Category: childhood

Friday’s Theme Music

Out of the morass of the morning’s thinking and feelings streams Bob Dylan and “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” The lyrics always said to me, somebody will be unhappy, no matter what you do. Someone will find fault and throw stones at you and your efforts. So what the hell, chill, and get stoned. You’re going to be stoned anyway.

Besides those words, I like the original recording’s rowdy, rambunctious tone. I couldn’t find that anywhere, and offer this live version instead.

So come on, “Everybody must get stoned.”

 

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The Bike

He remembered his bike, and his best friend. His best friend’s name was Mike. The bike was a red three-speed English racer. It was a Christmas present from his mother.

Man, he loved that bike. It was an upgrade from the used, heavy bike he’d previously ridden. He rode it everywhere he could, but often pedaled back to see his best friend. He’d moved away from Wilkinsburg to Penn Hills two years before, but still visited. The two remained close, doing the silly things that twelve year old boys did in America in the sixties. Six miles away, he loved those rides and the visits, looking forward to both.

During one visit, his bike turned up with a flat tire. Unable to fix it, he called his mother and requested a pick-up. She complied, but was angry. It interfered with her plans. Still, he was her son. She came to get him. She couldn’t take the bike, though, declaring it too big for the trunk and herself incapable of helping him. Forced to leave the bike, he locked it with its chain. His friend promised to look after it.

Getting back to get fix it proved problematic. The weather had turned. His mother didn’t want him walking back there, or hitch-hiking, but she wouldn’t give him a ride, either. He finally made it, to discover the bike had been stolen.

“I was going to call you,” his best friend said. “They left a note. They said they were the Blue Globe.”

None of that made any sense. Shit, it sounded like a lie. He made the accusation. An argument ensued. His best friend’s older brother, Donnie, came in.

“I took your fucking bike, and sold it. I needed the fucking money.”

He was speechless. “You had no right,” he finally said.

“Fuck you. It was just sitting there. You should have come and got it. It’s your own fault.”

“My fault. I trusted you guys,” he finally said.

Donnie laughed. “Serves you fucking right, then, doesn’t it?”

“I want my bike,” he said.

“Too fucking bad.”

“I want my bike.”

“Too fucking bad, it’s not here. What are you going to do about it?”

Balling his fists, he attacked.

They crashed across the small kitchen, knocking over the tables and chairs, and moving the refrigerator with the force of their fight. Donnie was older, taller, and weighed more, but he hammered Donnie’s skinny body. Finally throwing him back, Donnie fumbled in his pockets and drew out a switch-blade.

Click. “You better fucking go,” Donnie said, “or I’m going to fucking cut you.”

Ready to be cut, his best friend stepped in, stopping him and yelling at his brother. “Came on, man,” Mike said. “You’re bleeding. You’re all bloody.”

He didn’t want to go anywhere with his best friend. He didn’t want to see or hear him, but he went into the bathroom and washed up his bloody face. Cleaned up, done, he gave Mike a final look and began the walk home. The incident had changed him. He’d lost his bike, but worse, he’d lost his best friend and his sense of trust.

Yes, it changed him. He withdrew. People could no longer be trusted.

Not even if they were your best friend.

 

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Thursday’s Theme Song

Drifting further back along the memory stream today, back to nineteen seventy-two, I stumble over one of my favorite artists, a person named David Bowie.

Bowie’s song, “Changes,” came out when I was in high school. My most vivid memory, though, was talking about the song during my first permanent duty assignment in nineteen seventy-five, three years later. I was with the 2750ABW at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. Permanent meant that I was assigned to the place, and would be there for a while. I was a command post emergency actions controller for the base and HQ Logistics Command. Three of us were on duty at a time, for twelve or eight hour shifts.

One night, I was on duty with Dale and Sistrunk. Studying, as we were often doing, I was singing the song to myself. “What is that you’re singing?” one asked. I explained what it was, and who performed it. They knew Bowie, but not that song, which surprised me. It was a youth’s surprise. I thought we all inhabited the same universe in America, where we all listened to rock music. But Sistrunk didn’t listen to music in his car or at home, and Dale preferred light jazz. I didn’t know the light jazz performers he enjoyed, and was amused, thinking of him as dated, when he shared their names.

That’s why “Changes” is perfect for that memory, and this time. As years passed, windows opened on myself, but they still remained small and few. I stayed in my personal garrison, spying on others, wondering what they think of me, as I thought of them. I think about the child I was, and then the man I was, and now, the person that I became, and wonder who I’ll be next.

Bowie’s lyrics capture the sentiment. “Every time I thought I’d got it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned myself to face me, but I’ve never caught a glimpse of how the others must see the faker. I’m much too fast to take that test.”

We think of the universe, world, and its inhabitants in terms of static existences, but really, we have snapshots of moments that we consider permanent. Almost everything is always changing. We’re just not fast enough to comprehend it.

As a bonus, it was Rick Wakeman on the piano in “Changes.” Wakeman was already known for his session work on many albums, but had formed Yes with others, another group I greatly enjoyed.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

I’m back-upped with music, dreams, and writing today. I took my monthly swim in the dark waters for a few days. Now, breaking surface, a survivor one more time, my creative and artistic energies are lit up.

For the musical theme portion, so many songs streamed through me last night and today. I finally went with an odd choice. My love of music comes from Mom. I’m sure. I once asked Dad what music he liked to listen to; he shrugged. Mom, though, put albums on whenever she cleaned, and Mom was, and is, passionate about keeping her house clean. Music was always playing. One guy she really enjoyed was Frank Sinatra.

