caravan of dreams

i recently copped a vinyl copy of prolly my fave ornette coleman alb, 1987's in all languages (one elpee's worth of the original cherry-haden-higgins quartet, another of ornette's electrified prime time combo playing many of the same toons to surprisingly similar effect) on the now-defunct caravan of dreams label. looking at the schmatter on the inner sleeve, i'm reminded of that glorious performance space with its immaculate sound and perfect sightlines (saw sonny rollins do his unaccompanied walk-on there right after separating from the airforce in '93 and john entwistle blasting away to the heavens with his band of lawn guyland barband hacks from less than 10 feet away right before it closed), which its new agey owners pissed away, giving way to a restaurant whose name i can't even speak, having watched them dismantle that wondrous room when i was still working downtown. i never spent any time in the rooftop garden with its geodesic dome when it was happenin', but that's where my middle dtr had some of her first live music experiences, when tiffany shea's manager used to sneak her and her friend up there when they were tiny tiny teens. when i met mike watt in austin at sxsw a few yrs back and he asked me where i hailed from, i still remember the way his face lit up when i said "fort worth" and he immediately responded "caravan of dreams!" thinking of the fort as a hotbed of harmolodica (which indeed it was for a minute in the mid-'80s; ornette even got a key to the city from the mayor back in '83 before they performed his skies of america with john giordano and the fw symphony to befuddled bluehairs at the old convention center, documented on film in shirley clark's ornette: made in america). sorry, minutemen dude; too late, too late. the lesson in all this, i suppose, is simply this: value what you have or it _will_ be taken away from you.