While sipping coffee in the Escape, I find the Gutter Sheiks, singing about a woman who looks down at money and swears like a sailor when she shaves her legs

As usual when I am not roaming, yesterday afternoon I roamed over to Metro Cafe and left with a coffee to sip as I drove my Ford Escape. Given the price of gas these days and the exceedingly tight times we have experienced lately, coupled with the crush of seemingly impossible financial responsibility that lies just ahead, I really cannot afford to drive about sipping coffee, but I got a nice little check in the mail yesterday morning. It made me feel like I had money, so I said, "to hell with prudence and austerity" and went driving, wasting gas, sipping my coffee as I did.

As I drove over the bridge that crosses the Little Susitna river in a light sprinkle, I saw these three, sitting on the bank over the river. I shot a picture from the car as I passed and was going to let that cover the moment, but after I drove about 200 yards down the road, I decided that from the car was not good enough. I turned around, parked, got out of my car and walked towards them.

As I did, I could hear the strong energy of drum sticks beating on an empty gas cannister, a guitar, banjo, two male voices and one female blending in spirited, infectious, harmony:

I'm gone, gone, gone, I'm not worried, 'cause I'm sittin' on top of the world!

These are three members of The Gutter Sheiks – Wolfy, Charmin and Cage, who got together to make music in New Orleans and then took off wandering and now they have wandered all the way to Wasilla, Alaska. They will be performing this weekend at Wasilla's Flag Day celebration and I would be there if I could, but, come Thursday, I am going to wander north, so I will miss it.

Even so, I got my own private concert, out here on the bank of the Little Su, sprinkled now and then by the occasional raindrop.

A fourth member of the group, John, plays ukelele. For some reason, he was not with them, but his dog, Oy, was. Oy went into the river and then climbed back out again. I don't know if I spelled Oy's name right, but that's what it sounded like. 

I don't think Oy will be too upset if I got it wrong.

I could be wrong, though.

Some dogs are known to get pretty upset about things like that.

If so, sorry, Oy... Oi... Oiy...?

The other canine member of the Gutter Sheiks, Tobias, also took a stroll in the river.

Cage is originally from Minnesota but is the one member of the group who actually lives in Alaska. She has been here for the past six years, but says she moves all about, too.

Now, the Gutter Sheiks switch songs from On Top of the World to John Prine's In Spite of Ourselves. The Gutter Sheiks plan to spend the summer in Alaska, doing gigs where they can get them. They've done a few already, like a birthday party in Girdwood and the Trapper Creek Bluegrass Festival, a bar here and there.

Come fall, they plan to go back to the Lower 48 and spend the winter in the warmth of the South, New Orleans and elsewhere - but not Texas. It's warm there in the winter, but when Wolfy expresses their feelings toward Texas one gets the idea that they, or at least he, has some bad experience there.

Wolfy. "Wolf of the Wild," hails from Mississippi. This the first time he and Charmin have been to Alaska. "We've all been travelers at different points in our lives, we're all pretty much a bunch of hobos, hitchhiking, riding the rails that ended up meeting up and deciding to do this instead and actually do regular shows, instead of always playing on the streets. It's been pretty fun." Some day, he might want to settle down, he adds, so as he wanders he looks hard at the places he travels through, thinking that somewhere out there he might find a country, or even a state, he could settle into.

"Yeah, this might be a place I could settle down into when I'm done rambling around."

He never got that feeling from any place until three weeks ago, when he reached Alaska.

"It's been one hell of an experience," says Charmin, originally of North Carolina. "I don't want to leave." Charmin had a real drum, but after something happened to it in Las Vegas, he made do with whatever and eventually replaced it with with this empty gas cannister. "It's the best one I've ever played on," he explains. "I've had the opportunity to play drum sets a couple times on stage with these guys, but I say, 'No... mic this thing, make it happen.'"

He worked pretty hard on that drum while I was there and it sounded good. I did not pay him with either booze or salmon, but with 15 or 20 minutes of shared time, he and and his friend's making music, me making pictures.

She don't like her eggs all runny

She thinks crossin' her legs is funny

She looks down her nose at money

She gets it on like the Easter Bunny

She's my baby, I'm her honey

I'm never gonna let her go... 

I hope lots of Alaskans hire these kids. I hope they go far, have grand experiences, maybe some of them hard but still grand. After I drove away, for just a little bit, I found myself longing to be young again, to say "f... the world and all its responsibility," pick up a guitar and just go wander, hop a freight, catch a rabbit in a field, sing, and make merry. Then I realized that what I really want to do is just be what I am, a photographer, a writer, growing old but with plenty of life left in me, to go out and photograph the people I meet and write a few words about them. I'm sure tired of the need for money, though. So tired of it. It is such a drain. It gets in the way of my work. I could do so much more work if I did not have to worry about money. Lots of people work to get money. It's the opposite for me. I think it is for these kids, the Gutter Sheiks, too. For now, anyway.

I was glad to find them there, sitting on the river bank, kissed by the few drops of the light sprinkle, making music:

He ain't got laid in a month of Sundays

I caught him once and he was sniffin my undies

He ain't too sharp but he gets things done

Drinks his beer like it's oxygen

He's my baby

And I'm his honey

Never gonna let him go.

Damn! Did it sound sweet!

Comments

[AKPetMom]

Bill, you are the most extraordinary storyteller in this world! I just had to forward this post to a young co-worker of mine who so appreciates the "free spirts" of this world, such as this group that you met on the banks of the river just a few miles from our homes. You have such a gift and it is such a pleasure to read your posts at the end of the day and be taken away for just a moment into lives that are so different that mine, at least now. 25 years ago I never would have thought I'd be a person, with a mortgage, but still thought I might be a banjo player on the banks of the Little Su, in the Alaska summer.

[Daisy]

That is one of my favorite songs!

[akbright]

Thank-you for this post, these photos. This was a nice way to get my Wednesday started.

[debby]

I do so love to meet 'characters' and you met three of them all at once. I'm jealous, my friend!