Losing Touch?

“Hey Andy are you goofing on Elvis
Hey baby, are we losing touch?”
“Man on the Moon,” REM

In the REM song about Andy Kaufman, after the “goofing on Elvis reference, Michael Stipe sings the next line sounding like Elvis. An RS reviewer compared The Decembrists to REM and suggested a joint tour.

Decided to apply for a Rex Foundation grant of $20,000 to help get another four issues of Steel Shavings in print. The Grateful Dead started the Foundation in 1983, named after a roadie and road manager who died in 1976. Years ago, my friend Izzy Young received a grant that allowed his Folklore Institute to keep going. The Foundation doesn’t normally get unsolicited requests, but I went ahead and sent a letter anyway along with some past issues. “By perusing them,” I concluded,” you’ll be able to tell that I’m a Sixties spirited person who loved not only the music of the Grateful Dead but their generous philanthropy.”

In response to a query at lunch, George Bodmer amplified on his “log cabin days.” He wrote: “We lived in Frederick, Maryland, up a dirt road on Braddock Mountain, in a log house. You could walk up the corners from the interlaced logs sticking out. I rode to school on an hour-long bus ride to the school in the town, with all grades on the bus, from 1st graders to seniors in high school (not particularly safe or comfortable for the first graders). I had a higher numbers of snow days since the bus often didn't make it up the mountain. We had copperhead snakes living in the back yard and flying squirrels. A crow once flew down our chimney when I was there alone. We didn't have a doorknob on our front door, just a latch. Look at me, living in the big city now. When I was in fifth grade I liked this girl who lived in the town, so she gave me her address and I rode my bike into town to see her. I stopped at the first house that had her number, not knowing the numbers were the same on all the parallel streets.”

Obtaining monthly Steel Shavings account statements I discovered why there was so few funds – two years ago, I secured $1,750 from the Vice Chancellor to pay the $6,300 necessary for publishing volume 40, but the money was never put into my account. Since June of 2009, I’d been running a deficit until finally the balance was a grand total of 20 cents. I’m working to remedy the situation. The IUN Bookstore was nearly out of “Gary’s First Hundred Years,” so gave them ten in return for extras of volume 40.

Despite a mediocre bowling night (472 series) against the first place team I picked up a 6-7 split and won the five-dollar pot for highest over average – or, in this case, lowest below average. The opponents were friendly (no wonder), congratulating us on good shots.

Looked up info on the 1970s French punk music scene because Jonathyne Briggs invited me to his class covering that subject. Evidently the first French punks (“Les Punks”) were big Lou Reed fans, and the movement also attracted veterans of the 1968 Paris Riots who gravitated to Guy Debord’s Situational Movement and believed advanced capitalism was on its last legs. In “Boozy Creed” Stinky Toys sang about having no god, no illusions, and no dreams,” as if the only thing worth living for was enjoying the moment. The chorus goes: "“I know a few things/ That could make us happy/ Give us lots of beer/ And let us play loud.”

The producer of Flight 33 Productions asked me to critique the “Forgotten Planet” episode dealing with Gary and Hashima, Japan – an island abandoned by Mitsubishi and now totally deserted. I suggested they make distinctions between the two rather than treat them as identical – in other words, delineating that in one case the place was literally abandoned by the very industry that gave it birth, and in the other case the mills are still physically present but, its top officials residing elsewhere, the corporation has relinquished responsibility for the ruinous civic consequences of its policies. I apparently have four speaking parts, at least in draft number nine. Recalling the shoot at City Methodist Church, the most eerie impression one comes away with about the old burnt-out downtown is that side by side next to a new school, housing development, and minor league baseball park (The Steelyard) are these hulks of once proud buildings that a viable community would value and certainly preserve. With the city bankrupt, unless America changes its priorities, Gary is in danger of becoming another Hashima.

“The Odyssey of Flight 33,” incidentally, was a 1961 “Twilight Zone” episode where a passenger plane crosses a time warp and is back in the Jurassic Age. The pilots manages to get back to 1939 New York during the time of the World’s fair but there’s no airport able to accommodate his Boeing 707 and the plane is running out of fuel. The pilot’s final words to passengers before fade-out: “All I ask is that you remain calm . . . and pray.”