thursday tracks and photo retrospective

Above is a picture Jennifer took of our porch at Warwickshire. It's three stories up and covered in trees. At night I'll sit out there, sip summer brew and listen to music for hours. If you'd like to hear some of the music I've been playing lately, you can drop by the the lukebox. And if you're not familiar with this so-called perpetual mixtape, this post from a few weeks back will explain its origins and how to download these tracks in iTunes.

Now I know most of you visit this site to read my long-winded rants and to see the latest photos from miss brothers, but today I'm going to post a few photos of my own, part of a recent flickr set culled from past trips to Berlin, Barcelona, Dubuque, New York, Lawrence, Hamburg and down the street. Here goes, with a wee bit of haiku accompaniment:


Kermit and Peanut
at Hell's Kitchen Flea Market
discussing their lives


aboard the Twilight
The ancient deckhand stares down
the Mississippi


sticker removal
my sunburst telecaster
with a tiny star


swimming skeleton
Berlin's famous decadence
has caught up to him


Eppendorfer Park
Till woke up to discover
he'd aged sixty years


Laura makes a mess
covering the counter in
chocolate syrup swirls


At my uncle's ranch
I trail behind the horses
on the four wheeler


she used to live in
the Valentine neighborhood
but she moved away


trees hills ruins trees
we've got everything you need
to build dead cities

If you'd like to see more pictures, you can go to my flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/lukasfotos to see the rest of the 40 or so pics from the past 2 years that I just put up. Or check out this digital pinhole set by Tara Sloan. It's pretty cool, as you can see below. Thanks for reading and have a splendid day.

Banging gongs and hunting for ghosts

Summertime at night is the right time for spectral photography.

Usually the nocturnal photo shoots we complete are whimsical and innocent, such as the shadow dance-off that Adam and I took part in during last weekend’s Bloch Party, or the Kermit the Frog shots we took last Winter. But sometimes we stumble into a realm of photography more informed by the supernatural.

One source of ghastly images this summer has been the University of Kansas campus. Set on a hill overlooking both the Kaw and Wakarusa river valleys, the KU campus is at once a shining academy on the hill and the rugged ancestral Indian grounds the white man first referred to as Hogback Ridge.

Aesthetically, there is much to interest the nighttime visitor to the KU campus: The primordial mists and willow trees of Potter Lake. The snow-white glare of the streetlights on the newer buildings. The hum of the generators and giant air conditioners. The alluring darkness of the tunnels and steam vents behind the old limestone buildings. The sculpture of Moses kneeling reverently before the stained-glass burning bush at Smith Hall.

Another lovely aspect of the KU campus at night is the colors. A row of columns stand especially tall in the dull orange glow of an almost burned-out light. The bright yellow windows of Anschutz look like panels on a giant spacecraft that's stopped to recharge its batteries overnight. The lights, leaves and sky combine to paint the hill in a spectrum of soft yellows, greens and blues – a gentle but highly expressionistic palate that reminds one of Van Gogh.

Music Hall Mystics


Among the many picturesque landmarks and buildings on campus, the one that fascinates me the most is the music building.

Today, Murphy Hall is a modern, well-lighted place, but you should have seen it in the fall of 1999. They were demolishing, rebuilding or renovating most of the building, transforming an already confusing structure into a labyrinth of blocked-off hallways, burned-out lights and construction equipment. My friend Andrew had a class there that year, and he was convinced the place was haunted.

To test his theory, Andrew recruited two of us to go on a ghost-hunting expedition, which we excitedly agreed to. The three of us met one Thursday at midnight, drank a few beers in the bushes and proceeded to scour the premises for any trace of spirit life.

We were greeted by the sounds of warbling tubas, atonal piano scales and faint violins, lured on by flickering EXIT signs that instead led to chained-off doors you could open up just enough to see a sudden drop-off several stories deep.

Though the sound of instruments indicated there were people in the building, we didn't see a soul until we went outside, where several figures were walking around garbed entirely in white. These, however, were not specters, but a small crew of Mexican construction workers wearing haz-mat suits to protect themselves from lead-based paint and/or asbestos.

If we had sought to find an honest-to-goodness ghost, we had (perhaps predictably) failed.

Still, the adventure provided me with images that would haunt me for years, such as a partially chained-off hallway door giving way to an abyss of broken pianos.

