(TV) Re: London Times Top 100 Guitarists/Dream about T.V./ More Pathol ogy or 95-93=2?!?

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

"There have been two strong dreams in my life but I've never 
written anything about them because it's hard to get across 
the language of dreams"----Tom Verlaine circa 1979


I can prove that Tom Verlaine should be rated much higher 
than #95, in fact, he's at the very least at #2!

Unfortunately, the proof involves delving deep into my 
unconscious.  Yes I know, many of you would prefer not to 
be subjected to those private recesses (or dare not go there). 
So, those not wanting to look behind the unseemly[?] curtain 
into my oneiric state, or to endure the boredom of my homely, 
laborious descriptions, should go directly to go/gools by
scrolling down now to the paragraph towards the end the dream 
(it's marked with ****s).  

I want to preface this by stating outright that before I ever 
read any of the Marquee Moon (MM) list's postings about the 
London Times' top 100 guitarists, I had this dream about 
T. V.'s playing guitar Thursday night. All that follows actually 
took place in the dream to the best of my powers of recollection, 
so help me God.    
				
			--------------------------------

Last night a dream came and replaced my eyes. It was one 
of those dreams that takes place somewhere that doesn't 
really exist, yet is an amalgamation of several real and 
familiar locales that are juxtapositioned in a way that 
creates a totally new geographical environment or psychical 
place.     

Think Broadway near E 16th street or near The Strand Book 
Store or St. Mark's Church in NYC----but a Broadway that 
when you go west in less than half a block you're suddenly in 
a crazy permutation or hybrid of foggy Cape Cod shorelines 
and dense forests to the southwest of Milton, Massachusetts.      

The dream was one of those classic 'frustration-dreams' in 
which one is trying to accomplish something of critical 
importance, but all sorts of fantastical events and bizarre 
obstacles keep intervening to prevent its achievement.   

[ A digression but an insightful example from the 
existing literature of dreams: You have returned to 
a golf course of your youth after not having touched 
a golf club in over 20 years. You have somehow ended-up 
in a golf match whose outcome has very serious consequences 
for your future. You approach the first tee to hit your ball; 
however, you notice that the teeing area for this par 4 hole 
has folding ironing boards set up all over it in a perfect 
geometric pattern, which severely restrict your backswing. 
So, you begin trying to tee-up your ball in a way that will 
potentially minimize the ironing boards.  

And then you can clearly see that in addition to the homey 
obstructions, that what you thought was a meticulously 
cultivated grass tee is actually the loving room inside 
someone's house, and that you must hit your tee shot off of its 
wooden floor, and moreover, you must navigate your ball through 
a narrow hallway, and then continue its flight through a large 
bow open window to a distant green fairway.  None of this, 
however, will seem the least bit extraordinary or strange to you, 
the dreamer---not even when taking your stance over the ball, 
your 2-iron slowly morphs into a snake which you must use as 
a club to hit your ball to begin the golf match. ]

In my dream I was using all resources and wits to attempt to 
see T. Verlaine play a live outdoors concert (which he had 
decided on performing only at the very last minute) in this 
jumble and hodge-podge of nether-Manhattan/Cape Cod/Milton.  
Several MM list members were also trying hard to overcome 
numerous difficulties to hear this concert.  I can recall that 
only P_____ and K____ were definitely present, but there were 
at least 30 other MM listers plus the rest of the audience 
whose size and composition seemed to wax and wane throughout, 
but was never larger than 150.

For some reason Tom was playing in an electric duo, not F. Smith, 
not J. Ripp, nor even O. Ray, but with this very young and scruffy 
looking guy.  Tom and his musical side-kick kept trying to set up 
their microphones and assorted equipment in this tiny NYC plaza that 
was undergoing extensive reconstruction, and which contained a small 
but operating fountain on a low dais. There was a huge piece of 
rusted iron sculpture of a military horse and close by a extremely 
large 100 ft x 100 ft vertical placed slab of thin marble, which met 
a similar sized chunk of unpainted plywood at a right angle. The 
MMooners and I had taken up positions near this marble/plywood corner. 
Tom while fishing through his plastic bag of humble electronic effects, 
notices the M Moon members in the crowd towards the front; he looks   
directly at us and cracks, "You guys should all be on anti-depressants."

