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

Cant

That isn't an typo; no apostrophe is needed in this "cant." I came across the term while researching the Celtic root of another word. It comes from caint, old Gaelic for word. Cant is slang used by certain groups, so outsiders won't know what is being said.

It's no surprise that I am fascinated by language.  Slang represents the most colorful and creative use of verbal communication. Often employed by the more disreputable members of society, cant flourished among thieves, musicians and the drug subculture.

My attraction to the criminal element began with a love of film noir. Those movies led to novels by
Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain and others. The slang in these books paint images more striking and lurid than the King's English can. Compare the difference:
I figured the canary for a good egg, but was conned by her gams and warble. She cheesed me vamoosing with my butter and egg man along with all the cabbage. Now I'm on the lam with nothin' but a roscoe and a ducat for a rattler outta this burg.
Translation:
I thought the female singer was a nice person, but was fooled by her legs and voice. She robbed me, leaving with my money man along with all the cash. Now I'm on the run with nothing but a gun and a ticket for a train out of town.

Prohibition not only gave impetus to organized crime, but forged a relationship between criminals and musicians. Making liquor illegal created the need for speakeasys. Musicians will play where ever they can. The illegal clubs in the urban areas became the greenhouses for nascent jazz. The more rural juke joints provided
the same for blues music. Both styles thrived during prohibition.

Early jazz musicians took gangster slang added their unique twist giving birth to jive. Singer/bandleader, Cab Calloway, wrote his own Jive Dictionary. Phrases flourished: teeth became crumb crushers, a guitar was a gitfiddle, fine drapes were good-looking clothes and so on.

American youth took to jive. They enjoyed having entire conversations that parents and other L7's could not comprehend.  (Make an L with the index finger and thumb of your left hand. Make the same shape with your right hand and put the thumb of the right hand on tip of the left index finger and the index finger of the right hand on the tip of the left thumb. It's a square - get it daddio - an L7.)

Along with illegal hooch, musicians experienced drugs in the speakeasys and juke joints. To keep the authorities and the non-hip patrons off guard, drug users created their own cant. A great source to learn about early jazz and the developing drug scene is Mezz Mezzrow's, Really the Blues.

Milton Mezzrow, born in Chicago in 1899, fell in love with the musicians and lifestyle of the jazz age.  He professionally played the clarinet, but his fame came from the potent marijuana he sold. In fact the word mezz became cant for marijuana. Later calling anything the mezz meant it was the best. Really the Blues has an entire chapter in jive about selling drugs on the streets of New York. The succeeding chapter translates the jive into standard English.

Slang shows the beauty, creativity and fluidity of language. It also shows our adaptability as a species as we try to hep the straights about the righteous racket to be had during this interplanetary killer-diller. As ever - BB

"He took her down to Chinatown and showed her how to kick the gong around" - Cab Calloway's Minnie the Moocher  - Kick the gong around was jive for smoking opium. The rest of the song about the dream of the King of Sweden, platinum car with a diamond wheel, etc. are all parts of Minnie's opium fantasy.

Happy 239th USA!

239 years ago in my birthplace, Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was adopted on July 2 which John Adams thought would go down in history as the auspicious day. It was proclaimed on July 4. Americans chose that day as our birthday.

I abstain from pronouncing America as the world's greatest nation. We have too much hatred, divisiveness, ignorance, inequity and apathy to make such a grandiose declaration. Despite this, I love my country. I try to focus on the facts rather than the myths and folklore. I was told that during the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther once said, "I have no problem with Catholicism, it's Catholics I can't stand." While this is apocryphal, it eruditely explains my feelings towards America and Americans.

Red, blue, liberal, conservative, right, left - the terms of demarcation run on ad nauseam. I strongly
defend the country's freedom of speech and admire my fellow citizens' differences of opinion. All viewpoints must be considered as this republic* thrives on compromise. I believe the recent disdain for compromise represents our nation's biggest dilemma.

*Trivia side note - the United States is not a democracy; it is a republic. While a democratic form of government, it differs from a democracy in that elected officials represent the views of their constituents. As Mark Twain stated, "We have the best government money can buy." Will Rogers focused more on the individuals saying, "We have the best politicians money can buy." Special interest groups and single-issue politics form the antagonists of our system.

The United States bears many blemishes of dishonor in its history. At first only white, male landowners could vote, then just white males, decades past before people of color and woman could vote. Many nations, including Russia, abolished slavery before America did, and that was only after a four-year war. In 1953, the CIA with support from President Eisenhower and the Dulles brothers overthrew the legally, democratically elected government of Iran to protect U.S. and British oil holdings. The following year, the CIA did the same thing in Guatemala to keep that country's fertile soil in the hands of American owned, United Fruit Company. These are just a few examples.

