This Day in History: Poem by John Martin

Birthday's:
Austrian composer Franz Schubert (1797), lead singer of the punk band The Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten (1956), and musician Justin Timberlake (1981).
In 1919 a boy was born in Cairo, Georgia who had no idea that he would later become the First African-American to play professional baseball for the Brooklyn/ Los Angeles Dodgers. That boy was Jack "Jackie" Roosevelt Robinson.

1606: Guy Fawkes was executed in London
1943:  German Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus surrendered to the Soviet Red Army at Stalingrad (now Volgograd), his troops surrendering tow days later.
1958:  Explorer 1 was the first artificial space satellite orbited by the United States, marking the country's entry into the space race.
1966: The Soviets launched Luna 9, the first spacecraft to make a soft landing on the Moon.
1977: The Pompidou Centre, a French national cultural centre named for former president Georges Pompidou, opened in Paris.
2001: Libyan national Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi was convicted in the 1988 Pan Am flight 103 bombing, in which 270 people were killed; in 2009 the Scottish government released Megrahi from prison after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Bear in Mind
By John Martin

A bear is chasing me through a meadow
and I'm running as fast as I can but
he's gaining on me-it seems
he's always gaining on me.
I'm running and running but also
thinking I should just
turn around and say,
"Stop it! Stop chasing me. We both
know you aren't going to catch me.
All you can ever do is chase me. So.
think about it-why bother?"

The bear does stop,
and he sits on his haunches and thinks,
or seems to think. And then
the bear says to me,
"I have to chase you, you know
that. Or you should. And, sure,
we both know I'll never catch you.
So, why not give us both a break and
just stop thinking about me?"

But, with that said, he gets back on four feet,
sticks his long pink tongue out, licks down
both sides of his snout, Then he sighs, looks
behind himself, then at me and says, "Okay,
ready when you are."

On this day

Birthday's: American trumpeter Roy Eldridge was born on this day in 1911.Barbara Tuchman one of the foremost popular historians in the United States in the second half of the 20th century and a two time Pulitzer Prize winner, was born on this day in 1912.
American politician Dick Cheney was born on this day in 1941.

9bce: The Roman emperor Augustus dedicated the shrine Ara Pacis ("Altar of Peace.")

1649: King Charles I of England was executed.
1667: The Truce of Andrusovo ended the Thirteen Years' War between Russia and Poland.
1933: The fictional character the Lone Ranger was introduced on radio station WXYZ in Detroit, Michigan.
1933: President Paul von Hindenburg named Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany.
1948: Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by an orthodox Hindu Brahman.
1995: Flooding forced the evacuation of more than 100,000 people from low-lying areas of the Netherlands.
2011: California became the first state to celebrate Fred Korematsu Day, which honoured the Japanese American  activist who was convicted in 1942 of violating an exclusion order requiring him to relocate, his subsequent legal appeals were denied.

Tender Buttons [A Little Called Pauline]

By: Gertrude Stein

A little called anything shows shudders.

Come and say what print all day.

A whole few watermelon.

There is no pope.

No cut in pennies and little dressing and choose wide soles and little spats really little spices.

A little lace makes boils.

This is not true.

Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top.

If it is absurd then it is leadish and nearly set in where there is a tight head.

A peaceful life to arise her, noon and moon and moon.

A letter a cold sleeve a blanket a shaving house and nearly the best and regular window.

Nearer in fairy sea, nearer and farther, show white has lime in sight,

show a stitch of ten.

Count, count more so that thicker and thicker is leaning.

I hope she has her cow.

Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing.

Cough out cough out in the leather and really feather it is not for.

Please could, please could, jam it not plus more sit in when.

The Blood Curse of Abraham Wesley Walters

The Blood Curse of Abraham Wesley Walters

By: Moose 

            The cool night air was comforting as Abraham Wesley Walters stood immersed in blood. His black fedora was cocked to one side due to the thorough stabbing ten minutes ago which had made the hat fall to one side, A.W. straightened it. He was older now, road weary, and haggard from two decades of killing. Standing in this home he could see that his own demise was becoming much closer while his guitar rested comfortably soaking in the blood.

