Black History Moth

Editor's Note: Today's offering is a guest piece by acclaimed fiction writer and illustrator Dave Coates. Dave graciously and laboriously constructed this account of one man's Black History Moth, and now the fruits of his labor are here for all to enjoy. So pull your chair up to the computer screen, and attend the tale of Black History Moth.

Black History Moth
by Dave Coates

Terry stepped onto the porch and lit his pipe. February made his bones hurt. The last, stubborn stings of a wilting late winter cold snap whispered through clicking, skeletal branches, as the seasons struggled to divine a balance. Terry sought a similar balance in his own life, and found within himself a certain stillness during his nightly visits to the porch. Standing, smoking, tossing the gnarled, burned matches in the bucket of sand Joanne had insisted he not only buy and assemble, but use, lest the house they'd worked their entire lives to pay off burn up because Terry's mind tended to wander.

He liked being the only one in the neighborhood awake, watching the moon pull the stars across the sky for an hour or so before getting ready for bed was a good way to sift through those things too frisky to properly address when he was otherwise distracted. The gutters. The transmission. The busted latch on the back fence. He puffed twice on his pipe, enjoying the tiny warmth on his cheek from the crackling tobacco. The smoke curled slowly into a feeble haze, hanging in the air as if it were unsure of how, exactly, to dissipate.

The screen banged against its frame, sucked inward as Joanne pulled open the heavy wooden front door. The porch light popped on overhead. "Terry, the neighbors will think you're a prowler. Come inside." Joanne didn't understand his recent predilection for solitude, and it made her worry.

"I'll be in soon. You go on up," Terry said, still facing the yard. Joanne stood in the doorway for a few seconds longer, perhaps considering whether to worry harder. Just as she had every night for the past few months, she closed the door and left her husband to his business, keeping the light on so if he didn't come in for her, he would at least eventually find himself unable to bear wasting electricity any longer. Terry smiled to himself, thinking of his wife. His pipe crackled, and the wind blew past the front of the house. Somewhere far, a train sounded a low, mournful whistle.

He looked into the frozen midnight at the perimeter of the porch light's range, stoic and immense. He puffed on his pipe, and the smoke again hung near his head, suspending him from the ceiling in a blue umbilicus. He closed his eyes and waited for the wind to blow.

Then: a voice in his right ear, tiny and wet, so soft as to barely rise above the sound of one's own conscience, "Lewis Temple (1800 – 1854) revolutionized the whaling industry with his invention of the toggle harpoon in 1848." The words were slipped into his brain so gently that it took him a full minute to realize this new thought was not his own. Startled, his eyes snapped open. The porch was small enough for him to determine that he was still its only occupant with the most cursory of eye-darting, but he was sure someone had just spoken. He peered over the railing on either side, finding only the garden hose and some empty flowerpots. The porch light flickered, and he looked up.

There, resting flat against the grey vinyl siding next to the bulb was a moth, small enough to be mistaken for a flower petal, were it not clearly a moth. After a brief interval, it spasmed, pushing off the ceiling and batting against the thin yellow glass of the porch light, making a little pinging sound each time it bounced off. Terry thought the weather was much too cold for wildlife to be stirring, but here, just a few feet from his face, was proof he was mistaken. He watched the creature, puzzled. The moth had a gravitas about it uncommon in most insects drawn to Terry's porch light. Until then, the only animal he'd thought to have a quiet dignity about it was the vanishing white tiger of Sumatra.

His eyes, tired from a day's glancing and scanning every single article in the newspaper, strained to stay focused on the moth. One blink, and the moth had vanished, having seemingly folded itself into the last strains of smoke from the dying embers in Terry's pipe. What a strange creature, he thought. What strange markings on its wings, he thought.

"Jazz."

That voice! Terry, his eyes open this time, was positive he was alone. What was happening to his mind? Surely, there were more subtle indications of encroaching madness besides hearing voices. An inability to feel secure in his hands' cleanliness, perhaps, or a growing suspicion of ferns. Disembodied voices were for those who had already displayed a mastery of facial tics, night terrors and a failure to determine whether pants were to be worn over the legs or casually draped across the shoulders. He had only retired two years ago, and had thus far enjoyed good health and zesty regularity. He foresaw the next, dim few years of his life, bumbling along with his brains dribbling out of his increasingly hairy ears until meeting a merciful end after mistaking an open manhole for his missing slipper.
"Jack Johnson (1878 – 1946), the first African-American heavyweight champion, patented a wrench in 1922." Oh, sweet Jesus. Again, already.

The moth fluttered just in front of his face, going about its mothly errands. Just before it left his field of vision, the insect turned towards Terry and, its' soft proboscis unfurling slightly, tooted, "Joseph Winters invented a fire escape ladder in 1878." This struck Terry as somewhat unworthy of historical merit, as every ladder is a fire escape ladder, if leaned close enough to a burning structure occupied by those in need of a less injurious route to safety than falling unguarded to the ground. The moth swam in place in the still night air, as if waiting for Terry to respond.

His scream, hollow and hoarse, could be clearly identified as that of an old man's by anyone within earshot. Younger men's screams can of course be mistaken for foxes, dogs, bottle rockets and a variety of pressure valves, depending on the proximity of the listener, but old men screaming only sound like old men screaming.

