******* All American Frank *******

The music promoter called in a panic, “Hey, can you do me a favor?… On your way to Newport, can you to pick something up for me..” “Ok,” I said, slowly. He texted me an address and phone number. I googled it. Not a safe area. I called the phone number. A woman answered. She was brief, confirming the address then hanging up. It was a simple door, of many, in the projects, with a dirt front area and some sketchy people shuffling around. She opened the door and handed me a red suitcase. Oh, great, I thought.. I’m COCAINE SUPPLIER for the festival .. It did seem light, though. I jumped in the car and drove up the street to an empty parking lot. Opening the trunk and laying it down, I unzipped the case. Nothing in it. At the festival, I got my lanyards and saw the promoter chatting backstage. “How’d it go?” he asked. “Ok,” I replied, “I have your red suitcase.” He laughed, “No, that’s yours.. You can put cables in it, and stuff..” 

I’d always spend Thanksgiving in Massachusetts with the family, but one year I stayed in RI. I was playing keys in a rock-punk band on the verge of “making it.” The band was rehearsing non-stop and had a chance to move to L.A. so it seemed worth taking a shot. The front dude was a charismatic, eccentric genius with a Mick Jagger type voice. The drummer was steady, and our bass player was a beautiful woman, who didn’t always show up. Part of my job was to cover her bass lines if she was missing. The head songwriter dude was a handsome, total misfit. He came from a rich family, but his brain was divided. He was a trust fund Marxist. He and the drummer invited me to sneak a free Thanksgiving dinner at the local soup kitchen. It sounded kinda sketchy, so I was dodged him when the bass player called. She had an emergency, and said to come to her apartment right now.. When I arrived there were about a dozen of her drunk friends, mostly attractive women, and a party going on. She told me she had quit the band, because the singer constantly tried to date her, and she was off to NYC to be a model. This was a farewell pot luck Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, there was only booze, no food. Wild Turkey is a funny gift, but no ACTUAL turkey on Thanksgiving is a drag. Her fridge was empty except for shaved steak, a lot of it, so we began frying it up. Through the steam, she smiled with sad eyes. We all crowded around her red vintage kitchen table set, a giant plate of shaved steak in the middle, holding hands and saying grace. Everyone tried not to laugh.. but once the first person did, we all broke up. Seeing us laugh, she grabbed handfuls of steak and started pelting us. Soon everyone was throwing greasy warm beef, scattering it on the floor, until our hostess collapsed on the floor laughing. She told me to visit her in NYC.. At the next rehearsal, the songwriter was pacing madly. He’d been photographed eating the free meal at the soup kitchen, his big face on the front page of the Journal, called the new face of the homeless. His wealthy family were enraged and suspended his trust fund. When he heard the bass player had quit, he got drunk and climbed to the top of the Braga Bridge, stood there, arms outstretched, thinking, until they talked him down. The band never played again, so the next weekend I took the train to NYC. I had to find out why she had all that shaved steak in the fridge.

