The House Was Full of Love and Then Full of More Love and Hard-Earned Wisdom and Whimsy, So Much Said So Simply - The Chris Mason Book Party

A few years from now when books no longer exist and the only things being read will be descriptions of the daily stool samples of the latest 16 year old pop star or of the drug addiction meltdown of some hack pseudo actor on the i-Pad X along with snuff e-magazines giving detailed photos and brief descriptions of daily murders and the most recent flood, drought and/or earthquake, complete with devastating videos one click away, the drones for the privatized "Removal Works" will be loading me up into the van for obsolete laborers who are not employed by search engines, hospitals, rescue agencies or radiation treatment plants.


And just before they slam the lead-lined door of the vehicle that will take me to the factory that will convert me into soylent green I will have one last tiny bit of courage and will and yell out "People once read books! Even poetry! And not only that, one warm Sunday in March, 2011, a book of poetry was published by a thing called Narrow House. It was written by a man named Chris Mason and not only was he not 18, he was not carried into the show in a giant egg carried by servants. In fact he drove up on his own volition in a kind of battered family type station wagon, his grown talented daughter Elizabeth seated beside him.


"People turned out in great numbers for the event of this publication and hung on the words of his verse. Music was played. The bald one calling himself 'Dierker' played so swift and passionately that his likeness could not be captured on camera except as a demonic blur! Surely there must be a copy of Chris' book Hum Who Hiccup surviving somewhere. Ask Secretary of Defense Justin Sirois. He once ran Narrow House before he renounced the printed word and art. Colonel Qaddafi's all female security force shall avenge not only my death, but the death of all booksellers!"

Above are proud Narrow House publishers holding the fine new book, which contains most if not all of his poetry from the last decade or so, including his dreamt poems of poet friends, "Homeric Hums" and the beautiful spare "Hiccups" themselves. As Jamie Gaughan-Perez held the book up someone yelled out "Lauren Bender, if the book is as good as you say and you are truly so proud of it, pose as if you are hypnotized and being forced to stare at the nude engorged wang of Mel Gibson with a small anvil attached to it". And indeed she did.

Kickstarting the event was young Robert Michael O'Brien, curator of the WORMS readings. I wish I had had a notebook with me to jot down a few quotes that really grabbed me since my retention rate is that of a banana peel, but two of his pieces grabbed me in particular. One was about being pulled over by a cop late at night and the officer is impressed by his love and feeling for life and expresses his own lack of such feeling. It was not all Ice-T hatin' on the cops, just using the uncomfortable situation of being halted on the roadside as a vehicle for getting across the inexpressible.

Another standout was his chant-like piece that included the lines "The body is power/The abandonment of body is power". Which made me think of the Gang of Four's "Our bodies make us worry". What more needs to be said?

Taking the stage of the re-vitalized Red Room of Normal's Books & Records next was an expanded trio version of The Tinklers with Downtown Blood on My Spatz Peyton on ukelele. His slick licks interwove nicely with Charles' slide guitar excursions. Recently the Tinklers have added "Bully of the Town" from the Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music to their set. I would love for them to take on an extended project of covering that entire groundbreaking collection with various friends sitting in.

Also sitting in on a few Tinklers' songs was Chris' talented daughter Elizabeth. She sang on "Splash Splash" and did an acapella duet of "I'm Sticking With You" with her pops that was truly moving. Long long ago Elizabeth interned at Normal's and when things were slow we would get her to play the hell out of Bartok and Stravinsky on the old Red Room piano. And Elizabeth, like her dad, being both a populist and a consumate artist, would be playing beautiful, complicated classical pieces on the piano while at the same time talking loudly to Courtney about how she wanted to be a cheerleader.

And here be just a slice of the crowd in attendance. Study them well! The swarthy bearded one there, in foreground in white t-shirt - surely he is a threat to homeland security? And the one in the maroon hoodie, next to the one they call "Magus" who resembles a choirboy, surely his dry laconic joking covers for a heartless hatred for pickup trucks, reality shows and the right to keep impoverished people from having health care.

