One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles – An Occasional Story or Magazine

Love in Vain

Love in vain

Love unrequited

Love through the ages

Love tumbling on the shores

“It’s hard to tell, hard to tell, when all your love’s in vain,” said Robert Johnson.

Click on the song to hear Bumba and Maybank doing it.

What more to say about love, unrequited or otherwise? Here’s an excerpt from my novel The Phantom Speaks in which the Phantom, an astral visitor to our planet, who for reasons unknow is also our protagonist Chester Knowles, pontificates on Love:

The full novel(s) are available on Amazon as ebooks or hard copy. Click on Bumba Books above

Love

Love. I heard some biologist say that love is the most powerful and most durable of all the emotional states. Think about it. From an evolutionary standpoint, love serves to attach human beings to each other and link them one to the other. They form friendships, partnerships, family clans, and larger social groups. All of which tend to increase the humans’ chances of survival. You know, they hunt together, then they share firewood. They keep each other warm. Love has definite survival value.

And love is also the thing that everybody feels compelled to sing about. Love. Love. Love. All those songs! Poems, books, movies, broken hearts, tears! Yatta, yatta, yatta. It goes on and on.

I can’t say that I really understand very much about it. Even after all this time, and all these lives, I remain largely in the dark. O.K., I know. Chester told me all about it. Chester was big on the feeling of love. He loved it, if you’ll excuse the expression. And most people love it as well. I’ve noticed that. In fact they treasure love. And they miss it so sorely and painfully when they don’t have it (which is most of the time from what I can see). Most people behave as though they are lacking love (whatever love is, we still haven’t defined it, at least I haven’t) and it seems that the poor things can never get enough of it. It is their fear that would appear to be holding them back, blocking things. Fear inhibits love generally. Fear and Love are almost polar opposites.

As a phantom-like aside, I would say that the key determinant in these matters of love and of psychological health in general seems to be whether or not you were loved as a child. As it turns out, Chester was lucky; he had a happy childhood. Let me add, in another phantom-like aside, that it happens all too often that a child, a baby, is not loved, coddled, sung to, carried around the house and out in the fields, shared with relatives, read stories to, played with, and told that they are good little boys or girls, etc. etc. It happens all too often that children/babies don’t get all that (OK, we’ll call it) love. And then these children grow up to become parents themselves. And how can they provide the necessary love to their kids when they themselves are consumed or absorbed, even obsessed with finding love for themselves? Luckily (or, more correctly, as a result of mammalian evolution) babies tend to be cute and irresistible. So things often work out well. It’s surprising how often things work out well – despite the odds. We’ll get to the evens later.

So everybody’s looking for love down there on planet earth. They are. And people will go to all sorts of lengths just for a little hug, a caress, a word of praise, perhaps the promise of a good roll in the sack. Especially for a good roll in the sack. Well, thanks again to the process of evolution, the animal, the organism, is wired to have it (call it love): ah, the embraces, the sex, the release, the pleasure, the peace. The company of another and the security of what they call love. And so needy and/or so deprived are the people down there on planet earth that they are more than willing to accept various and sundry substitutes for love: i.e., the various and assorted vicarious experiences: rock n’ roll revues, identifications with saints and movie stars, and the like. Freud called it sublimation, this moving toward, this branching out, into substitute venues.

In short, what this phantom is saying is that love is something very fundamental to the species. It’s quite important. Nothing to sneeze at. I myself, being a phantom, don’t understand too much about it, as I said. It’s like the Amazon jungle to me. Huge and incomprehensible. From what I read, (that’s right, phantoms can read, why not?) according to the schema of raja-yoga, love and the ability to feel for others, to empathize: this energy is centered in the heart, sweet valentine, at the fourth chakra – a spiritual step up (but only one step up) from the more “animal” centers of appetite and domination.

But, like I say, as a phantom, love is just something that’s out there. It’s a part of the world – just like everything else. It’s out there. It’s in your heart, as they say. And it’s out there too.

The Everlys

I only today heard that Don Everly had passed at age 84. An era has passed. A beautiful voice is gone.

I recalled a passage I wrote in my novel One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles where, for reasons unknown to myself, I talk about my love for the Everlys….

But Marsha sat motionless, looking out the window at the god-awful 405 freeway. “Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike,” Stan muttered to himself, quoting the old Simon and Garfunkel song….. “Let us be lovers, we’ll marry our fortunes together.” Yes, that was how the song went. Stan thought of Chester. They used to sing those old Simon and Garfunkel tunes all the time. Up in their bedroom. Stan played the guitar, Chester the drums. Tommy Shea, Chester’s friend, used to play guitar too. They had studied those Simon and Garfunkel records laboriously. And then Chester had insisted they learn the Everly Brothers’ songs. His argument was that if they played Simon and Garfunkel, then they must also play the Everly’s. They were “prerequisite” he said. Stan remembered how Tommy had teased Chester about the use of the word prerequisite. Tommy had joked that they were only playing music, not getting a college degree. But Chester, God bless him, responded with an even more extreme stance. He asserted that if Simon and Garfunkel were a college degree, then the Everly’s were like a high school diploma.

