Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Seventy-One Today, Eighty-Eight Today, United Yesterday





My Fripp story, posted every Fripp birthday, today being his 71st: Fripp had a touring workshop called Guitar Craft and a performing ensemble, The League of Crafty Guitarists. A bunch of us (Elric, you were there, yes?) got in Phavid Dillips lime-green VW van and drove to an old yellow mansion in West Virginia, not far, past Harpers Ferry, up near Shepardstown. Phavid, who we thought an excellent guitarist - or at least the best guitarist we smoked dope with regularly - had been invited to sit in a circle of other guitarists with Robert Fripp leading the workshop. Incredibly cool actually. Guests were invited to sit in the circle; guess who refused. Afterward, going out for a smoke, I ran into Fripp on a porch and apologized. He asked me why I didn't sit in the circle. I said I didn't want to. He said, then you've nothing to apologize for, and shook my hand.






  • Bowie May 14th, Eno May 15th, Fripp May 16th, blessed be Serendipity.
  • There's one other run like this, end of July.
  • Saturday night I was spinning channels for weather and whether and landed on a DC United game at RFK. When the camera scanned up LOUD SIDE! just a bit I could see Section 232, Row 10, Seats 4, 5, and 6, Landru's, mine, SeatSix's for years. 
  • LOUD SIDE!'s diminished. I mean, damn, it was only five minutes of one game for the first time in two years, but damn, those seats are still orange.
  • We abandoned each for our own reasons, but shared was the conviction that United would (a) not invest in a quality team until and unless a new stadium, and (b) there never would BE a new stadium* and the team would move, but (c) if there was a new stadium there would be no more LOUD SIDE! and if I'm paying for cheezy tribal chills there had better be a LOUD SIDE!
  • *Me the LOUDEST! promising a Fuck-Me-Jig, a bet, looking back now, stupidly wagered, not for the jig but because I'd never go to new stadium for the reason cited above.
  • United's ticket agents no longer call me - I politely asked them to stop - but Serendipitously called a friend yesterday trying to lure him back. Friend told the agent of his concerns for LOUD SIDE! what happens to the Supporters Clubs, and shazam, as predicted, they are going to an end-zone. I assume the other end-zone is for long-time season ticket holders of modest disposable income with damn fine sideline seats at RFK. I'm guessing prices double or triple for equivalent of Section 232, Row 10, seats 4, 5, & 6.
  • UPDATE! Landru doxxes himself in comments, reports much more at length about his conversation with the DCU ticket agent. 
  • 2010 was United's worse season. RFK was a hoot. Best cheezy tribal chills of all seasons.
  • I first made the Fuck-Me-Jig bet back in 2004. That same year I canvassed for John Kerry in Harrisburg, so har-har me.
  • I never tailgated, I understand why folks dig it, and Supporters Clubs means tailgating. NO PLACE TO TAILGATE AT THE NEW STADIUM.
  • No one asks me anymore how I separate my politics and my soccer. Or something like that.

  • May is the birthdayiest month in the Egoslavian calendar.
  • It occurs to me I haven't posted recent youtubes of poets reading their poems out loud. I don't want them to read to me out loud. I want to read the poem out loud to me. 
  • Though hearing a poet read a line out loud rhythmically different than how I read it out loud fascinates me, always has, I struggle not to make it a fine metaphor abounding.
  • Today is Adrienne Rich's birthday, she was born eighty-eight years ago today.





  
BALLADE OF THE POVERTIES

Adrienne Rich

There’s the poverty of the cockroach kingdom and the rusted toilet bowl
The poverty of to steal food for the first time
The poverty of to mouth a penis for a paycheck
The poverty of sweet charity ladling
Soup for the poor who must always be there for that
There’s the poverty of theory poverty of the swollen belly shamed
Poverty of the diploma mill the ballot that goes nowhere
Princes of predation let me tell you
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of cheap luggage bursted open at immigration
The poverty of the turned head, the averted eyes
The poverty of bored sex of tormented sex
The poverty of the bounced check the poverty of the dumpster dive
The poverty of the pawned horn the poverty of the smashed reading glasses
The poverty pushing the sheeted gurney the poverty cleaning up the puke
The poverty of the pavement artist the poverty passed-out on pavement
Princes of finance you who have not lain there
There are poverties and there are poverties
There is the poverty of hand-to-mouth and door-to-door
And the poverty of stories patched-up to sell there
There’s the poverty of the child thumbing the Interstate
And the poverty of the bride enlisting for war
There’s the poverty of prescriptions who can afford
And the poverty of how would you ever end it
There is the poverty of stones fisted in pocket
And the poverty of the village bulldozed to rubble
Princes of weaponry who have not ever tasted war
There are poverties and there are poverties
There’s the poverty of wages wired for the funeral you
Can’t get to the poverty of the salary cut
There’s the poverty of human labor offered silently on the curb
The poverty of the no-contact prison visit
There’s the poverty of yard sale scrapings spread
And rejected the poverty of eviction, wedding bed out on street
Prince let me tell you who will never learn through words
There are poverties and there are poverties
You who travel by private jet like a housefly
Buzzing with the other flies of plundered poverties
Princes and courtiers who will never learn through words
Here’s a mirror you can look into: take it: it’s yours.



