Interspecies male bonding; Bread and Roses

[urbpan]

I'm having a surreal but not unpleasant time these last few days, with the wife, her daughter and the female dog away to see relatives. I have spent a lot of time with the male dog, and he seems to be enjoying the change of routine.



belen1974 came over to drop her car off before going on vacation. We watched a bad 80's vampire movie ("Vamp," despite having Grace Jones and Chris Makepeace, was no "Near Dark," or even "Fright Night."). She has more or less successfully taught me how to drive a standard transmission. For that alone she should get some kind of medal of honor. I'm grinding and bucking my way around town to shop for shelves, groceries and giant bags of groceries.

My father visited, and spent the night on Saturday. We spent Sunday at the Blue Hills Reservation, a great tract of parkland that encompasses the highest elevations from on the East coast (a humble 1500 feet or so). Father, son and dog enjoyed a vigorous hike (father hikes quite well, despite lack of depth perception and 70 years of wear on his body). The weather was as if it were artificially created on a terraformed alien world: 75 degrees, mostly sunny, low humidity. Because it was such a "perfect" day in August (the vacation month) on a Sunday (the Day of Rest) there were hundreds of other people enjoying the hills as well. The dog endured much head-patting by children (little-known fact: dogs don't like their heads patted), and given his background of abuse by children before being seized by the SPCA, he handled it gamely.

That evening was booked with a reading before a musical performance, arranged by Jaimie, who I met when I read at the Lucy Parson's Center last month. As it happened, this event was to take place in the park that my home abuts. The second Urban Nature Walk, in fact, passed by the performance space. I was embarrassed that I didn't know about the Musical Arch in the Riverway. Once I wondered why the arch existed, a bridge over nothing, and I was delighted to learn that it was there primarily for acoustic aesthetics. (In fact, my father my dog and I passed by the arch that morning, and a French horn player was practicing his scales there.)

I rode my bike down to the arch, with Charlie (it seems silly not to mention my dog by name at this point). We were very early, but there was a small group of people sitting on the hillside there. Jaimie approached us, and Charlie, unpredictable as ever, immediately loved him. I met some people, ate some wonderful shared food, and drank some wine.

A solo performer played acoustic pop punk under the archway. I think I stumbled upon his live journal: fivetonsofflax His songs, covers and originals, were passionate and related to everyday experience. Many more people arrived, including Erin from the comic book store--a nice friend from my Flyrabbit days. Charlie seemed to remember her, and insisted that we sit with her. The evening kept going, and more young people with bicycles kept arriving. I decided to ride home to get a drink to share, and to give Charlie a break from all the attention.

While at home the wife called, and filled me in on the family gathering: The other dog is a pain in the ass, it's cold in Vermont, everything else is pretty good. It was nice to hear from her--we aren't apart much, and it's a shock to the system when we are. I filled a sports-bottle with whiskey sour, refilled the water and asked Charlie if he wanted to go for another bikeride. Until I said the word "bikeride" he looked like he was ready for the pet cemetery. His eyes lit up and he sprang back on his feet. Okay, then, let's go.

I got back to the archway and Bread and Roses was playing. My contact, Jaimie, was playing drums. There was fiddle, mandolin, guitar and upright bass happening as well. It was explained to me that the line-up is fluid: sometimes there's a banjo player, sometimes there are any number of other people involved. This permutation was doing a hell of a job making 50 or 60 people sing and dance in the park, under the stone archway. Jaimie had explained to me via email: "We sound like the Pogues." But the Pogues have always eluded me--I'm not privy to their experience, I hear their music with the distance of someone who isn't involved. Bread and Roses is definitely a product of their time and space, very relevant to right here, right now--although an ethnomusicologist scholar of working class folk music would probably set me straight. I kept wishing that I could buy a CD of it, to share with others, but the anti-capitalist bent of the whole group makes me suspect that such a record may never be. Someone needs to record at least the anthemic "Making punk a threat again, again." Our culture is funny isn't it? How many "post"s do you have to put before "modern" before you accurately describe something happening today? (If Devo had to speak of the post post-modern man 20 years ago, where are we now?)

Suddenly, after a song ended, Jaimie finds my face in the crowd and asks if I'd like to do a reading from my zine. Sure, everyone loves for their music to be interrupted so that some guy can talk at them, (I thought). But I went up and gave Jaimie Charlie's leash. I read my live journal entry from April first. At the parts where I described Charlie reacting to words he knows, like "squirrel," Charlie perked up visibly, to the laughter of the crowd. When I finished, I exited stage right, and several people came up to me. One was the daughter of someone working on urban wilds projects in Brighton. Some others were nature lovers, exited to find kindred spirits. Most were fans of Charlie, who had been eyeing him from afar, but since he was now a public figure felt comfortable with directly approaching him.

The band resumed their set, I finished my whiskey sour thermos, and it started to get dark. The band finished and broke down their equipment. The crowd picked up their litter. The nature lovers watched bats fly around. I took Charlie home, and he finally got some sleep.

Comments

[rwblackbird.livejournal.com]

when are you coming out with your next issue?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

cottonmanifesto and I think we can have one out by October, maybe.