Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Hazel Dickens performing Bob Dylan’s Only A Hobo.
Only A Hobo by Bob Dylan
Lyrics
As I was out walking on a corner one day
I spied an old hobo, in a doorway he lay
His face was all grounded in the cold sidewalk floor
And I guess he’d been there for the whole night or more
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
A blanket of newspaper covered his head
As the curb was his pillow, the street was his bed
One look at his face showed the hard road he’d come
And a fistful of coins showed the money he bummed
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Does it take much of a man to see his whole life go down
To look up on the world from a hole in the ground
To wait for your future like a horse that’s gone lame
To lie in the gutter and die with no name?
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Leavin’ nobody to sing his sad song
Leavin’ nobody to carry him home
Only a hobo, but one more is gone
Copyright © 1963, 1968 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1996 by Special Rider Music
*******
I woke with a start that dreary late October night, early morning really from the look of the lightened sky, last cold night or so, before drifting south then heading west to warmer climes for “winter camp.” Yes, I had the routine down pretty pat back then. Summering in the Cambridges and then wintering in the Keys, or in some Pancho Villa bandito arroyo in desert California, maybe Joshua Tree. But just that minute my summer was interrupted by a loud sound of snoring and short breathe coughing from some fellow resident who had parked himself about twenty feet from my exclusive turf.
Hell, I didn’t mean to tease you about my itinerary (although the gist of schedule was real enough, damn real), or about my mayfair swell digs. The fact is that back then I had been in kind of a bad streak and so sweet home Eliot Bridge right next to the Charles River, but not too next to Harvard Square had been my “home” of late then while I prepared for those sunnier climes just mentioned. Those last few previous months have been tough though, first losing that swell paying job “diving for pearls” at Elsie’s, then losing my apartment when the landlord decided, legally decided, that six months arrears was all that he could take, and then losing Janie over some spat, and getting so mad I “took” a couple of hundred dollars from her pocketbook as I went out the not-coming-back door that last time. So there I was at “home” waiting it out.
I had a pretty good set-up under the bridge, I thought. Far enough away from the Square so that the druggies and drunks wouldn’t dream of seeking shelter so far from their base. But close enough for me to try to panhandle a stake to head west with in rich folks Harvard Square (although apparently the rich those days preferred to tithe in other ways than to part with their spare change to, uh, itinerants). And, moreover, the bridge provided some protection against the chilly elements, and a stray nosey cop or two ready to run a stray itinerant in order to fill his or her quota on the run-in sheet.
All that precious planning had gone for naught though because some snoring be-draggled newspaper strewn hobo had enough courage to head a few hundred yards up river and disturb my home. There and then I decided I had better see what the guy looked like, see if he was dangerous, and see if I could get him the hell out of there so I could get back to sleep for a couple more hours before the damn work-a-day world traffic made this spot too noisy to sleep in. Besides, as is the nature of such things on the down and out American road (and in other less exotic locales as well), he might have other companions just ready to put down stakes here before I am ready to head west.
I unfolded my own newspaper covering, folded up my extra shirt pillow and put it in my make-shift ruck-sack, and rolled (rolled for the umpteenth time) my ground covering and placed it next to my ruck-sack. No morning ablutions to brighten breath and face were necessary this early, not in this zip code. I was thus ready for guests. I ambled over to the newspaper pile where the snoring had come from and tapped the papers with a stick that I had picked up along the way (never, never use your hand or you might lose your life if the rustling newspaper causes an unseen knife-hand to cut you six ways to Sunday. Don’t laugh it almost happened to me once, and only once.).
He stirred, stirred again, and then opened his eyes saying “Howdy, my name is Boulder Shorty, what’s yours?” (He later told me he that he had never been to Boulder, could not have picked it out on a map if he was given ten chances, and was six feet two inches tall so go figure on monikers. The way they got hanged on a guy was always good for a story in some desolate railroad fireside camp before I got wise enough to stay away from those sites, far away.) I told him mine, my road moniker, “Be-Bop Benny.” He laughed, muttering about beatniks and faux kid hobos in thrall of some Jack London or Jack Kerouac or something vision between short, violent coughs.
Funny about different tramps, hobos, and bums (and there are differences, recognized differences just like in regular society. We, Boulder Shorty and I, were hobos, the kings of the river, ravine, and railroad trestle.). Some start out gruff, tough and mean, street hard mean. Other like Shorty, kings, just go with the flow. And that go with the flow for a little while anyway (a little while being very long in hobo company) kept us together for a while, a few weeks while before that short violent cough caught up with old Shorty (you didn’t have to know medicine, or much else, to know that was the small echo of the death-rattle coming up).
In those few weeks Boulder Shorty taught me more about ‘bo-ing, more about natural things, more about how to take life one day at a time than anybody else, my father included. About staying away from bums and tramps, the guys who talked all day about this and that scan they pulled in about 1958 and hadn’t gotten over it yet. About guys who took your money, your clothes, hell, and your newspaper covering in the dead of night just to do it, especially to young hobo kings. And staying alone, staying away from the railroad, river, ravine camps that everybody talked about being the last refuge for the wayward but were just full of disease, drunks and dips. (I let him talk on about that although that was one thing I was already hip to, a river camp was where I almost got my throat handed back to me by some quick knife tramp that I mentioned before about disturbing guys).
