Letter

Friday morning I’m driving to Kansas. I was invited to participate in the very first Paper Plains Zine Fest. I’ll get to shill my crap and talk to writers and artist who do the same. That night there’s supposed to be a reading at Flagship Books (which seems to only have Facebook and Insta accounts I can’t open.) Anyways, if you’re in the area, come say hello. Maybe buy a book.

I picked up a book on Burma-Shave road signs a little while back. From the 30s into the 60s there was poetry by the sides of America’s highways courtesy of a grooming product’s ad campaign. I won’t get to see any of their couplets on my drive west but they’ve been on my mind. The book I got is falling apart and has a dust-jacket. I cut up the crumbling yellow paper. Used it to make bookmarks I’ll sell in Kansas.

There’s a noir festival at the Music Box this weekend. I saw a movie about twin brothers: one was sent away to school; the other’s death was faked and he was imprisoned in the basement of his family’s creepy castle before escaping and going on a killing spree. Not a great one but it had moments. Probably most notable for featuring two actors who met fates as ugly as any horror movie: Frances Farmer and Albert Dekker. Look them up if you wanna get sad. It also has a very young Susan Hayward, who didn’t live to old age either but whose life circumstances weren’t as tragic as her costars’, so far as I know. Movie’s called Among the Living appropriately enough.

In the second movie of the afternoon, Burgess Meredith is hit on his head with a falling brick from a construction site and forgets who he is. As the story goes on, it turns out this is the second time within a year that he’s gotten amnesia. What are the chances? There are two women in love with him from his two different lives and some guy chasing him trying to pin a murder and collect a rich man’s inheritance. No rhyme or reason to any of it and things end badly for everyone involved as they must in any self-respecting noir. It’s called Street of Chance and it’s a masterpiece.

If the people in these films hit the road, they’d doubtless be treated to Burma-Shave signs. From my book I learned that the company was swallowed up by Philip Morris in the 60s. That’s when the poetry stopped. Noirs were superceded by westerns about the same time. They come back now and then. Saw a good one called The Forgiven with Ralph Fiennes and Jennifer Chastain earlier this year. It’s an evergreen mode for movies. Existential doom never goes out of style for long. 

Unlike certain men’s grooming products.

—Wednesday I talk to musician Sam Wagster. While you count down the minutes, listen to the one with Mick Collins.

“She was my older sister, my first teacher, my first friend, my first fight, my last fight. She was my everything. She was the bravest person I knew, on and off the stage. And life just seems too quiet now.”

That’s Jaime Branch’s sister, Kate, at the end of an NPR obit. I didn’t know Jaime but I loved her record with the pigeons on the cover and it was a trip to watch her play. Prototypically, a trumpeter is tall and thin, a little like the instrument itself. Branch wasn’t that. She didn’t dress like a jazzer either but more like a hiphop kid. Her music was all over the place. Tuneful one second, blaring the next. A wide spectrum of sound but always alert and engaged. Even the quiet moments had an intensity. There was a gig at the Rainbo a few years back where I could just see her enough over the crowd to make a sketch.

When people die young there’s a whole thesaurus of phrases that gets hauled out. Gone too soon/Before her time/Now with the angels/Too good for this world/etc etc. These things are meaningless. A hollow comfort for survivors and grievers. I guess it’s safe to say Branch’s wasn’t a ‘natural’ death, whatever that is. When a 39-year-old musician with a history of smack addiction passes it’s not hard to connect the dots. There’s been no official cause of death given but hard living probably played a part. It’s a cliché for gifted creative people to be swallowed by offstage habits. The trouble is that nothing offstage can match the high on stage. It makes the 22 or 23 other hours every day torture. 

I don’t know for sure if that’s what took Jaime. It doesn’t matter. She’s gone but her music’s still here. I listened to her record three times in a row this morning. It’s the only way I know to pay tribute. She stuck around as long as she could. Her time here wasn’t wasted.

Listen to Fly or Die.

I’m sitting outside a coffeeshop on a bright August day. I watch a schlubby guy cross the street to the restaurant across the way. Tuesdays since the plague began they’ve been giving away box lunches. This guy used to be a regular at the bar. He’d weasel drinks out of whoever sat next to him. Always cried poor. Paid with mountains of coins held together with lint. Of course he lines up for the free lunch. Would be shocked if he missed a week.

I hated him for the transparent look of calculation in his eye. Anyone who sat within a few seats got appraised. What could they give him? How hard could he push? What sob story will loosen the purse strings?

I know he has a job. Works at some restaurant in the West Loop. Two kinds of restaurant workers went to the bar. The first buys everyone rounds. Spends all they’ve made. Blacks out. Does it again. The second hangs around with the first and only reciprocates when shamed repeatedly. Springs for PBR after getting Three Floyds all night. Stays sober pretending to be trashed. Has to keep his wits about him while on the make.

I know you know this guy. You work at enough places you meet him or his clones again and again. Must be a factory on the outskirts of town that manufactures them. But what is his purpose? In the animal world a parasite might clean dirt and debris off the surface of the skin of whatever it has attached itself to. My friend wasn’t carrying any cleaning products.

I’m trying to restart work on a book I started a few months back. It’s a series of long-after-the-fact responses to letters I’ve kept for decades. Instead, I’m watching the parade of free lunchers. One old man is so happy he stops passersby and points them toward the restaurant door, insisting they get one for themselves. 

It’s delicious!

I’ve never gone over there. I’ve been fortunate not to go hungry in a long time. Doesn’t feel right to take food in place of those who can’t afford it. My friend from earlier made me think bad thoughts about the people across the street but I doubt most are freeloaders like him. I hope not, in any case.

—I was interviewed on Salt Lake Dirt, interviewed Brian Case last week, will interview Mick Collins this Wednesday. Mallory and I interviewed each other about Get Out. I contributed a short tribute to Gil Roth’s epic 500th episode of his Virtual Memories and made a love/hate list for Hello America. Also wrote about a forthcoming book I truly enjoyed.