The eponymous album has the same color and versatility that made The Band more than just another rock band. It contains the same kind of rough edged country soulfulness that came through so strongly from The Band-and more.That ‘more’ is supplied by veteran rock ‘n rollers Eric Clapton,Ronnie Wood and the late Doug Sahm.In addition, Danko’s former band mates,Garth Hudson,Levon Helm,Robbie Robertson and Richard Manuel contributed on separate cuts.

Besides Danko, the now deceased Emmett ‘Ringolevio’ Grogan and Bobby ‘See You Later Alligator’ Charles share song writing credit on the collection.Grogan’s contribution is especially unique in that he was a lively participant in the San Francisco cultural explosion of the 1960′s and founder of the anarcho-give-it-away assemblage called The Diggers.

Multi-talented record producer Rob Fraboni is to be applauded for harnessing all the diverse brilliance present into one unified presentation. The finished product demonstrates the direction that truly progressive rock can take while still retaining the most vibrant elements of basic rock ‘n roll.

no one ever gave you what you deserved
those that got closest to you
had scar tissue where their hearts used to be
no guts? – I think not
it’s just that the public school & the U.S. Penal System
got to you before you got a chance to get into your self

but you’re okay;it’s okay
to drop out of a society that didn’t want you anyway
to hang out at decrepit homes,dives & dumps
tag along,wearing once white,now filthy tee shirt
peering out at it all
as the cream of the Great American Dream drips down
the leg of your tattered jeans into the newly littered gutters
of now squalid suburbia

I don’t expect you to understand this rank panegyric
anymore than you understood when
you were asked to move out of the basement
where you slept amid the abandoned toys & wet laundry
of your sister’s kids
they who kept you awake galloping upstairs at 2 in the afternoon
as you covered your head in psyche withdrawl

so you moved & sought refuge
in the prefab,pseudo-country club apartment complex of
“young singles” (not to be confused with “sliced singles”,
rooming with that insidious shaman turned awful entrepreneur
who used your sweat( & blood)over late night kitchen oven
to make his dough rise, to get his pizza business off the ground

what kind of ex post facto Naval court martial sentenced you to that?

all the jobs you’ve done!
all the jobs done on you…
I remember picking you up from work many times
after a day at one of those grimy,tortuous factory slimes,
you standing,waiting at the curb, beat
looking like a perforated Fearless Fosdick after a gunfight
holes of soot & pain,shredded & wet with perspiration
fried with desperation
a couple of years later in the sun
laying asphalt on perverse parking lots of banks & fast food chains
barbecued you were

what a waste,
when your imagination & spirit should burn in factories of mirth
& on assembly lines of celebration
instead of being squashed & flattened with the weight of minimum wage

frogs,crickets & grasshoppers
crickets,grasshoppers & frogs
grasshoppers,frogs & crickets

jumped & hopscotched
all over me & my poems

He saw her by accident walking on the sidewalk outside the restaurant where she used to work.It was the night after Thanksgiving.She had come back into town to visit her parents and cover obligatory holiday reunions with other relatives.This short stop over allowed her to spend New Year’s Eve where she wanted to,back at school in Minnesota.

Complete surprise for both of them.They had not seen each other in more than two years.Both of them looked very different than they had ever seen each other look.She wore a wide brimmed Amish type hat held on by a black silk ribbon tied under her chin;but he glimpsed her close cropped hair.Her thick,dark black hair was even shorter that the “severe Joan of Arc” look that he remembered her wearing.A mistake? Did her stylist over do it? With her black fur collar up all he really saw was what he most cherished-her always glorious Botticelli face.

She was with some long time mutual friends of theirs and some obscure male companion.They all chatted and reminisced a bit then disbursed.Everybody exited the scene except him and her.Just the two of them left standing in the frozen parking lot.He would drive her home.

They talked of her solo drive a few months ago out west to college from her midwest home.And he told her of his current writing projects and endevours.She asked if he stilled lived at the same place.Her face brightened with personal remembrances of warm nights and sunlit afternoons there.

It was so good.She was better than perfect.There was a glow then,there in the car.The long absent camaraderie.Honest motion.Real communication.Unlike the one other time that they had met since their break up;their words and amiability flowed easily.It was a delicious  drive.

