Spider-Punk by Hudson Polk
Tag: Music
Card Stories: Dolly Parton
9 to 5 hit the airwaves in early 1981, & dolly parton entered my life for the first time, followed a couple of years later by islands in the stream with kenny rogers, then, for me, dolly disappeared, it really wasn’t until i moved to nashville in 2020 that i truly came to understand the power of dolly parton, i taught a three week course on women in country music, studying parton & her music, coat of many colors, i will always love you, jolene, these songs are peerless, not to mention her imagination library, which has donated over 100 million books to children all over world, her dollywood theme park, opened in 1981, employing over 4,000 people, from a one room cabin in sevier county, east tennessee, to dolly for president bumper stickers, she is the american dream incarnate.
This DOLLY PARTON card can be purchased here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/375325625121
Children’s Bell Tower
Listening To My Shortwave Radio
you might think it was all tina turner, the cars, or tears for fears, but vinyl could only take me so far, same songs, over & over, flip to side 2, try to save allowance money for the new billy idol album, or listen to casey kasem, see if anyone fresh was in the top 40, but then i got my GE shortwave radio & became an auditory magellan, forget karma chameleon & all that pop sound, i now spent nights slowly turning the dial, on a quest to travel the airwaves, listening as the basketball play by play guy said, louisville has the ball, i added a marker dot to my map of cities: new orleans, pittsburgh, morgantown, buffalo, each night i tuned in to: games, preachers, news, weather, anything & everything, in search of a new locale, another mark for my map, of course it was more than this, i was a 1980’s lewis & clark kid, connecting with my country, & this is still what i’m doing today, except i’m the one broadcasting & you might be in croatia instead of cincinnati.
White Christmas in Rochester, New York
i’m dreaming of a white christmas, first sung by bing crosby, 1941, only a few weeks after pearl harbor was attacked, listened to by millions, but only a large handful have ever had a real white christmas, like the ones i used to know in the late 1970’s & early 1980’s, snow stacked high, fireplace crackling, tins & tins of homemade cookies, ham baking in the oven, neighbors stopping by for eggnog, my grandfather’s organ playing all the songs, rudolph, jingle bells, deck the halls, the fir tree with gifts under every branch, dozens of christmas cards on the mantle, tinsel draped below, at night tucked into my father’s childhood bed, i peeked out past the wooden bedposts & waited for santa, this was christmas.
Jerry Garcia’s Fingernails
when i was a kid i thought the grateful dead and iron maiden were related, both had skulls and were scary, i never listened to their music for fear, of what, i didn’t exactly know, freshman year touch of grey came out and the seniors were all about it, with their bandanas and tie dye t-shirts, i learned not to be afraid of their music, but i still never listened to the dead, ever, until college rolled around and they became unavoidable, every boarding school wannabe quasi-hippie trustafarian played the dead in their dorm room, and i still mostly hated their music except for eyes of the world, friends tried to get me to attend concerts, but i always politely declined, there were enough burned out patchouli-smelling colby students without spending hours in a parking lot hoping for a “miracle,” so when i graduated i was glad to be rid of jerry and his band, a couple months went by and jerry died, a year later i’m living in california, my cousin is sharing an apartment with a mortician in kentfield (marin county), i’m at their place one day, dude proudly opens a drawer, finger and toenails are inside, those are jerry’s, he beams, i will never understand the obsession.
Unearthing Cat Stevens
i listen to the wind, to the wind of my soul, where I’ll end up, well, i think only god really knows, there was a time when everyone knew cat stevens, mellow, introspective, perpetually coming of age, questioning the world, wishing for peace, early 1970’s, before yusaf islam, before the muslim allegations, but time has a way of passing, and he’s back on a snowy boarding school campus in the holdovers film, bleak backdrop, his musical return, forget all the wikipedia details, just take a minute, remember his songs, morning has broken like the first morning, he’s now 75, looks like a new dawn.
Moody Blues & An Old Flame
i wonder where you are, i wonder if you think about me, once upon a time in your wildest dreams, moody blues 1986, he sent her the song on a cassette in the mail, like a message in a bottle, old & scraped, washed up, on her shore, no one listens to the moody blues anymore, she replied on a postcard, but thanks, 10 years had passed, he never wrote her again
How To Stop Aging
embalm right now, easy answer, but that involves not living anymore, so try again, wake up slowly, whisper, i’m young, i’m young, i’m young, buy a lighted mirror, they take away three years, get a tiktok account, do all the dances, upload your favorites, tell people you are 27, lie, pluck out gray hairs, then dye, continually dye, never let them see your roots, use facial cream in the morning, use facial cream in the evening, never go out in the sun, smile all the time, frowning is for wrinklers, constantly talk about olivia rodrigo, never talk about justin bieber, he failed, he’s old, botox is required, sleep in silk, it keeps your skin timeless, do cardio, then sauna, infrared, never ski, the cold makes lines in your face, never wear glasses, never drink, but if you must, one white claw with a college student, marry someone twenty years younger than you, wear the brands that they wear, ideally only lululemon, don’t forget vinyasa yoga, anything else is for the elderly, drink water, lots of water, drive a jeep wrangler, play your music loud, post everything on instagram, that way you have proof.
The Life & Death of North Beach, San Francisco
north beach has changed, the spontaneity is gone, we used to just go out, to shop at city lights bookstore, to eat, to have a drink, to be in the city together, listen to music, jazz, or whatever, the city used to be a community, no one really knew what might happen any given night, at vesuvio’s or caffe trieste, or on broadway, people being people, san francisco people, with their freedom and self-expression, the edifices remain, but the past is past, now they shop amazon online, order uber eats, reserve on opentable, scrutinize tripadvisor, calculate with gps, where to go and when, the city has had a partial death, and no one really cares, why go back to the old ways? we are now more and more, part of the machine, technology guides us, separates us from –lets just go out and be.
Daniel W. Polk 