Category Archives: Tributes

I Fully Aim to Get My Soul Known Again as the Maniac, the Saint, the Sinner, the Drinker, the Thinker, the Queer.

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 I don’t know why I didn’t tell them I had a guitar up yonder hanging on that tree. I just reared back and soaked in every note and every word of their singing. It was so clear and honest sounding, no Hollywood put-on, no fake wiggling. It was better to me than the loud squalling and bawling you’ve got to do to make yourself heard in the old mobbed saloons. And instead of getting you all riled up mentally, morally and sexually  - no, it done something a lot better, something that’s harder to do, something you need ten times more. It cleared your head up, that’s what it done, caused you to fall back and let your draggy bones rest and your muscles go limber like a cat’s. – “The Telegram that Never Came” – from “Bound for Glory”

 

My husband knows everything I do, and he doesn’t mind.

He doesn’t mind that I’ve run around the country, chasing Woody Guthrie.

If he traveled for his work, would you tell him what a good, patient, loving, generous wife he had for letting him do his job? Probably not.

I get told that all the time. I do agree that he’s all those things, but it bothers me that men with those traits are still considered “special” when they should be considered “normal.”

He doesn’t mind that I’m fat.

Do I get pitying looks for having a spouse he’s chubbier, grayer, and sleepier than he was in 1998 when we met? No. So why should he?

He doesn’t mind that I’m a social butterfly, gregarious, and tend to fall into flirtation without even realizing it. When he does the, he’s considered charming.

He doesn’t mind that I have parts of my life that have nothing to do with him or our daughter.

How lucky am I to have such an understanding husband?

That’s not luck; that’s the way it should be. From both sides.

He doesn’t mind that I took a Saturday to indulge in the offerings of the West Village.

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Got No Fear in Life. Got No Fear in Death.

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I walked along, the day just leaving out over the tops of the tall buildings, and sifting through the old scarred chimneys sticking up. Thank the good Lord, everybody, everything ain’t all afraid. Afraid in the skyscrapers, and afraid in the red tape offices, and afraid in the tick of the little machine that never explodes, stock market tickers, that scare how many to death, ticking off deaths, marriages and divorces, friends and enemies; tickers connected and plugged in like juke boxes, playing the false and corny lies that are sung in the wild canyons of Wall Street; songs wept by the families that lose, songs jingled on the silver spurs of the men that win. Here on the slummy edges, people are crammed down on the curbs, the sidewalks and the fireplugs, and cars and trucks and kids and rubber balls are bouncing through the streets. I was thinking, “This is what I call bein’ burned an’ a-livin’; I don’t know what I call that big high building back yonder that I left.” – “Crossroads” from “Bound for Glory”

 

New York City’s not nearly as intimidating the second time, especially when taking the same flight as before and staying in the same hotel, knowing how to go about getting a cab with a driver who knows how to get to said hotel. It lowers the adventure factor, but after seven months of traveling, I’m nearing my adventure quota.

It’s the last weekend in October, and this trip should be simple. Two concerts in the same location - Pace University on the Lower East Side – on two different nights. Plenty of time to travel, get lost, get found, explore, and sleep, when I’m not immersed in Justin Townes Earle and Joe Pug.

My mother wasn’t quite as convinced that I was going to be murdered to death this time in New York. I’d like to think it’s because I turned 40 a week earlier and in that time have kept myself and the person I made with my body alive and well.

No, that wasn’t it. This time, she was convinced I was going to be decimated by the hurricane slowly climbing the eastern seaboard in a grim race with the blizzard creeping east over Ohio.

“Please tell me you’re going to cancel this trip,” she sighed into the phone the day before I left.

I’m no fool, Mama,

I know the difference

Between tempting

And choosing my fate.

Of course I’m not canceling. Not even an option. I grew up in Tornado Alley. With my mother. Fleeing for cover with a few seconds notice? Second-nature. The hurricane and blizzard are days away and trackable.

Woody Guthrie arrived in New York City during one of the worst blizzards in the city’s history. He did just fine.

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Maybe We’ll Have All the Fascists Out of the Way by Then. Maybe So.

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“I’m not personally in the money-lending business. It would be against the law for me to lend you money without letting the governor know.”

