Hendrix Family: Re-issue Band Of Gypsies

I don't know if you've read this new Rollingstone article. If you just clicked that link, then of course you have. And if you did then the gist of it is as recognizable to any Hendrix fan as it is to me because I consider myself to be one of his greatest fans. Jimi Hendrix to me not only represents the "everlasting yeah" that Bill Hicks has described, a state of guitar nirvana that has never been reached before and probably will never be reached again, not only one of the greatest songwriters of all time penning thoughtful lyrics to juicy tunes, but the greatest single encapsulation of the Seattle attitude ever. My condolences to fellow 27-club member and Seattle-ite Kurt Cobain (although neither hailed from the city itself). Jimi Hendrix represents a blues player not only steeped in traditions Clapton could only approximate, but adept at all sorts of guitar trickery that Clapton never even dreamed of. In fact, I think Jimi Hendrix is the reason Clapton decided to mellow the fuck out and stick to the sidelines even on records credited to him. If you think I'm down on Clapton remember that this is from a guitar student who (like Eddie Van Halen) considers Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton to be perhaps the greatest guitar record of all time.

Now, as for what the article portends, I'd like to personally make an honest entreaty to the Hendrix Family and its overlord be she benevolent or malevolent, Janie Hendrix. Janie Hendrix, we have so much of Jimi's catalogue reissued at this point, in sound that may not be a new transfer but nonetheless is presented in superior quality. We have First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, which was meant to correct the sins of The Cry Of Love, Rainbow Bridge, and even a third posthumous album that record company scum at the time felt fit to issue after the musician's untimely demise. We also have South Saturn Delta, BBC Sessions, Jimi At Woodstock, Valleys Of Neptune, the truly awesome West Coast Seattle Boy, and even a reissue of The Jimi Hendrix Experience Box Set with bonus tracks- all of which show varying degrees of quality.

All of these are great in my eyes because they always represent new views of an amazing artist whose talents were so prodigious that even his out-take material represented better material than 95% of the crap that passes for entertainment- in all eras. But we have West Coast Seattle Boy now, which documents portions of those legendary New Year's Eve/New Year's Day shows of 1969-1970 with Band Of Gypsies. Hendrix Family, what I want as a fan, what I'm willing to pay money for, is for the rest of the recordings of these historic dates. I want "Who Knows", "Machine Gun", and "Power Of Soul" from Band Of Gypsies. I want "Stop", "Message To Love", and "Burning Desire" from Live At Fillmore East, but mostly I want you to dig deep into those tapes and give me the full experience of "We Gotta Live Together", Buddy Miles's masterpiece that for whatever reason hasn't seen the full light of day.

I don't know what the hell you're sitting on the complete tape for! Does Buddy break out into a totally anti-white-man rant in the middle of the "we gotta live together" chants that he's doing "just like in Church, now"? Does he break out like a Tourette's-syndrome patient into a bunch of "crackers" unexpectedly, mid drum-riff? Does he call for a revolution against the then-nascent Reagan administration over its activities in Vietname and kow-towing to Henry Kissinger? Speaking of which, this is becoming like that 18 minutes of tape missing from Nixon's private recordings that everybody was talking about for Watergate. I don't know what the hell he's up to for a mysterious some 4 minutes or so missing from the total song length, missing even from the extended version featured on Live At Fillmore East. Or is it even Jimi who goes off track during the recording? Maybe he's decided enough of the everlasting "yeah" and gone with the everlasting "no" instead for a change.

Whatever the case, I, as a Jimi Hendrix fan, want those god damn tapes. BTW, any bootleggers want to send me CD transfers of those original tapes are more than welcome. Contact me. Hendrix Family, you can do a lot better by us fans to release those concerts or even just the original Band Of Gypsies album by itself than you could to release those bastardization Hendrix releases, The Cry Of Love and Rainbow Bridge. Please see the error of your ways and understand that if even Robin Thicke can pay tribute to Hendrix/Band Of Gypsies, if only in an album cover then there has to be something there that you could bury the hatchet with Buddy Miles, no matter what his demands are for the portion of his songs that were included purposefully on the recording and approved by Jimi himself. Short of being a snuff death recording (of which I'm damn sure it's not!), Hendrix Family, release these tapes!