After they stopped in front of the house where she was staying;the main thrill and surprise came.She said that yes she had received all those unacknowledged letters that he had sent;and that she even reread them sometimes.She mentioned that she had posted some near her toaster shelf for days to dig certain lines like,”…in a dream or in a drunk,it all still matters”.

He was taken aback.He replied that it would be a real delight if she would write him back.She said that this,being here with him was a delight in itself.

He was enraptured.He reached into his glove compartment for a pen to wrtie her his new address.As he opened the car’s glove box something happened.Everything from the private depository of his soul tumbled out.Every gift,every scribbled poem or written impression or expression that he would ever put on paper about or dedicated to her;all the artifacts of his affection now or ever;ribbons yet to be tied;rings of gold;photos of them together not yet taken;presents for anniversaries to come.Some kind of physical manifestation of his most personal thoughts about her.Every sketch,every impression,everything past,present,or even future that he had created or was to create in response to her,tumbled out of that tiny personalized compartment into her lap and piled up.Past her waist,covering her stomach,accumulating above her solar plexus,finally rising,rising and engulfing her breast and then her heart.

A panicked second passed.Then feeling a combination of in credulousness with some,slight vague sense of relief;he scooped up the miraculous pile off her lap and began shoving it al back into the glove box as fast as he could.He somehow stuffed it all back from whence it came.

What could he possibly follow that with? She had seen everything.Nothing to hide.Nothing to camouflage or divulge.No real point in explanation or elaboration.He saw amazement,trepidation,affection,but mostly bewilderment in her eyes.

Calling on long dormant reserves of gallantry and charm,he took her hand and kissed it.Then he told her goodnight and goodbye.

As he drove away the moon rose over the rooftop of a nearby steel foundry.The foundry manufactured blue steel.The cold blue steel of artillery and ammunition.

there is nobody
any more
unctuous,or obnoxious
or annoying
than a reformed old school
old fool
neo-Nazi

just the same,
as he & I stood next to each other
gazing into the sparkling,crackling bonfire
I let him jabber
& babble & jabber & babble
ad nauseum

he pontificated on & on

finally I had to stop him with a gasp
when at long last,I stated most emphatically
that the only real true,bound book
worth burning was
Mein Kampf

Their first few months together they ate a lot of corn & carrot ends.In awhile in order to make ends meet,he began to moonlight.His night time job was as a stand- in for a small theater production of “The Devil in Miss Jones”.He was ecstatic.For days he walked around whistling “Georgia”.The chick though was completely nonplussed.

One morning he awoke to find a note attached to his pillow.The note read in part,”…do not remove under penalty of law”.Taking a cue from the address on the note,he tracked his miffed ms. to a mattress factory in Guntown,Mississippi.

The reconciliation however, was not to be.The piqued chick was nowhere to be found.Available evidence suggested that she had split with her new egg man to marts unknown.Leaving one aspiring thespian aghast.

I’m thinking about you tonight Ms. Radcliffe
and I know that no matter where you are
that you are in a position of power
even on your knees
evoking the name of Lester Young
or blowing
insane
mad
full-throttle bop saxophone
-I know that you are in charge!

if in fact you don’t respond
to my salutations or my invitations
that is your statement of independence & autonomy

slammed & fragmented
by the violent tides of transformation
the tides that threaten us all
the same tides of transformation that when they crest
will wash us clean

and cleanliness-it rates right up there with all the highly evolved states
of being
of waking
of feeling
of diving off into the ancient,purifying,sanctifying fires
of redemption & bliss

I’m thinking about you tonight,Ms. Radcliffe

later,sitting on a stool
by the window
in a coffee shop
watching the cars & pedestrians pass
all of them in a hurry
to get to work

my neurons firing frantically
in a frenzy of fatigue,
& me
so goddamned glad
that

I am on vacation

disgusted
busted
not enough dough to make it go
Monday morning in November with very little hope

then from a distance I saw you approach,
the bright sun behind
you my bright son,in my view

kindergarten red plaid shirt
million mile wide big,blue eyed boyish smile
“Hi Dad”-was all that you needed to say

Samuel Beckett stated,”I can’t go on
but
I’ll go on.”
that’s exactly how I lived then

now 30 years after the fact
the quest for words to describe
the joy of you in my life
continues to sustain