How to Play the Blues

Baby boomers are not aging gracefully. I went to a Johnny Winter concert last night. Never have I seen so many overweight, 50+ and probably divorced men together at the same time in one room in my life. It was bizarre. And the music? Loud, discordant, like the whole point of it was to see how much punishment your eardrums could take. No wonder they had to help him out on stage. He’s not blind, he’s dizzy. His inner ears were destroyed years ago. And one other thing. I know he’s been doing this a long time, but the guy never moved – never showed any sense of rhythm at all. No tapping toes, no bobbing of the head – nothing! He’s probably deaf.


Now granted, it’s been awhile since I went to a blues concert or heard it live. When I was in college I used to hang out in bars where they played the blues. Usually these bands featured one extraordinary guitarist and if they were any good they could usually pack the house. And I know this guy was at Woodstock. But I also revere people like Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie McTell, ect. and I think that’s what blues is/are. The blues is singing. Yeah, you got a wailing guitar and preferably a mouth harp, too – notably missing from last night’s performance. Well, last night you couldn’t hear anything except cacophonous noise with a backbeat. That ain’t blues.

A Poem in Memory of John Lennon

(a note: I wrote this shortly after the gathering described which took place at the corner of 72nd St. and CPW the Sunday after his murder.)

December Sunday afternoon

a poem by Richard R. Binkele

(for John Lennon, 1940 – 1980)


gilt edged trees rise
against the dense gray bank
of concrete, of sky.
all around the park the city thoughtfully
packs it’s ballbearings with grease.

by the bandshell the tribe unites
to mourn the murder of another
peacemaker – carnations and roses
bloom in the wind
around the poster, a kind brow
under soft hair, a soldier in
the softer conflagration
of love, a tender rebel,
a light in the inkwell dark.

beneath low rolling clouds
helicopters drone recalling
another stubborn wound
a memory of war.
love was never enough to save us all,
idiots still perform their wild dance
and madmen cut down stars from the heavens.

bend the trees down
the strings of his guitar are silent.
our hearts have just begun to sing.
for a moment the droning fades,
the low clouds fall away,
a warm sun penetrates the wound
and sparkles on our tears.
our covenant, our brotherhood
is reaffirmed

outside this silence is life and traffic.
veins and capillaries flow free
on December Sunday afternoon while
children coming from the museum stop to see;
lovers too,
always lovers

imagine plays, the tribe splits,
the clouds return as intense as any sunlight
to atone for a bitter day.
oh sadness
for all the sorrow
hidden in moist crevasses of sky
and the coming of winter

Witter (198? to 2010)

Well, she wasn’t the world’s oldest cat but she was making a run at the title when her “Energizer Bunny” body finally gave up her furry soul. In our house she outlived three other cats and a dog. She was the very definition of the word indefatigable.

A short story, but one that will forever stay in my mind, if not exactly my heart. During better financial times our little family rented a house for the summer at the edge of a lake about two hours north of New York City. For the next three months we would go up every weekend, leaving our three cats in our upper east side apartment for three full days. We always left enough food and water and they seemed to survive just fine, but then came August and along with it a two week vacation. We couldn't leave them that long so we got out the carrying cases and loaded up on cat food and litter.

Witter had been in a car before. We’d moved once and then of course there were vet visits and the trip home from the shelter. In all that time I’d never noticed her dislike of modern transportation, but that day driving those two hours from city to lake, from the moment we pulled out of our space to the moment we pulled into the driveway and shut off the engine, that cat would not stop yeowling. That’s not a word I use lightly and it doesn’t begin to describe the essence of it. It was like someone running the rough edge of a wood file over my exposed spinal cord.

On the day we were to return, we consulted a local vet regarding what to do about the problem. He gave her a quarter of a tablet of valium right there in the office. But just to make sure, before we left that afternoon we gave her the rest of it. She would sleep soundly, we thought. We thought wrong. Instead, so stoned she couldn’t stand, she managed to bawl like a dying cow all the way back to Manhattan.

Like I said, indefatigable.

