Happy New Year

I must admit that I have been very remiss in 2016 when it comes to my blog. I can elaborate on mitigating circumstances, but will refrain from making this an apologia. Though from the same Latin root as apology, an apologia is not a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure. It is a statement of defense for one's position or statement.

While I'm not one to make resolutions at the dawn of a new year, in 2017 I will pledge to shower you with more of my extemporaneous musings and doggerel.  Rereading that sentence, I am not sure if it is a resolution or a threat.

Speaking of resolutions, the practice of making them at the beginning of a new year dates back to ancient Mesopotamia. At the dawn of another year (March in the Babylonian calendar), people would renew their oath of allegiance to the emperor and resolve to serve the empire better.

Another of my favorite traditions is greeting the new year with
fireworks. This also hearkens back to ancient times. Early Americans embraced the idea of explosions on December 31. My favorite story comes from the late-1800's in Colorado. Miners in Denver on New Year's Eve did not have fireworks, but did have quite a large amount of dynamite. Why not! The ensuing explosions caused several large craters on the main street and some damage to nearby buildings. I'm sure it was worth it...pyrotechnics are so much fun!

The obligatory kiss at midnight comes from the gaelic/Scottish ritual of saining. As the new year approached houses and livestock were sprinkled with water as a form of consecration. Through the years, this transformed into a kiss between family and friends.

Another Scot Hogmanay tradition involves opening all the windows in the house to dissipate the bad "airs" of the old year. The woman of the house would walk around with a bottle of whiskey to help fight the chill of the fresh night's air.  Combine that with pyrotechnics and this man is a happy boy!

As January approaches, named for the double-faced Roman god, Janus, take time for reflection. He presided over transitions. From one year to the next, from war to peace, from conflict to resolution. Bid farewell to 2016 and look forward to 2017 with anticipation and hope despite the many inauspicious auguries many expect. As ever - BB

"Hope, Smiles from the threshold of the year to come,  Whispering 'it will be happier'...”  - Alfred Lord Tennyson 

Sing Me Back Home

First my apologies for being lax and lazy. Opening my blog for this entry, I realize it's been quite a while since I last put pen to paper. To be accurate, put digits on keyboard, but that sounds less literate and less alliterative.

The impetus for this blog was the passing of Merle Haggard. A death also spurred the last blog. That is weird. Time to find a new inspiration for my muse? Though I like the phrase "minion of the macabre muse", I should focus on more positive inspiration. My thoughts, now distracted, wander various paths. Get ye behind me deities of digression!

I've had mixed feelings about Merle since 1969. The Byrds, Grateful Dead, The Flying Burrito Brothers and others, introduced me to the wealth of songs from Haggard. In 1969, Okie from Muskogee hit the airways. The song scorned my generation.

Then I heard the stories about Haggard's distain towards those he referred to as "filthy, long-haired hippies." Roger McGuinn and Gram Parsons wanted him to produce  Sweetheart of the Rodeo; he refused. Others asked him to sing on their records, join a tour, but Merle ignored the young upstarts.

I was a big demonstration-goer back then. Whatever the cause, angry protesters could count on my support. I epitomized a scene from Brando's The Wild One: "Hey Johnny, what are you rebelling against?"  Ans. "What have you got?"

New York City May 1970, about 200 construction workers attacked students protesting the Kent State shootings. Dubbed, the Hard Hat Riot, Nixon's Silent Majority, touted them as heroes. I experienced the same during many demonstrations. Spit, bottles, cans, assorted detritus were hurled in my direction. An Us vs. Them mentality ensued. I placed Merle Haggard in the Them camp.

Despite this, the beauty of his songs spoke to me. Over the next few years, Willie and Waylon joined Jerry Jeff in Austin, and the divisiveness lessened. The lines
between country and rock blurred. Music transcended political and sociological ideologies on both sides.

Unfortunately, hate and intolerance seem endemic to mankind. Today the same schism rears its ugly head. The terms liberal and conservative have replaced straights and freaks, but the animosity and prejudice remain the same. Hopefully, music will blur our partisan principles and one day we can join hands and sing Kumbaya, or at least Momma Tried.  As ever - BB

"Take me away and turn back the years. Sing me back home before I die." Merle Haggard, Sing Me Back Home

Surrealistic Remembrances

A key factor of life is death. I am not being maudlin, nor do I suffer from what a psychoanalyst would call existential death anxiety. Long ago I lost any dread of death. Why would one wish to live forever?  The beauty of each day is that it could be the last. That fact imparts life with its mystery and its joy.