Yes, Boulder Shorty had some street smart wisdom for a guy who couldn’t have been past forty, at least that’s what I figured from the times he gave in his stories. (Don’t try to judge a guy on the road’s age because between the drugs or booze, the bad food, the weather-beaten road, and about six other miseries most guys looked, and acted, like they were about twenty years older. Even I, before a shower to take a few days dirt off and maybe hadn’t eaten for a while, looked older than my thirty years then.) But most of all it was the little tricks of the road that he taught and showed me that held me to him.
Like how my approach, my poor boy hat in hand approach, was all wrong in working the Harvard Square panhandle. You had to get in their faces, shout stuff at them, and block their passage so that the couple of bucks they practically threw at you was far easier to do than have you in their faces. Christ, he collected about twenty bucks in an hour one day, one day when he was coughing pretty badly. And a ton of cigarette, good cigarettes too, that he asked for when some guys (and a few gals) pled no dough. It was art, true art that day.
Or about how a hobo king need never go hungry in any city once he had the Sallies, U/U good and kindly neighbor feeding schedule down. No so much those places, any bum or tramp could figure that out, and wait in line, but to “volunteer” and get to know the people running the thing and get invited to their houses as sturdy yeoman “reclamation” projects. A vacation, see. Best of all was him showing me how to work the social service agencies for ten here, and twenty there, as long as you could hold the line of patter straight and not oversell your misery. Tramps and bums need not apply for this kind of hustle, go back and jiggle your coffee cup in front of some subway station, and good luck.
[He also taught me the ins and outs of jack-rolling, what you would call mugging, if things got really bad. Jack-rolling guys, bigger and smaller than you but I’d rather keep that knowledge to myself.]
Funny we never talked about women, although I tried once to talk to him about Janie. He cut me short, not out of disrespect I don’t think, but he said they were all Janie in the end. He said talking about women was too tough for guys on the road with nothing but drifter, grifter, midnight sifter guys to stare at. Or looking too close at women when on the bum was bad for those longings for home things when you couldn’t do anything about it anyway. Although he did let on once that he was partial to truck stop road side diner waitresses serving them off the arm when he was in the clover (had dough) and was washed up enough to present himself at some stop along the road. Especially the ones who piled the potatoes extra high or double scooped the bread pudding as acts of kindred kindness. One night near the end, maybe a week before, time is hard to remember on the meshed together bum, he started muttering about some Phoebe Snow, some gal all dressed in white, and he kind of smiled, and then the coughing started again.
I tried to get Boulder Shorty moving south with me (and had delayed my own departure to stick with him for as long as I figured I could get south before the snows hit) but he knew, knew deep in his bones, that his time was short, that he wanted to finish up in Boston (not for any special reason, he was from Albany, but just because he was tired of moving) and was glad of my company.
It was funny about how I found out about his Albany roots. One night, a couple of nights before the end, coughing like crazy, he seemingly had to prove to me that he was from Albany. I had mentioned that I was mad for William Kennedy’s novels, Ironweed and the like, that had just come out a couple of years before. He went on and on about the Phelans this and that. Jesus he knew the books better than I did. He say that is what made hobos the intelligentsia of the road. Some old Wobblie folksinger told him that once when they heading west riding the rails on the Denver & Rio Grande. When holed up in some godforsaken library to get out of the weather hobos read rather than just curled up on some stuffed chair. Yes, Boulder Shorty was a piece of work. He was always saying stuff like that.
Then one morning, one too cold Eliot Bridge morning, I tried to shake his newspaper kingdom and got no response. Old Shorty had taken his last ride, his last train smoke and dreams ride he called it. I left him there like he wanted me to and like was necessary on the hobo road. I made a forlorn anonymous call to the Cambridge cops on my way out of town. But on those few occasion when I pass some potter’s field I tip my fingers to my head in his memory, his one less hobo king memory.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Films To While The Time By- Frederico Fellini’s “Nights Of Cabiria”
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Federico Fellini’s Nights of Cabiria
Nights of Cabiria, starring Guilietta Masina, directed by Federico Fellini, 1957
Forget about Fellini (a little), forget about 1950s Italian cinema, for about the story line. This film is about an unlucky in love (very unlucky, and a little stubbornly mule-headed as well ) prostitute, Cabiria of the title, played by Guilietta Masina, whose every expression, half-expression, non-expression, anti-expression and just vacant stare expresses more about the human condition, its foibles, its tragedy and its puckish perseverance than half the books of the Western cannon. Oh, yes, and a little (well, maybe more than a little) superb cinematography and pacing by Brother Fellini. This is what cinema was supposed to be about (and was, for a while).
Nights of Cabiria, starring Guilietta Masina, directed by Federico Fellini, 1957
Forget about Fellini (a little), forget about 1950s Italian cinema, for about the story line. This film is about an unlucky in love (very unlucky, and a little stubbornly mule-headed as well ) prostitute, Cabiria of the title, played by Guilietta Masina, whose every expression, half-expression, non-expression, anti-expression and just vacant stare expresses more about the human condition, its foibles, its tragedy and its puckish perseverance than half the books of the Western cannon. Oh, yes, and a little (well, maybe more than a little) superb cinematography and pacing by Brother Fellini. This is what cinema was supposed to be about (and was, for a while).
