Musical Brotherhood

Music filled my childhood. On the old monaural record player, Mom played show tunes and Irish folk music, and Dad played Mr. Aker Bilk and Jerry Murad & the Harmonicats. Those are some of my earliest memories.

When I was 5 or 6, my sister took piano lessons. Somewhere along the line, she had guitar lessons too. Her failed attempts thwarted any chance I had at lessons. But formalized lessons would not  have worked for me either. By age 12, I took an old nylon-string from the attic. About the same time, a family friend bequeathed me a 4-string tenor banjo.

Armed with a Mel Bay tenor banjo chord book and a guitar book, 12 Bob Dylan Hits Playable with Three Magic Chords, my personal musical odyssey began. By 14, I was playing in a jug band at family parties and church coffee houses. By 19, I was playing in pick-up bands. Actually playing is hyperbole. I was awful, yet fearless.

When I reached my 20s, I relinquished any idea of performing live. By then I had the guitar which is still my favorite, a C.F. Martin D-18. During the ensuing 30-plus years I just played with myself (oh, grow up; pun NOT intended) treating the guitar as a hobby.

I moved to Fells Point in 1997, but didn't embrace the music scene until I met my muse. She was the impetus that overcame the inertia and got me performing again. But it was not she alone. The encouragement and support of Fells Point's extraordinary brotherhood of musicians sustained my recital renaissance.

Billy Thomson, Larry Dennis, Rudy Strukoff, Ken Gutberlet, Dave Miller, Joey Fulkerson, Chris McAfee, Johnny Smooth, Ed Schoberl, and so many others have lent both moral and tangible support. They unselfishly provided the hardware I sorely lacked - mics, stands, speakers, PAs, etc. I don't even have to ask. Once a gig is announced, they inquire as to what I need and what they can do. It's truly heartwarming.

But the support doesn't end with the musicians. Donna at Leadbetters, Ana Marie and Tony at Cat's Eye proffer their venues graciously. Their generosity and hard work are indispensable in fostering the neighborhood's music scene. Equally important are the friends who attend the shows. You have no idea how much your presence means to me.

To all of you, I want to offer my deepest and most sincere thanks. Without you I would still be playing with myself. Okay that one was intended because this was getting a little maudlin. As ever - BB

"Like family, we are tied to each other. This is what all good musicians understand." - Billy Joel

Monkeyshines

Charles Darwin postulated about natural selection. His The Origin of Species introduced the world to evolution, though Darwin never used that term in his book. Unfortunately, he was wrong when it came to man. We have not evolved. Various species adapted or became extinct. Man is the exception to this rule.

We are the same beings who roamed the earth for millennia. Our technology has advanced. We domesticated animals, planted crops, invented tools, transformed said tools into weapons. We communicated with grunts, hand-gestures, created language, pictographs, cuneiform, alphabets. We sent messages with hollowed logs, smoke signals, reflected light, letters, electronic signals through wires, electronic signals through the ether.

Our things have evolved, but our bodies and psyches remain the same. Amongst the technological trappings, we are the same aggressive, pugnacious creatures who dwelled in caves.

I could easily embrace existential nihilism, but cannot because often in my life I've encountered the awe-inspiring spark of humanity. Be it literature, art. music, or just one human being's gentleness and kindness to another - we are capable of the extraordinary.

That is the individual, not people. Man is an amazing creature. Mankind is a mob moved by malicious, malodorous motives. As single entities, we create beauty such as  David, Don Giovanni, and I and the Village. As groups, we create such savagery as the Inquisition, the Holocaust and the Killing Fields.

Just look at the political farce playing out in the United States. Instead of looking for solutions and trying to work together, we are "carrying signs that mostly say 'Hooray for Our Side'" to quote Stephen Stills. We rally round demagogues and employ divisive tactics. This is a microcosm of the world's turmoil.

We are still howling primates, jumping up and down, hurling feces at each other. The feces have evolved into hateful words and weapons of mass destruction, but the flingers are the same, old simians. As ever - BB

"I got disappointed in human nature as well and gave it up because I found it too much like my own.” - J.P. Donleavy 

Ain't Necessarily So

'Contrariwise,' continued Tweedledee, 'if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.' - Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll


I began college with a double major - English Literature and Philosophy. My Dad's comment was, "Great, you can think about trying to get a f@#*in' job." I would have been upset if I wasn't jealous of such an excellent retort. 


My English Lit knowledge helped in my Logic class during an oral exam. When asked to explain Logic, I responded with that quote. The Franciscan brother who taught the course looked at me without saying a word. I continued explaining that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll's real name) was a mathematician and logician eruditely illuminating on the logic inherent in the quote. When I finished, Brother Vianney quipped, "Curiouser and curiouser" I bowed to him in acknowledgement of his maintaining the Carroll allusion. Since I was being graded, I discretely refrained from pointing out that while my quote was from Through the Looking Glass, his was from Alice in Wonderland. 


