DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
My Fellow Americans, Life is actually just a microscopic, deluded moment in time, so let's cut to the freakin' chase. One look at our impending election debacle can solidify my case. It has been my contention since birth, that the answer to every difficulty we encounter on this sacred yet demented Stone, can be revealed with ultimate clarity through the ultra neurotic engagements of Music, Art, Literature, Film, Poetry and a good Pastrami sandwich. Why would any sane human spend so must time on a film set (Do you know how long you gotta wait until your 8 second deliverance of an edited beyond repair line gets a chance to become a professional embarrassment etched in time forever? ) or expend so much energy in a recording studio, piecing together another ode to a man or woman who could not care less how much love existed within your digestive tract? It's all about hymns and prayers and a quest for mercy and forgiveness and silence and faith. We were blessed with Charles Bukowski, Gene Chandler, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Ryder and a legion of creative explorers whose influences provided the air we breathe. So Let's Dance! This site shall explore the reaper, find a way to disarm the stench of injustice, discover some true loves and talk it all over before it's all over. So what's the worst that our desires could produce? Failure? So sue me. I'm going to require your assistance in making as much trouble for the grown-ups as possible. Let the record show that my childish heart yearns to disrupt the madness. Join me Ladies and Germs!
With Gratitude For Gena Rowlands, Nancy Sinatra, Jerry Quarry, Leo Gorcey, Arthur Alexander and Joey Heatherton, Your Splendid Bohemian, Rich Buckland.
DIG THIS WITH BILL MESNIK AND RICH BUCKLAND- THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS
THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT "DOUBLE TROUBLE" - FACES OF GRIEF, WITH PATTI SMITH AND LUCINDA WILLIAMS. DOUBLE DOWN!!
Some philosophers posit the difficult truth that a world without grief would deprive us of a deeper appreciation of the evanescent beauty of life. Life cannot be grasped; it flows mysteriously from one moment into another - here, and gone. This is your moment to take it all in, so be present and celebrate it, they urge. When Stephen Colbert says that the devastating loss of his father and brothers in a fatal plane crash taught him gratitude one has to step back in awe and wonder to reflect on the heart tugging idea that grief may be a gift.
Today we feature two survivors of loss - physical and spiritual. When Lucinda Williams asked “If we lived in a world without tears, how would broken find the bones?…” she hinted at this enigma 17 years before a stroke almost took her life; Patti Smith survived a punishing revolving door of grief: losing her husband Fred, her brother Todd, her best friend Robert, and somehow she moved through it all to create one of the most incendiary recordings of her career - after an 8 year hiatus.
PATTI SMITH
Patti Smith is a national treasure - (I don’t throw that title around) - although, she’d probably demur saying she was just a chick from New Jersey who got lucky. But, anyone familiar with her memoir Just Kids knows it wasn’t luck that drove this waitress with artistic aspirations to migrate to New York City to seek her rock n roll fortune among the poetic luminaries of the era - it was true grit and an unshakeable confidence in her talent.
I admired her then - in Sinatra drag on the cover of her debut album Horses, with all that tomboy swagger, but I LOVE her now as our eternally youthful elder poetess, touring the world like a good will ambassador for the embattled Peace and Love generation. On the song Gone Again she rages against loss, even as she acquiesces to its inevitability.
LUCINDA WILLIAMS
Lucinda Williams is the ideal blend of tough and tender, of homespun heart and poetic sophistication. She is one of the best singer songwriters America has produced, and that’s saying something. She’s a short story Magus with an authentic Southern twang, whose autobiographical fiction stirs the heart like few others can.
Her album Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, released in 1998, brought her to the attention of a much broader national audience, and her open hearted vulnerability proved both a blessing and a curse. Her artistic output and touring schedule accelerated, but in 2020, those wheels came off the axel, when a stroke took away her ability to play and sing. Thankfully, she’s been working her way back, and the last chapter hasn’t been written yet.
