Tag: Folkie Palace

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Debut

I thought I’d worked through all the issues. But the leftover residue from my days as a folksinger had other ideas. In this case, an awful internet meme on Facebook. Some smarmy, smart-ass comment with an absurd photo. In this case, a heavily bearded male nude with a guitar concealing his groin.
We lived a wild existence at the Folkie Palace, and this image brought one of the worst theatre of the absurd incidents to mind.

We were bored. Being bored on a Friday night was a dangerous thing. We were sitting around drinking Narragansett from Giant Imperial Quarts while our alcohol enhanced minds turned over the possibilities for the weekend. Jack, one of the Folkie Palace wannabe’s, suggested that we head up to Maine. He knew of a church-sponsored coffeehouse. I could grab a gig, Bill could spook the locals, and all would have a good time. Why not? So we laid plans to drive up Saturday afternoon.
The next day we needed to secure transportation. Borrowing the Teahead of the August Moon’s car was as easy as teasing the keys from his pocket as he slept on the couch. Within two hours, we were careening through backroads in rural Maine to a midsized town dominated by old mills and a roaring river. Near the center of town stood a white-steepled church. A small sign near the side entrance read Fellowship Coffeehouse – All Welcome. Truthfully we were not sure that we’d be welcome if they knew too much about us, but the sign did indicate that all were welcome.
Like other church coffeehouses, Fellowship Coffeehouse was in the church hall. Tables and chairs clustered around a small stage with a bare-bones amp, mic, and single spotlight. In Greenwich Village, I’d worked with much worse. There was no live act scheduled that night, and I got greeted as a conquering hero.
In those days, song lyrics were nowhere as suggestive as today. My blues riffs today are seen as dated or misogynistic. In the ’60s, at a place like Fellowship Coffeehouse, they were almost obscene. Wanting to shock, I lead into my first set with Mr. Jelly Roll Baker.

Mr. Jelly Roll Baker, let me be your slave.
When Gabriel blows his trumpet, then I’ll rise from my grave.
For some of your sweet jelly roll, crazy ’bout that sweet jelly roll
Yes, it’s good for the sick, good for the young and old.

I was sentenced for murder in the first degree.
Judge’s wife calls up and says, “Let my man go free!
He’s the Jelly Roll Baker. He’s got the best jelly roll in town.
Only man can bake jelly roll, with his damper down.”

Can I put in my order for two weeks ahead?
I’d rather have your jelly roll than my home-cooked bread.
I’m crazy about jelly, crazy about that sweet jelly roll.
.
That evening I played, and Bill took out his sketch pad and drew caricatures of people in the audience. We also made the acquaintance of Sally, Allison, and Carol. Late the next day, we returned to Boston.

For several weeks we thought no more about our northern expedition. Then one Friday evening came a knocking at the door of the Folkie Palace. Outside the door stood three lovely young women: Sally, Allison, and Carol. They came in like they owned the place, and it seemed that Sally thought she owned Bill and Allison had grappling hooks in me. Carol just seemed amused by it all and sat down to take it all in.
There was a fair bit to take in too. Bill was the resident artist, and had painted the murals on the walls. The murals ranged from the profane to very sexually suggestive. A full-tilt boogie Folkie Palace party was in a full career that night, and we wondered what we’d do with our sweet but morally upright guests. “You said we should come on down some time, so we did,” exclaimed Carol. Carol made herself at home with the group attempting to get an ouija board to make pronouncements. I was fooling around on the guitar and had been trying to engage Judy, who, as usual, wanted to treat me as her younger sibling. Sally was doing an excellent job making Bill uncomfortable as she ran her fingers through his red beard. The attention did not sit well with Audrie, who thought of herself as his regular girlfriend.
Things proceeded in this vein for several hours. The regulars wondering why there were the “normals” hanging around, and the young ladies getting more and more embarrassed but refusing to budge. Allison seemed to think that I should drop everything and gaze only into her lovely, jade green eyes. My discomfort amused Judy.
At last, Bill got up and asked me to lend him my guitar. I was reluctant because it was shielding me from the totality of Allison’s attention. It’s always uncomfortable when the hunter becomes the hunted. Grabbing the guitar away from me, Bill announced to all tonight he was going to make his debut as a folk musician. But first, he needed to prepare.
Bill went into the Teahead of the August Moon’s bedroom. Moments later, he emerged in his hirsute nude glory. Have I described Bill before? No? He was stockily built, about five foot ten with a full shock of long red hair and a full red beard. The rest of him was just as red and very hairy. The guitar was strategically poised over his groin. He then announced to the excited gathering that “my first song will be Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” He then lifted the guitar and exposed the rhinestone-encrusted g-string that failed to conceal his package. Before the first notes got sung, the party-goers began laughing, hooting, hissing, clapping, and tossing peanuts at him—all except Sally and Allison. They began to back towards the door and were outside as fast as they could shove past the raucous participants. Carol was throwing popcorn and having a great time with the rest.