It's unseasonably cool for August; the sun is dim behind the heavy 
fog that starts to lift, but then a light but steady rain begins 
to fall on the proceedings. Despite being in close proximity to 
Greenwich Village there are several sky scrappers behind the dais. 
After several interminable false starts from equipment fiascos 
and electrical miseries, Tom and the young guitarist are finally 
about to begin their set.  All the MM members who are present press 
slightly forward with a mixture of relief and intense anticipation;
there is palpable tension; surely we wish to be as close as possible 
to this music and to this man?  Yet, we innately know it is not a 
good idea (and not too cool) to get too close to Tom V.  Then without 
any sound or warning the entire vertical plywood facade collapses on 
Verlaine's accompanist and two of the audience members.  

People scramble frantically to lift the heavy plywood and other 
rubble off the three victims. All are severely injured, but to my 
surprise in very short time order is restored, and the concert 
begins once again---with Tom now forced to play alone.  Tom V is 
10 seconds into the opening guitar chords of "_______ ______" when 
a enormous number of NYC policemen appear running in full riot 
gear towards the audience.  Total consternation and bedlam ensues
---it's the 1968 Democratic Convention with demonstrators and cops in 
Chicago's Loop revisited----with Weathermen milling crazily about 
and police billy clubs thumping and cracking heads of anyone within 
their arms reach.  The concert audience, the MM listers, and I all 
panic and literally run for our lives.  

By instinct the MMooners choose to flee in a direction that 
brings us into almost immediate contact with heavily overgrown 
underbrush at the edge of Milton's woods in which almost everyone 
tries to find a safe hiding place. Crestfallen, I instead have 
run into a small forest clearing and find myself peering into a deep 
canyon containing a mix of granite, trees and sagebrush. Terrified of 
the police gone mad with their batons, I leap and half-fall, half-fly 
a couple of thousand feet onto the top of a gigantic tree (Sequoia?), 
which at the last moment breaks my fall. I can clearly see there is 
melting snow around the base of the larger trees.

Despite all our efforts the entire audience including myself are 
eventually caught, rounded-up and placed in temporary jails made 
out of new galvanized chain-link fencing set up inside the old, 
decrepit Ashmont Station Bus Terminal. The police despite their 
initial fury and virulence do not abuse us---except for one poor 
bastard who is beaten into unconsciousness in a separate holding cell.  
To express our solidarity with him as he is being kicked and clubbed, 
all of us begin singing Verlaine's song "______ _____ _________".  
When a cop outside my chain-fenced cubicle throws me a disgusting 
glance while I'm singing, I cry out, "It's my constitutional right!"

For 'punishment' we are all forced for several hours to scrub clean 
the entire Ashmont Bus Terminal but with nothing except pails of 
water and some rags from discarded clothing. And then just as suddenly 
as the police had appeared out of nowhere at the plaza it's over and 
we're all ushered out for release.  We MM listers stream out Ashmont 
Station's large swinging wooden double-doors that resemble those in an 
old cowboy Boomtown bar. We are more puzzled than unnerved by what we 
have experienced since for some strange reason we feel somehow 
enlightened by the drama of the day's events. 

It's now late afternoon, yet the sunlight is considerably brighter than 
it was at the plaza. Our little band of MMooners approaches a bustling 
street corner, but upon turning the corner we find ourselves no longer 
in urban environs, but instead are approaching a small town totally 
devoid of anyone except ourselves. Somehow our tight group has been 
transported onto a road-salt-damaged concrete bridge that flows into 
E. Milton Square with the Fire station dead ahead.  

