She danced my world into being
shiva, black and gold
hollywood sign and phone booth
as backdrops
and a mercedes
the same colors as she
our eyes met for a millenia
and she danced
i did not desire the burden
of kingship
though the scars she left decreed
blood and flowers
come down to touch
a young warriors golden age
we need not your salvation
your guilt
we have goddess shrines
peacocks, pyramids
and courtyard dancing
girls of gods
dancing in courtyards ancient
and beads
she danced my world into being
shiva, black and gold
one face, quarter face
lower leg and beeswax
her drum beats my existence
beats against ignorance
melting my wax
the way it has always been done
she fills me with molten tradition
beats me into form
pray and consecrate
shiva, black and gold
in the shadow of a phonebooth
hollywood sign and mercedes
the same colors as she
i am hers...
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Empty
Songs dreamt in streets embrace
Lying in beds of dirty leavings
And comings
And empty bottles of wine
Empty as heads
Empty as pockets
Empty as these pages
After midnight bottles of wine
Night screaming in sheets embrace
Lying in beds of dirty whores
And Coltrane
And crackheads
And empty bottles of wine.
Empty as plates
Empty as promises
Empty as these pages
After midnight bottles of wine
Lying in beds of dirty leavings
And comings
And empty bottles of wine
Empty as heads
Empty as pockets
Empty as these pages
After midnight bottles of wine
Night screaming in sheets embrace
Lying in beds of dirty whores
And Coltrane
And crackheads
And empty bottles of wine.
Empty as plates
Empty as promises
Empty as these pages
After midnight bottles of wine
Sarai's Scent
I carried her wet from the shower
As the second tower
Collapsed upon itself
We did not have the television on
A lifetime later
I collapsed
Destroyed
When the dust finally settled
There was nothing but destruction
And screams and accusations
of Conspiracy
Some things just happen
For reasons of their own
The way she licked her own skin
Was reason enough
The curve of her
The sweat of her
The smell of her
The essential wrong of her
The arch of her back as the first tower was hit
The curve of her
The tan on her
The taste of her
The unadulterated desire in her
Was reason enough
To commit indifferent treason
For at least one morning
As the second tower
Collapsed upon itself
We did not have the television on
A lifetime later
I collapsed
Destroyed
When the dust finally settled
There was nothing but destruction
And screams and accusations
of Conspiracy
Some things just happen
For reasons of their own
The way she licked her own skin
Was reason enough
The curve of her
The sweat of her
The smell of her
The essential wrong of her
The arch of her back as the first tower was hit
The curve of her
The tan on her
The taste of her
The unadulterated desire in her
Was reason enough
To commit indifferent treason
For at least one morning
Monday, December 27, 2010
Clint Bullard!
I was born with country and western music in my blood. That’s all we ever listened to in my house growing up. At the age of five, I asked my mother if we could buy a radio that played rock and roll. I did not know that all radios would play rock and roll if you just turned the dial to the correct frequency and it never occurred to my mother that there was anything but country on her radio.
Mom ended up buying a honky-tonk in West Tennessee just a few miles from where Buford Pusser of “Walking Tall” fame was run off the road and killed back in 1970. The place was called the “Pub and Cue” and was a dirty roadhouse that served bootleg whiskey out the back and pickled pig’s feet at the bar. The jukebox was full of country twang, the floor covered in sawdust, spilled beer and blood.
So when my editor suggested that I interview a real country singer, I was happier than a hippie in a bag full of tie die. Until I found out he was from Texas.
Texas has never been known for producing quality country and western music. I mean, really, who have they got? Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys? C’mon! Waylon and Willie? That’s the best you’ve got? Lyle Lovett? David Allen Coe?? The Dixie Chicks?? Lightning Hopkins? Stevie Ray??
So you will understand when I say that I was a little disheartened by this turn of events.
