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.

Weigh anchor for Howling at Land and Sea - Postcard #53 (.mp3, 17:51, 16MB)

Photo by DaveO on Pender Island, Art’ed up by Bread the Producer

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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.

Roust yerself for Skyscraper Stories about Oceans and Forests - Postcard #52 (.mp3, 19:46, 16MB)

Nods to Cosmo’s Spacely’s Sprockets (see also Clubside Breakfast Time)

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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-coaster Tristan 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.

Hunker down for Banjo Sea Shanties and Beat Train Rambles - Postcard #51

Nods to Cosmo’s Spacely’s Sprockets (see also Clubside Breakfast Time)

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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.

Enjoy a visit with the Poetic Ghosts of New Years Past - Postcards #50 (.mp3, 22:25, 18MB)

More Pender island photos

Music
Ohbijou, Steep
Okinawan folkmusic by unknown artist
Wm. Lenker of Steamboat Island - c/o Woodshed Music

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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.

Care for a stroll? Meandering Past Monuments of Remembrance - Postcards #49 (.mp3, 34:19, 28MB)

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Thanks to:

Jerry Garcia Band (with John Kahn), acoustic, Oregon State Penitentiary, Lonesome Prison Blues, Salem OR 050582 via archive.org

New Riders of the Purple Sage w/ 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

Moscow weather - winter 2006, winter 1812

Crimean War

More from London:

London Town Wander Night - Choogle on #46

Anarchy and Fungi in the UK - Choogle on #42

Joints on Brighton Beach - Choogle on #38

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 …

Sit for a spell with Peace to Soldiers and Strangers - Postcard #48 (.mp3, 16:58, 13MB)

Thanks to:

Clay Mcleod, “Why I Don’t Wear a Poppy” from the TheTyee.ca, Nov. 9 2005

Grateful Dead, Brokedown Palace, Dec. 06 ‘92, Tempe AZ, (Hunter/Garcia)

Wm. Lenker recorded in his Steamboat Island woodshed by Uncle Weed

Meganpru for album photo (this peacelovin’ woman rolls in the volksvegan)

Bread the producer for albumart design

Bonus:

Canadian Legion hassling the Peace Pledge Union folks about selling White Poppies

Be sure to order white poppies early (shipped across the Atlantic) and read the loquacious discourse on this most critical of topics. Make no mistake, the way to honour ultimate sacrifice is to ensure no such future bloodshed is required from man’s inability to get along. And we (all of us) have a right to respect the fallen in a manner which suits our conscience and not a method prescribed by the Legion or anyone else.

Here’s Peace Pledge’s quick overview:

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.

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A story about Iraqi resistance fighters and their personal motivations by a young writer called Waiting in Baghdad is the crux of the next White Poppies for Remembrance episode - read from the homeporch with a Welsh mining lantern and firetrucks rolling past. Written by Chris K, a player on a dave-coached in-line hockey team in Olympia Washington in 2002.

Hunker down for Waiting (and Resisting) in Baghdad - Postcard #47 (22:16, 21MB, .mp3)

[bunker photo by Lt. Magnum, USN]

Music

Black Angels - First Vietnam War, Snipers at the gates of Heaven
Unknown (via Trauben)

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Taking a Remembrance Day respite to enjoy a conscious discussion with ‘Trigger’ at Vancouver’s New Amsterdam Cafe, Dave O listens to the consequences and conditions of space, in tangible and gestalt senses, and reviews the paradigm shifts of Vancouver’s downtown Eastside ‘four corners’ - once one of the grandest intersections in the British Empire.

Later, he wanders and reads Walt Whitman [When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd] and Gord Downie [from Coke Machine Glow] to bring it ’round home for this part #7 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series.

Cross the street for (Meta)Physical Conditions of the Environment - Postcard #46 (18:47, 26MB, .mp3)

Music by:

Drive-by Truckers “World of Hurt” via KEXP

Beethoven Sonata #14

Unnamed spacey something by Merlin (and/or Jahwah) via HempenRoad soundtrack

Sketching the Chaos of the Downtown Eastside (trigger)

discussing the conditions (trigger)

downtown eastside discourse with trigger

Dominion Building behind Victory Park and Cenotaph, New Amsterdam to left

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Part 6 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series considers the opportunity cost of the lost human potential while at the Victory cenotaph in downtown Vancouver - along the way, troubadours sing about Providence, Joyful(ness) along with spontaneous percussion-scapes and city bus brakes.

