THE MUSTER POINT PROJECT

“Grub Street”

There is a three-block stretch of Calgary’s Centre Street, just up the slight rise from the Chinook C-Train station, on which every hot tub dealer in town has an outlet. You are familiar with artists’ colonies and other hives of like-minded businesses or individuals. Some sort of congressional black hole gravitational force always seems to be at play. Some two hundred and fifty years ago London’s hacks, freelance writers who for a fee provided content for what would become and what we now perceive as mass media, tended to gather in the taverns along a long since disappeared street called Grub Street.

At the close of the nineteenth century George Gissing published a novel called New Grub Street, a story about two competing writers, one of whom has no scruples. Fifty years later Joyce Carey published The Horse’s Mouth, a novel about a talented, wildly erratic and eccentric painter named Gulley Jimson (the movie stars Alec Guinness). The books’ common theme is integrity as self-sabotage, or like the 10cc single, “Art for Art’s Sake.”

I read both books in my first semester at university. A Brit Lit course explored the gap between the Edwardian era and the “Angry Young Man” movement. My professor’s name was Tobias. She sported a purple ‘do with a Bride of Frankenstein nicotine streak. She was tenured long past her best before date, but during those lectures when she could summon the energy to inflate her withered passion, man, she knew her stuff.

Around this time, I used to spend a lot of time with a newish friend of mine named Glen. I’d dated his sister, Susan, and he and I remained in touch after she and I split up. Our apartments were in the same Montreal neighbourhood; he was closer to Guy Street and I was a little farther west, closer to the Montreal Forum, ambling distance. He could’ve taught The Horse’s Mouth; and you’ve got to read City of Night – that line from “L.A. Woman” – and Hubert Selby and Tom McGuane and this, and that. Oh! And this too! Glen made his way out west from Montreal about ten years before I did, so, maybe forty years ago. We lost touch.

Susan and I had bonded over music; we were both in our college’s creative arts program. She hosted a show on the campus radio station; I wrote album reviews for the newspaper. About fifteen years ago when I was still working for a Calgary ad agency, sometimes as a hack, Susan came to town for a media conference. We caught up over happy hour drinks. I asked after Glen and asked Susan to please pass on my regards.

Social media did not exist when George Harrison released “Devil’s Radio” in 1987. My footprint in the global village’s town square is minimal, I’ve had a Facebook account for a decade. The platform doesn’t even cross my mind should I be seeking hard news or an informed opinion while wasting time online (and I prefer to pull the appropriate reference book from the shelf rather than use Google). My feed is music, books, baseball and a sprinkling of my hometown and its hockey team. I’ve also been able to reconnect with a number of people I cared about all those years ago. So, Glen and I, actual friends, a little long-lost, are also twenty-first century electric friends.

Glen sent me a note a few months back not knowing I was busy working on song lyrics for Kevin Franco’s Muster Point Project, remarking on a picture of me I’d posted on my Facebook wall. He said I looked like Gulley Jimson. I thought, “Oh, great, grey haired and grizzled.” I laughed, and in that moment, I was inspired to frame the lyrics for “Grub Street.”

I remembered all those books Glen and I used to talk about. I remembered the elegiac chain-smoking wreck that was Professor Tobias, sadly beautiful in a Replacements sort of way. And, dear me, Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” (Graham Greene, 1948; The Horse’s Mouth was published in 1946). It took me two cigarettes on the front porch to conclude that “Grub Street” would make a great song chorus, lyric hook or title. The link between George Gissing and Gulley Jimson wasn’t too tenuous, an author and another author’s character, although separated by contemporary literary convention and two world wars, were addressing the same dilemma, essentially talking the same language. The proper nouns together could combine to create a memorable line. And, God help me, I know Kevin sometimes sweats singing so many sequential “S” sounds for some reason.                 

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com has been refreshed, revamped, revitalized and otherwise reinvigorated. Watch and listen to the songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did in your preferred format from your preferred e-retailer. 

HUMAN WRECKAGE

Oh, Brother, I Can’t Afford a Smith-Corona

It’s not so easy to be me.

For the past fifteen years or more I’ve done virtually all of my writing (exclusive of medium ballpoints inside Hilroy exercise books or on pads of graph paper) on a second-hand Toshiba laptop. The machine was stripped down to its Windows XP operating system and a version of Microsoft’s WordPerfect. Nothing else on it except for my files. It was a sturdy unit, packing some weight and its large black keys withstood my hunt-and-pound typing technique. It was a utilitarian device that did its job.

One morning in late June I went downstairs to my writing area, seven bookshelves, a desk, a round table with a Cold War globe, three dictionaries and three style books, two notepads and a bulletin board, and pressed the Toshiba’s power button. Brian Eno’s (Roxy Music) Microsoft “sound” sounded. As usual. The screen did not illuminate. I could just make out my background image of Stonehenge on a sunny day but it was more midnight than noon. The cursor was invisible.

You will recall those instances in your life, and I dearly hope there haven’t been many, when something very bad for whatever reason has happened and your stomach, a sac, twists itself into a dagger and knifes through your small and large intestines seeking the most expedient exit?

My hi-tech troubleshooting skills are sharp, razor strop honed. I turned the machine off and walked away. Like faulty home appliances and required home repairs, sometimes problems just fix themselves. Faith is a powerful tool when wielded by the ignorant. The reboot manifested a miracle. I was blind, now I could see. I was savvy enough to back everything up on one of those little (although surprisingly large) memory sticks I never fail to insert incorrectly first try. I transferred all the current files to the Crooked 9’s big Mac upstairs in the den.