Speaking of choirboy Magus, here he is reading along with Chris on the poem that Chris dreamed of him. I believe this piece is called "I Will Read Every Poem In This Book Except The One for Rupert, Despite His Being Seated Right There in the Front Row Making Doe Eyes At Me". I have to say that the whole reading Chris did was masterful, but this was probably my favorite piece of the day. The two readers really worked well together and the sounds and words resonated like a big old gong on Kung Fu.

And speaking of that long gone loved show that would be most likely torturously bad today if I were to view an episode, what to make of this bald master, Grasshopper? Here is reed king John Dierker playing with the energetic dynamic improv trio Microkingdom, along with drummer Will Redman and guitarist Marc Miller. Dierker's passionate face while playing is so difficult to capture on camera that he made a five figure deal with both MAC and Windows where you have to pay for a special APP that will present him clearly. And clearly I cannot afford that.

All in all, a great day. Beautiful words read well conveying strong messages of caring and hope. Goofy music of love and concern for all people and nature. And the underloved cash register of Normal's was embraced by wallet food!

But if all this wasn't magic enough, when the show was over and no one was left in the store other than me and Anthony, Anthony told me that none other than Kima Greggs (Sonja Sohn) of The Wire popped in the store looking for a book during the show! Luckily I didn't notice her or I would have left everyone with a bad taste in their mouth for the event by breaking down into some kind of Jerry Lewis spazz out. Truly her presence was a sign that we were all on the right path!

Cheers to Chris Mason for creating writing from both the head and heart that will withstand the horrors of time and to Narrow House for containing so much of it so well within a beautiful object once known as "book".

Shattered Wig 28 Revealed Among Nests and Felons, Bearing Great Love

It had been two years since I last cobbled together a Shattered Wig and I was feeling it. A bunch of all nighters to meet the "deadline" of the publication party while the new comforts of home and marriage called out to me: "Silly old man, look at you cut and paste like a 12 year old. Who will read your Wig? Put it all down, walk away from the scrap covered floor and get under the winter blankets with that new printing of that crazy Charles Williams pulp novel you got. Or think about how long it's been since you've seen "Clockwork Orange". Pop in a little horrorshow. Look how warm and inviting Everly is there despite how she loves to keep the window open in 30 degree weather with an industrial strength metal fan two inches from her head. You are a near broke, near old man - you might as well be well rested."



I went to bed around 3 a.m. the night before the show without having written any introduction, which I like to have for future reference, each issue being a little buoy floating on the ever rougher surface waves of my consciousness. I jumped up the next morning with just enough sleep not to feel completely like shit, but not enough to let my body realize how much more it desired. Got right down to the coffee and introduction and by 12:30 it was done. I quickly called reliable Rob at wonderful Work Printing (762 Washington Blvd off Martin Luther. They are suspiciously friendly and helpful!) If they didn't exist, neither would the tiny Wig.



"Hey Rob, I finally finished, can I bring it over now?"



"Sure, no problem. Just be careful."



"Careful? What do you mean?"



"It's snowing outside."



Panic! My old pal and bedrock Shattered Wig contributor Blaster Al's arch nemesis - the dread white substance that lines the street and renders shoes useless: snow. Then I had to chuckle. Here it was the melancholic first Wig Night with Blaster now living back in Texas and it was snowing. Last year he said he felt as bad as he did back in Vietnam being penned in by all the snow and ice.




And of course a big enough snow can be a "promoter's" nightmare. Hard enough competing these days for a crowd in overbooked Baltimore without competing with Nature itself.


Luckily, it was just a little scare and a cosmic joke to get me laughing with Blaster. As Rob, Debbie and I devoured some fine pizza and the Wigs rolled off the machines like a backwards slaughter house shooting out unslaughtered pigs, the snow became a brief dusty memory left by the slate gray sky.

It felt good to be back at the 14 Karat Cabaret, a brand new issue piled high on the rickety old card table that erstwhile soundman Ronnie had already set up for me. The crowd started up early and there were a lot of new faces.

