Santa Cruzan

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer and in Jersey City, the Santa Cruzan festival is the unofficial start of the Summer Street season. Santa Cruzan is the Philippine community’s big party, and is procession and a pageant. I wrote about it last year here, and I found myself snapping pictures of the various Reynas (queens,) many of whom are selected in pageant. The festival is a Catholic with capital C and a small c – The capital C is that the celebration is for the discovery of the One True Cross by Helena, mother of Emperor of Constantine, in the second century AD. The various Reynas and other participants in the procession have additional symbolism associated with them – the “Queen” of peace for example.

The small C -- you know this may be a Big C t00 is that many of the devotions and incarnations of Mary – are recognized. The parish is like the United Nations. Everyone joins in. I watched the beginning of the procession mostly, this year, and it is fun hearing every one announced – characters from the old testament to all the Tyenas and what they mean and then finally, the Blessed Virgin Mary’s. It was a BVM-palooza!

At one point doves were released. A choir sang. Everyone was dressed in either character or regalia, which may the same thing. The Philippine community invited everyone to the party. A community of communities doesn’t explain it because that implies a separateness and mere tolerance. The interlocking relationships is the intangible here. Jersey City may not be one, but there is a lot of overlap. And there is sun, spirituality, tradition and a few laughs. Summer… no more doubts, it’s here.

Tunnel to Grave

My journey to this grave started in the tunnel, where I first witnessed this train.

I wanted to see the inside of this tunnel for a while now. Late Spring said the calendar but Summer gave us no doubt that she has arrived. Figured it would be a good time for this walk, fewer bugs. Going through the entire tunnel will have to wait though. I lost my nerve. Just too creepy, too dark, was that a rat?

Instead I followed a path up a hill to a clearing. Actually it’s a path to the PATH, a service road for the subway system. I could see the end of the tunnel but still don’t know where the freight trains go. PATH is absolute, linking our fair city, as well as Essex County Gothams of Newark and Harrison to the capital of the world. Surrounded by trees bedecked in a new Summer, all verdant and plump... those cities seem very if momentarily... far away.

Death never remains at a distance for long. As I wondered and wandered I came upon the the “Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery”, a genuine Jersey City landmark. Through the trees, saw the familiar stones; although before this day I had only seen them from the other side of the green, through the iron fence on Newark Avenue side. That fence does not go all the way around the perimeter. You can sneak in through the woods. Many graves date back to the 19th century. Some stunning stone sculpture. A Christ crowned with thorns, crying; what looked an angel whisking a child to heaven.

You could see the highways and edges of our city and the other cities over the tops of the trees. Probably more visible when there aren’t any leaves. But now the leaves are new and plentiful. A sanctuary atmosphere is created, enhancing the slight relief from grief a graveyard can provide. I saw a wood chuck, a red breasted robin. Guys were there, older then myself, on a beer break. They greeted me, asked if I had a pass, then laughed. I wasn’t the first person they’ve seen wander down off the hill into the cemetery. Nice guys enjoying their task on a nice afternoon. They were setting up a canopy for tomorrow, Memorial Day, services for the dead soldiers of Jersey City. I walked around, sat for a while, enjoyed the sun, listened to their laughter as they brought over the tent, the poles, from the back of the cemetary to the entrace. It wasn’t the first time they prepared for Memorial Day ceremonies.

Pac-Art

Another street artist makes his or her mark, the stencil act. What is with this Gen x/y fascination with Pac Man? I think we all fetish-size our childhood to some extent, a side-effect of nostalgia I suppose. Can't quite figure out if the kids are fetish-sizing their childhood or 'old skool' video games. I wasn’t a child when this video game hit the arcade, nor was I a big arcade go-er. Just a little too old. Pac Man replaced the pinball games in a lot of the dives I drank at but by then I wasn’t interested in the pinball so couldn’t garner interest in the video games. I was pure, like Bukowski. Least that was the excuse I might have used. I remember video arcades in the mall during the dawn of the Reagan era. I see this artist’s parents heading towards divorce, the only happy times was when he or she (okay, more likely a he) was given a roll of quarters and told to wait at the arcade. This street art memoralizes that happy memory, which like all happy memories is a little bit sad. Just speculating here. This particularly stencil is way off the beaten path, on an overpass pillar, way at the end of a parking lot. Not only is the message obscured, a need to know basis, but so is the placement.

