Adding Up New Music

The mini-bio on Emily Jane Powers' Bandcamp page used to say something along the lines of, "Emily Jane Powers is a Chicago indie pop artist who plays guitar, violin, keys, drums, and sings. She also teaches math." I loved that. Nowadays, the second sentence reads, "While she incorporates aspects of 60s pop, folk, and punk into her music, she has never looked to any influence but herself for a sense of direction."

The first recording of hers I heard was a cover of The Ramones' "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker." I forget where I downloaded it from, but wherever it was, they credited the song to "Yellow Mica Recordings." Whereas the original bops along with Wall of Sound cheeriness, Powers' version has a melancholy edge honed sharply with acoustic guitar, piano and strings.

I have listened to The Ramones' "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" countless times, so I loved the fact that someone had taken a song I knew so well, a song that's a major part of the punk rock canon, and turned it on its head. Powers'version popped up on my iPod enough times, I finally decided I needed to find out who this woman was.

A quick Google search gave me, as always, what I needed. Since then, I've downloaded two of Powers' many albums, and plan to listen to the others and grab at least two more. She's prolific, that's for sure. She has 10 albums available on her Bandcamp page, recorded over the past dozen years.

Her music is sometimes sweet and simple like the Mamas and Papas (those are the ones I like), sometimes a bit too freak-folkish for me, like, I don't know, whoever is annoying in that scene. Overall, though, I like her aesthetic and DIY attitude.

Here are a few samples:

Dani from EJP on Vimeo.

"What Makes You" by Emily Jane Powers from Look Sessions on Vimeo.

Powers shares a sensibility with other women whose music I've found myself drawn to in recent years: She & Him (a duo featuring actress Zooey Deschanel), Arthur & Yu (a male/female duo that no longer exists) and First Aid Kit (a sister act from Sweden).

I'm not sure where this new musical leaning comes from. Don't get me wrong, I still rock out, still thrive on playing air guitar to The Descendents' Milo Goes to College album:

And I spend a lot of time listening to neo-twangy stuff like Lydia Loveless:

There's something about the harmonies, the longing in their voices, the deceptive simplicity of the music that gets me with artists like Powers, She & Him and First Aid Kit. It all goes back to Nancy Sinatra, I guess. I listened to her quite a bit during my 1988 road trip, and while I don't listen to her much any more, I always like hearing "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" or "Sugar Town" when they pop up on my iPod.

The math just adds up for me.

Saying Goodbye to Uncle Bill

This past Saturday I went to my Uncle Bill's memorial service. There were times in recent years when, unless I was talking about my dad's family, I forgot about my uncle.

Growing up, I saw my dad's older brother, George, and his family regularly. And today, although we're all grown and have gone our various ways, some with kids, others without, a big group of us cousins gathers at least once a year.

Bill never had kids, and lived in Rochester, New Hampshire, about three hours from where most of the rest of us lived. He visited us in Connecticut on rare occasions, and kept his distance in other ways, too.

I knew very little about him. Random images float in my head, but they are like Viewmaster slides. I load a picture of Bill in my head, mention it to someone in my family, and then someone flips the switch and the picture changes.

"No," they say, "he had the Winnebago in Simsbury, not at Grandma Jo's house."

He was a crew-cutted mystery, a pot-bellied ghost. I remember a picture of him with a flat-top haircut, big sideburns, an orange blazer and thick, black glasses (similar to the ones I wear). I thought he looked cool. But I haven't seen that photo in years, and sometimes I wonder if I made it up in my head.

I saw him at my grandmother's funeral in 1989, and he looked much as I'd remembered him, but very different in so many ways than his brothers. Sure, he was tall and dark-haired, but where my dad and George wore jackets and ties, George donned jeans, a checked shirt and a big belt buckle. He looked like a trucker, which he was. Or at least I thought he was, until I learned otherwise at his service.

I know he was a firefighter in Rochester, as well as a bus driver.

Last summer I drove my parents to Rochester to see Bill. He'd been sick with Alzheimer's for quite some time, and his wife, Mary Lou, had to put him in a nursing home. She told my dad that Bill was deteriorating both physically and mentally, and might not have much more time.

Our visit went as well as could be expected. None of us had seen Bill in 24 years. He spoke only in a low whisper, and only to Mary Lou. She knew what he wanted and could understand what little he said, or interpret his gestures. We watched the Red Sox on TV and made small talk with each other and with Mary Lou.

