It's funny you started this thread today -- today was really a good one.
I am a lucky man. I am where I want to be. I smile quite a bit. I have a great two paragraph post for this thread that works for almost any day...but today was special.
If you hate long posts, I understand -- just move on.
I live in a whacked out place, filled to the brim with eccentric locals, wannabe locals and tourists. Right now there's a big festival going on and Thursday is always laundry day for me. So today I'm doing my laundry in the crazy bar I've done it in every Thursday for years and years and years -- ya, that's right, I always do my laundry in a bar -- so, anyway, like I said, there's a big jazz festival going on and some festers come in, six or seven of them, and they grab a table and start throwing back Ambers, shooters and the usual fare.
I can deal -- I usually just read in the back and I don't much care what they do as long as no one hurls on my shoes. I live in a very tolerant city -- perhaps the most tolerant city on earth... So I'm sitting in the back, minding my own business, re-reading one of my all time favorites, "Geography and National Power," (really) when I hear this crazy music coming from the bar.
Now, let me tell you, the bar out in front may be a very wild place at two in the afternoon. I've tried to describe this place to friends around the country who've never been there -- and it's impossible -- either no one believes me or they just don't get it.
So anyway, they've got this Internet jukebox out in the bar and usually the only music anyone seems to play on it is some kind of Techno / Tribal crap that would usually only be appropriate for a background music soundtrack underneath some kind of ritualistic murder scene in some movie I wouldn't be caught dead watching...but today the music is from the 40s.
I've never heard anyone play music from the 40s there before. I collect music from the 20s, 30s, and 40s and I'm somewhat passionate about it. It's before my time but some of it rocks my boat. I shuffle out into the bar and settle into one of the spots where I may scope out everyone on the inside and everyone walking by on the outside, since this joint is somewhat like a 21st century version of Ferlinghetti's "Mike's Place" -- a reference for the more beat among us.
There's a great big guy -- I mean a really big guy -- who has pulled a stool in front of the Internet jukebox and he's not going anywhere. He's playing killer music from the 50s (at this time) and I'm smiling big time. This was one of the weirdest scenes I've ever seen. The joint was jumping. I mean really jumping -- at 2 in the afternoon. I had no idea who was playing on the box so I walked up to ask him who it was. This guy was big. He was probably 6'4"-250 lbs and decked out in woodland camo from head to toe. I walked up and asked him who was singing and he said, "Peggy Lee."
When he looked me full in the face I could see he had Down's Syndrome. I told him I really liked his music and he asked me how long I had lived here. I told him 26 years. He told me he was 26 years old. I thanked him for the info and retreated to my spot by the open window. Over the course of the next 80 minutes he played cuts that caused me to get up and ask him three times who he was playing. It was a hoot.
He was part of the group of festers I mentioned earlier. It was really cool. He probably put $100 into the jukebox while I was there. They had a good time -- he had a good time. I had a good time. It was surreal. Lots of smiles -- all around.
Then, with no warning whatsoever, he leaped with both feet right into the 80s. Fortunately, my stuff was coming out of the dryers and just two songs after "Karma Chameleon" I was out of there and picking up my chicken fried rice at the Vietnamese deli on my way home.
It was a great day. Many more smiles than usual. I am truly a lucky man.
