Greg Keeler Plays Trout Ball

Review: Greg Keeler Plays Trout Ball

Greg Keeler Plays Trout Ball

A Compilation of Songs on CD

A trout-colored wind blows
through my eyes, through my fingers,
and I remember how the trout
used to hide from the dinosaurs
when they came to drink at the river.
The trout hid in subways, castles,
and automobiles. They waited patiently for the dinosaurs to go away.

—Richard Brautigan

The first time I saw Greg Keeler’s name was when I read his story about Richard Brautigan in Rolling Stock magazine in 1985. Brautigan had had a home in Paradise Valley of the Yellowstone River not too far from what is now known as Nelson’s Creek near Livingston in Montana and Keeler was teaching at nearby Bozeman. (Brautigan had ended his life in California.) Keeler gave a moving account of his friendship with Brautigan ending with an exchange of letters with “The Captain” in the last few weeks before his death.

Brautigan was a wonderful writer, an important poet, and I was dismayed by his suicide. Some comfort was found in Keeler’s words. Moreover, I then knew there was another important writer in that growing community of artists in western Montana.

I soon located by some strange magic his book of poetry, Spring Catch, published by Confluence Press, in 1982. It is a small and attractive book with wonderful verse about fishing and trout. Much later, after more than ten years, after I read Keeler’s Epiphany at Goofy’s Gas, published by Clark City Press, he gave permission to use a couple of his poems in our newsletter and I then wrote a review titled The Big Two-Fisted River, named after one of his poems.

In that review, I told you that if you want to fish this river --The Big Two Fisted -- you would have to do it with Greg Keeler. If you wanted to chastise a woolly worm, he would tell you how. If you wanted to know what to do with the butt of your fly rod after the tip is broken while trying to free a fly hung up on a tree, or if it is broken by your child trying to poke a badminton birdie out of a tree, or broken when your fishing partner knocked your rod to the ground and you turned around and stepped on it, he would tell you in Epiphany. Among other things you could also read the confessions of a born-again purist.

Greg Keeler (not to be confused with a Canadian rock musician named Greg Keelor) was a native of Oklahoma who found his way to Montana where he has been a professor of English at Montana State University in Bozeman since 1975. (His wife, Judy, also teaches English at MSU.) Somewhere I read that he appeared on ESPN kissing a sucker and put a party hat on one before he released it. (“We not only know how to release our suckers, but we give them a party when they leave.”) He also sang songs to salmon flies crawling over him. (“ . . . my old pal, Pteronarchis Californica, who crawls up onto the bank and hardly has time to dry his wings before he falls into the water and a Madison brown trout sucks him down.”) When I heard that I thought about sending him some Hexagenia. He has sung a few of his songs on some strange radio show in Montana and has written songs to accompany NPR segments on Montana Politics for “All Things Considered.” He has published at least six volumes of poetry. (His most recent is A Mirror to the Safe, published by Limberlost Press.) Many of his works deal with the history, politics, imagery, and culture of Montana. He has been a contributor to many magazines and in the early period of Big Sky Journal he had an essay in every issue. The Vigilante Players have performed many of his plays, which include the recent “WUF,” in at least fifty towns in six states. Keeler, himself, has performed his satirical ballads for dozens of groups.

He truly is not your average English teacher.

One of his more recent projects is a CD titled “Trout Ball,” a collection of wacky, zany fishing songs and poems compiled from his earlier cassettes. This CD is now not available in your favorite Orvis shops and probably never will be. The Trout Ball collection begins with Whitefish Blues, a classic southern guitar blues song that sort of slanders the whitefish. (With Keeler you have to be careful in taking him completely at face value; he is a satirist who will lead you astray — gladly. I once received a note from him which partially read: “I was out on the Yellowstone below Livingston — a beautiful fall day and they’re still hitting hopper imitations; six rainbows, four cutts, and a whole slew of whitefish.” Now, we all know what a slew is; it’s a lot. He gave no hint that the whitefish were not welcomed.)

This collection also includes an appreciation of neoprene waders (sexually suggestive), Little Bitch Creek Nymph (no explanation needed; it has to be his favorite), Flash-A-Bugger Tango, Favorite Baits (about smelly baits and spark-plug weights — you should recognize the melody), The Fishing Channel Theme Song (a put-down of virtual fishing from a couch), Duct Tape Psalm (no explanation needed by those of us who use this tape for everything), Latter Day Worm Fisherman (we all started this way, didn’t we?), Ode to Rough Fish (this was written before Dave Whitlock praised the virtues of carp fishing on the Great Lakes flats), WD-40 Polka (one of my favorites, in a classic polka style; but WD-40 as a perfume and deodorant?), and an almost six minute “grunge” guitar recital titled Trash Fish accompanied by garbled obscenities (my hearing is somewhat defective so I couldn’t make them out).

There are also a few poetry recitals, including the Confessions of a Born Again Purist and Swiss Army Beatitudes.

Now for some references better than mine. Tim Cahill says: “Greg Keeler is a sensible and serious poet who also happens to be laugh-out loud funny.” David Quammen has written: “ Greg Keeler has written lunatic masterpieces. He sings pretty good for such a big guy. He’s my absolute favorite practitioner of whatever the hell he practices, in all of America.” Gary Snyder, one of our best poets, suggests that Keeler’s works are “fuzzy monsters filled with wit, spit, and intelligence. Rise on them.” He is a “poet, songwriter, essayist, and playwright whose work presents a thoughtful, sometimes playful, and always distinctive voice,” says Sara Jayne Steen, chair of the English department at Montana State University. And now for Gear Man. Now I don’t know who the hell Gear Man is but I find his comments important: “Greg painted ‘Trout Ball’ for the cover of this CD because he’s never cared for the fish art found in most shops. That strikes a familiar chord with me. His songs and poems about fishing do the same thing. They also make me laugh.”

In this day of diminishing rivers, global warming, ecosystem decay predicted by the relatively new science of island biogeography, and too much competition on our streams, we need someone who'll make us laugh. (As David Quammen says in the forward to his book, The Song of the Dodo: "Chances are that you haven't caught wind of these scientific murmurs about ecosystem decay. Chances are that you know little or nothing about a seemingly marginal field called island biogeography.") Well I hadn't, and I didn't but now I do after reading his book, and Lord, we could list more than a couple of dozen serious concerns, couldn't we? Well, we need someone who will help us to not take ourselves and our sport and our worries too serious ALL the time. I know Greg Keeler does that for me, and I think he could do it for you.

We need someone who will give us a chance to let go now and then.

The TROUT BALL CD can be ordered by going on-line on the Internet at Troutball.com or by calling 970-927-8595. The earlier tapes are all listed (with titles) on the Troutball web page. You can get his tapes and the new LIVE FROM NOWHERE CD through Greg Keeler (P.O. Box 5093, Bozeman, MT, 59717). The cost is ten bucks apiece for the tapes and fifteen bucks for his new CD (including postage). Greg Keeler’s new book, A MIRROR TO THE SAFE, is published in a letterpressed limited edition of 500 copies by Limberlost Press, 17 Canyon Trail, Boise, Idaho 83716, for $12 plus $3 shipping. Limberlost’s phone is 208-344-2120.

RWOL

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