In Stereo Press

A group of artists in the Boulder area have recently formed the Artists’ Guild of Boulder, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting a community of artists through events, community studio spaces, gallery spaces, distribution, publication services, and education.

The Guild has officially announced a contest to design a logo that reflects the diversity of artists and art forms in the Boulder community. Anyone interested can email Olatundji Akpo-Sani, Guild President, at akposani@yahoo.com.

Three years ago today comedian Mitch Hedberg died. Originally this news was announced on The Howard Sern website April 1st. I had just seen him at Caroline’s in New York City a week prior to his death. He was amazing. I don’t remember a single joke he told, all I remember from the show was laughter at all angles.

I first saw Mitch Hedberg on David Letterman. His casual stage-fright-smile and mannerisms were just as inviting and vulnerable as his delivery. I was instantly hooked. I got my hands on his first CD recording before it officially came out. The recording is one continuous track, an hour or more of Hedberg jokes leaning on a walking bass line. I fell in love with his playful attitude towards language, “I haven’t slept for ten days, cause that would be too long”. His observations are whimsically childlike and sophisticated, “I’ve seen a human pyramid before, it was very unnecessary”. Some of my favorite moments in his act are when a joke would go down in flames. Mitch knew how to keep his cool and turn a moment of silence into yet another punchline, “If you lost your wallet it’s hard to dance; Hey, I just lost my wallet, this song is funky; Fuck it! That shit’s no good boy, This is a CD called Hit and Miss”. I was, I am, addicted to his diction and syntax, his semi dark shades and long hair. He was more than a comedian, essentially he was a poet, “I drank some boiling water because I wanted to whistle”. My friends and I memorized his jokes like our favorite songs. Much of the day I would look like I was talking to myself, just laughing out of nowhere; at anytime anything could remind me of a Mitch Hedberg joke.

Mitch Hedberg, this generations Lord Buckley.

When the news spread about his death, my friends called me all day to pay their respects. It was as if he was apart of our everyday lives, hanging out at parties, lounging lazily around the house till noon, taking long drives, and in a sense he was, and in a sense he still is. Today we remember the genius that is Mitch Hedberg.

Jack Kerouac would have been 86 years old today. What would he have to say about the world as it is I wonder? What would he have to say about writing or music for that matter? Kerouac was influenced by the jazz musicians of his day. Just to name a few of those artists, Charley Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday. He also collaborated with famed musician and composer David Amram, who wrote in 1969 for the Evergreen Review a piece called David Amram Remembers,

I used to see Jack often at the old Five Spot in the beginning of 1957, when I was working there. I knew he was a writer, and all musicians knew that he loved music. You could tell by the way he sat and listened. He never tried to seem hip. He was too interested in life around him to ever think of how he appeared. Musicians understood this and were always glad to see him, because we knew that meant at least one person would be I listening. Jack was on the same wave-length as we were, so it was never necessary to talk.
http://www.davidamram.com/kerouac.html

In the summer of 2007 The School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publishing of On the Road and I was lucky enough to listen and watch David Amram perform during the marathon reading of this great novel. People came and went all day, some never to return, new faces emerging in the middle and final moments of the book, while others, like myself, stayed for every last drop. In the afternoon I was lying in the dewy grass listening to Steven Taylor read from the middle section of the book, and I was enjoying some ice cream and the view of long summer legs.

By the final paragraph of the novel I had felt as if I had been on all these road trips. I could feel the hunger in my belly, the thirst on my lips, the dirt under my fingernails and the matted hair on my head. I could taste the wind that would be brushing from the plains into the opened window across my skin. At no time did it feel lonely. We were all in it together. And as Anne Waldman choked back her tears as the remaining few in the crowd choked back their tears, she read the last paragraph and you could feel the trip coming to an end.

Today we remember a great writer, poet, and artist Jack Kerouac.