Normal's 21st Anniversary

Where did 21 years go and which window did they exit from? From nine we are now 4. Not too many violent incidents and throwdowns considering the length and weight of the project, really. This year's anniversary wingding was somewhat more sale based than last year's big 20th anniversary blowout, but we got some great musicians to donate some time and talent and to saturate our walls with more aural goodness.
One of my all-time favorite sets of music in the last few years was Susan Alcorn (above) playing Senor Gnostic Moonbeam Higgs Christmeastermass at Normal's. She started out riffing on Hawaiian pedal steel flourishes, soared into the stratosphere and then somehow made a landing into "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". She played another beautiful set for the Anniversary show to kick things off. By the end of it I was a luminous jellyfish pulsating on the ocean floor.
Following Madame Alcorn and digging their tender young heels in as the mobs next door loved up on the mad 30% off sale, was Sea Couch. I've been following these guys since they were selling LSD behind the catholic high school in Tiimonium and they only get better each time. This time their voices in particular seemed to really have found new heights of expression. One new song that is featured on the Love-a-saurus compilation sounds like an Appalachian hybrid of a Japanese koto song. Amanda's voice effortlessly found an eerie high pitched music box quality. They also did a wonderful song about the belief that you will find your true love that was straight forward and inspiring without being sentimental. They didn't mention who it was by and I confess I didn't recognize it. Maybe Daniel Johnston? I will have to ask young Dan, if he is still speaking to me after he caught me stealing the chapstick from his mother's purse.
Here is Amanda of Sea Couch snuggling against Geff of The Baltimore String Felons who later that night would have their cd release party at the Free Farm in Hampden. I actually rose back up from my crypt a second time that day and made it to their show. Being twice as old as everyone there (other than fellow Aged Pursuers of the Dream Chairman Rachel and Giant China) and openly displaying every craggy loss and crushed hope of my many years, the oiled up youth gasped and wept as I crawled through them leaving a trail of dust that when caught in the right light could pass for glitter.

Happily I was rewarded by catching Sea Couch for the second time in one day and catching for the first time "Her Fantastic Cats". This gent was on fire and I'm not entirely sure what all he was doing on guitar and in his songwriting but it was fresh. Kind of Delta blues crossed with post-punk angular guitar lines like Mission of Burma or something. And there was something resembling verses in the lyrics, but they had a structure all their own.

Right before the String Felons was The Return of the Bowlegged Gorilla. Those Gorilla had been tending lawns in Glendale, California for a few months. Working for an hour or so shirtless by the pool as idle wealthy female executives hopped up on prescription weight loss pills ogled his primal form.
Above is the Jersey Contingent that arrived. Tina is brandishing her copy of "Hairspray" that she just bought from Normal's. I promised her to one day get her one that is signed by the Low Lord of Baltmore himself, Herr Waters.
Probably the biggest surprise of the day was the appearance of former DC punk rocker and former Baltimore maneater Anne Bonafede. Back in 1982 when I first met Anne I was in a group called Neighbors' Children and eaten up with jealousy over Anne's old band Chalk Circle. They played one show and were on some WGNS cassette compilations and they were legendary!!! Anne played a wildly pounding poly-rhythmic drum battery while her best pal Sharon Cheslow (The Chez) beat out unpredictable chords on guitar.

As fate will occasionally throw us a good bone while wars spread like wildfire and wildfires spread like Mid-East wars, the amazing Oregon label Mississippi Records somehow found out about Chalk Circle (perhaps Ms. Cheslow's current notoriety in the LA free music scene?) and has released a full length lp of what is probably their entire recorded history, along with a generous beautifully done large booklet. There is a hilarious part in the booklet where Don Fleming of Velvet Monkeys and Dim Stars relates how he was blown away by catching Chalk Circle live. He approached Bonafede (who at that time looked like a cross between young Linda Ronstadt and The Cheshire Cat) and said that surely she must have been studying African poly-rhythmic drumming or something to come up with her unique style. Anne guilelessly responded that no, she was inspired by Tony DeFranco's "It's a Heartbeart, It's a Lovebeat".
Despite (or because of) a two night battle against a petulant panang curry, Normal's co-owner, Red Room impresario and graphic designer commando John Berndt performed a sweet saxophone solo.
Local brain wizards Megan McShea, Linda Franklin and Stephanie Barber soak in some 'Pants. Sweatpants have talked about moving into a new format of pipe organ, ukulele, Yes vocals processed through swimming pool filters and vibraphone, but for this show they were kicking out old school. Head trouser Adam Robinson of Publishing Genius Press even jumped from the bass drum and performed an impassioned version of Springsteen's "Racing In the Streets". The gent on the right from above stopped by the store to talk to me about some textbook sellling project and then the next thing he and I knew he was deep in the web of the 'Pants, intoxicated by their heavy musk.