The force of Terry's yelp sent the moth tumbling end over end for a few feet, before it could right itself and make its way back to Terry's still-screaming face. The pipe fell from his mouth, crumbling tobacco erupting as it punctuated the moment with an exclamation mark, clattering to Terry's feet.

The moth struggled back to its place in front of Terry's face. "Where did you come from?" He asked the creature. The moth said nothing, and after a few more seconds, turned and flew away into the midnight horizon beyond the reach of the porch light. Terry stood, baffled at what had just transpired.

Just then Joanne came to the door, terrified. "Terry? What on earth happened?" She had fear in her eyes. Terry snapped out of his confused fog and attended to his wife, reassuring her that he'd just had a bad cramp in his side, like he sometimes got when he stood for too long. He knew that whatever had just happened wouldn't be understood in the next few minutes, if ever, so he chose to keep the mystery to himself for now, and try solving it tomorrow, or maybe the next day. He followed his wife inside, then up to bed, sneaking downstairs once her breathing become low and even in deep sleep to turn the porch light back on.

The moth returned the following night, informing him just as he was about to give up waiting for its arrival and head up to bed that Jan Ernst Matzeliger (1852 –1889) invented the Shoe Lasting machine, which connected the upper part of the shoe to the sole. This invention revolutionized the shoe making industry. He turned his head to face the moth, which was at his left ear, but as soon as he did, the creature fluttered off, leaving him alone with this latest factoid. Perhaps the running theme of African-American historical figures in each of the milestones was the key to the puzzle, perhaps not.

As the February nights fell into one another, Terry's interactions with the moth were no less frequent, but no more involved than every previous night except for the first. He learned that Quincy Jones' middle name is "Delight," and that Minnie J. Lee Elders (1933 – ) "Jocelyn" Elders was the first African-American to serve as the United States Surgeon General -- her term lasted for 15 months (1993-1994), but nothing about the moth: the greater cultural significance of these figures and their accomplishments, the issues that existed then and now that made their odds-beating resolve and unwavering dedication remarkable and astonishing, respectively, and how what the moth had to share was supposed to change anything, even though he couldn't fault its validity or right to share and tout, tout and share. He sometimes felt, though, that the moth's regular visits were lapsing into shallow ritual.

Still, a moth so full of facts and so committed to inspiring a continued bridging of racial divides wasn't something he minded having around, really. But he didn't see what Queen Latifah had done to deserve a mention.

Eventually, Terry felt the moth sort of ran out of steam, and while it visited him nightly, it seemed like it had noted the predictable hat trick of heavy hitters, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. early on, quickly came to never manage to inspire more than a passing "You don't say" as the month wore on.

The days were growing slightly longer with each sundown. It was not an easily perceptible change, but as Terry spent a good portion of every afternoon at his desk reading the paper, he noticed that he had to switch his reading lamp on later and later, and it wasn't too far a logical walk to figure out that more light outside means less light needed within. That, and he'd lived plenty of years. Some days, he felt like too many. He'd had all the time in the world to get a sense of how things worked.

Tapping the tobacco from his pipe on his wrist one night, Terry was surprised to notice that the moth, who was usually so prompt and persistent with his arrivals, had failed to show up yet. It was much later than the moth had ever arrived before, and Terry began to worry.

An hour later, he was beside himself. He'd never meant to take the moth for granted—what it represented, the progress, the setbacks, the struggles and triumphs— honest, he didn't—he had just begun to develop admiration fatigue.

Terry made it a point to not go out after supper, a mindset that grew out of the days when the kids were little. Errands and social calls on weeknights served only to take him away from his family, so he simply resolved not to allow the outside world to ever come before those under his roof. As he'd grown older, this rule had grown more expansive and oddly restrictive, keeping him not only from going into town, but more and more, keeping him from even leaving the porch.

Though he'd never admit it to Joanne, he stayed close these days just as much out of habit as because the world beyond the glow of his porch light seemed different and more menacing than the world with which he'd always felt such a kinship. He didn't see the light of commonality in peoples' eyes, even at church. He didn't see people even bothering to be decent to one another anymore. And the cars on the road that ran in front of his house went so very fast, even though there were children in the neighborhood. Damn teenagers.

Without thinking, he walked onto his lawn, looking for the moth. It was still mighty chilly, but the moth had braved much worse for little else than a quote from Al Sharpton. Terry crisscrossed his yard until his neck hurt from looking at the sky for so long. He stopped on his driveway to rub it, slowly rolling his head from side to side. It felt good, and when he closed his eyes, he could see a reverse cutout of the stars in the sky on the inside of his eyelids, fading and red. He held his hand over the back of his neck, pushing his head gently downwards in order to better stretch his neck muscles.

Then, without even the tiniest sound of dusty, panicked wing-beats or smallest movement of air around it to give away its approach, a moth moved in close to Terry's ear, and told him, "In 1960, Jacqueline Cochran broke the sound barrier by flying an F-86 over Roger's Dry Lake, California, at the speed of 652.337 miles per hour. Eleven years later, she flew at a speed of 1,429.2 miles per hour, more than twice the speed of sound."

Terry's eyes snapped open behind his reading glasses. Women's History Moth had arrived.

the man behind the camera

Is turning 26. I'm not sure when exactly it happens/happened, but if you see this guy at the record store, library or on the beach, tell him 'happy birthday.'

thursday tracks: Joplin Rap!