Return to Murphy


This month I got returned to Murphy for only the second time since my student days. Dave and Mike were helping Andrew Morgan put some finishing percussive touches on his album, and Andrew had secured the key to the large rehearsal room for the week.

After playing bell trees, celestas, chimes and drums, Natalya and I decided to explore the premises while our friends got down to serious recording.

Once again, we didn't run across anyone, just took pictures, rode elevators and followed stairwells, aimlessly combing the miles of silent hallspace within the music building complex. In the courtyard, we took off our shoes and sat on the steps facing the full moon.

Almost two hours passed by the time we made it back to the rehearsal hall, and the guys had finished recording everything except for a few crashes from the giant gong. As the last blast of the gong faded, we said our goodbyes and drove back home through an empty campus.

When we uploaded our photos the next day, we were spooked to find that there were indeed spectral images lurking in the corners of the digital compositions. The midnight ghosts of Murphy were real after all.



A closer look revealed that these spirits were not unfamiliar. Like all those "Sixth Sense" style movies where the protaganists discover they're actually dead, we recognized the ghosts in the photos as ourselves.



Skeptics among you might chalk this up to a slow shutter speed and not the supernatural, but I personally felt as if the apparitions I'd searched for years ago were finally appearing to me through the medium of digital photography. In the words of an acquaintance of mine who is an expert on the occult: If you let a black cat loose on the world, that cat may one day find its way back to you.

We later learned that David had stayed around and played piano for several hours after our departure, and I felt a lot better knowing that any spirits we'd photographically conjured had likely been dispelled by D's soulful sweeps of the Steinway.

It will probably be a while before I go back to Murphy Hall, at least in the dead of night. Fortunately, we preserved a number of images from our journey in this photo set. Even if there aren't real ghosts in the music hall, the music majors among you can attest that the difference between zombie and music student can be hard to distinguish. So be wary if you visit.

Speaking of zombies, if I don't wrap up this post, I'm going to become one myself. Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more stories of brushes with the spirit world.

point of departure

Last week I climbed up this signal tower to see what kind of signal I could get, but unfortunately I forgot my computer and telephone so instead I just let my eyes adjust until I could see all the way to New Zealand. Pretty soon I'll come down and we can all catch up. In the meantime, here's a set of photos from Adam's visit to Kansas City.

Music/Appreciation

Yesterday evening I was invited to a little gathering at Tim and Lily's. They live on the other side of the art gallery from me, not a far walk at all. The theme of the party, besides an opportunity to sample delectable treats such as masa cakes, fresh vegetables, brie and homemade chocolate mousse, was for everyone to bring their favorite song to play.

Trying to pick your one favorite song is kind of a nightmare scenario for music aficionados. The very idea of selecting one tune before all others can be paralyzing. But with music so often relegated to background noise or informational "ones and zeros" (as they say), having an active listening party was a great idea. People played some great songs, all of which Tim is compiling onto a disc. And music goes down so well with several glasses of red wine.

As I left that night, I thought about Kansas City versus Chicago, where I just got back from. There's sort of a classic pattern middle-class American lives follow, from college town to big city and eventually back to the suburban origins we sprang from. I generally think of the "big city" phase as taking place somewhere cool like NY, Chicago or San Francisco, but for some of us this just isn't practical.

The other day I looked at all the stuff piled around my apartment -- books, crayons, guitars, tennis rackets, multicolored plastic easter eggs, obsolete foreign currency, photographs, harmonicas, a small wooden artists model dancing behind a pair of candles -- and saw it not as the mess it is but as the work of art it's trying to be. In Kansas City, I thought, it is possible to live the dream.

Someone asked me recently if I ever worry that life is passing me by. Of course I do. I'm always looking at where people I know are moving to or traveling through and thinking how much fun that would be. Living in the town you grew up in, it's hard not to feel stuck at times. Life passes all of us by, whether we like it or not. But part of being free is to free yourself from sticking to goals that no longer apply and letting your dreams morph into something new.

Big cities and foreign countries will always be cool to me. And I'll never take my eyes off that prize. But for now, we've got a nice little city of our own, my friends and I. Life, like a pop song, is short. Cities, like favorite songs, are multitude. In the end the one you pick is almost arbitrary. Better to enjoy it while it lasts.

Ice Cream Gets On Your Face

Life lately has been a veritable McFlurry of activity. Maybe you have heard the old jazz standard, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes," (used as a theme song for early generation smoking ban proponents). Well the modern-day version of this chart for my friends is "McFlurry Gets On Your Face." Hey, did you know you can now rent movies at McDonald's? Yes, it only costs one dollar (per night). And you can drop them off at McDonald's anywhere, including Albany, Missouri. The catch is that McDonalds employees, especially in rural areas such as Albany where the locals are not familiar with DVDs, have had a hard time incorporating digital video disc technology into their customer service. This has resulted in several hilarious but deadly scenarios including people being served DVD on a Big Mac bun and shards of disc in their french fries. Even more alarming, some people have even reported opening up their drive-thru bag only to find their double cheeseburger pressed between the bulging covers of a plastic DVD case. McDonalds has shown their willingness to be technologically innovative, but no one said it would be easy...

At the McDonalds yesterday, kids were still lighting off fireworks, and the playpen reeked of gunpowder while country kids smoked cigarettes. This gave us the idea to market a brand of cigarette called "Black Cat Lights." You could smoke it and at some point it would detonate, mildly. This would allow people to play high-risk party games such as "Russian Roulette Cigarette."

The McDonalds yesterday was also in a state of emergency, as they were plumb out of lots of essentials until the truck arrived that night.



This blog is kind of in the same shape. Many of you have expressed amazement at the breadth of topics covered on this amateur Web page, but surely none of you are naive enough to think it's all entirely original material. No, sir, to keep this site going at the rate of at least one post per week I must hire barely trained English undergrads in community colleges across the nation to ghostwrite my material. But given the floods, Jackson County street violence and hostile takeover of K-Dot turnpike shacks by vultures, the material does not always make it through in a timely manner. For this I apologize.

There is indeed much to ketchup on here in mcbloggyville. The Fourth of July always brings a wave of musings on what it means to be an American, what it means to be free. I promise to serve up a nice cold 44oz rhapsoda once the smoke clears.


thanks to cate for top foto

Ghosty as Zombies

It's the end of June, the perfect Time Of The Season for another Ghosty tribute night. This time they are the 60s British group, The Zombies. I'm all but Goin' Out Of My Head with excitement for Friday night's performance at the Taproom, which will feature openers The Jake Blanton band. I strongly recommend you come out and see these guys play. They Are Friends Of Mine. They Are Friends of Mine. And they've got something that's so hard to find.

See you Friday. And if you've got other plans, I Don't Want To Know.

photo courtesy of The Zombies. Top photo by Jenn and Dave.

ornithology

In response to last week's post about carrying an owl to Athens (and Lawrence), one reader asked if I had personally seen any owls when I went to Athens. I must say that I did not, though after looking at my picture-cards, I realized that I did see a number of other birds during my travels through Hellas.

Firstly, my new friend Jake and I located a variety of birds in a zoo-like section of a public park in the centre of the city. There were no zookeepers in sight, but the animals were clearly fed and kept in a series of bird fences and cages. The most irascible of these fowl was this baby ostrich.


Jake and I were still delirious from the overnight ferry ride, and we just stood and looked at this bird and talked back to it, saying "aassstrich" repeatedly and giggling. I must have taken 20 pictures of the thing. It was so cute, yet so dirty.

There was also a flock of ducks running in circles, crazily. This might be one of my favorite pictures I took the whole trip.



On an excursion to Delphi, I saw these mythical ostriches in the museum.



As you can see, birds in a Greece are a tough, hard-to-tame bunch that don't take shit off of anybody. They will, however, take a shit on just about anybody, as this unfortunate fellow found out near Athens' Bathhouse of the Winds.


I'd hate to end this field report on such a sordid note, so here's a sweet song by the Beach Boys called "Little Bird."

Also, if there are any birds of prey reading this right now, it would be a huge help if you could swoop in my window and take care of that pesky mouse I saw in my apartment yesterday. Thanks a bunch!

summer

It's officially summer now, the perfect time to go on a wild one. Actually, this picture is from last Bastille Day (I've grown 6 inches and put on 45 lbs of muscle since then) but you might find me in a similar position before Sunday's kickball game. Blue Collar 4 eva.

Last night I went to a bonfire kindled by some friends of mine north of Lawrence. There were a lot of babies, some bluegrass and a dog that was as large as a horse.

Tonight I'm going to see the farewell performance by The Fairer Sex. Zach is moving to Texas, Ed to Morocco. Life goes on. I will let you know when their album is available, because I know for a fact that it is a winner. I even contributed 54 seconds of banjo.

love,

LW

German Jazz Funeral

The open book market in Bonn had some interesting books, including an old collection of blues tunes and spirituals translated by Guenter Grass himself (unless it's a different guy by the same name). Accompanying the lyrics and music are stained-glass resembling illustrations of John Brown, Louie Armstrong, a buffalo hunt and other scenes from jazz history and the American West. I've learned a few of these songs in translation, such as this version of "When The Saints Go Marching In." Eventually it would be fun to do this with a full jazz band, but for now it's just voice and guitar. Look for a fully electrified, punk-rock version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" (Komm herab, suesse Kusche) in the near future. For now, here's this.

intimacy, blogging, guns

I still don't know exactly what the fuss is about blogging. I went back and looked at Wil Wheaton's blog, which I'm told is one of the most popular ones out there. I also randomly came across the blog of some housewife (there are more of these than you might think) complaining that people were stealing her ideas without giving credit, which hurts her feelings because she spends all of her "precious-kids-are-sleeping-time" blogging (and this is the thanks she gets!)

The popularity of blogs baffle me, but from what I can tell, the more personally revealing the content, the more fanatic the response.

With this in mind, I'd like to go out on a limb tonight and let you in on some things I've kept hidden from everyone for the past couple of years -- hidden from even myself.

The following is a list of things that I just recovered from under the cushions and crevices of my living room couch:

- a drumstick (for playing drums, not the kind you eat)
- a stick of "silk & shine" lip gloss
- a strawberry Capri Sun (empty, flattened)
- a broken pencil
- a pink Crayola "glitter" crayon
- a ticket stub from the KC Symphony's performance of Mozart's Requiem
- a matchbook from Neurolux, a nightclub in Boise, Idaho with a "pleasant atmosphere" (weird because I've never been to Boise)
- the remote control for my CD player
- a graphic pin of "Dashboard Confessional" (who I swear I've never listened to)
- a bunch of lint
- John Cale's "Vintage Violence" CD (strange because I had the song "Big White Cloud" in my head all day)
- enough change to get two Tacos at Taco John's (but only on Tuesdays)
- a 9-chamber LeMat revolver left over from the Civil War (not true, but wouldn't that be neat)

Actually, I shouldn't joke about guns popping up in unlikely places. When brother Dave returned James's Jeep after borrowing it for a few months, he called to have me check and make sure he hadn't left something specific behind. I didn't find what he was asking about, but I did find $120 in an envelope maked "Ghosty." Also, when I reached under the driver's seat, I felt a cold, heavy object that I removed to take a closer look at.

A handgun.

I was a bit frightened for a moment until I realized it was one of those air gun things that shoots tiny yellow plastic balls. James had lost it a year before, but we'd always assumed our Mom had confiscated it because she hated how it looked and felt like the real thing, especially since James had painted over the orange tip to make it look more like a real firearm. Apparently it had been under the seat for the entire time Dave had the car.

Fortunately, Dave hadn't been pulled over at any point and had the car searched. That could have been disasterous. They probably would have taken him for an armed gangster named "Ghosty."

I'll be back to post more photos, news and KC-related stories soon, but I'm glad I could share these intimate details with you today. Thank you for reading -- it means so much. I wish I could respond to all of you personally, but as you can see the comments have been pouring in and I just don't have the time. A blogger's work is never done!

Everything was better when you were 12

According to Tom The Dancing Bug.

I Carry An Owl To Lawrence

One evening a year ago, I stood on the Acropolis and, with a sense of deep fulfillment, I released an owl that I had carried to Athens.

My decision to do so had taken shape one night when I couldn't sleep. In such dark hours, I make decisions that I then immediately carry out, circumstances at all permitting. This new and so far perhaps boldest decision could not be put into effect all that easily, but its realization could be prepared right away. I dressed and went off to see my bird dealer. His shop is closed at night, needless to say; regular patrons use a concealed night bell. I rang and was soon standing among cloth-draped cages in the nocturnal dimness of the bird shop. The owner asked me what I would like.

