Category: “Is That All There IS?”

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY SMILE

And now for something completely different.” –Monty Python’s Flying Circus

(Please click below and follow along with the lyrics)

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY SMILE©

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I promise you I won’t bite your dog

Or expect very much dialogue

I’ll wave at your kids, smile at your wife

I’ll probably be here for the rest of my life

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I’ll check your oil if you want me to

I’ll wash your windshield till it looks like new

Pay by credit, pay by cash

Yes I’ll even throw out your trash

I’m into ???? and my hair is long

I like a country and western song

I still take tips occasionally

I’m the best pump attendant I could ever be

I’m not all that handy but I’ll fix your flar

I wear the company logo hat

Wind, sleet, rain or snow

The customer’s always right you know

Regular, mid-grade, or supreme

I am here to fulfill your dream

Tire’s flat, needs some air

I got a gauge and I’ll be right there

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

Pull in for fuel if it’s been a while

Come on in, you’ve traveled many a mile

I’m the gas pump jockey with the spooky smile

(This song was composed and performed by an actual gas station attendant, albeit one with a creative and humbly self-deprecating sense of humor at times. One who lived with a big monkey of a MUSEon his back that relentlessly compelled him to compose and record songs all about 75% of whatever might come down the pike of his experience. And what had come down the pike in the case of the goofy smile was a trip to a dentist and, consequently, an embarrassing gap-toothed grin.)

All my life I’ve been an observer, discoverer, and sharer of what appears (to me) as the interestingly unusual. Such finds entertain me, teach me a little more about the world I live in, and make for intriguing conversation with others. I’m a storyteller after all, so interesting and unusual tidbits are my bread and butter. But see, in this blog it’s my job to share with you a motley variety of “roadside attractions” I’ve picked up along the turnpike of my own journey. Basically I suppose that makes me kind of a local yokel version of one of those washed-up History Channel celebrities, like William Shatner hosting The Unexplained.

And this particular singer/songwriter is just one more subject of my many episodes of Tom Lyford’s The Interestingly Unusual.

Joel was nothing if not an amazingly indefatigable songwriter. The good, the bad, and the ugly? All of it was fodder for the imaginings that would inlay their way into his various rock and roll, blues, folk, patriotic and/or protest songs, country and western ballads, and tributes. And this guy conjured up hundreds of songs. Literally. I would know, because I was the friend who voluntarily recorded a library of most of his output. On CDs.

Not the complete discography

I’m talking CDs you’ve never seen nor even heard of though, CDs featuring a singer/songwriter who’s “as unknown as they get” (to use the artist’s own words). How’s this for odd: pouring a lifetime of effort into productions destined to be sampled by exactly no one! Well, except for the same old baker’s dozen of his very few close friends (which you could count with the fingers of one hand) and family.

Despite the fact that Joel’s output was industrious, he viewed much of his talent and work with humility.

(Please click on the link below, and follow along)

SONGWRITER©

There’s cats and hacks and geniuses

Takes all kinds in the music biz

Some will make the Hall of Fame

Or become a forgotten name

Some will last on radio

Their popularity will grow

Some fade to obscurity

Playin’ clubs for a modest fee

I am a songwriter who ain’t

made the Big Time yet

I’m as unknown as they get

I am a songwriter who would

love to write a hit…

This one isn’t it.

