Rehearsing for new DT CD

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

For the past couple of days I have been in the rural Czech Republic, helping the Czech singer songwriter Robert Krestan of the Czechgrass group Druha Trava rehearse the English language versions of some of his songs for a new, all English language CD -- today we go in to the studio in Prague to begin cutting the tracks. I've never been in a studio for a recording, so it should be an interesting experience..... I did the translations of the songs, and I have to say, they sound good!

Here are the lyrics for the ones that will be on the CD:

Tanecnice (Dancer)


An upturned chair shows the hour has passed
In a night club at the end of care.
The one last dancer in the corner stands
Brushing glitter from her long dark hair.


I'm the last guest, the last glass in my hand;
I'm the last one in this place.
I push back my hat and I look at her,
How she fools the world, with all her paint


Refrain:
Josephina, dance for me, dance the dawning sky
For this undrunk, unfinished night
Ah, dance for me good-bye


She takes her bag, my ballerina;
Just a key and a bottle of beer.
She straightens the chairs and kills the light,
She smiles as she gets out of here.


I open the door, it's early dawn
It leads me down the path outside
Where heaven's morning stars await
The one who has refused to hide.


The north wind’s casting its magic spells
On my beachhead by the sea
When all at once my heart reveals
A naked fantasy


Somewhere in my dream a dancer whirls
Too daring maybe for my soul
I set sail toward the open waves
Just call me Ishmael 

Refrain:
Josephina, dance for me, dance the dawning sky
For this undrunk, unfinished night
Ah, dance for me good-bye


Infiela


Infiela,
Feathers in your touch
Dying, by your side
A hundred times, as much.
A tyrant takes my soul
I'm locked in God's embrace
The Devil calls my name
Eternal sacrifice

Morning, I set sail
From the waters of Cartegena
From the infernal gates of Hell
Grateful, at peace, I come
Morning, I sail away
In darkness diminished to dawn
Oh, beautiful, faithless one,
Infiela!


Infiela,
Weren't we maybe so
Lost in our own world
Countless times and more?
Pure in innocence
Damned in our desire
Gods in nakedness
Human in envy's fire?


Morning, I set sail
From the waters of Cartegena
From the infernal gates of Hell
Grateful, at peace, I come.
Morning, I sail away
In darkness diminished to dawn
Oh, beautiful, faithless one,
Infiela!




Shuttle to Bethlehem (Pendl do Betlema)


I hear nothing, just a barking and a seagull's cry.
Bells are wailing, friars humming, and the crows whiz by
The whistle's sizzling, even kissing you sounds like a slap
Dies irae, and all around the shrieks of pelicans.


Refrain:


But before I disappear, my dumb love,
Let me hitchhike for you while I can.
Today I'm gone, on the shuttle train to Bethl'em,
Maybe soon, a taxi to the promised land.


Your eyes tell me, you got everything you ever asked.
You're driven crazy, by my fear, my nakedness.
My heart is bleeding, the priest slashes with a knife of stone;
Just like you, dear, just like you and you and you alone.


Refrain 

But before I disappear, my dumb love,
Let me hitchhike for you while I can.
Today I'm gone, on the shuttle train to Bethl'em,
Maybe soon, a taxi to the promised land.

When I Take Off My Shoes (Az si jednou sund�m boty)


When you tell me to stop
And then when I take my shoes off
When the smile of the rails
Tells me jump, now, my friend


When my hand becomes hard
As a tile of terracotta
When I sit by my door
Just don't ask to what end.


When the dust from my roads
Cleans the scars upon my forehead
When I learn about things
That are best not to know


When the last of my rhymes
Become idle in my song book
It may well be too late,
The last time, maybe so.


Then when the wind and the rain
Wash the traces from Golgotha
When the smoke from the pyres
In the end fades away


When I take off my belt
And then when I take my shoes off
Nothing's left for me, now
And for you, now, who's to say.

When Death Does Us Apart (Az Nas Smrt Rozdeli)


When horses fly away
To the night, to the gates
Of Jericho
When our embrace dissolves
in the fog, on the shore
When those lips of yours are double-locked
As if I tried to kiss the Gates of Troy
I'm just an outcast soul without a name
Undrunk, unloved, unfull of joy.


