Photoshopping old slides...

I’ve recently found myself in the middle of an undertaking that has far exceeded any expectations I may have had going in. I am retrieving my family from the cheap film and lousy emulsions of the past. Let it be said that my dad was a great dad, but also let it be known that his idea of taking a photograph was to point a cheap camera, loaded with generally cheap film, at his subjects—usually my mother, sister and myself, or some combination thereof, and click away. That was it. Oh, and he generally used slide film, which was supposed to give better colors and so on but was a pain in the neck to view. When he died thirteen years ago, into my possession came a case that contained almost two thousand slides. It took me several years and many, many yard sales to finally find a slide projector with which to view them, and about eight years ago, when my sister, Carmen, was diagnosed with cancer, and was given only about six months to live, I brought her, and her husband to a camp that our family had owned when we were kids, on a beautiful Adirondack Mountain lake. The current owner of the camp was kind enough to allow us to use it for a few days, to give Carmen some good energy and to remind us both of a time when our lives were happy ones, since shortly after our last time at the camp, when we were eleven and nine, our family fell apart, and the slides, as well as our good memories, all were shoved into a dusty closet somewhere. We looked at all two thousand slides that weekend. While viewable, they were the victims of bad technology, bad photography and of forty plus years of neglect. Many were impossible to make out, and some were just rubbish as far as we could see. But with the seriousness of my sister’s illness, and the short time we had at the camp, we made the best of a bad situation. Carmen died a few months later, but at least she had gotten a chance to relive her childhood again. Last year I finally got around to buying a slide scanner with which to digitize all of those slides. All it did was remind me how bad they looked, though. One of the first things that photography teachers used to tell their students was that old, bad photos should be discarded, because they will never get any better. It made sense to me, but I still held on to those old slides. And I am glad I did. This year I was fortunate to acquire the world’s most popular photo editing program, and it has been revelatory. I have taught myself how to crop, brighten, increase and decrease the intensity of colors, and even how to sharpen blurry images. With a click of a mouse I can make a black square live again, sometimes in color, sometimes in black and white, which actually gives many photos a new and more interesting look. I am now halfway through restoring all of those slides. I am amazed at what I am seeing---images of my parents that I never had seen, my little self in silly costumes, and literally hundreds of pictures of a little red headed girl who never got a chance to grow old. Those old teachers were wrong. Bad pictures can get better, with the right amount of TLC.

It sucks to be Ronnie

Ronnie can’t catch a break. He is a 59 year old Vietnam war veteran who, at seventeen, had to have his grandmother sign papers so that he could enlist in the military. He wanted to go fight a war against the so-called Communist menace who would, according to the Army recruiters who came to Jackson High School in 1969, “be sitting right there in your chairs, ” very shortly unless brave young men signed up to fight them. So Ronnie, who says he is very disappointed in a government who did, and still does, rush this country into wars that, as he says, “ We got no business bein’ in,” enlisted. He joined the 101st Airborne, and served a tour of duty, from 1970 to 1972, in a godforsaken country that was never a threat to us or our way of life. He saw his friends die in terrible ways, and worse. He saw things that he would not describe to me, saying, “Ain’t nobody should ever see what I saw.” It was that disenchantment with the war that led to Ronnie going AWOL (Absent Without Leave) from the military upon his return from southeast Asia, where, it should be noted, he was shot in the legs and arms, and for which he was awarded the Purple Heart. He was picked up, court-martialed and served four months in Leavenworth, Kansas, all after being shot for his trouble. He was nineteen years old. Now, as he hobbled with his cane, a constant companion, around the Butts County Memorial Park one night recently, he paused at many of the engraved names, a look of recognition on his face. He knew many of the names there, both the living and the dead. He asked me, a stranger, where he could get a ride to Atlanta. He doesn’t have a car, and Butts County does not have bus service, sadly. It was too late to take him that night but I told him that I could the following day. When I picked him up at his mother’s house in Jackson, he was chomping at the bit to leave. I asked him why, and during the long ride to the Smyrna area, he told me a little about his life. After he got out of Leavenworth, he drifted back to Atlanta and opened up an auto repair shop, specializing in foreign cars. He was fairly successful there for over twenty-five years. Then, about twelve years ago, a cylinder broke in a new hydraulic jack while he was working on a car. It fell on his back, breaking it in two places, and leaving him in a permanent state of pain. A lawsuit against the manufacturer netted him over half a million dollars but like many people who have never had a windfall, he did not invest wisely and it has mostly disappeared. He had come from Atlanta to visit his 82 year old mom. His sister and her boyfriend were also staying in the big house that she lives in here in town. Then Ronnie caught them taking the hinges off of his door to get to his pain medication, and in the aftermath, the boyfriend destroyed all of Ronnie’s clothing, he decided that he had had enough. He needed a ride back to the motel he lives in up north. It was the least I could do for a guy who got shot for his country. He deserves better.

