RDP Tuesday: ANGEL
I suppose that Angels are comforting
to those in need
and they look boss on top of your Christmas Tree
But I like my angels cast in marble and stone
forever friends
to our sleeping bones.
The Recording Angel Waupun, Wisconsin: Photograph by A.M. Moscoso
Photo A.M. Moscoso
Photograph: A.M. Moscoso
Photo A.M. Moscoso
Photo A.M. Moscoso
RDP Monday: SLEEKIT
Joseph Farquharson
When I was little my family had this tradition. At the first snowfall we’d put on our boots and coats and hats and mittens and we would walk to the corner store and buy hot chocolate, cookies, popcorn and comic books.
There was a variety of popcorn to choose from. We always bought Jiffy Pop, the kind you popped on your stove top in it’s own foil container- great tasting stuff. I also liked Jiffy Pop because they’d give away tattoos that would stain your skin for weeks. Jiffy Pop didn’t mess around with press on tatoos.
One year my Aunt ( my Dad’s younger sister ) was over and it had started to snow . She wasn’t happy about that because she didn’t want to get stuck at my Dad’s. They weren’t exactly on the best of terms.
I was around nine years old at the time and that was the height of whatever issues they had between them. Within a year they weren’t speaking at all.
Anyway, when there was a healthy buildup of snow and my Dad asked who wanted to walk to the store with him, my Aunt said she’d go along too- I was surprised, my Dad was surprised and I remember their cousin mouthing the word, ” why ” as she put her coat on.
” She’s my niece that’s why. ” she said at loud.
So we all headed out and it was starting to get dark and it was starting to snow again.
Me and my Aunt hung back and let my Dad and my brother and sister ahead aways.
When I was sure he wasn’t paying attention to us- which was a safe bet because now I understand that he wasn’t going to turn around because his sister was there, throwing daggers at him- I pulled my hood own, pulled off my stocking cap and jammed it in my pocket.
Then I peeled off my gloves and jammed it in my other pocket and I even unzipped my jacket a little.
” Why do you always do that? Don’t you get cold? ” My Aunt was fairly young at the time, she was around twenty-two , so we were more like siblings and before she passed away at the age of 40 we were more like sisters. Anyway, when I did weird stuff I think she was intrigued by it as opposed to feeling like a Mom.
” I like the way the cold feels. ”
” That’s kind of odd. ”
” Yeah. It itches like crazy when I warm up though.”
We were leaving tracks in the snow and I told my Aunt, ” Look.” I stopped and pushed my foot down into the snow and turned in a circle at least three times. When I was done there was a clear spot about the size of a dinner plate on the ground.
” What are you doing? ”
” It’s icy down there now. ”
I stepped back and she looked down. “Yeah. ”
” Yeah. ” I said. ” It’s icy and slippery. ”
” Other people do stuff with snow like make snowmen and angels. ” my Aunt said.
I snorted , ” Snowman and Angels. ”
I remember it was getting a little windy and my hair was sort of flying around my face and sticking to my cheeks. ” You’re a weird little kid. ” my Aunt told me, with awe and maybe a little worry in her voice.
We were almost to the store and I put on my hat and my gloves and then I put my hood up and Iooked like any other kid who went for a walk in the snow with her family to buy comics and popcorn and hot chocolate.
I even felt like a regular kid at that point- until we walked home and I saw my patches of ice littering the side walk.
John Lee Hooker’s 1965 Gibson ES-335 Electric Guitar – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Sam Howzit)
For Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday we were challenged to find songs that contained nonsense lyrics.
The song ” Boom Boom Boom ” written and performed by the legendary John Lee Hooker is the BEST song to perform- if you’re the guitarist or the bass player or the drummer. But having performed it myself, I’m going to share straight up that I thought the lyrics were just filler.
I to used think John Lee Hooker was more into capturing the feeling he got from the bartender who gave him the line and the imagery behind ” Boom Boom Boom” ( and according to the article below, he actually paid her for her contribution) because on the face of it the song is a bunch of verses strung together by some wicked guitar playing.
But I would challenge you to read the excerpt below and then listen to the song, picture a woman singing it to her bluesman boyfriend walking in late again because you might find that those stand alone verses are not really stand alone verses at all.
Anita
Blues legend John Lee Hooker wrote Boom Boom, a 1962 R&B hit that also cracked the pop charts. “I used to play at this place called the Apex Bar in Detroit,” Hooker recalled in Working Musicians. “There was a young lady there named Luilla. She was a bartender there. I would come in there at night and I’d never be on time. Every night the band would beat me there. Sometimes they’d be on the bandstand playing by the time I got there. I’d always be late and whenever I’d come in she’d point at me and say, ‘Boom boom, you’re late again.’ And she kept saying that. It dawned on me that that was a good name for a song. Then one night she said, ‘Boom boom, I’m gonna shoot you down.’ She gave me a song but she didn’t know it.
[Verse 1]
Boom, boom, boom, boom
I’m gonna shoot you right down
Right off your feet
Take you home with me
Put you in my house
Boom, boom, boom, boom
Mmmm hmmm
Mm hm hm hm
[Verse 2]
I love to see you walk
Up and down the floor
When you talking to me
That baby talk
I like it like that
You talk like that
You knock me dead
Right off my feet
A haw haw haw haw
Whoa!
[Guitar solo]
[Verse 3]
Once you walk that walk
And talk that talk
And whisper in my ear
Tell me that you love me
I love that talk
That baby talk
You knock me dead
Right off my feet
A haw haw haw haw
Yeah, yeah!
RDP Sunday: OBFUSCATE
” We shouldn’t have gone out for dinner ” he said ” We could have used that money to
buy curtains instead.
So.
I went in search of curtains and found some patterns that I thought looked nice
but he said
” It doesn’t make sense to get new curtains when we need new windows. “
So,
I went on line and found some windows and I found someone to install them and he
said
” It doesn’t make sense to put in new windows when we need to hang new gutters “
Which he had taken down because he wanted new windows and he wanted new
curtains to hang in them.
So.
I said lets get the gutters put up, they’re in the backyard under wrap where you left
them and he said
” It doesn’t make sense to hang new gutters when the house should be painted first instead.
So I chose found some samples and help for the work and said, ‘ there’s a better way t
do this and
he was right.
It took ten years and the work got done but somebody else did it
because by then we were long gone
lost in a forest of words
on a mountain of intentions
under a sky heavy with clouds of excuses,