I heard this guy on a Mountain Stage broadcast tonight. I was fortunate to grow up listening to my sister play the cello and I’ve always been partial to cello music. This guy does it a little differently. Enjoy the show.
Ironic footnote to yesterday’s post about the Galaxy 2000. The building, the old Kroger, was demolished years ago. The site is now home to medical office buildings, including my dermatologist. So where I used to dance under the flashing lights, two weeks ago I sat under a blue light to eradicate pre-cancerous skin cells on head. I should have boogied on down.
I want to tell you about the conversation I had once with Davy Jones.
Which Davy Jones, you might ask. Why, the lead singer for The Monkees, I would reply. You remember The Monkees, the group that was assembled back in the 60s by music executives as an answer to the original Fab Four, The Beatles. The Monkees were the Prefab Four. And despite their kitschy persona, they’re credited with some pretty good tunes. Last Train to Clarksville. I’m a Believer. Pleasant Valley Sunday. Their fame peaked in the late 60s, early 70s. I met Davy Jones many years later.
One of the advantages of being old is that I can claim a first-row seat to significant historical events. I saw JFK’s motorcade in Houston the day before he was assassinated in Dallas. I watched on live television as Neil Armstrong took his first steps on the moon. And I was smack-dab in the middle of the original disco craze.
I was a student in Morgantown when a still skinny, still cool John Travolta danced his way through Saturday Night Fever. Then we would go to the local disco, Fat Daddy’s, and try to dance the Hustle to music by Yvonne Elliman and the Bee Gees.
Disco was like a spectacular shooting star and by the late 70s the fad was already on its way out. Then in 1980, a still skinny, still cool John Travolta danced his way through Urban Cowboy. So we all went to the faux-cowboy clubs and tried to dance the two-step to music by Mickey Gilley and, well, it was pretty much Mickey Gilley.
Which brings me to The Galaxy 2000.
In the late 70s, a Kroger store in Spring Hill (WV) had closed and sat vacant until someone decided to cash in on the disco craze and converted the building into a giant disco, The Galaxy 2000. It was actually well done, by disco standards. It had a big dance floor, lots of colored, flashing lights, and the requisite mirrored disco ball. And then came the aforementioned fading of the flashing disco craze. No problem. The club was converted to West Virginia’s version of Mickey’s (as in Mickey Gilley’s club where Urban Cowboy was set). But country line dancing died out faster than disco and The Galaxy scrambled to stay relevant.
Their answer? Live music.
In 1980, The Police released Zenyatta Mondatta and began their climb to world-wide fame. And we’re talking Beatles level of fame. Some time before that, they played at The Galaxy 2000. Really. No, I didn’t see the show. I’d never heard of The Police.
But I had heard of The Monkees. By then, they had broken up and Davy Jones was touring as a solo act and one of his stops was The Galaxy. At that point he was more of a b-list act, maybe even c-list, if there is such a thing. Still, The Galaxy was packed. It was an intimate setting and the show was surprisingly good. Davy could really sing. Between sets, he actually mingled with the audience a little. Then he went into one of the side rooms to relax and shoot some pool. A bunch of fans followed and stood around and watched. I was one of them.
He walked around the table, looking for his best shot. Then he stopped in front of me and studied the balls on the table. He lined up the shot. It was a tricky kiss off the bumper to the corner pocket. The place went quiet. He pulled a couple of practice strokes and then softly struck the cue ball. It traveled slowly over the felt and hit the bumper and ball at the same time, nudging it toward the pocket. And then it dropped.
“Nice shot,” I said.
He turned and looked at me with that famous Davy Jones smile and said, “Thanks.”
True story. All of it.
Yeah, that’s it. Not a deep conversation. Pretty much the typical brush with fame story people like to tell. Really, it means nothing.
I once met Stephen Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics. I had a similarly brief conversation. It meant nothing.
Real conversations and real connections take time. They take people who are willing to put themselves out there and exchange thoughts and ideas. That’s what I love about talking to you guys who read what I write. We have real conversations. We make great connections.
Thank you for that. It means more than you know.
One of my writing mentors, Sol Stein, once told me to avoid melodrama in my fiction, melodrama being characterized by exaggerated scenes or characters that are intended to appeal to the emotions. The damsel in distress tied to the railroad tracks. The villain twirling his mustache.
I’ve been editing A Prayer for Rain, and even after great input from several readers, my manuscript is covered with red marks of my own doing. Much of what I’m finding are sentences and phrases that make me cringe. Phrases that I thought were good when I wrote them, but now jump out at me as melodramatic. Even a simple word choice can make a sentence melodramatic.
In one scene, Trevor has an exchange with Jess, a young woman who works at a convenience store. Since his accident five years before, he has had very little physical contact with anyone, and when they shake hands for the first time, he has this reaction:
He took her hand in his and though it was only for a moment, he relished the soft touch of her skin on his.
The word in question is relish. By definition, it’s accurate enough. It simply means to take pleasure in something. But in reading it afresh, it strikes me as a little bit of an over-reaction. I picture Trevor going “ahhhhh” and quivering like a bowl of jelly. Come on, man. Get a grip. It seems melodramatic to me now.
Here’s the current version:
He took her hand in his and though it was only for a moment, he appreciated the soft touch of her skin on his.
I’m not sure appreciated will be the final word choice, but it definitely takes away the melodrama. Trevor notices her in a unique way, but he’s not about to melt into a pile of butter.
I said to the guys at the Shelton College Review the other day that sometimes I’ll open my manuscript to a random page and read a couple of sentences and get embarrassed by the poor quality of the writing. I think what I’m seeing when I do that is the amateurish, melodramatic passages. Recognizing the problem is the first step to recovery, right?
That’s why there’s red ink all over my pages.
Words matter.
Our house is a little backwards from most houses, where living rooms face the street and kitchens face the backyard. Ours is just the opposite. We have a pleasant view from the kitchen as neighbors go by on their daily walk. Some I know, some I don’t.
Larry, a writer, walks in the early evenings. He’s an athletic guy, so his gait is purposeful and steady. He walks, eyes ahead, and you get the feeling that he’s working something out in his mind. My guess would be that he’s nurturing an idea for a story, or finding the rhythm for a verse.
But I don’t really know.
Jim walks slowly, head hung down. Like his dog died. But I don’t think he has a dog. And I know it doesn’t die every day. That’s just how he walks. When he stops to talk, he’s very pleasant and friendly, as if life for him is good.
But I don’t really know.
My father is eighty-six. He walks like he’s fifty-six. His fast pace keeps him healthy. He’s suffered loss in the family, but doesn’t talk much about it. Like most men, he’s good at compartmentalization. He’s strong and self-sufficient and seems to be getting along well. He looks forward when he walks. I think that says a lot.
But I don’t really know.
A young man walks wearing a ball cap and an extra shirt over his shoulder. He’s walking to work. I don’t know where his walk begins or where it ends, but it has to be measured in miles. He seems so responsible.
But I don’t really know.
A neighbor walks in the evenings. He does laps up and down the sidewalk, obviously exercising. He’s very quiet and makes no attempt at conversation. I wonder why he is so reserved. I could speculate.
But I don’t really know.
A woman walks in the morning, long strides, arms swinging vigorously. A power walker. Other times I see her simply walking. I imagine that she lives her life like everyone else. Maybe she works. Takes care of flowers in the yard. Television in the evening. And then I see her with a special needs child. She holds his hand as he measures his steps carefully. There’s more to her world than I thought.
But I don’t really know.
It’s hard to know people. It’s hard to know beyond the fleeting picture we get as they pass by, or take our order at the restaurant, or sit in front of us in church. It’s hard to know what people are dealing with when they don’t return our phone calls, or snap at us at work, or say inexplicable things in line at the market.
When our own thoughts are muddled, when our hearts are sick with worry, when we wish we had someone to talk to about our problems, a little understanding goes a long way. We would do well to treat others with that same understanding.
Because we don’t really know.
copyright 2016, joseph e bird
Logline: The pitch you give to Spielberg when you see him at Hillbilly Hotdogs. 30-35 words, one sentence.
Logline for A Prayer for Rain:
A rising musician’s dreams of stardom are shattered in a debilitating accident, and as he rebuilds his life he discovers new ways to express himself musically, but struggles against the seductions of fame.
Founding member of the Shelton College Review, Andrew Spradling, has just published a new novel, The Long Shadow of Hope. Here’s my review:
Football, I think it’s fair to say, is primal. Speed and strength and aggressive ferocity matter. Coaches like to talk about game plans and strategy, but nine times out of ten, the faster, stronger players win. And make no mistake, winning is everything. There may be talk of building character and lessons learned in losing, but such subtleties are just that – talk. It’s a man’s game, in every sense of the archaic phrase.
So it is with Andrew Spradling’s novel, The Long Shadow of Hope.
His prologue paints the scene. If you’ve ever watched a college football pre-game show, you’ve seen it. The fans, the cheerleaders, the tailgating – and the players who still display a naive enthusiasm for a multi-billion dollar business that masquerades as a game.
Spradling’s book is a behind-the-scenes look into that world. There’s no Rudy who sticks with the game against all odds. There’s no underdog team battling for a championship. It’s a story of how selfishness and greed can ruin lives and it’s told with the same direct, unflinching fierceness that is on full display on Saturday afternoons every fall.
In Long Shadow, story is everything. It’s pretty clear who the good guys and bad guys are. In fact, Chap Roberts is one of the more despicable characters I’ve met in a long time and he has little time for inner reflection. And the men in Long Shadow, being the primal sorts that they are, are susceptible to the lure of illicit relationships and their encounters are described with direct clarity. Things are happening, surprises are brewing, and there are more twists in the story than the road up Lookout Mountain.
Like a good football game, you don’t know who is going to win until the end. It will leave you shaking your head, and hoping that college football isn’t really that bad.
The Long Shadow of Hope. Find it now on Amazon.
“Few things linger longer or become more indwelling than that feeling of both completion and emptiness when a great book ends. That the book accompanies the reader forever from that day forward is part of literature’s profligate generosity.”
Pat Conroy, from My Reading Life
One brick.
Another.
Carefully.
Thoughtfully.
Almost.
Just a few more.
Stop.
Forty years ago.
Graphite lines
on vellum
give shape.
Buildings begin
with a stroke
of my pencil.
Turn off.
Unplug.
Gather.
Solemnly.
Almost.
Just a few more.
Stop.
Forty years now.
Wisdom guides
the architect
and builders
so kids
can play
in school.
Resume’.
Send.
Wait.
Anxiously.
Almost.
Just a few more.
Stop.
copyright joseph e bird, 2016
Joseph E Bird 