Last month Joplin Globe columnist and friend Jeremiah Tucker issued a challenge for readers to write a rap about Joplin, Missouri. Even though I'm not from there, I've spent a lot of time there with Jennifer and her family, so I had enough good experiences (mostly restuarant visits) to draw on for some quality rhymes.

The rap itself focuses on places to eat in J-town, and also draws attention to some notable regional landmarks like George Washington Carver's birthplace, the tri-state mineral museum, the skatepark and Eccentrix, the used record/book/movie store. I might type up the lyrics and post them in the comments section, but they should be pretty easy to understand.

Jeremiah praised the rap's quality and said it would have been a lock for first, but unfortunately we were a week late. So no prize, and no glory, even though he says he'll post it in the paper's online edition. Still, recording the J-town rap was a fun experience. I got to work with up-and-coming producer/brother David at sweatlodge studios (Dave produced the backing track, lifting a bit from the People Under the Stairs' "San Francisco Knights"). Plus, it refreshed my respect for hip-hop. Not that I didn't respect it a lot before, but trying to record a rap of my own really makes me appreciate those who do it well.

Without any further ado, here's the JopCity Rap. Hope you like it.

a salute to the imperial truffle

I have a saying about businesses in Kansas City: Never get too attached to any one place, because as soon as you do, it will close down. Well the phrase rings true once again, as my next door neighbors, Annedore's fine chocolates, will be closing shop on March 1st.

I guess the owner is having a baby or something and doesn't want to do both. Plus, there's a Starbucks that just opened up nearby. Which I swear I'll never go to. Not so much because I hate Starbucks but because Annedore's already had the best coffee in town.

I've only lived in Midtown since November 2005 and I've already seen quite a few of my favorite local places shut down: Recycled Sounds, The Music Exchange, Joe Joe's Italian Deli, even the Osco Drug. But at least there are plenty of unofficial crack dealerships in the area. I don't mean to sound so bitter, but without my weekly dose of imperial truffles (pictured above), I don't know how I'm going to cope.

Well, I guess I can think of a few ways. Like walking my chocolate dog around the neighborhood, taking shots of expresso from a dark-chocolate shot glass, calling up my friends on my chocolate cell phone and lighting up a chocolate cigar before speeding off on my chocolate chopper. That's a pretty tall order, though, and even with the current sale it's going to cost a pretty chocolate penny. So I better get to work. So long, Anne D's.

sunset over 43rd street, Annedore's is on the right. Photo by JLB.

my state school mascot love/hate child

A few months ago, some friends and I attended the annual "sunflower showdown" football game between Kansas and Kansas State Universities. We walked to Memorial Stadium from the Lawrence student ghetto, and on the way we passed several loyalty checkpoints (drunk college kids of both schools demanding to know who we would be cheering for).

This should have been a no-brainer. I went to KU, lived in Lawrence for four years and attended a bunch of football and basketball games. But when faced with the "KU or K-State?" question point-blank, I didn't know what to say.

You see, I grew up a K-State fan. Both my parents went there, as did several aunts, uncles and cousins, and my grandfather is a professor of chemistry there. When I was little I'd go so far as to paint my face purple before the basketball games. I'd draw pictures of my favorite players while listening to the K-State Jazz band's recording of the fight song, and when a friend came over and accidentally broke the record, I locked myself in the bathroom and cried.

Eventually I dried my eyes, grew up and applied to state college. Only when it came time to pick a school, I decided I'd much rather spend four years in Lawrence then in Manhattan. KU had better programs for what I wanted to do, gave me more scholarship money, and Lawrence was a fresh and exciting place.

In my years at KU and since, I've been a big KU fan. I went to a lot of games, kept up on their performance when I was out of the country, and even started an unofficial Jeff Graves fan club ("the graveyard"). But in all honesty, it's never been too difficult to be a KU fan. They've always got the best players and coaches, and there's nowhere more exciting to see a home game than Allen Fieldhouse.

K-State, on the otherhand, has been an unworthy B-Ball rival for as long as I can remember. They've lost 32 of the last 33 matchups, and if things go as predicted, they'll lose yet another tonight. As much as it pains me, I'll watch the whole thing from beginning to end. On one hand, I'd hate to see Kansas lose, but on the other, watching them beat-up on the boys in purple just brings back too many painful memories of being taunted by my childhood Jayhawk friends.

This brings us to the illustration you see at the top of the screen. I drew this years ago when I was out of the country and the whole idea of people a few miles apart hating on each other so passionately seemed particularly absurd.

It isn't beautiful, and some of you may even find it offensive, but the Wildhawkjaykitty is me -- the imaginary lovechild of two sworn enemies; an awkward emblem of state school-sponsored schizophrenia.

thursday tracks: valentunes

These should be working again now, but if not, let me know and I'll hire these bands to play your birthday party. Though that might be kind of tricky since some of them are dead.

Yesterday I was recalling the Valentine's Day a few years ago when Jacob kept playing the Palace Brothers song "Valentine's Day" on his radio show as an introductory tune before he announced what songs he was going to play next. I thought maybe I would provide a link to that tune and add a few others while I was at it. So I did.

Unfortunately, I didn't wind up having enough time to post this love mix yesterday. But love, after all, should not be confined to one calendar day, so just take these tracks as an incentive to keep those loving feelings (including regret, wistfulness and sadness as well as exuberance) flowing all year round.