Disembodied Tree

A tree surgeon wasn’t needed for this, but a vivisectionist specializing in arbor. Another inexplicable Jersey City oddity. Did the tree outgrow a fence or did a tree have to be cut down to make way for the fence and a remnant was left behind as a memento of a once healthy maple. Jersey City has a weird attitude towards trees, they hate to see them grow. Or maybe this is a the work of an arbor artist and visionary, where others might see just a tree trunk he or she asked, why can’t a mid-section also be a stump?

State Highway

You try to put the true nature of New Jersey into words but settling on a definition is like grabbing smoke. Jersey City seems at the core of what is New Jersey. As cities go, few are as disparate. Wards – what in Louisiana are called Parishes – do border each other but unlike say Manhattan, there’s no flow from one to another. There’s no Broadway to unify our Harlem with our Battery Park. What we have is State Highway, our main street, our Petticoat Junction where Hooterville and Mayberry can cross paths. What an oppressive sight, the wealth of that distant city we all serve filling the horizon, the four lanes providing only passage through for polluting vehicles, the feeling that everybody comes from some place better and are going to some place better. Everybody here is just a disposable shadow. We’re the everybody they do not see even. Our lives are not as valued because fate has put us here, in between the there and Olympus. The glimpse of trees, houses, life to the side, the clues ignored mean those that are here must make of life what they can. These secrets only we can know and are revealed one by one by everyone you meet, with everyone you know, here on either side of State Highway.

Graffiti Diversity

An illustrative depiction that looks like an R. Crumb skyline while also a touching tribute to 9-11 and the Twin Towers. A logo-ish tattoo like drawing, a character tag that is both personal and obscure. Several scrawls in the kilroy was here tradition, a defacement of property tradition dating back to ancient times and the first cities, a cry of indivudal existence. Rarely do you see such graffiti diversity gathered in one spot. Usually the scrawlers stay away from the illustrators, etc. Hard to tell where the vandalism ends and the talent begins. Or should that be the other way around?

Ceiling Drape

Thought I had done about all the blogs about Loews in Jersey City, took all the pictures I thought there was to take and then when I went to see Sunrise I noticed this for the first time, a drape? a banner? not sure what the proper word is for this hanging peice of fanfare. The theater dates back to the 20s, built just before the depression hit, glitzy opulence of the Jazz-age? Is that a griffin? A forgotten coat of arms? The fabric looks like satin, wonderfully faded and worn, gnawed by moths. Has it been hanging in this spot since the 1920s?

Sunrise, directed by Murnau was a brilliant work, beautiful and influential, not just for film but they say it was the birth of the femme fatale in noir, even influencing James Cain and Hammet and Chandler. Could be, the plot is set in motion when a sexy woman encouraging a man to murder his dowdy wife. He has a change of heart and he and his wife reconcile and fall in love again during a whirlwind date in the big city. A little hokey in spots story wise, but you could see the style of this early filmmaker basically define what is film, much like Homer defines literature. For Halloween, the theater screened Nosferatu to a near sell out crowd. Made sense to book another Murnau. Audience was about a third of that, but seeing a silent film with real organ accompaniment was a singular experience. I love the way black and white looks but on a big screen the textures are just enthralling. The day before I saw the enjoyable Stranger Tides film in 3-D, which was entertainment except for the 3-D, which is a gimmick and ultimately only detracts from cinema. Side Note: In June is the last weekend for films at Loews before a two month hiatus for the summer. The theater has no air conditioning!

Tarred but Unpainted

About 24 days, I guess that’s how long it takes to pave a major thoroughfare like ole Rail Road Avenue, known by others as Christopher Columbus Drive. This street gains local legend as being the worst for pot holes. Some are so gaping they resemble man-made lakes when it rains. See, how nice and fresh and smooth the tar now looks. I wish there were bars on this street so I could've hung out yesterday and get the second hand smoke mixed with fresh hot tar aromas. The only thing left is the painting of the double yellow lines down the middle of the street. The markers are up to guide the street painters, in the meantime drivers are on the honor system to stay in their lanes unguided. They willingly complied, the morning’s drive free of jarring chassis rattles, alignment and axels finally safe until next winter passes and the pot hole season begins anew.

