Split Pea/ce rips poetry, electric guitar at legendary Mac's Backs on Coventry
This is a rare, maybe the only known video recording of poet Mike Marcellino and guitarist Abe Olvido performing their lyrical poetry music. Thanks to fellow poet and friend John Burroughs for being at the show and recording this video.
This show with Marcellino and multi-media artist Olvido as the band, Split Pea/ce, was recorded at the legendary Mac's Backs Bookstore on Coventry in Cleveland Heights, Ohio on October 8, 2008. That was the year Mike started his musical poetry adventures after showing Abe one of his poems earlier that year. He's not sure which one started it all.
In this video Split Pea/ce performs several of Mike's early songs: been down ta Las Cruces, Asterisks after innocence, Full moon Baltimore and West of the Pecos.
In case you're not familiar, Coventry Village in Cleveland is a miniature Midwest version of Greenwich Village in New York City or Haight Ashbury in San Francisco - places where the Sixties still survives in spots. Also, in case you wonder, looking at this rare video, Abe rarely faced the audience while creating his music.
Mike now knows why he left the snows of Cleveland for the surf of St. Augustine as he looks rather peaked at the Mac's Backs show. His hair and beard are mostly blond now bleached by the tropical sun, salt spray and lemon juice.
Split Pea/ce performed many times in Cleveland in 2008 and 2009 from the East
Side to the West Side and South.
The band's home base was the legendary Barking Spider Tavern on the campus of Case Western Reserve University, just down the road from Algebra Tea House on the old red brick Murray Hill Road in Little Italy where Mike and Abe met.
Mike reads his poetry songs at International Human Rights
Day in Cleveland as renowned reggae musician Carlos Jones jumps off stage. (Photo by The Plain Dealer)
Some of the classic performances of Split Pea/ce included
The Battle of the Bands at Peabody's where the crowds of teens and twenty
somethings went wild, jumping up on stage and asking Mike to sign copies of his
rip and read lyrics on perforated rolls of computer printing paper.
Split Pea/ce performs at Visible Voice Books in Cleveland
Mike Marcellino with noted poet and musician Ray McNiece at the Barking Spider Tavern
While Mike did talk with record company scouts, Split Pea/ce
wasn't signed to a label. Another of the band's memorable shows was at Visible
Voice Books in the Tremont neighborhood, just across the Cuyahoga River from
downtown.
In September of 2009 Mike left Cleveland to bring his
lyrical poetry to the cafes, art galleries and festivals of New York City from
the Lower East Side to Greenwich Village and Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Now he surfs the beaches of St. Augustine, America's oldest city. Mike performs and records with musicians
Tomas Texino in St. Augustine, Florida and Randall Leddy in New York City.
In the fall of 2010 to help promote his New York City shows,
Mike and Texino produced a 6-song CD "Notebook Writer." A few copies remain and can be had for a
price. Just comment on this bog if
you're interested in this classic album.
The Top 10 Reasons Mike Doesn't Celebrate His Birthday
10. He can't remember having a birthday party.
9. He doesn't like the song, "Happy Birthday."
8. He doesn't ever
act his age.
7. He doesn't look 39. Hey, it worked for Jack Benny. (Jack who?)
6. If he had a lot of money everyone would be celebrating his birthday.
5. It's two days after
the birthday of the United States Army.
Hooah! Enough said. (The Army,
which Mike proudly served in was born in 1775, even before the Declaration of
Independence.)
4. He tried at least
four times today, his birthday, to defy rip currents and gale force winds (47
knots) and get out to the set waves on his Custom X LTD Six bodyboard, but at
least he didn't get knocked into the pier.
This is video of surfing two days before Mike's birthday at the The Dredge, St. Augustine Beach, Florida by Surf Station. "The Dredge" name is a take-off of "The Wedge," south of the pier at Newport Beach, California, one of the best know surf spots in the world and where Mike got his feet wet bodyboarding (aka boogie boarding) in another age and timezone.
The name "The Dredge" refers to the dredging of sand from the inlet into the ocean by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers (actually a contractor as I haven't seen any Army fatigues yet) to help restore the sand beach wiped away by hurricanes, tropical storms and northeasters. You can even buy a cool T-shirt with a photo of The Dredge at Surf Station.