Carol stayed for several days before heading home. The Teahead pronounced her an honorary member of the Palace, welcome to return whenever. But we never saw her again. We also never saw Sally and Allison.
I hadn’t thought of that caper since then until the idiot meme.

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Clean

The Monk was well ahead of the later trends for juicing. He used nothing fancier than a waring blender for his concoctions. After a trip to the Haymarket at closing time, he’d return to our Grove Street apartment and start preparing a concoction out of whatever he had found that appealed to him. Sometimes these were incredibly tasty and other times exotically disgusting. He claimed that he was periodically afflicted with a wasting illness that depleted his body of what would later be known as micro-nutrients. Whenever this happened, he’d be juicing whatever his senses prescribed as a remedy. The Monk’s flesh hung loosely on his gigantic frame whenever he had an attack of whatever ailed him, and his appetite was as large as his physical frame.

His ability to glean at the market made him the logical choice as the Folkie Palace’s scrounger. We ate well and cheaply thanks to his abilities. He claimed to be an exile from a monastic order he had to leave due to nutritional needs. One of the hangers-on at the Palace was a medical school student and claimed that the Monk’s tastes were like a Pica condition. Pica usually involves people eating non-food items – paint, nails, plaster, clay, and similar items. While the Monk ate food items, the combinations were frequently disturbing.

The Palace was a regular stopping place for all sorts of folks going to and fro. People would hear about the Palace and drop in while en route to their destination. Parties ultimately ensued. Hangovers were an occupational hazard of living this lifestyle. Hangover cures were always in demand.
That was how the Monk came by his other nickname – Mr. Clean.
A perpetually smiling bald head capped the Monk’s Large frame, so he looked like the character on the popular cleaner’s bottle. But there was a more fundamental reason. His famous hangover cures; guaranteed to cure in an hour. Very few of the regulars would take him up on an offer. We’d stick to Coke, Coffee, Aspirin, or other simple things. The passers-through might take him up on it. He’d dash into the kitchen, grind and juice away, and come out with a glass of vile green thick juice. “guaranteed to clean out the hangover.” he’d say with a huge smile. The rest of us would sit and watch, say nothing, while the unsuspecting followed the Monk’s advice and held their nose and swallowed in one gulp.
In most cases, nothing happened for an hour. During that time, most of us made sure to use the facilities. The green sludge does its work at the hour mark, and the bathroom was out of service after that.
Truth in advertising; the hangover was gone. So was everything they had consumed in the last seventy-two hours. That was why the Monk’s other nickname was Mr. Clean.
When he offered you a sip, you were well advised to ask what was in it.