Clint Bullard is from Waco, TX and like a lot of country musicians, Clint began singing in church. He graduated from Baylor University, a Christian college. He is hard working and intelligent. He worked for two years on the production staff of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and was a good friend of Jack Palance. As hard as I dig, I cannot find any scandal in his past. No stints in rehab. He doesn’t do drugs. Happily married to his lovely wife, Tricia, whom he claims he has never cheated on. He doesn’t drink to excess. I know, I tried to get him drunk. I have found out that alcohol is an unbeatable truth serum and I wanted to get at the skeletons hiding in Mr. Bullard’s closet. There weren’t any. No time stuck in prison, no dirty bar brawls, no drunken lawnmower rides through Nashville, nothing.
Lifestyle-wise, Clint Bullard is kind of boring.
Musically speaking, He is not.
Before I met Clint for drinks at Cowboy Bill’s Reloaded, I bought his CD and watched his videos posted on YouTube. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. His music has a jouncy rhythm and a trop-rock delivery that I am not sure was intentional. There are a lot of copycat artists out there but I have the feeling that Clint is just being Clint. He has an adept and easy-going story-telling style both on and off the stage. He carries a wicked sense of humor as casually as he does his guitar. Nothing seems forced with him. He is a genuinely nice guy.
I also found out that not only has Clint shared the stage with some of Nashville’s finest but has co-written with the likes of Highway 101, Tracy Byrd, Brooks and Dunn, and Linda Davis.
I love his songwriting and his delivery on originals such as “Give Me a Bar to Steer By”, a great trop-rock song that deserves more recognition and “Dom Perignon and Left-Over Chicken” has been stuck in my head for a week now. Thanks, Clint…
Key West has some of the finest musicians in the world playing in intimate venues for our enjoyment every day of the year. However, the distinct lack of good old down-home country music and I am positive that I will get many letters disputing this fact, is depressing to say the least. What is a redneck to do with his evenings?
I have a suggestion.
If you find yourself with a hankering in your redneck bone for quality country and western twang, delivered with a mellow energy and a mischievous grin, head on down to the Galleon Resort Tiki Bar and catch one of Clint’s shows. I promise you will have a great time listening to a REAL country and western musician.
He may be from Texas, but we won’t hold that against him.
Mom ended up buying a honky-tonk in West Tennessee just a few miles from where Buford Pusser of “Walking Tall” fame was run off the road and killed back in 1970. The place was called the “Pub and Cue” and was a dirty roadhouse that served bootleg whiskey out the back and pickled pig’s feet at the bar. The jukebox was full of country twang, the floor covered in sawdust, spilled beer and blood.
So when my editor suggested that I interview a real country singer, I was happier than a hippie in a bag full of tie die. Until I found out he was from Texas.
Texas has never been known for producing quality country and western music. I mean, really, who have they got? Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys? C’mon! Waylon and Willie? That’s the best you’ve got? Lyle Lovett? David Allen Coe?? The Dixie Chicks?? Lightning Hopkins? Stevie Ray??
So you will understand when I say that I was a little disheartened by this turn of events.
Clint Bullard is from Waco, TX and like a lot of country musicians, Clint began singing in church. He graduated from Baylor University, a Christian college. He is hard working and intelligent. He worked for two years on the production staff of “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” and was a good friend of Jack Palance. As hard as I dig, I cannot find any scandal in his past. No stints in rehab. He doesn’t do drugs. Happily married to his lovely wife, Tricia, whom he claims he has never cheated on. He doesn’t drink to excess. I know, I tried to get him drunk. I have found out that alcohol is an unbeatable truth serum and I wanted to get at the skeletons hiding in Mr. Bullard’s closet. There weren’t any. No time stuck in prison, no dirty bar brawls, no drunken lawnmower rides through Nashville, nothing.
Lifestyle-wise, Clint Bullard is kind of boring.
Musically speaking, He is not.