Bitterzoet Magazine [Op. 47]

It's been too long since my last update, I know. I really should take the plunge and put up the 50 dollars it takes to get a year's subscription to Duotrope. I had this idea of getting paid for my work first. I haven't netted a red cent from my efforts. Not that I mind too much, though. Nobody ever went into poetry saying, "That's where the money is! I'll be a millionaire!" Anyhoo, I've been published in Bitterzoet Magazine. It's a poem that I am indeed very proud of entitled "Caesar's Embarrassment: A Double-Dactyl." I was very proud of all the poems I sent to the magazine, but this one just seemed like it was going to get picked up quickly. It had that je ne sais quois about it.

Word on the street about my first book is that it may drop before my birthday (18 October) this year and if it does I will definitely be feeling celebratory. I don't know why but 27 just seems like a good age to debut. I look forward to seeing what happens with it. I will, of course, update as updates come.

The Author's Lament

I thought I'd post this little ditty here at the end of this amazing month in more honor of that amazing author himself, Mr. James Joyce. I hope you get as much delight from it as I did.

By M.J. McManus

I might write clotted nonsense
By strenuous endeavor,
And make the puzzled critics
Ejaculate, "How clever!"

I could, like Mr. Joyce,
Confound the prim reviewer
If my timid nose would let me
Dive headlong into a sewer.

But my work is undistinguished,
And my royalties are lean,
Because I never am obscure,
And not at all obscene.

16 June 2013

Hello, everybody, and welcome to a very special edition post by yours truly, Euphrates Arnaut Moss. Today, as it is most likely you well know, is Father's Day. It's also, as you less likely know, Bloomsday, the incredible celebration day of the year in which not only has Ulysses been read in its entirety by a cast of Irish actors in 1982, but the day on which many people around the world recognize and promote by feasting on cheese sandwiches, burgundy, liver and onions, and kidney. Some even conduct their own Ulysses by visiting shops and attempting to re-create everything Leopold Bloom did on this most auspicious of days in 1904 (some posit that it is the day of the first date of James Joyce and his beloved Nora Barnacle while others strongly deny it and say that it has a different significant meaning- possibly of the copulative kind). It is also, as probably nobody but a select few reading this knows, the day of my mother's and her older sister's birth in the years of 1959 and 1955 respectively. A most happy of birthdays goes out to Janet Hobbs and Colleen Strand! I love you both as dearly as a son and nephew can possibly love their proper counterpart. Today I've given dad a copy of the new Iggy & The Stooges album and my Mom a copy of Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album and a 10-dollar gift card to Starbucks.

In celebration of this day I include here the poem of Oliver St. John Gogarty, whose text is partially and not entirely accurately re-created in Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses in the very opening "chapter" (I prefer to call them divisions but what you will, I'm sure). Joyce names this poem in the book "The Ballad of Joking Jesus" but St. John Gogarty named it "The Song of the Cheerful (but Slightly Sarcastic) Jesus." It is reputed to be quite blasphemous, but I would never know having not given a slight shred of credence at any point in my life to the myth of "The Christ." Nevertheless, here are the lines in their entirety:

I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.

My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird

With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree

So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.'

If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,

He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine

But have to drink water and wish it were plain

That I make when the wine becomes water again.

My methods are new and are causing surprise:

To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes

To signify merely there must be a cod

If the Commons will enter the Kingdom of God

Now you know I don't swim and you know I don't skate

I came down to the ferry one day and was late.

So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!

For a Jewman it's better than having to bathe.

