The Incomparable Amanda Pollock On The Incomparable Blaster Al

Blaster

You had moved in to Normals and seemed to like it.
Who was this new denizen of the murky book nook?
Rupert quaked and burbled in your presence, which made me wanna
Quake and burble too.
Soon after first meeting you… I would don the wretched yellow
Bathing suit and drag you around town for a night or two…
Or was it a week in that fucking thing?
You said the strangest things in the night that I could never quite remember... but you were quite serious
With the beer drinking quietude in the daytime.
And that always made me feel unsure… which turns out is
Something I thrive on.

Ca- Rack o Canned Beer! o yeah from the corner… and a swift Quay sashay…
You had a chair there… but I could swear it was a fucking merkahbah
You had access to… I was convinced you were an honest
To god time traveler. I liked that you liked beer how I liked beer.

Then one day I decided to pack up and leave... Rupert bought all my books which would end up being what I had to move away with. We had going away party… I heard that someone was getting a champagne enema in the basement and I wanted to go and look but you stopped me and you gave me One of your pastel 8 by 10 drawings… I think it was a self-portrait of you barely held inside a red Bathrobe… the NYC skyline in the background and the words… "Welcome to New York" were written in black oily scrawl. All the hair on the exposed body looked like gray ramen… how’d you do that? Shoo.

I seen done been so many fucking things since way back then… and from my travels I have very little left to show…. but that I held onto and still can admire. When I look at it… I remember all of us… fearlessly fucked up and all friends and friendly. Last time I saw you… you had yer soap in mouth maw a flappin… and out of the sudsy garbled sides flew your one of kind poetry. I knew it that first day I laid eyes on ya and also the last day… I was lucky… we were lucky when you decided to move into Normals.

- Amanda Pollock

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Amanda Pollock is a singer songwriter, author, former nurse and undeniable force of nature. In the haze and fuzz of '90s Baltimore she was a member of the musical assault circus troupe Cloaca.

Shattered Wig Review 28 Sneak Preview #3

Hotdog





With the end of the day ahead of us, the city streets have finally burned off the stale urine smell from the night before. This time of a day is a good time of day for New Yorkers. They browse the parks and storefronts. Families share milkshakes, dogs strain at the end of their leashes to get to the dog run, and the denizens of Tompkins Square let their hair down. One of the more famous of them, a short, fat black gal everyone calls Hotdog, is running down the path in a lavender prom dress that is entirely unzipped. Her hair stands straight up on her head like Don King and she is double fisted with booze and cigarettes. Sometimes when you see her, she is laughing and friendly, other times she is like a fighting pit-bull. Today, she seems happy even though she is out of her mind. Hotdog plops down next to two drunk Indians who are fighting over a butt. One of them grabs the pack out of her hand and takes three cigarettes out of the rumpled pack. At first, Hotdog doesn't seem to care, but a slow reckoning comes over her and it rises in her like a rogue wave. Her dress falls away from her body. She bolts up, her saggy brown boobs hang in front of her like two baseball bats. She smashes the bottle down onto the side of the thieving drunk Indian's head and there is soon a bloody gash where before there had been a hat. "Hooooooooooooowl," the Indian cries out as he grabs his head. "Ah shit," says the other. "You know better than that man, that's fuckin' Hotdog man!" Hotdog stands over him, defiant as ever, waiting for the outcome I suppose. When nothing happens, she sits back down between them and hands the injured Indian a cigarette and says "Here ya go". And there they sit. They share the bottle, the lighter and are silent. Another man who often spends his time in the park and who looks like a pimp daddy Colonel Sanders, walks over to the three and snaps, "Pull that goddamn dress up Hotdog! I don't want to see yer mammies out like that!" Hotdog lets out a laugh that turns into a hacking cough. She does nothing to fix the dress and the Colonel walks away. I leave the area and head north side where the Barnyard Playboys are setting up to play at the Lakeside Lounge. I see the boys loading equipment into the bar and I tell them about Hotdog.