            Twenty years ago he had come home to find his family tortured and murdered. His wife tied up at the ankles and wrists and wounds so deep at points that they went straight through her torso. His two children were each stabbed once deeply to their heart, while sleeping in their beds. Abraham was a blues man, and that night, much to his wife’s chagrin, had gone to play across town. They needed the money though, and he would only be gone the night and be back “before the sun came up.” He was true to his word and back before that sun came up. He, in bliss, lit a cigarette and with zero haste managed to polish off the bottle of lightning he was given that night reveling in a wash of gratitude. He made some decent bread, more than he had any previous night before, and riding the high he sat on his porch. Unaware of the horror inside, and oblivious to the metallic smell lingering in the home due to the amount blood shed from upstairs, and tired as hell he sat in his chair in the living room and drifted off to sleep.

            He awoke a few short hours later to the sun shining through the front window, and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and caught a whiff of that metallic smell. He was finding it odd as well not to hear the kids playing or smelling something Grace was cooking up for breakfast in the kitchen. It was when he made his way to go up the short flight of stairs to check on everybody when he stopped and saw that the downstairs mirror was shattered the way it does when someone punches it. Worried and a little scared he walked up the stairs and saw the horror that had befallen his family. He slunk down the door jamb to the children’s bedroom and watched with tears in his eyes as the blood gathered within the wood grain of the floor boards. Trauma can do some horrific things to people sometimes, and this time was no different. He stayed in that house for a little over a week mourning and plotting. His anger and grief swelling within him like a volcano ready to burst, and yet he managed to remain calm.

            Pastor Williams lived not too far away and Abraham had reached out to him to come by after the horror. They sat for a while. The pastor telling him they will have a proper funeral for Abraham’s family, and if there was anything he needed to stop by the church anytime. The pastor questioned Abraham if he had killed them, but those accusations were put to bed once Abraham showed him the sixty dollars he had made from playing the night before the murders along with the bottle of lightning. The pastor asked if Abraham knew who it was that killed them Abraham had no idea. What the pastor didn’t see was the brewing volcano of hurt and anger that Abraham needed to release. The way in which he would release this pain and anger was forming within his traumatized brain. Revenge, pain, and anger all boiling in the cauldron of his mind and the violent day dreams were relentlessly poking at him like needles to skin. With the brewing stew of violence endlessly rotating in his mind sleep had decided it would not be a part of Abraham’s life.

            Abraham settled things at home, and figured it best if he went on his way. ‘A new town and a fresh start” at least that is what he told the pastor. While the fresh start was true there was no settling into a new town. Home was taken away from him the night his family was violently murdered. Home was wherever the bloodletting could simmer his pain. The first of the twenty year murders happened in a flurry. A.W, which is what he was going by, now, played a show and a woman came up to him after he finished. They got to talking and buying each other drinks. AW throwing on his charm and charisma. Turning it on or off like a light switch. A trick he picked up while playing shows. She however had no idea what his true intentions were and would be. Trusting him and her being lonely she told him of a place to get a room for the night that was cheap, and by the morning he would be gone. As they began kissing AW grabbed her throat and held till she went unconscious. He opened his guitar case and within a secret compartment he pulled out his hunting knife, he cut a piece of a pillow case and tied that around her eyes. Then proceeded to stab, viciously violent, so violent and brutal that mid-way through he had to stop because his arms were sore. After what seemed like an hour he finished. He took a shower and changed his clothes, but as he sat in the chair having a cigarette the tormenting voice that had now took up residence within his head said “welcome home.” He grabbed his guitar from under the bed and was off to the next town his twenty year murder spree now on its way.  