Radio Galaxy

Although I try to catch most Groove on Groves, I resist blogging about each one because I hate to get in a blogging rut. So, the weather turned nice and I got back home about six after a grueling day at the day job and had ten pages left to finish on the rather great book I was reading (if you must know, Mailer’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance, brilliant by the way). I missed most of the opening band and there was some bicycle riding demonstration and I so I read and drank some tea and enjoyed the late afternoon sun as the second act came on, Radio Galaxy.

They opened up with some ragged retro country rock sounding ditties, pleasant but nothing special. I was on the periphery, the music on background and in near Jungian piece of synchronicity and I finished the noir, processed its foreboding filled ending, the band went into Dolly Parton’s immortal classic, Jolene.

Jersey City is filled with chatter boxes. Why is it so impossible for so many people to stop talking and listen to music. Are we so self-absorbed as a species that the only we can prove our brains work is we blab everything that appears in them? Don’t answer. I’m trying to avoid depression.

While I’m on record encouraging young musicians to write their own material, when a bunch of kids attempt a classic, the effort should be applauded no matter the result. In this case, however, this cover shifted their entire set. Jolene revealed a new momentum, getting better and better as it gets to the killer moral of the story -- don't take my man away just because you can. Jolene was followed by a serious of hard-rocking, blues and soul inflected originals. I moved from where I was to get a better view and better audibility, eventually migrating to the chairs in front of the stage.

Apparently, and I might have this wrong, the core of the band is the lead singer, Virginia, a waif of a gal with the robust pipes of a Bessie Smith, and her brother who plays rhythm guitar and co-writes the songs with her. The lead guitarist was having an amazing set, really talented cat. Glorious stuff.

The final song, which had a refrain about locking the back door, started off with a reggae lilt as the main riff and culminated with searing guitar and Virginia holding notes for longer and longer times. I gasped with delight, they were great and she is a highly talented paradox: how can such a big voice, filled with range, come from a woman this petite?

Most everybody finally shut up, listened and grooved with the band. A GOG rarity. The well placed cover shifted their set, cohesion was enhanced, several genres blended. The crowd was won over. What a fantastic set!

Check out their myspace page:

According to their myspace page, they were once voted “the Best Original Band in Morris County.” Bon Jovi eat your heart out! In your face, Jonas Brothers!

Heal Soon Taylor

Taylor Siluwe is a good buddy, and a Jersey City-based writer with a short story collection available, Dancing with the Devil. He’s in the midst of a healthcare battle and all I can say is that he is in my thoughts and prayers and hopefully some good thoughts, prayers and positive vibrations can be sent his way so he can better endure this difficult crisis. He’s much too young for this illness. He is actually chronicling these serious travails on his often subversive website, “Taylor’s Chemo Chronicles” with writing that is mordantly funny yet genuinely uplifting, due mainly to his innate bravery and compulsive honesty. Check out his website here.

Heal Soon Taylor, you got a lot more dances you have to write about.

For an earlier post on his book release party click here.

Happy Birthday, Bob

Dylan is 70! Happy Birthday, Bob. As a die hard fan for a little more than half your life (and at this point, more than half of mine) thank you!

That picture above is unpublished, as far I know. In the early days of the internet, I was in a chat room and one of the chatters emailed it to me. It was the first picture I ever downloaded. At the time, it was a recent picture, Dylan and his band was the opening act for the Grateful Dead. It’s a stadium, rare for the time – the last time he played to this large an audience was when he toured with the Dead in 1987.

Look how sloppy he looks, an un-tucked shirt. On stage especially, Dylan wears very neat, tailored outfits, often preferring embroidered musical notes on nudie-style western suits -- like Hank Williams in those famous kinescopes.

Notice no hat. One of the last tours for that to happen – he has long been wearing a hat with attached wig (a style he first adapted for the film Masked & Anonymous and was most recently seen in the video for It Must be Santa) while performing; the only times he is sans headgear are for very staged promotional photographs. Nice to see originator still sporting a very convincing Jew-fro – was one of the last sightings of the curls in all their unconcealed, unhindered glory.

By the way, this may have been the last time he and his friend Jerry Garcia were together. It was one of the final shows of that tour, after which Garcia checked himself into rehab. Jerry was dead within a month’s time.

