Jesse Sublett's Blog, page 8

DEPENDABLE DAN DURYEA, NOIR WEIRDO KING

Ed Lynskey’s blog post on overlooked classic films noir really hooked me this morning. I confess I’ve never seen this one but I’ve looked for it; now apparently it’s available. Get me Netflix on the red phone! Lynskey tells us about The Great Flamarion, starring the always reliable noir anti-hero Dan Duryea, directed by Erich von Stroheim. You know, Sunset Boulevard? If you don’t, you can skip this column and go back to texting the person sitting in the booth across from you, or whatever. But if you’re hip to Sunset Boulevard and Dan Duryea, think about these:

Criss Cross  (1949)
Manhandled  (1949)
Too Late for Tears  (1949) rereleased as Killer Bait in 1955
Johnny Stool Pigeon  (1949)
One Way Street  (1950)
Winchester ’73  (1950)
The Underworld Story  (1950)

And the list goes on and on, with literally dozens of other great celluloid visions striated with darkness and weirdness, a veritable encyclopedia of noir. Duryea can always be depended on to inject a strain of the unbalanced mental state, off-key arias and queasy paranoia. He’s the Tom Waits quotient, the squeaky bedsprings down the hall. Anyway, I don’t want to take credit for Ed Lynskey bringing this up, so here’s the column:

 

This offbeat but very entertaining 1945 film noir stars the Austrian actor and silent film director Erich von Stroheim as The Great Flamarion. Stroheim later appeared in a memorable role in the classic film Sunset Boulevard (nominated for Academy Award). Here he is cast as a marksman with a set of fancy pistols in a popular vaudeville act. The married couple Mary Beth Hughes and Dan Duryea also appear in the act where Duryea’s main stunt is to avoid getting shot while he’s dancing in front of the mirrors. It’s all a matter of timing, but Duryea is also a lush, so his timing is sometimes a bit off. Hughes is a fabulous femme fatale who colludes with Flamarion to pull off Duryea’s “accidental death” during a show. The reliable Anthony Mann directed this movie. Hughes reminds me of Jane Greer and even resembles her a little. I just saw Hughes in The Lady Confesses, and this is a better film. IMDb.com gives The Great Flamarion a 6.7 rating which sounds about right to me.

 

“Duryea’s main stunt is to avoid getting shot while he’s dancing in front of the mirrors. .. Duryea is also a lush, so his timing is sometimes a bit off.” Duryea plays a lush? Say it ain’t so, Ed! 

The titles keep coming, like images of pain and disillusionment in the nightmares of a doom-addicted pimp on death row…

Storm Fear  (1955)
Battle Hymn  (1956)
Wagon Train  (1957–1964)
The Burglar  (1957)
Night Passage  (1957)

And there’s more, but you know where to look, i.e., the Dan Duryea page on IMD and also, the Dan Duryea Wiki article is pretty good, and of course, TCM has a neat but too short bio. And you should check out Ed Lynskey’s Cracked Rear View Mirror  every Tuesday, or whenever the boss ain’t looking.

Oh, you’re still reading? Well, no web troll for noir guys is complete without a visit to Dan Duryea on Findagrave.com. That’s it for now, and do me a favor, keep it weird, and check out my Art Page. You might like something there an want to buy it. This would make us all happy and it would make your home a cooler place to live.