There are a lot of songs out there about love. This is by no means an authoritative list. Just a bunch of favorites that happened to be on my iTunes yesterday. Enjoy!

I Remember When I Loved Her by The Zombies
It's always best to start Love-themed mixes off on a regretful note.

And I Love Her performed by the Wailers
The Wailers did a hell of a pop number in their early days.

Love You So by King Khan and BBQ Show
From the band whose concert here in October was maybe the best show I saw all year.

Love by Virgin Sleep
This was on somebody's psych mix. It got stuck in my head so bad that I thought I was going to have to buy a sitar to strum it away.

You Don't Love Me Yet by Roky Erickson
For all of you at Kief's.

First Girl I Loved by The Incredible String Band
The Incredible String Band were from Scotland. This is among their most wistful and tragic of numbers. "Well I never slept with you/But we must have made love a thousand times/We we were just young/And we didn't have no place to go." Heartbreaking -- even more so because it's about a redhead.

I Was Made To Love Her performed by Jimi Hendrix
An instrumental with all the fire of Stevie's original.

Sure Know How To Love Me by Darondo
From my favorite album reissued last year. Not a bad song on it.

When Love Comes
by Susan Christie
Another reissue I found at the Love Garden. The whole album is lovely.

Does Anybody Love You? by Todd Rundgren
Who knew the album with the world's ugliest cover could yield so many catchy tunes?

No One's Gonna Love You by Nicole Willis and the Soul Investigators
(At least not as much)

I Found A New Love by Magic Sam
The obligatory blues number. They didn't call him Magic for nothing.

Prove Your Love by Fleetwood Mac
Jay put this on a mix for me last Winter. At the time I thought he included it because it's such a good song, but now I realize he might have been trying to tell me something. Jay -- I'm sorry. Please allow me to prove my love by buying you a welcome-back greek salad at the mediterranean restuarant of your choice.

"When I Die" by Motherlode
I'm breaking the "love has to be in the title" rule for this tune because the chorus has an extended "I love you" in it, and also because it's a sadly appropriate number for the man whose music I found this in. This was on a collection of songs J Dilla sampled for his "Donuts" album. Dilla -- also known as Jay Dee -- died February 10, 2006, just a few days after "Donuts" came out. This bittersweet number reflects the excitement I felt upon first hearing J Dilla's music recently, and the sadness at learning the man passed away at such a young age.

Must Have Been Something I Loved by Lee Hazlewood
I'll give Lee the last word on the subject for now. This is from his 1970 breakup album, "Requieum for an almost lady." I love the humor contained in the title. It's like he's saying, "Must have been something I ate." Only it's actually something he loved.


above photo by jennifer brothers, taken in christiania. top photo taken by LW across the street from rheinallee 37-43.

Saddam and me: Oh, the memories!

I know Americans right now are much more preoccupied with the deaths of Anna Nicole Smith and Barbaro the Horse, but before the year grows much older, I want to say a few words in memoriam of a man who I feel never got a fair trial in the court of U.S. public opinion: Saddam Hussein.

I write not to praise Saddam, but to bury him. No matter how many times he's been made out to be a monster, once I saw the grisly, grainy footage of the man's execution, it became hard for me to view him as anything but an indignified, helpless human being. I've never been a fan of the guy, but seeing him get killed on YouTube and then made fun of on late night television made me want to prepare this little eulogy of sorts. Because truth be told, I've always felt a curious familiarity with the man.

Part of this has to do with where I was when I first heard Saddam had been captured. I was covering a Sunday morning jazz shift at KJHK, and once I saw the news on the computer, I read a short update during the next break, which I think came between Coltrane's "India" and Brian Eno's "Midnight Rain of Green Wrens at the World's Tallest Building." After the show, I drove through Burrito King to get a tamale, and the guy working the window was quick to tell me the news. "Yep," I said in acknowledgement. "We got him."

The next day, that same phrase was pasted all over the papers. I was entranced by the photos of the man emerging from his so-called spider hole, where he'd reportedly been reading Dostoevsky and growing a famous salt and pepper beard. I kept the special "We Got Him" section of the Kansas City Star in my car, and one night a month or so after the capture I made Jennifer drive down Massachussets Street while I held it out of the window and shouted the news of his capture with all the fervor of a newsie on VJ Day.

My interest in Saddam began in the first Gulf War, when a Marine we had written a letter to wrote back to our class and told us how Saddam was "a shark in the swimming pool of life." He'd killed a lot of people, the letter said, including his own brother. We were suitably impressed, and you would have been hard-pressed to find any 4th grader in that classroom who had anything good to say about the Iraqi tyrant.

Just over a decade later -- long after Saddam had slipped from the daily thoughts of most Americans, but before he was destined to share the stage with Bin Laden as one of the free world's most wanted -- I had a profound hallucination one night that Saddam Hussein was sitting in a parked car outside my apartment complex. I can't say what exactly prompted this vision of a Saddam-Bogeyman, and I didn't actually believe Mr. Hussein had come all the way to Lawrence to pay me a surprise visit, but in retrospect it makes for an interesting harbinger of the political climate to come.

