Musings on Performance

This Saturday,at an event sponsored by MNORML,I will be giving my first solo performance in over 2 years. My last solo performance was held at the Mercury Cafe in Denver. It was received pretty well by the audience,but I remember feeling a little off during the performance..a little feverish with dizzy spells. Little did I know at the time that I had cancer. I would find out 2 months later. I'm feeling much better now.

I look at any type of live performance as akin to skydiving. No matter how much one knows or rehearses the material,anytime one steps out in front of the audience,it becomes it's own experience to be shared with the performer and audience alike and one never knows what's going to happen. It's all in the moment. Scary and thrilling at the same time, That's the magic of performance.

With solo performance,that feeling of being without a net is heightened. No actors to bounce things off of..no bandmates to hide behind. The show flies or fails because of YOU.

I always admired the late Spalding Gray for his theatrical monologues. It was his personal input that led to the development of my own monologue Black Hippie Chronicles.

Saturday's performance is not a monologue,it's more of a weaving of poetry and stories into a coherent narrative,but I feel Spalding Grey's spirit in its preparation.

Revenge on the Yankees

Folks that know me know that while I do gloat upon any misfortune that may fall upon the Minnesota Vikings or the Oakland Raiders,the bulk of my sports venom is directed towards the New York Yankees. Unfortunately through the years,I haven't had much opportunity to gloat in Yankee misfortune. I still have fond memories of the 1966 Yankees however..the first Yankee team to finish in last place since 1912. Horace Clarke anyone?

The mid to late 1970's were a tough time if you hated the Yankees. It was the heyday of the Steinbrenner run teams..The Bronx Zoo,Billy Martin,Reggie Jackson,Thurman Munson,Bucky Dent. High Drama and pennants.You couldn't even go into a store without seeing the Reggie Bar on display. A Reggie Bar was a Snickers type candy bar named after Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson.

What made things even worse was that I was living in New York City during this era. Some of the time was spent in Brooklyn,I also lived in Queens for a time.  I moved to New York from Alaska in October of 1976.  The first baseball game I saw as a resident of New York was within weeks of moving to New York. I saw  Game 4 of the '76 Series between the Yankees and the Cincinnati (Big Red Machine) Reds.

I wasn't going to turn down a chance to go to a World Series game,but being the Yankee hater I am,it's hard to acknowledge that my first World Series game involved the Yankees.
Yankees lost and got swept in that Series,but to openly gloat over Yankee misfortune at Yankee Stadium would be akin to asking for a bloody face. I also knew within a month of living in the Big Apple that I was going to hate it.

Adding insult to injury was the fact that my favorite baseball team,the New York Mets, were in the midst of the worst era in the history of the franchise. Most of the heroes of the 1969 "Miracle Mets" or the '73 "You Gotta Believe" team were either gone or past their prime. M. Donald Grant was the worst GM in Mets history,and was the architect of what was known as the "Saturday Night Massacre" when the Mets in one day traded the cornerstone of the franchise Tom Seaver,and slugger Dave Kingman.

Yankee fans are among the most arrogant in sports and to be in the midst of them was almost unbearable. There wasn't much a Mets fan could do in the midst of it..or was there??

In New York in the seventies,I worked at a place called New Life Vinyl Repair. We would go to various car dealerships in Manhattan,Brooklyn,Queens,and Long Island to repair torn vinyl and leather in cars.
This was not a job for me.I had the amazing knack of taking what should have a simple repair and turning it into a major operation. I often created more damage than what I started out with. Dealerships would often call the New Life office telling the office manager to never send me to that dealership again. New York car dealers are not nice when they're pissed. I dreaded and hated virtually every day at work.