5 comments:

  1. This is my favorite Fripp story. As a longtime reader of his diary, I can confirm its authenticity (not that I'd question it, y'understand). It is similar to Fripp's most often told tale, wherein Jimi Hendrix comes backstage after a Crimson concert, probably roundabout '68-69. He approaches Fripp, dressed all in white, a luminescent figure, his right arm in a sling, extends his left hand and says, "Here, shake my left hand, man; it's closer to my heart."

    Last September 11th my brother joined my here for our, now irregularly regular Crimson shows together from '84 to last September (I can't afford to join him in Colorado next month:-( )). It was a good show. The encore included 'Heroes' — the shame being that it's been overused/played/sold over the years, rendered cliché, stripped of its essence. A double shame because the significance, I think, was lost on the Berlin audience, who barely suffer clichés politely. The significance that in the year of Bowie's death and thirty-nine years after its being recorded in this city during the artists seminal period, it should have carried the emotional weight one might carry around alone in their imagination. By the way, that handshake. It's extremely rare. You are a rare breed.

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  2. So, I should clarify something, because I was too terse yesterday when BDR and I had that United conversation. First, yes, of course it was me, and thanks to BDR for cloaking that, but as he noted, it's not like armed DCU agents are going to come to my door. Probably.
    Second, what the agent said when I said "end zone," was something more like "all the cool kids do it." He persisted when I said that didn't make it right. So, to be fair (to BDR, not United, about whom I do not give a fuck), he confirmed it by exhaustively defending the concept, not by explicitly confirming. It's not like I want the poor bastard to lose his shit job (EVERY United, Freedom, and Spirit ticket agent I have ever known--I have like a dozen of them in my contacts and follows because I'm too lazy to delete--has disappeared inside of 6 months).
    Given the size of DCU supporters' clubs, it's hard to picture Barra, Eagles, and Norte (and whoever else has spawned since I last went to RFK) all crammed into one end zone. Maybe it'll be Gringo End and Latinx End. No clue. But the passion of a ticket agent defending a practice that is anti-supporter was pretty clear confirmation that the sides will be kept clear of people who throw beer just because Sebastien Fucking LeToux punched it into the old onion bag (Ba'al bless you, Tommy Smyth).
    I didn't expound on all of this yesterday in a fairly brief exchange with BDR (I was busy, sorry), so to the extent that he's misreported or speculated here, it is not at all his fault, not even a little.
    For the record, I do not fully endorse BDR's view of tribalism, though I understand and credit it; I still energetically participate in several tribes of the red persuasion (only two of them local--Caps and Terps--I reverted to base geotribalism in beisbol, to the extent that I tribalize it at all, and I don't so much tribalize about helmetball as watch the train wreck). And that said, fuck DCU, but fuck your stupid non-OG MLS club even harder and uglier, or your OG MLS club that isn't United, if that's how you roll.
    To summarate:
    -Fuck DCU
    -Fuck Sebastien Fucking LeToux
    -WTF do you mean, END of July? Fucken yinzer. Go Phils.

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  3. Alsotoo: On behalf of the universe, *I* will personally enforce the fuck-me jig. With a camera in my hand, beloveds. Oh yes I will. Don't thank me, it's the least I can do for you.

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    Replies
    1. The jig *did* specify it was *my* season ticket seat, which won't exist, but sure, I'll go see the place once out of curiosity. And fun.

      We ought to go to one more game at RFK, you know.

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  4. Sounds like effort. But I can't say with any conviction that you're wrong.

    ReplyDelete