Jesse Sublett, photo by Todd V. Wolfson

 

RED DIRT #5

 

RED DIRT #5

RECONCILIATION BLUES

in that shotgun shack

we could hear the thunder marching through the hills

as regiments of ants danced across the floor

cigarette smoke so heavy the air was like cardboard

the sour alcoholic wheezing of a steel guitar

high on the wall a Morse code of bullet holes

recently plastered over

but I got the message

I watched her shadow fall across the room

like a black curtain

the tin roof creaked

trigger finger thumping a walking bass line

leak from a rusty pipe

bleeding orange down the sheetrock

she walked in, time ran out

her heels clicking on the floor

like a gunfighter spinning the cylinder in his blue steel

revolver

I knew she wanted to talk

put this thing between us to rest

We pretended none of that mattered

finally one of us up & left

stains on the wall like brains splattered

[End of this chapter. More to come. I realize I said there was only one more, but I'm parceling them out slowly. For other chapters of RED DIRT CHRONICLES, see Red Dirt #1, Red Dirt #2, Red Dirt #3, and Red Dirt #4. For better quality poetry, you might try Michael Ondaatje or Anne Carson. Or maybe you like REO Speedwagon. I can't help you there.]

 

I heard this one on Writers Almanac yesterday.

Naming the Baby

by Faith Shearin

When you are dreaming of the name

you are also dreaming of who they

might be. They are invented in darkness —

under cloak of skin — and, for the better

part of a year, are a swelling

or a set of symptoms. The name

books are like a box of chocolates

and when you open them you see

how many kinds there really are.

There are names of people you

have known and disliked and names

that make the wrong sounds and names

that suggest your child will be

like everyone else’s. There are names

that turn your child into a character

in a novel and names that recall

the time when your great grandmother

was young. Naming the baby is a way

of dreaming about a creature who is

almost but not quite. It is a way of

imagining the soul of a person you

are making but have not made.

The name is the first way you see

the baby: their title, the syllables

that conjure a shape from the lantern.

“Naming the Baby” by Faith Shearin from The Empty House. © Word Press, 2008. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Host Garrison Keilor also had a cool line from Walt Whitman which I had never heard before, but instead of that one I’ll close with some Raymond Chandler: “Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”

Mata Hari

RED DIRT #4

UPDATES:

New art added to ART page (“Minotaur in Pac Man Labyrinth”). I think the title is self-explanatory.

MINOTAUR IN PAC MAN LABYRINTH, 16 x 20 acrylic & oil pastel on black canvas by Jesse Sublett $400.

June 20, 2014 is new release date for Broke, Not Broken: Homer Maxey’s Texas Bank War, by Broadus Spivey and Jesse Sublett.

For the past few months I’ve been working as a co-writer for The Beer Diaries World Tour, an online TV show focusing on craft beer, travel and culture. View the series online at http://thebeerdiaries.tv, and keep up with the screenings of new episodes on Facebook. New episodes are screened at the first of the month, including the Whip In episode tonight at 8 PM at the fabulous Whip In.

I’ve also been recording new demos at a cool little studio (with Jimi Teasdale and Carey Bowman of the Coffee Sergeants twiddling the knobs, and Kim Simpson on guitar and Bill Mansell on drums, me on upright bass and vocals) with an ultimate scheme to release an EP soon. I’ll post some teasers here and on Facebook when we finish overdubs. I hope you’ll dig these sounds.

And now, more of RED DIRT. (If you’d like to read the previous chapters, go to Red Dirt #1, Red Dirt #2, and Red Dirt #3).

RED DIRT #4



THE GREY LIONS OF BLACK OPS

All it was

was a fire in the neon sign in the window

the grill had gone out

back in the Reagan years.

The jukebox had a blown speaker

low notes rattled, high notes buzzed

something had come loose inside there

a wire or screw

everything in the place

buzzed or rattled

the asthmatic old killer

who pushed a broom around

the place now and then

And Melanoma Mick

with his terrible cough

and the pawnshop guy

whose pencil thin mustach

you were always trying rub off

with your sandpaper pussy

the whole squad of irregulars

the old A-Team with their pockets full of hex signs

the grey lions of black ops

too juiced up and toxic

to bury without all kinds of permit

to voluble to risk incinerating

each one of the old demons

knew too little, remembered

too much,

owned by no one,

too dead already

to be afraid

VIKING BRIDE ON A CANOE OF FIRE

She was a cedar plank gal from way back

clinker built

caulked with beeswax

canvas rags

rawhide oarlocks

THE GRAND CANYON OF HANGOVERS

another gut-shot day

crawled out of the mouth

of a whisky bottle

crash landed between

the liver purple sky

and the dark underneath

LOVE SONG

Stumbling drunk

through the minefield of your love

how I wish my feet were not so big

nor your breasties so delicious.

