Spitball Army

The pool wasn’t very crowded this afternoon – there were no more than six people – despite temperatures in the 90s and 1,000% humidity (of course, that’s impossible, but YOU try to live in it!).  One of the pool’s occupants was a young black boy, about ten years old.  I could see him jumping up and down in the four-foot free-swim zone as I was swimming my laps.  His feet would leave the pool floor, then come back down – his knees would immediately bend and he would jump back up again.  Over and over and over.  There was also a good deal of unorganized arm splashing going on.

At some point, I tagged the wall in the shallow end of the pool and, just as I was turning my head back into the water in preparation for a push off, I heard a voice say, “How come you…?”  Then I was gone.  When I returned from that lap, the boy was bobbing in the lane next to me.  I stopped to see what was going on.

“Hey, fish.”  I say that to all of the kids at the pool.  They probably think it’s stupid.  I probably should have called this boy “frog,” in tribute to his talent for jumping.

He dangled on the lane line.  “Where’d you get those glasses?” he asked, referring to my swim goggles.

“I bought them at the store.”

“Can I use them?”

“Well, I need them to swim, buddy.”

“How come you swim so fast?”  This kid was just full of questions.

“Oh, I wasn’t swimming that fast.”  I really wasn’t.

“How come that guy is swimming so fast?”  He pointed to the fellow in the adjacent lane, who was sputtering and swimming a modified dog paddle.  Then the questions started coming in an uncontrolled torrent.

“Why do use two kickboards?  How come you only breathe on that one side?  Why don’t you just use your right arm?  Did you use a guest pass to swim in here?  Why don’t you use those orange glasses?”  A pair of abandoned, and very orange, kid’s swim goggles had been hanging near the poolside water fountain for weeks.

“Why don’t you use them?” I answered.  “They probably work all right.”

“Yuck.”  He wasn’t having any of that – who knows whose face those goggles had been on.  “Wanna race?”

“Okay.  I’ll give you a head start, and I’ll use the kickboard.”  He was off and splashing before I could finish my sentence.  I let him get about halfway across the pool before I pushed off the side – me and my two kickboards.  By the time I reached him he was hanging on the lane line, watching me, and laughing his face off.  I kept going and got a few more rounds in before he showed up again in the shallow end.  I stopped to answer more questions.

“Where did you learn how to swim?  Do you teach swim lessons here?  Do you know that lifeguard?”  He pointed toward the guard stand.  “My sister doesn’t know how to swim.  I like to swim.  Can I have those glasses?  Are you finished swimming?  This water tastes salty.”

I told him I wasn’t quite done.  He asked me a few more questions.  When he paused to take a breath, I resumed my swimming.  He grabbed a noodle float and bounced back over to the free swim area.

When I finished, I glided under the lane lines into the open area.  My interrogator was doing the swimming pool pogo at the foot of the lifeguard stand, pummeling the guard with queries.  I took off my goggles and looked at them, yellowing and cloudy.  What the heck, I thought, I buy them in bulk.  I handed the boy my goggles.

He let out a banshee yell and gave me a huge grin.  Goggles on, he disappeared under the water.  He popped his head above the surface to catch a breath and splash his arms excitedly.  Then he was gone again.  I left and went upstairs to change into my street clothes.

As I was walking out of the building, I looked through the windows into the pool area.  The pool bobber was still going at it, diving, splashing, looking like an aquatic aviator, viewing the briny indoor underwater world with no more time for questions.

Who says you need to be able to carry a tune in order to get a song across to an audience?  It certainly wasn’t a necessary prerequisite for 93-year-old Eileen Hall, who delivered The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” in the film Young @ Heart.  In fact, her British-accented rendition of the lyrics leans more toward the “spoken” than toward the “sung.”

[audio:Young_@_Heart_Chorus___Should_I_Stay_Or_Should_I_Go.mp3]
“Should I Stay Or Should I Go” by the Young @ Heart Chorus, from Mostly Live (2006)

Her performance made me think immediately of actor Rex Harrison who, in the stage musical My Fair Lady, had to struggle to speak in key when his character was ideally meant to sing.  Here was another Brit, and he admittedly was not a singer.  Nonetheless, his declamatory delivery style was perfectly in keeping with his character’s priggish attitudes about the loftiness of the English language.

