"Keep A-Goin' "

Keep A-Goin'  by Frank Lebby Stanton (1857-1927) is probably my favorite poem.  I read it to my children when they were young, and I read it myself when needing inspiration.  If you can't remember the words to poems, or don't like to memorize, all you need here is to remember the title-- Keep A-Goin'. 

Keep A-Goin'

If you strike a thorn or rose,
Keep a-goin'!
If it hails or if it snows,
Keep a-goin'!
'Taint no use to sit an' whine
When the fish ain't on your line;
Bait your hook an' keep a-tryin'--
Keep a-goin'!

When the weather kills your crop,
Keep a-goin'!
Though 'tis work to reach the top,
Keep a-goin'!
S'pose you're out o' ev'ry dime,
Gittin' broke ain't any crime;
Tell the world you're feelin' prime--
Keep a-goin'!

When it looks like all is up,
Keep a-goin'!
Drain the sweetness from the cup,
Keep a-goin'!
See the wild birds on the wing,
Hear the bells that sweetly ring,
When you feel like singin', sing--
Keep a-goin'!

Frank Stanton was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1857.  Stanton's father was a printer, then Confederate soldier, and later a farmer.

Remember that all the years of growing trouble between the North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on Federal Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later, and Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.

Frank Stanton started his education in Savannah, Georgia, but his schooling was cut short by the Civil War (1861-1865). 

Recall that Savannah fell to Union General William T. Sherman just before Christmas in 1864 following Sherman's famous "March to the Sea."  It was from Savannah that Sherman telegraphed President Lincoln, presenting the City of Savannah as "a Christmas gift." 

In 1869, at age 12, Stanton apprenticed with a printer, and later got into the newspaper business. He went on to work as a columnist for the Atlanta Constitution until he died in 1927 at the age of 70. 








One of Stanton's works most widely quoted during his lifetime was a quatrain titled "This World" and it is reportedly on his tombstone in Atlanta's Westview Cemetery:

This world we're a'livin' in

Is mighty hard to beat.

You get a thorn with every rose.

But ain't the roses sweet?

"Gaddafi" the Movie

 

Muammar Gaddafi (1942 - 2011) is now gone.  But, isn't it just a matter of time before Hollywood starts to cash in with "Gaddafi" the Movie?  So, it got me to thinking-- What movie star should be cast to play the role of Gaddafi?  Here is my nominee for a Drama- Micky Rourke.

But, Hollywood might not stop there.  Recall the old movie "The Producers" with its opening song "Spring Time for Hitler"?  Or how about the recent movie, "Cowboys and Aliens"? 

So, here are my other nomiees:

Comedy-- John C. Reilly

American action hero gone bad-- Nick Nolte.

Science Fiction-- Gary Busey

Musical-- Gene Simmons

Western-- Richard Boone (deceased, but a good actor like him). 

"The Old Man And The Sea" of Cortez

 

What do Ernest Hemingway and I have in common?  We are both wearing the exact same style of fishing shorts in these two pictures.  Check out the shorts. That's Hemingway on a fishing boat some place in the Caribbean, and that's  me with the captain of a small fishing boat in the Sea of Cortez, just out of Cabo San Lucas. Or, could it have been in the Arctic Ocean, looking at the way the captain is dressed for cold weather? 

In June we went to Cabo San Lucas for a wedding.  Some of the groom's family made arrangements to go fishing and invited me.  I'd long thought about going "deep sea sport fishing" but never did.  This was a chance.  That, plus the romantic idea of joining the likes of writer and "tough guy" Ernest Hemingway. 

 


Cabo San Lucas is certainly beautiful and warm, with blue sky and water and lots of sport fishing.  Cabo San Lucas is located on the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, on the same latitude as Hawaii.  It's approximately 1,000 miles south of San Diego.  It is now definitely a tourist destination. 


 


 
Although the Sea of Cortez is named after Spaniard Captain  Hernan Cortez, his navigator Fancisco de Ulloa is credited with discovering Cabo San Lucas in 1537.  It has a history of pirates raiding Spanish ships taking treasures back to Spain.  A fort was established there and the area was opened up to further exploration.  In 1730 a Jesuit mission was built.  The biggest obstacle to development was lack of a steady water supply.

That's one of the things I wondered about when I got there-- Where does the fresh water come from?  I have since learned that the

Laguna Mountains to the north produce about 30 inches of rain each year from the clouds.  The rain feeds into the underground Rio San Jose and accumulates underground and in nearby estuaries.  The stored water is then treated for consumption.  At any rate, the fresh water problem has been solved in Cabo San Lucas.