The Province of Alberta deregulated its electricity market late last century. Free market theory dictated that competition among providers would lower its consumer cost. We live in weird times and the market never fails to move in mysterious ways. Twice a year, when it’s time to change the clock, I’m reminded every appliance in the house is on, all the time. The coffee maker has to be reset. This constant low, slow drain of energy irks me; and modern appliances are difficult or near impossible to repair, designed to be replaced. My Toshiba workhorse could not be turned off, let alone recycled, before I was up and running on something else.

So, I put the word out: I need a new typewriter. Oh, and a mouse, I guess, because I’m a spaz with touch pads. Also, for reasons I can’t rationally explain, the “feel” of the keyboard is of importance. I don’t care about the brand or the machine’s features. Any recommendations?

My secret fret was whether new laptop cords came with two or three pronged plugs because the outlets and their various extension cords in this old house could be, but maybe not, one or the other. And my writing area, like my fiction, isn’t going anywhere.

My nephew Harry said he had an old MacBook Air that might suit me, gratis. I was intrigued. My friend Jim, an author at work on another book, had told me that’s what he does his work on. Harry said the machine had been too sluggish when he had too many windows open on screen. He’s a doctor and so I could imagine a mishmash of medical literature, original research papers, billing spreadsheets and knowing him as I do, a Jays or English football game running in the background. My typewriter application would not unduly distress the circuitry designed in California and assembled in China.

And I think we both thought that was that.

“Do you know how to set it up?”

“Set it up? Can’t I just turn it on and go? I just want to type on it.”

“Oh, Uncle Geoff.”

God bless Harry. I wasted hours of his life, but this machine, stripped down and lean as Apple will allow, is up and running. And if its second life rivals my used Toshiba’s, it should see me out. Its connection to its power source isn’t as discreet as I’d like, but I can turn the device off and even unplug it. Anyway, I’m not prepared to empty and shift three bookshelves to run a new, hidden extension cord; life’s too short.                 

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com has been refreshed, revamped, revitalized and otherwise reinvigorated. Watch and listen to songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did in your preferred format from your e-retailer. 

A FAN’S NOTES

This Just In: The 70s Are Ending

Should the rain ever stop, my law of twelve lawn mows between Victoria Day and Thanksgiving remains applicable, mushrooms sprouting like dandelions, not withstanding. West Coast League short season baseball wrapped here Sunday afternoon. August arrives in Edmonton with a slightly crisper air of gentle denouement. Ann’s remarked that the angle of the sun’s light, provided we can actually gauge it through the rain or the wildfire haze, has dulled a degree or three. Our al fresco newspaper morning coffees require an extra layer of clothing. Anyway, Ann, a retired music teacher, still considers Labour Day New Year’s Eve.

This awareness of time passing pervades and prevails. Next week’s looking pretty good except for the funeral to kick it off. The mixology of our attendance is genuine affection for the deceased diluted by obligation and diplomacy and I’m not anticipating lingering long enough to rate the sandwiches following a full Catholic service. Tuesday promises to be a fine night out, sort of a Mobius strip déjà vu, a show postponed from about this time last year, and what would’ve been an epic double bill forty years ago: Rod Stewart with Cheap Trick. I haven’t caught either act since I was in my early twenties. Ann loves Sir Rod’s good old stuff as much as I do, but she’s never seen him perform and, dear me, it’s getting awfully late in the day to debate with which album he really began to misdirect his incredible talent. As for Cheap Trick, I’ve reassured Ann she’ll know every song. As for me, I’m hoping the opening slot and perhaps something like arthritis will curtail the duration of Rick Nielsen’s power pop guitar pyrotechnics.

Thanksgiving in Edmonton is a confusing and peculiar time of year. I know I won’t have cut the lawn again, but the array of hand tools by the Crooked 9’s back door is schizo: leaf rakes and snow shovels; I just don’t know, I never can tell. Our October will run out with the Doobie Brothers who surely must be down to the last green tinged roach in the teacup saucer ashtray after more than fifty years of road work. One hook was tickets selling for twentieth century prices and the second was, as I assured Ann, “We’ll know every song.”

My high school social whirl was more often than not time well wasted in friends’ basements. There were popular albums I never bought because everybody else already had. And some, like the Doobies’ The Captain and Me, could only exist in a collective context; they would never sound as good to me alone in my bedroom. Following my graduation the Doobies created the template for rock band as rock brand and no one since has done it with such elegant ease: Takin’ It to the Streets (an absolute knock out title track) featured both group founder and vocalist Tom Johnston who was preparing to step away from active duty for health reasons and his dauphin Michael McDonald. The reconfigured band’s next album, Minute by Minute, was one of those mainstream commercial juggernauts that, like Let’s Dance, Freeze Frame, Brothers in Arms and Born in the USA, may’ve proved more yoke than windfall. Anyway, both singers are back with the Doobies for this apparent final lap around the concert circuit and, anyway, you know, despite commercial radio’s best efforts, I’ve never tired of the breathless gossip concerning the preacher and the teacher in that sleepy little Texas town.

It’s a long night and tell me what else were you gonna do? Everything dies in Edmonton in November, baby, and that’s a fact. So, man, Ann and I want those E Street sparks to fly before Remembrance Day. Of the aforementioned rockers, only Bruce Springsteen remains relevant, two of his last three albums were worthy of his back catalogue and the other was Friday night fun, drop the needle and sway, but this tour cries elegy, a sweeping exit from the world’s biggest stages. My sense with Springsteen is that if he feels he’s incapable of living up to his live legacy, his prisoner of rock ‘n’ roll shtick, he’ll step back, ratchet things down.

Winter’s coming everywhere and to everything; there’s no stopping it.                      

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. My companion site www.megeoff.com has been refreshed, revamped, revitalized and otherwise reinvigorated. Watch and listen to songs I co-wrote with The Muster Point Project. Of course, you can still purchase my latest book Of Course You Did from various retailers in your preferred format.