3. Mike's an official Hindu convert (among other things). And,
Hinduism is just a way of life, not a religion about a person but “karma” or cause and effect (and boy
there's sure is a lot of that lately in the world lately, and not for the
good). And besides, he doubts the really
cool religious guys like Muhammad, Buddha and Jesus had birthday parties. So now billions of people celebrate their
birthdays.
2. He's not sure his
birth certificate is for real. Kind of
like the "birthers" thing.
The Number 1 Reason Why Mike Doesn't Celebrate His Birthday:
1. He's lost in
the rain in Juarez having a shot of tequila with Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata.
(Tequila:
n. an alcoholic liquor distilled from the fermented juice of the Central
American century plant Agave tequilana.)
Emiliano Zapata Salazar
(August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919) was a leading figure in the Mexican
Revolution, which broke out in 1910, and which was initially directed against
the president Porfirio Díaz. He formed and commanded an important revolutionary
force, the Liberation Army of the South, during the Mexican Revolution.
Followers of Zapata were known as Zapatistas. He is a figure from the
Mexican Revolution era who is still revered today. - adapted from Wikipedia
A peasant since childhood, he gained insight
into the severe difficulties of the countryside.-Wikipedia
Viva Zapata! is a 1952
fictional-biographical film directed by Elia Kazan. The screenplay was written
by John Steinbeck. Anthony Quinn won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and nominations included Best Actor for Marlon Brando and Best Screenplay for Steinbeck.
Viva Zapata! may be my favorite film.
*Thanks to my very smart friend, Paula Osborn of California, for coming up with the snappy "unBirthday" description.
I knew something was wrong after the 1960s and 1970s when many Americans were living the dream and taking action to bring on civil rights and stopping America's longest war the Vietnam War people were living.
What happened? How did the American dream die in three decades? Well, now you and I can find out in the new book The Price of Inequality by Nobel prize sinning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz. Here's an article from Vanity Fair magazine to give you a test of Stiglitz' findings. This should help us figure out how to clear the decks, change direction and bring back The American Dream."
Well, at least this growing inequality in American may put the lid on the desire of people to immigrate to the United States. We are no longer the land of opportunity for the poor, working and middle classes. While many conservatives in American may not know the dream is dead, or care, as long as they get richer the rest of the world surely knows of our downfall.
Consider the Walton family: the six heirs to the Walmart empire possess a
combined wealth of some $90 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth
of the entire bottom 30 percent of U.S. society. - Stiglitz in Vanity Fair.
The 1 Percent’s Problem
Why
won’t America’s 1 percent—such as the six Walmart heirs, whose wealth
equals that of the entire bottom 30 percent—be a bit more . . . selfish?
As the widening financial divide cripples the U.S. economy, even those
at the top will pay a steep price.
Let’s start by laying down the baseline
premise: inequality in America has been widening for decades. We’re all
aware of the fact. Yes, there are some on the right who deny this
reality, but serious analysts across the political spectrum take it for
granted. I won’t run through all the evidence here, except to say that
the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent is vast when looked at
in terms of annual income, and even vaster when looked at in terms of
wealth—that is, in terms of accumulated capital and other assets.
Consider the Walton family: the six heirs to the Walmart empire possess a
combined wealth of some $90 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth
of the entire bottom 30 percent of U.S. society. (Many at the bottom
have zero or negative net worth, especially after the housing debacle.)
Warren Buffett put the matter correctly when he said, “There’s been
class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won.”
So,
no: there’s little debate over the basic fact of widening inequality.
The debate is over its meaning. From the right, you sometimes hear the
argument made that inequality is basically a good thing: as the rich
increasingly benefit, so does everyone else. This argument is false:
while the rich have been growing richer, most Americans (and not just
those at the bottom) have been unable to maintain their standard of
living, let alone to keep pace. A typical full-time male worker receives
the same income today he did a third of a century ago.
From the
left, meanwhile, the widening inequality often elicits an appeal for
simple justice: why should so few have so much when so many have so
little? It’s not hard to see why, in a market-driven age where justice
itself is a commodity to be bought and sold, some would dismiss that
argument as the stuff of pious sentiment. Put sentiment aside.