Regardless of said blemishes, the United States remains a beacon of freedom for the world. Those escaping from intolerance, hatred and economic servitude yearn for our shores. The ideal of the United States draws them. It is this ideal we celebrate on Independence Day.

I eschew a jingoist, chauvinist view of America. I love this county in spite of its florid history. Only by seeing what we truly are, can we strive to live up to the words written by our forefathers:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." As ever - BB

“As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said 'No Trespassing.'
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me."  - Woody Guthrie This Land is Your Land

And Counting

Today I begin my seventh decade on this big, blue marble. I remember sitting in Sister Concepta's class in 1965. She was explaining years becoming decades becoming centuries. Sister stressed that the 21st century begins on 2001, not 2000, since there was no year zero. I did the math realizing I would be 47 at the beginning of the next century, and thought that I'd never get to be that old. At age eleven, 47 seemed ancient.

As the years progressed, my awareness of life's ephemerality strengthened. Originally, the target date for my demise was 27 like Robert Johnson, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, et.al. That goal passed, and my sights set on 32, the age the real life Dr. Gonzo, Oscar Zeta Acosta, thought would be his end point. Acosta made it to 39 before his disappearance and alleged death. Time for me, like the de Rochemont brothers' old newsreel, marched on with no end in sight.

Despite my best efforts to live as dissolute a life as possible, the years paraded past. Yet now with six decades of polluted water under my ramshackle bridge, I feel younger and healthier than I have in a long time.

Why, you may ask. I ponder the same question on a daily basis. Clean living and pure thoughts...that obviously isn't it. Genetics explains some of it. But I believe my true fountain of youth springs from the well of friendship with which I have been blessed.

It begins with my muse, Kristin. She got me back to playing music and writing. Without her support, I would not be playing guitar in public, nor writing this blog. My family has always been there despite the fact that I often take them for granted. Then there is the fraternity and sisterhood of musicians in Fells Point and beyond. Their support and encouragement to this old folkie has been heartwarming. Akin to them are the fellow vagabonds and
denizens of my neighborhood.

Paradoxically, the most recent two groups are among the oldest. In the past few months I have reconnected with compadres from prep school and college. These soul mates have rekindled a friendship and brotherhood that complete my circle of life.

To all of you, I humbly express my most heartfelt thanks. In the words of the old Christian hymn, will the circle be unbroken, by and by lord, by and by.  As ever - BB

"Some may never live, but the crazy never die." - Hunter S. Thompson

Dark Side of Gonzo

Last night I saw For No Good Reason, a documentary about Ralph Steadman. My first exposure to him was through his illustration work with Hunter S. Thompson. The title of the documentary comes from a response Hunter usually gave Ralph when asked about why they were attempting some bizarre assignment.

Steadman felt that whether it was the Kentucky Derby, the America Cup Race, the Foreman/Ali fight in Zaire, or the Honolulu Marathon, the plan was to disrupt, fool around and generally malign the participants and spectators at the event. They could be mean, almost cruel, and that was the dark side of gonzo. His artwork portrayed that darkness.

Unfortunately for most, the illustration of Thompson's work and maybe his Flying Dog beer labels comprise the extent of their Steadman knowledge. He is much more prodigious than that. I strongly urge you to find his illustrated editions of Alice in Wonderland, and Treasure Island. Experience his biting political satire through his work in Punch and Private Eye. His graphic, brutal honesty and biting ridicule lambast the greed-heads to use one of Hunter's terms.


Several birthdays ago, a friend gave me his book, Doodaa. It's an interesting fictional autobiographical biography about Gavin Twinge. This book showed me that gonzo owes as much to the illustrator as the writer. I consider myself as bull-goose looney as most deranged denizens of disturbia. This book revealed my amateur status.

Watching the documentary, I discovered his autobiography of Leonardo DaVinci, I Leonardo. It dumbfounded me that I had never heard of this book despite that fact that it was written over three decades ago. I delight in discovering treasure and look forward to experiencing this work of art.

The depth and vibrancy of Steadman's art transcend the experience of reading a book. His work truly adds the dimension of dementia. For that reason, I would not consider him a cartoonist or illustrator. Picasso said an artist was a receptacle for emotions. Viewing the amalgamation of emotions evoked by Steadman's work, one cannot deny that he is truly an artist. As ever - BB

"Stop doing those filthy scribblings, Ralph! You'll get us thrown out." - Hunter Thompson to Ralph Steadman during their first assignment at the Kentucky Derby.

Cosmic Comics

In 1954, the year I was born, Dr. Frederic Werthman published Seduction of the Innocent. The book described the serious harm comic books caused America's Youth. Ironically within a few years, comics entered their Silver Age. For non comic book fans, the Golden Age began in the mid-30s with the inception of Superman, Batman, et.al.

