did you ever hear about Cocaine Lil?
She lived in Cocaine town on Cocaine hill,
She had a cocaine dog and a cocaine cat,
They fought all night with a cocaine rat.
She had cocaine hair on her cocaine head.
She had a cocaine dress that was poppy red:
She wore a snowbird hat and sleigh-riding clothes,
On her coat she wore a crimson, cocaine rose.
Big gold chariots on the Milky Way,
Snakes and elephants silver and gray.
Oh the cocaine blues they make me sad,
Oh the cocaine blues make me feel bad.
Lil went to a snow party one cold night,
And the way she sniffed was sure a fright.
There was Hophead Mag with Dopey Slim,
Kankakee Liz and Yen Shee Jim.
There was Morphine Sue and the Poppy Face Kid,
Climbed up snow ladders and down they skid;
There was the Stepladder Kit, a good six feet,
And the Sleigh-riding Sister who were hard to beat.
Along in the morning about half past three
They were all lit up like a Christmas tree;
Lil got home and started for bed,
Took another sniff and it knocked her dead.
They laid her out in her cocaine clothes:
She wore a snowbird hat with a crimson rose;
On her headstone you’ll find this refrain:
She died as she lived, sniffing cocaine
Did you ever hear about Cocaine Lil?
She lived in Cocaine town on Cocaine hill,
She had a cocaine dog and a cocaine cat,
They fought all night with a cocaine rat.
See, it is not necessary to hear this verse read, or hear music behind it, to be transported by it. It has great rhymes and rhythm. In a sense, it is lyric writing at it’s finest.
But what I am suggesting now is another level of songwriting consciousness altogether. I am proposing that it is possible to write an authentic poem, not a lyric, and then transform that into a living song. . . .(full workshop .pdf)
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dwomen/files/nlSept182009/WORKSHOP28.pdf
RECIPE
SOUL FOOD SMOTHERED PORK CHOPS
You may have seen this in an earlier newsletter but whenever I discover an upgrade which I think improves the recipe or comes up with some unexpected shortcuts which startle me, I like to pass them on.
The shortcuts are at the bottom on the recipe. The basic improvement here is the addition of green chiles to the soffritto. The soul food soffritto is green bell peppers (capsicums), celery and onions compared to an Italian soffritto of carrot, celery and onions. (Don’t you just dig these similarities in culture?)
Ingredients:
8 3/4 inch shoulder pork chops (about 4 lbs.)
1 teas plus 1 tablespoons salt
1 teas plus 1 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plain flour
1/2 cup olive oil
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 green bell peppers, cored, seeded and coarsely chopped.
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
4 or more green chiles, seeded and coarsely chopped.
2 cups water
1/2 teas red chilli flakes (optional)
Method:
Trim the excess fat from the edges of the pork chops.
Sprinkle them with 1 tablespoon each of the salt and pepper.
Season 2 cups of the flour with the remaining 1 tablespoon each of salt and pepper.
Dredge the pork chops in the flour until coated on all sides.
Shake off excess four.
Pour the oil into a heavy skillet (cast-iron is good) over medium high heat.
When the oil begins to shake slightly, add as many pork chops as will fit in the pan without touching.
Fry, turning once, until well browned on both sides, about 5 minutes.
Remove the chops to a plate and repeat with the remain chops.
Pour off all but 4 tablespoons of drippings from the skillet.
Reduce the heat to medium and add the onions, green peppers, green chiles, celery and optional red chilli flakes to the skillet.
Cook until brown and tender, about 10 minutes.
Move the vegetables to one side of the skillet and sprinkle the 2 tablespoons of flour over the bottom of the skillet.
Add another tablespoon or two of oil if necessary.
Cook the flour until golden brown, stirring constantly
and being careful not to let the flour burn.
Slowly pour in the water and stir until you have a smooth gravy.
Divide the pork chops between two heavy skillets with lids or place them all in a large heavy Dutch oven.
Top with the gravy and vegetables and cover the skillets or Dutch oven tightly.
Simmer over low heat until the vegetables are tender and the pork chops are cooked through about 15 minutes. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary.
Serve the pork chops, spooning some of the gravy and vegetables over each.
Pass extra gravy.
The tips are:
1. Green chiles and green bell peppers (capsicums) are practically interchangeable in recipes. And whenever a recipe calls for green bell peppers, you can also add green chiles for extra kick.
2. Whenever you prepare a dish of seasoned flour to coat chops or fish, instead of throwing the residue away, put it in a bowl, add a little more flour, some dry yeast, a little olive oil and water and make a pizza dough from it to use at a later date. (See my basic pizza dough recipe in the archives:
http://members.iinet.net.au/~dwomen/files/nlAug142009/index.html#JPC)
A GHOST BETWEEN US (for Joan Sedorkin)
Around 1980, aged 37 I was standing
at the bar of the Albion in Carlton
taking notice of nobody
watching life passing by the window
in the early afternoon drinking alone
although several friends were around
I was away with my own thoughts
so long as I had a drink in front of me
and one on the way
that's all i really cared about.
Jukebox sounds came from the back bar
I was lightly swaying to the music
friends passed by saying hallo
smiling generously I replied
feeling good man feeling good
but I was disinterested
interested only in myself
listening to some hidden beat
some universal soul
alone in a crowded bar.
A voice I hadn't heard in years said
'Hey Karlos how are you man.'
I turn and face Nigel a sydney poet who's
grinning grabbing my arm telling me he's
here for the poetry festival
talking loud he says
'Why don't you say hallo to Gary Snyder, over there.'
which I don't believe but look anyway
I see two guys nearby leaning against the wall
drinks in hand watching me
one I recognise from photos as Snyder
it dawns on me that
they have been there for some time
have they been watching me, for how long?
I've been at the bar for maybe an hour and half.
We are about eight feet apart
and for a few seconds our eyes lock
and suddenly I feel ashamed to be seen
getting drunk
alone in a crowded bar
oblivious of the company of others.
I felt the ghost of Kerouac pass between us
Snyder takes it all in
sees a well liked energised guy
sees that I am on the same greased slide
of alcoholism
that took Jack down
the path of bitter loneliness
the scrambled brains
the mindless bad mouth
the deep disconnection
I didn't go over and say hallo
we both knew what we had seen
I turned back to the bar
picked up my drink, downed it
and ordered another.
~ KARL GALLAGHER ~
(Note: I first met Karl Gallagher while working on some plays with Lindzee Smith and Nightshift Theatre at Lamama in the mid-80s. Karl was a wild piece of work who would often walk out in the middle of the play (ones that he wasn’t in) drunk and reciting lines of his own. I liked him but never realized he was such a good poet himself until I discovered this poem and a couple of others last week. )
THE FINAL HURRAH
A BOY'S CONFESSION
'Bless me Father, for I have sinned.
I have been with a loose girl'.
The priest asks, 'Is that you, little Joey Pagano?'
'Yes, Father, it is.'
'And who was the girl you were with?'
'I can't tell you, Father. I don't want to ruin her reputation'.
"Well, Joey, I'm sure to find out her name sooner or later
so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?'
'I cannot say.'
'Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?'
'I'll never tell.'
'Was it Nina Capelli?'
'I'm sorry, but I cannot name her.'
'Was it Cathy Piriano?'
'My lips are sealed.'
'Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?'
'Please, Father, I cannot tell you.'
The priest sighs in frustration.
'You're very tight lipped, and I admire that.
But you've sinned and have to atone.
You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months.
Now you go and behave yourself.'
Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and whispers, 'What'd you get?'
'Four months vacation and five good leads.'
(thanks to CS Mitchell)