            As A.W. stood in this home immersed in blood twenty years later he knew his end was near as it had been resting upon him like a blanket. The voices in his head were getting louder, and he was tired. Death himself or one of his cohorts had been lingering around AW for the past two weeks. AW would see him at the grocery or while he was sitting on the porch. A man in a hat and black suit standing against the tree in his front yard or sitting a few tables away at the diner AW would frequent for breakfast in the early morning hours. Right across from him in the other chair in the living room or following him around the house, and watching him while he slept. AW could see him quite clearly, and it wasn’t until the man in the hat whispered “it’s time” that AW understood his own demise was underway. With the killing of this family of three all finished AW bought a boarding pass for the next train out of town with the man in the hat right by his side watching him as they sat in the train car. A few days later AW’s body was found inside a boarding house that he was staying at by the 21 year old son of the woman that owned the place. He had come by to do some maintenance and the smell hit him when he opened the front door to the building. AW’s room was on the ground floor and Bill Walters, the son, opened the room and saw the fly and maggot filled corpse of AW. The fedora lying on the floor behind the chair AW was sitting in, AW’s throat slit, and his guitar case on the floor at AW’s feet resting with its lid opened and resting comfortably in the blood.   

            Bill phoned the police, but before he did he took the guitar and put it in his truck. Once all of the questioning was over Bill brought the guitar home with him. Bill opened the case gently and found the deep red of the wood entrancing. He ran a cloth over the body to clean it up a little, checking for any cracks, and getting used to the feel of it. By the next afternoon he was found by his mother when he did not show up to the building. His mother told the police that she found him sitting in his chair with a belt around his neck. The police questioned her for a while and told her they would keep investigating. The police knew full well that Bill had committed suicide and knew that was in direct conflict with the mother of Bill. Bill’s mother went back to Bill’s house to clean things up and found the guitar. She had no need for it, but she figured she could sell it. William Fitsimmons came calling for the guitar after seeing the ad in the paper. He bought it for twenty dollars.  William kept the guitar in its case for about a week. Then curiosity got the best of him and he opened it up. The red on the body caught his eye, and he too ran his hands along the body and neck of the guitar, gave it a quick tuning, and strummed a few chords. His wife arrived home from work and cooked some Brussel sprouts and roast beef. William sat at the table across from his wife, smiled at her, and during that smile his face changed to terror as he began choking on one of the Brussel sprouts. His wife within a fit of panic could not dislodge the sprout, and William choked to death. The wife sold off the guitar to a family member. Who died, much in the same way as everyone else. Shortly after receiving it the family member merely looked at it and was found the next morning strangled by a belt.

            The trail went cold for a few years. Nobody is sure what happened to the guitar or where it went after the wife sold it to the family member. Then in the spring many years later it made its arrival in New Orleans. A music historian and guitar aficionado named Lawrence Dupree bought it at a local auction of all kinds of things. He saw the instrument up for bidding and won it for sixty five dollars. Lawrence being the inquisitive and curious type was not interested in how it sounded but of its history. He kept a meticulous journal of all his instruments and findings of said instruments. He had a shop of sorts that was filled with all kinds of instruments from violins to tubas. Each instrument with a record and file kept in a file cabinet. When Lawrence came upon this instrument though something struck him as odd, something that simply did not feel right about the instrument, there was darkness to it that Lawrence became fascinated with. Lawrence wrote that he noticed the case was “handmade” and “etched into the lid of the case were the initials A W W.” Then, as he always does, he put on a fresh pair of white linen gloves and began his inspection.

            He started with the case. He took the guitar out and set it aside as the craftsmanship of the case, the time this would have took, and the sweat and care that went into building this was, for Lawrence, was a piece of art. He found a compartment underneath where the neck of the guitar would rest. To his dismay it was empty, however, somebody loved this guitar as the inside was custom fit to it and protected the guitar from any damage. Lawrence moved onto the guitar. During his inspections of any instrument Lawrence would use black lights to illuminate the things you cannot see, much like a crime scene investigator. Once he turned on the black light he noticed blotches in random spots on the guitar. On the neck, front of the body, the backside, inside, and along the body being the inquisitive one that he is he took a sample and passed it along to a friend who worked in the DNA lab at the New Orleans police department. It was then that the sample Lawrence sent along was soon found to be blood and all of the blotches and spots that glowed through the black light were blood as well.

             Lawrence soon found himself unrelentingly enthralled by the guitar. It was all he could think about. He would go to sleep thinking about it and wake up with it as the first thing on his mind. Obsession can do strange things and soon Lawrence was not eating correctly nor sleeping well as the guitar had sunk its teeth deep into Lawrence.   