There are good reasons why plutocrats should care about inequality
anyway—even if they’re thinking only about themselves. The rich do not
exist in a vacuum. They need a functioning society around them to
sustain their position. Widely unequal societies do not function
efficiently and their economies are neither stable nor sustainable. The
evidence from history and from around the modern world is unequivocal:
there comes a point when inequality spirals into economic dysfunction
for the whole society, and when it does, even the rich pay a steep
price.
Let me run through a few reasons why.
Click this link for the full story by Stiglitz in Vanity Fair:
I find this part rather startling. It captures just how upside down America is today:
Consider the Walton family: the six heirs to the Walmart empire possess a
combined wealth of some $90 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth
of the entire bottom 30 percent of U.S. society.
(Many at the bottom
have zero or negative net worth, especially after the housing debacle.)
Warren Buffett put the matter correctly when he said, “There’s been
class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won.”
We are now at a turning pout in the matter of the growing inequality in America, the death of the American Dream and the stagnant economy with millions jobless with the presidential election only 16 weeks away.
So, how many people are unemployed now? The Labor Department report for May shows unemployment is tuck at 8.2% with 12.7 million Americans unemployed. But that figure is grossly misleading.
And amazingly, I found the real, man on the street data in the most unlikely place: The Website of the Republican Majority in Congress. Funny, the very people who have supported policies favoring the 1%, the rich, show that the true number of American jobless or underemployed (part timers who can't find full time jobs and people who gave up looking) is 23,533,000! The Republicans of course are promoting the terrible state of the economy and unemployment in order blame it all on President Obama. Just image if Mitt Romney wins and the Republican Party now controlled with reactionary conservatives retain control of the House and capture the White House along with the Senate.
The Republicans also note that 46.2 million Americans live in poetry, the highest poverty rate in 52 years. It's mind blowing that they have the nerve to use the data showing the death of the American Dream that they, for the most part, caused.
Here's an excerpt from the Website of the Republican Majority in Congress:
15.2%: The rate of
“underemployment” or “real unemployment,” including the unemployed,
those who want work but have stopped searching in this economy, and
those who are forced to work part-time because they cannot find
full-time employment is 15.2 percent.
12,806,000: There were 12.8 million unemployed Americans looking for work in the month of February, up by 48,000 from January.
8,119,000: The
number of Americans who worked only part-time in February because they
could not find full-time employment was 8.1 million. The number of
people working part-time for economic reasons reached 8 million for the first time in history in
January 2009 and has remained above 8 million for 37 consecutive
months.
2,608,000: The
number of people who are available to work and have looked for a job at
some point in the last year but are not counted as unemployed because
they gave up their search is now 2.6 million.
1,006,000:
The number of discouraged people who stopped looking for work because
they believed there were no jobs available is now 1 million.
23,533,000:
The total number of “underemployed” Americans is 23.5 million,
including those unemployed (12.7 million), those who are no longer
looking for work (2.8 million), and those who are working part-time
because no other work is available (8.2 million).
What I find rather frustrating is that President Obama has not and does not seem to be inclined to confront the causes of the growing inequality in America and death of the American Dream. He's made some off handed comments that Occupy Wall Street has a point, but he isn't making this a campaign issue, at least not yet.
I believe if President Obama does not confront the decline of America forcefully with a concrete plan of action to do something to reverse course and bring the dream alive, he will lose the election. And, if that happens, the great majority of Americans will suffer for it and American will become a second rate nation.
The time is now. The situation is critical. It's a turning point. You might say the choice is: a nation of opportunity versus a nation of Walmarts. It's just about that simple.
UNSMIS staff in the Syrian village of Mazraat al-Qubeir conduct a fact-finding mission. Photo: UNSMIS/David Manyua (from United Nation's website)
From the United Nation's website:
After earlier obstructions, UN observers reach reported site of massacre in Syria
8 June 2012 – After
earlier obstructions, UN observers today reached the Syrian village of
Mazraat al-Qubeir, where a massacre of civilians reportedly took place
on Wednesday.
“We found the village empty of its local inhabitants, bmp [tank] tracks
on the road, a house damaged from shelling, with a wide range of calibre
types and grenades,” said the spokesperson for the UN Supervision in
Syria (UNSMIS), Sausan Ghosheh. We found burned homes, and at least one burnt with bodies inside – there was a heavy stench of burned flesh.”
According to media reports, Syrian activists claim that Government
troops and militiamen massacred at least 78 villagers in Mazraat
al-Qubeir, located near the city of Hama, on Wednesday. The Syrian
Government has said the accusations are false.
A group of 25 UNSMIS observers reached the village mid-afternoon on Friday, after having been obstructed in earlier attempts.
Syrian Massacre: Will the killing be stopped?
The United Nations is a Wimp!
Tens of thousands of people killed in Syria and it seems no one can figure out what's going on, or do anything about it.
Who is responsible for killing thousands of civilians?
Secretary of State Clinton keeps wailing at the situation, but the United States, President Obama at the helm, does nothing.
Of course, this is nothing new, or specific to Obama.
The United States picks and chooses when to press the metal. And, yes, the president is commander in chief and he or she is responsible.
Meanwhile President Obama (and Bush before him) picks and chooses drone attacks killing terrorists or everyday people in various places around the world.
Who decides whether to stop the slaughter of innocents by the scores, hundreds, thousands or millions at any point in time and any spot on the earth?
Who decides that?
Major-General Robert, Chief Military Observer and Head of Mission of UNSMIS. Photo: UMSMIS/H. Siklawi
Woody Guthrie is not on the YouTube Top 20
by Mike Marcellino
My night began, interestingly enough with rediscovering the folk music and life of legendary songwriter and traveler Woody Guthrie. Born in 1912 in a small Oklahoma town, Okemah, which is named after an Kickapoo Indian chief. In a 1944 interview with the BBC Children's Hour, Woody recalls his childhood in Okemah, Oklahoma where he was born, growing up with "one-third Indians, one-third Negroes and one-third whites." Woody was "washing dishes," he says, aboard a Liberty Ship in the Merchant Marines. Here's a video of the BBC show where Woody also talks about his traveling cross country during The Depression where he picked up folk songs from those folks and started writing and later recording his own songs.
It began to sink in that Woody Guthrie began the great American folk music revival that continues today, more than 80 years later. Woody Guthrie would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year, on July 14th. In this live performance for the BBC, Woody sings two traditional folk songs about trains (I love trains and I gather Woody hopped some freights in his time.) He sings "Wasbash Cannonball" and "900 Miles": :
.I've been to Okemah and it hasn't changed much but the newspaper is thriving, contrary to the national demise of news papers. It's a pretty desolate, country where violent snow and rain storms roll across the plains. Woody, is probably best known for his song "This Land Is My Land" which he wrote in 1940 partly over his love of the song "America the Beautiful." In two versus, he writes about the inequality in America among the classes of people.
"As I went walking, I saw a sign there, And on the sign there, It said "no trespassing." [In another version, the sign reads "Private Property"] But on the other side, it didn't say nothing! That side was made for you and me. In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple; By the relief office, I'd seen my people. As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking, Is this land made for you and me?"
Guthrie also perform at a benefit for migrant farm workers in 1940 put on by the John Steinbeck Committee to Aid Farm Workers. Guthrie had gone to New York City where, according to reports, he was embraced by the leftist folk music community, where he met Pete Seeger and the two became friends. Woody performed on CBS radio in New York City, but soon he traveled west back to California where he had performed on radio shows.
Woody playin for some folks
None of Woody Guthrie's songs is among the Top 20 YouTube videos (even though it's the 100th Anniversary of his birth and he gave birth to modern American folks music). Well, that's no surprise, even Bob Dylan's top viewed video on YouTube is a far cry from the Top 20 with only 6 million views. Lady Gaga has 11 songs on the Top 20 with a total of, it's hard to fathom, 1.1 BILLION views. ("Bad Romance" has 466 million views alone. My take on "Bad Romance" is "bad song" and band video". Actually, mysteriously I have somehow lost the ability on YouTube to actually get a list of the Top 20 videos by views. I just stumbled into it pressing and clicking. Well, I did see Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" has 38 million views. Marley, of course, is a legendary reggae folk musician from Jamaica whose music and life was deeply into social causes. Marley died in 1981 at age 36.