SKIPTRACER BLUES

The merits of suicide vs. writing a country song

being hard to write

when you’re handcuffed to a bail bondsman

an ex-Eskimo ice road trucker

almost too small to qualify for statehood

too large

to kill and chop into pieces in one night

the back of his head ascended from

the Alaskan expanse of his back

on rolls of fat stacked like sausages

carried himself with a natural wariness

a walking empire

always answering questions that demanded specifics with

“Why worry? Don’t get your tits in a ringer.“

END OF THIS CHAPTER — HAVE FAITH. ONLY ONE MORE TO GO

 

RED DIRT #3

KING OF THE CITY, 16×20 acrylic canvas $475

Here please find Chapter 3 of the poem cycle titled Red Dirt Chronicles (see also Red Dirt #1 and Red Dirt #2).

Updates: Two brand new art works on the ART page which are previewed here as well, “Minotaur in Blue” and “King of the City.”

Also note the new pull-down on the ART, Noir/Pulp Fiction Art. I’ll keep updating, adding more classic pulp fiction/noir visual art there. Make your own suggestions or feedback through the contact form at bottom.

RED DIRT #3

APOLOGY ATTEMPT #3

So you tell her you’re sorry

and ask what will it take

for her to forgive you

She says, Well, how sorry are you?

it sets you off again

and you’re outta there

MINOTAUR IN BLUE, 8×12 ink, paper, $275

NADINA FROM SAN ANGELO

boy, when she danced

it was all elbows and pearly teeth

lips like crossed swords

her signs were everywhere

red death on a cocktail napkin

a moist promise on a starched shirt collar

a “things to do“ note

carved into the cable man’s back

by her stubby little fingernails

TECHNICALLY MARRIED BUT

Everybody in the whole wide world

knew damn well

she wanted me to knock you out and drive her home

The Girl from Las Vegas, J.M. Flynn [see this and many others under the ART menu above (pulp fiction/noir art)

 

 

LYNETTE WITH A 30 POUND TABBY CAT

when

the other shoe dropped

her foot was still in it

she unstrapped her leg and

hit your fucking head

like Hank Aaron with tits

that’s when you realized the secret

of her sexy walk

and goddamn it hurt

like it was Sammy Sosa’s

corked bat

like she was A-Rod

and your head

the asterisk next to his name

in the baseball hall of fame

 

 

[contact-form]

RED DIRT #2

You could tell by the way she tossed her hair and threw it over there in the corner she was the kind of gal who played for keeps.

Note: this is another sequence from my poem cycle titled “Red Dirt,” posted in mid-April. You don’t have to read the first part to follow it, but it’s a nice intro.

MANIFESTO

When every beer is a final argument

every cigarette an indictment

of the way they did you.

&&

When every morning your first cup of coffee

you know just what you’ll say

when they come

kicking in the door

&&

How love is overrated but your first cold beer of the day is nothing but the truth

Every hard-boiled lesson shows on your face

like a warehouse full of returned merchandise

like a used car lot after a hail storm

&&

How love is overrated

but your first cold beer of the day

is nothing but the truth

 

How a deep kiss may send you to
a shallow grave

How lost causes seem to attract

the losing kind

more than the merely brave

and

how life is short, therefore

avoid long explanations

How a deep kiss may send you to

a shallow grave

in this maze of logic

every damn thing you know,

present tense chains and past

tense links of shiny crystal rings

wherever you rest your glass

 

She played for keeps

KERRI WITH A K: TUESDAY AROUND MIDNIGHT

 

One look at her sleeveless blouse

shoulder bladeswhite

as the flesh of a pear

and

you went on up to her room

 

You could tell by the way she tossed her hair

and threw it over there in the corner

she was the kind of gal who played for keeps.

