Tag: Protest Songs

GAS PUMP JOCKEY WITH THE SPOOKY

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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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THE AMERICA THAT MADE AMERICA FAMOUS

“We were the kids that made America famous, the kind of kids that long since drove our parents to despair.

We were lazy long hairs dropping out,lost confused, and copping out, convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care…

We all lived the life that made America famous. Our cops would make a point to shadow us around our town…”     

— from Harry Chapin’s “What Made America Famous”

If you taught high school English in public schools for at least as long as I did and (for the most part) enjoyed it, you’ve likely found your mind traveling back from time to time to a parade of remembered faces you once ended up reacting with every weekday (for nine months at a pop). And then… well, just imagine the range of expressions that must have drifted across your face at one time or another. I mean, English being a required subject and all meant that every single kid in the school had to populate those English department classrooms, from the infamous Welcome Back Kotter “sweat hogs” to la crème de la crème. So yeah, that’s a lot of faces.

But if by chance you didn’t (for the most part) enjoy it, if you perhaps felt compelled to erect some ironclad emotional barrier between yourself and, say, those really challenging Kotter kids you felt you had nothing in common with, the ones for whom a college-they-could-never-afford-anyway loomed as the last possible thing on earth they could expect in their seemingly, already-cement-hardened futures, then I believe you may really have missed out on something. Something big perhaps.

Sure, it’s a common thing: teachers vying and hoping for the “best classes.” And I admit it, that’s the way I started out. I mean, being handed the list of the English classes you’re being assigned to teach each year is like Draft Day in the NFL. Of course you want the winners. Because they’ll be the ones most like you, won’t they. The ones you’ll feel the most comfortable with, the ones you’ll better understand and can more easily identify with and who, in turn, will most likely understand and more easily identify with you. The ones more likely to put up with your English Grammar and Composition, your Shakespeare, and your Poetry.

But… what the hell are you ever supposed to do with all those hands-on kids? Those shop-boys-with-the-grease-under-their-fingernail ‘English classes (well, besides wheedling them into grease-and-oil-changing your car over in the shop for cheap)? And those desperate and unhappy girls for whom the only seeming path out of the continuing hell of their blue-collar parents’ captivity is to get themselves pregnant and married as fast as they can? Or with all those future blue-collar hamburger-flippers and lifetime-convenience-store-clerk boys and girls, those future fathers and child-bearing mothers who will continue re-populating the town by making even more hamburger-flippers and lifetime-convenience-store-clerk boys and girls? 

I’m talkin’ all the probable poetry-and-classic-literature-haters here. What do you have that they’ll ever need or find useful? But especially, whatever the hell do you have to offer to that one particular, rogue, all-boy class of junior members of the local biker gang, the Exiles, that I had to deal with?

You see what I mean? You feeling me?

Well, turns out the answer to that is… only yourself. You as the real person you are. That’s what you have to offer. Because that’s all you really have to work with, isn’t it. I mean it. And that begins by first having to sort of surrender to them right at the beginning. Surrendering and just embracing the fact that… well, of course they’re poetry-and-classic-literature-haters. Why wouldn’t they be? You’d be too, if you were in their shoes. And you and them? You’re stuck with each other.

Remember this? “In order to begin working out a solution to any problem, first you have to clearly identify and state exactly what the problem is.”

My advice to would-be public high school English teachers? Rather than beginning by going all-out NAZI on these more-experienced-than-you little ‘soldiers’ in the cold war against teachers (and oh I pity you if that’s gonna be your style) (which wouldn’t work anyway unless, that is, they were in the Army Basic Training and you just happened to be their Drill Instructor), you’re gonna be much better off beginning by actually listening to their bitching about the school. And about English classes in general.

And let that be your starting point, your springboard. Surprise’em by letting’em know you enjoy hearing about how much they despise school and your subject. That’ll throw’em off-guard. And besides, their honest, unvarnished opinions on the subject really can be… entertaining sometimes. Especially if you encourage them to be really honest at it. And you know what?

You’ll likely end up discovering that you honestly do harbor some common ground with them, despite what you’d perhaps prefer to think. Because all human beings do have common denominators. So yeah, in the long run I found it best to get to get right to work, digging down, and finding out just what those are. Tell them stories (talkin’ honest stories here) about your life and the bitching you did in school about your teachers and your crappy classes. Get’em to tell you some of their stories, assuring them that what they have to tell you…  well, you  know … “whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” (with the very big exception always being, of course, that by law, if it turns out that anything that’s divulged happens to include information indicative of some possible harm to themselves or others, etc. that has to be reported— yeah, you have to make that perfectly clearly to them right up front). But…really listen. Their stories are bound to be crazy-interesting. Probably a lot more interesting than yours. At least, that was my experience.

And you know what then? You’ll be on your way to respecting their points of view. And once you begin showing them your respect, you’ll already have begun garnering some of theirs. And then voila: I promise you that walking in through that damn classroom door each and every morning won’t feel nearly as much like such a real chore any more. Because you just might’ve started to (drum roll, please!) like them. It’s amazing.