Guess what: I’m a Dylan freak. If you think you know a bigger Dylan freak than me we’ve probably not met. I’m not going to analyze Dylan’s work here. By now, you either get it or you don’t.

On the 70th anniversary of his birth, what I want to point out is, it’s great being a Dylan fan. Few things bring me as much pleasure as his music. He constantly challenges his audiences, his songs grow better over time and his lyrics (much of them at least) are literature. Dylan has been one of the most enjoyably satisfying artist to follow.

I’m a music lover, fans of lots of folks, but digging Dylan is a whole other thing for me.

I have seen him over the decades something like 25 times. I own every official record (buying them immediately upon release since about 1975) and lots of bootlegs. I’m a long time contributor to the Dylan Newsgroup (RMD shout out!). Oh, I could go on about how he changed my life and turned me on to literature, blah blah blah. But the fact of the matter is, I love music, especially Rock & Roll, Dylan is a master and he fills my personal soundtrack.


Really doesn’t matter what you think of Dylan, I’m sure you’re a fan of something. Being a fan of Dylan, you never feel ripped off and the disappointments are few, rare and always mild. Can’t say that about the Rolling Stones or Michael Jackson not to mention the New York Yankees or the Jets or Star Wars!

Dylan may have put out uneven records, but even the low points of the 80s have great songs. I’ve never seen him give less than 100 percent at a show. Also, if you haven’t seen him and you care about rock and roll, you really should make the effort, not just to say you’ve seen a legend play his songs – except for only the most recent ones, they will not sound anything like the original – but his band, especially Tony Garnier on Bass and Charlie Sexton on guitar (arguably the best guitarist of his generation) is one of the best touring Rock & Roll ensembles of the current era.

Since I’ve been a “follower” – mid-1970s – no more than three years has gone by without a new release; I am including Live Albums and Biograph – the 1980s Box Set with unreleased gems and the cover albums of the early 90s.

You want that as a fan. I’m the beast that needs to be fed. It’s not like media – a radio or TV program that you experience on a regular basis. Music is a different experience than liking Howard Stern or All Things Considered or even the Sopranos. Media Pop culture fits nicely into a routine, a far different relationship than an artist, especially musician, has with his or her audience. A fan needs steady, but not constant, renewal of their fandom.

On the other hand, when an artist takes too many years between projects, the anticipation level can be too high that the new record inevitably falls short or so diluted by the preceding famine that by the time it’s finally released you are ready to declare any offering no matter how weak a masterpiece. Right or wrong, win or lose, root for the team!

Few other artists are as considerate of their fans – or as savvy. Once in a while, Dylan will license a song, even his image, to a commercial. I consider these chinks in an otherwise near-impeccable armor of artistic integrity. Luckily, they are few and far between and he has so far resisted outright endorsements or corporate sponsorship of tours or shows. He hasn’t put out a line of clothing or cosmetics, even his t-shirt sales are pretty low key (and they’ve pretty lame looking of late).

Dylan puts out music on regular basis. The quality has been high. If that’s not enough – and for a Dylan freak, it is not – there are bootlegs to obtain to stay abreast of his performing career as well as out-takes not released. Columbia has been releasing official bootlegs for two decades now, so more stuff is readily available, and the sound, compared to the bootleg audio, is awesome.

You can be a Dylan fan and not go broke, not feel ripped off. Like a baseball team, he’s just a part of your life that brings you happiness and he releases enough material that you are rarely without an answer to the question, what’s Bob up to?

Did you hear the new Dylan record?

In fact, for the last 15 years or so, the Dylan industry has been remarkably rewarding.

As rock stars go, Dylan has always been more prolific that most. Few have such long careers, nor are putting out such substantial music as a senior citizen. The new records have been supplemented by his two other careers, Dylan Archivist and Cultural Celebrity.

In fact, at his 70th birthday, there may have never been a better time to be a Dylan fan (or freak!) than now!


Archivist –Dylan has always had a shadow career with bootlegs. I had critical bootlegs before I graduated high school and spent many an hour listening to my buddy Dan’s Great White Wonder. In the 90s, the “official” Bootleg Series was launched. Columbia started emptying their vaults. I think it’s up to volume 9. Actually, this harkens back to the 1975 release of the Basement Tapes, but it took more than 15 years for the label to wake up the fact that Dylan is way too prolific to be contained with the typical parameters of a musical career.