One of Mary Lou's granddaughters accompanied her to the nursing home. After our visit, the five of us went to lunch. I really liked Mary Lou. She was tough, smart and easy to talk to.

Since that visit, I have thought about Bill a bit more than usual.

I thought that back in 1989 I could've made an effort to see him in Rochester. At the time, I was living a short distance away, in Dover, NH. I worked for a few months at a local factory, and discovered that my boss knew my uncle from the fire department.

"You uncle is Frig'em Brigham?" he asked when I told him Bill worked as a firefighter in Rochester.

I shied away from asking him about that nickname, and what my uncle was like. I felt weird because I didn't know my own flesh and blood. I have a feeling that if I'd reached out to my uncle, given him a call or driven up to the fire station, we would've had a few laughs over cans of beer.

I suspect he told more than a few dirty jokes in his life. He could've told me how to fix stuff, because none of the Simsbury Brigham are particularly adept mechanically.

I didn't know what to expect at the memorial service. My parents rode up with one of my cousins, and my sister and two other cousins arrived separately. Only my parents and I had met Mary Lou before.

I suspected the Rochester Fire Department would be represented at the service, but I couldn't have imagined how big a presence they were. Before my arrival, apparently, a long line of firefighters paid their respects. Outside the chapel the department parked the truck that my uncle had driven when he was on the job (he retired in the late '80s). They put black and purple bunting on the truck, and boots, a helmet and coat that I believe belonged to my uncle.

The department put a display at the front of the chapel featuring my uncle's uniform, two silver-bladed axes, his honorable discharges from the Navy and Army Reserve, and his urn. Firefighters took turns standing at attention at the front of the chapel until the service started.

During the service the department's chaplain offered words of comfort to the gathering, and read a letter that Mary Lou wrote. It was all very moving.

Near the end of the service came the part that really got me, though. Two young Navy men in uniform approached the front of the chapel, saluted Bill's urn while "Taps" played, and then unfurled the triangular American flag that lay on the table. Once the flag was unrolled, they showed it to the congregation, and then methodically folded it back into its three-corner shape.

They then presented it to Mary Lou, and offered these words:

"On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Navy, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service."

The minister spoke of Bill's service to his country and to the people of Rochester, including the children he took to and from school during his many years driving a bus. Others spoke of his good humor and great ways with his stepchildren and grandchildren.

It felt strange to hear these words about somebody who I barely knew, but I felt it connected us just a little bit.

My immediate family and I stuck out like sore thumbs at the service. My dad and my cousin John wore suits; I had a nice pair of pants and a button-down shirt. My mother, sister and two cousins were dressed nicely as well.

Everyone else in attendance was in jeans, sweatshirts, fleece jackets, leather jackets, etc. I knew this was how it would be, because I knew that Rochester was a blue collar town, and my uncle was a blue collar guy. But once we broke the ice a bit with a few folks, things felt OK. Nobody seemed to hold a grudge that Mary Lou put my family in the reserved pews at the front of the chapel.

The delicate new bond between us was solidified a little more when the guy who looked most menacing -- leather jacket, black boots, neck tattoos, ear tattoos, scruffy beard -- told my dad he liked his cane, which is black with a silver snake head for a handle.

"My grandfather had one like that," the guy said. "His had a cobra for a handle, and you could pull it out and it was a sword." We laughed at that, and it felt pretty good.

Imprinting Press

When our cat, Cosmo, died in March 2011, we talked about getting another not long after. More recently, as Amelia has continue to ask about fish, a dog or a cat, we considered getting two kittens.

Well, nearly three years later, we finally adopted a new pet.

Her name is Lily, and she's very cute and sweet and seems to be fitting right in. If the shelter had another girl cat around the same age, we might have adopted her as well.

The kids love her, of course, and Beth and I are happy to have a new furry friend. We had Cosmo for more than 15 years, and he was a great pet. I don't even mind resuming litter box and feeding duties.

We brought Lily home Monday afternoon, after picking her out at the MSPCA the previous Saturday. As instructed, we closed her into a small room with her litter box, food, toys and some blankets so she would have some time to get used to her new home. Once during the evening she escaped our basement bathroom, so once we captured her, we blocked the door so she could just chill out overnight.

