Twosome: Year's Best Golf & Music In One Fell Swoop

Just the idea makes all my top ten lists for the year; the ad-lib lyrics push it way on top.

Nothing Like The First Listen

The other day a co-worker asked me to make him a mix of tunes. There are few greater small pleasures in life for me. Now he didn't specify what kind of a mix, which would have been easier. No, he didn't request a mix of songs exclusively by British fops or songs only recorded south of the Mason-Dixon Line or songs only about animals--requests that would have been easy to accomplish. So, I had my usual response to the general "make me a mix" request--I went overboard, zealously. He'll be receiving a nice box set of mixes from me, filled with universally great songs as well as some geared more specifically to his personality and perceived likes (though he is a vociferous Rod Stewart hater, how could I refrain from including "Every Picture Tells a Story"?). Of the hundred or so songs I've collected for him, I'd be willing to wager 90% of them will be new to his ears. Just the thought of how thrilled he might be to hear such gems as Dan Reeder's "Work Song" or R.L. Burnside's "Stole My Check" or The Coasters' "Shoppin' For Clothes," or some other unpredictable song for the first time, has me giddy.

I started thinking about this phenomenon--the first time you hear a song destined to be one of your all-time favorites--and was struck by how few of the thousands of "all-time favorite" songs on my list I actually remember in detail hearing for the first time. Why? Shouldn't everybody remember vividly the first time they heard "Satisfaction" or "Like a Rolling Stone" or "Mamma Mia" (sic)? Maybe it's the saturation of listening to such songs so many times over years and years that dims the memory of the first time. Maybe some songs have just always been in one's consciousness. Who knows?

One song that stands out is a rather obscure one, "Boston," by a guy named Dave Derby. I was in a record store, the only customer at the time, and all of a sudden the song came over the speakers. Looking back on it all, I can't say I wasn't the victim of that great record store ploy employed in High Fidelity when John Cusack announces he's about to sell five copies of the Beta Band's 3 Ep's record, puts the record on and everyone in the store starts grooving and asking what the record is. Maybe the guy in the store I was in, who certainly knew a little of my tastes in music, knew that I'd respond to the beautifully gloomy, dreamy "Boston." Halfway through the song I had to ask what was playing, by the end of the song I had bought the record.



Having been a big Meat Puppets fan for several years, I of course was excited when their 1987 record Huevos came out. I remember playing the record for the first time late one night in an apartment I shared with two other guys, after they had gone to bed. Not being able to crank the volume became torture when I heard the first riffage of the great "Look At The Rain." But when the band kicked in again the glorious wailing of the title phrase after a false fade-out, well, in some ways I've been swooning ever since ("I gotta shirt that costs a dollar twenty-five/I know I'm the best-dressed man alive!").



I was at a friend's when he played me Bill Fox's epic Shelter From The Smoke album for the first time. Those jangly first notes and the not-expected high lonesome voice of Bill singing, "Over and away she goes ..." spelled instant addiction. I am blessed to see Bill play often, and often he begins his set with "Over And Away She Goes" and I am able to re-live that first-time thrill of being granted admission to a singular world once again.



Strangely, the most vivid "first-time" listening experience I remember is a bit confusing; I don't remember the exact song I heard. I had just returned to college and had to get up at dawn on a snowy, dark morning to return a rented car. As I drove down empty streets, the radio played the Roches' "Hammond Song," or was it "Losing True"? Seeing that "Losing True" is kind of a re-make of "Hammond Song" (I bet many Roche sister fans wished they'd make more and more re-makes--gorgeously strummed acoustic guitar, three angelic voices all-entwined, and a touch of Frippery thrown in for seasoning), nearly thirty years of memory have confused me as to which one I actually heard on that drive. All I know was that I had to have that song, that sound. Funny, though, I can't remember the first time I actually heard the song I didn't hear that morning.



Here's hoping thirty years from now, when my co-worker is reflecting on his lifetime of good listens, he'll remember a moment listening to one of the mixes I've made for him.