The night Hippie Phil “found his bliss” is remembered by many, but in different ways. He was hosting Open Mic at the Roundabout Cafe, completing his solo warm-up set, riffing hard when he snapped a string. Undeterred, he tore it off, unwound and cast it aside, still picking with abandon while re-tuning, to cheers from his devoted crew. Finishing, he stood smiling and announced a special surprise guest, returning former regular, folksinger Lyrissa. Lyrissa had been MIA since becoming locally famous. She was now playing hipper indie rooms and house concerts. Strikingly beautiful, with reflective black hair, sharp edged makeup and “dark tunes for somber times,” she’d hit a Zeitgeist with millennials. A rising star, we wondered why she was back, and she told us.. She’d just booked a West Coast tour with no return plans, making this a farewell visit to the Roundabout Cafe, the place her songwriting journey began. Some might think “victory lap” too, as she made no secret of her bigger plans. Hippie Phil beamed brightest as she began the first soft fingerpicked ballad. Phil hosted Lyrissa’s first Open Mic, two years ago, even accompanied her once. Lyrissa’s second tune was a departure, a jumpy, uptempo rocker that her tour promoters requested, to vary the dreamy atmospheric vibe. Lyrissa could play, showing off her big chops on the blues, demonstrating why she was moving on. As a closer, she dug deep, with her dark slowburn hit, “Come Into the Earth,” an ode to death eternal. As the tune began, Hippie Phil, at the soundboard, raised his Taylor acoustic into the air and plucked a high harmonic note. The ethereal note rang out, shaking coffee cups. He added a delicate downward riff, and horror overtook Lyrissa’s signature wry smile. Panic and excitement filled the Roundabout. She had forgotten Hippie Phil liked to jam with Open Mikers, impromptu and spontaneous, and how wrong she thought it was. The hirsute club owner, Kinglsey, known for his “eagle eye,” knew she didn’t want backup, and started damage control, distraction techniques to catch Phil’s eye, loudly steaming milk, pumping the turbo sprayer and rattling saucers. But Hippie Phil had found his bliss, eyes closed, playing passionately and dreaming of touring with Lyrissa. The dynamic was odd, two sound sources, one amplified, one unplugged. Lyrissa now remembered why she always hated Open Mic. She stared blankly for a moment, then looked directly at me for some reason. We had tried a piano-guitar duo briefly, and I had the obligatory crush on her, but it was not to be. She started improvising to Hippie Phil’s guitar, using slick vocal acrobatics and existential slides, sharp playful excursions, like staccato birds on a wire taking flight, more proof she deserved her victory tour. They finished in an overwrought unison and Phil translucent eyes opened, certain he’d be asked to join her tour. He envisioned the two of them on the Pacific Coast Highway, top down, guitar cases in back side by side, his white wispy hair in the wind. Lyrissa never cared much for Phil’s dusty Sixties vibe, and pitied him a little, but now felt quiet rage that he had hijacked her moment. As she left the stage, her suede boot snagged Phil’s broken, discarded, guitar string. She snatched the string up and, as she passed him, held it firm with both hands, pretending to wrap it around his neck. He laughed grandly, a big delusional laugh.. But IF she had she had started to strangle him, no man nor beast could have stopped her, such was her ambition. Instead she brushed past him, like the Pro she was, with a flutter of her gypsy dress. And in that moment Phil felt fame. Fame like Lyrissa might never know. Fame in a hippie’s dreams. Maybe the only kind. She ignored his calls for an encore, and slipped out the side door. She was off to play tech events in Silicon Valley and conquer the world, while Hippie Phil went on living the dream.

One of my Dad’s jokes was a real groaner, but worked well alongside his Boston accent..

“Just helped a fella who locked his keys in the cah.”

“Oh, yeah? Did you use the ol’ coat hangah trick?”

“Didn’t need to.. He was wearing his CAH KEY pants!”

I think this was his go-to filler joke, kind of a vamp, to keep the ball rolling in the middle of joke-telling sessions. He’d laugh loudly once, then move on. It was always sandwiched by better ones, but I remember this one, I think, because of the courage it takes to tell this bad a joke, and the skill to gracefully recover.  (:

The next stop on our epic cross-country trip was New Orleans which, pre-Katrina, was a weird mix of Dixie Beer, corrupt cops, stomp jazz and the bad sections, where we had scored some killer weed. We knew a Tulane guy who said we could crash in his Frat House, a stately converted mansion. He was away on summer break, but told me and my road-buddy to commandeer the couches downstairs, stock the fridge, act nice and they would welcome our traveling party circus. A pretty, young blonde woman was also staying upstairs, renting a room for the summer while she did ROTC training. She’d appear each day after military drills, still in uniform, let her hair down from the regimental bun and chill with our motley crew in the TV room before heading to bed. Seeing her every day made me think about getting a real job, a life, etc but our crazy partying and traveling was part of our artistic notion to experience everything once, fully, then move on. Admittedly, however, I was getting too stoned on this killer weed. While watching the US Open, I thought I was controlling the tennis ball with my mind. In hindsight, I was probably just correctly guessing the next shot, but with synaptic pistons firing I thought I could telepathically conjure a date with the ROTC girl. I sent thought-waves upstairs and the next day, to my surprise, she appeared saying, “My girlfriend is in town. We need dates to a formal tonight. You and your buddy should take us in your car.” We nearly spilled the bong, accepting and wildly gesturing towards where the car might be. After raiding the hall closet for rumpled suit jackets and ties, the girls arrived.. and their appearance was startling. They were not sweet Southern belles, but two smoky-eyed, made-up “bad girls.” We should have heard funereal procession horns, but instead cha cha’d out the front door, past statuesque historic pillars, to the car. They pulled little vodka bottles from their purses and passed them around, unexpectedly directing us to the bad part of town. They wanted to buy some killer weed like ours, which apparently we’d been blabbing about all week. Driving from mansion row to blight city is a bummer, but the girls compounded it by saying, “Here we go, to the other side of the tracks. With all the trash.” We looked baffled until they said, in chorus, “C’mon you guys, it’s Ni**ertown.” No matter how stoned you may be, a cold shot of racism wakes you up, and they continued with more hate-jokes like, “Don’t worry, we love blacks.. We think everyone should own one.” They ignored our shock and horror, saying we needed to be schooled by “real” Southern girls. We told them we’d met a few and maybe they had that backwards! Our protests fell like empty plastic vodka bottles on a curb as we parked in front of the black bar and got out.. Our “bad girl” fantasy had now turned into a perverse white-on-white porn. We decided to buy more weed. As we ordered with the girls, they were surprising steely in the almost all-black bar, and chatted with two other white dudes who were also scoring. I needed my brain to work now, despite its recent hallucinatory lapses. As I looked around, I could see the faces of every famous black person I’d idolized. Fats Waller was at the bar, Louis Armstrong at a table with Professor Longhair and Little Richard playing poker. From the jukebox, a serious Malcolm X gazed. He knew it was our “midnight at the crossroads.” We could ignore these Jezebels’ evil for some action later, but.. The ladies headed into the powder room. In a flash, I approached the other white dudes, asking if they had a car. They said yes and in a quick-swap-change-up, our suit jackets came off of us, and onto them, ties still dangling from the pockets.. The two shocked, dopey bros seemed stoked to suddenly have dates to an old-time fancy racist ball as the gals approached, looking confused. Before they could reach us, we turned and shuffled out the door, past imaginary Lightning Hopkins and James Brown. On the ride back, the radio’s free jazz internal rhythms made more sense syncopating to the car’s smooth rattle, clipping potholes. We had left without getting more weed, but maybe that was Ok. Things pure, whether herb or racism, help set the high- and low-water mark. If you get away, you have your measure. We loaded our gear, closed the heroic party palace and headed west to Texas. The coastline cycled back and forth, from swamp to clear Gulf water, while my buddy mused, “Hey, who do we know in Austin?”

August 21, 2017 we had an partial eclipse near Boston. I made a binocular pinhole-camera (after failed *shattered* smoky glass attempt – probably lucky because that method is controversial, safety-wise). The backyard was buggy, so I ended up on the deck. Binoculars are reversed, with the larger end facing the sun, so it magnifies the image a bit.. Two pieces of cardboard are needed, and one has to be white. As shown in pics, some duct tape holds the brown cardboard in place on the binoculars. Got a good response on FB, not bad for a last minute project. (:

Despite poking fun at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Steely Dan was still inducted, and did a Q&A comedy bit to further skewer the rock literati. They had sent a letter https://www.steelydan.com/halloffame1.html to the R&R-HOF board, trying to give them some old equipment in exchange for induction, tax breaks and an astronomical fee. Moby presented the award, rather than a Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. “Rock royalty” knew better than to engage the cutting wit of these razor boys. RIP Walter Becker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK7QO9Hx3xM

I hadn’t played a gig in a while.. But my buddy offered me one, so I said OK. Still recording my album, there was no “new” music to post, but I wanted a way to re-connect with my friends, mostly on Facebook. I had written a lot, over the years, and posted some of that instead.. flash fiction, real life anecdotes, etc. The response was positive, it was fun and the format forced tight editing, which is a good thing. But Facebook posts rise and fade quickly, plus some folks don’t like social media, so I wanted a home base for the writings.. hence, the blog! As for that gig, here’s a sampling:)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uu34tgOuzk

Post college, and post summer-camp music director, I tried politics. Having worked as an intern at the State House, I thought I could run an Arts Council. And I did get hired there, but not as director.. once again as glorified intern/coffee boy. Despite meeting some nice folks, after six months I was done, and ditched politics to go on an epic cross-country trip with my buddy. We would zigzag the U.S. and end up in Cali. But, before our “Great Notion” “On the Road” began, I got to meet famed tenor Luciano Pavarotti. (:

I have one vague memory of South Dakota, from the big road trip. We may have pulled into a border town and encountered a dude. He looked at us.. we looked at him. It was cloudy, dark. The land was barren, seemed mining or oil, possibly industrial nearby. A few small houses, placed asymmetrically, had no vegetation around their edges. He turned his head, and spit. He didn’t spit directly at us. But we got it. The road, that led us in, took us out.