Some develop fans for life

Other than their mom and wife

Some draw numbers quite obscene

Rolling Stones or Bruce Springsteen

Some attract a college crowd

Mellow, rockin’, soft or loud

Music that is hot and hip

Makes’em all wanna dance and strip

I am a songwriter who would

love to sell a song,

but they all come out wrong

I am a songwriter who could use a

brand new car

Please make me a star

I’ve never written anything

that’s revolutionary

I won’t set a music trend

I’m very ordinary

If a wrote an awesome tune

then maybe I could score

a platinum selling number one

and take it out on tour

There are those who have the gift

They’ve got talent, get the drift

Others, they could write all day

Still have nothing good to play

Some write songs spontaneously

Others craft them carefully

Some write stuff that really sucks

And still it makes them megabucks

I am a songwriter who has never

made a dime

Singing his own rhyme

I am a songwriter with a

guitar in his lap

Who made up this crap

Someday I might write the one

that turns a million ears

If it takes a hundred years

Joel, the singer/songwriter. I was his biggest fan. I’ve selected here a variety of what I consider to be among Joel’s best. I realize his music may not be for everyone. But I’ve always felt it was a shame that his stuff never really got to see more of the light of day. So… I’m just here to give him his due. Posthumously.

Some Odds and Ends About Joel’s Life

The Beginning

Hanging out in the band room (at the expense of his English, math, science, and social studies) was the only thing that motivated Joel in school. In the music department’s classrooms he took piano and guitar lessons, and this led to music becoming an integral part of his life. The idea of becoming a lifelong musician was suddenly all he could think and dream about.

At some point in high school, he made the rash decision to drop out. He was going to put together a band. And he did. More than one. But the very idea of a rocker’s exciting lifestyle, even in middle school back in the 70’s and 80’s, invited rock musicians to take certain risks.

Click on the link below to follow along:

CRISPY FRIED©

First time I ever got high was behind the school

I laughed my fool head off and thought I was cool

I sold my record collection just for dope and cash

Must have cost a new car into smoke and ash

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

First time I ever got drunk was on a bottle of wine

It cost me 99 cents and almost made me blind

Next mornin’ I had a head felt like a medicine ball

That’s been bounced up and down and around the hall

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

At fifteen I thought I was hip

Dancin’ around in my very first acid trip

First time I tried cocaine I got a wicked good buzz

It became one of my favorite loves

More than once I was snorting to a pile

Spillin’ it all over the bathroom tile

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

I did a lot for a long time to my brain

Now it looks like I might never be the same

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

So damn wasted so out to lunch

Crispy fried to a crackly crunch

It’s too much

And consequently Joel ended up having a dark and wildly adventurous past. He got drafted into the Army. But of course the fact that he’d never had any patience with authority figures didn’t bode too well for him militarily. So duh, that didn’t end well.

He went A.W.O.L.

He took off on one of those rite-of-passage cross-country odysseys with little but his guitar and backpack, all by his lonesome. And when his bus fare cash ran out, he hitch-hiked and took up some odd jobs along the way. He made it a good three quarters of the way to the Pacific Ocean before some grifters who’d offered him a ride just drove off with both his guitar and backpack while he was in a convenience store.

He turned himself in at a nearby Air Force base. Was arrested and returned to the Army. Where he convinced his superiors that he was never going to be a soldier, and was (I imagine dishonorably) discharged. And then he was right back in his little old hometown of Dexter, Maine where there were few prospects, and even fewer for a hopeful musician. He got a job at a shoe factory and made enough dough to eke out a life. Got a new guitar and joined a band or two. And composed songs.

Click the link below to follow along:

IF THE MILL SHUTS DOWN©

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

”Cause there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Imports are hurting the economy

Our standard of living is in jeopardy

The working man pays for the rich man’s crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

The foreman is asking for volunteers

take the lay-off slip, first time in years

And the supervisor wears a crown

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

We’ve been cut back to thirty-two hours a week

The industry’s future looks mighty bleak

And this is the only job left around

So there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

I punch in at seven and I’m out by five

I don’t make much money but I do survive

I was homegrown here in this factory town

But there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

No, there’ll be no work if the mill shuts down

Joel married, had a daughter he loved dearly, and got divorced. And time passed

I met him back in the early 90s. Turned out he and I both had one friend in common. Ever hear of him? Some old guy named Bill W. We didn’t hit it off right away. We were from different worlds. I was the high school English teacher, and 50+% of America’s population ends up not liking English teachers. Joel was one of those in the negative 50. He had a kind of gaunt, scruffy look about him, always showing up in an old beat-up Army field jacket. He never spoke much. Kept to himself a lot. His appearance (to me) cried outlaw. And I made him out to be a stoner. And I was right.