I’ve often played, or tried to play, a number of the Everly Brothers’ hits. But their purity of tone is something that I can’t capture at all. It’s hard to think of anyone who did.

Keep On Playin’ That Country Music and Try These Books On For Size

Willie Morton, one of the characters in my One Life and The Phantom Speaks books, always says: “Just keep on playin’ that country music”. I keep saying the same thing myself. It’s funny how you learn from your characters. In any case, to “keep on playin that country music” is sound advice, and I try to follow it. So……..

Now, if you want to read more about Willie, or about Chester Knowles, or about any of the other characters in my books The Phantom Speaks or More in the Lives of Chester Knowles and/or One Life or the Lives of Chester Knowles – all of which have been reviewed very positively, and are easy reads with a lot of country music thrown in – please click here. (I just thought I would throw in a little plug for my books)

One Life

Maybe it wasn’t the most clever idea, but I self-recorded soundtrack albums to accompany my novels. I noticed that my first novel, Up in the Bronx mentioned several Ellington numbers, so I recorded my own modest attempts. Following a passage where the protagonist (a thinly veiled version of myself?) is writing a song called Sweet Dreams and Happiness, I recorded that one too. Eventually, I recorded some other songs mentioned in the book, and came up with a CD called Up in the Bronx and Down in LA.

My second novel, One Life or the Lives of Chester Knowles and its sequel The Phantom Speaks or More in the Lives of Chester Knowles also earned its own CD, called Chester’s Songs. Here’s a link to the playlist, which is on Soundcloud. The books are available on Amazon, or via Bumba Books. The ebooks cost just 99 cents, so I hope people will read (and listen) to them and spread the news around.

Soundtracked

See below, if you dare, the album notes for my CD titled Chester’s Songs, which goes along with my novel One Life or the Lives of Chester Knowles. To quote Mel Allen again: “How ’bout that?” A book and a CD combo. The full recording is available on Sound Cloud (for free), or on CD Baby (99 cents). If you want a real, physical CD instead of a download, see instructions in Bumba Books. This is the second time I’ve made a “companion CD” to my novels. You’d think I would’ve learned my lesson after the first one! However, the songs are great ones, and, as I say, they’re all cited in the One Life/The Phantom Speaks books

Chester’s Songs

performed by Stephen Baum

☆ It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing, Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, 1931. Page 179

☆ On the Other Hand, Don Schlitz and Paul Overstreet, 1985. Page 209 of One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles

☆ Half as Much, Curley Williams, 1951. Page 191 of One Life

☆ There Been Some Lonely Times, Stephen Baum. 2002, Page 196 of One Life

☆ Georgia on My Mind, Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell, 1930. Page 195 of One Life

☆ Up a Lazy River,Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodin, 1930. Page 195 of One Life

☆ You Got to Walk That Lonesome Valley, Traditional. Page 82 of The Phantom Speaks

☆ John Henry, Traditional. Page 146 of One Life

☆ Reach Out I’ll Be There, Holland-Dozier-Holland, 1966. Page 27 of The Phantom Speaks

☆ When I’ve Done My Time, Jimmy Skinner, 1930. Page 115 of The Phantom Speaks

☆ Irene Goodnight, Hudie Ludbetter, 1933. Page 97 of The Phantom Speaks

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About the songs: Chester’s Songs is the companion piece to my novels One Life or the Lives of Chester Knowles and its sequel The Phantom Speaks. All of these songs are mentioned in the books. There is one song on the CD that I wrote, called There Been Some Lonely Times. There are two traditional folksongs. The other songs were written by the songwriters cited above. Hopefully, this CD serves to complement the books.

All songs performed by Stephen Baum. The celebrated Los Angeles guitarist Preston Maybank plays on tracks 4, 5, and 11.

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Bumbastories Weekend Magazine

This month’s Bumbastories Weekend Magazine returns to ~~haunt~~ delight us once again with the following features and articles.

An As I Sat on the Bus Poem

A Book Review of Kurt Vonnegut’s Jailbird

A Sports Report, with words of wisdom about the Los Angeles Clippers

An unauthorized Advertisement

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AS I SAT ON THE BUS

As I sat on the bus I wrote. The Muse of Sweet Poetry had struck me again. Poetry? Whatever it was, it had to be brief, because the darn #720 bus was bumping and thumping so much that it was hard to write anything legibly. I needed to write something concise, something endearing. Yes, endearing. Such was my intent.