I did get a job teaching grammar in a parochial elementary school. Several years later I became the Fredo Corleone of my family and went to learn the casino business. However, language remains a passion for me. English is fluid, expressive and expansive. It collects words and phrases from a host of sources making them its own. A myriad of exceptions exist for every rule. Many "rules" are arbitrary and became so, not for the language's sake, but for political or socioeconomic reasons.


That leads us, circuitously I admit, to today's subject matter - AIN'T. We have all been taught that this word is vulgar slang not to be used by polite, educated individuals. But it ain't so. The word was an acceptable contraction of "I am not" into the 19th Century.


No one belittles a speaker for saying "Aren't I?" This interrogative dissects as "Are I not?" Correctly is should be "Am I not?"; ergo, the correct contraction would be "Ain't I?". What caused this calumniated contraction to evoke such wretchedness?


As the 19th moved into the 20th century, the upper class decided ain't's usage beneath them. Commoners and the working-classes used it, and patricians decided to banish it from polite English. It remained in use with the the working class, and other "undesirables" into the 20th century and is still used today. 


The contraction has become the "utility player" of slang words. It now substitutes for a multitude of other contractions displaying the fluid, ever-changing quality of English. It's a favorite of writers and purveyors of bon mots giving phrases a je ne sais quoi. 


Will ain't ever regain its place in "accepted" English? As the saying goes, "It ain't over till it's over" As ever - BB


“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.” Lewis Carroll from Through the Looking Glass

City of Brotherly Love

A trip to the Jersey shore gave impetus to the last blog. The approach of my natal anniversary kindled this musing on the city of my birth, Philadelphia.

"I was thrust unto this stage of fools" in Philadelphia on Thursday, June 17, 1954. About four months after my birth, my family moved across the Delaware to Haddonfield NJ, another colonial-Quaker settlement. This could explain my love of oatmeal and affinity for Barbara Bush who resembles that guy on the Quaker Oats' box.

As a kid, Philly was like Oz to me. We'd drive across the Ben Franklin Bridge to visit relatives and/or friends. As we approached the crest of the bridge, the skyline produced awe and excitement.

Several of my father's medical school alumni moved to South Jersey at the same time. The families grew up doing things together. Several came from South Philly. We'd go to block parties on holidays in their old neighborhoods. The sights, sounds and smells of these Italian urban communities seemed alien, yet wonderful.

Until the early 70s, we would celebrate Thanksgiving at my great-aunt and uncle's in southwest Philly. The best part would be the ride home when Dad would drive us past boat house row adorned with lights and then through Center City with all the stores festooned in holiday finery.


Closer to Christmas, all the cousins and their Moms would meet in Center City on a Saturday afternoon. We'd start with lunch at the Horn & Hardart's automat, walk through Lit's Brothers and Strawbridge & Clothier looking at the decorations and Christmas villages. The afternoon would finish off at the Wanamaker's light show accompanied by the world's largest playable pipe organ.

These memories swirl happily through my mind tinted with the  rose-colored glasses of remembrance. The curmudgeon in me refuses to allow nostalgia to lull me into the belief that those were simpler, better times.

In the first eight years of my life, Eisenhower used the CIA to overthrow the legally elected governments in Guatemala and Iran, Francis Gary Powers' spy plane crashed in the USSR showing the world America was spying on them, the Cuban missile crisis had us on the brink of nuclear war and civil rights' abuses on black Americans was at its zenith. By the time I was 10, we began sending troops to Vietnam to support a government which forbade elections and came to power in a bloody coup.

No wonder despite my fond memories I have an ever-present feeling of impending doom - as ever - BB

"The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here." - Finley Peter Dunne

Jersey Rocks!

A prolonged Memorial Day weekend on the lovely shore of the state in which I grew up included an impromptu trip to a casino to see South Side Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. This gave impetus to a musing on the state's musical influence.

Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, The Four Seasons, Springsteen, Whitney Houston, Bon Jovi, et al...these names come to the forefront of most discussions of the Garden State and music. These artists and many others contributed to the state's sundry soundscape.

The recording industry dawned in New Jersey. Edison invented the phonograph record in Menlo Park. The Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden hosted many of the earliest recording sessions. Hundreds of jazz recordings on Blue Note Records were made in a home studio in Englewood Cliffs. Somers Point's Tony Mart's operated from the late 40's until 1982. It heralded the advent of Rock 'n' Roll. Del Shannon, Duane Eddy and others rocked this shore bar. Here Bob Dylan checked-out Ronnie Hawkin's back-up band, recently named Levon & the Hawks. Dylan hired the Band to back him up on his historical electric tour. The rest is musical history.