And something else: I accidentally discovered that my particular kids (talkin’ my junior Exiles who, by the way, are featured exclusively back in one of my earlier posts titled “Bummer”– you should go back and read it) had a lot to teach me with their eventual honesty. Plus, I found those kids all pretty damned humorous and entertaining as well, if you want to know the truth.

Now yeah, yeah, yeah— sure, I know I’m coming across like some Yoda here, some wise old owl blowing his own horn and purporting to have all the answers. Truth is… it took me some years and many failures to wind up with the amount of the answers I finally did learn. I was pretty mistake-prone in all of the above in my first years. But way back, some very wise and passionate home economics teacher/colleague taught me this wise, old adage that really helped to set me on the path to sanity as a public school teacher: “No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” Yeah. Sounds corny. But think about it.

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BRAT PACKS

Cafeteria Duty with its Breakfast Club diversity

was always so much more vibrant than the

funereal dining doldrums of the faculty lounge,

what with the geek squad, the cheering squad,

the Romeos and Juliets, the Bettys and Veronicas,

the Dungeons and Dragons die-hards, a Ferris Bueller

or two thrown in, and possibly even a

future Stephen King seated at those tables

All those God’s-little-gifts-to-teachers whose

youthful honesty and sit-down-stand-up comedy

kept me in stitches and my aging soul decades

younger over the long career years

me, with half my life already slipped behind,

but them still with the Big Promise of Everything,

the whole damn shootin’ match, still looming

like some mirage in the desert up ahead– 

yes, all of us unique salt-of-the-earth

stereotypes… breaking bread together

around the salt and pepper shakers,

spicing up each other’s lives…

from TO DIVERSITY AND DEMOCRACY: A TOAST!

Here’s to those too few and far-between bastions of diversity we’ve occasionally stumbled

upon over time… those vibrant, spice-of-life oases of heterogeneity in our deserts of

conformity: our talk-like-us flocks, our act-like-us herds, our pre-fab, chameleon-career lives—

And here’s to the public schools
of years gone by where slide-ruled, pocket-protectored

eggheads communed in cafeterias across the tables from Streetcar-Named-Desire Stellas

in the Archie-and-Jughead-hijinks melting pot, all waiting together in the lunch line of life

for the big segregation crapshoot of becoming somebody…  some day…

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

But for now, back again to these particular song lyrics (which you’ll be invited to listen to shortly) from my featured singer/songwriter’s song, “What Made America Famous”:

“We were the kids that made America famous, the kind of kids that long since drove our parents to despair.

We were lazy long hairs dropping out,lost confused, and copping out,
convinced our futures were in doubt and trying not to care…

We all lived the life that made America famous. Our cops would make a point to shadow us around our town…”     

Listening to these lines has always sent a crooked, sardonic smile crawling across my face. Because they’ve always reminded me of some of the more challenging little Kotters I had at Mexico (ME) High School throughout the 70’s. Me, watching from a distance the little on-going cold war between the boys in blue and a number of my rebel-without-a-cause ‘students.’ Yeah. No love lost there.

See, weekends and after school my boys insisted on hanging out on downtown street corners, the most popular being the one right out in front of a pastry shop. Which of course was where the cops habitually roosted. And which consequently was where said cops were kept their busiest, busting up and dispersing just such “unlicensed assemblies,” mostly on the grounds that, well, it just didn’t look good for the town. And OK, truth be told those boys did make some shoppers nervous, of course.

Actually I have to admit they made my wife a little nervous. You know, we’d be strolling down the sidewalk on a sunny afternoon and up ahead we’d spy between eight and a dozen toughs leaning up against a store front like something straight out of Marlon Brando’s The Wild One (well, with the exception of that one biker-dude who usually had his cute, 12-inch-tall, curly-tailed pug-on-a-leash (rather than the pit bull guard dog you might expect to see accompanying a badass like him ).

“UH-oh,” she’d whisper in my ear, “think maybe we oughtta turn back around? Or cross the road?”

“Nah,” I’d tell her, “you’re with me, so you’re safe. Me? I’m protected by The Mark of the Phantom. They won’t bother us.”

Right after which a couple of the bigger ones (looking pretty ominous, sporting their shades and tattoos) might just playfully block our way for a moment and challenge, “Now just where do you two think you’re going…?”

To which my quick and witty comeback would always be something like, “Oh, I dunno. Straight through you if you decide not to move and instead wanna end up pickin’ broken glass outta eyes for the next two hours.”

And then of course there’d be the light-hearted little shadow-boxing horseplay between me and them (you know, that dumbass male bonding thing) but we’d always end up sailing right through them unscathed. And why? Because they’d learned to like me by then. And why was that? Because they’d realized that for some unfathomable… whatever-reason, they could tell I’d honestly taken a shine to them. Which in their world… for a teacher… was unheard of.

But anyway, after the near-daily shepherding-of-the-kids-off-the-sidewalks routine, the cops would mosey themselves on into the pastry shop, ostensibly turning a deaf ear to the retreating catcalls behind them referencing the ‘fat-ass’ physiques of a couple of those doughnut-devouring stereotypes.

