Nancy Smith

 My friend Nancy Smith is gone.  She had retired the name “Nancy Smith” years ago, reverting back to her birth name, which was Rita.  Ever present at most of the punk shows in the early to mid 80’s with her cassette recorder, Nancy had come from the South and was working at the Crane Library for the Blind, where people would come in or be on staff to read books for the blind. As such, she had access to lots of budget cassettes. 

We were both living in the Manhattan building downtown.  As you entered her apartment, the hallway had black handprints of punk musicians on the wall. There was if I remember a bookcase with some of her collection of these band concert tapes, often many copies of some, as she was very generous in giving copies to the musicians.  It was important to her to document this wild scene we were all a part of at that time. 

Along with Lenore Herb, Nancy played  an important role in the history of the Vancouver Punk scene. Like video and audio fanzines, these recordings didn’t always have the greatest sound quality, but when you put them in the player, you were there again. 

Nancy was sometimes in the middle of the crowd, other times at the back or side. As such, you could hear the difference in sound and perspective.

I’m lousy with dates, but I think it was 1985, when Nancy and I took a trip together to New York.  I remember landing at JFK, and catching a cab to Greenwich Village to her sister’s apartment.  It was a very hot and humid time of year in New York. You would take a shower, then walk out on the street, and in a few minutes feel like you needed another one. The water at that time tasted like a petrochemical by- product.

Her sister gave us her room, where we shared a bed. (We were just friends sleeping in the same piece of furniture.) Her sister was very skinny, chain smoked Virginia slims and had an empty refrigerator with nothing but Tab. Plus she had a cat.  I was not a fan of cats, so of course this cat would whine until we let it in the room, then jump up on the bed.  Also her sister seemed to have an aversion to changing the litter box, so combine that with heat and humidity, and you can see why we spent most of our time exploring the city. 

We didn’t care about the empty fridge, as we spent most of our time enjoying restaurants, like Great Jones Cafe, where I first had blackened redfish, the Moondance Diner, and Carnegie’s. We shopped or rather I shopped, for vintage jackets and clothes, saw Linton Kwesi Johnson at SOB’s, Vernon Reid’s Living Color when it was a heavy three piece, Elliot Murphy in Greenwich Village, plus so much more I forget. 

It was an incredible trip only marred in my memory by how it ended. Nancy was going to stay a bit longer, so I had to make my way to the airport on my own. I asked about a cab, but Nancy said everyone takes the subway- faster and cheaper. So I went down the subway to wait for the train.  You could tell it was going to the airport as many of us had luggage.  

Long story short, there were delays that day on the subway. When it finally picked me up, I was anxiously checking my watch, sure I was going to be late. When I got the airport I ran all the way to the terminal only to be told the plane had boarded and I would have to make other plans. 

Did I say it was a very hot and humid time? By the time I got to the ticket counter, I was so parched,  my tongue was dry and stuck to the roof of my mouth.  The guy at the airline booth had also just arrived late for work as he was on the same train as I was. 

He said there was another flight he could get me on, and gave me a new ticket.  This plane left from a different terminal, so I made my way there.  

Somehow I got lost and ended up on another level and went out these doors and found myself in a grassy field.  I made my way through the grass and got the other terminal, waiting to check in.

When I got to the front of the line, the attendant asked for my ticket. I felt in my pocket.  No ticket.  I checked all my pockets. No ticket. Somewhere between the other terminal and this one, I had lost the ticket. In those days, you needed the physical ticket.  I asked them to watch for my stuff, and ran out the door.  A bus driver shouted something incomprehensible but ended with “your ticket” and pointed to his right.

I went out and saw there was a overhead pass, over-the highway. It was there that I found my ticket in the shrubbery. The only way I saw it was the red carbon that they used in those days. I made my way  back to the other terminal and got on the plane.   We had a stop over in Chicago, so I asked the crew if I could leave the plane for a few minutes and call my brother in Seattle to let him know I would be a few hours late. I made the call, and went to get back on the plane. 

As luck had it, the crew had just changed.  Someone recognized me from the previous part of the flight and they let me back, and New York was a bad memory. 

Actually my first trip to New York with Nancy Smith is a great memory, the airport hijinks notwithstanding. No one could have asked for a better friend to be with.  She was charming in her Southern way, and smart and funny.   

I was shocked to learn today that she was no longer with us.  I am blessed to have known her, and her two wonderful children, who are no longer children, just as I am no longer the young man I was when I went to New York with Nancy Smith. 

Nancy Smith. RIP 2021. 