Before I met Clint for drinks at Cowboy Bill’s Reloaded, I bought his CD and watched his videos posted on YouTube. I must say I was pleasantly surprised. His music has a jouncy rhythm and a trop-rock delivery that I am not sure was intentional. There are a lot of copycat artists out there but I have the feeling that Clint is just being Clint. He has an adept and easy-going story-telling style both on and off the stage. He carries a wicked sense of humor as casually as he does his guitar. Nothing seems forced with him. He is a genuinely nice guy.
I also found out that not only has Clint shared the stage with some of Nashville’s finest but has co-written with the likes of Highway 101, Tracy Byrd, Brooks and Dunn, and Linda Davis.
I love his songwriting and his delivery on originals such as “Give Me a Bar to Steer By”, a great trop-rock song that deserves more recognition and “Dom Perignon and Left-Over Chicken” has been stuck in my head for a week now. Thanks, Clint…
Key West has some of the finest musicians in the world playing in intimate venues for our enjoyment every day of the year. However, the distinct lack of good old down-home country music and I am positive that I will get many letters disputing this fact, is depressing to say the least. What is a redneck to do with his evenings?
I have a suggestion.
If you find yourself with a hankering in your redneck bone for quality country and western twang, delivered with a mellow energy and a mischievous grin, head on down to the Galleon Resort Tiki Bar and catch one of Clint’s shows. I promise you will have a great time listening to a REAL country and western musician.
He may be from Texas, but we won’t hold that against him.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Raven's Song
Some things just are Key West to me. A rooster perched atop an illegally parked cop car, a drunken drag queen grabbing my junk just because she thinks I am cute, conch fritters, tattooed waitresses, and of course, Raven Cooper.
When the Lovely and I escaped to the Keys almost a decade ago, on a lark, with ten dollars in our pocket, we immediately did two things; spent the ten on Coronas at Capt. Tony’s and heard Raven sing at Sunset Pier. She was doing “Me and Bobby McGee” in a growling whiskey voice so alive that I had to keep staring to make sure that I wasn’t back at the Fillmore in ’69. We were broke, homeless, and completely happy. Our love was so new that it squeaked. Before long, it was working three jobs, paying twelve hundred dollar rents, and accepting responsibilities that we promised each other would never be heaped upon us again.
I told Raven it was our honeymoon, which was almost true, and she gave us her CD as a gift. We carried that disc with us for almost two years and ten thousand miles across this country until The Lovely threw it at me one night somewhere in Wyoming. It was destroyed. I probably deserved it.
I have kept up with Raven’s career over the years and have always wondered why she is not rich and famous by now. No Grammys, no recording contracts. She has an incredible voice and a smoldering stage presence. She sings in six different languages. She is beautiful and funny and can play one mean guitar when provoked. Her ability to take a fantastic song such as Annie Lennox’s “Why” and create something even more powerful is amazing but it is her talent turning a unique rhythmic phrase in original songs such as “It’s a Holdup” that really catch my attention as a writer. I had even heard rumors of her almost going to American Idol and was confused why that never happened.
Every great song has a back story. Raven’s song is no exception. A redneck Mexican/German from Little Rock earning her blues on the streets of Memphis, adding spice to the musical gumbo of New Orleans, blowing the roof off of Montana and every other roadhouse, dive and juke joint along the way. From firsthand experience, the lonely road takes its toll. Bad romances, drugs, alcohol, all fuzzily framed by amusing memories and scars you don’t remember receiving. Or giving. As I sit down with Raven at the Schooner Wharf and listen to her gritty unapologetic truth, I realize how easy it would be to dismiss it all as just another rock and roll cliché’, which it is, reminiscent of early Janis Joplin, almost. It is also the life song of a very talented underappreciated chanteuse. She tells the worst of it with an ambivalent smile and mischievous laughter that says she has taken her punches, swung a few of her own, and surprising even her, has come out of it a better person.