I can understand why. Sinatra had a big voice and style. This song, “That’s Life,” has been covered by some great talents. I especially enjoy Shirley Bassey’s cover, because I like Shirley Bassey. But I stayed with Frank’s cover, because that’s the one streaming through my head today. I thought about doing David Lee Roth’s version, just for the hell of it, but that was rejected.

Got to love these words, right?

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Monday’s Theme Music

Ah, they’re always pestering me, calling from phone numbers that I don’t recognize, and sending me emails with sensational deals, deals that will make me wealthy, or is such an amazing travel bargain, that I’d be a fool to take it up. Never mind that the travel bargains are going to places that I don’t want to visit. It’s such a good deal.

Although this song, “Who Can It Be Now?”, by Men At Work, came out while I was stationed on Okinawa, I always think of Mom and my family. In the days before caller identification, Mom established the number of rings as a primitive IFF – Identification, Friend or Foe – for when friends and relatives call. “Ring twice, hang up, and call again. I’ll know it’s you, and answer.” Or maybe she won’t. But when the phone rang more than twice, “Who can that be? Should I answer it?”

The same was true with someone knocking on the door or ringing the bell, or  stopping in the driveway or in front of the house. “Who is that? What do they want? Who can it be now?” Mom passed it on to the rest of us. “Who can it be now?”

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Friday’s Theme Music

Volcanos erupting in Japan and Indonesia, threats of missiles being exchanged between the U.S. and North Korea, Black Lives Matter, voter right suppression, Russia-gate, white supremacists, gun control arguments, protests, the Weinstein scandal, war refugees, Pacific Northwest and California wildfires and destruction, the Hurricane Maria disaster in Puerto Rico, hurricane and earthquake disasters in Mexico, hurricane destruction in several other American states, plans to build a wall on the southern U.S. border, the President threatening freedom of the press, the Vegas mass killer….

Contemplating it all over coffee brought to mind Billy Joel’s nineteen eighty-nine song from “Storm Front,” “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He covered the headlines from nineteen forty-nine, when he was born, until the year the album was released, but the fire goes on.

At least, it feels like it on this cool, autumn morning in twenty seventeen.

 

 

2

Fall Slipstream

It’s a gorgeous fall day, smoke-free, with a cloudless blue sky. Our sun is bright, but the wind presents a chilly edge as it toys with leaves, tearing them from trees and sprinkling them over the streets, sidewalks, and yards. News, worry, and politics are aside. Memories of days like these are pulled from my youth in Pittsburgh.

It’s the weekend. At last! Freed for a day from the teachers’ drones, studying, quizzes, and tests, we’re out in the streets, chatting about girls, music, sports and television, bullshitting each other, John mocking Rick, complaining about school, wandering around, hanging around, playing football in the street. 

Halloween is coming up. What are you going to wear?

Thanksgiving is next month. Thanksgiving, that amazing feast – stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy – and pies! Pumpkin! Apple! Or maybe cherry. With whipped cream. Family will be over. It will be warm, noisy, and crowded. But, wow, the food.

And then there’s Christmas. What do you want for Christmas?

The simplicity makes me sigh. That was our future. But we would tell each other –

I can’t wait until I’m older. 

I can’t wait until I have my license.

I can’t wait until I have my own money.

I can’t wait until I’m done with school.

I can’t wait until I’m out of here.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Wow, Thursday already. October, already. The fifth already. Come on, let’s back off the time accelerator. It’s all moving too fast.

Today’s music is “Spooky.” It was originally an instrumental. I once heard the instrumental and thought someone was playing it that way. I later learned that the words had been added after the instrumental was written and performed.

I heard the original version with words, by the Classics IV, in the late nineteen sixties, on my trusty AM/FM clock radio. But I awoke with the A.R.S. “Spooky” version looping in my head today, so that’s what I’m posting.

As a sidebar, I wonder what happens in my brain that I awake with songs streaming in my head? I’ve researched this earworm (ohrwurm) or brain itch, as different sources label it, and found that researchers believe ninety-eight to ninety-nine percent of people endure earworms. A two thousand three news article cited a study found which songs afflict most people:

He found that some 98 percent of listeners were at one time or another bothered by a tune that wouldn’t leave their heads. The study also found some common offenders, including the Kit-Kat jingle (“Gimme a break”), “Who Let the Dogs Out,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” the theme to “Mission: Impossible,” “YMCA,” “Whoomp, There It Is,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and “It’s a Small World After All.”

The study also showed that musicians and those with compulsive tendencies are the most afflicted. The two are not necessarily mutually exclusive, though the act of repetition — in popular songs on the radio and on the rehearsal floor for musicians — plays a role.

The 559 students used in the study had lots of trouble with the Chili’s jingle for its baby-back ribs and with the Baha Men song “Who Let the Dogs Out. ” But Kellaris found that most often, each person tends to be haunted by their demon notes.

Compulsive tendencies? Moi? Perish the suggestion. I guess I’m fortunate that my ohrwurms rotate and offer a variety.

 

 

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

Streaming to you live through memories of recorded music heard in my youth, here is Supertramp with “Bloody Well Right.” Seems appropriate as we wrestle with rights and bloodshed.

You got a bloody right to say.

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Friday’s Theme Music

“Across the Universe,” written by John Lennon, and performed by the Beatles.

When I hear the song lyrics, I often think of the writing process. For example:

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a restless wind
Inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe

h/t to AZLyrics.com

Things flow and bounce into us, and we write to create order from that nonsense. Sometimes, we succeed.

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