I Love You, I Am No More - Late to the party (again

 

I Love You, I Am No More - Late to the Party( again)

Many years ago, as a younger man, I listened to an alcoholic architect speak of his experiences in the Sixties remarking,” it was like being at a party, and everyone was having sex in the other room.”  The unspoken takeaway was that he was not invited, his only participation being to forever listen to others having fun, but never getting the nod, the secret password, no one taking his hand and pulling him through the entryway to decadent orgies.  

It was an incredibly sad statement, one that youthful ears full of themselves heard only with disdain, not sympathy.  

My MO was to open myself to all experiences, to become a Rimbaud, to be baudy in my body and experience life to the limit. 

Did I win any contests? Another friend remarked twenty years later, “the legend is history.”  

Unspoken history remains for the most part, collecting dust, dissolving in memory loss. After playing in bands for over 40 years, there are plenty of stories I could tell, plenty of songs I could sing if I only remembered the damn words. Seven years ago I joined a group we call The Judys. In our early days we would hang out at the drummer’s apartment, listening to his collection of treasured vinyl like a bunch of 50 year old teenagers. It always amazed me to hear all these sonic influences, faves, desert island discs that I had never, never heard myself.  Like an alternative universe of rock influences,I heard these with fresh ears, fresh being a qualitative,  not quantitative kind of fresh.  Ears before years. Fresh attitude with a seasoned perspective, January to my jaded July. I was late to this party, but I took it in, kicking out jams with the pigs and marmalade.  

Today is May Day,  International Workers Day, the Day of Poles and Holes, a whole day of the celebration of celebration- of getting lucky, frisky fuckery exploding feeling, exploring the possibility, pushing envelopes, eloping, entrancing enchantments. 

The party next door in your mind. 

Come on in- you’re invited. More fun than doing your taxes or cleaning your fridge.  

In this day of doorways, we celebrate the swinging, grand openings as well as  ghosting exits.  

This week Anita Lane died. I had never heard of her before she died. A muse for Nick Cave, she made art and influenced others.  What more can we ask for?  I have been lost in her music, including a cover of Lost in Music, the Nile Rodgers/Sister Sledge hit from the 70’s, also covered by The Fall.  I particularly like her cover of Sexual Healing, and the album Sex O’Clock which she made with Mick Harvey.  

Her song I Love You, I Am No More. 

It kicks off with the start of the bass line for Cannonball ( The Breeders). 

The music reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg, she whisper-sings and sexy talks:

I love you, I am no more

I love you, I am no more

I love you, I am no more

I love you, I am no more

There's a kitten raging at the back door

And I don't know if the kids have eaten

It seems there was some kind of sunset

But I wouldn't know if I was breathing

I wouldn't know if I was breathing

I love you, I am no more

I wouldn't know if I was breathing

I don't know if the kids have eaten

I love you, I am no more

On the radio they said

That the dawn is red

That clouds have feeling

I thought the sky was dead

But I wouldn't know if the stars were bleeding

If the trees were weeping

If the moon was sleeping

If it was peace time or nuclear war

I love you, I am no more

I love you, I am no more

I love you, I am no more

Anita Lane 

Rest In Peace

1960-2021 

Lacuna

Just out of grasp, 

he could almost hear  

and almost see 

The flicker of a tongue

though it wouldn’t stop long enough 

to actually read it

But he remembered how it tasted

what it used to taste like 

Was blood and honey 

and the salt of your inner thigh 

It felt real so urgent

Except

there is something missing.  

Something about a song, 

A lyric that kept repeating

Until it almost made sense

But only for only a moment and now gone

Now the crucial part was missing

There was an absence 

more real than the memory itself

beyond his grasp

beyond his fingers numb and frozen 

the wind blew through his ears

Making a whistling sound

He could almost feel

the actual hole 

Of his soft memory

Almost taste his soft lips

The moment they 

first kissed.

Overheard

Everything is fine.  I'm ok.  

Just enjoy these fly on the wall conversations. 

this is the lemonade from the lemons.  

The lemon jello.   

Remember, it's not really serious 

if they don't give you jello.  

-Please take off your mask.  We will need you to put on one of ours.

- Please take a seat in the waiting room

- No that's the Covid waiting room.  The normal waiting room is on the right.

- I just passed 50, so things like this are to be expected.

A young girl’s voice- Can you take a selfie of me?

Doctor-That is something I am not comfortable doing here 

Doctor-  Did you vomit?  No response.

- Did you throw up?  No response

- Did the food that you ate come back out your mouth?  

Doctor 2-- The x-ray was clear.  That's just swelling.  You can take advil or tylenol for the pain

Doctor 3 - ".....and a broken heart"

Nurse 1 -  He was a 42 year old pharmacist.  We had to intubate him after 6 hours. Then he died.  That fast. 