[audio:Rex_Harrison___Im_An_Ordinary_Man_(from_My_Fair_Lady).mp3]
“I’m An Ordinary Man” by Rex Harrison, from the cast recording of My Fair Lady (1956)

I remember seeing a TV show when I was a kid – it was most likely either The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour or Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In – where a very proper English gentleman, in tuxedo and bowtie, strode to the podium and recited the lyrics to Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady,” a popular radio hit at the time:

Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it around
Disco Lady
Move it in, move it around
Move it in, around about
Disco Lady

Shake it up, shake it down
Move it in, move it around
Disco Lady
Hey sexy Lady
Said I like the way you move your thing
Lord have mercy girl
You dance so fine and you’re right on time
Girl you ought to be on TV on Soul Train
When you get the groove, it ain’t no stopping
Just can’t help it, I’m finger popping

Shake it up,
shake it down, etc.

The results were hilarious, poking fun at hyper-proper British mannerisms and Disco-era inanity, both at the same time.

Not long after that, the Punk and New Wave music movements trampled Disco into the ground.  One of the oddest New Wave bands was Ian Dury and the Blockheads, and they created a blip on the radio playlist radar with “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.”  Frontman Dury brought his own brand of Sprechstimme straight down to earth, by inserting his working class Cockney accent into the songs.  It was entirely appropriate, as it matched the suggestive double entendres in many of the band’s lyrics, and didn’t seem concerned with sounding “proper.”

[audio:Ian_Dury_and_The_Blockheads___Razzle_In_My_Pocket.mp3]
“Razzle In My Pocket” (1977) by Ian Dury & The Blockheads

In the three intervening decades since, declamatory singing has taken a backseat to non-singing, exemplified best in what is arguably today’s dominant musical form: rap.  I can think of only one hip-hop artist today who comes close at all to the spirit of Rex Harrison and Ian Dury, spewing all variety of social observations into the mic with a Cockney accent.  Mike Skinner of The Streets can be, by turn, angry and polemical or tender and questioning, but he is most often very, very funny, and he’s got the deadpan down cold.  Can you imagine what might have transpired if he and Ms. Eileen Hall (who, sadly, passed away in 2007) had had the chance to duet?

[audio:Streets___I_Love_You_More_(Than_You_Like_Me).mp3]
“I Love You More (Than You Like Me)” by The Streets, from Everything Is Borrowed (2008)

Shutter Island, the new Martin Scorsese picture, is currently scheduled for an October 2009 release.  The gothic horror tale boasts a criminally insane cast that includes Leonardo Di Caprio, Mark Ruffalo, Patricia Clarkson, Max von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, Michelle Williams, Sir Ben Kingsley.

Here’s the trailer:

Contestant #2:  Office Depot assistant manager

The ever-diminishing space on my external hard drive compels me to go to my local Office Depot in search of a larger, backup hard drive.  Yep, a backup drive for my backup drive.  That and a $15 bonus credit for Office Depot that has been burning a hole through my wallet and expires on 31 May, which happens to be today.  So, I go.  Notice that I say I am going to my local Office Depot outlet – this will be important later.

It takes me a while to find the hard drives.  Since I was last in this store looking at them, they have been moved to locked cabinets.  The products themselves aren’t visible on the shelves.  Instead, there is a display of information placards, each containing a description of each drive.  Below each placard is a slot with index-card sized slips of paper, to be taken to the checkout counter.  There, the clerk will get – or have someone else get – the item.

I choose a 1TB hard drive, thinking that a drive three to four times as big as my current one ought to hold me over for awhile – or until it breaks down.  There is one female clerk working at one of the three registers.  She is intensely preoccupied with an elderly woman who appears to be confused about how her coupons have been applied to her sale.  They are discussing this, back and forth, the clerk pointing to the line on the receipt, the customer lowering her glasses and holding the receipt to within an inch of her face, then shaking her head in exasperation.  I don’t mind waiting,  Really.  I’ve done my fair share of time on the clerk’s side of the counter and know what it is like.  I only hope that my time, when it is my time to be the customer, is treated with the same care that she seems to be giving the elderly woman.

