My Queen Jane

What you say to your audience between songs is an art in itself. Walter and I don’t want to break the spell of Dylan’s lyrics with stray patter in our Muscle and Bone shows. So this story, though umbilically melded to Queen Jane Approximately for me, is better essay than segue.

My mother the painter, Jane Weber, raised her children to recognize beauty, to seek it out. What a gift she gave us. In the summer before she died, as my father cared for her in sickness and faith, I’d check in by phone between visits. One evening I ducked out of the café where the songwriters were gathered and called the folks. Once we’d covered the physical discomforts Mom was dealing with, I told them about the small corner of Ohio City spread out before me. White lights on tree branches, muted conversation of people gathered around tables under the street lamps, music wafting over it all. When I stopped talking I heard Mom’s frail voice say, ‘Thank you for telling us what you see.’

I don’t think my heart had ever broken quite that way before.

Mom’s world, and in many ways Dad’s too, had shrunk so small by then. Yet she had one more gift to give me as I stood among the vibrant, throbbing world she only knew through stories. In a time when I felt helpless to comfort her, Mom told me how; just tell her my stories.

Whenever we sing Queen Jane Approximately, I’m reporting my surroundings to her still. Look, Mom, do you see the listeners basking in this warm music? Do you feel their joy, their memories, their dreams? Do you hear the lyrics made of words you loved so much, and the clapping, like roof tiles under an all night rain?

For a short while, in the refrain, she is there when I call, ‘Won’t you come see me, Queen Jane?’

Photo of Janie Weber

Stone capped hillock

When I was raising kids, the lovelies, I had very little time to write songs, play guitar, send little postcards and play out. But I did both, kids and art, because of my inner drive. I’ll never know whether my children or I or both would be better off now had I never followed that drive. These compulsions don’t ask our approval and I, for one, seldom question their motives. But I’m doing it now.

Why, subconscious self, do you want to perform Bob Dylan songs? What do you plan to accomplish? What will satisfy you? When will you fold up shop?

Answer. You, dear writer, are an intellectual. I am a romantic. You seek facts, and assurances. I just want to make love. You count the beans while I am hanging out the billowed sheets of our sacred tryst on a stone capped hillock swept by the wind.

Underestimate me at your peril. Live in your tedious world if you will, but leave me out of it for I no more need your tireless second guessing than a hound needs a leash. I go to the wild unlikely because I have one thing everyone wants and only some find.

Freedom. From penny pinchers and dime storers, text messengers and mall reverers, head rovers and left overs. You, my perpetual judge and questioner, have no real jurisdiction over me. I muse, you refuse, and still I dream of musing.

Some would say I muse my way out of all the traps you lay for me, questioning my motives with your sane stare. Thinking you rule me with your quaint defunding of my grand assumptions, these - that beauty calls our divinity out of caves, that repetition in the artist’s hand yields truth, that you don’t need your mind’s permission to befriend me.

I’m here, with constancy. I’m here, with hungry contentment. I’m here, with pleasure in your awkwardness for I know, you came this far to ask me, and I know, you’ll stay.

Painting by Amadeo Modigliani, Porträt der Madame Reynouard

Bob Dylan - beloved monarch

‘In recent memory the round table had seated such royalty as Bob Dylan, Bob Neuwirth, Nico, Tim Buckley, Janis Joplin, Viva, and the Velvet underground.'
-- Patti Smith, Just Kids

His subjects rise en masse, wave wildly, dance and cheer as he steps onto the raised platform. His voice is punctuated by thunderous applause; feet pound the metal bleachers in rumbling salute to the master of word and sound. Four gray-coat minions accompany his majesty with gleaming axes and clanging cymbals. The peons on the ground who dare shoot pictures of their lord are sternly warned by muscled guards who sweep the crowd with furrowed brows.

Ten bucks a pop for the foaming brew of the realm is extracted from giddy peasants who’ve paid dearly to stream through the gates, to glimpse the benevolent one, to bear him witness. He is a tireless ruler, criss crossing the land on fleets of diesel stallions to give the people fond and earnest hope they will pass on to children and children’s children.

This is not the has-no-clothes nobility of folktale legend. Our poet monarch is resplendent in fertile wings; each word spilled through electric air undergirds the faithful in glories of their past, stories of their future.

He can do no wrong because they have crowned him with their merciful devotion. Each a lover, each a ruler, each exalted in this rarified dominion of art.

Photo of Bob Dylan Bologna Nov 05 concert by Gabriele

On not drinking the Kool Aid

We’d booked ourselves into a cheap hotel after a lavish country club wedding reception. Our newish honda stood out in a lot full of dented cars, rusted vans, worn trucks and trailers. From a crowded parking space near the inn’s rear door, we skittered inside, avoiding the gaze of two young guys in a parked car as we clasped our possessions to our bosoms. Three doors down the unwashed hallway stood our smoke-free, well-kept room for the night, and we were grateful.

Dancing and wine and decibels set for the young can fray the nerves of the most stalwart elders, which I’ve become unbeknownst to my eternal child. My rest was fitful, raked by random voices, sputtering mufflers and hyperbolic TV audio.

A dawn walk took us behind the strip of cordoned-off restaurant shells and abandoned stores along crumbling sidewalks, unmowed grass, dilapidated trucks and small houses individually built before the tract housing boom, or maybe in spite of it. The neighborhood said there was no time or money or inclination to paint or repair or weed anything. The birds sang, the flowers bloomed, the people rested as we walked back to indulge in bagels and muffins included in the price of a room.