All in all an enjoyable day and a successful sale (praise Allah!). It was even later reported that enigmatic magazine distributor Chris Stadler lost his lunch afterwards from drinking too much of the free party coffee from Dunkin' Donuts on an empty stomach and then going home wobbly to combat the queasiness with V-8 juice and Valerian root(?)

Normal's lives another day to push an exquisite second edition of Kafka's The Castle with intro by Thomas Mann across the counter and to hold out the hope that perhaps this year, this 22nd year of retail, could be the magical year that The Man Whose Ass Is Made of Cake will pull up in his convertible Lexus and for the very first time plunk down a five spot for a book.

Many thanks to all the beautiful folks who over the years have supported us, provided us with great informative conversation and/or sold their treasures to us. Despite the collapse of Western Civilization, the Unearthly Birth of the Kindle and the dumbing down of America, a used bookstore is still the best organism to live within.

"Yay Empty Spider Catches Fire" by Blaster Al Ackerman

I've been having too much fun with four out of town visitors a few weeks ago and then a glorious escape to Chincoteague Island, but it's made me fall way behind on posts. Here is a fresh morsel
from Blaster Al that came in the mail while we were away.


Yay Empty Spider Catches Fire


When empty spider crumpled in the gutter
gross this must be to those choosing sleep with my sweet clock choosing to eat
real clamor, real chamois, then over my kidney stone my sweet clock's blazing
and my drizzling bone on my desk
for the locker in my lap
let me fight them off with my Saturday afternoons
towelette when having sandwich reveal my paste hole
soon my squealing ladder mice go charging up the hill
but to be really out of it,
see how tongue shadow quivers on the page
and hopping toward the spat sardines
we'll be better too, better than your whistled eye, gasoline
helps taste the shadow in your sock that's friendship for you
but it's also obscure and nothing should be obscure when it's on fire

(thanks to JMB of 1/26/11 etc.)

"Say It With Writing" At Barber's Salon Lafeyette

Yowzah, yowzah, yowzah what a weekend last weekend was. Great old favorite friends dropping from the skies like paratroopers with chocolates and well-trained French can-can dancers. First got word that Courtney "Camel" McCullough was flying in for a "Baltimore bachelor weekend" (thanks Sabra! Although it would have been great to see you, also. Reggie can man the helm), then got word that Nancy from Groovy Like a Pig and one of the co-founders of Shattered Wig Review was also popping in from Detroit.

As if all those sweet surprises weren't enough for one weekend Chris Mason, one of Baltimore's most seasoned and open-hearted experimental poets was reading at Stephanie Barber's Salon and he asked me to be his date. It is a neighborhood that sports about as many pieces of plywood as windows and Chris was afraid it might send him spiraling back to his early dark days of alley crawling in search for a long moist piece of jimson weed. I would be his puritan escort, leaving my thong at home and bringing along my King James.

Other than Chris, the lineup was comprised of well-credentialed New York folks, who were very sharp, fresh and accessible. My one criticism is that I wish the multi-media trio would have closed the show. My own personal prejudice with shows is that the acts should be layered by volume. That once the sound barrier has been pierced by drums and electronics it's hard to get back to a lone human voice. But then again I still like to watch "The Andy Griffith Show".

Part of it might also be that for me the trio was so successful. Often with that kind of setup it can feel like three disparate parts kind of working on their own at the same time, but these guys really enhanced each other. The story at its core was great and would love to read more by its author, which I think was Michael Barron. The lineup is posted below as Stephanie wrote it up.

Stephanie was a great host, crackling electricity as always, and the space left plenty room for psychic expansion despite local marauders The Smelling Salts from the Northside being there, yelling "Time for a beatdown" between each set.


Michael Barron, James Copeland and William Rahilly will be presenting “Hot Face,” a new performance of video, music, and text by the same arrangement of people that brought you “The Pigeon” (Poetry Time at Space Space, 2010) and “Horn One” (Bowery Poetry Club, 2010). See Aa description of their work at the Poetry Project website. Michael is an editor at New Directions and a member of Supermachine and Holy Spirits. James is Managing Director of Ugly Duckling Presse and the author of misc chapbooks, most recently Fax II, and he collaborated with Will on Fade to Fax, the first 7″ from Unicorn Evil Records. Will is a video maker and musician. Trailer for Hot Face.

Nicole Trigg lives in Brooklyn, binds and repairs books, and co-curates the CROWD reading series. Writing is (was or will be) featured in Flying Fish, Cap Gun, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Love Among the Ruins, and on the website Ink Node. View recent work at http://www.loveamongtheruins.com/nicole-trigg.html

Chris Mason has lived in Baltimore for 40 years, is the author of several books, and plays music with The Tinklers and Old Songs.

No finer backdrop for a reading than this Claus Oldenburg-like piece behind the saintly and brilliant Chris Mason.

