Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

Only The Band could get away with a name like The Band

The Band. THE Band. that’s it. That’s all there was to it. Earlier, they may have been the Hawks and there was a moment when people viewed them as Bob Dylan’s backing group. But they were The Band, the only band that could get away with a name like that.

With the sad news being announced today that Levon Helm, one of the voices of this seminal five-man ensemble, in the final stages of throat cancer, that another member of this great group is leaving us, we must celebrate the majesty of the short but remarkable career. On albums like Music from Big Pink, The Band and Stage Fright and in the live concert film The Last Waltz, Helm, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel and Garth Hudson created some of the most memorable music in the rock canon and forced a shift in thinking in Eric Clapton and others back to a tighter, more focused roots-rock that has never gone out of style.

Robertson was the songwriter and one of rock’s greatest guitarists, but it was Helm’s voice on songs such as “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight,” “Chest Fever,” “Rag Mama Rag,” “Jemima Surrender” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” that helped define the Americana feel of a band made up of mostly Canadians.

Helm has been sick for a while, but he battled and released a powerful pair of what now appear to be his final albums, Dirt Farmer and Electric Dirt.

As with The Band, there were no frills. And that is the highest of compliments. For Helm, with or without his Band-mates, it always was about the music.

As my friend Rich said on Facebook, “Thank you, Levon. Prayers and wishes for you and your family. Sing us a song when you get there and make the angels jealous of your voice.”

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The gender gap explained

Recent polling shows that the Republican Party is quickly becoming overwhelmingly white and terrifyingly male.

The latest example of what the GOP thinks of women comes in the form of a bizarre anti-abortion law adopted by the Arizona Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer.

It bans all abortions after 20 weeks except in a “medical emergency” where an abortion would prevent the mother’s death or “substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”

Seven states have similar restrictions.

The bill signed into law Thursday makes other changes to abortion regulations, including the requirement of an ultrasound 24 hours before the procedure. The law becomes effective 90 days after the Legislature ends its session, which is likely to occur later this month.

Supporters say the law protects women, an absurd contention that lacks any statistical evidence. This law is not about women’s health; rather, it is an attack on women’s freedom — it achieves its so-called protections by eliminating women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies and their pregnancies.

  • Send me an e-mail.
  • Read poetry at The Subterranean.
  • Certainties and Uncertainties a chapbook by Hank Kalet, will be published in November by Finishing Line Press. It can be ordered here.
  • Suburban Pastoral, a chapbook by Hank Kalet, available here.
Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.