DaveO examines the value of life with Gord Downie’s swift deconstructions of existence from Coke Machine Glow, Henry David Thoreau’s visionary stories of perseverance and the value of the mindfulness from Walden and a personal declaration of sovereignty and dignity from original Letters from Russia read in hospital to ole gramps.

Come along for “Awakening to the Dawn of Potential - Postcard #45” (17:51, .mp3, 25MB)

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Tune-age by:

Chris Jacobsen, “Providence” from “Houseboat” 1995 Spilt Milk Records (cassette)

Note: Chris is a quick-laughing, semi-salty, ukulele-playing, sea captain in knew in Guam in the 90’s - last heard from in Long Beach, WA or somewhere in Rhode Island - i should have a photo around here somewhere … Message to Chris: I hope to have a brew with you soon! Send a postcard.

Rock Plaza Central, “My Children, Be Joyful” from “are we not horses” Outside Music in Canada and Yep Roc Records in the States

rockplazacentral.com also features singer Chris Eaton’s Novels

See Also: KEXP Suggests Rock Plaza Central (MP3)
Note: Hear Rock Plaza Central songs or order a copy online at their Myspace HQ Rock Plaza Central

Note: they seem like nice enough lads - look for them in your town

Plus:
“New Shed Percussion Scape” by Dave Olson and Miss Sena of Steamboat Island, recorded April 2007

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Part 5 of the White Poppies for Remembrance series continues with Dave at Victory Park, this time reading the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by General Assembly Dec. 10th 1948) with riffs on tolerance, human relations, common understanding and mutual respect, including a healthy sampling of articles on brotherhood, privacy, special treatment for mothers plus a commentary about refugee status and the illegal nature of torture and humiliating treatment.

Then brings it ’round home with a snippet from H.D. Thoreau’s Walden about sovereign man being the origin of the political state while accompanied by lively jazz (via bootleg cassette) featuring Joe Williamson and cohorts in Banff from way back playing about Peace to the Children of our Universe and Common Market offering up replinishing Refresh (ment) live on KEXP.

Listen to Righteous Declarations for Humans (.mp3, 13:24, 15MB)

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Bonus: Snapshots of Joe Williamson

by Baggage Reclaim

by en_ns

Finding Victory Park cenotaph in post-ceremony calm, Dave settles onto a bench for lost sailors with some bagpipers to chat about John Macrae’s Flander’s Field poem and mull the tension between remembering noble effort and embracing jingoistic behavior. This conundrum is evident in snippets of an essay by Stephen Osborne - The Poem and the Poppy - which relates the amazing grace of drinking gin with Gramps who was there - ‘in the void.’

Download Pondering Flanders at the Cenotaph - Postcard#43 (.mp3, 16:14, 19MB)

Props to these peeps:

John McCrae surgeon/poet “In Flander’s Field“
Bonus: Flanders Field (Belgium) museum - Audio book from Librivox - McCrae works at Project Gutenburg

Stephen Osborne “The Poem and the Poppy” in The Tyee.ca
Stephen is also editor-in-chief of Geist magazine

Flanders Fields, First World War (tyee)

Ani DiFranco “Amazing Grace” (trad.) - from Dilante on Righteous Babe Records

Bagpipes and drummers recorded by Dave O in Vancouver, BC 2007 at Saint Patrick’s Day Parade

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Part Three of the White Poppies for Remembrance series (recorded Nov. 2006) features reading from the Dhammapada by Siddhartha Gautama while waiting for the Seabus heading towards Victory Park. Along the way, Dave talks about conscientious objection and military service evaders in Canada, mercy and the state of the downtown eastside.

Wander along for Buddhas in the Trenches - Postcard #42 (.mp3, 23MB, 20:21)

Page France sings Chariot, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club sings about Mercy, (both found on KEXP S.o.t.D. podcast) and Bill Janovitz from Here Comes a Regular score lays down some background groove - plus some Andean flute, soulful saxriffs and American Pie wisdom from Clayton the seabus busker along the way.