Be Thankful For What You Wish For

Today was a day of celebration. I was celebrating an off day after six straight Christmas-shopping retail days of work, and celebrating last night's successful poetry reading (successful not so much in terms of mass adulation from a five-figure crowd, but successful in terms of not being heckled, not having my poetic license revoked, and not provoking any audience member to run from my words out of the room screaming, "My God, I'm going to be sick"). How did I celebrate? By putting my nose back to the grindstone by doing loads of laundry and some much-needed grocery shopping, all wrapped around a nice afternoon nap. A pretty normal off day, to be honest. But the celebrating came before during and after all the domestic chores: I've been happily munching Fig Newtons all day.

What, you say? I knew poets were crazy, but you've gone 'round the bend, boy. Fig Newtons = Celebration? As Sarah says, youbetcha! Now I've had nothing but a pleasant history with Fig Newtons. But the emphasis is on history. I liked them as a kid, but I can't say that in all my grocery shopping since childhood I've ever bought a package of Fig Newtons. But chalk up my newly-revived admiration for the delicious cookie to the holiday season. See, we recently had a Secret Santa thing ($15 limit) at work. Weeks ago we pulled names and this past Sunday at our party we revealed and gifted. Early on in the process, as I was talking Secret Santa strategies with a co-worker, I jokingly told her, "If whoever is my Secret Santa asks you what to get me, just tell 'em to get me $15 worth of Fig Newtons." It was good for a laugh. Little did I know that said co-worker would turn out to be my Secret Santa. So there I was Sunday night, as said co-worker handed me a big shoe-box wrapped with a gold ribbon. Having completely forgotten about my Fig Newton joke, I opened the box not knowing what to expect. Inside, among other goodies (look out for a future post extolling the deliciousness of pure maple sugar genuinely Canadian Maple Leafs) was a package of the genuine Nabisco Fig Newtons. Ah, how my jokes come back to me in cookies of superiority!

Damn these Newtons are good. So small yet so dense--in a good way. And to think I'm eating a cookie with "natural fruit"! It must even be good for me. And I'm no design expert, but the shape and look of the cookie, the more I consider it, it's pure art. Now Oreos, duh, are the Platonic ideal of cookies; I think we are all in agreement on that. But really, with Chips Ahoy kind of losing a certain magic since childhood for me, I gotta say the Fig Newton stands as Silver Medalist in the mass-produced, corporate cookie world. I mean, suddenly I feel like going out and buying some figs, and when was the last time you ever said that? I'm serious--indulge yourself today and go out and buy some Fig Newtons. You won't be sorry. I'm certainly not sorry I joked about Fig Newtons a few weeks ago, since the payoff is munching on them now. And to think I gave my giftee nothing but the new Tom Waits CD (nothing against Mr. Waits, I love him and all, but come on, a gravelly-voiced rabblerouser vs. near-perfection in a cookie? It's not even close.).

My only disappointment in this whole Fig lovefest is finding out that Fig Newtons are so called because the company that first mass-produced them, the Kennedy Biscuit Company, was located near Newton, Mass. (Fig Clevelands, anyone?) Kind of boring, especially when I was all set to wax paeans to some Col. Figacious T. Newton, a Civil War Hero from somewhere like Biloxi who loved his figs almost as much as his bourbon. Oh well, there's nothing fictitious about the culinary pleasure of Fig Newtons. So, yes Laura, there is a Santa Claus. My gratitude.

Eyebrows Make The Man?

I've been told on a couple of occasions that I "dress up well," which probably is just a euphemism for, man you're a slob but a shave, a comb, a shower, and some nice duds make you look halfway presentable. Personal grooming, beyond the necessary, is not a great passion of mine. But maybe, just maybe, that's all going to change after my experience this morning. I had my eyebrows done.

To be honest, my eyebrows are about the last location of my body's temple that I have ever thought about. I can do the double brow lift, a tacit "hey, how you doin'," and I can do a decent left eyebrow arch, the hmmm, intriguing thing, though for the life of me I can't get the right brow to budge on its own. And that folks, is all there is to know about my eyebrows, or was to know, until this morning.