Originally, Neoist plotter, anti-science buff (but highly erotically charged lover of Der Kindle) John "Pego" Berndt was going to bring a little Blaster Al to the proceedings by reading some of Blaster's new poetry that he's written since taking the Southern plunge, but John went down with one of the many flus that seemed to hit hard and early this year. In his stead, which was supposed to be in Blaster's stead, I opened the show (to a nice crowd of 70 people or so) by reading Blaster's letter in the new Wig about his epic Greyhound trip from Baltimore to Austin.

R.M. O'Brien ("Bob" to his arresting officers) took the stage next and whupped up and loved on it. He is not only the curator of the diverse and well attended WORMS reading series, but a great poet and performer. He mixed a nice Gregory Corso poem into his mix as well as one by an old friend of his. Inspiring stuff and well received.

Following Robert was Emily Peterson Crespo, world traveler, linguist and co-founder of the Follow the Buffalo Workshop and reading series. She read poems about and/or inspired by her trip to Egypt and I definitely think there is a novel or travel book in there. She made many references to the fine bottle of wine that she and her hubby Joe had had to wolf down at the restaurant before the show, not wanting to be wasteful. She told me Saturday that not only did she have a good time, but that she was hungover. That is all I ask of these shows - that at least one of our performers wakes up the next day with a big old rubber sack on their back. In the old days when my hair climbed toward the skies making even Gene Wilder scared, I wouldn't crawl out of bed after a Wig Night until about 3 the next day. Shame!

Above is the mischievous enigma known as Ryan Walker. As I said that night when introducing him, I always suspect there's something he knows that he's not telling us. Always that small quirky shadow of a smile. He has a great reading style of something like Steven Wright reading the nightly news as written by Zippy the Pinhead. Often he will stop and laugh at what he has just read, as if he has seen it for the first time.

One of the bonuses for me of Shattered Wig Nights, are surprise guests like Mary of an old group I was in called Groovy Like a Pig and Andy of the group Red Dogma from the early '80s. Red Dogma actually could have gone places, except two of the members went to a place indeed - Australia, when they married. Andy has since had the pleasure of playing and recording with Roland Howard. Mary is a bounty hounter.

This Wig Night had many facets of joy. One was the reunion of sorts of the group above. That's Michael and Tony Lambright, formerly of the much loved Madagascar group. This night was the first time they played on stage with Justin, also of Madagascar, as "Nests Revealed". More of an electro ambient sound this time. Great to hear these guys again.

Ah, then there's the unwashed wild straight outta Westport antics of The Baltimore String Felons. I've had the pleasure of hearing these hobos many a time and not just because the stringy wild-eyed fiddler is my genius nephew Geff. They have brought old country and Americana music into the seething weirdness of the modern world with their very own sound. 98% of their songs are their own, but they have a quality of a really detailed strange hand carved thing that you always saw on your grandmother's cupboard next to her dandelion wine. They have an album already recorded and in the can, so I hope someone with a few dollars and some distribution contacts hook them up. I know we'd be able to move quite a few hot units of it at Normal's Bargain Cobbley World.

And so ended another Wig Night. The lovely bundled up Madame Drogoule retreating out the door with her strict taskmaster Buff Joe Medusa, who still dangled some hope before me that one day I may get to play the Richard Burton part in a stage version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" directed by him. And the cherry on the cake of the fantastic evening was that the new issue flew off the table, as well as quite a few books. Nothing makes me happier than the thought of people sitting down at night to a Wig. I truly love the writers there-in and wish them all the luck and readers in the world.

Baltimore String Felons and R.M. O'Brien to Foist Joy Upon The Shattered Wig 28 Publication Party

The lineup for what I hope will be the Shattered Wig Review #28 publication party (I would have gotten a hell of a lot done two Fridays ago if not for the damn BGE outage!) is almost nailed down. It looks to be a fine night of rapture.

Of course this being modern day Baltimore there will be tons of other cool things going on, including a Sea Couch and Forks of Ivy show (traitors), but we will have a shiny new issue sporting the menacing front cover you see smack dab in the middle of the top of this "page".