Buffalo Soldier by Bob Marley
"I'm just a Buffalo Soldier In the heart of America Stolen from Africa, brought to America Said he was fighting on arrival Fighting for survival Said he was a Buffalo Soldier Win the war for America"
"Buffalo Soldier" written by Bob Marley and Noel G. "King Sport" Williams and recorded in 1983. To Marley it was a song about the oppression against Africans brought to America as slaves. The blacks who fought in the U. S. Cavalry in the later 1800s to subdue the Indians were known as Buffalo Soldiers. Marley likened their "fight" as Buffalo Soldiers as a fight for survival and a symbol of black resistance.
In the late 1940s, Guthrie became ill. His behavior was erratic. He was first diagnosed with alcoholism and schizophrenia, but in 195s they determined he suffered from the very debilitating Huntington's disease.
In 1961, Bob Dylan traveled to New York City to perform and visit Guthrie, his idol. Dylan visited Guthrie at Greystone Psychiatric Hospital in Brooklyn and the two hit it off fairly well. But, on his last visit Guthrie didn't recognize Dylan. Guthrie was confined in several mental hospitals in New York City until his death in 1967.
You may wonder by now, what does this mean, Mike?
It means that folk musicians like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and Bob Marley are more popular than YouTube may tell us. To my knowledge, there aren't any videos of Guthrie performing, though there are some live recordings.
Still, the times me be changing again, to borrow from Dylan's popular folk song. I think the millions of people protesting against class inequalities in the United States (Occupy Wall Street) and around the world (the Arab Spring uprisings) may be in tune with Woody Guthrie, the Oklahoma Cowboy, whether they've ever heard of him, read his words or listened to his songs.
Here's a link to listen to more Woody Guthrie songs on Smithsonian Folkways website:
(I also highly recommend the collection of Woody Guthrie unheard lyrics that Wilco and Billy Bragg recorded on albums Mermaid Avenue I and II (1998 and 2000):
One of my favorite Guthrie songs, "Pretty Boy Floyd" which was left out of his first and most popular album, "Dustbowl Ballads" recorded in 1940. Here's some great lines from Woody's song, capturing the Oklahoma band robber and the times:
"If you'll gather 'round me, children, a story I will tell 'Bout Pretty Boy Floyd, an Outlaw, Oklahoma knew him well."
"As through this world you travel, you'll meet some funny men/ Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."
Floyd, after outlaw John Dillinger was shot to death by lawmen, was America's Public Enemy No. 1 in 1934. While Floyd robbed banks, he was never convicted of murder though he was suspected to killing an Akron, Ohio policeman, two bootleggers and an ATF agent. On the other hand, some view Floyd as a victim of the hard times and an outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor, like Jesse James, America's most famous outlaw who robbed banks and trains, certainly killed some folks but never convicted of murder either. Have a listen to "Pretty Boy Floyd" written and performed by Woody Guthrie:
To wind up this folk tale, here's a wonderful tribute to Woody Guthrie by Bob Dylan, "Song to Woody" recorded on Dylan's first album in 1962.
So much for that, as apparently Sony records has taken down the YouTube video of Dylan's original version on his first album, "Bob Dylan."
So, someone, maybe the guy that posted the video record in the first place, said he paid for the album and had a right to "broadcast it." He suggested the millions of Dylan fans boycott Sony. Not a bad idea.
But, here's an even more interesting version of "Song to Woody" by Dylan, recorded in 1970, after the Beatles broke up, accompanied by George Harrison. Here's the description by the YouTube poster on January 4, 2012:
"Columbia Studio 3, New York City, 1st May 1970. After The Beatles' break-up, on April 1970, George Harrison went to New York City where he met Bob Dylan at Columbia Studios. With other musicians (Charlie Daniels on bass guitar and backup vocals, Billy Mundi on drums and Bob Johnson on piano) they recorded some songs, many of them written by Dylan. George played guitar and sang backup vocals while Dylan sang lead vocals and played guitar."
