Tag Archives: creepers and chums

Poster: Creepers and Chums (by Marty Kendall), 2017

Poster: Creepers and Chums (by Marty Kendall), 2017

Created by mixed media renegade artist Marty Kendall for memorial party/late wake for my Mom Lauralee and our pal Rod Ash.

The event featured musical performances by Mikael Lewis, Twillo, Larry Harper and me reading poetry and doing various ceremonies, plus Adam Burningham reading and other tributes and goodness / all at “Camp Dane” in Little Cottonwood canyon – Also video dispatches from various musical artist scattered around the world.

Bonus: Original art for “Creepers and Chums” (by Marty Kendall), 2017

I made invitation art collage as well.

Was fantastically well attended in person as well as through video simulcast.. Due to unforeseen circumstances, Marty wasn’t able to attend to deliver the posters in person, but I’m very pleased to have a beautiful print of this glorious piece in Japan.

See also: Creepers and Chums: global musiciansCreepers and Chums: memorial party livestream, part 1 (video), 2017Creepers and Chums: memorial party livestream, part 2 (video)Creepers and Chums: meet some fine artists, 2017

Memento: Rod H. Ash, Grave + Poem, 2017

On my birthday August 16, 2017, I found myself in Provo, Utah sleeping in yet another bed in which someone died. 

I try to forget about the day and it’s entirety, fiddled with assembling chapbooks as gifts, stamping inky thumbprints on them and giving them to folks who i pretend were pleased, and reading poems by Richard Brautigan.

Then the potter Marty Kendall and I went to see the grave of our dear pal Rod Howard Ash who passed away shortly before at an untimely age. I brought him a poem on vintage hotel letterhead written when I heard about his death wow meandering seas between the Suez. Somewhere in Aqaba or Olympia. (note: inspired a cycle of the “Items: Forgotten” series called “Time Traveller“). 

This marker was a temporary one, apparently is changed now. I think about this kind man all the time, so much style so much cool. Ugh. 

Worth noting a few months before, during memorial day weekend, we threw a party called “creepers and chums” as a tribute to him and my mother who well, also died.

PS Later that night we went to see Rod’s best pal Mikael Lewis perform and he sang a song we wrote about yet another dead pal Foster

Hi Mom, One Year Gone…

mom-card-close

Nov. 27th 2017 Mountain Time – Nov. 28th 2017 in Galle, Sri Lanka

Hi Mom,

Well, the date came around today. Its a foggy number for me as I was so far elsewhere in the “tomorrow” time zone and also took the brothers a couple of days to track me down to deliver the news so I actually had to look at your obituary to know exactly which date was the day.

The date shouldn’t matter and I maybe should be “unattached” according to the Buddhists or doing the whole “she’s in a better place” crap which frankly I don’t believe in – maybe there is an after-life but we have no proof and only folktales augmented by the spectre of “faith” to go on – so to me, whether there is or isn’t makes no difference (also, who’s to say this isn’t the “after-life”). Oh and to the faith of my relations, I don’t want a whole planet to “manage” if it means I must supervise wars and disease and disasters, anyhow I digress… to me, the only salient aspect of memory I feel and care to share is simply “I miss you”. That’s all. And, I want to, aim to, and am keeping your memory alive in a very tangible way.

You have no marker, your body is still at University of Utah Medical Center, used by a little squadron of medical students and there’s maybe an engraving of your name on some associated memorial wall in SLC somewhere – we ordered it, filled out the form but don’t have evidence of actual existence.

mom-program

Of course, there’s your sons and friends and grandkids still roaming around but your stories will fade if someone doesn’t keep the tradition alive. With this in mind, I post photos of you and about you, on the Internet so folks can click a button of acknowledgement, drop a few words, etc. – but to me, this isn’t all of what’s needed. With your love of genealogy – or rather the research of the stories of ancestors as they are rather than just a list of data points to perform unrequested ceremonies upon – and your interest in findagrave and tending to headstones, I want to put a stone somewhere with your full name, birth place and date and same with death, just for the “Lauralees of the future” who have the same interest as you to dig into the stories of the past.

