I was always on a panic -- couldn't buy clothes or a good place to live.
. . . The mental strain was getting worse all the time. What made it worst
of all was that nobody understood our kind of music out on the [West]
Coast. . . . Finally, I broke down.

-- Charlie Parker

When Parker, a poet in jazz,
Gave one hundred seventy pounds to a one-ounce needle,
His music, his life,
Six hipsters from uptown
Called it a religious sacrifice
And wore turbans.
Our poet wore lonely death,
Leaving his breath in a beat.

-- Bob Kaufman

In Bird Lives! The High Life and Hard Times of Charlie Parker ( 1973),
Ross Russell re-creates a meeting with the famed alto saxophonist and
Dean Benedetti who, with sycophantic diligence, recorded numerous Par-
ker performances. ¹ Benedetti enters the room while Bird voraciously but
methodically devours his second enormous Comida Conquistador dinner.
"Hey, man," says Parker, "dig this crazy Mex stuff!" and Benedetti, no
doubt wishing that he liked Mexican food but unable to lie to his hero,
replies, "It don't kill me" (6). Russell comments:

The don't is deliberate. Errors in grammar and Dean's acquired, specialized, lim-
ited vocabulary are all part of the efforts he is making to become a white Negro.
The highschool education received at Susanville, California, before entering the

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