Staring at the surf we noticed flying manta rays. There were quite a few of them close to shore.  For game, people fish for all types of marlin, sailfish, and sometimes sword fish.  There are also dorado (mahi mahi), yellowfin tuna and several types of shark.  We were going to fish for the tuna.

 

We were picked up on the beach by a couple of small boats and then we bought some live bait from another small boat anchored out.  You could see many local residents relied upon tourists fishing, just as many worked in the tourist hotels.

We started fishing for the yellowfin tuna, and we caught some before too long.  Apprently, that's not always the case.   While the water had a little bit of chop to it, particularly where the Sea of Cortez collided with the Pacific Ocean, it wasn't so bad that I got sick-- only pretty queasy. 

After catching a few tuna, the chop was getting to us gringos and we decided to turn back to town.  But, on the way the captain spotted a marlin and asked if "we" wanted to catch it.  We said okay.  This is the way it actually worked-- the captain got his engine running again (it had broken down and we had bobbed up and down in the waves for a while as he tried to fix it, breathing the gasoline fumes, which didn't help a whole lot), quickly got in front of the swimming marlin, got a stiff pole, and then baited a hook and threw it over in front of the marlin (while I steered the boat for him, thankful for having something to hold on to).  Sure enough, the marlin grabbed the bait and was hooked-- all thanks to el capitan.



Sam, the other adult in our small fishing party, had caught and reeled in marlins on other trips to Cabo, so he asked if I wanted to reel in this one.  Wanting to save face and act like Ernest Hemingway, I agreed.  That's when I started identifying with "The Old Man and the Sea."  It didn't take days to reel in the marlin, but it still seemed like a long time to this queasy, thristy (my mouth no longer had any spit in it) ol' man.  I never felt like giving up-- but maybe secretly hoped the marlin would break loose and free me. 

Hemingway's short story "The Old Man and the Sea" was written by Hemingway in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952.  Apparently, it was his last major work of fiction produced and published in his lifetime.  Born in 1899, Hemingway commited suicide in Ketchum, Idaho in 1961, at the age of 61.  Anyway, "The Old Man and the Sea"  is one of Hemingway's most famous works.  It was made into a Hollywood movie starring Spencer Tracy in 1958, and into a television movie starring Anthony Quinn in 1990. 

"The Old Man and the Sea" centers upon Santiago, a Cuban fisherman who has had a string of bad luck.  One day he goes out and finally catches a fish, hooking a monster marlin.  Santiago respects the marlin and battles it for a couple of days in a test of wills, holding on while being pulled by the marlin out to sea.   Santiago finally wins and the too-big-to-get-into-the-boat marlin is tied to the side of the small fishing skiff as Santiago returns to shore.  Of course, sharks attack and eat the marlin, so Santiago returns to port with only the large skeleton tied to his small boat.  But, at least all the townspeople see that he his luck had returned and he had caught a very large fish.  He's not a "has-been" yet. 

In the Hollywood movie, Spencer Tracy at times almost looks possessed.  Note that in the pictures, Spencer Tracy and I are wearing almost the exact same shirt.  The similarities don't end there, however.  While there is no picture of me, battling the marlin for probably less than 20 minutes, with the exact same possessed expression of a desparate man who had been fighting a fish for days, I'm sure it was there on my face to be seen.  (Instead of a fishing line, imagine pulling on a five-mile long drinking straw with the other end in a tall, cool Diet Coke on ice.  That's what I was imagining). 

Would I do it again?  Well, probably not-- although later in the month a couple of friends and I went out on the Pacific Ocean off the Washington coast, fishing for salmon, which will be the subject of another post. 

Land Ho!

Porridge, Gruel, Grits and Lawyers

Porridge is a dish made by boiling rolled, crushed, or steel cut oats (or other cereal meals) in water or milk. It is usually served hot in a bowl or dish. Porridge is usually eaten as a breakfast dish, often with the addition of butter, sugar or milk.
Porridge was commonly used as prison food for inmates in England. Some call porridge "oatmeal." Oatmeal has a long history in Scottish culinary tradition because oats are better suited than wheat to Scotland's short wet growing season.

Gruel is a thinner version of porridge. It is made from some type of cereal (oats, wheat, rye flour or rice) usually boiled in water. It is similar to porridge, but more often drunk than eaten. It has a very thin consistency. Gruel consumption has traditionally been associated with poverty.

Grits consists of coarsely ground corn, usually prepared by adding one part grits to two-to-three parts boiling water and seasoned with salt, sugar or butter. Grits is common in the Southern United States, mainly eaten at breakfast. Grits can also be fried in a pan with vegetable oil, butter, or bacon grease.