However, that’s just what the kids would do overtly.

Covertly, the retaliation strategies they’d come up with could’ve earned them a place among the French Resistance Forces during World War II. The worst one being (in my opinion) to move their gathering on down the street to where the patrol cars were parked in order to (wait for it) set that poor, shivering, little pug right onto the hood of one of them— specifically the one with the drug-sniffing German shepherd left waiting inside.

Because oh, that canine locked in there didn’t like that little pipsqueak “hood ornament” rattling its toenails on the patrol car paint job one bit! And according to them (I never witnessed it myself, of course) that dog would be going bat-shit wild in there, leaping amok around the interior, and trying to bust out of the car to get at the lot of them, his berserk talons all the while just a-tearing the old stuffing right out of the upholstery!

Oh I’m sure they were exaggerating in their glory… but they sure loved telling me all about it.

However the most devious (or should I say most deviant) strategy they’d come up with was the ‘secret seeding’ of the police station flower garden with marijuana seedlings at night. The custodian there, who also served as the part-time gardener, ended up unwittingly watering and caring for them for quite some time. Right up until the moment one of Mexico’s finest eventually spotted the embarrassing extracurricular green and glorious growth among the camouflage.

Now that one made the Police Log in the local paper. And I’ve gotta say, they were oh so proud of themselves!

Vive la resistance!   

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

Now of course this Harry Chapin song that I’m honestly dying to share with you in a moment, “What Made America Famous,” isn’t about my little biker friends, per se.  Rather it’s about America’s signature civil conflict between the “hard hats” and the “long hairs” that indelibly marked the 1960’s and ‘70’s. Think of the musical Hair. Think Easy Rider. But no, more than that, this ballad is all about about human decency. Pure and simple.

But first, allow me to share this particular little memory I’ve been holding onto over the decades:

So… I’m sitting in a warm, old-fashion barber shop on a frigid night in January, 1965. Whenever another customer sidles in through the door, an icy gust sparkled with blowing snowflakes shoulders its way in right behind him. There are five or six of us waiting to have our ‘ears lowered.’ I’m the youngest here, a college kid matriculated at the local state teachers college, the only one there not balding or with a head of white hair. It’s busy, but there are two barbers buzzing and clipping away, so my wait won’t be long.

So I’m just sitting back and contenting myself with listening to the old gents jawing away. Cackling about that ‘new streaker craze.’  Ruminating over the shipping off of American troops to Viet Nam. Weighing in on Muhammed Ali’s defeat over Sonny Liston, and who the hell does he think he is anyway, calling himself Muhammed like that, for Christ’s sake? This is much livelier than sitting me just sitting alone in my dorm room, poring over my World History text.

Suddenly whoosh! The door blows open. And standing half-in and half-out is a smiling young man with almost shoulder-length, snowflake-flecked hair. And he’s wearing a faded old Army field jacket.

“What’re the chances of getting a haircut tonight?”

I catch both barbers glaring at him. “Zero!” the older says. “Now get the hell outta here and close that fucking door!”

I’m shocked. But the young man acknowledges that he’s letting the weather in so, still all smiles, he steps inside and closes the door behind him. “No, seriously.”

“What? I don’t look serious? You didn’t hear me say ‘No?‘”

“But c’mon, why not?”

“Jesus, look around. Can’t you see the crowd we got in here tonight?”

“Well, if that’s it, I don’t mind waiting…”

“Beat it, kid!”

“Hey, come on. I gotta get a haircut. How much will it cost? I’ll be glad to even pay extra. Just tell me how much.”

The old guy studies him. “Fifty bucks.”

“What? Fifty…”

“And that’s only if. If… you take a bath, and shampoo the lice outta your hair first.”

“Lice?” No longer smiling now.

“See, we don’t do hippies in here, pal. Now beat it!”

The kid looked around the shop. At the grinning old men. At uncomfortable me.  And then back at the barber. The kid’s got a pretty good glare going himself now. “Jesus Christ. I just wanted to get a fucking…  Hippie!? Alright then! Fuck YOU!”

He turns on his heel, yanks the door open, and storms back out into the snow, purposely leaving the door open. Open wide.

I’m feeling bad for the kid. But I realize too that where the old fellas are coming from is their definition of patriotism. It leaves me feeling uneasy. Kinda confused. I mean, my dad flew missions in a B-29 during World War II and, man, I’m super-proud of him. And you know… I’m only a sophomore, but I’ve been entertaining some thoughts about perhaps enlisting myself, in the Air Force after college.

But this whole thing just leaves me feeling… not knowing what to think.

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

So anyway, the song and lyrics I’ve got waiting for you below I feel skillfully and emotionally capture the conflict I came to know back then as the long hairs vs. the hard hats. And there’s a recurring single line in the lyrics that pretty much kinda sums up my little barbershop example in a nutshell:

“There’s something burning somewhere.”

Please. Take a listen and follow along. I believe you will find it a powerful experience. I know I always do…

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