I've been spoiled my whole life. Up until recently I had probably had my hair cut 99% of the time in my life by one of about five barbers. But lately I've been on the lookout for a new one. Over the summer I found a great one, a guy named Lu (perhaps most of why I loved the guy was that he's Lu, not Lou). He cut my hair twice. Alas, he's 87 and I just learned he retired. I learned that today from the woman who cut my hair, just three doors down from Lu's old place. Now both times I sat in Lu's chair he asked me if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed. Nobody had ever asked me before, and the first time I politely declined, thinking Lu was just doing what he had been doing for nearly 70 years. The second time he asked I declined again, thinking, I'm not one to care about brow grooming. But afterward, I started to get a little defensive. Is there something wrong with my eyebrows? Are they hideously bushy? Do people talk about me behind my back: "Lookout, here comes Bushy Brow"? I'm sure for the first time in my life I took a long hard look in the mirror at my brows. They looked inoffensive enough, but who knows, maybe Bushy Brow Guys are the last to know. But, since I've never really worked any kind of a definable 'do--just get it cut whenever it starts to bug me-- time passed and my thinking about my eyebrows returned to normal, which is, never.

But today, this rather sassy, though perfectly pleasant woman who was cutting my hair just announced, after seemingly finishing with my haircut, "Now we'll take care of your eyebrows and we'll be all finished." It was morning, I was on my way to a Saturday in December retail job, I wasn't thinking clearly yet, so instead of throwing my arms up over my eyes and declaring, "Nobody, ma'am, but nobody touches my brows!" or at least finally breaking the taboo and shyly asking, "What is it with my eyebrows all of a sudden? I'm just getting used to trimming old man hair tufts from my ears and nose; must diligent attention to my brows be paid too?"--I just sat there and acquiesced to the woman's trimming implements. It took about thirty seconds, with absolutely no excitement, pain, or sensation whatsoever.

And so, for the first day in my life, I am sporting trimmed eyebrows. Big deal, right? I sort of nonchalantly considered the whole ordeal as nothing much at all while walking out of the place, but my God, the difference! I was amazed at how swift I felt doing my usual pre-work 40 yard dash warm-ups in the back parking lot. Prepared with the usual retort of "Yep, all fifty-three of them," for when people at work would invariably ask me if I had gotten a haircut/hair cut (yuk yuk), I was flabbergasted when, within the first hour of work, three different people came up to me and said, "My God, Dan, your eyebrows. What have you done to them? They look fantastic!" Then, as I shopped at the Everything's A Dollar Store (sometimes I shop, other times I just go in there and pick up random things and ask new employees, "How much is this? This? This too?"), buying some Christmas wrapping paper, the cashier lingered while giving me my change and finally hissed as she dropped four pennies into my hand, "Your brows ... so ... alluring." At the Dollar Store no less.

Anyway, a big day. Now I'm just wondering where a guy can get a manicure on a Sunday.

I Can't Stand The Cold; Where's The Kitchen?

I understand there is much I don't understand, but the main mystery I'm shaking my head at today is why, on a thirty-five degree, barely breezy (not even windy) day such as today, I am so cold when in two months an identical day like today will make me ready to dig out some shorts and start screaming "Play ball!" I was freezing today and it's not even at the freezing mark. I can't be any colder than this, I kept telling myself, trying not to think of the fact that in a couple weeks it will probably be at least twenty degrees colder, possibly for weeks on end. I know, I know, that everything is relative and we all adapt, and it's not as if I haven't survived a couple scores of winters, but my God am I cold today, and to think that it will be so much colder so soon doesn't make any sense. It can't be colder.

