Waiting Man

Song performed by King Crimson and written by Adrian Belew, Bill Bruford, Robert Fripp and Tony Levin

Has there ever been a band like King Crimson? I don’t mean their music, which is wonderful all on its own. I’m talking about our commonly held idea of a band as a set group of musicians who work together over an extended period of time. They have produced at a remarkably high level while engaging in a version of professional musical chairs. Looking over their history, the personnel reads like a cross-section of prog rock elite who happened to meet up and decide to make a record. Then, they play a few gigs and go their separate ways. In King Crimson terms, Beat was news because it was the first time the band had made two albums in a row with the same members.

This started me thinking about artistic associations. The image of the traveling theater troupe may have set the standard. The members are permanently attached like the vision of a circus. They go from town to town, living out their private dramas always in one another’s company. Artistic collectives fire the imagination of anyone wanting a demarcation point when looking at history.

The King Crimson record

featured here takes Jack Kerouac as a jumping off point. Neal and Jack and Me is probably the most explicit example. He proved to be the connective tissue across much of American literature in the 1950s and 1960s as a founding member of the Beats. Drawing a circle that includes Allan Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Ken Kesey, and many others, a movement is defined. They all knew one another. Presumably, they compared notes. They doubtless argued. People come and go through various circles of influence. Movements don’t break-up so much as peter out with death or apathy. We tend to mourn the individuals more than the end of such a group.

Orchestras change members all the time, but popular bands make news with change. (Orchestras do, too, but not with every new addition or departure.) Doubtless, the cult of personality comes into play here, except that bands become a personality all on their own. I suppose the personality of King Crimson has become one of change and inquiry. As in- did you hear that Crimson is on tour? Oh? And who’ve they got this time? Other than Fripp, that is?

Then, there is the driving force behind a band or a movement. Robert Fripp has been the King Crimson constant for all these decades. Was Kerouac the driving force behind the Beats? I don’t really subscribe to the great man theory of history, though it makes for an easy shorthand in conversation. One artist can write a good book or make good music, but you don’t get anywhere if you surround that person with mediocrity. Maybe the better way to look at the people who have passed through King Crimson is the way that they have gone out and used their experience to create new art under different circumstances.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 179 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

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From Noon Till Three

Written and directed by Frank D. Gilroy (from his book)

I was fairly young when I first saw this western from 1976. I do recall being alone at the time. Even without my father near at hand, I was fairly likely to choose a western before just about anything. The other memory that stands out is a desire to share the experience- that urge to turn to someone and make a comment before realizing that no one was there. I don’t know if I talked about the movie later with anyone. It was just a little too weird.

In essence, a mediocre outlaw sleeps with a woman while on the run. He brags a little, but pretty much leaves her in the dust at the first opportune moment. He is captured and serves a long term in jail. When released, the outlaw discovers that the widow has written a huge bestseller romanticizing their time together. Maybe this movie explains my fondness for Don Quixote, which I did not tackle until much later.

Looking back, it’s interesting to see my younger self dealing with questions of truth- fiction and non-fiction. How much can an artist mine their own experience before owing something to their inspiration? How much truth can any person make if experience is subjective?

Gilroy’s real accomplishment is putting these questions out there in a way that entertains, while drawing us into the predicaments of the main characters. These are not issues that have disappeared, only morphed into concerns for more types of media. Much of our modern journalism has created a strange relationship between subject and chronicler that only accelerates compromises as the methods of sharing information foster the importance of headlines over actual content. From Noon Till Three was as much about the rise of surface impressions over personal depth and true character.

Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Gilroy, and all the rest of their collaborators make art of this because of the humanity at the core of the film. The situation feels ridiculous at points to all of the characters. Simple choices about personal survival have ended up causing harm and disunity.

Everyone has these artistic gems that they hold close. Part of being human is being affected by the world around us.. Some, like Star Wars, remain a part of the common parlance. Few a few brief years after the release of the first movie, we lived in a world in which you could only see it by waiting for broadcast television to show it. Can you imagine?

Then, something like From Noon Till Three is this strange movie that really is unknown. I don’t know if I have ever seen a copy on disc or tape. It looks like it might be stream-able now, wich is rather cool. Maybe it was simply the right art at the right time. I’m probably going to wait a little longer before I find out.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 180 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

The Three Musketeers

Book written by Alexandre Dumas and Auguste Maquet (uncredited)

Growing up in the middle of the 20th century in the United States, knowledge of certain tales was a given. Tom Sawyer, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and the Three Musketeers were prominent among them. That knowledge came as often from movies and Classics Illustrated comics as it did anything written down.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was the quintessential story of rural American youth. Mark Twain’s Huck Finn may have brought life to one of the greatest books of all time, but Tom Sawyer taught us all what a lovable scamp was. Besides, we read it long before we obtained access to its sequel.

Robin Hood and King Arthur were as necessary to common discussion as cowboys and Indians. First knowledge of England inevitably involved those two legendary figures and the story cycles surrounding them.

Then, there was Athos, Porthos, and Aramis- lest we forget d’Artagnan. You come for the swordplay and court intrigue, but you stay for the personalities. I can’t help thinking of the Beatles and the Fantastic Four here. The brilliance of each of those creations is the way individual characters are easily distinguished by clearly defined personality traits. In any individual narrative, one or the other might be the lead character, but the special characteristics of each allows the audience to identify with any one of them. If your favorite is Aramis or Ringo or the Human Torch, then you always get just enough to feel that special frisson with your patronus. Even better, you don’t have to remember what makes each of them unique. Just spend five minutes with them and it becomes so, so obvious.

Having digested Tom, Robin, and Art,

the Musketeers were a revelation. The former three had streaks of unkindness mixed with veering story lines. The Musketeers seemed as confused as I was about finding the right path, but that never stopped them from rising to one another’s aid and making hard decisions. Maybe they just hit me at the right time, but I plowed through three or four books featuring the characters.

Nowadays, I come across Dumas mostly in used book stores (and regular attempts at making a movie or television series). His collected works easily fill a shelf, but he seems to have been something of a word factory. He set up a studio where others would write the books that he would draft. He worked in the opposite vein for many of his more famous novels, using Maquet to draft the plot and characters. Then Dumas would step in and craft the final book. Maquet was apparently well-paid for his efforts and willingness to be dropped from the title page.

I doubt that he was the first ghost writer. Thousands have followed since. I do believe that contributors should be credited, but public disputes about the writer credit on movies has demonstrated that it is not always easy to tell who did what… unless of course it is.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 181 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.