I don't know if there exists an exact moment when this enlightenment came over me. However, I can pinpoint the time period and frame of mind. It began in 1972 ensconced in the sylvan setting of Siena College. I explored my inner space, faced my demons and my guardian angels realizing they were in essence the same - yin/yang, sturm und drang. LSD illuminates, but its radiance can be fraught with danger. At that time and place, naiveté and trust in my fellow adventurers kept the darkness at bay.

The awareness that the fabric of the universe enfolds all blossomed within me. I became an animist. Everything from the stars to the dust motes floating before my dilated pupils were one and the same. I had studied the oversoul of the Transcendentalists, the Vendanta of Hinduism, Roman Catholic eschatology, the absurdism of Camus, et. al. But these sterile academic endeavors were faint candles compared to the klieg light of realization that psychedelics gave.

The impetus for my latest reflection was the passing of Paul Kantner. My introduction to what was originally called the San Francisco Sound came from the Grateful Dead's first album. It was early 1967. My older sister was a Beatles fan. Being the typical little brother, I was looking for the most unBeatle band I could find. Before I heard a note, the album cover displaying these hirsute simians (an early reviewer's description of the band) captured my 12-year old imagination.

The next year, Life magazine had the Jefferson Airplane on the cover. Soon, the Dead, the Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service monopolized my hi-fi. At the same time, I came across Hells Angels - The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. The author's name, Hunter Thompson, meant nothing to me then, but my worm had begun to turn. This led to The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which led to On the Road. Like Alice, I had gone down the rabbit hole.

In August 1972, my parents had dropped me off in Loudonville, NY to begin my collegiate education. They never suspected that the music I was listening to, and the books I was reading were preparing me to venture through the looking glass.

In the years that followed, I cut my tethers to the straight world and strove to follow the words of Neal Cassady and live my life as art. It wasn't all fun and frolic. My parents feared I'd end up in prison or a psych-ward. In retrospect, my actions seem immature and reckless. Later I filled my heart with regret and shame over wasting time with hedonistic aggrandizement.

That has passed. I now realize every misturn, mistake and misadventure led me to where and who I am today. For good or ill, as Popeye opined "I yam who I yam!" as ever BB

“We are actually fourth dimensional beings in a third dimensional body inhabiting a second dimensional world!”  - Neal Cassady

Good Ol'Pickin'

Growing up I experienced the emergence of Rock & Roll. As I matured (probably not a good word to describe me, shall we say ripened), so did the music. By the time I reached my teens, more sophisticated electronics and improved amplification ushered in the era of loud. At a concert in 1968, I wove my way through a mass of people to get a close up view of Pete Townsend. This position allowed me a vantage point to see his hands in action. However, the location was in direct proximity to his Marshall stack. The high pitched buzzing in my right ear for the next three days did nothing to discourage my eagerness to experience loud, live music.

My physician father lectured, cajoled and ranted against my quest to permanently damage my hearing. Armed with youthful ignorance, I turned a deaf ear to his warnings.
(Insert classic literature aside here - "The goodness of a true pun is in a direct ratio to its intolerability" - Edgar Allen Poe)
Despite my best efforts, I somehow escaped aural degeneration. My love of high energy, high volume music notwithstanding, as I aged my attraction to acoustic music grew.

Some will blame the Great Folk Scare of the 60s. I admit early exposure to Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Ramblin' Jack Elliot, Pete Seeger, et.al., influenced me. But, the preeminent culprit was Jorma Kaukonen and the first Hot Tuna album. From the opening notes of Hesitation Blues, the acoustic hook sunk into my psyche.

So began my journey. With a mediocre Epiphone, I struggled to work my way through acoustic blues. Both solo and with other like-minded folks, I played coffee houses, parties and dives. The guitar upgraded to a Martin D-18, callouses formed on my finger tips and my technique improved. Albeit much slower than I desired. Eventually, the dire wolf of responsibility darkened my doorstep. This led to a real job and long hours with my nose to the ground and ear to the grindstone.

