Book 4. Words Are Music…
Book 4. Words Are Music…
I am more than a little careful (or try to be) with my words. Apparently, far more careful with my words than I am with what I use my words to actually say. Sort of like a painter whose little “pointillios” (what ever the heck that word means,-I’m making believe it refers to little pointed daubs of paint, that all together make up a little part, maybe a very little part of a pitchure ah..picture) In my example the pointillios are perfect, but the picture it’s self may be vulgar, ill-advised or estupido in the extreme.
And so, because I’ve been told (more than once) that I’m capable of that, and I suspect that it may be true that I am capable of that, I have to be careful of that.
Aside from the fact that I think that words are music, they also have meaning and beyond that, sometimes maybe even, a mind of their own. I don’t know about your words, but from time to time, one or more of my words, have (in spite of locked lips and a screeching no, no, fer God’s sake no! from the brain), have slid down the nostril slide and out on to the upper lip or moustache, and then leapt from there, out into the air, Sounding for all the world to hear, exactly as if they had been intentionally spoken.
Those are words with a “mind of their own”, but just try to explain that to someone who my “self-directed” provocative words have just stimulated to the verge of imminent and eye popping violence.
In addition, I s’pose I ought to let you know that I’ve already had the shocking experience of kicking my own bottom, butt or bum, with my own boot, thereby stimulating that timeless question “jeeze-ka-weezel, wot’ n why th’ heck, did I do that? In other words, I’ve had the opportunity to inventory by own actions to the point that, well you’d think I’d know better by now.
But, but, but…
I do get off-balance (unbalanced?) when the meanings of a word or words are misconstrangled, or words are used to mislead intentionally or even (as often happens,) unintentionally.
Now you might think that I’m about to launch into a rant about the lying “rat wings” of our established, corporate sponsored so-called political parties and their polluted propaganda and propagandists, and perhaps I ought to be doing just that, except I believe that less of that sort of thing, would be more of a better thing, all around.
My concern is more personal, and has to do with one of the unfortunate and unexpected side effects of being a singer, which is that one is then subject to all sorts of stupid jive from all sorts of people for all sorts of reasons.
For example, here are some excerpted things about yours truly, (me)that a writer in Toronto recently presented in an article about my son Stephin Merritt.
“Fagan was a folksinger in the ’60s folk revival, then a singer-songwriter with enough cachet that Jasper Johns did a painting of one of his records, then wrote an anti-music-industry rock musical in 1970-71 and, he claims, was blacklisted from the biz. He then retreated home to the Virgin Islands, where he had grown up, and has stayed there doing music in a sort of Jimmy Buffet vein ever since”
The writer goes on to say “He (meaning me) and his mom were abandoned by his own musician father.
And “You can debate the legitimacy/ickiness of Fagan’s blue-eyed-Caribbean style as much as you like”, He (meaning me again) “is this sorta white-rasta guy who sings in dialect”, “and who (me again) happened to leave you (meaning Stephin) and your hippie mom to fend for yourselves”
Friends, so much of that is so far from truth, that it is pure (well not pure, more like toxic) fiction and it hurts my feelings. Why? Because the idea that someone would present information as factual with out caring to check the truth of it, is disheartening, depressing, and upsetting Why? Because we all work long and hard at becoming who we are, and, at not becoming who and what we are not. To be so easily misrepresented leaves one with the feeling that our hard work, behavior and ethical choices didn’t and don’t matter a whit.
When someone presents themselves as knowledgeable enough about me to write about me, I think the first question ought to be “when and where did they meet” and “how long have they known each other?” other wise I think the writer ought to begin by saying “Hey, I don’t really know Scaddy Waddy Doodles, or anything about him, I’m just going to pretend I do, so my editor and readers will think that I’m important and worldly and hoop, hup, hap, hup ahh…hep hoop, ah..well, anyway, know stuff.
I’m just going to be building on second or third hand (or worse) information, and extrapolate jive crap across cultures that I don’t know or understand.
That way, us naive “true believers” will know right off the bat that the writer is making it up, in fact, maybe even making it up on top of the making it up that someone else did before, and we will know not to take it seriously, not to believe a word that is said (unless of course they claim to be sorry, but working with words with a mind of their own, in which case I for one will understand perfectly).
It’s sort of like when (oh oh here we go) someone presents them selves as sufficiently knowledgeable about music and the music business, to present themselves as an “expert” a knowledgeable and reliable insider. I think the first questions then ought to be “when can we hear your music?” How many tunes have you written? How many publishers have there been, How many tunes have been recorded? How many record deals have you had, How many producers have you worked with?. Or, how many decades have you been in the business, at exactly what positions, when where what, and so forth
Because with out their own honest to God experience inside the music business, the writers knowledge is most likely consumer level misinformation, and not to be taken seriously. (You do know that we are talking about “show “:business, and that folks that are not really part of the gritty backstage world are seeing a show, right? And that while music critics, disc jockeys (and DJ’s) and other so called “in” crowd people may get a “Backstage Pass” to make them “feel” important, they aren’t really privy to what is really going on behind the scenes, right? You do know that right?)
It’s like a tourist sailing through the Islands on the Disney Princess and then presenting them selves as expert on West Indian culture and race relations. Or a guy in Toronto assuming that the confused political correctness of contemporary Canada, is reflected in the cultural realities, racial identies, and racial and musical melting pot of the Caribbean. It’s obviously silly, never the less, it can be upsetting.
What are the real requirements to be a knowledgeable and expert writer about the clash and conflict between art and the crassest commerce? Between artists and those who are in the business of exploiting them and their art?.
You know something? I think I’m just realizing for the first time, that that is exactly what these “critics” and self important self proclaimed expert music business writers are doing. They aren’t in the business of creating music, they are in the business of exploiting music, and the people that make music.. They don’t have to know a blasted thing about artists or the music business really, they just have to convince an editor that they do, or in the case of blogs, they just have to convince themselves that they do.
I am naïve, and the small example, is just a small example. But what does one do if the self proclaimed are spreading misinformation about one, and one is the one in question?, (that is one good question) Perhaps one ought to consult an astrologer or self proclaimed expert on public relations on this, but then what are the requirements, or the qualifications to be an astrologer or expert on relations with the self proclaimed experts on anything?
I confess that from while time to time I may have a slippy grip on the silken strand (or is it a rubber band) of consensual reality, never the less, I am still four square in the game. I guess that’s just another reason why there’s no business like show business!
PS. If we are able, we sing a Spanish song in Spanish, a French song in French, we sing a song that’s in English, in English, and we sing a Calypso song in Calypso, if we are able.
BOOK 1. The House at #1 Hole…
BOOK 1. The House at #1 Hole…
I went to a small public information event being produced by COAST, the local affiliate of the “National Council On Alcoholism and Drug Addiction”. The event was being held on the old “Judge Herman E. Moore” golf course. I am very familiar with this particular golf course and just about every foot of fairway in it, as I started working here, caddying, when I was eight years old.
At the time we were living in the old pre WW ll, Pan American passenger terminal. (Mud ALWAYS found interesting, atmospheric and unusual places for us to live) This one was a quaint wooden building with an open air waiting room, where gents in Panama suits once waited to swing aboard shiny new silver clippers heading to Rio and Buenos Aries and Ladies wrapped in foxes and Chanel #5 stepped off and into the torrid tropics for torrid romantic liaisons.
The waiting room was our (Gale and my) bedroom, the benches that the mythicals once sat upon in clouds of perfume, romance, espionage and dust devils, were part of the bedroom furnishings for Gale and I. It was bright and breezy, and even though it felt like we were living outside in a movie, we liked it just fine.
200 feet to the west was a Second World War military hanger, painted a fading brown and green camophlage, and filled with genuine honest to God machine gun chattering, dive bombing, loopdelooping “outta the sun” dog fighting glass canopied fighter planes, left over from “anti sub” patrol squadrons, parked here like some secret mission or lost patrol.
I see myself standing before and beneath them in the dusty old hanger, the rays of the sun slanting in through wire glass windows high above, lighting the scene. I’m straddling my broomstick pony, looking up at them, completely swept away in double dreamland, part cowboy, part pilot, part pirate (add singer, donwha? and Dada, and that’s the story of my life)
The hanger and these war planes were part of the US Navy presence that reshaped the Island and most particularly, this part of the Island, during the first and second World Wars. The reshaping (in general) included paving all of the main roads, providing plumbing and running water to all the public schools, upgrading the Hospital and public health infrastructure along with huge water catchments on hillsides all over the Island, and (what looked like) thousand foot radio towers judiciously placed (in duos and trios) here and there, (one of which, I would climb as a teenager, along with two certifiable lunatics. (no not Tuts, he had too much good sense for that)
On this part of the Island, the Navy built a genuine submarine base with six major piers or docks, gun emplacements, administrative buildings, a power plant, ten huge Barracks for enlisted men, two military hospitals, numerous administrative and support facilities, (including a little “look out house” on the very top of Hay Piece Hill- (where we also lived, but that’s another story) ammo dumps and emergency food caches, dug into the hill sides, (rations which we the “downtheroadboys” would discover and consume ravenously around 1959. (mostly long green cans of spam, and Lucky Strikes by the carton) along with a solid concrete bomb proof PX, cavalry stables, a recreational center called “The Arena” complete with ceilings over a hundred feet high and a stage where the Calypso King competitions were held during the fifties, a seaplane ramp, an entire airport (runway and hanger) known during the war as “Bournefield” (named for a Maj. Bourne who completed the first solo flight from Washington D.C. to Nicaragua, who knows when. or why)
In addition, they built Officers Quarters, consisting of large individual two story homes on the beautiful breezy hill now occupied by The University of The Virgin Islands, and forty smaller one and two family homes for enlisted men their wives and children down on the flats (known after the war as “low cost housing” or Bournefield”, as in “Scott considers himself a Bournefield Boy”) And last but not least, a wonderful Beach Club facility (changing rooms with a large snack and libation bar) and a stationary “raft” complete with diving boards, at Lindbergh Bay. (Named for Charles Lindbergh who landed right about where my little house was around 1927, after a nonstop hop from Venezuela, on his way back to the states after scoping out prospective routes for Pan American throughout Central and South America) Lindbergh Bay and its facilities were a wonderful beach destination for local folks for many years after the military had moved on.
Beginning with the purchase and transfer (1917) of the Virgin Islands from Denmark to the United States, the Islands were under US Navy administration, and an entire insulated, semi-socially segregated world existed in this “dounderoad” part of the Island. A world that left many wonderful physical things. Buildings and beach clubs, airports and such, but no record or history of the people, their lives, the stories of the individuals and families that worked and lived here.
I often wondered about those folks, how it was for them, I see them in a sort of semi sepia photo, framed by hand colored palm trees and a bright blue sea, with Frangipani, Flamboyant or Hibiscus, stuck behind the ear or in the hair of young Navy wives and waves from Kansas or Nebraska and handsome and strong young military men. A Caribbeanized, West Indianized, South Pacific with far more intense racial storylines. Storylines that reflect the crazy explosions that occur when hicks and slicksters of every race, class and culture under the sun are mortar and pestled together, with a liberal dollop of raw rum, a double dash of cayenne, a dose of voodoo (or Obeah) the intoxicating effects of tropics and trade winds and full moon nights… how I wished that Mitchner (or someone) had written their stories…I’ve always known exactly what those songs and that score or soundtrack would sound like. We shall see.
The little house was here through all of that and was sitting here when they built what would become the Judge Herman E. Moore golf course, the little house found it’s self occupying a little corner of the fairway, severity five feet to the north of the #1 green (which was, like all the othergreens, heavily oiled sand) and fifty feet to the west of the # 2 Tee. Consequently every golfer that wanted to play more than one hole was obligated to all but come in for coffee or rum and Coca-Cola. It was interesting.
Mud had married Howard Lindqvist, a young man from what had (just one generation ago), been the most powerful and well respected local family in St. John, (a family, that after arriving in St. Thomas would, within two generations, drink and squander it all away) Howard was a well educated Howard University graduate with a degree in civil engineering, but an increasingly drunken and foolish wastrel, married to a white woman, who (inexplicably in the eyes of those that knew Howard) was foolish enough to marry him.
Many of the folks that played golf were pretentious and judgmental types (including Howard’s own father Mahlon) and would have preferred not to become so intimately involved in “The little House of Dynamics” every time they got to the first hole, but…that was life in de Islands mon…
Pretty soon the ones that would let me caddy for them began insisting that I actually meet them at the club house rather than waiting ‘til they swung by on the way to the second tee, to pick up the golf bag, and I was officially introduced to the blasted inarguable inconvenience of work.
I was eight, and it was great. Inconvenient, but great. Not the the walking for what seemed like ten to twenty (or however long nine or eighteen holes used to be) blasted miles in the burning hot sun, dragging a bag that weighed every bit as much and was every bit as tall as “The little caddy that could” wasn’t the great part, that’s the part that made you starvin’ hungry and gave you the money to fill your pockets, mouth and belly with Tootsie Rolls. That was the part that was great. Tootsie Roll heaven in the afternoon.
Also, there was the further confirmation of a kind of belonging from the older caddies, the “big” boys, all older “rough and tough” young gents of color, that “Skah-ty, de likkle white boy from Nisky School, de likkle white boy, from doun de road, is one a we” That acceptance, and Tootsie Roll heaven in the afternoon, that was the part that was great. That and being surrounded by the artifacts of war, the vanished lives, the romance, the joys and tragedies, me and my broomstick pony, cantered up, around, under, over, and through, a whole conjured up swirling universe of sight, sound, smell and emotion. That was the part that was great…the whole frigging thing.
Later that year (Easter, 1954) Mud and Howard and Gale and I (along with a few suitcases) piled onto a one engine piper, and, fled to Puerto Rico, to escape “bills”,
PS It would be many years (well a few) before we would see the little house again, we got back (after time in Puerto Rico and New York) to St. Thomas in 1958 and spent another six months in “The House at #1 Hole” in 1959, but those are all other stories.
PPS Yes, I do know Kelsey Grammar. In those days, his father Alan (in addition to being a great musician and a friend of my mother and her twin sister), ran a lunch counter in the airport hanger, which was just a hop skip and a jump across the runway (which was how we got to the airport and Lindbergh beach, just hop skip and jump across the runway) from the little house referenced above. Alan and his wife appeared one day with a little arm waving, foot kicking, red faced thing with a remarkable noggin, and proudly introduced it as “our little Kelsey”. I remember being afraid for the pitiful looking little thing and silently wishing it”good luck” yep!
Book 4. Continued…A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke.
Book 4. …Continued, A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke
The sea breeze is extraordinary; it’s coming down through (Sir Francis) Drake’s Passage and across Pillsbury sound bringing the coolest freshest air imaginable. Its way too easy to forget how good it feels head to toe, body and soul, to sail these waters and to sip this sweet sweet breeze…
Tuts is talking like he’s having a flashback to the swim in which he became the first native Virgin Islander in known history to swim from St. Thomas to St John.
“Look, look” he says, there’s the two poles on St. Thomas that I saw from the tip top of the giant wave, and there is the undersea cables that I told you about! And Look, look how the current is trying to sweep everything southwest; out of the sound and into the sea, “Next stop out dey is New Orleans m’boy, Wha? Not me again meson, not me again!” “But Tuts,” somebody says, “I heah you “fraid!, an das why yu ain’ gon do it a gain, Yu ‘fraid man, yu ‘fraid!
“Oy Fraid?” he says indignantly, “Fraid? Who ain’ fraid a out dey, schipid in dey ass! Das right, ah ‘fraid. Me-son, yu don know dey have Shak out here big as de Bismark? Meson, dem shak so big yu cou walk on dey head, yu don know das how I mek it to Sain John?
Off to the left are the beautiful gold and green islands of Thatch Key, then Congo Key and Louango. We see the remains of the old great house of the plantation on Louango, where the white overseer was killed by the slaves he bossed in the first moments of the St. John uprising of 1733.
Beyond the keys, to the North East is Jos Van Dyke An Island named after a Dutch Pirate Captain but settled by the Quakers and part of the British Virgins. When the English renounced slavery in 1833, the land on Jos’ was given to the very people that had been enslaved there.
The Danes abolished slavery in 1849 consequently slaves in St. John were always trying to find their way to Jos Van Dyke and Tortola and freedom. In fact there is a huge iron sugar cane boiling kettle on the sand in Jos’ that a St. John slave was able put his wife and children into, and sail (or row) them all to Jos Van Dyke and freedom. The iron kettle was still on the beach, when I first saw it in the sixties.
We slide up to a new concrete wharf and head for the old wooden customs office only, now it’s a new concrete customs office, where we discover that the gentle portly gentleman who had manned the post since salt met water, had been called away to sing with the angel chorus.
As Delia and the current customs gent negotiated our entrée, I spotted our friend Ruben Chinnery sitting at a table under the trees in front of a little beach side café, We have all known Ruben for at least forty five years, and Tuts and I for closer to fifty, back then, Tuts and Ruben and I had a little “Band” together, that knocked the living hell out of “Perfidia” I was the Sax man, Tuts played the Trumpet and Ruben strangled the guitar til’ it squeaked for mercy. Good lord we loved to play that song. And nothing but that song.
We have jammed together at Foxy’s many times since then, and we are here today to see about setting up a gig in which Ruben, Nicky, (Mighty Whitey) and I would be playing together all day long (maybe three sets each and one or two super long jams)
After speaking with Tessa and The Fox, it’s on. We will decide on the date at a future time. That done, we socialize… hug and smooch and then…we head back down the sound (Pillsbury Sound).
Between little St. James and the entrance to the Lagoon, Timmy (the Captain of the little ship) cuts the engine and announces that we aren’t going any further until he hears a few specific tunes. The mighty fine fellow hands me my guitar and says “The first one is “Mademoiselle”.
The boat is rocking like crazy and I am sitting on the roof of the cabin, so I jam a foot against a stanchion and the other against the life lines and, once properly “jammed”, I sing my friggin’ heart out. It isn’t everyday that tough, and weathered, beaten but not bowed, hombres honor me in this way. I am really touched that my lifelong tough guy compadres feel this way about my music, and I will fall overboard and drown, guitar and all before I will disappoint them.
Mademoiselle
When will I see your garden mademoiselle?