We were two different kinds of cat. We had little in common. At least not until I discovered his favorite musicians were exactly the same as mine! Bob Dylan, The Stones, Neil Young, The Beatles, Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Tom Petty, Eric Clapton, Warren Zevon, Townes Van Zandt, and Willie Nelson. And then lo and behold, it turned out that he was into poetry too, especially the Beat Poets and Outlaw Poetry. Hey, so was I. And then on top of that I discovered he was literate! Not just literate. Very literate. Sure, he was a drop out, but over the years since high school he’d gone on to become a life-long reader, an aficionado of the great classics, the poets, the histories, and the philosophers. He had a library card and used it. He’d become a knowledgeable, self-educated soul. I mean, he was only one of two guys I ever knew who’d actually read War and Peace cover to cover. And no, I wasn’t the other one.

I found myself wondering, Who IS this guy?

Well for one thing, he was this counter-culture freak deep into Jack Kerouac. And when I heard him perform his “Jack Kerouac” at an open-mic one night, I had to sit up and take notice.

Click the link below to follow along:

JACK KEROUAC©

Jack was rad, Jack was mad.

Kerouac was the most beautiful we had

Jack would rage, Jack he gave

The very best he had to give

to Burma Shave

Jack and Neal were the deal.

Jack would hitch hike

Neal drove everything he’d steal

Smoking tea on benzedrine

They would rap all night

With Neal behind the wheel

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Doctor Sax hit the facts

Layin’ down the beat refrain

With railroad tracks

And he showed through his code

That he had the most gone rhythm

On the road

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Kesey begged him, “Come along

And find a brand new trip.”

But with Jack that tired song

Was sunken like a ship.

He’d become the Dharma bum

Who would drink his Toquay wine

to get all numb

Off he’d go on his floe

From his Massachusetts home

to Mexico

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

Did he have beatific vision?

Would he come back with a rap

For all of us?

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

It could have been a good decision

If he’d plugged his deadly jug

And join the bus.

Where was Jack Kerouac at?

And then? And THEN…? Well, it turned out that like me, he was also a big fan of the sleaze bag novelist and poet, Charles “Hank” Bukowski! I couldn’t believe it. One of my underground favorites. And when I heard him sing his very own “Bukowski” at an open-mic, I was knocked for a loop for a loop.

BUKOWSKI©

Screenshot

Click the link below to follow along:

Charles Bukowski lived a life of drunken, squalid raunch

With pitted face and tiny hands and alcoholic paunch

Writing the tales of a dirty old man was Charlie’s bread and butter

Lived on whiskey, wine, and beer– his mind was in the gutter

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

About the lowlife laureate of American literature

So worthy and jaded his poetry was pure

Screenshot

He wrote a screenplay called Barfly, based upon his youth

Drinkin’ and fightin’ in alley ways, man, he tells the truth

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

He worked for a while sorting mail, post office in LA

Hanging out with whores and gambling all his blues away

He became the darling of the LA underground

And ended up in Hollywood, the Toast of Tinsel Town

Hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

And they called him Hank

And he always drank

Loved many a skank

Took it to the bank!

Well, hot damn, Bukowski, I woulda had a drink with you

A literate kind of scoundrel who wouldn’t turn down a screw

Hot damn Bukowski, a novelist and a cad

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

You sit upon my book shelf spillin’ the best of what you had

So we started visiting each other. And then we did it. We became frends. Good friends, though strange bedfellows for sure. We spilled our guts to each other about our long, often unhappy lives.