I should be ashamed of myself

I got a letter from my bank yesterday and I suspect most everyone else in America who carries a debit card in their purse or wallet got one too. It came with two or three printed leaflets and the gist of all this paper was to inform me that at the end of August there was going to be a change in the way my debit card works.

Now as it happens, I don’t have a credit card – anymore – but I do carry this debit card and I use it in situations that, in an earlier time, I might have used a check.. Nobody in their right mind would, if they saw my FICO score, give me the time of day let alone credit, but apparently this card came with a feature that loans me money. The letter informed me that if, for some reason, I lost track of the balance in my checking account and made a purchase or a withdrawal from an ATM in excess of what was actually in my account, the bank, acting out of the goodness of it’s corporate heart and in my best interest would go ahead and honor that purchase or withdrawal and charge me a mere $35 for the convenience – each time. This service is called an “automatic overdraft feature.”

I don’t believe I was aware that this courtesy until yesterday. Although I have incurred one or two such fees since I joined this bank a few years ago – about the time my previous bank disappeared in a whoosh of red tape – I’m usually pretty careful about keeping tabs on my checking balance. I was not always so prudent and have learned not to put my fingers in the financial fire, as it were, by hard experience. But now the bank has been told by the federal government – Congress, I take it, passed a law – that I have to request this service that the bank has in its gracious egregiousness been providing all this time be continued.

So the letter, in effect, says that if I want to “keep this important safety net in place” I have to give them permission to continue it. Because, as the letter continues, “We know that life is unpredictable…Don’t loose that peace of mind.” Now I want to be fair the this fine institution, for after all they’ve taken the time and effort to warn me about this change, but frankly it seems to me that what they’re suggesting is that I shouldn’t worry about what my bank balance is because they’re right there to cover all my oversights – for a mere $35 a pop. And what, you might ask, would happen if I decided to let this thoughtless act of Congress change our “relationship?” Well, they would have no alternative than to refuse the charge or decline the withdrawal. Gee, why would I want them to do that when I could pay them $35 every time I want to act like I have more money than I actually do?

The World's Oldest Cat???

You are looking at what may be the world's oldest cat. Witter came into my home (via my ex) back in 1990 after the death of our beloved Trout (not pictured). At the time she was already full grown, so figure she was between six months and a year old. She was not my choice and I have been insensitive to her, especially because she has a bad habit of biting. But over the years she seems to have mellowed. Now in old age she is growing increasingly senile and as a result I never know where she's going to relieve herself. For the past year I've banned her from the bedroom for just that reason, but with the 100+ degree weather this past week and me living on the top floor of an old building with only a few inches of black tar roof between me and the brutal sun, I've relinquished and allowed her in. In return, she's been a real lady.

Woe is the Author

If you get the Fall issue of INKWELL and take the time to read my editorial, you'll hear me lament about the sorry state of literature in America in the 21st Century. In it I recounted a trip through Grand Central Station where, in an unnamed newsstand, I looked for the display of small press / literary journals. It had been there for years and during that time had included my magazine in the fine company of Granta, Paris Review, Ploughshares, etc. Unfortunately times have changed. I don't know whether it's this never-ending recession or the changing tastes of this country's readers - probably both - but instead my favorite display now features potato chips.

Yes dear reader. It's perfectly ok to be offended. And while we're at it, please note the picture above. This bookshelf in an unnamed mass bookseller's local store has been empty for at least a month or more. Why? Let's find out, shall we?

To be continued...

Meditation

There are many levels of consciousness. If you meditate and try to stop thinking and just listen to the sounds of life, of earth, around you, you will begin thinking. If you work at it, sometimes you really can clear your mind for awhile, but then you’ll hear it, often very soft and far away, but a voice nevertheless, saying – if nothing else – “Hey, you did it. You cleared your mind. Congratulations.”

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895-1986)

Why I Hate March

Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to get up into the 40's and maybe by Friday it will go higher. This is the first week of March and I have to keep that in mind over the next few days if the weather starts making me think its April. Barbara always used to say April is the cruelest month and for her it always was, but for me it's March. The weather in March is exactly the same is it was in February, cold and cloudy and generally miserable. So the best way to remind myself is to publish the attached picture of what Tarrytown exactly one week ago.