I'd like to start out this episode with a quote about Dave Van Romp from Tom Waits.

Let's be honest, we could all stay in a few more Tom Waits quotes in our life.

Here goes.

In the engine of the New York folk scene, shoveling coal into the furnace, one big man rules,

dog-faced, roused-about songster.

Blues man, Dave Van Rock.

Long may he how.

I'm... Van Rock, long may he how. Music Hi friends, this is Otis Gibbs, and you're listening to Thanks for Giving a damn.

I'm sitting here in my living room in East Nashville.

This is a personal journal. This is a bit of an experiment.

I like to say right up front that I haven't the slightest idea of what I'm doing, but I decided to do it anyway.

And this show was founded with the idea that there are only two people in art that matter.

It's the creative individual and the person experiencing it. And everything else is an artificial filter. This is a way for me to share things with you guys without any filters

whatsoever. My guess this week is Elijah Wald. Elijah is a musician, author, and cultural historian,

and you can find out everything you need to know about Elijah at

Elijah Wald.com. Some of you might remember my buddy Ben Schaefer from episode 115. He told us some

Alan Ginsberg stories. Ben had contacted me quite a few years ago and said that he'd been working on a

memoir of Dave Von Rahn

and he sent me a copy of it.

And it's called the Mayor of McDougal Street and it was written by Dave von Runk with Elijah Wald.

And I really enjoyed it.

It's a great little time capsule of the late 50s, early 60s in Greenwich Village.

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