Porridge can be found in popular literature. The Grimm Brothers,Wilhelm (1786 – 1859) and Jacob (1785 – 1863), were German linguists and researchers who collected old folk tales and published several collections of fairy tales, called Grimm's Fairy Tales. Jacob Grimm was also a lawyer.

There's a short story called "Sweet Porridge" by the Brothers Grimm:

There was a poor little girl who lived with her mother and they had nothing to eat. The girl went into the forest and met an old woman who gave her a little pot. When the little girl said "Cook, little pot, cook," the pot would cook sweet porridge. The pot stopped cooking porridge when the girl said "Stop, little pot." The girl took the pot home to her mother and now they were free to eat sweet porridge as often as they chose. One time when the girl went out, and her mother said "Cook, little pot, cook." The mom ate until she was satisfied but did not know the words to stop the pot from cooking. The pot kept on cooking until the little pot overflowed and the kitchen and whole house were full. The porridge overflowed into the street and into the other houses. The little girl finally came home and said "Stop, little pot," and the pot stopped cooking porridge, but whoever wished to return to the town had to eat his way back.

Just about everybody probably knows the story of "Goldilocks and The Three Bears."

There was a little girl named Goldilocks who went for a walk in the forest. She came upon a house owned by the Three Bears (Papa, Mama and Baby Bear) and walked right in. On the kitchen table there were three bowls of porridge. Goldilocks was hungry and tasted the porridge from the first bowl, which was too hot. The second bowl was too cold, but the last bowl of porridge was “just right.” She also tested the three chairs (breaking the smallest) and the three beds (falling asleep in Baby Bear’s bed, which was “just right”). The Three Bears came home and started investigating. Goldilocks woke up, saw the Three Bears and screamed "Help!" Goldilocks jumped up, ran out of the house and ran away into the forest. She never returned to the home of the three bears.
These stories are unusual, even for a lawyer-- Were they told to keep one's mind off of hunger? Why were little girls frequently wandering off into the forrest? Were these cereal meals always related to stories of hunger, poverty and subtle danger? Why are the endings so abrupt? What ever became of the little girls?

Yet, more recent popular "literature" continues to deal with these cereals and related themes.

Recall the 1992 movie titled "My Cousin Vinny," in which grits showed up. Vinny Gambini (played by Joe Pesci) was an inexperienced, loudmouth New York lawyer not accustomed to Southern rules and manners, who went to Alabama to defend two young men wrongly accused of murder while on their way back to college--

Vinny Gambini: You tesitfied earlier that you saw the boys go into the store, and you had just begun to cook your breakfast and you were just getting ready to eat when you heard the shot. Witness: That's right. Vinny Gambini: You remember what you had? Witness: Eggs and grits.Vinny Gambini: Eggs and grits. I like grits, too. How do you cook your grits? Do you like them regular, creamy or al dente? Instant grits? Witness: No self respectin' Southerner uses instant grits. I take pride in my grits. Vinny Gambini: So, how could it take you 5 minutes to cook your grits when it takes the entire grit-eating world 20 minutes? Witness: I don't know, I'm a fast cook I guess. Vinny Gambini: Are we to believe that boiling water soaks into a grit faster in your kitchen than anywhere else on the face of the earth? The laws of physics cease to exist on top of your stove? Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?

Such is the reasonable connection between porridge, gruel, grits, danger, crimes, prison and lawyers.

Thelonious Monk

Our jazz quintet plays a lot of songs by Thelonious Monk-- Well You Needn't, Straight No Chaser, Misterioso, In Walked Bud, Let's Cool One, Blue Monk, I Mean You, and 'Round Midnight. Monk's songs sound unique, and I wanted to learn more about him.

Thelonious Monk lived 1917 through 1982, so he died at age 65. He was jazz pianist and composer, considered one of the giants of American music. Some have said he invented "bebop," but I think he's a lot bigger than that. He wrote about 70 songs.

"His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelonious_Monk


There's an excellent biography about Thelonious Sphere Monk written by Robin D. G. Kelley titled Thelonious Monk, The Life and Times of an American Original (2009). It's hard to imagine how a book about a jazz musician can be a "page-turner," but it is, at least for this reader.


Monk's melody lines and harmonies are very distinctive, and I wondered if his song writing and improvisation came naturally or if he really had to study and think. The answer is probably "both." But, (as am amateur musician) I was relieved to learn that he practiced a lot. A lot.