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Viewpoint

<p class="has-drop-cap" value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">I was born and raised in New York City. Please don't laugh, but when I was little, I thought that country referred to the vacant lot with a tree. Eventually, my mother took me to some of the larger parks in the city, and my concept of the country developed just a bit. Joining the Scouts saved me from a terminal New York focus by introducing me to the world across from Washington Heights accessible only by crossing the George Washington Bridge. I began to have dreams of leaving New York and voyaging over the map's edge into that great unknown. I had been to camp in New Jersey and upstate New York, but by and large, my view of the world was one of a vast horizon across from the Bridge with indicator arrows stabbing down from the sky. The neon arrows marked California, the "West," Chicago, and the Mississippi. To the North was Boston and the "North Woods."<br>The illustrations of " A New Yorker's View of America" are close to how I imagined it.<br>It rested there until one late March morning when I departed from New York's Greenwich Village for Boston. Later, I traveled north during the summer to see what was on offer elsewhere in New England. Among other things, I discovered towns with actual rural borders. You came to a place where the town ended. Snip. In town, then out of town into fields and woods. No suburbs – NYC went on for miles with nothing but the city, and then miles of suburbs. It never seemed to end, like a nightmare where the urban landscape went on forever.<br>When I came to the border, and there was nothing but fields and woods, I was amazed that It seemed for a second as though I had stepped into a Twilight Zone episode. Cue Rod Serling – "Imagine that you've stepped into a world…"<br>Deciding to explore this strange phenomenon, I traveled to Maine, where I took a job at the Poland Springs Hotel. From my room in the dorm for hotel workers, I could see nothing but forest. Early in the morning, rivers of fog crept up the valley to the hilltop where the hotel sat. In the evening, I watched gaudy sunsets over the Presidential Mountains to the west. None of my previous life experiences compared. Sunsets over the New Jersey Palisades were boring by comparison,<br>Among the friends I met were a brother and sister working at the hotel to earn college money. Each week, we'd spend time around a campfire singing songs and exchanging stories about our lives. There were lots of differences and some similarities. We were all currently as far away from home as we had ever been in our short lives, and we all had an appetite to see more of the country. The differences were substantial. They had never been as far as the state capitol in Augusta or Portland ( Maine's largest city). They had seen those places on television, and that was the only reassurance that I wasn't spinning a fantasy. Boston was near the end of the world.<br>One night around the campfire, I told them about the cartoons and illustrations of a New Yorkers view of the United States. They laughed because it was the same sort of picture they had had of the United States except their tiny island was the viewpoint, and small lights indicated everything to the westward.I was born and raised in New York City. Please don’t laugh, but when I was little, I thought that country referred to the vacant lot with a tree. Eventually, my mother took me to some of the larger parks in the city, and my concept of the country developed just a bit. Joining the Scouts saved me from a terminal New York focus by introducing me to the world across from Washington Heights accessible only by crossing the George Washington Bridge. I began to have dreams of leaving New York and voyaging over the map’s edge into that great unknown. I had been to camp in New Jersey and upstate New York, but by and large, my view of the world was one of a vast horizon across from the Bridge with indicator arrows stabbing down from the sky. The neon arrows marked California, the “West,” Chicago, and the Mississippi. To the North was Boston and the “North Woods.”
The illustrations of ” A New Yorker’s View of America” are close to how I imagined it.
It rested there until one late March morning when I departed from New York’s Greenwich Village for Boston. Later, I traveled north during the summer to see what was on offer elsewhere in New England. Among other things, I discovered towns with actual rural borders. You came to a place where the town ended. Snip. In town, then out of town into fields and woods. No suburbs – NYC went on for miles with nothing but the city, and then miles of suburbs. It never seemed to end, like a nightmare where the urban landscape went on forever.
When I came to the border, and there was nothing but fields and woods, I was amazed that It seemed for a second as though I had stepped into a Twilight Zone episode. Cue Rod Serling – “Imagine that you’ve stepped into a world…”
Deciding to explore this strange phenomenon, I traveled to Maine, where I took a job at the Poland Springs Hotel. From my room in the dorm for hotel workers, I could see nothing but forest. Early in the morning, rivers of fog crept up the valley to the hilltop where the hotel sat. In the evening, I watched gaudy sunsets over the Presidential Mountains to the west. None of my previous life experiences compared. Sunsets over the New Jersey Palisades were boring by comparison,
Among the friends I met were a brother and sister working at the hotel to earn college money. Each week, we’d spend time around a campfire singing songs and exchanging stories about our lives. There were lots of differences and some similarities. We were all currently as far away from home as we had ever been in our short lives, and we all had an appetite to see more of the country. The differences were substantial. They had never been as far as the state capitol in Augusta or Portland ( Maine’s largest city). They had seen those places on television, and that was the only reassurance that I wasn’t spinning a fantasy. Boston was near the end of the world.
One night around the campfire, I told them about the cartoons and illustrations of a New Yorkers view of the United States. They laughed because it was the same sort of picture they had had of the United States except their tiny island was the viewpoint, and small lights indicated everything to the westward.

When the hotel closed for the season, we went our sperate ways. They went off to college, and I moved on to other “frolicking detours.”
I don’t think I ever expected to hear from them again. But just before Christmas, I got a call from the Teahead of the August Moon (self-proclaimed chief potentate of the Folkie Palace) that a package had arrived from Maine for me. That evening we all sat at our table in the Back of the Harvard Gardens drinking beer. My friend Bill handed me the package. After carefully removing the outer paper wrapping, I removed two protective cardboard panels to find a watercolor painted on heavy paper. It was the view from the top of the hill where the hotel sat. Looking west and south from the hotel were little arrows marking places like New York, Portland, and Los Angelos.
There was one arrow that was labeled “Wes’ Folkie Palace, Grove Street, Boston.”

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