Nightflying: The Entertainment Guide

We spent the day today at the Paron May Festival. In and around the school that consolidation swallowed whole, we sat with locals and passers-by with barbecue, funnel-cakes, an old boat-tailed Auburn automobile, a blow-up castle for kids to bounce in, rock and roll bands, country bands, and three tables full of jewelry crafted by the SigOther. We sold a few things, ate a lot, and I bought a watch and an ultralight fishing rod, obliterating the day's profit. Still, it was fun and I met a bunch of nice people putting on their first show. Mark the first weekend next may and drive out to Paron. See the best of America before the next paradigm shift.

Tomorrow, early tomorrow, I'll drive up to a point more or less midway between Pettigrew and Boston and attend one of what appears to have been three tributes to Mike Sloate, a particularly creative musician. As a DeWitt guy is to a Stuttgart guy, we were sort of friendly rivals, not just in music, but in stories, jokes, and opinions. A roomful of Mike and Mudcat left very little room for anyone else, which never seemed to bother either of us too much. It'll be that way tomorrow, certainly. There will be a bunch of players there, many of whom will know all his songs so well they could set up and play, complete with certain pauses, long notes, and hot-spots you could only know by having been there a lot of times. Some of them may know a line or two from some of my stuff.I will do my best at the former material, and as best I can on the latter. This is the first time I'll have to hear from Mike by way of other people.
Plain spoken but not simple by any stretch, Mike seemed to eat significant parts of living and speak them back at us in that same redheadded by-God way he cooked chicken...it wasn't done until it was really, really, actually, no kidding DONE, and then well, the longer you chewed it the bigger it got.

We were from the rural branch of LittleSlovakia, and lived in houses of our own devising, intense, condensed living from day-job-to-day-job, both hobbled, Mike by a pretty bad accident, and me by general sloth and lack of team spirit on the jobs I spun through like spiderwebs.We were not the only Grand Prairie escapees in the Ozarks. L Travis is a Stuttgart ex-pat, John Eichler is still alive and well, along with Johnny Dillon, and who knows who else. None of these guys, however, ever approached the absolute value of outrage and declamation we pounded into the walls of a deepwoods quoinset hut. I'm pretty sure none of them minds this in the least, since there's a limited audience for that sort of thing, as there probably was back then.

There have been times when death was close by nature and so swift and frequent as to have lost a bit of its edge among those who should have feared it most. The edge is back, and though dull and a bit rusty with whatever that is on the blade, there, um...don't look to close... it's maybe a bit more determined than ever. Gone is the pop-up horror of “IT” jumping out of a sewer drain to eat unwary children and in its place an older, smarter, but somehow bored-and-boring hunger for souls. This thing, whatever is in charge of it, doesn't have the right to these certain people, these that Kerouac called “the mad ones” (not as diagnostic, but monoagnostic. The one thing they did not know chased them down and got them.) Mike, as I get it, did not know until shortly before leaving that he would have to be going. I don't know whether this was a blessing to him or not. Maybe someone will tell me tomorrow, and maybe they'll pass on the answer or I'll pass on the question. I miss more people all the time. Maybe I'll just listen and sing. I'll find out tomorrow, maybe.

County road 3700 north 4 miles past Pettigrew going east. Follow the yellow brick road. Sooner or later you'll come to a deepwoods hillside theater..covered stage, big equipment roomand a coon hunter's dream of a school bus dormitory. Up the hill there's a sort of VIP cabin and a sanitary facility. I arrive at 8:30 or 9. Eggs and pancakes, sausage and barbecued chicken. I help myself to the chicken and some bottled water and wander around talking to the early risers. Coffee works its wondrous magic and someone turns on the PA. In no particular order, following no schedule, people begin to play. Band membership is fluid and changes without fanfare. Everyone knows everyone. The previous day, a drummer named Amy delivered a 7-foot portrait of our own Michael Lee (Sloate) on canvas and hung it on one wall of a tent in the kitchen area. Inside, on one of several tables, are notebooks with Mike's songs, songlists, and other writings, along with the few photos I've ever seen of him. Music continues. During a break for the various bands present, someone suggests I play a few of my own. Only a couple of people have ever heard any of them, so it's a new thing for all of us. I am made to feel like a king.

As I am leaving they stop me and we do a round of group photos posed in front of the big portrait. As I drive away into Fayetteville it dawns on me nobody said anything from the stage over a microphone. All the tribute was in the air, in the conversations, in the songs themselves, the big portrait, and the dancing kids. Mike and Mudcat were in the same room and there was room to spare and smiles and laughter and nobody left but me. I fall asleep at 10pm in an easy chair out in Steve Ward's living room in Farmington.
So long Mike. See you later.

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