Blackstaff

Talked to Blackstaff last nite. he doing very well, despite the adjustmentt to the new job. Wanna visit them- it's only a 5h drive (well, 'only', but...) but since I'll have some time over xmas, maybe. (or MLK weekend). Plan it up.

The distrubing news from hm was totally personal. One of the bands I'm in, The General Strikes, consists of Blaxx and I. He's all music, I'm all voice ('cept for the occasional handclap percussion bits etc...). Over the years we have haphazardly recorded a lot of songs- we must have 10 or so songs of varying quality as set pieces of work.

And in my opinion, the best was a song called "The Last Patrol", and was so deeply personal that the lyrics had to be garbled, shouted, screamed, and scrabbled, and otherwise made so totally indecipherable so that no one could tell what I was writing about. You won't find out, either- still too harsh a time. But I do know that although he has never heard the song, the title alone will inform one person EXACTLY what going on- another mite take a word and surmise. I remember recording it, too. When it came time to put down the vocals, and the pain and camouflage came out, John's old lover, the Tejas Gal had to stop herself from coming into the music room to quiet us (me) down. She waited till I was done. We all burst out laughing, but I loved that song best. I've heard it twice ever, too- recording it, then playing it back once.

Listen: even Blackie has no clue- so leave me alone. But it fits my pattern- if i can't directly talk about it, hide it- like most of the 'poems' I do here, and especially "Ithica".

And now, we are in danger of losing the tapes. Seems that it was recorded on the Tejas Gal digital machine, and she's now gone and in S.F., another machine is needed (or something). Maybe even a dash of water to the back of the neck and the codes.

Reminds me of my Mac problem. I have 40 or so papers from grad school on an ancient Mac. I tried to copy all the good stuff onto floppies

Needs to get done.

Picture of Albini via Rocky Welcome the Shellac shows this wkd.