Cal's At Noon

 

3/30/2006

3/30/2011

Even after 10 years of riding the El through the west side, I’m still seeing new things. Today it was “New Drift Liquors”, a shuttered saloon. Would be a great photo. 

[This actually was a photo I took of Cal’s at Wabash and Van Buren, now a Greek fast-food restaurant. There's a little window on the north side of the building where there was what I called a "shrine" that had a smashed guitar and a Sinatra record. There was a story behind it, I'm sure, but it's a mystery. Vintage Smoking is an actual song of mine that is a Phrygian blues.

 

New Drift Liquors
A shuttered saloon
Gonna take a photo
Of Cal's at noon
Vintage smoking
A Phrygian blues
Gonna take a photo
Of Cal's at noon

Rhythm of the kick
Shimmer of the 'verb
You can reach the music
If you get the nerve

A swarm of tornadoes
Broke out in the back
While I was laying
The lap steel track

Dreaming of tornadoes
I saw them in films
It's the Droste effect
Films within a film

Pictures of the TV
And motel signs
When you take a look
The window is a shrine

All of us were once
Strangers in the night
You can see it clearly
In the window on the right