The Last Gig was Smoking - You Can't Steal Culture

"So I'm talking to you Stooge as the Igg told me to."

"Yeah, my Gibson, heartbreaking."

"Go on."

""Her last gig was smoking. Igg was going off and the Montreal people were pumped up."

"Then they stole it."

"They tried to steal the show. Thing is D.B. You can't steal the show from the Igg and the Gib. Can't be done."

Listen up you thieves of culture. It can't be done. The Gib's the Gib.

It's A Callous World - Dead Beat and Iggy Pop Talk About the Weird Stuff

"Pops, talk to me. They stole your gear."

"Montreal D.B. You know how it goes."

"But all the same. To steal the gear of The Igg."

"Talk to my man, Stooge, Mike Watt, they took his Gibson."

"It's a callous world Pops."

"Isn't that what I have been trying to tell you?"

"So all the weird stuff?"

"Yeah, all that. All that to tell you it is a callous world. Don't you work the same way D. B.?"

"You know how it goes."

Iggy and the Other Stuff

So Iggy's on the blower. "Hey Dead Beat, you still alive?"

"What's up Pop? You dead?"

"Wounded."

"'member the good old days?"

"Self-mutilation?"

"Yeah, fun stuff. What you been doing?"

"Keeping alive."

"So tell me about thre music demons."

"It's really boring hear this, because most people don't get it. But the very simple, carefully cut architecture of the songwriting is what makes it possible to really relax to the point where your little angels and demons come out, and things get nutty. I know the set list backwards and forward. If I wanna change that, I internalize that. Then, you're free for the other stuff."

Igg, my man, that's how I write, don't you know it?

The Shabbiness Grows - Leonard Cohen Looks Down from Mt. Baldy

D.B. "So Leonard, great show."
L.C. "Thank you."
D.B. ""You sounded great."
L.C. "It's a gift."
D.B. "Anyway Leonard, what is it you are really trying to tell us?"
L.C. "Just to get serious about this thing, you know. One has to be compassionate. It's true that people are up against things, economically and emotionally. The obstacles are great and the suffering is great and people have got to make a living. It's easy to look down from the summit you've reached, or even the summit I've reached, and talk about the responsibilities of the artist, but most people are just trying to get their foot in the door and make a living. So we've got to temper anything we say with that. On the other hand, you've got to be serious about what you do. And you've got to understand the price you pay for frivolity or just for greed--it's a very high price, especially if you're involved in this sacred material, which is about the human heart and human desire and human tragedy. If there isn't some element of seriousness in the training of the artist or in the atmosphere that surrounds the enterprise, then this shabbiness grows and eventually overwhelms it. I think that's what we're in now. It's hard to be serious about so many things. [Look at the whole emphasis] on the charts, if you're a songwriter. Over the years, I saw that arise, where people were now longer interested in the song."
D.B. "We're still interested in your songs."
L.C. (tipping his fedora) "You're too kind."

The Haunting of D.B.

Townes has come back to haunt Dead Beat. You may have noticed.

This from Wiki:

Born in Fort Worth, Texas to an oil-wealthy family, he traveled during his youth around Texas and Colorado. He was the third-great-grandson of Isaac Van Zandt, a prominent leader of the Republic of Texas. Van Zandt County in east Texas was named after his family in 1848.
Van Zandt was being groomed for Texas governorship, but he dropped out of college in the 1960s after being inspired by singer-songwriters and deciding to pursue a singing career. He was very intelligent and was diagnosed manic-depressive in his early twenties. He was treated with insulin shock therapy, which erased much of his long-term memory. His lack of memory and his mental condition contributed to both the passion and sense of isolation evident in his songs.

This from Dead Beat: "Pancho and Lefty" will not just haunt you. It will dig up your grave and lie down next to your bones.

Leonard Cohen to Play Seven Sisters Falls Community Club

So Dead Beat gets in line for his ticket to Lenny. The man himself surprised just about everyone in Canada by playing an intimate gig in Fredericton. Dead Beat of course knows better. If D.B. had not recently moved from the small village of Seven Sisters Falls on the Whitemouth river in Manitoba, the man would have been playing the Seven Sisters Falls Community Club. Nevertheless, as a mark of respect, Ol' D.B. got in line and nabbed himself a few tickets.