Once 9/11 hit and the beating of the war drums grew louder, I encountered some interesting Saddam iconography. On a winter night in Prague, my friend Adam and I were dining in a non-stop cafe when a haggard old man approached, pulled a pair of wax figures from a tattered gunnysack and set them on the table. They were white candles carved into little effigies Saddam and Osama, and they were for sale. We were too drunk to think of any response to the man, who kept pointing to each of the candles and saying, "Saddam...Osama." Eventually he moved on to an American couple, whose appalled expressions made us giggle in spite of ourselves.

A couple of years later, in Hamburg, my neighbor Khalid from Jordan traded me an Iraqi 10 dinar bill with Saddam's face on it for an American 2-dollar bill. (It was a good trade for both of us. Khalid collected currency, but wasn't sure a U.S. 2 dollar bill existed, and I certainly never expected to have such politically loaded cash in my pocket. Unfortunately, I lost the thing before I could come back to America and do a photo series of attempting to buy propane at rural gas stations with my brand new 10 dinar bill.) Back in the States, I found a series of "exploding terrorist heads" fireworks featuring Saddam's face painted on a fountain cone, along with others resembling Bin Laden, Gadaafi and Arafat.

My favorite Saddam memory, however, was the 2005 news features about his prison behavior. How he loved Doritos, but hated fruit loops. How he preferred Bush Sr. to his no-good son. How he told the prison guard he should find a woman, not too pretty, not too ugly; not too smart, not too dumb. One who can cook and clean. Sounds reasonable to me.

Unfortunately, those good old days are gone, and as Iraq grew worse and worse, the man was taken to an undisclosed location and strung up. It's not that I didn't know it was coming, but I didn't think it would be carried out so tastelessly. And in the face of such greater violence, I don't think anyone was that impressed.

Now when I think of Saddam, I can't help but get Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row" stuck in my head, the song which begins with the words, "They're selling postcards of the hanging." Even more chilling if you substitute "postcards" for "videos," as so many astute bloggers did in the days following the execution.

Like I said, I'm not trying to make a martyr of the man. I've read plenty about Saddam, about his squandering of Iraqi resources and the brutal murders of so many of his people. I accept that he is a bully on the playground of life. But the way America and her henchmen handled Saddam's execution didn't make us look so good either. The only difference is, neocons don't make for very cool candles.

photo taken from Welcome To The Blog at http://laurabush.info/ Thanks!

Cold Hard Times

The song I'd like to present to you today is one I've had in my head a lot during this recent spell of super-cold weather. It's called "Cold Hard Times," and it's by by Lee Hazlewood, a man who has been profiled recently by the NY Times and allmusic.com. By most reports, Lee isn't long for this world, but his unique, funny and diverse output of music will long live after him. As a bonus, here's a more humorous track by Lee called "Six Feet of Chain" that is probably my favorite song about sibling rivalry yet. Enjoy.

Kansas City Chemical Plant Explosion 2007

This is a photo I doctored from one on the Kansas City Star's Web site. It's not my favorite from their slide show of yesterday's incident (in which no one was harmed, I might add), but it features Union Station and the American Flag -- two distinctive local and national symbols.

The only other poster I designed this year was a modification of the "Put Your Lance Face On" banner advertisement that American Century Investments hung on the side of the office tower where I work. I was going to hang up copies of my own version of this poster in the building, but didn't think it would be worth getting in any trouble over.

lawrence, cuba libres and a gallery closing

I spent a night in Lawrence for the first time since the very start of 2007. On my drive up to town Saturday night, I looked out the window and noticed the sky was getting a lot bigger and the stars a bit brighter. It's not so much that I felt like I could breathe again, it's that I noticed I was breathing.

After racing across the Wakarusa, I listened to the disappointing last few minutes of the KU game on the radio before shivering on into the Olive. There was an art opening underway for an exhibit of paintings by Josh Adams entitled "Remarks."

"Rarely does an idea end up where it began," read the first line of the artist's statement. I liked that. However, I can't remember what else it said because I went right away to examine the paintings for myself.

They were fantastic. I hadn't seen anything by Josh in a few years, and the smaller size of the paintings, the intricacy, and the layered richness of the color reminded me of something I would have seen at any of my favorite art galleries in Europe and the U.S. Like Josh's drumming, his painting style was tight and meticulous, but with enough of his own touch to make it warm and memorable. Go see them if you can.

After the opening, a few of us convened for Cuba Libres at the nearby Room of Tap. Unlike the decadent film crew marooned at the Spanish villa set of Fassbinder's "Beware A Holy Whore," we didn't throw the glasses over our shoulders once they were empty. We just followed the honky-tonk trail to the next honky-tonk, and after that, another. Finally we retreated to D's Mississippi Street studio, where he entertained us with a few late-night treats from his own well-tempered clavier.

The next day after coffee I took off for Kansas City, but because the DJ on KJ was playing such great blues guitar songs and female blues singers, I just drove around East of town until I finally hit K-10. I had wanted to go back to the Olive to pick up some things and take another look at the artwork, but they're no longer open on Sundays in preparation for closing the whole place down at the end of the month.
It's a sad thing, but the people at the Olive should be proud of what they put together and the spirit of creativity and oppportunity with which they did it. For now, I'd like to bid the gallery a fond farewell. Rarely does an idea end where it begins, but at least you had the courage to live the dream.