            While working late one night on the guitar Lawrence completely immersed in the little discoveries, slipped and hit his head on the corner of the table then split his head on the linoleum floor from the fall. He was found by his co-worker Daniel the next morning. Daniel, along with the Police, wondered how he could have slipped when there was nothing for him to slip on where Lawrence had been standing. Fortunately, Daniel and Lawrence installed a security system within their shop. Lawrence is standing at the table inspecting the guitar then falls.  Over and over again they watched it, and over and over again the same thing happens. There was nothing to suggest anything else other than a slip and fall.

            The police went no further with it, however for Daniel it wasn’t over. Before he could even get started on his own investigation into how Lawrence had passed he too was inspecting the guitar, and during the inspection he too fell in the manner Lawrence did. Daniel is inspecting the guitar scratches his head then slips and hits his head both on the table and the floor. Arriving in the mail that day was a letter from the DNA lab on the blood that was tested in the hopes of finding a match.

            The letter went unopened and unread, and the guitar had one last trick up its sleeve. A fire broke out in the restaurant that was next door. Nobody was sure how the grill was left on, but when the owner and his son opened up in the morning and Phil Thompson lit his morning cigarette the fire engulfed everything. Killing Phil and his son Thomas, meanwhile, the guitar was safe, in its case, and unharmed.

            “Carl look what I found!”

            “What do you think we should do with it?”

            “I’ve always wanted to learn how to play guitar.”

           

“The world’s funny. Take care of what I’ve done, and I’ll see you, on my way home.”

-Abraham Wesley Walters 1937 (note found inside his guitar case.)

             

            

On this day

In 1860 Russian author Anton Chekhov, 1880 playwright W.C. Fields, and in 1966 Brazilian footballer Romario were all born.

1819: British East India Company administrator Sir Stamford Raffles established the port of Singapore.

1886: German mechanical engineer Karl Benz patented the first practical automobile powered by an internal - combustion engine.
1900: The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs was organized in Philadelphia
1919: The Prohibition (Eighteenth) Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified and went into effect the following year.
1924: The first machine for rolling ice cream cones was patented by Carl Rutherford Taylor of Cleveland, Ohio.
1936: Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb were among the first players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY.
2002: Iraq, Iran, and North Korea called "Axis of Evil" by former U.S President George W. Bush.
2004: Author Janet Frame who created a unique body of work that presents perhaps the most-recognized voice of New Zealand outside of her native country, died.

Drunk (an excerpt)
By: Anton Chekhov

Drunk

by Anton Chekhov

---

A MANUFACTURER called Frolov, a handsome dark man with a round beard, and a soft, velvety expression in his eyes, and Almer, his lawyer, an elderly man with a big rough head, were drinking in one of the public rooms of a restaurant on the outskirts of the town. They had both come to the restaurant straight from a ball and so were wearing dress coats and white ties. Except them and the waiters at the door there was not a soul in the room; by Frolov's orders no one else was admitted.

Friday Rambles

Starting today we here at Moose's Beard are going to start the "Friday Rambles." Where anything is on the table.

