Be Your Eyes The Witness Of This Ill

If anyone out there witnessed any piece of the shooting of Callion Hamblin by law enforcement agents in Farmington, Missouri on February 20, 2012, or knows anyone who did who would be willing to come forward, we would be grateful if you would please be in touch with The Friends and Family of Callion Hamblin at:

 hamblincallion@gmail.com

Thank you.

Witness

Martha Collins

If she says something now he'll say
it's not true if he says it's not true
they'll think it's not true if they think
it's not true it will be nothing new
but for her it will be a weightier
thing it will fill up the space where
he isn't allowed it will open the door
of the room where she's put him
away he will fill up her mind he will fill
up her plate and her glass he will fill up
her shoes and her clothes she will never
forget him he says if she says
something now if she says something ever
he never will let her forget and it's true
for a week for a month but the more
she says true and the more he says not
the smaller he seems he may fill up
his shoes he may fill up his clothes
the usual spaces he fills but something
is missing whatever they say whatever
they think he is not what he was
and the room in her mind is open she
walks in and out as she pleases she says
what she pleases she says what she means.

from Some Things Words Can Do, 1998
Sheep Meadow Press

Copyright 1998 by Martha Collins.

Poetic, A Place of Passion

Painting by John DeBold, Image by Steve Hull

What a brilliant party last Saturday night at Poetic Skate Shop in Farmington where a buoyant crowd gathered to fund raise for a new half moon pipe to be installed in the back room. Half moon pipe to be installed in the back room! The pipe will be tucked in between two walls, so there will be a “wall ride” as owner Adrian Ware termed it, where they just might do the occasional “sticker slap” contest (the winner's whoever slaps the sticker highest).

Adrian explained to me that the pipe will be fabricated from pool coping which is like marble, ergo “there's more stuff to skate on it, and it sounds better when you grind it. Kids can come in here, especially when it's raining, learn some new tricks and then take them out to the streets. And it's free, whenever the shop's open the kids can come back here and skate. Helmets and waivers for the kids under 21. They're always welcome to skate here.”

Adrian Ware

 (Image courtesy of Farmington Chamber of Commerce)

I asked guest Rusty Brotherton what skating meant to him. “It means everything! I've been doing it since I was 5 or 6 years old, it's what I'm all about. It's hard to put it into words. It's a lifestyle, I found it, I enjoyed it, loved it and have never looked back at anything else. I love all of it, the freedom, the true freedom, zig-zagging back and forth, and having fun. You can go as fast as you want down a hill. You can go to any random place and have a conversation with another skater, a stranger, and it's an instant connection. It's like a brotherhood.”

Cody Hardie, 17, goes to Central High School and lives in Park Hills, and says he's been at the shop every single day since it's opened. Having had a back injury in the past he gravitated to skate boarding. “I'm not worried about injuries in skating,” he explained. “You set goals, but you're not competing with other people, you're besting yourself. It's one of the most peaceful sports.”

I asked Cody what it means to have a shop like this in the area. “It's fantastic! We don't have to get cheap knock-offs at Walmart. It's a great relief to have access to top-of-the-line merchandise. Adrian's a cool guy. He orders the best stuff, goes out of the way to get the stuff for you.” Rusty added that “Adrian's opening up professional skating opportunities. He got me out there to the point where certain companies will say I want this dude to ride for me. He does this for other kids too.” Cody said the shop's “a cool place to meet other people. When it rains, people come from all over. Today there were some kids up here from Poplar Bluff.”

We all came out of the back room where we'd gathered to watch painter John DeBold put the finishing touches on his wall art, Pop Art-inflected images he'd created for Poetic of a screamin' red rooster and a cupcake skull named Sweet Tooth. The main room, where more of John's artworks hung, had filled up with stylish young people, and even before the musicians played the energy was charged. “Skateboarding, art and music go together like peanut butter and jelly,” Adrian quipped. He's planning on having bi-weekly evenings at the shop where people can hang out and talk and see a new art show like the current solo show featuring John's paintings and drawings, maybe listen to some live music. “I want to bring the kids here the best things I've experienced with skateboarding in the city. So far, we've got two kids sponsored from a company in New Jersey.”

Poetic Skate Shop in Farmington, MO, Photo by Steve Hull

Spirited groups of three, four, and five mostly young men were actively looking at and talking about John's work, moving up and down the exhibit, pointing back and forth to various images, animatedly discussing what they were seeing. How many Dumbo and Chelsea gallery shows have I been to where people don't extend even more than a cursory glance to what's before them on the walls, like the art is besides the point? At Poetic Skate Shop in Farmington, Missouri, they were reaching for it!

