A Little Hometown Nostalgia

"Bass Rocks" - Willie Alexander

This is to wish my little sister -- who toils trying to teach the small fry in Fish Town -- a happy 47th birthday tomorrow. 

Willie "Loco" Alexander was, for a time, a member of the last iteration of the Velvet Underground, and then later a legend of the DIY underground/punk scene in Boston when I was just a lad.  Bass Rocks is a rocky "beach" in Gloucester, MA where Willie now lives and my sister teaches.  And where I used to drink.  But that describes a lot of places. 

Happy birthday kid.    

Comments

[oddjob]

She teaches in Glosta? COOL!

One of my all-time absolute fave artists is Winslow Homer, and he painted some freakin' incredible Gloucester seascapes! I know when I look back on my life one of the reasons I will be most happy about moving to the Boston area was the chance it gave me to walk through a seriously representative exhibition of Homer's work (including little charcoal doodlings he did when he was just 13) hosted by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts back in 1996.

MY GOD, WAS THAT A WONDERFULLY SATISFYING EXPERIENCE!!

(The Zinfandel wine is boosting my enthusiasm, but not by much..... ;) )

By the way, for those of you who don't know (but might be interested), the first link goes to a statue that is a memorial along Gloucester Harbor's promenade (I don't know the name of the street, but this memorial is a landmark.) In the (probably granite) rock of the statue's base are carved the Biblical words "They that go down to the sea in ships" (quoted from Psalm 107:23). This is a memorial to the Gloucester fishermen who have set out to sea and never returned.

Down the street, less than a block away, is this more modern statue that is clearly also a memorial, but to the bereft left behind by those drowned men.

Both statues look out to the sea.

[oddjob]

Interesting, Sir C.

You're born just a few weeks after I was, and your sister was born just four days before mine (who turns 47 on St. Patty's Day).

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

We will even forgive the CAPS LOCK due to your zinfandel induced enthusiasm. Plus you didn't write LOL!

Gloucester is a pretty interesting place -- beautiful, hard-bitten, a tad insular.

A St. Patrick's Day birthday seems like a dangerous combination.

[kathy a.]

happy birthday to your sister!

one of my sisters, who is 47 now and 5 years younger than me, really got after me for referring to my youngest cousin, 12 years younger, as my "baby" cousin. although he himself didn't mind. she thought i was lording my age over everyone. i think i'm more likely to die sooner, so there.

[Sir Charles]

Aren't we past the point of lording our age over anyone? Hell, soon they'll be offering me discount soft drinks at fast food places.

[Corvus]

OK, everyone knows it is acceptable to call relatives of a younger age than yourself "baby" at any age, right? But what is the minimum age distance from which such terminology is acceptable? 4 years? 8 years? 12 years? 20 years?

[oddjob]

We will even forgive the CAPS LOCK due to your zinfandel induced enthusiasm.

Actually, it's probably the bolds that's driven by the zinfandel..... ;)

Seriously, it really was a wonderful exhibition if you like looking at the artwork of a master realist!

That was fourteen years ago and I still treasure the memories. :)

[oddjob]

i think i'm more likely to die sooner, so there.

:)

It gets kinda different when your colleagues are seventeen years younger than you (as a few of mine are).........

[oddjob]

Just a few weeks ago I got the requisite freeby, unrequested contact mail from AARP......

[oddjob]

But what is the minimum age distance from which such terminology is acceptable? 4 years? 8 years? 12 years? 20 years?

Meh. As usual, context is everything.

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

I saw an Edward Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery a couple of years ago and was surprised to find that he had done a bunch of paintings in Gloucester as well. It was a great show.

The AARP stuff goes straight into the waste basket. They obviously have me and my Dad confused.

[big bad wolf]

so that's where wille was when not on mass ave.

thx

[Crissa]

I just wrote a grumpy letter to Prescott, AZ city council for tearing down the spanish-language banner they erected four days ago for the census this year. I went to University in Prescott (well, right outside, Embry-Riddle) and has friends and their families (including a wonderful Cuban family who let me have Thanksgiving with them) while I was there.

Spanish was the most spoken language in the state when Prescott was the capital of Arizona.

[minstrel hussain boy]

yeah. gloucester is its ownself.

happy happy to the sister.

it's almost more marked in the music biz. that age thing.

people do things for me now like try to make sure that there are stools and chairs handy onstage for me to sit my beat up old ass down.

through it all though, i still manage to rock on.

rock on ya'll....

[oddjob]

I saw an Edward Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery a couple of years ago and was surprised to find that he had done a bunch of paintings in Gloucester as well. It was a great show.

That exhibit also was at the Museum of Fine Arts, and I saw that as well. One of my favorite paintings of all, by anyone, is Nighthawks. I stood just inches from the canvas........

:)

At the end of his life Hopper lived way out on the Cape, in Truro.

[Sir Charles]

oddjob,

My sister advises me that the famous Gloucester fisherman statue is on Western Avenue -- sometimes called the Boulevard.

I knew Hopper had painted a ton of landscapes in Truro and had to check to see if my memory was right about him painting stuff in Gloucester. On opposite ends of his career it seems. It's funny because prior to seeing the exhibit I had thought of him as a quintessentially urban artists based on Nighthawks and some of his other things.

[oddjob]

Hopper does the same thing in his paintings that Andrew Wyeth did in his. In both painters' works you usually have the sensation that you're alone. Even when Hopper paints someone else in there in the painting, you still don't feel like you're truly there with that person (or those people in the case of Nighthawks), rather you feel as though you're alone and watching that person unnoticed (& probably uncared about, too). I feel as though if Hopper had been a filmmaker the genre he would have been known for would have been film noir.

[MaryL]

Willie Alexander? I feel so old and so young all at once now. Thanks. Really.

I used to buy Trouser Press, New York Rocker and the like back in the late seventies and early eighties, and often ordered singles from various wee record stores. That's how I ended up with my prize bootleg of Talking Heads covering "1-2-3 Red Light" (mine was a little rougher and more distorted and a lot more lively than this recording), some Tuxedomoon singles, and a few other rarities.

But the gem of the lot was this single which I ordered just for the name dropping and the illustration, as I had never heard anything by Willie before. I still have it, too.

[MaryL]

And BTW, if you ever find something on YouTube that you haven't been able to find any place else, you can extract an mp3 with Dirpy. I LOVE this app!

[Sir Charles]

Mary,

Thanks so much for those rarities and the Dirpy tip. I used to read Trouser Press too on those occasions when it could be found on a news stand.

I assume you have this compilation:

http://www.amazon.com/D-I-Y-Mass-Boston-Scene-1975-83/dp/B0000032YO

(Great cover of the Neighborhoods on a roof top.)

[MaryL]

No, I don't, but I'll have to get it -- thanks!

(Ah, the advantages of living in Toronto. I could get a lot of the American and British mags and papers, and quite a decent selection of boots for several years, too.)

[Sir Charles]

Mary,

The home of Martha and the Muffins.

You had to go into Boston to get access to the Brit and cutting edge music mags for the most part. Once I got out of high school I read a lot of those along with the Boston Phoenix and the Village Voice. Bootlegs too were a Boston things or, if you got down there, something that was amazingly ominpresent in the Village.