 

 

AUSTIN NOIR, MINOTAUR, REPRISE

Minotaur contemplates his birthday with his alter ego, and vice versa. Drawing by meMonth of the Minotaur. Deal with it. (this starts off as a repost, but then becomes an entirely new beast.

 

May is the month of Taurus, my birthday is May 15, so I am appropriating the entire month and calling it The Month of the Minotaur. Two weeks ago I started posting new Minotaur visual art by me on the Art page, with more to come.

May 1954 has always seemed to me like a real pivot in history. It was the month the French military garrison at Dien Ben Phu (Vietnam) was overrun by the Viet Minh forces under the command of Ho Chi Minh. US forces were there assisting the French, with a large contingent of military operators in the employ of the CIA, flying rescue missions and providing cover for the French troops, but not enough to save the day. Sadly, as you history buffs know, the vacuum created by the departure of the French was soon filled by the US, and things turned out badly all around. I wrote about this for the History Channel years ago, an episode called Air America: The CIA’s Secret Airline.

Air America: The CIA’s Secret Airline, a doc that I wrote

Pretty good work, if I say so myself. The producer, Monte Markham, saw it as a labor of love because his older brother, Jesse Markham, flew for Air America and despite the many negative stories about that outfit, Air America pilots were generally well-intentioned cowboy flyers who wanted to help free Southeast Asians (in particular, the Hmong people) escape the violent takeover by the Vietcong and other communist forces in Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. But again, things turned out badly for most everyone, and Jesse Markham was later reported missing during a mission for the CIA. The family learned no other details about his fate.

1954 was also the year Elvis Presley started getting somewhere with budding music career by hooking up with producer Sam Phillips in Memphis.

 

The Month of May has been appropriated by moi, and I have taken a big bite out of it.

Like so many music careers, it started when he recorded a demo at Sun Studio and he passed the tape around to his friends, using it to get gigs, posted it on youtube and Facebook and got like, 10 million likes, and etc… Oh, wait a minute, wrong century.

As a sidebar, the iconic movie Jailhouse Rock was released in 1957. That film also starred a rising young dancer and actress named Judy Tyler, who died in a tragic car wreck shortly afterward. I only mention this, really, because I recently stumbled across pix of her on a cool French blog, and the blogger has a real eye for great noir, pulp fiction, and beautiful sex kittens, as they used to call them.

The Minotaur at SeaWorld, a one-act play by Jesse Sublett

 

Elvis and Judy Tyler

I mentioned in a recent post on the Austin Noir page that an Austin legend from the 1950s-60s, Don Jester, punched out Elvis after his show at the Coliseum with Hank Snow in 1956. Jester was a Golden Gloves champion in Austin, fighting in the youth heavyweight division, his last appearance in the Austin tournament coming in 1958. Jester was also a promising football player who excelled in just about every sport and was referred to by his coach at Austin High as “one of the most talented fullbacks I’ve ever seen,” and that was at a time when Austin High was a conveyor belt to the Texas Longhorns. Jester, however, had a reputation as a hothead and wasn’t much of a student, either. Actually, he really had a screw loose. He was recruited by Texas Tech and after graduating in 1958 (same class as his number one running buddy, Timmy Overton), he moved to Lubbock and started working out with the Raiders but did not last long. Some say he punched out the coach. Others say he picked a fight with fullback E. J. Holub (also known as a guy who threw one hell of a punch and didn’t mind doing it), and that Jester was badly injured in the altercation. In any event, Jester ended up back in Austin, running with low level thugs and drug addicts. He was in jail almost as often as he was out and although he did pursue his other avocation, singing and playing guitar, he flamed out and died of an overdose in a Ballard’s drive in restroom stall in March 1969.