I shared with Adrian the thought that young people don't really need all this discipline frustrated adults were always looking to impose on them. Rather they need challenge; and if challenged, they'll happily discipline themselves. To which he immediately replied, “Exactly. These kids have got each other's backs. If one kid needs something for his skateboard but he's short a few bucks, out come the wallets.”

There was talk that the next show just might include Steve Hull's photographs matched musically with a reggae dub. Everyone's welcome, especially men my own age in need of reminding what the exuberance of spine-tingling freedom feels like in zig-zagging motion. And please feel free to reach into your own wallets and peel off a couple of freshly-minted twenties for the cause--installing the half moon pipe in the back room at Poetic, and putting some sweet and toothy smiles on some random kids' faces.

Poetic Skate Shop is located at 1 North Jefferson Street in Farmington, MO. Soloists, bands, artists and shoppers can reach proprietor Adrian Ware at 636-359-1325.

The Vault and Arch of Landscape Is All

In the dream, Susan Sontag is standing outside the empty shop window where Hunt and Gather on Jefferson Street used to be. I recognize her by her hair's skunk white streak, and well, I just recognize her from having read her critical essays and the novels, notably The Volcano Lover. She's gesturing at the abandoned enterprise, like there was something very particular she had been hoping to shop for there, some object that she was counting on getting that she cannot now purchase. On behalf of the entire town of Farmington, Missouri, I grab her by the hand and walk her over (it's not far, I tell her, you could hit a golf ball from here to there, I say) to a place, the only place this side of St. Louis, where I am certain she can fulfill her desire, whatever it may be—The Vault—our local lunch spot cum nightclub, and so much more, our Ground Zero for a diverse community who love live, original music and value its practitioners.

"Go with me to the vault." — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act V, Scene 3

Upon entering The Vault, Ms. Sontag immediately esteems the grayscale décor and relaxes as she surmises that she's in a place of indelible memories. She traces with her forefinger the white labyrinth swirl of the hypno wheel decal—or is it a vortex?—sealed on the surface of every table top. She sits in one of the  comfortable padded black chairs, looks up at the high ceilings, heat ducts and industrial piping traversing the long rectangular room in what once was a shirts and pants factory and says, the Lower East Side? I shake my head no. Williamsburg? No, not Brooklyn, either, I tell her, Missouri. Farmington, Missouri. Amazing, she exclaims. Amazing, I agree.

Her eyes soon travel admiringly past the compact food and beverage kiosk where artist owner Kerry Smith  whips up her culinary wizardry—the beautifully composed panini, gourmet hotdogs, and enticingly named salads—the Harvest, the Lux. Kerry put the Mean Bean on the menu without even trying it herself first, just because she liked the way the ingredients sounded together, I tell her, and it's delicious!  

KDHX St. Louis DJ Bob Reuter's Band is coming back to The Vault on March 9th!

Susan's big eyes scrutinize The Vault's distinctive signature posters and banners announcing upcoming shows, all designed by owner, bass player, and musical curator Tim Smith, and she gasps with pleasure at the representations of burlesque troupes and bizarre circus emporia that have moved so many people here, myself included, right out of our comfort zones. I wonder if she's already noticed the same small hidden image Tim often includes in The Vault's posters, the thing you can look and look for and not see, but then when you see it, you see it always. She approvingly reads the canvases of the other artists whose work the Smiths so generously feature on the walls of their club, before giving her full attention to The Vault's focal point, its raison d'être—the custom-built stage.

Tim goes to the back and puts on a little Zoe Boekbinder for her, followed by a little Shenandoah Davis, Hymn for Her, End Times Spasm Band, then Sleepy Kitty, keeping it a mite cerebral just the way she likes it, and she taps her foot while taking in the black curtains and spotlights, reveling in the good acoustics and sight lines. Her face breaks out in a eureka smile and she intones in a lofty voice that Kerry will mimic perfectly later, not creationism, not intelligent design, but designed intelligently for Farmington's evolution and flourishing. She listens as I tell her of seeing a production of Waiting for Godot in Barcelona on my honeymoon, and that it was performed in Catalan! And she's about to say something about Beckett, about absurdity, about waiting, I don't know and never learn, because, in the dream, Kerry comes over with an Apri-Goat with slaw and a Schlafly bitter brew and Ms. Sontag hungrily devours it, muttering between bites and swallows of beer,  form, content, form, content, form, content...and I wake up.

