I'm not going to be talking sports here, so for those of you who can't get enough of that just relax and take a break from it, let it go. Besides I'm not qualified on the subject.
What I am going to be talking (or writing about) is defending myself from some of my wives accusations of idiocy. Now we have been writing many articles lately for a specific project and I can honestly say I haven't read any of her new stories. Nor she mine and maybe we should keep it that way, it might bring a new twist to the whole spousal debate, see if any of that stuff about telepathy between partners who've shared many years together is just a crock or not. Talk about crocks, that last idea may just prove her right, I know I will not be able to resist looking at her musings and they will probably inspire me to new heights (piss me off in other words). But like I said for now we've been writing separately and so I'm going to defend myself on something I did read she wrote awhile back. Now remember, I'm not just doing this for myself, this is for all of us who are cursed at with flailing fingers. "You Idiot"! We are a brotherhood.
Brotherhood; for some strange reason that reminds me of something, I've mentioned my talent for useless 60's musical knowledge and I recall that there was a band called Brotherhood that was formed by former members of Paul Revere and the Raiders, remember them they were a step up from The Monkees because they could actually play their instruments. Of course, Mike Nesmith was a real musician and songwriter even before The Monkees, in fact he wrote the song 'Different Drummer' which was Linda Ronstadts first big hit, anyway I loved the Monkees and watched their T.V. show religiously and my cousin and I saw them in concert. Girls screaming and fainting, it was hard to hear the music. Which worked out well for them, you see my cousin told me recently that there was a real band playing behind the curtain while they were out front singing and pretending to play and I felt like an idiot (again) because I never knew that for all these years. They did eventually start playing on their own albums and they all (except, poor cute Davey Jones) even wrote some cool original songs. As for Paul Revere and the Raiders they wore costumes from the colonial period and were on T.V a lot smiling and pretending to play even though they really could. Anyway, I believe the drummer Mike (Smitty) Smith and the bass player Phil (Fang) Volk started this Brotherhood band after the breakup though it was pretty much a commercial flop since all they did was play music and not wear costumes and they didn't have the cute Paul McCartney look alike lead singer Mark Lindsay, who by the way, after leaving (due to the dreaded solo career complex, remember 'Arizona', songs named after states were a big thing back then) was replaced with a cute Mark Lindsay look alike whose name was Keith Allison.
One last thing, I promise, about The Monkees is my cousin also played me a live version of them 'really' playing "I'm not your Steppin' Stone" and they sounded like a punk band, like the Pistols for gods sake, I know that sounds sacrilegious but its true they were so loose it was beautiful. I should say here that I like loose and beautiful I mean because I've been talking about The Monkees and Paul Revere you might think I'm a musical nerd. I like lots of music through lots of periods. Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday from before my time. My favorite sixties songwriter was Ray Davies of The Kinks. I loved the old 'Aftermath' to 'Let it Bleed' Stones, Procol Harem, Todd Rundgren and his band The Nazz and I dug the edgy singer songwriters like Dylan, Young, Reed and Cohen. In the seventies there was The Clash, Costello, Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson and the young Bruce Springsteen. And now I listen to college radio and hear lots of great new creative stuff on a daily basis without corporate commercial interruption. Of course that means that most of these groups make no money but hey, that's what you get for being original and creative in the new millennium. The one thing I didn't like was, well I'll use one band to describe it and you can guess a couple dozen more from there; (most of them named after states) Foreigner. That says it all. Except to add that some people thought that because they had one hit song "Hot Blooded" followed by another "Cold as Ice' that they were lyrically diverse. Talk about idiots.
I don't know how I got on this subject but I need to get back on course and start defending myself. It has to do with going up to my Mom and stepfathers cabin and pulling (swimming) the pontoon across the lake in the middle of the night by a rope. To me it seems perfectly natural, I mean we were over an hour from home with all of our stuff and I wanted her to experience the beauty of the place. The sensual naked beauty, you might say. I said you, not me.
There's one thing she left out, the reason it was the middle of the night and therefore no one was there at the marina to help us or no way to get gas if that's what we needed or no one on the lake to give us a tow was because my wife can not be any where before dark. You've heard of being late for your own funeral we'll hers better be after six or she won't be there at all. There is really nowhere we can be in the city where we live before six and since the cabin is over an hour away (which I will grant takes more preparation time than just going out the door with your clothes on) we usually get up there between ten' o clock an midnight. Of course it's pitch black and we have to go across the lake and find the dock and the cabin (which is on an island) in the dark. Taking into consideration that the boat is an old beat up pontoon with no lights on it that barely moves with all our stuff on it and that the motor always has some weird quirky thing wrong with it and taking into further consideration that I don't do motors (in fact if I was a super hero I would be ANTI-MOTOR MAN) you can see the many potential problems.
This particular time we went up there on our own since we had recently met and I may have been partly to blame for our late arrival, we got caught up in ourselves a lot back then, if you know what I mean. Who am I kidding, we were late no matter what? Nowadays, with a daughter (sometimes two, though one is too old to want to go places with us), and two dogs there are other less exciting reasons why it may take longer but it's really about the same because one particular person is still in the equation. It's getting to be kind of a joke with us now and adds to the adventure of our vacations which now seem to be getting further apart what with our present financial situation.
I remember one time when we arrived at our usual family of vampires hour, first thing I did was put a nail through my hand that was sticking up on the pontoon somewhere and then our neurotic cocker spaniel Scooter tried to jump onto the dock before we landed with a lease around his neck and was hanging between the boat and the dock. We got him loose and then my wife was walking on the dock with some luggage, (we always bring so much stuff it seems were staying for the whole summer and somehow I'm always the one who runs out of socks underwear and warm shirts) some boards gave way and she fell through. When we finally got situated and were healing our wounds we discovered there was no electricity and no water. There had been a storm up there and it had knocked out the power. We spent most of the week that way and it actually ended up by being one of our best times. I should mention that this was not your second home away from home, this was a real cabin, quite small, with an outhouse but it did have water from a well and lights, usually. My parents were not wealthy and they refinanced there year round home to get this place and so were still paying for they're 'real' home till the day my Mom died.
Back to my defense, it was the dark, the dark that did it all. Would you take an idiot to a strange place and then turn out the lights? Well, would you?
The truth is I love the dark, going across the lake in the dark and my daughter and I doing our boat scream in the dark. And my creature of the night companion who took me out of the inner dark and who I only hope I can live with, like them, indefinitely.
Idiots Unite and Stand Proud.