US Women's Gymnastics was in the news this week. And this is not a ramble about what happened, but more for the bravery of the young women who had to suffer through this for so many years. This story brought me to tears this week. Not many things really can, but when you hear or read what Ally Raisman said along with the other young women, as well as the judge, I'm not sure how you cannot get a little teary eyed.
I read a Washington Post article by the incomparable Sally Jenkins. She goes into enough detail about this that I would rather not sensationalize it. I would say just read the article. In it though, she makes a plea, more like demands Congress to dissolve the governing body of U.S. Women's Gymanstics who swept all of this under the rug and, while they may have not committed the crime, they are culpable. Which in my opinion is just as bad.
Knowing that something is wrong and doing nothing about it is deplorable. Especially when you are the authority and have the authority to make it to stop. We've seen this in far too many cases where something tremendously horrific was happening and the powers that be simply swept it under the rug, or "dealt with it in house." Rather than exposing it from the beginning. Joe Paterno won a lot of games for Penn State, and good for him, but Jerry Sandusky happened under his watch.
Culpability is at play and whcn culpable you receive no empathy from me. Michigan State University is part in parcel of the governing body of the latest. The president of the university resigned, but gets no empathy. Nor does the university.
This isn't athletes accepting bribes from agents. This is something far worse. This is something that has been going on for years, and not just years a decade and longer. No sympathy from me. So many questions of how and why would the one's who knew continue to let it happen and do literally nothing. Until finally some brave women stood up and said no more. They are the story in this, and there are likely many more who have not come forward.
I ramble about this in standing next to them in solidarity with them and anyone who has gone through something similar. Luckily for me I have not. Luckily for me I have loving parents and coaches in baseball who were never like this. My luck is someone else's pain or someone else's bravery with standing up.
In a world of selfies and likes and wanting the attention, this is disturbingly ironic how after twenty years this finally got attention. For that all these women should be applauded, and hopefully soon Senators McCain and Gillibrand will dissolve the USOC, and we can progress into something much better and with more oversight.
Until that pound of the gavel I hope folks will not be afraid to stand up and say something. That is the take away for me. That these intense and strong competitors took that and used it to fight a monster, and won.

Leonard Cohen: They Wanted it Darker

Leonard Cohen: They Wanted it Darker

   For decades Leonard Cohen has been a part of the songwriting lexicon. Arguably one of the best songwriter's we have known, Leonard found a way to blend his influences of jazz and folk/country into both the verbiage and sound. My introduction to Leonard has been like Alice chasing the ever elusive white rabbit. Never finding the right time to sit and really listen. Since high school however, and most obvious the introduction for me was with "Hallelujah." Where an older man in a fedora sang this song and I was enamored.  He looked like "cool." And as he grew older his voice became more gravelly and baritone. Still enamored, it was on my back porch in Chicago, out of high school, were a lot of things went down, but mainly a musical experience was happening, when "Suzanne" came on. Performed by the widely unknown Fred Holstein, and those words, the longing within them, took me to a place where music does not often take me. There was a peaceful calm hanging on every word and every note I was locked into this song and remaining enamored.

   Fast forward many years and a few moves and here we are today on this the 19th day of 2018. The chasing of him has ceased, and I have been delving deep into his library. The inflection of his voice, the chord changes, and closing my eyes and simply listening. Shutting up for a while and listening to the wise old man of the sea. Telling me nothing I don't already know, but telling me in a way through song that stop me from making footprints in the snow and look back. I didn't get this chance when I was younger, for whatever reason. Time has finally allowed itself, albeit late as hell. But that is the beauty of this. I would probably never have met him, but I can listen to interviews and the library from beginning to whatever end may come. For the great ones always live on. Churning out records long after they are gone.

   Leonard left us with "You Want it Darker," and I find myself feeling the way I did when I first heard "Suzanne." Drifting through the words and sounds in catatonic silence. My once filled brain with constant chatter has silenced itself as his words fill my ear canal, and the chord changes take me on the journey that not many artists do. The great ones do it. There is a list a mile long, and Leonard Cohen is on that list.

   I don't know how to meditate, but his songs make everything quiet. For me it is sort of like being in a trance, or when you are watching a truly unbelievable movie and you become lost in silence. When they are both over you snap out of it, but you could have stayed in that place. It was comforting. It was quiet. Leonard does this. He has this ability to, whether knowing it or not, to make his music feel all these things. Yes, they are just songs. For this listener having finally caught up to his white rabbit the journey has just begun, and I will purposely take a long time to finish it. 

Sunday's Are For

Sunday's are for Snap Judgment

Listening while perusing the streets in the morning hours. 

Sunday's are for mom's pot roast

that cooks all day and who's smell permeates the entire house. 

Sunday's are for mom's banana bread

once all the banana's have gone bad, or ripened. 

Sunday's are for creating things

Where there once was nothing creating a shelf

or a painting

or some humble words

or maybe a song. 

Sunday's are for family

having a football game on but not really paying attention

the entertainment of 5 year old nieces far surpasses what grown men playing a child's game can do, yet how are those grown men doing? 

you peak. 