Silver Age writers like Stan Lee and artists like Steve Ditko at Marvel, Mark Waid and Terry Dodson at DC, created the comics with which I grew up. My age group still suffered from the small-minded antagonists who believed Werthman's drivel. Luckily, my parents did not fall into that school. They saw comics as a fun, creative outlet.

Of course comics did affect my mind, but not in the ridiculous manner the good "Doctor" thought. They opened worlds of imagination, magic, mystery and otherworldly visions. Years later when I began exploring inner space, the lurid art and wild stories took on new meanings.

This will come as no surprise to those who know me, but the less popular comics appealed to me. I liked Thor, Hulk, Superman, Batman, etc., but my main attraction went to the more bizarre. Cosmic Boy, a founder of the Legion of Super Heroes, time traveled to Earth from the 31st century with Lightening Lad and Saturn Girl to recruit Super Boy. Dr. Strange, a neurosurgeon who masters magic to defend the Earth from evil. It wasn't until my collegiate philosophical endeavors that I realized that Eastern mysticism and Jungian psychology filled the pages of his comics.

Reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, I discovered Ken Kesey's love of comic books and his connecting Captain Marvel and Nietzsche's book Thus Spoke Zarathurstra. How's that for the seduction of the innocent, Dr. Werthman?

The late 60s turned me onto the underground comix of R. Crumb, S. Clay Wilson, Gilbert Shelton and others. These lurid, sexually-charged, obscenity and drug-ladened stories set my world on its ear. At the same time I read Kerouac's On the Road and Hunter Thompson's Hell's Angels, The Strange and Terrible Saga of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs. With a nod to
Shakespeare, my worm had turned.

The beauty of art can exist with the ugliness of depravity. The Chinese concept of yin and yang, or the German literary movement, Strum un drang, show that opposites comprise the core of their antithesis.

Comics have entered a new age and are now called graphic novels. Perhaps it's the old curmudgeon in me, but the term sounds grandiose. I remember in 5th grade when Sister Charles Louise found me reading The Amazing Spiderman hidden inside my geography book. I can imagine her reaction if I had stood up and said, "But Sister, it's a graphic novel!" As ever - BB

"Now I've always been puzzled by the yin and the yang
it'll come out in the wash, but it always leaves a stain
Sturm and drang, the luster and the sheen,
my baby leaving town on the 2:19" - Tom Waits, 2:19

Destivley Bonnero

I have seen this term listed as a form of Cajun/French. It's not. The phrase comes from Dr. John aka Mac Rebennack. Meaning "everything is fine", the phrase arose from the Doctor's own vocabulary created from New Orleans drug and musician underground patois. They would speak in this extemporized slang to confuse both the police and the squares. Like the Big Easy's music, the language is colorful, creative and to quote Mac mos'scocious.

I've listened to the music of New Orleans my entire life. As a child, I would sit with my father listening to Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt and Pete Fountain. I never knew it at the time, but they all came from the Crescent City making the roux that became my musical gumbo.

At 12, I was given a tenor banjo. Popular in the early part of the 20th century, this short necked,
four-string banjo was used in ragtime and traditional Dixieland music. In a few years, the guitar's siren call supplanted the tenor. But, the occasional foray into jug band music would resurrect my Vega Little Dixie.

In 1969, then Police Commissioner, Frank Rizzo, closed the original Electric Factory, Philly's rock venue. After that, Electric Factory Concerts were held at the Spectrum. One of the first was Dr. John, The Night Tripper. He was the opening act, but I cannot tell you who headlined the show. I had fallen under Mr. Rebennack's hoodoo spell and remain entranced to this day.

His psychedelic rock overtones with the underpinning of New Orleans jazz and R&B harkened back to the music I had listened to with my Dad so many years before. But it was more than the music, his feathered, buckskin costume, the Voodoo paraphernalia, the burning incense wove its spell. He had three Nubian beauties as back up singers. The show was a rockin' erotic, exotic explosion that blew away this naive 15-year-old.

Time marched on. At Siena College, I met my guitar mentor. I remember exactly the day I told him of my love of Dr. John's music. He said, "Do you know Professor Longhair?"  That simple question led to  Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd aka Professor Longhair aka Fess who led to Allen Toussaint, the Meters and a life-long love of New Orleans music.

The musical trough of the Big Easy never goes dry. From Sidney Bechet to Dave Bartholomew to Randy Newman to John Mooney and Bluesiana, to Eric Lindell... its music gently caresses the soul like tendrils of Spanish moss across the skin on a warm Louisiana evening. As ever - BB

"Hot can be cool, and cool can be hot, and each can be both. But hot or cool, man, jazz is jazz." - Louis Armstrong