Remembering the amazing Astrid Kirchherr, who joined the love of her life, the artist and ex-Beatle Stu Sutcliffe on May 12th of this insane year.
You are both an inspiration to many!
Astrid and Stu
..and now a word from our sponsor…
Feast of Fouls or: a Song of Baba Daba and Marie Thompson’s Lament
Part Three: Wooden Rain, dear.
Part Three: Wooden Rainbows
Pawl was adamant on not having his watermelon touched. The thing is , that he chastised us in the most cheerful manner anyone could have done to another fellow inebriated chum. He kept smiling throughout the night , he was untouchable and simply above it all. Just a few years ago he used his buddy Mako’s Black Sabbath cd as a coaster and now here we all were, Pawl, Mako, Bolly and me, Toko Bawn , in this yellowing , dilapidated coffee shop in Queens navigating through the alcoholic mind -maze we have created for ourselves not giving two shits of the consequences that were to come.
Feast of Fouls or: a Song of Baba Daba and Marie Thompson’s Lament
Part Two: Wooden Rain
Mako and Bolly’s parents were away on a cruise to the Tamyan islands for over a week. They had the beautiful connected home in 1980’s Woodside Queens to themselves and the heart and soul of Thelonious Monk’s Bye-Ya resonating through the very alleyways of the comatose MetLife buildings right through their teen-aged yata tatas. The world was theirs.
Imbibing Kerouac and Jim Morrison poetry along with copious amounts of Budweiser, they were on their way to their artistic Valhalla no matter what the cost. The forecast called for Wooden Rain.
Feast of Fouls or: a Song of Baba Daba and Marie Thompson’s Lament
Part One: Boulevard Bounty
“Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.” ― Victor Hugo
Lying on our backs on the boulevard of death, no less, our alcohol fueled selves faced the Queens night sky with a foolhardy contempt of rules that were planted in our minds since our nascence.
Pell and Bolly met us inside the Omega Coffee Shop where we were greeted , as we sat on the sticky cafe stools, by their beatific smiling faces as each of them embraced their corresponding nocturnal bounty from the Korean fruit stand up the block.
Pell, with his unwashed blonde curls framed around his innocently porcine visage, cradling half of a cantaloupe and Bolly , red faced and rum soaked, cheesing like a Cheshire feline with his arms around half of a watermelon both seemed illusory.
What New Year…??!!
A new year is here again…what…2019??…yikes where does the time go?
Anyway life is just one continuously long year…just saying…
New Year’s Eve -Robert Service
It’s cruel cold on the waterfront, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.
They’re playing a tune in McGuffey’s saloon, and it’s cheery and bright in there
(God! but I’m weak — since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food);
I’ll just go over and slip inside — I mustn’t give way to despair —
Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the boys are feeling good.
They’ll jeer at me, and they’ll sneer at me, and they’ll call me a whiskey soak;
(“Have a drink? Well, thankee kindly, sir, I don’t mind if I do.”)
A drivelling, dirty, gin-joint fiend, the butt of the bar-room joke;
Sunk and sodden and hopeless — “Another? Well, here’s to you!”
McGuffey is showing a bunch of the boys how Bob Fitzsimmons hit;
The barman is talking of Tammany Hall, and why the ward boss got fired.
I’ll just sneak into a corner and they’ll let me alone a bit;
The room is reeling round and round. . . O God! but I’m tired, I’m tired. . . .
Roses she wore on her breast that night. Oh, but their scent was sweet!
Alone we sat on the balcony, and the fan palms arched above;
The witching strain of a waltz by Strauss came up to our cool retreat,
And I prisoned her little hand in mine, and I whispered my plea of love.
Then sudden the laughter died on her lips, and lowly she bent her head;
And oh, there came in the deep, dark eyes a look that was heaven to see;
And the moments went, and I waited there, and never a word was said,
And she plucked from her bosom a rose of red and shyly gave it to me.
Then the music swelled to a crash of joy, and the lights blazed up like day,
And I held her fast to my throbbing heart, and I kissed her bonny brow.
“She is mine, she is mine for evermore!” the violins seemed to say,
And the bells were ringing the New Year in — O God! I can hear them now.
Don’t you remember that long, last waltz, with its sobbing, sad refrain?
Don’t you remember that last good-by, and the dear eyes dim with tears?
Don’t you remember that golden dream, with never a hint of pain,
Of lives that would blend like an angel-song in the bliss of the coming years?
Oh, what have I lost! What have I lost! Ethel, forgive, forgive!
The red, red rose is faded now, and it’s fifty years ago.
‘Twere better to die a thousand deaths than live each day as I live!
I have sinned, I have sunk to the lowest depths — but oh, I have suffered so!
Hark! Oh, hark! I can hear the bells!. . .Look! I can see her there,
Fair as a dream. . .but it fades. . .And now — I can hear the dreadful hum
Of the crowded court. . . See! the Judge looks down. . . NOT GUILTY, my Lord, I swear. . .
The bells — I can hear the bells again!. . . Ethel, I come, I come!. . .
“Rouse up, old man, it’s twelve o’clock. You can’t sleep here, you know.
Say! ain’t you got no sentiment? Lift up your muddled head;
Have a drink to the glad New Year, a drop before you go —
You darned old dirty hobo. . .My God! Here, boys! He’s DEAD!”
Happy Labor Day Weekend
Ahhh remember how back in the day,whenever the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon would come on,you’d know that summer is really over and school(ugh) would be right around the corner.
Lots of thanking, kissing, and guys in suits with big checks on the telly there…that is , until the MDA folks unceremoniously dumped Jerry a few years back ( or did he leave?).
Anyway, we all miss Ed McMahon, the kids, and especially Jerry singing ,”You’ll Never Walk Alone” after the last tally was revealed.
The good ole days.
The Sidewalks of New York.
The Sidewalks of New York.
Yes, accidents will happen especially in good ole NYC.
Recounting my personal odyssey through the maze of insurance companies,lawyers,doctors,cops and relating that experience to….surfing(?!!!)
By the way, that is a picture a friend took of me that I posed for a few years ago for photo reference for a project….and ,incidentally, that lady came thisclose to stepping on me!
The Brown Boy Basement Tapes 