July 2006

Reasons To Believe

Poem: "Creed" by Meg Kearney from An Unkindness of Ravens. © BOA Editions, Rochester, New York, 2001.

Creed

I believe the chicken before the egg
though I believe in the egg. I believe
eating is a form of touch carried
to the bitter end; I believe chocolate
is good for you; I believe I'm a lefty
in a right-handed world, which does not
make me gauche, or abnormal, or sinister.
I believe "normal" is just a cycle on
the washing machine; I believe the touch
of hands has the power to heal, though
nothing will ever fill this immeasurable
hole in the center of my chest. I believe
in kissing; I believe in mail; I believe
in salt over the shoulder, a watched
pot never boils, and if I sit by my
mailbox waiting for the letter I want
it will never arrive��"not because of
superstition, but because that's not
how life works. I believe in work:
phone calls, typing, multiplying,
black coffee, write write write, dig
dig dig, sweep sweep. I believe in
a slow, tortuous sweep of tongue
down the lover's belly; I believe I've
been swept off my feet more than once
and it's a good idea not to name names.
Digging for names is part of my work,
but that's a different poem. I believe
there's a difference between men and
women and I thank God for it. I believe
in God, and if you hold the door
and carry my books, I'll be sure to ask
for your name. What is your name? Do
you believe in ghosts? I believe
the morning my father died I heard him
whistling "Danny Boy" in the bathroom,
and a week later saw him standing in
the living room with a suitcase in his
hand. We never got to say good-bye, he
said, and I said I don't believe in
good-byes. I believe that's why I have
this hole in my chest; sometimes it's
rabid; sometimes it's incoherent. I
believe I'll survive. I believe that
"early to bed and early to rise" is
a boring way to live. I believe good
poets borrow, great poets steal, and
if only we'd stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time. I
believe time doesn't heal all wounds;
I believe in getting flowers for no
reason; I believe "Give a Hoot, Don't
Pollute," "Reading is Fundamental,"
Yankee Stadium belongs in the Bronx,
and the best bagels in New York are
boiled and baked on the corner of First
and 21st. I believe in Santa
Claus, Jimmy Stewart, ZuZu's petals,
Arbor Day, and that ugly baby I keep
dreaming about��"she lives inside me
opening and closing her wide mouth.
I believe she will never taste her
mother's milk; she will never be
beautiful; she will always wonder what
it's like to be born; and if you hold
your hand right here��"touch me right
here, as if this is all that matters,
this is all you ever wanted, I believe
something might move inside me,
and it would be more than I could stand.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 23, 2006 9:18 AM | Comments (1)

War tears

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 21, 2006 1:21 PM | Comments (0)

Your President

Your president.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 20, 2006 7:24 AM | Comments (1)

The Buzzcocks and Graham Parker, 7/16/06, Minneapolis

Just got back from the Buzzcocks at the Triple Rock. For so long I've been telling the story about seeing them and Gang Of Four at the Longhorn in 1979, while Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon looked on, that I'd almost gotten bored with the myth-details. It's a good fable, and I guess I always assumed it would be my greatest-ever Buzzcocks yarn.

Wrong.

They were flat-out amazing tonight: Old men and fire. "Orgasm Addict," "Harmony In My Head," and the top mosh-getter, "Ever Fallen In Love (With Someone You Shouldn't Have Fallen In Love With)." That night in 1979, the Clash was buzzing around the Longhorn (they played the next night at the St. Paul Civic Center with David Johansen and the Undertones), and my brother asked Strummer if they were going to get up and jam.

"No, mate, this is a Buzzcocks gig," said the president of Garageland.

That was the stuff of legend, this was the stuff of life. Tonight was a Buzzcocks gig to beat all Buzzcocks gigs--heydays or history be hanged: Everyone who was there wanted to be there; everyone wanted to flail or nod along to the (seemingly) simple blitzkrieg choruses and Pete Shelley's romantic take on well, just about everything.

What's more, before the 'cocks tonight, I caught Graham Parker, outside, on the roof of Britt's Pub.

For free. Hype- and otherwise.

