Dave O spiels forth about the exploration of rivers and lakes, the impetus for ventures and motivations for trade ~ augmented by autoharp songs by Larry Harper dreaming of floating the Colorado River down Glen Canyon ~ then freeverse – mostly from stumbling around Europa in 1992 – thinking about connectedness, lifespans of mysteries and reasons for peeking into the unknown with Trauben and Funboy providing guitar stylings whilst camping alongside Owl Creek in the British Columbia highlands.
By a campfire on Owl Creek, Dave reads an instructional guide to hitch-hiking about a November trip from South Carolina to Rhode Island with a series of tips including smiling, signs, watches, and going with the flow while Dan Funboy noodles on guitar.
While summertime camping alongside Owl Creek and charging the recorder with the sun’s rays, Dave reads a short story written while on the road with ole dead Grandpa called “So the Legends Go” (.pdf) – a portrait of life one morning in Navajo Nation in 1987 – accompanied by adolescent observations and musings. Accompanied by Dan Funboy on guitar and solar-powered vaporizer.
From Halfmoon Bay on Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island, Dave gives it up for zen poet hero Gary Snyder and recounts beat history from The Old Ways and logging culture from Myths and Texts plus poems about hitchhiking, girls, baths, clear-cuts and the Buddha – then finishes with original freeverse poetry about the transient experience called “Railyards Passing By.”
Sean Staples (vocals & mandolin), Rose Cousins (guitar and harmony) La cienega (Ryan Adams) Live at Club Passim, Nov. 2007
Note: check out CBC Radio 3 podcast to discover great indie Canadian music
Big thanks to Chip for crafting the episode, Trauben for music searching and my sweetie for taking me to Clayoquot a couple summer back, and the trees for taking me there in 1993.
Alongside roaring Lynn Creek, Dave recounts a collection of interesting boulders and offers freeverse about his bookshelf, the sea, Mexican painting trips, tranquility, graceful curves and clouds while Wm. Lenker picks and sings the Appalachian folksong, Moonshiner.
From a skunk-scented perch along Mosquito Creek, Dave spiels about feverish dreams in a Mexican clinic, personal archeology, mirages about the Wonder Hotel, and reads verse about late trains, dammed rivers, watching ships, and men in white coats walking past.
Visiting the Woodshop on Steamboat Island amidst hayfever and national holidays, Dave and Wm. Lenker exchange spontaneous musical freeverse tales of Pennsylvania, Agana Harbour (Guam), Jericho Beach (Vancouver), and Lake Crescent (Washington) while wounded Samson howls along.
From a Lougheed skyscraper comes an improvisational reading with guitars – first more ocean-inspired works from Tristan Corbière, Victor Hugo and Dave Olson into a free form spoken word account of trip down the Pacific Coast highway to a haunted roadhouse with sequoias growing an inch a day.
Cheers to Bread and Av (aka Delfar 7) for exceptional musical gamemanship.
Starting at the Steamboat Island Woodshed, Dave rambles salty original freeverse with Wm. Lenker on banjo and traces personal poetic lineage winding through French impressionalist/symbolist and Brittany sea-coasterTristan Corbière (prefaced by Victor Hugo).
Then – as sleet, slush and hail beats down on the Mosquito Creek studio skylight – rolls into the beat American 50s and 60s with John Sinclair’s chronicle Brilliant Corners, Jack Kerouac riding trains from Atop an Underwood, and Gary Snyder arriving from sea from The Backcountry ~ fortified with jazz, joints and hot sake.
An aural montage of past new years’ evenings featuring Dave O reading from Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” next to crackling cabin woodstove on Pender Island (note scratching dog and someone with a stuffy nose), followed by a latenight freeverse message to Napoleon, a languid tale recorded in a garage about a bewildering New Years Eve in Japan, and finally a poetic nugget of memory and hope for the future.
Wrapping up the White Poppies for Remembrance series with a narrative late-night wander through Westminster, London, DaveO meanders past military monuments, victory squares, cenotaphs, palaces, royal parks, war museum, war chambers, riot fences, war protesters, churches, parliament and finishing at St. James park for a sitdown under a weeping willow to consider monarchy, individual rights and responsibilities, and the role of class division in waging war as London’s sirens, trains, and Big Ben fill the night.
Jerry Garcia Band (with John Kahn), acoustic, Oregon State Penitentiary, Lonesome Prison Blues, Salem OR 050582 via archive.org New Riders of the Purple Sagew/ Robert Hunter, April 8, 2006, Venue: Mystic Theater, Petaluma, CA
Source: Schoeps MK4v > V3 > 744T @24/96 Lineage: 744T > Audobe Audition 16/44> CDwav > Flac16 Taped by: Pete Gilmore, Monkey Tunes Transferred by: Dawne Sacchetti
Pete Stone – Golden Frontier via KEXP Song of the Day
Bonus: (links coming soon perhaps)
The Yuigers – repressed Muslim Chinese in Guatanamo
Back home on the North Vancouver porch, Dave reads from Clay Mcleod’s essay Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy while sending peace and resistance towards the decent lieutenant Magnum in Iraq and the Philippines along with earnest comrades at arms and peaceful strangers in war torn lands. Plus he admonishes the Canadian Legion for blocking the sale of white poppies while banjo-ist Wm. Lenker sings from the woodshed and The Grateful Dead leave this Brokedown Palace … on my hands and my knees, I will roll roll roll …
Last year The Royal Canadian Legion through it legal representative demanded that Canadian groups stop distribution them and that the PPU stop making white poppies available in Canada, or else. That was the gist, though expressed in more formal language. According to the RCL’s legal representatives, the white poppy infringes the Legion’s poppy trademark. The PPU replied at length; our central point was that we disagreed with their argument. We have not heard from them since but the Canadian shop at the centre of this complaint regrettably had to acquiesce. You can read more about this at http://tinyurl.com/2mc7pq where you can also find out about the white poppy project and the PPU.