 

“Th’ gov’ner? Shucks, me ‘n’ th’ gov’ner’s always goin’ aroun’ with our hands in each other’s pockits. Big friends.” – from “A Fast-Running Train Whistles Down” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Among other things you can’t do in the Kennedy Center: you can’t take pictures.

I wasn’t even trying to take a picture during the show. I’d arrived at my seat, after finally meeting Andie, my contact at the Grammy Museum who helped get me into so many events for this project. So many that upon meeting, we hugged like old pals.

But even that connection didn’t spare me from getting a tap on the shoulder as I raised my phone to take a photo of the auditorium as people filed in.

“No photography in the Kennedy Center,” the usher sneered.

I hate arbitrary rules.

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But Believe it or Not, You Won’t Find it so Hot if You Ain’t Got the Do Re Mi.

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Poker tables wheeling and dealing. Five or six little oilcloth tables, five or six mulers, hustlers, lead men, standing around winking and making signs in back of every table. And behind them, five or six more hard-working onlookers, laughing and watching five or six of the boys with a new paysack getting the screws and trimmings put to them. – “Boomchasers” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Deals went down at the Kennedy Center the next night.

I arrived early, grabbing a cab when several buses didn’t show up, unaware that the center runs a shuttle from the Metro station a mile away. Again, DC’s assuming I know all their rules and amenities without actually putting the information anywhere I might find it. But I’m figuring it out: show up to everything early and when people start forming a line, assume the person in the front knows what’s happening and fall in.

I hadn’t sold my extra ticket to the show. Until I had two tickets in my hand, I wasn’t going to believe I actually had an extra. But the Grammy Museum has never failed me; they had a ticket for me at the box office. I’d been in communication with Heather, the kind soul from Craigslist who sold me the first ticket, and she was trying to connect me with others who’d contacted her to buy the spare ticket.

With my two tickets, I wandered into the vast lobby, carpeted in lush red against white walls, brass accents, and skinny windows overlooking the Potomac. The look was mimicked in houses of my childhood, quickly looking dated and cheap. I’ve seen the Kennedy Center in photos and on television, and thought it looked dated. In person, it’s not. There’s the intangible line between tackiness and cutting-edge that grows into classic design. The Kennedy Center is a master of the latter.

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Seen a Billion, Jillion Faces That are New York Town to Me

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Brooklyn. Saturday, September 22.

“Walk out on ‘em?”

“Goddammit! I jes’ had ta walk out, Will! Couldn’t take that stuff!”

“Goin’ ta keep pullin’ them one-man walkouts till you’ve ruined all of y’r chances here in New York. Better watch y’r step.”

“Will, you know me. You know dam good an’ well I’d play fer my beans an’ cornbread, an’ drink branch water, ‘er anything else ta play an’ sing fer folks that likes it, folks that knows it, an’ lives what I’m a singin’ ’bout. I’m all screwed up in my head. They try ta tell me if I wanta eat an’ stay alive, I gotta sing their dam old phony junk!”

“You’d just naturally explode up in that high society, wouldn’t you, But, money’s what it takes, Woody.”

- “Crossroads” from “Bound for Glory”

Brooklyn College, September 22. Another Woody at 100 tribute concert, formatted much like the first show in Tulsa last March: a pack of artists of all levels of success and ages, playing a couple of Guthrie’s songs, collaborating. Judy Collins opened on acoustic guitar with her classic take on “Pastures of Plenty,” much like we’d heard it that afternoon.

I’d never heard of Mike + Ruthy from Woodstock, New York, before the show. A darling young couple with a newborn at home, they channel Guthrie’s spririt and Carter Family stylings on “Union Maid,” “Vigilante Man,” and “Dust Bowl Blues” before presenting their reworking of his little-known “My New York City.”

It’s Guthrie’s love song to his adopted hometown, the town that has so often been neglected in the glossy version of his biography. We know Woody in Oklahoma. Woody in California. But this was Woody’s life for many years, the place he chose to be. The place he stayed. His train was a subway, not a westbound freighter.

