Old Porcelain Clocks and Kiss Records

Camden, New Jersey.

“I will stand between the masters and slaves…”

Tyra Banks is on her couch interviewing midgets and their tall husbands. The Antique Road Show is talking to folks in Spokane, Washington.

And I’m out of it. I got rained on all day – soaked – two days now, and now all I want to do is watch TV with the sound turned off and listen to Nebraska under headphones.

So I did…

…and then later I crawled outside and rolled “Gomorrah” from back when Jerry still had Donna Jean singing in his side band. And all the songs were real Persian and real slow and stony…

Falling dusk up here on the island. Rick Steves is on the TV now.
I think that “Kiss - Alive 2” is better than “Alive” the first. But I gotta go for now…But I mean it’s hard to beat “Beth,” “Doctor Love,” and “Shock Me” on “Alive 2,” but I was always kindof Ace Freely centric anyway.

Now I’m thinking about Walt Whitman in New Orleans…Slaves, humans, magnolias in bloom, auction blocks. “That could be me.” Three months he spent there there. Then back north…Emerson was looking for a national poet – and then Whitman wrote “Be simple and clear…” And then “Leaves of Grass” becomes. And then, “I am the poet of slaves…: Walt. “Song of the Body Electric.” The blind. The exstatic. The human. The Five Points. The Open Road. War. The bride in her white dress. The title Page with no name. Hands. Armpits. Crotch. Nakedness. Civil War. Dead. Wounded. Nameless now. Never nameless. Finer than prayer.

I lost a really good friend one time – she died and I didn’t know – ‘til one month later. I was in Port Townsend when I got the news – after a Michele Shocked gig when I was told. I was blank for two days. Went to a bookshop after a plate of eggs, first meal since the news. Pulled a book off the shelf.. Opened to “Song of the Open Road” and everything fell away. Quincy had died. And nothing made sense anymore. It still doesn’t. My friend died and I found Walt Whitman. In a bookshop. The book cost a dollar. Songs of the Open Road

If I were to say, “Alive 2” is better than “Alive.” The rains are off tonight. I’ll be soaked again tomorrow…

The New York Harold speaks of big losses at the Battle at Fredericksburg.

I feel empty.

Here’s to Quincy.

Goodnight.

Peace.