There was no point pretending the lobby’s restroom was clean enough to use. Without pause I backed out, intending to visit the one in our room before breakfast. But just outside the vending machine cubicle stood my husband Tom, talking with two strangers, an African American, call him Buck, and Indian-American, call him Dev. It went something like this:

Buck: I worked 25 years for a gas company and have skills in 40 areas there. Last year I broke my hand on the job (holding up a gloved, crippled hand) and they fired me. I said I’d do anything, but they just said, ‘Bye bye, have a good life.’

Dev: The workers are loyal to the companies, but the companies aren’t loyal to us.

Tom: These are the corporations getting tax breaks so they’ll create jobs.

Buck: Not for me. I’m 55 with one hand I can’t use. They got rid of me so they could hire two 20s... Only in America.

Dev: Companies take advantage of workers because of the economy.

Buck: Right - they know they’ve got lines of people who’ll work for low wages.

Dev: The government bails out Goldman Sachs and the CEOs get big bonuses. It’s not right.

Tom: The stimulus is supposed to trickle down, but where are the jobs?

Buck: Obama did it wrong. He shouldn’t have given all that money to the big companies.

Dev: Help people pay off their mortgages, give us jobs. We’ll get the economy going.

The focus turned to our multiple wars, suitcases of cash disappearing in Afghanistan, new bombings in Libya - gushes of money exiting U.S. coffers, with Buck’s ‘Only in America’ punctuating the proceedings.

The impromptu think tank dispersed down scuffed hallways. I said to Tom, ‘that conversation redeemed this whole experience - we never would have heard that at the Hilton.’

When politicians say with certainty that whatever they’re selling is ‘what the American people want,’ I want to know if they’ve stopped by Days Inn Columbus North lately. Informed and realistic citizens dwell there. They don’t buy the rhetoric, they recognize lies and fools and charlatans and they do know what they want.

Who are these Real Americans we hear so much about? You tell me.

Whisky echo bravo echo romeo

That’s me. My name, spelled out by the reservations clerk over the phone last week.

It could also be the Julie Roberts character line in Larry Crowne. Campus lush to Juliette luscious in two easy hours of movie magic.

Or, make it a writing challenge: use whisky-echo-bravo-echo-romeo in a song set in Dodge City 1848, sans cliché. Good luck.

I just got home from a short stay with kin who live in a seniors village. I’m glad for them for whom the stress of accomplishment has subsided. I’m saddened by the sure knowledge that we the boomer-gen will likely one day frame our wanderings in borders of sore knees, stiff backs and way too many keepsakes.

But consider 60 year old Diana Nyad, about to swim 60 consecutive hours in shark and jelly fish infested waters from Cuba to Florida. She has a different take on aging: “I want the candle to burn bright. We have changed a lot. Our parents’ generation, at 60, they considered that old age. I’m in the middle of middle age.” 

So what does whisky echo bravo echo romeo DO with her next few decades of relative freedom? From pain. From caution. From softly shrinking sidelines?

Well, there is this Muscle and Bone project. Walter and I sing songs of Dylan, voice of our generation and poster-bard for neither shy nor retiring. Our repertoire is a font of youth in a pond of plenty. Fond regards. Faithful friends. Eternal re-awakenings.

Spell check all of the above and you get Weber and Campbell hitting the trail. Two bravos, amigo, and no regrets.


Painting Maria Catharina Wiik, Out into the World

Homestead Dylan

Dylan’s songs let us in. They are his butler, impeccably dressed, astute, well versed in the bard’s wishes. Oddly, this butler lets anyone enter who rings the bell.

Please come in. Wipe your feet if you don’t mind; you may leave your coat and hat on the hook, madame, for you have no need of them here. We have a hearth, you understand. Do sit down. Oh, no, the master is not presently meeting with visitors, not personally, that is. But he wishes your comfort - yes, do have a look around. No, we ask that you not finger the tapestry for it is quite rare. Yes, this is the library. Kindly read anything you find here. The words, sir, inside the books. The bindings will only get you so far.

No, there is no television. The newspaper is just there, under the bird’s droppings. You would like to sketch the bird? By all means; your request is not uncommon. Yes, it is a rather splendid creature, I have to agree. Yes, yes, steel blue eyes to be sure. I, too, find them quite watchful. My but yes, he does sing, quite frequently. I have to say I like the sound of it, though I've been told it's an acquired taste.

The view? Most assuredly, it is among the bard's favorites. True again, the valley below is both deep and wide. I’m afraid I can’t tell you why the table stands empty by the edge of the sea.

Ah, good question, where are all the other visitors? The estate is vast, you see. As each of you ends up staying a long old time, we can’t have you stumbling all over each other, now can we? But you will most likely find and become quite fond of a guest or two. It happens that way. Dear madame, I do realize you wish to meet my employer, face to face. But you see, this is precisely why he employs me. To invite you in, make your stay enjoyable and answer your questions. I assure you I can answer all relevant questions about this place without troubling master for an interview. He’s a busy man and even you would be an interruption. Think of it, the time it would take from his work were he obliged to chat with each person who walks through the door.

What? Oh, very fine observation, sir. Why let you in if you aren’t allowed to get any closer than our feathered friend here and the weavings and this card game and the words, all these lovely words? I’ll tell you what, sit awhile, take your time. Chances are good you’ll figure things out for yourself.

Go ahead. You deal.

Image Rama Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France

Summer time

Worn wood bleachers, shade and sun.
Camp kids, kickball, home run.
One girl slides in the dust and jumps up
announcing through gap tooth grin,
It didn't hurt. I'm OK!
Annie Oakley squint, outlaw braids
are OK too.
They dance, with her, back into the game.



Painting by Sophie Gengembre Anderson, Take the Fair Face of Woman, and Gently Suspending, With Butterflies, Flowers, and Jewels Attending, Thus Your Fairy is Made of Most Beautiful Things