- I guess he waited too long to come in

Nurse 2- We have to take more of your blood.

X-ray technician - What is your last name?  Can you spell that?  

- What is your birthday?

Nurse 1- More of them are young people now.

Doctor 4. -Did the pain happen when you were walking the dog?

Smells Like Rainbow Sounds Like Velvet

Synesthesia is where information, meant to stimulate one of your senses (for example hearing music), involuntarily stimulates another sense ( like visuals or smell.)

When one says "listen to my song", a synesthete may actually see the colour blue in addition to hearing the blues. 

What would a synesthete see with blue dirt girl ? 

Would they smell rainbows? 

Would they hear dreams?  

blue dirt girl is Kathryn Sutherland, Albert Klassen and Jason Overy.  

Their new release is called NOTHING IS AS IT WAS.  

It is nothing like their first release, Crazy Beautiful.

This new blue dirt girl is not content to remain in one place, it does not yearn to  return to a Crazy Beautiful state. 

The new  blue dirt girl  is an affirmation of change as a part of life and art.

The new blue dirt girl deftly mixes together a new masala, a blend of unique,  personal sounds,  sounds bleed into colors, touches, feels, and flavors. 

There is a magic with a three piece band, where every part depends on the others.  It is a delicate relationship to maintain, and like a souffle, can collapse easily,  but also like a souffle, it is a mouthful of perfection.

A song may start in one groove, and then it suddenly shifts down a gear.  Don’t worry- blue dirt girl are excellent drivers and this  car is a handmade beauty.  The changes are not abrupt, but seamless.   No buttons lost, no zippers snagged.

Kathryn Sutherland’s lyrics are open to interpretation, not linear, they are not easy rhymes. They conjure a mood,  inventing new colours, with a masterful brush stroke.   

Albert Klassen is a most amazing bassist, perfectly partnered with his rhythmic counterpart Jason Overy.  I find myself mesmerized by the grooves, not knowing exactly where it is going, but trusting, putting my faith in their capable hands.

The songs channel reggae/dub, modern soul, a dash of 70’s guitar magic.  Something about the feel reminds me of Traffic, Joan Armatrading, and an unnamed, distant memory of the 80’s that as hard as I try, I still can’t remember.  

This is not music that references influences. It breathes a sophisticated rare air. 

The songs: 

Blood: Skeletal guitar, a dub reggae beat, "Everything changed", and the bass begins a pattern that pulls us forward,  "in a moment of anxious clarity", lying here on the edge of the knife, Kathryn the cool, poet soul, commands us  shred your tongue, and everything slows, reverses, is there anything between us, the skeletal guitar and propulsive bass intoxicate. 

the conversation going on here, as we put our masks back on, and climb back aboard the knife.  Steady Jake, it’s only blood that connects us here. Family has their own languages. Their own rules.

But the river flows into the title track....I Don’t Mind. 

There is a great little change,  where even words become inadequate. Dat, dat, dah.  Oh my God, my mind pushes itself to remember, but what? 

And the beat goes on... Sunset Daddy. 

A new time signature, another conversation, the steady beat reasserts itself. We hear a familiar recollection of a towel that threatened to fall as her father goes up the stairs. You better stop....The intimacy of the recollection furthers the connectiion.

But wait, is there only one more song? 

We want more. The music creates the feeling of a child swinging, up, down, always returning to “warm safe hands.”

Cherry blossoms rain from the sky....life goes up and life goes down

or it just spins around, but we always  return to warm safe hands.

You listen many times and discover new connections. This music satisfies needs you were not aware of before. It is relaxed meditations on love, relationships, age. 

This new blue dirt girl is mysterious.  

You don’t know where she is going. 

We are told to beware of strangers, so we will just have to get to know blue dirt girl better.

The road beckons.

It smells like rainbow.

It sounds like velvet.

Aging Out

Aging Out

Before my blood was even cold, there was a time when time itself seemed endless. Not that I respected this abundance; far from it, I tested my limits, pushed the boundaries, coloured outside the lines, and actively sought ways to be more self destructive.

When did this aging out begin?

Was it the night that so gradually became morning when I had “lost” my virginity?  Hours of talking and touching, until that moment when reserves finally dissolved, and when we moved to that next level, it was over in a matter of seconds.  

Was it the day I moved out of my parent’s house, saying goodbye to my childhood, moving into a room in a dark, furnished rooming house, filled with antiques and young actors and a man down the hallway who yelled at all hours, trying to silence the voices in his head? 

Was it the thirty days later when I moved back home for a month, until I could find my own apartment?  Was it the night when walking home after picking up some late night Chinese Fast Food, I was assaulted and the blood, formerly running in the veins in my head, was now running down my nose from my eye, my chin from my nose, my chin to my shirt and the sidewalk.  Head wounds always seem so dramatic. 