When shots of firearms
quiet down
on the streets
down by the bay
When death does us apart
along its blue
waterway;
When the reek of booze clears this nest of doves
And the fortune teller does the same
It’s the end of song, end of love
End of war, end of game.




The Last of the Galleons (Za Posledni Lodi)


The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea
The last of the soldiers had heard his death knell
And a desolate chant from within a stone cloister
Was like one of us bidding farewell


The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea
And like night-flying bats the wind ruffled the shore
And a brave young musician chimed chords on an organ,
Jeremiah's his name evermore


The last ship had sunk, and I rushed to a place
Where the turning flood tide left me armor from Spain,
A sack of pesetas, some yellowing letters;
Stark memories and, unfathomed pain

Royals go western!

 By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I know, I know. It was pre-ordained, de rigeur and all that. But William and Kate did don cowboy hats in Calgary....

The Washington Post runs a lot of pictures of the great event and reports that:

Apparently there was some hubbub surrounding the wearing of the traditional hats. When William and Kate arrived at Calgary’s airport, Mayor Naheed Menshi presented the royal couple with the white hats, which they apparently didn’t try on because it was windy. People were outraged! But their spokesperson told the Associated Press, “In no way are they snubbing what is a very honored gifts.”
They more than made up for the perceived snub by dressing like classy cowboys later that day.

Cowboy Action Shooting in Serbia!

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

As a proud member of Italy's Cowboy Action Shooting group, the Old West Shooting Society (OWSS) -- the Italian branch of SASS (Single Action Shooting Society) -- I was interested to see that there is a group in Serbia...the Union of Western Shooters. The Associated Press had a story about it by Jovana Gec. The person she quotes, Milorad Sudar, sounds like many of the hobbyists and fans I have talked to all over Europe.

BELGRADE, Serbia — He lives in a country bombed by the United States only a few years ago and where anti-American sentiments still run high, but Milorad Sudar says he'd like nothing more than to be a cowboy like those in Western movies, riding off into the sunset.

"It is all there, in that one scene: adventure, freedom, justice," the 62-year-old Serbian economist explains. "Freedom to go wherever you want."

Gec writes that Serbia's cowboys have faced a number of difficulties — from financial to political. For one thing,  the replica 19th century weapons used in the sport can be very expensive for a Serb.

Since registering in 2007, the Serb shooters have taken part in three international competitions — in Italy, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — but have lacked funds to participate the past two years. They have no support from the state or wealthy sponsors and say many here view their sport "American propaganda."

France -- Disney Western Celebration coming up

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

I wish I could clone myself! There are so many events I want to go to -- festivals, concerts, celebrations, encampments and all that, in so many countries.  Here's the trailer for the Western Celebration at the beginning of July at Euro Disney near Paris.

The Guardian Honors Gene Autry

The Guardian newspaper in the UK has paid tribute to Gene Autry, noting the date November 15, 1934, when Autry (already a radio star) became cinema's first Singing Cowboy  as Number 7 in its series of the "50 key events in the history of world and folk music."

In 1934, he made his silver-screen debut in a B-western called In Old Santa Fe, the first of his 93 films. ... In 1939, he visited the UK with his horse, Champion, and while he was really a Hollywood creation, he brought the songs of the range to the world.

Germany -- Confederate Reenactors

German Civil war reenactors (hobbyists) at the Country Music Messe in Berlin. Photo (c) Ruth Ellen Gruber

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

There have been a couple recent U.S. media pieces about Germans who reenact U.S. Civil War battles from the Confederate side -- a phenomenon that is closely linked with other hobbyists who populate Europe's Imaginary Wild West, some (many?) of whom adopt the Stars and Bars flag and other "Rebel" symbols as an evocation of freedom, independence, anti-establishmentism and rebellion. The Rebel flags, in fact, is one of the most striking of all the striking visual images of the wild west scene in Europe. It is used on its own or in tandem with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes. It’s found as decoration, on T-shirts, pins, jewelry, backdrops, logos, you name it.