Everyone has a Hotdog story. One dude saw Hotdog beat the shit out of Lisa Brown on Ave. A all because L.B. said "Hi Hotdog". Another dude said he saw Hotdog when he was on acid and she followed him down the street saying "mmmmmmmmmm I wanna hold you baby mmmmmmmm.....I wanna do that with you honey." He said she morphed into a blob-like creature and he ran from her and got away somehow. It was about time to go on stage. The crowd had grown to be a packed house. Nicely drunk and on other things.....we played music and we danced. Funny songs like "My Blue Denim Diaper" and "Liquor Heaven". The music causes folks to laugh and throw empty beer cans at our heads. By 3am, I am ready to go. I want to escape the hot stinky room and make my way home through the cooling Tompkins Square air. I head back home the same way I came, I have an odd desire to see Hotdog again....or see if the Indian is dead from a serious head injury, or if the Colonel is getting a hand-job from one of the many runaways he seems to attract. I get to the benches of infamy, and the area is unusually empty. I see Hotdog though. Still in her prom dress, though it is pulled up now and somewhat zipped. She is sitting on a bench. On the ground, at her feet, is a wacked out crusty kid who is rocking back and forth. He has got Hotdog's filthy feet in his hands and he is giving her a rockin' foot rub. I don't quite believe what I am seeing. Her eyes are shut, he is humming some strange song, kinda sounds like "I Never Wanna Dance Again" by George Michael. He brushes her rotted feet across his cheek and I feel my beer coming back up into my mouth. I am surprised by the throw up in my mouth. I spit. And Hotdog's eyes dart open. We catch eyes for a second and then her eyes close again. I hurry on home.





- Amanda Pollock

A Shattered Wig Night Oasis - 1/29/10

Courtney McCullough of the Lockhorns with artist
and 14 Karat Cabaret overlord genius Laure Drogoul.


Goodloe Byron, author of The Abstract and
Revisions Of, reading from his forthcoming free
book, The Wraith.


Blaster Al Ackerman with Geff Stewart and Beth Dinsick

Geff "Soft Serve" Stewart getting spiritual with it.

Courtney doing Lockhorns solo.

Poets Tom DiVenti and Chris Toll.

Actor, model, dancer, writer, Billy Bob Thornton look-

alike John Eaton on the left with artist and musician

Scott Larson.

Amanda Copeland of Sea Couch.

Dan Dorsey of Sea Couch and one of the Pasadena

music mafia. How the hell so many good musicians came

out of that hellhole in the same generation is a mystery

on the scale of "Village of the Damned".

Tears of joy and gratitude for John Dierker and his work.

Redbird getting up to some pre-set snugglin'.

Amanda Pollock of Redbird, formerly of Velvet Mafia and Cloaca.

Now I never served in Falluja or Nam or been a native in those places living sleepless in fear avoiding death by lead or fire volleys, thank God, nor have I served in the Red Cross during one of the many incidents that wipes countless humans off the Earth like a half asleep waitress wiping a coffee spattered lunch counter, nor have I shivered through nights of hypothermia in a small embankment up on an impassable mountain crag, but goddamned I'm freaking tired. And I never say "freaking". "Fucking" just seems so un-blog-like.

Four months of brain and soul penetration by a mortgage company to prove I am of standard enough fleshly issue to own a house, and a great great house it is with singing hardwood floors and jaunty one year old roof, followed by two weeks of muling two apartment loads of books and records has my yarbles and my lower lip dragging the pavement. Please, kind sir, a week of no moving, no work drama/collapse and no friends dying so I can get my dull on and spend all seven of those sweet days floating away on our new woolly mammoth of a couch reading book after book that I just packed and unpacked. Such sweet marvels, many that I'd forgotten!

That said, in the middle of this oddly domestic period of bliss mixed with crippling stiffness landed a Shattered Wig Night of Extreme Warmth and Grandeur. Not only did an old friend and former Baltimore rock star/provocateur/stream of consciousness wizard/wearer of supremely unique hubble jubble clothing Amanda Pollock descend from the Great North to play with her new duo Redbird, but Lockhorn songwriter and singer and old old friend of Normal's and Shattered Wig, Courtney McCullough, got flown in for his 50th birthday by his wife and mother.

My giddy feelings of love for Courtney and all the other acts on the bill this night could fill more Harlequin romances than your Aunt Padonia Road contains in her dumbwaiter. We got a huge crowd also, despite part of Saratoga St. being iced over by a broken water main and a huge huge show at the G Spot.

The night ended for me with a Time Machine moment when I was waiting for Courtney to arrive back from closing up the Mount Royal Tavern after the show so he could break in our new couch. We had attempted to find a bed at IKEA in time for his arrival, but we both were so fuddled from fatigue and IKEA's maddening mix and match overlit showrooms that we bolted after woofing down their cafeteria carbo-load wares (saving two of the rubbery "Swedish" meatballs for Max in napkins in my coat pocket).