And although I truly have grown to hate the ubiquitous "Boh" man, I can stand him with a top hat and a banjo.........

Here is the lineup for the December 10th Shattered Wig party at the glorious, glamorous, forbidden, luxurious, decadent, legendary 14 Karat Cabaret:

R.M. O'Brien - poet, emcee/curator of the fantastic WORMS reading series
Emily Crespo - - poet, traveler, alchemist.
Ryan Walker - D.C. poet extraordinaire, friend to all.

The Baltimore String Felons. Fantastic timelessly weird old American folk music with a punk edge. It will Mikey the lead singer's birthday so don't be a weenie - buy him a beer!
Tests. Music featuring two members of the dearly missed group Madagascar.

Here is what the City Paper had to show about a String Felons show they did a while back with Balti Mare.

Earlier in the night, the Baltimore String Felons offered their own unique twist on folk traditions, theirs being more distinctly American. And what’s so refreshing about the weirdo folk acts in Maryland, as opposed to say New York or California, is that we’re not so far from Appalachia that the musicians seem more connected to those influences, and more likely to have actual family roots. The String Felons, with their fiddle and banjo twang, have a definite mountain sound in their so-called “inner city doomgrass,” even with its oddball twists, including songs that detail the assassination of JFK or choruses that howl “please don’t kill me.” And like Balti Mare, the combination of tradition and playful irreverence is what makes the String Felons work.

Shattered Wig Review 28 Sneak Preview #2

War

I've got it in my head to start a war.

But I think my war could be a good war, a just war.

A war of medals and brotherhood and good-natured cussing and yes trench-foot and shrapnel and tears but the trench-foot of dark infant glory, the shrapnel of stately limps, the tears of chaste nationalistic Teresas, of breath-taking panoramic landscape cast of thousands.

In my war all troop formations will conform to the Golden Ratio.

In my war all bombing targets will be chosen by the I Ching.

In my war the enemy comes running straight for you naked except for war & skewers himself on your bayonet & no blood just small clear rivers of war & his god will carry his soul straight to heaven & your god will make sure you never die in a war.

(In my war one thousand twenty-four Myrmidons stack responsibility papers in deep garbage cans of war.)

This isn't a meditation, this is an alibi.

Oh and there will be many alerts. I will paint war in the most beautiful colors. My war will look good in the living room or den.

A soldier long at war in my war will clutch a small bird a short distance from a village where a boy on a rooftop will be mistaken for the devil and shot. The bird will be warm in his hand—he will let it go.

& there will be spirited and beautiful movements against my war. The youth will spend their youth on war. Large war signs proclaiming NO WAR. Kissing, drinking each other's tears, they will come of age in a time of war.

I will make war impossible. I will make war safe & navigable. I will seek to make war more transparent. I will constantly seek greater transparency in my war.

My war will destroy anything approaching within 200 miles.

In my war all snipers will be certified judges and will grant all targets a speedy trial before shooting them in the head.

In my war everyone had a way out.

Every outpost will be supplied with an authentic Tibetan monk who will be given the necessary firepower to reliably enforce reincarnation on the ground.

In my war no one asks and no one tells.

And just as you are crawling out of the reach of the mortar fire you will come upon a mound of angelfaced young bodies stabbed to death with the sharpened ends of rose stems. And the roses will continue to bloom!

Kiss everyone you've wanted to kiss. It's time for war.

I'm beating a drum!

I'm getting some action!

I'm driving out all Poisons!

—R.M. O'Brien


R.M. O'BRIEN was born in Oswego, New York in 1983. He was awarded a BA in Liberal Studies from Purchase College only after he agreed to pay $50 to be registered in a "dummy" class. If he is known at all, it is probably as the principal songwriter and singer for Nuclear Power Pants. To date, O'Brien has self-published a small handful of poetic tracts which he leaves around wherever, and he curates the monthly reading series WORMS in Baltimore, Maryland, where he lives with a man, a woman, and a dog.