To me,  Jersey rock germinated with four guys from Garfield - the Rascals. They were the Young Rascals on their first records because Atlantic didn't want to confuse them with Johnny Puleo's Harmonica Rascals. Yeah, like that would happen.

Felix Cavaliere and the boys mixed soul, R&B and rock creating Good Lovin, Groovin, It's A Beautiful Mornin', People Got to be Free, and other great music. The Rascals provided the soundtrack to much of my early cruising, partying and loss of innocence along the back roads between Haddonfield and the shore. They inspired the Asbury Park sound of Springsteen, South Side Johnny, Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul and others.

This is a subjective matter and I'm sure other hold alternate theories. To those I respectfully grab my crotch and say, "Here's your alternate theory!" As ever - BB

"...down the shore everything's alright, you with your baby on a Saturday night, don't you know that all my dreams come true, when i'm walkin' down the street with you..." - Jersey Girl by Tom Waits

Blanc et Noir

I have always enjoyed old movies. For some unknown reason, black and while films relax me. Westerns, gangster flicks, comedies, musicals, historical dramas -  they all provide an escape pod from life's impending doom. Yes, I used those two words. This is the first time I've written them since the fateful "unidentified projectile" incident. We shall see.

I believe our family was the last in Haddonfield, maybe the state of New Jersey, maybe the eastern seaboard to get a color TV. My dad believed the technology still needed improvement and the next model would have better features. So why get it now?

When he finally broke down and bought a color set, nothing irked him more than walking in on me watching some b&w classic.

I can still hear him cursing and muttering about spending the money for color and that damn kid watches nothing but black and white. Dad has passed on, but things haven't changed. I now watch a 60" plasma. Viewing sports on this is like being at the game. However, b&w oldies are still my staple TV diet.

The past few nights, I have reveled in the glow of White Heat, The Roaring Twenties, and Foreign Correspondent. The latter being a B-movie classic and Alfred Hitchcock's second Hollywood film after leaving England.

Of course the first two mentioned fall into my all time fav list - with a bullet! The Roaring Twenties made in 1939 was an homage to the classic gangster films of the early 30s. It's the last movie Bogie and Cagney made together. It also contains the best last line of any movie. As a down-and-out Cagney lies dead on the church steps, a cop asks who he is. Gladys George (an underrated character actress who is one of my "you know her; she's that lady in...") looks at the cop as she cradles Cagney's head and says, "He usetabe a Big Shot."

White Heat, also starring Cagney, was made ten years later. Cagney plays a true sociopath with a mother complex. This is a much darker portrayal than the lovable hustler with a heart of gold in the aforementioned film.

Despite my father's spectral voice grumbling about watching black & white movies in color, this film's final scene was exceptional and deMille-like on this behemoth TV. Seeing Cagney standing on a globe-shaped gas storage tank, shooting it out with the coppers and yelling "Made it ma, top of the world" as the tank explodes was Homeric. The film also contains one of my favorite Bogie quotes which I've always tried to emulate.  - as ever - BB

"I always say, when you got a job to do, get somebody else to do it." Humphrey Bogart as George Halley in The Roaring Twenties

March Madness

Not the college basketball bracket bender, but the spate of days during this part of the month with special significance.

It begins today with PI day - 3.14. If you really want to mire in mathematical minutia, you should have celebrated at 26 seconds after 1:59 AM. That's 3.1415926 - pi to the sixth decimal. Today is also the birthday of Albert Einstein - auspicious and arithmetically serendipitous.

March 15 is a good day for a toga dinner party. What else would I be wearing whilst bewaring the Ides of March? One course of course would be Caesar salad. But what to serve with it?  I recommend a delicious spicy Cajun stew. The recipe borrowed from Popeye's arch-nemesis: etouffee Brutus.* As Edgar Allan Poe said, "The goodness of a true pun is in a direct ratio to its intolerability."

March 16 is not a special day except for those with a knowledge of Roman history. This day began Bacchanalia. A wild, two-day festival with excessive drinking and debauchery celebrating Bacchus, the god of wine . Do you think I could get a special rate on my toga if I rent it for three days?

The madness that is March climaxes on St. Paddy's Day. This has become a Bacchanalia of sorts, but started as a religious holiday of fasting and prayer. In my Fells Point neighborhood, we pray that the drunken idiots leave without dousing our stoops with green urine.

Notice it's Paddy's not Patty's. The masculine diminutive is Paddy based on the Irish Padraig. This is one of my pet peeves of which there are many -as ever BB

* In the Popeye comic strip the nemesis's name was Bluto. When they created the cartoons to be shown in theaters, the movie company thought Bluto was copyrighted, so they change it to Brutus. It change back to Bluto when Hanna-Barbera took over the cartoon in 1978.

"March is the month of expectation,/The things we do not know,/The Persons of Prognostication/Are coming now." - Emily Dickinson