The garden we spoke of that I love so well
Orchids and roses, my favorite smell
Take me you told me you promised,
and I’ll never tell
Take me and show me your garden, Mademoiselle
I know there are kings and princes, they line at your gate
But I love you more than they, let them wait
Orchids and roses, would ease all my hate
Take me you told me you promised,
Before it’s too late
Take me and show me your garden, Mademoiselle
And now we must stop pretending, Mademoiselle
Your garden is choking, your blossoms all fell
Orchids and roses are a funeral smell
Your rouge and your perfumes too heavy,
like the stories I tell
They’re ringing the bells and I’m sorry, Mademoiselle
We’ve got nothing to sell and I’m sorry Mademoiselle…
“Ok, Now, South Atlantic Blues” says the Captain
South Atlantic Blues
You know the Islands are the perfect place for going away
Life’s so easy there you live from day to day to day to day
The father of missions, he once walked proud and tall
He must had seen too many Christians, cause now he’s very small
The poor man’s got no Gods at all
Not counting alcohol, not counting alcohol
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
She lives in the alley, the hope gone from her eyes
Her dress is torn and dirty, loving lips are cracked and dried
She sits and cries, my life’s a lie
Her children think she’s died, her children think she’s died
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
She stands by the seaside, my love, she waits for me
And I can’t help her as she wonders, how long will it be
I told her once, we would be free, from Charlotte Amalie
Charlotte Amalie, Charlotte Amalie Charlotte Amalie
You say that’s dues, I’ve got news for you
It’s South Atlantic Blues, South Atlantic Blues
You know the Islands are the perfect place for going away
Life’s so easy there you live from day to day to day to day
day to day to day to day…
Then Mighty Whitey asks me to play “Where My Lover Has Gone” his dear departed Mudder dear’s favorite song,
Where My Lover Has Gone
Morning comes down very heavy on me
Nothing at all like a new day should be
This morning saves its glory, for someone in another story
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
There’s no glad surprise for these sad eyes to see
No trace of the grace that her face had for me
These grey skies have no rainbow, cause rainbows are where ever she goes
Somewhere a song where my lover has gone
Somewhere the sun is shining, good old time silver lining
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
Morning comes down very heavy on me
Nothing at all like a new day should be
This morning saves its glory, for someone in another story
Somewhere a song, where my lover has gone
Where my lover has gone, where my lover has gone…
Now, says the Captain, Now lets have Captain Creole!
CAPTAIN CREOLE
The word spread through The Virgins, the Old Creole was dead
He died in the night of the full moon light, in a swordfight, in his bed
Some say he was crazy, he had a rum dream in his head
But I will tell you, in his words, what Captain Creole said…
He said “Old Pirates never die dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
The Dancing Senioritas, the Ghosts of Buried Gold
The German and The African, that battled in his soul
The Jolly Jolly Rodger, The Treasure Ships of Spain
Called out to him and bid him come… back to The Spanish Main
Because “Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes they don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
The word spread through The Virgins, Like the ringing of an old ships bell
The Preacher turned to Heaven, most folks bet on Hell
The Old Creole was sinking, the Old Creole was gone
And we cried in the light of the full moon night, Whispering his song
He said “Old Pirates never die, dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
Old Pirates never die; dry your eyes we don’t ever die
Old Pirates never die, they just sail away”
“Ok Thank” you says Captain Timmy as he starts the engine, “now take us home with La Beiga/Tuts
La Beiga Carousel/ Tutsie
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel?
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
And a skinny little fellow looks a little bit like me,
Lives on an Island in the Caribbean sea
And he drinks straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord he really is a smash
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
And he spends all his days cooling out in Trader Dan’s,
There’s no time for working in my friend Tutsie’s plans
He wears a pretty flower tucked up in an old straw hat
But if you should try to fight him, he’d show you where it’s at.
And he lives off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
Why I’ve even seen him selling bags of cool Island breeze
He lives high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
He wants to be a Pirate, I know someday he will.
An’ I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
Man I’ll walk and drink rum whole night,
before me go ride on Labeiga Carousel
And I wish I were like Tutsie and could do as I please,
then I’d be barefoot at the Foxes’ Tamarindo
And I’d drink straight cane rum from an old calabash
And with those Island girls, lord, I’d really be a smash
And I’d live off the tourists with the greatest of ease,
And have fun selling bags of cool Island breeze
I’d live high on a mountain in an old sugar mill
And someday I’d be a Pirate, you know someday I will.
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Man I would walk and drink rum de whole night,
before me go ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
Come go home come go home Cecebelle,
tonight we’ain gon ride on La Beiga Carousel
We all knew the song (in fact Nicky (Mighty Whitey) is in the chorus of the recording posted here) and we all sang one rousing chorus after another of it, until we reached the dock.
What a time we had. Not riotous or raucus or excessivly rambunctious (as was out wont in the past), but one filled with laughter and honest strong emotion, in the most beautiful settings in the world, Drakes Passage, Pillsbury Sound and the warm embrace of a small circle of friends.
All Words and Music Scott Fagan, Copyright, Scott Fagan Music ASCAP
Book 2 and 4. Sessions, and Book 4. A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke
Book 2. and 4. Sessions and Book 4. A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke
Warren Schatz (the producer of my RCA Album “Many Sunny Places” and Vicki Sue’s “Turn The Beat Around”) has sent me a most beautiful new track for my song “Surrender To The Sun” for inclusion in “The Virgin Islands Songs” I am to add my vocal and send it back to him for mixing.;
I am very deeply excited to do this vocal, I’m thinking this is a once in a life time opportunity. It is a beautiful track of a beautiful song calling for a big and beautiful vocal. And while I know beyond any doubt that I could have “killed” this performance once upon a time,, the truth is that I’m afraid that I’ll discover that I can’t sing like that any more. We shall see, I will do my absolute best to prepare myself to deliver the ultra good goods. I certainly am not lacking in inspiration or motivation. This one is the ultra it! And I will give it my ultra all.
I’m concerned that the heart and soul and mind and spirit are willing but the body may be too worn out. We shall see.. (I will post the recording, here, perhaps you would be kind enough to send along a comment indicating your response, once you’ve heard it. Thank you in advance)
It’s interesting, I recall being less nervous for my first ever anywhere recording session, and it was at Columbia Records.
Wes Farrel was the producer, Doc and he had gotten together and written two tunes “You Weren’t Made To Be True” and I don’t remember the other. Wes had come by the Forrest Hotel, to find the right keys and teach me the songs. He decided on keys and then went in and cut the tracks at another studio somewhere, and now we were in the hallowed Studio A at Columbia Records to do the vocals.
On my way to Studio “A” I walked past Arthur Godfrey in the hallway, and though I was long used to getting disapproving stares and glares from “adults” (generally because of my long hair and bare feet) he gave me the biggest warmest smile and thumbs up “git ‘im” sign. It was very surprising, very encouraging and very much appreciated.
As I sang for all I was worth in the cavernous Columbia studio (where they would record “Like A Rolling Stone” a few years later), Nancy Ames (another “adult” that I only “knew” from seeing her on TV) was at the control room window rooting me on in the most enthusiastic way.
I thought that it was very kind of her and I never saw her again to thank her…so…Thank you Nancy Ames for your kindness to a young boy on his first day at bat in “the big leagues”.
Wes was a very good looking fellow very sharply dressed who would soon have a big hit with “Hang On Sloopy” and go on to marry Frank Sinatra’s daughter Tina.
Wes looked like he came from moola and he did. He was (or seemed) supremely confident (I think you would have to be, to marry Franks daughter) He was like a perpetual motion machine, the fact that I had mentioned in rehearsal that I thought the keys were low elicited a raised eyebrow and nothing more, so we did the tunes towards the bottom of my range rather than the top (where the good screechin’ and yowling takes place) and I learned lesson number one.
No matter how experienced and confident or preoccupied the producer seems to be, and no matter how new or much of a novice you are, you have to make damn sure that you have found the right key before any body cuts any part of any track
Never the less, Al Stanton was the President of Columbia at that time, and has maintained a positive regard for my ability as a singer from that time to this. In fact he is the one that signed “Many Sunny Places” (the record was originally paid for by Love Records in Helsinki Finland, because we couldn’t find a deal anywhere in the states) to RCA Victor, and released it here in the states.
I was at the Columbia Studios alone that day because my Manager, the great Doc Pomus (who suffered from childhood Polio and was on crutches or in a wheelchair) was (at that time) finding it too painful and difficult to get around.
Doc’s writing partner and pertner in the production company that I was signed to (Pomshu Productions) Mort Shuman, was living it up in London with Andrew Oldham and The Rolling Stones, and would be back in the Spring.
It was intensly interesting; but some level I was really “just a teenager” from the Islands, albeit an oddly and unusually experienced one, but never the less, I would have given anything to have had some of my teenage friends there with me.
I was and am such a mix of emotional ages. even now.
However, I have learned to do my very best regardless, as I will for this coming session.
My early days as a young singer in New York were fraught with lessons (which is not to say I was learning them all) real and big and important things to be examined and understood and applied. Unfortunately all too often they were delivered in a cultural context and referential language that seemed foreign to me.
Many many times through the years, it has been suggested to me that I ought to have sailed east rather than west from Charlotte Amalie.
Though I’m born in New York, the unspoken but assumed cultural inferences and subjective cultural preferences embedded in the language of the States, the City and perhaps most especially, the music business, were not a comfortable fit for me, frankly in retrospect, I’m surprised that I got along in the milieu as well as I did, for as long as I did. With the exception of those time in which I was a part of making music, I felt very much like a stranger in a strange land. To be continued..
Book 4. A Little Trip To Jos Van Dyke…
We have been planning a trip to see our friend Philiciano Callwood aka “The Fox” aka Foxy. He has a beach front bar in Jos Van Dyke, that has become quite popular over the years. We are going up to see him about scheduling a concert. Tuts and Timmy and Nicky and I have each and all known him for many years. Tuts and I have known him the longest, in fact since we were all boys living in Bournefield in the 1950’s.. Philiciano (or Phillie as he was known then} was brought down to St. Thomas by his mother, who worked as a house keeper for Mrs. Creque and the three naughty Creque daughters.
They all lived in the huge pink Creque Mansion on the “Hidaway Road”. A Mansion large enough to contain both Heaven and Hell in equal measure, and it certainly did.
That any of them survived the Creque Mansion is the kindest kind of miracle, and Foxy’s subsequent success may be proof positive that the long sufferin’ can earn and redeem good karma points. Knowing the Creque girls as we do, Tuts and I can “vouchify and attest” that he earned ‘em, every one.
These many years later, we (and they) are all very happy for his good fortune. That good fortune includes falling in with the Lady Tessa, late of wild Australia, who turned out to be his Ms, his match and and his mate.
Our little group of travelers has now expanded by one, to include a lady who is also a legend in her own time, “Miss Delia” of St, Thomas, Harlem, Height Ashbury and Tortola. Our little crew are all miraculous survivors.
We have been “adults” since childhood, which means our childhood lives were shot thorough with adult concerns and behaviors like “where are my cigarettes and where is my rum” and our adult lives shot through with the behaviors and of concerns of childhood, like ”where are my cigarettes and where is my rum” (While Tuts and I got clean and sober long ago or we would be long gone, recovery doesn’t change the past or the depth and longevity of the connection between and among kindred spirits)
We are intending to sail up to “The Foxes Tamarind” on Timmy’s 28 foot sail boat “The Star Gazer” Timmy (I should call him “Captain Timmy,” he’s had his Captain’s papers since he was 18) has been sailing these waters since he was a child. First on his family’s beautiful 48 foot, black hulled Ketch “The Shellback “and then on the mighty “Maverick” certainly one of the most beautiful awe and dream inspiring sailing ships to ever grace the harbor at Charlotte Amalia.
One of my earliest songs was about the Maverick.
Maverick Sailing On the tide
Maverick where are you bound tonight
With new born child below, blow ye winds oh blow
Keep them safe from rock and wave and blow ye winds oh blow
Maverick, take me for a ride
Maverick, I need a place to hide
From things I should not know, Blow ye winds oh blow
Keep us safe from rock and wave, and take us where we want to go.
We are all children of “Trader Dan’s” a St. Thomas, waterfront bar that drew and welcomed one and all, (including school children in our two tone uniforms and empty book straps).
There was no minimum drinking age in the Islands in those days (I had been buying rum on credit at the local shops for my mother and stepfathers, since I was six) and those of us with a predilection, or as the recovery materials put it “a predisposition to alcoholism” were blindly (no pun, I mean it) demonstrating what early onset familial (genetic) alcoholism looks and sounds (and feels) like. We were having the time of our lives.
As I’ve said, that any one of us survived (many, maybe most, didn’t) is really quite unexpected, but here we are sailing out of the lagoon, and east to Jos Van Dyke. We have all made this trip in many a vessel over the years.
One trip found Tim and Tuts and I in an ocean racing Donzi with my little twins Lelia and Archie, and their beautiful Mother Annie. We stopped at Sandy Cay” on the way up that day, and had to swim ashore with the little ones. Archie rode on Tut’s back like the Ginger bread man, and Twinkle rode on mine (yes, yes, they were wearing their little life vests) still it was so exciting for them that they have never forgotten, (their Mother has likely never forgotten either), What a beautiful and exciting windblown day that was, and what a beautiful and calming day this is, as we sail on little “Star Gazer”. Continued…
Book 4. Paradise to Paradise Portals, A Music Business Q and A, Seagulls In The Snow…
Book 4. Paradise to Paradise Portals, A Music Business Q and A, Seagulls In The Snow…
We are here this fine evening, Tuts, Mary, myself and approximately three hundred others, for a concert.at Christ Church Methodist Church in Market Square. A genuinely beautiful two hundred plus year old, “old-time House Of God” polished Mahogany rafters and pews, hanging lamps, elevated preacher boxes and discreet iconic Methodist symbols methodically placed to maximize the opportunity for methodological salvation..
The last time I was in this Church, it was dark and very late at night. I was a fifteen year old teenage boy, on my knees, and begging God for a miracle intervention in the just reported pregnancy of my teenage girl friend. A Solomonic miracle was delivered, no pregnancy, but a (our) child would come anyway, only a few years later.
So, I feel an unusual reverence for and a strong personal connection to this church, and to the direct connect “paradise to paradise” portal that may still be floating from pious to pew in this magical place.
The concert presents a brass ensemble from UVI (The University Of The Virgin Islands) along with a few young (and quite good) singers (Junior High School) and various combinations of older singers (duets, trios) from various schools and Churches around the Island.
There is some mighty fine and sincere singing and the brass ensemble fills the Church with wonderful harmony. The Church in turn, creates and returns some extraordinary harmonics. We are awash, bathed in a sea of beautiful sound, coming and going and swirling all around us, up our noses in our ears, in side and out side, from head to toe. I leave vibrating like a polytonal pitchfork, porked and done, it was wonderful.
A desperate gent from New Zealand came by “Shaky Acres” recently, asking for help. His wife is relapsing on crack. She sent him out to sell her ring and he came here instead. We spoke with him, got him some NA Numbers and sent him back to see the MD that had been successful in leveraging his wife into treatment in the first place. I gave him my number. Later, I led a ninth tradition meeting, it’s unbelievable how flipsos and dipsos and dopes, actually developed and sustain a program as radically effective as 12 step process, one that actually saves lives all day and night all over the place, all over the world. A process that actually works if you work it.
A Music Business Q and A.
I recently went to the UVI library and the car broke down in one of the parking lots (this one is on the very top of the hill just behind the library), while waiting for repair, I sang “standards” into the wind, for three hours. “Answer Me My Love” “This Love Of Mine’ “Mona Lisa” “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” “You Belong To Me” “Smile” “The Way You Look Tonight” “Some One To Watch Over Me” and four or five others. It was great fun. I just love to sing and I just love these songs.
I need to find a way to record some of these tunes they are timeless and wonderful..
However, that is so much easier said (sung) than done. The whole freakin’ crazy business of making music for fun and profit, is like a toxic mudball of megalo-maxi-maniacs, divvied up into starry eyed Tinker Pans and hook fingered Captain Crooks.” Unfortunately, it seems like the solution to dealing with these folks is buried smack dab and dribble, in the middle of the always elusive swiss cheese riddled Executive Center of the even more elusive grilled ham and swiss cheese pickled and riddled brain.
In fairness tho, my problems with the music business is just part of my across the board problem with authority. Having said that, it doesn’t mean that I’m an anarchist, I truly do understand the value of organization and the need for empathy and practicality in governance, but I am a child of chaos (generations of active, often violent alcoholism) “blessed” with hyper-vigilance, meaning the ability to sense and see danger, duplicity and dishonesty.
Consequently while I acknowledge, appreciate and embrace the real need for an organized cooperative effort to plan for, develop and sustain any career in the arts, and fully realize (from long personal experience) that artists can’t do it all by them selves, I deplore the fact that so many of the people who have stepped in to manage and market musical artists, and the businesses around them, have been so God-awfully hypocritical, self-seeking and dishonest.
The answers to the multifaceted question of how and why the music business “collapsed” are long and multifaceted themselves. Within the larger question, are a number of less general, more specific questions, the answers to which, when added together (but not counting serendipity) provide some thing close to the sum total of what happened.
Among them this..
The question of how many singers (and other musical artists) with great and potentially wide appeal, became pigeonholed or typecast (meaning “locked” into one type of song, one type of music) is interesting, the answer to this “secondary” question, I think provides some insight into the larger one.
Here’s an attempt to illustrate how this sort of thing occurred..
Singers are one thing, audiences are another. If a singer sings a song that is particularly moving or satisfying or rewarding for an audience member, the audience member is likely to want the singer to “do that again”. What could be more natural?
If the audience member actually had some control over the singer they might be tempted to use that control to try to recreate the satisfying reward experience for themselves. That’s fairly natural also,
However, while a singer might do a few “requests” the singer wouldn’t turn the control over what he or she sings to an audience member for long, as that would be silly and potentially self destructive. Simply because the audience member will naturally try to create a series of reward experiences primarily for them selves.
If the musical judgement of the singer is permanently superceded by the subjective reward seeking judgment of an individual audience member, chances are good, the outcome will be bad.
If the audience member is in fact a record executive (generally, a group of people with no more musical talent or taste or knowledge than any other group of lawyers or accountants). and the reward that the executive gets from the singer singing a particular song or type of song is money and job security, then it’s easy to understand why they would want (and if they had the control, make) the singer do the same type of thing over and over until the reward response is exhausted. At that point an audience member (or executive) might say I don’t like him as much as I used to, he’s not as good, he’s just not that interesting anymore,…and move on to the next singer, to repeat the same cycle all over again.
Of course, It isn’t smart for any artist/singer to allow that to happen to him or her however, once you signed with a record company, the contract specified, (for most of us), that they had the control over every thing..including selection of material, producer, arranger, musicians, when, where and what you would record. And,..releases. Who, what when and which recordings to release and to promote and when and what to spend on the promotion of the recording, and finally, when and what to give the artist as payment,
And remember, for the most part (with the exception of the break out up and coming “new guy” who was quickly absorbed by the established biz) the music business executives were a small, relatively closed fraternity made up of men who knew, agreed with, were protective of and supported one another.
So while it wasn’t smart or creative or satisfying, you didn’t protest or resist it, or you might wind up as a sixty four year old “broke to the bone” singer, fighting mano a mano with sixty pounds of angry mosquitoes over a vienna sausage, down in the steaming hot bongo isles. Theirs was the only game in town, and the great majority of singers (and musical artists of every kind) have had their lives, their art, and their careers compromised and all too often, seriously damaged by it…not to mention how cheated the real audience was and is, of all that music, that they never and will never have the opportunity to enjoy.
I think any one can see, that it’s not good business for an executive to have that sort of control over a musical artist because..
1. That kind of constrictive thinking immediately narrows the potential and appeal of the artist, and then it’s only a matter of time before the audience gets tired of the same old thing over and over again.
2. The singer or musical artist is by nature (or performance experience), more musically in tune with the broad spectrum of audience likes and dislikes than any individual audience member would be. Therefore, the musical artist is the one most appropriate to make the musical choices. Their job is to “take their audiences with them” for as long and as far as they can go. If a artist were free to give their audiences diversified interesting offerings, it could mean life long interest and product sales. Ah..kinda like the Beatles.
3. The old paradigm approach was short-sighted, exploitive and destructive to the Art of music, the Artists that made it, and the audiances who loved the music. Destructive to the very things that the business of the music business depended on.
And now that the short-sighted have blown their paradigm, without laying the ground work for a new one, they have left themselves, their artists and their larger audiences up crits squeek with out a paddle.
Other “so called” smart people have literally stolen the music business away from the music business, and while the new “smart guys” haul in the digits hand over fist, Artists are in an even more vulnerable situation than before.
I hope that Artists will be able find a way to organize themselves (and their multigenerational audiences) to take control of the entire chain from creation to collection, because it is painfully clear that these new raptors, ah I mean business men, care even less (if possible) about the Art of Music, the Artists that make music, and the people that they make it for, than the previous raptors, ah..business men did. We shall see. I will try.
Seagulls In The Snow
I looked out my window in the states this morning, and by God there were seagulls in the snow. They were diving and dipping and flying in crazy circles, and who knows why. I am presently a hundred miles from the Sea, but one block from the Susquehanna. I’m not surprised that these guys go where they wanna go and do what they wanna do, they are fantastical.
I see them as romantic flying herds of diminutive, ravenous, omnivorous Dinobirds, singing a wacked out song-a-lingo that stirs the heart and has stood the test of (millions of universal “circle the sun” units of) time.
What a pleasure to see and hear them here, I hope our song lives as long, I like ‘em.
BOOK 4. A Nip of Nepotism
BOOK 4. A Nip of Nepotism
I was talking with Tuts at Shaky Acres recently, when something in my pocket started to attack me. Rather than a noxious, notorious tropical pocket skink, it turned out to be my trusty telephone, vibrating like a lusty electric jumping bean.
“Allo? Allo?” sez me, and within two words of the response, I’d recognized a voice I hadn’t heard in fourteen years or more, as belonging to one of my favorite people in the world “Jon Mayer, The Jive talking, Piano Playing, Be Bop King of the 13th Galaxy and the world” (I call him that, he makes no such claim, except for the be bop piano player part.)
He is much more humble about himself than I am about himself, (which may play a part in why he enjoys talking with me) Jon and I have traveled through more than one world of woe together and shared the dramatics of traversing the seemingly endless grey quicksand between the dark and the light in the far in and far out Californias.
He is a very funny fellow and is kind enough to pretend to be amused by the products of my own pitiful wit and my efforts to keep up with him in conversation. After a number of laughs he got my email address and said he was sending me a link to his newest and first video. After viewing it (a beautiful rendition of the classic “On Green Dolphin Street”) I felt an obligation to be frank in my email response, which is copied here.
“Dear Sir,
I must say I became quite anxious for you while watching the video, I would have thought that in preparation for such an important engagement as one in an official concert hall in a far away and foreign country, you would have learned the whole song all the way through, and practiced it at least enough times to be able to play the blasted melody.
Why, at one point or another, you must have played every friggin’ note on the piano looking for the melody. And then just when it looked like you’d found it you forgot it all over again, and the guy playing that big “ukulele on a stick” had to take over for you while you tried to find your place.
I was so relieved when it ended and the people seemed not to notice what had happened and gave you a nice round of applause and (because I know that you take a certain pride in your looks) it was very nice that some of them even whistled at you.
I’ve been told that the longer one stays away from food additives and other naughty chemistry the better ones memory gets, however that hasn’t happened for me, because it seems the longer I stay away form the bad stuff, the older I get. And the older I get, the less I can remember. So my advice is that you’d better be real nice to the guy who plays that “ukulele on a stick thingy”, because you’re going to have to rely on him more and more and more.
Your friend and #1 or 2 (depending on how your current wifey feels about you) fan,
Scott
Jon is a real beauty; we were together in California when the “new John Mayer” started to become known. What an experience, it was for him; you work all of your life to get your name out there and bouf! It was really disorienting.
I must say, he responded like the Be Bop Maestro that he is.
I have a little “kinda likea” experience when I google myself or am confused with or accused of imitating some of the folks that imitate me, but dang!
In Mayer’s case because the other lad is fairly gifted too it ultimately reflected well on the name…but can you imagine?
Anyway, I love my friend, Jon Mayer, and if you like Be Bop you will too. I’m delighted to have heard from him. Here’s his link
Back on the “confused with trail,” some folks get me mixed up with my son “little Scott” who is a writer, a former producer for Dr. Wiel, A Chef and a Caterer in New York City. When that occurs I get demands for more information about “Butch Australia” or natural remedies for Hammer Toe or for my super secret recipe for soup for sixty (I always start by saying “Well…first you gotta scoop ten gallons of Hudson River water into a Zabar’s brown paper shopping bag and”..) (I tell ‘em the same thing for both Hammer Toe AND secret soup)
I get calls from “Mothers in Laws to be”, insisting that they should come right over to my pad to taste my recipe for “Caribbean Gefilte Fish” or “Langousta de La Sahara” or something else equally intriguing, like Belgian Guacamole over frozen Alaskan truffle fish, (My beautiful Bix makes the most extraordinary (and super delisioso) cultural culinary combos probably because of his family’s Virgin Islands background combined with my own), The boy is a major cris-cross of culture combos himself)
These “Mothers In Laws to be” ladies, do this in anticipation of hiring me (actually him but they’re confused, Capeche?) to cater their daughters and “sons in laws to be’s” “Weddings Of The Century”. When that happens I always say “Yes yes of course my dear flower plum, but first I’ll have to run over to my fish traps at Hells Gate to see if we’ve managed to catch any Caribbean Gefilte Fish amongst all the funny little Hudson River White Fish in there” That usually gets them off the line in a hurry!
The Bix’s mother, the beautiful “Annalee” ah.. I mean Patricia, (here she is telling her story “Betty Crocker and The Mango Tree”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5pTKr321yk
calls from time to time complaining that the Bix’s business has fallen off, I listen and cluck along with her…”Yes yes, he’s such a smart boy, yes yes, he’s such a handsome fellow, yes yes, he’s such a wonderful Chef.. (I hope it never occurs to her that the problem may begin when people try to contact him and wind up talking recipes with me instead) After all it’s her fault, she’s the one that insisted on naming him Scott, I was going to name him “Little Maxie Whatchamacallya”)
Ah well…I promise you the Bix is a much much much better cook than I am, here’s his link http://www.tipofthetonguenyc.com/
(As a matter of fact almost anyone who doesn’t start with ten gallons of Hudson River water is a much better cook than I am)
And while we are, or rather while I am, practicing nepotism, here’s a link to my beautiful boy Archie’s (no, not Little Archie’s) online comic book. http://skullforcecomics.blogspot.com/
and a LINK to my long lost but recently found, beautiful son Stephin’s site http://www.houseoftomorrow.com/
My little girls have better sense than to let their Dada know any thing about how to find THEIR websites, let alone what the heck is on them. You’ll just hafta google ‘em to find out.
Incidentally, on that Hudson River soup, I just want you to know that you won’t need to salt or season it in any way. That soup base is so fraught with exotic seasonings of every kind that it bubbles before it boils…it’s really quite exciting.
I would say you ought to try it, but there’s no way that I’m going to be responsible for that. It’s kinda like that Japanese Blowfish thing, except I hear there’s an eight in ten chance you’ll survive the blowfish, but if you get a Hudson River White Fish stuck in your throat, brother you’re gonna have an irresistible urge to hang or shoot yourself within seconds.
Well, that’s just about all I know about soup, weddings, natural remedies and baked Alaskan ice cubes…
P.S.
Here is a link to MAAC the collective that I’m hooked up with in the states http://www.middletownarts.com
And the collective’s performance space, AKA Union Street Blues http://unionstreetblues.net
Book 4. and Book 1. The Boy Who Stowed-away, all the way to Baltimore.
Book 4. and Book 1. The Boy Who Stowed-away, all the way to Baltimore.
I’m heading back to the states today and I am somewhat anxious. I Know that I’m singing well, and I know that the individual songs and spoken word pieces included in the one man presentation of the “Virgin islands Songs” are good, and further that the presentation (or show) itself is good. However, I have never been able to successfully manage the management of the business of any or all of, this, that, them, or those things.
I have made a commitment to do better (to do what better? to do everything better) and I am committed to the bitter or, lets say, better end. Why? Because as my hero Popeye sez, “I yam whats I yam” And, if it’s yams we gots, then it’s yams we gets to bring to market. We shall see what we shall see.
My comrades from the MAAC collective ah..ah.. I mean friends from the MAAC (Middletown Area Arts Collective). Have said that they will be meeting me, I hope that there is no last minute email change of plans because there is no email in the present configuration of things, as all systems are go and our electricals have fallen away…the next number in the countdown is “giddyup!
And giddyup we did, over to the airport, where all Airlines computers were down…and every untrained trainee was called in to do things they knew not how. I will leave the clever caustics to the 1000 or so other folks who swore vengeance and worse and simply say “Oy vey Caraho!”
As the soup (or mess) tumbled, I surfaced for a moment and found myself in the airport terminal at Isla Verde, Puerto Rico for the first time in many years. I began to think back on how it used to be.
Me mind seized on one transiting in particular, one fine early evening where in I arrived at Isla Verde, as a 16 year old stowaway from St. Thomas.
Like everyone else I was required to change planes here if I wished to continue on beyond… There were a number of things about that trip that were out of the ordinary among them the fact, the happy fact that I was not weighed down by any luggage whatsoever, or required to stand in any lines and interact with overwhelmed airlines personnel. Instead, I spent my time in a warm and hilarious conversation (en espaniol) with a wonderful “Jibaro” gentleman with a bottle of Don Q in his hand.
He was on his way to “New York” for the very first time, and was happy to have someone to talk and share his rum with, and I was happy to listen and refuel.
I was 16, fully ignited, and had been burning incandescently forty-five minutes earlier, when I had walked off Lindbergh beach, jumped the airport fence in St. Thomas, and stepped on to Caribair flight number “who the heck knows”. I sat down next to a beautiful teenage tourista girl, let her know that I was stowing away and that she was now a co-conspirator to high adventure down in the Bongo Isles.
In her defense, I will say that I was quite a pretty fellow in those days, and the process of reconciling such a pretty young man-child with bizarre behavior in the extreme, generally takes more than the thirty minutes required to fly from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico.
It is likely, even probable, that at precisely thirty one minutes she would have leapt up from her seat screaming and imploring all the other passengers and crew to “For Gods sakes grab this kid and tie him up for his own safety, American Civilization and the future of Rock and Roll” but fortunately for me, American Civilization and Rock and Roll, we had a good tailwind.
Once in Puerto Rico (in spite of the strong and dangerous environmental toxins continually kabooming in my brain) I had the gentlemanly good sense to bow graciously and step aside allowing her to run to the waiting arms of her family, out of my teenage reality and back into her own.
I of course now had to improvise and implement my next action, but first I had to figger out what it would be.
When I realized that I had successfully stowed away to Puerto Rico (Something that every pair of eyes that ever watched a beautiful DC 3 sweeping up up up into the air banking over the sea bound for where ever they wished to be, had wished to do) I heard the stillest smallest voice say “Hey, What the heck is the que pasa that’s goin on?” I answered it saying “Don’t worry about a thing, I’m going to the states to see my father and make Rock And Roll records”
But, first how to do it and first, first, the Don Q.
In those days the terminal was a wonderfully open-air tropical affair that I was very familiar with. There was one long main “ticketing floor” running east to west, where all the airlines had their counters. I was partial to Pan American, having flown with “the world’s most experienced Airline” many times, but was no stranger to Eastern either, in any case, I sussed out the sitch, and discovered that there was a stairway out to the tarmac where the big transcontinental boys were being prepared for their next hop. When I got out there, one of them was all lit up and appeared to be more ready than the others, I walked up the loading stairs through the empty interior and to the lavatory (coming down the aisle) on the left. In ten minutes they began to load the plane and twenty minutes after that, we started rolling.
I was congratulating my self on arranging my own trip to Miami, when the overhead cheerfully welcomed everyone aboard Eastern Airlines flight number “who the heck knows” to Baltimore and Philadelphia,
After takeoff, I stepped out of my private compartment and took a seat next to a grown up gent that I knew (by sight only) from St. Thomas. I told him what I was up to, and he seemed somewhat shocked and frightened. I dismissed him as square and unadventurous even though he did buy me a drink.
I closed my eyes and before you know it we were landing in Baltimore. An interesting element that I hadn’t considered was that it was winter, and I was wearing white dungarees and a bright flowery Island shirt open to my belt buckle, the elementary element came to my consciousness when I got a blast of winter wind upon disembarking at Friendship Airport.
By now I had decided that, I would tell the good folks at travelers aid (in Spanglish) that I had gotten on the wrong plane in San Juan, and would they be kind enough to redirect me to Miami which was after all, as anyone could see by my clothing, my intended destination. I felt confident that my idea was working until I was nabbed by the Baltimore Police who happened to be at the airport looking high and low for a teenage boy, who had escaped from a local “Juvie” facility.
In any case, or rather to avoid serving out his sentence for Lord knows what and how long I was able to convince them that I actually wasn’t from these parts and didn’t know a thing about zip guns, rumbles and hotrods. Unfortunately, to prove it, the clever devils insisted I give them the name and phone number of my poor dear put upon, poor dear Mudder dear.
Ah my poor dear Mudder dear, good lord awmighty I burdened her aplenty…and though she would often look directly at me and say “Bonehead, I want you to know that I have ESP” for some reason she wasn’t quite able (from only two thousand five hundred miles away) to pick up on and grok my whole convoluted spanglish confabulations with out the benefit of having spoken to me, and consequently, inadvertently let slip that No, I wasn’t the son of a wealthy Castiliano, traveling unaccompanied for the first time to “La Florida” unaccustomed to attending to trifles beneath him, including such things as airline tickets, identification and the sundry mundane like.
Ah well, Travelers Aid was kind enough to put me up in the YMCA over night, where I was able to jive a gent into getting me a six pack of beer and a newspaper which was full of advertisements for Rock and Roll Shows all over the Baltimore, Washington D.C. Area. Loud Beautiful ads jam packed with excitement. Ads that I read and looked at over and over all night long.
In the Morning, before I could do even a single interview with LIFE or LOOK magazine about my adventure and to launch my career, the Baltimore Police and Travelers Aid put me on a plane back to the Islands.
Ah well I’d just have to settle for the attention and admiration generated by my peers for “The boy who stowed away. Not once but twice, all the way to Baltimore”
Ah my poor Mudder Dear…
Book 1 and 4. Captian Hookfoot
Book 1 And 4. Captain Hookfoot
(A Piece of Spoken Calypso Comedy from my new Musical “The Virgin Islands Songs”. I Hope that you are able to understand and enjoy it)
It came to pass that one day dem boy an me was warm up to go ana expedition way doung doung doung in de wes to Bordeaux Bay to fine de gol lef dare in de days of ol by de pirates of ol dat somebody say dey kno fo sure, was hide up in de top of a tamon tree.
We had quite a long ways to go an many a place to see before we would return home dat evening. Fus, on de way to Bordeaux we plan to stop by de ol Plantations at Filamingo Pon an de ol Plantation in Fortuna to pick up whatever treasure we could fine along de way den continue on to Botney Bay an clean out de treasure doung dere befo we dig up de big one at Bordeaux an bring it home.
My secret hope was dat we would only fine a likkle bit of treasure along de way, quick quick so dat we would’n fine ourself all de way doung Bordeaux after de night fall in de ol winswep an abandoned ruins doung dere in de in de pitch black dark night.
Now, I kno how tu preten tu be brave when people watchin jus like anybody else, but lemme tell yu sumting, I have seen almost grown man bawlout fo de muddah when dey tink a Jumbie hol dem or see a Jumbie commin. An boy don tink fo a minute dat doung dae ain de home a Jumbie, hundreds a dem an more. (Jumbie like sanfly) De minute de sun go down an shadows fall on dem, de Jumbie dem come pourin up out de groun an dropping doung ou de tree to see wha goin on… Laad meboy, yu don’t wan to be de ting dey fine. Jumbie frum all part a de worl me boy every one a dem wan to climb up in yu brains an take ovah de driving.
Jumbie fighting Jumbie all jumble up an top a one annudah, Carib Jumbie, trying to eat up de Arawak Jumbie wha fighting wid de Spaniard Jumbie who fighting wid de Cha Cha Jumbie who fightin wid de English Jumbie who clashin wid de Dane man and de wild eye African Jumbie an all a dem fighting wid Black tooth de Pirate Jumbie excepin if somebody who ain dead fall in wid dem, den every las one a dem Jumbie gon jump on he to see who could suck out he eye an climb in he coconut tu come back to life.
Das wha de Jumbie wan tu do yuh kno, take ovah yu coconut, an jump on yu donkey and go back town an preten like he is you, an take away yu wife an yu girlfrien, Yes man dat happens all de time.
Well like ah sae, we was ready fo de high adventure, Bucky an Brudsie an Boomie an Tutie and Tutsie an Papoon an de res a dem boy, de only problem was who gon be who, everybody wan to be Roy Rogers an ride in de front ah de donkey. Not me dough, I is Gene Autry de singing cowboy an nobody cain argu wid dat, I could be who I wan to be because is my donkey an I gon ride in de front. All de same, de Laad ha sen a bunch a donkey, man we had bou tree o fo a dem. Among dem is de one wha ah have to keep me eye on de mos because he is nuttin but a schupid jackass wha broke me bowstick when ah was protekkin me lil jenny gurl Madras, I wouldda stay behine ahe exceppin Gene Autry got to lead de geang, so ah wa goin tu have tu go doung de road kina sideways.
All de same alla dem Roy Rogers an Lash Larue an de Long Rangeah an Jungle Jim (wid de inscruchable Fu Man Chu thro in in dey) every one a dem tink dey should be leadin de ban, an das ok wid me becausin de only time I acktually really got tu be in front is when de Jumbie dem cumin frum behine.
If yu wan tu kno de trut, when Jumbie cum, I gon jump off de donkey an run fo me life on me own two foot. I done keaar wha yu say.. de ain a donkey in de worl gon run faser dan me when a Jumbie cumin behine.
Jeesumbred what a ting dat would be..news flash tonight meboy, man dead doung Bordeaux, donkey bawlin blood, Jumbie biteup man head befo dey could climb in in de driver seat, but not me me boy, I gane like a “flash of white in de night”. Dem boy could stan de wid dey schupidness how yu gon fight a Jumbie? Wha yu gon hol an tu when yu tryin tu thro im doung? How yu gon thro him doung when yu fraid tu touch him? Who gon touch a Jumbie? Not me meboy. I jamming de ol gol in me pocket, an I gan. Who wan tu be in front a me den bettah cum good because when dem Jumbie cum pourin up ou de groun, I jumpin off de donkey an I gan.
Wall we moseyed on down de trail headin out wes singin de “yippi kai yi yoo get along little dougie sang” an up an ovah de officers quarters hill and doung in de valley where de green grass grows an up again to de top a de hill by Jahnbruisebay where upon we stopped to survey all dat lay before us.
As we moseyed on doung to de bay, dem boy tinkin bou all de goobers an rasinetts dey gon buy wid de pirate treashah. I tinkin Jumbie,. when jus den, de closes ting to a Jumbie jump ou de bush an grabbon to me donkey head. It was de notorious “hookfoot” one a dem very ol an very crazy “ol crazy man” wha live doung Jahnbruise, bunnin coal an drinking rum. Hookfoot was raving an wavin a cutlash.
In an instant I fell back on me yankin “Isn’t she.. Isn’t she a pretty donkey? I said in a quakey timid voice, “Oh Yeah? yo lil red arm muddah skunk yu”, he thunderd, “I’ll kill yu muddah skunk hare today, a pretty donkey? A pretty donkey? Yu donkey teeffin Muddah $%^%$ yu! I katch yu, yu f*&^ah yu, Dis donkey is MINE. Get aff me donkey oh ah sweaa I’ll kill yu muddah sk#$% rite here today”! All dis time he slashin de cutlash back an fort gains de street an de sparks dem flyin up like de fort of July.
Well ah had tu catch me self quick when ah realize all a dem boy watchin an ah cain let meself be embarrass like dat in front a dem, at de same time ah kina glad tu realize what evah gon happen here, I ain goin have tu deal wid de Jumbie dem doung Bordeaux tonight.
“Well Mr. Hook Sah” I said, as I jumped doung off de donkey, “I am glad to be de one who was able to fine an secure an return dis fine animal to you, my name is Gene Autry de singing Cowboy, an my game is mekin everyting have a happy endin. An wid dat I’ll bid yu a good day sah, I have tu be getting back to de movies”. An wid dat I turn aroung ana came rite home savin’ de treasah fo annudah day, sometime early in de mawnin. Yep, das de whole trut..
Book 1. The Catch.
Book 1. The Catch.
I was talking with Tuts the other night about times and friends and places that are no more, we were talking specifically about our “Doun De Road” Alma Mater, the notorious Nisky elementary school. Nisky was located in an (even then) old one story military barracks, in the world war one submarine base on St. Thomas, and was known far and wide for having what were thought to be some of the hardest headed children in captivity, ah…ah… I mean the public school system, in it’s oh so unruly student body.
The sub base was located on land originally owned by the Nisky Moravian Church, bordering on Gregorie Channel and including Little Crumb Bay, the site of the earliest (five thousand years ago) Cibonay settlement in the lesser Antilles.
Under Danish Rule, the Moravians had been put in charge of educating the people of the Danish West Indies, and after the transfer, although there was an effort (mostly unsuccessful) made to bring some of the more salutary elements of American education into the picture, at Nisky, Dick and Jane and Sally and Spot mostly elicited laughter. In any case, that’s a little of how a double gaggle of dusty knobby noggined, wildly willful, rough and unruly children came to be occupying a “one room school” in a dilapidated military barracks (complete with jail cells) named after a Moravian Church, in a submarine base, down in the bongo isles.
So, on my way back from doing a radio interview with “Brownie” on WSTA (which is now also located in the old sub base) I stopped at the old school grounds to soak up some of the “vibes” and to relive and remember how it was.
The first thing that one notices is that the school and building are no more, they have been replaced by a frigging concrete parking lot, the lot is full of cars and trucks and there is not a trace of the place, (unless you know how and where to look.) If you do know how and where to look, then you will find everything exactly, (in fact even more exactly) as it was, than it was.
That place is of course the so called “wind..rather sugar cane mills of your mind, mentis and memory”.”The place of course where the reds are so much redder, and the blues are downright azure.
One of the most striking similarities bridging now and then is the fact that this little unshaded frying pan of a half-acre was and is among the hottest habitable places on the planet earth.
We, the knobby noggined, would stand right where I stood, in our raggedy lines and bake-fry three times a day, waiting for the odd collection of teacher ladies (young and old) to get us lined up properly and to the satisfaction of our strict disciplinarian principal, Mrs. Ulla Muller.
Once we were lined up, we prayed the “Our Father” and (in the after noon) sang “Now The Day Is Over) to the tune of “Onward Christian Soldiers” Sula says that when she was a teacher, they did the very same thing up in the country. (Interesting to note that my friend Sula taught our principal Ulla Muller, how to read in the little one room school-house called “Bonne Resolution” up in the cool mountain air just down the road from Nelteburg.
I’ve since learned that the content and process was the same at all the public schools, but it must have been very much more pleasant under the tall shade trees and in the cool mountain breeze at Bonne Resolution, No wonder she was grumpy down in the hot frying pan flat land, who wouldn’t be.
Additionally interesting, is the fact that Mrs. Ulla Muller is now a very sweet, pretty and gentle, ninety year old lady and friend of ours,) but that is also another story.
This one has to do with what I consider to be the best decision that I ever made. It happened at Nisky School early one morning just before the school bell rang.
At that time (September, 1951) Gale and I were the only white children in the public school system, certainly the only white children at Nisky School. The “big boys” fifth and sixth graders (some of whom were teenagers already) were not inclined to the gentle and kind, and especially not to a little white boy. On the morning in question a ball game was in process in the narrow area behind the old Navy heavy equipment shop and the School. The playing field was a long rectangular area between the shop, the school and the chain link fence protecting the Moravian Ministers “yard” (an area planted with Mango and Coconut trees) from the depredations of unruly and hungry children.
The “big boys” were playing and all the rest of the children (including my sister Gale and I) were standing on the sidelines watching. One of the sides needed someone to play the deepest part of the outfield and somehow I was push pulled forward to be the one. I was in the very beginning of the first grade and was certainly one of the smallest children there, however, I suspect this was about discovering what kind of man the little white boy was, so it would be clear to all where in the hierarchy he belonged”
The first test was; would I play at all, or would I back out of playing when we had to take the field, did I, would I have the moxie to try. (I of course didn’t know all about all this stuff; I just knew that if I didn’t step up, the teasing would be merciless)
When the sides changed, someone on the incoming team threw me a glove, actually some kind of a “mitt” (which means to me a glove with fingers splayed in every direction and no rawhide string connecting any of them) The mitt flew through the air and fell in the dust at my feet, eliciting the first of what many anticipated would be a whole string of laughs (at my expense) that morning. The truth is I didn’t know how to not participate in what was developing and so I automatically but reluctantly, moved into the game.
I put the enormous mitt-glove on my little hand and went out, out, out, until they signaled me to stop. When I turned around and looked back at the paint can that was home plate it looked like a miniature thimble. The first batter swacked something on the ground to third and I felt pretty good about that. I knew that I had scored some points just by accepting the challenge of playing, and I hoped that this would be “one two-three” and game over. The second batter also swacked it on the ground, and my team was getting very excited now, because we had the lead with one out to go and the school bell about to end the game at any moment.
The next thing I know, up steps a really big tough guy, and the second base guy and every body else are signaling me to go even further and further out…then blam-o the the really big fellow hits the friggin ball up up up and out out out, a monstrous “bataso largo” a moon shot and my good god awmighty the blasted thing has passed up and over everyone else and is heading straight for me.
That was the moment of the best decision I think I ever made. I was just a little kid, in fact I’d never even been in a real ball game before, and I had certainly never caught a ball that someone had hit, let alone launched into outer space. We were playing with what is (for reasons unknown to me) called a “soft ball” which means that the friggin thing coming down at me was every bit as big and hard as the moon.
The question in question, was never consciously put, I just ran forward to meet the falling sky. Not eagerly and confidently, rather scared to death, but determined to try. I stuck my two hands out palms up before me as I ran and the enormous orb hit the mitt-glove with what seemed like the force and weight of a cannon ball. There it was wobbling back and forth in the center of the wobbling mitt thing (which was too cockamamie to close) with my left hand trembling under the weight of it.
I could not believe that, 1, I had caught it, and 2, I was now about to drop the blasted thing. My right hand flew over to help steady the ball and by God, seconds later, the catch was caught. And caught too, forever in the hearts and minds of every single kid in Nisky School. My credibility and basic worth in terms of character, and cohones was established forever. The celebration began immediately the shouting and cheering was almost universal, and felt so good..and welcoming to me. It was beautiful, de lil’ Nisky School white boy had proved himself to be someone they could be proud of, had established his credibility, and though it would be tested many times again, the foundation for friendships based on admiration and respect, relationships that have lasted a life time, was created that fine morning by the best decision I ever made, which was simply, “Don’t run away Scott, run forward… and try”
Book 4. Who Sez Huh? Who Sez? Book 3. Popeye and The Crystal Cathedral
Book 4. Who Sez Huh? Who Sez?
While I haven’t gotten “The Virgin Islands Songs” completed as a full cast recording, I have written it and can perform a one man version of it… so it does exist, and it does contain the silliness and emotion, the feelings and the fun that I wanted an audience to experience as “The Virgin Islands Songs”
It looks as though the full cast recording may have to be done in another place, in another time. Too many things are getting backed up. Having finally attained “the age of reason” I am able to “reasonize” that I don’t have any time to waste.
One way or the other, I have to keep moving.
