moon traveller herald

Spysmasher Serial Spysmasher was a serial  I saw, one afternoon, spliced together to make a movie, not long after I’d seen the  Batmen of Africa . I took notes. As it turns out, Spysmasher was one of the most notable un-noted serials, marked by its incredible movement. Acme of cliff hanging. i. Spysmasher  -- in goggles -- caught. There hanging -- crucified-like – in a dungeon. He won’t talk. He is executed. He is still alive. The French Resistance colonel is happy to meet him in his coffin. A sea plane across the clouds. A steam locomotive is superimposed on a map of state-divided America. He meets the head of the SS asking for a match near Waterville Junction. After the fight, the Spysmasher is saved by his twin brother Allen, who wasn’t killed in a plane crash over France. The Corby Estate. Someone just came into the drive. Allen approaches in a a plane, goggles, leather skull hat. Spysmasher jumps out – parachutes. The two gangsters attack the head of Na...

"My friends, I would like to say that never, in my political history, have I ever enjoyed the privilege of presenting such a great, beloved man. A human being, not only beloved in this fair country, but beloved world over. His name, a name that’s imprinted on every heart in America: Governor Slingwell Slugwell!" http://www.lordbuckley.com/LBC_The_Word/LBC_Transcriptions/Governor_Slugwell.htm

Slim Whitman passed over this week at 90. I like the self-eulogy he came up with in the 90s. Mr. Whitman told The A.P. in 1991 that he wanted to be thought of as “a nice guy” and a good father. “I’d like people to remember me,” he said, “as having a good voice and a clean suit.” OK, Slim! He has appeared on Moon Traveller Herald before – when rumors of his death circulated in 2008. It was Whitman's yodeling rendition of "Indian Love Call" that ultimately repelled Martian invaders during the administration of James Dale [Jack Nicholson] in 1996. ( "Mars Attacks" ) His sound is unearthly - like a human Theremin, which I 'omaged in this drawing-construction above. Slim Whitman, at 90 - NYTimes, Jun 20, 2013 Rumors of Slim -MoonTraveller, Feb, 2013

Punk to me will always be the Lucky Cue, 1965. Of Main Street Racine. That pin ball and pool parlor palace of our homed factory town. Black leather jackets, Beatle boots, attitude of indifference .. a version of the Road to Perdition .. if I don’t like you I will beat you up ... CYO dance, or no CYO dance ... that’s punk to me. Once I sent Jim a link to a Journal Times Remembrance page on old Main St... Kresge’s, soda fountains and such ... he returned a weird reminisce of drug dealers and fist fights. That’s punk! That is revolutionary memory. Still for me “Es la Cue!” Maybe  I am a bit more in favor of Garage music, than Punk music. Truth to be told. Dont hate me. Would not be too weird, because Dave and Carol and Bill and Bobs Henken and LaFrance and I invented Garage together. From first principles, in 1967. With Garage magazine. That was about “chamber thoughts” “because of darkness and you have to someplace and silent and Poe.” Garage and punk now dance the tango...

In 2012, Lawrence Ferlinghetti published "Time of Useful Consciousness" which is a remarkable tour de force. Yes, it owes homage to Allen Ginsberg and Ed Sanders (and Walt Whitman and Matthew Arnold and a few others) but this quick history of America adapts what's in the air artfully, like a blues. It might be a career capper, but, on the other hand, 90-plus-year-old L.F. may keep on keeping on. Here on Memorial Day 2013 I read a small portion. It follows a riff on Jack Powers, a major Boston poet and nice poet mentor and guy in the last half of the 20th century (and somewhat thereafter). Ferlingetti resets some earlier poems in new context, but it all flows. He riffs on "Jacks" quite a bit, which is okay with me. - Jack Vaughan

BEDTIME BLUES by Frank StokesDon't want no jealous-hearted woman makin' up my bed She'll put something in the mattress, man, make you wish you was dead She'll give you pains to your body, give you hurtin' all through your head Now when you lay down at night, call your good friend by name Now when you lay down at night, call your good friend by name You don't like my treatment, you sure can make a change And i looked at the sun and the sun was shinin' warm And i looked at the sun and the sun was shiny warm You never miss your good gal 'til you've got the train and gone And you stood and cried, "What you want me to say to you?" Hey, stood and cried, "What you want me to say to you?" "I want you t'think 'bout the things, baby, that me and you used to do." And then run here, baby, let's try the other hand Hey, run here, baby, i said, "Let's try th'other hand" I've had a troubled complai...

On a sunny Derby Day Milwaukee the East Side up by the pagoda-looking gas station around 1971 got lost got lost just a few blocks from home. Saw these placed I had never seen before the brown faces that I knew from the buses. let's see how's this going to go? And kids came out climbing over rubble singing "hippies in town" singing "hippies in town" me and dave and jim did a sort of  cold tremble seemed like sirens everywhere in the air we were over the milwaukee river and when a car engine would start it was like a slow explosion as we found our way bippity-bop-slop-drop back to the well-known main drag say east ogden ave Now on Mission Hill with many in their graves but not the 3 musketters and there is an old hippie fellow traveller playing I'm a Little Mixed Up Key to the Highway Cool it Down First I look at the Purse Dead Flowers Im Ready. -Jack Vaughan alt ...