A POEM BY RON PADGETT

        by vada smith



          BIRCHES


          When I see birches

          I think of nothing

          But when I see a girl

          Throw away her hair and brains

          I think of birches and I see them

          One could do worse than see birches


                               ----Ron Padgett

 

 

 

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REDNECK REBEL OF AMERICA

vada

 

 

Happy to be alive in this body has been the case for some time now. It's new. I've always been worn out by the physical. For me, living in a body is like being a mechanic. Dirty hands all the time, pushing or pulling a wrench on a rusted bolt and it breaks, my knuckles hit a piece of steel that doesn't give, I cuss a streak. If I were to be a mechanic I'd be cussing all the time. I don't care to live my life cussing so much. Though it makes a good release, like a valve on a pressure cooker. I don't ever want to write off it's healing release. Cussing is only socially indelicate. I'm not at the coffee shop so I can cuss all I want. Among my friends I'm not required to suppress how I feel verbally. Those words express intensity of feeling. Among an awful lot of people I know, my favorite people, we talk freely and use those beautiful words for emphasis, for humor, for defining a feeling, and in my case I use a lot of those words to give a flourish of emphasis to a phrase or sentence. My grandfather I knew since a baby only used those words. Every phrase in every sentence had at least one of them. When he spoke it was music to this child's ears. Especially since the grownups didn't approve of it. Grandma and my mother were used to it, though still freaked out by it. Grandpa was my dearest friend in my life at that time, three and four. All of what political correctness calls "language" was Jim Brink's dialect of the English language.

 

I know a man now, just a few years older than me, who talks exactly like grandpa. A lot of people think he's vulgar and crude. He may be, but that's not a concern of mine. He is who he is and a man I respect for who he is and what he's been through. I don't respect him because he can kick my ass. That has nothing to do with respect. I could splatter his guts all over the wall behind him too, but I'm not going to do it. And he's not going to kick my ass. I don't even have any judgment for him. I know outlines of what he's been through and done, but it's not my business to call it good or bad according to the context of his circumstances. He treats me with respect, I treat him with respect. We're very different people, most different politically, which to me is of no consequence whatever. What he does behind closed doors I don't care. I don't want to know. This is something I've come into that I'm grateful for, is not wanting to know anything about anybody that the individual him/herself does not want to tell me themselves. Too many times I've heard bullshit stories about particular people and when I eventually become acquainted with that individual I really liked them and eventually found the initial stories I'd heard were created by imagination. If I really gave it thought, I could call up several examples, a great many.

The people with bad names I don't find particularly bad, except when they are. Then they're pathetic messes battered and raped throughout their childhood, who grow up angry to the bone, starting fights wherever they go, passing on everything that had been done to them. Stay away from them drunk and allow them their lives, there's no problem. I confess to knowing some rough people, made rough by getting beat on by all the boys and men in the extended family who were older. And he thrashes the kids younger than him. I've known enough of the people called mean and criminal to know they're people too. I cannot hold prison in somebody's past against them. When I find out somebody I know has been in prison, my respect skyrockets. I'm ashamed of my country's penal system and there is nothing I can do to change it. A no recourse corner. So I stay out of prison and regard my acquaintances and friends who have been through prison the respect they deserve. I don't make a show of it, but regard them with the same respect I regard anyone else. Once a sentence is completed, their "debt to society" is completed. One friend who did six months told me it is unimaginable how bad it is, and not much later killed himself unable to live with the shame. Another told me you go into prison thinking you know how to fight. First thing you learn is you don't. Judges and lawyers laugh about what people have to go through in prison. And they know better than anybody outside a prison what goes on inside. This confirms what I already know, our legal system is a crap shoot and certainly has nothing to do with ethics. It's not about justice at all. The word justice has become a joke in my lifetime.

In the way I grew up on a short leash I didn't have a chance to be one of the wild guys that wrecked cars and got hit over the head with beer bottles and treated their women like shit. I was not a tough guy or a cool guy or anything, not even a nerd. Just a pathetic kid counting down the days to liberation from parents, cussing all the time inside. Since it was pointed out to me about a year ago that I seem to like rowdy people, I've been looking at it. I do. I was never able to act out my own rowdiness. It got locked down. I admired the other guys at school, and guys I worked with on summer jobs, who did all kinds of crazy shit, stealing hubcaps, siphoning gas, driving heedlessly fast. It never took with me, because I did not have an option. I'm thinking that in this time of the life I'm liking knowing people I think of as brave, courageous, men and women who really would kill somebody for hurting one of their kids. The only thing I could say to a friend who told me he or she was on his way to do the deed would be, While making your decision include that prison is part of the package. If it's worth prison, do what you gotta do. Something I discovered in my first years in the mountains was that I am incredibly inhibited. The people who are rowdy and rough are also superb human beings who have a hard time dealing with the false our American society requires we live by. The inability to give in to the false for the sake of "for your benefit" creates a rebel mad at the world and everybody in it, like John Voight's character in Runaway Train. This is where I bond with the redneck rebels of America.