Under most circumstances,I would have been fired or allowed to quit,however New Life was not some normal job. It was owned and operated by the church group I belonged to called Gospel Outreach Ministries. Gospel Outreach Ministries was part of the "Jesus Movement" which sprouted up in the 1970's amongst the counterculture set. Gospel Outreach at its inception preached "discipleship" Its definition being giving up your old friends,in some cases your family,and material possessions to live communally,place one's life under the "authority" of church "elders" who by in large were pretty young (mid 20's and 30's) and to work for the church owned businesses.
Instead of being fired or allowed to quit,being incompetent on the job was viewed as a church matter,and the managers of New Life Vinyl Repair happened to be the church elders. Instead of being fired,facing failure every day was supposed to be looked upon as either some sort of character building exercise or as a means of rooting out sin. Failures on the job gave the church leaders an opportunity to "minister" to me. One elder told me that working for New Life was "saving me from a life as a Bohemian writer,who would hang at coffeeshops listening to poetry."

The ministering wasn't working though and with more and more dealerships complaining,something was going to have to happen and soon..

What was decided was I was to be teamed up with another who was undergoing the same struggles and we were going to either sink or swim.  I was teamed up with a guy named Michael Lanzillotta from Long Island. Michael was a talented pianist and songwriter. Repairing car seats was not anymore his thing than it was mine,but in Michael's case,the chemicals we used for repair would create rashes on his hands.

For awhile the experiment worked.We were getting the work done,and there were no complaints. Michael and I enjoyed working together as for us part of the workday would include listening to "forbidden"music,doing Bee Gees impersonations as well as working out various acting routines.

Then came the big test.We were being sent to a Mercedes dealership in Manhattan to repair a leather seat. Leather was much tougher to repair than vinyl,and generally New Life would only send its best repairmen to a Mercedes dealer.

The seat had a tiny scratch on it.Supposedly,this was the type of repair that should have taken no longer than a half hour to do. Started out as if was going to be a quick and easy repair,Michael and I would have proven ourselves and we could maybe be like the rest of the repairmen..Then problems arose..The paint we had sprayed over the repair didn't quite match the seat. With an old used car, we would have been close enough to let it go,but this was a new Mercedes and things had to be exact. We had to strip off the paint. Leather seats tended to be very sensitive to the chemicals we'd use,and now a larger part of the seat is beginning to peel. In attempting to straighten out that mess,some of the chemicals splashed onto the plastic rear windows many Mercedes had back then.

I cant remember if it was the rubbing alcohol or the methyl ethel ketone we applied to the window to clean it up,but whatever it was,we placed a permanent fog on the window and ruined it. We didn't do much better with the car seat either.

The next day Michael and I heard about of the thousands of dollars worth of damage we did to the Mercedes. We heard about the yelling our manager received from the dealership. Like I said before..a pissed off New York car dealer is not very nice. As it turned out the dealership had to make a few maneuvers in order to keep Yankee outfielder Reggie Jackson from learning his Mercedes had been ruined. I think the dealership manager was a Yankees fan too. And we had just destroyed the car of the one,who according to his own words was the "straw that stirred the drink" of those Yankee teams.

I guess on one level Michael and I were lucky that the damages didn't come out of our pockets,but I look at it this way. We were taught that good things can come out of disasters and if I was going to wreck a car,what car was going to be better to wreck than one of a New York Yankee! Praise the Lord!
Next: the story of how Bucky Dent's homer in 1978 got me in big trouble.

Travelling the Alcan

It recently came to my attention that the Alaska Highway,otherwise known as the Alcan is now completely paved. I feel a little sad about that.

The Alaska Highway was built during World War II by the US Army,though most of it is in Canada. It used to be an unpaved highway through British Columbia and the Yukon Territory,over 1500 miles of it.
For years there would be talk about paving it,but the discussion would always end when it would come down to who was going to pay for it. The U.S. would say because most of it was in Canada that the Canadians should pay for the paving,and the Canadians would tell the US: "You built it,you pave it." I'm glad a war didn't erupt between the US and Canada over this dispute. As far as I was concerned,they could continue disputing who was going to pay for it and leave it unpaved because in my book,the Alcan was the spot for the great North American Adventure.

