4 posts tagged “wisconsin”
My last post was a simple declarative statement of hope and promise that "Spring will come", eventually. After getting hit hard with a major snow storm Friday ("Good Friday", by the way) you begin to have doubts, but in an effort to find something positive in this temporary setback, I decided to capture it in a Flickr set. Here are a few of those shots.
January in Wisconsin. Long nights of frigid cold and fleeting dreams of spring. Most of us just want to get out of here for at least a few days at this time of year to somewhere warm (or warmer) but tomorrow night our Green Bay Packers will host the New York Giants at Lambeau Field for the right to go to the Superbowl. Probably 90% of the Wisconsin population will be sitting in their cozy living rooms or at the local sports bar watching the broadcast and feeling proud to be from the land of the "frozen tundra". A warm weather, aging Mississippi boy named Bret Favre will play another memorable game in green and gold and hopefully lead his much younger team mates to victory. And for at least one winter night it may not really matter how cold and dark it is outside.
In a perverse celebration of the winter elements we endure here in Wisconsin, and the big game tomorrow, I decided to re-mix and re-post a song written in January 2005 which has a New York connection and cold weather theme. It was inspired while watching one of those stunts on the Letterman Show on TV. Dave had sent Biff out onto the street with a container of water to see how long it would take to freeze, and how much of a crowd he could draw to watch and wait with him. The song was simply an observation on a meaningless stunt, but if you want to read more into it, that's OK.
V1: standing on the street in New York City, trying to get a shot on the Letterman Show, on this cold night in January,
I am shivering in this bitter wind, thinking I should pack it in
Bridge: but I'm waiting for the water to freeze,
just waiting for the water to freeze
V2: there's another guy here from Oklahoma, he's a long way from home, just like me, I came here last May from Seattle
just trying to make it on my own, but thinking I should go back home
V3: stood there watching, couldn't see too well, when the ice finally formed it was hard to tell, and Biff said to Dave he was cold as hell,
so we figured it was time to go, with the wind chill at 10 below
Monday, December 10th, marks 40 years since the tragic crash of the twin engine plane carrying Otis Redding and his band to a gig at the Factory in Madison, Wisconsin. I was just a young GI stationed half way around the world in Japan, just happy not to be in Viet Nam, when I learned that the plane had gone down in Lake Monona in my home town. They say it was foggy that day but the real cause may have been engine trouble. In any event, only the trumpet player, Ben Cauley, survived the icy waters, and 40 years later was on hand at a memorial ceremony this past Monday at the Monona Terrace Center overlooking the lake that had claimed his bandmates.
A friend and I went to hear what Ben might have to say, and to pay tribute to Otis, a huge talent whose life was cut short at age 26 that day in 1967. What struck us most was that the crowd was made up mostly of folks our age and hardly any younger fans. What a shame to think that Otis may not have reached this generation yet.
Otis wrote a well known song about r-e-s-p-e-c-t covered by a lot of other artists, and nobody deserves it more than him. Although he had a great voice and delivery, I respect him even more as a songwriter. They say he would just sit down with an acoustic guitar to generate some ideas and often add the lyrics later, which is an approach many of us would be songwriters have tried over the years, but without the genius and talent of Otis. And the ideas were always flowing in Otis, so they say. In his short career, he wrote and recorded prolifically and some of his best material wasn't even published until after he was gone.
For a look behind the curtain of commercial success at some of his material still in unpolished form, as well as out-takes from some of his better known work, check out the album titled "Remember Me" which includes 22 previously unreleased tracks.
One of those tracks is the version of "I've Got Dreams to Remember" based on a poem written by his wife Zelma, before it was modified in collaboration with Joe Rock. This album also includes the first two takes of "Dock of the Bay" that are haunting to listen to now and realize they were recorded just days before the plane went down.
I have taken a few tracks from this album in bits and pieces and tried to weave them around the second take of the "Dock of the Bay" as my way of remembering and paying my respects to Otis. If you listen and like it, I hope you go out and buy one of his albums and get acquainted or reacquainted, as the case may be. Otis may be gone, but his music lives on.
This song was started about 3-4 years ago and is still a work in progress as a sort of cautionary tale about where the binge drinking culture on campus can lead if you're not careful. I don't want to get preachy because drinking has always been part of campus life and the sports culture here in Wisconsin and I was a willing participant myself in younger days. But lately it seems to be a bigger problem than ever and may have been a factor in the recent unsolved murder of a young woman who was out partying in downtown Madison and apparently ended the night with the wrong person, probably too drunk to recognize the risk. And there are still too many tragic articles being written about teenage car crashes after a night of partying. So if you do drink, don't drive, and make sure you have a sober friend to get you home safely.
V1: Born in Wisconsin, grew up in Illinois
raised in the suburbs, just another bourgeois boy
never had to worry, never had to choose
always liked to party if someone had some booze, got wasted
V2: Went away to college, joined a fraternity
wanted to be a doctor, but his grades were barely C's
every week a party starting Thursday night
playing king's cup in the kitchen, everythings alright, got wasted
V3: Never graduated, he wound up selling cars
got a cheap apartment to crash in when they closed the bars
tickeks for drunk driving, took his keys away,
lost his job at the car lot, just turned and walked away, got wasted
V4: Went out for a last drink, got back behind the wheel
now he's getting fingerprinted while his lawyer tries to make a deal
running through a red light, never saw the face
of the woman in the crosswalk before it was too late, life wasted