 

 

 

 

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A DAY IN THE SUN AT THE WAYNE HENDERSON FESTIVAL

wayne henderson

A one hour drive this morning to Mt Rogers in SW Virginia for the Wayne Henderson Fest. The drive through the western part of Alleghany, through Piney Creek, across the state line and river to Hwy 58, "The Crooked Road." 58 goes to Highlands Park where the road goes up, up, up, then down into a hollow full of new cars parked on grass. It looked like a new car commercial for all the new cars at once. I tend to get uneasy when a parking lot is full of new cars. It tells me none of my people are there. No pickups. My car was by far the rattiest looking car in the parking lot. Helped make it easy to find later. Driving home I figured out a way to stick a ping-pong ball on the antenna. A few decades ago it became a hot thang to have something on the top of the antenna to find one's car in a mall parking lot. Fast food joints were giving them out and parking lots filled up with these little things on top of the antennae until it became ridiculous. They all went away almost overnight. Now that nobody does it, a ping pong ball would be the only one in the parking place. Of course, to have one now would identify me as one who doesn't get it that the trend is over and has been over for a long time. Then they say, Oh, it's TJ. That's WHY he's doing it. Yeah, like why not?

henderson fest audience

At the Wayne Fest I took my time, stopped by Willard's tent and spoke with him, Scott and Dori a little bit. Went on and found a place to sit. I chose a spot near a dog. The Crooked Road Ramblers came on soon after the band that was playing, Cabin Fever. Crooked Road Ramblers was the band I wanted to hear of all the bands playing. In their third tune I stepped to a place I could get a good stage shot. Took the picture. Camera told me to insert the card. It was at home in the computer. Oh well. Camera in pocket, out of mind. No more composition thinking. I was glad to be free of it. Kilby Spencer has come quite a long ways in his fiddling. He has been a really good fiddler all the time I've known him, but as I hear him now about once a year I hear immense improvements telling me he practices a lot in his mind, with or without fiddle in hand. Kilby is becoming a great musician. He's always been a good musician, but he's transcending that. He's going off into a zone of the great fiddlers down through time. He played GB Grayson's Lee Highway Blues with as clear a tone as I recall ever hearing it. It's one of my favorite fiddle tunes, so I pay attention hearing somebody play it. Kilby brought it to life. Gave it breath.

kilby spencer plays at the jubilee in sparta

When they were finished I went back to the car to get the camera out of my pocket. I saw a few people I know, most of them among the volunteers in the parking lot. John Sherrill gave me a start when I entered the parking lot. He was at the road directing cars to a lane to get into for parking. He has a beard now and I am slow getting used to it enough to recognize him on sight. He got down in my face at the car window and told me to step out of the car, cop style. I must have wrenched up my face in a busted look and he broke out laughing. I recognized his laugh. This is a retired prosecutor. He knows how to put on that authority of the law voice. I thought it was funny. At the moment I thought: What? Just a couple days ago I was driving up the gravel road to the Richardson farm and a big white dually pickup came around the blind curve in the center of the road. It was John. I wasn't alarmed, because I used to it. On sight, each one steers a little to the right and there's no problem. It is the same feeling, surprise. Surprise is fun. Kittens love to play surprise on each other and their humans too. Not only does it make us laugh to see cats jump, but cats get a laugh out of seeing cats jump, too.

black cat laughing

In my walking about I felt a good feeling in the air. I thought of all the news we're getting, how much it looks like everybody hates everybody to the point it makes leaving the house a scary thing to do. I get out among a big bunch of people and everybody is peaceable and friendly. Makes me want to get out among more people than I usually do. Hanging out at Maxwell Equipment for the rest of the summer will get me out among friendly people. I enjoy the people who drop by and hang there from time to time. All of them knew Jr Maxwell, whose shop it was before it became Ross's. It feels like something on the order of a planet entering a house, bumping me into a more interactive life and art form. I don't want to be the only one working on these sculptures. I want them to be a group effort. I may be the one putting them together, but I want to encourage ideas. One thing I'll be looking for is how to devise a sensuous feminine form out of motorcycle parts. That will be a fun goal to reach toward. Straight lines and circles I'll largely be working with. Seeing that I am moving into a more interactive time, I felt the energy today among a few thousand people in colorful clothes, everybody in a friendly spirit. This is why I feel like it is a good time for me to get out among other people regularly now. For constant reminder that we really are good people who tend to treat each other well. Hearing too much news I tend to walk around in the crowd and wonder how many people in the crowd are carrying concealed weapons. I figured about a dozen.