"An owl, please," I said.

"Aha," he said, winking, as if relishing the shrewd expertise of his client. "You're a connoisseur. Most customers make the mistake of selecting an owl in daylight. Should I gift-wrap it?"

"No. It's not for me. I'd like to carry it to Athens."

-- excerpt from "I Carry An Owl To Athens" by Wolfgang Hildesheimer, translated by Joachim Neugroschel.

This story, which like all of Hildescheimer's short works is quite hilarious, follows one man's quest to complete an act which was historically considered to be the epitome of superfluousness (on account of there already being so many owls in Athens, since owls are Athene's spirit animal and Athens is Athene's city).

As you can see from the above photo, I completed a similar mission by carrying an owl all the way to Lawrence, Kansas. Which is also quite superfluous, although perhaps for different reasons.

If you'd like to read more of Hildesheimer's stories, you can read the complete text of the owl story in German here. Or you can pick up a used copy of his translated story collection on Amazon for super-cheap. Or find it at Watson Library. Or borrow mine.

The picture, I must add, comes from the freshly posted series of outtakes from the Urban Photo Safari Jennifer and I undertook this weekend. Usually the event takes place in Kansas City, but they moved it to Lawrence this year to shake things up. Come Friday, you can see the selections of 20 or so weekend photographers on the Urban Photo Safari site.



For a view of what I'm looking out at from my perch in the top photo, here's a picture I took myself back in 2005.

never too young to rock

Wakarusa Fest has come and gone, though many colorful buskers and drifter-types will tarry on in Larrytown indefinitely. And why not? There's a nice downtown, a river and flavored ice of many colors available at Tad's Tropical Snow (on the NW corner of Ninth & Iowa Streets). Yes, a carefree festivalgoer in this part of the world has much to be happy about.

Myself, however... I still get out to shows, but I don't always feel the same enthusiasm as the kids. Still, the nice thing about taking a chance on catching a band live is that once in a while something will blow you away, sometimes when (and where) you least expect it.

Last Sunday evening, while driving north on New York Street, I saw a group of adults standing in a front yard, smiling and facing the house as if it were a stage. I didn't see anyone on the porch, though. Until I got closer.

There were indeed someones on the porch, which had been transformed into a stage by four young children playing a full-out rock show, complete with keyboard, drums and an electric guitar with a mini-amplifier. I had no choice but to pull over and watch.

When I walked up, the parents and neighbors welcomed me, but warned that I might become a captive audience. Their warnings arrived too late. I was already fascinated as I watched a song with a solid rhythm and actual melody break down into youthful rebellion.

The song I walked up to was apparently to be their last, but as shouts of "encore" rang out from the crowd, the lead singer/guitarist, a boy with long blond hair and a Superman t-shirt, picked his guitar up, hesitated for a moment, and yelled "They want one more? We'll give 'em one more!"

The crowd didn't just want an instrumental, though. They shouted for a boy named Henry to sing. When Henry -- who must have been about 5 -- screamed his disapproval, his parents only encouraged him further, shouting "Just like that!" Henry, however, was not having it, and he responded by swinging his microphone (which was either a toy or a plastic gardening tool) at his bandmates.

The drummer had barely struck up a beat on the makeshift floor toms when Henry's mic stand came down on his left hand, knocking out one of his drumsticks. The drummer, a kind of Keith Moon for the very young, retrieved it with his left hand while fending Henry off with his right foot.

Inspired by this outburst, the guitarist/singer shouted "I know! We'll call this song The Fight!" and then launched into a fast-paced riff.

The keyboardist, the only female member of the group, played on as if unaware of the chaos her bandmates were caught up in. She played melodic -- at times almost atonal -- lines that recalled the keyboards on "Sister Ray," and both her capable playing and distinguished posture held the band together nicely.

The rhythm section soon brought the encore to a shambolic halt, which was met by passionate applause and whistling from the crowd. The band members may have been short in stature, but this was punk rock on a grand scale.

As I walked away and bid farewell to the parents who had welcomed me, I marveled at what a fun set it had been. Even if I'd only seen one song, it might have been the best show I've ever been to.