I got up early the next morning and sprung her so she could roam around the house for an hour or so before the kids woke up. For much of the rest of Tuesday I didn't see her. Mid-afternoon, I found her in the unfinished half of our basement, behind an old table stacked up with stuff.

Over the next few days she began to come out of her shell -- sleeping under and atop beds, cuddling on laps during evening TV time, playing with her toys a little bit.

As of last night, she's in full-out imprinting mode -- trying to make her mark on us and the house in many ways.

She tried numerous times to get under the covers with Beth and me once we were in bed. We kept picking her up and either putting her on the floor, or on to of the covers. She got under once when we were both asleep, and I promptly evicted her. I wouldn't mind her sleeping under there -- Cosmo used to do it -- but she was kicking around like she thought it was her litter box. We don't want to have to buy Kitty Depends for her.

Other times during the night she snuggled up to my neck, something Cosmo never did. I was awake for a while because of her extracurricular activities, but that's OK.

This morning she took her imprinting tactics to a different place: the breakfast table.

Thinking me distracted by the newspaper, Lily kept approaching my cereal bowl and attempting to dip her head into my granola. When I shooed her away, she promptly stuck her cute little head toward my OJ glass. After several vollies back and forth, I scooped her up and put her on the floor. She hopped back up, I put her back down. Ad infinitum.

I know this is standard cat business, but we never dealt with it with Cosmo. He wasn't a food grubber.

Upon arriving home from volunteering at the National Archives Friday afternoon, I was greeted practically at the door by Lily, which is nice but I would have liked it if she'd brought my slippers and a tumbler of Scotch.

As I type this she's sitting in my lap after, once again, several attempts on my part to get her to stop stalking me. She's very cute, so I can't get mad at her. I assume as she gets used to all of us and our house, she'll stop being quite so needy.

In the meantime, I'll just have to keep using the lint brush to get her white and black hairs off my dark sweaters.

The Devil Didn't Make Me Do It

Earlier this week I made a list of writing projects that I want to complete in the next few years. Top of the list is my first children's picture book, which is moving along well with an illustrator and the backing of the MBTA, the folks who run Boston's subway system (see January 29, 2014, "Kidding Around").

At the bottom of the list I wrote this:

WHITE DEVIL JOHN SCREENPLAY

MAYBE….

I've never written a screenplay. I have, however, written a few plays. Last March I read an article in the Boston Globe about a Boston gangster known as White Devil John, and immediately I thought, "Talk about a movie-ready name!"

Here's the part of the Globe story I threw into a Word document with an eye toward developing a story based on this case:

They called him Bac Guai John or “White Devil John,” and he was their enforcer.

John Willis was a white man from Dorchester, yet, according to court records, he quietly emerged as a leader among Chinatown’s Asian gangs, historically known for insulating themselves from outsiders.

He had been introduced to the neighborhood’s underworld when he was about 12 years old, learned to speak Cantonese and was essentially adopted by a Chinese family, according to federal prosecutors. From there, they say, he followed the leaders of the violent and once-powerful Ping On Gang, launching a career that spanned more than two decades.

[In federal court he pleaded guilty] to an indictment that painted him as the nexus among low-level Asian gangs that ran rackets in Chinatown, including drug dealing, gambling and prostitution.

After reacquainting myself with this story today, I searched online to see if there were any updates on White Devil John. Turns out, I can erase this idea from my project list.

A book is already in the works, and has been sold to a publisher. Rights for TV, film and a graphic novel have also been sold.

So who's behind the project?

Boston sports reporter turned news anchor Bob Halloran, that's who.

Halloran is a very likable guy who, it turns out, is much more than a good news reader and clever wordsmith when reporting on Boston's teams. He's written at least five books, covering topics ranging from Whitey Bulger and Steve "The Rifleman" Flemmi, to "Irish" Mickey Ward (Halloran served as a consultant on "The Fighter") and the Red Sox.

Working with White Devil John himself -- John Willis -- Halloran has written a non-fiction, true crime tale tailor-made for the big screen (James Gray has been hired to write and direct; Gray's credits include "The Immigrants," "We Own the Night" and "The Lost City of Z," which is in pre-production and is based on a great book I read a few years ago).