First of all,how many highways have a book dedicated to it? The Milepost was a mile by mile guide for the Alaska Highway,and was considered a must have if you planned to travel it. It was especially important to know where the gas stations were. Back before it was paved,the Milepost told you things like expect your windshield to be cracked,and shut all your vents if you were travelling during the summer because the dust could clog up all the vents in your car. Right away,this tells you that the Alcan was not for the casual traveller.

The highway takes you through some of the most breathtaking landscapes on the planet. Mountains..lakes. forests.. Lots of wildlife around. I heard my first wolfpack on one of my travels.

I drove the Alaska Highway twice. After the first time I said I'd never do it again,yet when the opportunity to ride it came again,I jumped at it. It's that way if one has any sense of adventure. I view life in a sense as one huge adventure,and both excursions on the Alcan lived up to its billing.

My first Alcan Adventure came in the summer of 1974. It was with my college roommate David Trent. The trip for us began in Kansas City after a Crosby,Stills,Nash,and Young concert there.We were returning for school. We were later joined by Doug Shand,a hitchhiker from Winnepeg back in the days when one wasn't risking one's life picking up a hitchhiker.

In Dawson Creek BC,the beginning of the Alaska Highway,we were informed that it had been raining heavily along the highway and by the time we reached Fort Nelson BC,the highway could be closed. We were told to proceed at our own risk. We sure as hell weren't going to turn around,so forward we went with plans on arriving in Anchorage in a few days.
We got to Fort Nelson. By the time we arrived,the rain had stopped,but the rain had done its damage and the highway was washed out. At the time,the population of Fort Nelson was barely 1,000. Close to that many people were stranded there. I don't know it was like for the retirees riding in their Winnebagos,but for us college aged kids,this was like a 3 day party!
Because the General Store quickly ran out of food,the Canadian government resupplied it via helicopter and gave us all food vouchers. Rainbow Family-like food camps quickly sprouted,and at night,the bar never seemed to run out of beer.

Finally,the road dried up and there was going to be a convoy leading out of Fort Nelson. David,Doug and I tried to be at the head of the pack by hiding the car in the tall bush before the convoy was to begin,but the Mounties busted us and sent us to the middle of the pack. Just days before,this road was mostly mud..now it was kicking up dust. You knew why the Milepost told you to close your car vents now. Our windshield got cracked shortly after the convoy got started. The reason we attempted to get ahead of the convoy was to avoid what we knew would be excessive dust caused by so many vehicles travelling this road at the same time. There was so much dust,we could barely see the car in front of us when the convoy came to a sudden stop. Story goes is some animal cut in front of the convoy. We stopped before hitting the car in front of us,but that didn't stop the cars behind us smashing into us. For whatever reason,we found ourselves as part of a 30 car pileup. None of us were hurt,but the car was in pretty bad shape.
Doug chose to leave us at this point. He had to get on and knew nothing about cars and didn't feel he could help us. David and I knew nothing about cars either,but somehow by tinkering with wires,we got the car started,and by not stopping the car even when we filled up for gas,a couple days later,we hobbled into Anchorage.

I said at the time that I'd never drive the Alcan again,but a year later I was back at it. This time it was in November..winter on the Alcan. My passengers this time were an old high school buddy who decided to move from Connecticut to Alaska,and a friend of his.
It was on this trip where I knew I was in Jack London Call of the Wild territory when I heard with my own ears a wolfpack take out a domestic dog who had wandered into the woods. It was also on this trip where I saw my first Aurora Borealis.
There was one major problem however. The Milepost warned that chains were an essential item if one was to travel the Alcan in November. I relayed this warning to my buddy prior to making the trip.
His response? "No need for chains for my vehicle.I have the best snow tires money can buy!"
His vehicle was a rather bulky van..Impressive if one is driving the streets in Connecticut,but on the Alcan when we were faced with blizzard conditions riding up mountain passes with no guardrails,I was convinced I was riding in my hearst. Down below one could see car carcasses,no doubt from previous attempts to ride these mountain passes without chains. No doubt those vehicles were hearsts for the passengers of them. 10 mph seemed too fast going over them. There was a 2 hour period where all one could hear was the motor of the van,and the wipers pushing away the snow.
I've never been much for hard alcohol,yet when we landed on lower ground and camped for the night, a few swigs of Jack Daniels were called for.

