From: "mike
standaert" <mstandaert@hotmail.com>
Ive thought
of a few ideas for your project and am passing them along. I grew up
along the river in Rock Island, Illinois which I know you are aware
of because I heard you speak at Augustana College a number of years
ago, mid to early 90s (which I thought you got a rather dumb crowd at
the time). Anyway, I am back here now staying with my parents after
nearly two years in Europe, the first eight months of this year as a
freelance journo in Brussels (www.euro-correspondent.com),
having run out of money and forced to return home with tail between
ass cheeks. Its funny writing this, because about two weeks ago
while in a dire mood I drank a bottle of Chianti chased with much cheap
vodka and made my way down to the River where I sat and contemplated
taking the last dive into the murky cold. Luckily I was still thirsty
and a coward and eschew pain at most costs, so found a new bar and became
more inebriated and somehow ended up on the Iowa side of the river where
I rammed my moms car into short wooden posts in a park (totaled!),
was arrested and detained, bailed out and days later put into a mental
clinic where I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and am now taking
some new fangled anti-depressant drug called Lexapro (Grand Showing
August 15!) which is supposed to even me out and whack the black dogs
back to their pens quickly and with little side effect. So, as you see,
this River was nearly my last resting place, and I hold it near and
dear. Ive since wondered how far my body would have gotten since
I was downriver from Locked and Damned No. 15. The next is about thirty
miles down, at Muscatine, Iowa. But enough of my sad tale; I would like
to volunteer my services as it doesnt look like I will be going
anywhere anytime soon and may possibly be locked in a Davenport jailhouse
as this arrest was my third drunk driving arrest in Iowa over the last
ten years and thus a felony. I hear Infamous comes from
felony so am thinking of changing my nickname, which was
appropriately Big House, to The Infamous Casa Grande. My only remaining
hope is that I am locked up in solitary confinement with Winona Ryder.
(Maybe we could design a t-shirt Fuck Winona FREE STANDAERT!)
But before I don the orange jumpsuit so deftly evaded by the more wealthy
and criminal of this great nation, Id like to give you a few ideas
from my Mississippi Valley home. Some are personal reflections, some
historical.
Did you know:
In the movie The Blues
Brothers "Jake and Elwood were originally from Rock Island, Illinois.
- From Rock Island, Illinois "...t h e "Bluuuuuzzzze Brothers,
the emcee says before their main gig in the movie.
Also in a Saturday
Night Live vein, the Dan Ackroyd character Fred Garvin male prostitute
always served the greater Quad-City Area, Rock Island, Davenport, Bettendorf,
and Moline. There are a few interesting brothels around as well as a
number of strip clubs, though the mighty Tigers Den in downtown
Rock Island is sadly no more. I think there are craft shops and European
espresso cafès there now. Que horrible.
There are three or
four gambling riverboats in town, and not one run by American Indians.
Speaking of American
Indians, one of my long time heroes, Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and
Fox tribes had his main settlement here in Rock Island. Saukenuk (sic).
I think he was a cousin of the passionate Chief Pontiac from the Michigan
area. Well, Black Hawk (besides having his face planted on Chicago Black
Hawk hockey players jerseys) made several valiant stands against the
colonial push before he and his warriors were cornered, somewhere up
by LaCrosse, Wisconsin I believe. I cant remember, but I think
he was killed in a fire while in stockade on a Rez in Oklahoma or murdered.
Maybe you could have a re-enactment for your documentary.
On the island in the
middle of the river, formerly Fort Armstrong, where the Rock Island
Arsenal is now (I found out a scary detail while young: the Arsenal,
which made a lot of tank turrets and howitzer barrels, was on the top
ten list to be nuked by the Ruskies, not a very anxiety free detail
for a young lad), was an infamous (that word again!) Civil War prison
camp, on par with the Confederate Andersonville, though we never hear
much about the thousands who died here of smallpox and various other
pathogens, not to mention the human diseases of hate, cruelty and neglect.