Now I'm on record as hating the heat, and I believe I'm on record as saying I'd rather be cold than hot, because the sensation of being warmed up is better than that of being cooled off, but still, heat seems to be a little more lenient than cold. 95 is horrendous (and about as bad as it gets around here--plus some killer humidity), but 75 is Heaven. Why then, when minus 5 is about as bad as we get here (plus some killer wind chill) is 15 so awful, let alone how horrible 35 was today? As awful as heat is, at least its window is pretty small (for my rather timid tastes, it's too hot at 86). But 40 or so degrees of cold cold cold? Seems patently unfair, in a kind of 1% wealth vs. 99% of the rest of us kind of way. Plus, there's hot and heat, an adjective and a noun, whereas there's only cold, both adjective and noun. Cold, the ultimate four-letter word, sums it all up, no spin-offs necessary. Those wise ancestral wordsmiths knew when they had hit perfection on the first swing--cold, nothing more needs to be said.

Now I don't want to launch into a litany of cold laments (there are four more months of blog posts to do that), though that awful getting into and starting a cold car is about the worst, but I will say how psychological it all gets: Yesterday, when I was complaining about all the rain we've been having, but then added, as a predictable end to a predictable conversation about the weather, "but at least it isn't snowing," my co-worker said, in all innocence, and maybe just trying to defend Mother Nature a bit, "Well, it's been a pretty moderate winter so far." Depressed we both were, a minute or two later, when it dawned on me and I reminded her that technically winter doesn't start for another couple weeks. You see what the cold does to our already fragile minds? Fittingly, a man named Blaze said it best:

Ragged But Right Rigamarole, Or, More Garbled Nonsense

As happens, somebody used a colorful word the other day in my presence, and I've been obsessed with it ever since. Rigamarole, or maybe more properly, rigmarole, though I love that extra syllable. How can you not just quake in wonder at that word, a poem in and of itself? Rigamarole--any long, complicated procedure; a set of incoherent or pointless statements; garbled nonsense. Yes, "garbled nonsense" was a close also ran when it came time for me to bestow a name on this humble blog. Unfortunately, rigamarole seems to be a 100% pejorative term these days. "I don't want any of your rigamarole, Lou." "What's all this rigamarole then?" You don't ever really hear something like, "Oh, thrill me with your rigamarole, kind sir," do you? Too bad, because garbled nonsense has quite a literary tradition; I mean, where would the Western Canon be without Tristram Shandy, Finnegans Wake, and all of Jane Austen? And if half the tunes of Bob Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes aren't the rockingest garbled nonsense of all time, then curse me with having to listen to Journey the rest of my days: nonsense without the essential garble is just nonsense.

But whence the word? Appropriately, its source is found in literature, 1700s literature. It comes from ragman roll: a list, probably a roll used in a medieval game, wherein various characters were described in verse, beginning with Ragemon le bon, Ragman the Good (and no relation to Simon, as far as I can tell). Ragman Roll to rigmarole to rigamarole--makes perfect nonsense sense to me. And, lo and behold!, eighteen months or so before those sainted Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan was beginning his own nonsensical description of characters, "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again," with these lines: "Awww the Ragman draws circles, up and down the block/I'd ask him what the matter was, but I know that he don't talk." Coincidence? Or did Bob know all about the intricacies of rigamarole? I know my verdict.

Rigamarole. Sounds like what a proud trucker may declare as he sets off for the road in his newly loaded new truck: "Rig-a-ma-roll!" I'm sure some hip bakery somewhere has ripped off the deliciousness of the Everything Bagel and concocted something called a Rigama-Roll, right? And, of course, back to Bob Dylan. In 1972 Rudy Wurlitzer (is there a cooler, non-made-up name?) sent Bob his screenplay for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, hoping Bob would write some music for the movie. Bob not only complied ("Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and the ineffable "Final Theme" among others), but he also was interested in being in the movie. Rudy and director Sam Peckinpah obliged and the character Alias ("Alias anything you please") was born. They rigged him a role.

Well, enough sense. Time to try my hand at a Ragman Roll.