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Lucinda Williams’” Sweet Old World”- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to YouTube film clip of Lucinda Williams performing Sweet Old World
CD Review
Sweet Old World, Lucinda Williams, Chameleon Records, 1993
The first song of Lucinda Williams that I remember hearing, song of her own that is, I had heard her do an excellent tribute cover of Hank Williams’ Cold, Cold Heart and a contribution to a Mississippi John Hurt’s tribute album, was Lake Charles. That song about listening to Howlin’ Wolf, chasing after corner boy-less boys with big flash cars, and dealing with back roads fatal dreams told me here was kindred spirit. And being French-Canadian (on my mother’s side) I sensed that mystic cajun-rooted arcadian longing connection from when we were altogether as one tribe up in Nova Scotia and places like that. That was just my sense of the thing though.
Recently I did a short review of a Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits CD where I mentioned that growing up, early teenage early 1960s growing up, Roy spoke to our angst about facing a world we didn’t create, about how to deal with, ah, girls, and how to be cool around them. (I don’t know if I would have been able to articulate it exactly that way but there you are.) Lucinda Williams speaks to a different angst, adult angst, maybe, about never drawing a break, about one night’s, about drunken days, about the debris of society, about broken dreams, or no dreams. But also about a kind of stoic perseverance in this sweet old world. Maybe that is really where the kinship lies.
CD Review
Sweet Old World, Lucinda Williams, Chameleon Records, 1993
The first song of Lucinda Williams that I remember hearing, song of her own that is, I had heard her do an excellent tribute cover of Hank Williams’ Cold, Cold Heart and a contribution to a Mississippi John Hurt’s tribute album, was Lake Charles. That song about listening to Howlin’ Wolf, chasing after corner boy-less boys with big flash cars, and dealing with back roads fatal dreams told me here was kindred spirit. And being French-Canadian (on my mother’s side) I sensed that mystic cajun-rooted arcadian longing connection from when we were altogether as one tribe up in Nova Scotia and places like that. That was just my sense of the thing though.
Recently I did a short review of a Roy Orbison’s Greatest Hits CD where I mentioned that growing up, early teenage early 1960s growing up, Roy spoke to our angst about facing a world we didn’t create, about how to deal with, ah, girls, and how to be cool around them. (I don’t know if I would have been able to articulate it exactly that way but there you are.) Lucinda Williams speaks to a different angst, adult angst, maybe, about never drawing a break, about one night’s, about drunken days, about the debris of society, about broken dreams, or no dreams. But also about a kind of stoic perseverance in this sweet old world. Maybe that is really where the kinship lies.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin-The Wages Of Crime –Richard Conte’s “The Brothers Rico”-A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the crime noir The Brothers Rico.
DVD Review
The Brothers Rico, starring Richard Conte, from a novel by Georges Simenon, Columbia Pictures, 1957
No question crime doesn’t pay, doesn’t pay on the hard mean Italian back streets of New York City, the hard back streets of Irish North Adamsville, or the hard back streets of French-Canadian Olde Saco. Still guys, solid guys too, will take a leap of fate and try to defy the odds. Why? Well, it beats, shoveling burgers off the rack in some hash joint. It beats getting your hands (and hair) all messed up and smelly in some grease pit gas jockey job. And it sure as hell beats stocking some shelves in some grocery store trying to figure out how high to put the cans of tuna fish. And most of all it beats small dreams, real small dreams of cold water flats, a bunch of kids to feed (or not, when times are tough), and waiting in the cold for the city bus to come by. Ya, take the leap, no questions asked.
Of course the above is quite a mouthful just to introduce a second tier 1950s (1957 to be exact) crime noir, The Brothers Rico, even if it was an adaptation from one of the great crime novel writers, Georges Simenon.
I will get to the reason for the big built up in a moment after I give you the “skinny” on the plot line. See, back in the bad back streets New York City day, Mama Rico stopped a bullet, and has the limp to prove it, to save one king hell king crime boss, thereafter known as Uncle Sid. In appreciation, no questions asked, as each of her three sons came of age he employed them in one or another of his “businesses,” starting with Eddie. Eddie did his time and got out of the rackets somehow. The other two boys were still plugging away for Uncle Sid.
And therein lays the crux of the problem. As the younger boys stepped up they got involved in gangland executions and something went awry. Very awry (sic, maybe). The youngest brother flew the coop and had not been heard from since. And the middle son will not squeal. This action makes crime bosses, especially middle level crime bosses like Uncle Sid, very nervous. Reason? The old time “stoolie” factor. So Uncle Sid enlisted comfortably retired Eddie to bring younger brother back. Of course times had changed for the Ricos and Sid simply used Eddie as a bloodhound to get that damn younger brother. Well he does. And in the end the earth is short two formerly high-flying Rico Brothers. Also, after Eddie wised up to Sid’s role, one less middle level crime boss.
Now to the cautionary tale that I have drawn, and maybe only me alone have drawn, out of this crime noir. Hard back alley New York Rico Brothers streets produced only one survivor. Hard back alley North Adamsville (that’s in Massachusetts, okay) streets produced only one survivor out of three brothers (my old friend Peter Paul Markin), the other two fell to some low-rent criminal stuff. And hard back alley Olde Saco (that’ s up in Maine) produced only one survivor out of three brothers (me), the other two fell to high end criminal stuff. I could probably give other examples from other back alleys as well. Real or fiction that is a hell of a price for society to impose just for being born on the wrong side of the tracks, or wrong something. End of sermon,
DVD Review
The Brothers Rico, starring Richard Conte, from a novel by Georges Simenon, Columbia Pictures, 1957
No question crime doesn’t pay, doesn’t pay on the hard mean Italian back streets of New York City, the hard back streets of Irish North Adamsville, or the hard back streets of French-Canadian Olde Saco. Still guys, solid guys too, will take a leap of fate and try to defy the odds. Why? Well, it beats, shoveling burgers off the rack in some hash joint. It beats getting your hands (and hair) all messed up and smelly in some grease pit gas jockey job. And it sure as hell beats stocking some shelves in some grocery store trying to figure out how high to put the cans of tuna fish. And most of all it beats small dreams, real small dreams of cold water flats, a bunch of kids to feed (or not, when times are tough), and waiting in the cold for the city bus to come by. Ya, take the leap, no questions asked.
Of course the above is quite a mouthful just to introduce a second tier 1950s (1957 to be exact) crime noir, The Brothers Rico, even if it was an adaptation from one of the great crime novel writers, Georges Simenon.
I will get to the reason for the big built up in a moment after I give you the “skinny” on the plot line. See, back in the bad back streets New York City day, Mama Rico stopped a bullet, and has the limp to prove it, to save one king hell king crime boss, thereafter known as Uncle Sid. In appreciation, no questions asked, as each of her three sons came of age he employed them in one or another of his “businesses,” starting with Eddie. Eddie did his time and got out of the rackets somehow. The other two boys were still plugging away for Uncle Sid.
And therein lays the crux of the problem. As the younger boys stepped up they got involved in gangland executions and something went awry. Very awry (sic, maybe). The youngest brother flew the coop and had not been heard from since. And the middle son will not squeal. This action makes crime bosses, especially middle level crime bosses like Uncle Sid, very nervous. Reason? The old time “stoolie” factor. So Uncle Sid enlisted comfortably retired Eddie to bring younger brother back. Of course times had changed for the Ricos and Sid simply used Eddie as a bloodhound to get that damn younger brother. Well he does. And in the end the earth is short two formerly high-flying Rico Brothers. Also, after Eddie wised up to Sid’s role, one less middle level crime boss.
Now to the cautionary tale that I have drawn, and maybe only me alone have drawn, out of this crime noir. Hard back alley New York Rico Brothers streets produced only one survivor. Hard back alley North Adamsville (that’s in Massachusetts, okay) streets produced only one survivor out of three brothers (my old friend Peter Paul Markin), the other two fell to some low-rent criminal stuff. And hard back alley Olde Saco (that’ s up in Maine) produced only one survivor out of three brothers (me), the other two fell to high end criminal stuff. I could probably give other examples from other back alleys as well. Real or fiction that is a hell of a price for society to impose just for being born on the wrong side of the tracks, or wrong something. End of sermon,
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- James M Cain’s “Mildred Pierce”- A Film Review
Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film adaptation of James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce.
DVD Review
Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Caron, Zachary, Scott, based on the novel by James M. Cain, Warner Brothers, 1945
Apparently the urge to overindulge one’s children is not solely a recurring phenomenon of the “baby-boomer” generations. And just as apparently the object of those 1940s indulgences were, as in the film under review Mildred Pierce, just as ungrateful as the children of today’s baby-boomers. At least in fiction just in case one of those current objects stumbles on to this review.
Now the name of high- end steamy pot-boiler novelist James M. Cain is well-known to this writer. His classic Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice (and their film adaptations) have been fulsomely reviewed in this space. But here is the twist in Mildred Pierce. While saucy housewife waiting to break out from stifling suburban existence (1940s California suburban, there is a difference), that self-same Mildred Pierce (played by Joan Crawford) of the title, has her own qualifications for femme fatale-dom in a demure way the real femme here is strictly junior varsity, her daughter, Veda (played kittenishly by Ann Blyth). So it was a little disconcerting, after having seen the likes of Miss Cora (played by Lana Turner) in Postman and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity twist their men around so badly that they could not see straight and came back for more, and gladly, to see this junior varsity edition at work. But not for long.
I better lay out the drift of story and you will see what I mean. California suburban housewife and devoted mother Mildred, up from poverty, or close to it, wanted to give her two daughters (although only Veda counts) what she didn’t have. Fair enough. But apparently something got messed up in the Pierce gene pool or in any social or moral sensibilities as they passed to Veda. Veda, no matter what, wanted more and everything. Well Papa Pierce fell on hard times (and was doing a little two-timing as well) and the Pierces decided to divorce. Mildred decided, very unconventionally for the times, to open a restaurant to keep the wolves from the door (and keep Veda in things, many things, ungratefully accepted). Part of that process was to get backing, and a few breaks. The backing comes from Wally (a money mad real estate deal maker) and the breaks from Monte, scion to a descending family fortune but still capable of putting on the high society faux charm for Mildred (and Veda).
The whole mix, the whole class mix, was wrong though, and because this is a crime film noir something bad had to happen. And the callous and very class-conscious Monte was the fall guy, a very dead fall guy with about six slugs in him. As the film unwinds backwards to find out who did the dastardly deed about five different candidates emerge, including Mildred, ready to fall on their swords to protect someone. That someone of course being Veda who when Monte threw her over got, uh, a little high strung and wasted the poor guy. As always though in crime noir truth and justice will win out and Veda had to take her fall and will have many a lonely night to think over her errors in some dank California women’s prison far from the bright lights of Los Angeles night clubs. Hey, nobody said every femme fatale, junior edition, was going made it to the “bigs.”