willard plays his henderson guitar

I worked the tshirt tent in the afternoon with Rita Scott, fiddler with Appalachian Mountain Girls, and Trina Varner, old-time bass player. Lynn Worth came by and I spoke with her a minute. She's always a light in my eyes. Lynn is one of my very favorite people, for who she is, a woman of integrity, deep personal integrity. And a terrific musician. I enjoy the momentary chit-chat in a place like that. I recall a conversation with a couple of white haired women from the area. One was looking to buy a couple of Wayne's CDs from a selection of several. I gave her an idea of what each one was like. I picked out two for good enjoyable music to be playing in the house. The others were virtuoso demonstrations of high-powered guitar picking that is impressive, but not so enjoyable to have playing in the house for everyday listening. Mostly I told people that all tshirt sizes above M were sold out. Talked with Rita, always fun. She's an awfully good fiddler. She's light-hearted as somebody who can juggle flaming torches. I like seeing people I know at these events. Hugs galore, good feeling galore, everybody feeling happy having a day off with good music and good weather. I saw an old boy I first took for 80 wearing a Pink Floyd tshirt. That didn't seem right. Saw him a little bit later and he looked more like an old-looking 70, a little closer to the range of people listening to them then. 80 seemed just a little bit over the cusp of the first Pink Floyd listeners. How strange it is now to be speaking of old people in relation to pop culture. My generation.

david long and dori freeman with her henderson guitar

I was happy to see Dori in her heavy with child look. I am happy for Dori with her life now. She has found her man, the one worth waiting for, and next she'll have a baby to love. She's lit up with love right now. Good loving from her man, David, from her family, from her grandpa, and coming up soon, from her baby, and love from her fan base. I'm enjoying knowing Dori through this time of her life, starting the time she left college because that just wasn't it, and she started singing with Scott and Willard on Friday nights in Woodlawn, getting the feel of singing before an audience. At loose ends, wondering which way to turn. By now she has the self-confidence of experience before several audiences. She's writing songs as good as the songs she covers. Last year she wowed the Wayne Fest. This year she is on a new CD of music from the Carter Fold with Wayne and other musicians of the region. I meant to buy a copy today and forgot to. I'll find one soon. At the end of my tshirt tent time, Roseanne Cash was coming on. I was tired. I wanted to be home. I did not want to hear Roseanne Cash. I know she would have been good. I would have enjoyed it. But I preferred to spend her stage time on the road home. The beautiful drive down the mountain this time instead of up the mountain. At the house, I walked through the door straight to the bed, fell down and slept for two hours, got up and saw the Bourne Legacy the second time, only recognizing maybe 3 scenes.

 

 

 

 

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HILLBILLY ART---GETTIN ER DONE

cy twombly

 

 

Jr Maxwell has been with me in spirit today. This morning I picked up some motorcycle wheels from the motorcycle skeleton yard, a frame with a motor, 5 old rusted flywheels from I can't imagine what, a short crankshaft covered in rust. That's my treasure. I want to do something special with it, thinking of displaying it upright like Brancusi's Bird In Space. Might play with putting chemicals on it to make different colors of rust. Everything is possible when I have no box. I've decided to jump out of whatever boxes I've been functioning in where art is concerned. The box gives structure and foundation. I can find them outside the box, as well. I can't lean on the wall of a box. All the more fun. I want to make abstractions, though I also want to make crazy things like flamingos and giant insects, whatever happens. Anything goes. I spent the day in Jr's tractor repair shop that is now Ross's. The shop was built by Jr, has his name on the sign. It will always be Maxwell Equipment. The place smells like it smelled in Jr's time there, the old grease smell covering the cement floor over about thirty years. A mechanic's hands are always black with grease, a thin coat of black remains on everything he touches. Over time the black thickens until the handles of tools are black from much use. The shop was also Jr's man cave.

 

tony smith

 

 

I spent a few hours sitting out of the way by the wood stove not in use taking apart the gears and axles of the two back wheels. It was quite an adventure in bolt removal. I'm looking as much forward to disassembling these motorcycle skeletons as much as reassembling them in original new ways. Saving all bolts and nuts, sleeves, rings of every sort in a particular box. I want to use the bolts and screws from the bikes themselves putting them back together. Getting acquainted with my palette.  Tomorrow morning I'll tear into the frame with the motor and back wheel. Disassemble the whole thing down to the pistons and the rods, valves, sparkplugs, crankshafts. Every part of the entire mechanism I want to have available for use. Break them down to their nuts and bolts and tiniest parts. This is the time of deconstructing the dead bikes to their parts. Axles with bearings could be great for something that turns in the wind. I know I'm not the first to do something like this. Far from it. It doesn't matter. I don't want to look and see what other people have done. I want my own vision to emerge from the parts themselves and my experience putting them together into something new, something worth making. I'll let Ross decide about prices. I don't want that in my head. All this will be worked out conversationally over time. I can see I'll be spending a lot of time in the shop. It's not like we're starting a business. My only agenda will be never to get serious about it.

 

ai weiwei

 

 

It will be fun to make yard ornaments, even wall sculptures that hang on an outside wall or an inside wall. Things for indoors and outdoors. I see houses everywhere now with a black star hanging on an outside wall. I've heard they indicate a retired sheriff. I don't know. Whatever it is, I find it a very unfortunate image to put on one's house. A black star. That's kind of like an upside down cross. Not that it is anything at all, but the emotional symbolism is there. The black stars strike me sinister. They make me pause with a frown, like that aint right. Of course, it is right for the people who put them up and I remind myself it's their right like having a bird feeder in my yard is my right. It's just that they're creepy in my way of seeing. I don't want to make creepy things. I want them to express delight in one way or another. In this period of bike deconstruction, I'm discovering parts, shapes, designs, patterns. I like the rust. I will want to paint very little. Though some things will need painting. That can be decided per piece. No gotta-oughta-should-better-needta-benefit-from. I'll let Ross handle the money totally. I don't want to get mixed up with money. I'm doing it for the fun there is in it and that is all. If occasional gas money comes from it, hooray. Beyond that, I don't care. Even that, I don't care.

 

donald judd

 

 

This project will be done in a spirit of in memory of Jr Maxwell. Inside the shop is a sense that he is living. Jr was important to Ross and Jr was important to me. Ross and I did a kind of male bonding struggle around Jr. Men who don't like each other and have a fight come out of the fight best friends. The fight somehow, maybe even subliminally, becomes a bonding. Hierarchy is important to men. Knowing who can kick whose ass is important among men. I attribute it to 6,000 years of armies at war. Boys grow up to be soldiers and take orders. Boys expected to grow up and be killers for awhile, then raise a family. Warrior society. It's got our working class men, the ones that shoot guns and get killed, believing blind obedience is patriotic, masculine. Yes Sir! Easily manipulated by propaganda. Ross believed I was setting Jr up to rip him off. When I went home the day Jr's spirit left the body, expecting or asking for nothing. What I was there for was done. I never attempted to convince Ross that my intent was what he would want it to be, to allow Jr to leave the body in his own bed. That was important to him, and I was the only one who could make it possible for him.

 

dan flavin

 

 

I understand Ross's suspicion, because everybody around here knows somebody or of somebody who moved in on somebody feeble and alone to get everything signed over to them in the will. It happens. People you'd never suspect. I knew my purpose, but knew I could never be convincing; words are not convincing to anybody of these mountains and I understand. When it became apparent I had not imposed myself on Jr for property or anything in any way, the day he died, then I became ok to all who had been watching: Whitehead. All of Whitehead. I had no idea until the day he left the body that all of Whitehead had been watching. That day I became a naturalized citizen of Whitehead community. One of the great honors of my life, if not IT. In some way I don't understand at all when Ross and I are around each other, Jr is with us. I see Jr in him and he sees Jr in me. In short, we've become friends in memory of Jr. I like that. It keeps Jr alive for both of us. Like Jr said, "Patience is everything." The shop has become a gang of misfits, doing whatever needs doing. Today this old boy from town was there repairing the bottom of a fiberglass canoe and he'd never worked with fiberglass before. The sound of power tools, the satellite radio playing bluegrass sometimes and hard metal other times. The smell of grease and WD-40. Laughs happening frequently.

 

 

ai weiwei

 

 

We're ready to make hillbilly art, put up a sign misspelled like somebody who didn't pay much attention in school painted it, who got passed along year after year until he graduated illiterate. Or quit first chance it was legal, whichever came first, sixteenth birthday or finish eighth grade. That's how it was with my generation. I don't know what it is now. Probably not much different. Hillbilly. I think of it as exploiting expectation. What Ross and I are wanting to do is #1, get rid of his old motorcycle skeletons and parts that go with them, and  #2, have some fun. Humor. Funny. I'm already thinking of what I can do with maybe twenty valves from motorcycle engines, gas tanks, fenders, wheels, frames, handlebars, pistons, chains. I'm excited anticipating taking the motor and wheel off the frame to see what the frame itself looks like. I'm looking forward to having several different frames to see what can be done with them. Spoke wheels, rusted chrome, some with tires, some without. I want to leave the tires. I enjoy taking the bikes apart. It's like a potter kneading the clay before creating the form with it. I am thinking that instead of putting my name on them, finding a way to sign them Maxwell Equipment. That name acknowledges the group effort it is. I may be the one with the designing eye, but maybe not the only one. And everyone involved in the shop will be helping in varieties of ways, if no more than telling me how to use a particular tool, like a welder. Everybody will be involved. I don't want the credit to be all mine. That would be taking it seriously.

I want my part light hearted.  

 

 

frank stella

 

 

 

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