I let Courtney in about 2:30 or so and he walked in holding Amanda's moon boots and looking sheepish. I was transported back 15 years or so except I should have been in Courtney's place. Asking him what was up he pointed down the shadowy street (lined with all our new unknown neighbors) to a graying ragtag post-bar time party headed our way.

Hopefully this show struck for others as it did me old roads and loves and the new and upcoming. But like watching "To Sir With Love" the first time and losing it when Lulu has her moment, this night was so tender it hurt.

An Extra Special Shattered Wig Night of Extreme Grandeur & Warmth - Friday, Jan. 29th

Shattered Wig Night Of Extreme Grandeur & Warmth -1/29/10


Redbird
John Dierker
Sea Couch

Goodloe Byron
Al Ackerman

With very special guest floating about in the crowd brandishing a cocktail: Courtney McCullough



Could it be nearly the end of whatever this last decade was called? The Oughts? The Naughts? How it flew by, taking with it most of my head hair and a lot of what was left of my belief in the goodness of humanity or faith that we can beat all the weird new viruses and microbes and booger bears and religious extremist wack jobs.

But then again the Harry Smith Anthology of Folk Music just get reissued on vinyl as did Roscoe Holcomb's "High Lonesome Sound" and The i.e. Series Reader has been published after much anticipation, so I guess there's still some spin left on the over-heated gumball of Earth, even if the polar bears are already being slated to go out next after the art of civilized debate.

How did I get on this, dear reader or two. Maybe it's because I just came from visiting an old friend in the ICU, a wonderfully strange old friend who just happened to be the guy who introduced me to my beloved, where I saw him without consciousness or words stuck to more tubes than I've ever seen in one place. The fact that we had to put on astronaut gear before we could even see him lent an extra otherworldly helplessness and removal from what we know as life. This after hearing the gifted guitarist Jack Rose died at 38 from a heart attack last week. We wish our friend well and all of us each one struggling with this sometimes cold and eery world.

The good and gooder news is the lineup for the next Shattered Wig Night that just happens to also be a bit of a birthday party for former Baltimore bon vivant, musician and Normal's employee, Courtney McCullough. He has just hit the half century mark and his wife Sabra and mother, Sri Rebecca the Desert Vixen, bought him a plane ticket back to Harm City from New Mexico so he could catch this show. I will take this moment to brag that I got lucky and was able to get Brett Sparks of the transcendent Handsome Family to play at Courtney's true birthday party at the Press Club in Albuquerque. There is a small, tiny chance I may be able to land the Family here when they come through Baltimore in the Spring.


As luck would have it, two days before finding out Courtney would be here, I had gotten a call from Amanda Pollock, another Baltimore legend who ran back in the '90s, looking for a booking. Amanda is an incredible vocalist, kind of in the soul folk category, who has done time with The Barnyard Playboys, The Velvet Mafia, Cloaca and many others, but also has always been mainly a solo vocalist with her own guitar accompaniment. She has a new duo in New York called Redbird and I'm excited to hear what she's been up to the last year besides writing twisted memoirs for her writing class.

Also performing is another great duo, this one local - Sea Couch, consisting of Dan Dorsey on banjo ukulele and regular uke and his fiance Amanda Copeland (she of the brightest smile) on banjo. Both warble pleasingly. Dan has the most clean picking style I've heard lately. He also plays in The Same Damn Thing and was in the Pasadena supergroup The Jumping Off Point and Other Moments of Grace. He also did this show's flyer, pictured above, saving me from another one of my tacky '80s School cut and pastes.

Knowing that Courtney would be in town for this special event, I had to muscle his favorite musician, John Dierker, into playing. Solo. Naked soul up against the wall of Oblivian demanding answers.

Our visiting reader this show is a novelist I've been wanting to book for a while, Goodloe Byron, author of The Abstract and Revisions Of. The Abstract truly reminds me at times of Flann O'Brien and Phil Dick, which is some fine company. Plus Goodloe is an interesting 21st Century Lamont Cranston kind of presence so I'm curious to hear him hold forth.

And of course it wouldn't truly count as Shattered Wig Night without Blaster Al. He's been on a particularly good roll of late, despite his recent mugging right on the front porch where he and I live with the reclusive millionaire Shuggie Berndt. The streets of this town are starting to really feel sinsiter again. Times are beyond hard. Rigor mortis stiff to the point of twisting.

At the 14 Karat Cabaret. Doors open at 9pm and the cover charge is a whopping $6 since we're top heavy with performers, aged ones, ones that have various monkeys to keep in silk smoking jackets.