Bluegrass Chronicles

Because the area people now call "The Poconos" has been a vacation destination since vacations became a "thing,"  there has always been a sort of urbanity about the local population, and it was not uncommon, in the heady days of my youth, to drink ill-gotten beers or Boon’s Farm back in the woods with friends and talk about the sugar content of maple sap, the literary goodness or lack thereof in the Scarlet Letter, and whether catfish caught before the shadbush bloomed really were better eating, and why. It was a world which John Steinbeck created in parallel in his work Cannery Row, rough and tumble locals who sometimes were also well-read and thoughtful, and, perhaps from generations who tried to decode the vagaries of fate and nature, … [Read more...]

Confessions of a suburban survivalist                 For those who don’t know me personally, first, congratulations!  Dodged a bullet there, a statement the verasity to which many of my friends and/or acquaintances will attest.  For you fortunate few, my life leading up to the present day can only be described as Gump-like, or perhaps Garp-like, depending upon whether your penchant is for movies or literature.  If I ever finish my last-ever novel, Hatteras, you’ll be able to read all about the incredible details of my early years, right up until I turned 29 and, in the novel, fail to get married. Pretty sure the ensuing years would have been an entertaining train-wreck, as long as you weren’t on the train. So, I believe, marriage has … [Read more...]

A tribute to a handsome, humble man, Edward “Doc” Pollak. Every musician will tell you that their career floats upon the waters of goodness shown to them by a revered mentor, helpmeet, confidant and friend. Doc Pollack was a font of such goodness, gently ushering many into the tightly knit tribe called bluegrassers. Doc’s sterling qualities were legion, so I will simply list a few of the more notable ones. Firstly, he was above all a humble man who so valued other’s opinions and feelings that it was sometimes difficult to get him to take a firm position on the relative goodness of a song, a break or a performer. “Come on, Ed, what do you think about fiddle tunes in general?” I would ask him, or, “If you had to choose, which one is … [Read more...]

If I had the sense to do that fancy colon thingie with my book Bluegrass, nobody would always ask me first, "So, what, is this a history?" Talk about ethical relativism!  Anyway, I've been chipping away at my last novel.  It feels so nice to say that aha.   *****************************************************************************************************   “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I can move the world.” Socrates. Or maybe Pythagoras.                   There are natural folcrums, breaking points, in a person’s life: graduations, marriage, the birth of your first child, promotions, firings, death, divorces. One’s life hinges upon such events, or becomes unhinged.  No one should be surprised … [Read more...]

It came about like this.  Fred had very little work during the winter, and I had none, so it was his idea to get some season passes to Shawnee Mountain and ski every day.   Even though the rest of the country was in the shitter, New Yorkers still had wads of cash, and suddenly condos sprouted like fungus in Shawnee.  T’s husband was one of the locals making fistfuls of dollars slapping up the units, too cheap to have tile anywhere in them, but he literally took a powder, leaving T with her two kids, a boy and a girl, and a house to take care of.  She worked at a local stable, making joke money, and whenever she wasn’t working she was at Martha’s, Shawnee’s local watering hole. They’re 160 bucks, but if we ski every day, that’s like two … [Read more...]

I didn't shoot any deer this year.  But I did get a fair amount of scribbling in....from HAtteras: A Novel.   ********************************************************************* That Fred, he sure did learn how to tell a tale, damn his hide. And just like that, I was addicted to “the bluegrass” as fans called it. Right from the start, the band had a hard time holding onto personnel.  I tried to be the peace-maker when the inevitable squabbles broke out during practices. It wasn’t being noble, really. I had enough of conflict and bullying growing up with Paul, and I would do almost anything to avoid the pushing and shoving Earl and Lester seemed to love so much.  We paid too much to hire an old guy from West Virginia named … [Read more...]

Well, even novels have a germ of truth to them.  I just hope nobody gets sick with the germs I'm putting in Hatteras: A Novel.   In those days, there was live music everywhere in the Poconos, every night except, I believe, Thursday, everything from jazz and country rock to bluegrass, texas swing and folk, and all of it pretty damn good live music, too.  So there were plenty of venues to cruise chicks, as we used to say.  I was working as a single a couple weekly at the Hilton, then started playing with CP, a musician who had gotten a summer job up at Pocono Environmental Center and had a pretty large repertoire that vaguely overlapped mine.  He played a little banjo and I was getting pretty good at mandolin, so we switched up our … [Read more...]

Excerpt from Hatteras: A novel Seems apropos, somehow:   a little tid-bit from the novel I have been studiously avoiding the last 6 months:   **************************************************************** It’s odd how you can look back at the stream of your life and see clearly what was ahead, but I really had no clue that I was devolving into a less savory version of myself than I had been in my hot-headed and excessive teens and twenties. I held a professional job that paid well, had summers off, made a pretty decent buck with music and tile work on the side, and could party at will.  It was the heady days when the internet was new, stocks were on a roll and wealth was being created out of thin air.  Clinton played the … [Read more...]

Back to the chilly winds of East PA, and there are so many people to thank for making Hatterasity Bluegrass such a joyous event, but I wanted to give it a shot.  Version two with corrections and additions will come after I get a metric crapload of far wood home. Snow.  ugh. Anyhow, Thanks to Noah and Alison Deihl and the entire clan. Naoh was the first to make the trek to Hatteras, to play back in 2012.  It was awesome!  All the laughs and love and the sterling music would have been impossible if not for the help and encouragement of to Rosie Mayo and Cliff and Debbie Hodge.  Always steady in any weather, Dennis Robinson and Holly Austin from Midgett and Hatteras Realty did a yoeman’s job on lodging arrangements for the musicians. … [Read more...]

I was hoping this would be the year I finished something.  Who knows?  It might still happen.  Here's where I left off on the novel, back in early May....   ******************************************************************************************     I got up and fetched the bottle.  I didn’t have any work the next day, and I was already getting mad at myself for leaving the conversation with Fred as I had.  I got some chips and dip and flopped down in front of the TV, ready for my semi-monthly pity party. My apartment was a mess, clothes scattered everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink and the garbage mounded up in the corner.  P cut back my hours behind the bar, favoring the new kid who was bright-eyed and … [Read more...]