The two come to an agreement, and I approach the register.  I tell the clerk that I am wishing to purchase an external hard drive, and I give her my slip of paper.  She tells me that someone will have to retrieve it from the back of the store, and asks me if I wouldn’t mind if she helps the customers behind me in line while I wait.  No, I tell her.  I don’t mind.  When I am being treated well, I have the patience of Job.

She helps two other customers before a young male employee comes store-forward with my hard drive.  He hands it to her and she begins the transaction.  I give her my credit card, my Office Depot $15 bonus credit voucher, and my frequent shoppers program card.  She becomes confused halfway through the process of entering the various barcodes and credits, and looks to the young man, who hasn’t left, for guidance.  It turns out that he is an assistant manager, and his name is Marlon.

Marlon motions to me silently to follow him to the third register.  He appears to be in take-charge mode and is going to process my transaction himself.  He enters the hard drive’s barcode and the price comes up on the screen.

“If you had come in here a day earlier, you could have purchased this for 99 dollars,” he says to me, referring to the $129 price tag.

Why in the hell would he tell me such a thing, I think to myself.  But I verbalize my thought differently.  “So, you’re going to offer to sell me this hard drive at yesterday’s sale price?” I ask him.  My question ends with a challenge, hanging in the air between us.

He chuckles, shakes his head between the left and right.  Silly customer.  “Nah.”  He continues unfalteringly to process my purchase.  “No, I don’t have the authority to do that.”

“Well, when you say something like that to me, my first impulse is to tell you to cancel the transaction so that I can go home, go online and purchase the hard drive at yesterday’s sale price or better.  Instead, I’m here, keeping my business local, and getting taunted as a result.”

He does not reply.  He is obviously in a position where the only option he can think of is to maintain a defensive posture.  He shows this by not speaking or maintaining eye contact.  I sign the electronic credit card pad, take my hard drive, and leave.

I drive home, leave the hard drive in the truck, and go immediately to my office.  I log online and begin comparing prices on Amazon.com.  Within seconds, I locate the exact same item that I just purchased down the street, and Amazon has it for $99.99.  It is in stock and ready to ship.  I order it.  My e-mail confirmation comes quickly and efficiently to my BlackBerry, telling me that the drive will ship today by UPS 2nd Day Air , and that the total purchase price is $99.99.  No sales tax (local, or of any kind) and no shipping charges.  I lock up the house and drive back to Office Depot.

I walk in and go immediately to the register.  The female clerk is standing there, waiting for a customer to show up.  I imagine she didn’t want it to be me.

“Hi, again,” I say to her.  “I just purchased this and would like a refund, please.”  I hand her the bag holding the hard drive, and the receipt.

“Was it broken?” she asks.  Apparently, she has no idea what had just transpired between me and her assistant manager.

“No.”  I give her no more information.  I figure that the transaction is still warm, thus there shouldn’t be a need for a detailed explanation – sort of like the five-second rule when food falls onto the floor.  She proceeds to enter the information into the register.  About this time, Marlon approaches and takes over.  He has recognized me, and has been watching me since I walked back into the store.

He says nothing.  I speak first.  “I told you that you were giving me little choice but to do this.  I found one online for your expired sale price.  You just lost your store a $130 sale.”

“Yeah, well, you saved some money, didn’t you?” he says, dispassionately.

He hands me my credit verification and walks away before I have a chance to say anything else.  In his haste to be done with me, he credits me $15 more than I had paid, the $15 being the amount of the Office Depot bonus credit voucher that was to expire at the end of the day.  Thus, assistant manager Marlon loses not only a $130 sale for his company, but $15 of his store’s cash.

“If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.”

So goes the line from the well-worn song “New York, New York.”  And, apparently, the inverse rule also applies.  The last of the giant music retail stores in New York City shuttered completely yesterday, according to this morning’s New York Times.  No more road trips to the City to find a copy of the Bee Gees’ Cucumber Castle sitting on the shelves, ripe for plucking and purchasing, or 15 choices of an early Shostakovich string quartet, or an Ernst Lubitsch DVD, or even – gasp! – a full stock of the Beatles catalogue.  It is hard to imagine any music retail store surviving when the most heavily-trafficked one in the country finds it impossible to stay open.  As goes New York, so goes the rest of the country…?