In my last novel, Grave Digger Blues, Bulleit Rye makes frequent appearances.

Hey, I don’t know how these anecdotes keep taking a dark turn. Perhaps it is because, as Raymond Chandler said, in one of my favorite Chandlerisms, “Dead men are heavier than broken hearts.”

&&

Here’s another factoid or two for you about 1954, the year I was born: Marilyn Monroe married ball player Joe DiMaggio… Sen. Joseph McCarthy got slapped down in Congress during the Army hearings, which were this insane and bizarre show trial of his clownish imagination, and finally, intelligent people had had more than enough of his BS, which I am still confident will happen before long to those clowns in the GOP and the Tea Party who get all their facts from their own putrid imaginations and will believe anything as long as it fits with their racist tendencies or greed. If there was a Flat Earth Party, these guys would be charter members. You know, guys like Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmert, and pretty much the whole Texas Republican Legislature, Rick Perry, and this year’s crop of Texas GOP hopefuls.

Aha, back on the positive track, 1954 was also the year of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board, which decided that segregation was unconstitutional. Yes, the bad guys, including people like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have been trying to roll back the spirit and the intent of Brown v. Board, and one thing about the bad guys is that they keep on a-coming, but so do the good guys, so there’s always hope.

One final note about the fifties, pulp fiction, femme fatales and minotaurs. Check out this paperback novel by Edward S. Aarons. Does this look like Don Draper of Mad Men or what?

During my paperback collecting days, I had 50 or so Fawcett Gold Medal PB’s by Aarons, whose covers usually featured great art; the writing wasn’t as good.

So, as you can see, I am in rare form, and 1954 was quite an important year.

It’s a beautiful weekend. Thanks for listening.

Cheers,

Jesse

 

 

 

 

 

GRACKLE CHRONICLES – repost

Minotaur, Undefeated, by Jesse Sublett. 24×24 acrylic canvas $475

Tonight’s art blog is a short one: I just finished the above piece a couple of days ago. “Minotaur Undefeated” is one of a number of Minotaur pictures I’ve done, with a new one on the easel this weekend also nearing completion. But the following is my first post in a new category I’m calling “the written word.”

Me & an early attempt at painting grackles. Don’t ask why.

THURSDAY NIGHT, at the quarterly art salon called Tertulia, at the Continental Club Gallery, I read the following piece. The theme for the evening was “Hope,” which Tertulia curators Kellie Sansome and Gretchen Harries Graham expect the songwriters, writers, and other presenters to do with whatever they are inspired to do. [for a complete list of the presenters, go here.]

This piece was written while dictating to the Notes app on my iPhone. I write quite a bit that way, often in the car or while walking, which increases the likelihood that Siri will make some weird guesses at what was said. I often curse the app for the stupid mistakes it makes. I finally decided on this piece that the mistakes were kind of interesting. I also liked the lack of punctuation and the inane arguments I had with the app, so I left the thing verbatim, unedited except for length.

I thought I might try to pass this off as poetry, and said so before I started reading. No one really laughed at that line (maybe they were of the opinion that poetry is no laughing matter?) but they did laugh at others.

(One last note: Kellie Salome posted her fine essay on the topic, titled “A Letter to the Next Great Generation,” on her blog, and you should check it out).

GRACKLE CHRONICLES

So I was a blues singer in my past life anyway woke up one morning I was a graphical.