Was it the first night I went home with the girl who is now the woman I have lived with for so many years?  Or the night I betrayed our trust, or the night I betrayed our trust or the night I betrayed.....

Was it the first forgiveness or the last?  Was it the day John Lennon died, or the night my father died, or my eldest brother or my mother?  Or all the many friends who have gone from this one world to the next?  How every morning I hesitate for a brief moment before plugging into the internetherworld, because I just sense today might be another one of “those days”?

Was it the day in my thirties when looking in the mirror, I did not recognize myself for the first time? How many times since that day, another 30 years of not recognizing the new face, the one that ever so gradually changes? 

How many chins can a man have until it becomes one too many? How much wattle before the chin itself disappears?  How the hair, once his pride and joy, slowly recedes, now thinner, losing its colour,  going flat, like a gin tonic left over from the previous night.  No fizz, no flavour, just watered down ice that has melted, and the diluted drink becomes one with room temp.  The soggy lime has lost its sharpness, and is losing its form, the tang a memory, the bitter notes are all that is left.

Was it the day he married or the day his daughter was born, or any of her moments and milestones- first foods, first steps, first words, first day of school, first time she swam, or read, or called him, a little drunk, wanting a ride home, or the high school graduation or university graduation, or the day she first moved out, and moved back, and moved out, and moved back....

Was it his first job, or first raise, or the first time he quit, or called in sick, or all the days, work days, careers, congratulations, the dark days, the dark years, the dogs, the dark dogs, the dark dogs of depression, his first heart attack, the day he turned 30, 40, 50, 60, tick tick tick..... tick.

Was it his first band, or first band breakup, or second band, or second band breakup, or third band, or second band reunion, or second band breakup, or the many years of not playing music, or the first time he played the Big rooms or the last time?

Or was it the morning, this morning, as he sat and drank coffee and thought about aging, only to realize he is still here.  While many are gone, he remains, and he is still in love and still with the love of his life, and still able to experience more days with his growing daughter, and the little dog who remains,  when all the others died.  

How aging out is a long process, and who knows if the glass is half full or half empty?  It is still a glass.  And he is damned lucky.  So much lucky.

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

 

Somebody changed the clocks while we were wrestling with our nerves all night.

It happened so fast it was almost like it didn’t happen at all.

We were waiting for direction, reluctant to change what we thought we already knew.

They said we would have to wipe the slate clean to allow room for a creative solution.

Please try to understand. 

The old ways don’t work anymore because they just don’t sit right.

 

Holding it together has never been easy, especially when you’ve been up all night

You wake sleep deprived because your mind will not shut up.

You obsess over bad decisions, bad hair, bad skin, why even bad is more bad than usual.

 

Who has the script,  you hear someone say?

Lines!

Clearly we have all forgotten our lines.

Do you hold the baton with menacing abandon as you apply the rouge?

Is there something about the other night that is still haunting you?

 

Outside, the sky is nothing like you thought it would be.

Everywhere we see faces melting as the rain pools on slouched shoulders,

Buttons fly off frayed sweaters, and all the zippers break at the same time, 

split from the bottom up.

You were barely able to pull it when it snagged on something tender.

 

You hear your inside voices unspooling.

You are fooling no one.

Your shaking hands know better as you raise the hot spoon cautiously to your hungry lips.

 

We are drowning in acronyms. No one speaks in complete sentences.

WTF! FYI- I feel like going AWOL.  LOL.

Does anything make any sense anymore?

Can you explain why a foreign alphabet is floating in this suspicious broth?

Did you perceive a bitter note on the finish?

Did something sharp catch in your throat as you tried to swallow?

Does your stomach conjure a mess of emotions that slowly is creeping up your esophagus, hell bent on escape? 

Meanwhile on the tip of your nose, a saline drop slowly gathers steam.

It is growing heavy with the weight of having to hold your nose, while your struggle for air.

The suspense is killing us here.....

Finally, it crashes into the soup, just as your spoon dips in for another mouthful.

 

The audience shifts in their seats. Have they lost the plot here?  

Do we have to go back to the beginning just to find our own voices?

No one understands what they are seeing tonight,

but allow me to speak for the crowd,

“They are anxiously waiting for the action to resume”

Any casual observer can see

They just want it all to be over.

 

The drugs have had their intended effect, calming the restless nature of the narrative.

No one even remembers why they are here, 

or where they were going before it all began,

The random confusion makes perfect sense to the actors rehearsing their bows.

 

In the cover of darkness, the audience has ghosted the play, exiting before the actor utters the line that everyone had been waiting to hear....