Ragman the Good
Did what he should
Eschewed wood
Built a cabin of food

Bagman the Nasty
His lot cast he
With the mob, see
Now swims with the fishies

Lagman the Slow
Didn't wanna go
Exchanged his turbo
For a stick of pogo

Cragman the Klutz
Navigates the ruts
Up the rock he struts
Splatter go his guts

Hagman the Rich
Hankers for a witch
Nothing but which
Can ever scratch his itch

Dragman the Queen
Does nothing but preen
Never is he seen
In a dress sans sheen

Wagman the Dog
Got lost in the fog
Now that old bog
Has got quite a clog

Sagman the Fool
His pants did kinda drool
Skipped out of school
Tripped and fell uncool

Nagman the Twit
Didn't know how to quit
Started many a snit
Ended in a shallow pit

And finally, there's Riley Puckett, pictured above. With a face like that, but with a voice like his, he certainly knew what was ragged but right. Holy rigamarole, this song:

Press 1 For Weeping Willow

I was on the phone yesterday with a large corporation, going through that modern ritual that somehow must have its roots in all the kindling gathering, blanket shaking, and rubbing two sticks together preparations our ancestors must have endured in order to send out a concise, cogent smoke signal: the "menu selection." As usual it was one of those inevitable "our menu options have recently changed, so please listen carefully" joints. Before I get to my point, let me first register my resentment at the choice of the word "menu." Menu, being such a weird (not a whole lot of words end in "u" do they?) and seductive word, should be used only when presenting a list of things that can be eaten. When I'm on the phone trying like crazy just to speak to a human about a usually pretty basic question I have, I don't need to be reminded that instead I could be spending my time sitting in a chic restaurant mulling food choices, or, with that "our menu options have changed" spiel, at least in my corner Applebee's pondering why they need a new menu every two weeks to tell you about the same old food.

Anyway, there I was, punching all sorts of numbers (by the time a live human being finally answers your call, your phone screen is covered with digits that look like one of those "are you Mensa material" tests with a series of scores of numbers and you have to figure out the sequence and guess the next logical number). But I flatter these corporations' phone systems--there is no logic. Case in point: On my call yesterday, after entering an account number, a zip code, and hitting several numbers to inch closer to the info I needed (and yes, I was guilty of at least one instance of zoning out which led to that two second panic of dead air when you're thinking, "oh no, there is no number for my particular issue, I'm screwed," until finally that voice, which had been irritating but now seems so comforting, offers, "If you would like to hear the menu options again, please press 24," which then yields a "repeat" of the menu options, but I swear they must be playing tricks on me because this time 2 was the obvious option for me, how did I miss it?), and I swear this wasn't an audio hallucination, I heard this option offered to me: "If you would like a tree planted in your name, please press 5."

What? I was not calling the Sierra Society or the Audobon Society or TreeHuggers Anonymous. This was a corporation, one that is probably taking steps to secure its facilities in the event of a flash mob occupy scenario. Is this some kind of joke, I wanted to scream at that automaton's voice. Is this the corporation's idea of community involvement, a "we're going Green" initiative, buried deep inside their automated phone system where only the most clueless, desperate people are ever going to hear it? Some kind of "obviously you don't know what you're doing if you're still on the line without punching an appropriate number, so you might just be the kind of person who wants to sign up to have some alleged tree allegedly planted in your name miles and miles away from where you actually live, what the hell it's the least we could do for making you suffer through all this mindless number punching without getting a satisfactory answer to your trivial question" thing? I felt like a mouse who had taken a dozen wrong turns in a maze only to find himself dead-ended with an ort of dry cheese waiting for him: good try, kid. Now I really like trees, and I have participated in tree-plantings in somebody's name, which are always moving ceremonies, and I would be humbled to have a tree named after me some day (press 3 for elm), but really, I don't need some corporation who can't manage to get me an answer to a simple question without inducing carpal tunnel syndrome and madness doing my tree planting. I think we'd all be better served if, after reaching the dead end of a corporate automated phone system, the automaton bluntly said, "Fine, you're a dimwit. Press 6 and we'll send you a $5.00 gas card. Go smoke a cigarette and try this thing again."