No not a graphical dammit a grackle you know a bird the trash bird

You see a car coming down the street is a pothole and the road is a blackbird picking up bassinet muddy water the car intentionally swerved trying to kill it probably the only bird people intentionally try to run over

That is a grackle

dammit

this isn’t some racial stereotype thing I was a white blues singer

there’s not the surly wrong with white blue singers but I could name some name

So anyway I never believed in reincarnation

There’s a lot of bullshit out there

My head was hurting hipsters everywhere I’m covered with black feathers I’ve got a worm in my beak

I’m taking a crap on these hipsters

all this yelling going out so like rusty saw blades wheezing back-and-forth on a 2 x 4

I hope you don’t consider Dave Matthews a blues singer if sure I want to know where you park your car

What happened to me I have no idea it’s a mystery

Saturday night I had a gig playing for the visiting firemen at the La Quinta

After the gig everybody in the emergency room I know everybody there pretty well was just surprised to see me I was on the operating table and woo hoo I just went out

they said they figured a guy with his many bullet holes is me should never made it to the hospital

That shit Bergerons poop quad

Correction that shit bird George Fuqua

claim that he copy of bed with his wife Elizabeth but that is a lie because I remember she hollered at me when I was in the bathroom to hurry up if I wanted seconds

George formerly classified as a good friend of mine

he pulled that 45 automatic not a nine millimeter like everybody else these days he is old school like his wife Elizabeth she still wears those Maidenform bras and vermilion color panties you know are a million like the sunset

except she wasn’t wearing any panties that night

Hey newsflash George by the way was run over by the trash track yesterday I know for a fact he is now a member of the same much disrespected species

grackle

Now George is officially a shit bird

And when I catch him

me and him will go round and round I will see that he is reincarnated as a feather bed at a fat farm

George years ago had a first wife fine looking woman he was preceded by her in death as they say her name is Susan Fairweather

she choose to prefer me to George too I don’t know if she got feathers on her tail these days or not but I know what she will be so happy to see me if she’s a bird or a basset hound or a zoo elephant or whatever

and not by nano she will be so happy to see me happy is a Mockingbird with a box set of Amos sumac records[1]

Going to go down to the Cadillac dealership give me a Cadillac demo to impress her with and I’ve done that many many times before both before and after this reincarnation bullshit

Or maybe you think I’m lying just because I’m a grackle

Anyhow on way over there and then a fly over to Ben Mike Boulevard boys in the next hackberry tree tell me the water burger down there is changing out their grease pit

party time

People ask me how I keep up my spirits because this may not be something to be crowing about

But Jessis morning in Zilker Park I was hollering at the starling fighting with him over a French fry

somebody’s Rhonda Brown

no dammit somebody threw down

And this sweet looking little Cedar waxwing gave me the you know the one eye on the side of the head thing

And I think she recognized me from back in the life and she remembered my socks

My songs dammit my song

Something about the way she swung her breasts around and shook her tail before she flew off and disappear

I take that as a good sign someday I will be reincarnated as a egg red cardinal or maybe a rooster at a breeding farm

anyway next time you’re down and out look out the window and see what the radicals are up to

Grackles not radicals dumbass

If a grackle can make it you can make it

Have hope have face your good fortune could be right around the corner as close as the next grease trap, or mud hole or opportunity to make a major artistic contribution to the world

Hey you with the plaid shirt and the Jerry Garcia beard where did you say you park your car

END

RED DIRT – repost

[Note: sorry if you are receiving blogs that you've already seen; I'm still in the process of recovering old blogs that were lost in the transfer to my private domain]

Ace & Me, downtown Los Angeles

Above photo from April 2014, at the Ace Hotel, downtown Los Angeles, formerly the United Artists theater palace. Nice to see this movie palace preserved. The hotel is a pretty hip place, maybe a bit over-hip in the design department (some of the walls in the office are covered with shaggy fur… exposed wallboard has paper artist sketches… no place for public hanging out but the espresso bar stuffed with hipsters… I’m not complaining, just reporting here…)

 

And now, some poetry... This is a serial piece I’ve been working on for a while, and this is the first part of it. Not sure what to call the parts, but I guess we could call them chapters, and this one will be called “Red Dirt.” If you like it, check back later for the category “The Written Word.”

