The New Decade Jam - starting Jan 2010

[stilltrucking]

D.C.
it was a happening place for me back in the fifties
legal drinking age was 18
party town
cruising the strip on Georgia Ave NW
Februrrrrrrrrrrrrrrary
top down in a convertable
it ain't how you feel
it was how we looked

I was a bitter old man by the times the sixties come round
when there was music in the cafe "and revolution in the air"

the only jam in town for me

[Steve Plonk]

DuPont Circle lives! DC was a whole different town even in the early sixties. "Ich bin ein Berlin" said Kennedy. I remember seeing him
just after the inauguration before we moved to Texas. The fifties were a
great time for people of a certain age & status and who could afford a car.
My folks could get on street parking back then. Now it is probably a really lucky occurence. Wolf Trap Theater in northern virginia was the site of a boy scout camp. Camp Springs, MD was the site of a coed camp called:
"Camp Yokomiko". Howard Johnson's was a cheap place to eat.

There were hardly any malls. I remember being impressed with the escalators in a large downtown Sears. You could eat lunch at the Metro Museum of Art and we did. I was just a pre-teen. When the fifties ended I was ten. I was eleven in 1960. I remember egg rolls with my toddler brother when Mamie Eisenhower was still in the White House.

After the inauguration, I once caught a glimpse of Jackie Kennedy
at the Metro Museum of Art, which, as you know, is part of the Smithsonian Institution. "Thems were the days", as the saying goes...

Also see a similar piece in my "Life in the Horse Lane" column, entitled: "Dupont Circle Lives!" Exploring further...

[WIREMAN]

uptown d.c. is still
pretty much intact
downtown is a concrete abyss
i worked on a mess of 'em
the national museum of
the american indian
was an exceptional one
downtown d.c. we remember
as kids is a memory now

[Steve Plonk]

Wireman, et al, check me out at my "Life in the Horse Lane" column.
Hard to believe...fifty, count 'em years ago...almost! I left DC area at or around Feb. 1, 1961. Kennedy had just been installed in office. My family thinks I am a living history book. Maybe I am...

[stilltrucking]

Lived in Adams-Morgan neighborhood In the seventies
People asked did I have a death wish.

I Ate at Food for Thought on Connecticut Ave
The city still looked like a war zone still
after the riots in 68



I think of the district these days as Rome on the Potomac
But I loved the museums


But
Watch out for those DPL license plates
Diplomatic immunity
they candrive on the sidewalks if they want to

[judih]

road trip to d.c.
all the familiar landmarks
awe at Abe
ah at george
smithsonian duly noted
mlk was there
mlk always there
memory makes choices

[Steve Plonk]

"Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
"Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

excerpt from "I have a Dream" by Martin Luther King

[WIREMAN]

outside of the magnet
city that is
jammin'...kaossilating w/friends
raga machines full tilt
turnin all the knobs
pushin' the buttons and pads
new decade
new music
outside the box
but last night i was blowin'
amplified harp bo diddley style
at the bar
"natty boh....natty boh.....natty boh....natty boh..."

[judih]

pedals of the mind
reverberation of thought
inner jam

[jimboloco]

i took a leap of faith

[WIREMAN]

made the big leap
"the road to rome is not I road"
back on the banks
of da muddy monocacy
did the rattle rattle
gonna take a promenade
around town
2 nights in the cave
gots this monk
cravin' action
"wake the fuck up!"
finish this crab soup
and hit the streets

[jimboloco]

no benadryl tonight
up at 4:30 in the morn
to beat th light
no heroic angst
to rush in
to martyrdom
tis a sin to sacrifice
not noble
keirkegaard thought twas god's will
but twas abraham's
he was always sacrificing
all along the way out of mesopotamia
finally, besot by woes, he went up the mount
sacrificing his son was his idea
still the wandering nomad
a brute, a bargainer,
he knew they was one god
but not that character
so he thinks his worries will be appeased
but he is seen by yaweh
and stopped, told to never do this again
the ram in the thicket to be taken for offering
to feed the finest meat in celebration
he sees the angels in his son's wide open eyes

they come down
descending he was a changed man
introspective and caring yet still dense
he thought isaac was not good enough for Jaweh
like cain's offering of fruit and grain
not good enough
for God who chose able's sacrifice of animal blood
abraham did not know what isaac did
the intent to give is what is valued
but his wife sarah died of shock when she learned of his intent
six cries of fright and shock with isaac at her side
the six calls of the shofar birthing israel from sarah's womb


keirkagaard had it wrong
the leap of fath is toward ethically consistant values
the nature of eloih

gabrial blow your horn
you were always with us
out in the woods
in the street
confined in small spaces
lost neath wide western skies
always homeward bound
moving in deep space
baby steps, quantum leaping

[WIREMAN]

horn tootin' in the skies
gabe was the man
could play
anything
jamnation be thy horn
let it roll
ooze into the decade
who'd a thunk we'd be here
40 years ago
and be this old
doin' the new
being the cyber explorers
rocketing into the new millenium
and jammin"!!!!!!!!

[stilltrucking]

Rocking into a new generation
"the millennial's"
it is 2010
do you know where your children are?
who would of thunk we woulda been here 60 years ago?
the first rock and roll generation
the "the hot rod" on WCAO
the sound of n*gger music
makes it to the "Park Heights' Avenue Tripe"
Kierkegaard too hard for me
I can't take the dissonance

going car shopping with my sister's son
he is about all I got
that keeps me hanging on
keeps me hoping
hopping
jamming
trucking
interested
a will to live

[Steve Plonk]

I send my mess online, to try to see
conversation of some kind,
My honey is working late,
I find the time to ruminate,
'Cause the world has lots of hay,
Willllllbur!~Let me off this steeple chase!
I gotta find a clean quiet pasture where
there are no fleas, leeches, and mudpits.

So I send a little humor your way,
Hoping that a smile on your face will stay,
'Cause this watering hole has plenty to drink,
You just get online, & let your vatic fingers think.
I'm the only old horse on this here chairlift up
To the cold snowy mountaintop this April,
Been a fool for the cold weather, now I gotta
Heat this thang up a little and let it sling to the sky.
Oh hell, yeah!