HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTER B

Billy Eckstine was part of the soundtrack of my boyhood. From his earliest records with his own band, the first big band of what was still The Swing Era to play the most progressive music of that time, bebop, to the lush studio orchestras that backed him in his solo career, every time he opened his mouth to sing radio audiences swooned.

Frank Sinatra, Jersey homeboy and incredible musical artist, was always my favorite along with Nat King Cole, but "Mister B" as he was known to many of his fans, was right up there with them. The only one to give Sinatra compeition with "the bobbysocksers" as the teenage girl fans were known, was Eckstine, and this at a time when most of the USA was still living in either legal racial segregation or de facto. Just look at the photo above and imagine what that was doing to racists as the time.

The best musician in our family, my second oldest brother "Buddy" (born James and we sometimes called him Jimmy too) used to do a spot on imitation of Mister B. And I attempted it too as best I could with my little boy's soprano and then tenor voice, as opposed to Eckstine's bass sound. It always intrigues me as a devout student of cultural history when someone so prominent in his day can be so forgotten. But I'll never forget.

Here's an example of one of his radio hits that made the charts when I was a nine-year-old:

JUST THE TWO OF US

me & my oldest brother Tommy, after he became Father Campion c. 1952

me & my friend Murph in San Antonio while in Basic Training March 1962

Jimmy Dunaway, my friend and drummer in my trio and fellow serviceman, & me in Spokane in 1964

me & my first wife, Lee, after I got out of the military in 1966

Poet Ken McCullough & me in DC in 1972

poet Ed Cox & me in DC in 1972

poet Robert Slater & me in DC in 1972

my then mate Ana & me in Florence in 1974

me & my son Miles in NYC in 1975

my oldest child, Caitlin, & me in DC in 1976

[to be continued]

JACK COLLOM R.I.P.

I didn't know poet Jack Collom well. I met him a few times and I think was on the same bill with him at a poetry reading years ago. But everyone I knew who knew him better than me had nothing but good things to say about him. And I knew his poetry, which I like. If you don't know his work, the book to get is his big one: RED CAR GOES BY: Selected Poems 1955-2000. Rest In Poetry, Jack.

(PS: I wanted to quote from one of the poems in it, but I can't find my copy. It sat on a shelf on one of the three giant seven-foot-high, seven-shelf bookcases I have in my bedroom (with my tiny one drawer desk and twin bed in my monk's lifestyle), but I started rearranging my books a while ago and got stuck halfway through, and now books are all over the apartment in unfamiliar ways on various other bookcases and RED CAR GOES BY just isn't jumping out for me.

But here's another poem of Jack Collom's I found online (and here's a good obit on him):

Ecology

BY JACK COLLOM

Surrounded by bone, surrounded by cells,

by rings, by rings of hell, by hair, surrounded by

air-is-a-thing, surrounded by silhouette, by honey-wet bees, yet

by skeletons of trees, surrounded by actual, yes, for practical

purposes, people, surrounded by surreal

popcorn, surrounded by the reborn: Surrender in the center

to surroundings. O surrender forever, never

end her, let her blend around, surrender to the surroundings that

surround the tender endo-surrender, that

tumble through the tumbling to that blue that

curls around the crumbling, to that, the blue that

rumbles under the sun bounding the pearl that

we walk on, talk on; we can chalk that

up to experience, sensing the brown here that’s

blue now, a drop of water surrounding a cow that’s

black & white, the warbling Blackburnian twitter that’s

machining midnight orange in the light that’s

glittering in the light green visible wind. That’s

the ticket to the tunnel through the thicket that’s

a cricket’s funnel of music to correct & pick it out

from under the wing that whirls up over & out.

NOT MY MEME BUT WORTH SHARING

YEP

BABY DRIVER

Once I got over the fact that this movie didn't have anything to do with Jan Kerouac's book, BABY DRIVER, and went to check it out on its own terms, my first reaction to the opening was, nicely done, and then, who is this kid in the title role and is he up to the challenge and whoa, he sure as feck is.

Ansel Elgort seemed too soft and child/teen-actorish in appearance, at first, to convince me he could pull off the lead in the stellar cast, but he ends up giving one of the best performances of the year, I'd say, along with everyone else in the flick. Just one of the reasons to praise director/writer Edgar Wright.

An unlikely candidate to direct a more-or-less classic Hollywood heist flick, Wright proves the eye and ear for fast-paced writing, directing and editing that made him successful in his most famous gigs until this one—SHAUN OF THE DEAD, et. al.—have been honed to perfection and surpassed my expectations very satisfactorily.

John Hamm lives up to his name and still makes it work, Kevin Spacey actually surprised me, Jamie Foxx is great as always, but it's the kid, Elgort, and the always effervescent Lily James, along with lesser knowns (at least to me) Eiza Gonzales and CJ Jones (I thank the director for actually casting a deaf actor rather than a hearing one playing deaf), and a cameo by Flea as a thug with a fake nose, to name a few, that makes everything click into place perfectly.

BABY DRIVER is a great ride, with enough clever (in the best sense of that word, not the "kill your darlings" sense) details (for those who care, there are several famous folks in small roles, for instance) and unexpected twists to overcompensate for whatever might be predictably contrived about a Hollywood heist flick. Perfect movie escape on a hot summer day or night.

CANADA DAY

There's a lot more than this, but though not hilarious it does make a few good points at the top: