Daddy, You're a Fool to Cry...

You know, I got a woman
And she lives in the poor part of town
And I go see her sometimes
And we make love, so fine
I put my head on her shoulder
She says, "Tell me all your troubles"
You know what she says?
She says, "Daddy you're a fool to cry
You're a fool to cry
And it makes me wonder why"

I won't use her name because Rhode Island is way too small. So it'll be Danica for now. Danica was a “sort of” trust fund girl and way out of my league. Her Dad managed to create a little business Empire and bought all three of his daughters a house when they got married. Nice life huh?

When I met her at her front door on our first official date, she stood there in white capris, with a glass of white wine in her hand and I said “Hello.” In the next second I looked straight past her into the well appointed, large home. Once invited in, I quickly scanned the place some more and realized this girl was more then well off and comfortable. She had been married at one time and her now dead husband had been a Major Domo in the RI education system. So money wasn't a problem at all for her. Nor was the hefty life insurance policy that kicked in.

I spotted a German coffee grinder, an Italian coffee maker and espresso machine on the huge kitchen counter. A six top gas grill and the kitchen had vaulted ceilings with nice, professional lighting. My kitchen has single overhead globe light. Customized upholstered kitchen chairs that fit snug up against this inlaid teak/mahogany table made by some master craftsman, I'm sure. My kitchen table says “Formica” on the bottom of it.

“Shit..” I thought to myself. “All I have in my pocket is $175 to wine and dine her tonight.” She had that, at least, in wine in her mini wine cellar I found out a bit later. My attempt at going to the Capital Grill would mean nothing as she probably fed her cat from there. This was the mid 90's mind you so do the inflation factor there.

But, as time would tell, she did dig me for who I was and didn't mind I was from...ugh...Pawtucket, living in a smallish Cape Cod style home that needed a good dusting.

Soooo...how do I tactfully state this? Early in the relationship, after we finished making love/fucking/makin' bacon/doing the Fantango, I lay there on the bed like most guys, exhausted and spent. I was starting to drift off when I hear this from her.

“What bothers you? Really, down inside?”

I get startled out of my nice, deepening relaxation and in my head I say “Huh? What was that?”

It sounded like an interview question to me. So I answered it in that applicant's way, turning all negatives into a positive. I had to THINK now. Damn. My brains ran out out my ears ten minutes earlier for Christ's Sake. I felt like I had to spurt out some resume lines to satisfy her.

An aside that has nothing to do with this but now I think of it. A woman I knew was being interviewed for a psych research/professor/statistician position at Brown U. It was one of those all day interviews where they tour the place, meet various committees and the administration. Finally, she's at the end of her day and realizes this job isn't for her at all. The final bit of the interview process asked her this:

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” they asked.

She answers:

“In five years? Hmmm...to tell the truth, in five years I'd like to become a Shetland pony.”

She got up and left. She had then taken a job at RIC where there was “less horseshit” according to her.

I always thought that was funny and ballsy.

Anyways...

It's 3 AM and I can't sleep and my left eye is hurting. Jesus, pink eye or eye lash cancer, gotta be one of the two. It looks like someone has socked me there. I had the stereo going and that old Rolling Stone's song comes on, which I haven't heard in years and I hear that line, “...tell me all your troubles.”

“Oh wow” I thought, “I remember THAT.”

You don't have to schtupp me in order to get me to “reveal” about myself. I can reveal at most anytime if in the mood. If I have known you for a bit, I can volunteer some pretty shocking stuff if I want too and follow it up with a brush off attitude. “What was I going to do about it? It was out of my control anyways. You just deal and move forward, there's no other way.” 

 Click if you want to hear the song.

 

A Couple of Warm Christmas Stories

Once again, I have run out of things to talk about which explains the lack of anything posted. I have told most of the cooler Christmas stories I have known so here's a few Xmas vignettes from the long, long past, when phones were screwed to walls and there were three TV channels.

Archies's Tavern was a locally famous restaurant here in Pawtucket that was situated pretty much on the grounds of a chemical complex, namely, Teknor Apex. No matter which side you stood, N,S,E or W of Archie's, your view was of chemical silos, networks of pipelines, rail junctions with rail cars full of polyvinylchloride. Perhaps the most scenic view was of an auto body shop that looked like the mafia would torch soon. Mendon street was never known for it's curbside beauty. I'm sure zoning ruled it “Industrial.”

Archie's was famous for their “Caveman Cut” beef entrees. They served you an untrimmed slab of meat that jutted out past the edge of the plate and being a kid, I swore most adults ordered it “barely singed” with the blood still running. To me, that was “raw.” I have to give the restaurant credit for one thing though. They finally succeeded getting me to like mushrooms. Prior to that, I saw most mushrooms as growing off of anything dead and why would I want to eat that? Mushrooms were EVIL. Thanks to a Castelucci recipe, I learned that if you marinate mushrooms, they were heavenly.

It was the Xmas week of '75 or '76, I forget...I'm old, when my Dad got good and juiced one night there.

Nearly every Friday night, we'd go out to a local restaurant, then hop over to Almacs in Seekonk to the do the weekly shopping. As with most nights out, Dad would order his two Manhattan cocktails but then wait till we got home to break open the Narragansett beer. Mom would have “one” beer as she would get drunk off of the fumes and Dad might have four as they watched the Friday night line up of Mary Tyler Moore, Loveboat, Newhart or what have you.

But that particular night back in the mid 70's, Dad had about four Manhattans at Archie's. I'd seen this from time to time and it wasn't a great problem. In fact, if he were buzzed it was a hell of a lot easier to caboodle favors out of him if you pitched the idea just right towards him. It's how I finally got my BB gun once. When we left Archie's that night, a light fog had crawled in and started to freeze on any surface, including the roads. There was a thin layer of ice on everything that you know is incredibly slippery.

We got into the giant Impala my Dad drove, he fired it up and tried to drive away, but the tires just spun and spun causing a huge roar. The car would lurch forward, roll back and back and forth we went. Normally this would piss my Dad the fuck off but he was laughing his ass off this time as he gunned the engine again and again.

From the back seat, I could see my Mom, turning her head towards him and just watching in a dull amazement. Finally, the tires bit the road and we shot forward. It was all of 400 yards to get back to our house. That took nearly 20 minutes.

“RICHARD! LOOK OUT!” my Mom yelled as he slid though an intersection, right past the stop sign.

“Ahhh...it was empty!” my Dad retorts.

On York Ave, he managed to slide the car into a snow embankment near Stop & Shop. My Mom just fumed as he rocked the beat back and forth to get it free. There are times when your parents forget they even have a child in the back seat and start talking freely.

“Ever since you got promoted, you think you can do anything you want!” my Mom complained.

“What? Can't I enjoy my success once in a while? It took me ten years to go from comptroller to CEO! I'm gonna enjoy it when I can!”

“Let me drive the car home!” Mom says.

“You can't even drive a standard!” says Dad.

“THIS CAR ISN'T A STANDARD!” yells my Mom

She was right. My Dad pulled some lame excuse out of his ass.

We finally get to our street when my Dad manages to slide into the curbside of our house. BANG! The giant monster of a car nearly bounced off it when it hit. My Dad laughed.

“You HIT the curb!” my Mom yells.

“It's my OWN curb for God's Sake Maureen! (I swear to God on High, he said this)

Inside the house, my Dad was enjoying opening his Narragansett while my Mom, who sat at the same table, had smoke coming from her ears. He then starts singing the opening song from the Mary Tyler Moore show when it came on.

“You're gonna make it after all...” Dad croons to Mom.

“Shut up Richard!”

**

Christmas Eve mass was always held at St Joseph's on Walcott every year. I guess when we were old enough, we finally attended it and I swear the only reason was to blow off the Christmas Mass the next morning at 11 AM because we had presents to open, relatives to visit with. I wasn't a particularly religious kid and I wasn't always keen on even attending regular Sunday morning masses let alone one at midnight. One, it was late and I wanted to sleep. Two, it was usually f'ing freezing out at that time of night and I preferred to be warm and snug INSIDE my house. I'm still the same way, by the way.

One year, my brother, who was a full blown teen then, said he'd “meet up with us” at St Joe's mass at 12. When asked where he was going that Christmas Eve, he said to Mirza's, his best friend from that time.

“Oh..Mirza's? Say hi to them all for us.” My brother complied and said he would.

So, after getting into my itchy woolen suit my parents had bought me from Sears, we all piled into the car for the four minute drive to St Joe's. I was resigned to this as I had no say, but realized it would be short enough (vs. the High Mass that next morning that lasted as long as a Pope's funeral) and it WAS Christmas tomorrow plus a whole week off from school.

The church was packed and Mom, Dad and I settled into the pew and I kept looking around for my brother. I finally spotted him, along with Mirza, Burns, Chubsie and Dirt Bomb (aka Jimmy K) sitting about five pews behind us.

Kneel, stand, sit, kneel, half sit, do the Watusi as we Catholics do during Mass. My brother and his friends were making a small, slight, barely audible commotion amongst themselves, but not enough to draw the ire of the of congregation. It's what teen boys do when they pack rat together.

About five minutes later, I heard a strange sound, an almost gurgling sound followed by a SPLAT! A second later I hear an older women's “Oh Dear!” comment.

