Raspberry Mahogany Smores
12 Pecan Halves
8 Graham Crackers
1 Handful Chocolate Chips
4 Marshmallows
1 Handful Raspberries
- Put 4 graham crackers on a glass plate.
- Place 3 pecans on each cracker.
- Place a few chocolate chips on each cracker.
- Microwave for 40 seconds.
- Place one marshmallow on each chocolatey cracker.
- Microwave for 40 seconds.
- Place a few raspberries on each melted marshmallow.
- Place a graham cracker on top of each raspberry mound.
- Press gently down.
- Serve.
Most of my adult life has been spent in rented rooms. These are often inhabited by marginalized people who almost by definition tend to be edgy. In Montreal I met an aging beatnik who called himself Raspberry Mahogany. He was a short compact man with a straggly beard usually wearing a military surplus jacket. He claimed to be a former USMC gunnery corporal.
Photo by Irvin Shizgal 1969 McGill U Campus http://plastic-roseland.ca/
A sweet and kind man who kept trying to act the wild child. He was a writer, poet and illustrator. His life was lived as if it were sketches for a drawing to be made at some later date. He was torn between emulating Allen Ginsberg and Ernest Hemingway. One minute he would be polishing up a rap. The next he would be challenging me to fight for the bedroom his younger brother took away from him decades past. Every attractive woman was greeted with a pick up line. The inevitable rejection would be followed by a self critique.He had broken the glass top of his coffee percolator. This let the hot coffee geyser up into the air. It would run along the lid. Some would drain back into the pot and some would run down the sides onto the burner further enhancing the many aromas of his pad. Every few weeks he would replenish some of the coffee grounds.
Once he bought a big turkey that didn't fit into his oven. He would carve off pieces with his pocket knife and fry them up. Unfortunately the turkey spoiled and I accompanied Raspberry up the hill to the Royal Victoria Hospital emergency ward.
He had a story for every stain on his couch and a kind word for every person that he met.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c7ac446f-a7d9-4008-996d-06cb3fa9e080)
Here is a picture of Raspberry Mahogany...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.zisman.ca/Plastic_Roseland/pages/1969%20Raspberry.html
Thanks for the tip, annonymous. I have posted Raspberry's photo on the blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tell Me A Story,
ReplyDeleteI knew Raspberry from the 70's, when he lived here in New Orleans- if he's still around, please give him my regards. It's so nice the picture was posted.... I'll show some of his old friends :-)
Hope
I met Raspberry in Montreal, but I have not lived there for over thirty years. He reminded me of the song Mr. Bo Jangles. Instead of singing and dancing R.H. recited beat poetry and made lovely black felt drawings.
ReplyDeleteHe would also go by the name of Clay P. Pipe. Did he start doing that in New Orleans?
No I don't recall the Clay P. Pipe name. I met him in New Orleans in 1970 or whereabouts... we both were from NYC & had escaped to the French Quarter. I seem to remember silhouette drawings cut from black cloth, & yes the poetry, but mostly I remember his puns. So bright & funny & kind. Your recountal is wonderful & it's such a pleasure to run across it. Thanks so much.
DeleteHope
I knew Ras as well, in New Orleans, from 1970 until he left for San Francisco about five years later. His MO was the same more or less as you described. Ras was a rap artist before rap, in the sense of a conversationalist and then some. Yes very a funny punster with a hipster bent. I miss him.
ReplyDelete-roger
At a concert at Place des Arts, sometime in the late 60s (it may have been Leonard Cohen but I forget) I recall Raspberry getting up on stage between sets, grabbing a mic and entertaining the audience with a rapid fire rap. I still remember him saying "I've got a dick as long as a Canadian winter" before being given the bum's rush.
ReplyDelete