An Ode to the 720

Bouncing along

Racing through that open stretch past Beverly Hills

Through the golf course

Clanking Careening

Clunking up Wilshire

To Westwood

Shaking us to our bones.

Can’t be beat

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THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL

(Warning: Writers like to take this kind of stuff seriously)

Ahh, the Great American Novel: The novel that captures the spirit and tells the story of America. Ahh, the Great American Novel….According to Word Smith, the compulsively alliterating narrator of Philip Roth’s fine novel titled, that’s right, The Great American Novel, the entire world is still waiting for the great American novel to be written. In his backhanded way Roth himself shoots for the Great American Novel crown, the GAN as Word Smith liked to call it. Most fittingly, the story is about the great American game of baseball, quite an admirable effort by Roth. All the same, Melville’s Moby Dick is generally considered the G.A.N. Winesberg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson is also mentioned. I think of Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath as a GAN. Surely a minimum requirement for any GAN is that it be American. American in subject, American in values and tone.

Which brings me around to nominating Kurt Vonnegut’s “Jailbird” as a GAN. Last week I re-read Jailbird……It’s a book about modern (1979) America: a farce, a satire, a scathing criticism, but somehow a friendly nod to the U.S. of A and to all of us. Vonnegut always aims to entertain, to give us a good chuckle. However, he is thoroughly political, even pedantic at times. He is up on a soapbox, or is it a vaudeville stage? Vonnegut entertains, he teaches us history, he wants to tell us what’s what, to set us straight – and to share a good laugh besides. Vonnegut, native of the great state of Indiana, was an American sort of genius. SteJ of Book to the Future who reviewed Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 two weeks ago, prompted me to pick Jailbird off the library shelf, so thanks to SteJ. The book is a gem. The GAN? Maybe, maybe not. As Kurt would say, “Toodle-loo”.

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SPORTS UPDATE

The Clippers have lost. It was not an easy one for us Clippers fans to watch, the way they folded at the end and did not advance to the division finals (once again!). But never you mind. We Clippers fans are used to it. We can take it. Next season is next season. Life goes on. Wait til next year!

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PROMOTIONAL MESSAGE

For info on One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles as well as The Phantom Speaks sequel, and Up in the Bronx by Stephen Baum check out the Bumba Books page.

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Good News, Bad News, Good News Again

There’s good news and then there’s bad news…. And then there’s good news again. Say whatt? The good news is that my second novel One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles is available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle for just $0.99! The bad news is that its sequel, The Phantom Speaks, is not available as an ebook. Sorry, you’ll have to read that one hard-copy, which is just as well because it has lovely illustrations. Order via Bumba Books or Amazon. Wait, there’s more good news. Because if you order The Phantom Speaks directly through the Bumba Books Paypal option, you will receive a complimentary copy of the author’s (that’s me) own One Life companion piece CD called Chester’s Songs. Chester’s Songs is also available as a download on CD Baby for just $0.99. Here’s a sample from the CD called There Been Some Lonely Times

There are 11 songs on the CD, but There Been Some Lonely Times is the only song that I actually wrote. The other songs are covers of songs that appear in the book. There Been Some Lonely Times which appears on page 196, provides a cryptic summary of the Chester Knowles story. The other songs hopefully complement the One Life story. To the best of my knowledge, which I admit isn’t very much, this sort of book/soundtrack combination is unprecedented. For more info on One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles as well as The Phantom Speaks sequel check out the Bumba Books.

It Don’t Mean A Thing

My thanks to G.A. Miller who posted my recording of Ellington’s It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got That Swing, which is the opening song of the CD companion piece to my novel One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles.

Chester – or is it the Phantom? I’m not sure myself – in one of his more philosophical rants, refers to the song on page 179.

The full album is now (hopefully) a playlist on Soundcloud, which you can download and listen to while you’re thumbing (or scrolling) through the pages of One Life and/or The Phantom Speaks. Or you can get a real, actual CD together with the books if you purchase through Bumba Books. Thanks to the great Mr. Miller, who has as sweet a country voice as you’ll find anywhere east of the Ozarks, and a sense of humor weirder than anything south of the Andromeda galaxy.

Lonely Times

There Been Some Lonely Times is a song that I wrote a number of years ago while I was writing the One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles novel. Somehow the song found its way directly into the book (page 162). Click on the link below to hear the song. https://soundcloud.com/songplayer/there-been-some-lonelytimes

The song is included in my Chester’s Songs CD, which I am releasing forthwith!