Though I gave up performing live, I continued my pursuit of the guitar; playing with myself for personal enjoyment. Get your minds out of the gutter. Boredom with strumming chords, began an exploration into finger-picking just to keep myself amused. Being a guitar autodidact, bad habits and personal idiosyncrasies plagued me.

I developed an individual style which I cannot explain.  All I can say is that my fingers seem to know what they are doing. I don't. If I try to slow it down and chart what strings I play with what finger and where, I get lost.  It's the closest I'll ever come to experiencing Zen.

While it's not for me to decide, for good or ill I began playing in front of live people again. (an allusion to my penchant for solitary nights playing guitar in graveyards) No matter how bad a day gets, or what insanity from the outside world intrudes, I always find solace picking away on my old six string. As ever - BB

"To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity." Richard Thompson

Lemmings

These rodents live near the Arctic. I grew up with the popular misconception that hordes of the little
creatures would run into water or over cliffs in an act of mass suicide. Reasons ranged from population control to misguided migration to group hysteria. This belief was so commonplace that similes such as, "follow mindlessly like lemmings", "like lemmings going to slaughter" are ingrained in common parlance.

This belief is false. Lemmings do migrate caused by either an increase of predators, or overpopulation. They can swim, but often the body of water is too large or turbulent for their endurance and many die. They are not suicidal stooges.

{Digression Warning} In 1973, National Lampoon did a show entitled Lemmings which ran in Greenwich Village for about a year. I was lucky enough to see it. It was disrespectful, irreverent and hilarious. The second half of the show was a satire of rock concerts called Woodshuck. I went into conniptions laughing at the then-unknown-to-me Belushi imitating Joe Cocker. A couple years later when Saturday Night Live began, I recognized John Belushi and Chevy Chase from the Lemmings cast.

 Yesterday another mass murder befell our nation. Ten people killed and others injured on a formerly peaceful college campus. That makes 16 incidents in the past eight years. I try not to make my blog a pulpit for political views. We need a serious dialogue to address this problem. That will never happen. Why? Human/lemmings will follow their particular demagogue over a chauvinistic cliff rather than succumb to rational thought.

Opponents will beat their chests; shout their platitudes; fill their ears with beeswax to block the sirens'
call of the other side. Each will profess its belief as sacrosanct, and the others as blasphemous. Examination of mental health issues, the possibility of compromise on gun control, the analysis of the situations to find a common cause and possible solutions will be chaff driven away by the wind of jingoist diatribes. The outcome will be same as it ever was - more senseless killings accompanied by pulling of hair and bemoaning the problems created by the "other" side.

Comparing the mass hysteria of our race to the misconception of the lemmings is an insult to the rodents. Our technology has evolved, our weapons are more lethal, our communication devices are more powerful, but our actions are still those of primitive cave dwellers. We desire to destroy anything that we view as antagonistic and make up beliefs to erroneously explain what we don't understand. As ever - BB

Jack Nicholson as George Hanson in Easy Rider: They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em.
Dennis Hopper as Billy: Hey, man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut.
Nicholson: Oh, no. What you represent to them is freedom.
Hopper: What the hell is wrong with freedom? That's what it's all about.
Nicholson: Oh, yeah, that's right. That's what's it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it, that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are.

Guilty Pleasures

Tempus Fugit as the Roman poet, Virgil, said. Summer's end approaches with a deluge of diversions. Among the many things I have put off as I tread water against the flood of activity preceding Labor Day weekend is my blog. I haven't posted since mid-July to the consternation, chagrin, and probable relief, of my readers. I've jotted down several ideas, but haven't followed through on them, until now.

Soap operas began on the radio in the 1930s. The genre flourished on
television. For over half a century, I avoided the mindless, sensational, drivel that spewed forth from these serials. By the year 2000, soaps began to decline in popularity and now less than a handful remain on air.

In true Billings tradition, I snubbed this form of "entertainment" during its popular period, but have embraced it now that it's no longer fashionable. She who shall not be named got me hooked on Days of Our Lives. I get home at night craving this digitally recorded drug like a junkie looking for that next fix.

Will Chad find out that Abigail's baby is his, not Ben's? Will Teresa's wicked machinations get her into Brady's life? Will Clyde succeed in taking over Salem's organized crime? The tension titillates.

I am so into this that I'm able to predict the peculiar permutations of the writers. I knew that JJ would sleep with his girlfriend's mother. I knew that Abbie was pregnant episodes before it was revealed. At the height of the hatred between Hope and Adian, I knew they would fall in love.

Gilbert & Sullivan operettas are also on my list of guilty pleasures. Of course there are the big three: H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and the Mikado. Less popular ones like The Gondoliers and The Yeoman of the Guard also give me enjoyment. I have been known to break into a verse or two. "But I'm still called buttercup, poor little buttercup, sweet little buttercup I." Mostly to the dismay of those around me.

Closely associated is my love of musical theater. My favorite is Guys & Dolls. It has Damon Runyon characters, loud suits and crap games. What's not to love? The movie version was horribly miscast - Marlon Brando, really Marlon Brando. Sinatra wanted the role of Sky Masterson. But that went to Marlon and he played Nathan Detroit. Throughout the film Frank referred to Brando as Mr. Mumbles. However it does have Stubby Kaye as Nicely Nicely singing my favorite number Fugue for Tinhorns.  Listen to it through the link below.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RthEYvh6aMM
 There's nothing like a live performance, but whenever a Broadway musical's movie version shows up on the tube, chances are I will watch it.

Dave Grohl said the entire guilty pleasure thing is BS. He blames in on residual punk rock guilt. I think he is not entirely correct. I predate the guilty pleasure to the beatnik era long before the term punk. This or that isn't cool, so you can't like it. While I agree we should like what we like, I still feel pangs of guilt and embarrassment about these pleasures. But not enough to stop me from breaking into a few lines of I Am A Very Model of A Modern Major General when the muse hits me. As ever - BB

“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.”  Oscar Wilde

Temptation

The evening of Wednesday, July 15, Baltimore's Harbor Tunnel closed for several hours. It wasn't a vehicle accident, nor a construction issue. An armored car's door flew open and thousands of dollars littered the roadway. Authorities closed the tunnel while the money was collected. This story on the morning news reminded me of a similar situation that happened in Philadelphia.

The Ben Franklin Bridge crosses the Delaware River from Camden, NJ to center city Philadelphia.
The Walt Whitman goes from Gloucester City, NJ to South Philly. They are only a couple of miles apart.  Depending on traffic you can take either bridge and cut through the city to your desired location.

One February day in 1981, a Purolator Armored Car was taking money from Atlantic City casinos to a bank in Philly. The Ben Franklin would have been more direct, but traffic dictated the armored car take the Walt Whitman then drive through South Philly to the bank. As anyone who drives those streets knows, the constant traffic and bad weather turn them into potholed obstacle courses.

Several Purolator employees had complained about that truck's faulty latch. This day, the vehicle hit a deep pothole, the door opened and out fell a bag with $1.2 million of untraceable cash. Driving behind the armored car was Joey Coyle, an unemployed longshoreman from South Philly. He stopped, put it in his car, went home and counted the pile of cash. He could not believe his luck, and just days away from his 28th birthday!

Joey did not have an easy life made harder by his methamphetamine addiction. He took a little of the money, scored some meth, then went home to hide the rest. In his frenzied state, he hid and re-hid the money over and over again in his small row home.

Not a criminal mastermind, Joey took a couple thousand to his local bar, started buying drinks for everyone and giving friends $100 bills. He rented a limo and took several of his buddies on a trip to Atlantic City.

It didn't take long for this unusual windfall to attract attention. Within weeks Joey was arrested. At his trial, Joey's attorney pleaded temporary insanity caused by the unbelievable bonanza enhanced by his drug problem. The judge was sympathetic. Since most of the money was recovered, he found Joey not guilty, but remanded him to a drug treatment center.


Joey became a local celebrity, and his story was made into a movie starring John Cusack. The movie upset many in Philadelphia as it was filmed in Pittsburgh. The film treatment glossed over more of the unsavory details and was just not very good.

Things did not go well for Joey. He never shook his addiction. Depressed over his mother's recent death and facing jail for another drug conviction, the poor soul hung himself in 1993 just before the movie was released.

Many in South Philly thought of Joey Coyle as a hero. That is absurd, but he did experienced something about which many working stiffs dream. At times I wonder what I would have done if it had been me driving behind that armored car on that cold February day. As ever - BB

"I can resist everything except temptation." - Oscar Wilde