It's been a few years now since I last took that road.Don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity to drive the Alcan again..I'd love to if the opportunity arose. Maybe this time the adventure would be actually seeing the wolfpack,or maybe an earthquake will change the highway landscape. I hope I'm wrong,but I cant imagine a paved Alaska Highway as being the same..

Looking Back-Moving Forward

On more than one occasion,I've been known to take a moment in order to reflect upon things that have transpired as one moves forward. Now is no exception.

This time I'm reflecting on the fact that in one week marks a year since I pulled up stakes in Denver and returned to Minnesota. It was a move I had not expected to make..after all Denver's got the Rocky Mountains,medical marijuana and the Denver Broncos,and the weather is generally a lot warmer..

Life has certainly taken some crazy turns for me,and in particular since that crazy day in December of 2009 when I learned the words Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma would be a regular part of my vocabulary for the foreseeable future. Life has not been dull since my return,but I gotta say with each passing day,it becomes clearer to me that I made the right move for myself in returning.

Since returning,I have been blessed being able to resume my life as a writer and performer. While most of my energy has still been devoted to healing and getting resettled,I've had the opportunity on a couple of occasions to sit in with the Stevens Brothers Band,and last December collaborated with Dhanny Boldt and Serdar Guvenc with a spoken word/music experiment we call The Project.

It has been my experience as a writer that in some way the things that are written reflect what is going on in the writer's life at the moment... Recently pulled out some of the older writings,and couldn't help but to notice the anger and angst present in life at the time it was written.

Life now is not what it was then,and much has transpired in this past year. I've continued to survive cancer. In a few months I will be a grandfather. I am now connected to a wonderful woman to whom I hope to grow old with.

The Project both lyrically and musically reflect some of those changes. Old material is covered in different ways and then there's the new material.

For one to remain in the past,one risks becoming a relic..One must always move forward



Link to David Daniels with the Stevens Brothers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cBPGJcAS4A

Sharing the Stage

For some reason I got it in my head to share with you some of my favorite stage memories to date..Some of you have shared some of these experiences with me,and that's one cool part of sharing these memories!
This list is more in chronological order,and linked more to the actual stage experience,so if you know of a performance of mine not listed,that is probably why..let's start.

The premier of my first play- Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh-Cedar Cultural Center Minneapolis MN
What can I say? ..Too many memories to state here. The one I will share is after it was over,jumping on top of Mitch Olson (The Man on the Couch in the play) in part marvelling over the fact that smoking 5 joints onstage didn't get us arrested!

Denver premier of Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh-Mercury Cafe Theater Denver Colorado
Before the play started,I remember Mitch and I having this stunned look when we saw lines stretching out the door for Opening Night.

Fort Collins-Colorado State University
 Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh for a one night appearance..Should have known things would be different when an older woman in the audience offered to take Mitch (as the Man on the Couch) to the hospital as she thought he was on acid. Sure enough things ended differently when I spent a half hour afterwards being questioned by cops upon reports of "marijuana being smoked on stage"

The Bug Theater-Denver Colorado
Malcolm X Meet Peter Tosh..I've never experienced such an overreaction from the cops in my life over a few joints being smoked in the audience...Roadblocks on the street.The theater surrounded.It created its own theater. On cue,Thomas Behler as the Man on the Couch blew smoke on the cops as they reached the front row,and Scott Kelley as Peter Tosh on cue went into his burning monologue attacking "the shitstem" right at the point where the cops started to arrest some in the audience. As I'm waiting for the cops to question me,I notice a cop hardly being able to contain himself from feeling the rhythms as the 8750 Reggae Band starts to play.

Closing Night of I Edgar Hoover Mercury Cafe Theater Denver Colorado
Dynamic Performance by an amazing cast! Jason Richards as Hoover was explosive "Goddamed Television!"
Rasta Stevie from the 8750 Reggae Band came from Telluride and joined drummers Thomas Behler and Marie-paule Vandevelde for a performance that also served as my going away party.. I returned to Minneapolis the very next day.