There is a certain freedom around this question of creating so-called product now that one has next to no expectation of being paid for it. I confess that I (having been in the music business for forty-five years now) have developed a sort of built-in automatic “Biz Monitor” an “adult music business voice” that pops (uninvited) into many if not all internal creative dialogs, to say almost always “Scott, you can’t do that, nobody wants that, it’ll never sell” (I further confess that while there are a few things to which I’ve said “Yeah, you’re probably right” there are many more to which my response is “Oh yeah! Who sez, huh? Who sez?” and “so what” This is one of those occasions.
I think that “my audience” will understand, if I can ever find them, they are the most elusive non group I’ve ever never known, I do have a few or perhaps multiples of a few solid “committables” although I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon of late. In those instances where I’ve come down from Olympus to answer “fan email” personally, I’ve some how managed to turn enthusiastic fans (some committible since South Atlantic Blues) into people I’ve never heard from again.
Perhaps I’ve been too effusive, and their responses something like “Nah, a big time handsome mysterioso (did I say handsome?) recording artist dude like Scott Fagan wouldn’t, couldn’t, really write all that nice stuff to me all by himself could he?, it must be some kind of crazy psychedelico algorithmico generated form letter” Heck no, I’m not gonna put up with this on top of his obscurity, it too much hard work to be a big fan of somebody you’ve never even seen or never even heard (and if you did probably confused him with Lou Rawls or Lou Christy or Monty Rock the Third, heck no, it’s too much work. So I’m not gonna like him any more, cause after all I put up with for him.. HE SENT ME A FORM LETTER!.
Anyway, as I said, there are (or were) perhaps fourteen or fifteen of them (my audience) scattered across the globe (in the most AMAZING places) there were an important few (including the head of the world-wide Scott Fagan Forever Fan club) in the Woman’s Detention Center in Greenwich Village, but unfortunately I don’t know where that “all important list of addresses” has gone, so now I’m going to have to wait for “The Fabulous Fourteen or Fifteen” to re-discover me all over again.
The fact is I’m a sixty-four year old singer whose train has left the station. Fortunately, I’ve got some fans, followers and friends who are still true believers, still willing to run alongside the tracks with me, in an attempt to flag the blood dragon down when “she’s comin’ round the mountain when she comes”, or shooting and raining sparks on the huffy puffel trail up the Big Rock Candy Mountain or somethin’
So, with their help we will begin. (what the heck is it that’s beginning?) It is the next phase of “The Virgin Islands Songs” more specifically, the beginning of promoting and performing the one man version, which began very appropriately at the Cultural Institute, in the J. Antonio Jarvis Museum, on Polyberg Hill..just across from the Alton Adams Home. In St. Thomas, Virgin Islands.
Chico (Gus Edwards, Tutsie’s brother, the pre-eminent Afro-decended Playwright in America) said some important things..he said that trying to do it all (Write it, Fund it, Rewrite it, Cast it, Arrange it, Sing it, Rehearse it, Record it, Direct it, Produce it, and Promote it,) is too much for anyone to have on their plate. He suggested that it made sense to simplify the process by lessening the requirements for a production by doing it as a one man show.
This makes a lot of sense where moving it forward as a performance and production is concerned, however it confuses me at depth because I am inclined to think in musical terms. Towards enhancing the musicality of a thing as an automatic response. and always always, towards creating musical recordings.
Additionally, there is the fact that I’m going to have to do different content for most stateside audiences because they probably are not going to get the spoken calypso humor of the Buckra De Paehae pieces. But we shall do and we shall see and it will be a fun and exciting element of the “Second Coming”.
Once upon a time in the music business, if you were an artist armies of smarmies would swarm ya trying to steal you away from the oh so honest upstanding trustworthy and upright personal manager or agent you were already signed and committed to. It was awful. They would try to get at you through your wife or girl friend, promising them this that and the next thing. It was really anxiety producing, unpleasant and depressing.The truth is I would rather be rejected than smarmed because ultimately, it’s up to me to find my way. I just hope me poor bent cogi-tater organ doesn’t snap crackle and pop under the strain! This is probably what that danged missing “executive center” in the brain is supposed to solve and resolve clickty clackity, lickty splito. We shall see…yes we shall.
Book 3. Popeye and The Crystal Cathedral
In the context of all the above, the various difficulties of my life, are the consequences of my failure, this is a line of information that keeps coming to mind and with it, the opportunity to get more clear about the causes of my failure, and what to do about them.
I am getting mighty clear about the consequences of my failure, they are all around me all day and all night, they are everything I have and don’t have, everything I do and don’t do and they are debilitating and contributory to more and more and more failure.
Well I ain’t a gonna take it!.. now effen ah kin jus figger out which button to punch which rock to roll up what hill, which road to take home.
I know that it’s drastically more subtle than that, rolling boulders up Everest is easy compared to getting a grip on these slippery invisibilities, many of which I’m confident, are comfortably anchored high above and behind me in the far confluence where cobweb, corner and ceiling gently conspire and quietly collude to collide.
Yep, an effen ah keep talking lak thet..it’s gonna be a cold day on rocky top before my blue moon turns to gold again. Yep, and If I keep talking like that, good ol’ Rocky top will be sweetly tinkling sand on the bottom of the sea, by the time I make any sense to me.
A while back I thought to my self “You’ve got to do better!” and I wondered “yeah but do what better?” and my answer was “everything.” And THAT made sense to me. Everything that I’m timid about, everything that I’m afraid of and try to avoid, everything that I dismiss as unimportant or beneath me, or square or… everything.
This idea of accepting the term “failure” as useful and accurate is fairly new for me. I have absolutely failed at accomplishing what I set out to accomplish, and though I have accomplished other important things (which may after all be all that I get to accomplish) I have failed at what I set out to do.
My father used to say “Fidel, I want you to watch Robert Schuller from the Crystal Cathedral, in fact we have a pane of glass there in our name, he’s positive and great, I watch him every Sunday” And I would feel a wave of pity and compassion for my father dear, living down in the friggin’ okeefeenokeeglades in an all but collapsed trailer. Breeding mosquitoes the size of humming birds and singing to his thirty or sixty or so leaping, barking, nonstop copulating Chihuahuas, having himself failed at what he set out to do. I would say not on your friggin’ life, thinking that the Robert Shuller Okeedooky was what allowed him to tolerate living the way he did, not realizing that it was the alcohol and likely his own dose of fetal alcohol effects that had melted his lofty dreams and burning ambitions into a warmish pool of Schlitzy piss.
Ah dear my fadder dear, your boy Fidel had a lot to learn… and is trying like hell to learn it.
Anyway, so last, (not this but last) January up in the states, I was watching Robert Shuller..when he mentioned one of my very favorite characters of all “New World” mythology “Popeye The Sailor Man”
The Reverend Robert Shuller came on and introduced his guest speaker Bill Hybels, and Mr. Hybels introduced his Popeye inspired approach to changing one’s life.
Mr. Hybels launched right into his premise, which is that we all have an “I jus can’t stands it no more” and if we can identify it then we can change our lives. He asked the viewers to think about that and he asked.” What is your “I Just Can’t Stands It No More”?
I leapt to my feet and confessed aloud that my “I Just Can’t Stands it No More” is my failure.
Now I know that some of you folks think that one of the more endearing things about me is my utter absence from the check out stand publications, and my quaint habit of laying so low that nobody knows a thing about me or my scandalous behaviors. Some of you have even gone so far as to track me down to ask for my obscurity formulae so that you can model your own business and life plans upon it, and while I don’t mind being able to come and go as I please with out the complications that so many others complain about, The fact and the truth, is I failed at what I set out to do. Which was/is to make a difference in the world and to provide financial freedom and security for my family and myself while doing it
I thought that I could and would do it through my ability to sing and write and make records… I have been at it since July 2nd 1964 and although I am not a failure at singing and writing,or a number of other things, I have failed miserably at managing and promoting my abilities and the products of my abilities to produce financial freedom and security for my family and myself.
Consequently, I have been materially “poor” and my Children have been materially “poor” all of our lives. Both parents, my sister and two of my three brothers have died materially “poor”. I was not successful at providing a breakthrough for any of them. Or any of the four mothers of my five children.
My Daughters Lelia and Holiday are still most vulnerable and the reality that I am not able to help them in spite of the fact that I am bright, inventive and more talented than many AND have given the past forty-five years to trying and trying and failing and failing,, brings me to where.. “I JUS CAN’T STANDS IT NO MORE!”
So, with the help of the Higher Power I am going to change it. Here are elements of my Action Plan. I will assess my assets and my deficits and identify what I have to learn and do to reverse my failure and at long last… well, ahh …reverse my failure.
- I will keep a diary of the process. The diary will be helpful to folks and a valuable creative product in its own right…
- I will make an entry each morning (2 minutes) and each evening (4 minutes), the first stating what I intend to achieve that day, and the second, what I got done and did not get done and what I learned as a result and the remedy.
January 25, 2009 AM
I intend to hold on to Popeye’s saying, “I Jus Can’t Stands It No More” write it down and see what if anything I can learn and do from that process. I intend to find a way or at least the beginning of a way to turn my failure into success, and to follow consistently the process that I outline or discover.
January 25, 2009 PM
I have started the process of turning my failure into success. I have written my intentions down and have begun. I spent an hour and a half rehearsing songs from “South Atlantic Blues”. I will out line the many ideas for potentially revenue producing projects, I will do the outlines in the morning.
January 31, 2009
Listing the many projects that I started this week
JULY 12, 2009 AM
Gosh, I had completely forgotten all about the daily diary entry aspect of this daily diary entry exercise, and have just rediscovered what I had written back in January! I am in St. Thomas recording “The Virgin Island Songs”. It has been interesting. but..good Lord.
February 12, 2010
Gosh, I’d forgotten what I rediscovered I’d forgotten and rediscovered, in July! Good Good God Amighty…
Scott Fagan's Mem.wa? 