It’s a “soundtrack CD”, a “companion piece” to the novel. All the songs on the CD were mentioned in the book and are performed by yours truly, with some noble help from guitarist Preston Maybank.

See Bumba Books for details on how to purchase the books One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles and its sequel The Phantom Speaks. The CD Chester’s Songs will be included in purchases of the hardcopy books.

For ebook version of One Life and ebook version of The Phantom Speaks, check out the links to Amazon Kindle, where they are currently available for 99 cents.

There Been Some Lonely Times is a simple song that only uses two chords. Call it elegant! The song is quoted in the book, so I felt a sort of obligation to record it and make it part of the reading “experience”. As for the other songs on the CD, they are simply songs mentioned in the book,”old-time” songs which I like to play anyway. I hope that the combination of music plus book is a big hit.

In the excerpt that follows, Willie Miles – an alterego to both our phantom hero Chester Knowles, as well as to the “deceased” Tony Santos, AKA the Lone Ranger – introduces himself to a small audience at a downtown Las Vegas nightclub. Willie and the little band then playThere Been Some Lonely Times. If you want to read more, you can buy the book on Amazon, or at any of the other on-line outlets. As I said above, the ebooks of One Life and The Phantom Speaks are just $0.99! And check out Bumba Books.

About the CD soundtrack Chester’s Songs: I did a CD for my first book Up in the Bronx, and the fact that I’ve done it again for One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles is proof that I am crazy. I do these recordings because there are numerous mentions and quotes from popular music in my books. My characters, especially in the One Life and Phantom Speaks books, are particulary musical. So I play some of the songs that are cited in the books. Preston Maybank plays with me on just three song. I’ve played with some dubbing and multiple tracks, but it is simple, old-time music. Hopefully the book-CD combo will be pleasant.

Excerpt from One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles (page 162)

✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩✩

Willie Miles steps to the microphone

“OK, so you want me to try to introduce myself. OK. Then, it’s me, Willie Miles: the Lone Ranger, the next incarnation, the one I had to be. Not everyone gets a second chance, a second chance at life. But I got it. I guess I’m lucky. Some people might get religious, others might get all paranoid, others might just flip out and never come back. Well, I did all of the above. Been there done that. And it looks like I wound up in Las Vegas. I have a friend who’s a psychologist who thinks that being in this band and playing the drums and ignoring the rest of life is a bit schizophrenic. Well, I disagree. I just call it good luck. Brains is better than brawn, my mother used to say. But luck is better than brains any day of the week is what I say. And rich or poor it’s good to have money. What more can I say than that?

(Here Willie introduces Georgia On My Mind which I suppose I should record and put on the CD too. In the book I printed out Hoagy Carmichaels’ lyrics. but I will skip over that section for now)

“Thank you very much,” said Willie soberly. He then walked out from behind the drums, picked up his guitar and arpeggioed a full-sounding, open-stringed sort of E chord, and then an open sort of A chord. He methodically went back and forth between the two chords while the other players gradually joined in. Soon, there was a gospel-type rhythm, and the entire room pulsed with excitement. Willie began with the refrain:

There been some lonely times

He told his story:

In the darkness of an alleyway

My life did pass before my eyes.

I saw my last chance slip away

I was shot down and I died

Yeah, there been some lonely times

Yeah, there been some lonely times.

But there’s no sense in complainin’

The river’s chilly and so wide

I spent my whole life in dreamin’

And now there’s no place left to hide

Yes, yes. There been some lonely times

So please don’t ask me no more questions

I ain’t got time to tell no lies

I got a feeling in my heart

Same as the stars up in the skies

Hey, hey. There been some lonely times

So it went. Willie sang lead, and Gene, the bass player, helped with the harmony.

More phantom stuff

The “thoroughly entertaining” sequel to Stephen Baum’s One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles novel, The Phantom Speaks is out!

It’s available on Amazon and on a bunch of other online outlets, and it is also available through this site. See Bumba Books.

I’m trying to get it out as an ebook, but I’m experiencing difficulties with the formatting due to all the illustrations, which are a shame to mess up. So, bottom line, it’s only available hardcopy. However, One Life or The Lives of Chester Knowles is available as an ebook via Amazon Kindle and the price is currently just 99 cents.

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To get The Phantom Speaks at Bumbastories Just click on the icon and order through Pay Pal.

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We recommend that you order The Phantom Speaks together with the One Life or the Lives of Chester Knowles novel – together with the author’s own CD soundtrack – in one slick package and mailed to your home directly, postage included, for the unprecedented price of “How can that be?”

Click here to order both books plus the CD.