It Depends

Fridaku, as Maximus Puts It

new moonlight over
vast seas, spilt silver on waves
that will take me home

kayaklakemead.com

Friday Haiku

Watch

Peering through damp leaves,
silent and calm, step by step
in the creeping shade.

stuffintheair.com

Autumn Friday Haiku

In the Glade

Footfalls on the crisp
fallen leaves, hurried and light.
The wait is over.

Daybreak

Haiku for today:

Fallen leaves in a
slow winsome breeze, drifting up
into the morning.

Say Uncle

My legendary uncle (and I do mean legendary- friend of businessmen and bikers, record-holding athlete in his Kansas high school (Wilt Chamberlain came up to him and said, ‘Are you F--- Stanfield?’; long story), mass imbiber of adult libations and fantastic tipper of beleaguered waitstaff which makes them embrace his extreme extrovertedness (it’s a word)) was in town this past week, wanting to see a bit of what makes Nashville Nashville before heading down to watch car races in Alabama.

The place I always used to take visitors, The Broken Spoke, has sadly left this world and left it poorer than it found it. The typical set-up there was not a band, though they occasionally had groups perform, it was a couple of singers sitting on a stool with guitars in hand belting their hearts out. I have heard rumblings that it was rejuvenated like the progressive party. Dare I dream?

The Broken Spoke
www.leetylerpost.com

Instead, I took my renowned relative to Broadway, probably the main street in downtown Music City, Tennessee. The first place we sauntered into had a woman singing a mixture of old country (Emmy Lou Harris) and old rock (Stevie Nicks). I thought, ‘Man, this gal has some pipes' and my uncle thought so, too. The soft stuff soared and the hard stuff howled.

We wanted to see more so we left, reluctantly. As good as gal was there had to be more to see, so we went next door. Literally next door. I thought, ‘Nothing is going to top what we just saw.’ Well, I was wrong. There was a band playing (with Johnny Cash’s bass player) and they had some whiz-kid guitarist that could make that six-string do whatever he wanted. It was loud, fast, lilting, precise, grinding, just astounding in every sense of that word. After about an hour we just looked at each other and shook our heads. My uncle said, “Think anything else can beat this?” I said, “Probably not, but let’s try anyway.” Uncle bought a CD and we moved on.

You would think I’d get used to being wrong. The place two doors down had a keyboardist (who sells a disc called ‘The King Kong Daddy of Rock and Roll’ …hah!) who was playing the piano so fast his hands were a literal blur. He had to have known he reminded folk of Jerry Lee Lewis because he played a song or two by him. His set looked both exhilarating and exhausting. During the solos he would not only pound on the keys, he would jump up on his seat, play with his boot (!), turn around backwards, stand up and theatrically pose for cameras, and probably a few more things I can’t remember. My uncle, liquid refreshment in hand, said, “This is why I came to Nashville.” Made me remember how much raw fun this town can be.