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Hello Everyone
Well it's Friday the 29th of October and it'll soon be Saturday Nov 6th. That means if you do the math, you'll realize that you have only eight days left to reserve tickets for the ImageMaker's latest artistic production: SATURDAY NIGHT in the Jungle Room of the Mercury Cafe on November 6th. Unless, of course, you’ve already made reservations.

Marcia, James Frisbie, Gwylym Cano and myself have been hard at work on our theatrical re-enactment of one of the most important afternoons in my and Marcia's life: James Ryan Morris reading poetry for the last time in the Greek Amphitheater in Denver's Civic Center Park (as he died unexpectedly not long after) at Denver Poets Day in 1978 mano/mano with his pal Larry Lake (Larry published my first book in 1981 and performed my and Marcia's marriage ceremony in 1979). Believe me: my wise-ass Tacony intellect (Tacony being the hood where I grew up in Philadelphia) was certainly humbled that day. I'd been writing poetry since I was sixteen and thought I was pretty damn good performing my memorized narratives. But when I heard Jimmy read that afternoon I suddenly knew, for the first time, what it was to be a poet, to be an artist, and how far I had yet to go in the practice of my arts. And Larry hung right there with Jimmy. And as only befits a great Irish poet's last reading, the event/the scene/the day was chaotic: hell, there was a keg of free beer back stage where many of the park's regular drunks had gathered, all nosily oblivious to the poetry reading happening on-stage. There also were some very anxious irreverent would-be poets dis-ing on Jimmy and Larry as the novices were impatient for their turn to read. Well, first: Jimmy's poetry and his presence annihilated all the chaos: the drunks, the hecklers, the sirens and church bells, his wife Diana threatening to kick sideways down Colfax Avenue the asses of some faux hipster chicks who were being disruptive, and all the whirls of goings-on in Civic Center Park; and then: his poetry sang the song of what it is to human. I've carried Jimmy's poetry in my head for thirty-two years and MY BEST SHOT is your chance to experience what I did that day.

And as if MY BEST SHOT were not enough, it only gets better as Jason Eklund is the other half of SATURDAY NIGHT, and, believe me, Jason is the REAL DEAL when it comes to American song-writing. It's no joke when I tell people I call Jason Better Than Bob (as in Dylan). Other comparisons would include Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Fred Neal, John Lennon. He’s all of them and then some. Really: Jason’s is a talent that can simply be described as a gift from the gods. Jason's doing a little swing tour of some of his old haunts and places in between here and his current abode: Nashville - with Denver the reason, the hub of his tour. I met Jason at The Mercury twenty years ago and we’ve been friends since then.

There's limited seating in the Jungle Room so please do reserve your seat by return e-mail or by phone: 303 322 9324 (leave name and number of seats and a return phone number so we can confirm your reservation).

Oh, and did I mention that Marcia and I are doing a joint art show for the month of November in the Jungle Room as well.

Marcia and I will be incommunicado until Tuesday November 2 as we will be spending the weekend in Santa Monica for this Saturday's Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of The Temple Man in which I have been ordained for close to thirty years. Marcia and I both have art in an exhibition of a sampling of the Temple of Man's art collection at Beyond Baroque in Venice where there will also be a reading/screening/concert as part of which I will be monologue-ing one of my favorite narratives, Not Just Another Hose Job. Hope all is well and hope you can make it to SATURDAY NIGHT.
Later . . . Ed