 

 

RED DIRT

I rode us home in a cloud of red dirt

me in my crooked face and my last Sunday shirt

Four hundred miles to OKC

it seemed a little strange

you riding in back

and the dog up front with me

but it’s a long drive

and by then you were just a box of ashes

headed across the Red River

to an appointment with the wind

&&

I was down to my last two ideas

suicide, or a country song

&&

I sat down on this bed

peeled off my old tired boots

Red Wing Iron Rangers

been around the world

twice-resoled, forever faithful

these damn boots

have earned a rest

HOW TO FLY WITH A HEAVY HEART – repost from 4.24.14

I like having a good intro. I started off my story with an invocation of the great Son House.

Here’s the whole story on YouTube, when I was speaking at All Saints Episcopal Church, Austin, TX, during Lent, as part of their their Autobiographies of Redemption series.

I was booked by Stephen Kinney, who gave a dynamite introduction, see it here. The concept for this series was very much like very cool Moth series (“True Stories Told Live”) of which I’m sure you are familiar.

I never actually gave the title of my talk, but it was “How to Fly with a Heavy Heart.” My themes would have been familiar to readers of my memoir, Never the Same Again: A Rock n’ Roll Gothic (some notes on that on my Books page, along with a link to an excerpt) as I wanted to go back to those themes: how to survive when the world is crushing you down, as I’ve felt in my worst hours, including when I was 22 years old and I came home to find my girlfriend, Dianne Roberts, had been murdered by a serial killer, and later in life, when I was a happily married father of a four year old, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer, with less than 10 percent chance of survival. Solution: Learn to fly.

Which is, of course, a metaphor.

The experts believe flight evolved as a means of escape from predators. Creatures built for swift running developed to the point that they could actually escape from the tyranny of gravity for longer and longer periods, which adds new dimension to the term “flight,” as in, making a timely egress from threats and troubles, including creatures who want to hurt, imprison or otherwise negatively impact one’s existence. The first creatures who actually became airborne had an ungainly appearance, as were the first powered flying machines developed by man.

By the way, an ancestor of mine from the Hill Country, Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck, is claimed to have built one of the first powered aircraft (although calling it that might be a stretch, even if the wildest claims success were true), which he tested either in San Antonio or near Luckenbach in September 1865, just after the end of the treasonous rebellion of the Southern States known as the Civil War–40 years before the first successful flight by the Wright brothers. Like many German immigrants, Broadbeck was a sour looking fellow, at least in the images I’ve seen, such as this one below, and you have to wonder, did his expression change any when/if his invention “lifted the surly bonds of earth?”

Well, ahem, back to my speech. I spoke about my experiences growing up Johnson City, a mean little town back in the 1960s, but LBJ was from there, and LBJ was and still is my hero. I talked a bit about how I became a musician, and that ghoulish encounter with a serial killer in 1976 and how I had to deal with that in 1997, some 25 years later. At the time I was struggling, with the help of my beautiful and superhumanly strong wife, Lois Richwine, to overcome the odds of 4 percent chance of survival with throat cancer. All this may sound depressing, but there was a lot of laughter during my talk, and I think it was the first time that I, Jesse Sublett —surrealistic blues singer, punk rocker, visual artist, crime writer, radical leftist liberal bird lover — have EVER filled the pews of a Christian church! Might be the last time, too. I dunno. I really appreciate being invited by Stephen Kinney, with some urging from congregation member John Burnett… They treated me well. Nice people. And the video was shot by Chris Green. Love the lighting! My face looks like the map of a forbidden continent!

Me on the left, about 1966, on usher duty at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stonewall.

UPCOMING GIGS / EVENTS: May 1, Tertulia at Continental Club Gallery, 7:30 PM…

May 12, Noir at the Bar with Jesse Sublett + Ace Atkins, Jim Wilsky, George Weir, at Opal Divine Penn Field 7 PM…

BTW, if you’d like to order a copy of my memoir, Never the Same Again, send a message on the contact form below.