Dylan has been famous for leaving great songs off official albums and this is true – Blind Willie McTell has become the most famous example; She’s Your Love Now is a favorite for mine; more recently, on “Tell Tale Signs,” you get, Girl from the Red River Shore, a haunting, sublime song, an out-take from Time Out of Mind (1997).

But these bootleg series, which have included complete concerts and last year’s the Whitmark Demos, from his early folk years, do something other than providing new tracks to discover. Like many artists, to fully understand the scope of the work and to understand the work as well as the life, you must divide the career into periods.

Music is particularly good prey for this form of analysis. Album (s) document a specific sound and the next Album (s) documents a different specific sound. How you can not think of Sun Session Elvis vs Comeback Special Elvis. Capital years Sinatra? Meet the Beatles better than the White Album, discuss.

Dylan’s phase shifts are especially dramatic. Throughout the decades he has applied his songwriting skills and perspectives to an array of genres – folk, rock & roll, country, gospel – and leaving his mark on those genres; Live, he often transforms a previous genre song into what genre interests him at the moment (the original One Too Mornings vs the 1966 Rocking Version; or even more interesting – the original John Brown from the Whitmark release to the Unplugged MTV live album). Even a casual fan will appreciate the augmentation of the canon and the fact that hearing sessions out takes, such as available on the No Direction Home “soundtrack.” gives a deeper understanding of the work that went into the final officially released masterpiece. The live pieces likewise emphasize aspects of the performance style of the particular period— the phrasing and playing in the studio only is part of the portrait of the artist at any given period.

His fans have watched the periods unfold, which is tremendous fun. And, it has also been fun to get a new perspective that time, and the work that didn’t make the final cut, provides. On Tell Tale Signs, there are several versions of Mississippi (Stayed in Mississippi a Day Too Long), a brilliant song. Usually, Dylan versions can be really different (a rockabilly Visions of Johanna with the Band on the No Direction Home soundtrack, or Basement Tapes Ain’t Going Nowhere vs the Happy Traum session), but with Mississippi, it was all about nuance. The versions are fascinatingly similar to each other and the official Love & Theft version, is the agreed upon masterpiece. The best, but only by a hair. Music is about emotions, which are not just at the heart of our humanity but essentially are ineffable. The multiple versions of Mississippi are not just seeing a sketchbook, but you watch an artist get closer and closer to realizing the vision with each performance. Unlike other out-take comparisons, Mississippi is entirely incremental.

Is that the essence of Dylan’s artistry – both the listener and the singer discovers together what a song really means?

Cultural Celebrity – Dylan is one of the last of the 60s counter culture heroes not just alive, but still working. He has a natural charisma. He’s appealing and usually baffling. He has dabbled in film (Eat the Document, Renaldo & Clara), as well acting and soundtrack work, made noteworthy television appearances ( examples: Johnny Cash 1968, Hard Rain 76 TV Special, David Letterman 1984) and even had a weird, barely readable book – Tarantula. He has a habit of showing up and just being, Dylan. Live Aid anybody?

Beginning in the 90s though, with interest in Dylan revived again and growing, Dylan dabbled with increasing frequency beyond the mere releasing of records and touring. The dichotomy inherent in being both icon and working artist energizes him. He both disputes nostalgia and uses it as a starting point.

Masked & Anonymous, his 2003 art-film, directed by Larry Charles and reuniting Walter and the Dude (I rented Lebowski because I dug the Dylan film and now that film is my 2nd (After Shane) all time favorite film). The Martin Scorsese film, No Direction Home, I sone of the better musical documentaries ever made. I’m Not There, a intermittently entertaining but direly pretentious flick with an excellent soundtrack – consisting mainly of musical luminaries like John Doe and Tom Verlaine playing Dylan songs with Dylan’s current backing band. In addition, new (and old) Dylan songs show up constantly in films – Things Have Changed won an Oscar, he’s on the North Country soundtrack, and check out his cover of You Belong to Me in Natural Born Killers.


