Thursday, December 11 - Chris Buckley EP Foster Library in the Topping Room poetry every Thursday at 7:30pm 651 E. Main Street - Ventura host Phil Taggart open mic Chris Buckley Creedence Clear Water Metaphysical Reflection B.A. in English, 21 or 2, first year teaching Jr. High and not near enough sense to buy a breadboard, gas-stingy Volkswagon, to not dump my first paychecks into a 1969 Plymouth Roadrunner—383 V-8, Hurst 4-on-the-floor, and all the ridiculous creature comforts of bucket seats, white vinyl landau roof, blue metallic paint, chromed wheels, and a Craig 8-track stereo tape deck. Years of comparative deprivation driving a 1959 rust bucket Bel Air covered in Bondo, retreads slick as seals, had rendered me senseless, left me with a teenager’s glitzy mind-set measuring happiness in yards of chrome, in the percolation of Saturday night radical cams and air inductions revving in my synapses. I drove around the southland for hours, replaying that title track from Creedence’s “Green River” album, though I knew that Fogerty had to be singing about somewhere beyond the dry river so named in Orange County; but I couldn’t have cared less as it blasted out the wind wings, as the chassis and every blood cell shook with a steady rumble, that muscle car guzzling gas and glorious time. God knew what I was thinking . . . on the other hand, since the point, upon reflection, seemed to be not to do any thinking, I’d have to say he had no more idea what the hell I was up to than I did? I was a walking/driving advertisement for the uselessness and absolute failure of the long-term positive effects each and every “steadying influence” was purported to have on the young . . . add to that the myth of angels guarding our direction, helping us make reasonable decisions in life. And though I could get scratch, burn rubber 1st to 2nd, and 2nd to 3rd, I was floored when I filled up at the Atlantic Richfield station, handing over $8.27 for a tank of ethyl. That car was, in the long and short run, a lead-sled—too heavy to pop a wheelie or beat someone off the line dragging half a block on State Street as the light blinked green. But when I stood on the accelerator, the engine almost jumped off the motor mounts as I hit the top end faster than anyone with any sense should ever want to. One day, stupid-sober in the afternoon, on an empty back road in Cathedral City—named, once again, for God-knows-what, there being no Cathedral within 90 miles of that sand pit— I took my college buddies Croal and Vander for a spin in my new ride. Rolled to a dead stop, slotted in “Green River,” volume cranked up to 12, revved the V-8 to the red-line on the tach, and as Fogerty beganto wail at siren volume “Welllllllll . . . I popped the clutch and punched it— tattooing both my pals with the yank-back of the seat belts, half way to whiplash as I gunned it 3rd to 4th, windows down, Creedence blaring with that hard-hitting, high-manic double-twanged driving lead reinforced with a gut-thumping bass as we blasted to 85 mph before I eased off, howling through the roof as if I’d just established all the evidence we’d ever need to prove the existence of the soul— sand and grit flying in the windows, into our eyes and teeth, our breath coming up short as our sublime collective ignorance had us smiling away for the whole half mile, flying through our lives as if we would be 20 something for the next 40 years. Future EP Foster Thursday Night Featured Readers: December 18 OPEN MIC No reading on 12/28 or on 1/1 January 8 OPEN MIC January 15 Jules Nyquist & John Roche January 22 James Cushing January 29 Shelba Cole Robison February 5 Jean Colonomos February 12 John Ridland – Lincolniad February 19 Lummox 3 reading February 26 Maja Trochimczk and Ed Rosenthal April 2 Mary Kay Rummel
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:29:11 +0000
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