P.S. I don’t know about you but after watching some of these Cain film adaptations and a few other crime noir gems like Jane Greer in Out Of The Past and Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shang-hai somebody should take these femmes aside and give them a little instruction in shooting with guns. They all seem, and maybe it is because they are a little nervous or agitated, to feel the need to pump about six slugs in every guy that has wronged them. Terrible waste of ammo, terrible, although like I said maybe they were just the slightest bit angry at the time.
DVD Review
Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford, Ann Blyth, Jack Caron, Zachary, Scott, based on the novel by James M. Cain, Warner Brothers, 1945
Apparently the urge to overindulge one’s children is not solely a recurring phenomenon of the “baby-boomer” generations. And just as apparently the object of those 1940s indulgences were, as in the film under review Mildred Pierce, just as ungrateful as the children of today’s baby-boomers. At least in fiction just in case one of those current objects stumbles on to this review.
Now the name of high- end steamy pot-boiler novelist James M. Cain is well-known to this writer. His classic Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice (and their film adaptations) have been fulsomely reviewed in this space. But here is the twist in Mildred Pierce. While saucy housewife waiting to break out from stifling suburban existence (1940s California suburban, there is a difference), that self-same Mildred Pierce (played by Joan Crawford) of the title, has her own qualifications for femme fatale-dom in a demure way the real femme here is strictly junior varsity, her daughter, Veda (played kittenishly by Ann Blyth). So it was a little disconcerting, after having seen the likes of Miss Cora (played by Lana Turner) in Postman and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity twist their men around so badly that they could not see straight and came back for more, and gladly, to see this junior varsity edition at work. But not for long.
I better lay out the drift of story and you will see what I mean. California suburban housewife and devoted mother Mildred, up from poverty, or close to it, wanted to give her two daughters (although only Veda counts) what she didn’t have. Fair enough. But apparently something got messed up in the Pierce gene pool or in any social or moral sensibilities as they passed to Veda. Veda, no matter what, wanted more and everything. Well Papa Pierce fell on hard times (and was doing a little two-timing as well) and the Pierces decided to divorce. Mildred decided, very unconventionally for the times, to open a restaurant to keep the wolves from the door (and keep Veda in things, many things, ungratefully accepted). Part of that process was to get backing, and a few breaks. The backing comes from Wally (a money mad real estate deal maker) and the breaks from Monte, scion to a descending family fortune but still capable of putting on the high society faux charm for Mildred (and Veda).
The whole mix, the whole class mix, was wrong though, and because this is a crime film noir something bad had to happen. And the callous and very class-conscious Monte was the fall guy, a very dead fall guy with about six slugs in him. As the film unwinds backwards to find out who did the dastardly deed about five different candidates emerge, including Mildred, ready to fall on their swords to protect someone. That someone of course being Veda who when Monte threw her over got, uh, a little high strung and wasted the poor guy. As always though in crime noir truth and justice will win out and Veda had to take her fall and will have many a lonely night to think over her errors in some dank California women’s prison far from the bright lights of Los Angeles night clubs. Hey, nobody said every femme fatale, junior edition, was going made it to the “bigs.”
P.S. I don’t know about you but after watching some of these Cain film adaptations and a few other crime noir gems like Jane Greer in Out Of The Past and Rita Hayworth in The Lady From Shang-hai somebody should take these femmes aside and give them a little instruction in shooting with guns. They all seem, and maybe it is because they are a little nervous or agitated, to feel the need to pump about six slugs in every guy that has wronged them. Terrible waste of ammo, terrible, although like I said maybe they were just the slightest bit angry at the time.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Yes, I Would Rather Be The Devil To Be That Woman’s Man
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Skip James performing his classic Devil Got My Woman.
Devil Got My Woman
by Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James recording of 19 from probably Complete Early Recordings (Yazoo 2009) & Melodeon 7321, copyright notice
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman man1
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman man
Aw, nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind
Was nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind
I laid down last night, laid down last night
I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin', like a wild geese
From the west, from the west
The woman I love, woman that I loved
Woman I loved, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stoled her back again
And he got lucky, stoled her back again
__________
Note: the song was inspired by his broken marriage;
Note 1: James usually completed this line with ""woman's man"
"... The devil was stronger than I was, an' he did have, and is got now, a certain amount of power... And he lives in hell, and that's where he haves his part. And God give him a certain amount of time to be on the earth, in the bowels, persuadin' people... He still has agencies out. Everywhere you've been. And then he's a man don't never sleep. he never get offa his job or duty, That is, you can lay down happy at night, you and your companion... and in harmony. Everything goin' well. Satan'll creep in the house overnight... next mornin' you cannot get a good word out of her. Why?. Because satan has got the bill of sale over her. He done crept in overnight...