(photo of the couch at the olive gallery upstairs by natalya.bond)

Ice Planet Hoth

Last week I took my first-ever sick day from my job. I slept for something like 17 hours straight and finally woke up around 3 in the morning. Somehow I wound up at my neighbor's watching "Empire Strikes Back," which touched off a newfound fascination with Ice Planet Hoth. Watching my namesake Mr. Skywalker and friends trip up those giant robot/elefant's with their space-harpoons, and then looking outside at the frozen earth, Hoth didn't seem too far away. At any rate I found it hard to imagine I'd ever worn shorts.

The next day I googled Ice Planet Hoth and saw that someone had designed a pretty professional-looking Web site to help Ice Planet Hoth make a successful bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics. Jesus, I hope they make it.

zweite heimat

After posting postcards of Kansas earlier this week, I thought I'd follow up with a few photographs of my last visit to Germany.

Kansas Day

Happy Kansas Day! Technically, it is Kansas Night, and there's only a few minutes of it left, so I better post these postcards in a hurry. They will give you an idea of how awesome day-to-day life here really is. Happy Kansas Day, from the bottom of my blogging heart.


From Big Baby T, the adventures of Spaghetti & Lemonade


Story of my life


From the Wetlands adventures, fall 2006


Kansas at its most monumental


Schaake's: a truly sincere pumpkin patch


This child was abandoned by his human parents and raised by Jayhawks

You can wash all of these stunning images of Kansas with this traditional tune performed by The Two-Dollar Shoe Revival Story in August 2003 at the Paradise Cafe. This particular bootleg recording of Two Dollar Shoe features Charlie Rose (banjo, vocals), Matt Gertkikn (guitar), Cody Walters (bass) and Josh Adams (drums).

Thursday Tracks: Songs About Rainbows

Now that I am actually posting songs instead of just listing what I'm listening to, I thought a thematic audio post was in order. This week's theme is rainbows.

Kermit once famously asked why there were so many songs about them. I would ask the follow-up question of "Why are there so many psych songs about rainbows?" but the truth is, I already know. Psychedelic songs about rainbows transport you to a magical state of mind, and after listening to this awesome trio of tunes, I've felt at times as if I've been riding rainbows, traveling underneath them, or just plain old kicking back on my rainbow rocking chair.

The illustration is something my friend Till did in 2002. We had just seen 3 rainbows over the Rhine, one for each of us present that day, but for some reason Till only drew two of them. Probably my notebook wasn't big enough to capture the whole glorious scene. Also, I read that if you have two rainbows in the same place, one of them will have inverted colors (VIBGYOR vs ROYGBIV). Not sure if this rule of refraction applies to dream oil-pastel landscapes, however.

Finally, I was going to make this post even awesomer by including a poem my sister wrote about Rainbows that was published in a high school lit mag this year, but we decided to hold off on that one so as not to interfere with print sales. Suffice it to say it was a great poem, full of images of light and beauty. Go rainbows!

The tunes:

Ride a Rainbow by Victoria, 1971.

Under the Rainbow by The End, 1968

Rainbow Rocking Chair by Majority One, 1970

Thanks to aciddazed.blogspot.com for two of these tracks. A late but great site.

Biggest Sale Ever

At the Berbiglia booze shop on 43rd street. 10 percent off everything, all month. You guys, this is huge. (photo by Jennifer).

When I have Fears that I may cease to be Cool

Elizabethan sonnet by Lucas Wetzel, age 25
"The Kiss" (woodblock print) by Peter Behrens, (1869-1940)

When I have fears that I’ll stop being cool
before my band has played its farewell tour
before I best death in a guitar duel,
and the carefree life loses all allure;
When I take a look at all the cities
and the venues that we’ve left to play,
I fear my stage-presence will desert me
and my star-power will soon fade away;
And when I feel, fair indie-rock mistress!
that I’ll never make out with you again
never brush the cloth of your vintage dress,
or write songs to capture your attention
I think, though my coolness may not last long,
the best love rarely outlives a pop song.

Author's note: In case your memories of English 12 are a bit fuzzy and you're wondering what this poem is referencing, check out the source material from John Keats.

Good Times

What better song to kick off the year and shake off the 2006 sleepy-sleepies than "Good Times" by Eric Burdon and the Animals? This one is posted here courtesy of BBT.

Happy New Year.

Hi Scores for 2K6

James turned 20 and we had a party.


I got 230 which was pretty good but Peter got 240.


We all raced and I think James and Peter tied for first.

Photos all from Natalya Bond, Oddjob's estranged cousin, international fotograferin and canon rebel.

End of the year cheers to all my mates back in town or spread across the globe, especially those in Korea, Dubai, New York, Cali, Massachussets, Hong Kong, Portland, The Independent Commonwealth of Waldo, Allemagne and/or elsewhere. It is not known how long into 2007 this site will survive, but for now all systems are go. Blue Collar Press even made some new buttons that I would be happy to give away to anyone who wants one.

Last night in the wee hours I posted a few pieces of fictional non-fiction on my myspace page. Because many of you who regularly read lukaswetzel.blogspot.com have (wisely) chosen to stay away from th'space, I'll reproduce a couple of those below. Before I do that, however, I'd like to offer this musical salute to the year from Scott Walker.

les parking garage du mal

This short tale of woe illuminates the dark surrealistic underbelly of corporate america -- specifically beginning and ending your work day in a parking garage.

I drove through the parking garage at work today, and because there were no parking spots toward the gate, I had to swing around to the darker recesses of G4 to find a spot. On the way, I saw the building security golf-cart approaching with its lights turned off for some reason. One of the people riding on it had a big black hood pulled over his head. He looked like the grim reaper, or at best an 11th century monk.