And you can read about my other books, including my most recent noir novella, Grave Digger Blues, by accessing the pull-down menu at top under Books.

 

 

 

 

[contact-form]

HOW TO FLY WITH A HEAVY HEART – recover from 4.24.14

[Note: sorry if you are receiving blogs that you've already seen; I'm still in the process of recovering old blogs that were lost in the transfer to my private domain]

Here I am on YouTube, speaking (with a little a capello intro tribute to Son House) at All Saints Episcopal Church, Austin, TX, during Lent, as part of their their Autobiographies of Redemption series.

I was booked by Stephen Kinney, who gave a dynamite introduction, see it here. The concept for this series was very much like very cool Moth series (“True Stories Told Live”) of which I’m sure you are familiar.

I never actually gave the title of my talk, but it was “How to Fly with a Heavy Heart.” My themes would have been familiar to readers of my memoir, Never the Same Again: A Rock n’ Roll Gothic (some notes on that on my Books page, along with a link to an excerpt) as I wanted to go back to those themes: how to survive when the world is crushing you down, as I’ve felt in my worst hours, including when I was 22 years old and I came home to find my girlfriend, Dianne Roberts, had been murdered by a serial killer, and later in life, when I was a happily married father of a four year old, and was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer, with less than 10 percent chance of survival. Solution: Learn to fly.

Which is, of course, a metaphor.

The experts believe flight evolved as a means of escape from predators. Creatures built for swift running developed to the point that they could actually escape from the tyranny of gravity for longer and longer periods, which adds new dimension to the term “flight,” as in, making a timely egress from threats and troubles, including creatures who want to hurt, imprison or otherwise negatively impact one’s existence. The first creatures who actually became airborne had an ungainly appearance, as were the first powered flying machines developed by man.

By the way, an ancestor of mine from the Hill Country, Jacob Friedrich Brodbeck, is claimed to have built one of the first powered aircraft (although calling it that might be a stretch, even if the wildest claims success were true), which he tested either in San Antonio or near Luckenbach in September 1865, just after the end of the treasonous rebellion of the Southern States known as the Civil War–40 years before the first successful flight by the Wright brothers. Like many German immigrants, Broadbeck was a sour looking fellow, at least in the images I’ve seen, such as this one below, and you have to wonder, did his expression change any when/if his invention “lifted the surly bonds of earth?”

Well, ahem, back to my speech. I spoke about my experiences growing up Johnson City, a mean little town back in the 1960s, but LBJ was from there, and LBJ was and still is my hero. I talked a bit about how I became a musician, and that ghoulish encounter with a serial killer in 1976 and how I had to deal with that in 1997, some 25 years later. At the time I was struggling, with the help of my beautiful and superhumanly strong wife, Lois Richwine, to overcome the odds of 4 percent chance of survival with throat cancer. All this may sound depressing, but there was a lot of laughter during my talk, and I think it was the first time that I, Jesse Sublett —surrealistic blues singer, punk rocker, visual artist, crime writer, radical leftist liberal bird lover — have EVER filled the pews of a Christian church! Might be the last time, too. I dunno. I really appreciate being invited by Stephen Kinney, with some urging from congregation member John Burnett… They treated me well. Nice people. And the video was shot by Chris Green. Love the lighting! My face looks like the map of a forbidden continent!

Me on the left, about 1966, on usher duty at Trinity Lutheran Church in Stonewall.

UPCOMING GIGS / EVENTS: May 1, Tertulia at Continental Club Gallery, 7:30 PM…

May 12, Noir at the Bar with Jesse Sublett + Ace Atkins, Jim Wilsky, George Weir, at Opal Divine Penn Field 7 PM…

BTW, if you’d like to order a copy of my memoir, Never the Same Again, send a message on the contact form below.

And you can read about my other books, including my most recent noir novella, Grave Digger Blues, by accessing the pull-down menu at top under Books.

 

 

 

 

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