Joel was many things. A member of a pretty sketchy looking rock band, The Breakers. He was an admitted alcoholic. Plus he’d experimented and gotten hooked on and off every drug known to man, plus a few others. Even acid. I was way out of his league. Overall he’d striven to live a life as raunchy as his patron saint himself and, like Bukowski, he was no stranger to the occasional jail cell or two. Plus from what I learned, his life had also been one long, dangerous, sexually permissive adventure. Half the songs he wrote were rife with wild women who’d populated his life.

I don’t know how successful he actually was at the dating game, but he’d outgrown that part of his life by the time I met him. He still missed it of course. Because Joel had been, and still was, a Don Juan wannabe. His songlist was laden with a prurient and randy nostagia.

Click to follow along:

HEY LITTLE WOMAN©

You’ve got an innocence that’s real appealin’

But it’s not just your heart that I’d be stealin’

You ain’t that pretty and you got no leg

But I’d be willin’ to sit up and beg

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

You make an older boy feel much younger

Somethin’ about you makes me ache with hunger

I’m the big bad wolf wishin’ that he could

Pull up with little Red Ridin’ Hood

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

I got to tell you it’s a rare occasion

I wish I had the powers of persuasion

I’d cast a spell to last a week or two

So I could get a little taste of you

Hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Hey hey little woman, where you goin’ tonight?

How’d your daddy ever let you out of his sight?

Hey hey little woman where you goin’ to roam?

Don’t you have a daddy waitin’ for you at home?

Waitin’ for you at home?

I know Joel was feeling betrayed by the aging process.

When I’d gotten to know him, he was a loner who kept himself squirreled away in his little rented apartment with his pencils and notebooks, his guitar, his stereo, his cassette tape recorder, and a cat named Crash. There he worked his craft like a monk in a monastery, writing day after day. Rewriting. Recording his rough drafts. Listening to the playbacks booming out on that megawatt stereo (and how the apartment dwellers in that building didn’t call the cops with noise complaints I’ll never know). And then going back to the drawing board all over again. For more.

The solitary life took its toll. I know he preferred to be alone, but at the same time missed company.

He was constantly taking inventory of himself in is songs. He was good at that, stepping outside of himself and doing self-exams. His lifestyle may’ve been unhealthy, but his habits inspired his dark, razor sharp lyrics. Joel was nothing, if not a lyricist.

Cli4ck the link to follow along

HAUNTED MANSION©

Screenshot

There are shadows in the corners

Of all my memories

Crumbling moral failings

Have often haunted me

Phantasms of perversions

Have moaned their sorry wail

Within the walls of conscience

So prickly and pale

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Indulgence demonized me

I’ve been so damn depraved

I even spooked my own self

To think how very grave

And wanton was my evil

The spectres stalk me still

In every room and hallway

On every floor until

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

I’m sitting right in plain view

Of any who live near

And ‘cause they may not know me

Their hearts may fill with fear

Should they hear the rumors

That surely can be spread

About this mansion’s history

And all its awful dread

I’m like a haunted mansion

Where children dare not play

And forces would destroy you

If they could have their way

This poor old battered building

Is in need of repair

It needs the light of reason

To shine on it with care

I’m like a haunted mansion

Ramshackled and run down

That seems a little creepy

No one comes around

And like a haunted mansion

There are ghosts to find

On every languid level

Loom within my mind

Loom within my mind

Like a haunted mansion

The man wrote and wrote and wrote. And I feel privileged to have been welcomed to spend so many hours, days, weeks, and months of his life– me, sitting at his kitchen table while he, sitting across from me with guitar in lap, played me some brand new one he’d just started working on maybe, or one he felt and hoped was a done deal. And he allowed me to be a tiny part of his process, using me as a soundboard now and then.

I’ll tell you what I love about Joel’s songwriting. His lyrics. In so many of his songs it’s the imagery, and the way he’d string well-chosen words together for the greatest effect. I would loved to have had him as a student in one of my English classes.

I’ll also tell you what I love about Joel. His honesty, his humility and his courage. He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever met.

He was a best friend. And yes, our relationship was one of opposites, The “strange bed fellows” thing. Butit was a soul adventure for me. And our friendship spanned more than a couple of decades.

THIS SONG MAY NOT BE WORTH MUCH©

Click the link to follow along:

This song can’t change the weather

This song can’t brush your teeth

This song does not wear leather

This song won’t cause you grief

This song is not too heavy

This song can’t read the news

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song won’t win a Grammy

This song won’t make a pass

This song won’t paint your fanny

This song won’t give you gas

This song won’t make you lonesome

This song won’t make you blue

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song ain’t hard to follow

It speaks a simple language

This song is getting hungry,

Won’t you feed this song a sandwich

This song won’t wash your dishes

This song won’t clean your clothes

This song won’t grant your wishes

This song won’t blow your nose

This song may not do nothing

That you would like it to

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is kind of clumsy

This song is quite a clod

This song may have two left feet

This song is rather odd

This song can’t change your tire

This song is always broke

This song can’t start a fire

This song can’t tell a joke

This song can’t put your pants on

This song can’t tie your shoe

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

This song is not self-righteous

It doesn’t preach or judge

This song can love all of mankind

This song can’t hold a grudge

This song can’t change the station

On you big HG TV

This song is on vacation

More or less permanently

This song has no opinions

No agenda to push through

This song may not be worth much

But to tell you I love you

JOEL (1958-2022)

Missing you, old friend

(Wait a moment for encore)

Seated on our front porch

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ON PEGGY LEE, ONE OLD SONG, & ME

I fell in love with Peggy Lee in 1955. It was love at first sight. She was a tall, blonde bombshell. Thirty-five years old.

Me, I was nine. And short for my age.

Your humble author, Tom Lyford (1946–20??)

Some kids get a crush on a teacher. Never happened to me though. Why? Because all my teachers up to that point were wrinkly, mean, old bats who didn’t even like kids, especially boys!

So… I got a crush on sex symbol instead.

And so how did I ‘meet’ the famous Ms. Lee? Well, I’d seen the animated Walt Disney movie The Lady and the Tramp earlier that year. Of course, I had no idea who Peggy Lee even was, let alone that she’d played some part in that film’s production.

However, one night a couple months later, The Wonderful World of Disney aired a half-hour documentary on the making of that movie. And part of that program focused on the producing of that film’s soundtrack, with clips showing some of the behind-the-scenes work going on in the sound studio.

And there she was.

Now see, in the movie there are a pair of villainous, female Siamese cats named Si and Am. And together they sing this catchy little duet called “We Are Siamese, If You Please.” I was fascinated!

And I learned from the documentary that both of their voices were recorded by the same person: one Peggy Lee. And me being only nine, and it being way back in the mid-fifties when just about nobody had a clue about anything technological, I was confused as to how she could possibly have sung both of those voices at the same time! I mean, one person, yet two harmonizing voices? At the same time?

That she could do that seemed… magical… so (along with the fact that she was obviously some beautiful fairytale princess) she beat out Roy Rogers’ wife, Dale Evans, and Superman’s Lois Lane in the pageant of my current, preadolescent heart throbs.

Very soon after, I went to work pestering my parents to buy me the set of little, yellow, plastic, 78 rpm Disney records featuring the music from The Lady and the Tramp. And they’d succumbed. Then I practically wore out the single with Ms. Lee singing “We are Siamese.”

Plus… I used to think about her a lot of the time. I mean a lot of the time. Like I said, I had a crush.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. So, time went by, as it always does. Well, only a year, actually. And then, suddenly, there she was again in my life. Only this time as a disembodied voice coming over the radio! And it wasn’t some silly little ditty she was crooning this time. No sir!