It seems we often forget the suffering of those who lose wars.
Cary Grant died in
a hotel in Davenport, Iowa. Ronald Reagan got his radio start at WOC
here. Jazz coronet virtuoso Bix Biederbeke (good Flemish name like my
own) was from Davenport, and crashed his car drunkenly toward the end
of his life in Davenport. (I jokingly told a Dutch friend who is a jazz
pianist that I had a Bix Moment recently in regards to the
drunken accident and suicidal passions). There is also a 10k run named
after the unhealthy gin swigging Bix that draws about 20,000 runners
a year, mostly won by fleet footed Kenyans and Ugandans. I would venture
that 90% of the runners have no idea who Bix is. John Deere started
his company here, drastically accelerating the farming technology of
the country and world. John Looney, a gangster Al Capone feared, was
King of Rock Island back in the 20s and the movie Road to Perdition
with Tom Hanks, was about him. The young kid, Chad Pregracke, who is
cleaning up the Mississippi River, is from East Moline. Ive met
him a few times. Id actually pitched the story idea to national
magazines a number of years ago and they balked. I came to find later
that most of them did stories on Chad after this. Balls.
When I was about ten
years old, after reading all the Twain stories of Huck Finn and Tom
Sawyer, I tried to build a raft to float down the Mighty Miss. It sank,
upon launch, and fortunately I was still on the shore.
Ive had sex
in a car next to the river, taken acid and mushrooms next to the river
(my god! The River is a great oily black cobra coiling beneath the breasty
bluffs of Iowa and Illinois), had beery bonfires with multitudes of
friends next to the river, enjoyed baseball games and Blues Fests next
to the river and of course fished the river and have had old black men
try to sell me nasty fat smelly carp (Dude, I aint Polish
and it aint Christmas) by the river. Down on River Drive
in Moline, some friends and I would drive and park and smoke pot by
the river at a place we affectionately named, Stony Point.
Id like to write
a very long poem about the River, though have not had the energy. This
contemplation today is bringing it on a bit.
Supposedly there are
monster catfish lurking below Locked and Damned No. 15 the size of Volkswagen
Beatles and weighing hundreds of pounds. Divers have reportedly seen
gaping mouths and fins in the sludgy depths. No one has caught one as
far as I know. Some say they are big because of the grain spilled from
barges ends up being pulled through the roller dam into their waiting
mouths.
Thats about
all I can wring from my brain at the moment, Andrei. If you need any
assistance, let me know. I would also be grateful for a plane ticket
to Thailand where I can go on the lam and fish for my dinner with a
lovely young thing to share my beachside shack with. But then that might
not be feasible. I hear Spitzer is gone, so if you need any help with
The Corpse or are taking any wayward Mississippi River boys into the
writing program down there, Id be more than happy to join the
cause. Im only 28, have written a lot of journalism, two novels,
a number of poems and short stories, been a foreign correspondent, have
an MA from Cardiff University in Wales, studied at the U of Iowa for
undergrad, was an apple picker with Mexican migrant workers in Southern
Illinois (I recall a very good piece of yours on NPR a number of years
ago about Little Egypt and the various strip clubs in the
area), pizza delivery driver, 'Live from Prairie Lights' radio engineer
in Iowa City, and a multitude of other masks, misdeeds, and preoccupations.
I also might have a couple more foreign desk things to send your way
soon, Dirty Slappers and Lager Louts: Skipping Through the Vomit
Slick Streets of Cardiff; In Another Country: Trapped in
Disneyverse (about my brief trip to Orlando after a year and a
half in Europe, not sure if this qualifies as foreign but
Disneyverse is about as foreign and surreal as you can get); Into
the Heart of Sweetness: Taking a Bite Out of the Candy-Coated, Cream-Filled,
Perfumed Turd. These have not been written yet, but I do have
some time on my hands. When is the new issue out?