Read the entire article here.

Meanwhile, you will still be able to find a Miley Cyrus CD at every nation-wide grocery store and convenience market.

Patterson Hood will release Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) on 23 June 2009 on Ruth St. Records.  The second solo record from the leader of the Drive-By Truckers follows 2004’s Killers and Stars.  The album was produced by Hood and long-time DBT producer David Barbe (of Sugar).  Most of Patterson’s DBT band mates join him on the album as well as Don Chambers, Will Johnson and Scott Danbom from Centro-matic and South San Gabriel.  This is also the first time that Hood’s father David Hood, famed Muscle Shoals bass player, joins him on a record.

The vinyl release of Murdering Oscar will include three exclusive bonus tracks.  An a cappella version of “Range War” will also be available exclusively with iTunes.  “Pollyanna” and “Pride of the Yankees” are available to preview on his Myspace page.  “I Understand Now” is available to stream right here and now.

Live shows?  YES!  Hood and the Screwtopians started the first leg of their tour this past weekend at Bonnaroo and will end with a headlining slot at AthFest in Hood’s hometown of Athens, Georgia, on June 27th.  Joining Hood on tour will be Brad Morgan (drums), John Neff (guitar/steel), Scott Danbom (keys/fiddle), Will Johnson (guitar) and David Barbe (bass), who has not toured since his days with Sugar.  Will Johnson will open the shows.

On Facebook yesterday, BJ posts a status update [this really happened]:

BJ doesn’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

Then, the comments begin (reprinted here exactly as posted).

DS:  Amen to that one brother

BJ:  🙂

FO:  you’re a bonedigger

BJ: Get these mutts away from me. I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore.

FO: How about that roly poly little bat-faced girl?

BJ: she ducked back down the alley…

FO: Hm…so what’re you gonna do now that your role model is gone?

BJ: I’ll look around, around.
I’ll sees angels in the architecture, spinning in infinity.
I’ll say Amen! Hallelujah!

FO: Dude, you are so soft in the middle.

BJ: yeah, but I got a short little span of attention…

FO: OK. G’night, Al.

BJ: Goodnight Betty.

[Apologies to Paul Simon.]

Three things that are, and hopefully will be, making my world a better place:

• Top Chef Masters (TV addiction)
  While I am not a fan of “reality TV” in general, I love Top Chef, the food and cooking competition on the Bravo network.  I can proudly say that I introduced three friends to the show during its fifth season, which wrapped up earlier this year, and by my observation they are each now as big a fan of the show as I.  While we’re waiting for Season 6 to start, Bravo is offering us Top Chef Masters, beginning tonight.  The show places 24 big-name chefs (including Hubert Keller, Wylie Dufresne, Roy Yamaguchi and Rick Bayless) in competition against one another.  I expect the melodrama to be dialed down a notch and the epicurean artistry to be dialed up high!  Details here.

• Researching my house (super-sleuthing)
  Last week I trekked to the Birmingham City Archives to research the history of my 1920s bungalow.  What compelled me to do this is that the Jefferson County Historical Commission offers a program that allows historic designation for houses over 50 years old.  The only catch is that the homeowner must do all of the research and pay a nominal ($125) fee for the creation of a plaque that can be displayed on the building.  During my afternoon in the library, I discovered that I am the eighth owner of this home, having the third-longest tenure of residence (so far).  I also found out that the 5100 block that I live on used to be the 5200 block and that, sometime pre-1925, the street was known as Willow Avenue (there is not a willow tree anywhere nearby that I have seen, excepting the one I planted in the alley behind my house about five years ago).  Once the fruits of my research are submitted, if they stand up favorably to the scrutiny of the Commission, my home will be given an official name.  My guess is that the title will reflect the first two owners’ names, and I can then claim ownership of and residence in the Sutton-Wade house.  Stay tuned for more on that!

• American Masters: The American Novel (more TV)
  This coming Sunday, the PBS television series American Masters debuts its newest installment, The American Novel.  Subtitled “Novel Reflections on the American Dream,” the program will explore “the characters, plots and themes of seven novels that deal with wealth, poverty, and the nature of success and failure in America.”  The featured novels include The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth.  Watch the very brief and cryptic trailer here.