Among the audience and performers, the love for their adopted son bleeds strong. The audience shared Dave Marsch’s sentiment from earlier in the day with a surprising number of tears. Is this New York City? Brooklyn? Toughest city in the country, brought to tears over a death too soon nearly a half-century ago?

If so, I really do want to stay.

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If an Atom Bomb Hits New York It’ll be New York No More

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“What will be your first selection, Mr. Guthrie?”

“Little tune, I guess, call’d New York City.” And so I forked the announcer out of the way with the wiry end of my guitar handle and made up these words as I sung:

 

This Rainbow Room she’s mighty fine

You can spit from here to th’ Texas line!

In New York City

Lord, New York City

This is New York City, an’ I really gotta know my line! – “Crossroads” from “Bound for Glory”

 

Although the good folks at the Grammy Museum had set me up with a free ticket for Saturday night’s Woody at 100 tribute concert, I was a bit panicked about the first-come, first-served nature of the day’s symposium at Brooklyn. Even more panicked about the transportation issue.

Let me repeat: don’t be fooled by the TV and movies. Cabs aren’t ever-present. Turns out, they’re illegal in all the boroughs except Manhattan. I learned this late Friday night while trying to figure out how to get myself to Brooklyn College the next morning. Not confident in my ability to not flub public transportation, I arranged a car service. Which I hate. It’s a plain car that costs twice as much as a cab. Basically paying to not be seen in a bright yellow vehicle that exclaims, “Hey! I don’t have a car of my own!”

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What is a Vigilante Man? Has He Got a Gun and a Club in His Hand?

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If Jesus Christ was sitting right here, right now, he’d say this very same dam thing. You just ask Jesus how the hell come a couple of thousand of us living out here in this jungle camp like a bunch of wild animals. You just ask Jesus how many million of other folks are living the same way? Sharecroppers down South, big city people that work in factories and live like rats in slimy slums. You know Jesus’ll say back to you? He’ll tell you we all just mortally got to work together, build things together, fix up old things together, clean out old filth together, put up new buildings, schools and churches, banks and factories together, and own everything together. Sure, they’ll call it a bad ism. Jesus don’t care if you call it socialism or communism, or just me and you. - The Telegram That Never Came” from “Bound for Glory”

A year ago yesterday protestors took to Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District to bring attention to the clutch multinational corporations and financial institutions have on the democratic process. So it seems like a good time to pick up my story of Tom Morello and the Chicago NATO protests that happened four months ago.

Tomorrow my hobo musician friend Peter Diebold will tell his story of the NATO protest.

Back to the Metro and May 19th …

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I Been Needin’ a Little Drink ta Ease Me on Down ta Chicago

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“Is this purty close to Chicago?” I was yelling loud as I could.

The little kid put in, “Naa. Dis ain’t ennywheres near Chucago. Dis is Freeport. Tink.”

“Illinois?” I asked him.

“Yaaa. Illinoy.”

“Son, is yore face got as much dirt an’ cinders an’ coal dust on it as mine’s got?”

“How can I tell? I cain’t even see your mug. Too dark.” – “Train Bound for Glory” from “Bound for Glory”

Kickstarter’s over and it’s time to get to work.

I spent last weekend in Chicago, the closest Bruce Springsteen’s coming to me during this project. This was my third Guthrie-linked Chicago trip in less than four months. I’ve written about half of the first trip to see Tom Morello. I’ve written about half of the second trip to see Billy Bragg.

Turns out I can’t write about Springsteen in Chicago without first finishing the previous trips. Funny how that happens when your life is unfolding like a story.

And in the middle of it all, striking Chicago Public School teachers. And NATO protests. And old and new friends. Sausage parties.

I don’t recall having a night in two weeks that ended in more than five hours of sleep. It all hit during this Chicago trip. Brain and body frantically trying to catch up with my schedule. Nine days until Brooklyn. Before then, all my Chicago tales will be told, hopefully with a guest post from a friend with an interesting perspective on the teachers strike. Also hoping I can get my traveling pal Peter to give his perspective on the NATO protests.

In the meantime, I need to write. A lot. Brooklyn’s at the end of the next tunnel.

The Sears Tower, shrouded in storm clouds last Friday night, as seen from Chinatown. Headed to Wrigley for Bruce.