She gives most of the credit to her partner, David. David has become a lot of things to Raven; her manager, father of her child, her videographer, her roadie. If you ask her, however, she will tell you that he is her everything. The love of her life and the guy who helped her kick the drugs by keeping away the bad influences and holding her hand when she didn’t want it held. The respect they share for each other is obvious.
It would be easy to sit here and rehash all the same fluff about Raven Cooper; where and when she plays, her favorite songs to perform, why she moved here, all that crap. I could even go into the reason why she didn’t even go to the American Idol audition. That is not what this story is about. This began as a story of why Raven Cooper epitomizes everything Key West to me. I haven’t merely been rambling.
Her dusky voice reminds me of new loves and sunsets. The days when broke was acceptable and adventure was the raison d’être. Raven also reminds me that, like the rest of us Key West folk, although we are sometimes bruised and misguided and wildly intoxicated; we can always come back home, gather up old friends and make beautiful music together.
When the Lovely and I escaped to the Keys almost a decade ago, on a lark, with ten dollars in our pocket, we immediately did two things; spent the ten on Coronas at Capt. Tony’s and heard Raven sing at Sunset Pier. She was doing “Me and Bobby McGee” in a growling whiskey voice so alive that I had to keep staring to make sure that I wasn’t back at the Fillmore in ’69. We were broke, homeless, and completely happy. Our love was so new that it squeaked. Before long, it was working three jobs, paying twelve hundred dollar rents, and accepting responsibilities that we promised each other would never be heaped upon us again.
I told Raven it was our honeymoon, which was almost true, and she gave us her CD as a gift. We carried that disc with us for almost two years and ten thousand miles across this country until The Lovely threw it at me one night somewhere in Wyoming. It was destroyed. I probably deserved it.
I have kept up with Raven’s career over the years and have always wondered why she is not rich and famous by now. No Grammys, no recording contracts. She has an incredible voice and a smoldering stage presence. She sings in six different languages. She is beautiful and funny and can play one mean guitar when provoked. Her ability to take a fantastic song such as Annie Lennox’s “Why” and create something even more powerful is amazing but it is her talent turning a unique rhythmic phrase in original songs such as “It’s a Holdup” that really catch my attention as a writer. I had even heard rumors of her almost going to American Idol and was confused why that never happened.
Every great song has a back story. Raven’s song is no exception. A redneck Mexican/German from Little Rock earning her blues on the streets of Memphis, adding spice to the musical gumbo of New Orleans, blowing the roof off of Montana and every other roadhouse, dive and juke joint along the way. From firsthand experience, the lonely road takes its toll. Bad romances, drugs, alcohol, all fuzzily framed by amusing memories and scars you don’t remember receiving. Or giving. As I sit down with Raven at the Schooner Wharf and listen to her gritty unapologetic truth, I realize how easy it would be to dismiss it all as just another rock and roll cliché’, which it is, reminiscent of early Janis Joplin, almost. It is also the life song of a very talented underappreciated chanteuse. She tells the worst of it with an ambivalent smile and mischievous laughter that says she has taken her punches, swung a few of her own, and surprising even her, has come out of it a better person.
She gives most of the credit to her partner, David. David has become a lot of things to Raven; her manager, father of her child, her videographer, her roadie. If you ask her, however, she will tell you that he is her everything. The love of her life and the guy who helped her kick the drugs by keeping away the bad influences and holding her hand when she didn’t want it held. The respect they share for each other is obvious.
It would be easy to sit here and rehash all the same fluff about Raven Cooper; where and when she plays, her favorite songs to perform, why she moved here, all that crap. I could even go into the reason why she didn’t even go to the American Idol audition. That is not what this story is about. This began as a story of why Raven Cooper epitomizes everything Key West to me. I haven’t merely been rambling.
Her dusky voice reminds me of new loves and sunsets. The days when broke was acceptable and adventure was the raison d’être. Raven also reminds me that, like the rest of us Key West folk, although we are sometimes bruised and misguided and wildly intoxicated; we can always come back home, gather up old friends and make beautiful music together.
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