Kolorada...a western tale opening for the Life of Bob Marley Roger Steffens presentation-First Avenue Minneapolis MN.
Performed this one man play unmiked in front of 1200 folks at First Ave. It was an amazing sight to see people sit down and listen to the piece!

Opening for Linton Kwesi Johnson First Avenue Minneapolis MN
LKJ appreciated the backdrop to my spoken word piece-an upside down American Flag..It was to highlight the tone of the piece..kinda nice to be appreciated by the pioneer of dub poetry.

Opening for the Wailers with the I-Roots Band  First Avenue Minneapolis MN
Didn't know how this spoken word collaboration with the I Roots Band was going to work frankly. The lead singer and I seemed to have different visions as to how this set should go. I was so afraid about how this gig was going to go,that I didn't tell my friends that I would be opening for this legendary reggae band...Then Dwight Hobbes wrote about it in his column. Sometimes things magically come together at the right time. Moments before hitting the stage,I felt a special kind of energy,the band felt it and what came out afterwards was pure magic. It was and is my humble opinion that we put on a better show than the Wailers that evening.

Scenes from a Reggae Western with Philip T. Hunter (Radio Drama)
My roots in theater go back to radio drama in college. Phil and I both share a fondness for old westerns.It was great doing the research..listening to 1940's Radio Westerns and spending time at the Black Cowboys exhibit in Denver. Phil and I worked the same day job. We talked about putting together this piece for almost a year before getting down to writing it,but because we did,the dialogue came together in no time. The radio drama was also assisted by Ike Russell on base,the voice of Shawn Cassity,and the music of the Reggae Cowboys out of Canada. Phil went on to direct my theatrical monologue Black Hippie Chronicles

Talkin' Roots Crew Hurricane Katrina Benefit-Minneapolis MN
With no time to even schedule a rehearsal, it still ended up being one of the most electric performances I've been a part of. It was also one of the last times I got to perform with the late Charlie Braden on saxophone

Talkin' Roots Crew Bob Dylan Tribute -Minneapolis MN Sponsored by the Minnesota Spoken Word Association (MNSWA) We performed a bluegrass tinged Dylanesque rendition of "Greenwich Village-San Francisco from our CD 4:20 Report. We had never performed that way before..it was fun and I got to wear my Cowboy Hat!

Adventures in Music and Storytelling with Charlie Parr-Duluth MN.
This collaboration had its genesis in Jazzy J's Apartment. At the time little did I know that by the time this would meet its fruition,Jazzy would be soon departing us,and that I would be facing cancer myself. This was my first performance after the diagnosis,and to be able to share the stage with Charlie? Wow! I'm glad a person can check out that show on You Tube!

I could talk about more ...performing Kolorada at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe,how a performance shortly after 9/11 helped to send me to Germany or many other stories set over 20 years of performing. But for now,I'll leave that for another time.

January 20,1965

Helen Louise Jones Daniels was an educator,civil rights activist,and a local leader in the Democratic Party. She was also my mother. As a 9 year old,mom took me to the 1964 Democratic Party Platform committee hearings in Washington DC. It was there where I got a tour of a major media press room courtesy of NBC Correspondent Elie Abel,chatted with Dr.Martin Luther King,had lunch with Ella Grasso (who later became Connecticut's first women Governor),and because neither of us was watching where we were going,nearly walked into Robert Kennedy.

My mom was very actively involved in the 1964 Election of Lyndon B.Johnson. It was largely due to the fact that her hero Hubert H. Humphrey was on the ticket as Johnson's Vice President.


Mom was quite excited by declaration the year before that I was going to be President of the United States and because of that,I got to tag along with my mom to meetings and gatherings she would attend when my other brothers had to stay home. Because of my intentions to run for President,she overlook the embarrassment she received when she learned I was the only kid in the entire school who cast his vote in the mock presidential election for Johnson's Republican opponent,Sen.Barry Goldwater.

