Placid Animosity

Before his untimely death in 1983, Roger Daniels managed to amass a small collection of poetry, most of which was written in a dilapidated fort set in the woods behind his birth-giver's home. When Mahdakis, his best friend and would-be assassin, fled The Mountains, he not only did so with Roger's blood on his hands, but with Roger's poetry stuffed in his knapsack. He held on to all the original writings and along the way, used them to enhance his own song lyrics, which by themselves, quite frankly, often lacked finesse, style, or purpose of any kind; and generated even less interest. He took all the credit for the writings back in those days, of course, and provided further confusion to many of the copyright dates. In fact, many of these songs/poems can be found on the hard-to-come-by original recordings of Check Engine, The Unthinkables, Bogus Anxiety, and the very obscure, Fourth and Fifty; hard to find recordings not only because of their age, but because another band has since gone on to use the name Check Engine more successfully; thus creating all kinds of confusion for the would-be buyer. A bottle of Jack Daniels or an extremely guilty conscience must have gotten the better of Mahdakis after all those decades, before his own death in 2005, as he managed to print up a limited number of poetry books and calling it 'LIFE (generic brand); Poetry of the Late Roger Daniels'. Now, with the Daniels family's gracious permission, I have taken the liberty of releasing that small body of work to the public in hopes that the memory of Roger never be forgotten....and Mahdakis, for whatever that is worth. They were very close friends at one point after all, and to highlight that, I have included some of Mahdakis's songs; some of which he and Roger collaborated on, and some that he wrote later using Roger's poetry. My goal in doing so was to try to recapture the brief moment in time in which both of their miserable lives intersected with one another, and get a clearer understanding of the camaraderie they once possessed. While I was never given reason to question the integrity of Roger, I will always wonder as to the sincerity of Mahdakis's true intentions; as should anyone. But as that truth was forever buried with each of them long ago, we have only these very limited writings in which to judge for ourselves.