Unfortuantely, i seems that Bob Dylan or his armies keep removing any really cool videos of him singing so i will have to find another version of "Song to Woody"! You would think that if Woody Guthrie was really Dylan's hero he share his tribute to Woody.
It was the fall of 1969 and I had a Dodge Coronet 500, light blue, or aqua, and a Hurst five speed and already dropped a clutch.
While the newspaper, The Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph, the oldest newspaper in the Western Reserve, east of Cleveland, didn't assign me, I volunteered to cover the march against the Vietnam War in Washington. D. C. on Saturday, November 15, 1969. Hey, after all I had volunteered to cover the war itself for the United States Army. I had only been back from Vietnam for a little more than a year and the first six moths I drove from one corner of the country to the other in my Coronet 500 with an Indian-Chinese girl I had married in Singapore. The trunk was full. I had a lot of vinyl. I was trying to unwind and land in some town as a newspaper reporter. I'll never forget an editor of a California paper telling me he couldn't hire me because I hadn't covered politics. Yea, I just covered a war.
Now, this being a piece I am blogging, I decided music would be appropriate at this time. So, rather randomly, I'm listening to Cat Stevens' "Wild World (1970)." He's well known for his conversion to Islam to become Yusuf Islam, but the British singer songwriter was born Steven Demetre Georgiou, 21 July 1948. He had a Greek-Cypriot father and a Swedish mother.
So, here's "Wild World" by Yusuf Islam. Cat Stevens is back so to speak and the world goes on.
The tires on my Coronet 500 were bald and we decided to make the trip to D. C. at the last minute to do a photo feature story for the weekend magazine, "Telegraphic." We (photographer Dennis Gordon and I) ran into a blizzard on the Pennsylvania Turnpike and all I remember is endless seas of fluffy white lit by my headlights and the windshield wipers going back and forth. This wicked snowstorm reminded me of how the Huey helicopter pilots described night flying on their "Firely" missions to stop the VC from infiltrating troops and supplies into the Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. (The last of the U. S. troops pulled out in 1973 and South Vietnam fell to an invasion of the North Vietnamese army two years later.)
All I could think of was the bald tires and staying on the road winding through the Allegheny Mountains. We got into D. C. at 4 o'clock in the morning. I pulled over on the side of the road somewhere. It was pitch dark and nothing was moving. We woke up a few hours later to the banging of police billy clubs on fenders of my Coronet 500. I don't remember where we put the car, just somewhere away from the Capital.
It was crystal clear but cold, in the 30s, but by the end of he day it was bitter. The day turned out to be historic in a number of ways. An estimated 600,000 people marched and filled The Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. And, other than some teargassing of demonstrators later in the day at DuPont Circle, the day was peaceful. It was the largest march on Washington in our nation's history.
Can you imagine waiving the Taliban flag and marching on Washington today? Or, maybe a flag of peace in a neutral color would work. Those flags of a different color today may be the Arab Spring and Occupy and other such protests around the world. People want their rights and they don't want wars.
I'll never forget at the end of the day, looking at the courtyard in the Department of Justice complex filled with tanks and troops. I'll let these photos, first published on November 21, 1969 tell the rest of the story. The image of the Viet Cong flag framing the U. S. Capital building seems to tell the story of our nation's longest war.
A few weeks before the march on Washington The Beatles released "Come Together." Well, people did though it took some years but finally they ended the bloody war.
Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare
A photo of American aviator Amelia Earhart in a biography
I discovered at the International Women's Air and Space Museum in Cleveland.
Landing gear may be key to mystery of Amelia's disappearance
Investigators think they've uncovered a key clue that will lead them to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary aviator Amelia Earhart, who disappeared on a trans-Pacific flight 75 years ago.
Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), said a new enhanced analysis of a photo taken on the Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro, formerly Gardner Island, three months after Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappeared, may show the landing gear of her Lockheed Electra protruding from a reef.
Watch a CNN video report and story from March 20, 2012 on this link:
Aviator and poet Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Electra, the plane she was flying when she was lost in her attempt to be the first pilot to fly around the world
(Note: This article was originally published at the time of the release of the film, "Amelia" in October 2009. Since then, Mike Marcellino has risen to #31 Top Folk Artists, New York City chart, ReverbNation.)