During non-business hours, the parking garage fills with the threatening sounds of high-pitched bird screeches. The security attendants assure me these sounds originate from a speaker mounted on the side of the garage designed to keep birds from nesting and defecating on the premises. The noises are all too loud and too real, however, so I tape-recorded them and mailed the acetate to a professor of ancient natural history at a nearby online paleontological institute. He's convinced they belong to a prehistoric animal -- perhaps even a pterodactyl -- who may have survived into the digital era.

Lately I've taken to stalking the garage at night armed with a bow and arrow in hopes that I might slay the beast and serve it to my family for New Years Day Dinner. Please wish me luck, wherever you are, and I'll return the favor once I have the wishbone between my fingers.

Stevie Jones: ice-rink terrorkind

Zamboni's have been coming up a lot lately in the Wetzel household ever since James got a job driving one for a winter break job. This short and fake news brief is something I came up with back in winter of 2001, that especially trying year for our nation. I'd cut out a clipping from the New York Times Magazine (I think) about an immigrant who worked at the Rockefeller Center Ice Rink. It was about how he admired the resiliency and cheer of New Yorkers after 9/11, and how after a long day of being around them, he enjoyed the peace and stillness of driving the Zamboni around at night. It might be a touch disrespectful and politically inappropriate, but it's not intended to be entirely heartless.

Stevie Jones is a young boy who frequents the skating rink. Apparently Stevie had acquired some rather radical political beliefs in the course of researching current events for his social studies class. He started writing a lot of e-mails to Osama bin Laden to see what he could do for the cause, but Osama never wrote him back. Eventually he decided to take matters into his own hands.

Last week, during one of the afternoon resurfacing breaks, Stevie approached the Zamboni and held an ice-skate blade to the back of the employee driving it. Stevie then took over the Zamboni and proceeded to drive it around in circles until skate security made him get off. The incident was very upsetting to the boy's father, who is a former FBI officer. Stevie is also not allowed to visit the skating rink anymore, which is particularly upsetting to him because they serve his favorite generic hot chocolate in steamy little styrofoam cups.


p.s. Does anyone know if they are selling Bryan Busby weather calendars again this year at the supermarket in Brookside? I am going to go by there today and find out, so let me know if you want one.

Thursday Tracks (for real!)

As most of you know, I've done a bit of writing for official and unofficial publications including the University Daily Kansan, the Schol-Holler and even the Lawrence Journal-World. And as a semi-informed music fan and retired amateur DJ, I've naturally written about music from time to time. As fun as that can be, however, I've never quite been comfortable thinking of myself as or wanting to pursue any real position as a music writer. What could I say about a good song that would be more worthwhile than just listening to it?

Listening to music with people, on the other hand, is one of my favorite activities. I love sitting around with friends and trading off spinning whatever tracks we've been enjoying (some might say "feeling") lately. It is with that spirit in mind that I set up a Libsyn account to host MP3s of music I've been enjoying, oddities I've discovered or been sent by friends, and original compositions as well (at some point). I'll probably lean a little toward the old and obscure so I'm not stepping on anyone's copywright toes, but the main qualification for music I post here will be that it's either good, funny and/or something I think you might like.

I can pass on the direct link to my Libsyn page if you like, but for now I'll just be posting files here. To kick things off, here's a few tracks from the first album by Idle Race, the early band of Jeff Lynne, who went on to join The Move and later formed Electric Light Orchestra.

The silly and endearing "I Like My Toys" is the first song I heard by this band. It's a good post-Christmas tune, especially for those of us who would rather play with our toys than get a job. It's from their 1968 debut album, Birthday Party.

"Morning Sunshine" also comes from the Idle Race's first album. I think it sounds like a proto-T Rex track, but Deez says it sounds to him like the Beatles could have used this as an idea for some of the vocal effects on Abbey Road. Whatever the case, both Marc Bolan and the Beatles were big fans.

"Please No More Sad Songs" is the sixth track from the band's follow-up self-titled record, released in 1969. A good tune for the new year.

paint a lady (desaturated)

LW 12/16/06

The storied afterlife of the Zambezi Zinger

One night out at the casinos, a withered old fellow named "Hombre" told my friend and I a story about how the decomissioned Worlds of Fun rollercoaster, the Zambezi Zinger, was partially buried in a nearby bend in the Missouri river.

Drunk on inexpensive cocktails and flush with our earnings from blackjack, we set out to the spot the man described and spent several hours digging through the muck of the Missouri in hopes of excavating one of the original green rollercoaster cars. I didn't know what we planned to do with it, besides maybe spiff the thing up and convert it into some kind of all-terrain go-cart, but we were determined to find something.

In the end, we found no rollercoaster cars, no curvy tracks, no towering green support beams. We did, however, succeed in unearthing a host of memories about one of the most legendary rollercoasters of all time.


If you grew up in the Kansas City area anytime between 1973 and 1997, you're almost certainly familiar with the Zambezi Zinger. The Zambezi was located in the Africa section of Worlds of Fun, and to get to the line you had to pass through an adobe hut with a painted sign out front that read, "No pygmies shorter than 4 skulls can ride without adult." The ride itself began with a slow, suspense-building spiral ascent, finally giving way to a 40mph free-fall that clicked and curved wickedly left into tunnels and tree cover.