 

After this dream, at the sold out Whistle Pigs show Friday night, I thought about how important nightlife is for adults if for no other reason that when driving to The Vault you can look up to the night sky, experience the expanding universe, see the stars and moon on your way to, on your way fro. There it is— the Milky Way! And also for the pleasure of the people watching, we are stardust, we are golden. Seated in the row just in front of me Friday there were two middle-aged couples, in their late 50's I would guess, and I couldn't help but notice that in one, the man flung his arm around his woman and pulled her close every chance he got (and she loved it!); in the other, the woman with outstretched fingers on two amorous hands scratched her man's back without inhibition, while he purred like a contented tiger.

At The Vault, grandmothers dance with their six-year old grandsons, men and women flirt outrageously with each other, same sex couples can feel at home. At The Vault we always laugh about something, we always cheer each other on. At The Vault, someone in the band will invariably say how attentive we in the audience are, how you can hear a pin drop, how they can't wait to come back and perform for us again. And it’s true, we are— attentive and grateful for the chance to feel and be part of the larger musical currents criss-crossing the country.

Also invariably, they will say thank you, Tim and Kerry, and we love it, because then we can clap and stamp our feet and whistle and woot-woot for The Vault and the Smiths, and express our appreciation for their considerable aesthetic risk-taking along with their daily sacrifices to keep the shows, excitement, and inspiration coming our way. It's a labor of love, really and truly it is, and they lead from the heart.

We've got some really great shows to look forward to here in Farmington, Missouri, now that Tim Smith has single-handedly put us on the musical map as a destination for national touring bands—the Black Belles, Eliza Rickman—those shows will sell out quickly. But it's the ones in-between, the oddities, the acts you've never heard of until now, the things that for whatever reason have caught Tim's interest that he wants to share with us, these are just as much fun to go to, if only to see who else shows up! What a year in music I've had since the Smiths opened The Vault's doors on March 22, 2011:

Long live The Vault. Viva! Viva! Viva!

A Grizzly State of Affairs

A business owner in Farmington, challenged me to define a term I had used in the inaugural post of this blog: “What do you mean by Police State?”

I was thrilled with this question. I adore questions generally because they cut through the sameness and  dullness, and proceed dispassionately to the heart of the matter. Moreover, I not only welcome them, but listen for them. Often one can hear a question (or questions) shambling around inside even the most seemingly straight-ahead declarative sentence (e.g. the title to this post). In some sense that's the most thoughtful aspect of the daring writer's job: to be attentive enough to hear those suffocated questions, even at the lowest of signal strengths, and to unearth and amplify them so others can hear them too. Then the conversation becomes of the moment, it's fresh and alive, and almost always transforming.

By way of answering the question, I offer a brief apologue. Some years ago, my husband and I spent a three-week vacation in National Glacier Park. During the long flight from New York City to Kalispell, Montana, Joseph had picked up the in-flight airline magazine and read a horrifying account of a couple who'd gone there on vacation and were mauled by grizzly bears on a well-trammeled wilderness trail. Both the husband and wife were severely injured. Injured and grotesquely scarred, their wounds requiring multiple surgeries and subsequent plastic surgeries. They suffered 10 years of lost productivity, living in a hell of pain—physical and psychic—trying to forgive themselves for their lack of foresight.

It was August in huckleberry season and the bears—Grizzlies and Brown—were out feeding in full force. After what Joseph had read, and had forced me to read, we were determined to avoid proximity to them at all costs. But what to do? Pepper spray, bells, walking with a heavy stomping foot, hand-claps while calling “bear, bear,” and some of the other suggested bear-repellent techniques struck us both as fanciful, at best. And at worst, a marketing device for products in the park's many gift shops—on a par with snake oil.

After days of avoiding the trails that would lead us into the majestic forests and possibly onto the path of an oncoming bear, Joseph confronted a seasoned, weather-beaten park ranger and said something on the order of, “I've done the research, I've studied the products and noise-making suggestions, and have come to this conclusion: It's up to the bear, isn't it? Whether he passes you by or eats you for breakfast, the bear is in control.”

To which the ranger, locking on Joseph's earnest and steady gaze, replied: “Yes.”

A few weeks ago a local 14-year-old boy with Down Syndrome was suspended from his middle school in Park Hills for "sexual harassment" when in fact he had hugged the bus aide. The story appeared in the local paper, but was also all over Fox News and made it as far as the New York Daily News. When I heard about it, it reminded me of this story about a 12-year-old Queens girl arrested for doodling on her desk. 

What is one to make of these absurd attempts to criminalize children for the crime of being children? Is it now happening to our kids because we were silent when 13, 14 and 15-year-old "terrorists" were locked up in Guantanamo and the keys thrown away, and remain thrown away 10 years later? Has the tortured spirit of Guantanamo finally settled upon St. Francois County, like a ghost of Christmas past, present and future?