By 1956, I’d become quite the little radio head. Mom and Dad had got me this small blue AM radio, and that had become my lifeline to the phantom Boy Friend-and-Girl Friend World that I was aspiring to enter. And with an extension cord, I’d snaked it right in under my bed, so at night I only had to lean down over the bedside and work the magic of the dial. So many stations. So many pop love songs. And yeah, I was learning fast that… there was a lot to BE learned by paying close attention to what the popular artists were actually crooning about in between the lines of the lyrics.

Now unfortunately Mom harbored some very repressive holdover-tendancies from her early, churchy, holy-roller-days’-upbringing, especially where the subject of ‘the birds and the bees‘ were concerned. So that meant that there were often fragments of mysterious (to me) conversations I’d overhear from the big people talking in the next room, say– topics that I quickly learned I hadn’t better show any interest in finding out about, not if I knew what was good for me.

For instance, one day I stopped the family dinner-table chitchat cold in its tracks by just innocently asking, right in front of God and everybody, “Uhhmmm, hey, what’s sex, anyway?” Man oh man, did I ever get rousted right out of my chair and summarily dragged straight into my room! “You know very well what it is!” she accused, just before slamming my door and leaving me, the new prison inmate, lost and confused… and contemplating, I do? I already know what it IS? How can I already know what it is when…I don’t KNOW what it is?

But radio broadcasts? They didn’t give one rat’s patooty about absolute censorship, at least like Mom did. Oh it was still the repressive 50’s and all so, yeah, they didn’t actually spell everything right out or anything (like that), but there were hints all through the music everywhere. So yes, you could get… hints… and then your job was to try your darndest to imagine what they must be singing about in between those lyrics’ lines…

It was like trying to crack a secret code. But– enquiring minds needed to know. At least mine did. So that was a mission I was usually on.

So one day I bought Johnny Otis’s 1958 hit 45, “Willie Does the Hand Jive.” And when Mom first heard me playing it, she got as prickly as some old wet hen. She just assumed it just had to be referring to something deliciously naughty. (Turns out it really wasn’t though.)

“I know a cat named Way Out Willie…

Got a cool little chick named Rocking Millie…

He can walk and stroll and Susie-Q

And do that crazy hand-jive too…

Hand jive! Hand jive! Hand jive…

Doin’ that crazy hand jive!”

“Don’t think I don’t know what that’s about!” she growled.

“What?! Jeez, Ma! I think it’s just some new dance they’re doing!”

She definitely wasn’t crazy about that song! Which meant I really liked it, even though I didn’t have clue #1 about what the hand jive might even look like. But, since any message it contained (which it actually didn’t) appeared too crafty for even her to figure out or put her finger on (i.e., it didn’t contain any blatant “blaspheming” like, you know, the actual word “SEX”), her argument was too weak to even get off the ground. So I got to keep that 45.

But you can see what I was up against…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So one day in the steamy summer of ‘1958, Peggy Lee’s signature new siren song came a-wafting right over the old WABI AM airwaves. Yes, I’m talking about that sweaty, hypnotic, little finger-snapping number. You know the one: Fever.” And boy, did I ever do a double-take first time I heard that song! (Actually I pretty much continued doing double-takes every time I heard it after that.) And whenever that song played on the radio (which was just about every hour on every station across America!), I’d just find myself ever-so-slowly swaying back and forth in time to its slow rhythm. I couldn’t help it. It just seemed to happen on its own. The song had me in its thrall every time.

And oh, those were some pretty intriguing lyrics for a ten-year old little monk locked in his monastery cell, like I was. And for the first time in my little life, I was listening to a song that projected… atmosphere! I mean “Fever” took me somewhere. Somewhere else. Somewhere dark and delicious and private. Somewhere (I had no doubt) that I wasn’t supposed to be. But somewhere I perversely… liked.

I listened to that song over and over and over. And my inquisitive, prurient little mind worked tirelessly on decoding its coded secrets.

“They give you fever… when you kiss them
Fever if you live and learn…
Fever! Till you sizzle!
And what a lovely way to burn...”