Life in the Ashram

Dead Beat remembers his time well hanging out with John and Paul and George (Ringo had already gone home for his egg and chips) in the ashram in Rishikesh, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dressed in my best Eastern robe and sporting my best drooping moustache we sat cross-legged and wore garlands of flowers. We levitated for sure. Higher and higher.

Anyway, the Maharashi, levitated his body right out of this world this week, but his spirit soars on.

By the way, listen to Ol D.B.'s backing vocals on Sexie Sadie - never earned a cent from it - those old misers.

Don't Forget Your Shovel If You Want To Go To Work

Christy Moore was crooning away to Dead Beat the other night, and Dead Beat swooned:



"Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

Oh don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work

Or you'll end up where you came from like the rest of us

Diggin', diggin', diggin'...



And don't forget your shoes and socks and shirt and tie and all.

Don't forget your shoes and socks and shirt and tie and all.

Mr murphy's afraid you'll make a claim if you take a fall.

("how's it goin'" "not too bad")

And we want to go to heaven but we're always diggin' holes.

We want to go to heaven but we're always diggin' holes.

Yeah we want to go to heaven but we're always diggin' holes.

Well there's one thing you can say...we know where we are goin'...

("any chance of a start?" "no" "okay")



And if you want to do it...don't you do it against the wall.

If you want to do it...don't you do it against the wall.

Never seen a toilet on a building site at all.

There's a shed up in the corner where they won't see you at all.

("mind your sandwiches")



Enoch powell will give us a job, diggin' our way to annascaul.

Enoch Powell will give us a job, diggin' our way to annascaul.

Enoch Powell will give us a job, diggin' our way to annascaul.

And when we're finished diggin' there they'll close the hole and all.

Now there's six thousand five hundred and fifty-nine paddies

Over there in london all trying to dig their way back to annascaul

And very few of them boys is going to get back at all...

I think that's terrible.



Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

Don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

Oh, don't forget your shovel if you want to go to work.

Or you'll end up where you came from like the rest of us

Diggin', diggin', diggin."

The inescapable lousiness of growing old - Leonard Cohen

So Lenny, now I've got you here. What's the difference between a poem and a song?"

"You got to ask?"

I shrug. "You know."

" Dead Beat, a poem has a certain -- a different time. For instance, a poem is a very private experience, and it doesn't have a driving tempo. In other words, you know, you can go back and forward; you can come back; you can linger. You know, it's a completely different time reference.

Whereas a song, you know, you've got a tempo. You know, you've got something that is moving swiftly. You can't stop it, you know? And it's designed to move swiftly from, you know, mouth to mouth, heart to heart, where a poem really speaks to something that has no time and that is -- it's a completely different perception."

"I thought that."

"Listen:

Mission.

"I've worked at my work. I've slept at my sleep. I've died at my death, and now I can leave. Leave what is needed, and leave what is full. Need in the spirit and need in the whole."

"Beloved, I'm yours, as I have always been, from marrow to pore, from longing to skin. Now that my mission has come to its end, I pray I'm forgiven the life that I've led. The body I chased, it chased me as well. My longing's a place, my dying's a sail."

They Locked Up The Wrong Man

So Leonard Cohen gets on the blower.

"Dead Beat, I see you have been stealing..."

"Borrowing, Lenny, just borrowing. They can have it back any time they want."

"That's what my money managers told me."

"Genuine sympathy. By the way, did you know you're part of the reason I'm here."

"Why is that?"

"Songs of Love and Hate. Picked it up in a second hand record store. The black and white cover, your face peering out. The circular shape of the vinyl worn into the front. THEY LOCKED UP THE MAN WHO WANTED TO RULE THE WORLD. THE FOOLS. THEY LOCKED UP THE WRONG MAN."

"Somethings never change."

"I went to see you in the National Stadium in Dublin decades ago. At the end I went up to the stage, and you looked me in the eye and shook my hand."

"I remember that."

"Well I haven't forgotten either. So I wasn't really stealing. They locked up the wrong man."

"I guess you're on my side then."

"Lenny, lover, I even went out and bought a second hand blue raincoat, but I didn't rip it at the shoulder."