Continue reading Hi Mom, One Year Gone…

Time Traveller – A poem for Rod Howard Ash (as performed at Creepers and Chums by Mikael and Dave)

Time Traveller, a poem for Rod Howard Ash as performed (in a rather spontaneous manner) with Mikael Lewis at Creepers and Chums.

Inspired by finding a photo that seemed like Rod in another decade past.

++ Time Traveler (for Rod) ++

Cobbled busy streets
Never felt so lonely and brave
So far away from any lover
Even further from your grave

Remember you on blue highways
See you in crowded bars
Feel you at desert campfires
Where we sing you name to stars

Steady on Time Traveler
We’ll see you in a decade past
Same way we saw you in a silent film
Organ playing far too fast

See you in Paris in the twenties
Drinks with Zelda and Fitz
Or in the Cavern in sixty-two
Lounging with Pete Best

Hot water sizzles in kettles
With black and white electricity
We’ll keep an eye on your kin
As though pleasant and obligatory

We’ll bore them with the stories
Of us – young, invincible and fine
Occasionally beautiful and convinced
We’d live to at least hundred and nine

Driving with your laughs
Talking with your hands
Swerving up forgotten backroads
To a reunion with unknown friends

Creepers and Chums: global musicians

** Creepers and Chums Musician  Round-up playlist **

Best thanks to the assortment of Global Free Radicals who contributed music via video for Creepers and Chums. This playlist contains all of them with the addition of “pre-roll” and “post-roll” artifacts collected from various place, simply to amuse and surprise without context.

Kindly consider reaching-out/following/fan-ing/liking any of the bands you particularly enjoyed via social channels of your choosing. They are all part of your life narrative too as they participated in this memorial for our departed loved ones. Continue reading Creepers and Chums: global musicians

Creepers and Chums: memorial party livestream, part 1 (video), 2017

++ Creepers and Chums livestream part 1 ++ f

rom Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, a celebration/belated wake for Lauralee Stevenson Olson Elliott and Rod Howard Ash featuring music by Mikael LewisJamielee Eldridge TWILLO), Larry Harper, and poetry by Adam Burningham and Dave Olson

Also music via video from Trevor EriksonThe MatineeNikos ParaskevasTrio Miles and more.

Hope you found something to enjoy.

Obvious pardons for video quality – did what we could at the time.

Hosted by Dane Christensen and Jamielee Eldridge at their lodge in Little Cottonwood Canyon. More at: “Creepers and Chums” memorial party ~ an Uncle Weed variety shindig

Creepers and Chums: memorial party livestream, part 2 (video)

++ Creepers and Chums livestream part 2 ++

from Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah, a celebration/belated wake for Lauralee Stevenson Olson Elliott and Rod Howard Ash featuring music by Mikael LewisJamielee Eldridge TWILLO), Larry Harper, and poetry by Adam Burningham and Dave Olson

Also music via video from Trevor EriksonThe MatineeNikos ParaskevasTrio Miles and more. 

Hope you found something to enjoy. Obvious pardons for video quality – did what we could at the time. 

Hosted by Dane Christensen and Jamielee Eldridge at their lodge in Little Cottonwood Canyon.

More at: “Creepers and Chums” memorial party ~ an Uncle Weed variety shindig

Creepers and Chums: memorial party invite, 2017

Creeper & Chums - memorial party announcement (mixed-media, Dave Olson)
Creeper & Chums – memorial party announcement (mixed-media, Dave Olson)

++ CREEPERS AND CHUMS ++

An Uncle Weed Variety Shindig
Music, Poetry, Dance , Art

Details: Sat. May 27th 2017

Bring: Potluck, chair and good vibes

Dedication: Lauralee Elliott and Rod H. Ash

Featuring:
* Mikael Lewis and International Correspondents
* TWILLO
* Larry “Auto” Harper

++ various Global Free Radicals (via video)

Creeper & Chums - memorial party commemorative posters (mixed-media, Marty Kendall)
Creeper & Chums – memorial party commemorative posters (mixed-media, Marty Kendall)
Invite? Leave a comment. Will also be live streamed for folks elsewhere