I’m trying to figure out just when I made this painting. It must have been sometime in the 90s but I don’t remember what year. I had been out west and met a friend of Candy Minx, a fascinating fellow named Pete, who gave us a great tour of the TRIUMF particle accelerator out at UBC. Sometime later I made this painting, which I called Painting for Pete and the World’s Largest Cyclotron.
This is a large painting, about 7 feet wide, oil on canvas.
Yumart in Toronto represents me for my paintings.
Here is the 3rd installment of The Lazy Allen Stories. You can also read The Bottle & Can as well as Star Beauty on this blog. These short-short stories are works of fiction – I made them up. Any resemblance to real humans, living or dead, is coincidental. Comments about these stories are welcome (I have a thick skin).
BoomBoom and Ndidi
We were nursing beers, me and Staashu, in a dank basement punker bar with some kind of Vietnamese name, over in Kensington Market. He’d been dragging me to dive bars around the city looking for musicians for this crazy polka band he was putting together. I was sure this time he’d lost his mind.
I was the oldest guy in the bar by a longshot and I felt plenty out of place with my slicked back hair and flannel shirt. By that point Staash had taken to wearing suspenders, and he had this pencil moustache happening and the two of us were gathering snickers from the Mohawk crowd.
The Strip was already on stage when we got there, hammering their way through a cover of Too Drunk to Fuck. Somebody in the back hurled a beer bottle across the club. The drummer ducked his head out of the way without missing a beat. The bottle smashed against the wall, and the band carried on like this happened all the time.
These the guys?
That’s them. The singer there calls himself The Razor. He’s out on bail. They got him cold for sticking up a Beckers store. He’ll be out of the picture pretty soon. Bass player is Ndidi Nigeria and the drummer is her boyfriend, goes by Johnny Boomboom.
What’s with the names?
I figure the punk scene is a lot like pro wrestling. You got to have a nickname.
What makes you think these people want to be in a polka band, Staashu? They’re punkers for God’s sake.
It don’t hurt to ask, Lazy.
Ndidi Nigeria and Johnny Boomboom laid down the rhythm like the evening train while Mr. Razor did his anti-dance bad-ass rebel routine across the stage, spitting out the lyrics with as much venom as he could muster up. Hardcore, they called it. Straight ahead, 4/4, loud and aggressive. Not my thing but they were good.
You must be the polka boys.
In person.
Boomboom was staring at Staashu.
I seen you somewhere before.
I been around.
Yeah, I remember now. Didn’t you used to play B3 in West King’s outfit?
I’ll be damned, that was a while back now, but yeah I did.
I used to listen to you guys at the Palace. Old school R&B, I loved that stuff.
Oh yeah?
I was pretty young, you know. I had this bad fake ID but it got me in.
We had a helluva band back then.
What happened? You guys played that gig for a long time.
West finally retired and him and his wife packed up and moved down to Miami to be close to their daughter.
What you been doing since?
Haven’t been playing much. Working for a living for a while. Hey this is Lazy Allen.
Hey man.
Good to meet you.
Lazy used to play in some of the best polka bands around. He’s been out of it for a while too.
So, polka’s dead man. What are you trying to do?
I don’t know. We want to take the music somewhere different I guess.
Crazy.
I thought you two might be bored. Heard your singer there is going away. Thought maybe we could do something interesting.
This ain’t our only gig. We got some studio work going on.
That’s cool with me. Listen, we got some rehearsal space at the old Polish Hall out in Long Branch. We’re going to do a late rehearsal Thursday night. Come on out, play some music with us, then let’s talk.
We got a gig Thursday. One set at 11.
That’s no problem, me and Lazy are working until 11, then heading over to Ruby’s pub for a few. Meet us there after.
Ndidi finally spoke, to Boomboom.
You want to, B?
What the Hell. Why not?
We got to get back on stage. We’ll see you guys then.
Halfway through the next set, a cop walked into the club, in full blues. He walked straight up to the front and shook hands with the Vietnamese dude who owned the joint, who looked about as out of place as us. They talked for a minute and I could see the guy was pointing over at us.
Sure enough, the cop paid us a visit.
You boys here to cause trouble? I don’t want to see no trouble here.
No trouble boss. We’re just here to take in some tunes from the band over there.
You think I’m a fucking idiot? I don’t know what you’re doing here but I can smell trouble cooking. Time you two moved along.
We’re not causing no trouble.
I’m going to tell you one more time. Move along. The Silver Dollar’s more your speed. Why don’t you head over there. Go now and you’ll be in time for last call.
He had that tough-guy cop look about him that said he meant business. I looked over at Staashu. I really didn’t feel like getting beat up.
We were just leaving sir. We don’t want no trouble.
Ndidi and Boomboom watched from the stage as we were escorted out.
Here’s Matt Kinman, performing the Merle Travis masterpiece, Dark as a Dungeon.
There are a few coal mining tunes around. Let’s listen to The Mountain by Steve Earle, performed here by Mr. Earle withLevon Helm and his band.
And to cap off this little coal mining post, here’s an image of a coal mining painting by Coal Miner Jack Savitsky. This painting is in our collection.