On January 4th 1965,I turned 10 years old. My mom chose to have my birthday party at an Italian Restaurant known to be a spot where Hartford's local politicians would congregate. Among the guests at my party was the city's Mayor.

 If the party itself wasn't a big enough deal,then my birthday present was. It was there where I learned I would be attending the Presidential Inauguration on January 20th.

It was my first plane ride,and the first time I can recall wearing thermal underwear...and I still managed to piss off my mom by standing up and clapping when Barry Goldwater was recognized.

Halloween 1964

When Halloween of 1964 rolled around,this 4th Grade kid was still greatly impacted by the events that had occured in November of the previous year.I imagine there were some youth of another generation impacted the same way when they saw the Challenger blow up right in their classrooms,and still others of a more recent generation,and more recently I'm certain there was a fourth grader out there still obsessed with what they saw on September 11,2001. Children are an impressionable lot.

In the time between November of 1963,and Halloween of 1964,this kid had become somewhat of a collector of all things Kennedy,and had even decided that his goal should be to run for President of the United States when he was eligible. This 9 year old was even consumed with the 1964 Presidential Election and was already learning what it was like to take an unpopular position,because he had declared to the dismay of his mom,(a staunch Johnson-Humphrey supporter and campaign worker) and the scorn of fellow classmates of his intentions to cast his vote in the school mock election for Senator Barry Goldwater,but that's another story for another time..

Given all this, when Halloween rolled around,it should not have been a big surprise to anyone that when most 4th graders were trying to find the scariest outfit for Halloween,or at least something to look like some TV character like My Favorite Martian,the moment he came across a John F. Kennedy mask,that JFK he was going to be.

It wasn't going to be too hard to be JFK on Halloween,all that was needed was the mask,and to wear the jacket and tie that was worn for church and sunday school every week.

He had no one to trick or treat with that Halloween. Luckily in 1964,everyone in the neighborhood knew everyone,and even if you went out alone,by the time you rang a person's doorbell,you were shortly going to be joined by other kids in the neighborhood. Now in this kid's mind there was more to portraying John F. Kennedy than dressing like him. One had to adopt a Bostonian accent or try as best as one could. It was also going to be important to be Presidential. This was also going to be practice for the time when the kid was actually going to be President of the United States.

When he reached his first door,he was joined by a group of about 5 other kids.
"Trick or Treat!" they all yelled . The adult at the door began hand out the candy.

 "And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."
The words were spoken clearly,concisely,and while the Boston accent may not have been perfect,the hand gestures were recognizable to anyone who had even as much glanced at a TV during that era. The other kids began to laugh. Being laughed at was nothing new to this kid. He had been laughed at for everything from being ugly,to being a poor athlete,and this thought of becoming President seemed absurd to most. The kid was willing to take it however.To be President it seemed,one had to be unpopular to a certain extent.. after all JFK had to take a bullet to the head because he was President.
Nevertheless,this seemed like a disaster in the making till the adult passing out the candy began to applaud. The other kids split at this point,but in doing so they missed out on the extra pieces of candy given to him by this adult.
This unique approach to Halloween continued at every door with other excerpts of Kennedy speeches given at every new door.

"The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world." The Christmas the year before,the kid's most prized Christmas gift was an LP containing many of Kennedy's speeches. For a year,he had played that record over and over and over again,memorizing many of the passages as a result. After awhile other kids were choosing to knock on doors before or after the kid would reach it,but in almost every instance,the kid was receiving extra candy and becoming a favorite of every adult he would speak with.

"Ich Bin Ein Berliner" was probably the only Kennedy passage that wasn't working that night,but every child within eye shot of the kid had to notice that his Halloween bag was more full of candy then the rest.
Then it happened..the kid's bag broke. In what seemed like seconds,every child anywhere close to the kid rushed up and took every last piece of candy that had fallen to the ground. In an instant the kid's Camelot was no more,and Halloween never seemed the same to that kid ever again.