Milwaukee Musings

Milwaukee is still a place where you can encounter guys on the street who look like secondary characters from a Fassbender film from the late 1970s - on Brady Street, on Locust. It speaks to a certain kind of wonderful freedom still present in the city.

WMSE 91.7FM is a formidable radio station. Randomly in the car at 91.7 over three days in the city, I heard: swamp rock psychedelia, gothic new wave maybe contemporary or maybe from 35 years ago, intoxicating slow jams on the Saturday afternoon Boogie Bang & Dewey's Sunday morning show featuring an audience-member recorded Benny Goodman concert from the 1930s and I recalled how Dewey's voice and his music curation defined my Sunday mornings for the decade of the 1990s. And the man persists, still conjuring wonder from stacks of vinyl scavenged from bins spanning the continent, I imagine.

FAUST DRUM CENTER, and its haunting allusions to the idea of selling one's soul in order to be able to play like John Bonham or Neil Pert, may be no more on Kinnickinnick Ave, but the street possesses a heady density of vintage clothing, furniture and record stores. Just walking by the vitrines, one feels less depressed... 

Poems Bombs Silence

AND WHEN THE VIETNAM WAR BEGAN SAN FRANCISCO STREET POET BOB KAUFMAN TOOK A VOW OF SILENCE TO PROTEST / ONE GUY NO MONEY NO WAY TO SPEAK TO STONE MEN DISTANT DECIDING / FOR 10 YEARS ORDERING COFFEE WITH NO WORDS / SAYING I LOVE YOU WITH HIS EYES / THE HILLS OF THE CITY GROW STEEPER AT TWILIGHT / GOLDEN GATE PARK LEADS DOWN TO THE SEA / THE PACIFIC STRETCHING TO GREEN VIETNAM COVERED IN SMOKE / WHAT WOULD BOB DO AS NIGHT FALLS ON GAZA NOW IN NOVEMBER / THE MADNESS OF THE LAST CENTURY PERSISTING / WOULD HE APPROACH STOPLIGHT CARS AND CREATE-SPEAK A POEM / POEMS PUT BOB INTO PRISON WHERE HE WROTE MORE POEMS / OR WOULD HE FALL SILENT IN THE MIST RISING OFF THE BAY / ALLEYS CORNERS SILENCES STORMS BOMBS LIKE GREAT HAILSTONES MADE FROM LEAD AND FIRE RAIN ONTO ROOFTOPS IN GAZA / NIGHT'S NOT FOR SLEEPING / IT IS FOR WEEPING / WOULD BOB SPEAK OR WOULD HE SCREAM OR FALL SILENT FOR 10 YEARS 100 YEARS 1000 YEARS 10,000 YEARS?

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