Kelley writes how Monk, working his way through "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You," the theme song for Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra, sounded on a recording of his practice--


The first take is painstaking; in five minutes, he gets through just one chorus of the melody. As he wrestles with each measure, every note in his reinterpretation of the melody is carefully placed. By the second take, played rubato (out of tempo), there are more alternations to the melody and increasingly dissonant harmonies. Toward the end of this take, Thelonious begins to integrate stride piano and improvises for the first time . . . The fourth, fifth, and sixth takes, which together add up to a little over an hour of continuous playing, are an exercise in discovery. Monk works through a wide range of improvised figures in a fairly systematic way. He repeats certain phrases, making small rhythmic and tonal alterations each time to see how they sound. . . [This] represents a fraction of what it took to transform "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" into a Monk original.

Monk played with all the other great jazz musicians through the 1940's to 1970's-- tenor sax players Coleman Hawkins and John Coltrane, trumpet players Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davie, alto sax player Charlie Parker, and drummers Art Blakey and Max Roach. There are many, many more.

(That's Thelonious Monk, Howard McGhee, Roy Eldridge and Teddy Hill outside Minton's).

It's probably safe to say that Monk's genius was under-appreciated, and there were many times when he couldn't get gigs. He was prohibited from performing in New York for a period because of a minor drug conviction. But, some of Monk's troubles were caused by a then undefined mental illness. Monk was hospitalized on several occasions due to an unspecified mental illness that worsened in the late 1960s. No reports or diagnoses were ever publicized, but Monk would often become excited for two or three days, pace for days after that, after which he would withdraw and stop speaking. It may have been manic depression or schizophrenia, or he may have been bipolar.

On February 28, 1964, Monk appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and was featured in an article inside.


















Here's some of what author Kelley writes about Monk's music--

Monk's unique sound has a lot to do with how he voiced his chords. As early as 1941, he was already experimenting with "open" voicing-- i.e. sometimes playing just the root and seventh of a dominant or major seventh chord, eliminating the third and fifth. The impact on the ear is quite startling. A standard major seventh voicing with the root on the bottom- C-E-G-B -sounds consonant, but remove the E and G and suddenly you have a highly dissonant chord, because the two remaining notes are only a half-tone away from each other. Invert the chord and you have a minor second. Often he would eliminate the root altogether and just play the seventh or the ninth in the bass.

Also, Monk was given credit for introducing the half-diminished chord, a minor seventh chord with a diminished or "flat" fifth (e.g. C-Eb-Gb-Bb). It became an essential element of Monk's harmonic language, partly because of the dissonance created by the C-Gb. That flatted fifth or "tritone" was critical to what would become his harmonic signature.

Parker's Ballroom

Parker's Ballroom on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle was already a northwest landmark when I moved to the area in the mid- 1960's. My new friends told me about it.


An album had been recorded there by Jimmy Hanna and "The Dynamics" and was hard to find. We found one copy and shared it but now it's long gone.

The record had some familiar instrumental hits on it including "Work Song" and "JAJ." That's what I liked about the band-- the horn section-- a trumpet and tenor sax. A couple of the garage bands I joined worked out our own versions of these hits. Still, the Dynamics were the model for me.

While I got to Parker's a few times, I never saw the Dynamics. Never saw Dave Lewis, either, but listened lots of times to him play "David's Mood" (another northwest standard) on his Hammond B 3.




A lot of big names played at Parker's over the years-- Ray Charles, The Beach Boys, BB King, Ricky Nelson, Guy Lombardo, Tina Turner, Tower of Power, Stevie Wonder, and many, many more.














The "big names" I saw there were Van Morrison and Them (when "Gloria" was their first big hit) and Doug Kershaw ("Louisiana Man"). Van Morrison had on a dark brown suit with a blue shirt which I thought was cool enough to imitate in a courtroom years later. I remember disliking Doug Kershaw because he embarrassed his bass player on stage in front of all of us-- we didn't hear the mistakes that Kershaw had to point out on stage in the middle of a song.


All the good northwest bands performed there, including-- Don & the Goodtimes, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Merilee Rush. But, I didn't see them at Parker's. Normana Hall in Everett was "our" place to go see and hear Northwest Bands, including Tiny Tony and the Statics. http://www.pnwbands.com/parkers.html This is an excellent site for the history of all the northwest garage bands and more.


Parker's opened in 1930. "Like a few other local dance halls, it spanned all of the sequential musical eras from the wild jazz days of the Prohibition Era right on up through the forties swing scene, from the rise of rock ‘n’ roll in the fifties, to the psychedelic sixties, and onwards to the heavy metal, disco, and punk rock scenes of the seventies. Unlike most other historic dance halls though, Parker’s still stands." http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=3827











Check out http://www.pnwbands.com/dynamics.html for more pictures of the Dynamics and a sound clip of JAJ.

UPDATE:  Parker's Ballroom was demolished in December 2012. 

http://www.seattlepi.com/local/seattle-history/article/Historic-Parker-s-dance-hall-demolished-4102836.php#photo-3865137