O/T The Music Thread

No way would my father have allowed me to have my hair that long!  However, it does look very well-kempt.   Not everyone call pull off that look, but you would have fit in as the bass player in any band.  The longest my hair ever got was just touching my shoulders my junior year in high school.  Usually, my hair was cut very short and left to grow moderately long to save on money for haircuts.  My dad cut my hair until I was in junior high school, then it was the local barber.  It wasn't until I was in tenth grade that I started paying for my own, driving out of town to Lafayette to have someone that could make me look like I was in the correct decade.  My sister actually encouraged me to do so.  I always looked much older than I was, so that was when I had my first glass of wine, which was offered to all customers.  I don't think I was ever carded at any bar or club from the age of 15 on.  

You were a Wild Child! I'm surprised your school didn't hassle you. Although I guess by then dress codes had been dropped.

I saw a photograph of “The Byrds” that was posted to commemorate David Crosby’s time with them. In looking at it I noted one of the guys in the photo looked very much (to me) like Warren Zevon.

That led me to Google Warren Zevon, whereupon this article from “The Ringer” was found. I didn’t intend for it to captivate me so, but it did. When I was done reading, I actually wished there had been more.

And I did pause for five minutes to listen to “Desperados Under the Eaves”.

It’s only a ten-minute read. If you ever listened to “Werewolves of London”, or “Excitable Boy”, or ”Send Lawyers, Guns, and Money”, you owe it to yourself to know more about this amazing composer…

www.theringer.com/platform/amp/music/2018/9/7/17830460/warren-zevon-career-music-albums

I found it thoroughly intriguing as well. Putting my own life in perspective, while Zevon was hanging out with Stravinsky, at that age I was hanging out with a kid that was known as “John” at school, but “Pete” at home. His parents owned a bit of land and kept a few old cars on it that they didn’t mind us playing with in the woods while we drank some contraband beer.

I was very quick with the one liners and a master of sarcasm back then, and kept the laughs coming for the group, which meant they didn’t mind me sucking up a few beers without ever buying. I also provided wheels sometimes when we wanted to go someplace, and they didn’t have any tagged vehicles at their disposal.

In high school I happened to write a couple short stories that got serious acclaim from the English teachers. So much so that my senior class chose me to write the forward for our yearbook. Sadly, I started out writing the sweet, perfumery of goodness that was expected but my writing had taken a turn to ugly truths about what we were all statistically going to come to once a few years had past, as well as a Zevonich twist, (though I didn’t really know Zevon then).

It wound up with the opening lines being utilized and without even talking to me about it someone else ghosted the remaining portion, retaining the previously held goal of extreme sappiness that all yearbooks are presented with. I knew of course that once I had declared that we would find time to be a black and hairy monster that would eventually strip us all of our youthful attributes and leave us to struggle in desperation the article would never be used.

Anyhow, as I look back, so much of it came true. The beauty Queen that died young. I knew that it was the way it should be because she was too vain to allow herself to age. The talented girl that could sing making her living singing indeed, but doing much of it while hanging on to a pole.

As for my wild buddy John, or Pete if you will, he wound up spending ten years in jail after he started doping and thieving on a regular basis, and died at 63 living in a remote part of West Virginia. I don’t know of what or how. After jail he had traveled the country on a roustabout crew, building casinos. A casino roadie, I suppose.

I look at them all now and I see that the ones we thought would achieve are not always the ones that did. I’ve run into a couple of them casually after a fifty year absence, and some didn’t remember me. Maybe didn’t remember any of the rest of us. Some I recognized right away, and some not so quickly…

Me? I wasted much of my talent on working, trying to feed a family in the hummest and drummest of ways. Never had the guts to take the chances I should have. But, I’m happy enough with where I am now. I like the simple life…

That song actually made me go to Trader Vic's in Los Angeles, when I was there with friends for a three-game series against Anaheim.  Very pricey, but it was good. Mai Tai's were stout.  I thought of you Desousa and Pipps on Wednesday night.  A few colleagues and I went to an old Tex-Mex place in downtown Dallas that is known for its craft cocktails.  I saw an old sign over the bar that looked like it was from the 1940s, which had listed Margarita, Martini, Negroni, Ramos Gin Fizz, Agricole Daiquiri, and Americana.  I threw a curveball to the bartender for a Ramos Gin Fizz, which none of my younger co-workers had ever heard of.  In short, the young man made it perfectly, the egg-white foam head a full three inches above the glass.  It spurred a lot of conversation about cocktails.  It was with great delight that I though of you Matt and Pipps!

Very cool, rizzuto. Will definitely check it out if I ever get back to LA. Never had anyone ask for Ramos Gin Fizz, but it sure sounds a lot better than a Sloe Gin Fizz.

We had a friend over last night and Gloria wanted a margarita but we didn't have any tequila, so I made Tito's vodka, limeade and freshly squeezed lime. Turned out pretty good. I told my friend, once a bartender, always a bartender.

Saw this on Twitter today. Genius at work.