Epistle 20 – Juke Boxes

Back when there where diners with padded red and green plastic booths, on the Formica table next to the window there was a juke box, a machine that didn’t look like a box or a juke, whatever a juke is.  It had chrome sides, a glass face and a half-dozen pages of type-written songs that you could flip through with little levers on the bottom.  Some of the list was even legible.  The songs were an interesting combination of the very popular, the very obscure and Frank Sinatra.

For a nickel (or five songs for a quarter if you were really flush), you could punch a couple of buttons indicating your favorite tune, and the juke box would magically send instructions to headquarters, a mammoth 4-foot machine that held all the vinyl records (no CD’s, thank you, only 78’s or 45’s), standing on edge, hoping somebody would punch their buttons.  The lucky selection would then roll out of its slot and lay flat on the turntable while the arm with the needle would descend on the first groove (usually) to play your favorite song.  Of course, you could also put your money in the big machine and punch those buttons but that wasn’t nearly as mysterious.

Apparently, the record selection was changed periodically to reflect the modern tastes in music, plus a seasonal song or two like “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”, but you couldn’t prove it by me.  Did anyone ever see somebody change the records or type up a new song list?  I didn’t think so.  Of course, the obscure songs and the Sinatra songs never had to change in my lifetime . . . and probably didn’t.  Maybe the hot modern hits by the Andrews Sisters and Frankie Laine were installed in the dead of night when the diner was closed so the owner wouldn’t be blamed if the tune was really bad.

Now, of course, everyone has an i-Pod plugged into their ears so you don’t even need a clunky old juke box to entertain you and your friends.  You can get a vaguely similar experience in a nightspot with some kind of electronic gadgetry, but it’s too loud to recognize the tune, if it even has one.  That’s probably a good thing because nobody had to type anything, nobody had to push any buttons, and it’s probably not Sinatra.  Hell, I once tried to play one of those modern music machines, and it wouldn’t even take my nickel.

We Will Win

Epistle 19 – Tis The Season

Here it is again. Tis the Season, and it’s about time Joy to the World is duly recognized as the most important Christmas Carol ever. Not because it is a great work of art and adoration, but because it was always the last song of the Christmas Eve service at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, and I could finally race home and tear open every present as fast as I could and then wonder if that’s all there was to it. Of course, I did have to first endure a tedious ceremony wherein my brother passed out all the presents, just because he could read and I couldn’t. The tension was unbearable, a bit like waiting for the bell to ring and the gates open at a horse race, followed by a flurry of flying paper and bows. If there had been a horse doofer among the presents, no one would have noticed.

Of course, now that I am wiser and more mature, I realize that the joy of Christmas is the anticipation leading to the big event. It’s the journey, not the destination; and all my fond memories of Christmases past are of the weeks before. Like the time I learned the truth about Santa Clause. Actually, that happened about an hour and a half before the big event. I was on my way to church with my mother and my brother and suddenly realized I forgot something dreadfully important—probably my lucky plastic gold doubloon—and panic stricken, did an immediate about face and raced for home. I’m sure my mother screamed for me to turn back before it was too late but, her voice was drowned out by the bells on Santa’s sleigh. Or maybe it was the bell on the door to the Gopher Hole tavern.

Anyway, you can just imagine how shocked I was to find Santa, who was a dead ringer for my father, crawling around under the tree distributing presents. After a moment of mutual recognition, a moment frozen in time, I retrieved my lucky doubloon and raced back to church, wondering if my father would already be there, proving that Santa was real and the man under our tree was just another MIA from the Gopher Hole.

Of course, the spell was broken but that did not tarnish the wonders of Yuletides to come. Like the time my brother broke his wrist as we raced downhill on his sled, him on his stomach at the controls and me on his back, bravely breaking the sound barrier. Or the tears in our eyes the time I forgot to open the chimney flue as the Yule log blazed in the fireplace. And who could forget all the times the tree toppled over, thanks to the elves crawling around under it to gaze up at the marvelous lights . . . and thanks to the crooked trunk that took a left turn about a third of the way up because those were real trees, by God, and not these fake plastic ones with perfectly straight trunks, factory installed lights, and eternally green branches. Back in the good ol’ days, needles fell off real trees, usually long before the season ended, leaving the gay lights, silvery tinsel and beautiful ornaments dangling from a brown stick. Man, talk about festive.

Yes, children, they don’t make Christmas like they used to, but I still love to sit back after all the hustle and bustle of decorating, shopping, Scrooge and the Grinch, to bask in the beauty and true meaning of the Season. I’d love to but I have to go now and rip open a present.