Following the legal threats both the promoters in Canada and Canadians who bought the poppy from us hoped that white poppies would again be available in Canada this year.
White poppies in any quantity are available from us for dispatch anywhere in the world including Canada.
Postcards from Gravelly Beach is a spoken word literature podcast featuring me (Dave O) reading literary stalwarts - from Russians to the beats - along with smatterings from original works - fiction, freeverse and expository.
Each episode is carefully homegrown - recorded spontaneously at some splendid locale and backed by an eclectic assortment of music.
Wise book enthusiasts are advised to visit Last Word Books in OlyWa. Check the tasty stash including the thick stack from the legendary counter-culture publisher Loompanics plus Evergreen College library books - cheap out the backdoor.
Last weekend, i was pleased to present at WordCamp Whistler organized by my good pals Duane & Dale (of Brave New Code) and John and Rebecca (of sixty4media). My spiel was called “Are you Worthy?” or ‘history of publishing from Greeks to geeks’. I also previewed my upcoming Moose Camp and Northern Voice presentations a [...]
With the Canucks mired in a futility streak, BC Almanac invited me down for a chat on the popular CBC Radio 1 afternoon radio show “B.C. Almanac”. I’ve appeared on a the show before along with On the Coast, and really enjoy going to the Ceeb and sharing my punditry with my fellow Canadians. During this [...]
Cross posted at Daily Vancouver as: High-Flying Canadian Snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb – Olympic Outsider podcast #9 Recorded at the post-Turin Olympic flag tour in May 2006, top-placing Canadian half-pipe snowboarder Crispin Lipscomb talks to host Dave O about his Olympic experience, pre-race rituals and 2010 plans – plus offers insight into the […]
In response to Dave Delaney (davemadethat.com)’s meme-like inquiry about favorite podcasts – What are you listening to? A podcasting meme – I sit on the rocky banks of Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet drinking a St. Ambroise beer and extol a list of faves podcasts with reasonings and anecdotes about each. Dopefiend.co.uk w/Dopecast, Psycho […]
At Vancouver’s personal expression conference, Northern Voice 2008, i presented my (semi-infamous) spiel “Fuck Stats, Make Art” to enthusiastic reviews [Sweet Nectar of Validation - NV08 wrap up, reviews and podcast] and then spent the afternoon with my dear colleagues from The Crazy Canucks podcast discussing our role as independent chroni […]
Really truly pleased to read all the kind words from folks who rolled by my Northern Voice presentation F*** Stats, Make Art – sorry for messing up your SEO mojo with the inappropriate title ;-). To all who showed up, thanks! Really a treat to see so many friends, heros, colleagues and new friends smiling [...]
Lansing Michigan, 1973 eating macaroni & cheese in a damp basement while adults whispered windows shivered radio crackled and i wondered why the tornado was coming and then my memory began
freshly skinny white leaping from the storm the 2AM moonlight fractures with the impact the rocks below clarified by the glacial melt jagged but deep enough for divers and explorers escaping ennui and malaise on the shore bobbing over rocks shook freed from constraints the absence reveals no barriers for the lubricious and clumsy emerging from the cold […]
Sailboats carving patterns darters into waves which don’t seem to mind Leaning over sideways to control both power and time Flocking into clusters brushing past the buoys like galaxies swirling spun by translucent kite-strings Leaving tracers to catch a gaze the stone mason experiment invites me and strangers to rest awhile only at lowtide when […]
Green hulled sleeper lulls along the darters and sunnyday foghorn Sailors waiting papers aren’t order sandwiches and waiting waiting, watching for the crackled word we’re moving out
On Lynn Valley’s Varley trail, Uncle Weed discourses on fascist sponsors and greedy PR hacks reacting to young Mr. Phelps’ situation, plus talk of value of art vs. artist and listener email about parenting advice, blind shopping cart incidents, and a situation with a Briton arrested and incarcerated in Japan plus a spiel on Group [...]
Rolling aboard buses, trolleys, Skytrain and Seabus, Uncle Weed discusses changing routes and riding transit for escape, exploration, creativity, inspiration and adds in tourist fun plus concerns about free expression, aggressive security and love for the Seabus in a special documentary dispatch from Upper Lynn Valley to Kitsilano in Vancouver, BC, Canada. S […]
From Wreck Beach on University of BC campus Uncle Weed offers international, festive greetings with tales of journies to come, the feeling of the edge of the world, reflections of NYEs in Japan, cougars on the Baden Powell trail, float planes, ferries and barges, and mostly asking the universe what to do next? Plus special holiday greetings from Herby, now a […]
From the vault comes the story of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama’s honorary Canadian citizenship ceremony at the Canucks rink in Vancouver. Along with a rousing Oh Canada!, and the official ceremony, comes a few words of humour and counsel from HHDL14 and his eloquent assistant and discussion of the Dalai Lama Centre for [...]
From a snowy Gulf island, Uncle Weed recounts an incident from a lost summer involving a hi-jacked VW bus and a surreal evening of trout, tribal chants, involuntary confinement, gun shots, and rabbit stew – plus a chance to win a HappyVappy Vaporizer Kit. Musical Interlude by Wm. Lenker of Steamboat Island via Pennsyl-tucky & [...]
On back porch, Uncle Weed shares a personal message to the chooglers international followed by a spiel about tactics to resist a golf course incident induced corporate drug test using vigilance, friendly lawyers, a trip to Belize w/ broken wrist, and Tolstoy’s War + Peace. Pack your bags for: Drug Test Resistance in Belize – Choogle [...]