(the above photo was not taken at this show, but is from the set Jenn took for the Only Children's feature on Spin.com)

A Perpetual Mixtape

As budding library scientist BWB once famously stated, "Everybody's DJing a Podcast somewhere, Wetzel." Meaning that, just because you put somebody's songs up on the net, that doesn't autmatically make you "cool beans."

Nonetheless, when you hear music you really like, you want to share it. And if you've ever been a DJ of any kind, disseminating tunes can become almost a compulsion.

This is the story of the lukebox, a perpetual mixtape that I just uploaded a bunch of songs to today. This custom-made jukebox requires no quarters, just clicks of the mouse. You'll find a nice variety of artists represented, including the Dutch group pictured above. Enjoy.

UPDATE: You can now listen to thelukebox in iTunes. Just go to www.thelukebox.libsyn.com and find the orange RSS feed icon in the lower left sidebar. Drag that icon into your iTunes podcast folder and it should come up with an arrow that leads to all the songs I've posted so far. They'll start out in grey, but all you have to do is click "get" and wait a few moments to hear the song you select. Perfect for those of you who are at work and want to sample a variety of songs and artists.

KC celebrity sightings, part 1

Last month, while dining at one of the sidewalk tables of Chipotle on 39th Street, a guy approached Jenn and I and asked us for a few dollars for cab fare. While that isn't too unusual, the guy's appearance (clean-cut, white, collared shirt) were a bit atypical for a Midtown panhandler. He said his car broke down and he needed to catch a cab back to Overland Park. We didn't have any cash, and while the guy's story didn't sound too far-fetched, the broke-down car story always sounds suspect. He said thanks anyway and walked on to try his luck at Starbucks.

About 15 minutes later, he walked back by. "Any luck?" I asked. Not yet, he said. He said he'd been at KU Med Center earlier visiting a friend and the limo hadn't waited for him. "So your car isn't broken down?" we asked, somewhat rhetorically. He shook his head and told us a few unsolicited details about his situation. He was 44-years-old, had gone to Rockhurst and was just in town to visit his Mom. He had left Starbucks just then because some people had recognized him from working for the Royals and he was worried that something might get into the paper. You wouldn't believe the kinds of things they printed in New York, he said.

"You worked for the Royals?" I asked

"Yeah, well...I was a pitcher."

"Really? What's your name?"

"David," he said. Then a pause. "Do you follow baseball?" he asked.

I was pretty sure who it was, but for some reason I went ahead and asked his last name. Sure enough, it was D. Cone, one of the top pitchers in the MLB for a decade and a three-time World Series Champ. Why he was asking us for money was anyone's guess, but I think it might have had something to do with alcohol. He'd had a great night at the Plaza the night before, he said. But tonight was not going quite as well.

After giving the appearance that we had no idea who he was, things were kind of awkward, so he said goodbye and walked off. Jenn remembers him saying, "Look it up, the stats are there," but I don't remember that part.

As soon as we got home, we looked up old Dave on the net. From the first photo we saw, it was unmistakably the same guy.


Pitcher D. Cone rejoices with teammates after receiving enough change from strangers to pay for cab fare to Overland Park.

And the stats were indeed there, from the Cy Young Award to All-Star selections to being only the 16th pitcher to ever throw a perfect game. There were also some more colorful stats, however, such as the New York Post headlines reading "Weird Sex Act in Bullpen." I could list a few of the other stories/rumors we uncovered, both positive and negative, but this piece from the Village Voice probably does it best. As talented and well-spoken as he may be, my boss's description of Cone as "a troubled soul" struck me as particularly apt.

But it is not for this blog to pass judgment on a fellow Kansas Citian. Rockhurst guys don't always make a great first impression, but they are usually good people at heart. I just hope the next millionaire I meet at Chipotle is handing out cash instead of looking for a handout.


Fans go crazy after Cone scores enough cash to buy a burrito to eat while riding home in stranger-sponsored cab to Johnson County.

Ode To Mark Trail

To kick off what should be an exciting summer of exploring the ancient art of the blog, I am going to hit you all today with a requested "Ode To Mark Trail." This lyrical celebration of one of King Features' finest archaic-looking comic strips was originally performed at the 2000 KU Scholarship Hall spring "Coffee House," which was basically a talent show for kids living in the schol halls.

My dramatic reading of the piece was accompanied by renowned multi-instrumentalist Charlie Rose on banjo. No recordings exist, but if you find some banjo music and read the piece out loud, you'll get the idea. Following the piece are a few links to some other comics-related humor, but for now, please take a deep breath and join me in honoring one of America's finest protectors of wildlife, Sir Marcus Trail:

Ode to Mark Trail

Oh great woodsman
gentle naturalist
fearless ranger of our land
it was many years before my birth
when Jack Elrod first breathed life
into your two-dimensional frame
He created you
But since then you've taken on your own life
a life of putting out forest fires
preserving our national parks
and securing streams for biological experimentation
Eternally 32, your wife's name is Cherry
and you have a dog named Andy
Your adopted son Rusty is the top student
in his bible class
You're a great man, Mr. Trail
The ghost of John Muir smiles down upon your brow
from his perch in the great Sequoia tree
You spend your days hunting, fishing
and pursuing the simple pleasures
Smoky's your teddy bear
and Sam's your favorite uncle
Jesus is just all right with you
In fact, he is more than all right
But all too often, your
woodland paradise is threatened
That, Mr. Trail, is when you
spring into action
If a wealthy rancher has cattle
on damaged soil, you won't
hesitate in telling him to move.
If careless backpackers trample the
fragile tundra,
You'll steer them back on the proper path
Not just any joker can kill deer in your woods
Only a joker with a hunting license
You preserve the dwindling wetlands
and combat the crass commercialism
that creeps into even the most remote forests
You keep America's greatest natural
treasures free from thugs,
gangsters, and sometimes even, goons
I remember one colorful Sunday
you told your readers all about
rare and fragile species of sea turtles
You told us about Stumpy, the
Chinese Box Turtle who spent 8
miserable years cooped up in a tank
with nothing to eat but raw steak meat
We also heard about Kymberly,
the desert tortoise whose
shell barely covered her pathetic little body
She was so undernourished that,
while her body grew, her shell did not
These stories you tell are often heartbreaking
But your efforts to help animals are
nothing short of miraculous
No ruthless corporation or
reckless redneck can slow you down
they might as well reverse
the orbit of the earth
or stop an oncoming truck with
their bare hands.
Decency, thy name is Trail
There will be no drug use in the Appalachians
No public urination in Yellowstone,
No indecent sex in Rocky Mountain National Park
so long as Trail wears his badge
To that, I say thank you, Mr. Trail
Thank you

For more Mark Trail-related humor, try out this guide for Trailheads. For some brilliant critical studies of other Funny Page institutions, visit the Comic Strip Doctor. And for a daily dose of cynical comics commentary, I recommend the Comics Curmudgeon.

Until next time, which I swear will be soon.

thursday tracks: maurice sendak meets carole king

There once was a boy named Pierre, who only would say "I don't care". From Maurice Sendak's 1975 TV special, with the "Nutshell Library" stories set to music by Carole King. View it here.

Mountain View

A few months ago, an editor I work with told me about Mountain View, Arkansas, a town nestled deep in the Ozarks where people sit around an old courthouse square and play folk and bluegrass music into the wee hours of the morning. Last week, after attending a wedding in Springfield, Missouri, Jennifer and I decided to go there.

Rather than take the quickest roads, we chose a winding path through the rolling hills of Mark Twain national forest. On the way we saw a bunch of lovely old buildings, like the defunct Ledbetter filling station, the Hercules church and a rundown dance club called "Faye's Place." Faye, however, appeared to have hung up her dancing shoes, judging by the failing condition of her little blue building. A man sat idling in a pick-up truck while we took photos, and we wondered if maybe he was a jilted dance partner who parked there each day with the hopes that one day Faye would return.




Welcome to Mountain View

We made it to Mountain View with enough time to check out some flea markets, instrument stores and courtsquare itself. I got to try out an autoharp, and Jennifer tried out a rocking chair that was big enough for bigfoot. There were lots of people milling around, and already a few bluegrass jams and hootenannies were in session.

If you're planning to go to Mountain View, there are a few things you should know. First of all, it might as well be the 1950s there, based on the look and feel of the town. A sign on the way into town said "Mountain View: 3 miles ahead and 50 years behind." That seemed pretty accurate to me, but not at all a bad thing. Prices were low, people were friendly, and the chocolote phosphates and coke floats at the soda-fountain were mixed just right.