Unlike the youngish Buzzcocks crowd, tons of old punks and rockers were there, quaffing and eating dinner and coralling their kids and soaking up the sun before the harvest comes and we all hunker down to chill again.

I saw Parker at the old Guthrie Theater after Squeezing Out Sparks was released, and while it may have been a transcendent show for its time and place, it is also now a distant memory, for he laid to waste so much about the American Dream tonight, as only an empire-wary and USA-weary Brit can do, and sang songs from one, ten, and 20 years ago that proved to be spookily prophetic about the United States' leaders, environment, and wars.

It was a tremendous, unsettling, hopeful night. A re-meeting of the tribe and the tribes' chldren. People talked about new records and old records, casualities and up-and-comers, and everyone made fun of Katherine Kersten and the bullshit that passes for goverment, media, and religion these days.

And quite a few folks -- what else ya gonna do? -- danced.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 17, 2006 12:24 AM | Comments (3)

Chris Hewitt writes my mind

Chris Hewitt writes my mind.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 14, 2006 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

Cowboy Up Saturday

100 degrees in the shade means drinking and sweating at Lee's Liquour Lounge with none other than the Belfast Cowboys...

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 13, 2006 11:28 PM | Comments (1)

Breaking News

by Henry Heyer-Walsh

A window broke today when someone threw a rock at it.

A lightbulb broke today when it burnt out.

Also, a car broke when some Chinese dude karate-chopped it.

And someone's finger broke today when battery acid flew out of a toy Tonka trunk when the mom got choked up that her little angel's car wouldn't start. There wasn't much to do with the finger because it was swallowed up by the acid. Maybe that was too much info, but that's what we're here for.

That is all for breaking news.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 13, 2006 8:29 AM | Comments (1)

R.I.P. Syd Barrett, 1946-2006

Around the time Peter Jenner, first manager of Pink Floyd, and I became friends in the late '80s (he went on to manage Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock; that's Peter and I below, after Braggy's show at the Fine Line this winter), an NME interview with him appeared with the headline, "I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives." Now we all do.

Jenner is one of the true gentleman of rock and roll, and he's been instrumental in guiding some great artists (including Iggy Pop), as well as upsetting the music-industry apple cart. Here's a nice bit from Quinton Skinner on Syd's legacy; here's a good oral history of the Floyd that includes Jenner's insights into the mad genius that was Barrett.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 11, 2006 3:24 PM | Comments (1)

I Am Steve McQueen

Sunday morning at the dog park by Lake Of The Isles, hanging with the other Sunday morning lollygaggers.

Out of nowhere, like Davy Jones or the Krakken or a Liriano fastball, comes the Animal Control truck. Out jumps the Animal Control guy. All the other yardbirds freak. Or, at least, all the other yardbirds who don't have their proper dog-park tags, including me.

I do not freak. I stay cool. I make a break for it. I head straight for the guy, figuring I can get by him and the fence before he knows what's hit him. But he has seen this tactic before and he nails me.

As he takes my driver's license and goes to the truck to write me up, I return to the park as a dozen of my fellow would-be dog-park fugitives make a beeline for the other exit.

Run. Go while you can. I may be poorer in the pocketbook but I am richer in the knowledge that I have taken one for the team, fallen on the sword for the whole. I do not seek thanks or monetary retribution for my $75 citation, because, as I tell the Animal Control guy, he is just doing his job.

Just like me. I am Steve McQueen, escaped and captured and now out of the cooler with information that will benefit freedom fighters everywhere:

Get your dog tags or pay the price.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 10, 2006 9:16 AM | Comments (1)

Happy Sunday (Heart Full O' Gratitude)

There is no way of telling people they are all walking around shining like the sun.

-Thomas Merton

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 9, 2006 10:08 AM | Comments (0)

Greil and Elvis and Bush and Koizumi Oh My!

I asked Greil Marcus, author of Dead Elvis and Mystery Train and so much more, for his take on the recent Bush-Koizumi summit at Graceland, easily one of the weirder pop-culture moments of the year. Here's what he had to say:

"Elvis probably would have liked the Order of the Rising Sun military medal Koizumi probably would have given him had Elvis been there. As for Bush, I think what Clinton said about his father in the last days of the 1992 campaign go fine for him: 'Bush is always comparing me to Elvis in sort of unflattering ways. Well, I don't think Bush would have liked Elvis very much.'"

