Journal #10
HAUL ON THAT BOW-LINE!
Jesse meets Utah Phillips
| In 1979, I lived in San Francisco for a part of that year. I
attended meetings of the San Francisco Folk Music Club at Faith Petric's
house on Clayton Street, up the hill from Haight/Ashbury. A Bloomington
expatriot turned me on to the singing and story telling of Bruce (U Utah
on the record sleeve and song book) Phillips. Here was a practicioner of a
dying art: YARN Spinning...an inveterate, never-say-die punster
besides! I loved the dry, sitting around a campfire kind of story weaving he practices, and consider him a major contributer to the form. Arlo Guthrie, and Michelle Schocked are also masters, each in their own way, but Utah Phillips can take the story material equivalent of see-through-thin soup and make it sound like porridge looks! To my delight, I found out that Utah was going to be a special guest at a Sea Life Festival San Francisco sponsored at the Hyde Street Pier Historic Ships Exhibit on the Bay. The exhibit is within walking distance from the terminus of both the Bay Street and Hyde Sreet cable car lines for those readers who visit San Francisco (in season). On such ship was a 3 masted sailing vessel. A demonstation of shanty singing would be featured. since my father, Marijan, hailed from a long line of Croatian Sailors, I wanted this opportunity to look into my own past heritage. I got a treat, indeed. I'd been curious why Utah Phillips, a notoriously radical I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World) member was a guest. He quickly explained. The very ship we were standing on performed its last function as a log-hauling vessel down the Pacific Coast, from the Douglas Fir forests...the Wobbly (I.W.W. nick-name) connection? In the whaling days, the sailors who monkeyed through the rigging of the whaling ships would take work "topping" douglas fir trees. This involved lashing oneself to the trunk of the tree most of the way up, then sawing the top of the tall fir tree off...the rest of the tree would sway violently - kind of like being way up the masts of a tall ship, in the stiffest of winds, furling the sails. The I.W.W. spent alot of time in the Oughts and the Teens of the Twentieth century working to organize the sawyers...this was Phillips very informative presentation. Soon, people were invited to participate in 2 Shanty singing demonstrations: first - Hauling on the line, which raises and lowers a particular sail on its "arm". The Leader of the Shanty was actually a fellow who had shipped aboard a wooden ship in his teens (he was in his late seventies), that had sailed around the Horn - the tip of S. America. The sailors stand next to each other, so that they can tug the line towards themselves, with a steady, hard yank when the singer and the sailors, in unison, shout HEY! The repeat part alternates with a line that the Shanty leader sings: Blow the man down..." Actually, it's been a long time since that day, and for the sake of accuracy, I checked a reference book, THE LORE OF SHIPS, to see if I am anywhere near factual in my description. What I found was a bewildering list of sail, beam, and rigging names...If I can tie the accurate picture down, I will alter the description above accordingly. Who ended up on the line right next to me? Why, of course...Utah Phillips! I subjected him to one of my worst puns, about Ronald Reagan, and he groaned audibly...which, of course is music to a punsters ear! We also participated in the capstan shanty, which is quite different in rhythm from the other one. The capstan is the device that lifts the anchor back up. It is circular, consisting of a number of smooth handles sticking out of a circular column rising out of the deck of the ship. The handles are long enough for people to stand facing one with a firm grip of both hands at about hip to chest height - depending on how tall one is. As the chanty is sung, the sailors simply walk around in a circle, thereby raising the anchor. It wasn't long before I left the west coast to return to Indiana. Before settling back in to life in Bloomington, I made a short trip to New Jersey to visit my family. When I got to New York, I discovered I'd have time to go to a concert featuring Utah. He was appearing in a converted warehouse a few blocks north of the Port Authority Bus terminal in mid Manhattan (where I transferred from the local Jersey bus to the Greyhound). I had no idea what to expect. When I walked through the door, I found myself in a large, long open room, with attendees milling about waiting for the show to start. Utah was standing near the doorway into the performance space, another room the same dimensions as the one we were in. He got a look of recognition on his face, pitched up his voice, and called out, "Good to see ya!" and walked over to shake my hand. I'm thinking, wow! he must have really liked that pun out in San Francisco. I was learning, you never know the impression you might be making when you are simply being spontaneous until you meet somebody the second time...it can come as quite a shock until you get used to it... I've seen Bruce "Utah" Phillips a few more times since that night, including a visit to Bloomington's Rose Fire-Bay room in the John Waldron Arts Center, and his story telling always takes unsuspected twists and turns - sort of like a side-winder rattler in the bunch grass when its your turn to cook for the track crew of a railroad and you are desperately searching for something to feed your hungry mates. Yet Bruce did something that night I saw him in New York that taught me the meaning of "WORK WITH WHAT YA GOT!" When we all went to the room where the concert was happening, each person became immediately aware of what was hanging from the ceiling. Attached to the ceiling and the walls was black polystyrene plastic, the same stuff garbage bags are made out of...strips of the material had been taped together to form a barrel like effect...the people who had converted the loft space were hoping to deaden the echo of the sound on the brick walls of the room. Now, Utah is notorious for stopping in the middle of a song to tell a story of some old "Wob" he'd searched out who was in his eighties, in order to tape an interview. He loved relating the details of the room he'd find "Flap-jack Jake" in...most of the time, the song would even get finished! I'd become used to this approach, and it was tons of fun watching the first timers-wonder what Phillips was "up to". Yet, even I was startled when he stopped and drew our attention to the plastic draping the room, so elegantly...and said, "It's been bugging me, that plastic, what it reminds me of...why, I've got it! Now I know what it feels like to be inside a loaf of Wonder Bread! Any minute now, four fingers and a thumb will appear, to grab the loaf off the shelf!! Audible gasps escaped the throats of several listeners as necks craned about to look up...then the peals of laughter rocked the room. It's like I said, |
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