Rolling...Action !

I was walking through a fishing village, many years in the future. The earth had used up all of its energy and now, mankind had returned to being an agrarian society. My lady was at my side as we passed a fishmonger and a fellow cleaning the hull of his boat, which was drydocked for cleaning and repairs. In the distance I could see a horse, pulling a carriage of some sort. A lot of folks were out and about on a sunny morning. We crossed in front of the horse, nearly stepping on two guys who were wrestling around on the ground, fighting over something. Reaching a bin, in front of a building that was not there, I reached inside and pulled out a fishing net/trap combo, while my companion, whose name I did not know, grabbed a pair or oars. We turned back to the street with our items and began walking. The director yelled, “Cut!” Welcome to a peek into my newest adventure. I have become a background actor. It all started when I read a notice in an online version of the newspaper in Atlanta. “Extras wanted for TV show filming in Atlanta,” it said. I read the notice, noted the details, and responded per the instructions, never expecting a response. But, as fate would have it, I got one. It is an interesting process. The casting companies who are hired by the producers of movie and TV shows will post notices in public places, like newspapers, and in more visible places like Facebook. Here is an example of a current request: Politicians for Wednesday! We are looking for some politician-looking types to work Wednesday on (Name of show). Looking for both males and females, all ethnicities. Ages 20-60s. SUPER clean cut. 3 pictures, height, weight, age and contact number to (email address@gmail.com. Subject: Politician Since I began doing this, I have worked more than a half dozen days, including the scene described above, from an upcoming full length feature film by one of the biggest producers in the business. We even signed confidentiality agreements to not reveal the name of the movie or specific details of the plot. I’m not going to say that this is for everybody, but I am enjoying the experience immensely. I thought it would be a one-time thing but I am hooked. The days are long, the money isn’t great and at times it can be monotonous, waiting in the holding area for extras, surrounded by a lot of younger people who think that a college degree in theater arts is their ticket to a role opposite (insert big name star here), until your scene is ready to shoot. Then you go out, like the cattle that Alfred Hitchcock said that actors are, and you do the scene, as they tell you, over and over until you hear the words, “Print it!” or “That’s a wrap!” When you hear that, then you know your job is done. If anyone is interested in trying their hand at being an extra, there are many places to sign up online. It is a chance to see a little of how the make-believe world of TV and cinema is created.

When Irish Ears Were Smiling

It was quite a sight to see. The anointed had come out for a night of Irish songs, and they were dressed to the nines in their furs and elegant gowns, even a tux or two was spotted among the 1500 patrons of the arts who crowded in to the Ulster Performing Arts Center, in Kingston, New York. It was St.Patrick’s Day, and local radio station WKNY was sponsoring the evening. Ads had been running for weeks prior to the actual event, promoting it as an evening of traditional Irish music, sung by Ireland’s finest singer, Mary Black. The only problem was that it became apparent that maybe no one at the radio station had ever heard Mary Black. Nor had the audience. I first heard Mary Black at a small club called the Pursuit of Happiness, in Liberty, New York. Oh, she wasn’t performing there, but the club was playing a mix tape before the scheduled performer was to go on. A ballad, the likes of which I had never heard before, silenced the chatter and pretty much everyone listened until the song was over, at which time they resumed their chatter. I was so taken with the tune that I inquired of the manager as to who was that incredible singer, and what was that song. I was told that I had just heard Mary Black perform a song called Anachie Gordon, an ancient and sad ballad about a young woman who is forced, by her parents, to marry a sultan, as a means to wealth, when in truth she only has eyes for a sailor named Anachie. And like Romeo and Juliet before them, they suffer the tragic end, together. It was not “Danny Boy” or “When Irish Eyes are Smiling,” and nothing that Mary Black has ever recorded is either. Apparently, eager to book an Irish singer for St. Paddy’s Day, no one at the radio station ever bothered to listen to any of her music. They just assumed that Irish singers all sound alike and sing the same old songs, which were actually mainly written in the US. The words to "Danny Boy," for instance, were written by English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly in 1910. The tune was an old Irish aire called the Londonderry Air, but that is as far as it goes where the origins of the song are concerned. The ad promos for the concert all featured the canned Tin Pan Alley versions of “Irish” songs like those mentioned above, and nary a Mary Black song was even played on the radio. So, come the night. Mary Black took the stage to thunderous applause, and began to sing real traditional Irish songs like Anachie Gordon, but also modern classics like Farewell Farewell and Schooldays Over (written by Richard Thompson and Ewan MacColl respectively) and the crowd was confused. I kept hearing murmuring from around me, wondering when she was going to sing Danny Boy. She never did, of course. What she did do was to open up some folks ears to the true beauty of Ireland and its culture, and she put on one hell of a show. Later, the murmuring hordes bought CDs and cassettes by the handful at the concession table in the lobby. T’was a joyous evening spent.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

When I first started writing columns for the Progress-Argus,  I wrote about things that were political in nature. Not because I like politics and am obsessed with the subject, because I do not,  and I am not.  In fact, it seems that politics have that less than laudatory ability to bring out the very worst in people.  I wrote about politics because balance was needed to counter a columnist whose viewpoint was  very hardcore conservative, and the paper was trying to change their image, an effort that has paid off in a better balance of thoughts, ideas and opinions.  When that columnist left, I was urged to write about more general topics, things that I found interesting.  For example, last year’s walk across the United States, where I met so many people of all ideologies and backgrounds that I have a memory storehouse full of some wild and wacky tales, as well as some ugly stuff.
But nothing I saw on the road, the devastation  in Joplin included, was as ugly as what is going in this country right now.  A parade of suits are all marching down the electoral runway in hopes of getting chosen as the nominee for the upcoming presidential election. Each suit, with one notable exception, has a hopeful candidate who is willing to stoop almost as low as a human being can stoop to dig up dirt on the others. Or, they pay their hired guns to run ads that are just repulsive in nature. It is ugly, and it is making this country look like the laughing stock of the world at a time when our image is already in a state of flux.

I’m not here to debate anyone about whether I think the president is doing a good job (I do, given what he has had to work with) or whether his likely opponent would do a good job if he is elected ( I have no idea) but I will say that the entire process is reaching critical mass and if the vile rhetoric does not stop soon, or calm down, there may well be a meltdown.  You can’t parade clowns around and call them dramatic actors.  Apparently the human ego is so overwhelmingly strong that it also adds blinders, which prevent those who are acting so foolishly in their pursuit of the highest office in the land that they cannot see how foolish they look.

Whether it is trying to legislate things like women’s reproductive rights, or contraception (who in their logical mind would have thought that contraception would be a political hot topic in the year 2012? What’s next—repealing the Emancipation Proclamation?) or still insisting that we have a president who was born on another continent, it is all too much.  We are supposed to move forward, not backward.

Josh Joffen, a songwriter I know, once wrote a song about politics, but instead of his characters wearing suits, they lived in the trees and ate bananas.  Here are a couple of lines…

“Off in the distance, what’s that I hear? Could it be this is an election year? There’s fussing and fighting, scratching and biting, all around the country the fur is flying. Monkey see, monkey do. I am a better monkey than you.  Let's have us an election and when we're through,  we'll see who gets the biggest banana.”

Sound familiar?

My Interview with Sonny Rollins, 2002

It was 2002. I was working as the staff writer for the BlueStone Press, a small but excellent newspaper in Ulster County, in the Hudson Valley/Catskills region of upstate New York. A giant of the music world was coming to play a show at Bellayre Mountain. I landed the chance to interview him, as well as see the show for free. Here is the interview as it appeared in the paper that week....

Theodore “ Sonny” Rollins is one of the giants of the jazz world. A genius on the tenor sax, and an unequaled master of improvisation, he has played with all of the greatest jazz musicians of the 20th century and beyond, from Miles Davis to John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk and more. Throughout his long career, he has had periods where he would seem to disappear from the music scene altogether, while he was taking little sabbaticals to get his life and his music together.. He will be appearing at the Belleayre Jazz Festival on Saturday, August 24 at 8 PM. It will almost be a hometown concert for him. Born in New York City almost 72 years ago, for the last 30 plus years he has called Germantown, in Columbia County, home. The BlueStone Press had the rare opportunity to have a chat with this music legend. BSP: Why Germantown? It is like one of your sabbaticals? Well, we’ve been here for almost thirty-two years...we like the less commercial aspects of it. Yes, it’s like a constant sabbatical up here. It’s a little less commercial over here (than in Ulster County) it’s a little more rural. BSP: You seem to be a guy who works at his craft. What percent of your music is work, and what percent is sheer skill? Well, skill and work are sort of the same thing...you have to work to acquire skill. BSP: Are you a baseball fan? I’m reminded of Pete Rose, who was never a really gifted player, but he worked all the time at it. I’m a big baseball fan. In my case I would say I was more of a gifted guy. I had to work hard at the other parts of music. Unlike Pete Rose, I was gifted but I had to work on all of the...there are a lot of other things that are involved in music than what appears on the surface. There are a lot of fundamentals and a lot of skills that you have to develop, especially in the type of music I play, which is not quite like folk music. In folk music you can be gifted and that’s it. In this kind of music, which is very difficult music to play you have to have some kind of skills as well as being gifted. I’m gifted in that I could always play music and I had a natural ear for music and all that, but I had to apply myself and study the rudiments of music. So it’s a little different than Pete Rose in that extent. BSP: In the jazz world today, who impresses you, or who do you like to work with? Well I usually work with my own band but there are a lot of young guys coming up who are good and there’s a lot of people like David Ware on saxophone, and Kenny Garrett and I like James Carter, and...I used to say people like Roy Hargrove and Branford Marsalis, but these guys are getting to be veterans now, so I can’t call them young guys anymore, but the main point that I’d like to make in response to your question is that there are always young people coming up who like jazz and who relate to jazz. What is needed is the opportunity to make a living playing jazz and for jazz to be accepted as something you can be proud of doing and all that. In other words, there’s a societal lack of appreciation for jazz. BSP: It seems like more people are appreciating it now. Did you see the Ken Burns Jazz documentary on PBS? I heard about it, but I didn’t see it. BSP: So you have no real opinion of that? Well I sort of have an opinion of it because a lot of people I know saw it. I’m not going to nit-pick about it... its probably good because it introduced people to jazz and to that extent it was probably okay, I guess. I didn’t see it. I sort of made sure I didn’t see it. From what I understand there was some quibble about some people that were deleted or weren’t included. But in general, any kind of publicity for jazz is welcome. So therefore I have no problem with it, and I’m glad it aired. BSP: Well, and this is good for jazz too, he made the claim that the most influential musician in history was Louis Armstrong. Do you agree? Well, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. The only doubt is that people didn’t know it already. People in the music field knew that Louis Armstrong was the most influential guy. BSP: Would you put someone like Bob Dylan on that level? Well, I would put Bob Dylan not quite on that level. Bob Dylan, to me, is a great popularizer, a great artist, a great folk artist, and a great artist in that sense, but the reason why I wouldn’t put Bob Dylan on the same level as Louis Armstrong is because Bob Dylan in a way is doing Woody Guthrie...later phases of Woody Guthrie...his voice is a little weathered by age and everything. That’s really what Bob Dylan is doing...not that there’s anything wrong with that. But Louis Armstrong was an original, so people came from Louis Armstrong, whereas Bob Dylan, people come from him too, but he’s not a complete original. I don’t mean to sound like I’m putting down Bob Dylan, because I think he’s wonderful. In that sense, I don’t think he’s Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong has had people following him all over the world. Louis Armstrong has influenced the direction of music to a much greater extent. For one thing, jazz is a much more universal type of music than folk is and even in that sense you can say that...not to minimize Dylan...I think he’s great. I’m not a big fan of his... I certainly realize that a lot of people like him and he’s done a lot of good work, and more power to him. I am not in the business of putting down anybody. He’s done a lot of great work and has gotten a lot of accolades for what he’s done. BSP: Critic Dave Marsh once said that Dylan’s biggest contribution wasn’t his songwriting but his voice, which changed the idea of what a singing voice could be. Agree? Yeah, probably so, but you could say the same thing about Louis Armstrong. He changed not only the way a voice could sound but also the styling of singing. BSP: Do you still enjoy performing? I enjoy performing a great deal. It’s something that’s sort of indispensable to me. BSP: Does it ever seem like a job? No. It’s never seemed like a job. I mean sometimes there’s periods when I‘ve run up against a brick wall as far as being able to come up with creative ideas and new things like that. But those periods passed. It’s never a job...the most I could say in that regard or in that sense is that it’s a challenge. Definitely a challenge to be involved with music but no, it’s never at all a job. It’s a sacred calling, as a matter of fact. BSP: Back to Dylan a bit...Dylan and others have said that the music, the words, don’t come from them–it comes from someplace else–they just kind of channel it. Do you feel that way? Definitely! No doubt about it. In fact, when I’m playing at my best, when people really praise my work... I know when I’m playing good... I’m the first one to know if I’m playing good or not. I’m my first critic. When I’m playing at my best, the music is just playing through me, I’m sort of just standing up there and the music is just coming through me, like I’m a vessel. A lot of people ask me this about jazz...how do you improvise and what do you think about? And I tell them, Look, when I’m really at my best and I’m really improvising great, my mind is completely blank. I’m not thinking about anything...the music is just playing itself. This itself is a spiritual thing...people are afraid of the word spiritual, but this is it---this is why music is a spiritual endeavor. BSP: What can we expect at Belleayre on the 24th? Well, I wish I could answer that question. What you can expect is that I, and hopefully my group, will be trying hard to create the transcendental moment. We’ll be trying to do that. Jazz is the music of instant creation...it’s something that you can’t say, “Oh, I’m gonna do this, or that...” No, the music has to take you. I don’t know what I’m gonna be doing, but I’m gonna be trying to reach that point of transcendence. BSP: One last question---any tips for aspiring young jazz musicians? If you want to play jazz music, you have to consider it’s a calling...that you’ve got to be very gifted is number one, but you’ve got to get skilled at it. Also, you have to dedicate your life to it because, also getting back to part of our earlier conversation, jazz is not necessarily going to afford you a nice income, a nice life and a lot of publicity, you’re not going to be famous. You know, this is the way it is, so you have to resign yourself to the fact that you may not be famous. If you love jazz music, you think you have a talent for it and you want to do that for your life, then go for it, but don’t expect anything from it, because you may not get anything from it like a great rock star might get, or a great hip hop star or whatever the current popular thing is, you’re not gonna get that. So if you don’t mind devoting your life to something because you love it, then that’s for you. But these are big questions. Young people write me all the time and say, oh, I love jazz, and I always tell them good, if you love it, good, you can go into it but don’t expect to be a big famous star. If you are, great! If at the end of your life you’re not...you’re not.... BSP: Sonny Rollins? ...Oh, my, you’re very funny this morning. But, yeah, okay, you know what I mean. I might be famous to an extent, but you’re not really, who should I say... BSP: Did you say that YOU are famous to an extent? Yeah... BSP: Mr. Rollins, all the stuff I’ve been reading, and I’m not a jazz guy myself, and I know about you, but in almost everything I read in getting ready for this interview, the words “greatest living jazz musician” kept coming up, so that must count for something. Well, that stuff, that’s opinion, BSP: Well, its an awful lot of people’s opinion… Well, that’s okay. I accept that and I think its nice, and you know, its okay, but you know, to be a great musician you have to keep working. That’s why I practice every day. There’s never a day when I’m not practicing. BSP: How long? Well, I used to practice over ten hours, but you know years ago I practiced more than that sometimes but unfortunately the exigencies of age and so on have intruded as they will come to everyone’s life, so maybe if I can get a good three hours in I’ll be very happy. For me that’s not a lot because I ‘m coming down from when I used to play all day long, but if I can get two or three hours in then I feel that I have gotten some work in. And I’ve gotta do that to keep sharp...to keep my lip up. You’ve got to practice.