Here's part of the blurb from Publisher's Marketplace:

"Still a teenager, John took a job as a bouncer at a club near Fenway Park. After coming to the aid of a young Chinese man named Woping (John Jo in English), John had a friend he would forever call his brother. He was taken in by John Jo's family. He learned to speak Cantonese, grew fond of the Chinese culture of honor, family and Buddhism, and went to work for the Chinese Mob in Boston's Chinatown."

The book will be published by BenBella Books in the spring of 2015.

Kidding Around

Here are some thoughts that might come to mind when someone says, "Boston's Green Line":

• Squeaky
• Smelly
• Cold
• Hot
• Crowded
• Late
• Did I mention squeaky?

For others, including my 11-year-old son, Owen, the Green Line conjures images of adventure and intrigue. The oldest subway stations in America are on the the line -- Park and Boylston stations. You travel through the heart of Boston when you're on the Green Line. You go past Fenway Park, TD Garden (home of the Celtics and Bruins), the Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Science and historic Boston Common.

My son also loves to keep track of which trains are running on which lines (the Green Line has B, C, D and E branches), and which ones are in or out of service.

As some readers know, I've been working on a children's picture book about riding the Green Line. A few years back, inspired by countless subway rides with Owen, I started writing a book about a generic subway ride. I had a hard time with it, and gave up. But then my sister-in-law's husband, Todd, asked if I wanted to write one specifically about the Green Line, for eventual inclusion in the line of products that his company, Sidetrack Products, sells.

The process is taking longer than I'd expected, but things are heading in the right direction.

Back in late October I gave draft copies of the book to the licensing agents for the MBTA (aka the T), which operates the subway. Two weeks ago I heard back from the point man, who likes the concept of the book. He had some questions/comments about the look of the book, and stressed that I need to make sure I get any necessary clearances to use the names of Fenway Park, TD Garden, the Red Sox, etc.

The bottom line, though, is that he's excited to sell the book because there are no other T-themed children's books available. So yesterday I met with Martina, the illustrator, to address some design issues in order to make headway on a next draft to give to the licensing guys.

In the meantime, I'm waiting to hear back from the two publishers I mailed the manuscript to three months ago. Several years ago one of the companies published a children's book about riding a T bus; the other is based in Massachusetts and is looking to publish its first books.

As I told Martina yesterday, I hope that by the end of this year to have an agreement in place to publish the book. I've already got a draft for a Red Line book, in hopes that if the Green Line book does well, there could be a series including all of Boston's subway lines.

Stay tuned.

More memoir inspiration

When my stack of books-to-be-read shrank to dangerously low levels, I took to the attic stacks to see what I'd overlooked. I found Modern American Memoirs, a collection of 35 excerpts from writers ranging from Malcolm X, Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin, to Harry Crews, Wallace Stegner and Margaret Mead.

While reading it, I've alternated between being inspired and getting depressed.

As regular readers (reader?) know, I've been working on a memoir about a road trip I took in 1988 (see November 13, 2013, "Drafting"). I started writing it in earnest in April 2012. Last year I had a handful of friends and family read it, while I took a nice long break from the process. I got back several useful comments about the manuscript, and in the early fall started in on another draft.

My buddy Jim, who curated the Movable Feasts short story collection that I contributed to, told me that I needed to "punch up" my prose. I took his comment to heart, and have been trying to do that, while simultaneously editing my copy down to tight sentences.

Those may seem to be opposite goals, but they're not. I'm trying to make the story come to life, to make it less "newsy," which is a common problem of mine in writing anything from songs to emails to short stories. I blame my journalism degree. Using more vivid language, however, doesn't mean wasting words and extending sentences. I want everything I write to be bright and useful.

I find it too easy sometimes to edit my manuscript without making the complementary changes in tone. I've looked over the chapters so many times that the whole process becomes rote. There is a big challenge in this process, but I'm equal to it.

Making the challenge even greater is reading some of the fantastic stories in Modern American Memoirs.

Take, for instance, this passage from Stegner's Wolf Willow, which mixes memoir, history and, evidently, fiction:

What we did on the homestead was written in wind. It began as it ended -- empty space, grass and sky. I remember it as it originally was, for my brother and I, aged eight and six, accompanied my father when he went out to make the first "improvements." Except for the four-foot iron post jutting from the prairie just where our wagon track met the trail to Hydro, Montana, and for the three shallow holes with the survey stake at their apex that marked the near corner of our land, there was nothing to distinguish or divide our land from all other, to show which 320 acres of that wind and grass were ours.