Whenever I enter in triumph and pass

You will find that my triumph is due to an ass

(And public support is a grand sinecure

When you once get the public to pity the poor.)

Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread

And they'll give you a stone habitation instead

With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear

And the Sheep will be naked before you'll go bare.

The more men are wretched the more you will rule

But thunder out 'Sinner' to each bloody fool;

For the Kingdom of God (that's within you) begins

When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.

Rebellion anticipates timely by 'Hope,'

And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope

And you'll find that you'll never be left in the lurch

By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church

Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed

You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead

What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly

And Olivet's breezy—Goodbye now Goodbye.

The Write Place At The Write Time [Op. 46]

Good news, I've been selected to be published in the upcoming fifth Anniversary edition of The Write Place At The Write Time. Pick up a copy if you're curious. The poem is called "Severed Connexion" and it will appear in my upcoming book, Early Harvest. Also, as you've probably noticed by the lack of update last month, I reached my goal of writing a different kind of poem every day of Poetry Month. Sweet showers, indeed, for April. I was pretty happy with them while I was writing them, but sadly as I collected them together I was not feeling so great about them. I did manage to add the best ones, I think, to poetry collections. Interesting travels ahead, hopefully.

The Germ [Op. 45]

Excellent news for me, I've been published in The Germ Haiku section. This is the very first haiku I've ever published so I'm doubly excited. I've not had the best of luck with short forms. In fact I had a whole stint of trying and failing to get published in a little place called The Lilliput Review. If you have the time and energy, go ahead and check it out. It's a great publication with an extremely apt title. New adventures ahead, and my first book is still TBD as far as release date goes. As soon as I get a release date for it, though, you'll be the first to know. Happy travels.

Day After Update: Regarding poetry month, it's been an exercise in different forms so far. I've written a limerick, a poem in hymn verse, a poem in free-verse, a poem in prose, a haiku, an opinion poem, and a concrete poem. I don't think I'll be able to do this, but I'll nevertheless endeavor to do a different kind of poem for each and every day that I participate in Poetry Month. I'll let you know when I fail.

Poetry Month and A Break With Emily Dickinson

It's Poetry Month. It's also the month of sweet sweet showers. It's also the month of the day of fools. It's also autism awareness month. All of these things have to do with me, and so I am talking about them. I have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Not that it's a big deal as far as I'm concerned, I don't think it's severe enough for me to be considerably different from anyone else. I am saying that because now you are two sentences more aware of Autism. Congratulations.

As for Poetry Month, I didn't realize this was tradition, but my publisher told me about it. Apparently people write a poem every day for this month, and that's how you'll find me hopefully. I fell under a bit of a creative dry-spell for a while and only cured it with the composition of a short story last week. It was pretty tough going up until then with lines only coming in fits and starts. I am happy to say the concept of poetry month has re-energized my creative batteries and I've already composed a special dirty limerick for April Fool's Day. I am serious about my goal of writing a poem a day, but not only do I want to write a poem a day, I want to write a good poem a day. I've not succeeded to that end yet today, but I'm hoping that I can change that by the stroke of midnight. I better summon up my grace and get to the fashioning block- I only have a crappy haiku to show for my efforts today.

On a slightly more dour note: Readers, it seems I am in a lull regarding published material for now. Not that that's anything to weep or be sad over. I've seen nothing but rejection slips for my last 3 or 4 replies and I've only just yesterday submitted a couple of things to a couple of places. I trust that I am not speaking to an imaginary audience and so to that end I am posting these lines numbered 33 in The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson as edited by Thomas H. Johnson. I am one and the same recollecting and forgetting each and every one of you. I hope you're having a nice time during this publishing lull for me, wherever you are. I'll be back again as soon as I can with new horizons.

If recollecting were forgetting,
Then I remember not.
And if forgetting, recollecting,
How near I had forgot.
And if to miss, were merry,
And to mourn, were gay,
How very blithe the fingers
That gathered this, Today!