Elvis, The Crone, and Me. A little poem and insurance.

The Dyslexic Writer writes to prove that those of us who are older and dyslexic can still give voice to thoughts. Sometimes. I only spellcheck this 25 times, rewrote 30, then it took me 15 times to post it cause I kept pushing the wrong thing. Is it worth it? Damned if I know. Writing is addictive and I can't stop. If I wanted to. So enjoy or endure, dear reader.

Tarot card of the day. The Crone, from the Mother Peace deck.

She is wisdom and spiritual guidance. She stands alone, ancient and wise. She is dressed in purple, the ancient color of wisdom, spirituality, power. She holds a crook and is looking up toward the moon, stars and a spirit woman in a moon and stars gown who represents the heavens, the universe. She stands at a three gathered road, that signifies being separate from the devil at the crossroads. Her role is three fold: the grandmother, mother, and daughter of ancient wisdom. It is crowned by an ancient symbol of spirituality. Inside her are the secrets of the universe. The wisdom of all the ancients. The love for all humanity. The healing power of all the healing women men of the world.
Listen to her as she speaks to you. She helps you listen to your own dreams, your hearts desire. She brings peace, love, understanding and the need for you to find compassion not only for yourself, but for all humankind. Be prepared when The Crone whispers to hear the words that will require you to work hard for your dreams and goals, to endeavor to find ways to feed the hungry, help eliminate hate and greed in the world. She wants you to feel the great compassion of universal love. You must listen to The Crone’s wisdom and make peace with the lack of wisdom in your heart and how to seek it with love and understanding.
Remember my new mantra from my last blog. BE SATISFIED. BE GRATEFUL. LIVE IN THE NOW. That too is The Crone’s Message. And remember I borrowed Be satisfied, be grateful from the author of Tuesday's With Morrie. I think. I can't find the note. And The Now is from most of Deepok Chropa's books. If I'm wrong in my remembering I am sure gentle reader you will tell me.

The other day was Elvis 75 birthday. I’m 71. Musically, with TV and 45” records I grew up with Elvis. Listening to him that is. So this is my Elvis story.
I am a jazz and rhythm and blues fan. Dixieland Jazz. Swing. My dad had a jazz band.
He played Dixieland and swing. He called his bands: The Hoosierlanders, The Magic City Trio, when the musicians were older; The Travelers.
Swing and Dixieland are almost the same, but with a subtle difference. Swing is in all jazz and R and B music and sometimes country music like Chill Wills and his Singing Cowboys of an earlier time, and Willie Nelson in this time. It is a term for playing along with the melody as it is written or defined by the other musicians and you Swing Out into your own thing. You start with a song, a chord and improvise. Usually each person has a Swing Out solo and “go, man,” like you see in the old movies. People really do that “go man go” thing when the band members Swing Out.
The band also Swings Out. Someone starts with a song, or a melody and they all go somewhere with that music and play. Nothing is ever written down. It is only in memory. Most musicians remember the chords and notes of their Swing Outs; even where they were sitting when they thought them up. I don’t think they deliberately think them up. It just happens. You follow the music in your head, what the others are playing. Somehow you remember the place. Maybe it’s the place memory thing. Socrates and the orators did it with columns.
Anyhow, Dixieland refers to the swing, the southern style of music in Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans, etc. It’s music that was played along the river boat line when mostly jazz bands went along with the boats. Especially New Orleans style. All of these forms were brought to Chicago eventually. Muncie was called Little Chicago during prohibition, because it was close to Chicago and on the beer and booze run from Chicago. It also was on the moonshine run from the south. Truth be known a lot of “shine” was produced here in the good old days. Booze needs good fast music. Blues, Jazz and Country go real good with a drink.
In the south, the blues came into being with slavery. It included poor white workers in the factories and farms. Gospel went with the blues, because after you cried out your pain, you prayed and cried out for help. So you swung out with jazz and honky-tonk. Then it was all considered black and poor peoples' music. White musicians loved the sound and began early on to play that sound. Sometimes white musicians jammed with black bands. The local climate had to be adapted to that for it to work. So sometimes white musicians listened to black bands and formed their own white bands combining two styles early on. Black bands adapted white music and gospel into their music style.
Elvis came out of that tradition with the added music of singing gospel and what we called then hillbilly, western, or country. It had the same beat, breaks and Swing Outs. Still does. I think of it as front porch music. When folks were done at work in the fields or factories, they walked or drove home singing or humming tunes. When home chores were done and after supper they played their hearts out. Easing their pain, frustrations and fears. This was before MT3’s, Ipods and the internet. You understand. You sang or played the blues and that pain eased down a mite.
So listening to him in my teen-age years was just an extension of my fathers jazz and the fact that jazz had reached teen age bands and everyone was playing Louis Armstrong and other bands. Kids were listening to 45’s 33’s, radio. They listened and copied. They copied by writing down the music as they listened or by ear. Listening to the sounds and being able to replay them on drums, horns, guitars, or singing. Grand ‘Ole Opry was on. Those songs were picked up and jammed. WW 2 was over and folks were playing Glenn Miller, and Dorsey brothers songs, jazzed up.
Parents weren’t happy about this music. Except when their dad’s were musicians and they understood the beat themselves. But it had to be cleaned up. Made uptown.
So Elvis was picked to sing these songs in a discrete manner. But he didn’t. He took Chuck Berry to heart. Made it OK adults thought for kids to listen. Except we still liked Chuck Berry. In my mind he and others really began Rock and roll. For a while adults were satisfied we were safe with Elvis and didn’t listen to anyone else. But then...Elvis quit being the good poster boy and sang out his way. And became The King. A title maybe, he didn't want, maybe he didn't deserve. He just wanted to sing. I don't know. I saw a movie called, "An Americian Fable," and it told the story of how Elvis would have liked to be, but couldn't anymore. Anyway, he opeded musicical doors for everyone.
We listened to guitars and danced. We listened to Elvis and danced and sang and the gyrations and music were good. We danced. We had 45’s and we danced at peoples houses. School dances were still formal unless we sneaked in some records of our own. Our own bands jammed in garages, basements YWCA’s for birthday parties and just parties. What teenager needs a reason to dance and listen to music?
The Elvis craze grew, got on television and we loved it. Someone took our music to the world. Somehow he, Chuck Berry and others sang what kids felt. Maybe they listened, maybe our parents started playing like Elvis when they were kids.
Well, folks the night he was on Ed Sullivan, I was watching with a boy, some friends. My dad came home. Elvis was singings Heartbreak Hotel, (which I just downloaded on my IPod on my I Phone) and gyrating. The Statler brothers were the back up. Dad was furious, he cussed and screamed and hollered at us for watching such a thing and listening to such a thing. I don’t know if he was listening to the music as much as watching Elvis hips and the impression it would have on teenage girls and boys. Give them ideas. He was very worried about that as were all fathers of 16 year olds. Wonder what those fathers were up too when they were 16?
He hadn’t heard of Jerry Lee Lewis, or wow, he would have just shot out the TV.
He cussed and dammed Elvis, “Sherita Sue, this is all your fault and your friends for encouraging this sex fiend.”
So you see I was responsible for Elvis’s fame and fortune. Because I watched him on Sullivan’s show that night. Along with millions of other kids who wanted a voice in the music and adult world.
Now dad wasn’t listening to the music. Because when he did he could not fault the chords, the music. And he was impressed with the back up of the Statler brothers. Their voices. Even though he thought Elvis was true to the music. AH hem. Need I explain more?
Jerry Lee Lewis was another thing entirely. Someday we’ll go there.
But for now, I’m going to down load the whole Elvis Album from I Tunes, so I can put it on a CD. By the way have you heard the Sting Winter/Solstice/Christmas album? It is terrific. I downloaded it. Going to buy the album. And I bought Susan Boyle. Her voice and pitch are almost perfect. I want the new Bruce Springsteen album. I have to sign up for a new jazz record club. I love jazz and R & B. By the way send money to the Redkey theater, best jazz and R&B around. We’re lucky. With Doc’s, The Fickle Peach and some more downtown places. But send a buck to The Redkey Palace to keep it open. No poems today. Still rewriting. I rewrote one.

My friend, Pat Mills and I went to Washington DC a long time back. This is a poem of our Wonderful Adventure. It was. The D.C. folks took care of us. We were always getting lost. We ate hot dogs for lunch at food trucks on the mall, that cost Two bucks. And wondrous places for dinner. This poem is a part of all our travel adventures that I’m trying to get published. We went to all sorts of places and every summer to visit her mom. At that time I was an early riser ready to take on the world at dawn. Patrica went to bed at dawn. So our adventures were interesting. We drove our husbands and kids crazy. I have 20 poems about some of our travels. Maybe they are ready to publish So here is one. No one has seen them yet. But you dear blog readers are first. I'm working on a book of poems about my friend Linda's travle adventures.

D.C.
Do you remember our D.C. trip
Finding the metro after the long airplane ride
How we studied the map with its jiggling lights
We tried to find our way to the hostel
For Quakers who get to stay free
“If you work for peace and justice”
And live on Yogurt and granola
The dorm room was our cocoon to sleep and plan
I would spring up at 7:00 rush to Silent Meeting
Eat the meager fare as you would come
down creaky stairs to the backyard
To smoke with the Jamaican gardener
Where you told stories and listened to his adventures
To harvest words for your poems
So later smelling of smoke you could crunch toast
Drink coffee and wonder why you were up so early
While I planned six days of sightseeing into one

My political thought? Who how is everyone going to get health insurance now? Maybe if we don’t have insurance, we could send our medical bills to the republicans. They say they can provide it because we don’t need help from the government. Wonder who makes money off no National Health type insurance?
I agree with Whoppi Goldberg. How come Congress, who has the best insurance in the country does not want us to have what they have when we pay for it? Um.