You're invited to listen to "Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings" written by Mike Marcellino with Mike on vocal, Tom Mechling on mandolin and David Dowling on guitar. The song was recorded in St. Augustine, Florida.
In the week since the song's release Mike Marcellino has hit No. 133 on Reverbnation's Folk Chart for New York City.
Here's a clip from the new film, "Amelia" starring Hilary Swank
Mike was inspired to write the song after a visit to the International Women's Air and Space Museum at Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, Ohio. He admires the courage of the pioneering female aviator. Ms. Earhart's plane disappeared over the Pacific Ocean as she attempted to by the first woman to fly around the world in 1937.
Clip of Hilary Swank, starring in "Amelia" opening tomorrow
Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings
By Mike Marcellino
Amelia Earhart,
Love your picture
in flight.
love your goggles,
love your lips.
Love how you circled the world,
single handed.
Amelia
amelia
amelia
Like that leather
air cap.
You’re a goddess, a woman
soft white,
ahead of your time,
such afterglow
night
in shinning armor.
Meet me on a northern coast,
not far from the equator,
above the island
where they made King Kong.
You’re Atlantis, risen
in my South China Sea.
Amelia
amelia
amelia
Oh, your last flight
Oh, your last flight,
what a night
Looking at your picture
in my book,
soft silver
soft silver
wings.
Your lips, painted colors
light, pretty pink.
Those eyes,
imagine,
sigh.
Your nails, natural,
fingertips.
taking you with me.
Amelia
amelia
amelia,
soft silver
soft silver
wings.
Your words,
Courage
Courage is the price that Life extracts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release.
From little things.
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear.
Not mountain heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
How can life grant us boon of living, compensate
For dull grey ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul’s dominion? Each time we make a choice, we pay
With courage to behold the restless day,
And count it fair. - Amelia Earhart, 1927
You made the crossing
not alone.
Meet you over the Atlantic.
Amelia
amelia
amelia,
Soft silver,
soft silver wings.
Copyright 2009 by Mike Marcellino, “Amelia Earhart, soft silver wings”
Our band finished recording and mixing our latest lyrical poetry song, "Scottish Pipes" and released it today, Tuesday, March 6, 2012.
The music composed by Tomas Texino features the African "Talking
Drum" and flute with a bagpipe finale, not to be missed.
The song was more than two decades in the making. Mike Marcellino wrote a poem, "Scottish Pipes" in 1989. Working with Texino this year, Mike reworked the poem, added some history and turned it into a song.
To
listen to "Scottish Pipes" and other of the band's lyrical poetry songs, use the music player at the top of this blog, or you may use link to
Mike Marcellino's musician/band page on Facebook. There you may share
"Scottish Pipes" and like our band page to help us grow!
Edinburgh Castle is the oldest in Scotland dating back to the 12th Century. The photo from Wikipedia is of the Sir William Wallace window in St. Margaret's Chapel, the oldest surviving structure. Wallace was a knight and one of the leaders of the fight for Scottish Independence as depicted in the film, "Braveheart," winner of five Academy Awards in 1995 including Best Picture. (Photos from Wikipedia).
This fall, Mike hopes to perform his lyrical poetry songs in Scotland, hopefully including a show in Edinburgh, outside the castle maybe. The band is planning a performance tour of Europe to discover
American fol music roots there and so Mike can discover his own Scotch-Irish, French-German, English roots. Stay tuned, we'll keep you posted.
Donovan inspires "Scottish Pipes"
Donovan sings "Hurdy Gurdy Man" live in Paris in 1970
Lost verse of Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" written by George Harrison -
When the truth gets buried deep
Beneath the thousand years of sleep
Time demands a turn-around
And once again the truth is found
Awakening the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Who comes singing songs of love.
