And All That Jazz

Tags

Amazing Grace, Barrowland, Bobby Hamilton, Breughel, clarinet, Geraldo, Glasgow, New Orleans, Old Rugged Cross, Pete Fountain, Pied Piper, Pope, United States

 

Pete Fountain at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Just in case any of my readers think I have been too harsh on Homo Glaswegiensis, I seriously identified with some of the salt of the earth characters whom I had the privilege to meet in my childhood and adolescence.

When I travelled to New Orleans in adulthood and heard the great Pete Fountain play in the Marriott Ballroom, it only served to remind me of an even greater performance in the Glasgow Barrowland.  And here is the poem:

AND ALL THAT JAZZ

Holocaust plies of crawfish, picked clean

by black tie delegates at this event –

a Breughel backdrop for those held enthralled

by one who’d played for Pope and President.

Pete Fountain – diamond-studded clarinet,

King of New Orleans and razzmatazz,

free as a bird, and yet a martinet

of syncopation, tempo…all that jazz.

It took me to another mise en scene:

(the Glasgow Barrowland, no less,)

where Bobby Hamilton, a pro has-been,

shook his instrument, tootling through the mess

of broken mussel shells dropped by the damned.

like a Pied Piper, he mesmerised them all,

with decorations from Geraldo’s band.

Once, in youth, the world had been his oyster;

but now he’d found the Pearl of Greatest Price

and this prodigal, who’d loved to roister,

found that the Living Water would suffice.

And, to the strains of The Old Rugged Cross,

he leant his burden on no broken reed.

Filled with new wine, he played to those who doss

in draughty doorways. Alcoholics bleed

if cut, like Presidents or Popes, or you or I.

And tears would streak the cracked and grimy lens

to think Amazing Grace would save them too,

with all their filthy rags and warts and wens:

if Bobby played it, then it must be true.

But those who filled the Marriott ballroom

saw that the dollar sign was in control.

Malodorous mishmash masked by perfume

cannot disguise the absence of true soul.

English: The Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, Scotland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A Heap of Broken Images

Tags

Alex Salmond, Andy Murray, Bradshaw's Guide, David Dinnie, Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Eurozone, Fifty Shades of Grey, Forth Rail Bridge, Highland games, Iron Brew, Isaac, Lysistrata, Merlot, Michael Portillo, Neil Oliver, New Orleans, Only Connect, Patrick Moore, Perlmutter, Scotland the Brave, The Sun, The Waste Land, Togo, Top Secret, University Challenge, Victoria Coren

Bank Holiday Monday

Someone sent me an attachment this morning which was headed Fifty Shades of Grey for Men.  It was a paint chart.  There is nothing remotely sexual about Elephant’s Breath, I think.

Tropical storm Isaac is heading for New Orleans on the 7^th anniversary of Katrina’s cataclysm.

The geographical feature that is characterised by cataclysm is deluge and not earthquake, as one panellist on University Challenge mistook tonight.

It was an evening of quizzes, with the return of a slightly more overweight Victoria Coren on Only Connect. Watching this programme, I feel like a character in The Waste Land:

I can connect

Nothing with nothing..

Victoria is like Madame Sosostris, the wisest woman in Europe, with a wicked pack of cards.  She apparently loves poker.  She stands by The Wall which is a heap of broken images and :

 uncorseted, her friendly bust

 Gives promise of pneumatic bliss.

I wish that she had retained the Greek letters of the alphabet on the question choice blocks.  These were replaced through attacks on elitism.  Now, if the women of Togo read The Lysistrata, then why the general dumbing down in this country?  After all, the substituted hieroglyphics are just as refined, though pictorially evident, I suppose.  My favourite is horned viper.

Curiously, Victoria’s dresses are becoming tighter and tighter and her fantasies more curious too- she admitted to a desire to find a naked Michael Portillo in her dressing room, seated on a case of Merlot.  The Merlot you could understand… Personally, I would prefer to read Bradshaw through, cover to cover, in a single sitting.  Still, there’s nowt so queer as fowk.

The Edinburgh Military Tattoo was next and the best bit was the drumming cohort from Switzerland, Top Secret.  I looked carefully but our friend, Roger, was not of their number. The second best bit was the mass formation for Scotland the Brave. You can keep all thon fancy film scorey type tunes and I think Alex Salmond would have been pretty annoyed at them playing There’ll Always be an England, unless it conveyed the proviso:  doon there and no’ up here.

The whole evening was devoted to tartan programmes about Highland Games all over the world, in places such as North Carolina. There are more games held worldwide than in Scotia itself.

The only interesting programme was Horizon with its explanation of the infinite expansion of the universe. If Scotland keeps expanding exponentially then it should be good for Pitlochry looms and kiltmakers in general.  As a nation it will grow vaster than empires and more slow, no probably even faster.  However, the programme stressed that we were all in this together and could not go it alone, as multiple galaxies are swallowed.  So, Alex, we need to remain united so that we can fight all the dark matter in the Eurozone and in other global economies together.

A programme on the Highland Games showcased David Dinnie who had been the world’s most renowned athlete in times gone by.  Women used to faint away at the sight of his torso, in much the same way as they do now when they see pictures in The Sun of every Tom, Dick and Harry letting their hair down. (Not.)  Leave the hair business to Neil Oliver, I say.

Anyway, Dinnie used to endorse Iron Brew, as I think it was spelled back then- (Scotland’s other national beverage- made frae girders.)  He looked as if he had licked the Forth Rail Bridge.  Maybe a wee taste of A G Barr’s fizzy drink’s 0.002% ammonium ferric citrate was what Andy Murray had doped himself on before winning Olympic gold.  Aye, Alex Salmond, ye can take the man oot o’ Scotland, but ye cannae tak’ the iron oot o’ his soul.

Alba gu brath!

Tuesday 28^th

My scientific observations seem to be confirming Professor Perlmutter’s Nobel prizewinning research about exponential expansion of the Universe.  I am quite taken with cosmology now.  I noticed a very large, docile dog on a lead at the local Lavender café.  It was very like a lurcher, but much larger.  I asked its owner what breed it was and she said, A fat greyhound.  Also there are all these sightings of lions in Clacton-on-Sea etc which turn out to be large feral cats.  Some can be four foot in length so you could be mistaken for thinking that they are pumas, especially if you have been on the old Merlot for the evening.  Stick to Irn- Bru, I say.  It puts hairs on your chest and dampens down the Portillo fantasies.

Anyway, everything is becoming larger- Patrick Moore, Victoria Coren and the whole Universe.  No wonder I can’t get into my favourite jeans.

© Candia Dixon Stuart and Candiacomesclean.wordpress.com, 2012