**********
“Damn, I can’t get that Selena off my mind no matter how far west I go, I miss her, miss her bad ” thought Be-Bop Benny, real name: Peter Paul Markin and an amigo of mine of long standing back to sunnier summer of love, 1967 version, days when the world was strictly tomorrow ( we always laughed then, and called out in the middle of some drug-induced stupor, “manana mama,” when any decisions beyond the next meal, and sometimes not even that, came due). Yes, Be-Bop had it bad, as bad as a man can have it when the devil gets your woman. So bad he had to get out of town, get out quick, and get out with some fifteen hundred dollars in gringo dinero, that he owed the “boys” for some unfinished drug deal. Yes, that bad.
Of course Be-Bop’s (let’s keep it short like that, like the way we used to call him in those sunnier days) problems had nothing to do with some abstract devil, his own devilish character (well, maybe, just a little), but with one Spanish spitfire named Selena Rios. Let me fill you in a little on the details and see if you don’t agree.
No question this Selena was strictly mex, mestizo, beautiful, not that icy norte beautiful, proper English or Irish, the way I like them (although, truth, if she had passed her eye my way I would have had no second thoughts about giving her a tumble. She was that kind of woman.) with dark mestizo skin , dark hair, dark smoldering dancing eyes, ruby red lips and that sings-song voice that made you think of mists and fogs, if you have time to think, Or wanted to. But mainly it was that scent she gave off, of adventure, of silky sheets, of sweaty nights and cool showers after, frankly, of lust. And if that didn’t lure you in, lure Be-Bop in, then that slight fragrance, some cacti mix from a thousand husks wore just lightly enough to keep you within five feet of her at all times, and glad of it.
How they met? Oh, this one is a beaut, but it will tell you about the times, about summer of love 1960s times, and if I spill it here you won’t have to go ask your fidgety grandparents about it. They met in the middle of the Cambridge Common, when she fresh in town on some student exchange program between Harvard and Sonora University down in Mexico, when she, she remember, asked Be-Bop if he wanted to “split a joint with her.”
I already described, described her one hundred generations (or whatever number of generations have elapsed since the old Spanish conquests down there) scent. And that fragrance. And bug-eyed Be-Bop was a long gone daddy, long gone. Innocent enough though even for today’s prudish ears.
And Be-Bop swore it was that pure for a couple of weeks. Then two things happened. First the money ran out, what little there was of it between them. And they (or rather he) had big dreams of together and California and ocean washes to feed. So to solve the dough problem Selena gave Be-Bop all the details for making some dough by becoming small-time dope dealers through her connections with the righteous (her word, and he didn’t disagree, for the dope she shared was high grade Acapulco Gold, real good stuff compared to the normal Commons oregano mix) down in Sonora. So they went south instead of west and “muled” their first supply without too much difficulty. Coming back , at first, it was selling just to friends, a few joints here and there, just to keep them in coffee and cakes, but then to friends of friends, and their friends, and then to strangers. All this meant a couple more trips south, and a much expanded business. Hell, it was fun for a while, although working weights and packaging and all the rest was boring.
Be-bop said he could have seen it through though because the more dough they made the happier Selena seemed to be, and the better she was under those silky sheets she was addicted to sleeping on. But then, the other shoe dropped. Selena started going over to the Commons and asking other guys if they wanted to “share that dynamite joint” she had, and what went with it.
Now Be-Bop, despite his funny moniker, was no monogamous fool guy, and didn’t want to be, but this Selena thing got to him, got to him bad. Sometimes she would bring a guy right up to the apartment, smoke a joint, all Be-Bop could hear was the sound of silky sheets from the bedroom. Christ how much could a guy take. She called him bourgeois, and an old lady when he objected.
One night a few months later after a few taunts from Selena, and some stuff about going to old Mexico for another shipment by herself (they had always gone together previously) Be-Bop had had enough of this woman, or so he thought. About three in the morning he put some clothes in a ruck- sack, put a couple of sandwiches together, a little dope, and about fifteen hundred dollars in cash from the last drug sales. He hit the road west at the Massachusetts Turnpike entrance in Cambridge, and fled town.
Here is where I really enter the story. A couple of years later I was down in Mexico, down Sonora way for some conference, some journalism thing, and as I signed in at the front desk of the Hotel Sonora I heard a blood-curdling voice scream across the room telling me to tell Be-Bop that she, and her “connections,” had not forgotten about the missing dough. And that honor debt would never be forgotten, even if he wound up face down in some dried bed desert somewhere. No more sing-song voices for far-gone Be-Bop.
I actually had not seen Be-Bop for a couple of years at that point but the whole thing had me interested for his sake, and maybe for a story. In any case it turned out that the so-called Harvard –Sonora University connection was bogus (the school was some local church school for girls and not the kind of place Harvard would have had some educational relationship with), she had been in the United States illegally and had been using a bogus visa,
her brothers were her drug connections (and heard to have done some nasty things to competitors, and those who didn’t come up with their cut of the dough), and she was married to some local drug bigwig while she was silky sheeting it with Be-Bop. The only “truth” about her was that little habit of coming up to guys and asking the “joint” question. A few companeros in the Sonora area that she was seen with came up face down in some deserted culvert as proof of her obsession.
After a while I finally found out where Be-Bop was, or had been, and passed a message on. Mainly about staying very far west, and very far away from sunny Sonora down Mexico way. And stay very, very, very far away from one Selena Rios. And this is the message I got back- “Damn, I can’t get that Selena off my mind no matter how far west I go, maybe I should try to see her.” Well, what is a guy going to do when the devil has got his woman. Adios, amigo.