One  of the recent pieces on Confederate reenactors was a blog in the Atlantic.

If the German reenactors actually "model their characters in the reenactments after...German immigrant soldiers," as they explained to the reporter that they do, then those who wear gray have their work cut out for them. Less than 10 percent of the Germans immigrants in the United States, scarcely 70,000, dwelt in the entire territory controlled by the Confederacy at the outbreak of the war. Many fled north, with perhaps 2,000 joining the Union Army. Hundreds of those who remained petitioned the consuls of German states for protection from the draft. There were certainly some ardent secessionists, and even a few slaveholders, and between 3,500 and 7,000 Germans may have served in the Confederate Army. But of that number, many were conscripted, a large number deserted, and some mutinied. "The German minority of the South," one scholar concluded, "was all but insignificant politically, economically, and militarily during the American Civil War."

It was a comment by Yoni Appelbaum on a piece on PRI Radio by Caitlan Carroll.

So for those at the reenactment, it is appealing that the U.S. Civil War took place in another country, in another time. It is safer, even romantic. A lot of fantasies have built up around the Confederacy, thanks to the movie, "Gone with the Wind;" it is a staple of German popular culture.

On the other side of camp, the Confederate soldiers are busy preparing for the battle. More people want to be on the Confederate side, so the Union troops sometimes have to recruit local reenactors from the American Revolutionary War.
Chris McLarren plays a confederate captain from Texas. He is actually an American. He said the Germans are totally immersed in the history.

"The Germans like to do things 110 percent sometimes," McLarren said. "They are perfectionists in many ways and they want to do this the way it was then."

There are  Civil War hobbyists in other countries, too -- the Czech Republic, for example. The great Czech author Josef Skvorecky even wrote a novel, The Bride of Texas, about  Czech immigrants involved in the conflict.

I've been harrangued by Stars and Bars-wearing (or bearing, or selling) hobbyists about the Civil War and its meaning, and I've written in the past and posted many photos about the Rebel Flag phenomenon, which also goes far beyond Germany -- I've posted pictures from France, Austria, Cz, etc:

One of the most striking of all the striking visual images of the wild west scene in Europe is the frequent display of the Confederate (Rebel) flag, the Stars and Bars or Southern Cross. It is used on its own or in tandem with the American flag, the Stars and Stripes. It’s found as decoration, on T-shirts, pins, jewelry, backdrops, logos, you name it.

For most country music fans in the scene, the flag seems to represent pure “rebel-hood” or the anti-Establishment, rather than to have a direct link with the Civil War, Confederacy, or slavery, i.e. connotations that it evokes in the United States. “They don't now much about the history of the southern cross and for them it's not important, it’s a link to freedom and rebellion against the establishment and their normal life,” one German member of the scene, a former employee of one of the Pullman City wild west theme parks and a close observer of hobbyist and other behavior, told me. Rockabilly fans also use it as a symbol of their favorite music -- album covers often feature the image.

In France, Alain Sanders uses the Rebel Flag as the logo of his country music fanzine, “Country Music Attitude.” Country music feeling, he told me when we met in 2004, is a kind of attitude toward life.  “It's rebel attitude,” he said. “Don't believe  everything because it's printed. We don't like kind of world where you have the good and the bad. It's grey, like the uniform of the confederate soldiers. And we explain to people also that when you are country, when you have a country attitude, it's not once a month or once a year when you come to a festival. It's every day. You think country, you sing and you think country -- that's what we try to explain.”

Nonetheless, outside the country scene per se, some skinhead and neo-Nazi groups also use the flag -- as a symbol of racism, to link them to the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists.

Imaginary Wild West -- RIP James Arness, TV's Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

James Arness, the towering actor who carved out the TV role of Marshal Matt Dillon on the iconic western Gunsmoke, died today, June 3, at the age of 88. He was a true icon of the Imaginary Wild West (even though I prefer radio Gunsmoke's William Conrad in the Matt Dillon role.)

I don't have time to write an assessment at the moment -- so here is a link to a long obit by Ken Tucker  in Entertainment Weekly.

Here's what John Wayne said about him: