Saturday, November 25, 2006

My newspaper-selling friend

Posted by Mickey Z on 11/25 at 07:02 AM
blog comments powered by Disqus

  1. I got a curious story today: last night after rehearsal I went down to Barceloneta, the old fisherman´s neighbourhood to a bar to watch my housemate play with a C., a singer friend. C likes to sing in exaggerated style, think methamphetamine vaudeville, and three songs in they were playing La Vie En Rose and a man stood up after it, called for the entire bar´s attention and said he was a Russian sailor who loved Edith Piaf and that he would cut C.’s head off for distorting the song so. He drew an X on the palm of his hand and held it up to C. My friends began to play again and the sailor continued to glare devilishly at C. the entire set.
    After the set C approached him to tell him he´d been showing his love for Piaf during the song too and to shake his hand, which the sailor refused and asked C whether he knew anything about suffering. He also asked whether C hjhad ever been hungry, C said Yes and the sailor asked Oh yeah? for how long?
    The conversation had started in Spanish but mostly took part in French as it is a much more subtle language and better suited to pleasantly insulting people. The sailor eventually shook his hand but in a Ye Fuckin´ Punk kind of manner. The show was being taped so some of the sailors´ comments will make for a nice intro to a Piaf song on a record.

    Posted by owen from schmarcelona  on  11/25  at  10:39 AM

  2. Good morning Mickey and Owen...good stories today.

    I don’t have a story to tell but here is a link to Bill Blum’s latest. I am a Blum fan. He always gets it right but I would add to the reasons for the usa invasion and occupation of Iraq. In addition to what he says, I believe that one reason that we will be in a state of perpetual warfare is simply to use up weapons so that there will be a “need” for more, an ingenious money laundering plan so that money will flow from the working class to the arms dealers. Think Panama, Grenada, etc....

    http://members.aol.com/bblum6/aer39.htm

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/25  at  11:27 AM

  3. Delivering Newspapers

    My first paying job was as a paperboy, delivering the Daily Sifting’s Herald in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. 

    I took the job very seriously-- almost as if it was a sacred task. Everything I earned was blown on soda pop, candy and the occasional hamburger.  Once however, after weeks of arduous saving, I purchased a boxed hardcover set of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.  I don’t think I could ever reread them again-- at some point in time it had dawned on me that there is no sex in Tolkien’s fantasy world-- kind of scary. (Out of respect, though, I’ve kept my vow never to watch an animated or cinematic version-- go analyze that, Dr. Freud). 

    I never had a commercial sense-- seemed there were always other kids who figured out how to buy a motorcycle on their earnings-- which inevitably led them to expanding their territories and profits.  I’m grateful that I never had a commercial sense.

    Delivering papers in a little town had a beneficial effect on me.  I will never lose my love for the smell of the ink in the print-room.  Also, I will never forget the people I delivered to.  Rolled, the paper was seldom more than 12 pages-- it looked like a long toothpick.  I took special pride in learning the correct way to double the rubber-band on my fingers while rolling.  It was an initial surprise for me to learn that the paper required us to buy our own rubber-bands and receipt books.

    Arkadelphia was a relatively poor town. (The monstrous Howard’s Discount Center near the turnpike had not morphed into WalMart or yet cast its indelible shadow.)

    People on my downtown route lived in rickety, and musty clapboard houses.  The daily paper was very important to all of them.

    Some of the people had curious names, which I laughed about.  My strongest memories are of trying to outrun dogs.  Collecting was always an event-- also somewhat sacred.  It was a revelation to me that all those newspapers ended up in the hands of very real individuals.

    I remember the surprise on the face of an off-duty fireman who was in his backyard skinning a squirrel.  He wiped his hands on his pants and reached for his wallet with a pained expression.  Could the paper have cost all that much?  Tips were unknown as far as I remember with one exception:

    Once a feeble voice called out for me to enter after I knocked on one front door. 

    The one room house was little larger than a closet and was as hot as a blast furnace.  The old shriveled woman sat glued to her rocker, doubtless too frail to rock. She was surrounded by tall stacks of the the Herald going back in time probably as long as she had lived.

    At that time in my life, I was all business. I had no inclination to converse or linger for any more reason other than “to collect.” What might I have learned, if I had simply been more friendly? 

    The woman still thanked me for my service and insisted that I take an apple with me.  I declined once or twice, but finally took the best one, just to be off.

    “What a strange world,” I thought while leaving, clutching the sticky apple in my hand.

    Posted by Robert B. Livingston from San Francisco, California  on  11/25  at  01:14 PM

  4. I never sold papers but I was on the staff of one, my high school’s. When I was 14 I wrote my one and only printed piece of “investigative opinion”, criticizing the propoganda build-up to the first Gulf War.

    I can’t say much about playing for Russian sailors, but I once had a solo gig in Warsaw at a private club for high society types. The place was full of actors, directors, artists (with a capital “a” and a French “r"), smoke and vodka. I was playing this avant-garde solo saxophone stuff, and if my name had been known to these people they might have listened. But alas, even though “from New York” was scrawled above my name on the poster, I couldn’t get no respect, everyone was talking, they wanted easy going background jazz. While I was playing an old drunk woman, presumably a faded beauty but who knows, started addressing me in slurred English. “Ffffuch eeeyuuu” she kept saying. It was funny. Till it wasn’t.

    Another time (this would be spring ‘96) I was at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, and me and a friend had brought our saxophones along. At day’s end, as everyone was leaving the festival grounds, we took out our horns by the exit and started playing. A big drum circle formed around us (the “jazz” in “Jazz Fest” is only partially accurate...the headliner that night was the Allman Brothers Band, hence the drum circle hippies). We were playing our guts out, people were shouting and dancing and whistling and loving it. I had my eyes closed so I didn’t realize that there was a cop right in front of me shouting at me to clear out. He slapped me in the face to get my attention. I was out of there in no time.

    Posted by Keir from The Gray Hague  on  11/25  at  03:03 PM

  5. no story to tell today other than that the reason the term “gooks” sprang up for certain people is probably not what you think it was.

    it happened before vietnam.

    in korean language to be korean is to be “hangook”. to be a westerner in general is to be a “waygook”.the usa is “me-gook”.

    so the term “gook” came about as simplification and denigration of these terms.

    not a story as such, just an interesting aside.

    buy nothing day really is one of the best days around.

    i think i mentioned it last year

    http://tinyurl.com/y49jta

    Posted by michael from exile  on  11/25  at  05:15 PM

  6. Hello Expendables...from an unseasonably warm NYC. Michele and I were out hiking all day so I’m just getting to your stories now. I’ll be back shortly.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/25  at  06:22 PM

  7. The newspaper in my hometown of 100,000 volk was the perfect companion to the mixed Third World/medieval class structure happening there (& still is).

    I wrote a letter to the editor in ‘83 or so ("stop printing crap,” etc) and it got printed. It must have been amusing for the staff to read it. “Oh, what a charming lad. Probably hasn’t learned about Standard Oil or My Lai...”

    Nowadays, the print media is a vast source of satire waiting to happen. Today at the gym, I scanned through the Nov 13 issue of Steve Forbes’ family organ and found this Orwellian gem: “...[the ship] had washed up in Montreal with 6 foot holes rusted through its decks, a victim of *deferred maintenance*.” (p188) That belongs in Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary under ‘neglect.’
    http://www.thedevilsdictionary.com

    In light of this, I would like to propose that the term ‘IED’ be abandoned in favor of ‘E.’ (The ones that don’t work can fairly be called IEDs.) This nonsense about an ‘insurgency’ has to go, too. It’s *resistance*, as in what happens when you push against something that doesn’t appreciate it, like a rhinocerous or a brick wall.

    Stamp it and ship it!
    Zen Prole

    Posted by Zenprole from Urth  on  11/25  at  06:26 PM

  8. I love how the newspaper theme (somewhat) held up. To really date myself, I should admit that I once delivered the Long Island Press.

    Besides that, we’ve got drum circles, Russian sailors, gooks, Bill Blum, and more. So, what does it mean when city’s name ends in “adelphia”?

    Anyone?

    Captcha sez: six (as in “half a dozen of one...")

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/25  at  07:41 PM

  9. Ms. Piaf: http://tinyurl.com/y854nv

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/25  at  07:43 PM

  10. Also, Robert, I can relate to this: My strongest memories are of trying to outrun dogs. I grew up in a very industrial area and most factories had dogs on hand to protect whatever it was they deemed worthy of protection. My juvenile deliquent friends and I were forever being chased.

    Where was the dog whisperer when I needed him?

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/25  at  07:46 PM

  11. Hi R. Livingston, michael, and Mickey…
    Keir...Avant-garde solo sax, I wish I was there to hear it.
    Zen prole...It is “resistance” and also it’s not “collateral damage”, it’s the slaughter of civilians. The Press has allowed the Pentagon to shape the language under the system they call “perception control”.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  11/25  at  10:40 PM

  12. A`del´phi`a
    n.1.(Bot.) A “brotherhood,” or collection of stamens in a bundle; - used in composition, as in the class names, Monadelphia, Diadelphia, etc.

    Expendadelphia anyone?

    And what is “bot.”?

    And what is a sisterhood?  Can there be a collection of pistils?

    Our language, is certainly wanting. 

    He and She in Chinese is the same word.

    Goodnight folks… there is no better tranquilizer for me than the study of General Semantics.

    And Sifting’s is really Siftings.
    http://tinyurl.com/yldef8
    http://tinyurl.com/yh6rps

    The sun is over Kabul now.

    zzzz
    (Dreaming Piaf.)

    Posted by Robert B. Livingston from San Francisco, California  on  11/26  at  01:52 AM

  13. Thanks, Robert. I like your style.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  11/26  at  07:52 AM

Next entry: Caption This

Previous entry: As "they" say: perception is reality