I turned to see my brother, who is holding his mouth, making a bee line through the pew of people, to the aisle and out the door. Jimmy K, the infamous “Dirt Bomb” started to laugh but then caught himself quick.

What was odd is that my parents didn't notice this nor see their son bolt. There was some slight murmuring near those pews but it died down once the priest started officiating again.

“Huh? I wonder what that was about?” I thought to myself.

Later once we get home, my brother is already there with Mirza and Dirt Bomb. I ask what the hell happened and Dirt Bomb says, 'Your brother puked in church!” and busts out laughing.

After a few seconds, I realized they're all piss drunk. My brother had ralphed up whatever cheap vodka they were drinking before they went to church.

Apparently that was the whole plan, as my brother was old enough to go to midnight mass with his friends, alone. They were first at Mirza's house getting gooned on cheap Popov vodka.

I don't know who had to clean up the puke at St Joe's though, probably some poor altar boy.

Merry Christmas and everyone lived happily ever after!

39 years ago. Wow. Pink Floyd's “The Wall” came out 39 years ago. Anyone born on that day in 1979 now fears the impending doom of real middle age this year! Just one more till 40! Hit that and everyone rushes to finalize any dream they were trying to build or even attempt. Because once you push through your 40's, the story of your life is largely written. Afterwards, it's mainly epilogue.

I haven't listened to The Wall in it's entirety in years to tell the truth. I have soo many hours of music on tiny SD cards that I'm overwhelmed with choice. But tonight I listened to it again since today was the anniversary of it's issue. Not only that, I can thank bit torrent protocol and a little thievery for getting the re-mastered version of it tonight. The remaster ain't that bad.

I had forgotten or perhaps more truly, I found out finally how well crafted the album is. And again, after packing on the decades I hear it differently now. It's two hours of Roger Waters obsessing over every rotten thing that ever went wrong with his life, and I do mean obsess. If you forget the lyrics and listen to the music, it's a long, grating steely guitar horror show with a relentless background beat of the blades of Vietnam Era Huey attack helicopter. Listen to the instruments, it's there! That “thump, thump, thump” shows up in various synthesized sounds throughout. I'd put the album right up there with the movie The Deer Hunter for it's ceaseless stewing in PTSD. Both do a great job at immersing you in it.

Jesus, it's work to listen to this and to defend yourself from it's vibe at the same time. The album is a damned assault on a coherent mind. The music is doing exactly what Roger intended, which is to nearly inoculate you with his agony.

Apparently after hitting 60+ years, Roger finally made some peace with the worse angels of himself, or at least learned not to haunt himself forever with his personal demons.

I have too, mostly. We all do as we age.

The other thing that struck me about listening to it all the way through was that I did the same as a young teen. I had this album when I was 15 and can remember how many times I played it from beginning to end. At 15, I was a sophomore in high school and attending Driver's Ed classes at Jenks across from McCoy stadium. I can remember it being a cold bitch of a winter too. A ton of memories came to me and here's what struck me.

I was a child then. Still a child at 15. Every kid who's 15 is! How could I possibly have fathomed this album at 15? I couldn't. I hadn't lived enough years to even grasp it yet. I thought, even at 14, I was a worldly teen, doing whatever the hell I wanted and getting away with it. I felt BIG! Yeah. Sure. I was an “adult” then. Cue the laugh track! In one year, I'd be driving a two ton car. In three years I could legally purchase a firearm. Lord Above! How can we possibly think anyone 18 and under is mature enough for anything like that? I sure as shit wasn't!

I'm pushing 55 soon and I notice that my thinking is doing something the developmental psychologists I knew an eon ago told me would happen. My thought process is concertizing. Like a knee joint, your thinking gets “stiffer.” You slowly lose that flexibility to notice subtle, fluid nuances in conversation the young can twist and jump around in. You then tend to rely on what's worked all the time, a smaller set of tools that's always been there for you and not the nifty artworky stuff the young love and can use with impunity. (I think I have just described 'conservatism' in my convoluted way!). In short, I suffer from knee-jerk dismissive-ness when I hear the kids talk. I tell myself “I know better” and can outright reject what they say or believe. But, that's the price of gaining that wisdom of experience. And you can't achieve that till you pack on DECADES! Or am I covering up my 'getting on in years' inflexibility with lofty sounding words like, wisdom? Probably both! I am a zillion times smarter now and I also rebuff kids too easily.

Anyways...

The 55yo self vs the 15yo self. God, what a difference that is I came to find out tonight from just listening to music.

I'll steal station 101.5's tag line, “The Sound Track to Your Life” because it sounds cool. For me it's kinda true. I find that I can pigeon hole my entire life according to the Top 200 List to each year I lived. The Wall did that to me tonight.