Devil Got My Woman
by Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James recording of 19 from probably Complete Early Recordings (Yazoo 2009) & Melodeon 7321, copyright notice
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman man1
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman man
Aw, nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind
Was nothin' but the devil, changed my baby's mind
I laid down last night, laid down last night
I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to ramblin', like a wild geese
From the west, from the west
The woman I love, woman that I loved
Woman I loved, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stoled her back again
And he got lucky, stoled her back again
__________
Note: the song was inspired by his broken marriage;
Note 1: James usually completed this line with ""woman's man"
"... The devil was stronger than I was, an' he did have, and is got now, a certain amount of power... And he lives in hell, and that's where he haves his part. And God give him a certain amount of time to be on the earth, in the bowels, persuadin' people... He still has agencies out. Everywhere you've been. And then he's a man don't never sleep. he never get offa his job or duty, That is, you can lay down happy at night, you and your companion... and in harmony. Everything goin' well. Satan'll creep in the house overnight... next mornin' you cannot get a good word out of her. Why?. Because satan has got the bill of sale over her. He done crept in overnight...
**********
“Damn, I can’t get that Selena off my mind no matter how far west I go, I miss her, miss her bad ” thought Be-Bop Benny, real name: Peter Paul Markin and an amigo of mine of long standing back to sunnier summer of love, 1967 version, days when the world was strictly tomorrow ( we always laughed then, and called out in the middle of some drug-induced stupor, “manana mama,” when any decisions beyond the next meal, and sometimes not even that, came due). Yes, Be-Bop had it bad, as bad as a man can have it when the devil gets your woman. So bad he had to get out of town, get out quick, and get out with some fifteen hundred dollars in gringo dinero, that he owed the “boys” for some unfinished drug deal. Yes, that bad.
Of course Be-Bop’s (let’s keep it short like that, like the way we used to call him in those sunnier days) problems had nothing to do with some abstract devil, his own devilish character (well, maybe, just a little), but with one Spanish spitfire named Selena Rios. Let me fill you in a little on the details and see if you don’t agree.
No question this Selena was strictly mex, mestizo, beautiful, not that icy norte beautiful, proper English or Irish, the way I like them (although, truth, if she had passed her eye my way I would have had no second thoughts about giving her a tumble. She was that kind of woman.) with dark mestizo skin , dark hair, dark smoldering dancing eyes, ruby red lips and that sings-song voice that made you think of mists and fogs, if you have time to think, Or wanted to. But mainly it was that scent she gave off, of adventure, of silky sheets, of sweaty nights and cool showers after, frankly, of lust. And if that didn’t lure you in, lure Be-Bop in, then that slight fragrance, some cacti mix from a thousand husks wore just lightly enough to keep you within five feet of her at all times, and glad of it.
How they met? Oh, this one is a beaut, but it will tell you about the times, about summer of love 1960s times, and if I spill it here you won’t have to go ask your fidgety grandparents about it. They met in the middle of the Cambridge Common, when she fresh in town on some student exchange program between Harvard and Sonora University down in Mexico, when she, she remember, asked Be-Bop if he wanted to “split a joint with her.”
I already described, described her one hundred generations (or whatever number of generations have elapsed since the old Spanish conquests down there) scent. And that fragrance. And bug-eyed Be-Bop was a long gone daddy, long gone. Innocent enough though even for today’s prudish ears.
And Be-Bop swore it was that pure for a couple of weeks. Then two things happened. First the money ran out, what little there was of it between them. And they (or rather he) had big dreams of together and California and ocean washes to feed. So to solve the dough problem Selena gave Be-Bop all the details for making some dough by becoming small-time dope dealers through her connections with the righteous (her word, and he didn’t disagree, for the dope she shared was high grade Acapulco Gold, real good stuff compared to the normal Commons oregano mix) down in Sonora. So they went south instead of west and “muled” their first supply without too much difficulty. Coming back , at first, it was selling just to friends, a few joints here and there, just to keep them in coffee and cakes, but then to friends of friends, and their friends, and then to strangers. All this meant a couple more trips south, and a much expanded business. Hell, it was fun for a while, although working weights and packaging and all the rest was boring.
Be-bop said he could have seen it through though because the more dough they made the happier Selena seemed to be, and the better she was under those silky sheets she was addicted to sleeping on. But then, the other shoe dropped. Selena started going over to the Commons and asking other guys if they wanted to “share that dynamite joint” she had, and what went with it.
Now Be-Bop, despite his funny moniker, was no monogamous fool guy, and didn’t want to be, but this Selena thing got to him, got to him bad. Sometimes she would bring a guy right up to the apartment, smoke a joint, all Be-Bop could hear was the sound of silky sheets from the bedroom. Christ how much could a guy take. She called him bourgeois, and an old lady when he objected.
One night a few months later after a few taunts from Selena, and some stuff about going to old Mexico for another shipment by herself (they had always gone together previously) Be-Bop had had enough of this woman, or so he thought. About three in the morning he put some clothes in a ruck- sack, put a couple of sandwiches together, a little dope, and about fifteen hundred dollars in cash from the last drug sales. He hit the road west at the Massachusetts Turnpike entrance in Cambridge, and fled town.
