Listen & Be Heard Weekly Archives

The review of “Sound Poems” by The Word-Music Continuum began in San Francisco’s China Basin at McCovey Cove. It was carried by a reviewer into a building at Pier 48. The planned route along the Embarcadero was not used.

The above-mentioned reviewer emerged from the building joined by two other reviewers. Both of them were rumored to be reviewing either “Life Experience in the Deep South” by Skip and Yana Soder, “Big Treasure (The Best of Ten Years)” by TVS and Two Fingers, all three, or none. The trio unexpectedly began to run until they were swallowed up by the morning foot traffic on Market Street.

But then an alternate version of the review of “Sound Poems” by The Word-Music Continuum began on Van Ness Avenue. Readers carried its laptop-screened pages north on Van Ness to Bay Street, where they were met by an over-caffeinated mob chanting “FREE VERSE! FREE VERSE!” and had to run, geeklike, west and onto Marina Boulevard.

The review was eventually placed in a forest green bus on Doyle Drive. Once inside, the passengers could hear the chime-like echo guitar work of Paul Mills play tag with the voice of Kirk Lumpkin, while Mark Randall maintained the basslines. They began a piece titled “Noodle House.” Lumpkin described the ambience of the titular establishment with his opening lines, “There were a couple of corpses in the corner/but for some reason/that didn’t seem to bother me/or anybody,” then was abruptly interrupted once they reached 19th Avenue.

The mayor was standing in the middle of the street, raising an orange megaphone to his lips. “I want to thank you all for your bravery,” he said, “we had to change the route because of public safety,” and then ducked as a man yelled “NO MORE SLAMS!” and threw a paperback version of “The Late Hour” by Mark Strand in grenadier fashion at the immaculately-coiffed mayoral hair. The mayor made himself very small and pulled the megaphone over himself for protection. It was later rumored that the mayor shape-shifted into a parking cone and forced people in that area of San Francisco to have to drive around even LONGER to find a place to park; the rumor was never verified and remains a hot topic among amateur haikuists everywhere.

The sports reporter for the Channel Eleven News at Eleven (found on Channel Three by Vallejo Comcast subscribers) was interviewed by one of the station’s reporters after the event and the footage was used to open the evening’s broadcast. The sports reporter smiled and told the camcorder lens how much of an honor it was to be part of the event. In the background behind the sports reporter one could see a thickly-bearded man holding a cardboard sign with “WHERE’S ETHAN HARP? HUH?” printed in black ink on it.

The review was finally taken to San Francisco Airport, where it took off its shoes, put its valuables and all metal objects into a basket to be X-rayed by a magical security-making machine, had to get individually wanded as a result of the metal that kept showing up in Mills’s guitar work. Once cleared for entry, the review boarded a private Lear jet piloted by John Travolta (Oprah’s good friend! Oprah’s good friend!) and departed for an undisclosed location.

For additional information regarding “Sound Poems” by The Word-Music Continuum, visit www.KirkLumpkin.com. For additional information regarding “Life Experience in the Deep South” by Skip and Yana Soder, well, there just isn’t much to be found, probably because those two are too busy with their recent CD “Stop The Clock We’re Ahead of Our Time,” which is available at www.cdbaby.com. For additional information regarding “Big Treasure,” visit www.tvsandtwofingers.com. And, hey, Channel Eleven, where IS Ethan Harp? Huh?