Not sure how I happened to listen to the music of Donovan, a Scottish singer songwriter and friend of The Beatles, but in 1964 he recorded "Catch the Wind." I listened to it a lot as that was about what I was trying to do. At the end of 1965, I enlisted in the U. S. Army rather than be drafted as the Vietnam War was going on. I ended up in Vietnam anyway and in early 1968 I listened to Hurdy Gurdy Man in my "hootch" as the war went out outside. While they say Donovan mimicked Bob Dylan, I never thought so, but both drew there influences from Woody Guthrie and Ramblin Jack Elliot.
In 2012, Donovan will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; a rather overdue induction. Both "Hurdy Gurdy Man" and "Catch the Wind" rose high on the charts in the U. S. and the British Isles.
It just so happens I am working on a new lyrical poetry song recording of a poem I wrote in the middle of the night back in 1989 as I searched for my Scottish roots, awake from flashbacks from the war.
Scottish
Pipes
by
Mike Marcellino
Scottish pipes
wail away.
Scottish pipes
wail away
in a room with yellow walls.
Outside
stacks of painted chimneys.
Inside
a tv antenna
pointed southeast.
Gray silver white clouds
rolling in
from the north
over water
dotted with soft blue holes,
patchwork.
A painter’s eyes,
tar rectangles, angles
blasting light
from copper metal
on the second level.
Blasting light
on pale
yellow painted walls.
Scottish pipes
wail away.
Scottish pipes
wail away
in a room with yellow walls.
Dreaming of the hurdy gurdy man,
the tribes of Galway
from across the Irish sea
playing strings of love
in St. Margaret's Chapel
from the 12th Century.
Third floor
rooftop melodies.
Scottish pipes
wail away.
Scottish pipes
wail away
in a room with yellow walls.
Listen to the radio.
Listen to the radio -
Loretta Lynn
part Scotch-Irish
part Cherokee.
Sleet storms.
Copyright Mike Marcellino, 2012 (originally written October 7,
1989)
The Hurdy Gurdy
The hurdy-gurdy is the first stringed instrument to which the keyboard principle was applied. The French name,Viella a Roue(wheel fiddle), describes the method by which sound is produced. The bowing action of the fiddle is replaced by a wheel cranked by a handle. The outer rim of the wooden wheel is coated with resin. When the crank is spun, the wheel turns and the gut strings vibrate.
Just as the bag of the bagpipe acts as a reservoir of air for continuous sound, so too the wheel makes possible continuous sound by avoiding changes of bowing. Both bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy use drones, provided in the former by reed pipes, and in the latter by strings which sound fixed pitches. Other strings tuned in unison provide notes of the scale. Tangents activated by keys press these strings at the appropriate points to produce different pitches.
There is evidence of the hurdy-gurdy in Europe in the twelfth century. By the end of this century, the instruments was highly regarded. Before 1300 the instrument was often long enough to require two performers, one to crank, and one to push the keys. Single player instruments developed in the thirteenth century when the hurdy-gurdy became the ideal instrument for dance music.
Musica Antiqua's hurdy-gurdy, really a four string symphonie or organistrum by Ellis, is based on a late fourteenth century Florentine marble fingure in the Vienna Leichtenstein Gallery. It has two unison chanterelles, two drones, and an interior pegbox. It is oblong in shape and has tuneable tangents and a range of two diatonic octaves with drones on g and d1. The gut strings are difficult to keep in tune when there are changes in temperature or humidity. Notice the cotton wrapped around the strings to keep the circular bow from wearing through the strings.
Hurdy Gurdy Man by Donovan Thrown like a star in my vast sleep I open my eyes to take a peep To find that I was by the sea Gazing with tranquility. 'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Came singing songs of love, Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Came singing songs of love. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast Down through all eternity The crying of humanity. 'Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Comes singing songs of love, Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man Comes singing songs of love. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang. Here comes the roly poly man and he's singing songs of love, Roly poly, roly poly, roly poly, poly he sang. Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang, Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang Hurdy gurdy: Beowulf to New York City subways In this YouTube video, a folk music artist plays the hurdy gurdy in an excerpt from the 8th Century epic tale Beowulf.
Beowulf on the hurdy gurdy
In contrast, in this YouTube video, Melissa Kacalanos brings the hurdy gurdy's mixture of medieval and Middle East sounds into the subways of New York City at Canal Street in 2006.