Secondly, Mountain View is located in a dry county, so you need to bring your own hooch. Dry though it is, Stone County does not necessarily equal stone sober. We saw plenty of people walking around with cups that might have contained beer or liquor, but the only thing getting hammered on the courthouse square that night was a dulcimer.

It's also not the most diverse place. You can buy confederate flags at a nearby general store, and you might see one sewn onto a leather jacket here and there. The people we met were very friendly, so I don't want to portray them as otherwise, but I'm not sure how welcome I would feel there if I weren't white.

Mirror Lake and the Old Mill

Before settling into the evening's jamborees, we took a short drive up to the Ozark National Forest and hiked around to a lake and springs. We followed another path below the waterfall until we saw a stone building that looked like it was the ruins of an old church. We climbed around the window openings and used them to frame a series of photographs.




Once we picked up the trail again, a sign overlooking the building we'd been climbing in said it was an old mill that had been partially deconstructed during World War II. The window ledge we'd been taking pictures on was where the water wheel used to be.

Just Pickin'

The most notable feature of Mountain View, of course, is the music. Everywhere you look, there's several groups of musicians gathered in a circle and picking on some tune or another. I heard Hank Williams songs, country standards, and one rather large woman with an American flag bandana belted out a whiskey-themed song with the refrain, "And I won't go home with a wild turkey like you."


The most pleasant and intimate session we watched took place in a gazebo in a small park off the main square. About four or five guys held the session together, with a few coming and going as the night went on.

My favorite individual song was an original by one of these men, a guitarist who sang a slow number about how he's tired of chasing rainbows, because rainbows are so hard to find. Jenn's favorite was the violinist, an elderly man who treated us to the sweetest and saddest melodies we'd hear all weekend. After about 11:30, while the rest of them strummed on, he quietly packed up his fiddle and walked off into the shadows with a quiet wave.

Bean Fest

The Mountain View residents were met were very welcoming, and one lady told us about all the area's special attractions, including the Folk Festival, the comedy shows, and the most interesting event of all: Bean Fest.

Bean Fest, she explained, is a giant baked bean and cornbread cookoff that draws people from all over the region to Courthouse Square. Giant tents are set up, people start baking beans that morning, and at noon a bell rings and everyone has a big baked bean feast.

The cookoff and awards for best baked beans are followed up by the annual Parade of Outhouses. Different businesses sponsor teams who build decorated or thematic outhouses, and then they line up these "people-powered potties" and have a race just south of the square. First place is awarded with the coveted golden toilet seat.

Parting Shots

Traveling through the Ozarks and walking through Mountain View was a refreshing experience. We heard a lot of great music, and none of the players came across as flashy or competitive. The people we met extended a folksy warmth and humor, like the guy at the general store who said his wife told him, "the only good years we have are the ones on our truck."

On the way back, the roads were full of church billboards with messages like, "His blood washes away what no soap can," and more pointed queries like, "Are you prepared to meet Jesus?" Dear Lord, I thought, not yet -- at least not between here and Yellville.


We did stop once at the Buffalo river, and after a half-hour I succeeded in skipping a rock all the way across (it's farther across than it looks). We also stopped in Springfield to visit Jess, Dave and Oliver The Ferret.

The apocalyptic church signs were complemented by the smoke from pasture fires, and by the time we reached the big city, the sky was all the way dark. I don't know when I'll get back to Mountain View, but I'm sure I'll go back there sometime. I should very much like to see a Parade of Outhouses before I die.

photos by Jennifer Brothers. To see more from this trip, click here.
for more information about Mountain View, go to ozarkgetaways.com

the world's smallest man

To tide you over until I get around to posting some new stuff, here's a video of dance sequences performed by Nelson de la Rosa, the recently deceased Dominican gentleman who stood all of 54 centimeters. Thanks to Brett for including this clip years ago on a VHS copy of Tenacious D and a live Weather Report performance.

restructuring

I've finally figured out a few things about how the new blogger works. Over the next day or two I will be making a number of changes, including adding categories of my own posts and links to other people's Web sites, music and comics. Check back in a day or two and I promise you'll find a more user-friendly page.