Catching Some Zs at the Jens-Marie
by Bryce Martin

The bus radiator is spewing
hot steam in the air
Life in minor league baseball
doesn't seem fair
The dog days of August
The heat most robust
Conditions are spare
No air conditioning anywhere

Yea, we'll soon be in Ponca City
inside of Oklahoma
And home away from home-a
Gonna catch some Zs
And rest a spell
At the fabby Jens-Marie Hotel

I'll have a photo taken of me
Standing in front of the Jens-Marie
It's where the oil deals are made
And it's where the ballplayers stay

Under a revved-up ceiling fan
Resting up for that game at hand
The curtains drawn in real tight
To cover up all that hot daylight

When the game is played and done
And time to move on to another one
I know I will have slept well
Catching some Zs at the Jens-Marie Hotel

Catchin' some Z's at the Jens-Marie

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Titans Either Not Willing Or Not Up To The Task
by Bryce Martin

Is the Titans organization capable of curtailing the actions of troublemakers such as Pacman Jones? Or, are they merely enablers for those with a bent for bad conduct?

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, to his immense credit, just recently indicated that clubs, such as the Titans, will be held accountable as well as players.

Goodell told reporters Monday, "We're going to hold the clubs more accountable. If the clubs are providing resources that have a positive impact on personal conduct, we will take that into account."

Goodell is supposed to announce soon a more sweeping crackdown on what has become an epidemic of off-field bad behavior and downright contempt for the law from NFL players.

Based on some past history, I'm not sure the Titans fully understand what the word "accountable" entails. Granted, the following article I wrote was from five years ago, but the Titans still have the same top brass in command, namely owner Bud Adams, head coach Jeff Fisher and general counsel Steve Underwood.

March 14, 2002:

Titans miss Josh Evans' message

Facing a possible third suspension by the NFL for substance abuse, former defensive tackle for the Tennessee Titans, Josh Evans, does not seem to be learning much from his past.

Evans, an unrestricted free agent -- and most recently a defensive tackle with the Tennessee Titans -- is facing an indefinite suspension by the NFL for substance abuse.

The Titans should have seen it coming.

Not because such relapses are common, but because Evans may have already codified an alert.

During the 2001 NFL season, Nashville's premier daily ragette ran regular thumbnail profiles of Titans players, tossing up such pastries in Q&A form as to what music album they currently had loaded for play and their favorite movie.

Evans' responses sent up a red flag.

He had a Tupac Shakur readied for sound and he liked the flick Scarface best of all (I really have to make an assumption here. I'm going out on a limb in asserting that he was referring to the Al Pacino version).

While I would never belittle someone's music choices (unless it involves Kenny Rogers) or film genres, his passions, those worded from a two-time substance abuse loser, were suspect.

You have Shakur, the late rapper, tamer than some but a major player in the broad themes of a cultural enterprise where violence, drugs, and mayhem are central; and Scarface is, essentially, a primer for the start-up and operation of an illegal drug business.

Studies do indicate there is no real proof that a causal link exists between rap lyric content and behavior problems. The same can be said -- pardon me, Tipper -- about movies in general.

In comparing some of the thuggish rap lines to that of ancient classical literature, one essayist described the formula as "parodic signifying." In other words, it's harmless.

I wonder, though, about the percentage of substance abuse users who stay home and watch old Bob Hope movies while eating strawberry ice cream and rising from the couch mainly to press some church clothes and put on a Perry Como record.

Okay, how's this for an extreme. How about giving up all your old haunts, habits, and homeboys and finding some safer, healthier replacements? That's what is preached in addiction programs for those whose past problems continue to resurface, the type of program where Evans had to have been a mandatory participant.

Maybe he wasn't listening.

The Titans, either.

By Bryce Martin
Published: 3/14/2002

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That's Spilt Milk (addendum)
by Bryce Martin

Randolph gathered songs, poems, tales, anything he could capture regarding the culture of the people. His range was fairly narrow, primarily southeast Kansas, northeast Oklahoma, southwest Missouri and a corresponding part of Arkansas.

Big Jim Denoon. He was just Jim Denoon from Midco, Mo., being recorded by Randolph for his Ozark songs collection on such selections as "Root Hog or Die." Denoon moved to Salinas, Calif., and became Big Jim Denoon, "The Giant of Western Swing," recording for 4-Star and other record companies.

If you don't work, you don't eat. Hogs have to root to find food. In bad times, humans can find themselves in root hog or die situations.

Folklore? That is what folklore amounts to you ask. Imagine collecting some dirty jokes, some real crude ones, getting the person's name, their age and where they're from and then leaving a little explanation for each explaining what it means in a bigger, thematic context. Each entry fits into a numeric code system established by Kentucky folklorist Stith Thompson.


"What do you want to know for? Writin' a book?"
"As a matter of fact, I am."
"Then, kiss my ass and make it a love story."

Bryce Martin
Galena, Kansas
1958, overheard in a high school library

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Jimmy Jones And His Aerial Didoes
by Bryce Martin

You had to have been there when to know that no one burst onto the recording scene with more unbridled zeal than Jimmy Jones with a magic two discs back in 1959.

The first one, "Handy Man," would have been a great summer song but it came out when golden, autumn leaves were falling and was unlike anything I had heard. Jones was not only ear piercing loud, his voice didoed up and down during manic octave leaps. I knew loud. Little Richard had introduced me to loud (and raucous) with "Long Tall Sally." (Since the music business is a copycat industry, Larry Williams sought to emulate the style and ferocity of Richard's vocals with "Short Fat Fanny," with moderate and short-lived success.)

And Little Richard liked to drill his lyrical messages home. Who could ever forget "True Fine Mama," where he repeats the word "honey" twenty-five times in succession?

Jones had most of the country singing, "Come-a, come-a, come-a ..."

Little Richard, for all his vocal bluster, was monotone loud. Jones, on the other hand, varied in degrees. Richard came on like a Cape Canaveral rocket trying to free itself from gravity while Jones screamed in rising notes of stupendous layers of loud and from joyous levels one never imagined possible.

His high-note exercises were so great even falsetto-king Del Shannon recorded "Handy Man" a few years later. One had to reason, though, that Shannon recorded it not because it was such a great song but so he could imitate the falsetto styling imbued by Jones. The song itself did have merit, however, as evidenced by James Taylor's much-slowed version several years after Shannon. Who would have thought to slow down the song a la Taylor after hearing Jones ride it to such extreme heights?

The best place to hear the original, for me anyway, was from the clear and strong signal belonging to WHB radio out of Kansas City, Mo. It was AM radio at its best.

Then, just to prove that country music had no lock on dropping "g's" (the list includes darlin', drinkin', cheatin', and so on), Jones came out with an amazing followup -- "Good Timin'." After coming on like gangbusters with "Handy Man," here he was trying to outdo himself.

I was at first dazzled that Jones seemed to have pulled it off, then just as puzzled wondering if I had been duped. Was "Good Timin'" really an equal to "Handy Man"? Or was it just more of the same?

I decided it did not matter. "Handy Man" was a rare treat, and for Jones to nearly equal it on a second try was enough to validate the strident pleasure of the original, to sustain the foot-to-the-floor aerial word climbs only Jones could pilot.

Jones did not make a third attempt. If he did, it failed to find many radio turntables. I never heard from him again.

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