Mr. Savitsky was a coal miner from Lansford Pennsylvania. After giving up mining, he started painting. Savitsky made quite a lot of paintings and drawings, and enjoyed success from the sale of his paintings in his lifetime.
The poor boy is on the line, and the promised land is coming. Here’s swamp pop king Johnnie Allan with Belton Richard playing some excellent accordion….
As much as I love the way those guys did up Promised Land, it isn’t my fave swamp pop tune. My fave swamp pop tune is Opelousas Sostan by Rufus Jaganeaux…
Back to Johnnie Allan (and the Krazy Kats), with South to Louisiana. You will recognize this as a knock-off of the Johnny Horton hit, North to Alaska…
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little set of swamp pop tunes. Let’s go out with Cookie and the Cupcakes performing Mathilda
Tonight I made up a batch of potato & cheese pierogi for Christmas. I’ve got them freezing on plates like this. Once they’re well frozen, I’ll transfer them to freezer bags. If you simply try to freeze them in bags, you’re apt to wind up with one big pierogi as they tend to stick together.
When I was growing up, there were always pierogi and cabbage rolls and meat sticks (patychky) served at Christmas, and we always had a big coil of kielbasa from Czehoski. Czehoski is gone now, but there is still some excellent sausage available in Toronto.
When I have time to do it, I like to make some of the Polish foods at Christmas. It reminds me of those days growing up, and reminds me of my mom and dad. I don’t know how much I’ll have time to do this year, but I’ll do my best.
My brother has strongly suggested I make up a roaster of cabbage rolls. I’m working Christmas Eve morning this year, but if I organize my self, maybe I can make up some that afternoon/evening (it takes a long time). One of the best things about cabbage rolls is that they are excellent as left-overs – just warm them up in the oven and you’re in business.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic historical novel, by Wayne Johnston. It was published in 1998. I found it in the 27th Street Book Box, and recognized the name of the author, as I’ve previously read his excellent Baltimore’s Mansion.
I was afraid to begin this one. First of all it’s a big book – my copy has 562 pages. That’s a significant commitment. Secondly, it is an historical novel, whose narrative voice is that of a real historical figure, Joey Smallwood, Newfoundland’s first Premier. The Smallwood character has a foil, an unrequited love, a fictional character named Fielding.
I confess I do not know enough about Joey Smallwood nor Newfoundland’s history to know where truth leaves off and fiction begins. This worried me, at least until the novel drew me in and convinced me that it didn’t matter.
I said this was a big book and this is true beyond the number of pages. It deals with a significant chunk of history, during which Newfoundland became part of Canada, and it deals with two characters whose lives are intertwined in a complex and somewhat mysterious way.
How can a novel written in the voice of a real politician be interesting? In fact I found it to be fascinating and engaging and complex and at times lovely. I confess were points at which I found this novel frustrating and other points at which I wished it had been edited back a hundred pages or so, (and yet I couldn’t say which parts I wanted edited back), but mostly I became deeply immersed in it.
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is a tale of ambition, a history, a love story and a loving portrait of Newfoundland. Recommended.
Tuffy P posting this morning’s photo from our side door.
I’ve never posted Christmas music on this blog…with the possible exception of Weird Bob Dylan performing Must be Santa Claus. Here’s an Appalachian take on a Christmas song.
Hooray Jake, Hooray John
Breakin up Christmas all day long
Way back yonder a long time ago
The old folks danced the do-si-do
Santa Claus come, done and gone
Breakin up Christmas all night long
On my way home from my job today I stopped into a convenient Loblaws to pick up a few items. Lo and behold, what did I see, but displays of genuine honest-to-God beer. Politicians have been threatening to make beer available in groceries stores as long as I can remember and finally they’ve done it. No wine or hard liquor though, oh no, no, no. And not in convenience stores, only selected grocery stores.
There was a decent selection of craft brews available, so I picked up a couple Boneshakers and a couple Headstock IPAs from Burlington.
I got my groceries together and found a cashier, but after a few minutes I realized that you could only go through certain cash lines if you had beer. Basically I noticed the new signs…
I trundled over to one of the beer lanes. It turns out that SMART Serve Certified means asking everyone for ID. Can I see a piece of government issued picture ID please? Of course I started laughing. I just turned 55. I must be 20 years older than you, I said to the woman at the cash. This was met by the stare of death. Er…30…I must be 30 years older than you. That was a better guess, apparently, and drew a smile. I have to ask everybody, she told me.
I’ve been on planes twice in the past couple days. Both times, I watched many people each carrying two stuffed-full bags, neither of which was close to small enough to meet the carry-on limits, waltz onto the plane without anybody from the airline saying, hey we don’t have enough room for all your stuff – you’ll have to check it.
Fine – except that by the time I got to my row – both flights – the overheads were jam-packed and I had to shove my meager little overnight bag and overcoat under the seat in front of me.
Then the airline had the nerve to make an announcement asking for volunteers to check bags because they were out of room in the overheads. This, I confess, made me grumpy. (Add to that the total lack of snacks outside the overpriced sandwiches – not even a mini-bag of pretzels).
27th Street 