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 6, 2006 10:47 AM | Comments (2)

Thank You For Listening

I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, because I'll probably be embarrassed in the morning, but that is what writers do: step back from the racket and make a big deal out of something that may only be a small deal to everyone else.

My CD comes out today. Most of the record stores will be closed, which is somehow fitting, but I will go to sleep tonight knowing it will be in there, in the record store shelves, a part of me I never thought I would hear again.

My wife, God bless her, did. But I didn't. She'd seen me sing years ago. My son, who never had, said to me a couple years ago, as I croaked through a singalong with some friends, "Dad, you're losing your voice." I flushed with embarrassment because he was right, and I decided to do something about it.

Of course, there's no guarantee that anything would come from such a moment. I'm a big Joseph Campbell "follow your bliss" guy, and I dig the "get busy dying or get busy living" thing that Bob Dylan said, but so much reinvention can be exhausting and I also know Low's song "Death Of A Salesman" by heart, and there have been plenty of dreams or whatever we want to call this little light of mine that haven't come true. Besides, I could easily be accused of being greedy: I have a beautiful family and I love writing about my hometown in all its gore and glory, but the truth is I have been aching to sing.

I can remember every time someone asked me if sing anymore. I could tell you the name of every person who ever asked if I was going to sing again. Most of the time it came from people who’d seen me sing/scream with my band many years ago, which is probably why all their faces wore the same look of confusion and slight disbelief when I told them that that kid stuff was all behind me and that yes, I sing in the shower and that yes, I sing inside and that yes, I sing in the newspaper, all of which is/was true. But every time I said it it was a cover-up and every time they asked it hurt, deep down in a critics-are-just-frustrated-musicians place I never thought I’d acknowledge to myself or anyone else.

It doesn't hurt today. Or: It hurts in a different way; like a freshly-picked scab versus an old bruise. Which is to say that pretty much everything everyone has ever said to me about the rawness, mood swings, and vulnerability of being a songwriter and singer I have discovered to be true, though I refuse to go down that special victims unit road. To be sure, that yawning horizon of not knowing what comes next is frightening, but I'm happy to take the leap.

After a 20-year lay-off, I started singing again two years ago in California, where I took a yearlong break from writing. I re-learned how to play guitar and re-learned how to sing. I wrote songs by myself for the first time. When I got back to Minneapolis, I spent a lot of time in my basement and wrote more songs. A few months ago I asked my brothers and some old and new friends if they'd help me record them, and everybody said yes. Mason Jennings turned me on to Chad Weis at the Devil's Workshop, and I booked some studio time and started recording it on Super Bowl Sunday and Monday. It was the classic Minnesota sessions, with cold beers and a warm studio staving off the bitter winter.

When it was done I gave it to Martin DeVaney, a kid I knew from St. Paul, a kid who loves Minnesota music the way I do, a kid who I wrote about when I was at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and he said he and his cool indie roots label, Eclectone, would put it out. I took the master to the duplication plant and ten days later they called me and said it looked great and I put the dog in the car and went to the plant and came home and ripped open the boxes and there they were.

Friends of mine heard it. Some said nothing. Many said they loved it. Jon Bream wrote about it last week, called the songs "wonderful" and mentioned them in the same sentence as Paul Westerberg, Loudon Wainwright III, and John Prine, and I walked on air with the dog around the lake that morning, thinking that everything else from here on out is gravy.

Like I said, the record comes out today, July 4th. There are songs on it that mean as much to me as any of the millions I've listened to and championed over the years. To think that I may have written a song or two that could communicate the incommunicable the way others have for me is nothing short of a miracle, because it very easily might not have happened, because I have learned over the past few years that nothing is promised to us in this life.

I'm glad I get to go out singing.

Thank you for listening.

Happy Independence Day.

Posted by Jim Walsh at July 4, 2006 12:12 AM | Comments (5)

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