Chronicles, the memoir which landed on the best seller’s list was not just a rock & roll autobiography, but a top-notch literary memoir, as good as Stop Time by Frank Conroy or Speak Memory by Nabakov. Last year, Princeton Historian Sean Wilentz released Dylan in America, a study of cultural trends in the U.S. masquerading as book about Dylan. This book is first in-depth analysis of Dylan’s 90s & 00s work and and its chapter on the friendship between Dylan and Ginsberg reveals useful insights about the Bard from Paterson his biographers have heretofore avoid. Oh yeah, and there’s that radio show with delightful quips (I like email but I miss the postman) and an unrivaled encyclopedic musical catalog.

I probably left a few things out, but as a fan, Dylan popping up here (the recent kerfuffle about China Set Lists) and there is a blast. He has never been more accessible, more present, yet he is not over exposed. Quality is likewise a priority. Everything he has been doing – new music, archival releases, dabbling with other mediums – has been consistently worthwhile. Even Christmas in the Heart, a bizarrely fascinating album that I can’t quite decide whether it is a new record by Dylan or just an example of his using his cultural celebrity for a good cause (proceeds fight hunger). Bottom line, it is simply a fun Christmas Carroll collection and a welcome addition to my seasonal rotation.

He has something like 40 albums out (more than 500 songs by some estimates). No one can listen to that many records all the time, nor can anyone listen to one artist all the time. I listen to music as much as I am able and I guess a month hasn’t gone by without some Dylan disc finding its way into the rotation. Sometimes it’s all Dylan all the time. Now, I am tending to play his recent releases – I am particularly fond of Love & Theft – and sort of stick to a core of Blood on the Tracks, Blonde on Blonde, and New Morning (I just like that record a lot). Recent months, because of seeing the Phil Ochs documentary and a “Freewheeling Time,” the not-half-bad memoir written by former lover, Suze Rotollo I’ve been playing Times They Are A Changin and Freewheelin.

Following an artist with such a back catalog you can go years and years without playing one record of another. A new record comes out, etc. etc. But with Dylan being in the news so much more than he had been and being a font of miscellanea, that random reasons to play a record that has been on the shelf come up.

Rolling Stone published a great list, Best 70 Dylan songs, in honor of his birthday, natch. You read a list like that and say to your self, I haven’t heard that for a while. So, I slipped on Shot of Love and Desire into the CD player. I haven’t played either for these classics in at least five years. When I need the Dylan fix, I play the usual suspects like Highway 61 I’ve been playing that. My point is that as the folk Dylan, whom I avoided for a couple of years, returns, you not only re-awaken a period of the artist, you hear it with fresh ears. Same was true for Shot of Love. Memories that I associate with these records, both of which I got when new, came flooding back along with a new appreciation for the great songs. This morning I played Love & Theft, and I got another shading and I thought about how eclectic both L&T and SOL are.

This type of musical enjoyment may be applicable to any record or artist, it just seems more so with Dylan. Taste in music is completely subjective (which doesn’t stop me from judging yours and shouldn’t stop you from judging mine. But few artists the extensive catalog Dylan has built. Since he has so many records that you forget several for years. You are prompted to re-enter them into the rotation, your appreciation is not just renewed but this re-discovery is another form of the experience of loving music. It is a particularly unique form of enjoyment.

Dylan is ever deepening, and ever growing more complex. I can say the same about the entertainment he brings me as a fan. Happy Birthday Bob, thanks for the music I love the most. Keep on Keepin On!

J.C. Ditches

Some of the finest ditches in all of Hudson County are new to Jersey City. Not deep enough for the much needed sewer system but I’m sure she’ll handle a fresh curb. I love this slice of street, the thin grass roots jutting out into the air, the chipped asphalt. Look at the end of the ditch though, somebody littered, tossed their take out bags and containers into the ditch. An ever-present point of annoyance and disappointment, the residents of this town love to litter. It’s so lazy and inconsiderate. This deep crevice is temporary, needed for the now perennial street-scaping, created on Friday and to be filled by Monday and yet the litter buggers couldn’t resist using it as a receptacle. Jersey City is a kind of windy place, the haphazard skyline, it’s proximity to the river, the topography of river-side flats abutting hill country, capture and extends breezes. Garbage blows easily hereabouts. How about some kind of awareness of the Give a Hoot and Don’t Pollute kind? All this encouragement to ride bicycles or stop pipelines, all the green posturing, yet no one cares about the rampant litter buggery. You know who I am talking about – YOU! (and you and you.)