$31,040.47....I said $31,040.47...

The following is not an endorsement of any political point of view. It is, rather, the story of my recent experience at a local hospital in a nearby county. It is also a meditation on the current system as we have it in this country. I had what amounted to a large boil, in a tender spot. I went on a Monday morning to the ER at this particular hospital, where the abscess was deemed serious enough for me to be admitted overnight to have it treated. I was admitted, and on Tuesday morning underwent surgery to have the abscess excised and drained. I then remained, at the doctor’s orders, in the hospital, on an IV drip (antibiotics and saline) for three nights, until Thursday afternoon, when I was released, with printed instructions for treating the still-open wound. I was also given phone numbers for the wound care branch of the same hospital to make follow-up visits. I do not have medical insurance. I am self-employed, and cannot afford the pricey premiums that insurance companies charge. The last time I did have health insurance was ten years ago, and when I needed surgery on torn cartilage in my knee, the insurance company refused to pay the surgeon, after the fact, citing a “pre-existing condition” as the reason for denying payment to the surgeon. One bitten, twice shy, I guess, describes me. I called the wound care building, where I was told that the hospital’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) had determined that to be treated by the wound clinic, I would have to leave a 250 dollar deposit. I told the woman on the phone that I did not have that much money and she said she would leave a message with the CFO to get back to me. That never happened. What did happen was that the receptionist at the wound clinic called the CFO of the hospital (in effect, her boss) and stated in no uncertain terms that I need to be under their care until my wound was completely healed. It was only then that the CFO relented, and I am now getting the proper care. The amount of stress associated with this little episode, which took a couple of days to resolve, was enormous. My only real option would have been to return to the ER and have the wound checked out there, which would have been an unnecessary use of emergency facilities at the least. This is the kind of system this country has given us. Will someone please remind me why there is so much opposition to having a “socialized medicine” type of system? We go to school. We call the police. We call the fire department. We visit the library. We drive on the roads. We do all of these things, and we pay for them through our tax dollars. That is how it is for medical care in almost every country in the world. For every super-power it certainly is, except for one: the United States. We don’t get a bill in the mail for our math class last Thursday, or for the arrest of a criminal, or for having a fire put out. We do get bills for $31,040.47 for having a boil drained, though. Is this the system that so many are fighting to keep? And if so…why?