I'm trying my best to make my book purely nonfiction. I've done a good job putting the narrative arc together, and filling in details culled from audio tapes, journal notes, newspaper articles I wrote and conversations with my fellow road trippers. And I've got a primary theme: my struggle to break out of my comfort zone and just have a good time during our adventure.

But I worry that the story is too boring at times. My buddy Jim suggested that if I opted not to punch up the story as is, I should fictionalize the tale in order to make it go in all sorts of crazy directions.

I fictionalized some of the stories from the road in my collection, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity (BUY IT!!), so I'm not interested in taking that road (pun intended).

So I'm hoping to get some ideas from Modern American Memoirs about how to make my story pop without sacrificing the truth. Stay tuned....

(For more writing that's inspired me, see May 25, 2012, "Inspiration.")

Something about jarmusch or lurie or edson or all three

The title of this blog meant something when I wrote it down several weeks ago. Now, I have no idea what I wanted to say about filmmaker Jim Jarmusch ("Stranger Than Paradise," "Down By Law," "Mystery Train") or John Lurie and Richard Edson, who starred in "Stranger Than Paradise." But I'll come up with something, so stick around.

I saw "Stranger Than Paradise" during college, in 1984, on the big screen at the Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH. I loved the absurd dialogue, the aimless road trip, the cool clothes and my introduction to the wild music of Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

I developed a crush on the female lead, Eszter Balint. She was Euro-cool with her accent, cigarettes and defensive attitude. Here's the trailer:

Balint has since appeared in other films (Woody Allen's "Shadows and Fog," Steve Buscemi's "Tree's Lounge") and recorded music on her own and with many others, including Lurie.

Lurie was snide and funny, and dressed like nobody I knew. He had done a few small films before "Stranger." Since then he's appeared in several more, including "Paris, Texas" and "Wild at Heart," two movies I enjoyed, although I remember nothing about them. In 1991, he hosted "Fishing With John," a show that featured him angling along with underground heroes including Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Dennis Hopper.

I saw Lurie and his band, Lounge Lizards, years ago in Cambridge, Mass. They were terrific, and Lurie was just the same in person as he was on screen: droll, stylish, sarcastic.

Here's my favorite Lounge Lizards song:

Edson was sweet and a bit slow. "Stranger Than Paradise" was his first film. He's worked consistently ever since, appearing in films ranging from "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Madonna to "Good Morning Vietnam" with Robin Williams, and TV series including "Vegas" and "Perception."

Years after seeing "Stranger Than Paradise," I learned he once drummed for Sonic Youth, which in my mind made him forever cool.

As for Jarmusch, I've seen a bunch of his movies since "Stranger Than Paradise": "Down By Law," "Mystery Train," "Night on Earth," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai," "Coffee and Cigarettes" and "Broken Flowers."

Other than "Stranger Than Paradise," I haven't seen any of these other films more than once, so little from them sticks with me. So what's my point?

Just nostalgia, I guess. I rarely go to see movies any more, never mind films. I miss the days of small, independent, quirky works of art in which little ever happens. I don't know much about the mumblecore school of movie-making, but I'm guessing it's like Jarmusch's films -- small, stupid, goofy, uncomfortable, clever, cute, raw.

I can relate to this kind of art. As I've gotten older, I've become more comfortable with the notion that I'm not the deepest well in Artesia. I write fiction that doesn't include enough physical description. I don't develop full-blown characters. In my non-fiction, I have difficulty expressing what I was feeling at certain junctures, and my ability to flesh out other characters leaves something to be desired.

In my short story collection, (C)rock Stories: Million-Dollar Tales of Music, Mayhem and Immaturity, I focused on telling a story and not so much on character development. I'm OK with that, because I knew my limitations. I wanted the stories to feel like something one friend would tell another about "that time we saw Foghat in a small bar" or "when we played that lady's funeral in New Mexico" or "getting ripped off on our way to an Echo & the Bunnymen concert."

Slice of life, I guess you call it.

I'm always working on this, trying to push myself to show, rather than tell, to use a full paint palette instead of employing No. 2 pencils. But as "Seinfeld" showed the world, sometimes it's OK to build something from small, seemingly unimportant moments.