The photos I found here do a pretty good job of illustrating the basic structure of the rollercoaster. I found them through a Web site designed by a couple who had met while working at the ride one summer and eventually got married. When I told this to my brother David, he said, "When you ride the Zambezi Zinger with someone, you might as well be married."

It's true. If you ask anyone who rode the Zambezi Zinger what it was like, the all-too-comfortable coziness of the seating arrangements is one of the first things they're likely to mention. While a favorite among couples, going pot-luck on such a ride -- especially as a kid barely 4 skulls tall -- was usually more awkward than thrilling. In fact, I'm half-convinced one of the reasons the Zambezi was banished from Worlds of Fun was due to the uncomfortable intimacy it bred between otherwise perfect strangers.


Whatever the reasons for its deactivation, the Zambezi was removed from Worlds of Fun in 1997 after nearly a quarter-century of magic. The more expansive "Mamba" and "Patriot" coasters took its place, but were hardly a replacement. In a moment of melancholy over the Zambezi's disappearance from the North Kansas City horizon, I coined a phrase that equated riding the Zambezi Zinger to journeying into the afterlife. In other words, saying "she's riding the Zambezi Zinger now" would be another way to say "she's no longer with us." It hasn't really caught on yet, but I find it rather poignant.

The only thing is, it's not really accurate. After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the Zambizi Zinger IS STILL IN OPERATION, except that now it thrills riders at the Parque National de Cafe theme park in Bogota, Colombia. (Unlike the first two paragraphs of this column -- which I'll concede might not have ever happened -- this is a documented fact.) The only difference is that it's now called the Montana Rusa, and the color scheme has been changed from all green to blue and red with yellow cars.

So if you hear someone say, "She's riding the Zambezi Zinger now," it does not mean that that person is dead -- it means they are at a theme park in South America. And even though the name, color and location have changed, I personally take great satisfaction in knowing little Colombian kids are experiencing the same thrills my friends and I enjoyed as teens and tweens in Kansas City.

Viva le Zambezi!


Post-script: For a nice look at the Zambezi's history, stats and a bunch of enthusiastic ratings of the Zinger, check out its page on ThemeParksOnline.org. Also, this entry is dedicated to Chiefs Founder Lamar Hunt, who also founded Worlds and Oceans of Fun. Mr. Hunt passed away this week at age 74.

Hamburg Haiku and Foto Journey

Upon seeing my 100 Haikus about Bonn, my friend Moritz scoffed that he could not believe I hadn't written at least 10 about Hamburg, my second town of residence in Germany. I've finally prepared a few dozen to share, though they are in some cases little more than captions to some photos from 2004-2006. Photos are by me and a few by Jenn unless otherwise noted. Thanks to Hamburg friends for the inspiration and encouragement. Please let me know of any mistakes you might see.


Boats on the harbor
take tourists between barges
and through the canals


woman is free but
everywhere she is in chains
clamped on golden calves


The beckoning blue
guides you to the U-bahn stop
at Landungsbruecken


Hopes of the squatters
are shripwrecked at the shores of
the Hafentreppe

(Hafentreppe = harbor steps)


the Hafentreppe
a gateway to the harbor
you can buy drugs here


The protestors shout
"Kein Hotel im Wasserturm!"
but to no avail



These are the green vines
that cling to the old brick walls
of the post office


bin viel geschwommen
unter die gruene Lichte
am Holthusenbad


Weinachtsmann of Wurst
slings his Christmas sausage links
to winter shoppers


the Rote Flora
rock shows and vegan dinners
for the anarchists


graffiti dreamland
an activist jungle gym
behind the theatre


Philosophenturm
"tower of philosophy"
I had class here once


Pfanner Gruener Tee
is the elixir of life
drink it by the box


altes und neues
stehen gegeneinander
Kirche und Hochaus


Koenig der Loewen
shuttles the theatergoers
to the musical


steht auf dem klingel
"auf zwei raedern bleibt man jung"
bikeride and believe


pedal past chapels
and the fields of soldier's graves
nameless in the sun


the grabengel weeps
and lingers on the headstone
of her dead husband


all the ice-skaters
skate along to the sounds of
Harry's Eisdisco


Elbetelescop
see across the galaxy
for just 50 cents


alte Elbtunnel
surrealistic frisbee
und lichtenspiele


once you've hacky-sacked
in the bowels of the earth
you can not go back


at the Hafenklang
you never go home alone
der Rhythmus kommt mit


Susannenstrasse
where the Sternschanze starlets
go to drink coffee


wall of astronauts
who have ventured into space
and brought back new sounds


back when I was young
me and Susi had fun at
the Crocodile rock


St. Pauli Fussball
Pirates drunk in the floodlights
nachts am Millerntor

(photo by Ayla Kiran)


at the Grey Havens
bid farewell and chart a course
to Undying Lands

(and a few I don't have photos up for yet)

Every weekend night
prostitutes in puffy coats
line the streets of Kiez

red retro ballroom
ascend velvet rolltreppe
to Revolver Club

Zardos is the place
to drink a cappucino
and buy some records

riding around the
Stadtpark Planetarium
on my bike at night

Auf der Reeperbahn
the spirit of Hans Albers
sings a festive tune


when it's time to leave
I board my private shuttle
to the USA