"Intact Animal" (Globetrotter Mickey Cutler) Presents a Night That Enters The Future Through The Backdoor

People under 30 often ask me as I attempt to wheedle some change from them outside a 7-11 or Dunkin' Donuts, "Gosh Mr. Cabbage Hat, what was Baltimore like in the '80s and '90s with all that crack and murder and lack of fabulous stuff?"

Well, let me tell you, it was just as fabulous, just in smaller quantities and you often had to drink or drug a lot harder to see it. Lots of cabooses went off the rails, aye, but many came back from the dark side and what they came back as makes the new zombies movie look like early Disney.

Then there are a few who ran and got far away and occasionally dip a teasing toe back into the brackish psychedelic city water to prove they still got the Crazy Bone. Queen of these Marauders, close personal friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, gym workout pal of Queen Latifah, frequent cocktail companion of Jose Merce and late night phone consolor of what's left of Pauly Shore is tiny Mickey Cutler.

Rumor has it that she's been visiting her old stomping grounds here in Baltimore for a week or so and she's rounding up some of the fiesty musical icons of Baltimore's '90s to come to Normal's and the Red Room to strutt their Nancy Sinatra-level-of-preservation-stuff. Here is the show spiel:

Tuesday, May 17 at Normal's Books & Records
425 E. 31st St.

An evening of live musique with The One And The Other (Eric Maroldo, Jefrey Leighton Brown, Alex Layne), Tony Agostinelli, Amanda Pollock, and the Ding Dong Daddy himself, William Marshall. Other guests TBA.

Entrance is FREE. The music will rotate throughout the evening. You can’t miss a thing unless you don’t show up. Normal’s will be open for browsing and shopping (a very hot clerk will man the register).

We will be recording the evening, and sounds of jubilant accord are welcome, as well as regular ol’ shout ‘out’s to my homies in San Quentin’ also encouraged.

More information to follow regarding the international INTACT ANIMAL project - email list to be collected on site.

Bring a camera, take a picture, enjoy enjoy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This should be a fantastic night of entertainment and revelry whether yee be an old head or a new head.

the hollow of the 4th

What is the special hollow feeling that comes on the 4th of July? My own personal beige demon leftover from suburban summers alone?

Walking through scorched brown baseball field. If only that soda machine worked.

Hammered zombies of Light Beer taunting folks? As if teetering on one braincell while jeering at differences is the main cultural heritage of independence.

A day usually pulsating with Camus' "The Stranger" overbearing bright light and broiling heat becomes the most popular day for glowing coals grilling meat out in a tree-less backyard.

Even when it's a peaceful one, my arm around my loved one on the banks of Chincoteague Bay, fireworks being set off from various points on the island, the membrane between worlds feels thin and pliant. At any moment either Red Skelton or The Red Skull could reach through and pull you into a dark gluey abyss.

Ghosts of war are not far from the surface. What does a nation mean and can it be defined without the conversation becoming a snake eating its tail?

Is it any wonder that at least one cable station always runs a Twilight Zone marathon on this day?

its beginning and its end cannot be found

its beginning and its end cannot be found

like two strangers chained to pipes
in an underground bathroom
or neuro-theology practiced by
a largely ceremonial department
with a tiny budget and few
employees
you may dance but
you may only dance
without
shoes
within a parameter
of a few square inches
　
Dance
like a little shack
built with floss
and discarded
board games.
Floss used by a
near toothless man who
lives on ballpark cigars
and fava beans

The little shack dances
O how the little shack dances
buffeted by wind in a field of
corn and despairing scarecrows as
you dance only with your inner mind
where feet are many and frog-like
and you and an old Ravi Shankar
record can be alone

Just then
when you tapped
the shoulder of the guy
in front of you
well, his torso is behind you
gladiator air freshener
tendriled your remains
meal worms shifting
in a dental chair, the
final prop left standing
on The Planet of the Apes

I thought today was
going to be the day
but it was another

Goodloe Byron Renders Cort McMeel In Pen and Ink

For some reason at the last Shattered Wig Night - it's been a few months now, actually, time creeps on - I didn't take my usually handy camera. And it was a particularly memorable evening, what with Cort McMeel kind of levitating a few inches off the ground and his generous belly (an admirable worthy mound that I suspect is his secret seat of power, but it was slightly downsized here in Goodloe's otherwise inspired drawing) undulating like Gumby on roofies.

Not to mention the debut of Nathan Bell and Liz Downing playing out together and summoning the angels from many parallel dimensions. And Goodloe himself! AND the Go Pills.

At any rate, a few days after the show Cort emailed me and said that he was so ashamed at being involved with a Shattered Wig Night that he had gotten a hold of some old "Twilight Sleep" meds that they used to give middle class women so they would have no memory of the awful gooey mess of childbirth. Consequently, he had no memory of even being at the show, let alone his reading segment, and he was wondering if there were any photos.

Bummer. I had none.

I put out a Facebook distress signal fishing for some and generous enigmatic Sir Byron said his brother took some blurry ones of his Hush Puppies, but there were none extant of Cort, so he kindly whipped up this drawing.