We hear several (maybe 40) additional MM members calling faintly to us 
from above. We are now standing in center of the Square; gazing straight 
up one-half mile into the sky I observe more MM members descending slowly 
in hot air balloons. All except one of the balloons' wicker-basket 
coaches lands and their occupants join our original group. Unlike the 
rest of us, the ballooneeers had seen and had heard Tom V. approaching 
as he was riding an old ten-speed bicycle in our direction. As he gets 
closer his electric guitar gets louder. He's playing something that's 
sounds alternately like "Little Johnny Jewel" played backwards and the 
last, fading solo of "Without A Word"----the former a barrage of 
Coltrane-isms and quivering icy notes, the latter still ostensibly of 
a masculine nature but suffused with a tenderness and longing.  

****We stand silent and motionless like characters in a kid's cartoon 
as T. V. vigorously pedals past us down a stretch of Adams Street. We 
intently observe his moving figure slowly diminish in size but not in 
volume as he careens dangerously through the street's more severe curves. 
T. V. couldn't ride using no-hands here even if he wanted to I think, 
but it doesn't really matter now, for he guides his bike through the 
curves with one just one hand while continuing to throw off a torrent 
of guitar notes with the other. We MMooners are but mere bystanders, 
yet we too experience the tension then the release of the song, then 
again the tension then the release from his cascade of sounds---beautiful 
yet unworldly. We communicate with ourselves telepathically; we announce 
to one another that Tom V. is the best, the supreme. He is unrivaled, 
his playing is surely unparalleled. He is the grandest guitarist who 
ever lived---a painter and poet who limns and writes with a guitar 
instead of a palette or pen. We are cognizant that although uncountable 
others may possess as considerable or even greater technique or command 
of this instrument as Tom, not a single one can make a guitar sound as 
he can. But vastly more meaningful, we know that none can play it with 
as great emotion and feeling.**** 

CODA: Dream state beginning to fade.  

E. Milton Square was not totally deserted after all, I see 
Miltonites exiting the shops and heading for their SUVs. I 
recognize a woman's face from my distant past; it's Cynthia 
O'Toole of Saint Agatha's 6th-8th grade classes.  She walking 
with two other women and she looks exactly the way she appeared 
38 years earlier except a bit taller. I feel almost compelled to 
speak to her---to tell her of the terrible crush I had on her, 
of how I was always too afraid of making a fool of myself to 
even utter a word to her at St. Agatha's. 

Resolved to not let this chance encounter pass, I steel myself 
and resolutely approach her in Grono & Christie's shorefront 
vestibule. But instead of cutting to the chase, I can't resist 
wondering what she thought of T. V.'s musical display to which 
she and whole of E. Milton Square had been accidentally exposed. 
Intrigued I begin, "What did you think of that music just now, 
and have you ever read anything by the novelist Janet Hobhouse?" 

Cynthia recognizes who I am, yet answers tersely, "I hate 
all that hard-rock stuff, especially electric guitar." 
Saddened and chastened I only muster a "Oh, but that wasn't 
any ordinary guitar player."  A short but tense verbal 
confrontation ensues at the end of which---totally 
frustrated---I boldly declare that the next time Tom Verlaine 
plays anywhere within 250 miles of Milton I'll buy her and 
her two girl friends tickets to prove my point.  By her 
facial expression and silence I can tell she's debating 
the possibility in her head, and then in a slightly softer 
voice she says, "Until the shadow rings the bell, 
Verlaine will never be a success." 
         
Startled I immediately awake; the clock reads 5:20 am. I 
look out my bedroom window. I promise myself I will go to 
work at once and attempt to type up what I can remember. 

           ---------------------------------
	Leo

PS:  "A translation is never finished; it is, in the end, 
simply abandoned."-----Anonymous 

"He's one of a handful of players who can still hear the 
electric guitar as a fantasy instrument, a dream: a guitar 
that can hit harder  and sustain longer than acoustic version 
bound by physical laws."---------Jon Pareles 1981  

-----Original Message-----
From: secretX@webtv.net 
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2002 9:39 PM
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: (TV) Times of London Top 100 Guitarists

>Times of London polled readers and guitarists. Of 440 nominations Tom's
>#95, Steve Cropper is #99. A friend gave me this list. I'm not sure of
>the date. I think it was printed this week. Here's a partial list:

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