My brain talking to me: Fever? When you kiss them? Fever if you live and learn…? Sizzle…? Oh please… let me ‘live and learn’ and ‘sizzle!‘ But… BURN…? In what way could burning ever be… lovely? I sorta wanted to find out, you know? And… would I ever… catch that particular “fever’?

(I really kinda hoped I would.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And then fourteen more years passed. And in 1969, Peggy Lee recorded another blockbuster. And just like “Fever,” this one too locked right onto me and wouldn’t let go. But by then I was a college senior, and the attraction had nothing to do with a physical or romantic crush. This time, oddly, it was purely… philosophical.

It was a dark song titled, “Is That All There Is?” Please listen and follow along:

I remember when I was a little girl
Our house caught on fire
I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face
As he gathered me up in his arms and
Raced through the burning building out to the pavement
And I stood there shivering in my pajamas and
Watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over, I said to myself
“Is that all there is to a fire”

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

And when I was twelve years old
My daddy took me to the circus
“The Greatest Show on Earth”
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads
And as I sat there watching
I had the feeling that something was missing
I don’t know what
But when it was all over, I said to myself
“Is that all there is to the circus?”

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

And then I fell in love
With the most wonderful boy in the world
We’d take long walks down by the river
Or just sit for hours gazing into each other’s eyes
We were so very much in love
And then one day, he went away
And I thought I’d die, but I didn’t
And when I didn’t, I said to myself
“Is that all there is to love?”

Is that all there is
Is that all there is
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep…

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
“If that’s the way she feels about it
Why doesn’t she just end it all?”
Oh, no, not me
I’m not ready for that final disappointment
‘Cause I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
That when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my last breath
I’ll be saying to myself…

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all… there is…

So, when I first listened to this song, I remember thinking, Wow! Your house burns down around you and you’re, what, not even impressed?

I could understand not being enthusiastic about a circus, because, personally, I wasn’t much of a fan of those things anyway.

But, Jeez! Your lover drops you and moves away? I couldn’t believe that anyone could just blow off that pain. I mean, I’d had that experience. And it had been a killer.

And then, to top it off, guessing that your own suicide just might be… yeah, right, too boring to even bother with? I mean, she actually laughed that off in the song. How jaded was she?

But then again, after listening to it over and over (which I did) and dwelling on it… well, after a while, I sort of got it. I could see how for some people that could be possible. Because looking within, I realized that if I were honest with myself (which I hardly ever was) well, it wasn’t as if I wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with depression, was it. I mean, I’d harbored some pretty dark thoughts myself, hadn’t I. And written some very dark and depressed poetry as a result. And in fact, philosophically I was really no stranger to the sense of meaninglessness in the world I saw myself living in.

So for me, the effect of this song was actually like merely slipping two or three extra shots of cappuccino into my mug of already pretty-rugged black coffee. And small wonder. Turned out the song was inspired by, and directly based on, a famous existential short story titled “Disillusionment,” written in 1896 by the famous existential philosopher Thomas Mann (1875-1955)– a man for whom Shakespeare’s quotation, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,” pretty much summed up his take on life.

And me at that time? I was already (in my angry-young-college-man-youth-days) a budding little existentialist myself. Partly, I admit, because I was young and callow, and because existentialism was in vogue at that time with the college set, and like a little kid in a candy shop I guess I just wanted to try everything going. But then it had really caught on. Because my existentialism had actually gotten its first jump-start when I was a freshman back in ’64. I had enjoyed a well-acted performance of the play, “No Exit,” by the even more famous existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre. And alas, for me “No Exit” was a gateway drug.

I suddenly couldn’t get my sweaty little hands on enough Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre after that. And there’s an atheistic side of Existentialism, quite evident in “Is That All There Is?” So of course I flirted with atheism, but that outlook never really took complete root in my life, though I give it credit for having tried. But throughout the rest of college and for a fairly long while after that, I was just one more dark, little, agnostic, run-of-the-mill, wannabe-card-carrying “existentialist.”

