…. are essentially this really needs to be over. If John and Sarah Quayle win, well, I just don’t know.
Anyone else feel like they’ve been holding their breathe for about six months.
…….. Anyway…
So I just returned late last night from my six day stint in my home city of Chicago and I’m sick as a fucking dog. Chicago is like that, because I have a lot of peeps to see, very little time to do it in usually, and a pretty big expanse of distance and schedules to navigate to fit them all in. Anyway, the end result of this is normally consecutive nights of drinking until 7AM that batters my immune system and returns me to the docile West Coast needing a vacation from my vacation.
Now, I had mentioned in the previous blog before my trip that I was going to hopefully be making a return to one of the Midwest’s most haunted of spots, BACHELOR’S GROVE CEMETARY*. I grew up near this old local haunt and at one point lived just a few minutes walk from the old forest road that begins next to Midlothian Turnpike and creepily twists its way on into the darkness of a Cook County forest preserve, eventually depositing the by-then-terrified sojourner at the wrought iron gates that lead into the cemetary proper. I began exploring Bachelor’s when I was a mischievious youth (which many people assure me I still am) and through the years have gone back periodically just to reignite the experience. It’s been, I think since ’04 that I’ve been there and I really wanted to take a short 3AM trip.
Much to my chagrin things just did not work out.
First of all if you go around Halloween the cops are practically waiting for you. We had figured two days later for safety’s sake but then the opportunity just never presented itself until I was driving home from a friend’s house at about 4:30AM. Here’s the wuss out, it was the day before our flight back, and well, I’d been drinking and had to try to wake up somewhat early. Not to mention, and here’s age talking, I could not put my desire to visit a cemetary in the middle of the night over my desire not to inconvenience my wife and parents (who we were staying with) with A) bail, B) a tow cost, C) the cost of the return flights for who knows how many subsequent court dates.
Responsibility sucks, doesn’t it?
Perhaps I’ll relate my Bachelor Grove stories at a later date, when I’m not coughing, sneezing and just generally feeling like shit. But what I do want to briefly tell everyone about is a new album I found while back in Chi-town.
Captain Jack is a guy I grew up with. He used to be in a brilliant band called CELESTIAL CRUMB. Southside musician extraordinaire, he records albums every few years and releases them in relative obscurity. This isn’t one of those ‘buy my friend’s album’ kind of things – well maybe it is, but let me tell you about it anyway.
I have not seen The Captain in some number of years, and I only own his initial album, 1997’s unbelievable FLAGELLATIONS OF A NOBODY. The music on that disc completely obliterated the supporting-my-friend sale that put it in my possession, as the album has lived and grown with me ever since even though I no longer know the man who made it.
Cut to the chase, ‘What’s it sound like?’
Glad you asked. Imagine lying on the shores of your favorite body of water at night, stoned, staring up at the stars and listening to the waves crash.
That right there is the essence and inspiration for this man’s music. It is incredible. I always want to tell people, for simplicity’s sake, that Captain Jack sounds like Hendrix, old Jane’s or maybe Marley, 311 and Funkadelic in a psychedelic blender, but he doesn’t. Those might be some of the influences I know shaped him, but to limit description of his music’s sound to mere name dropping is a travesty. But the ‘lying on the shores…’ line, that does it. Jack’s a water person. He spends a lot of time surfing on lake Michigan and out on fishing boats and what not (or at least he did when I knew him) and anyone who is or hangs with water people know that the more time you spend on large bodies of water late at night, the more beautifully ethereal experiences you have. It is this type of experience that drives and flavors Captain Jack’s music.
So back in town someone gives me a copy of a brand new album by him, entitled FOR RON. It is, simply put, worthy of my spouting off about it here and I just wanted to pass this on, because twice now Captain Jack has changed my life with his music and if I ever get a chance to see him again I’m going to go out of my way to pick up the two or three albums I’ve heard occurred in the interim, since I last saw him.
I spent some time searching around the internet today for some kind of link I could pass along for anyone interested in hearing some of what I’m talking about, but all I could find is this**:
http://thirdcoastsurfshop.com/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6887
Fish on Cap’m, fish on…
……………..
* go here for a virtual tour and so much information it gets kinda annoying:
http://www.graveyards.com/IL/Cook/bachelors/
** And if anyone here might know any other ways of contacting or listening to this wonderfully strange man and his music, please let me know.