Hard Travelin’, Hard Ramblin’, Hard Gamblin’

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I never did make up many songs about the cow trails or the moon skipping through the sky, but at first it was funny songs of what all’s wrong, and how it turned out good or bad. Then I got a little braver and made up songs telling what I thought was wrong and how to make it right, songs that said what everybody in that country was thinking.

 

And this has held me ever since. - “Boy in Search of Something” from “Bound for Glory”

It all boils down to those songs, which continue to inspire and, unfortunately, are often still relevant. In all the Guthrie tributes I’ve attended, not one sounded like a throw-back, nostalgic hootenanny. It’s all here and now.

Let’s review:

July 11 – Drove from Belleville, Illinois, to Salpulpa, Oklahoma.

July 12 – Drove the long way to Okemah. Met Woody Guthrie’s sister. Hung out with my busker pal, Peter. Stole stuff (and have since been busted. Thanks, Internet!). Drank beer with my elders. Had another Billy Bragg encounter. Drove back to Salpulpa. When I was back at my hotel, I had to do the math to understand that no, I hadn’t met Woody’s sister three days earlier; it just felt like it because so much had happened.

July 13 – Yelled at a reporter, drove the seven hours to St. Louis, went straight to Corey Woodruff’s “New Years Rulin’s” Woody Guthrie photo exhibit opening. Was a social butterfly until my exhausted husband, who was falling asleep at our table despite having led a normal, rational day, drug my ass home at midnight because honestly Robin, you have got to get some sleep because you’re delirious and can’t shut up.

July 14 – I should sleep in. Take it easy. Maybe entertain the notion of a really, really long shower to wash all those miles, 100+ degree heat, and Oklahoma dirt off me. Not that I hadn’t bathed in that time, but when you run at that rate, it all just digs in deeper.

I did sleep. But with it being Woody’s actual birthday, I had to write. So I wrote. A great big dump of my brain and my soul, trying to articulate why I’m doing this project. And I’m glad I did. That little bit of groggy afternoon writing has landed in some pretty amazing hands.

That wasn’t all I had to do. For months I’d had Woody’s birthday marked on my calender for “Just One Big Soul: Woody Guthrie’s 100th Birthday Party.”

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I Remember a Big Blue Rug, But I Can’t Say Which Rug

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I remember one little girl that come in from the country. She blowed into town one day from some thriving little church community, and she wasn’t what you’d call a good-looking girl, but she wasn’t ugly. Sort of plump, but she wasn’t a bit fat. She’d worked hard at washing milk buckets, doing housework, washing the family’s clothes. She could milk an old Jersey cow. Her face and her hands looked like work. Her room in the rooming house wasn’t big enough to spank a cat in. She moved in, straightened it up, and gave it a sweeping and a dusting that is headline news in an oil boom town. “Boy in Search of Something” from “Bound for Glory”

In processing my Oklahoma trip, one thing keeps coming to me: the importance of memory. Not as in remembering where I parked my car, or remembering that my daughter’s day camp ends at 3, not 3:30 (although that one was pretty important on Tuesday). Memory in bigger terms.

Being remembered by Billy Bragg made me feel more important than I care to admit. But it’s the truth. I don’t know why he remembered me. Could have been for positive or negative reasons.

What matters is I was remembered. Something about me was unique enough to merit a spot in the brain of this person I admire who has absolutely no obligation or reason to remember me.

I also spent a lot of time, especially while cooped up in the driver’s seat by myself, wondering why this project is important to me. Why is it important to – here’s that word again – remember Woody Guthrie a hundred years after his birth?

No, I don’t have an answer. I have a lot of answers, all right and wrong and everywhere in between. They all boil down to one stupidly simple thing:

It’s important to be remembered.

Not just for our egos, either. If you’re remembered, you’ve done something or been someone who has left a mark. Hopefully a positive one. We all leave marks, trails made of bits other people pick up along the way, tuck into their pockets. Lots of those bits get lost in the wash. Except for the important ones we care to protect.

It’s not special to be remembered. It’s special to leave bits that are worthy of the time, space, and energy required to remember.

This is probably some of the reason why I was so pissed off at a reporter from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the morning after the Billy Bragg concert.

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