Today at 77, I yam what I yam. I’m what I’ve eaten, what I’ve read, what I’ve watched, what I’ve listened to, and… the sum-total of everything I’ve ever experienced. And those old experiences? Man oh man, didn’t they just keep on barreling down the pike at me like cars and trucks the opposite lane, imperceptibly chipping away, nickel and dime-ing the reshaping of my overall personality and psyche a day at a time.

Today, each little chip is just a faded, barely-remembered memory-scar in my rearview mirror.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So yeah, looking back it was hardly any biggie that I just happened to catch The Lady and the Tramp, and then discover that documentary with Peggy overdubbing her voice-overs in the sound studio.

It’s just something that happened. Something that managed to get my attention when I was at a very impressionable age. And… inadvertently pinned the soon-to-become-influential Ms. Lee on my map.

And then as things do, one thing (my little Peggy Lee crush) led to another little thing (my bigger little Peggy Lee fever) and Hey, Presto! my sexual awareness got a precocious little jump-start. Which eventually did lead me down the road to…

Is that all there is?
Is that all there is?
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep…

… and then, perhaps, on to my own, honorary, self-awarded, red-neck ‘PHD’ in ‘Philosophy.’

In the meantime, there have been busloads of other regular people and other celebrity artists rolling down my highway as well. And some of the latter and their works have sort of saved my ‘sanity’ from time to time. Looking back at the lowest points of the depression in my life and remembering how the arts and the artists have unwittingly served me as my phantom medical staff, I’ve often said that I’ve had to rely on ‘the kindness of strangers’…on the virtual anesthesia of the Dead Poets and Living Artists Society… on the spiritual transfusions of the Leroi Jonses, the Kurt Vonneguts, the Leonard Cohens, Janis Joplins & Lawrence Ferlinghettis and all those brothers and sisters of mercy moonlighting as my tireless, albeit unwitting, personal psychiatric staff, keeping me on spiritual ‘life’ support, and dosing me with their daily regimens of music, cinema, fiction, & poetry…“

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

OK. All that aside, I’ve always really loved “Is That All There Is?” and I always will.

But on another note, a radically different and almost completely unrelated note, I can’t help but say that there is something… funny about how this song secured its foothold in the top-100 charts (I’m talking ‘odd-funny’ here, not ‘funny-funny’). And it’s this:

I mean, c’mon, way back in that decade where most of the other pop-recording-singer/songwriters were dreaming up successful pap like “Sugar, Sugar,” “The Yellow Polka-dot Bikini” and “Who Wears Short Shorts”??? Like who back then … who in their right mind… would ever even think to come up with a dark, existential, and atheistic piece like “Is That All There Is?” and then push it as a candidate for a top-40 hit song?

I mean, this song is from far out in left field, isn’t it? Like… you can’t dance to it. Well… I guess you could waltz to it, if you really tried. There is an orchestra in the background. But it’s mostly a spoken-word ‘song.’

And yet… a hit song it became. It actually peaked at #11 on the pop charts, which means at one time or another it was edging out the likes of its very strange bedfellows, Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” and “Gitarzan” by Ray Stevens. And surprising as this might be, Peggy Lee and her “Is That All There Is?” took the Grammy in 1970 for Best Contemporary Female Vocal Performance, beating out Helen Reddy, Carole King, and Dionne Warwick.

I mean, according to Google, its success was reportedly “even a surprise for Capitol Records who, despite publishing it, predicted the song was too odd and esoteric to ever make it as a hit.”

So I’m asking rhetorically, Who woulda thunk it?? Besides me, I mean. Because… hey, I LOVE the song. It’s been a life-long favorite.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

And now here you are, asking, “Is that… all there is…?”

Yep.

That’s it.

That’s all there is.

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