God rest ye merry, Gentlemen . . . and Ladies.

We Will Win

Classic blues has revealed a specifically female awareness, especially about love; salacious love, unrequited love, abused love and cheating lovers.  These became central aspects in many female repertoires, replacing the feelings of loneliness, isolation, and desperation, which permeated the blues.

Barbara Morrison is one of the most well known figures in the history of blues.  She is a dynamic singer and her awareness of the classic blues has fueled her growth on the music scene.  Morrison has an incredible stage presence and her passion fills her songs about love with her throbbing multi-octave voice.  She has recorded with some of the finest jazz and blues musicians of her time and has traveled the world performing at festivals and remains a highly respected educator, businessperson, and humanitarian.

Attend one of her performances and you will find the females in her audience shouting in agreement with her lyrics, which are spontaneous, completely genuine, and never ordinary.

To increase awareness of the art form, Morrison teaches Ethnomusicology at UCLA where she has been a professor for over 13 years.  She also hosts her own radio show in Los Angeles where she provides a voice for the blues idiom and promotes its growth and development by offering her services in education, touring, communication, and recording.

The beloved harmonica has such a history with blues music.  Originally this instrument was only associated with the poor and was simply considered a toy instrument.  But if you know anything about the harmonica and blues music you know that it has become a huge player over the years in this genre.  The first recordings of the harmonica were actually in the 1920s and were intended for the black markets of the South.  And as it became more and more popular musicians began to experiment with different techniques such as tongue-blocking, hand effects, and the most important innovation of all, the 2^nd position or cross-harp.

During the 1950s, the harmonica sound began to make its way North to Chicago with the blues and black migrants.  As the blues sound became more amplified, so did the harmonica.  One of the greatest harmonica players of the time was Sonny Boy Williamson II.  He helped make popular the cross-harp technique, opening the possibilities of the harmonica technique up to greater and greater heights.  Many other artists during this time began to experiment with techniques and the harmonica sound took off.

During the 60s and 70s the harmonica sound began to wane, due to the popularity of the electric lead guitar.  However, during this era many artists who had been influenced by Sonny Boy Williamson II began to emerge. Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Fleetwood , and Bob Dylan also famously played their harmonica to add a touch of blues to their folk and rock sound during this era. Dylan was known for placing his harmonicas in a brace so that he could simultaneously blow the harp and play his guitar.

The harmonica sound lives on today in current music.  Blues Traveler, Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine, and Blackfoot are just a few examples of the modernization of the harmonica.

Epistle 19 – The Three Martini Lunch

I was fortunate to start my business career in New York when white shirts, gray suits and wingtips were the only acceptable professional attire. Hats were strongly encouraged, especially when you were summoned to headquarters, but we young Turks held firm on that one and brought the establishment to their knees . . . sort of. One tradition I did not rebel against was the 3 martini lunch, a worthy tradition, indeed. My boss wanted me to drink gin martinis rather than vodka so the customer would know I was drunk, not stupid. Since they made me even more eloquent than I was naturally, I failed to see his point. In fact, I was quite proud of being able to glibly order “an-extra-dry-Beefeater-martini-on-the-rocks-with-an-olive-please”. It was quite a mouthful, especially with a mouthful of olives.

Of course, not everyone in the Apple shared in this ritual. Take the man in the Jersey City upstairs warehouse, for example. He was my very first sales call. After getting hopelessly lost and arriving late, he gave me 5 minutes to say whatever I was going to say to get an order, and then get out. Undaunted, I raced ahead, rattling off everything I knew about anything, coming to a breathless close with about 2 minutes to spare. “Well, young man,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not going to get an order, but that was the damnedest sales pitch I’ve ever heard. Here, help yourself before you go,” he said, pointing to a display case of briar pipes. I chose one that made me look quite distinguished and shuffled down the warehouse steps, thinking my sales career was off to a grand start. My army aptitude test said I should have been a plumber, but how could you deny the profits of my first sales call? This was the game for me.

Now, having been shaken, not stirred, for decades and the three martini lunch having gone the way of leisure suits, I can philosophically look back on that phase of my career and honestly say . . . I missed most of it. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. No, sir. The Big Apple haze is probably best remembered through a Beefeater haze. And gin-soaked olives were all I got to eat some days. Sure, there were probably a few misguided adventures, like the time I leaped into a cab like Gene Kelly and split my pants; but I was part of the fabric of American history. And I was still ten feet tall and bullet-proof.

So, all you young people in the audience considering a grand and glorious business career in the Big Apple, don’t let them talk you into a martini at lunch. Wear a hat instead.

We Will Win