Dedicated to Lt. Talbot Mercer Papineau

Source: Canada’s Digital Collections

Talbot Mercer Papineau - Wikipedia

Talbot Mercer Papineau, MC (25 March 1883–30 October 1917) was a lawyer and soldier from Quebec, Canada. …

He was notable for his letters from the front. He was hit by a shell during the Battle of Passchendale in Ypres on October 30, 1917.

Open Letter from Talbot M. Papineau to Henri Bourassa

Part Two of the White Poppies for Remembrance series finds Dave O eating oatmeal in North Van before heading downtown Vancouver to check in on Remembrance Day remembering activities. While having a bite to eat, he explains the mission of the White Poppies for Peace (a Peace Pledge Union project) folks based in the UK - to abolish war and violence of all kinds and spread peaceful vibes while Rocky Votolato “White Daisy Passing” and Black Tories provide tunes.

Come along for White Poppies on a Rainyday Coat - Postcard #41 (9:29, 9MB, .mp3)

‘War is a crime against humanity. I renounce war, and am therefore determined not to support any kind of war. I am also determined to work for the removal of all causes of war.’ PPU pledge
White Poppies for Peace

Down on Lenker’s farm, Dave O checks in on the animal inventory and riffs his own freeverse poetry on canyon exploration, a groaning generation and tense search for authenticity and truth re-mixed with Bill’s Pennsylvanian poetics about frost heaves and nurturing life accompanied with his salty guitar jamble.

Then, in the woodshed, Dave tells a story about a blissful moment of time in Peliliu, Palau - where under the southern cross, everything stopped - while lambs, dogs, rams and a dead chicken go about their lives, seemingly unaware of the literature spieling or the-soon-to-blossom magnolia tree.

Dig into Geological Storytime with Sheep - Postcard #40 (11.6MB, .mp3, 20:06)

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Edited and mixed by Bread the Producer

Embarking on a White Poppies for Remembrance Day series, Dave reads the role of King Agamemnon from the Oresteia by Aeschylus written in the 6th century BC. The King returns to Argos by chariot with a captured royal concubine in tow and tales of plunder and pillage after defeating Troy and is met by his conniving wife.

Here is Vanquishing Grecian Warlords - Postcard #39 (12MB, .mp3, 13:06)

Music by Joe Williamson, “Arco Hotel” music for double bass. Recorded New Year’s Day 199?, Amsterdam, NL

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Busting out a bit of original (un)sung freeverse with a new mic plus guitar-toting amigo Bread, a shaker egg and a stack of freeverse fortified with improvisational bits about the mortar holding the middle of bricks, leaping over hedges, waiting for airplanes and diesels downshifting and being …
so tired but sometimes
so inspired
bewildered and in love with something
we’ve never met
and history yet unseen

Listen to Improvising Over Hedges - Postcard #38 (.mp3, 4:31, 4.5MB)

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(loosely) based on original work Bridges at Mountain Highway

Continuing on with Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues, DaveO strolls down The Mission reading Jack’s choruses written on the same street in 1954 while observing butter trucks, museums and tolling bells and listening to Clayton the Seabus busker sing about going home.

Listen to San Francisco Mission Stroll with Jack (.mp3, 11:32, 13MB)
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Seek Kerouac’s San Fran Blues at Amazon (plus give Dave ducats for wine)
Search for Kerouac’s San Francisco Blues at Powell’s (yup, moolah here too)
Explore rare books at Elephant Books

Stroll on by this post whose sole mission is to validate my legitimacy to the folks of some Podcast directory something or other …

My Podcast Alley feed! {pca-c91477162930e744de3309f987904b4e}

In San Francisco on an early morning stroll with a French curled tie, Dave O performs contemporary reconnaissance of an intersection described by Jack Kerouac in San Francisco Blues and discusses Kerouac’s motivations and system for creating these Blues poems.

Geographically speaking, the additional observations include bridge commuters, urine puddles, hot dog and motorcycle tire shops, beer-signed parking lots, a VA condo, a flock of tie wearing folk and apartments with 24 hour concierge service.

Listen to “Kerouac Choruses at Third and Harrison” (.mp3, 9:21, 13MB)
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Seek Kerouac’s San Fran Blues at Amazon (plus give Dave ducats for wine)