Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
A-O was a navigator I hung around with in Germany. He loved this song. I really never understood why, but it was on the jukebox in the base’s hotel bar. The juke box was loaded with CDs instead of vinyl by that point in life, nineteen eighty-eight. A-O always selected this song several times through the evening. I haven’t heard it in years, but sometimes, I stream it in my head, remember A-O, and smile.
Here is Edie Brickell & New Bohemians with “What I Am.”
Bob Mustin commented on yesterday’s theme music. He wrote, “The song favored by my class at the Naval Academy was The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.””
I hear that. His comment summoned a memory. We were in Egypt in nineteen eighty-five as part of Exercise Bright Star. It was July, or maybe August. Living in a tent city in the desert, the ops portion was done. We were awaiting redeployment. There was a lot of down time. While enduring the Sahara heat in our tent’s shade, one of the guys played “Green, Green Grass of Home” on a small cassette player.
One of the other guys said, “Man, turn that off. It’s depressing.”
The player said, “I think it’s nice.”
“It’s about a guy in prison,” one person said.
“Nice,” someone said. “It’s not nice. Makes me remember my wife is suing me for divorce.”
“Yeah, and it makes me remember my home when I was growing up,” the first speaker said. “There wasn’t any green, green grass at our house. It was all cement and asphalt, even the playground. The ball field wasn’t paved, but it didn’t have no grass, either.”
“Yeah, and my folks are dead,” said another guy. “There’s no one going to be there to meet me when I get home.”
An argument arose about the song and its meanings.
Ah, sweet memories. We heard the Tom Jones cover in Egypt, so that’s what I’m playing for you.
You ever look yourself in the mirror, and ask yourself, “Who are you?” Or think you know someone, and then they do something that disgusts you, so you end up asking the same question, “Who are you?”
Yeah, “Who Are You?” By The Who. Nineteen seventy-eight. Sadly, I associated this song with Keith Moon and his death, as the drummer died a month or two after this song was released. Watch him drumming in this video. What expressions, a one hundred-eighty degree difference from Entwhistle on bass, smoking cigarettes but not showing much on his face. Sometimes, it looks like Entwhistle is secretly amused.
This is also when I turned down a promotion in the Air Force, separated from it, and headed home, where I attempted to be a restaurant owner and a college student. The restaurant didn’t work out, and I went back into the military a year later. So, this is a good anthem for that era of my life, as I tried figuring out who I am.
Awoke this morning thinking of spectrums and roller-coasters. We live on a spectrum, hunting for the balance to ride the waves of the day. Those waves often acquire a roller-coaster feel as we rise up from the troughs, reach the peaks, and plummet down again, hanging on with white-knuckled glee or terror. They’re pretty closely related.
From that, my switches shifted. Cake streamed in. I particularly enjoyed their third album, “Prolonging the Magic”. Thinking about the lyrics from “Never There,” I saw the connection between my maundering about roller coaster, and Cake:
We’re always on,
This roller coaster,
If you want me,
Why can’t you get closer?
That’s it: we’re always on this roller-coaster. This era of corporate growth, reactionary politics, and fake news, seems to be worse than other periods. But, I remind myself, this is the only period I remember living through. I suspect other eras felt the same for people of my relative status. They, like me, hope, lament, curse, and pray, and sometimes, we just close our eyes and ears, and try to walk away. But that roller-coaster doesn’t stop.
Here it is, from nineteen ninety-eight, “Never There.” Hope you have a fun ride today.
This song is fantastic. Its lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh. I know covers by so many performers, but I like this version, by Peggy Lee. I figure I probably know it through Mom playing it. I have to admit, I do have a powerful fondness by the covers by Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Diane Shuur.
It’s a good Monday song. Here is Peggy Lee with “The Best Is Yet to Come,” from nineteen sixty-two.
Hey, writers north of the Equator. Guess what? It’s December, and it’s winter. That puts me into a winter state of mind. Some of that crystalline white precipitation tops the mountains, hills, and forests surrounding our valley, while we endure fog, low gray cloud cover, and meek sunshine.
Looking out on this world as the furnace says good-morning, “A Hazy Shade of Winter” leaked into the stream. I thought about the Simon & Garfunkel original, and admired again, their talent and genius. But wanting something upbeat and edgier, I took to the Bangles.
Don’t you love those opening lyrics? “Time, time, time, look what’s become of me.”
Here we go.
The temp has hung around thirty degrees F. for hours, locked into that position by an inversion layer that invited freezing fog in. The freezing fog accepted the invitation – have you ever known fog to turn down an invitation? – so here we sit, freezing and foggy. These energy leeching conditions must be countered. With what can I counter it? Pancakes for breakfast and French roast coffee failed. Let’s drag in some music to shift my ass out of my chair.
I’m sure each of you have a favorite that does it for you. I have a catalog of them, myself, but today, it’s the Allman Brothers Band doing that old Blind Willy McTell song, “Statesboro Blues,” as captured live at the Fillmore East, in all their glory. I wore out this album listening to it in nineteen seventy-one and -two.
The playing and lyrics mesmerized a twelve-year old growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA. Equal confusion and interest reigned over, “How does he play like that?” and, “What’s he singing?”
He was Jimi Hendrix, and the song was “Voodoo Child,” sometimes spelled “Chile.” That just flavored the interest.
Still streaming from way back in the last century.
I like the light and peppy feel of today’s theme music. It tells a story, and the story-telling invokes a sense of place and life that I identify with whenever I hear it. But the story isn’t completely told. Gaps remain. That’s how I like my story-telling, with gaps that cause you to wonder even after hearing the story.
Here is Paul Simon with “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” nineteen seventy-two.
Remember the television series called “Get Smart”? It was on in the mid-sixties. Buck Henry and Mel Brooks came up with the idea. Don Adams and Barbara Feldon were the primary stars.
A crazy spy-spoof, “Get Smart” featured an organization called CONTROL, shoe phones, the cone of silence, and other unique devices that made fun of the spy gadgets populating more serious spy ventures. Don Adams was a bumbling spy known as Maxwell Smart, a.k.a. Agent 86. Smart always doing things by the book, even though doing so was counter-productive. Feldon was Agent 99. She seemed more competent and intelligent, but 86 often ended up saving 99, mostly by accident, it seemed. The two of them, along with Chief, and other agents of CONTROL, fought the forces of KAOS.
The opening sequence showed Adams as Smart marching through corridors toward walls while the theme music played. As he reached each wall, a door would open, let Smart through, and close behind him. Once he’d gone through a number of doors in this manner, he reached a telephone booth. There, he’d put in a coin and dial a number, and then wait until he was lowered from the booth.
I was reminded of this sequence often during my military career. Working in S.C.I.F.s, underground command posts, vaults, and buildings without windows, that television show’s theme music would stream into my head as we went around corners, up halls, and through doors, often without seeing other people. The biggest differences from the television show were that we all wore badges, security cameras abounded in our halls, signs warning about unauthorized access and the use of deadly force were frequent, and getting past the doors usually required us to punch numbers into a cypher-lock.
There were also red-tiled zones where only one person was authorized to stand or be at a time, to help keep the entrance secure. In later years, we also encountered retinal scans in little booths that weighed you as you looked into a scanner and entered the numbers to pass through. Your weight was on record and accessed via your badge. A five-pound leeway was permitted. This was done under the watchful eyes of security people and cameras.
That was over twenty years ago. I wonder if they still do all those things? They’ve probably moved on to comparing DNA by now.
Michael Seidel, writer 