Sunday's are for resting easy before a busy week

for a few hours escaping into arts and crafts

a pot roast

a banana bread

and the five year old laughter bellowing through the afternoon air. 

Sunday's are for all of these things

soaking in these moments however fleeting they become.
Sunday's are for relaxation
to meander instead of being determined.
To walk instead of run
or to quite literally, be.

Sunday's are for more many things
where the dim of the slow burning sunrise carries into morning.
Sunday's are for seeing the glow
reflect off of the frozen river.
Sunday's are for resting easy, friends
for tomorrow begins it all again. 

What Happens to College Basketball?

The talk going around is that the NBA may soon allow 18 year old guys to join the ranks. Questions loom with this right? Such as: How would this effect the NBA, the players, and college basketball?
Three questions and I am sure there could be more.

With more and more kids leaving after their freshmen years of college basketball I wonder about this. This is 2018 not 1995 or even 2000 when the like of Jermaine O'Neil, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron James came into the league, and many more that have made it and or busted out. Whether anyone is ready to join the professional ranks of any sport or business straight out of college remains to be seen. Considering a small margin are indeed ready to go right out of the gate and do well is a feet unto itself, whereas the higher numbers rest within it will take a year or two or more, and or never for a player to have "made it."

The kids that leave after their freshman years are leaving for a multitude of reasons. Family life, maybe the wrong person telling them, or they just know. I've wrestled with this leaving for a long while on whether it is good or bad, but I think it is more or less indifferent. It is more gray than black and white. I remember when Kevin Garnett jumped from Farragut High School and was going to the NBA. You just knew he was good. Much in the vain of Lebron or Kobe, and some others. I don't sit on the bench with the guys who rail on and on about how these kids should stay in school. I look at it more like a basketball maturity. Within that same breath however, length of stay or age does not matter. There are plenty of guys that went all four years of college who are just, alright. Greatness is determined by how hard you work not how long you stay in college. How fast you mature as a 16, 17, and 18 year old young person. Greatness doesn't care about the college that you went to, it is determined by you.

The college game will go on no matter what. The business of college basketball is on the higher end of millions. With March Madness raking in the brunt of that cash. College basketball will go on, and being that the greats probably will not develop more in college the game will still be competitive. As it continues to do so today. The hope would be that players on the college level continue to grow as young men first and basketball players second. Because as every superhero knows "with great powers come great responsibility."

Ben Miller Band: Choke Cherry Tree

https://cincymusic.com/blog/2018/01/ben-miller-band-choke-cherry-tree


This band is new to me, and I enjoyed what I heard. The link is to the article now up on cincymusic.com. Please check it out, and hope you enjoy.

Welcome To the New Year!

       Wanted to take a moment and wish you all a Happy New Year, and thank you for reading. For this new year the plan is to post more frequently. Either rambling thoughts, something more concise, or the standard album review or show review. Which there is one that I truly excited about, and more details to come on that soon. 
       The rambling thoughts are anything having to do with poetry or my musings on questions that I ask I myself on a frequent basis. There are few in the works either almost complete, barely done, or just an idea and I'm hoping to polish them all up and get them posted. There a wide range of concepts such as politics, sports, and one about religion. These are just rambling thoughts. Meant to think over and about, but never for too long. 
    The "something more concise" could be any of the above along with, and not limited to, stories that I have composed or again anything more complete and finished. Which again there is one story that is completely finished and that I am proud of, and I have more ideas as well. The notes app on my phone is filled with them, and my documents folder on my computer here at work is also filled but with the more complete versions and some that are merely ideas. 
   All of this is to give you the reader a look into what I have in store for the coming year. I do have a busy job that can get kind of crazy, but I will do my wholesale best to post more frequently. That could mean once a week, once every other week, once a month, or getting crazy twice a week. There is a wealth of topics to talk about, and there is a gargantuan sized pit of words that has taken up residence inside my brain which I see on a regular basis. I just hope whomever is reading continues to do so, and if so inclined give it a share as well. These are simply words grouped together to make or shape the ideas and sentences that reside within me. Hope you all enjoy, and hope for a better year than last for everyone. 


Cheers, 
Matthew J. Gronholm / Moose