Here is where I really enter the story. A couple of years later I was down in Mexico, down Sonora way for some conference, some journalism thing, and as I signed in at the front desk of the Hotel Sonora I heard a blood-curdling voice scream across the room telling me to tell Be-Bop that she, and her “connections,” had not forgotten about the missing dough. And that honor debt would never be forgotten, even if he wound up face down in some dried bed desert somewhere. No more sing-song voices for far-gone Be-Bop.
I actually had not seen Be-Bop for a couple of years at that point but the whole thing had me interested for his sake, and maybe for a story. In any case it turned out that the so-called Harvard –Sonora University connection was bogus (the school was some local church school for girls and not the kind of place Harvard would have had some educational relationship with), she had been in the United States illegally and had been using a bogus visa,
her brothers were her drug connections (and heard to have done some nasty things to competitors, and those who didn’t come up with their cut of the dough), and she was married to some local drug bigwig while she was silky sheeting it with Be-Bop. The only “truth” about her was that little habit of coming up to guys and asking the “joint” question. A few companeros in the Sonora area that she was seen with came up face down in some deserted culvert as proof of her obsession.
After a while I finally found out where Be-Bop was, or had been, and passed a message on. Mainly about staying very far west, and very far away from sunny Sonora down Mexico way. And stay very, very, very far away from one Selena Rios. And this is the message I got back- “Damn, I can’t get that Selena off my mind no matter how far west I go, maybe I should try to see her.” Well, what is a guy going to do when the devil has got his woman. Adios, amigo.
From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- Devil’s Music 101- A CD Review
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Skip James performing his classic Devil Got My Woman.
CD Review
The Blues, various artists, 4 CD set, Smithsonian Recording, 1993
Recently, in reviewing a 2CD compilations of blues honoring the 40th Anniversary of Alligator Records, I noted that the raucous, rock the house of blues house down, blue artists listed there, like Johnny Winters, Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, and Lonnie Brooks, learned their trade from listening to an earlier generation of blues artists. The earlier artists grace this four CD set from the Smithsonian Recording Collection, from old time Charley Patton and Son House to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Basically this one covers virtually every voice and rhythm you would ever need to work your way into blues aficionado-hood.
Of course in that review I also noted that while I “learned “ the artists collected in that Alligator compilation on my own I owed a debt of gratitude to my old friend Be-Bop Benny (real name, Peter Paul Markin)
for “teaching” me the devil’s music. See, when we met in the summer of love, 1967 version, out in the California hills and hollows, I had just graduated from Olde Saco High School up in Maine and while I had the wanderlust to learn more of the world I was clueless about blues, country or electrified. I think the closest that I came to the blues was thinking that some Buddy Holly slow one, or Brenda Lee was what it was all about. Silly me.
So Be-Bop Benny took me in tow and during that summer, and for a few years after too, tuned me into the old time blues from his scratchy collection of off-beat singles (some called “race” records in their day) and LPs on his cranky road-weary record player (look that last term up if you are not familiar with the implement) that he had grabbed from some cheapo record shops in Harvard Square or at Sandy’s down closer to Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So that is how I came to know of the legends like Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Skip James, Memphis Minnie, Sippy Wallace, Big Joe Williams, Big Bill Bronzy, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and all the rest in this collection. But think about it, wouldn’t it have been less work, much less work, indeed, if he could have “taught” me devil’s music 101 with this compilation? What I learned about what hell to raise with the devil’s music is a separate (and private) question that he can take no credit, or blame, for. But here is your primer on the music.
CD Review
The Blues, various artists, 4 CD set, Smithsonian Recording, 1993
Recently, in reviewing a 2CD compilations of blues honoring the 40th Anniversary of Alligator Records, I noted that the raucous, rock the house of blues house down, blue artists listed there, like Johnny Winters, Albert Collins, Koko Taylor, and Lonnie Brooks, learned their trade from listening to an earlier generation of blues artists. The earlier artists grace this four CD set from the Smithsonian Recording Collection, from old time Charley Patton and Son House to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Basically this one covers virtually every voice and rhythm you would ever need to work your way into blues aficionado-hood.
Of course in that review I also noted that while I “learned “ the artists collected in that Alligator compilation on my own I owed a debt of gratitude to my old friend Be-Bop Benny (real name, Peter Paul Markin)
for “teaching” me the devil’s music. See, when we met in the summer of love, 1967 version, out in the California hills and hollows, I had just graduated from Olde Saco High School up in Maine and while I had the wanderlust to learn more of the world I was clueless about blues, country or electrified. I think the closest that I came to the blues was thinking that some Buddy Holly slow one, or Brenda Lee was what it was all about. Silly me.
So Be-Bop Benny took me in tow and during that summer, and for a few years after too, tuned me into the old time blues from his scratchy collection of off-beat singles (some called “race” records in their day) and LPs on his cranky road-weary record player (look that last term up if you are not familiar with the implement) that he had grabbed from some cheapo record shops in Harvard Square or at Sandy’s down closer to Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. So that is how I came to know of the legends like Charley Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson, Skip James, Memphis Minnie, Sippy Wallace, Big Joe Williams, Big Bill Bronzy, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and all the rest in this collection. But think about it, wouldn’t it have been less work, much less work, indeed, if he could have “taught” me devil’s music 101 with this compilation? What I learned about what hell to raise with the devil’s music is a separate (and private) question that he can take no credit, or blame, for. But here is your primer on the music.
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